randy's Recent Posts

Thanks folks!

Thanks Andrew! Nice to see you getting along with the instrument.

I've done a few on YouTube, this one most recently:
Soundplane—Gnossienne

Thanks for the feedback. I have plans to add to the preset system for v.2 and make a sample pack format with export / import functions.

I guess currently you're seeing the influence of my working methods where I tend to make patches as I go. I have not put as much energy into systems for sharing patches as making them on the fly. But I recognize that people out there want to have better ways to share and receive patches, and adding features to Aalto could help with this.

In MPE mode, only the mod output is controlled by the mod cc# dial. The x and y outputs for each voice are fixed to CCs 73 and 74. So you get for each voice an independent cc#74, as required by the MPE spec, and then two additional mod sources: cc73 and one more you can select.

As MPE outputs go in general, any input from the main channel (typically channel 1) will be added to all the voice channels. This goes for mod, x and y.

This setup follows the MPE spec as far as cc74 but the names are a little funny—this is because I set up the Soundplane->Aalto connection over MPE before the MPE spec was really finalized. Now that MPE is settled I may make some changes for compatibility.

Thanks very much for writing. I love hearing that Aalto's design is helping you make your own patches for Linnstrument. Enjoy, and keep in touch!

I think the best solution here would be a "parameter lock" mechanism, already planned. With this feature you could set any parameter to a fixed value that will not change upon loading a preset.

Thanks for the feedback!

That's a good idea to make an MPE or Soundplane specific group of presets. Mostly you can take any existing preset and then patch the y output to something interesting, so I hope you have fun playing with it anyway—please let me know if you have more questions.

Hi Greg,

There's nothing special about the signal from the "y" (or CC74) output as opposed to the other modulation sources you can use in the patcher. You could test this by using a different "mod CC #" in combination with the "mod" output. If you set "mod cc" to 1 for example you could use the modulation wheel on most controllers.

In the case of the sequencer rate, possibly you have host sync on?

In the case of the body, there's only one body and multiple voices, so all of the params except for x and y use the average the voice inputs. In the case of x and y there is one input location per voice, so these work as usual.

Thanks for the feedback. Feel free to use the beta as long as you need—it's fully functional, non-expiring, etc. I'll send out an all-plugins update in a bit.

Welcome! There are a bunch of patches in the Aalto patch thread up above in the Software section. You can copy and paste these using "Paste from clipboard" in the Aalto patch menu.

Thank you so much!

I'm not using Logic much so I don't feel like the best person to provide details, but it's definitely doable. I think there may be a trick with sending the track to a bus and recording that.

I don't know why I just saw this... Josh has moved on to other things but is well AFAIK, maybe he'll chime in.

I just uploaded a beta installer for Aalto MacOS. Please give it a try: http://madronalabs.com/media/aalto/Aalto1.8.4b1.pkg

Sumu is going to be only an instrument, not an effect—so live processing won't be part of the fun. You'll have to import a sound clip and analyze it, like in Kaivo.

Virta does a great job with live formant processing though!

The Soundplane is currently Mac only but I see that changing with the Model B release.

OK thanks for the info, I'll be in touch here about a plugin update.

In the first crash with the VST, you can see at Line 30: Crashed Thread: 5 AudioCalc

So you can scroll down to thread 5, which starts at line 114. The function calls are in order of most to least recent. Each line has the name of the executable module that is running, followed by hopefully the name of the function inside of it. For com.ableton.live you don't usually see function names, just numbers, because the function names have been stripped from the executable.

Roughly speaking, thread 5 tells you that the crash was in the kernel library, called by the C ++ standard library, called by Aalto, called by Ableton Live. My own code is trying to print some debug information, which it shouldn't be doing in a release build for various reasons, one of which being that the string library might allocate memory as we see here. Allocating memory in an audio processing thread is always something to avoid. Even so, it should not be crashing, so I will look to see what is causing the crash before simply removing the debug printing.

This change would be a fundamental one and is not going to happen in a minor update. It is exactly the kind of thing I will be looking at for a major update (Aalto 2).

Sorry you are running into problems. These are new to me. I appreciate the detailed reports.

You seem very on top of the latest from Ableton so you probably heard that Live 10.0.3 had some bad bugs with AU parameter updates. You say you are using 10.0.4, and I think these have been fixed in that version. Just FYI.

The VST crash report does not indicate the JuceVSTWrapper is the problem. It does point to some debugging code of my own. I should be able to post a beta very soon that I hope will fix this.

The AU crash you sent later does not point to Aalto. It looks like purely an issue with Live. If you want to experiment you might try the same track copying operation with a different AU instrument plugin.

Hi, if you give the .kbm file the same name as the .scl file except for the extension, the mapping will load for that scale. Do you have a mapping you are using with the other programs? If so, try loading it using this method and you should get the same results.

If you are not using a mapping, you could try transposing the notes to get the same results.

I'll check out werck3 when I get a minute here.

Ah yes, it only loads them when the plugin starts, good thing to go into the docs. Glad it's working.

Hi Greg, yes I know this works because I've used it in a performance. Maybe check the spelling of the "MIDI Programs" folder?

Yes, yes, I know this feature is not the best. It is just a stand-in that allows the job to be done, until I have time to make a good UI for associating patches with numbers. So far there have always been more critical things to do, and unfortunately it's just me writing the software.

Thanks for the feedback, though. If it's any consolation I have to use it for my own shows as well. I'll definitely change this for Aalto 2, which is the next update or very nearly so.

Because you say "go to the GUI" I guess you are talking about using the controls of your Push here? From the GUI itself the dials snap to the quantized positions. The shift modifier allows a fine adjustment from there.

I should really get a Push 2 and do a run-though thinking about usability in general. It's a nice controller!

Thanks for the feedback. What format are these other plugins in? I'm not sure that VST2 for example supports this concept. I agree it would be a nice usability improvement for formats that support it.

seq_wave is only there to communicate between the interface and the parameter system within Aalto. It shows up automatically as an automatable parameter but is not useful.

Later I added the concept of a non-automatable parameter, but to remove this one would break patches by changing the order of parameters. I could rename it "unused1" or something.

Hi Wolfgang, I'm sorry to hear this bug is still happening after the update. I'll check into it using Reaper.

@brianleu You can still find all the DIY stuff at madronalabs.com/DIY. Feel free to download it all!

Well OK, last in this series anyway. These four instruments make a great kind of group and next I need to do something different. I could put a patcher in the middle of something again, someday. But it will probably look different. Hopefully I'm always learning.

Rastko Lazic is a composer and improviser of electronic music based in Yangon, Myanmar. Through the magic of the internet, by which our shared love of weird devices and ideas about sound transcends time and space, many of his works made their way to Seattle. What's in them? A devotional attention to the basic qualities of sounds both found and generated, it seems, and a purposeful collection of digital and analog devices for focusing it.

In a recent video you posted online, you made a very expressive connection between the Soundplane and a Serge Modular Synthesizer. What are the aspects of the Soundplane that inspired you to use it in this way?

I have been interested in controlling the modular synthesizer with either movement (Serge Modular and the Theremin https://vimeo.com/42150452 and Tuning a Performance https://vimeo.com/86026852 and Tape002 https://vimeo.com/46954260) or touch and pressure (Popcorn https://vimeo.com/31022576) for a long time.

The Soundplane fits perfectly into this exploration. The Soundplane sends information from three dimensions and can do that from multiple touches simultaneously. From the four touches, I use one could take the difference between touched values and use that as a new value. Or any other equation. Like Wiard JAG https://malekkoheavyindustry.com/product/jag/ but with a possibility of 32 inputs. In this way, you get a lot from the touches and movements.
What is most important is that the Soundplane works and feels really well when played. A beautiful instrument.

For the connection between the Soundplane and the Serge I used the Expert Sleepers ES-3 module. For the translation from OSC into CV, I created a custom Max/MSP patch.

You seem to be a big user of modular synthesizers. What is it specifically about modular synthesis you enjoy?

The first thing I loved about the modular synths was the sound or either the vast possibilities to create new and alter existing sounds very fast. I love the way Serge (I have a Serge Modular synth) managed to make so many functions in a very compact space and I love the fact that nothing was forbidden and that with mistakes and chances one came to sounds never thought of or heard before. Many modular synth manufacturers are now expanding on this idea and are involving digital technology as well.

Modulars are great open systems and for the most part, the only limit is one's imagination.

You can hear some of my first recordings with my modular here on “This Room Is Too Small” https://rastko.bandcamp.com/album/this-room-is-too-small and see me playing my synth on my friends boat and on his artificial island (a movie prop he got as a present) in my favorite part of Belgrade, Serbia on the river: Rastko And His Serge https://vimeo.com/19058233

This love for modular begun with me listening to a lot to older electronic music from the late sixties. I bought a lot of old library books about the music and the techniques used and read through every manual for old modular synths I could download. I found out about the Serge modular synth from these books.

I really got obsessed with my Serge in a very good way and it makes me happy. Modulars can give you this childlike happiness of discovery and this is great. I always think about new ways to connect things and wonder what would happen. I love the feedback patches and the sounds coming from them, it is like a living organism. These patches never end to surprise and excite me. This is something I can not find in computer software.

The thing I discovered is that smaller modular systems are much better for performances and playing. At least for me.

I now use more software but I learned a lot from modular and I am creating presets in a similar way I would patch a modular.
Most of the software instruments I now use is inspired by the modular instruments so it is not so hard for me to adapt and understand them. Now I am creating more and more Max/MSP patches to add more control, randomness and the chance to midi that is sent to software instruments.The software instruments maybe do not sound as good as the Serge but they sound different and are sounding better and better. The reason why I do not use the modular so much anymore is that I like the idea of a static instrument in a sense that I separate patching and playing.

With modular I use a long time to patch and then after recording it is gone. In one way this is great but I also like to be able to just switch on the instrument and play it. This is what software is good at. I use them to create the patch in, for instance, Aalto and with a dial, I can come to that sound again and play it. This with live preset switching becomes very powerful.

I started performing and working like this with the wonderful Nord Modular Micro and, here again, I play with a controller but this time, I limited it to knobs and faders: Micro Modular Patches https://vimeo.com/65191738

In addition to modular synthesizers, you also employ Madrona Labs’ Aalto and Kaivo in your compositions. How do Aalto and Kaivo fit into your workflow?

Aalto and Kaivo work really well with the Soundplane. They are a perfect match. Aalto has a great interface and with the constraints, it has it forces the user to think of new ways to create presets and sounds. One can use some elements which are not intended to be used in some conventional software instruments. For instance envelope as a sound source. This is very much the thought of Buchla and Serge.

On the other hand, Kaivo sounds incredibly acoustic and often it is unreal when touching the wood surface of the Soundplane that these gorgeous string sounds come out. It really becomes an acoustic instrument and one forgets the computer and the electronics. Really you could think that these strings are somehow under the wood. Every subtle pressure or rub creates sound. These sounds can be wonderfully weird and abstract.

On these latest recordings, it is mostly Kaivo played live on the Soundplane: Yangon Miniatures: http://rastko.bandcamp.com/album/yangon-miniatures

Your website states that you have been composing music since 1996 for contemporary dance, theater, and television. What are some of your favorite compositions you have done?

Well, maybe the two beginnings are my favorite.

The first one was the soundscape for the Copenhagen Culture City 1996. The composition was performed from the underground toilet under the main square in Copenhagen. They had a joystick and 8 channels of audio I could move on a large array of speakers under the square. The speakers were in the water drains. This was the first time I was doing musique concrete. The first time doing soundscapes as well.

I just came back from studying audio engineering in London and amazingly enough on this whole audio engineering course there was no mention about the history of electronic music and sound. It was all about types of microphones, technique and industry. Now I am much more interested in the history and the art of sound.

The second favorite piece was done for Dalija Acin and her “Handle With Great Care” performance. This composition was important for me as I realized that I have to do what I feel like and not to try to please everybody and follow the rules. We created a long and loud noise piece that we felt is perfect for the choreography. At that time, some colleagues told me it is impossible to do such a thing and that these frequencies can not be used. The performance was a great success and while watching it I was really touched. My sound was just a part of this. Dalija and Ana are great performers.

This is actually a recording of the whole performance but it is hard to understand it from the video as it has to be loud and just being in the audience is different than watching it on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/11601471 What is really funny is that somebody posted the same performance but decided to put on something I assume he or she thinks is real music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRLfjBhK2XM

Much of the music you have shared online shares a unique style of electronic ambiance. What about this style of music speaks to you and what are your creative goals in terms of music composition?

It is a mix of a lot of things I am interested in. I like noise music and I use it subtly almost always. Then I like the self-generating patches and I made a lot of recordings of that. Right now I am interested in minimal music and just enjoy playing and recording simple short structures. Here in Myanmar, I play a lot of gongs and local percussions and now finally I have a possibility to record that properly so that should be on the net soon as well.

All these different sounds I make come from my surroundings and I am very much influenced by the people and the sounds that surround me every day. I am very lucky that I traveled a lot and lived in a lot of places so the sounds and smells from these places influence me and the music I play and record.

Often it is also some events in my life that put me usually in a rather melancholic mood. There is a reason for that and I think this is not so bad actually.

I really do not have any goals. I let the sounds play and I record them, then I like them or not. I try not to edit so much but to record as much as possible live.

I love sound. Melody and sound are for me equal. Sometimes in these sound textures there is a melody hidden, discovering this melody is the beauty.

profile: Josh Leibsohn
photos: Rastko Lazic

Serge Meets Soundplane from Rastko Lazic on Vimeo.