Travel Report for
Michael Bierylo
NAMM 2004
Over the past few years, with the switch to Apple's OSX and the introduction of the Audio Units plug-in format, the focus for music technology at NAMM has clearly been on new developments. If anything characterized this year's proceedings however, it was really marketing more than new technology- The Year of Selling Stuff. Most of the news from this year's show has more to do with how existing technologies are being packaged and marketed than new products themselves. The buzz I got from many of the attendees I spoke with was not so much about new products, but how these marketing trends will affect the industry as a whole.
Berklee has the most visible presence of any educational institution at
NAMM, a trade show that's geared toward sales. We're here to a large degree
to see what's going to be on our syllabi and in our labs in the next year
or two. For us as teachers, the best news from this year's show was that
there were no new products from Digidesign and Native Instruments. We
can all breath a collective sigh of relief that we have another year to
learn and better integrate what we already have.
Much of this year's story is clearly symbolized by Apple's presence at
the show. As a company, Emagic was nowhere to be found. Gone was the Teutonic,
sci-fi mothership of a booth that was home to Logic last year. Say hello
to the clean white presence of an Apple "Genius Booth" on steroids.
Accompanying this was a clear shift in culture. In the past, eMagic recruited
various pro users to demo how they used Logic and associated products.
The product people we did see were often on the development teams. Two
years ago Michael Hayden, lead programmer for SoundDiver was on booth
duty. This year we saw evangelists as well as product managers who play
in -pardon the pun, garage bands- showing products. The net result was
that on the floor, we really didn't get much beyond the brochure into
long-term issues that might affect us.
The music industry is no longer just music - it's culture and lifestyle;
and video is now part of that mix. This year we saw Apple and Adobe across
the aisle from each other at NAMM touting their products as tools for
"content providers," not just musicians. And although disco
balls have always found their way into the booths of DJ vendors, visual
presentation is increasingly a part of live performance and entertainment,
as evidenced by both hardware and software tools for video jamming. Clearly,
technology is where these worlds are colliding and as a technology division
we should be particularly aware of these currents.
As in the past, this year's report makes no claim to be an exhaustive
analysis; rather it is a collection of impressions from the show. For
a more complete round up of new products, I highly suggest the following:
Starting with Steve Job's MacWorld keynote address a week before and continuing with a similar presentation at NAMM, Apple made clear it's role in the music creation business. As they've done with pro video, Apple now has three levels of applications: Logic Pro, Logic Express and GarageBand. Much of the buzz at the show centered on Apple's consolidation of current music production technologies in an essentially free consumer application that rounds out their iLife suite of "digital lifestyle" applications. NAMM participants have long counted on the average consumer's interest in playing music as it's lifeblood. Starting with the player piano in the early 20th century, instrument makers have sought to make their products accessible to all who want music making to be a part of their life. With GarageBand, Apple has rolled out the post-millennial player piano.
GarageBand itself looks like it has much more in common with SoundTrack,
the loop-based construction kit Apple released last year, than Logic.
In addition to the basic loop playback engine and library, GB -again no
pun intended - adds a collection of built-in software instruments, MIDI
sequencing capabilities, audio tracks and amp models. The program is accessible
to a range of users, depending on skill level. At the most basic, non-trained
musicians can assemble a musical form using loops and add a vocal track,
Karaoke style. A more advanced user can use the program as a sketchpad,
using any Audio Unit instrument and adding their own loops. For loops,
GarageBand uses the Apple Loops format, which is essentially AIFF with
additional header info for tempo, key and slice definition. Apple provides
the Apple
Soundtrack Utility to create files in this format on their website
Following the pricing structure of their video applications, Logic Pro
which includes TDM support and the entire suite of Emagic instruments
will be sold for $999, while Logic Express, essentially the current Logic
Platinum, will retail for $299. A more detailed
comparison between the two is posted on the Apple site. Educational
pricing will be one half off list price, making either of these options
very attractive for students.
David Dvorin, who was the Emagic education rep until Apple assimilated
Emagic last November, is now charged with the entire line of pro applications.
He was able to speak with us at length, sharing what he could about future
plans and directions, and Berklee can continue to look forward to support
in a number of areas. Although Emagic released SoundDiver
for OSX as a free public beta last December, long-term support is not
certain. Apple is committed to furthering advances in native software
synthesizers, and given the resources needed to support a massive list
of legacy devices, it's doubtful this will be a priority in the future.
With the marriage of musicians and computers now going back almost twenty
years, and with a number of well-established products already in use,
it remains to be seen if Apple will repeat the success of Final Cut Pro
here. They were able to quickly capture the pro desktop video market in
large measure because they were able to offer an innovative product in
a field where computing was still relatively new. This was the first NAMM
show after a recent buying spree of software companies, Steinberg by Pinnacle,
Sonic Foundry by
Sony and Cool Edit Pro, now Audition,
by Adobe. Although all of these major players were in attendance, none
of the new parent companies showed anywhere near the enthusiasm for their
audio acquisitions as did Apple. Remembering the fate of Opcode, it remains
to be seen how these products will fare in larger corporate environments.
Vintage Emulations
The interest in software emulations of "classic" synthesizers shows no sign of abating. (No wonder Apple has little interest in editor/librarian software.) With last year's release of the Moog Modular and the CS80, Arturia has taken a leading role in developing these products. At NAMM this year, they were showing the soon-to-be released MiniMoog softsynth. While staying true to the original sound architecture, these products include a number of added features that musicians have come to expect such as effects, arpeggiators, tempo synchronization, and additional modulation routings. In the Moog emulations, Arturia has also added polyphony, which begs the question: if it's polyphonic, is it really a MiniMoog? An early adopter of the Modular V, Piano Department Assistant Chair Jetro Da Silva is featured in an interview on the Arturia site.
In a true sign of the times, hardware stalwart KORG, announced a software bundle, the Legacy collection, that includes plug-in versions of their MS-20 Mini Modular, the Poly 800 and the Wavestation as well as a program that integrates any combination of these in a multitimbral layer. KORG obviously spent a long time getting these done right, as they all sound great. The MS20 and the Wavestation can both use analog inputs, as did the originals. As an added incentive, the bundle includes a very cool 3/4-size MS20 hardware controller. At a list price of $500, the Wavestation market on E-Bay will no doubt plummet.
Mackie and Software?
In perhaps another telling sign of the times, Mackie began distributing the MIDI and hard disk recording package Tracktion as of this year's NAMM show. Tracktion promises to be a powerful, yet affordable cross-platform DAW. London-based Raw Material Software originally released the product last year. Much like Ableton Live, Tracktion rethinks how music software should work, building an entirely new application from the ground up. Full Mackie Control integration was also announced, so it looks like Mackie is now taking a serious step into the software business. A free demo is available online.
Convolution Reverb
This is the year that real-time convolution reverb goes mainstream. This technology first appeared in a commercial product several years ago as a non real-time process in Sound Forge. As host processors become faster, this technology has become practical for real-time processing. Last year Emagic released it's Space Designer reverb, joining AudioEase Altiverb in this category. Two new products were announced at NAMM this year. Waves was showing their IR-1 Convolution Reverb which will list for $800.00. While IR-1 looks very similar to Space Designer and Altiverb, Tascam's Gigapulse Convolution Reverb was designed from the ground up to integrate directly with the GigaStudio 3. The Gigapulse engine is part of Gigastudio, so impulses can be directly imported and the placement of instruments within the sampled space can be controlled. The product also includes microphone modeling technology that allows the user to define microphone choice and placement. With this, Tascam sets Giga apart as the standard engine for the "virtual orchestra." Tascam will also be releasing Gigapulse as a Windows VST plug-in. Ironically, Sony recently discontinued their $8500 DRE-S777hardware standalone convolution reverb processor, another sign that the economics of studio technology are radically changing.
Vocaloid
Vocal processing has been enthusiastically embraced in the last few years, however Yamaha went a step further by developing not just voice synthesis, but a virtual singer. Their Vocaloid technology is able to synthesize credible vocal performances from lyrics and notation. Although the company developed the DSP engine, they are working with other developers, licensing the technology. The first of these products was debuted at NAMM by Zero-G Development, an English company that produces sample libraries. In fact, the singer err...the software itself is based on libraries of vocal snippets used as models for resynthesizing new performances. The first two "singers" are Leon and Lola, each a rather generic pop/R&B vocalist capable of a range of vocal performances. As one might suspect, good singers needn't worry about losing gigs, since once the novelty wears off, the performances sound decidedly lackluster. The initial releases are for PC only, but Yamaha promises Mac support in the "undetermined" future. Two additional companies have licensed the technology and additional singers/products will debut at Music Messe in Frankfort next month.
Hardware Support
TC Electronics and their Powercore system, as well as Universal Audio, continue as platform independent, dedicated DSP solutions, the only real alternative to Digidesign's TDM. The TC Electronics Powercore Firewire is an interesting product, being the only dedicated DSP available to laptop users. They began shipping last year and at the show, they were showing a growing selection of plug-ins running from a Powerbook. TC has ported their entire line of rack-mounted effects processors except the Fireworks, (sorry Steve...) which includes versions of the Finalizer and Helicon voice processors. Amp modeling and a version of the Access Virus synthesizer are among the new additions to their line this year. Also available from Sony is their Oxford line of EQ and dynamics processors. All told, there is a great selection of high quality production tools now available. Two Firewire units can be chained together, making a very powerful system available to laptop users.
As technology students arm themselves with laptops, the Powercore Firewire system would be a great alternative to Digidesign's TDM system. The main advantage here would be that a project that is developed on a laptop could conceivably stay there through the entire production cycle, from initial development through mixing and mastering. This technology is definitely something we should take a closer look at as we plan future facilities.
It seems that with every passing year, there are fewer and fewer project studio class mixing boards at NAMM. Bucking that trend, Mackie was showing their second-generation digital board, the dXb Console. With this design, Mackie has focused on the user interface as well as DAW integration, and in many ways is walking a fine line between a traditional mixing board and a hardware front end for a computer-based production system. There will be two models offered, one designed for music and one for post production, each with a feature set that builds on a core of features that include dual touch screens, Mackie Control integration as well as onboard VST support. Numerous I/O options are available, including Firewire.
Mackie also introduced the ONYX,
the second generation of their small format analog mixing board. These
mixers boast an improved mic preamp and EQ design and come in various
14 and 16 input configurations. With all of these, a Firewire I/O option
is available, making this an ideal option for integrating hardware synths
into a computer-based system, something we should take a look at when
mixers in and of the Music Synthesis Labs need to be replaced.
Another Mackie debut this year was their Big
Knob Studio Command System, a very cost effective input/monitor switching
system designed to solve the problem of integrating various components
in a computer-based studio. This is addresses the exact situation we find
our ourselves in when using the 828s as a mixer at the various teach stations
in the Music Synthesis labs, where we need to switch between different
sources in a class setting. This would be a far more elegant solution
than resurrecting older line mixers.
With this new line of products, in addition to Spike
and their control surfaces, Mackie seems to be positioning themselves
to directly support computer-based music production. Although standalone
hard-disk recorders are still a part of their product line, these were
not the focus at this NAMM show.
Standalone Plugin Support
Joining Plugzilla in the plug-in player market is Receptor from Muse Research. Muse was founded by former Opcode president and Berklee trustee Chris Halaby and taps the talents of several key employees from that company and BeOS. Where Plugzilla is a VST and VSTi player, Receptor is really a platform, with a self-contained OS, monitor and mouse support, as well as Internet connectivity that allows for updating and authorizing various components. The system can either be used in conjunction with a computer sequencing environment or as a standalone multi-timbral synth/effects processor. Muse has already lined up a number of softsynth manufacturers, including Native Instruments, who are supporting the system. Optimized for music applications, this system seeks to bypass many of the incompatibility issues faced when using a computer, making it a very attractive for live performance applications.
Alternate Controllers
Every year there seems to be some sort of interesting alternate controller being shown at NAMM. This year it was the Continuum Fingerboard Controller which is a hybrid between a traditional keyboard and a fretless instrument. The control surface is flat, made of a soft, pad-like material and tracks X-Y-Z positions of the ten fingers asn they move across it. The device transmits MIDI note messages based on position but also allows for smooth glissandos between notes across the surface. Pressure controls dynamics and front to back position typically controls timbre. Although it's designed as a standard MIDI controller, there is a FireWire port that can be used to directly control a Kyma system. The developers are operating as a small, home-based operation, much like the Radio Baton, that hand builds these on order. Priced at $3390 to $5290, this is definitely not an impulse purchase, and learning to play it well definitely requires a time commitment as well. In some ways, this looks like the kind of touchpad controller that M-Audio was trying to develop a couple of years ago, and it would be great if some manufacturer would deliver this type of technology in a more affordable package.
Moog Music was celebrating its 50th anniversary at this year's show, and
Bob was on hand to sign commemorative calendars. Far from pure nostalgia,
the company was showing a beautiful commemorative
Moog Voyager, a newly designed Theremin
and Murf,
a sequenced filterbank Moogerfooger. As always, these analog designs sounded
great, even above the dim of the convention floor.
Next to Moog was a small Paris electronic boutique company called Eowave.
They were showing their line of analog pedal processors as well as
what they were calling a Persiphone, a ribbon controlled synthesizer.
Outside of these production products, the company offers a number of hardware
sensors designed to be used for electronic performance, and offers custom
analog hardware design services. In other controller news, British company
Analog
Systems has released the French
Connection, their recreation of the Ondes Martenot.
Heat Wave
Continuing in vintage mode, Korg has added a tube to their new Triton Extreme. This is the same Valve Force technology developed for their toneworks line of effects processors and found in the Electribe EMX-1, and with this design is really focusing on producing digital products that sound decidedly analog. In the Triton, the tube circuitry can act as an insert effect used to add a bit of warmth or to add distortion. So, how long will it be till MOTU starts shipping MIDI interfaces with 12AX7s?
Over the past couple of years, two overall trends in sample libraries have emerged: realism and plug and play dedicated instruments. Apart from loop libraries, there are two main distributors of sample libraries: East West, and Ilio, each with a slightly different product line. East West distributes soundware companies that are based in Europe, and many of their products are dance, percussion and groove oriented. Increasingly, their libraries are distributed with OEM versions of Native Instruments Kompakt, which makes them a good choice for users of Kontakt. Two standout products at this year's show were Yellow Tools Culture and Drum Kit from Hell volume 2. Culture is a 9GB library of percussion instruments from around the world. These instruments are delivered in a custom playback engine and contain 16 velocity splits with separate samples for right and left hand attacks. Although these provide for stunning realism, a certain amount of performance technique is required to really make these speak. Another product from East West is Drum Kit from Hell2, a 2.4 GB library of multisampled, unprocessed drum hits that feature multiple mic positions. Again, as with Culture, this set is capable of yielding stunningly realistic programmed drum tracks.
Ilio is the distributor for Berklee Alum Eric Persing's company Spectrasonics, as well as the Vienna Symphonic Library. A new addition to Illio's stable this year is Synthology, a company founded by former Kurzweil sound designer Joe Ierardi. Their first product, Ivory created quite a buzz at this year's show. Ivory is a state of the art, 20 GB library of three world-class concert pianos, each with eight different dynamic levels per key. The instrument has its own proprietary sound engine that provides a range of ambience effects, as well as a DSP function that will synthesize the sympathetic string resonances on release, based on the notes played. Former Music Synth faculty member Geoff Gee spent the weekend taking this through its paces, making a very clear case why this is the best sampled piano instrument available.
With Apple at the show, there was a very clear connection between music production and video production. One of the big selling points for Apple's media creation tools is a highly integrated workflow between their audio and video applications. The fact that Soundtrack, their Acid-like, loop-based music software, was introduced first to the video market as a tool to empower editors to create their own music tracks certainly means that the writing is on the wall for legions of musicians looking to industrial video as their entry into the world of music for picture. Across the aisle, Adobe was showing the latest version of the video editing package, Premier, now only for Windows. Their recent acquisition of Cool Edit Pro, now released as Audition, indicates that they as well see the integration of audio and video production as part of the future.
Video is also making its way into live performance. On the desktop, Cycling
74's Jitter
is now available for OSX and a version for Windows is out as a public
beta. This is becoming the defector standard for live interactive video
design, both in the arts world and for touring acts such as Chicago folk
rockers Wilco. Video is also becoming a big part of the live electronic
dance music scene and there are two performance-oriented controllers available
in the mass market. KORG released the KAOSS
Pad Entrancer at last summer's NAMM show and were once again showing
how it integrates with their eTribe line of dance products. The Entrancer
has on-board video switching and processing capabilities and can use either
live or prerecorded sources. This allows real time control using switches
and the X-Y coordinates of a touch pad. In addition, the unit can has
some audio processing capabilities, with MIDI in/out and tempo sync via
MIDI clock.
Edirol goes a step further offering V-Link, a full line of semi-pro video products optimized for performance. Included are the V1 and V4 video mixers as well as the P1, a digital slide projector processor.
With the convergence of video and music production and performance that
we're seeing in these types of products, it seems inevitable that in the
near future, video literacy, from both a technical and an aesthetic perspective,
will be part of being a modern musician.
With the possible exception of convolution reverb, there really wasn't much new technology at this year's NAMM. As I said in the beginning of this report, some of the real news this year was in marketing, as with Apple's re-structuring of the Logic line. In genera,l these developments were categorized by either new distribution arrangements or repackaging of existing technologies.
A good case in point is the Applied
Acoustics alliance with Ilio. I had the opportunity to speak with
Philippe Dérogis and Marc-Pierre Verge, who met with us last summer,
about this and how it will affect their future products. They said that
aside from marketing clout, they are getting some good input from Ilio
sound designers on how to improve their products by redesigning their
patches and the patch browser structure of Tassman. They're taking this
into account in the upcoming Tassman 4. They also made clear that they
were very pleased by the student response at Berklee to their products,
noting that a number of Synth students have taken advantage of their special
pricing. They also mentioned that the bug reports and comments they have
received from Music Synth faculty have been very helpful in improving
Tassman.
However, in the midst of the explosive growth in software instruments
and effects plug-ins, it's surprising that several companies such as Antares
and Audio Ease
opted out of a NAMM booth this year. As in years past, many smaller companies
look to partner with tech-savvy distributors in hopes of making the most
of a trade show presence. Neil Ziesing, former Opcode sales representative
now runs Soultech Marketing, a company that's devoted to sheparding innovative
products from small vendors through the North American marketplace. An
important part of his mission is to consult with these companies on strategies
to best target their products. Two years ago Melodyne
appeared as a small boutique software company, and although they had a
cool, innovative product, the initial release, with a $999.00 list price
made little impact in the market. This year they've made a clear effort
to make their product line available to a wider range of users. The latest
version of their flagship product, Melodyne 2.5 will include RTAS capability,
making their pitch and time correction tools easily available to Pro Tools
users. In addition, they announced a lower priced packaging of their technology,
Melodyne Uno, which will sell for around $150.00. They also now have a
DVD that gives a very clear demonstration of the product's capabilities.
In addition to Melodyne, Neil also represents German software company
VirSyn.
From his time as Berklee's Opcode rep, he knows the importance of supporting
educational institutions and he'll work to arrange for academic pricing
on these and other products he represents.
NAMM vendors are well aware that an educated user base will yield a fertile customer base. Manufacturers are keenly aware of how essential all types of music education is to their continued existence. Nowhere is this more evident than in music technology. One conversation I had at Moog Music brought this point home. Last year Guitar Center picked up the Moog Voyager, only to have it languish on display across the country because sales personnel had no idea what to do with it. Although heirloom electronic instruments are probably not a mainstream item, the point is clear: education is essential. At NAMM this year, I got a clear sense that education will be a growing component in the marketing of technology tools.
Considering the increasing complexity music technology applications and their widespread use in the media production industry, both Digidesign and their parent company Avid have established training and certification programs. Apple, as well, has a certification program for Final Cut Pro and now Logic. It seems that while mainstream higher education institutions are still dancing with technology curricula, manufacturers of high tech industrial products are setting the standard for this type of training. At very least, we should be acquiring and evaluating the materials being used in these programs, if for no other reason than to establish some sort of baseline for what music technology students need to know about specific applications.
M-Audio and Propellerheads now seem to be aware of this as well. Teaching Music with Reason is a complete curriculum for integrating Reason into a High School or first semester college classroom. For this, Propellerheads hired Stephanie Sobey-Jones, who was the International Education Representative for Steinberg, to develop the program. Ms. Sobey-Jones visited Berklee a number of years ago to make a case for Cubase to the Music Synthesis Department. She is well versed in various European curricular requirements and has designed the course to meet those standards in public education. Most software used in music education at this level is designed for that purpose, and this is an interesting effort to use a product like Reason in mainstream public education.
M-Audio, who has been a strong supporter of music education at Berklee and other institutions, is involved in a new, ongoing series of workshops called Red Bull Music Labs. These are a series of workshops sponsored by the energy beverage Red Bull, held in cities around the US that use Reason and Live running on TiBooks to teach production techniques used in various dance styles. The workshops are free, five-day intensive events that are limited to a group of ten participants, who are selected from a pool of applicants. The events are designed to pair working musicians with promising individuals from a variety of backgrounds for an immersive, hands-on experience. These types of workshops point to a strange confluence of art, commerce, culture and technology, all looking to satisfy what seems to be a growing interest in musical styles shaped by new technology tools.
Fun Stuff
Tobius Enhus
Arriving in LA a day before the NAMM show began, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Music Technology alumnus Tobius Enhus. Tobius is now working as one of two composers at MachineHead, one of the premier "boutique" music production houses in LA. (totally cool site BTW) He was very generous with his time and talked at length about his work and his experiences in LA. From this, a couple of major themes kept coming up. Much of the work he is doing is in surround. At the time I was there, he was working on music for an upcoming game release in surround. He noted that this is fast becoming the norm for all types of media work. One of the challenges in this type of work is being able to quickly build stems from Pro Tools sessions. For this, he's found the Tascam DS-M7.1 to be an absolutely essential tool for managing stem creation and surround monitoring.
Much of the work Tobius is doing really demands that a composer has a unique voice to offer clients. Many of his "breaks" in LA have come from his expertise with cutting edge sound design tools and techniques. In addition, he stresses the need for composers and producers to build individual, unique sound libraries. In the last year, he helped Jeff Rona record and develop their own orchestral library. With the commercial availability of many fine libraries, it seems that top composers are still looking for a signature sound for their work. Machine Head occasionally does farm out some of their work to outside composers, and this is a good way for some to get started in the business. Tobius made mention that any work coming from outside sources that uses what are obviously factory synthesizer presets is unacceptable. He stressed the importance of developing sounds and libraries that are unique to a particular project, saying that on some of the films he's worked on it was not unusual to spend a month developing sounds before starting to write.
For Tobius, real-time control is a big part of design as well. In his studio, he has his Radio Baton as well as a custom-built light beam controller within easy reach, which allows him to perform parts, reacting to the action in a given cue. For at least one upcoming film, the Radio Baton will be in the cue. One of the directors he is working with is doing a film that sounds like a cyber-arts version of Fame. The lead character in this will use the Radio Baton in the film's climactic performance scene and it looks like Tobius will be the Baton coach.
Thanks for reading, and as always, I look forward to your comments.
eMBee
February 2004