M-Audio Axiom MIDI Controllers

Well, it didn’t take M-Audio long to get over that breakup. The world’s most ubiquitous brand of USB MIDI keyboards is out this summer with a refresh to its Axiom line of USB MIDI keyboards, hot on the heels of announcing they’re no longer part of Avid. They’ll now share branding with A.I.R., the German virtual instrument developer that, along with M-Audio, is moving from former parent Avid to inMusic, sharing that corporate owner with the likes of Akai and Alesis.

The family shares some features:

• HyperControl automatic mapping. (I’ve had equal measures praise and frustrated criticism for such things, but it’s there – or you can use old-fashioned MIDI mapping.)
• Bundled Ignite music software – that is, if you’re ready for another music app.
• Long-throw faders, multi-color, illuminated buttons, and combination of keys and pads.

Nifty features like automatic mapping and special software aside, my guess is that to most musicians,
the Axiom will appeal for a practical combination of controls – and, in particular, real 4×4 grids of pads. The Axiom got my nod in a round-up of competitors for Keyboard Magazine recently. I’ve found the newer keybeds to be really to use, and the whole affair seems to be well-balanced in feel and array of onboard amenities. There are a lot of similar tools on the market, but to me, the winner is the one that strikes the best mix for the most users.
Your options: 25-, 49-, and 61-key versions with full-sized keys, or a 32-key mini key version. The mini key version in particular looks nice: a lot of mini keyboards have been fairly low-end or stripped-down; this appears to finally offer something slim and versatile that could be a main keyboard without quite so much sacrifice. (In fact, it could rival the now-discontinued microKONTROL from Korg.) It’s low-profile and slim-line, but still packing eight pads and plenty of controls; I’m eager to try it in person.
For more serious playing, the 61-key version has the higher-end keybed, the semi-weighted TruTouch.
Ignite software is part of the story, a new tool from AIR. There’s not a whole lot on this software yet, but I’m intrigued to see integrated keyboard/playing software, in the way that we’ve seen hardware/software combinations for drum pad lovers like Native Instruments’ Maschine.
The keyboards will be in shops mid-October, so look for a review as they become available.
Pricing TBD.
Images:

iPad Drum Pad Controller: MidiPads

The iPad as a controller is at its best when it plays to its strengths, letting you use that continuous finger control do something useful. So that makes MidiPads worth a look. It’s a strikingly-versatile drum pad controller with all of the kinds of features you might want, and with a major version 1.5 release this week, looks even more useful as a control addition to your studio.

First off, it’s got all of the I/O you could want:

• USB MIDI (so, use the Camera Connection Kit and a class-compliant interface, or dedicated interfaces like iRig MIDI and MIDI Mobilizer II)
• Wireless MIDI over a WiFi connection
• Virtual MIDI, for connecting to other apps (we need to do a round-up of these soon, so give a shout if you have a moment, devs)

Once connected, MidiPads sets itself apart with flexible control on each of those pads. Just tapping rectangles isn’t much fun on the iPad, of course – you lack tactile feedback and pressure sensitivity found on a physical pad. So, instead, MidiPads provides other modulation to exploit the touchable surface for continuous control. In fact, thinking of it as a “drum pad” is almost a bit unfair. New in this release:

• Presets, which you can share with other users – which could in turn make a nice little community of users here
• “Bouncing mode” for touch pads and sliders
• Send multiple messages with each axis and knob
• Individual up/down messages for each touch pad and slider, if you so wish
• Enhanced views, settings reset, and MIDI connection settings
• Resize pads and pad area (essential for either fat fingers or getting more controls!)

What I like best of all is the integration of X/Y controllers on pads, so you can send continuous messages as you trigger a pad. In the video at top, you can see that in action with Traktor Pro. (Yep: you can use this for DJing, not just drum sounds.)

To solve the lack of velocity response, you can choose from a few options, including tapping with two fingers or setting velocity from the vertical position of your tap on the pad. Those ranges are scalable, and you can even set some randomization.

You get 64 resizable pads, and everything can be customized, both in terms of the MIDI message and appearance. You can also send MIDI to those pads for bi-directional feedback. With that, I’m just waiting for someone to come up with some awesome preset for Renoise or a drum synth or Ableton or what have you. Let us know.

Other features:

• CC messages, custom MIDI channels, definable ranges
• Faders that snap, fade, and bounce
• Incoming values can display on pads
• Pitch bend or modulation, via sliders or the touch pads or the drum pads
• Accelerometer control
• MIDI learn on the controller (which is something of a novel idea)
• Blink pads with MIDI sync
• Integrated help

Ableton Live ‘Gangsta Sync Setup’ Video Tutorial

In this video tutorial Ableton Certified trainer Martin Delaney presents “The Ableton Live Gangsta Sync Setup,” a simple way to sync two computers running Live. His method doesn’t use MIDI clock or time code. “It’s just a way to get them playing at the same time,” Martin explains. His solution lies in the use of Midi Remote settings in Ableton. By setting each computer’s MIDI prefrences you can create a perfect start sync that avoids MIDI altogether and stays tight as you jam.

What are you thankful for in music??

(This is a sourced article)

In no particular order, here are some of the ones in my mind in the days of 2010.


1. MIDI: MIDI gets kicked around a bit – it’s not a perfect protocol, commonly-used messages are low resolution, and the parts most people use really haven’t changed since the mid-80s. But don’t discount why we use it so much: it’s ubiquitous, cheap, and lightweight. Want something simple that works over WiFi and Bluetooth? Want to connect something from 1986 you found on eBay to your iPad and then use on a DIY synth with a $3 microcontroller? Want to connect an Xbox keytar without any hacking? MIDI may not be the right tool for every job, but as a lingua franca, it sure is darned useful. midi.org

2. Linux: Linux can still sometimes exhibit a punishing learning curve, and proprietary drivers for devices like video cards can cause issues. But in a world of wildly diverse hardware and painfully-quick obsolescence, Linux is a lifesaver. It can resurrect old machines, make netbooks usable, and the Linux kernel is fast becoming the solution for embedded gear from Android-powered devices to DIY projects. For music, that means an OS that can run on anything, and quickly wind up making noise with tools from Pd and Csound to Renoise and DJ app Mixxx. Suddenly, anything that runs on electricity and has a processor looks like fair game. linuxaudio.org

3. Music notation: Fun toys aside, what’s the real killer app in 2010? It might be the score. It’s still the fastest way to communicate a musical idea to someone else, or quickly play the Billy Joel tune your cousin wanted to sing along with. (Best karaoke machine in the world: your brain.) And this year, we saw improved ways to enter those scores, from ever-more-mature commercial packages to free tools like Lilypad. An iPad can be a fake book full of lead sheets; a browser can turn some quickly-typed notes into notation. All this using something that wouldn’t look entirely unfamiliar to someone who stepped through a wormhole from a few centuries ago.

4. Reaper: We face a challenge in music technology: we’ve actually got too many great options. So it’s a good thing that there’s at least one DAW that’s easy to recommend that you know people can afford, with pricing ranging from £30-120. Reaper runs on Mac, Windows, and (with WINE) Linux. It’s not bloated with features, has no DRM, is heavily extensible (with both custom plug-ins and scriptable MIDI). And if you’re trying to get a friend to try a DAW without (cough) pirating it, you can point them to Reaper’s free trial version. Add to that the fact that you can author Rock Band songs for the game platform – including full keyboard and guitar transcriptions in the near future with Rock Band 3 – and Reaper is a DAW worth keeping around. reaper.fm

5. Four-lettered Synth Makers That Remember the Past: Not one but two famous names from synths yesteryear, MOOG and KORG, have been on fire in 2010. Moog celebrated its Minimoog anniversary with an enormous XL edition. Practical? Not terribly. Something boys and girls could pin up to their walls? Yes. And Moog also had a bigger-than-ever Moogfest, proving its synths and effects weren’t just the domain of electronic music geeks, plus an affordable iPhone/iPod touch app that turns those handhelds into portable machines capable of recording anything and adding far-out effects. KORG, for their part, proves a big music tech name can remember their past, too, with the soul of their MS-20 appearing in iPad apps, wonderful, stocking stuffer-friendly hardware (Monotron), new bundles of software emulation (for those who prefer “real computers” to iPads), and, heck, even retro t-shirts. What these two companies have in common: understanding that their legacy matters to people, and finding ways to get that legacy in front of as large an audience as possible. Those are both ideas I hope catch on. korg.com, moogmusic.com

6. Portable Recorders: Then: Marantz, Nagra, Tascam Portastudio. Today: go-anywhere field recorders from Tascam, Zoom, Roland, Korg, and many others. The ability to go out and actually record stuff remains one of the most essential needs in music tech. Today’s devices add nifty extras like pitch-independent tempo adjustment and built-in metronomes, making them as much a friend to musicians as they are sound designers. Odds are, if you’re reading this, some portable audio recorder is one of your most valuable possessions. Tascam DR-03 @ CDM

7. Pd: Pure Data, the open-source offspring of Max/MSP creator Miller Puckette and contributors around the world, is a free graphical patching tool that runs everywhere. You can use it on ancient iPods, or – via libpd – on bleeding-edge Android and iOS handhelds, in addition to (of course) desktop computers. It’s been incorporated in free and open source projects, and commercial and proprietary projects alike. Thanks to terrific free documentation and sample patches, you can also use it as a window into learning, with the aid of being able to see signal flow visually. (Even Max gurus can pick up tips for that environment with some of the online help.) The beauty of Pd – as with a number of tools – is that sometimes just making what you need is easier than making something someone else made do what you need. puredata.info, pd-everywhere @ noisepages

8. Bandcamp: The Web is littered with services catering to artists – not least being the chaotic mess that is the remains of MySpace. Bandcamp, in contrast, is simple, efficient, and functional, and for many of us has been a place to acquire music direct from artists as well as to publish it – no complicated jukebox/storefront middlemen needed. Some of my favorite listening this year came from Bandcamp. bandcamp.com

9. Contact mics: A few dollars in parts and a soldering iron will make you a perfectly-functional device you can use to explore sound. Or, you can splurge on high-end devices. Either way, the surest antidote to endless choice in software synthesis or enormous sample banks is to go out and get a little closer to sonic vibrations. brokenpants DIY contact mic tutorial

10. The Internet: Distraction. Time suck. Scourge to privacy. A funny thing happened on the way to the Internet: you may have found a group of people who inspired you to make more, and share more, helped you solve problems and get back to music.


What are you thankful for? Let me know in comments.