Did I miss any revolutionary equipment or software?

I went to music trade fairs often and checked on the internet but I have the impression that there has not been any revolutionary new equipment or musical software in years. Am I wrong?

"Sure. Raveolution 309, the Raven Max, MC-909 limited edition, Quasimidi Van Helden, MAM Freebass 383, Roland DJ-70, E-15, SP-808, Akai S3200, Behringer MX602A and all the Behringer effects that copy other things."

"UPIC by Xenakis puts almost everything else to shame. It's under 1mb and it shits on everyone.

preferring LiveSlice for beat editing/stretching.

Etymotic Research headphones.

korg monotron?

  On 5/24/2011 at 7:53 PM, yikes said:

"UPIC by Xenakis puts almost everything else to shame. It's under 1mb and it shits on everyone.

lol

i've been pretty impressed by the Melodyne Direct Note Access software, although it's no where near as powerful as the early demos make it out to be, the results when tinkering with it are still really satisfying. I'm still waiting for them to implement the 'vocoder' mode where you can literally play new melodies on your midi keyboard as an analyzed sample plays

audioease Speakerphone is nice too

Tension and Collider with Abelton live are pretty cool

as far as new hardware coming out that is noticeable, the Dave Smith 'Tempest' analog drum machine looks very fucking nice

http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/products/tempest/index.php

The modular scene seems to be growing, including the number of manufacturers, particularly in eurorack. Some of the more esoteric stuff puts buchla style synthesis within reasonable reach.

I'm with Awepittance on this one. He hit most of the major developments that will probably recognized as defining the era: Autotuning software like Melodybe and Antares, Ableton Live, and impulse response modelling software like speakerphone and convolution reverb.

There is a reason why you've been hearing Autotune on almost everything in the last few years. It's a major revolutionary technology that has come into form recently, and is still on the cutting edge of technology.

Ableton live has taken over electronic music performance. There has been an explosion of laptop performance in the last few years all thanks to Ableton Live. It's part of history now.

Impulse response technology may be a little more under the radar, but it is a significant technology that has only become really feasible with modern computing power. It's not just reverb; it's under the hood of all kinds of dsp software, most notably cabinet emulations of guitar amp modelers.

It think the big overall movement in the last decade has been from hardware to PCs and all of the developments that go along with it. That's probably what this decade will be most remembered for.

Yeah Ableton Live.

I personally found Melodyne to be pretty hard to get results from. Maybe I should have another play with it 'cause I remember being very excited when I first became aware of it.

  On 5/24/2011 at 6:50 PM, o00o said:

Am I wrong?

no

usine is a really awesome modular environment for building UIs, "advanced" sound design and much more.

http://www.sensomusic.com/usine/

some examples

http://vimeo.com/21071152

http://vimeo.com/22515812

http://vimeo.com/21762828

cheers,

io

Tenori

Oto biscuit

Solaris

Schmidt

Tempest

Octatrack

Max4Live

Monome

Virsyn Cube

Maschine

iPad - touch OSC, Konkrete ect...

Kazoo

  On 5/25/2011 at 4:50 PM, oscillik said:

Kazoo

MIDI kazoo

yeah i forgot to mention Max4Live that's a pretty big one

unfortunately i think 'this decade will be remembered for' in terms of sound developments of retro fetishism, too often going into the past to come up with new ideas for software or hardware. When DSP power is at it's all time high, so are software analogue recreations and there seems to be a distinct lack of just 'new' sound processing concepts that aren't trying to emulate an old sound. Once people are done cannibalizing and perfecting all the old stuff i guess then we can move on to the future of DSP.

  On 5/25/2011 at 10:20 PM, Awepittance said:

yeah i forgot to mention Max4Live that's a pretty big one

 

unfortunately i think 'this decade will be remembered for' in terms of sound developments of retro fetishism, too often going into the past to come up with new ideas for software or hardware. When DSP power is at it's all time high, so are software analogue recreations and there seems to be a distinct lack of just 'new' sound processing concepts that aren't trying to emulate an old sound. Once people are done cannibalizing and perfecting all the old stuff i guess then we can move on to the future of DSP.

Was/hasn't this been done with the glitch movement of sorts? I think glitch is one of the few original pioneering genre's that took off in 2k e.g Alva Noto, Bretschnider ect.

This isn't to say this this kind of sound has been 'done' as such btw, far from it. I remember that recent John Fox interview when he said something like "it's the challenge of this generation to make digital sound as good as we did with the analogue in the 70's-early 80's."

  On 5/25/2011 at 5:18 PM, soundwave said:

  On 5/25/2011 at 4:50 PM, oscillik said:

Kazoo

 

MIDI kazoo

haha! fuckin MIDI kazoo!

  On 5/25/2011 at 10:44 PM, soundwave said:

  On 5/25/2011 at 10:20 PM, Awepittance said:

yeah i forgot to mention Max4Live that's a pretty big one

 

unfortunately i think 'this decade will be remembered for' in terms of sound developments of retro fetishism, too often going into the past to come up with new ideas for software or hardware. When DSP power is at it's all time high, so are software analogue recreations and there seems to be a distinct lack of just 'new' sound processing concepts that aren't trying to emulate an old sound. Once people are done cannibalizing and perfecting all the old stuff i guess then we can move on to the future of DSP.

 

Was/hasn't this been done with the glitch movement of sorts? I think glitch is one of the few original pioneering genre's that took off in 2k e.g Alva Noto, Bretschnider ect.

 

This isn't to say this this kind of sound has been 'done' as such btw, far from it. I remember that recent John Fox interview when he said something like "it's the challenge of this generation to make digital sound as good as we did with the analogue in the 70's-early 80's."

i wouldn't really consider what alva noto or bretschnider do pushing the DSP envelope, Alva's visuals on the other hand i find very ground breaking and cool. They are great arists who are insanely talanted i just don't think what they've done has opened up any new algorithms for the future development of audio software

here is a Mike Dred quote that sums up my thoughts on what i said 100%

  Quote

I recognise that some of these systems are improving in their approach to functionality and controllability. However, the sonic characteristics that define these tools are impuissant with respect to what they aspire to emulate and border on pestiferous when amplified. But, I know that if you are under 30, you probably don’t really care.

 

Sure, soon enough the sound of software geared for emulation of analogue systems will improve and be closer to the true analogue characteristics that these R&D guys are so desperate to reproduce digitally, but that time is not now, by any stretch of the imagination.

 

For 15 years now, the software industry has recoiled from investing sufficient resources in the development of serious real-time spectral synthesis tools that harness the true power of the digital domain and open up wondrous audio design possibilities to producers, so that they can advance dance music composition to a next level paradigm. Instead, the emphasis continues to be on emulating past technologies. It’s a bit like telling kids to go off and make music similar to what their mum and dad made, with little thought for progression. It’s playing safe and steady, which is a shame.

Young producers could push these companies in a positive direction if they themselves get to know the power of the frequency domain. In principle, is all powerful. You can take any sound from any other synthesis model or Mother Nature and use it as the source wave for creating output via parametric adjustments of one of a few, hundreds or even thousands of frequency divisions per channel, free from the aliasing artefacts that colour manipulation in the time domain.

 

The computing power is now available and affordable. We just need a few decision-making heads to champion user-friendly interfaces that play to the strengths of digital domain synthesis. It is 17 years since I got excited about Korg’s affordable physical modelling units, like my Prophecy. Then in '98, along came MetaSynth, a wonderful method of software synthesis and even NI, to their credit, embraced the real-time spectral synthesis principle with their spectral delay program which they also gave me back in 2001 to trial. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring all of these units and applications.

 

One of my favourite machines, the Yamaha FS1R, is a piece of digital hardware. I bought it in Japan in '98 while touring. To this day I have hardly shifted it out of 2nd gear. It’s so hugely complex and vastly powerful. FM with the unique addition of formant synthesis models are incredibly rich design technologies and offer enormous scope for digital sound creation, even in 2011.

 

Digital tool designers need to focus further development in these areas rather than trying to be a 303 or ARP-2600 etc. Surely it’s time to step it up and exploit digital for digital's sake, not as a vehicle for paying homage to analogue classics.

 

Of course, one shouldn’t forget that as soon as a major OS architecture gets upgraded or updated, motherboard circuitry is no longer backward compatible, current format computer audio systems become redundant, and one has to fork out more cash to continue using them (one is left wondering how much sympathy to reserve when they start harping on about piracy). This is so often a major disappointment with computer software versus the comparative immortality of analogue integrated circuit hardware instruments.

I see you point dude and my point was that Noto and Bretschinder are amongst artists that embrace the virtues of digital sound itself (although Noto does use a lot of modular stuff) rather than software developers trying to sell you a digital approximation of something analogue and/or retro classic.

I remember a patch on the G1 modular which is the best digital sound I've ever heard but I never got round to dissecting it for controlling in a creative way which is often the real trick with complex digital gear and it's inorganic behaviour on the other side of the coin good things can also pop up quite unintentionally.

What I take from Mike Dred's quote above is that we have only scratched the surface of what can be achieved but yet we've not mastered what has already been. Take his FS1r example, I agree with that 100% as I have one and I keep coming back to it and tinkering but never quite unearthing something truly special. I then compare my experiences with what I hear of Mark Fell's use of the FS1r - I'm pretty impressed with what he does and how he takes it in different ways that I just don't seem to be able to think of but perhaps i'm too stuck in traditional ways of working. But, I'm not sure how musically interesting or emotive he is. I get some connection but as sure as eggs are eggs most people just won't get it at all.

Which is where the problem is for me. So you won't get a groundswell of interest in pushing those boundaries with the majority of musicians and therefore the companies making this stuff don't see a demand to spend R&D cycles on this. The best hope I see is a musician who discovers some novel new idea using some open environment and who then finds some level of commercial musical success off the back of that. As the innevitable band-wagon jumpers make their appearance then that demand might spur the companies into action.