AudioMedia - February 2009 - (Page 20)

record Coming Up Next… RICHARD WENTK on the freedom of innovation that the cottage industries of the music biz enjoy. FOR THE Although the big-ticket big-name brands inevitably get most of the attention in audio, elsewhere the industry has always had a made-byhand feel to it. Niche electronics are often designed and assembled by unexpectedly small businesses. The MI industry has – perhaps not so ironically – always been more mass-produced corporate. But that’s been changing over the last year or two, and a new culture of smallscale projects from back bedroom micro-companies is changing what musicians expect from their hardware. Historically, most products have been designed as closed units with fixed functionally. You could attach some jack plugs, and perhaps a MIDI lead or an ADAT Lightpipe, but the inside of the box was marked with a ‘Danger – do not touch’ sticker. But what if products weren’t just open to user input, but were designed with user tinkering in mind? The laptop music market has driven this new market. Laptops are inherently boring to watch – frowning at a blue backlit glow is hardly the last word in sex and sweat, and thigh-popping dance routines aren’t quite staples of the genre. But there’s boring and there’s clinically dull, and some laptop musicians have realised that some basic digital showmanship – even of a cerebral kind – can make a repeat slot more likely. Which is why DIY alternative controllers have been remaking live music into something exotic and alien. Readers of a certain age will be used to hardware that doesn’t morph into something different while you work with it. But the next generation of performers seem mesmerised by minimalist programmable interfaces that are openended and configurable – and also flash and blink in an attractive range of digital pastel shades. Yamaha’s semi-comprehensible Tenori-on – featured recently on Little Boots’ rise to YouTube stardom – is one of the better known and less flexible examples. Elsewhere the Monome (monome.org) offers a grid of buttons and lights which can be persuaded to work however you want – as bargraphs, faders, or even as an animated video game surface. Percussa’s AudioCubes use a combination of colour output and location/rotation sensing to whisper data to each other, and also to send arbitrary messages to software running on a laptop. You can mix with them if you want to, linking channel level to track rotation, and showing levels as dynamic colour changes. But with suitable software the functions can become context dependent, limited only by your imagination and your programming skills. See http://vimeo. com/2260727 for an example of audio cubes and a Monome in action together. A more extreme version of a similar idea is the reacTable – a translucent table backlit with video, controlled with movable ‘tangibles’ which track position and rotation. The prototype has been used to create a modular synthesiser, but there’s no reason it couldn’t control plug-ins. Microsoft has already borrowed the idea with its fingertip-controlled Surface project. New PD Series Location Recorders “But what if products weren’t just open to user input, but were designed with user tinkering in mind?” The advantage cottage industries have over the bigger players is freedom to be innovative. Anyone expecting a virtual finger-controlled DAW to fall out of these projects is probably being unimaginative. The real innovation will come in smart control and automation, making all kinds of editing and mixing jobs easier. For now the technology is easy on the eye and fun to play with – but a decade from now it’s going to be showing a very different picture. RICHARD WENTK is the owner of Skydancer Media, a digital production Audio acquisition that’s as versatile as you are. www.fostex.jp Fostex Company, 3-2-35 Musashino, Akishima, Tokyo, Japan 196-0021 Email: info_sales@fostex.jp company providing sound, image, design and consultancy services to various clients in London and the West Country. Designed from the ground up to excel in ‘real-world’ applications, wherever you happen to be in the world. The new PD606 (8-track) and PD204 (2-track) location recorders both offer spectacular audio quality, flexible recording to 12cm DVD-RAM, hard disc or a combination of both, rock solid timecode implementation, extended battery life, loads of ‘instant access’ knobs, buttons and switches plus a whole battery of interface options. But impressive features are only part of the script. Fostex’s unrivalled pedigree in designing and manufacturing world class location recorders for over 16 years and our unique understanding of the broadcast, film, tv and audio acquisition environments means that these new recorders aren’t just the best PD recorders ever, they’re simply the best professional location recorders available today. SOMETHING TO SAY? If you are an audio professional and have something constructive to say about your field of expertise, or tips for your peers, contact us with your ideas at ftr@audiomedia.com 00 20 A U D I I O M E D II A FN O V E M R Y R2 0 0 9 5 200 AUD O MED A EBRUA BE http://www.monome.org http://vimeo.com/2260727 http://vimeo.com/2260727 http://www.fostex.jp

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AudioMedia - February 2009

AudioMedia - February 2009 Contents Recording News Post News Broadcast News GEO Focus: USA What's Up UK NAMM Review For the Record Project Profile: Hallelujah HHB CDR882 KORG MR-20005 Chandler Germanium Brauner Phanthera Final Cut: Lesbian Vampire Killers SE Electronics RNR1 The Royal Opera House Fairlight XYNERGI Limiting Loudness Product Sampler: Studio Consoles Video Guide AMSR News Stone Temple Pilots Fly Again Rode M2 Yamaha IM8 Series

AudioMedia - February 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.