Notable Productions, Inc

Product expert Carlo Libertini comes to show off the new features of Melodyne 4, the latest version of the flagship audio editing software. With Melodyne you can adjust the pitch, timing, dynamics and timbre of individual notes, even within chords! New features include the Sound Editor with its totally new sound design possibilities, DNA: Direct Note Access and ultra-accurate tempo detection. Furthermore, Melodyne 4 studio now also runs directly as a plug-in within your DAW. All are welcome. This event is supported by the MP&E department, the AES student chapter, the Pro Tools Users Group of Boston (moderated by Dan Cantor and Sean Mclaughlin), and Parsons Audio.

Muneera and Sukina blessed the Berklee classrooms with their style, wisdom and sincerity.  The group performed and spoke in classrooms and performed at the BIRN and the Berklee Caf.

Notable's mix of Pengbian Sang's album 'Retro Jazz' has WON the Soberano Awards (Dominican Republic's Grammy) for 'Best Album of the Year'.

Pengbian is a Domincan Berklee Alum and old roommate of Notable's Dan Cantor. In early September 2012, he brought his newest tracks from Santo Domingo to mix. The group features some of Santo Domingo's best musicians playing fresh arrangements of classic Domincan songs. The vibe ranges from Funky to Latin Jazz to Bebop. "The arrangments are really amazing," remarked Dan, "it was a blast to mix!"

The two are currently working on the mix for Pengbian's newest album, which will be released in the near future.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, neo-soul hip-hop group UGO has been preparing for the release of their debut self-titled EP. With Dan providing production support for the group both on-site at Notable Productions and occasionally at Platinum Sound in NYC. their premier single, 'It's Alright' was recorded live in the Daddy's House studio with Wyclef Jean. Check the video below!

Notable's mix of Pengbian Sang's album 'Retro Jazz' has been nominated for Soberano Awards (Dominican Republic's Grammy) for 'Best Album of the Year' and others.

Pengbian is a Domincan Berklee Alum and old roommate of Notable's Dan Cantor. In early September 2013, he brought his newest tracks from Santo Domingo to mix. The group features some of Santo Domingo's best musicians playing fresh arrangements of classic Domincan songs. The vibe ranges from Funky to Latin Jazz to Bebop. "The arrangments are really amazing," remarked Dan, "it was a blast to mix!"

Notable's mixing and mastering of Eric Hofbauer's 'American Grace' received 4.5 and 4 stars from Stereophile and Downbeat magazines for its sonics!

Malian Percussionist Moussa Traore's  "Mali Kan" was released on the Notable label this past December. Recorded in Bamako, Mali, and Watertown, MA by Dan Cantor/Notable Productions.

Dan Presents: Imaginative stereo recording techniques. Including his own Transformational Drum Overheads and Bi-nerfal recording techniques at Boston Area Definitive Audio Student Summit. He will demonstrate the Notable Bi-Nerfal Mic Technique and demonstrate alternate methods for using Blumlein and Mid-side techniques to over come small recording spaces. We will also collaborate with our engineer buddy Sean McLaughlin who will bring his beautiful Zener compressor. Many engineers and audio companies will be on hand!

We are crushed to learn our friend and brilliant studio drummer passed away this Summer. He was nothing short of miraculous. He came to sessions with desire to make every piece of music stellar, and it was always easy for him. Bands who hired him to play on their tracks were dumbfounded by the fact that he would know their songs better than they did within minutes. He would remember a specific bar and change that one little part without writing anything down and was always positive, friendly and an extraordinary musician. His groove was the deepest. We will miss him so. Our best goes out to his family and friends.

We had twice as many listeners as we had microphones and we had 14 microphones! Although, one microphone was removed from our list by its inconsiderate behavior...sometimes she works, sometime she dunt.

We managed to record Dan on bongos, triangle, tambourine, and Nathaniel Taylor (thanks Nate!) on cello. We had hoped to do acoustic guitar as well but the time it took to:
adequately capture 14 performances of every instrument,
through the same millennia HV3D preamp,
at similar levels,
with a fairly consistent musical performance,
at the same measured distance from the mic....
took longer than one might think.

Thanks to my partner Sean for sharing the engineering duties and bringing microphones. Also, I want to thank Adam Rourke for bringing additional mics and being an awesome photographer! Big thanks go to Rick Scott and Cat Reuthe at Parsons Audio for lending us more mics and more importantly, bringing the beer! And to all of you regular PTUG attendees, my wife thought you were all very well behaved, which made life easier for me!:)

Please contact us if you want access to the volume adjusted bounces so you can do the shoot out at home and tell us your results!
We will publish a public survey module so we can tally the opinions of many hopefully opinionated engineers:)

After listening and choosing a dynamic mic over many more expensive condensers my  SW361 class was treated to a heartfelt and beautiful performance by my friend and collaborator Omar Offendum. He was the last of 4 artists this semester to grace the halls of Berklee college thanks to my Fly Grant and the help of many on campus teachers and administrators.

Notable's mix of Pengbian Sang's album 'Retro Jazz' has been nominated for Soberano Awards (Dominican Republic's Grammy) for 'Best Album of the Year' and others.

Notable's mixing and mastering of Eric Hofbauer's 'American Grace' received 4.5 and 4 stars from Stereophile and Downbeat magazines for its sonics!

Producing and mixing tracks for the premier EP release by the Neo-soul / Hip-hop band UGO.

Notable released Malian Percussionist Moussa Traore's  'Mali-Kan'. Recorded in Bamako, Mali and Watertown, MA at Notable Productions by Dan.

Mixing a North Indian CD for renowned Sarod player and Ethnomusicologist George Ruckert.

Mixing and mastering Vol. 2 World Hip-Hop Women (Nomadic Wax & World Hip Hop Market)

Video Drops: Democracy in Haiti Project w/ Nomadic Massive & The Narcicyst from Nomadic Wax on Vimeo.

"Cosaan" - the forthcoming album by Lamine Toure and Group Saloum - will appear on "Africa in America 2010" November 13-14th.  The show can be heard on the Afropop Worldwide website.  "Cosaan" was recorded at Notable Productions and features a lively and unique blend of Senegalese mbalax, jazz, funk, reggae and Afrobeat with the captivating percussion of world-renowned griot percussionist Lamine Toure.

Eminent Cape Verdian Rapper, poet, activist, cultural historian and holder of the flame SHOKANTI came to Notable to record vocals for an upcoming track for the new NomadicWax Diaspora Mixtape at Notable Productions. Featuring tracks by DJ NIO and soon to be remixed by DJ boo. A stream of articulate political positions, espresso and major flavour was flowing that morning. We look forward to working on tracks with Shokanti in the near future and loved working with him at the Trinity International Hip-hop festival this past year.

Founded in the spring of 2006, the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival was created to combat the disunity, segregation, and violence of Hartford, CT and Trinity College. Using the historically education-oriented and politically revolutionary medium—Hip Hop– and focusing on its global potency and proliferation, the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival works to unify Trinity College, the city of Hartford, and the Globe.

Team Notable: Dan, Eric and Alex will be in high gear collaborating with Nomadic Wax, Sol Productions and Jasmin, Zee and Greg From Trinity to make this festival rock the house.

Eric and his band Infrared are currently recording a new record at Notable. The band includes Eric Hofbauer - Guitar, Kelly Roberge - Tenor Sax, Michael Montgomery - Bass, and Miki Matuski - Drums.

La Jolla Playhouse Premier of Jersey Boys hire Notable to get authentic vintage microphones on Set.

La Jolla Playhouse is thrilled to announce that its world premiere musical Jersey Boys, based on the life story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, has become the longest running production in La Jolla Playhouse history.  The Tony Award winning production of Jersey Boys, was directed by the Playhouse's Award-winning Artistic Director Des McAnuff.

Notable consulted on the look of Audio gear on stage and provided vintage microphones to match the time period shifts in the set design.

Sofia and her brilliant players stirred up an amazing crowd at the Regatta Bar. Her voice was honest and beautiful and the band was imaginative and supportive. The two percussionists were using a diverse set of toys that at any given moment mutated from percussion to drum set to sheets of sonic textures.  The Notable recording team that night included Dan, Eric and Erica.  Notable was Generously aided by Joshua Cohen, live Engineer (and part time keyboardist for Guster),  and the accommodating and gracious team at the Cambridge Regatta bar.

Dan really enjoyed meeting the students of John Krivit at the Art Institute of New England in Brookline, MA. As a guest lecturer, Dan spoke about his experiences as a Record Producer and managing a recording studio.

Notable has been a proud sponsor, audio consultant and creative team member of the Trinity Hip-Hop festival. This year's line up will be stellar. I'm looking forward to working with the artists, getting their sound for the live show and working on some free style recording in the artist lounge. Musa and Poetic Pilgrimage will be visiting Notable before and after the festival for some exclusive recording dates. We welcome our friends to Boston from England and Senegal.

Education Meets Hip-Hop in Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival

March 8, 2009   PRESS RELEASE
Education Meets Hip-Hop in Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival
Rising star will headline biggest international hip-hop festival in U.S.
Hartford, Conn., Mar. 4, 2009 – Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. announces the fourth annual Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival, the first and largest international hip-hop festival in the United States, on April 3rd and 4th, 2009.
This year, the popular festival is headlined by K'naan, the fastest rising star in international hip-hop. The Somali emcee spent the last two years touring the world with Damian and Stephen Marley. K'naan's vividly spoken images of war-torn Somalia and his fierce criticism of American gangster rap has garnered him appearances on BET, MTV, the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and collaborations with Mos Def and M1 of Dead Prez. With two independently released albums under his belt, K'naan signed with A&M/Octone in 2008 and released Troubadour in February 2009.
An accomplished group of international performers and academia will support K'naan and participate with attendees though workshops, panel discussions and films throughout the festival.

The Spread the Word Tour has added Trinity Hip-Hop Festival to their schedule, which includes performances by two leading protest bands from Zimbabwe, Comrade Fatso & Chabvondoka, and Outspoken and The Essence.  The foremost political activist musical group in Southern Africa, and specifically in Zimbabwe, gives the festival attendees extremely rare access to youth activists that live and work on the ground in Zimbabwe. Comrade Fatso blogs for CNN.com about politics and conditions in Zimbabwe
(http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/14/zimbabwe.blog/index.html).  The Mugabe regime has banned their albums from Zimbabwe.
A panel discussion entitled "Stereotypes in Hip Hop," features Trinity College professors Gail Woldu, author of The Words and Music of Ice Cube, and Emily Musil, Coordinator of African Studies and Co-Chair of the President's Colloquia "Hip Hop: Roots, Race, Rights."  Stanford's Angela Steele will present her Fulbright research, Rap in China - In Search of a Hip-Hop Hero. Steele spent a year in China immersed in the emerging hip-hop scene and looking for the leaders who will form hip-hop culture in the world's most populated country.
New York's Hired Gun and Washington, D.C.'s Princess of Controversy will host two nights of performances featuring K'naan, Poetic Pilgrimage (UK), Blitz the Ambassador, Mohammed Yahya (UK), BeatburgerBand (Czech Republic), African Underground All-Stars (Senegal), Mr. Reo (Haiti), and Game Rebellion (Brooklyn, New York). Dj Craig G of Hartford's Hot 93.7 hosts the afterparty on Friday night, and DJ Boo of the Juggaknots hosts the Saturday night afterparty.

The Trinity festival will screen one of 2008's biggest hip-hop films, Planet B-Boy, a look at five international break dancing crews as they prepare for the world dance championship Battle of the Year in Germany. For the second consecutive year, the festival also will hold a 2-on-2 b-boy battle with a $500 grand prize. This year there will be several new workshops including a beatboxing workshop with Czech Republic's world champion beatboxers, BeatBurgerBand, and a freestyle rhyming workshop with New York emcee Hired Gun. Graffiti artists will be painting murals all day as a backdrop for the workshops and b-boy battle.
The festival will also include a screening of Fangafrika, an African Francophone documentary set during a hip-hop festival in Burkina Faso, that gathered a who's who of African hip-hop addressing the serious issues facing Africans everywhere. The films directors will be on hand for a discussion of activism and education in West African hip-hop. Poetic Pilgrimage, a female Muslim duo from London, will host a discussion about Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East.

Festival Sponsors include Trinity College, Nomadic Wax, The Temple of Hip-Hop (Trinity College Chapter), World Hip Hop Market, and the Greater Hartford Arts Council. Pre-registration is required, and will take place the day of the event at Gallows Hill next to the Austin Arts Center on the campus of Trinity College.
This event is free and open to the public.  For more details, directions, and schedule information, visit http://trinityhiphop.org.

Congratulations, Luminescence! You have been nominated for best HS album, best HS song (Miss Independent), and best HS soloist (Suzie Wyman, Miss Independent.)

Quotes on the project from The Short List
"U2 covers performed
just the way Bono
would want them
While we sometimes cringe at the sight of the globe-trotting do-gooder that Bono has become, it can't be denied that the man and his band mates wrote some powerful music — music that, truth be told, has become slightly shopworn from years of constant play. On a new compilation, In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2, those resonant songs are reinvented and revitalized by artists who truly understand the messages in them.

The performers here may be familiar only to devoted fans of world music (i.e., there's nobody with the last name Kuti), but their interpretations of the U2 catalog are as diverse as the nations they represent: Nigeria's Keziah Jones turns in a cover of "One" that strips the song of its messianic overtones and gives it a funky percussion section, while Guinea's Ba Cissoko brings a new urgency to his understated version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Needless to say, proceeds from the album go to global charities, so come on, buy it in the spirit of Bonoism."  The Short List, April 2008

Democracy in Dakar: African underground project is in full bloom. The movie has garnered awards and will be shown in Boston on Sunday July 8th at the paradise Rock club between Femi Kuti's sets this weekend. Also some of the rappers from the african underground project will be touring with the African Underground Allstars in NY, Boston and Providence later this month. One of the stars of the show Eli Efi (Brazil)and Partner DJ Laylo(NYC) were at Notable working on a track for their new album this month as well.

Producer Paul Heck of the Red Hot Series records asked Benny Beats and Notable Dan to contribute to his newest record featuring the songs of U2. We were lucky to get Rappers Chosan (Sierra Leone), Optimus (Liberia) from Foundation Movement and the wonderfully talented Singer/ Spoken word poet Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo(Nigerian-American) to work on a track.

Fat City finished up their newest CD  "Good Time Guaranteed" with Dan and some mastering help from Adam Rourke. Dan sends a big time thank you to Co- Producer Tom Hambridge for his musical wisdom and spirit during the tracking sessions. These guys have had a band for 30 years!  They know how to play the blues.

Jazz flutist Dominigue Gagne has handed notable her beautiful latin influenced Jazz album for some final tweaks before pressing.  Dominigue is currently on tour on the west coast with Singer/Songwriter Manisha Shahane who will be coming to Notable later this summer to have Dan produce some tracks for newest CD.

Guitarist Eric Hofbauer and Scott Barnum were in this month for some mixing and mastering of their jazz duet record. Originally recorded in a living room to two channels of a two track, this record has loads of amazing improvisation and mischief that only these two could create. My kudus to them for tracking at home.

African underground is live from Dakar. My partner Ben Herson and a film crew are in Dakar for the elections getting footage and new tracks. Magee and Sol Productions are co producing weekly videos. The politics of the current election are complex, but the rappers are out in force and presenting us a perspective from the street that no other source is presenting to the world.  I send Ben and the team my best wishes and will watch the africanunderground site for articles and new footage.

Robert Cipho Bellinger was in to master his new release. He produced a great new young sabar group in Dakar called the Sing Sing Juniors and Notable got to oversee the recording and master the disk.

Tom Hambridge was at Notable.com to produce The Fat City Band's new record.  Dan, Bryan McMonagle and Phil Dong worked on the sessions.  Tom also had Dan work on the re-mastering of his new record on Black Rose Records. Tom Hambridge and the Rattlesnakes Live.  Recorded by Ducky Carlisle... the disk rocks and Dan was happy to lend a technical hand.

Dominique Gagne's new record will be worked on later this month and Dan has been hard at work on tracks for Brandon Patton's new record. Mixing, re-mixing and tracking parts of Brandon's latest tour de force.  Bean, Oak and Lena get very excited when Brandon is around ...his energy is infectious. He's playing at SXSW at treasure island on March 15th so if you are in Austin check him out. He actually may need a pick up band for the night so email me if you are going and want to play some great music.

Dan has had the pleasure to help comedian Jonathan Katz with his recording rig and is enjoying  some old episodes of Dr. katz as a result.

Dan enjoyed playing a sold out show at Passims on friday night with Jim's Big Ego. My thanks to all who came.

We have some New USED Audio gear fro sale so check out the for Gear/ for sale pages!

African Underground vol.2 is finished!

Dan has just returned from mastering African Underground Vol. 2 with Co- Producer Benny "Beats" Herson (Founder of the upstart International rap and world music label, Nomadic Wax). Working with Jonathan Wyner at MWorks is always a blast. His room sounds amazing, and his ears are even better. We thank him for being so suppportive. We'd also like to congratulate him on his Grammy nomination.

Sen Kumpa's track Niawal (Track one on African Underground II) just won "Best Song" in the Global Rhythm Magazine competition. We are proud of the track and send our best to Ben Herson and Sen Kumpa in Dakar.

The Tufts University Jackson Jills just finished their new album with Dan. Notable pulled in the help of Intern Phil Dong. Also we were under the gun time-wise so a second pro tools room was used to do edits while the primary mix room was used for overdubs and mixing. Thanks go to engineers Adam Rourke and Ben Herson for working to finish on time. Ben also did a great job with the cover design.

Singer Songwriter, Terry Kitchen finished his 8th CD "Heaven Here on Earth" with Dan co-producing. The album features some unusual arrangements including a stereo Zither intro and a String Quartet.

Dan made special efx for Ocean Spray's new multimedia

1Achord's debut album is in the works, as well as jazz and R&B flutist Lance Martin's album.

MIT Professor of Ethnomusicology, Patricia Tang, has been hard at work on the audio version of her book, The Master's of the Sabar. Also Geoff Brown's amazing classical record features pianist and Tufts professor John MacDonald.
Besides editing Mandarin Chinese this week, Dan has been helping Jimmy Jewels set up his new recording studio.

Dan is also performing as a drummer with Jim's Big Ego, Liz Carlisle and Russell Wolff, and Annette Farrington.

For Used pro audio and Vintage music gear for sale from notable and many of our clients see our classified gear list. USED AUDIO GEAR FOR SALE

It's About Time.
We've all heard it said that being in the right place at the right time can make or break a career in music.  Nowhere is this more important than in your musical performances.  The difference between a great player and a good one can often be reduced to timing. Timing is what gives music that special funky flow that people want to groove to.  The error might be as small as a few milliseconds, but those milliseconds determine whether people want to dance or even listen to your music. When music is rhythmically right, it just feels good.
It's always been difficult to judge where your rhythms are placed relative to a mechanical click. Or at least for most of us.... Stories of Donald Fagen's ears perceiving  millisecond differences and voicing his disillusionment with MIDI gear are well documented and are what legends are made of. Most producers and engineers I know would love a tool that would show players where they fall relative to the click.

MIDI's Murky Pathways
The desire for accuracy and the ability to measure it are also crucial in MIDI production. In a studio, there are countless causes of timing delays and errors that affect the music in small and large ways. We are falsely led to believe that when we play something and record it, we will hear that performance played back without rhythmic alteration. Admittedly, MIDI gear is a major perpetrator of these delays.
At the smallest level, MIDI itself can only communicate about one Note On per millisecond. See box: "How Simultaneous Can Two MIDI Notes Be?"  A good sequencer can read the differences in your performance as closely as one millisecond per note (see Figure 1).


Figure 1
The Math
For example, if your tempo is 120 bpm, and your sequencer has a resolution of 480 ticks per beat, you have a real time resolution of 960 ticks per second:

120/beats per minute =
120 bpm/60 seconds =
2 beats per second
(beats per second) x (ticks per beat) =
ticks per second
2 beats per second  x  480 ticks per beat =
    960 ticks per second =
approximately 1000th of a second

Practically speaking, however, a serial cable is incapable of sending two notes at the exact same time: one note must follow the other by at least one millisecond. (On a Macintosh, serial cables are the modem and printer cables.)  More often than not, you are sending multiple events in the hope that they will play simultaneously, but they don't. Plus, events scheduled for simultaneous playing will appear one tick apart, in random order. One way to solve the random-order problem is actually to spread simultaneous events by one tick in your sequencer.
So far, we know that the accuracy is hampered by the speed of the serial communication and the quantity of notes simultaneously played. This problem is compounded by other MIDI data communicated at the same time, further slowing this process and making playback even less consistent. Many of you have seen your computer slow down when burdened with many complicated activities. This same problem plagues some sequencers' metronomes when reproducing a complicated MIDI performance. This can be true for both computer sequencers and drum machines.
The problems don't stop with sequencers, however. Once our MIDI data has left the serial cables, they arrive at a MIDI interface. These interfaces can create more delays as they translate information from serial to MIDI.
Finally, the data arrives at the MIDI modules. Guess what? More delays! Not only do different modules differ in the speed at which they produce audio from your MIDI data, sounds within a module vary in the time it takes them to be produced.

What's a Few Milliseconds Between Brothers?
So what do we do about these millisecond differences? And how can we possibly guarantee that two MIDI notes will occur at the exact same time?  Here's the product pitch: a tool that sent me scurrying to find all the faults with my own production studio.
Jeanius, a company in San Antonio, has provided the recording world with a tool to simplify the judgment and analysis of all these time errors.  It is called the Russian Dragon (RD-R and RD-T), named for its ability to accurately perceive if your audio is "rushin'" ahead or "draggin'" behind a reference source you supply. The idea for the unit came from Audio Engineer/Designer Marius Perron and his drumming brother, who had always wished they had a mechanism to judge how closely he was playing to the sequenced tracks. Marius made the prototype to remove both guesswork from the sessions and tension from not knowing who was right. The unit gave honest feedback to the drummer, the engineer, and the producer.

Description: The Anatomy of the Russian Dragon
The Russian Dragon is available in a small rack-mount version (the RD-R) and a less expensive tabletop version (RD-T). I opted for the rack-mount model.
The RD-R is an uncomplicated single-space rack-mount unit with 1/4-inch inputs on the back and the front.  The top input (channel 1) is used for the reference and the bottom input (channel 2) is used for the other audio event you will judge to be dragging (slow), rushing (fast), or dead on (what Jeanius calls "snake eyes") relative to the reference.  The unit features an input level control and four LEDs for visual confirmation of audio and amplitude adjustment.  A large row of 25 colored LEDs indicates the timing differences from a tenth of a millisecond to 99 milliseconds. The LEDs are adjustable in 1-9  millisecond increments  as set by a selector knob marked "ms per LED."  A trigger LED indicates the presence and duration of the two signals. The duration is adjustable by a "Mask Control." By increasing the length of the Mask Control, you can eliminate accidental re-triggering of the timing LEDs.  This allows the unit to ignore delay characteristics or extraneous sounds that would make analysis difficult.
A polarity check button for each input ensures that the shape of the transient wave forms start with positive (above the zero crossing point) sections. Polarity is checked for two reasons. First, the sensor that reads the beginning of the audio event is triggered when the signal goes above the zero threshold. So, a signal with a rarefaction at its entrance would not trigger until later in the wave form, when it moved above the zero crossing. Second, two out-of-phase drums, with similar transients, combined and aligned by this unit would produce a cancellation or thinning phase effect, which is probably contrary to the Mother-of-God drum sound you were looking for when you aligned six snare samples (see Figure 2).
The unit is rounded out by a wall wart power cord on the rear, a power switch on the front, and an extra pair of inputs for the convenience of having them on the front as well as the back.
Figure 2: Picture of two out-of-phase waves


Testing: Let's See Who's Been Naughty or Nice
The minute I took the RD-R out of its box, I wanted to test the delays present in my studio system. It's as if your ears have been bionically upgraded to distinguish millisecond differences.
Not all of the equipment in my eight-track MIDI studio is spanking new. But since good used gear is widely available, the Russian Dragon is especially valuable because it can measure the accuracy of used as well as new equipment. There is little documentation of MIDI delays in my older pieces (some of which create classic sounds which I still consider vital). Adaptable and precise, the Russian Dragon measures reaction times, consistency, and sync ability in software and hardware sequencers, metronomes, sync boxes, digital delays, and MIDI modules.
By testing the three delay units in my studio I could establish if they were consistent enough to aid me in performing other tests. I hooked up a click directly out the back of my Macintosh speaker output (using Performer software), through a Yamaha SPX90, into reference channel 1 in the RD-R. The click track also went to a Lexicon PCM70, then on to reference channel 2 in the RD-R. After setting the single-delay programs in both units to the same amount of time, the Russian Dragon showed the delayed clicks to be arriving together -- at "snake eyes," meaning that the units were accurate to a tenth of a millisecond. This consistency was wonderful to confirm, although "snake eyes" actually occurred when the units were set at slightly differing delay settings. Thus, while the units retain the delay settings they claim to have (to a tenth of a millisecond), that delay setting is not necessarily what is displayed in the LCD. I also tested a Yamaha SPX90 against these units, with similar results. These results are displayed in Figures 3 and 4.


Next I was curious about the accuracy of the LED indicators on the front of the RD-R itself. By setting different delay times, I could check the unit's sensitivity to gradual increases in timing delays. For instance, at the 1 millisecond setting, if the light lit up one unit to the left of the "snake eyes" setting, this meant that the two inputs were approximately 1 millisecond apart. At the 2 millisecond setting, the same light meant that the distance was approximately 2 milliseconds, and so forth (see Figure 5).
The most sensitive setting portrayed millisecond differences easily and a tenth of a millisecond accuracy only when the events were simultaneous (at "snake eyes").  The nine settings were measured with each of the three delays as well. The inconsistencies were more revealing of the discrepencies in the digital readout of the digital delay units. The resulting numbers found in the various settings might look like the settings are far from the times they claim to measure. In fact, they are halfway between the amount  they are supposed to indicate. For instance, the first LED lights up when the SPX90 is set at 7.5 milliseconds and the "ms per LED" knob is set at 5 milliseconds because the delay is halfway between 5 and 10 milliseconds (see Figures 6, 7, and 8).

 

Figure 6
Yamaha SPX90
-  -  -  LEDs Lit  -  -  - snake  KNOB
11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 eyes SETTING
10.9 9.9 9.0 8.0 7.1 6.1 5.2 4.2 3.2 2.1 1.3 - - -  (1)
2.9 - - -  (2)
4.4 - - -  (3)
6.0 - - -  (4)
7.5 - - -  (5)
8.6 - - -  (6)
10.4 - - -  (7)
12.0 - - -  (8)
13.6 - - -  (9)

Figure 7
Yamaha SPX90 II
-  -  -  LEDs Lit  -  -  - snake  KNOB
11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 eyes SETTING
10.3 9.3 8.4 7.4 6.5 5.5 4.6 3.6 2.6 1.7 .7 - - -  (1)
2.3 - - -  (2)
3.8 - - -  (3)
5.4 - - -  (4)
6.9 - - -  (5)
8.2 - - -  (6)
9.8 - - -  (7)
11.4 - - -  (8)
13.0 - - -  (9)

Figure 8
Lexicon PCM 70
-  -  -  LEDs Lit  -  -  - snake  KNOB
11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 eyes SETTING
10.4 9.68 8.82 7.61 6.84 5.77 4.80 3.64 2.87 1.81 .83 - - -  (1)
2.40 - - -    (2)
3.91 - - -  (3)
5.45 - - -  (4)
7.22 - - -  (5)
8.41 - - -  (6)
10.1 - - -  (7)
11.5 - - -  (8)
13.3 - - -  (9)



What's the MIDI Module Delay Time?
I wanted to know how long it takes for audio to come out of my MIDI modules when they were programmed to play fully quantized quarter notes in sync with the Macintosh click (see Figure 9).  You'll see that the delays range from 1 to 5 milliseconds. Keep in mind these are ideal circumstances--  the units are only playing monophonic quarter notes and nothing further is being asked of the sequencer or the MIDI unit. Hardly a realistic challenge, but still there are measurable differences. The differences themselves are inconsistent. I've indicated where it varied from note to note by as much as 2 milliseconds. Again, these may seem like small amounts of time. But when added together, they are perceivable and they change randomly.
Figure 9
Device vs. Device Mode Output Drag (ms)
Mac spkr Akai S1000 sample mode mix out 4-5
Mac spkr Akai S1000 program mode mix out 5-6
Mac spkr Akai S900 sample mode mix out 3
Mac spkr Akai S900 program mode mix out 2-3
Mac spkr Yamaha RX-5 pattern mode mono out 5
Mac spkr   Yamaha RX-5 pattern mode rim out 4-5
Mac spkr   Roland TR808 NA main out 2
Mac spkr Roland TR808 NA rim out 1-2
Mac spkr   Emu SP-12 Turbo sequence mode mix out 2-4
Mac spkr   Emu SP-12 Turbo sequence mode rim out 3-4


Hardware- and software-based sequencers were the next subject for analysis. All I really tested was the consistency of the metronomic pulse put out by these units.  Given more time I'd test start inconsistencies and sync influences.  Once again, I used a digital delay as a constant unit of time. I delayed one quarter note to be in sync with the next (see Figure 10).  Include if we get AES permission:I have also included findings from Marius Perron's AES presentation.

Figure 10
Sequencer Delay Resolution: complicated
at 160 bpm Setting Resolution drumpart with eight parts
Mac Performer* 375.5 ms 1 ms 2 ms
     (Mac spkr click)
Emu SP12 Turbo 376.1 ms            0.1 ms 2 ms
     (rimshot)
Roland TR808 NA                   0.1 ms 0.1 ms but slower tempo
     (rimshot)
Yamaha RX5 367.7 ms   0.1 ms 3 ms variation
     (rimshot)
Boss Dr. Beat DB-66 376.1 ms 0.1 ms NA
     (rimshot)
*Mark of the Unicorn, Version 4.2; Macintosh SE/30 system 7.1

Marius Perron's Findings, Presented at the 91st AES Convention.
Sequencer Resolution
Wittner Taktell piccolo metronome 4
Korg M-1, qurater note sidestick 3
Boss Dr. Rhythm DR550 drum machine 4
Akai MPC-60 sequencer (metronome out) 1
Akai MPC-60 sequencer, quarter note pattern
                                    (individual out) 5
Boss DB music conductor no errors
Macintosh 2CX with Vision 1.2u2 (spkr out) 2
Korg DTM12 digital tuner/metronome no errors
Garfield Electronis Dr. Click no errors
Alesis HR16B drum machine 0.6
UREI  model 964 digital metronome no errors
Emu III sequencer (metronome out) 3
Roland TR909 drum machine 5
Alesis MMT-8 sequencer,
                              MIDI'd to drum machine 2
Roland SBX-80 (metronome out) 1
These units also exhibited inconsistencies in their start-up time.

We found that the tempo that each called 160 bpm varied -- as well as the consistency between quarter notes. As a drummer, I've always wondered why some metronomes seemed easier to follow than others.  I often attributed it to how I felt on a given day or the sound of these units. With the Russian Dragon, I learned that metronomes can be as moody as I am. To this end, I tested a more complicated sequence as well as just a quarter note pulse.
The findings are validating for the drummer in me . . . but upsetting for the producer in me. There was an 8.4 millisecond difference between the RX5's 160 bpm and the SP12's 160 bpm. The quarter note test showed fairly stable tenth of a millisecond resolutions among the SP12, TR808, and RX5 sequencers. The surprises were the David and Goliath performances of the Macintosh SE/30 with Performer 4.2 and the Boss Dr. Beat metronome. The Macintosh was inconsistent 1 millisecond, and the Dr. Beat held "snake eyes" at better than tenth of a millisecond stability for minutes on end. The Mac and all of the drum machines suffered when many drum parts were added to the playback.
The TR808, an analog drum machine, could not be measured for tempo accuracy because it has no digital readout. Strangely, it was not less consistent when parts were added. But its tempo did slow down. Its determination to be consistent might be attributable to the 16-note resolution capacity of its sequencer.

Conclusion: Everything is Not on the One
The Russian Dragon helped illuminate many timing idiosyncracies. Like a tuner or oscilloscope, the Russian Dragon is a crucial tool for measuring timing in the studio. There are many ways to use the RD-R that I haven't had time to try yet. Some of the possibilities include finding offsets for slightly out-of-sync tapes and/or sequences, fixing the delay times between distant speakers, and providing feedback for drummers playing prerecorded and sequenced parts. I'm looking forward to testing these options.
One interesting solution to the MIDI serial problem is actually to split your simultaneous events by 1 tick to solve random-order problems. In general, I'm a little less comfortable with the resolution of MIDI devices than I was before. I hope the system protocol will be improved. That's a lot to ask for an industry that is slow to change designs involving cooperative schemes. So companies must agree and share information to make this happen. If we take, for example, the battle between Opcode's OMS and Motu's Free MIDI, we may wait a long time. Company cooperation got us into MIDI. Let's hope the same spirit carries us to a new, more musical resolution. And let's hope our timing improves.

Thanks
Notable Productions' timing is kept by Daniel C. Cantor and Mark Weltner, whose mission is to seek out new timing errors and remove them. We'd like to thank Marius Perron at Jeanius for creating the Russian Dragon and providing us with the unit and information. [Include if we get AES permission:Thanks to AES for letting us reprint Marius's findings.] Thanks also to fellow time delay sleuth Robert Poor at Opcode R&D Systems for his box of info and his enthusiasm. Finally Notable owes Kathy Wolff a heap of thanks for her split-second editing.


How Simultaneous Can Two MIDI Notes Be?
or
Time Is Nature's Way of Keeping Everything from Happening At Once

MIDI data sent on a MIDI cable are transmitted as serial data. A sequence of ones and zeros tells your drum machine to "play the sidestick on channel 3 mezzo forte." It takes a bit of time to transmit those ones and zeros. More important, all the information for one note must be transmitted before the next note can begin.
What is the delay between two "simultaneous" MIDI notes on a single cable? For those who just want the facts, the answer is 960 microseconds for ordinary Note On events or 640 microseconds for Running Status Note On events.
How do we get these numbers? Get out your calculator and follow along. The first thing to know is that MIDI data are transmitted at 31250 bits per second, also called 31.25 KiloBaud. (This peculiar number happens to be 1/16th of 1,000,000 cycles per second. Many early computers had built-in crystal oscillators running at this frequency; this was an easy frequency to derive.)
Each byte of MIDI date requires 10 bits of serial data. The byte is transmitted with one start bit, eight bits of real data, and one stop bit. The start and stop bits are needed to tell the receiving circuitry "here comes some data," and "that was the end of the data." At a rate of 31,250 bits per second, we can send 3,125 (31,250/10) of these "MIDI bytes" per second.
To send one Note On message requires three MIDI bytes. The first byte says that this is a Note On event and specifies which channel (1-16). The second byte says which key number is to be played. The third byte specifies the velocity. We can send 1042 (3,125/3) such Note On messages per second.
But we promised to tell you the duration of each Note On message, not the number of messages per second. This is easy: 1/1042 messages per second = .00096 seconds per message. In technospeak, this is .96 milliseconds, or 960 microseconds per Note On message.
MIDI does offer a slight speed improvement through Running Status messages. After sending a normal three-byte Note On message, a sequencer can send additional key number/velocity messages, omitting the first byte of an ordinary Note On message. For a string of notes that all occur on the same channel, this reduces the number of MIDI bytes per Note On message from three to two. We can send 1563 (3,125/2) Running Status Note On messages per second, which corresponds to .00064 (1/1563) seconds, .64 milliseconds, or 640 microseconds per message.
The bottom line is that for MIDI data running on a single MIDI cable imposes an absolute "speed limit" of about 1000 Note On messages per second, or 1500 Note On messages when Running Status is in effect. This number gets worse with other MIDI data, such as aftertouch and controller information. Your actual mileage may vary.

• Robert Poor
  

  Director of Research and Development
Opcode Systems, Inc.


This article was a very early nerdy exploration for us at Notable. I'm currently wondering about the effects of USB, intenal virtual instruments and the Midi time stamping on all that we found. Thanks for reading it. Dan (2006)

Dan and Big Ego Boys featured on Mac Addict CDROM

This is a really old Article for MIDI Magazine I wrote with my then Notable partner Mark Weltner.
It's About Time.
We've all heard it said that being in the right place at the right time can make or break a career in music.  Nowhere is this more important than in your musical performances.  The difference between a great player and a good one can often be reduced to timing. Timing is what gives music that special funky flow that people want to groove to.  The error might be as small as a few milliseconds, but those milliseconds determine whether people want to dance or even listen to your music. When music is rhythmically right, it just feels good.
It's always been difficult to judge where your rhythms are placed relative to a mechanical click. Or at least for most of us.... Stories of Donald Fagen's ears perceiving  millisecond differences and voicing his disillusionment with MIDI gear are well documented and are what legends are made of. Most producers and engineers I know would love a tool that would show players where they fall relative to the click.MIDI's Murky Pathways
The desire for accuracy and the ability to measure it are also crucial in MIDI production. In a studio, there are countless causes of timing delays and errors that affect the music in small and large ways. We are falsely led to believe that when we play something and record it, we will hear that performance played back without rhythmic alteration. Admittedly, MIDI gear is a major perpetrator of these delays.
        At the smallest level, MIDI itself can only communicate about one Note On per millisecond. See box: "How Simultaneous Can Two MIDI Notes Be?"  A good sequencer can read the differences in your performance as closely as one millisecond per note (see Figure 1).
        Figure 1
The Math
For example, if your tempo is 120 bpm, and your sequencer has a resolution of 480 ticks per beat, you have a real time resolution of 960 ticks per second:120/beats per minute =
        120 bpm/60 seconds =
                 2 beats per second
(beats per second) x (ticks per beat) =
        ticks per second
2 beats per second  x  480 ticks per beat =
             960 ticks per second =
                 approximately 1000th of a second         Practically speaking, however, a serial cable is incapable of sending two notes at the exact same time: one note must follow the other by at least one millisecond. (On a Macintosh, serial cables are the modem and printer cables.)  More often than not, you are sending multiple events in the hope that they will play simultaneously, but they don't. Plus, events scheduled for simultaneous playing will appear one tick apart, in random order. One way to solve the random-order problem is actually to spread simultaneous events by one tick in your sequencer.
        So far, we know that the accuracy is hampered by the speed of the serial communication and the quantity of notes simultaneously played. This problem is compounded by other MIDI data communicated at the same time, further slowing this process and making playback even less consistent. Many of you have seen your computer slow down when burdened with many complicated activities. This same problem plagues some sequencers' metronomes when reproducing a complicated MIDI performance. This can be true for both computer sequencers and drum machines.
        The problems don't stop with sequencers, however. Once our MIDI data has left the serial cables, they arrive at a MIDI interface. These interfaces can create more delays as they translate information from serial to MIDI.
        Finally, the data arrives at the MIDI modules. Guess what? More delays! Not only do different modules differ in the speed at which they produce audio from your MIDI data, sounds within a module vary in the time it takes them to be produced.What's a Few Milliseconds Between Brothers?
So what do we do about these millisecond differences? And how can we possibly guarantee that two MIDI notes will occur at the exact same time?  Here's the product pitch: a tool that sent me scurrying to find all the faults with my own production studio.
Jeanius, a company in San Antonio, has provided the recording world with a tool to simplify the judgment and analysis of all these time errors.  It is called the Russian Dragon (RD-R and RD-T), named for its ability to accurately perceive if your audio is "rushin'" ahead or "draggin'" behind a reference source you supply. The idea for the unit came from Audio Engineer/Designer Marius Perron and his drumming brother, who had always wished they had a mechanism to judge how closely he was playing to the sequenced tracks. Marius made the prototype to remove both guesswork from the sessions and tension from not knowing who was right. The unit gave honest feedback to the drummer, the engineer, and the producer. Description: The Anatomy of the Russian Dragon
The Russian Dragon is available in a small rack-mount version (the RD-R) and a less expensive tabletop version (RD-T). I opted for the rack-mount model.
The RD-R is an uncomplicated single-space rack-mount unit with 1/4-inch inputs on the back and the front.  The top input (channel 1) is used for the reference and the bottom input (channel 2) is used for the other audio event you will judge to be dragging (slow), rushing (fast), or dead on (what Jeanius calls "snake eyes") relative to the reference.  The unit features an input level control and four LEDs for visual confirmation of audio and amplitude adjustment.  A large row of 25 colored LEDs indicates the timing differences from a tenth of a millisecond to 99 milliseconds. The LEDs are adjustable in 1-9  millisecond increments  as set by a selector knob marked "ms per LED."  A trigger LED indicates the presence and duration of the two signals. The duration is adjustable by a "Mask Control." By increasing the length of the Mask Control, you can eliminate accidental re-triggering of the timing LEDs.  This allows the unit to ignore delay characteristics or extraneous sounds that would make analysis difficult.
A polarity check button for each input ensures that the shape of the transient wave forms start with positive (above the zero crossing point) sections. Polarity is checked for two reasons. First, the sensor that reads the beginning of the audio event is triggered when the signal goes above the zero threshold. So, a signal with a rarefaction at its entrance would not trigger until later in the wave form, when it moved above the zero crossing. Second, two out-of-phase drums, with similar transients, combined and aligned by this unit would produce a cancellation or thinning phase effect, which is probably contrary to the Mother-of-God drum sound you were looking for when you aligned six snare samples (see Figure 2).
The unit is rounded out by a wall wart power cord on the rear, a power switch on the front, and an extra pair of inputs for the convenience of having them on the front as well as the back.
Figure 2: Picture of two out-of-phase waves
Testing: Let's See Who's Been Naughty or Nice
The minute I took the RD-R out of its box, I wanted to test the delays present in my studio system. It's as if your ears have been bionically upgraded to distinguish millisecond differences.
Not all of the equipment in my eight-track MIDI studio is spanking new. But since good used gear is widely available, the Russian Dragon is especially valuable because it can measure the accuracy of used as well as new equipment. There is little documentation of MIDI delays in my older pieces (some of which create classic sounds which I still consider vital). Adaptable and precise, the Russian Dragon measures reaction times, consistency, and sync ability in software and hardware sequencers, metronomes, sync boxes, digital delays, and MIDI modules.
By testing the three delay units in my studio I could establish if they were consistent enough to aid me in performing other tests. I hooked up a click directly out the back of my Macintosh speaker output (using Performer software), through a Yamaha SPX90, into reference channel 1 in the RD-R. The click track also went to a Lexicon PCM70, then on to reference channel 2 in the RD-R. After setting the single-delay programs in both units to the same amount of time, the Russian Dragon showed the delayed clicks to be arriving together -- at "snake eyes," meaning that the units were accurate to a tenth of a millisecond. This consistency was wonderful to confirm, although "snake eyes" actually occurred when the units were set at slightly differing delay settings. Thus, while the units retain the delay settings they claim to have (to a tenth of a millisecond), that delay setting is not necessarily what is displayed in the LCD. I also tested a Yamaha SPX90 against these units, with similar results. These results are displayed in Figures 3 and 4.
Next I was curious about the accuracy of the LED indicators on the front of the RD-R itself. By setting different delay times, I could check the unit's sensitivity to gradual increases in timing delays. For instance, at the 1 millisecond setting, if the light lit up one unit to the left of the "snake eyes" setting, this meant that the two inputs were approximately 1 millisecond apart. At the 2 millisecond setting, the same light meant that the distance was approximately 2 milliseconds, and so forth (see Figure 5).
The most sensitive setting portrayed millisecond differences easily and a tenth of a millisecond accuracy only when the events were simultaneous (at "snake eyes").  The nine settings were measured with each of the three delays as well. The inconsistencies were more revealing of the discrepencies in the digital readout of the digital delay units. The resulting numbers found in the various settings might look like the settings are far from the times they claim to measure. In fact, they are halfway between the amount  they are supposed to indicate. For instance, the first LED lights up when the SPX90 is set at 7.5 milliseconds and the "ms per LED" knob is set at 5 milliseconds because the delay is halfway between 5 and 10 milliseconds (see Figures 6, 7, and 8).  Figure 6
Yamaha SPX90
                                   -  -  -  LEDs Lit  -  -  -                                    snake           KNOB
11         10         9         8         7         6         5         4         3         2         1          eyes         SETTING
10.9         9.9         9.0         8.0         7.1         6.1         5.2         4.2         3.2         2.1         1.3          - - -           (1)
                                                                                         2.9          - - -           (2)
                                                                                         4.4          - - -           (3)
                                                                                         6.0          - - -           (4)
                                                                                         7.5          - - -           (5)
                                                                                         8.6          - - -           (6)
                                                                                         10.4          - - -           (7)
                                                                                         12.0          - - -           (8)
                                                                                         13.6          - - -           (9)Figure 7
Yamaha SPX90 II
                                   -  -  -  LEDs Lit  -  -  -                                    snake           KNOB
11         10         9         8         7         6         5         4         3         2         1          eyes         SETTING
10.3         9.3         8.4         7.4         6.5         5.5         4.6         3.6         2.6         1.7         .7          - - -           (1)
                                                                                         2.3          - - -           (2)
                                                                                         3.8          - - -           (3)
                                                                                         5.4          - - -           (4)
                                                                                         6.9          - - -           (5)
                                                                                         8.2          - - -           (6)
                                                                                         9.8          - - -           (7)
                                                                                         11.4          - - -           (8)
                                                                                         13.0          - - -           (9)Figure 8
Lexicon PCM 70
                                   -  -  -  LEDs Lit  -  -  -                                    snake           KNOB
11         10         9         8         7         6         5         4         3         2         1          eyes         SETTING
10.4         9.68         8.82         7.61         6.84         5.77         4.80         3.64         2.87         1.81         .83          - - -           (1)
                                                                                         2.40          - - -             (2)
                                                                                         3.91          - - -           (3)
                                                                                         5.45          - - -           (4)
                                                                                         7.22          - - -           (5)
                                                                                         8.41          - - -           (6)
                                                                                         10.1          - - -           (7)
                                                                                         11.5          - - -           (8)
                                                                                         13.3          - - -           (9)What's the MIDI Module Delay Time?
I wanted to know how long it takes for audio to come out of my MIDI modules when they were programmed to play fully quantized quarter notes in sync with the Macintosh click (see Figure 9).  You'll see that the delays range from 1 to 5 milliseconds. Keep in mind these are ideal circumstances--  the units are only playing monophonic quarter notes and nothing further is being asked of the sequencer or the MIDI unit. Hardly a realistic challenge, but still there are measurable differences. The differences themselves are inconsistent. I've indicated where it varied from note to note by as much as 2 milliseconds. Again, these may seem like small amounts of time. But when added together, they are perceivable and they change randomly.
Figure 9
Device vs.         Device         Mode         Output         Drag (ms)
Mac spkr          Akai S1000          sample mode         mix out         4-5
Mac spkr          Akai S1000         program mode         mix out         5-6
Mac spkr          Akai S900         sample mode         mix out         3
Mac spkr          Akai S900         program mode         mix out         2-3
Mac spkr          Yamaha RX-5         pattern mode         mono out         5
Mac spkr           Yamaha RX-5         pattern mode         rim out         4-5
Mac spkr           Roland TR808         NA         main out         2
Mac spkr         Roland TR808         NA         rim out         1-2
Mac spkr           Emu SP-12 Turbo         sequence mode         mix out         2-4
Mac spkr           Emu SP-12 Turbo         sequence mode         rim out         3-4
Hardware- and software-based sequencers were the next subject for analysis. All I really tested was the consistency of the metronomic pulse put out by these units.  Given more time I'd test start inconsistencies and sync influences.  Once again, I used a digital delay as a constant unit of time. I delayed one quarter note to be in sync with the next (see Figure 10).  Include if we get AES permission:I have also included findings from Marius Perron's AES presentation.Figure 10
Sequencer         Delay                  Resolution: complicated
at 160 bpm         Setting         Resolution         drumpart with eight parts
Mac Performer*         375.5 ms          1 ms          2 ms
     (Mac spkr click)        
Emu SP12 Turbo         376.1 ms                      0.1 ms          2 ms
     (rimshot)
Roland TR808         NA                            0.1 ms          0.1 ms but slower tempo
     (rimshot)                  
Yamaha RX5         367.7 ms            0.1 ms          3 ms variation
     (rimshot)
Boss Dr. Beat DB-66         376.1 ms          0.1 ms         NA
     (rimshot)
*Mark of the Unicorn, Version 4.2; Macintosh SE/30 system 7.1Include if we get AES permission:
Marius Perron's Findings, Presented at the 91st AES Convention.
Sequencer         Resolution
Wittner Taktell piccolo metronome          4
Korg M-1, qurater note sidestick          3
Boss Dr. Rhythm DR550 drum machine          4
Akai MPC-60 sequencer (metronome out)          1
Akai MPC-60 sequencer, quarter note pattern
                                    (individual out)          5
Boss DB music conductor         no errors
Macintosh 2CX with Vision 1.2u2 (spkr out)          2
Korg DTM12 digital tuner/metronome         no errors
Garfield Electronis Dr. Click         no errors
Alesis HR16B drum machine          0.6
UREI  model 964 digital metronome         no errors
Emu III sequencer (metronome out)          3
Roland TR909 drum machine          5
Alesis MMT-8 sequencer,
                              MIDI'd to drum machine          2
Roland SBX-80 (metronome out)          1
These units also exhibited inconsistencies in their start-up time.We found that the tempo that each called 160 bpm varied -- as well as the consistency between quarter notes. As a drummer, I've always wondered why some metronomes seemed easier to follow than others.  I often attributed it to how I felt on a given day or the sound of these units. With the Russian Dragon, I learned that metronomes can be as moody as I am. To this end, I tested a more complicated sequence as well as just a quarter note pulse.
The findings are validating for the drummer in me . . . but upsetting for the producer in me. There was an 8.4 millisecond difference between the RX5's 160 bpm and the SP12's 160 bpm. The quarter note test showed fairly stable tenth of a millisecond resolutions among the SP12, TR808, and RX5 sequencers. The surprises were the David and Goliath performances of the Macintosh SE/30 with Performer 4.2 and the Boss Dr. Beat metronome. The Macintosh was inconsistent 1 millisecond, and the Dr. Beat held "snake eyes" at better than tenth of a millisecond stability for minutes on end. The Mac and all of the drum machines suffered when many drum parts were added to the playback.
The TR808, an analog drum machine, could not be measured for tempo accuracy because it has no digital readout. Strangely, it was not less consistent when parts were added. But its tempo did slow down. Its determination to be consistent might be attributable to the 16-note resolution capacity of its sequencer.Conclusion: Everything is Not on the One
The Russian Dragon helped illuminate many timing idiosyncracies. Like a tuner or oscilloscope, the Russian Dragon is a crucial tool for measuring timing in the studio. There are many ways to use the RD-R that I haven't had time to try yet. Some of the possibilities include finding offsets for slightly out-of-sync tapes and/or sequences, fixing the delay times between distant speakers, and providing feedback for drummers playing prerecorded and sequenced parts. I'm looking forward to testing these options.
One interesting solution to the MIDI serial problem is actually to split your simultaneous events by 1 tick to solve random-order problems. In general, I'm a little less comfortable with the resolution of MIDI devices than I was before. I hope the system protocol will be improved. That's a lot to ask for an industry that is slow to change designs involving cooperative schemes. So companies must agree and share information to make this happen. If we take, for example, the battle between Opcode's OMS and Motu's Free MIDI, we may wait a long time. Company cooperation got us into MIDI. Let's hope the same spirit carries us to a new, more musical resolution. And let's hope our timing improves.Thanks
Notable Productions' timing is kept by Daniel C. Cantor and Mark Weltner, whose mission is to seek out new timing errors and remove them. We'd like to thank Marius Perron at Jeanius for creating the Russian Dragon and providing us with the unit and information. [Include if we get AES permission:Thanks to AES for letting us reprint Marius's findings.] Thanks also to fellow time delay sleuth Robert Poor at Opcode R&D Systems for his box of info and his enthusiasm. Finally Notable owes Kathy Wolff a heap of thanks for her split-second editing.
How Simultaneous Can Two MIDI Notes Be?
or
Time Is Nature's Way of Keeping Everything from Happening At OnceMIDI data sent on a MIDI cable are transmitted as serial data. A sequence of ones and zeros tells your drum machine to "play the sidestick on channel 3 mezzo forte." It takes a bit of time to transmit those ones and zeros. More important, all the information for one note must be transmitted before the next note can begin.
What is the delay between two "simultaneous" MIDI notes on a single cable? For those who just want the facts, the answer is 960 microseconds for ordinary Note On events or 640 microseconds for Running Status Note On events.
How do we get these numbers? Get out your calculator and follow along. The first thing to know is that MIDI data are transmitted at 31250 bits per second, also called 31.25 KiloBaud. (This peculiar number happens to be 1/16th of 1,000,000 cycles per second. Many early computers had built-in crystal oscillators running at this frequency; this was an easy frequency to derive.)
Each byte of MIDI date requires 10 bits of serial data. The byte is transmitted with one start bit, eight bits of real data, and one stop bit. The start and stop bits are needed to tell the receiving circuitry "here comes some data," and "that was the end of the data." At a rate of 31,250 bits per second, we can send 3,125 (31,250/10) of these "MIDI bytes" per second.
To send one Note On message requires three MIDI bytes. The first byte says that this is a Note On event and specifies which channel (1-16). The second byte says which key number is to be played. The third byte specifies the velocity. We can send 1042 (3,125/3) such Note On messages per second.
But we promised to tell you the duration of each Note On message, not the number of messages per second. This is easy: 1/1042 messages per second = .00096 seconds per message. In technospeak, this is .96 milliseconds, or 960 microseconds per Note On message.
MIDI does offer a slight speed improvement through Running Status messages. After sending a normal three-byte Note On message, a sequencer can send additional key number/velocity messages, omitting the first byte of an ordinary Note On message. For a string of notes that all occur on the same channel, this reduces the number of MIDI bytes per Note On message from three to two. We can send 1563 (3,125/2) Running Status Note On messages per second, which corresponds to .00064 (1/1563) seconds, .64 milliseconds, or 640 microseconds per message.
The bottom line is that for MIDI data running on a single MIDI cable imposes an absolute "speed limit" of about 1000 Note On messages per second, or 1500 Note On messages when Running Status is in effect. This number gets worse with other MIDI data, such as aftertouch and controller information. Your actual mileage may vary.

• Robert Poor

 
Director of Research and Development
         Opcode Systems, Inc.
By Daniel C. Cantor and Mark Weltner
        Notable Productions@1994

Another ancient Midi Magazine article...

Did you hear violins? I Did.

Peter Siedlaczek's Sample Library: ORCHESTRA
Akai Sampler CD-ROM
Formats available: Akai samplers; Digidesign Sample Cell.
Size: 242 megabytes of non-redundant violin samples
Retail Price: $399

The Denny Jaeger MASTER VIOLIN LIBRARY
Akai CD-ROM
Formats available: Akai S1000, S1100, and S3000; Digidesign Sample Cell; Emu EIII; Roland SP-700/S760; New England Digital's Synclavier. To be released: Kurzweil K2000
Size: 460 megabytes of non-redundant violin samples
Retail Price: $495

Both sample libraries are distributed by East West Communications, Inc.
Phone: 800-833-8339; fax: 213-848-3034.

Tested at Notable Productions on an Akai S1000 with 18 Mb of RAM through a Mackie 8-bus board, to a Hafler power amp, into Snell J2's, Sony MDRV600 and AKG K240 headphones.

Reviewing sounds is a strange job. One man's art is another man's soup. This especially rings true with samples. What is useful and inspiring to one musician may be trite or annoying to another. In order to solve this dilemma we got opinions from four separate sources.
The reviewers include myself, my partner Mark Weltner at Notable Productions, freelance engineer Coleman Rogers and pianist/producer Alain Mallet. Mark is an award-winning  electronic and classical music composer, as well as a guitarist and vocalist whose performance experience ranges from bluegrass to reggae to a cappella vocal arrangements. Mark recently sang Motley Cre for a rock and roll video game. Together, he and I have produced and scored music for the American Repertory Theatre, TV38 Boston, IBM, Robben Ford, Intel, Microsoft, and a number of films radio dramas and modern ballets. Coleman Rogers is a freelance recording engineer and technician who can never leave well enough alone. He has installed, wired and recorded at many of Boston's best studios. Recent projects include The Story, Vance Gilbert, and Deborah Henson-Conant. Alain Mallet is originally from Andernos, France, and has lived in Boston since 1983. He is trained as a jazz pianist and has played with Bob Moses, Tommy Campbell and Paquito D'Rivera. He co-produced two albums for The Story on Elektra and recently produced "Edgewise" for Vance Gilbert on Rounder.
Initially, I thought we would review these CD-ROMs as competitors, but after listening to them, we realized that they are more complementary than competitive in nature.

HISTORY
Both of these sample libraries were originally sampled on New England Digital's Synclavier. The Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestral CD was sampled in an East Berlin concert hall directly into a Synclavier. These samples were reprogrammed and produced by East West Communications under exclusive license from Masterbits GmbH, Germany.
The Denny Jaeger library had an illustrious beginning as the Synclavier violin library. Synthesist and composer Denny Jaeger spent two years and $400,000 to create this violin library. It was originally sold as a four gigabyte library for the Synclavier on a worm drive costing $12,500. Later it was sold as a three-CD package costing $1100, and contained many file redundancies to facilitate use with Akai 1000 series samplers. Mr. Jaeger later edited and reprogrammed this sample set to fit on one CD-ROM by creating special load sequences for the various programs, thus eliminating file redundancies. As a result, the price dropped dramatically to $495.


SAMPLE SUMMARY
Listed below are the parameters that we evaluated in these libraries and the Cliff Notes for our findings.

Sample types

Denny Jaeger Violin Library
Loud Sustains
Loud Attacks
Soft Sustains
Soft Attacks
Low Sustains (to C1)
Trills (half & whole step)
Tremolo
Pizzicato
Col Legno

(although this list is shorter, the number of samples and length of samples in each category is extensive)

Siedlaczek's Orchestra Library
Orchestra Hits
Orchestra Sustains
Orchestra Glissando
Orchestra Tremolo
String Pizzicato
Harp Hits
String Spiccato
Orchestra Spiccato
String Tremolo
String Sustains
String Arpeggiated
Orchestra Pentatonic
Clusters


Realism
Denny Jaeger Violin Library
Highly realistic. Samples were never stretched more than a few half-steps to preserve their natural timbre.

Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra Library
Highly realistic. Samples were stretched more than the Jaeger library, but not to the point of becoming unnatural.

Acoustic Environment
Denny Jaeger Violin Library
Completely dry.

Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra Library
Real concert hall reverberation -- a large East Berlin hall with an orchestra micd at a distance

Background noise
Denny Jaeger Violin Library
None. The pizzicatos were NoNOISEDTM to reduce unwanted room noise and hiss.

Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra Library
Concert hall room noises, with some variation. Digidesign DINRTM software was used to lower the background noise on the pp samples only.

Consistency
Denny Jaeger Violin Library

• Scale Extremely consistent. There was almost no discernable difference between samples from the lowest to the highest notes.
• Attack Consistent attacks, well edited. We found a few instances where the samples had slightly inconsistent attacks, and seemed to require further editing. However, these can be remedied or worked around. Relative to the vastness of the library, we were very impressed.
• Loops All the loops we checked were amazingly seamless, although we could not check loop consistency of all notes for all samples.

Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra Library

• Scale Good but inconsistent. We often detected changes from one sample to another as we played a scale.
• Attack Consistant attacks, well edited. Occasional anomalies
• Loops Generally seamless, but more noticeable than the Jaeger collection.

DOCUMENTATION/PROGRAMMING:
Denny Jaeger Violin Library

• Manual Generally the manual was clear, especially concerning the potentially complicated process involved in loading up varying programs. Provided full and accurate descriptions of programs and their intended uses.
• Ease of loading Easy to load. However, because there are no file redundancies, the sample sets and programs had to be loaded separately, often a three step process.
• Samples per square inch Packed -- 460 Mb on one CD-ROM
• Technical specs:

- Frequencies Samples are available in 44.1K stereo, 44.1K summed mono (right and left channel summed together) and 32K stereo.
- Bank sizes Not for faint of heart, the bulk of these lush sample sets range from 3 Mb to 13 Mb, and go as high as 16.93 Mb.

Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra Library

• Manual This is a list, not a manual. Only the program titles and their locations are listed, with no in depth descriptions or bank size information.
• Ease of loading One step - very easy
• Samples per square inch Moderate (242 Mb, non-redundant files)
• Technical specs:

- Frequencies Samples are available in 44.1K stereo, 44.1K summed mono and 32K stereo.
- Bank sizes No info listed. Many programs were in the 3 Mb to 6 Mb range.


THE PANEL: INTRODUCTIONS
To let you know a little more about the panel, here are a few questions we asked in the beginning of the session and the discussion that ensued:

MIDI: How much of your sample library is bought, and how much do you create yourself?

Coleman: Im an engineer so I dont keep one.

Alain: Actually, I've bought very little. I use samplers mostly to sample things from live sessions that I've done to turn a part into a different part. If there's a guitar riff that I like, I listen to the music in terms of snippets of sound and see how I could use it to create another part in a different part of the song or in a different song altogether. It's more a tool to use spontaneously. But I don't think I've ever bought samples because unless it's something you can audition ahead of time... It's great with CD-ROMs now, because you can now listen to what you're going to buy -- but all these mail order things, if you get the stuff and the loops are funky, and it sounds like shit, there's nothing you can do about it. So I've exchanged a lot of samples, I've resampled stuff from other samplers, but I haven't bought stuff over the mail.

Dan: Being a drummer, I don't buy loops generally, because I like to make loops out of my own grooves, or try to do grooves without looping. I keep a large instrument library on Syquest, DAT RAM and floppy for all kinds of sounds.  I regularly run a DAT recorder while in sessions at studios and I make a point of having samples to fix parts for clients without having to go back into the studio with musicians again. You never know when some bizarre warm-up or mistake might be musical for another composition. We also always get permission from the instrumentalists before doing this. I've only bought the Clearmountain drum libraries and an Invision Lightware CD-ROM. It's especially important to keep sounds for instruments that I don't have access to. I can borrow a synth, I can't borrow an orchestra.

MIDI: What criterion do you use to decide between players and samples?

Coleman: Budget and time. Sometimes you end up really having to play with a sample to get it to feel right, where if you just had someone who had an instrument it would.probably feel right right away.

Alain: I think different professional applications also determine what your demands are going to be. Say you're working in film, you have a huge budget, and you have to re-record a cue the day before the release of the film. You can bring a whole symphony orchestra in the studio the day before and re-record it. If you're working in industrial videos for instance and you have high standards of quality and one of the cues doesn't work at the last minute and they feel like the whole string part gets in the way of the spoken part or something like that, you do have to re-record it. If you were using real strings, you wouldn't have as much flexibility as you do when you use samples. If you have the patience to make it so that it works good for you...

Dan: You have to put hours into tweaking and making choices to use the different sample sets at the appropriate points in the composition and adjust their envelopes to the performance and/or adjusting your keyboard technique to the sample set. And although really good string players are hard to come by and expensive, a player with bad intonation can end up being just as expensive and more time consuming.

Mark:: I think, like Coleman says, if you have experience with the samples then you know --

Coleman: You get a handle on where you can use it, and what you can do with it.

Alain: So after a while you must know what works and what doesn't, what envelopes would work best, how much velocity between such and such tempo, etc.

Coleman:  So you're talking about things that are going to be more incidental, where it's not the focus of what you're doing. But you still need high quality -- you still want the impact and sweetness of something that sounds really good.

Alain: Yeah.

REVIEW
Obviously we couldnt describe all the specific pluses and minuses of each program and sample set on these extensive CD-ROM sample libraries, so we gave our overall impressions, occasionally using specific examples to illustrate.
Loading up the two libraries was fairly simple. In the case of the Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestral Sample Library, you simply load up the volume you want, and you can start playing immediately. However, the insert that came with it was far from adequate. It gave no guidelines or recommendations for how to use it. We looked for statements like: The strings on Drive D work beautifully for lush legato pads and so forth. There was also practically no technical information. Just plug it in and find out for yourself. Alains comment says it all: Thats the whole pamphlet, thats the whole thing?
The Jaeger librarys pamphlet, on the other hand, was full of technical information and advice on how each program and sample set worked best. By reading the insert for 15 minutes before using it, we were much more well-equipped to take advantage of its wide variety of samples and programs. We also appreciated Mr. Jaegers clear step-by-step instructions on how to load volumes and banks. We loaded them up and began to try them out.
A quick overall listening of the Denny Jaeger Master Violin Library found it to be immediately impressive. We found it to be very consistent and realistic. It is also potentially flexible because it was recorded with no reverb, whereas the PSOL was recorded with the natural reverb of a concert hall. Clearly, both have their unique merits. The Jaeger library is more adaptable to any given situation, but it lacks the warmth of the orchestral samples. On the other hand, the orchestra, while beautiful, is naturally more restricted in its application because of the concert hall ambience. For the same reasons the orchestra CD-ROM is more impressive right out of the box. It gives the instant gratification of playing a whole orchestra with a few key strokes. Coleman said this about the orchestral CD versus the Jaeger library:
The good thing about this one [orchestra CD] is that it does have the full orchestra so when you go to play something it sounds warm and full and you have the whole arrangement, whereas the other one [Jaeger library] playing individual parts in there, you never got the feeling of the whole.
The Jaeger library at first listen is less fun but is clearly built for more in depth use by someone with a real working knowledge of string arrangements and their nuances.
Another immediately noticeable difference was that the Jaeger library is very clean and quiet, whereas the orchestra library is noisy, partially a result of recording a large group of musicians in a hall, in which case extraneous noise is inevitable.
Once we got into the specific programs and samples, it got more interesting. The Denny Jaeger violin library is incredibly seamless and consistent, to the point of almost not being human -- both a plus and a minus. Another aspect of the Jaeger library regarding its consistency is that it goes beyond specific samples, loops and programs -- the CD-ROM as a whole is consistent from program to program. It really sounds like a unified whole. Alain had a good point to make about this:
I also think it's important for people to realize that it's all the stuff that you don't hear that makes all the difference. Let's say you're going to make a killer string part based on those samples, and say you come really damn close, and it's so far behind [back in the mix] and it's drenched in so much reverb that nobody will be able to tell the difference -- it's all the stuff that you don't hear, the fact that in a real section, the same note at the same dynamic would never sound the same way twice -- all those little things make the difference between a good tune and a great tune.
The orchestra CD is much more varied in the sounds and textures it provides, and its consistency varies both within sample sets and from program to program. Some programs sound beautiful. For example, we loved the slow string program, even though it was far noisier than the Jaeger library. On the other hand, the major, minor and diminished orchestra hits varied dramatically not only from sample to sample, but from each other. The diminished hits seemed to highlight the woodwinds as a whole, whereas the major hits were string-heavy. This would make it difficult to integrate the different programs into one composition. Furthermore, we could almost always detect the change in samples within each of these programs.
The more we discussed the practical uses for the sample libraries, the more we agreed that, no matter how good some of the sample sets were, the instances when these samples could be used as a featured or solo instrument would be rare. Furthermore, each sample set and program is an instrument in itself, and cannot be used haphazardly to create an effect or mood. They must be chosen carefully. In the case of the orchestra, the samples are quite varied, and its range of applications is probably more limited as a result. The Jaeger library is less expressive and thus more flexible in this way, but also more labor intensive. Heres how the peanut gallery grappled with these issues:

Alain: I understand the Miroslav Vitous long violin samples have been sampled with a lot of dynamics in them, which my friends were sort of complaining could be a drawback if you're trying to get any other kind of expression out of the samples. But it's realistic, and it has expression that was executed by real string players and not just a MIDI thing. So how real is real? Do these things [Jaeger library] sound better than a lot of string samples that I've heard? Well, they sound just a good as a lot of them, and probably better than most, but how do you judge them is what we're talking about.

Mark: Yeah, I agree with you. I think it all has to do with context. In some ways it's interesting to compare the Jaeger library to the orchestral samples, because in the orchestral samples, the string ones were very expressive, but to me they're expressive in a certain context. You can use them in certain contexts, and in other contexts, forget it, because you have that huge hall reverb, and it sounds like you're saying the same thing -- perhaps it's more advantageous to buy a sample library that is more expressive and less flexible

Coleman: and just use it where it works, take advantage of the expression that's there.

Dan: I don't think any of us is oriented towards composing compositionally for classical music and then executing it on MIDI and then trying to sell it to anyone as classical compositions, I don't think that's our goal here at all. To me it's more about, if you have a CD library that has 600 snare drums on it, if you find the one that works for that occasion, then you're in good shape. In the Jaeger violin library, there's enough flexibility and enough different types of attacks, I think that I'll be able to find that one sample that will work for a specific situation. To me that's the beauty of it. I'm not going to sit down with this library and compose a quartet and try to fool people into believing that it's all real players.
We also asked the group what problems had come up when using violin and orchestral samples. Here are some of the responses and comments and how they related to these libraries:

Alain: I've used the Proteus, and one of the problems that I've run into is that it's so out of tune. But I use mostly a very analog sounding stringy pad. I've also used the Kurzweil. But when I had all these string sounds available, I ended up using the string sounds from the Kurzweil micropiano, and that's what I used, and doing dynamics with the fader as we were going to tape. I'm not saying it's the best sound, but it's what felt right at the time, and sometimes you have to go with the moment.

Mark: I find it interesting that you say that analog stuff is good. It makes sense to me because the problem with using orchestral and violin samples is that you want something seamless, you want something that's not going to sound uneven as you go between samples, where you hear that difference between samples, because it immediately becomes annoying, whereas analog at least sounds seamless, even if it doesn't sound authentic.

Dan: So it fills in the gaps between all those stiff sample problems.

Mark: Yeah. But the fact that the Jaeger library is so even makes it seem like a perfect compromise.

Alain: We're back to the dynamics thing. What we have here is string sounds that looped so perfectly that you get a very even tone, but I've never heard a string player be able to do that.

Dan: Its funny you say that because I understand that Denny Jaeger got his violinists to perform unfamiliar techniques when he recorded the samples. So here we are, trying to play expressive violin parts from a keyboard with samples that have a beyond-human consistency. I guess its better than a machine-like bad loop.

Alain: So if you want to recreate the kind of dynamics that you get from a string performance, you're going to have to do it using automation or using MIDI volume, which has nothing to do with the actual articulation of a real string dynamic. There's a timbral difference, there's also the unevenness of not all doing at the same time exactly perfectly. So it's not going to sound like the real thing.
Clearly, the debate around live players versus sampled players could (and did) go on most of the night. So what is the bottom line? Are these samples worth the price? Most of us agreed that both were worth the price. On the other hand, none of us have bought the products yet. One reason Alain mentioned was that when you buy mail order samples you dont know what you are getting until youve shelled out several hundred dollars.

SO CAN YOU BUY THIS LIBRARY AND SOUND LIKE A STRING SECTION?
Coleman: Having to learn how to play this system [Denny Jaeger library] as an instrument, owning it, you'd probably have to work with it for a couple weeks and work out some things to use this library effectively. You'd have to learn the strong points and the weak points of it and how to manipulate it so that it works.

Mark: I think that it's important to address the difference between this violin library and a live player, because it's so easy for Denny Jaeger to say this is the best thing since sliced bread -- he's billing it like this will do everything. But this will not do anything. These may be some of the best violin samples around, but they're still samples.

Alain: But as a tool for accessing a lot of violins in a lot of different textures, bowed attacks, etc., [the Jaeger library] makes it easier to construct something once you've already decided not to use a real violin section.

Dan: In this violin library, there's enough flexibility and enough different types of attacks, I think that I'll be able to find that one sample that will work for a specific situation. To me that's the beauty of it. I'm not going to sit down with this library and compose a quartet and try to fool people into believing that it's all real players.
On the other hand, Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra Sample Library is, as we have said, better for creating or accenting a specific mood without a big time commitment. If an orchestra in a big hall is what you want, then this could be a much better investment than the Denny Jaeger library especially if you dont have a concert reverb and/or orchestration chops. Dont let our sample-cynicism distract you from the fact that compared to many sample libraries, these sound great, and the consistency of Denny Jaegers library is especially impressive.

The Virtual Guitar: Rockin' the CD-ROM World
By Daniel C. Cantor and Mark Weltner

The Virtual Guitar is a new interactive CD-ROM game that is an air-guitarist's dream-come-true. The game begins with your descent from the heavens, listening to Lloyd, an old guitar master and your guide, as he waxes poetic, reminiscing: "That's the way it went down, man. I was trying to get that sound --  the sound that would take my guitar to another place. But something went wrong -- very wrong. The surge I created that night blew out every fuse in West Feedback and zapped me up here into the Stratosphere. But hey -- at first I dug it: no sleazy club owners. But you know, I never knew how much I'd miss it...  My town, man, my town. No better place for a guitarist to cut his teeth. If you haven't got your sound together, there's no mercy. But if you wail -- you can really rise above."

[Color slide: Downtown, West Feedback]

After making the trip from the stratosphere, through the clouds, above the West Feedback city skyline, you land in your bedroom. A CD player appears on the screen and you choose Whipping Post from the song list. Picking up your Virtual Guitar, you get ready to play. Although the Virtual Guitar looks and feels like a real electric guitar, it doesnt have any frets, and the strings do not extend down the neck for that matter. There's no need to memorize any notes or chords; you simply focus on which strings to pluck or strum, and when. The challenge is to strum the strings with the right rhythm and beat, or to match the lead, and carry the melody.

[Color slide: The Virtual Guitar]

What we just described comes from the first PC-based CD-ROM title based on virtual music technology developed by Ahead, Inc. of Bedford, MA. Notable Productions (Mark Weltner and Daniel C. Cantor) of Watertown, MA, was hired as by Ahead as musical producer and consultant for the Virtual Guitar project. This project tested our abilities in numerous ways -- in production, composition, performance, musicology, technical ability and stamina. One of our first responsibilities included assisting Ahead in selecting appropriate songs and artists. These include songs originally recorded by Aerosmith, Gin Blossoms, Motley Cre, Soul Asylum and BioHazard to name a few.

Next, we began arranging shortened versions of the songs. The reasoning behind this was  due inpart to the limited memory of a CD-ROM. Much of the available memory was to be dedicated to animation and Music TV-style digitized video, which characterize the interactive scenes of each game. This often meant turning 4 to 10 minute tunes into 2 minute 15 second tunes without damaging their integrity -- that is, each song still had to sound like a whole song and contain the crucial guitar hook.  For example we shortened the Allman Brothers classic Whipping Post from 22:40 to less than 3 minutes!

PICKING THE PLAYERS AND LAYING DOWN THE TRACKS
Next we chose the players for the project and the recording studio in which we would lay down the tracks. Most of the basic tracks were recorded at Tom Waltz's Waltz Audio Production, a 24 track studio in Boston, with a guitar/bass/drum trio (and occasional keyboard). Our biggest concern in choosing the musicians was their familiarity with a wide variety of styles, not only in their playing, but in their sound. This was important given that we had to cover groups such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Cult, Steppenwolf, Pantera and Cracker. Drums, male vocals and some guitar work could be covered by Notable.

In order to capture the proper feel of each song, Dan (on drums) listened to the original songs while laying the basics. In this way he could remain true to the spirit of the Songs. Using Yamaha drums, Zildlian cymbals and an arsenal of various snare drums. Recording the drums in a large room aided Dan in getting sounds that were appropriate for each tune.

Our mainstays for guitar and bass were, respectively, Adam Steinberg and Baron Browne, both of whom were outstanding. Adam has gigged and written songs with The Walkers, Patty Griffin, Laurie Sargent, Nicky Holland among others.  He proved useful for deciphering even the most remote guitar parts in a song. His equipment included Fender Twin Reverb and Marshall amplifiers; a DigiTech RP1 pre-amp; Ibanez tube screamer and other effects boxes. Guitars he used included a '67 Telecaster, a '62 reissue Stratocaster, a Gibson Spirit, and a Ibanez Saber.

Bassist Baron Browne has toured and gigged with Jean Luc Ponty, Billy Cobham, and Gary Burton, among others, and has a reputation for being in-the-pocket. We did not need a great deal of variety from him as far as his sound was concerned, and he mainly stayed in the control room, going direct from his 5-string Fender jazz bass running through a Neve 1073 pre-amp and EQ and a UREI 1176 limiter to tape. Other musicians involved in the basic tracks were bassists Lenny Bradford and Matt Gruenberg, guitarists Kevin Barry, Cyril Lance and Stephen Mayone; drummer Jason Fox; and keyboardists Sam Bozeman, Dave Limina and Matt Jenson, all of whom proved versatile and professional.

Our choice for the female vocalist was Sally Sweitzer, who has the voice of a true rocker. As the repertoire of songs for the project became more and more diverse, we wondered if she could fit the bill, but she came through with flying colors. Mark, on male vocals, made his debut in the heavy metal genre with this project, and managed to scream through Pantera, Biohazard, Motley Cre, The Cult and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

MIXING IT UP
The mixing was done at Sound Techniques in Boston, MA. We chose freelance engineer and Berklee Associate Professor, Carl Beatty after listening to some of his work and getting recommendations from some mutual friends. Carl has recorded Keith Richards, Tom Jones, George Benson, Frank Zappa, B-52's -- enough said. Armed with an occasional decaf and ably assisted by Sound Techniques' own David Kirkpatrick, Carl was up for long hours of work. Carl proved to be extremely technically proficient, and patient when our mix criterion changed or was obscure. His sense of humor and session stories kept spirits up when we were bogged down by the unexpected. At one point during a mix the power went out for the entire neighborhood, including Fenway Park, leaving us in the dark for ten minutes and not knowing if we'd lost our automation passes. During the crisis Carl explained that in his mixing classes he intentionally turns off the power to get the students to know how all the machines behave in all conditions. He said "You never know what the client may do, so you might as well the have the security of knowing your machines." True to his professionalism, and thanks to a well timed "Save command" we lost almost none of our work.

[Color photo of mix team]
Daniel C. Cantor, Mark Weltner of Notable Productions, Carl Beatty, freelance engineer, and Dave Kirkpatrick of Sound Techniques, pictured in front of Sound Techniques' SSL 4000G mixing console.


[SIDEBAR]
What Carl Beatty brings to a mix session:
A pair of B&W DM100 Speakers
Two Neve 2254 E compressors
One MXR Phaser/ Flanger
His Chair

What Notable Brings to Session:
Two Neve 1073 EQ/Pre-amp
One Drawmer 1960 Compressor/Pre-amps
One Troisi Digital Companion (16-bit A-to-D converter) thanks to Coleman Rogers
One Neumann U87 altered by Claus Heyne

We used an SSL 4000G mixing console, a fully automated board which makes recalling mixes a breeze; each fader and knob position is faithfully memorized, and all mix moves are stored and adjustable. Extensive automation was particularly useful in this project when we needed to  adapt the songs to the needs of the game.

There were several unusual techniques used while mixing. Occasionally, we found that we needed to enhance the bass drum by adding a sampled drum. Using a 16-bit S900 with a trigger unit in tandem with the Russian Dragon (see MIDI issue Jan/Feb '94 for a review of the Russian Dragon), we were able to accurately double the existing bass drum with a sample.

If we played the original kick drum from the playback head to trigger the sampled bass drum, the sample would arrive late, due to MIDI delays and trigger unit's response time.

Figure 1
One of the advantages of analog tape decks is that the tape passes over the record head prior to the play head. This enables you to anticipate the playback of music off the playback head by an amount determined by the tape speed and distance between the heads.


On Time
Early (original kick drum)     Late

^
Kick drum from
Playback head
into trigger unit/sampler


If we played the original kick drum from the record head to trigger the sampled bass drum (while all other tracks were coming off the playback head), the sample would arrive too soon. This is because the time it takes for the tape to move from the record head to the playback head is longer than the MIDI delays and trigger unit/sampler slowness.

Figure 2

On Time
Early (original kick drum)     Late

^
Kick drum from
Record head, into
trigger unit/sampler


By using a digital delay after the kick coming off of the record head and before the trigger unit/sampler, we could adjust the arrival time of the triggered sample, making it coincide exactly with the rest of the music on the playback head.

Figure 3

On Time
Early (original kick drum)     Late

^
Kick drum from
Record head, through delay,
into trigger unit/sampler


We used a Russian Dragon to accurately measure the amount of time that the record head anticipated the playback head on the Sony APR 24-track tape deck. We then used it to measure the delay created by going through a delay (currently set at zero) and a trigger unit/sampler and back to the board. The difference of these two measurements gave us the delay setting needed to have the drum and sampled drum sound simultaneously.

Our original demo version mixes had very little real guitar in the mix to leave a hole for the Virtual Guitar to fill. Reactions to these low-tech versions led us to realize that our client wanted the songs to sound as good as the originals, but at the same time different. One obvious clue separating our versions from the originals was the use of vocalists that were unlike the originals but convincing in their own way. Many of the male vocals were sung by a female vocalist on our versions. This also afforded the video band some sexual diversity.

As a music producer, Notable is accustomed to making sonic decisions based on supporting the song, lyric, mood or sound characteristic we are trying to achieve. For the Virtual Guitar project our mix criteria was most unusual. The first criterion was that the mixes had to preserve the identity of the original song.  Since the song list includes hits from three decades, it required us to be well versed in the mix aesthetics characteristic of each period. The convenience of having the original version on the 24-track in sync with our tracks facilitated switching back and forth between the versions while staying exactly where we were in the song.

The second mix criterion was more ambiguous and actually changed over the course of the project.  The balance between the instrument volumes was partially determined by which virtual guitar part would be played over the top of each mix. In fact, each song would have a number of possible guitar parts played over it. These included most guitar parts found in the original, plus additional parts composed by Mark, Dan and Adam. To make things more complicated, Ahead wanted the mixes to sound full and impressive; the mixes could not sound like a music-minus-one rendition with the assumption that the virtual guitar parts would fill in the missing parts.

The actual sonic characteristics of the Virtual Guitar were in development and not available for us to use during the mix process. Imagine mixing a vocal album without knowing what your lead vocalist sounds like. The attempt to put in real guitars to "ghost" and fill out the mixes while leaving enough room for the Virtual Guitars was unlike any type of mixing we've done. To be safe, we laid as many as ten variations for each mix in order to avoid the possibility of having to remix all 21 songs. This technique saved us a number of remixes and enabled us to stay much closer to deadlines.

To achieve a variety of guitar and drum sounds we often ran the guitar tracks back though amps in the studio and re-mic'd them. Jim Keltner's snare sound on This Is Cracker Soul was particularly open and loose sounding. We created a different sound by using a Radio King 5" x 14" snare during the tracking session, but it wasn't doing the trick. We ended up running the drum track out into the studio's JBL speaker pointing upward. A loosely tuned 7" x 14" wooden Montieri Snare was placed on top of the cone. We then re-mic'd the drum at a small distance, giving us the right mixture of room and drum to achieve a dark, loose quality we had been missing. All of the mixes were double-checked through a two-track Studer A810 mono speaker and recorded into the digital ins of two DAT recorders through a Troisi Digital Companion. The analog to digital converters in this unit are far superior sounding to the front end of most DAT recorders.

Our unedited mixes were then approved and we took them to be mastered at Jonathan Wyner's M-Works in Cambridge, MA. Jonathan, besides being adept with Sonic Solutions, has a great listening environment and an even better set of ears. It's not uncommon for him to discern a number of subtleties of the recording techniques used to make the recording you bring to him. Even more useful is his ability to detect problems and have corrective measures in hand quickly and easily. The music mixes and our cues were loaded into Sonics Solutions via Summit or Aphex, Compression and/or Summit, or Triosi EQ. The endings and beginnings were trimmed and cleaned. All the volume levels were normalized and made comparable.  Drum clicks at the count off that were noisy or inconsistent were replaced with cleaner clicks.

Mixes were then sent to Palomar Pictures in Los Angeles for transferring to video and to Rob Cairns at Big Fish Audio for data translation from 16-bit 44.1k DAT to 8-bit 22k files. Rob has prepared or recorded audio for video games and CD-ROMs, including the Prosonus library. His responsibilities in this project included the translation and assemblage of all audio portions of the game. These included Notable's mixes, loops and guitar riffs, Rob's own sound design, opening score for Lloyd's descent from the heavens and a variety of other cues. Dialogue recorded at Media Recorders in Hollywood was also added at this time.



USING THE ROLAND MIDI GUITAR
Once the mixing was finished, it was time to input the MIDI guitar data, ultimately to be played by the Virtual Guitar. The inner workings of the Virtual Guitar are still proprietary at this point but we can say that we created four guitar parts per song. Virtual Musicians (game players) will have the option of mastering these four levels of difficulty, beginning with basic rhythm guitar, advanced rhythm guitar, lead guitar and stunt guitar, which requires extreme musical precision.
In addition, at each stage of their ascent to stardom, players face a series of on-the-spot challenges, such as matching riffs with rivals, sitting in on an after-hours blues session and making rough decisions as unexpected choices are thrown their way.

We used the Roland GR-1/GK-2, which is a combination guitar "pickup" and sound module (guitar not included) to write the guitar parts. The GK-2 MIDI pickup was mounted onto a Stratocaster copy, and we had the action adjusted to optimize its performance. (The GR-1 is one of a number of Roland guitar synthesizer modules that enable the Roland GK-2 pickup to translate its data to MIDI.) By using a MIDI guitar controller, the chord voicings would be correct and the guitar parts could be played on their native instrument, thus reducing translations of techniques to a very different type of controller (e.g., keyboard). Although the Roland GR-1/GK-2 has a reputation for being one of the best and most popular MIDI guitar controllers on the market today, it still had its limitations, as will be described.

We started by syncing the songs to our Macintosh SE/30. This involved recording our audio performances of each song in stereo to a multitrack tape recorder, then striping another track with SMPTE. We then sync'd the songs to Mark of the Unicorn's Performer 4.2 using this SMPTE track via an Opcode Studio 5. As files were created for the songs, a "click track" was created for each. The opening 8 clicks at the top of each song before the music started was triggered into Performer via a trigger to MIDI converter. We then shifted the notes earlier to account for MIDI delays as well the sluggishness of the trigger unit. The click tracks during the songs were subsequently recorded manually (playing along to the song using a DrumKat), and unfortunately did not give us quantization capabilities. At one point we tried creating a "tempo map," in hopes that it would enable us to use quantization, but due to a serial port-dependent bug in this version of Performer, this was not possible. (Note-Mark of the Unicorn has since supplied us with a way around it.)

We used the click tracks to help us when there was a difficult guitar passage to lay down. By slowing down the tempo on the Performer MIDI file and playing along with the click, we could enter information that would have been impossible to track on the Roland GK-2 MIDI guitar at a faster tempo. (By "tracking" we mean the MIDI guitar pickup's ability to identify the notes being played and correctly convert them into MIDI data to be stored on the computer file created for that song.) Of course, we were no longer playing along with the music at this point, since the songs recorded on the tape deck could not be slowed down* to sync with the computer file's new tempo, so our guitarist had to know the tune thoroughly when we used this approach. (* This is true of extreme tempo variations- smaller variations are often still trackable by SMPTE to MIDI converters if you slow down or speed up your deck just slightly.)

We were disappointed with Roland's GK-2 MIDI pickup. It tracked sluggishly and its output was inconsistent. Strumming, a common guitar technique, is a very complex task for the Roland MIDI guitar -- there is a great deal of information to be interpreted and communicated. We experienced large and varied delays in the tracking of the instrument when playing rhythm. In playing lead guitar, we often encountered jagged pitchbend information when playing a note with vibrato, which created more of a trill than a vibrato. Some notes or pitchbend information simply did not make it from the guitar into the computer, regardless of how the guitar was played.

The biggest aid to the tracking delays was to have a competent guitarist who could adapt his technique to the MIDI guitar -- no easy feat. Even after Adam , our guitarist, had reached a plateau on the learning curve for the Roland GK-2, we spent many weeks painstaking playing and replaying songs to simply compensate for poor tracking. Furthermore, new playing techniques were constantly explored for different material, and there was no consistent method. Occasionally a passage would call for finger picking the strings lightly; on other occasions, they needed to be hit hard with a pick.

One method used to correct delays was to edit shift the position of the notes in the Performer so that they occurred in the proper place. One might ask why we couldn't simply shift all information backwards by a given amount in relation to the music. However, after trying this, it soon became apparent that the delays were inconsistent, and events had to be treated individually.

Tracking problems of the MIDI guitar were also string-related, the 6th and 5th strings (the low pitches) being the worst culprits. When one of these strings was struck repeatedly the problems increased exponentially. A perfect example is the opening riff of Whipping Post, a fast repeated pattern that is played primarily on the 6th string, and on the 5th as well. Adjusting the sensitivities of these strings on the GK-1 did not help. We overcame the problem by playing the riff an octave up on the 3rd and 4th strings, then transposing it and moving it over to the 5th and 6th strings. Songs that had guitar parts featuring de-tunings (a common sound and technique for these styles of rock) had to be played higher up and transposed as well.

Another problem was the spontaneous generation of notes from a sustained chord. These generally occurred as harmonics of the chord being held. We would suddenly hear a note jump up by an octave or two -- taking it off of the fretboard! In this case, we would either re-record that chord, or edit out the extra note and extend the duration of the note that had been cut off to match the other note durations of the chord. We also found the mysterious appearance of note-on information followed immediately by a large pitchbend. The note-on would be a wrong note, and the pitchbend would compensate, bringing it instantly to the correct note. As you can imagine, trying to edit individual notes that appeared in this way was frustrating and time consuming.

We also encountered large numbers of redundant note-on information with tiny durations. For example, a note of 15 ticks duration might be immediately followed by the same note with the correct duration. Sometimes these were barely audible, other times they severely clouded the performance.

The unifying factor and ugly truth in all of these problems is that all of them occurred when the Roland MIDI guitar was being played "correctly." This is not taking into account the usual extraneous note-on information resulting from strings being struck inadvertently from string stretches, extra pick hits, etc. -- events that we take for granted in an analog guitar performance, but that needed to be deleted in this unique situation.

Fortunately, Virtual Guitarists don't face the trials we faced with the Roland MIDI guitar. Still, it has its challenges -- meet "Chops" Felton.

CHOPS FELTON: HE'S GOING TO CHALLENGE YOU.
One of the characters who populate the fictitious town of West Feedback is ace guitarist "Chops" Felton, who challenges you to a guitar duel. He throws his best licks at you, your goal is to match him note for note in order to move to the next level -- in front of a unusually perceptive audience.

For this part of the game we hired ace guitarist John Mason to come in and play a variety of rock guitar styles paying homage to Clapton, Vaughn, Hendrix, Page, Beck and Van Halen, to name a few.  John (as Chops) heard a one measure click and then played a two-measure lick. Following Chop's lick the click appears again, signaling the players chance to imitate Chops. For John's part of the recording we used a Marshall Jubilee half-stack, Chandler tube driver and Johns trusty 1972 gold-top Gibson Les Paul.

PUT THAT GUITAR DOWN AND COME DOWN HERE FOR SUPPER!
When it arrives this fall, the Virtual Guitar will have challenged its creators as well as those who dare to play the game. We have only begun to describe the plot twists that unfold within this game. The characters and script exude humor and a rockin' intensity that you're not going to forget. If you practice you might just have "what it takes" to reach the top: jamming with a great band in front of a pumping audience. With Lloyd at your side and your ax strapped across your chest you can slip into the world of rock'n'roll.

Dan and Mark would like to thank Michael Goldfinger and Aimee Good for editing work. Notable Productions is a  music composition and production company located Watertown, MA, and has recently scored the theme music for a movie on fatherhood for Vice President Al Gore. Notable has not informed his wife, Tipper, of our rock'n'roll tendencies.