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Synthesizers.

.. as I unpacked it for the first time from its happy foam box, plugged it into the telly, and proceeded to clik-clik away on its beautiful little chiclet keys. oh, how i love that oric-1, even still today.. trips back home to the family wouldn't be the same without a quick crank of the treasurebox in the attic, a "10 PING; ZAP; SHOOT; EXPLODE; GOTO 10" or two ..

#2: Then, a few years later, the same smell (only much, much, much more intense) when I unpacked my first MIPS Magnum pizzabox, placed it on my desk, watched it boot, and prepared to port my code to it .. oh my, how the raw power of me, professional C programmer, felt that day.

#3: Booting Yggdrasil-Linux on my ol' 386 about 2 years after the Magnum experience ..


#4: booting new hardware i had a small hand in developing for the first time.

Okay, I may admittedly be biased in the debate about custom keyboard hardware but I feel that Optimus is suffering from immediate "don't announce it until you're shipping it"-itis.

As in, they shouldn't have jinxed the hardware by announcing something before they actually were able to sell to customers.

Sure, these things ramp up. Sure, there's a risk of not knowing if you've got customers. Sure, you don't yet have the volume numbers you need to negotiate bulk-LCD purchases in quantities larger than a few hundred, or thousand, or tens-of-thousand, or million..

But heck. Its a great idea we've all had: LCD's in the keycaps. If only it weren't so darned cost-prohibitive to actually deliver the promise.

Turfing for pre-customers == Computer Hardware Business No No, 101. you don't have to have been a 70's child to have noticed it in the 80's, either, I think ..

i concur. the kinds of products i work on have the same constraints: 'tricky DSP code', which, actually, is pretty simple and easy to think with, wrapped up in a huge base of code required to make that simplicity 'easy to use' for the end user.

gah. interface is always gonna be king. lets see if SPIRAL + GUI-RAD is gonna come to fruition any time soon, for DSP work anyway that'd be nice ..

yeah, i'm definitely not gay, and by the end of summer, almost half of Typing A knew this for a fact, heh heh ..

still, i did get a lot of flak from my pals over the fact i was 'in a girls class' .. it wasn't until they saw my invaders clone on the "word processor" that they got the picture, and the next semester the school was in-undated with BBC Micro's, so you can guess who took over those classes, lunch-time hack-a-thons, and after-school nerdfests .. was quite a fun period of my life, but i'm glad i've moved on to other things since then ...

Don't worry, even synthetic indigo's are being replaced.

p0lar is the new blue.

I'm buying myself a new Virus.

bamm!! take that, microsoft!! vmlinuz=undefeatable!

why do i think that this is so cool?

it is, finally, a complete fresh-firmware->compile->boot->operating_system solution. i can imagine this being used in manufacturing, instantly, to do system installs, fresh and clean, from *first power-up*, each system having compiled its own operating system and apps, itself, on production.

why is that good? well, umm .. tinycc is open. i could put encryption in there if i want to ..

I think Flash is good for devices.

I always thought that it'd be nice to have a PDA based entirely on Flash, where all the apps were Flash-based/-authored, etc.

Since I work for a hardware developer I've thought this quite a few times. Its really too bad there aren't any good embedded-Flash based systems around that can be incorporated into devices ... guess we'll just have to think about using Cairo... when its finished.

... In my industry, demo's (or, more appropriately, demo songs) have been a staple part of the released product for years.

Okay, demo songs for synthesizers are not often the 'best' example of what the synth can do. But this is also a good thing, sometimes ... because musicians will often hear a 'demo song' and think to themselves "sounds great, but I could do better", and the moment someone is thinking that about a song on your product (in my business), you're closer to a sale.

IF the demo is interesting enough 'sounding' to get their attention, but turns out to be pretty 'uninspired' as a song, then this leads the musician/customer to think 'okay, great capabilities, poor execution in the track, I'll take it and see what I can do better' ...

Its been known for a long time that a demo need not be 'superlative', just "demonstrative of the technology you're trying to sell", and not much else. When was the last time you heard a "Hit Demo Song" coming from a synth? But, I'll bet you anything that the demo songs on most modern synth gear these days contain factory patches that you'll recognize as sounds in popular songs, and no matter how cheesy the track is, if it somehow shows you what is 'possible' with the hardware, even if its naff, then you're closer to a sale ...

Roll your own...

Why yes, I can in fact imagine the sort of Virus that could be written.

Disclaimer: I work for a synthesizer manufacturer.

Synthesizers and other forms of electronic musical instrumentation have been having the same problems as computers.

Nevertheless, the paradigms of "Page Up/Page Down" and "Parameter Left/Right", and "Patch Up/Dn", and "Edit/Play", as horrible as they are, have served 'standard interface' requirements for years. There is a 'standard user interface' in this realm, as crap as it is.

Manufacturers in this market have copied each others interface ideas freely and easily, and it has resulted in an, admittedly hodge-podge, 'general user interface' set of 'music machine hacker' chops. "Multi-mode"/"Single-mode", etc. can generally be found on most modern synth platforms. Any synth geek around knows that the patch +/- keys are the ones you look for first, then the 'filter resonance knob', or whatever.

Computers would do well to learn from the lessons of musical instruments in this regard. It never ceases to amaze me that all these TLA "Initiatives" often disregard even the most obvious examples of solutions to problems... I guess because their grants aren't "directed" to those realms.

In any case, I hope to see some interesting results from CMI. At Access, we're really interested in human/user-interface problems and good ways to solve them ...

But it depends on what you call an 'instrument'.

In my book, an instrument is any object designed specifically and only for the purpose of making music. (This is why softsynths aren't "instruments" in my opinion; though they are 'virtualized software instruments' they're not quite complete ... since you have to use a general-purpose computer to run them ... in the same way that pro-tools using edit gimps aren't "musicians" {they're producers}, neither are soft-synths 'instrument's ... heh heh ... flame on ...)

So, anyway, I make synthesizers and work for a fairly well-known synthesizer company.

There are tons of DIY Synthesizer builders out there in 'net land, in fact its quite an active and avid community... synth construction is a very fun geek activity, and you'll be surprised by some of the amazing systems that have been built, quite openly, by instrument-making enthusiasts.

Check out synth.net, of course ... this site is all about DIY instrument makers, and if you really want to go on a wacky and wild journey, browse the Synth DIY Who's Who and see where it takes you ...

And if you want an example of the DIY/GNU spirit combined, you can't do much better than Gene Stopp's ASM1 Design (Open Modular Synthesizer Hardware Project) ... I've built a couple ASM1's now. Its like Open Source, only for Hardware... instead of compile, you solder.

My role is Professional Virus Maker.

(Well, not really. It says "r&d" on my visitenkarten ... but I think you get the point. :)

Me too. I couldn't be a happier hacker! I work for a truly great company. And not only that, our products are designed to be nothing but hands-on, so its not even funny ...

... from the sprawling metropolis known as "LA" to a quiet, old, relatively bustling, small country German town.

Best thing ever. Great experience. Massive out of control Cities are a crime!

(Of course, I work for one of the coolest companies in the world too, so that might have something to do with my glee...)

If you can, get out of the city. At least for some portion of your life.

Here's one, for example.

Get ready. Its coming!

Hey, don't pick on MIDI. It may be 'an expensive networking protocol', but when was the last time you saw multiple-hundreds of -different computer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmusical instrument- designs able to communicate, effectively, with each other?

On my desk, I have 3 devices, from competing mfr's, which are perfectly able to communicate with each other effectively and efficiently, in order to build a track (QY700, Indigo2, Machinedrum, in case you're wondering)... in my 19" rack, I have 4 other devices (A5000, FS1R, rack-xl, Chameleon) and they're all communicating just fine.

Together, the whole system makes up a -bitchen- musical instrument. All because of MIDI.

So, back off a little. MIDI has accomplished a lot more than it has been a detriment for...

You're right though, that MIDI has a usability problem. This does not mean that we should replace this working protocol with Some Other New Thing.

What we need is better MIDI instruments, and better computer software for dealing with MIDI ... and thats not hard to do.

(Disclaimer: I work for a synthesizer company with an interest in MIDI ...)

fuck off, did i say I wanted MIDI to die?

no. i didn't.

in fact, I want MIDI to live. And so it bloody well will!

if anything, it proves that we don't need more and more fucking protocols by people who think they're not worth anything unless they've invented something new everyone is using... we need people to implement better existing stuff.

that is all.

its amazing how knee-jerk /. is, people jumping to conclusions, sheesh ...

What kind of activity do you do for entertainment value brings value or creates something of value?

I write tunes and participate in community whose purpose is the continued writing of tunes by its members...

I write code.

And, I learn a new language ...

... here:

http://virus.info/

(That's Virus as in the hot synthesizer not the Microsoft kind ...)

I have a dream job. I make Viruses ...

Heh heh, the synthesizer kind, of course.

Well, the only problem with my dream job (it really is the job I've been dreaming of since I was a child) is that a) its too dream-like, and b) people get soooo jealous, very easily, and the 'hes got a good life' prejudice kicks in super fast ... really, thats the only part of my job that sucks.

Still, its not forever, I know that. Nothing lasts forever ...

Software synthesis...

I can think of a few others, but this one is the most fun.

It need no be said that this is good for my industry too.