It's The New Style...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Yay! A new module in our simple effect line-up, Freqshift. As the name implies, it is a frequency shifter. Originally coded by Sean Costello (ValhallaDSP) for us, and then extended by Adam, there is a ludicrous amount of functionality in this module. The manual is up at the Audio Damage site so you can read all about the various modes and how they’re accessed.
It will be available next week at Analogue Haven for US$189.00, and at various other retailers the following week.
I’ve also bitten the bullet and made an Audio Damage page at Soundcloud so I can stop putting these modular and plug-in demos on my personal page. Follow that for a continuous stream of bleebles, blurps, and synth cricket sounds.
In further news, I’ve begun porting Phosphor to iOS; we’re going to release several Audiobus-based effects over the next few months, re-contextualizing existing products for the iOS environment, but we thought it best to start with a synth. Since Phosphor is the only synth we have, there you go. This process will no doubt be tedious to my Twitter followers, as I live-tweet Adventures in iOS Programming. But at the end of the day, you’ll have an extended version of Phosphor on your iPad for a couple of bucks, so deal with it.
In any case, if you want to know what the next few days will be like in my house, let me introduce you to a bag with 6500 knobs in it. This takes up a rather alarming amount of space.
20 comments
I love phosphor. Any chance you are going to be 'porting' that one to eurorack?
We've talked about doing an additive oscillator, but the whole product? No. That'd have to be a desktop/stand-alone.
-CR
this module sounds greatt. i'm in.
Freqshift sounds cool, makes me wish I had a eurorack. Do you think you'll make the iOS version of Phosphor compatible with the plug-in, to allow preset transfer between the two? Don't know if it's easily done with the AU/VST preset format, but it would be a nice touch.
An additive oscillator based off the ones in phosphor would be awesome.
This may be a little off topic, something I've been (gently) told off for before, but I'm sure many of the the people reading this blog must have had the same thought i.e. "That Chris Randall seems to get rather a lot done."
In all the discussions about workflow that have taken place here I don't recall so many about actual time management. CR, how carefully do you plan your day? Do you have set times for set activities, or is it more flexible.than that? Do you have different criteria for stuff that might be more practical/business oriented versus things that are "artistic"?
And where do you fit in rebuilding your house?
Seems like the Chris Randall time management workflow strategy is - "No sleep for the wicked"
Well, nominally, I follow the 4:4:4 rule. Four hours for the company, four hours for me-time, and four hours for interfacing with humanity, every day. Since me-time and the company time often conflate, I use it as a soft rule. If I'm close to finishing something, I'd rather spend 20 solid hours getting it done than drag it out for days just to serve an arbitrary time division.
I'll just say this much: the days where I just lay around and read or watch old episodes of Enterprise and Chuck or whatever are few and far between. Generally only once a month. I'm much more comfortable getting _something_ done that furthers either our living situation or my general output every day.
You have to be pretty disciplined to work at home, for yourself, basically. It took me a couple years to get the swing of it. Many people that start a home business end up working 15-hour days 7 days a week and get burnt out. The trick is knowing when to say "when" and knock off for the day. I was very strict about my 4:4:4 rule when I first adopted it (because I felt myself getting burnt) but I've been working at home for nigh-on 15 years now, and I have a good feel for what I need to get accomplished every day, and how to best go about that.
The nice thing is that I have so many outlets that also serve to pay the bills that if I am feeling one thing more than another, it's no hardship to work on that for a while. I'm not very fond of the assembly for these modules, because that's something I have to really sit and do for 6-8 hours a day when I'm doing it, and it doesn't really fit in to the way I like to experience my day. But honestly, it's like 4 days a month, and most people have to go work a shit job for someone else, so it would be really bad form of me to complain. I get to do it in my own home. But the module assembly is a good example of where my own work ethic can bite me in the ass.
It also helps that I only sleep about 6 hours a night. Mainly because it takes me an hour in the morning to get my wits about me, and I like to unwind and just sit and think or read for a couple hours a night. If that sort of behavior chewed in to my actual workday, it would negatively impact shareholder value.
I know that working at home is hard for some people. Adam took several years to really get the feel for when to stop. I'd be interested to hear how others that work for themselves organize their day. While I've found something that works for me, it's probably not for everybody, and it doesn't scale well. For instance, when I had to go sit in iZotope's offices for a week to finish up Rx3, that 9-5 shit got under my skin in the middle of the first day, and by the third, I was ready to murder someone.
-CR
Also, I don't really drink and I don't do drugs. If you sit and think about it, you'd be amazed at how much time you give up in a given week to one or both of those two things. Of course, both of them are the prime escapes from a shit job, so that's understandable. I don't need to escape because I love my job(s).
And to answer the obvious question, I don't recall the origin of the 4:4:4 rule. I read about it in Mother Earth. There was an article about a lady that was famous in those circles for her homestead, and she espoused that particular rule. When I read it, I decided it sounded smart and productive, so I applied it to myself. I wish I could remember the name of the woman; I know she wrote a couple books.
-CR
Mother Earth News?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Earth_News
Let me be the first to say:
HIPPIE.
Axon screams iOS.
@Sean: No, my parents are hippies. Card-carrying. I was born (in the Summer of Love, natch. In Hawaii, double-natch) to someone that has spent time in state prison for large-scale marijuana growing (like, recently) and someone who styles himself a Sufi mystic.
So, you know how kids generally rebel against whatever their parents are? Imagine where that puts me on the scale. Honestly, it's a wonder I vote Democrat.
-CR
I seem to use same 444 system when i work from home. Four hours for day job, four for music/me and four for the family. Extrahours after kid goes to sleep goes for chill out or music. I get paid the same if i work 4 or 8 hours so it's good. In the long run the quality of work output is higher when i work less hours a day.
So, how do these iOS music apps work? Are you targeting folks that would use it on the iPad as their sole production device or is there a way to connect to your DAW running on your main computer and treating the app running on the iPad as an instrument of sorts?
Disclaimer: I'm just diving in some of the softsynths on iOS, I picked up the Korg Polysix and MS-20. While fun to play around with, I haven't figured out how to do anything serious with them (or send patches I make over to the VST counterparts installed on my PC). I haven't shelled out serious money for a DAW like Cubasis ($50 seems rather spendy in iOS land).
4:4:4 sounds like a Jackie Clay thing. She is queen of the sustainability world.
As far as modules go, you know that I'm waiting for a Karplus-Strong module. But, an additive voice would be nice as well.
- William
this looks and sounds great, seems different enough than the few freq shifters(perhaps it's essentially the Valhalla FreqEcho?) I think it should've been called that, the regen seems great! The lack of hi/lo outs seems odd but it doesn't go so low to appreciate that? Being just code why doesn't it go lower? Just curious, i assume it's a limitation. Regardless, looks fantastic.
I gotta try the 4:4:4 rule, when things finally get stable around here. Right now, I am in punctuated equilibrium mode, to borrow one of my favorite terms from evolutionary theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
This translates into a lot of time where I don't get much done, or am doing family or household stuff, punctuated by periods of rapid inspiration and working late into the evening. Trying to maintain this schedule without the use of any drugs is difficult. Caffeine is a crazy drug for me, and I need to avoid it, but it sure helps to push the broom.
@Quiet Ovens: Shifting below zero is the same as shifting up. Anyone that goes "lower" is fooling you. FreqEcho has a delay. Freqshift does not. Regarding the outputs, we only have one on this backplane. Nothing to be done about that. The way Adam did the mix knob, it covers 3 of the 4 possible use-cases, and the fourth one is, while something you might think you need, not something you would actually really use if you had it.
@theoryzero: I couldn't see using the iPad for anything but fun. And obviously, Phosphor as a VSTi is far more useful than Phosphor as an iOS app. It's really just an opportunity for us to make something cool for iOS musicians (and there are a _lot_ of them) and make some extra coin on existing IP, if I may speak in candor about it. You guys all know how I feel, in general, about using iOS devices to actually do real work, and my opinion on the matter hasn't magically changed.
Look at it this way: we _can_ do it, so why not? Free money for an existing product, and some people will find it useful. You don't need it, don't buy it.
-CR
Chris, thanks for the explanation. I wasn't questioning your motivations, but just curious how iOS musicians do work with these apps. I could also see some people picking up the Phosphor app, liking it, and getting the VSTi version as well.
My new RME interface advertises a feature where it can connect to an iPad, but it wasn't in the way I expected. I thought it would let it connect and act as an instrument that I could add to my DAW, but it turns out the interface connects to the iPad to allow for multitrack recording without a computer. The iPad feature was not at all a factor in my purchase, but I was a bit disappointed after I investigated what it really did.
I know for my situation, it would be cool if I could make sounds with the Phosphor iPad app and be able to import them to the VSTi version. These days I do tend to spend more time using my iPad or iPhone than sitting at my computer. It would seem the Korg apps don't support this, not sure if it was something on your radar or not for future Audio Damage apps.
I don't know how complex it would be to do, but Tattoo on an iPad would be chock full of shits and giggles.
Drum machines are very fun on iOS, and also seem to be very popular...
An easy way to transfer presets between the iOS app, and the VST would also be very useful.
Comments are closed on this post.