Our World of Sound

Aliens Ate my Joystick

2010-11-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well, we hope you’re not getting bored with our tales of destructive testing, but here we go again…

We recently got hold of a new Beta of version 2.0 of Saltline Audio’s magnificent ‘Son of a Pitch’ plugin (http://www.saltline.co.uk), and naturally, having eagerly anticipated this since we first discussed new plugin designs with them back in the spring, we wanted to find out exactly what kind of crazy stuff we could achieve with a VST which, to be honest if not modest, allows you to do some way-out things you just can’t get elsewhere.

One thing we really wanted to do was to check the smoothness of the pitchbend. The original Son of a Pitch was good, but we were expecting something better … we weren’t disappointed.

The pitch bend is now smooth, not just smoother, but actually 100% liquid smoothness. Brilliant.

To reach this conclusion, we shook the guitar around, did crazy things with the mouse, and finally wangled the joystick until the cap flew off. The proof is here (above left).

(A small search-and-rescue effort then kicked off as we all scrabbled under tables to find the missing part. Only five minutes and a couple of bumped heads later, we were back in business.)

And we’re happy. I mean, happy as in “we just couldn’t break it”, which is good, when you’re dealing with software. Trust us.

Now, at this point you might be wondering “so, how robust is this fantastic kit of yours if you can lose the top off the joystick so easily?” Well, ‘easily’ isn’t really the word… besides which (these are the hardware engineers talking) the one we broke was an early design that didn’t have the correct kind of faring (some would say bezel) around the joystick cap. And we’ve learned of the existence of superglue since then, too.

(Photo caption: A joystick cap, yesterday.)

(PS: One day we may do some sort of ‘before and after’ photo gallery on Facebook for this kind of stuff… you’d be amazed how many off-shoots of equipment we’ve got lying around.)

And because we can't keep secrets, here is a preview of Son of a Pitch in all its succulent detail...

FreePlayer is available to Purchase!

2010-10-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

FreePlayer is available to Purchase!

Well, it may have taken a while, but FreePlayer is now available to purchase.

Thanks to the support of many people all over the world we’ve been able to develop something we consider to be really special. The hardware and software we’ve developed has become a real musicians tool – something that’s fun and exciting to play with. FreePlayer not only allows guitarists to control effects in real time, it’s bringing a new dimension to their playing - and it’s all happened because of you – yes, you!

Everybody who has been involved – from a close circle of players who first tried out our clumsy prototypes, through to the VST developers that have developed amazing new plug-ins aimed at FreePlayer, and the working musicians all over the world who are even now testing our software and exploring new sounds – all have helped to make FreePlayer what it is today.

Thank you.

But the reason for saying this is not just to pat ourselves on the back. We’ve only just begun to explore the creative potential that FreePlayer has, and even looking at some of the amazing things people are doing already – whether it’s Harry Schat creating the coolest tones with AxeFx, the wonderful experimentation of Saltline Sounds or the happy accidents of the Sound Kitchen, we know we’re just scratching the surface.

So what are we saying? Quite simply – join us. Get involved.

Subscribe to us on YouTube. Mail us with your reactions – tell us what you’d like. Order FreePlayer now. Explore the potential, create your own sound, join the SoundStore and share them with the world. Make FreePlayer your own.

Welcome (Again) to our World of Sound

2010-06-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

Two months ago, we said this...

So, you've been waiting for us to tell you more about FreePlayer, and we've been waiting for the opportunity to tell you!

While some of the team prepare hardware and software for launch (as though we’re NASA...), and others work on the exciting creative stuff... there are more things happening than we can remember to write down! Because we’re still preparing some things (rumours of a demo video swirl around us like confetti), there are a few things that have to wait until later... but we want to keep in touch!

We've finally given in to the inevitable, and we're going to write a FreePlayer blog. It's a chance for us to keep in touch with all the people we've met, spoken to and worked with over the last several months, a way of telling the wider world what we're up to (we're so proud of ourselves sometimes!), and a few interesting clues for those that might have stumbled upon FreePlayer and are still wondering what it's all about.

Now we've bowed to the inevitable again, and moved to Blogger (too much effort to synchronise blog posts with updates to freeplayerstore.com, if you must know).

We've been rather busy in three months. We've met a lot of new players, gone through three revisions of hardware, and discovered how much of a mess you can make with an incorrectly wired voltage regulator.

One thing is still the same though...

We'll be posting much more information about FreePlayer during the next few weeks and months. To be the first to know about everything we're doing, register here.

Notes from the video diary

2010-06-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Originally Submitted by FreePlayerTeam on Weds, 05/05/2010 - 10:34

Those of you who have been following our progress for the last several months will know by now that we've been happily videoing most aspects of the project (some would say 'obsessively videoing', but that's probably just sour grapes because they're not allowed to play with the camera...).

We've ended up with quite a video diary, and it occurred to us that publishing some clips would be a neat way of letting you know what we've been up to.

It's not entirely coincidence that we've launched our YouTube channel recently, where you can also see clips from the SoundStore as well as the (in)famous 'dark clip' that currently graces the landing page at www.freeplayerstore.com. (Soon to be replaced with something much more spectacular!)

So as a kind of Preview of a Trailer of a Demo (etc.), we're going to share some of our iPhone clips with the world, and we thought it would be rather appropriate to begin with somebody who has been involved since the beginning - ladies and gentlemen, none other than Harry Schat.

Folker Tettero

2010-06-14T13:31:00.001-07:00

Originally Submitted by FreePlayerTeam on Weds, 20/04/2010 - 10:34

If there's one music genre that stands for artistic freedom, it has to be jazz. (For any metal heads reading this - don't worry boys, you'll get your chance. Oh, boy, will you get your chance...)

Here at FreePlayer, we like freedom too (the name isn't a coincidence), so it was a big thrill to meet that stalwart of the Amsterdam Jazz scene, Folker Tettero, last week.

Folker is the guitar sound behind Carmen Gomez Inc., and is also to be heard powering The Amsterdam Headliners alongside Dave Breidenbach, who gets an honourable mention as the first person to try out the FreePlayer Bass prototype.

(A bass version? Now that set you thinking, didn't it?! There's going to be more on this subject, have no fear.)

It didn't take us long to realize that Folker's experimental-but-practical approach meshed wonderfully with ours.

We talked, Folker played, and we heard a lot of new sounds in a short space of time. The outcome? A Beta version FreePlayer is in the post (as they say), so look out for a small earthquake in the Amsterdam area...

Accidental Testing

2010-06-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

Originally Submitted by FreePlayerTeam on Tues, 12/04/2010 - 16:06

It happens to the best of us. Cables are too short, people don't look where they're going ... kaboom. (One of the gang worked in Spain many years ago and swears that taut cables at neck-height were the norm. Occasionally a hapless victim would race to answer the phone only to be felled by the cable, at which printers and fax machines would race suddenly across the desk...)

After one near-miss in the FreePlayer bunker, resulting in nothing more serious than a yanked USB cable, it occurred to us how many times we'd accidentally stress-tested our hardware. The top five goes something like this:

1) Leave FreePlayer-equipped guitar on its stand. Then trip over jack cable. Guitar falls face-first on floor. No damage.

2) Solder electronic components while day-dreaming about better pay and conditions (or so he told us). Inadvertantly short-circuit a vital chip. When we connected it, it took us five minutes to work out why we weren't getting a signal, by which time the aforementioned chip was too hot to touch. Ouch. After re-soldering, worked fine. No damage.

3) (Not really accidental, but...) Attach development hardware to guitar, not really thinking about how close it all is to the pickups. Nine months later, the kit is thoroughly magnetized, and ... what do you know?! It still works. No damage.

4) Flying joystick syndrome: An early prototype had a joystick set rather high in the body. Play rhythm, and suddenly see the joystick knob flying across the room as you catch it with the pick. It turned out to be a push fit. No damage.

5) Taking work home with you isn't recommended. Definitely don't leave your guitar on the sofa. And don't leave the room. Then, you won't see a two year old jumping up and down on it when you come back. Aarrgghh. Ah, but she's cute, eh? No damage.

And how did we get started thinking about all this? Well, the mass-customised enclosures (see previous post) are starting to arrive, and somebody asked us how strong they need to be in order to protect our delecate electronics from various hazards (beer spills? standing too close to the pyrotechnics? who knows?). It's difficult to quantify, but it all leaves us with a smug feeling that our kit is really fairly robust.

But we're sure there's somebody out there who will find a way to break it...

The Day We Met Tommy

2010-06-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

Originally Submitted by FreePlayerTeam on Weds, 14/04/2010 - 08:55

It's probably not escaped most people's attention that we've been playing around with an acoustic version of FreePlayer. (Any acoustic guitar with a pickup can benefit from digital effects, so it's not an impossible dream.)

Our various attempts with gaffa-taped prototypes lead us to the Zaantheatre in Zaandam last Tuesday evening to meet a real acoustic guitar legend - none other than Tommy Emmanuel. We were invited by Willem Gort, who has been working with Tommy for years now. Six thirty on the dot, it's time to 'meet and greet', and we're grateful to have a short time with Tommy. There's little more than time for him to pick up the guitar, and we have a brief chat about FreePlayer (the idea is good, and the ergonomics seem to work). The vibe is good (that's really Tommy), and we come away with the impression that we've made a new friend.

The gig itself is a revelation (Jake Shimabukuru deserves special mention), with an encore that can only be described as pin-sharp.

On our way round we're briefly surrounded by a small group of curious guitarists who want to know all about FreePlayer, so we spend some time chatting, and swapping phone clips (at times like these you wish you had a bigger screen in your pocket...!), and all in all it's a lot of fun.

3D or not 3D?

2010-06-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

Originally Submitted by FreePlayerTeam on Tues, 03/29/2010 - 14:52

The 'mass customisation' train took to the rails last week as we finally get to grips with the mysteries of 3D printing.

As you may have noticed if you’ve played or seen one of our prototypes, the plastic enclosures that hide all the electronics have been hand-crafted until now, but the last part of the puzzle was to produce a series of designs for the production plastic mouldings that would do a better job, and be easy to customize.

Fenny Manikome laboured night and day (working conditions at FreePlayer aren’t that bad, but…) until our sketches on the back of a bus ticket were transformed into the wonderful design shown here. To see this twirling in 3D cyberspace was quite a thrill, as was the realization that the technology we’re using allows us to mass-customise the enclosures for different guitar bodies – which basically means that if you want one for a flying V, with a skull and crossbones in 3D relief, well – we can do it!

Look out for an announcement about the FreePlayer Custom Shop soon!

Continuous Improvement...

2010-06-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

Originally Submitted by FreePlayerTeam on Tues, 03/29/2010 - 13:23

Back to Harry Schat last Friday for a last run-through ahead of recording material for some demo clips. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with Harry and the gang, and today is no exception.

After a little head-scratching while we try to remember how some of the more abstruse features of AxeFx works with FreePlayer, we’re on to new sounds, and after a while we decide to try out a two-octave-up pitch bend using the rotation capabilities of the motion sensor. (One of the big benefits of onboard sound control is that you aren’t limited by the physical capabilities of things like a tremolo arm. Next to that, you don’t have to control everything with a footpedal. How expressive is your ankle anyway?)

The results are impressive, but Harry – keenest ears in the business, I swear – spots something that isn’t quite right. Back at the Lab, more head-scratching eventually reveals a limitation in the firmware – gotcha! – and a new version is cranked out of the digital sausage grinder.

A great day’s work by all concerned. Listen out for the result in the demo!