MusicScienceGuy

The jammer expanded - working fully with your computer

Here's one step, a crucial one, to making an truly useful instrument from the new button-array keyboards: your midi controller needs a properly configured netbook/laptop. First, you need a loop-back engine, otherwise you computer can only do one thing to your midi input, and you need it do more.

Midi Basics - loopback

 

Per the diagram to the traditional intent of midi processing on the computer is to do just one thing: change the input to a different midi signal, or convert it to a neat sound, or perhaps teach a music lesson, but not more.

This is basically due to the ancient (in computer terms), simple original design of midi: the computer was thought of as just another instrument or musical gadget: input one thing, fix it up, and spit if out.

Midi Basics - loopback2

To fix this on, this you need a missing component, a virtual MIDI device for transferring MIDI data between midi layers/computer programs, called a midi loopback. Basically this is an "invisible cable" to connect a MIDI out-port of an application to any other application's MIDI in-port.

 

All MIDI data sent to the program's output is channeled to the receiving applications in real-time.

I recommend loopbe1, from some guys in Germany. It is very simple, installs cleanly, and detects feed back. 

It's only quirk: if you do get a feedback going, it will mute itself, and you will have to remember open the control and un-mute it. It may take a while for the light to dawn. 

There are other tools available, like Midi-Ox and Midi-yoke. These provide much more functionality and flexibility, and can help, for instance, observe midi streams: far more tool than you need.

 

Selecting a Netbook

Through the laborious reading between the lines of the details of driver updates, I found that the amazing bulk of net-books (and perhaps most low-end laptops) seem to have the Taiwanese-made Realtek sound chip.
Based on my experience and the google "RealTek midi problem" hit rate (it does not work with ASIO4All for example), I'd suggest you stay away from these if you want to use your netbook for more than simple sound output, without shelling out $100 or so for a USB-connected external sound card. 

I did find that as far as I can see the only non-Realtek sound chip units are HP, with their IDT chips. These have a better reputation, and my experience with the HP mini (VM264UA#ABC) bears this out. - DPC Latency check reports .5 to 1 millisecond latency (inside the computer), with both MM and ASIO4ALL. DirectSound is very poor. The real key-to-sound-in-the-ear latency varies but can be made decently low.

This $500 netbook works well velcroed onto an AXiS - they are the same size. The screen although tiny (I need glasses to read it) has lots of detail; enough for most full laptop work. The battery will lasts for 6-8-hours(!) with the right power-saving settings.  Recommended.  

Ken.
PS. the $300 HP netbooks have the same chips, just a smaller screen, so should work well too.

Next posts: An over of where I am going, and selecting a virtual instrument and a learning system. 

 

Progress is being made

I apologize for the lack of postings lately. I've been even busier that usual lately.

However, I've been making solid progress, have taken notes and will be telling all.

Topics will include:

• A whole set of Wikipedia postings. now live! See in Wikipedia:
• Jammer_keyboard
  Thummer keyboard 
  Jim_Plamondon
  Wicki-Hayden_note_layout
  Sonome_keyboard 
  Peter_Davies_(inventor_of_sonome)
  Melodic table note layout / Harmonic table note layout
  Isomorphic_keyboard 
  Generalized_keyboard 
  .
• How to get more out of the Axis-49, including midi tricks like LoopBE, better midi connectors, etc.
• Tips on how to learn, culled from David Levitin's work and N. Doidge's wonderful The Brain that changes itself. 
• How to hook the Axis to to excellent learning programs: EarMaster Pro and Emedia Piano and Keyboard Method.
• How to get good sounds out of the equipment.
  

Ken.

Colouring

ZipEx2 layout

Color is a special feature of my design. Color provides a huge amount of key information in the design above.  The drawing is dated, but still shows the basic idea. I now put a color dot on the white and black keys to simplify finding the right key and for ear training.

1. Note orientation: All the C's are marked with green, all the notes of the major scale are colored
it looks perhaps silly at first, but I've found guitarists "get" the chord structure in about 120 seconds, with the aid of the color scheme, instead of the normal 5-10 minutes I used to need.
It also works well with the way the brain hears music (think of it as Green= Doh = root, Red = So = dominant, etc); each note in the scale has a special feel when the ear knows it's place and color.

2, Key transposition: if you see a score with 3 flats, you play 3 black keys (Bb, Eb and Ab), and pretend they are "blackened" (a.k.a.  flattened). If you see 2 sharps, you shift over to play 2 white keys. Transposition, which seems so hard on a piano, becomes utterly obvious on a coloured jammer.

3. Playing "Accidentals: as with key transposition, if you see a sharped note, move over to the "white"; three notes right, one down.  Flats are the converse. It takes about a week for this to become automatic.

4. Musical education, helping arrange and create new songs, and provide insight, to name a few effects.

5. It looks interesting and cool.

6. Other things, which I will discuss later.

Two Axis-49s tranformed into a jammer

Additional Photos - jammer

Here is how an Axis-49 is mated with it's netbook.

Bottom of Axis-49 and nextbook

They are velcroed together, bottom to bottom, with velcro strips at the end. I also got a less risky, shorter "right-angle  USB cable from Firewire USA.

The velcro strip near the middle is to hold it down so it doesn't slip on tables and such: I plan to have a gig configuration, when I get that far. 

Below is the coloured keyboard pair.

Two Axis-49s tranformed into a jammer

Son of Thummer: a jammer is born

Success is sweet.  (updated thrice: my Jammer is now colored)

Two Axis-49s tranformed into a jammer

It''s been a looooonng road to trudge, but finally, at last, I have assembled a full-fledged jammer, the musical instrument of my dreams, and the closest approximation of the fabled Thummer that we are ever likely to see.

  

Jammer #3

What you see:

2 axis keyboards in folded-scale mode, one for each hand, 98 keys under each hand.

A black Korg nanoPad: my pitch bend and special controls / triggers

A white Korg nanoKey: this is my foot-pedal to-be.

Unseen: A modest little program running on a netbook whcih glues it all together.

Now the real work begins: managing expectations and learning to play the thing.

So what is the thing, really?

This is a full-flged jammer, a keyboard with 2 keyboards, one for each hand.

The keys are configured to play in a jammer layout: with the major scale folded upward; technically known as Wicki/Hayden, so that all important keys are right under the hand, and the octaves ascend vertically. They will be 7 octaves "high".

The key colouring does not yet match the pattern. Players will be able to do cool tricks like assign them to separate instruments, alter the octaves played by each hand, and other things.

 

In the centre is a Korg nanoPad, with the touchpad placed to allow tricks such as pitchbending to happen as one plays, using the thumbs.

 

To the bottom is my foot-pedal, made from a Korg nanoKey. It will have independent sustain pedals and other special keyboard controls, one set for each keyboard.

Total cost? Under a thousand dollars for a keyboard that is more expressive than any other keyboard in the world, and may rival or exceed a guitar.

Jim Plamondon, definately a world expert on the subject,  commented to me:

Major coolness!   :-)

If enough people make their own jammers and post YouTube demos of cool music that could only be made with a jammer, then perhaps some smart & hungry Chinese company will start making tiny integrated jammers, complete with internal motion sensors and fore-arm braces, mass-produced at a cheap price.

I can't emphasize enough that isomorphism ("same fingering in every key") alone has never been sufficient to bring market success.  It's been offered, off and on, since the 1880's, and the market has never responded. To break through, the jammer needs at least one additional benefit, such as extra expressive power (through internal motion sensors, for example) or novel musical effects (such as dynamic tonality).

Your DIY jammer is a great step in that direction.

Kudos!  :-)

With the nanoPad in the middle, this is going to be one humdinger of an expressive device.

The new powerful Axis-49 Tweak routine that glues it together is available here: http://www.box.net/shared/vdm1qscvmc

And for your reference:
My Box.Net folder: http://www.box.net/shared/9988kfzpic and the old Tweak routine: http://www.box.net/shared/0t3hm9hhi5

The new routine features:

- 2 keyboard input, with separate right and left translation tables. You can customize your translation tables to suit your needs.
- Optional adjustable velocity curve table. It's not fancy - you can't tweak it in real-time.
- A pair of mouse-able buttons to turn on/off the above translations.
- last-note struck display, one for each side.
- prettier display than the mark 1 version.
- can take input from a pitch bend instrument and bend the sound - this is really crude; just demos it can be done.
- also included are semi-tone shift, octave shift controls

No PC keyboard control (eg. Page up/Page Down for octave shift.) yet.

I've lots of things I' d love to do, but this is it: this is enough keys features to help practicing go well.
Back to practicing on my new, improved, fully featured jammer.

Ken.

A winning combination

A simple combination that makes the world's smallest, lightest, full-function synthesizer.

Axis-49 and Netbook

An Axis-49 and a netbook - an Acer Aspire One (about $350 canadian) to be precise, running Windows XP Home SP3.

It is running a pre-compiled executable Max/MSP program I wrote and freely available here. The program takes the notes from the Axis, optionally remaps them, and sends them to the standard microsoft instrument bank (or loaded VSI instrument). It's not fancy, but the latency seems to be very low. The netbook is not fancy, but surely can run any music software (especally instrument packs) I care to use as my skill develop.

For ease of carrying the two, I "Velcro-ed" them

Axis-49 on Netbook with speaker

together, Axis-bottom facing netbook-bottom, to make a single, portable assembly.

Note that the Axis completely covers up the nextbook and the two are easily linked together with a short USB cable.

Operationally it's pretty simple, I tweaked the netbook's power-saving settings to not automatically go to sleep, to not hibernate when the lid is closed, to run in low power mode, and put a short-cut to the AXiS-49 playing program in the start-up folder.

Carrying the whole shebang

To start, either pull the two apart or just put the Axis-and-netbook down still attached together, with the Axis key-side down, the netbook is then facing up. I flip open the netbook, turn it on, close the lid, and flip the assembly over, putting the netbook top-down and the Axis keys-up.
45 seconds later I check the keyboard plays, plug in headphones or a portable speaker, and I am good to go. (The netbook's speakers are horrible, but so what). The netbook does not seem to be unduly drained by the Axis, and the setup us good for 2.3-3 hours.

How does it sound? There's two levels to that question.
Functionally, with just the Windows default instruments (piano-like sounds) not hot, but OK for playing for practice. I have the Garritan sound packs, but I'm not wild about them - they sound great, but the Garritin Studio VSI software that they need to run I can't automatically load at startup, and it introduces a fair bit of latency. Garritin now has moved to the Native Instruments Kobe sound support (VSI) environment, and I (and those who follow my path) don't have the time to get it to work with Max/MSP. Please advise, gentle reader, if you know of a better sound pack. The sound in headphones is excellent. 

Playing-wise. my fingers are starting to get the idea. my ability level is still .5 (on s scale of 1-10), and will be for the balance of the summer, but I no longer have fears that I won't make it. 

I showed a jazz piano teacher my instrument today very successfully (he agreed to teach me!), but that is surely the subject of a new article ...

A DIY musical Transformer

With my Axis-49 I need to:

• Translate (remap) an Axis-49 note “harmonic axis” value to a “folded-scale” (Wicki-Hayden) layout
• See what is coming in from the Axis
  
• Know how hard I had hit the key
• Double-check the note value – e.g. did I really hit a G#?

So I wrote a little program to do this magical transformation. In it, the data (midi signal) flows from “notein” (assigned to the Axis), gets tweaked a bit, the goes on to “noteout” (assigned to some instrumental sound maker). 

-

Axis-49 note remapper

Max/MSP: a cute little graphical development system

Signals travel along the little wires (black lines)  connecting boxes. The boxes do things to the signals, the top is input, the bottom output.

Here’s the flow sequence:

Notein a

Gets the next midi note coming in, splits it into to 3 outputs:

• the midi note value (an integer) e.g 61 = middle C, this is what we need to translate
  
• the midi note velocity (also an integer, 0 = off, 1-127 = ppp to fff)
• the midi channel number

You can double-click on the notein box to pop up list of the midi input devices and select one.

The signals then travel along the connections (wires) to be translated. The note velocity and the channel number go straight to the noteout box unchanged. The note pitch goes to the coll object to be translated.

coll  axis49-wick

In this case the coll (collection) defined in table Axis49-wick.txt serves as a look-up table, the table is a series of paired numbers, with the input value matched to the left of the pair, the output value is the right pair value.  Thus, with pair 84, 78; an input value of 84 (musically a C-5 gets mapped to a 78 (an F# ),

This table is easily edited in MS Notepad. When Max/MSP starts up, it will read this table. If like it, the Status box will show “coll; finished, 70 lines”. If not, it will show an error message.

Input “number box”

Display (shows “C-2” ) – shows the key hit by you in terms of what the Axis-49 sent out, as a note.

Subtraction

After I wrote the table, I wanted to shift the notes down an octave,  so I added a little box that takes a number in the top, minuses it (see the little “-“ (minus) sign?) by 12 and puts it out the bottom

The 12 subtracted from the note value lowers it by an octave (12 semitones), I display the value in the little number box, but also pass it on two ways, one way goes to stripnote which strips out the note-off values – other wise the velocity would be zero when the note is lifted-  and I pass the note on to the big yellow note display boxes.

The switch box

In the center is a little switch box, which allows me to turn on or off the translation

• click the mouse on it and the little switch changes to take direct input from “notein a”.
• Click on it again to switch it back to reading the translated values from the "coll" box.

The little “value box”

This shows the midi note value as a number, not a note, for debugging. Shows (0)

stripnote

Stripnote strips out the note-off values, so they persist on the display after the finger lets up.

2 big yellow “value boxes”

I made these big displays (shows “C-2” and 0) to show the last note had hit.

noteout a

Read the 3 midi input values:  outputs:

• the midi note value (an integer)
• the midi note velocity
• the midi channel number

You can double click on the notein box to pop up list of the midi input devices and select one. 

That’s all it does – pretty simple, once you understand it.

I have many things that would be very cool to do to elaborate on this basic template:

• a note display and translate note-combinations into chords.
  This would really help when demonstrating the thing to people.
  
  
• Take a midi input file and show which keys to play on the Axis, and/or also show a music score. with
  
  
• Create some musically simplified special notes that would train the novice musician’s ear much faster than normal.  The normal piano sound is hugely complex – learning from it is like trying to first learn to drive on a 7-axle tanker-truck.  

Is anyone game to have some "fun"?
I know what needs to be done, but don't have time to do it.

Ken

------------------------------

Axis49-wick.txt contains

84, 78;    80, 73;  77, 80;    73, 75;  70, 82;   66, 77;   63, 84;   59, 79;

56, 86;   52, 81;   49, 88;   45, 83;  42, 90;   38, 85;   83, 66;   79, 61;

76, 68;   72, 63;   69, 70;   65, 65;  62, 72;   58, 67;   55, 74;   51, 69;

48, 76;   44, 71;   41, 78;   37, 73;  82, 54;   78, 49;  75, 56;    71, 51;

68, 58;   64, 53;   61, 60;   57, 55;  54, 62;   50, 57;   47, 64;   43, 59;

40, 66;   36, 61;   81, 42;   77, 37;  74, 44;   70, 39;   67, 46;   63, 41;

60, 48;   56, 43;   53, 50;   49, 45;  46, 52;   42, 47;   39, 54;   35, 49;

80, 30;   76, 25;   73, 32;   69, 27;  66, 34;

Learning to play the Axis, stage 1b, ability still 0

Kens Axis

The Axis-49 has been in my clutches for about 6 weeks now.
My progress (nothing to show that you wouldn't laugh at) appears slow, but is in line with my expectations. Progress in learning music always seems glacial, because we compare ourselves to virtuosos.

Aside: virtuosos, by the way, have recently been found to be "nothing more" than people that may have a mild aptitude for music, and then spend 10,000 hours practicing with clear intent to improve, see Genius: The Modern View

10 years of careful, diligent work, that all

, and the book on the left.

Personally, I feel that anyone who has spent that much of one's precious life on a study had better be good at it.  ;)

However, considering that I have a brand new instrument, being played in a configuration that few people have tried before, and I'm inventing the fingering as I go along, perhaps I should amend the previous statement: I am making decent, but not great progress.

In the hopes of making sure the progress is in the right direction I've been reading through recent research papers on how people; everyone from little kids to musicians with degrees in piano, successfully learn music, and I've picked up more than a clue or two; the musical learning research is becoming a promising field. Hint: in large part the tortoise, not the hare always wins. I promise to share my findings shortly.

Starting from nothing

It should help if I explain a bit of where I've come from and what my current status is.

I currently "play" only one instrument, my voice. I am an average singer in a good group, the Maple Leaf Singers Show Chorus, which does 4-part harmony in every known western musical genre. How I became a singer, despite being raised in a profoundly non-musical family is a tale in itself, which I'll spare you the details.

Suffice to say that on a music talent scale of 1 to 10, I started off at a solid, definite zero: I was unintentionally taught not to sing on key. I strongly suspect this is a actually a pretty common condition; it's an easy acoustic trap to fall into.

I have no keyboarding or other musical instrument experience, other than occasional attempts to learn the piano. ... And I'm really old - 56; the old neurons don't connect up as fast as they did once in the "good old days".

My deadline: the clock has started ticking.

In summer of 2010, I'll be going to the Naramata Music Camp, a congregration of music afficatos from all over western Canada that gather to learn challenging songs, drink wine from the abundant surrounding wineries, gab, and drink more wine. These are people to whom Music is a Way Of Life; at least one of whom can play the Moonlight Sonata with his nose in front of 200 people to riotous applause (you had to be there).-

Original jammer prototype

I foolishly demoed my first prototype jammer to this gang. Since they are musicians, mostly keyboardists, the general (polite) reaction was "interesting theory; show me the music'.

Now, if I show up without "the music", I will feel the distain (real or imagined) of my peers, or far worse: pity.  Hence I'd better start learning. Fast.

Practice techniques and Tips 

First, I've improved a tentative key fingering theory. Supplemental to this, I've developed a few exercises that help learn where the keys are and teach my not-very-talented fingers how and where to go. For all of these, the important factor seems to be to keep the pace steady and the key loudness steady, with a light, even touch, centering on the dimple in the key.

It works best, I think,  to have a home row and a home column one brings one's fingers back to.
I also try not to look at the keys, doing all my fingering by touch and by ear.

Major scale
Going over the major scale is not just a useful finger practice, It's essential, I find, to do this at least once at the beginning of each new piece of music. I recommend one look at the key signature, establish where one's fingers go, then play the scale carefully and evenly to set in the fingers, the ear and the mind the notes that are going to be played. This makes a heck of a difference.
 
Minor Scale - have not really tried this much - thus far it seems best to pretend that one is playing a major scale, but starting on the relative minor note.

Three-note exercises.
CDE (in succession), then DEF, EFG, FGA, GAB, ABC, BCD, CDE, then do it in reverse.

Simple Interval progressions
C+E (at same time), then D+F, E+G, F+A, G+B, A+C, B+D, C+E, then do it in reverse. This one is great for learning when the interval jumps from a major third to a minor third.

Every-interval practice
CC (C, then C), CD (C, then D), CE, CF, CG, CA, CB, CC'(Octave), CD' etc.  - this teaches how to play the intervals.

Arpeggios over a progression of more complex exotic chords
These are fun! Some fingerings are mildly tricky, but compared to a piano - bliss!

The Bottom line: a very cool keyboard layout.
It is, thus far, everything I had hoped to have: 

• a keyboard where the fingers can sit on the same notes of the scale all the time
• one does not have to look at the keys
• interesting properties are are emerging

Now the Axis keyboard is not perfect. The buttons are noisy in three different ways, and the "velocity sensitivity" is half-way to being a "pressure sensitivity". The company's support is not great.
But these can all be fixed. The buttons won't be hard - a combination of washers, o-rings and springs - just finicky to get just right.

 

Learning to play the Axis. Stage 1, ability 0

It has been 2 or so weeks since I got my Axis, and I've been moderately busy with it.  

I spent the time in several profitable ways:

• Setting up my 3 computers (desktop, laptop, and work computer) to work with the Axis.
• Writing a tiny Max/MSP program to remap the midi notes from Axis to folded-scale (my name for Wicki-Hayden).
  I've now made it into an executable program, so I just have to click on it to run it, I also don't always use Garratin Personal Orchestra for practice, the built-in sounds of Windows are good enough. the program also shows the name of the note hit and the velocity (if you want a copy I'll make it available).

• Trying to make practicing something done every day. A key part of this is making it as available as possible; having an accessible keyboard that makes sounds instantly really helps, as I have to slot practice in between other stuff.

Portability is great

I knew intellectually it would be cool, but the reality is better: its surprisingly good to have a portable keyboard.
I'd say my setup is about as portable as a guitar. I would prefer to have a simple, small laptop (would a netbook work?), or even better a simple midi-player, to plug the Axis into. My current laptop is heavy, but does the portability trick and runs for about 2 hours on batteries.

I was forcefully reminded of this last night, in setting up my wife's portable Technics P50 (a great 88-key instrument for it's price - too bad Technics is not making them) for a performance of her childrens choir, the Tempos. The blinking thing was 60 pounds, and I needed to haul a stand and a piano bench for it too.  Very unportable, yet as keyboards go, it is light and nimble.

Whereas I'm wandering all over the place with my Axis.I played it in a Taco Del Mar, trying to pick out notes to sync with the ambient muzac.

The Axis-49, mark 2 should have a built in simple midi to sound ability just feeding a headphone jack. That would make it quite a good unit, especially since excellent battery-powered amps are cheap.

 

The AXiS-49 First Impressions

I like the AXiS-49.
I give it top marks because while I have quibbles about the keys, it is the best isomorphic (translation: easy to learn & very fast to play) keyboard in the world. I've taken it as my instrument to master. 

It is light, portable and should meet my needs as the keyboard to master instead of a piano. As this is a considerable, multi-year commitment, I’ve given it a fairly close examination. Crucially, the velocity sensitivity seems quite adequate to simulate a good piano’s sound. .

Axis-49's output revealed

It plugged in to my desktop and laptop computers and was immediately recognised. I hooked it up to Max/MSP (a midi programming system, see right) to see what it was doing, note and velocity wise. I then piped the midi signal through to Garratin Personal Orchestra (GPO) with a Yamaha grand piano sampler playing. That worked well, albeit with a bit of latency, about 1/16 of a beat (due to the layers of software, not the Axis) .

The key travel distance is sharply less that that of a piano, about that of a PC’s keyboard, and the keys “click” when pressed. They also “thunk” when they hit bottom. This is not an issue when playing loudly, but is noticeable on soft passages. I expect much of this is due to my mal-adroitness, although another mm of travel distance might have been nice. In any case, this can probably be fixed with a light felt bed and/or light wire spring under the keys … and I know where to get them.

My experience is on a homebuilt hexagonal-array keyboard with much greater spacing and a heavy 65-gram touch. The key spacing feels at first very close, but is exactly that of a PC keyboard. At first this is disconcerting, and I expect it will be to anyone with experience on a piano keyboard, perhaps not so much for those with a midi keyboard, which generally have lighter touch. On the other hand, we all are experts on PC keyboards, so the fingers should quickly adapt.
 
If you are used to a stiff piano keyboard, I warn you, be prepared for a surprise. The sharply reduced key travel and much lighter touch will come as a shock – both are nearly 1/2 to 1/3 lighter; it was easy to "peg the scale" and hit the top velocity of 127; not so easy to consistently hit 55.  It will take several months for me to get used to lightening up.
 
I quite like the bevelling on the keys - it allows key-to-key hops: nice glissandos, trills even! A whole new way of playing is possible here.

The little carrying case box it comes in is a pleasant surprise. It will come in handy. I think that I will cover mine with “Mac-Tac” (a kind of self-stick plastic wallpaper sold on hardware stores) to re-enforce it and water-proof it.
To test the crucial velocity sensitivity, which came out so unevenly in my hands, I called upon my resident professional pianist (my wife), she had no problem keeping the key velocity (loudness) even, and playing softly, so the problem, methinks, lies in my gnarled mitts.
 
On the other hand, she just could not figure out the harmonic axis layout. She has played the piano since the age of five, so the piano layout is wired down tight within her soul. She can play any song in any key (her favourite key is C-sharp!). So there is little hope of convincing her of its advantages. I, on the other hand, could at least easily play the chromatic and major scales on the Axis in any key.

Here’s a tip based on several years experience: you’ll never convince a keyboard player with 5 or more years of experience that this is a great keyboard. You usually will have great difficulty even explaining how it works. Piano teachers will universally say (if you press them for an honest opinion) “it makes it too easy” and "all the same", which is perhaps the greatest praise of all.
 
Ken

PS. On the other hand, I once showed my prototype to a gentleman who played horn in a band, and had had three years of piano. He instantly could play the thing and would have purchased it on the spot. Go figure.