Travel Report for Michael Bierylo
NAMM 2001
For the past several years the Winter NAMM show has provided me an annual opportunity to observe and reflect on the changes taking place in music technology. The event is a kind of watershed in the torrent of change we experience. The show highlights an interesting contrast between how different segments of the industry at large mark change. To some, especially the musical instrument sector, change is evolutionary. Despite manufacturers' attempts to herald revolutionary designs, guitars, pianos, brass and most other musical instruments evolve rather slowly. These manufacturers are often invested in tradition. In music technology, change seems be measured in quarters, and these financial delineations can often mark seismic shifts in products and attitudes. Although our instruments and tools evolve, we seem to have very little in the way of tradition. In spite of how quickly things seem to change, there are big differences between a product's announcement, its release and its acceptance in the marketplace. As educators we play an important role in the food chain of this industry and now, perhaps more than ever, it's incumbent upon us to make curricular decisions based on tools and techniques that we believe are destined to become industry standards.
In the last couple of years I've been interested in developments in commercial software synthesis and in the continuing debate between native and dedicated DSP for music and production applications. (See NAMM 2000 report.) This year, software synthesis has, for most manufacturers, become a standard - with companies like MOTU, EMagic, Cakewalk and Steinberg integrating softsynths with their products. Even TC Electronics, a company noted primarily for hardware effects processors, has entered the fray with Spark Modular, a modular synthesis plug-in for their Spark audio editing program. For most of these vendors, NAMM this year was an opportunity show product refinements and in some cases, to actually deliver products announced last year.
This year much of the evolution in music technology had to do with hardware. As software tools are becoming more powerful and commonplace in the production environment, there is a strong need to provide users with a way to access these capabilities while working in the virtual world. Manufacturers seem to sense this and this year's show really highlighted two emerging trends: connectivity and control. In my report this year I'm happy to once again share my highly subjective analysis of these and other interesting developments.
- Connectivity and Control
- Synthesis Hardware
- Synthesis Software
- The Acid Test
- Other Goodies
- Comments and Updates
Two years ago the music technology industry scrambled when Apple dropped conventional serial ports from their product line. This year we're seeing a series of products which build on the strengths of USB and very soon, Firewire. These products bring audio interfacing into the picture, offering the musician an integrated I/O solution for both audio and control signals. In some cases these products are integrating control surfaces to provide the user with an interface for software audio production tools, further blurring the distinction between the personal computer and dedicated recording/mixing tools. With the exception of Digidesign, manufacturers are developing templates that allow their surfaces to control common functions in popular sequencing packages. For the most part, these devices transmit controller messages or sysex and could be used to control a variety of hardware devices with some basic MIDI programming on the part of a savvy user.
In the last year USB has emerged as a viable semipro means of digital audio I/O. Although different manufacturers are claiming different levels of performance, Apogee and other sources I spoke with feel users can assume USB will reliably provide stereo I/O to and from a host computer.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous new piece of gear at the show was this USB audio interface/control surface. Tascam was able to get this piece to market ahead of the competition by enlisting the services of New Hampshire's Frontier Design Group. The goal for this device is to provide the user with a portastudio-like front end for computer based sequencing applications. The unit ships with versions of Cubasis, Deck, and a set of ASIO Drivers. It supports ProTools Free directly. Tascam claims their implementation of USB will support 4 channels of simultaneous input and 2 channels of output. (Two channels of digital I/O using S/PDIF.) I've been trying one of these units at home with my Powerbook and have had no problem with stereo I/O using Digital Performer. The unit also doubles as a MIDI interface and has direct audio input monitoring to circumvent latency issues.
Although this unit was announced late last year, it still hadn't shipped by NAMM. There are some distinct differences between the EZ Bus and the Tascam unit and in general it looks to be a more robust device. The EZ Bus can function as a dedicated 8 channel digital mixer and has onboard dynamics processing, 4 band EQ and scene based automation. For digital I/O it adds ADAT lightpipe as well as S/PDIF and has word clock output. An LED display provides status information on various functions.
In general, either of these units would make a reliable front end for a songwriter or composer working with audio and MIDI on a personal computer.
Manufacturers have been building hardware devices that send a variety of MIDI messages for some time; but with software sequencers serving as virtual audio production environments, a need to provide users with a familiar hardware interface has arisen. At last year's NAMM, Cakewalk and Peavey announced StudioMix, an integrated PC-based hardware/software audio recording product. Although a proprietary system, this perhaps signaled an era of cooperation between hardware and software manufacturers in developing these types of products. This year EMagic and Mackie announced a strategic partnership to develop hardware products that compliment the Logic Audio production environment while Digidesign enlisted Focusrite to design their new ProTools control surface.
Digidesign released Pro Control a couple of years ago as a high end hardware interface solution for it's ProTools systems. Mackie followed with HUI, a lower cost solution to address the needs of mid-level users, as well as provide the flexibility to address other software systems such as Digital Performer. Control 24 is a very attractive hardware interface designed by Focusrite which provides analog I/O as well as control for virtually every function in a ProTools session, including surround panning and routing. Interfacing between Control 24 and ProTools is facilitated using a dedicated 10Base-T Ethernet connection. This product is interesting as it's perhaps a reflection of the reality that ProTools has virtually infected all levels of audio production facilities and that the days of a dedicated digital mixer modeled after traditional analog designs may be numbered. Perhaps we're entering an era where a console will provide I/O and control function while DSP is handled by an off the shelf host computer or some other external DSP "black box."
Although it offers no audio interfacing capabilities, the SAC-2K offers a solid, pro-level solution to software control. The main advantage of this unit is motorized faders. The unit communicates with a host application via MIDI through a USB connection and the unit ships with a number of cross platform templates for popular sequencing packages and ProTools.
Although USB is providing a legion of hobbyist and semipro users with a cost effective means of audio interfacing and control, everyone I spoke with at NAMM agrees that it lacks both the bandwidth and the clocking capabilities to ever become a pro-level interfacing standard. Manufacturers were very comfortable developing for USB however, because it's a cross-platform standard. Manufacturers have been slow to develop for FireWire, waiting to see how the technology would fare in the marketplace. Although still somewhat perceived as an Apple technology, FireWire took on a new life when adopted as the IEEE-1394 communications protocol and has become the de facto standard for desktop video. An excellent overview of FireWire and music applications can be found in the February issue of MIX magazine: Bigger Bytes and Faster Too by Paul Lehrman.
Perhaps the most exciting development at NAMM this year (at least for nerds like your humble author....) was mLan. Yamaha's implementation of IEEE-1394, which calls for multiple channels of audio and MIDI running through the same cable, was announced at last year's NAMM. This year they've announced a line of products as well as a number of interested developers - Korg being the first. Yamaha is licensing this technology in layers based on the number of capabilities a developer wants to implement. The basic license to add connectivity to a device costs nothing, and the cost of full access to this technology is, according to the product manager I spoke with, nominal. Yamaha has interest from around 30 manufacturers and Apple has announced mLan will be their official FireWire spec. for the transmission of audio. This looks to be a very robust pro-level spec. and I think we'll be seeing a number of products taking advantage of this by next year's NAMM show.
One of the big surprises of the show came with the announcement of MOTU's 828 FireWire audio interface. Kurt Biederwolf and I met with Jim Cooper at MOTU and he explained that since USB would not offer a dependable, professional solution, the company decided to focus their efforts on FireWire. The result paid off as MOTU took the lead in this area with their announcement. The 828 offers 8 balanced analog inputs and outputs; 2 input channels with XLR connectors, mic preamps and phantom power. The unit carries on the MOTU tradition of well-built, sturdy hardware and best of all, uses a standard power cable. (No wall wart!) This product will change the way freelance engineers and producers work, making pro level Powerbook production a reality. Needless to say this item goes straight to the top of my post NAMM shopping list.
According to most manufacturers, SCSI still appears to be king when it comes to mass storage for hard disk recording. Glyph however is touting their new series of FireWire drives as a viable solution for the Digi 001 and other native hard disk recording application. With mLan on the horizon one wonders what the future holds when everything in a studio is connected via FireWire. Does this mean we'll access audio on any drive in our system from our sampler, or sampling application? Although this is to some extent possible on a SCSI chain, it never really seems to work reliably.
If there is any news in synthesis this year it's that real time control is back. For the most part, DJ culture has thoroughly integrated itself with the hardware synthesizer market. The most exciting aspect of this is the development of new real-time performance tools. In the past few years manufacturers have developed product lines that catered to the needs of DJs and remixers and now many of the innovations these products brought have found their way to the mainstream of performance synths.
These were arguably the most fun demos at NAMM this year. With these products Alesis offers the user a set of preset parameters or sounds that can be manipulated in real time via gestural control. (3-dimensional, infared sensor, in some ways similar to Roland's 2D D-Beam.) These are very inexpensive boxes that provide some very cool sounds and effects. I shouldn't forget that Alesis is shipping Andromeda, their flagship analog (no, not virtual, real analog!) synth. In many ways reminiscent of Roland's Jupiter 8 - with a knob or slider for every programmable function - this unit adds full MIDI clock implementation, an arpeggiator and a ribbon controller making it a great sounding real time performance keyboard.
Korg debuted a breakthrough product this year that really blurs the distinction between what has become a "traditional" keyboard performance synth and what is part of the new generation of dance/techno tools. The guts of Karma are essentially the synth and effects engines found in Korg's Triton series with the addition of a number of real-time performance algorithms designed to extend traditional performance technique. Musician/programmer Stephen Kay used MAX to prototype KARMA (Kay Algorithmic Real-time Music Architecture), a kind of multilayer, multitasking arpeggiator that responds in some subtle and dramatic ways to real time control. The demos at the Korg booth were masterful examples of this technology in some traditional, commercial settings. Upon closer examination one finds a very cool architecture for exploring all sorts of possibilities for gestural control. In many ways this is a remarkable marriage of the Moog and Buchla schools of synthesizer design; incorporating direct, real-time gestural control of synthesis parameters while using a keyboard interface. This is a really deep instrument that sounds great and really merits our attention.
Speaking of products that merit our attention......Korg has released version 2 of Oasys which now includes sample playback in addition to 16 new synthesis algorithms. With its new found capabilities, we could practically run an entire synthesis curriculum on this card.
Apparently this product is being developed mainly for the OEM market under license from the Canadian Space Agency. The pad itself measures X/Y position and Z is pressure. At NAMM they demonstrated the product using some very cool MAX patches which, along with drivers, are included. Although the pad feels great and is a very simple, responsive controller for real-time performance, its $495.00 price tag will keep it out of the reach of many potential users. The good news is that the pad will be incorporated into Bob Moog's new Big Briar performance synth which is scheduled to go into production this Summer. Hopefully more manufacturers will take a serious look at this technology.
Although this is not a new product, this year's NAMM was my first opportunity to check it out. Handsonic is a 15 zone hand percussion controller incorporating Roland's V-drums technology with additional real time control from 2 ribbon controllers and a D-beam controller. The device is very easy to set up and use and offers a library of 300 assorted drum sounds, most of which were programmed to take advantage of real time control. This is the most expressive electronic percussion instrument I've heard and would be a great addition to anything we're doing with real-time performance.
For the last couple of years Electrix has produced a number of real-time oriented effects processors. These have become staples for live DJs and remixers. This year's addition to their line is a kind of phrase sampler/delay unit, geared towards producing loop-based music in real-time. The unit's DSP is capable of on-the-fly time compression/expansion to match the tempos of various loops. One of the instruments that ships with Native Instruments' Reaktor has this capability, but to my knowledge this is the first hardware device that can accomplish this in real-time.
Along similar lines is Roland's VP9000 sampler/processor. Although this was announced at last year's NAMM it bears serious consideration as a next generation sampler. As loop-based music becomes an increasing part of mainstream production, these types of tools will be invaluable. This year's Roland's flagship synth module is the JV5080. This device continues the evolution of Roland's synthesis architecture by adding the ability to load samples from Roland and AKAI format CD ROMs to its list of features, making it by far the most flexible synth in their product line.
Although my strongest impressions from this year's show have to do with hardware, there were a number of interesting software developments. Privately, the Mac developers I spoke with were waiting to see what the full MIDI implementation in OS X would be. Although MOTU and EMagic are able to address MIDI issues through Free MIDI and the Logic Environment respectively, other developers - Digidesign among them - are waiting to see how Apple handles MIDI at a system level before ditching OMS. Of particular note was a conversation I had with Michael Hayden from EMagic regarding patch names. Apparently, Patch Manager in OMS never went as far as many developers felt it should have and before the issue could be resolved, OMS development and eventually Opcode itself was killed by Gibson. EMagic envisioned their technology, SDL-Studio Description Language, to be a better way of handling patch name management system-wide, but has curtailed further development until a system level spec for MIDI management is released from Apple. It was Hayden's feeling that this would be resolved fairly soon and would be in place by next year. This would mean that a user would be free to choose the editor/librarian software of their choice and documents would be able to share names with other production applications, regardless of manufacturer. For example, a Digital Performer user might be able to get names from a SoundDiver document. This would certainly go a long way toward clearing up some of the confusion which currently plagues our labs. Some other highlights:
Although surround production made a big splash at last year's Fall AES convention, most manufacturers at NAMM where not emphasizing these capabilities. Many products are surround-ready and some manufacturers ran surround demos but most manufacturers aren't pushing these features. In terms of synthesis, the most comprehensive set of surround design tools were in the upcoming version of Performer. The implementation of path-based, tempo controlled surround mix automation in this new version holds the promise of adding surround placement to the palette of techniques available to the adventurous composer or sound designer. In addition, Performer 3.0 offers a major update of the user interface and a revamped graphic editing environment.
Since they first announced it at last year's NAMM, Propellerheads have had weekly progress reports on the development of Reason and yes, they were able to ship the product by this year's show. Reason is a revolutionary product in that it offers the user an integrated set of fully configurable, powerful tools in a single, easy to use package. The suite includes a modeled analog synth, sampler, as well as looping tools which take advantage of Propellerheads' ReCycle files, a mixer and a host of basic effects, all running native on a Mac or PC. The complexity of your set up depends on your musical needs and the processing power of your host machine. Since they are shipping version 1.0 of the product, one would expect this to be the first step in a fruitful evolution. The sequencer especially would benefit from a few additional features many now find essential. In general though, this would be a great tool to use in the 5-week Summer session to get students up and running quickly, and demonstrate many different areas of desktop production.
In the last year I've been quite impressed by the products from Native Instruments. Reaktor 3.0 which ships later this Spring offers an improved user interface and more efficient DSP coding, including Altivec optimization. For me, this is the swiss army knife in my sound design tool kit. For this year's show the company showed several breakout products based on their core technologies. Battery is a drum and percussion sample playback tool while Spectral Delay is a very cool effects processor that is able to isolate and separately delay selected spectral components of a signal. It also looks like Native has acquired, or is at least distributing Absynth, a softsynth for the Mac. In what might herald the battle cry: "FM will rise again" Native has also announced FM7, a virtual FM synthesizer based on the classic Yamaha voice architecture with some extensions and extrapolations such as additional waveforms as operators and carriers and an open architecture that allows users to configure their own algorithms. It reads all DX series patches and performances and would make an absolutely great tool to explore FM synthesis. (And clear out a little rack space in A91!)
The one area where the Mac has played second fiddle to the PC is in multitrack loop-based production. When Sonic Foundry released Acid a couple years ago, it defined a market all it's own. Perhaps no other product was as influential in getting PCs in the hands of die-hard Mac users as Acid. Those who downplayed loop-based production appear as luddites in the face of the run away success of this product in the marketplace and it's only in the last few months that a Mac-based competitor has made its debut.
First out is Phrazer from Bitheadz. Offering a feature set and interface similar to Acid as well as the ability to import Acid files, this product seems the clear Mac equivalent. When the product shipped in late 2000 there where some issues with reliability that have reportedly been addressed in version 1.01. As an aside, Bitheadz recently relocated their headquarters to Rhode Island and would be interested in hearing from students for internships and entry level employment. Because of their proximity, they would also like to offer more personalized support to Berklee. We should really use this as an opportunity to update our versions of their products.
Ableton, a new company, formed by some former Native Instruments developers, is set to release their entry into the loop-based production fray with Live. Although similar in concept to Acid and Phrazor, this product is being designed from ground up as a real-time performance tool. The interface adds some real-time modulation capabilities such as tempo-based LFOs and Filter sweeps, as well as the ability to import and audition new samples on the fly. The company claims the product will ship by late Spring, but based on what I saw running at NAMM, I have my doubts.
Applied Acoustics announced that sometime in 2001 this highly acclaimed PC softsynth would be available for the Mac. One of the most intriguing features of this package is it's use of physical modeling algorithms, one of the few outside of Korg to make plucked-string, tube, bowed and reed models available.
One of the coolest DSP features in the now defunct StudioVision Pro was the pitch editing functions of Pitch-to-MIDI and MIDI-to-Pitch conversion. Melodyne takes this several steps further with its tool set for editing pitch, timbre and performance effects such as vibrato in audio files of monophonic melodic passages. The program analyzes a waveform and allows the user to manipulate the source material as if it were MIDI data in a graphic editing environment. Perhaps most impressive was the sound of the processed material; there were very few noticeable artifacts from results of the processes they demonstrated. The demo version was running on OS X but will also be available for Windows. An amazing program with a steep price tag projected to be 999.00. We'll see........
MOTU was showing a new reverb plug-in from Audio Ease based on the capabilities of the G4 velocity engine. Altiverb uses a sampled acoustics scheme similar to what Sony has incorporated into their latest generation of reverb processors. By "sampling" or measuring the acoustic response of a physical space and applying it to a sound file, one can map the reverberant characteristics of that space to an audio source. Needless to say this takes quite a bit of real-time processing power that on the desktop can only be afforded by the G4's velocity engine.
Aside from a cleaned up user interface, the new version of Peak offers much anticipated support for VST plug-ins. Along with this came the announcement of VBox, a plug-in wrapper that allows multiple plugins to be assembled in various chains and algorithms turning the sound designers suite of VST plug-ins into one big multiprocessor. This capability was available in TC Electronic's Spark program and is apparently an idea whose time has come.
Chicken Systems was on hand showing the latest versions of Translator, their sample format translation program. The design goal of this program is to map all parameters of a sampler program from one format to another so that the program will sound identical on both platforms. The program is now available on the Mac and is essential to anyone converting their sample library to a new format as is the case with flocks of users migrating to GigaStudio.
Perhaps the least sexy, yet quite useful item of interest this year comes from Gefen Systems. In addition to supplying USB extenders for stashing noisy CPU's in machine rooms, the company makes ExtendIt, an adapter that allows users to switch between using a Mac and PC using the same monitor, keyboard and mouse. This looks like a great idea for any Mac user infected with the Acid or Gigastudio bug.
Send your comments on this report to mbierylo@berklee.edu and I'll post them to this space.