Travel Report for Michael Bierylo
NAMM 2002
In his January, 2002 Mix Magazine Insider Audio column ("Hardware, Software, Wetware"), author Paul Lehrman considers the question: "Is hardware dead?" Although the article made for some thought provoking reading on the plane, my question as the doors opened on the first day of the January 2002 NAMM show was decidedly less foreboding. I was curious to see how software products had matured, and how hardware would either coexist with or support those tools in various production and performance environments.
Electronic music it seems, is in full bloom. Never has there been as many different people making electronic music with as wide a variety of hardware and software instruments, and manufacturers from all corners of the industy are players.Software is on everyone's rader and Tascam's acquisition of Gigastudio a few months ago, as well as a more tentative move by sampler stalwart AKAI to market a line of VST plug-ins are only a couple of examples of how this is beginning to play out. Another marked shift is the impact of the DJ market on the industry at large. Turntable manufacturer Numark's bailout of Alesis last year is an indication of the economic clout wielded by the dance music industry and perhaps a sign of the times.
Software synthesizers and plug-ins of all sorts were, needless to say, in abundance. The underlying question however, is how much can a computer be expected to handle? Manufacturers were boasting high track and plug-in counts running on the fastest Mac and PC platforms, but when a few softsynths and some of the higher quality effects plug-ins are added to the mix, all bets on sonic integrity and reliablity are off. Although more effecient coding of these tools is providing performance benefits in this area, the clock speed and chip architecture of out of the box computers is still really holding the reigns on native desktop production.
Dedicated DSP
"So much software, so little DSP" was the mantra I heard from many people I spoke with at the show. Really great software like the Audio Ease Altiverb takes a serious hit on a host machine's CPU. While manufacturers are still working to efficiently code their products, the main selling point is still sonic quality, and serious plug-in developers are setting their sights high.
Digidesign has always maintained that sonic quality and dependability depend on hardware based DSP, and their TDM systems can be configured to match the user's need for processing power. Third party manufacturers TC Electronics and Universal Audio are now starting to address this same issue with the dedicated DSP cards that support native plug-in architectures.
Universal Audio Powered Plug-ins.
The UAD-1 is a system that ships with a PCI card and a bundle of VST plug-ins that include high quality reverb (Realverb) and a host of UA effects that model their line of vintage hardware processors. (UA1176, Teletronix LA-2) These will run in any Mac or PC VST host application. At NAMM they were showing a Pultec EQ plug and a guitar modeling system. Although they started out as a small boutique hardware company, their distribution has now been picked up by Mackie and we should look forward to some joint ventures from the two in the coming year.
TC was the first to introduce hardware DSP to support VST and MAS native plug-in architectures with the PowerCore system announced at last year's NAMM. The system ships with a host of TC's acclaimed effects and mastering plug-ins, offering the desktop producer a reliable, high-end software solution. This year TC announced 3rd party support for PowerCore from the following manufacturers:
- Sony: Oxford EQ
- EMagic: Powercore versions of their native Logic plug-ins.
- Waldorf: D-Coder, a powerful native vocoder.
- Access: a soft version of the Virus for PowerCore.
Hardware Returns
Although the trend in the last couple of years has been for manufacturers to develop software products based on general purpose DSP, some manufacturers are beginning to think about bringing a new generation of hardware products to market, based on advances in this area. Three new products emerged at NAMM that address this.
Roland SH-32, Desktop Synthesizer
Nearly every softsynth manufacturer has a basic subtractive synthesizer in their product line, but why use native DSP to provide what in music production, is such a staple, standard architecture? Wouldn't it be great to use precious DSP power to provide some new directions in sound design? Roland addresses this with their SH-32 desktop, analog modeling synthesizer. The Roland demo touted this as a desktop virtual synth, squarely targeting the virtual synth market with a low cost hardware solution. The real advantage here is that almost every parameter has a physical controller on the box itself. Editing of these parameters can be automated. With a street price of around $500, the SH-32 is a great deal when you consider the cost of a software plug-in and a hardware controller.
What if you're a guitar player and want access to the wild and wacky world of formant shifting and bit reduction? Plug your guitar into a laptop? Well, maybe not.... Alesis announced a line of DSP-based, stomp-box style effects. Each of these will perform a specific DSP function with appropriate real-time controls and will retail for about $100 dollars each. This is perhaps the first in a new generation of performance products based on functions previously only found in software DSP programs.
The most breathtaking new synth this jaded author has seen in a long time is the Neuron from German manufacturer Hartmann. The closest I've heard to this type of sound design is from either a KYMA system or CSound. The product being shown was obviously an early prototype, but from the sound of the demo patches and the flexibility of the real-time controllers, this will be a landmark product when it's released. (At a projected list price of $5000, it certainly should be!)
New Directions
NEURON is an example of a completely new product direction spawned from innovative software synthesis techniques, and should give us all pause to think about the value of cutting edge music technologies. In all areas, tools and techniques that were once the province of research centers have found their way into commercial products. I spoke with BIAS president Steve Berkley about this and he mentioned that a number of research institutions, Dartmouth among them, have approached him on the idea of forming some sort of loose consortium designed to get technology being developed by their students into the marketplace. With the range and flexibility available in a number of DSP and software synthesis products, there's no reason why this type of research and prototyping will remain in the exclusive domain of manufacturers and universities. We, here at Berklee should find ways to institutionally support our students who are interested in this area, to get their projects into studios and ensemble rooms for the kind of real world prototyping we can uniquely offer.
Electronic Music Tools
Loop
and Pattern-based Tools
Loop and Pattern-based production tools and instruments made their debut with the first drum machines. Despite the computer's ability to support real-time MIDI and audio sequencing, these types of products continue to proliferate. What the current crop of loop and groovebox tools offers is a way for musicians to focus on manipulating rhythm and form. Where these products are beginning to shine is in their ability to edit a range of playback and processing parameters in real time.
Ableton Live
One of the big hits of this year's show was Ableton's Live. It was first shown at last year's NAMM, and is now shipping for PC and Mac OS9 and OSX. This product represents the next step in the category of loop-based production tools that began with Acid. Although Bitheadz released a Mac tool called Razor, the product was plagued with a buggy initial release. Live seems like it may become the loop tool of choice, offering extensive real-time control over virtually every parameter. Processing is handled through a few resident effects as well as with VST plug-ins. (VST virtual instruments are not supported.) The program is ReWire 2 compliant and was shown running in tandem with Reason.Since Reason doesn't support disk-based audio tracks, Live makes an excellent compliment, running in sample accurate sync via ReWire.
New Synths
Products from mainstream synth manufacturers are picking up on loop and pattern tools with major players like Yamaha, Roland and Korg releasing flagship products that incorporate these types of features. The Yamaha Motif focuses on sampling and looped based production tools while the new Roland Fantom incorporates a host of pattern and loop-based sequencing tools which expand on some of the functions found in the Korg Triton.
The Korg Karma still looks like the leader in terms of real-time control of synth parameters. Development continues as Stephen Kay was on hand to demonstrate some features in the upcoming version 2 of the KARMA OS, as well as the software version of KARMA, which he promised would finally ship this April. Stephen Kay would still very much like to visit Berklee to talk about KARMA, and Korg has agreed to fund his trip.
Emu 30th anniversary
Emu celebrated it's 30th anniversary with a revised product line which includes a new, mother-of-all Proteus - Proteus 2500, a new line of keyboards, and a new line of groove products. The XL-7 MP-7 Command Stations were real standouts. Clearly designed for the DJ/live performance market, these solid, well-built boxes offer import and export of SMFs, powerful real-time sequence editing and a host of physical controllers that access the onboard synth engine
Storm
Although Propellerhead's Reason is the clear standard bearer for native synth production studio software, a French product, Arturia Storm is another interesting entry in this field. What sets Storm apart is a slightly different model of sequencing. The individual synth modules contained in the package each have their own pattern based sequencer. The system in Storm can be organized like a series of graphically enhanced drum machines and groove boxes, somewhat like the environment provided in Propellerhead's ReBirth. On first glance, the interface looks pretty basic, clearly aimed at novices. Storm is out on the Mac and PC and was featured on Apple's website as shipping for OSX.
Samplers
If the death knell for hardware sounded anywhere, it was it was for samplers. Although AKAI and Emu had some great new models, the big news was GigaStudio. Their recent acquisition by Tascam only confirmed their major player status, as every soundware developer at the show had product for Giga or was in development. Local developer, Sonic Implants was showing a Giga string library that most certainly will rival anything else on the market. Owner Jennifer Hruska talked about the immense scope of the project, which is slated for an April release. She expressed interest in visiting Berklee in the Fall to talk about her work, giving us an inside look at sound library production.
The value of streaming samples from disk is certainly not lost on other developers. Steinberg released a sampled piano VST instrument developed by Wizoo called The Grand which uses this type of technology. Bitheadz will incorporate sample streaming into Unity 3.0, along with the ability to read Giga formatted files. Although this would appear to give Mac users a window into the Giga world, the unique architecture and MIDI processing capabilities found in GigaStudio will not translate directly to Unity.
Although traditional RAM-based sample playback is available in a range of popular products such as Halion, Sampletank and EXS-24 for Logic, there are some new directions in sampling products on the horizon.
Kontakt from Native Instruments is a softsampler that boasts an extended modulation architecture, somewhat like the semi-modular design found in Absynth, as well as formant processing algorithms. While most manufacturers are focusing on incorporating the traditional functions found in hardware devices, NI is offering an expanded, sample-based synthesis architecture. Kontakt is the first of several unique instruments the company is developing using the tools available in Reaktor. NI hopes to ship Kontakt this Spring and we should definately give it a look.
The development of sample library, front end plug-ins is destined to change how musicians work with samples. One of the headaches in developing sample libraries is that a manufacturer needs to support many of the major hardware platforms to be viable. Although the actual PCM data that makes up a sound library stays the same, the programming involved for devices from different manufacturers, and even for different models within a given product line, represents a substantial commitment. Manufacturers are beginning to develop their own plug-ins that allow users to access and edit their libraries, eliminating the need for hardware or a third part softsampler. The two systems shown at NAMM where BigFish UVI and Spectrasonics' Virtual Instruments. Each of the Spectasonics libraries addresses a particular sound set: Stylus is a library of Hip Hop beats, Trilogy is a collection of bass instruments, while Atmosphere is a pad library. Big Fish debuted the UVI system with nine releases for MOTU's MAS system that focus on orchestral as well as general purpose sounds.
What really became evident at this year's NAMM was that manufacturers have converged on the desktop as a standard for sample-based technologies used in production. In perhaps the most telling sign of the times I've noticed Roland's flagship $3300 VariPhrase sampler being blown-out on the web for as low as $900. Any takers?
DJ Products - What will they think of next?
It's no surprise that DJ products were once again a big part of the show. People still gotta dance. The influence this segment of the music industry has is evident in the features being incorporated into mainstream production products. Manufacturers of all stripes are displaying time-based parameters in BPM, and MIDI clock has returned as a key feature manufacturers are touting. As mentioned above, pattern-based sequencing tools are available in many mass-market synths.
What one doesn't expect to change however, are core DJ technologies. After all, a turntable is a turntable, right? Wrong! In what should get the NAMM 2002 " thinking outside the box" award, turntable manufacturer Stanton has developed a system that uses a form of time code pressed on special disks to control the playback of audio files stored on computer. The Final Scratch system is being used by DJ/Producer Richie Hawtin and a number of others as a new tool for performance. This a clear indication that both artists and manufacturers are really thinking of the turntable as an evolving instrument. New ways of performing with electronic sound are coming from some unexpected places these days.
Computers and Connectivity
Apple
If any hardware at this year's NAMM was wearing well, it was the Macintosh computer. Mac OSX was the big buzz of the show. All weekend, the first question any manufacturer fielded was "when will your app. be on OSX?" Some products are currently shipping, but development is slow on the audio end. Most manufacturers are shooting for product release sometime this Fall. Although core audio and MIDI resources are in place, the actual real-world implementation of pro-audio is still being worked out. On the MIDI end, name manager issues have yet to be resolved on a system level and we probably won't see a standardization of editor librarian/sequencer name subscription services till next year.
A good roundup of Mac OSX news is on the Apple site: NAMM gets friendly with Mac OSX.
The latest releases of Mac hardware provide some interesting new directions. As Apple continues to push the envelope of multimedia authoring for the masses with the new superdrive equipped I-Macs, we are really beginning to see an evolving delivery platform where musicians can author and distribute music and sound combined with picture directly, using a recordable DVD. Desktop post-production is becoming a reality in the video world and musicians will now have a hands-on role in that food chain.
FireWire
Although Yamaha has been showing it for two years running, M-LAN appears
to be dead. No third part manufacturers have shipped any product, and
the prospect of widespread acceptance looks bleak.
FireWire connectivity for audio interfaces looks like the next big thing.
MOTU began shipping a 24/96 audio interface and DigiDesign will announce
a product line once they can figure out how to make this open standard
proprietary.
Apogee announced the AMBus card that allows existing high-end Apogee products to connect directly to a computer using FireWire. Berklee alum Shane Koss talked about future plans to use FireWire as a data bus for dedicated DSP products. Shane will be the East Coast Apogee product rep. and looks forward to getting Apogee products into the hands of Tech Division faculty with special pricing and evaluation units.
Metric Halo was showing their Mobile I/O interface as well as their Channel Strip software. The Mobile I/O has two unique features that make it very appealing for location recording. First, it works as a system with a laptop, and as such gets its power from the Firwire bus. With a battery equipped laptop, one has a complete, mobile 24/96 recording package. The other advantage of this system is that it ships with one of two configurations of onboard DSP (SHARC chips). This provides dedicated DSP to power software plug-ins like Channel Strip, which serves as a high-end, virtual solution for dynamics and EQ in the recording chain. The entire system is compatible with MOTU's MAS system and Channel Strip will function as a ProTools plug-in as well. Metric Halo has expressed interest in visiting Berklee to give us a full demo of their product line.
Networking
Rocket Networks had a low profile at the show. No big public buzz this
year, and although manufacturers are still supporting Rocket, musicians
haven't shown a groundswell of support for the technology. Perhaps the
real market for this will be in distance, online music education.
VST System Link
Steinberg announced a new component to theirVST system. System Link allows multiple computers to be connected so users can network native DSP functions throughout a distributed system. The system is cross-platform and connections are made using a digital interface to an ASIO compatible device. System Link is part of VST and as such, is an open standard. So far, only Steinberg has announced products that support it when it ships this Spring. A good overview can be found in the March 2002 EQ magazine.
Control Surfaces
More and more hardware manufacturers are forming alliances with and supporting software systems. This year three major players in the project studio mixer field shipped products that support software hard disk recording systems. In addition to the many great sonic and operational enhancements in Yamaha's new flagship digital console, the DM2000 functions as a ProTools control surface, offering complete HUI emulation. Tascam's new DM-24 offers this capability as well. Both of these base their control protocol on Mackie's original HUI ProTools control surface.
This year Mackie and EMagic released the Logic Control surface. The integration between software functions and hardware control in this latest generation of controllers is excellent. The product should be a no-brainer as a front end choice for anyone using Logic in a pro production environment. Since this alliance was only announced at last year's NAMM, this product's release represents a remarkably quick devlopment cycle, certainly made possible by capable, committed partners.
Last year Tactix was at NAMM showing a pressure sensitive control surface
that output X, Y and Z parameters. This year MIDIMan was showing a very
cool live performance, production controller called Surface
One. Using it in a system that integrated Reason and Ableton Live,
they demonstrated some interesting new directions in desktop production
systems. The addition of pressure sensitivity to a traditional surface
adds another dimension of expressive control to the traditional mix environment.
Imagine using pressure to control an effect send during and mix or performance,
and you get the picture.
The tactix control surface is also at the heart of Bob Moog's new MiniMoog Voyager.
Other Stuff
As you might well imagine, this is only the tip of the iceberg. This year was a big show. With DigiDesign announcing a completely new hardware system and legions of plug-in manufacturers crawling from every corner, an exhaustive report would be well, exhausting.....
Although most of the major trade publications have roundups of the show, a good ongoing source of information can be found on Harmony Central.
Thanks for reading, and as always, I look forward to your comments.
eMBee
March 6, 2002