Ableton Live 8.2.8 released

8.2.8 has just been released.
I hope, especially, that this one doesn’t break anything related to max for live (LiveAPI in particular)
It could give me headache with my tools, in the other case :-/

There is now a feature to help directly support.
The program itself can pop out data to Ableton’s team.
It is provided as an option, which is very nice.

I guess some people could be annoyed by this concept.
Personally, I’m not annoyed but concerned because I don’t want to mix internet/network stuff with pure production stuff.
I’d like to know which kind of data would be popped out.
I’ll dig that

As written there, here are the light changelog:

Bitwig studio … promising!

I heard about them, being myself inside technology but especially in all related to art & technology (as you knew…)

Bitwig studio website is : http://www.bitwig.com

Here is their first video

I read a lot of comments.
People complains, as usual, about the fact it “looks like” Ableton Live, etc.
Probably they forgot about the fact Ableton didn’t creates the “tracks” concept, clips concept etc.

Some people in Bitwig are former Ableton developers.
Some people knows that and they compare.

Of course we WILL compare tools, efficiency etc, but today there is only a teaser.
And it is very short and not very demonstrative (consciously, for sure)

As a music producer/composer/performer, I’d say: I ‘m very interested by new tools.
Indeed, some other  producer/composer/performer (I mean not the one who does that 1 hour very fast after his real day job, I mean people swimming in music everyday, like me) knows each tool can be used in particular cases … including the worst one.
At some point, you don’t even  think this one is the best,  this other one is the worst… you are more in the way where all tools can be used.

Thus, yes, I’m interested.

I just finished 2 live performances revamping, creation, merging, adding work.
I’ll play them on next weekend (basically tomorrow & saturday night @ http://maxuk.wordpress.com)
I really understood in some hard work sessions that while you are creating, some tracks, formerly used only for rhythms, became pads, or even voices tracks. All seemed to melt/fusion in a globality you feel and live as a whole piece of music.
In this kind of sessions, I’m exploring, sampling, resampling virtual machines, testing, merging, deleting, saturating, dithering (only for sound modifications purposes) etc
This is the precise moment where I like to open a tool, to use it in a total different way each time ;  this is exactly the moment where I could use a new tool like bitwig… not making a whole live using it at the first time, but maybe a sequence, a clip, piece of midi automation I could grab and put elsewhere…

I’m particularly interested by some features described on their website:
- multi monitor support
- per note automation
- modular system (does it includes an SDK to push the limits very far?)
- mixer clip launcher vs arranger clip launcher
- jamming over internet & LANs (does it involve servers ?)

The Modular native framework

The Point.
Don’t judge, don’t compare when you only have a piece of video with a duration smaller than 40 seconds.
Don’t think white or black.
Even if you are in love with Ableton Live and only it (it sounds crazy for me to behave like that but I respect totally that), then you may be very interested in using other tools !

And don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter to be a beta tester… I just did it

Why should you use Timeline ?

Recently, Timeline has been launched by Facebook.
I propose you to dig a bit that new tool.
You’d need around 15 minutes to read this article.

Check a snapshot of mine:

WoW.
What is it ?
It was just my profile, seen today.

What is Timeline ?

Timeline is Continue reading »

Real friendly URL tips

This is my tip for you.

I created 3 pages on google+ these days, AS SOON AS it has been available.

My artist page as protofuse has a nice url:

https://plus.google.com/b/106199299743069073706/106199299743069073706/about

My music label’s page as bitsquare records has a nice url:

https://plus.google.com/b/118366445036348228356/118366445036348228356/about

and the page of Design the Media is:

https://plus.google.com/b/108105786459542031618/108105786459542031618/about

Ok.
What ugly URL.
Google WILL support custom names.

But in the meantime, let’s do that:

1) Create a subdomain of your websites with a cute name (gplus is very ok)
2) Create an .htaccess file in the root folder and remove ALL the other files.
3) Edit your .htaccess like that:

RedirectPermanent / https://<your URL>

where <your URL> is the one you have copied/pasted from your url bar in your browser when you are on your page:

In the case of Design the Media :

RedirectPermanent / https://plus.google.com/b/108105786459542031618/108105786459542031618/about

Spread this. Aesthetic URL are so nice.

Check our page:
http://gplus.designthemedia.com

My Google+ report after 2 weeks

I always liked Google.

A lot of people still have completely uninteresting debate about privacy of Google/Search Engines/Privacy of requests etc … on their wall on Facebook, which is very funny considering the Facebook’s data privacy statements.
We ARE tracked, logged.
It is a fact.
But it begins with our credit card, guys.
You can live without one, as you can live without social network, and deeper by the whole humanity.
So please, don’t complaint more about that on social networks!!! It was funny, it is annoying, now

So, I’m on Gmail since the beginning, where the beta circles (circle!) were still very closed.
I have been invited by a friend and obviously, I liked it a lot directly.
Why?
One of the most important stuff was the cloud vision they already had at this time: you don’t need your heavy computer, with your unsafe filesystem & your Thunderbird or, worst, Outlook Client, you don’t have to suck your bandwidth importing your pictures, emails etc… You just go, sign in, read your emails, answer, share and chat with gtalk and you can do that using HTTPS (it means TSL, it means you are safe) even in a cyber-café everywhere. Cellular are the most interesting entry point, btw.
Again, we read a lot of debates about the fact THOSE bad guys would read OUR emails, dissecting our lifes, stealing our codes & phones numbers.
You know what? Those insane debates still happens! And you know what (²) ? Some guys on Facebook debates there (on Facebook website I mean) about that.

Funny.

I have been invited by my friend Drew Meyer on Google+ at the VERY beginning, on july the 1st.

I tested it a lot since 2 weeks!

And I have to write the first 2 weeks report, I LIKE it a lot.

Actually, Google+ is:
- your profile (mine)
- the stream (where you read & post messages)
- the sparks (where you can search something and have a list of results very specific depending of what you post, what your friends post etc)
- the hangout (basically, a video chat up to 10 persons at the same time)
- the circles (you create circles, put people inside with organization purpose)

Google+frees YOUR data
Of course they couldn’t follow another way.
But it is clean!

You can download all your data very easily and it works!

Google+ is minimalistic
I’m very sensitive to aesthetic of things.
A so minimalistic page as Google did is very nice because it is very relaxing for eyes.
And we really need that. We are everytime attacked by a lot of informations, images, pictures, photos, sounds, etc.
I found the Google+ page very quiet & zen.

Google+ can replace my Twitter
One of the first important thing about Google+ is the fact there is no need to create friendships.
You follow someone, put him/her in one of your circle, and after that, you can see each posts he/she makes (considering he/she decided to post for public or … we’ll see that later)

You want to follow me, ok. I don’t have to say yes or no. But I can restrict my post to my circles and if you aren’t in one of them, you’ll never see anything from me… interesting no?
You, We, posters are the masters of our destiny!

It means it reminds me Twitter, but only with the non bi-directionnal behaviour… only that because 140 characters suck!

You can follow someone, but if this one doesn’t follow you, it doesn’t matter.
Btw, he’ll know you have began to follow him/her.

The circles mechanism is VERY nice and powerful and privacy-friendly!

Here is a little schematic.

Basically, when you post, you are constrained (!) to know the destination of your post!
This is amazing, where Facebook hid that, Google+ raised it as a must, a necessary parameter without which you basically CANNOT post.

- You can post for single persons on Google+ or even not on it by typing their email.
- You can post for specific circles or only one which means for ALL contacts in those circles.
- You can post for extended circles which means to ALL circles of your circled contact.
- You can post for public, which means for everyone on Google+

Of course you can combine all. For instance, for this person, this circle.

Noone can know if you added him/her into which circles. All circles are up to you.
You can make a circle for your worst contacts too!

A lot of people, and me, already asked for dynamic circles which would be great!
I’d NEED to have for instance a circle with all the 50 last persons who have began to follow me, or the 20 persons with which I didn’t have any shares since the last 2 weeks etc.

We’ll see.

Some people posted a lot of ideas and I like this kidding

Google+ makes the circle porosity a nice way to meet new friends
You begin to follow someone, this one is notified (if he wants to be notified, of course).
But while he doesn’t add you to one of his/her circle, he’ll never see any posts from you!

It is wrong!
He/she can see them… in a little hole between circled friends & non-circled friends: the Incoming page.

Let’s summarize: I add you, you don’t know me, you’re suspicious, I post, you are not annoyed by my post on your stream … BUT you can see what I’m posting on another page named Incoming.

Nice.
I can now check a bit what you posted before to add you.

Facebook created lists, but it doesn’t work like circle, check that.

Google+ can replace my blog
With all what I said about circles and privacy about posting, I guess I could use it as my official blog.
My “premium” circles would see specific posts, but basic visitors would only read the common mainstream posts.

Magic.

I’m very curious about how Google will integrate Google with Blogger/Blogspot
I guess my blog would have to be on Blogger/Blogspot before to be directly inside Google+

Google+ teaches you the subtle art of mute
You read a nice post from a SO famous/verbose person.
You comment.
1234 persons comment after you… you receive a bunch of notification and more, the post moves up on your stream… you have enough…

Click on “Mute this post”

It is the best tool ever!
You can comment, let a little lead/idea/email/name and just after click on “Mute this post”
You have participated, people can see you, but you are not annoyed!

A lot of other ideas could be written here

Google+ integrates Picasa (and kill Flickr)
This is done.
Flickr is a HUGE machine working so fine.
I have an account since 8 years you know!
I grabbed all and putted ALL in Picasa.
It is cheaper, it is integrated with the whole google ecosystem, it is easy and I can even modify the photo without my hard & heavy toolsuite from Adobe which I own and use btw.

You can tag, comments, shares with some circles (again them)
It is just easy.

You share the same disk space with all other services if you have bought a space at google as I did (20G for very few bucks)

About those annoying change resistive people who yell Google+ copied Facebook
Obviously, it talks about people, list, email, share, pictures, links.
So why didn’t you say my website has copied Facebook too? There are people reading it, commenting it, there are some pictures, links etc.
Stupid remark.
Btw, Google+ could have copied, they are conccurent no? But I think they had really built the idea from the ground up.

No Wall concept on Google+
Indeed, There is no real wall because your stream is what you decide it is AND people cannot see your … stream.

No, you cannot say you’re not the master of what you post & what you see!

I guess FB still is the biggest (750M >> 10M) but it is a matter of time.
Google+ evolves to a nice stuff already. Some features are added each days.
Ergonomy is centered on us, users and not (yet) on ads.
I’m not candid (I’m trying to be the most but) I know they use our link/traffic profiling etc… But they’ll do it nicely and I’m not annoyed by their “job behind the curtains”
Facebook website isn’t built like that, and I was always annoyed by that.
Ergonomy isn’t deeply and nicely made.

Conclusion
I’m happy because we have now the choice.
I guess we’re still some privilegied people to have access to google+
I can still invite (send me your email at julien.bayle@gmail.com & I’ll help you by inviting you)
They decided to open the door end of july I read.

I think we cannot see Facebook as evil & Google as angel
Indeed, they’ll probably put some ads and we don’t know anything about:

-business/artist/organization pages-like part
- API (will it be VERY open which could be nice BUT which could offer to those bastardos from farmville to produce annoying games for monetization which would SPAMMMM our streams)
- Blogger/Blogspot integration
- Gmail integration

By the way, I LOVE GOOGLE!

LIFT 2011, what we made!

Firstly, I have to thank a lot Éric Pringels from marseille2013.org, the VERY official Marseille Capitale Européenne de la Culture OFF because he connected me to the LIFT 2011 and especially to the Tomettes 2013 project by Peter Niebert.
I crossed Nicolas Chapuis too.
I met him this year.
He is a nice interaction designer, teacher and very cool.
We discussed a bit around those embedded systems and especially about the interaction we could have with them!

Me at lift2011
 

I met Mathieu Caralp, a future PhD in fundamental computer science research.
He’s just a mega programmer/coder and one of those guru making their own … compilers!
He’s also very cool & nice.

Some words about Tomettes

Each Tomette owns a micro-controller from 18F family (8bits stuff)
Each board (1 tomette = 1 board) owns:

• 6 RGB leds (controlled in the firmware by PWM)
• 6 inputs/outputs for communication with the neighbourood of tomettes

Basically, you can assemble a network of Tomettes.
It is an amazing system which can be considered at many scale: individual knowledge vs collective intelligence

Each micro-controller’s cycle, co-routines are executed.
It is “a kind of” parallelism, and can basically consider like that.Each tomette can write messages on its outputs & can read message from its inputs.
Each tomette can light up or down each RGB Leds and with PWM, they can reproduce 4096 colors I guess (2^12 bits coded)

What we developed
I have been invited to test & develop something I had in mind.
I decided to propose a “kind of” little social network model to use & implement into those smart Tomettes.

It is a very nice system to make model like that because you program/code a firmware for each tomette, and you let the system evolve as a whole organism or population of elements.

We decided to modelize the whole system as a big leds array (not considering really the tomette level)
The only tomette level stuff considered was cell in which one and only one character could be placed.

So, here is the model we made:
each tomette is a cell
we place one and only one person in cell, but the cell can be empty (a person = a led lighted up)
each person as some characteristics (current mood, steerability, mood trend)
mood can be 255 values (0 means very quiet, 128 neutral, 255 very nervous)

firstly, we place some person with random characteristics
secondly, those person send a message from their cell to a random neighbour one,
And then, all messages move till they reach someone (else!)

Depending on steerability, current & mood trend, the person’s mood is altered when a message touches it, and if no message touches it since several processor cycle, the trend drives the person current mood to go to nervous or quiet.

The system isn’t completely finished but works fine
The random functions use a pseudo-random system and it will be improved, for sure!

A big max5 permanent installation supporting Meditteranean Cinema

Design the Media & I have been targeted & approached about a big Max5 installation project for a permanent exhibition.

I made it!

Now, I can name the place/museum.

The Museum is: Musée de la Buzine – Maison des cinématographies de la Méditerranée

It involves:

• 24 systems with OS Windows 7 64bits + 1 server with Windows 2008 server.
• 1 Gigabit Ethernet Network
• 7 touchscreen
• 10 video-projectors
• 20 rfid readers
• 7 arduino boards with 8 buttons + 8 ultrasonic sensors
• 2 multichannel (>4) sound system

I designed the whole system, integrating Continue reading »

Thanks to Ableton & SCV & my new friends

I want to thank a lot Agni & Philippe from SCV Audio company, they hosted us as if we were kings and more: we had sweets inside the Certification Room !!!!
I want to thank Baptiste from Ableton too. I know about his CO² balance this week, but he makes a so great job ; and he knows how to make a screensaver with the clip matrix in session mode. nice geek !!!
and of course, I want to thank all the other persons I met there: Olivier, Sylvain, Ben, Laurent, Bertrand & Lucas (I hope things go better now)

I’m the one with the ableton bag… in order to corrupt the jury of course

Officially certified by Ableton

So, at last, fortunately, I have been certified by Ableton yesterday.

I can now use the precious logo: