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This is the a Controllerism special we are calling “The Petting Zoo“. Here is what we got:

• Jazz Mutant Lemur presented by Darren Kramer
• Monome 128 and Launchpad by David Henderson
• DJ Tech Tools MIDI Fighter band Livid DIY by  me.
• Snyderphonics Manta presented by Dawrin Grosse
• Arduinome presented by Mike / Circle Six(wiki link – this is a Aruino chip that works like a Monome)

Following the presentations stick around for some great hands on work with each unit and presenter.  (okay, now you get the petting zoo reference?)

When : February 28, 2010 7pm

Where :  The Walnut Room located at 3131 Walnut Street in Denver.

How Much? Not a single penny – FREE! Just the way we like it!!!

Our evenings sound track is provided by Circle Six via his Ardionome! Next Month Cache Flowe!

But Wait, there’s more…

Our (new) friends at Curious Inventor are so kind they are loaning Ableton Colorado Stribe Duo and Midiator.

The Stribe Duo needs little explanation.  I would sum it up with”pretty lights, crazy control,  and great feed back”.  If Neanderthal don’t cut it go to the site.

Kicking it up a notch – the Midiator converts video game energy into MIDI.  Yeah, that is a PS2 controller. (think of it as Doom to MIDI conversion)

If anyone wants to help present and learn these great pieces form Creative Inventor send me an email at inf [at] abletondenver.com. I would love to hear from you!

How about some photos?o

Darwin Grosse

Darwin Grosse is an artist, producer, media software developer, and the Director of Engineering for Cycling ’74. He is also a prolific writer, having authored more than 120 articles for Recording magazine, several product manuals, and countless product tutorials. Formerly the editor of CreativeSynth.com, he now focuses on bringing his Beginner Mind to music and media production. [credit]

Darwin’s Play site : http://www.20objects.com

Darwin’s Blog :  http://www.darwingrosse.com/

Darren Kramer

Darren Kramer is an Edwards Trombone Performing Artist and Ableton Specialist and is in demand as a freelance trombonist, composer and educator throughout the United States.  Kramer graduated from the University of Miami and moved to NYC where he toured with Matchbox Twenty, Tom Jones, Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.  He has also recorded with such artists as Michael Brecker, Eric Marienthal and Jerry Hey and his original composition “Not Far From Here” was a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.  Kramer is now the President/CEO of his own music company, DKO The Darren Kramer Organization, whose inspiring concerts, educational clinics, five exceptional recordings, and over fifty challenging arrangements (Available Now for small group AND big band!) have helped modernize the trombone and expand its role in contemporary music.  The 2010 DKO CD release is entitled “Beyond The Boneyard” and features an inspiring one man band performance utilizing electric trombone, keyboards and computer loops.  This cutting-edge project is also being presented by Kramer throughout the country as a music software PowerPoint Presentation “Creating Music Using Software and an Electric Trombone!”.

Find Darren at ElectricTrombone.com

David Henderson

[bio pending]

Catch up with David at http://www.dhenderson.com

Mike / Circle Six

[pending]

Take a listen via MySpace.

Curious Inventor

Well, they are not coming here in person, but they will be with us in spirit. Digital spirit that is…

“We’re a few mechanical and electrical engineers from GaTech trying to make it easier to make and sell inventions. We write how-to guides, sell cherry-picked parts and tools, and also manufacture kits…”

Pay them some support here.

DJ Not So Much

Hey, that is me! If I launch my website I will put a bio up.

No forest fires! MEDIA AND PRESS

Those of you who know me will laugh at this post.  The iPad is released.  The announcement is still going on, but I thought I would get a quick post out there in the interest of $34rch 3ng!n3$.

The facts so far (deemed pretty accurate):

• Flash Storage
• 10 hour bat life
• Just under 10″ diag (screen dimension)
• Accelerometer and compass on board
• Uses iPhone OS
• Yes, app store
• 1.5 lb
• 0.5″ thick
• Speaker and Mic

Why is this interesting, what does it have to do with Ableton?

Well, this will make an amazing outsourced screen GUI.  No CPU load, only (QoS absent) wifi communication.  Time to think about isolated private wireless LANs as an external controller.

This will creep into Ableton. Price not declared yet. I will update with more if there is anything interesting.

–Marc

Ableton Denver invites you to join us on November 22, 2009 at the Walnut Room in NoDo (Denver) to go to a special place where Reason flows like wine from the Lake of Ableton.  We will make a quick stop in the land of Rewire and focus on cross program collaboration with a focus on Reason under the control of Ableton.

MEET UP RSVP NOW! Free to all and very helpful resource!!!

James Tobin puts Reason into Ableton.

The evening demonstration and discussion will highlight the power of the Ableton sequencer and the sound engine of Reason working in perfect harmony.

Who is James Tobin? Besides sharing his name with a great American economist he is a premier Ableton guru, Reason ninja, electronic musician, and audio artist.

With old school roots in warehouse parties in and around Chicago James is a consummate vinyl connoisseur (with time spent at Wax Trax here in Denver), established DJ, recording technician for film and audio, and currently enjoying work with Alien Logic providing sound design for game development.

James is weeks away from completion of a masters with Berkley Music after already gaining a specialist certificate in Composition and Production in New Media.

Musically James Tobin is 1/2 of Sound Logic Sound Logic, also known as DJ Radioactive, and the man steering Dorje Records since 2003.

Reason (wiki link) is a powerful product for music production produced by Propellerhead that accepts control from external devices as well as other DAW and similar programs.  Ableton, as many agree, has taken sequencing to a new level with one of the most amazing MIDI sequencers and editors on the market.  With these 2 programs combined you go somewhere special. (enter James)

We have included time for questions and answers from James and a demonstration of the new Novation Launchpad.

Novation formally launched the Launchpad November 4 2009.  That very morning, at  10:05am local time I put one on hold.  As of this writing I still need to pick it up and learn the sucker.  No complaints here! I will do my best to get a grip on the device and provide time for everyone to mess around on this great new device.

There should be quite a bit of shop time after our hour + of talk and demos, so we would love to get everyone trading tips and and cards.

Background information on Reason (wiki link):

Reason 1.0 was released in November 2000.

These modules can be controlled from Reason’s built-in MIDI sequencer or from other sequencing applications such as Ableton

Some Reason contents (wikipedia links):

• Subtractor: a subtractive synthesizer
• Malström: a graintable synthesizer
• Dr Rex: a loop playback device, which slices prerecorded samples into manageable, bitesize units (parallel variant for Ableton warp markers)
• NN-19: a simple sampler, which loads pre-recorded instrumental and vocal sounds
• NN-XT: an advanced sampler, which features the option of tweaking the various modulation, oscillation and filter parameters of a preloaded sample or patch

ReWire is a software protocol, jointly developed by Propellerhead and Steinberg, allowing remote control and data transfer among digital audio editing and related software.

Originally appearing in the ReBirth software synthesizer in 1998, the protocol has since evolved into an industry standard.

MEET UP RSVP NOW!

Media files and press information is located here: http://abletondenver.com/press-kit/2009-11-meetup/

Now with more c.db.sn click http://abletondenver.com/meet-up-this-sunday-now-with-soundtrack/

Week of 19October2009 “Bring the Cold” Edition : The weather is chilling up out there and that means my tube amps and power supplies will turn into heaters instead of the summer sweat lodge.

Events:

Next Meet Up is 22November2009 at the Walnut Room. Watch for the official Post! Put it on your calender right now!

Friday 23Oct2009 at the D-Note [[[http://dnote.us]]] Darren Kramer is live with Live (Ableton). Darren’s site.  Here is a snippet:

“ELECTRIC QUARTET” Latest Release! FEATURING “Electric” Horns and B3 Organ. PERFORMING Original Funk, Jazz & Soul A brand new 4-piece DKO group that primarily features improvisation and the use of high-tech electronics and loops to create innovative sounds and unique textures.

Beta 23Oct2009 : Mochipet @ Beta BPL w Spectre & Ale Fillman – info at Facebook

Via Gear Junkies : At this year’s Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), 365LIVE and Media Satellite present a series of workshops and audiovisual jam sessions, including an introduction to Ableton Max for Live, a fully integrated tool kit for making your own instruments, effects and extensions in Ableton Live 8. More info is available here.

Various

If you are not aware of http://www.remixcomps.com you should be. If you are an infected mushroom fan there is a remix comp going on right now.

2010 Bent festival calling for performers – goto Matrixsynth for information.

Matrix Synth has this link on how to build a synth. I looked over some of this and found it slow moving but interesting. The content is hard to move along without either  getting boring or wooshing by too quick. Why do I mention this? Because there are so many people pushing synthesis with no idea of the roots or principles of synthesis (Did you know that a Hammond organ tone wheel is a mechanical synthesizer or additive synthesis)

What is a vocoder? Here is the answer, vocoded of course.

Visually

Hey! Ableton Tweets has a new (?) site up at http://abletontweets.com!!! and reminds us the Ableton is 10 years old!

There is a video titled “Mickey Mouse Abuse” I placed here.  Well, here is an interview of Kamoni (the artist) on Phuq Radio

Beginning Max Demo (vimeo) “How do you make an application in Max” – Get yourself ready. The Fed’s or duct tape ain’t gonna help you! (Only you can prevent large bears from wearing park ranger hats).

max4live.info Tutorial: Beginning Max from max4live on Vimeo.

Here is Ma x applied to the game of life

m4l.lab.gameoflive from liubo on Vimeo.

Advanced Max for Live – “Live Paths, Objects, and Observers”

Max For Live Paths, Objects, and Observers from max4live on Vimeo.

Editors note on Max for Live: There is going to be a lot of fun out of the box stuff available, but I want to say that we are entering a world of programming with this application. Please send me notes on this topic. I am seeing traditional programming ideas in Max more so than any other software packages. I work in this field and I would love to talk more on the topic where it gets deep.

Official (?) sneak peak of Max:

Max For Live Sneak Peak from max4live on Vimeo.

Circuit Bending for beginners via Matrix Synth.

Hardware :

Flame, uhh. Get ready. Well, first off, these are the cats who make the “Talking Synth” (it uses a vocal processing chip instead of a traditional oscillator – way cool). Well, they have some amazing MIDI gear also. Start here the site is harder to navigate than it should be, but there are some real gems.

Live Block control surface (demo) by Livid. Really good stuff! Info via Syntopia.

Livid Block Control Surface Intro from Livid Instruments on Vimeo.

Is this hardware, hard wear, software, or soft wear? Regardless – This is cool, jump into your own (damn) control surface. . ***Not recommended for anyone with bladder issues***

New midi controller series from M-Audio.  From what I see, this is more like an update of the Oxygen series. I am not too clear on the changes – my use of M-Audio products is almost none. I welcome input or reviews! Send me a message.

Elextro Harmonix has released the Memory Boy “Analog Delay – 550ms of delay time with Chorus and Vibrato” . Fun stuff. These guys have a warm place in my heart.

Tascam, the steady hitters in the audio interface game have dropped another solid unit – the US-2000
the quote:

TASCAM has announced the US-2000, a new one rackspace 16-input audio interface that’s expected to sell for under $500.

Super major FYI here – Touchprone make a bunch of fringe MIDI and similar items. The ebay store – one handy unit is the In line sync start-stop – here is an auction link . This is somethin every MIDI person should know about. There are several companies out there producing, this is but one option for inline start-stops.

Software

Free Alterex VST’s (via Matrix Synth)

Free SPL attacker plugin (via gear Junkies) “SPL celebrates one year of Analog Code and give away one Attacker per computer.” Direct link.

Free Jazz Guitar pack for Knotakt via Synthopia. Pettinhouse has released WarmJazzFREE, a jazz guitar sample library for Kontakt.

Another case of “show your age” – Remember the Korg M1? In our part of town this keyboard was the total “cat’s meow” for live Latino music in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Well, here is a link for a free sample pack via Synthipoa.

Circuit Bent Sounds library via Synthopia here is the quote:

Loopmasters has introduced Circuit Bent Sounds 2, a collection of bastardized electronics, twisted circuits, rewired technology and warped audio.

Pretty cheap and tons of sounds. Check out this page also.

I do not think I posted this – “The Future of Ableton Live” – interesting twist that came via Synthopia:

Online Synthesizer – good job!!!

Personally

Well – I finished my Ableton Rig. This has been going on since February. My goals:

• Fit into a “DJ Coffin” amount of space
• Push Ableton harder than most – but do much of it in the analog / non-digital / out of Ableton world.
• 10 minute set up
• Minimal wires (about 15 connections split evenly between power / USB – Firewire -MIDI / audio)
• Ability to pick up the entire set up and move it on/off stage easily (this gets to be pretty important when playing live)

I have a ton of photos, I will be posting more information soon. This is one of my specialties – I mod gear, cases, controllers, etc and get TIGHT rigs together. My gigging key rig was always a total blast! My Ableton rig is even more killer. Here is a link to a Tumblog I keep regarding audio peripherals and technology. Watch for more links.

Finally – a minor blow to Denver.  I am from NY also and aree with Oliver.  However, there are a bunch of us whoare pushing the envelope.

Gear Junkies published out of the Netherlands (so cool to us American’s right?). The idea for Gearjunkies was born in 2002 by a group of three gear enthusiasts, and in 2003 we went online. This is one of the most outstanding sources for new gear and equipment with a heavy lean on DJ and electronic formats.
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