iPhone Programming

So, I've started working on my dissertation. Yes, I know i don't even start my final year of university for another 2 months (or something), but i've decided to give it a go anyway. Now, when I started university as an eager fresher on my first day I was excited to be learning all about Music Technology. This excitement continued right up until the moment the words "C++ Programming" appeared on the projector.

Ask any first year student at Bournemouth University studying Music & Audio Technology and they will tell you that programming is the bane of their life. And I felt the same, we all did! Anyway, the end of term rolled around and our first assignment was set. That was when something strange started to happen, We all tentatively started work (Well, I say all... I mean those who didn't leave it till the night before!! You know who you are!! :-) ) and we coded, and googled, and coded, and googled, and daniwebbed, and coded some more, and suddenly I realised that I was actually enjoying myself quite a lot! Turned out that I got a 1st in that programming assignment.

Roll on to the present day, and my head is now full of classes, objects, inheritance, buffers, loops, heap/stack/and pile errors, memory management, garbage collector and all kinds of other programming jargon. And guess what? I've decided to do a programming based dissertation...

Except, it's not just your standard C++ VST Program (which are hard enough), No. I've decided I want to teach myself an entirely new language, on an entirely different platform. As the title of this post would suggest, it's Apples iPhone! And that is why i'm sitting here attempting to start my dissertation.

So far, progress has been made. I have followed instructions and explored enough to create a typical 'Hello World' app. And then used my limitless creativity, to expand the functionality to a 'Goodbye World' app. I know, Brilliant isn't it?

My Very Brilliant Hello World App

Well that's the stage i'm at right now. I have 2 areas to cover for this dissertation; iPhone programming, and core audio. Neither of which I have any knowledge about and both of which i believe use different programming languages, C++ for the core audio, and Objective-C for the iPhone.

Well, I have quite a task ahead of me, so expect to see posts of this nature on the blog for the next year or so. It seems that i'm destined to be an audio programmer, and if I can program for Apple devices then so much the better. I think there is a lot of potential in the iPhone / iPad devices in terms of audio that has yet to be realised.

Anyway, It would appear that i'm rambling now. So to all those non-computery folk I apologise for a very geeky blog post, and to those that are interested: Thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave any comments you may have.

Mac setup for musicians...

This post has been somewhat inspired by a recent post at Mac AppStorm, they called this post "The Ultimate Mac Setup For Musicians". Whilst the post was a good read, and outlines various different pieces of software, one reader pointed out in the comments section that this was essentially all the post was, a list of software. So in continuation of that post, here is a post detailing what you will need to get you started making music on your Mac.

Now, everyone knows that all new macs come with iLife, which includes garageband. Now you can use garage band to make music, but if thats what you're into then this post really isn't for you! Some of you may remember back to last year, when i detailed a comparison between two DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) Protools Vs Cubase. I direct you to this article to decide which of these fits your preference best. Essentially ProTools is best for audio recording, and Cubase is best for MIDI. There will be the hardcore logic fans out there who argue that logic is a contender, but in my personal opinion, logic is simply a 'professional' version of garage band (That's not to say you cant do advanced audio editing with it, I just wouldn't !! ).

Anyway, so you've decided on your weapon of choice (and by weapon, i mean DAW!). The first piece of hardware you will need is an interface (fancy term for sound card). Obviously, if you have decided to choose ProTools, you will either have purchased a Digidesign soundcard (Mbox / 003 Rack / etc as the software comes with the hardware!) or you will have to have gone down the ProTools M-Powered route, which means you require a compatible M-Audio interface. It is worth mentioning here, that Digidesign hardware is very unreliable on both Mac and PC when you try to use the interface for anything other than ProTools, for example iTunes or iLife programs on a Mac tend to cause kernal panics at shutdown.

Regardless, If you have gone down the Cubase or (*ahem* Logic) route, you will need a standard interface. There are literally hundreds of possible choices here, Personally I would recommend anything by Edirol, E-MU, or if your a guitarist then I would particularly recommend anything by Line 6. I would advise going for an external USB or Firewire sound card, as they are portable, and often powered off the USB socket themselves (saves lugging around that hefty power adaptor!). Personally my interface of choice is an Mbox 2 Mini (when running ProTools) and an Edirol UA-25EX (When running cubase and everything else). The Edirol interface is now branded as Cakewalk, and has excellent Mac support!

Now you have to make the most difficult choice of all, You have your DAW, you have your interface. You just need some monitors (for those not in the know, speakers are referred to as monitors in the music industry, as you are 'monitoring' your sound!). Now, you can spend anything from £50, to £50,000 (Maybe a slight exaggeration for home musicians) on monitors, and as with interfaces, there are hundreds available. A few of the choices you have to make are, whether you want active or passive monitors. Active monitors have built in amplifiers, whereas you will need a separate amplifier to power passive monitors. You will need to decide how much power you want, this is measured in Watts and essentially translates into how loud the speakers will be. Remember, studio monitors are all about the quality of the sound, and NOT the loudness. So make sure you take into account the frequency response, Most studio monitors will come with a frequency response from 20Hz - 20Khz, as this is the range of frequencies our ear can pick up. However, it is important to look at the frequency response graph of a speaker, as it is important to have a flat frequency response (this is also true of microphones) as you will be hearing a truer sound, the flatter the line. Below is an example of a good frequency response graph, and a bad frequency response graph.

Below is an example of a flat (Good) frequency response

Whereas Below, is an example of a non-flat (Bad) frequency response

So, Armed with this insider knowledge, My personal recommendations would be to check out cheaper offerings from Alesis, but if you're looking to spend a bit more, then Genelec Monitors are a firm favourite in the industry. Personally, I run Alesis M1 Active MK2 monitors, which can be brought for a fairly reasonable price today. The new version of these monitors is the Alesis M1 Active 520's. A good friend of mine has these monitors, and is more than happy with them!

Right, now you have everything you need to get a good quality sound from your Mac. You need to get sound into your Mac! You can do this in two ways, either record the audio information using a Microphone or a DI-Box, or using MIDI. MIDI stands for (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and esentially all you need to know, is that you can purchase a MIDI keyboard (USB / Firewire / or MIDI ports) plug it into your mac (or interface) and play musical information into the DAW. This can then be picked up by a VSTI (Virtual Studio Technology Instrument) and turned into audio information. For the purposes of this post, i will talk only about MIDI keyboards. Microphone choice is such a vast topic, I will cover this in a future post.

MIDI keyboards come in all shapes and sizes! (Well okay, they don't, they all look like keyboards, but anyway...) You have a number of different choices and options, you can get different sizes. e.g. if you're not a grade 8, classically trained pianist, a 25 key, semi-weighted solution will probably suffice. But midi keyboards are available up to 8 octaves, with fully-weighed keys for the more traditional pianist! I could talk for days about MIDI and the benifits, etc, however right now, i'm going to give you a few suggestions of keyboards. The M-Audio Axiom range is a relatively comprehensive solution, available in 25, or 49 key versions. If you're looking for something a little simpler then the Oxygen range, also by M-Audio should suit you well.

Now, this post just brushes the surface of music creation on a Mac. But the intention was to cover some of the hardware you will require to start producing music at home. I am considering making this a series of posts, covering everything from Microhpones, to Synthesisers, to Outboard Gear, and Virtual Instruments. Well, If you're still reading, then I applaud you, and thank you! If you have any specific questions please don't hesitate to ask in the comments!

Exciting Year for Tech in 2010

We’ve got a lot of stuff to look forward to in 2010! Apples iSlate (or iGuide?!), Chrome for Mac, Google Chrome OS, potentially a new iPhone to mention just a few. I shall endeavour to blog about these things as and when they happen.

For now, i must state that my new years resolution will be 1920 x 1080 and that i shall attempt to update this blog a little more frequently!! University has kind of been taking over (as it probably should) for the last few months, and it looks set to continue this way when i get back to Bournemouth on the 10th! I have a presentation to make 9am on the 11th, so its straight back into it!

Amidst all of this, i have become rather hooked on the xbox 360 i bought a couple of months back! Its incredible, before this I was playing games on a 4/5 year old PC. The difference is incomparable… I now have a Wireless N adaptor for the xbox, just need to get me a gold subscription and i’m away!

Right now, i’m off to work on a uni assignment! Attempting to get sequential playback working in C++ using a class that has no feedback method! Fun times!

Snow Leopard...

Well, I have just upgraded my Mac from Leopard and personally I am loving it! Instead of writing 'another' lengthy review of how i found the installation and the end result, I thought I'd link to a great user review I read earlier today!

http://top.burningfiles.com/apple-snow-leopard-upgrade

This review literally sums up all the points I have to make! Thanks to @Burnspot for taking the time to post this. Whether you have just brought Snow Leopard and want to know what the new features are, or you are wondering if it's worth the effort / money to upgrade, this review will help you!

As a side note I intend to post some of my own thoughts after a few weeks of usage!

Pro Tools vs Cubase

This is a topic I've been meaning to cover for a long time now. So far I have held back because I felt that I was not experienced enough with Pro Tools to make a fair comparison. This is a short post about the differences between two popular pieces of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software; Digidesign's Pro Tools and Steinberg's Cubase. There are many other DAW software for you to choose from, for example Logic Studio (Mac), Audacity (PC + Mac + FREE), Ableton Live (PC + Mac), Garage Band (Mac + Free), and more. All of these systems are good at slightly different things. The reason I have chosen Pro Tools and Cubase is because these are the two most significant systems new music technicians are likely to come across.

Cubase is used quite a lot in the education system, this is because it provides a fairly advanced set of features and will run 'fairly' well on a relatively cheap PC (for smaller recording tasks!). Pro Tools is regarded as the industry standard and is used in most professional studios. A few days ago I discussed the differences between Mac and PC for music technology, well both of these systems can be run on either Mac or PC, however Pro Tools tends to be run mainly on Mac, whilst Cubase tends to be run on a PC.

The interfaces look very similar (Even more so since the Pro Tools 8 Upgrade), as you can see below...

Pro Tools 8 running on a Mac

Cubase 4 running on a PC

In fact the differences can really be summarised in one sentence. Think of Pro Tools as audio recording software with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) built in, and Cubase as a MIDI sequencer with audio recording functions built in. Whilst this may be changing considerably in the near future with the release of Cubase 5, for now Pro Tools certainly is a more comprehensive piece of software for audio recording purposes.

Cubase makes it really easy to plug in a MIDI device, and route it through a VSTI (Virtual Studio Technology Instrument) of your choice to create a MIDI track. It comes pre-installed with many different VSTI's as well as other VST plugins, like reverberation, noise gates, compressors, and more. Pro Tools also comes installed with a multitude of VST plugins however these are almost all focused on manipulating audio files, rather than MIDI input. It is worth noting that there are literally hundreds of VST plugins available from third party companies, ranging from thousands of pounds, to free. An interesting point here is that there tend to be less free plugins for Mac users running Pro Tools, as these plugins tend to be geared towards the professional market and are often of a much higher quality than some of their PC counterparts.

Then comes the issue of cost, and inevitably licensing issues. Cubase requires an external USB dongle to act as a registration key before the software will open. In a similar way Pro Tools will only run when connected to certain sound cards. You can buy sound cards by Digidesign (The company behind Pro Tools) or you can buy a special version of Pro Tools to run on certain M-Audio sound cards. I find Pro Tools is more advanced in this respect because (depending on which sound card you have) it actually uses the sound card to process some of the VST plugins, rather than depending totally on the CPU in the computer.

If you buy a sound card from Digidesign, you get a copy of Pro Tools LE for free. This is all that most home users and students will require. I personally recommend the Digidesign Mbox 2 Mini as it can be brought for around £200 . Cubase comes with its own protection dongle and will run on almost any sound card, a single licence for Steinberg Cubase 4 Essential will cost around £125, but it is worth noting that this is not the most recent edition. You will pay around £320 for Cubase 5, the latest edition of the software. It is up to you to decide whether you really need the latest and greatest features.

Essentially, both these systems perform the same tasks. If you are looking to get into the recording industry, then i suggest you get familiar with Pro Tools. If you are just looking to record a bit of stuff at home and play around with MIDI, then cubase is the way forward.

Spotify the future...

In my last post I talked about the differences between Mac's and PC's on a music technology basis. Now I'd like to talk about a revolutionary new way to distribute music, available for both Mac and PC.

Introducing Spotify, a free Ad based music system. The idea is simple: don't buy music but don't steal it either. Spotify is a totally legal way of listening to any music you want on your computer for free. Spotify has an iTunes like interface as you can see below.

Spotify's main interface

The creators of Spotify have signed deals with all the major record labels, which means pretty much all mainstream music is available. In addition to this, searches for some very obscure music have also been successful. Spotify is available for free, or with several paid options. The only difference is that the free version is Ad supported, and you will get a 10 second advert played for every 6 tracks you play on average. This is how Spotify generates income to pay the royalties and costs to the record labels.

The reason I'm blogging about this, is because as a future music technician my job will rely on the music industry, and at the moment the industry is being torn apart by music piracy. Spotify is the perfect example of where i think music distribution should be going. The industry needs to realise that whilst profits are important, there are modern ways of distributing the content to end users, and these should be used more!

Spotify is similar to last.fm but has the advantage of being a standalone program, so you do not need a browser window open to listen to the music and with Spotify you are able to create playlists of specific tracks, rather than simply based on a certain genre.

An obvious limitation of Spotify is that you must be online to listen to the music, and that you cannot download the tracks to put on your iPod or other portable media player. There are rumours that a Spotify iPhone app is in the works which will allow users to stream music from Spotify on their phone, but as with the recently released Skype iPhone app, it is likely that this will not be allowed to utilise the 3G network.

Spotify started as an invite only service, but now anyone from the United Kingdom can sign up for a free Spotify account. I strongly urge everyone to use this service, because the more people that listen to the adverts, the more money the music industry will get, and as a result maybe they will look at other ways of distributing music, that are cheaper for us as the final consumer.