Livetronica Studio

Here is a simple plugin that checks out the incoming audio and determines what pitch is being played. More specifically, this plugin calculates the Fourier Transform (which is the frequency spectrum) and looks for the greatest peak. The VST version of this plugin also outputs a midi stream indicating the current note it hears.

Juce allows us to create a plugin that works and is easily compilable as an AudioUnit, VST or RTAS plugin, on Mac or PC or Linux. This plugin code is based on the plugin example code in the Juce libraries and should be immediately familiar to any Juce programmer. Juce is the only project dependency.

The plugin itself is downloadable here, and the source code is available on github: download the source from github

Livetronica Studio offers several ways to scratch, and a broad array of effects and parameters not available in other applications like Serato or Torq. Still, one of the coolest things you can do with this new software is to play around with some old school scratch turntablism ala the style of DJ Qbert.

Here I show how to scratch with Livetronica by just setting a couple samples on the turntables. For scratch DJs Livetronica offers control in several new ways; for example, you will notice some of the loops in the video fade with the crossfader as if on a turntable but do not scratch. You can add any element from Livetronica – loops or samples or probability drums) to a turntable but specify whether the audio will use that turntable for mixing/scratching/effects, or any combination.

This way it is possible to have two simple clips scratching, while beats and other audio elements fade and take on the effects of the turntables but do remain steady (don’t scratch). This provides a dynamic background for the artist to scratch over.

This video demonstrates scratching with a midi controller (the Xponent), but Livetronica will very soon be able to use time coded vinyl as well.

You may notice a lot of new business around Livetronica Studio (and a few “under construction” signs).

A quick update to everyone (and thanks for the emails):

1 – Turntable filters – now you can map XY effects like the turntable filters to midi controller with a single touch. The filter you see is designed to cover the entire frequency spectrum (20Hz-20kHZ), and allow the musician to simply touch the pad and apply a filter to either (or both) turntable(s).

2 – Library – Livetronica Studio now remembers recent projects / turntables / beats and places them all on the right hand side of the screen. Drag and drop the items into the views to load them. Additionally, soon you will be able to browse projects online (and share you’re own).

3 - Effects – Available VST/AU plugins are listed on in the library and can now be dragged onto most components, even other plugins (so you can add reverb to a VST piano, or drop a distortion effect onto a loop or turntable).

As a real time instrument, it is important to be able to customize FlyLoops control to allow you to set up midi control and keyboard shortcuts quickly and easily. Just completed for the new FlyLoops release is a versatile system for mapping virtually every command at the click of a button.

Just right click (or CTRL-click) on any FlyLoops button, knob or slider and you get a dropdown menu with a list of the currently mapped commands and the ability to change them.

All the parameters of the Beat Splicer are now midi learnable, so you can easily tweak your beats as you play.

The same is true of the visualization suite. All the parameters can be mapped quickly and easily to midi control surfaces so you can control the waveforms in real time. Or map the FlyLoops drums and turn any midi surface into a drumset.

In midi learn mode, you can see what items have been mapped, and what other items can be mapped.

Livetronica Studio just got a brand new drumset (complete with its own drummer). No really, every drum can now be easily programmed to play very precise beats, with as much or little variation as you desire. Start out by dragging the mouse across the probability matrix on the drum – altering the chance that the drum plays at a given point within the measure. Not satisfied? How about adding a little swing, subdividing beats into triplets, or four or five subdivisions/beat. Maybe change the clustering (causing drum hits to clump together). Now drop the overall chance adjust and get a sparse rhythm that comes in as quick bursts.

It’s all possible with Livetronica Studio, and whats more, it’s all very easy! Take a look at the new video.

Just a sneak peak at one of the newest features being developed for FlyLoops. The screenshot below shows the prototype for a type of equalizer that lets you draw your own filter envelope. The filter variables are mappable to Midi commands, or controllable with the mouse, allowing users to change the way loops are EQ’ed in real time, using just one or multiple nodes so that you can choose to drop the middle tones but ramp up the high pitches and maybe just the lowest of the low notes – or grab a thin band of frequencies in the middle of the spectrum and let just those few notes bleed through each time the loop comes around. Special thanks to Gopal E for his help on this project.

FlyLoops can now load VST and AudioUnit plugin effects and instruments. What does that mean? Three things: 1) Guitar Amps/Effects. Live signals can be processed through audio plugins that act as guitar amps, or effects.  Thousands of guitar amps have already been modeled as plugin.  You can now add these to FlyLoops input channels just as if connecting a guitar amp at home.  Best of all, there are plenty of free amps and effects out there, see links below. 2) Turntable effects. You can now apply plugin effects, of which there are millions … free ….. to the FlyLoops turntables. This makes FlyLoops one of two programs to allow effects on turntables (Torq is the other), and the ONLY one that lets you record loops to turntables, freq shift to 64x normal speed, and quantize bpm and freq shifting. 3) FlyLoops now acts as a synth/sampler that loads plugin virtual instruments and will record them as loops along with the other inputs. There are a wide variety of free instruments available on the web (special thanks to 4Front technologies, for allowing me to repackage their piano and bass plugins to include with FlyLoops). Some links to free VSTs: www.kvraudio.com – Audio plugin news and links, a massive site with all sorts of new VST releases (free and commercial). www.vstplanet.com – another great VST list, also very large and searchable for many types of VST effects and instruments.

FlyLoops v 3.0 is now available for Mac OSX. The new Mac OSX Release (v3.0) is now available (free, with all live functionality and no time restriction, but no file saving capability). FlyLoops is the simplest to use and most complete looper available, doing everything the classic hardware looper devices could (rec/stack/overdub/multiply/A->B side),  but allowing for greater live control of individual loops tracks (freq shift/tempo shift/effects/VST plugs/pan/vol), and giving the user new options (place loops on a virtual turntable console and start scratching, splice beats live using quantization to make electronica style beats, sync live to midi clocks).