BJ Aberle

A few weeks ago I purchased the iPad app V-Control for my Pro-Tools recording systems. I have had some time now to use it and collect some of my thoughts to write a review.
First, let me get a somewhat philosophic. When the iPad first came out, I was a little skeptic as to how practical this device would be. I mean, wasn’t it really just a bigger iPod touch? And it couldn’t even make phone calls. My thinking at the time was “People will just play games on these things and not use them for anything productive.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. Everyday it seems as though somebody has figured out a way to make our lives more productive with an app. V-Control is one such app. I’m going to have to join Steve Jobs in his resounding chorus, “the PC is dead.” The iPad and tablet devices are the future and they provide more than just software solutions to our lives. They are slowly becoming the emulators of our hardware devices that we use day in and day out.

Being able to move multiple faders while mixing was a luxury I left behind from my days mixing in Nashville. Since moving back to Central Illinois I have been plagued with the tedium of mouse mixing. For most of the work I do this isn’t a big problem, but,I do have a weekly mix that is usually 30+ tracks. Let’s just say that I have become quite adept with the art of mouse mixing. For a long time I have wanted to buy the Euphonics hardware controller for Pro-Tools. But the price has kept me from purchasing. Even knowing how much more efficient it would make me, I still couldn’t see myself shelling out the $1200 for eight faders and eight virtual pots. But $50 for V-Control is something I could handle.

When I first saw V-Control in the app store, I thought it was too good to be true. Could this really be what I have been wanting? For only $50? Short answer is “yes.”. …..but….. There is always a “but.”

Getting V-Control up and running was pretty painless. Once you purchase the app, you will need to go to the Neyrinck website and download the Ney-fi plugin and install it on your Pro-Tools machine. When you run Ney-fi it creates a server on your wifi network that the iPad can detect. When you launch V-Control you will be able to select your computer as a host. Then you will need to launch Pro-Tools and set it up to be controlled via HUI. That’s it. Your session will show up on your iPad.

Overall, my mixing experience using V-Contol was good. I used it on a session for a television broadcast that had a combination of live instruments, handheld and lav mics and choir mics totaling 31 tracks. It met most of my expectations. The interface is pretty intuitive and easy to navigate. As a seasoned Pro-Tools user, every button and point of contact made sense to me. On the right side of the interface is a strip of buttons that provide fly-out menus for a number keypad, edit window parameters, save, undo, escape and a few other bits of functionality. These are nice but I rarely accessed these features because the fact that I could sit at the back of my studio in the comfy couch or stand in the next room and control my Pro-Tools sessions made me grin from ear. That’s really the feature that sells this app for me.

Now, you may be having the same reaction as I to the fact that control is conducted over a wifi network. How can it be quick enough to match my fader moves in real time? This was not an issue for me. My studio is in the basement of my house, the wireless router is on the second floor. I found nothing to be lacking when moving automated faders. I wouldn’t depend on it for time accurate mutes, but even then, the muting that I did automate, reacted with acceptable latency.

There are some interface issues that need to be addressed though. First, every channel shows up stereo. To me, this is annoying. At the top of each channel is a pan pot that lets you easily place your audio in the stereo spectrum. You can access your plug-ins from the V-Control interface. But, if you have a full head of hair you will quickly find yourself bald from pulling. I found it easier to just work with plug-ins via the mouse. You can control your aux sends via a virtual rotating pot or by hitting a “flip” button and switching the pots to faders. I really like that feature.

The ability to move to banks of faders via a swipe gesture seemed a bit “clunky” to me. It often took me three or four swipes to get access to other faders. I think this could be better achieved by using a pair of “ahead” and “back” buttons. Also, there is the ability to swipe past the actual number of faders in your session. There seems to be an infinite (or default) number of faders that show up. So you could swipe to a bank of blank faders in V-Control that don’t exist on screen in your Pro-Tools session. This needs to be fixed.

Pros:
• I can move multiple faders at the same time.
• Transport controls on the device.
• Channel names show up at the top. Lots of characters and very legible.
• Access the aux sends with faders.

Cons:
• Trying to access other faders by the swipe gesture seemed a little clunky.
• Every channel shows up as a stereo channel.
• Controlling plug-ins is cumbersome.
• No bank selection buttons.

Even though there are equal amount of pros and cons, I cannot stress just how cool this app really is. With continued updates and revisions it will only get better. I can say that this app, while not perfect, has helped me become more efficient at what I do. And that is well worth the $50.

I have been taking a journey.  And where I have ended up is the shore of an unfamiliar ocean.  I have been slowly wading in its waters.  My pant legs are damp with the stain of programming code.  What began as an endeavor  to learn the ins and outs of real time video mixing has thrown me into the world of computer programming languages and logic…..and I love it.  It seems lately that I can not consume enough information.  But the more I learn, the more I find out how much I have yet to learn (young grasshoppa).  I think the evolution thus far is worth documenting.  And that is what will be contained in following article.

I have always wanted to be  a rock star.  From a young age I felt that I could pull it off.  I didn’t quite know how but knew that if I just kept practicing my instrument and moving towards that goal, I would get there.  But as a bass player, I knew that my role was expendable and I needed to make myself an invaluable part to any band by bringing more to the table.  That’s partly why I got into recording and running sound, I mean are you really gonna fire the guy who owns the sound system?  About 1996 or so I also realized that the laptop would become the “electric guitar” for the next generation.  Not only could I envision the evolution of produced and recorded music, but new types of rock stars would emerge.  One of the things I envisioned would be the need for bands or artists to add an additional member.  The “visualist” so to speak.  This person, given the technology, would be responsible for the media being presented in real time during a performance.  I saw this person manipulating images, text, video and lighting cues via midi in real time with the performance.  Well, I think the technology is finally here to do such things.  But to do it still requires a significant investment in learning technology.  There is software out there like VDMX and VJamm that lets you do some pretty cool manipulation, but it isn’t until you couple it with a graphics development environment  like Quartz Composer(QC) where you get some real groundbreaking results.

With some instruction from Chad Udell, I started to mess with quartz composer.  But it was soon that I realized that I would need to go a little deeper.  To get “under the hood” of my MacBook so to speak.  Little did I know that I had started down a rabbit hole.  After dorking around with QC and X-Code I started to get into some simple program writing.  Some of the guys in the development cube had received some iOS development books and I started flipping through them. I made a couple crude iPhone apps. I liked what I was learning, but most of what I was doing was regurgitating lines of code from the book into the code file on my computer. I really wasn’t learning much. At the time I was starting to get overwhelmed by the number of programming and scripting languages to use, I mean where do you even start? I realized that I was going to have to make some hard decisions about what I wanted to specifically learn. The iOS books had us writing in Objective C. I knew that there were other languages out there to learn that may suite my needs better. But decisions needed to be made. So on a whim I bought a couple of beginner books on C++ and Javascript.

I bought Sams Teach Yourself C++. I decided on C++ for a couple of reasons. One, it seemed to be the programming language used in all of the FMOD examples and two, we were working on some interesting projects at the Iona group where the dev guys were doing pretty cool stuff with openFrameworks and Cinder, both of which use C++.  A few days ago I found a beginners book for iPad and iPhone development at the library.  I started going through that book and came to find that Objective-C is not the fire breathing dragon I once thought it was.  So I am gravitating back to that while still pushing through my C++ book.  On a recommendation from a colleague from Bradley, I got the Audio Programming Book from MIT Press.  I quickly realized that this book was a little beyond my reach, but the content is slowly making sense to me.  All of the code is in C so I have backed off that book for now.  I plan on writing reviews on each of the books I am going through so stay tuned.

I have also been doing some remedial code scrubbing on some web projects for the Iona Group which is not rocket science but I am glad that the dev guys feel comfortable enough with me to let me tackle some of these jobs.  I hope to share some these as well soon.

So it has been not quite a year now that I have been dabbling in the world of programming and only now do I feel that I am close to starting to make stuff happen on these wonderful (mobile) devices.  I am excited to get some things made and shared with the world.  I think I have some good ideas for apps and, like a 4 year old child excited to show his parents their latest finger painting, I  am filled with giddy excitement to share. We shall see.

Here is video #2 of 3. Some of my proudest work.

The first of 3 videos for Bradly Universities Mobile App College is live.  Featuring me.  Given the fact that I am not part of the Screen Actors Guild, I would say I nailed it.

From Engadget:

We’re still a long way from reaching the point where our gadgets can’t get any thinner and, while the 8.7mm iPod Shuffle is just about king of the hill for the moment, Apple is already envisioning a future where where the humble 3.5mm audio jack is too thick. A recently revealed patent application called “Low Profile Plug Receptacle” describes a number of different ways to create audio ports that are thinner than current models but yet won’t take us back to the sinister miniUSB adapter days of yore. One of the potential solutions has a “semi-flexible” housing that expands willingly to receive your headphones’ clumsy attentions, while another is recessed beneath a pair of doors that flip open to make room when the plug is inserted. As always with these applications there’s no reason to believe they’ll be ever appearing in a consumer device, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dream of a future where the gold-plated jack on your buds is thicker than the bulkiest part of your phone.

After a few weeks of nose to the grindstone, The Iona Group has emerged with a new website. Stop by and say “hi.”

www.ionagroup.com

This is exciting considering iZotope is getting on board.  Now if Lexicon or Eventide would follow suite.  This article  is from Gamasutra.

Firelight Technologies is set to unveil its latest FMOD audio tools, called FMOD Studio, at this year’s Game Developers Conference.

The new tools are said to provide a number of advantages for game audio designers, including full live metering and monitoring of game audio, and the ability to tweak levels live while playing a game.

The idea is to provide users with “features that sound designers from film and TV take for granted, such as the ability to master mixes for the entire game, get accurate metering and visually create custom effect chains”.

Martin Wilkes, sales and business manager for Firelight Technologies, said of the tools: “It’s an entirely new mixing platform providing the ability to manage assets and run them through a mixer and routing audio into busses, applying effect chains, and controlling levels across those busses, generally providing more control and freedom for sound designers to improve their mix without continual code adjustments.”

He noted that the platform will also support pro-audio DSP effects from companies such as iZotope.

Lead FMOD Studio designer Raymond Biggs explained: “Sound designers will be able to set snapshots for environments and actions within their title and using the mixer will automate tasks that were previously performed manually – a huge bonus for workflow allowing sound designers more time to do what they really want to do – create great interactive audio.”

“This fully functional mixer is unique to FMOD offering full live metering and monitoring of game audio and the ability to tweak levels — live — while playing the game. It’s like having a full 96+ track studio mixing desk for your interactive title.”

FMOD titles have been used in numerous big-budget game releases in past years, such as Guitar Hero,Dragon Age, Alan Wake, Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft.