Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, 30 May - 1 June 2011, Oslo, Norway Integra Live: a new graphical user interface for live electronic music Jamie Bullock Daniel Beattie Jerome Turner Birmingham Conservatoire Beelion Interactive User-lab, BIAD Birmingham, UK London, UK Birmingham, UK [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT acoustic instrumental study or composition and simply want In this paper we describe a new application, Integra Live, to experiment with live electronics. As a tool for dataflow designed to address the problems associated with software programming and DSP, Max may be highly usable, but for usability in live electronic music. We begin by outlining musicians with little experience in this area, Max presents the primary usability and user-experience issues relating to an unreasonably steep learning curve. A number of existing projects seek to address this prob- the predominance of graphical dataflow languages for the 3 composition and performance of live electronics. We then lem. For example, the Jamoma project provdes ‘a system discuss the specific development methodologies chosen to for developing high-level modules in the Max/MSP/Jitter address these issues, and illustrate how adopting a user- environment’[9], and more recently, a set of frameworks centred approach has resulted in a more usable and humane for developing Jamoma modules outside of Max[10, 11]. interface design. The main components and workflows of Jamoma offers significant advantages for both users and de- the user interface are discussed, giving a rationale for key velopers, presenting itself as a complete ‘platform’ within design decisions. User testing processes and results are pre- which processing modules may be used and/or developed. sented. Finally, a critical evaluation application usability An earlier project, Open Sound World (OSW), also sought is given based on user-testing processes, with key findings to address usability issues identified in Max, by developing presented for future consideration. a new software application informed by user testing and us- ability evaluation[4]. However, like Max, OSW presented itself as a ‘a scalable, extensible object-oriented language’, Keywords and so, clearly targeted programming-savvy users rather software, live electronics, usability, user experience than non-technical musicians. Commercial software such as Bidule, Audiomulch, Reak- 1. INTRODUCTION tor, Ableton Live and Mainstage all have varying degrees of ease-of-use and applicability in live electronic music, with In this paper we present Integra Live, a new software ap- Bidule and Ableton Live being particularly popular with plication designed to address issues of software usability in free improvisors and live electronic dance musicians respec- live electronic music1. As musical practitioners working in tively. However, due to its wide acceptance within academic a range of contexts including university-teaching, contem- institutions and research centres, Max remains the standard porary classical music and free improvisation, we have ob- tool and entry route for composers working with electronics. served that existing software consistently presents an ‘entry barrier’ to musicians wishing to work with live electronics[2]. The most commonly used software for live electronics in an 2. REQUIREMENTS academic or ‘contemporary classical’ context is Max by Cy- In order to verify our hypothesis that there is a need for cling 742[14]. Max was conceived as a ‘graphical program- a new application for live electronic music which is power- ming environment for developing real-time musical appli- ful yet usable for ‘non-technical’ musicians, we conducted cations’[12], and as such it consists of a graphical dataflow a software requirements analysis. The purpose of this is to language providing control data processing functionality for elicit requirements from stakeholders and potential users, patchable digital signal processing (DSP) ‘objects’. Max re- and to analyse recorded data in order to establish design quires live electronics musicians to have an understanding criteria. of programming concepts such as conditional evaluation, it- eration, mathematical and logical operators as well as DSP 2.1 Interviews principles such as oscillation, filter design, delay buffering, Four stakeholders consisting of: performer, professional com- table lookup and Fourier analysis. All of this is literally ‘an- poser, undergraduate composer, and post-graduate com- other language’ to musicians who have devoted their lives to poser were interviewed in an informal setting. Interviewees were asked about their experience with existing software 1 Music based on live processing of audio in performance and informed about the aims of Integra Live and given the 2 http://www.cycling74.com opportunity to respond freely about this. Some of the most salient comments are listed below. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for “I would like to see a piece of software that is personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are more closely aligned to musical thought processes” not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to “Current software is a big barrier for me using republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific live electronics. It’s a big deal for me to create permission and/or a fee. the processing I need in my piece using Max” NIME’11, 30 May–1 June 2011, Oslo, Norway. 3 Copyright remains with the author(s). http://jamoma.org 387 Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, 30 May - 1 June 2011, Oslo, Norway “The basic processing modules should be already - palettes of resources to choose from e.g. audio done so a composer can come and think about file pool, module pool high level things. It would be nice if the most common processors were already there to be dragged Common keywords include the following or their syn- or selected” onyms (number of people using the word out of the 64 who answered the section shown in brackets): “Max-like environments remove the element of easy (11) play that you get with things like guitar pedals. • These make more sense to the performer” simple (4) • like (15) 2.2 Online Survey • A survey of 76 potential users was conducted, drawing on user (9) Conservatoire students and staff, composers, members of • interface (7) new music ensembles, and members of Sonic Arts Network, • Digital Music Research Network, British Computer Mu- flexible (9) sic and Canadian Electroacoustic Community mailing lists. • control (8) 95% of those who completed the survey considered them- • selves to be composers with 68% considering themselves to The word ‘like’ was mostly used the context of a ‘like X be performers, and in general the results indicate that de- but with Y’ idiom to indicate similarity to another piece of mographic group felt comfortable in at least two different software e.g. ‘Like Main Stage but adapted for live electron- roles. Most respondents reported that they used software ics, simply, a piece of software like those but with flexible for ‘creation of new works’, ‘live performance’ and ‘experi- control over time, in concert and in rehearsal.’ mentation’, although 50% of respondents also use software for ‘rehearsal’, ‘teaching’ and ‘writing new software com- 2.3 ixi survey ponents’. 78% of respondents indicated that they use ‘live In addition to our own surveys, conversations and inter- processing’ software, with 85% indicating that they use soft- views, we also drew on a recent survey conducted by the ware for ‘Experimenting with sounds, controls, processing’ ‘ixi’ project[7] as part of our requirements gathering. This and 76% indicating that they use software for ‘performing survey covers a slightly different demographic to the Integra live’. survey, having a slightly greater emphasis towards partici- Max was shown as being the most popular piece of soft- pants with significant technical experience. This is reflected ware, with 21% of respondents indicating it as their favourite. 4 in the number of respondents reporting experience of tools SuperCollider had 8% indicating it as their favourite with, that require some programming knowledge. Out of 209 sur- Ableton Live accounting for 5%. Audiomulch and Bidule vey participants, 52% indicated that they used Max/MSP, were both mentioned twice by those who indicated ‘other’ 49% indicating Pure Data and 40% indicating that Super- as their favourite software. Collider. Interestingly, across all of the software indicated In addition to quantitative data gathered, the survey also in the survey, the number of people indicating a program recorded qualitative responses including reasons for liking as their ‘tool of choice’ was relatively low compared to the or disliking specific software, and answers to the question: number of users. For example, out of the 108 people that ‘What features would you like to see in your ideal piece had used Max/MSP, only 35 indicated it as their tool of of music software?’. Salient responses include some of the choice, and out of the 93 that used Reaktor, only 20 indi- following examples: cated it as their tool of choice. Across all of the applica- tions in the survey the average number of users indicating “Everything. All in one. Allowing simplicity to agivenapplicationastheirtoolofchoicewas17%ofthe complexity. For instance, most of people are us- total for that tool, suggesting a high level of dissatisfaction ing the basic function of Ableton Live but when with available tools. you dig you can do really fancy things, program- However, overall [7] suggests several classes of user, only ming kind of.” some of whom are dissatisfied with available software. Par- “MUSICALITY. It has to work as a musical ‘tool’ ticularly relevant to Integra Live are these findings: not just as a software tool” ‘Some survey participants expressed the wish for more limited expressive software instruments, i.e.