randy's Recent Posts

The Sumu 1.1 update is out, bringing MPE support as well as a bunch of bug fixes and enhancements. These include:

• gui: fix scrolling after setting default in popup dials
• gui: fix missing update bug when pasting registration
• osc: fix zipper noise in AM mod index
• AU wrapper: fix Obj-C namespace collisions
• fix UI scale bug with muliple displays of different scales
• allow slower LFO times
• increase LFO popup dials precision
• adjust text position for negative numbers in Dials
• increase pulses ratio dial precision
• fix slow LFO sync
• improve host clock sync
• reset pulses hi scale offsets when adjusting past zero
• fixed issue loading state saved by beta version
• added MIDI learn for dials via popup menu
• added main […] menu with gui and input settings
• gui : added numbers on / off menu
• gui : added scroll normal / reverse menu
• input: added protocol [MIDI / MPE] menu
• input: added MPE bend range [ 0 / 12 / 24 / 48 / 96 ] menu
• input: reduced latency of gate and pitch in patcher
• input: added MPE mode
• input: don't reset voice time in unison mode legato
• partials: add interpolation to time dial

NOTE: we are still working on meeting the latest requirements for Windows code signing. Windows will claim that the Sumu installer may be dangerous and you will need to click "Keep anyway" a few times. We'll update the installer as soon as we can address this.

There are more customers than usual having issues with the Sumu installers in version 1.1.0. These problems fall into two categories so far:

Windows code signing issues. The fix for this is known but I did not want it to hold up the release. Those of you who are comfortable clicking "Keep anyway" can use the new installer without further issues, hopefully. Meanwhile I'm working to get the signing process completed for an update ASAP, hopefully in the next week.

Mac OS validation issues. On older operating systems (10.x), the validator is crashing. I'm working on a fix.

Mac OS install issues: these are less common and could be related to AudioUnits caching. If the plugin is not recognized after install, you can try clearing your AudioUnits cache as described here:
 https://madronalabs.com/topics/8791-how-to-clear-your-audio-unit-cache

Finally, if you need to you can always you can reinstall Sumu 1.0.
See these links for the Sumu 1.0 installers:
MacOS - http://madronalabs.com/media/sumu/Sumu1.0.0.pkg
Windows - http://madronalabs.com/media/sumu/SumuInstaller1.0.0.exe

@aejonel Thanks for the feedback. As the interface matures, hopefully it will annoy you less. Meanwhile, enjoy the sounds.

Thanks for the report. I've added this to the issues list. As soon as I can fix the installer issues with this version I'll try a higher sample rate in Reaper and see if I can reproduce.

Thanks for the update on this. That is super weird. People are having other installer issues, and I'm working to figure out what's going on with those, but I think this may be something unrelated. I won't know until I fix it though, so the info is very helpful.

Glad you have it installed!

The Murder Gal At The Courthouse: Criminal Investigator Proximal/Distal Moonlights As A Brilliant Techno Producer

by Dave Segal

“Drexciya changed my life, changed how I viewed music and my relationship to electronic music—how complex it could be while still being distilled to an essence. It's perfect,” says Jennifer Trezza, aka techno/ambient producer Proximal/Distal in a Zoom interview that took place in August 2025, shortly before her move from Chicago to Seattle.

“I have this super-cringe photo of me, probably taken in 2002, playing some goofy-ass, non-attended show in Atlanta."

In Atlanta in 2002, techno and electro was not a thing. It was all horrible indie rock and handbag house. But there was a tiny group of us into techno and electro, and there's an embarrassing photo of my doing a live show in a boiler suit and ski mask. I stanned those dudes so hard.” Trezza laughs, but the picture she paints of her youthful enthusiasm for the legendary Detroit group is utterly endearing.

If you don't know who Proximal/Distal is, it's understandable. Yes, she has a loaded SoundCloud page, but no official releases, save for tracks on the compilations Basement State & Friends and Sonic Adventurers Consortium Vol. 2 and a remix of Conner Jones' “BruteFarce.” Two Proximal/Distal live performances have been uploaded to YouTube (including her ripping 2019 set at Seattle's Velocity Fest) and she's played live and DJed a bunch with Portland IDM crew Tarantella and at Detroit's Temple Bar. This ostensible lack of productivity is deceptive, though.

Proximal/Distal's low profile stems from a hatred of self-promotion and, as she admits, “I'm really terrible at finishing things. I probably have like 1,500 half-finished songs on my computer, and so many jams. I dunno... once the idea is out, I'm done with it. I wanna do something else. I'm really bad at the follow-through. Which is okay. You can make stuff just because you like the process of making it.”

Another factor hindering Proximal/Distal's music career is the fact that she's moved a lot. Among other places, she's lived in Portland, Seattle, Detroit, London, and Chicago. “Every time you move, you have to tear down and reset everything up. It takes four or five months before everything gets unpacked and you haven't been working and you're miserable. You lose it and you gotta get it back.”

Trezza's day job as a licensed criminal defense investigator is, to understate things, unusual for a musician. She had been working for the Cook County Public Defenders office in Chicago and will take a similar post in King County/Seattle in September. “There's crime everywhere. If you do what I do, you can do the job in any state. My job is really second-hand traumatic. I'm the murder gal at the courthouse I'm assigned to. I work on all the homicides that come through. It's gory work. It's a violent world out there. A lot of my clients have really sad stories, like neglect, poverty, and injustice. It's hard to get that off you at the end of the day.

“I don't like to make art about it, because I just want to separate myself. So I always say that I make music as a response to it. I come home and I want to unwind, so I want something that reminds me that there's beauty in the world, there's art. It's not just people killing each other.”

For Trezza, making music is definitely an escape valve. “I would explode if I didn't do it,” she says, laughing. “I would fucking die. There's really no point in anything else. I derive some satisfaction from my job. It's an important job that matters. I have a lovely dog whom I love. I have wonderful friends and family. But everybody has to have that thing that's the point of their existence. I love music so much. If I don't have time to express myself in that way and I don't have time to noodle and play, I get horrifically depressed. So I have to do it.”

Trezza started making her own music in 2001 after moving back from London, where she'd bought her first synthesizer. “It was this big digital Oberheim that they put out—a big blue keyboard. I think it might have been the OB-12. I remember the hassle of getting it shipped home with me when I brought it back stateside. It was, yeah, I'm gonna learn how to sequence this thing and make music with it.”

Trezza's formative years occurred in the '90s, and her enthusiasm for music accelerated when a friend turned her on to industrial music at a young age. Soon after, she got into punk and then rave music. “Then this goofy thing happened called electroclash. It was so simplistic that I realized, hey, I can do this. You listen to the first Peaches record [The Teaches Of Peaches] and think, hey, that's something I could do. It was a gateway drug to Drexciya and the whole Detroit techno sound. That's really my first love and favorite music. I feel fortunate to have gotten to live in Detroit and get to be in the Motherland.”

Even as an outsider, Trezza was able to slot into the Detroit music scene while she was there, but she does admit that it was “really intimidating, because literally everybody is talented. You go to any bar and there's some nobody kid DJ coming up already club-grade... It's just a musical town and there's so much of it. But people are so nice and accepting. I recently DJed Body Worx at Temple Bar, my friend Dretraxx's night. He's an amazing musician and DJ. There are so many opportunities to play live or DJ. I don't think you're gonna do better in the US, as far as inspiration and the legacy of electronic music. It's still happening all the time, even though people say it's over; it is not.”

You can hear the Detroit techno influence on Proximal/Distal's recordings and live performances, but elements of dark and hard European artists such as Surgeon, Oliver Ho, and Autechre also surface. Then there's “Infinite Raccoon Lives,” a glassily psychedelic, chill techno cut from the Basement State & Friends comp and P/D's peak, “E-girl”—hard-driving, bleepy, and clattering techno with an eerie melody in the background. The 2019 track “Colfax, 4 a.m.” and a 2021 hardware/modular live set from 2021 prove that P/D can excel at melodically advanced techno, as well.

The name of Trezza's newest project, Desdemona Club, was inspired by a dive bar in a Twin Peaks-y area of Oregon, near Astoria. “I got tired of writing techno for a little while and I wanted to do something that was less 4 on the floor, less structured in that sense. [Desdemona Club] is more ambient and experimental. I released one of those tracks on the Tarantella compilation Audioglyphs [find it on Bandcamp].” Tarantella is both a Portland IDM crew and label headed by Sean Millican. Trezza's also done some DJ mixes for the imprint that reflect her excellent taste in weird ambient music.

I wonder if Trezza creates music with a utilitarian goal in mind—like, say, for club DJs or for potential licensing in films? “I don't. I don't even try to anymore. Trying to create for very specific scenarios has been a contributing factor in why I find it hard to finish stuff. Not only am I done with the idea, but then I've got this idea that I'm trying to force into a format.

“I DJ, too, and it's easier to mix in songs that are structured a certain way, right? And, man, I just don't want to write that. [laughs] Sometimes I don't wanna have to stick a drumbeat stem intro on the beginning of stuff. I find it mentally anxiety-making. I don't make myself do that anymore. The beauty of divorcing yourself from the idea that you're going to have some sort of musical career, there's gonna be some expectation for releases, that I can just write whatever I want to.”

Trezza became fascinated with Madrona Labs products after reading an interview with Rrose (aka Seth Horvitz, aka Sutekh, who used to record for Madrona Labs founder Randy Jones' Orac label) in which they said they used ML plug-ins. “I thought, 'woah, what is this? These are fucking cool.' There's some weird, organic VS key plug-in. I love Kaivo. I've probably used Kaivo on everything. It's so organic; it's beautiful. So, that's how I first found out about it.

“Then I played Velocity Fest in Seattle and, oh my god, here's the Madrona Labs guy who made the plug-in I love so much! I fangirled pretty hard. I've come back to them recently, because I'm moving cross country to Seattle, and I knew this was coming for months, I've been packing up my studio. So, I've not been using a lot of my hardware and I've been working a lot in the box. I'm playing a show in Seattle with some friends right when I get there [August 29 at Mountain Bar], and I can't bring a bunch of shit with me. So I was going to use a laptop with a weird MIDI controller setup. I think Kaivo will figure very heavily in the set. There's nothing better, in the box, for weird, dynamic percussive sounds.”

Besides Kaivo, Trezza's Madrona Labs arsenal includes Sumu. She views it as “a way to reuse sounds that I'm either sick of or haven't been able to quite get where I want to. Maybe I can make a partial out of them and give some life to them that they didn't have before.”

As for Trezza's musical agenda for the near future, she says, “I have some songs that are dangerously close to being completed, so I would like to finish them. I have a monthly night in Chicago that I do with some pals... I don't want to call it a goth night, but it's not a techno night. We're just weird freaks who like Throbbing Gristle. [laughs] It's really fun. I'm going to miss it. I want to find someplace where I can DJ at regularly [in Seattle]. It's so nice just to show up with a USB stick and not have to bring half your studio with you.”

This is Clementine.
Desdesmona Club plays August 29, 2025 at the Mountain Room in Seattle.

I plan to be there!

OK, totally heard about poly AT and MPE interaction, that is indeed weird. My intent is to combine mono + poly AT as you are describing Pigments does.

Thanks for the update, I appreciate it and I'm glad to know the issue is fixed. I think you're right about it being a by-product of fixing something else. I worked on bullet-proofing some things having to do with parameters and hoped that a few mystery issues like this would be solved as a result.

heard.

OK, I still have a 10.13 Mac and I have reproduced this. I have an idea about what might be wrong. I had to switch to a new version of the VST3 SDK and it seems likely that it (or the way I’m using it) has stopped older systems from opening the plugin.

I don't have a way to open a VST3 on this computer, but it should be the same fix as the AU issue.

Thanks for the info. It looks like there's some validation issue with older systems. I'm investigating.

yes please email me the validation report!

there are no CPU optimizations. that will be my focus for the next update.

Sorry to hear that. My focus has been on MPE. Hopefully that could be a workaround for you? You need to enable MPE in the INPUT [...] menu now.

I'll look into making sure regular Poly AT works also. There should be less time between updates now that I have the MPE work out of the way.

When you log in here, you should see a menu in the upper right with your first name. (Mine says "Hello, Randy".) In that menu there's an option "My licenses" that takes you to the page with all your licenses.

If something's still not working right, please send email to support@madronalabs.com and we'll figure it out!

Hi and thanks for your question. My guess is, Vutu generated more than 64 partials in the .utu file. When you export a file for use with Sumu you have to look at the "max active" number in the Vutu info display. If this is more than 64, Sumu, will not be able to play the sound and it will be as you describe.

Vutu allows exporting these files so they can be used in other software. It's open-source and I did not want to make it completely Sumu-specific. But, I should enable a warning or some nicer way of preventing this for Sumu users.

In this video, I show using the controls in Vutu to manage the number of partials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crvpsnbLtt0

No worries

Thanks for letting me know. I too have seen the older, JUCE-based plugins (that's Kaivo, Aalto and Virta) get slower over time. Meanwhile of course I've been working on Sumu (and Aaltoverb) and a whole new, GPU-based graphics framework.

I'll see if there is a quick fix for the behavior of the older plugins on newer DAWs. If there's no such quick fix, I'll update them to use the new graphics code. Either way I'll have a fix soon.

Here's a temporary link to the Beta discord (expires Aug 13, 2025):
https://discord.gg/TSzkZ2Ry

Please read #read-me-first and take some time to catch up on the recent conversation when you arrive!

Hi Dylan, thanks for the clear report and your update. I've chased similar issues with the body module and thought they were fixed. It could just be very rare now. If you find it's a specific body type that makes it stop, or anything else that makes it do that again, please let me know.

Thanks for the support! Humorous and otherwise. :-)

I have a release candidate up now, and I'm putting the wheels in motion. Please subscribe to the newsletter for the freshest news!

I understand it seems like a long time for this update, it's been a real battle for me this time. I've had to deal with low-level Windows API stuff, which is not my happy place, and honestly with unrelated life stuff, which I'm not going to vent about here except to say it impacts a one-programmer company a lot more than a big one. I hope we can both enjoy a more regular release schedule soon.

I just posted a release candidate to the beta list, so fingers x'd we will have 1.1 next week.

Thanks for writing in about this. This has been a problem off and on with some versions of Live, and I'm eager to fix it in all the plugins it effects, either by releasing the new versions I have in the works or interim updates to the v.1s. Meanwhile I apologize for the inconvenience.

There's at least one tutorial online— does this help?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUOsGtB0MDY

It sounds like you are doing things right. When Aalto is set to MPE mode, the channel aftertouch should come out of the "after" input to the patcher. Through the patcher, each voice gets its own aftertouch data depending on the channel.

You do need to set "MPE MIDI" explicitly in Aalto using the "Input Protocol" choice in the settings (gear) menu.

Been a long road this time but it's in beta finally!

Sorry I missed this- I've been cleaning up so much spam every day and we're working on a solution for that.

So there are other posts on the forums about how the import is done—I'll be working to make it more obvious in the future. I think you figured it out.

You can clean up and move the files around however you want. On Mac OS, partials are stored in (Your home directory)/Music /Madrona Labs/Sumu/Partials. On Windows, in C:/AppData/Roaming/Madrona Labs/Sumu/Partials. 

Hi Damo,

It's OK to post this here. But, this forum is not very busy. You may have better luck on for example KVR Audio, or on a Reddit synth forum where selling is allowed.

best,
Randy

Hi Chris, thanks for your patience, I didn't see this until now. Kaivo 2.0 will be a paid upgrade, unless you've bought the v1 recently, in which case it will be free. I haven't figured out the details yet.

We have updated all of our software instruments—Aalto, Kaivo, and Virta— to version 1.9.5, bringing native Apple Silicon support for M1 and M2 Macs. The new versions are Universal Binaries, which support both Apple Silicon and Intel processors. Users with Apple Silicon computers should be able to run 30% more voices or more, as compared with the previous versions in Rosetta 2 emulation.

This update is free. Installers contain Universal Binaries for both VST2 and Audio Units V2 versions.

Windows versions are unaffected by this update. Aaltoverb, previously released with Apple Silicon support, is also unaffected.

Adding popups to UI elements that move is going to be a little tricky, but it's not rocket science and I will definitely do it at some point. The popup menu can stay put while the "tail" follows the loop bracket.

I hear that the slow pace of bug fixes can be frustrating. I'm working to improve that this year. One way is by making it easier to deploy my software so that doing so doesn't take me away from other work for too long. (if you are a software person, think CI / CD)

I believe I am very close to shipping a 1.1.0 version of Sumu right now. Please stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.