The Strange Agency » Synthesizer

MegaCurtis FREE

lucas — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:28:06 +0000

They said it was only a matter of time. They were right. The Curtis saga continues with the release of MegaCurtis FREE. This version brings the MegaCurtis multi-voice, audio-paste, longer-recording, dynamic-keyboard glory to your iPhone 3GS, 4, and 4S for nothing!

But wait, there’s more: Curtis Heavy has been transmogrified into MegaCurtis FREE, so those of you that already own Curtis Heavy need only update to get this slew of new features. (Did we mention slew? There’s now portamento in every copy!) Also, to keep change-averse Curtis Heavy customers from getting grumpy, both the free and paid versions of MegaCurtis now also get a pitch-control mode (optionally activated in the settings panel in the paid version) that mimics the horizontal-swipe-to-pitch (i.e. grain size) mapping of Curtis Heavy. We hope this makes everyone feel that they’ve only gained!

Switching to the paid version gives you these added features:

• MIDI input
• Performance recording (record and share your MegaCurtis jams)
• Modal Scales (cool keyboard presets)
• Low-pass filter
• Echo
• Position modulation
• Position jitter
• Unique wave keyboard mode (play keys while touching the recording)
• Grain jitter
• Grain overlap control with modulation

Strange MIDI in HyperSpace

lucas — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:40:58 +0000

HyperSpace 1.1 was just released, adding MIDI input and VGA output. Now you can control HyperSpace with your MIDI keyboard or DAW, and you can send just the visualization graphics to a TV or projector. It’s an instant VJ setup! Just add an Apple VGA output cable. Both MIDI and VGA support are new to us, so please comment away below with your feature requests and suggestions. A map of MIDI parameters can be found on the HyperSpace page. Portamento (slew or glide to some of you) has also been added for a more smoothed-out sci-fi sound. See it in action:

Mega Update, MegaCurtis 1.3

lucas — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:45:29 +0000

The latest MegaCurtis update has gone live at the App Store. It adds a slew of new features, making the app more fun, more playable, and more strange. There are now selectable scales and modes, a fat key option for those of us with fat fingers, and there’s a new wave keyboard overlay mode that lets you play by touching the wave, selecting pitch and granulation position simultaneously, with four-voice multi-touch. Check out the video below to see it in action!

MegaCurtis v 1.3 from strange agency on Vimeo.

Selectable keyboard scales for easier jams
All new keyboard overlay mode
Fat keys option for easier keyboard playing
Fixes voice assignment glitch
Fixes occasional deallocation of source sound
Adds some default sounds
Activates iTunes file sharing

MegaCurtis, more Mega

lucas — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:23:55 +0000

Version 1.2 of MegaCurtis just dropped at the App Store. The previous update gave us iPhone 3GS (and iPad) compatibility as well as a vocoder-like live granulation mode. Now MegaCurtis adds new visuals and an improved control interface. A single touch will control granulation position and filter cutoff, while a second touch lets you drag position modulation rate and depth settings. This setup is far more expressive than that of the previous version, but do drop a note below if you’d like to see a different control scheme.

Introducing MegaCurtis for iPhone 4 and 4s

lucas — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:38:02 +0000

Today we launch the latest iteration of the Curtis granular synth series, MegaCurtis for the iPhone. The app was completely rewritten for better performance, longer recording time, session recording, polyphony, Retina display and more! We’ve added jitter, LFOs, amp envelope control, and even a proper keyboard.

See it in action at http://www.youtube.com/thestrangeagency

More awesome features are on their way to the app store as free updates, but the launch version is only $.99 for a limited time. So, save a few bucks and get your tweak started early.

If you haven’t yet, grab Curtis Heavy for free to get a taste of the sound. Record vocals, drums, guitar, or even your cats, and turn them into synthesizers!

CP 1919 Tutorial Videos

lucas — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:27:30 +0000

Five new CP 1919 tutorial videos are up. Unearth the hidden power. Unleash your curiosity. Check ‘em:

1 – Harp Effect Tutorial
2 – Frozen Fluid Tutorial
3 – Keyboard Tutorial
4 – Flowing Fluid Tutorial
5 – Chord Insanity Tutorial

Happy Tweaking

lucas — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:45:29 +0000

All new versions of Curtis and CP 1919 have hit the app store. These include stability improvements for Curtis along with Dropbox support for CP 1919. Update away!

Supreme Harmony Voyage

lucas — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:50:22 +0000

After a long trek through Asia and a still longer period of post-travel decompression we’re back in the saddle with a bunch of announcements.

The addition of our Comlink interface which provides Copy/Paste and now Dropbox support to Curtis introduced some memory issues which lead to frequent crashes. These have been addressed in a new build submitted to Apple today. Look for the update soon!

The Comlink has been added to CP 1919 as well, so that means in the next update you’ll not only get Copy/Paste and Dropbox support but also a CP 1919 manual. Check the link to sneak a peek at the new interface design! It’s on the way through the app approval process now. Also, to ease your wait, the price has been lowered to $9.99.

Up next, Donut improvements.

And finally, thanks Steve

Circles within Circles

lucas — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:57:15 +0000

Donut is live on the App Store, and it’s a strange one. It is very easy to get the app in a silent or screaming state, so I thought I’d explain the Donut concept in detail. As mentioned in a previous post, the idea for Donut comes from an ancient IBM tape loop machine I came across by way of this most interesting gentleman.

So let’s begin with a linear recording.

We can take this recording and wrap it into a loop.

Nothing new here of course. So let’s make a stack of these loops.

Now, if I understand correctly, the IBM machine let you select loops from a loop stack like this. The idea isn’t all that different from a phrase looper you might use with your guitar rig. However, if we can automate this loop selection, things start to get interesting. If we start stepping through the loops at the rate of audio, let’s say 44,100 steps per seconds, we create effectively a two-dimensional loop. Thus, in a very specific sense, we’ve created two-dimensional time.

A way to visualize 2d looping is to take our loop stack, and wrap it itself into a loop, just as we did with our linear recording at the beginning.

And from this step, we get the donut!

Doing a bit of math, we see that if we take a 2d loop of a second at a typical sample rate of 44100 Hz, we end up with 44100*44100 samples. If a sample is 4 bytes (16 bits * 2 channels), our donut requires 44100*44100*4 bytes, which by my count gives us just over 7 gigs. That’s a lot of iPads! So, to cram one of these donuts into an iPad, we’ve made the loop of loops far, far smaller.

In sum, you can think of Donut as a 2d time surface, or you can think of it as a large (currently 64) collection of synchronized loops. You can step through these loops one-by-one as you might in a phrase looper, or you can run through them at audio rate creating some quite far out sounds.

You use Donut by recording sound into (or through) it, and playing the recorded sound back. You control the playback and recording heads with a 2d vector for each, determining the rate at which the head steps through the loop and loop of loops. The rates are indicated in BPM to give a point of reference, but the BPM of course assumes a certain time signature and bar count, so it’s not absolute but helpful as a guide.

There are still quite a lot of sample points in there and therefore the 2d surface can be very sparse. Imagine if we recorded on the Donut in one direction, but played back in a perpendicular direction. We would only hit one sample of the recording amidst a loop of silence. Thus, Donut can create extremely sparse soundscapes.

To make the soundscapes denser, Donut lets your record and play sound with multiple heads (or, using a synthesizer term, voices). These heads can be spread out across the loop surface in both dimensions, creating some awesome temporal effects.

See a video demo of Donut™ playing with an ocarina and with Thich Nhat Hanh.

We hope you find the app as fun and interesting as we do! We have some cool ideas for future tweaks, and we welcome yours.

Time to Make the Donut™

lucas — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 02:09:36 +0000

A new project we thought we’d share: Making time two-dimensional with Donut™ on the iPad. Inspired by these contraptions, we banged out this phrase looper with a twist. Donut™ lets you record and play loops in 2d. We’re ironing out the functionality and UI, but do check the video for the project so far. It’s most pleasantly strange!