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Thursday, July 05, 2018
by Randy Jones

Artist profile: Kate Simko

Kate Simko can trace her musical journey back to the age of five, when she began studying classical piano and music theory. Throughout her time growing up in the Chicago suburbs, music was a constant creative outlet but never something she considered as a career plan. Then in the early nineties, as a teenager, she found her way to the underground Midwest rave scene in the wild and full flower of its youth and something clicked. Having dance music as an abiding inspiration alongside her classical training led her to center her life more and more around music. She writes: "I was just starting to figure out who I was as an individual, and electronic music opened my mind and passion for life and self-discovery. It was through dancing til dawn at raves that I started absorbing new music and ways of thinking."

[read more]

Kate began DJing on WNUR radio in Chicago in the early 2000’s. In 2002, she studied composition in Santiago, Chile, and recorded her first album Shapes of Summer with Chilean electronic producer Andres Bucci. Since then her catalogue has grown to include releases on a wide variety of labels Kupei Musika, Get Physical, Hello?Repeat, The Vinyl Factory, Leftroom, No.19, Sasha’s Last Night On Earth imprint, and Jamie Jones’ Emerald City.

She now lives in London, having recently completed a Masters in Composition for Film and Orchestra at the Royal College of Music. She works on a broad range of musical pursuits: producing dance music, composing soundtracks, remixing, DJing, and playing live with her group the London Electronic Orchestra. Through all of these her work projects her unique voice, combining classical orchestration with dance music's jack.

When I listen to your work, from earlier tracks on labels like Kupei Musika and Hello? Repeat to your latest work with London Electronic Orchestra, I hear a lot of careful attention to timbre. Instead of the kind of sound that references a certain genre, yours always seem more tailored to the particular composition and not so easily described. Can you talk about your process for coming up with these sounds?

Yes, I imagine the sound I’d like to create, then work towards creating it. Sometimes it’s achieved by an instrument with a lot of effects. For example, I might take an accordion, because it has a slow attack and release, and then add some distortion, a drastic EQ, panning, and delay or other modulation plug-ins to achieve a desired synth sound. I often lean towards “organic” sounding aesthetics, so taking a sound recording and manipulating it works well to have a warmer, less digital sound.

I take it that Aalto is a part of your process somehow. Is there a certain kind of sound or situation you use it for?

Aalto is fantastic for spatial sound design and pads and dense sounds with a sense of movement. Personally, I find myself drawn to Aalto for film scores, and actually am using Kaivo and Virta on a soundtrack right now too.

This film score, a science documentary, is working well with rhythmic synths, and these synths are ideal. They don’t sound too repetitive yet there is a sense of constant movement, which works well against the film.

You've talked about how, in your recent work with London Electronic Orchestra, you are giving what would normally be synthesizer parts to the acoustic performers. Do you end up composing in the same way you would for synths, or have you found a different approach is needed?

In general I compose for orchestral parts in an electronic song in the same way. I usually pull up the section of the orchestra I’d like to use (ex: French Horn for brass, Cello for low strings, etc). and record ideas from the MIDI piano. I don’t focus on the timbre of the orchestral samples, just the melody and rhythm, as I know the sound and orchestral instrument will change.

It many of the LEO pieces it sounds like the band is playing to a master clock. Do you use a click track? Has getting the group to feel right rhythmically been difficult?

The LEO musicians are excellent players with a great sense of rhythm, so they make it seem easy, not difficult! We always record to a click track, but they know they have freedom (especially when it’s a solo line) to express themselves and get back in time to hit the next phrase.

I'm curious about the path that led you from doing solo productions to becoming a bandleader. Is this something you've been trying to move towards for a while?

This was a surprise turn of events for me too! I moved to London in 2012 to get a masters in Composition for Screen (film and orchestra) at the Royal College of Music, and I was at the RCM recording studio (which charged only £20/hour including the engineer and Pro Tools recordings!) as much as possible. I started writing for an amazing harpist, Valeria Kurbatova, and our LEO violinist Kamila Bydlowska, and tried out every orchestral instrument possible. After two years I had a collection of songs which is the core of the debut London Electronic Orchestra album.

Between dance music, film/video work and the live performance you have a lot of irons in the fire. Are there any new projects coming up you'd like to mention?

Yes, it’s a balance between DJing, producing, film scores, and LEO. Right now the most exciting project on my plate is a collaboration with Jamie Jones called ‘Opus 1.’ Jamie and I have released a couple orchestral-electronic tracks together, and we debuted a show with live orchestra in Bogota, Colombia in December 2016. Now we are creating new material and bringing the show to the Barbican in London this November. It will be an expanded LEO full orchestra of 25 players, and Jamie and I on electronics. Hopefully we can take this show on tour next year, including to the states!

0 replies in forums

Monday, April 30, 2018
by Randy Jones

Berlin Bound for Superbooth 2018

I'm doing one last load of laundry, have my boarding pass printed out, passport on the desk where I won't forget it, excited to be headed to Berlin for Superbooth 2018 in a few hours. It's the first public event of its kind I've done in a Madrona Labs capacity for several years, at least. I plan to meet a bunch of my customers, hear some concerts, and do a lot of talking about what's next in the World of Shiny Things that Make Noises.

packing

We already know what the next shiny thing from Madrona Labs will be. The Soundplane-cv is a 12HP Eurorack module that powers the Soundplane and listens to it over USB, and puts out up to four touches as control voltages and gates, for a total of 16 outputs: gate, and assignable x y and z per touch. Brian and I did a big push on this project this month, and we now have finished hardware to poke at and talk about. The Mac still does a much better Soundplane demo, so we won't be demoing the Soundplane-cv, but we are very close to completing it. They will be available this summer.

Now where's my passport?

2 replies in forums

Tuesday, March 27, 2018
by Randy Jones

It's Aalto T-shirts!

Five years ago, I did a small run of Aalto T-shirts. It was fun making them but with all the printing and shipping and paperwork it took up roughly a couple of weeks of my time so I've never done it again... until now!

aalto shirt

The key was finding a US-based fulfillment company called Printful that prints shirts to order. I made a test shirt using their process and I've been wearing it a lot. The charcoal tri-blend fabric is very soft and has a nicely textured look. This detail photo shows it after being machine washed four times, and the colors haven't faded at all. I like that the digital print is not crackly like plastic process shirt inks are and so far, it seems more durable. These are very nice shirts.

aalto shirt, detail

Another big benefit of using Printful is that they print to order in Europe! This means that my European customers can actually get a shirt for an affordable price. Wherever you are located, I hope it will be a pleasure to purchase through them because I'm very protective of your experience when you do anything Madrona Labs-related. So please keep me posted.

tl;dr: simply click the following button to...

Get that sweet Aalto T-shirt!

A form will pop up to enter your size, then a second page lets you select your shipping and payment options. I've set up shipping for North America and Europe. Shipping rates should be as follows: USA: $5 (first shirt) / $1 (each addl.) Canada: $8 / $1. Mexico: $10 / $1. Europe: $9 / $5. If you can't find your country on the form, give me a shout and I'll see if I can add it. Enjoy!

NOTE: The European shipping rates include the VAT of $4 per shirt.

16 replies in forums

Tuesday, December 19, 2017
by Randy Jones

Soundplane version 1.6 update

Another Soundplane software update is available. This release is recommended for all Soundplane owners. It's coming out hot on the heels of the 1.5 version in order to fix a problem that some users were having under Mac OS 10.10.

To keep up with Apple's code-signing recommendations I'm now distributing the application as a signed .dmg file. Just drag the Soundplane app to the Applications shortcut to install in typical Mac fashion.

Finally, latency is also decreased with this version, for the first time since the initial release! I hesitate to throw out precise numbers yet, because latency measurements are hard to do right. Roughly speaking, an underlying isochronous USB layer that added 10–20 milliseconds of latency previously is now down to just a few ms. I'm looking forward to doing some accurate tests. Maybe this will make a cool movie?

For those of you who write computer program and are doing things like compiling Soundplane apps for Linux, the C++ API is now settled down, so that you won't have to keep up with any further changes for a long while. As always the code is available on github: https://github.com/madronalabs/soundplane

Direct link: Soundplane 1.6.0.dmg, 5.9MB

version 1.6 changes:

improved isochronous USB driver: lower latency, allows restart after pausing app
fixed an issue selecting cleanest carriers after "select carriers"
now distributing as signed .dmg
fixed a possible crash on shutdown

Stay tuned for a maintenance update of Aalto, Kaivo and Virta very shortly.

12 replies in forums

Friday, November 03, 2017
by Randy Jones

Soundplane software version 1.5.0 release

I've finished version 1.5.0 of the Soundplane software. This release is recommended for all Soundplane owners. It fixes some possible crashes and has an entirely rewritten touch tracker, almost a year in development. The benefits of this new tracker should be obvious as soon as you play it!

Direct link: Soundplane 1.5.0.zip, 5.9MB

version 1.5 changes:

new touch tracker algorithm:
- consumes much less CPU
- improved latency
- improved pressure sensitivity
- improved pressure uniformity
- improved position accuracy
- allows better tracking into corners
- lengthy normalization step no longer required
- fixed hanging touches
fix Kyma connection
improve selection of lowest-noise carrier set
fix a possible crash when switching zone presets
fixed a window-related crash on shutdown
fixed latency issue when in background for an extended time

In case you missed it, you can see me playing a Satie piece using the new software here:

I'm taking on some "real pieces" in addition to improvising, to feel out what changes will make the next model of Soundplane the best instrument we can make it.

The documentation does not reflect many aspects of the new software yet. Please post in the forums or email me anytime if you have questions.

5 replies in forums

Thursday, August 10, 2017
by Randy Jones

Summer sale 2017

Dear music makers,

In appreciation for your support, we are having a summer sale this year. Use the code MRJACKPOTS on any of the product pages to get 25% off any Madrona Labs plugin. From now through August 20.

photo: @photoboothkt

2 replies in forums

Wednesday, August 09, 2017
by Randy Jones

Kaivo 1.3.3 beta available

I've fixed a few issues and uploaded a new beta version for intrepid Kaivo users: Kaivo1.3.3b1.

This beta is for Mac OS only. I plan to ship the final Mac version as well as the Windows version next week. I'll also update the other plugins with the relevant fixes then.

changes:

bugfix: the sequencer was not retriggering from reset input
bugfix: .kbm mappings were not always using all notes
bugfix: .kbm mappings were not setting reference note properly
fixed a rare condition where the metal string resonator could lock up

If you noticed any changes in how your patches behaved after installing Kaivo 1.3.1, hopefully the sequencer fix will get them back in shape.

17 replies in forums

Friday, July 14, 2017
by Randy Jones

Soundplane 1.5 beta available

For the last few months I've been working on a brand new way of extracting touches from the Soundplane pressure data. I'm very happy to send out the first public demo of that work today, as Soundplane 1.5.0b1.

The new touch tracker algorithm is a fundamentally new approach, and fixes small but annoying inconsistencies that players had to work around with the old one. Some of these showed up as stuck notes, or lingering phantom notes that would follow a touch.

I've been playing my Soundplane a lot while working on this. Now, when the sounds aren't right, I'm finding more often it's a problem with where my fingers are and not the software. So I'm very happy to switch my focus a bit more from algorithm development to practising!

Soft touches are no longer subject to a time-varying rejection filter, and should feel much more stable and less spongy. Positions of touches should be more accurate and consistent. Adjacent touches should maintain their positions better over a range of pressure.

Generally speaking, the new algorithm uses spatial filtering in a lot of places where the old one used temporal filtering. So latency should be much better, and in general it should reflect whatever your fingers are doing right now, which is kinds the point. Read on for details.

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Version 1.5 changes

new touch tracker algorithm
attempted fix for Kyma connection

Installation

I'm sending out this version and any other upcoming betas simply as a compressed file containing the application. You can move it to wherever you currently keep your Soundplane application and run the new one alongside the current one. All data files have the same format, so you can use old zone presets with the new version.

On installing, I recommend that you go to the Expert page of the application and choose "restore defaults." This will set the default parameters for the new tracker and pick carriers.

If you have a carefully made calibration for the old tracker, you may want to back that up. I believe that it will be preserved if you switch to the new version and back, but better safe than sorry. The calibration file is in Library/Application Suppport/Madrona Labs/Soundplane/SoundplaneAppState.txt.

Getting started

This new tracker runs on a new, more robust principle and so a calibration procedure is no longer needed at all. In the future, I may add some form of positional fine tuning to allow for differences between instruments, but for now I think this should perform well without any calibration, and we'll have a more consistent baseline so I can get feedback on how it's working for the beta.

A couple of levels might need to be adjusted, as follows. Run the app and go to the "Touches" page, and pick the "xy" view mode from the view mode menu. If you raise the view scale dial to around 10, you can probably see some gray flickering. This is the sensor background noise. If you touch the surface now, you will see some green pixels, and probably a touch. If you see green pixels when you are not touching the surface, the "lo thresh" dial needs adjustment. To do this, go to the Expert page.

Back on the Touches page the "thresh" dial functions basically as before. The default here is 0.01. If you make this lower, lighter pressure will create touches, but touches will not be as consistent. Please use the default value for now when reporting issues.

Beta testing

Let me know if the new tracker seems like an improvement. If there are some cases where it isn't, the most effective communication to me would be a short written statement about what doesn't work well. I may be seeing the issue too, and already aware of it. After that, screen shots and movies are probably the best way to communicate about issues with tracking.

If you have a Kyma, please get in touch and let me know if this fix solves the connection issue with 1.4. If it does not, I will be sorry, but not too surprised, because I don't have a Kyma for testing. Now that the new tracker is done, and we are in the testing phase for this release, I can work frequently with you to find a fix.

New tracker notes

The new tracker runs in multiple phases, which you can see visualizations of using the various view modes on the Touches page. In short, these are:

raw data: as before, raw Soundplane data
calibrated: data after calibration and spatial smoothing
pings: touch candidates obtained by curvature method
pings horiz: horizontal pings only with pressure graphs
pings vert: vertical pings only with pressure graphs
key states: where a touch may be over each key
raw touches: touch candidates derived from key states
touches: filtered and matched touches
xy: finished touches with position histories, also sensor data

Sustaining touches on adjacent keys should now be possible, with careful playing, as long as the touches are more than a key width apart. In other words,

While single touches can be played very softly, groups of touches may take more pressure.

Touches on the bottom row suffer from positional inaccuracy because the palm of the hand is often close by providing a sink for electrical charge. This is a Soundplane hardware issue, not a tracker thing as such. To see an example, try pushing the lower row keys with a nonconductive pen or pencil instead of a finger. You may see that the positions go more easily to their limits. I have found keeping the bulk of my hand away from the surface, by curling the finger underneath and playing with my nail, to be a useful technique.

Touches never go all the way to the edge of the outer keys. If you think about it, you would have to be poking into the corner with something pointy-shaped in order for the center of a touch to be truly on the edge of the surface. The Soundplane is designed for fingers, which all have some thickness.

Next steps

If you look on the Soundplane issue tracker on Github, you can see the problems I know about or improvements I would like to make. If you have a problem with the software or a feature suggestion that's not on this list, please let me know.

The current state of the software archive is a bit messy, and it's not too clear what versions of libraries to grab to compile your own version. I'll be cleaning things up as I work on the 1.5 release. Meanwhile feel free let me know if you have any questions.

I also look forward to finally updating the manual, now that the software is settling down. I'm having a lot of fun playing now, and I plan to do some more video demonstrations soon.

Finally, all this work sets the stage for the soundplane-to-CV module, and the next model of the Soundplane itself. Stay tuned for developments.

23 replies in forums

Tuesday, March 14, 2017
by Randy Jones

Hooray, it’s a spring all-plugins update!

All of our instrument plugins, (that's Aalto, Kaivo and Virta, for those of you listening at home) have received essential updates. Please download and enjoy.

If for some reason you skipped the previous release or two, note that back in December I rolled out a new registration system. Instead of the old "My downloads," there is now a "My licenses" link where you can get the license keys for all your purchased plugins. Just paste the key into the demo plugin to register it. If you have any questions, I'll be here.

My work the past two months has been on platform compatibility, bug fixes and optimization. The stuck notes in certain hosts including Reaper are no more. Audio glitches that popped up sometimes in Kaivo have been put to rest, I think. CPU use should be around 20% less across the board.

I'm particularly excited about the CPU improvement this time, because there's more on the way. The gains this time came from rewriting parts of madronalib, my DSP library, but the plugins haven't been completely converted to use the new code. When I can do that, there should be another big boost in efficiency.

First, though, the Soundplane app needs some much-awaited love, and I have a shop to put together so I can prototype instruments here again. Stay tuned for gripping wood shop action. Stepper motors! Sawdust!

18 replies in forums

Tuesday, January 03, 2017
by Randy Jones

Aalto 1.8.1, Kaivo 1.3.1, Virta 1.3.1 updates

Hi all, and happy new year. i've just released a .1 update of all three plugins to address some things that were broken in the recent extensive updates. I think of these x.0.1 release as the little cut scene after the credits—now we're all sitting around eating shawarma or whatever and everything makes a bit more sense.

The updates are all on the product pages. I've changed the web site to explain the new license keys a bit better as well.

Aalto

Kaivo

Virta

Soundplane