Audiomulch 2.0 Review

Audiomulch ( Built in Melbourne! ) the ‘interactive music studio’, has long held a near cult status amongst electronic music producers, and upgraded to 2.0 a few months ago ( including a native mac version for the first time ). For those desiring more lateral performance approaches than Ableton Live allows, but without the steep learning curves of Max / MSP, the newly tweaked Audiomulch 2.0 might be just the ticket.

audiomulch
Vat Ist?
The AudioMulch elevator pitch : “Software for real-time sound synthesis, music composition and performance-oriented audio processing.”
Translation: Easy to grasp ( even for a pixel-head ) modular software that focusses on the flow of an audio signal through a range of ‘contraptions’ which are ‘patched’ together in a window with patch cords from the input and output of various contraptions.

Contraptionism?
AudioMulch’s signal processing modules (‘Contraptions’) include:
Signal Generators ( eg drum machine, bassline synth, loop player, arpeggiator etc )
Effects ( eg Reverb, flanger, delay line granulator, ring modulation, pulsar comb filter, 16 channel live sampling looper etc )
Filters ( eg Parametric EQ, resonant comb filter bank, granular filtering, resonant lowpass with pattern triggering etc )
Mixers ( Mono and stereo mixers and gain elements, crossfader, matrix with variable fade times. )
Your  VST  plugins ( AudioMulch supports VST audio effects plugins )

Humming Like A Bird
Key to the ‘feel’ of Audiomulch is the ease at setting up a chain of contraptions for processing your audio. The interface is deliberately kept simply to three areas : A ‘Patch window’ where contraptions can be chained together, a ‘Properties’ window where the details for each contrpation can be viewed or manipulated, and an ‘Automation window’, which allows you to define the way selected parameters change over time. Automation can be applied to the values of knobs, sliders (both single-value sliders and Range Sliders), check boxes and Contraption Presets.

eg start off with a ‘sound out’ contraption, connect a mixer to it, connect a loop player to one channel of the mixer, a bass synth to another, some effects to another and off you go.

Importantly, everything happens in real-time and all of your experiments with signal flow can be heard immediately without any drop in responsiveness. If in doubt of this, understand that this has been the choice of live performance software for every gig in the last 9 years, for that sweaty man who covers his laptop in gladwrap at gigs to avoid sweat pouring onto it ( aye, that’d be Girl Talk ).

Other Features
– MIDI – every knob and slider on the user interface can be controlled with a MIDI controller.
– multichannel input and output, with support for up to 256 channels ( great for live mixing, multichannel speaker arrays )
– Clickable built in help on every contraption ( great for beginners and advanced users alike )
– Metasurface – unique to the mulch, ‘the Metasurface lets you blend smoothly between dozens of parameter settings on a two dimensional plane’, Instead of having to turn one knob at a time with the mouse.’ This can also be automated and looped.

Audiomulch Resources
audiomulch.com
vimeo.com/audiomulch
twitter.com/audiomulch
facebook.com/group.php?gid=5443009226

Requirements :
PC : Windows XP or Vista
Mac : OS x 10.4 or later, Intel processors only.
Cash : $US189 ( with generous unlimited 60 day evaluation option )

Verdict
This’ll be the sweet spot for many producers and manglers of sound, easy to explore and yet offering incredibly lateral and complex audio manipulation and performance possibilities. Double thumbs up.

UPDATE : When asked about whether OSC support would be included at some point, Ross from Audiomulch wrote back :
“In terms of the roadmap OSC support fits into the “possible enhancements” which may (or may not) happen later in 2010 – basically it will depend on what users want the most when I get to that phase. I’m not convinced that OSC is useful without a mapping layer to translate OSC messages (ie a scripting language or some such) so I’m still trying to work out how that would fit in to AudioMulch.”

by Sean Healy, December 8, 2009 1 Comment

Nov Eyeball Snippets

The sun seems to be melting people early in Melbourne, but harsh summers are the new harsh winters, when it comes to bunkering down and learning and making a whole bunch of new stuff. Some pixel making updates then.
playmodes
Software?
Via Spain : Check out the very impressive Playmodes ‘audiovisual sampler machine’ videos at playmodes.com. Built with Open Frameworks, it communicates using OSC with a ‘main logic system’ inside audio software Reaktor. The videos show a really fluid and malleable live capacity with impressive responsiveness. Shout-outs here to: the Pure Data tight AV sycn-ed experiments of Max Neupert ( done remotely too! ) and Austrian Arnold Martin, whose micro-stuttery edits are currently on display @ ACMI. Also worth a look on the Playmodes site, an impressively performed mapping of video to a building. Have gathered a few mapping creation and performance related links, and other live video links here : skynoise.net/video-primer, for a talk given at electrofringe recently.

Via Germany : Yes, MAXForLive is near, which should turbocharge audiovisual performance capabilities, bringing together the custom sophistications of MAX/MSP and MAX’s visual Jitter objects, with the musician grade sequencing capacities of Ableton Live, enabling the easy creation of complex and dynamic audio and visual relationships.

Via Hungary : Animata is open source real-time animation software, was built in Kitchen Budapest . It was especially designed for interactive theatre and projections, and
“… the animation – the movement of the puppets, the changes of the background – is generated in real-time, making continuous interaction possible. This ability also permits that physical sensors, cameras or other environmental variables can be attached to the animation of characters, creating a cartoon reacting to its environment. For example, it is quite simple to create a virtual puppet band reacting to live audio input, or set up a scene of drawn characters controlled by the movement of dancers.”

animata
Via Finland: Thanks to Mansteri / Monsteri, a DJ/VJ, Animata can now be controlled with a quartz composer patch and OSC.

Via Hungary : As well as the free open source VJ software CoGe, the http://coge.lovqc.hu/forum also offers two useful quartz composer plug-ins for real-time compositing. CoGePSBrushes is a free and open-source Quartz Composer plugin, which enables photoshop brushes to be used within a quartz composition. And CoGePSDLayers is another Quartz Composer plugin, which allows separated photoshop layers to be played with inside Quartz. Real-time animation.
Via U.S. : You like to code with Open Frameworks? Thanks to Vade, your OF code can now swim happily within Quartz composer.

Theme from above? Quartz Composer. ( Hello summer tutorials )

Hardware?
Via the UK : DVI mixing comes a step closer, ie a mixer is being developed which will input and output VGA and DVI, and allow you to do what nothing else will: dualhead at 1600×600, triplehead at 1920×480, HD at 1920×1080@60Hz. In other words mixing of the good digital signals being given out by a computer, and to a range of screen possibilities. Toby *spark gives more details on his blog, about future availability and potential developments ( add + multiply blends etc ): The project is one where Toby is connecting a manufacturer with potential buyers ( there’s a form to register interest ), but apparently “The Swedes won’t buy a pig in a sack”, so a video is promised to show the existing DVI mixer in action.
spark-dvimixer

by Sean Healy, November 24, 2009 4 Comments

Peace in The Middle East, Australian Sperm

Tieing together that title of course, is John Safran’s new TV series, ‘Race Relations‘. But first let’s backtrack.

For years, conflict in the Middle East presented itself to me as a shapeshifting, blurry beast – a reminder of ancient times in the contemporary age, but with no easy way of getting a good overview, of understanding of how it had developed. Then a book landed in my lap ( from Exiled Surfer, a video artist of Jewish background ). I was given the book back in 2007, while at a video residency in Istanbul with artificialeyes.tv (they also had a wonderful French/Palestinian programmer / musician), and although the book added depth to my understanding of Middle Eastern conflict, its complex violent history is still no easier to unravel. The Book was ‘The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of The Middle East’, by veteran UK war correspondent, Robert Fisk: 1000+ pages of epic history, colonisation, land grabs, oil politics, ethnic divisions, religious differences, and thirty years of warzone reporting (‘thanks to Dr. Victoria Fontan, who.. with immense scholarly care, archived 328,000 of my documents, notes and dispatches.’). It’s so relentlessly confronting, it makes you wonder how he is still able to stand upright, let alone look humanity in the eye. The book tackles many regions and conflicts within the Middle East, but for Safran’s sake, let’s zoom in.

Palestine And Israel
As nutshelly as we can get : As a geographic area, the definition of Palestine has varied throughout history, but currently covers what is the modern state of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although Palestine does not appear on contemporary political maps, it exists as a State which has been recognised by over 100 countries. Israel was established in 1948, post World War II. More than half a million Palestinians were forced out from where they lived, and many today live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both of which suffer intense Israeli military and economic control. Current conflict continues about whether a one or two state solution is possible, Israeli settlements displacing Palestinians, water, security concerns, and mutual claims to Jerusalem. Good luck with that. John Safran, you may remember, filmed himself as a bespectacled Jew, running naked through the Gaza Strip, for the ABC show, Race Around the World.

Sperm And Tribalism
safran3
John’s latest series ( video of each episode available ) has him pondering ‘whether you should stick with your tribe or escape your tribe?’. It’s part biological science ( a quest to verify his attraction to Eurasians, finds him stealing underwear from Eurasian and “Jewess’ girls, then taking part in a blindfolded sniff test ), and part sociological experiment ( Will he be treated differently at a black speed dating event, a black militant political group meeting, or giving a sermon at a black church – while wearing all over black make-up? ), but mostly it’s that weird hybrid of self-analysis and public prank that he manages so well.

safran5
Continuing his cross-cultural curiosity, he sings a Jewish song to a leader of Palestinian political group Hamas, argues the Jewish community has used the holocaust to brainwash into fear of non-Jewish girls, makes out with a caucasian in Anne Frank‘s attic in Amsterdam ( she became famous for her diaries as a Jew hiding during Nazi occupied Netherlands in WWII), tries to reverse his circumcision, and donates sperm to a Palestinian fertility clinic (using a photograph of Barack Obama to arouse himself), hoping to create a hybrid race called Jelestinians – the creation of which would herald in peace to the Middle East. A Palestinian camera man is also enlisted, to enable John to donate Palestinian sperm to a Jewish sperm bank.
safran4
safran2
The Kid’s Got Balls
Still to come? Stay tuned for the episode where he is crucified (yes, nailed to the cross) in the Philippines.

And Previously :
As part of his series Music Jamboree, John Safran made an all Jew ‘boys band’ music video : Jewtown. Safran also made a pair of ABC Pilot episodes many years ago, which famously never aired because of a segment involving Current Affairs Host Ray Martin (Safran applied A Current Affair’s sensationalised and intrusive reporting style back to it’s boss, who responded aggressively). This clip explains that quite well. Naturally it’s available online, eg : John Safran Cooks You A Mouth-watering Jamaican Stew, and the full pilots are available here and here ( The former being 400mb clips, and the latter being real video streams, which really, I’ve included purely for their hosting URL… found via this disinfo profile of Safran ). There is also talk of the ABC finally relenting and broadcasting some of the pilots in the Australian summer of 09.

safran1
(All pics above, from John Safran’s ‘Racebook’ page.. )

by Sean Healy, November 11, 2009 0 comments

What Are They Up To Now?

Adam Curtis, Cicada, Ubin, Suckafish P Jones.

adam_curtis
It Felt Like A Kiss
Mr.Curtis, you may remember from such documentary flourishes as: The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, The Mayfair Set, Pandora’s Box, The Trap and The Living Dead. Each series it could be said, performs the same trick : pulling back the curtains on the twentieth century to reveal it’s hidden power structures and machinations. Not that this matters one little bit, his edits of the BBC archives are often as exhilarating as they are illuminating. The boy can really stitch things together. And write it seems, via his BBC blog where he’s been outlining some of the projects / research that’s kept him busy since his last series.

Your executive summary :
– Researching for the West’s relationship with Afghanistan.
– Researching for the legacy of European empires in Africa.
– Developing a piece about “the political and cultural ideas that underlie the internet – and the idea that we are all linked in an interconnected web – out of which can come a new form of democracy.”
– Edited a 54 minute film, ‘It Felt Like A Kiss’, with soundtrack composed by Damon Alburn, performed by the Kronos Quartet. This film was shown in a darkened sixth floor of an abandoned building, as part of a Manchester festival. The film ( available on torrent sites ) features Enos the chimp sent to space, Lee Harvey Oswald, Saddam Hussein, Tina Turner and Richard Nixon.
“Imagine walking into a disused building. You find yourself inside a film. It is a ghost story where unexpected forces, veiled by the American Dream, come out from the dark to haunt you…”

Pro Tip: Need to watch BBC iPlayer videos from his blog? ( blocked to those outside the UK )
Use Tor or mgeni.

milk_wood
cicada.tv
Cicada as the trio of Kirsten Bradley, Nick Ritar and Ben Frost, are accomplished at executing technically and artistically compelling audiovisual performances and installations, but have been busy in many directions over recent years. Kirsten and Nick have relocated from Melbourne to near Mudgee to try and go even higher resolution with their work ( and higher biodiversity), setting up the Milkwood Permaculture farm in an appropriately technical and creative fashion. They have the internets out there though, so stay tuned for future projects. Ben has taken his wall of noise to Reykjavik, Iceland. He is not to be confused with the other Australian Ben Frost, the visual artist behind benfrostisdead.com. Neither of them should be mixed up with the other Australian Ben Frost, the Emmy award, London dwelling winning puppeteer.

A Decade of Flashbacks
Oli Chang and Jo Lamont slayed dancefloors back around the start of this century, with a chopped and spliced sound that somehow integrated gamelan, funk and haunted children choir sounds and influences. Today Oli can be found over at : http://soundslikeoli.com, which redirects to a range of soundtracks and ‘cinematic remixes’ he has been working on. This includes an entrant in the dawning audiovisual genre of ‘chicken techno’, and a remix of Empire of the Sun. Jo Lamont was last seen trawling seedy Tokyo laneways for esoteric synthesisers.

suckfish
Cross Continental Data Corruption
Suckafish P Jones has deserted the sunny shores of Brisbane ( you should really check out their fake beach, set inside landscaped gardens, overlooking their unswimmable river), for more jetlag jaunts, and is now based in Barcelona, where he has recently released his swanky ( swampy? ) new Phantasmatica EP ( free download ) on disboot.net. Next Up, Mr.Midnight, due before the end of the year. Fine, fine music!

by Sean Healy, November 4, 2009 0 comments

Valentino Achek Deng In The House

“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”
– Aldous Huxley

Occasionally a book gets under your skin, turns you inside out, renders everything else irrelevant until the last page is reached. ‘What is the what?’ is such a book, a fictionalised autobiography about the life of Valentino Achek Deng, as written by Dave Eggers. It’s a novel based on a true story yes, but as Valentino explains, the book is faithful to the world he perceived as a six year old in Sudan, through to his later immigration to the United States. The significant string of unbelievable events Valentino pushes through, these are true. Eggers added a few connecting stories to join the dots, based on a long series of interviews and historical research, and carved out childhood dialogue in a way that was true to Valentino’s voice. That his experiences happened throughout the 90s and through the early 21st century, makes them simultaneously all the more resonant and incredible.

Backtracking To San Fran
Dave is no stranger to overcoming adversity, his first book, and autobiography, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, documenting his teenage struggles to raise his younger brother after family tragedies. He has gone on however, to write several acclaimed novels and hasn’t stopped : later founding the McSweeney’s Journal ( of regularly published short stories ), and then co-founding 826 Valencia, a non-profit group that gives 1-1 writing tuition to underprivileged children in many stateside cities ( take a few minutes to watch this video about the very cool and unorthodox ways he has gone about this). And of course, there’s more: he also founded Voice of Witness, a non-profit book series that aims to depict human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them. Even with all of the above accomplished though, it must’ve been just as humbling for Dave, as it is for the reader, to encounter Valentino’s story of suffering and resiliance. And by extension, the thousands and tens of thousands of connected stories and lives impacted.

Sudanese History 101
Sudan’s wikipedia page details it’s historic complexity, independence from Britain in 1956, it’s civil wars and internal conflict over Islamic laws, land and oil. Most recently, the Sudanese region of Darfur has seen hundreds of thousands killed. In the book, this history unfolds as seen from the eyes of a six year old, Valentino finding his village being attacked, and scampering away onto a path for survival. Teaming up with other ‘Lost Boys‘, it is a long and heartbreaking path of decades, a palette of incomprehensible horrors whose roots are slowly revealed to the boy as he gets older. That Valentino as a refugee, manages to make it to the United States after all that is incredible. Even more incredible, is that there was further suffering awaiting him there. And even more incredible again? That still he persevered, founded the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, and currently juggles speaking tours of the States, with school building in Sudan.

The Foundation website details its work, includes links to his story and a sample book chapter, and hosts a worthy donate button:
http://valentinoachakdeng.org

Here are a few ideas of how you can help:

# $9 provides one student with a backpack full of school supplies for a year

# $30 provides one student with a full set of textbooks

# $75 provides one laboratory set of science equipment

# $150 provides the school with meals for one week

# $500 provides the school with one energy-efficient laptop computer

# $1,500 builds a teacher’s house at the teacher-training college

# $5,000 pays a teacher’s salary for one year

by Sean Healy, October 30, 2009 2 Comments