Audio Science

The bane of the gigging keyboardist’s existence is the monstrously heavy gear we usually have to haul around. If you’re already switched to a laptop-based rig, however, there may be a “super controller” on the way that will change the way you look at gigging forever, and also possibly put a sizable hole in your account balance.

How many times have you wondered to yourself as you load up your 70lb Motif into your commercial-sized ‘89 Chevy van, “Why can’t they just fold the thing in half?” Well, somebody finally heard you. A start-up called Infinite Response is taking 77 weighted keys, two OLED screens, polyphonic aftertouch (yes, you heard right) and cramming them into a magnesium alloy frame that folds in half to fit in overhead compartments, while keeping the total weight at only 25 lbs. Unheard of until now, but it looks like the VAX77 could make the keyboard player’s dream a reality.

Not only is it a full-fledged MIDI controller (with built in full speed USB as well), but they tell us it will also have an onboard sound generator, making it a functional keyboard even without a laptop (or a Receptor, which they apparently had in mind when designing this beast).

Still, we don’t know what it’s going to cost, as the company designing it is still working out exactly how they’re going to incorporate things such as pitch bend and expression pedals. Once finalized, they will announce pricing and availability. They have already demonstrated it at SXSW 2007, with great reactions from keyboard players from around the world, and they expect to go to events across the US demonstrating it. It will be custom made with options such your choice of six different weights (”as light as a Hammond to the weight of a Steinway”), 5 excellent colors, and band name or logo silkscreening. Read on for full specs here: VAX77 Spec Sheet

(Via Music Thing)

The Monome 40h has been a tremendous success, and the 400 units they produced have completely sold out. Monome is now looking ahead to not only continuing production of the 40h in one way or another, but they will be producing two new sizes: a 128-button version (16×8) and a 256-button version (16×16).

From monome’s news section:
“all will feature wood enclosures with recessed aluminum top plates. all monome hardware will be inter-compatible with monome software. we haven’t set firm release dates for the two new projects, though they’re modularly based on the 256 (previously the 100h), so the development time should be very short.”

As always, you can look to the monome user forum if you are looking for a used 40h, but if you’re expensive enough willing to spend a few hundred more, they are producing a 12-unit special edition run with some special features for $800 apiece.

Microsoft’s revolutionary Surface, which will be forth-coming in selected markets (not consumer) by the end of this year, is the same concept as a counterpart you might not have heard of. Although Microsoft began developing the Surface system as we know it as early as 2003, the concept of projection / detection has been floating around; whether Microsoft may have leaked it is unknown to me.

The Multi Touch Console is an open-source project by a couple of independent developers in Berlin, and is pretty much a port of the Reactable (video), which has been around for a little bit now. The system, like Microsoft’s, features a projector, camera, diffuser, glass surface, etc., but the most outstanding aspect of this system is that it’s open-source and can be built from scratch. Go here for documentation and links of the parts.

If you want to see some more demonstration of what multi-touch can do, check out this video of Jeff Han demonstrating a multi-touch system.

This has very exciting possibilities in the music arena, as some of the videos on the MTC website suggest, although I feel the true possibilities of it aren’t drawn out as well in those. I think we’re going to see some amazing things when someone combines these systems with the open-source 64Step software for the monome 40h, as well as other sequencing software.

(Via Music Thing)

There are a number of different brackets that define audio cable quality. Knowing which one your needs fit into is important, as you can spend a sum on high-end lines that would cripple the largest of budgets. One of the questions I’ll discuss is whether or not the audiophile extreme of the market is even valid, and then where it fits into your needs.

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Everybody needs good samples for music production, and sometimes you just don’t have enough sample libraries laying around to do the trick. Or you could be cheap - we’re not sure which. Here is a list of free sound, sample, and patch sites that have helped fill in the cracks for me. These sites are strictly public domain - most sounds on them are cleared, but use your own discretion - if it looks commercial, it may be.

SF2MIDI.com - Largest online collection of free .sf2 soundfonts, which can be loaded easily into almost any hardware or software sampler (if necessary, you can convert them to a different format using CDXtract). Many useful sounds here, but make sure not to download anything that looks like it’s a commercial soundfont.

HammerSound - one of the premier sources online for free .sf2 soundfonts. While not quite commercial-sounding, many of these sets sound very good, and are very usable. A big advantage of this site is that many of their sound libraries feature long, un-looped 16bit/44.1khz samples.

SoundZone.info - High-quality .sf2 soundfonts, as well as a member zone where $18 gets you access to the rest of the library, which is sampled at 24bit/96khz for excellent sound quality.

SF2-Files - Free .sf2 soundfonts. Also has member zone where you pay for access to the rest of their sounds (of which I am not 100% definite about the quality thereof).

ReasonBanks - Producers of great synth-replicating Reason ReFills, Reasonbanks also offers a number of free downloads for registered users.

The Philharmonia Sound Exchange - a free collection of recorded notes and expressions available for download. Files are compressed audio, not WAV.

The Freesound Project - A collection of 10,000 samples, most of them in the experimental and “found sound” category.

The Splendid Grand - pretty much the best free sampled grand piano out there - rather thin sounding, but still fuller than most free piano samples.

Freeloops.com - Just like it says on the tin. Free drum, instrument, and other loops in linear compressed audio format (not REX).