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	<title>EMUSIC-L &#187; software</title>
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	<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l</link>
	<description>electronic music and other vaguely-related topics</description>
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		<title>Freeware music tools for OS X</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/05/02/freeware-music-tools-for-os-x/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/05/02/freeware-music-tools-for-os-x/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2008 22:13:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/?p=89</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160;I happened across Ken Restivo&#8217;s blog the other day (lots of good &#34;math funk&#34; there in Ogg Vorbis format), and was interested to note that he&#8217;s doing almost everything &#8211; recording, synthesis, mixdown, the works &#8211; on LInux, using free software.
Having listened to the stuff he&#8217;s got there and liking it quite a lot, I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&nbsp;I happened across <a href="http://www.restivo.org/blog/">Ken Restivo</a>&#8217;s blog the other day (lots of good &quot;math funk&quot; there in Ogg Vorbis format), and was interested to note that he&#8217;s doing almost everything &#8211; recording, synthesis, mixdown, the works &#8211; on LInux, using free software.</p>
<p>Having listened to the stuff he&#8217;s got there and liking it quite a lot, I started investigating what I could get or get running on OS X to best take advantage of my now-aging iBook G4.</p>
<ul>
<li>Most of these use Jack to output audio, so <a href="http://jackosx.com">JackOSX</a>&nbsp;is a requirement. I&#8217;ve installed it from a pre-built package.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.hydrogen-music.org/">Hydrogen</a>, a very nice drum machine, is available via MacPorts. Outputs via Jack. Does not build properly. Grrr.</li>
<li>He uses the <a href="http://zhevny.com/specimen/">specimen</a> sampler, which doesn&#8217;t have an OS X port, so I&#8217;ll have to try porting that myself. Outputs via Jack.</li>
<li><a href="http://ardour.org/binary_downloads">Ardour</a>, which comes in a prebuilt OS X version, for audio recording. I&#8217;m trying the new native version of this. Seems fine.</li>
<li>Rosegarden, for MIDI sequencing (should be buildable via MacPorts, but not sure if this is a native app or X11).</li>
<li><a href="http://lilypond.org/web/index">Lilypond</a>, for engraving</li>
<li>There are several more tools he mentions:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nongnu.org/fluid/">fluidsynth</a>, <a href="http://www.sysex.net/phasex/">PHASEX</a>, <a href="http://www.nekosynth.co.uk/wiki/nekostring">nekostring</a>, <a href="http://alsamodular.sourceforge.net/">AMS</a>, <a href="http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/">Jack Rack</a>, <a href="http://www.essej.net/sooperlooper/">SooperLooper</a>, <a href="http://home.jps.net/~musound/whysynth.html">WhySynth</a> (interesting because of its mention of the ESQ-1 as an influence) and <a href="http://http://www.audjoo.com/Helix.html">Helix</a>, all of which I need to investigate in more detail.</li>
<li>I&#8217;ve put links to all this in <a href="http://del.icio.us/pemungkah/synth">my del.icio.us</a>, and will keep updating those as I go along.</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;What I hope to do is put together a reference list of &quot;useful free music software that will run under OS X&quot;. This is all part of my plan to hit Different Skies 2008 with my laptop, a USB controller keyboard, and the necessary gewgaws to connect me to the board (the FIREBOX; a teeny-tiny mixer to allow me to pull myself out of the mix for cueing, and to swap in the headphone output to the board if the FIREBOX cacks on me; and the necessary cables &amp; c.). My aim is something that will fit completely into my carryon luggage so I can just walk in, set up, and be ready to go.</p>
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		<title>Lying users and synth manuals</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/02/15/lying-users-and-synth-manuals/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/02/15/lying-users-and-synth-manuals/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:03:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[essays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/02/15/lying-users-and-synth-manuals/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In &#34;Every User Lies&#34; at the excellent&#160;Coding Horror&#160;blog, Jeff Atwood refers in passing to the&#160;concept of the &#34;active user&#34; &#8211; the person who immediately runs the software without looking at the manual at all.
In my trying out of various softsynths (most notably the WayOutWare&#160;TimewARP 2600&#160;and the GForce&#160;Oddity&#160;and&#160;impOSCar), I&#8217;ve found myself doing that &#8211; firing up [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In &quot;<a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001048.html">Every User Lies</a>&quot; at the excellent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/">Coding Horror</a>&nbsp;blog, Jeff Atwood refers in passing to the&nbsp;concept of the &quot;<a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/activeuserparadox.html">active user</a>&quot; &#8211; the person who immediately runs the software without looking at the manual at all.</p>
<p>In my trying out of various softsynths (most notably the WayOutWare&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wayoutware.com/products.html">TimewARP 2600</a>&nbsp;and the GForce&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gmediamusic.com/gforce/oddity/oddity.html">Oddity</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gforcesoftware.com/ins_imposcar.php">impOSCar</a>), I&#8217;ve found myself doing that &#8211; firing up Garageband, and opening the plugin in a track, then just fiddling with the presets. By this point I know quite well that doing this with an analog synth with a screenful of knobs and sliders is counterproductive, but I caught myself doing it anyway.</p>
<p>So I decided that if I was going to have any kind of a meaningful interaction with the plugins, I was going to have to work through the manuals and see what there was to learn, whether I decided to buy them or not &#8211; and to avoid wasting money on something that didn&#8217;t fit my headspace (and earspace).<span id="more-88"></span> My TimewARP 2600 demo expired last year(and reinstalling/other fiddling about doesn&#8217;t wake it up again &#8211; I suppose I could wipe my OS X install, but that&#8217;s frankly not an option&#8230;), so I&#8217;ve concentrated on the Oddity, since the impOSCar, though swoonily gorgeous soundwise takes too much processing power on my G4. (Click and breakups <span style="font-weight: bold" class="Apple-style-span">bad</span>.)</p>
<p>I was able to find the original&nbsp;Odyssey&nbsp;manuals at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.oldschool-sound.com/">oldschool-sound.com</a>, in addition to the GForce manual for the plugin itself, and I&#8217;ve started reading them through. Both are very good, and a very different experience from, say, the Ensoniq manuals &#8211; and most other contemporary manuals as well. These manuals assume that your goal is to build a framework of understanding before proceeding, so you won&#8217;t be lost in a maze of Too Many Options. I particularly like the advice from the original Odyssey manual which exhorts you to resist the temptation to simply crank all the sliders up. The author obviously had musicians like some I know in mind.</p>
<p>Frankly, in the case of these plugins, it&#8217;s really necessary to understand the signal routings and how everything is connected up if you want to be able to to do anything other than load presets. The original manual for the Odyssey is quite up to the standard of the 2600&#8217;s manual, with its outstanding step-by-step tutorial. (As an aside, any musician who wants to understand who subtractive synthesis really works should spend some time with this manual; as I&#8217;ve said before, even without a 2600 in front of you, it&#8217;s possible to get an amazing amount from this book.)&nbsp;It very carefully builds up from near the end of the signal path, gradually working backward and adding complexity as it goes. Quite a good read as well as being fun to follow along with.</p>
<p>I think that&#8217;s the key thing here: the machines are relatively speaking quite opaque, and unless you have some entertaining way in, you&#8217;re going to find it a bit dull.Then again, after all this, I&#8217;m still not finding the sonorities speaking to me yet &#8211; I think my current musical needs are actually better served by the Moog Modular V &#8230; which, again, needs more CPU than the G4 can give it.</p>
<p>Hmm. It&#8217;s entertaining anyway, and I&#8217;m finally getting to try out the instruments I missed in their first incarnation.</p>
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		<title>The ARP 2600 manual</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/01/19/the-arp-2600-manual/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2008/01/19/the-arp-2600-manual/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resources]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speculation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/?p=76</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Quite some time back, I found a scanned copy of the ARP 2600 User&#8217;s manual. I&#8217;ve always had a soft spot for the 2600, though I could never quite afford one; it&#8217;s always seemed like a great balance as far as analog synths go.In a recent fit of &#8220;my disk is too full&#8221;, I unzipped [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://ibiblio.org/emusic-l/arp2600blue.jpg" alt="blue-face Arp 2600" />Quite some time back, I found a scanned copy of the ARP 2600 User&#8217;s manual. I&#8217;ve always had a soft spot for the 2600, though I could never quite afford one; it&#8217;s always seemed like a great balance as far as analog synths go.In a recent fit of &#8220;my disk is too full&#8221;, I unzipped the file of scans and started reading. It&#8217;s really a very good introduction to the machine and how it works; I&#8217;ve actually started feeling like if I had one in front of me, that I&#8217;d be able to use it effectively.<span id="more-76"></span>An idle thought crossed my mind that it would be amusing to figure out how much an equivalent synth (from analog modules) would cost to put together nowadays; Richard Wentk was kind enough to point out that theÂ <a href="http://www.macbethstudiosystems.com/" title="Macbeth synthesizers">Macbeth M5N</a>Â is pretty much a modern 2600. Quite a drool-worthy box, but still quite pricey at about $6k &#8211; although that&#8217;s roughly $1200 in 1970 dollars; I seem to vaguely recall from the time that the originals sold new for about twice that, so hey, prices have gone down. Up. Sideways.One-scan-per-page was getting hard to read, so I started transcribing it (copying the illustrations inline). At the same time, inspired by the really lovely design choices in this synth, I decided to poke around and see what emulations of the 2600 were out there &#8211; I had remembered seeing them before, but I wasn&#8217;t in an analog place at the time. I found two:Â <a href="http://www.arturia.com/en/arp/arp2600v.php" title="ARP 2600V">Arturia&#8217;s Arp 2600V</a>, andÂ <a href="http://www.wayoutware.com/products.html" title="TimewARP 2600">WayOutWare&#8217;s TimewARP 2600</a>. Perusing the docs (which are really quite good for both products), I found out that the TimewARP 2600 manual is a pretty faithful version of sections 4 and 5 &#8211; the real meat &#8211; of the manual (it&#8217;s even written by the original author!), so my transcription has halted for the moment. I did find it interesting that just the act of transcribing did a lot to put the concepts into my head, even though I wasn&#8217;t particularly studying them.I&#8217;ve played with both some now,Â and I&#8217;m liking the TimewARP 2600 better than the Arturia one: it seems to run better for me, and doesn&#8217;t make weird user interface decisions (I was convinced for quite some time that the Arturia guys had never heard of a scroll bar, until I was told that there&#8217;s a +/- control at the top of the window that expands and contracts it. Note to anyone contemplating their own softsynth: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">never</span>Â just make up your own UI conventions. It makes long-time users of Macs <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">really irritable</span>).Â It <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">feels</span>Â like a 2600, so much so that I remembered vividly the hour or so I was lucky enough to spend with one when I was fifteen, making silly noises. And it&#8217;s certainly cheaper than a real 2600 at less than $200.I had this dream the other night, of a custom MIDI controller that mapped real physical sliders to every slider on the face of the 2600 emulator, and which would look just like a real 2600. Definitely a pipe dream, but hey, those are the best kind.</p>
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		<title>A quick guide to opensource synthesis</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2007/11/05/a-quick-guide-to-opensource-synthesis/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2007/11/05/a-quick-guide-to-opensource-synthesis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:02:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>joemcmahon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[resources]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chuck]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[csound]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[supercollider]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/?p=75</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A quick overview of Pure Data, ChucK, Supercollider, Csound, and several other synthesis languages/tools I haven&#8217;t heard of before. Looks like it would repay some link-mining. [Edited 01/08 ... I forgot the link!]
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A <a href="http://diagrammes-modernes.blogspot.com/2007/08/music-control-languages-specialised.html" title="Diagrammes Modernes overview">quick overview</a> of Pure Data, ChucK, Supercollider, Csound, and several other synthesis languages/tools I haven&#8217;t heard of before. Looks like it would repay some link-mining. [Edited 01/08 ... I forgot the link!]</p>
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		<title>Different Skies 2007 Countdown</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2007/10/12/different-skies-2007-countdown/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2007/10/12/different-skies-2007-countdown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:00:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/?p=63</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And of course I couldn&#8217;t resist the opportunity to write an OS X widget to track time remaining to the start of Different Skies.
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>And of course I couldn&#8217;t resist the opportunity to write an OS X <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/music/differentskies07countdownwidget.html">widget</a> to track time remaining to the start of Different Skies.</p>
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		<title>The Hand That Feeds</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/27/the-hand-that-feeds/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/27/the-hand-that-feeds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2005 22:23:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>joemcmahon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[resources]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[composition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[garageband]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nine inch nails]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www-dev.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/wordpress/?p=49</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[OS X readers: if you haven&#8217;t already done so, pop on over to the Nine Inch Nails website and pick up the GarageBand version of The Hand That Feeds. It&#8217;s a fairly typical track; but for that reason it&#8217;s pretty interesting.
It&#8217;s a great guide to pop song construction. A relatively short track, but with a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>OS X readers: if you haven&#8217;t already done so, pop on over to the Nine Inch Nails website and pick up the GarageBand version of <a href="http://boss.streamos.com/download/interscope/nin/with_teeth/nin_garageband.sit">The Hand That Feeds</a>. It&#8217;s a fairly typical track; but for that reason it&#8217;s pretty interesting.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a great guide to pop song construction. A relatively short track, but with a fair amount of variety. I find it particularly interesting as a study in the careful reuse of riffs and motives.</p>
<p>I have fooled around with the tracks a bit &#8211; nothing major yet &#8211; and I find GarageBand actually very good at its job. I think this track was probably made with the newest version of GB, leading to a number of warnings and error -61 messages while the file is loading, but if you stick to it, it will load fine in GB 1.0.</p>
<p>I may play around with reprocessing some of the sounds to see if I can construct something completely different out of it, just for practice in this medium.</p>
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		<title>Long Now Chimes.app III</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/07/long-now-chimesapp-iii/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/07/long-now-chimesapp-iii/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2005 21:49:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[generative art]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www-dev.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/wordpress/?p=37</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is a first-cut version of the OS X Long Now Chimes application. The user interface still leaves a lot to be desired, but it makes pretty noises and works. Have fun.
I&#8217;ll be working on designing a nice pop-up date setter for later, and better interaction/integration of the interface and the ChucK program.
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://ibiblio.org/emusic-l/LNC.dmg.gz">Here</a> is a first-cut version of the OS X Long Now Chimes application. The user interface still leaves a lot to be desired, but it makes pretty noises and works. Have fun.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll be working on designing a nice pop-up date setter for later, and better interaction/integration of the interface and the ChucK program.</p>
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		<title>Long Now Chimes.app II</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/06/long-now-chimesapp-ii/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/06/long-now-chimesapp-ii/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Apr 2005 21:48:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www-dev.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/wordpress/?p=36</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was able to get in a little more diddling with the application on the train yesterday; it can now successfully generate a peal for a date (still entered by hand right now, yuck) and play it. Command-. stops the playback as one would hope. It would be nice to get a spinner working (other [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was able to get in a little more diddling with the application on the train yesterday; it can now successfully generate a peal for a date (still entered by hand right now, yuck) and play it. Command-. stops the playback as one would hope. It would be nice to get a spinner working (other than the <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2005/03/font_caches">SPOD</a>) but hey, it&#8217;s progress.</p>
<p>Now I focus on interface.</p>
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		<title>GarageBand</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/05/garageband/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/05/garageband/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2005 22:21:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[announcements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www-dev.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/wordpress/?p=48</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Apple has added a new iApp, GarageBand, to iLife &#8216;04. For $49, Mac OS X users can have a decent multi-track recorder and loop compositor. Looks great!
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Apple has <a href="http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/">added</a> a new iApp, GarageBand, to iLife &#8216;04. For $49, Mac OS X users can have a decent multi-track recorder and loop compositor. Looks <em>great</em>!</p>
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		<title>Long Now Chimes.app I</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/05/long-now-chimesapp-i/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/2005/04/05/long-now-chimesapp-i/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2005 21:44:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www-dev.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/wordpress/?p=35</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been working on an OS X application to play the Long Now Chimes. If you&#8217;ve visited the previous link, you&#8217;ve gotten to hear MIDI versions of the chimes.
The MIDI version&#8217;s quite cool, and gives nearly anyone a chance to hear the chimes, but I wanted really chimey chime sounds, and I wanted them to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve been working on an OS X application to play the <a href="http://interglacial.com/d/clock/">Long Now Chimes</a>. If you&#8217;ve visited the previous link, you&#8217;ve gotten to hear MIDI versions of the chimes.</p>
<p>The MIDI version&#8217;s quite cool, and gives nearly anyone a chance to hear the chimes, but I wanted really <em>chimey</em> chime sounds, and I wanted them to be consistent. I decided that I really couldn&#8217;t get what I wanted out of General MIDI &#8211; and even if I could, I couldn&#8217;t depend on it sounding the same on other people&#8217;s machines.</p>
<p>I decided I actually wanted to synthesize the sounds myself, and that <a href="http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/">ChucK</a> was the right vehicle for my purposes. Turns out that ChucK has a nice TubeBell unit generator courtesy of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_Toolkit">Synthesis Toolkit</a>, and this makes a chime sound that works well for my purposes.</p>
<p>I took <a href="http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/doc/examples/rhodey.ck">one of the &#8220;autoplaying&#8221; ChucK sample programs</a>, altered the signal path to move the reverb to the end of the signal chain (just before the <tt>dac</tt> unit), removed the main loop, and changed the note-on method to my liking, renaming it <tt>bell()</tt> and altering it so it takes a Long Now &#8220;bell number&#8221; (from 1 to 10) and synthesizes the appropriate note.</p>
<p>I then wrote an AppleScript Studio program which uses the peal calculation method from the Long Now Chimes CGI application to calculate the bell numbers (combinatorial math in AppleScript is, um, interesting &#8211; and not very fast). It then writes a static header and the necessary calls to <tt>bell()</tt> into a file, and then runs ChucK to synthesize the peal. I&#8217;ve placed a <a href="http://ibiblio.org/emusic-l/listening/members/2011-11-1.mp3">sample peal</a> in the <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/emusic-l/listening/">listening</a> section of this site.</p>
<p>The user interface currently leaves a lot to be desired; there&#8217;s no control over the synthesis, nor can you easily specify a peal length. Currently you have to type in a year-month-day to get the program to synthesize the peal, and there&#8217;s currently no way to stop a peal that&#8217;s underway. All these are solvable problems, but also reasons why I&#8217;m not releasing the program yet.</p>
<p>Stay tuned; I&#8217;ll keep posting progress here, and eventually a link to the program itself.</p>
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