March 5, 2009
Sound Absorption/Diffusion
Making great recordings is an art. However, acoustics is a science. Acoustics is something that can be measured and controlled. The way sound bounces around in your listening room has a drastic effect on what you actually hear. Bass frequencies get amplified in corners and high frequencies reflect off flat surfaces like a mirror. With a bit of work and some careful thought you can easily flatten out the acoustic response of any room without having to break the bank.
The first thing you want to consider when analyzing your listening space is the Early Reflection. The best way to treat early reflections is to imagine that each speaker is a light and your walls, ceiling and floor are mirrors. Anywhere in the room that you would be able to see the light directly reflected off the mirror needs to be treated. This can easily be done by hanging some acoustic panels where needed. Don't forget the ceiling. After you have treated the room for early reflections you should notice that the sound from your monitors is much more clear. Early reflections give the us a cue as to how big an area or room is. When you are providing these cues artificially in your recording with reverb and/or delay the natural acoustics of the room will confuse your brain and ends up just sounding like crap. An easy way to test a room for early reflections is to clap your hands and listen to the response. An untreated room will sound like some kind of weird spring.
Small rooms like project studios suffer from low frequency modal problems. This means the bass response of a small room is going to be very uneven and inaccurate if not treated. You will have big spikes and dips in the bass response that will seriously effect the way you mix and eq your tracks. Any right angles will gather low frequencies so ALL corners need to be treated with bass traps. For more info on all things that have to do with sound treating a room head over to the Acoustics Info page at Realtraps.com. They even have a free downloadable audio test CD so you can test your room for evil audio artifacts.
Acoustic Panels are best for absorbing sound and bass traps are a must for low frequencies. But have you seen how much these things cost!?! A run of the mill Absorber Panel can easily over $300. I can't bring myself pay for stuff I can make myself. So after scouring the interwebs I have listed a few How-to links below. However, if you are looking for some fairly cheap and transportable panels check out these panels from Clearsonic. If you have the money to spend on Pro-quality acoustic treatment then I would recommend getting your panels and traps from Realtraps.com. Their site is more informative than any other commercial acoustic treatment site and you can really tell they love what they do.
Check out this RealTraps video for a great overview of why, how and where to put acoustic traps. Once you get an idea of where you want to put some panels check out this how-to guide to building acoustic absorber panels. IMO that is the best how-to you are gonna find on the interwebs and the design is based on the Realtraps Mondotrap. If you want/need something a bit less bulky you might want to look here. This guy takes a very similar approach but ends up with something that more resembles Microtraps. And for a quick and simple solution for some light sound absorption check out this collapsible sound wall. Keep in mind though that these DIY panels and traps will not perform as well as the pro quality ones. The materials and work are not of the same quality. Many home studios simply do not have the funds to appropriately treat their acoustics. In such cases some DIY treatments are better than no treatment at all.
March 3, 2009
Music you won't hear on the Radio
Hip-Hop:
Saul Williams - This slam poet turned Rap/Rocker, has worked with such well known artist such as Nas, The Fugees, Christian Alvarez, Blackalicious, Erykah Badu, KRS-One, Zack De La Rocha, De La Soul, and DJ Krust, as well as Trent Rezner whom produced his album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! Expect angry, rocking lyrics that demand you pay attention.
Blackalicious - Very strict and oldschool style hip-hop. Every track is well thought out, very well produced and the arrangements make almost all other forms of Hip-Hop sound stale and without soul. I don't even like Hip-Hop but the groove and conviction of Blackalicious can't be denied.
Jazz:
Bohren & der Club of Gore - Originally, members of Bohren started out playing in various hardcore bands such as 7 Inch Boots and Chronical Diarrhoea. They crossed over to Jazz and began producing mellow ambient music that would in no way indicate their hardcore roots. Put on one of their albums, get some scotch on the rocks and relax while visions of Se7en like murder scenes dance in your head.
Ska:
The Scabs - Crude, lude and catchy. Their songs are even more infectious than the contents of their pants. From the lyrics you might mistake the song "Tarantula" for a love song, except term "Tarantula" refers to a woman with untrimmed pubic hair.
Industrial/Trip-Hop/Rock:
Puscifer - This is Maynard Keenan's (Tool/Perfect Circle) latest project. Droning deep vocals and industrial remixes, a bit different from Keenan's other projects but sure to please any fan.
Avant Garde:
Weird Little Boy - Another collaboration of John Zorn and Mike Patton. The bass player of the band had this to say about the only album the band ever released:
PLEASE HEED THE warnings on this group about the worthless schlock CD entitled Weird Little Boy and DON'T BUY IT! I know: I played on the piece of shit.... Yeah, some giddy newcomers to "experimental" music might find layers of subversive irony within it, what with all the "big names" engaging in pure musical vacuity along with the additional "absurdity" of it being retailed at such a high price. Besides, "There HAS to be something to it," otherwise we're not as smart as we thought we were for BUYING it. Hmm ... I think most of us have had enough of that kind of thing. Unless wasting thirty bucks on a turd gives you some kind of sick, giddy post-modern thrill, avoid this at all costs. – Trey Spruance, message posted to the alt.noise newsgroup, 8/7/98Now if that does not sell you on it, you have no business listening to any of John Zorn's avant garde music, which I imagine would amount 99.999999% of the human population. However if the idea of incredibly talented musicians coming together to produce an album full of nothing but horrible noise perks your interest, well have at it.
Indy-electronic:
Cornelius - Anything that comes from Japan is by default weird. Cornelius is no exception. Using a mixture of natural tones and sounds and synthetic instruments and effects, Cornelius creates a sound that makes everyone immediately ask, "What are you listening to?" This guy has an awesome sense of timing. Rhythmic dissonance and hypnotic harmonies draw you in and sooth you into a curious listening experience.
Make: your own sounds
Music-boxing in NI Kontakt from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.
I am a big fan of Lifehacker and Make: Magizine. My friend Jon of Keep Austin Corporate and I even had a booth at last years Maker Faire. So when I saw Lifehacker's post Create Crazy Sound Effects with Household Objects it got my gears cranking. A quick scan of my bookmarks and I also came up with this guide on Making a Sampler Instrument with Kontact posted on Create Digital Music. This guide outlines how to go about quickly building a multisampled instrument from a music box. I just so happened to have the exact same music box as shown in the video, except mine plays the Pink Panther theme. This same technique could be applied to any number of noises. So grab those wind chimes or head down to good-will and get a noisemaker toy to circuit bend.
March 2, 2009
Monday Sucks, have some free stuff
Ronnie over at Rekkerd.org made a post pointing out some samples of the classic Quantec QRS/XL.
Also VescoFX has released three free VSTs (EQ, Phase Reverse and Stereo Delay) for Windows users. Sorry Mac guys, you will just have to run it in parralles or boot into windows.
Need some new Kick samples? Check out Waveformless' recomendation free Distorted Kick Samples by Jobro Media.
EDIT
How could I have deprived you of this. A brand new live double album from NIN. Well not exactly from NIN but from the fans.
Oh and Rekkerd.org is giving away a Bone Crushing Drums sample set. Leave a comment here and see if you win.
February 27, 2009
DIY Audio Projects
I touched on DIY in the last post when I mentioned the Cmoy Op-Amp headphone amp project. I figure some of you might want a few more ideas for things you can do yourself for fun and to save some money. I find that one of the biggest benifits of doing "it" yourself is by the time you are done you have a much deeper understanding of "it". Add to that the tendancy for DIY projects to save you money and you end up with some pretty strong motivation to get your hands dirty.
Need a new rack for the studio? Well, you could go online or to the local SuperMegaGuitarStore to grab a indestructable road rack but that would be overkill if it is just going to stay parked in your music room. Why do that when you could slightly mod this Ikea nightstand into a nice looking 19" rack like the ones you see here. All you have to do is lower the base board a bit and put in some rails. You can make your own rails or buy them. If you feel so inclined you could also stain the wood for a really slick look.
Ok so maybe the rack is to easy. And maybe you have been drooling over some multi-thousand dollar ribbon mic. Well maybe you would be interested in constructing the Austin Ribbon Mic. I have not actually made one of these myself but it is on my "to do" list. The originator (no idea what his name is) of this design was featured on The Home Recording Show, which is where I first heard of it.
If you don't want to go through the process of building a while mic you can always just mod one of the ones you have. For example, everyone has a SM57...you do have at least one SM57 right? Ok so get yourself a T58 transformer and a SM57/58. Open the SM57/58 up and take out the transformer. Solder in the T58 and you are done. Now your $120 mic sounds like a the $350 SM-7.
Want more ideas for DIY audio stuff? Click Here.
OMG!!! It's the attack of the LINK DUMP!
DIY Microphones
Seventh Circle Audio DIY audio gear
Wolf + Lamb Custom 3 Channel Midi Controller
Build Your Own Clone guitar pedal
Bent Pikachu
Electronic Peasant Projects you should seriously check these out, super awesome!
MIDIsense takes any of your bent toys and adds...MIDI
DIY pro quality TalkBox
February 20, 2009
Update and links
So with all the house shopping and marriage stuff I have been doing lately I have not found the time (translate: too lazy) to make any posts. As I am sure you were all sitting at the edge of your seat waiting for some morsel of info from me, I will impart some info.
I have been working on a Cmoy Op-Amp for a friend of mine. He went out and got himself a headphone mixer/amp thinking it would make his $200 headphones sound better. He sent me this picture and asked me how to hook it up to his laptop. FAIL...
So I offered to make him a cmoy for a six pack. If you have the need for some extra Omph out of your headphones I would highly suggest either making one yourself or buying one someone else has already put together on ebay.
I got a new set of Alesis Monitor One reference monitors. I was having trouble with the sibilance in my vocals. The speakers I had were not cutting it. After hooking up the Alesis monitors I could clearly hear what I had been doing wrong. Time to go back and eq my old mixes.
I finally got past some writers block I had been stuck in. When things are going well in my life I tend have a hard time writing as I tend derive most of my inspiration from getting out pent up emotions. Considering my life has never been better I am surprised I even bother to pick up my guitar anymore. I will be posting a new song soon so keep an eye out.
And now for the link dump:
ZeroG has released a new sample set called Distorted Dancefloor.
I am not much into dance music but I love glitch. Computer Music mag gave this sample set high marks. There is a mp3 demo on the site so you can get a feel of what you would be getting.
The producer Si Begg writes:
"I designed this library to encourage producers to get out of their comfort zones and push the limits of what is considered 'dance' music. I also hoped, that as well as using the sounds and loops provided 'straight out of the box' and in the mix , they would also inspire you to get weird and mess around. Noises can be chopped into percussive loops. Loops can be stretched and mangled into soundscapes. Try reversing them, speed them up, slow them down, filter them, distort them and generally warp them any which way you can. There's no 'wrong' way to use these and no 'right' way either. Forget the rules and just play with the rudiments of sound itself."
Features:
* Riffs
* Beats
* Basslines
* FX Loops
* Vocal
* Sub Bass
* Soundscapes
* Pads
* Notes
* Hits
* Fx
* Basses
Includes:
* 600 Acidized WAV files
* 600 AIFF Apple Loops
* 420 Stylus compatible REX2 files
* 27 EXS24 Instruments
* 27 Kontakt Instruments
* 27 Reason NN-XT Instruments
Not bad for for a Benjamin.
AudioTUTS made a great tutorial on How to Use Transient Designers in Your Mixes. Now I know it is a sin but I had never really explored the use of IR. I guess I just figured that it was just another processor intensive reverb that I didn't need because I love my Wave Arts MasterVerb 5. Well it is like they say, when you assume... So a google search later and I had found a ton of free IRs to use. You can also use bits of sound that are not intended for IR usage to get really weird sounds.
Check out SOUNDresource. This site was set up recently by a guy that likes to crank out his own once shot and drone sample sets. I am particularly fond of his glitchy sample sets but he also does other types of electronic and hip-hop sample sets as well. Good stuff for getting the creative juices flowing.
December 3, 2008
Craigslist is the devil!
Some guys take a news paper or a magazine to the john when they know they are gonna be a while. Some guys have books. I have my blackberry.
At work, in line at the store, out shopping with the woman...everywhere. I scour Craigslist. It is a moral imperative that I know the very second someone posts about a cheap pair of reference monitors or a old wah pedal. I look through the musicians section for a hint of someone that I might want to record with like some fat and balding man hunting through match.com.
I am starting to think this is a symptom of a more deep seeded and malignant problem.
October 22, 2008
Minimal knobs for maximum inspiration
Ever notice how you buy that new super awesome synth plugin that costs you hundreds and you end up just messing with the presets. I find that if a plugin does too much and has too many knobs, faders, modules or whatever, I just can't wrap my head around it when it is time for me to be creative. I may spend a few hours tweaking the knobs and what not, but most of the time I find a preset and go from there. I don't tend to have this problem with free plugins as they tend to have more minimal interfaces. They mostly serve a solitary purpose and only have a few knobs to tweak, not unlike those familiar fx pedals for your guitar. I tend to feel more comfortable programing automation on a synth when I can glance at the controls and instantly know what I am looking at. Call me a minimalist if you want, it is probably just that I have ADD.
Tweakbench has a fairly large collection of free plugins to offer. The first thing I noticed about these plugins was their lack of confusing interfaces. You can easily load up any of these plugins and tweak the knobs for a few min and find just the sound you were looking for. Try throwing Triforce on a midi track with a baseline or a lead, loop it and tweak away.
October 14, 2008
Controlling your DAW from the vocal booth
Is your vocal booth/room separate from your control room? Do you find it hard/impossible to record your own vocal takes without the help of someone to man your controls? Do you have a iPhone/iPod Touch? Well then I have a solution for you.
There have been an enormous amount of apps released for the iPhone/touch in the few years it has been around. Some of these apps have been specifically geared towards us audio engineer types. As mentioned on Create Digital Music, if you are working with Protools you can get ProRemote to control your mixer for about $40 for the lite version and about $150 for pro. If you are using some other DAW on PC you can pick up a copy of Intelliremote to push your buttons from the iPhone/touch.
In order to get this to work you must first install the server application on your PC. This app runs about $25. You also need the client software on your iPhone/touch. Once you have to two programs set up it is just a matter of plugging in your PC's address into the iPhone's options and setting up a profile for your DAW. It only takes a few moments to map Intelliremote's buttons to those of your DAW. Though this software is not made specifically for use with DAWs it is well suited for the job. Among it's great features are the ability to use the device as a mouse or keyboard. Also the iPhone can remember up to four different computers so you can use it with your laptop, desktop and also as a remote for your media center.
I have been using it to free me from the record button of my rig for about a month now and I can say that I am a lot less put off at the prospect of having to record myself now.
Do it yourself
Audio Gear can be expensive...really expensive. Sure you could go down to guitar center and drop a couple hundred bucks on a cheapy low voltage mic preamp instead of dropping a few thousand bucks for a true studio grade preamp. Not everyone has four or five grand to toss into their hobby on a whim. But since the upcoming Maker Faire in Austin has me in the DIY mindset, I am gonna show you a few ways to save a few bucks and get some really kick ass gear on the cheap. Hit the jump for the skinny.
September 28, 2008
Effigy
Here is a new track that I just finished. I have been working on this one for about two years now. As far as recording goes, this is the most complex track I have ever worked on. I used countless effects and spent months worth of time editing all the little details that you will probably never notice. I am glad it is done though. Hope you like it.
Oh if anyone is interested in seeing a screen shot of the finished project or wants a tutorial on how to do any of the techniques used in the track just leave a comment.
Image swiped from Here, don't you just love Creative Commons.
September 5, 2008
Dragging Time
Every so often I find myself getting very stale with my music composition. I get into a rut and I can't seem to come up with anything creative or inspiring. When this happens I usually find myself digging into my bag of rhythm tricks. I am a big fan of using odd time signatures to create a unique groove. I have picked up one trick that I call dragging time. The basic effect is like slightly slowing down a spinning record with your finger while it it playing. It creates a kind of drunken, lazy vibe that can range from subtle to awkward depending on how much you exaggerate the effect. Because it has that drunken vibe it really works better at lower tempos. Not really sure what I mean? Well download the Project Files unzip and listen to the Peeping Tom demo track 03 03. Lesson after the jump...
August 23, 2008
How to licence your music with Creative Commons
You have written and recorded some music. You want to protect your intellectual property. If you have been paying attention to the music industry lately then I am sure you have heard of Creative Commons License. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has distributed his last few albums under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike in order to make his music more available to the public and allow his fans to remix his tracks without having to worry about going against his copyright. If this kind of license sounds appealing to you and you would like to apply it to your music or other intellectual property, then follow these steps to get your work licensed under Creative Commons.
Step 1: Get your work Copyrighted
Essentially, once you have recorded your music, all you have to do to get it Copyrighted is to simply say it is Copyrighted. For example,
Copyright How to license your music with Creative Commons © 2008.Now this blog post is protected under Copyright. You can not distribute or copy this work without my permission. To go one step further, you can register at the U.S Copyright Office for $35. Registering your intellectual property with copyright registration entitles the availability to statutory damages and any fees that occur. Basically, if you have to fight it out in court without being registered at the copyright office, the legal fees would probably be more than the sum you would win. You don't have to register, but it is a good idea. If you don't register, then you will have to pay all the legal fees associated with it, proving that you are the copyright holder and original author. If you are registered then apparently the Copyright office takes care of that bit.
Step 2: Choosing a License
Now that you have your work protected and all rights are reserved, it is time to loosen your strangle hold on your intellectual property so others can be free to use it in whatever way you deem fair. Visit the Creative Commons Choosing a License page and read over the different types of licenses that you can apply to your music. Everything is spelled out in plain English so you should not have any problems with confusing legal mumbo jumbo. After deciding how you want to restrict the usage of your work, head over to the Creative Commons License Your Work page and select the allowances and fill in the info.
Generally you will want to select "No" for "allow commercial uses of your work". So if someone wants to make money off of your music, they will have to pay you for it, but if you want your work to be totally free then select "yes". Then select what modifications you will allow. Here "Yes" means someone can remix or cover your song however they like. "Yes, as long as others share alike" means they must attribute the original work to you, and it must be released under the same license you originally released the work under, and "No" means they can't modify your work at all without your expressed permission.
You then select your jurisdiction, which will make the license apply to whatever country you select and then fill in your info. Once you have done all that, click the "Select a Licence" button at the bottom of the page.
Step 3: Publishing your License
Now that you have gotten your license all squared away, you have to let people know that your work is in fact licensed under Creative Commons. The page you are taken to after clicking the "Select a License" button will have some code you can insert into the HTML of your web site or blog. On the left side of this page, you will find specific instructions on how to insert the code into Blogger, Movable Type and Typepad blogs. They also have some guides on how to publish your music to p2p networks like Morpheus.
Once your web site is set up, you want to be sure to include your license info in the ID3 tag of any mp3 that you are planning to distribute. You can use any program that allows you to edit ID3 tags to add your license information into the comments area. The information you will need to list includes the latest year the recording was licensed, the name of the band or artist, the type of license, and a link to the license info. It is also a good idea make sure it is pretty clear on how to contact you in case someone is interested in using your work for commercial purposes. Ex: 2008 Velvet Wasp ©. Contact through www.slamgauge.com Licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
Now you are all set. Make a torrent of your music and put it up on Piratebay, Limewire, Myspace, your blog or where ever else you would like. Perhaps later I will write about different ways to distribute your music online.
H/T:Audiotuts, Electronic Music Production Tips, Home Recording Blog, The Home Recording Show, Adventures In Sound
August 20, 2008
Stereo Miking Techniques
So you just got yourself some preamps and a pair of mics. You try to get those drums/guitar/piano etc. tracks laid down but it just does not sound right. It may seem like a simple enough thing to just point the mic and hit record but there are a few things to consider beforehand. The polar phase of the two signals can kill the recording. Audiotuts' 6 Stereo Miking Techniques You Can Use Today post will give you some basic guidelines on how to configure your mic arrangement to tackle your phase problems and get the best stereo depth from your recordings.
If you have already recorded your takes and think you might be having phasing problems try nudging one of the tracks left or right by a few milliseconds. You could also grab the highly recommended and free plugin Flux Stereo Tool to invert the phase of either side of the stereo signal and keep an eye on things.
August 19, 2008
Nudie Bar
One Eye Doll, a local band here in Austin, just released a new music video for their song Nudie Bar. The shear ridiculous awesomeness of this video struck me as so creative that I just had to share it. Dun dun dun dun! If you dig this sign up for the newsletter or better yet, go see Kimberly next time One Eyed Doll is playing.
Enjoy.
August 18, 2008
Keeping track of your product keys with Gmail
For some reason software companies these days have it in their heads that if they attempt to lock down their software with ridiculous software activation rituals, keys, codes and dongles, they will be able to keep the pirates from using their software for free. The fact of the matter is that no matter how many times they move the pea in their silly little game of piracy cups, their software will always get hacked. All the while people that actually support these companies by buying the software get to jump through these silly hoops they have set up. So if you find yourself becoming majorly confused and disorganized when trying to keep up with all your product activation keys/conformation codes/serial numbers/response codes, etc... here is a tip from Lifehacker that you should check out. You will get a good idea of how to search through Gmail and set up filters to find and keep track of your exhausting array of activation codes. If they never emailed you the codes, just open up whatever activation program you have and email yourself whatever numbers you need, or even a screenshot.
You do use Gmail...don't you?
August 17, 2008
How to get into the Video Game Music Industry
The Austin Game Developers Conference is coming up next month, Sep. 15-17th. Video games is a huge market and one that is expanding all the time. And in every video game there is some form of music and sound. A few years ago I gave some of my music to a few developers that were working on some kind of space tank game, but it never saw the light of day. So I will be attending the AGDC to see if I may be able to make a few more contacts and maybe get involved in a project or two. If you have been itching to get into the video gaming music industry like I am then I would highly suggest you Register Here.
And if you are not here in Austin you might just want to check out this article over at The Game Composers Blog. You can read over how he started out, go ahead and check out the rest of his blog too.
August 15, 2008
Protools Is Killing Music
I have spent about ten years working with computers and recording software. In '98 I got my first Mac. It was a 400mhz G4, the very first G4. I picked up a copy Protools and put my 4 track away forever. Those recording I made back then were utter and total shit! I have spent the last 10 years learning the fine arts of making my shit musical ideas sound polished. I have read article after article, applied every tip I ever read on line and now I can finally make a decent sounding track. I have only gotten to this point in the last few years, and I still constantly struggle to make my shit sound better.
Over the years I have learned quite a bit. I can explain how ultrasonic frequencies behave to my fiancée when she is confused about a question on a quiz for her sonography classes. I can walk into a room and yell and clap and tell you the best place to set up a guitar amp and mic. So when I was reading through this article on popmatters.com called How ProTools is Killing Music that I found on Audio Geek Zine, I got a bit upset. Basically the douche bag that wrote the article, Scott Oranburg, says that guys like me are ruining the music industry. Guys like me that sit at home with their measly $10K worth of gear and crank out music are putting shit producers out on the street because they can no longer afford to sit back and charge people to use their expensive sound boards and stuffy rooms.
Especially when guys like me will record and produce their friends for free. Especially when I can buy a mastering plug in pack for $400 bucks that rivals the sound of their single channel $6K compressors. I hate to break it to you but that is how this whole technology thing works guy. Sorry that I am free to sit in my room on my own time and be creative without leaches like you sucking off my wallet.
I know you probably crying in your cheerios over how unfair it is that you built up your career and now no one wants to pay you for all your hard work and expertise. Well, maybe if it wernt for the fact that nearly every musician in history has had to hang up their craft and get a day job because they couldn't afford to pay out the nose for services like yours, I might feel a twinge of sympathy. I am not talking about the guys that "hit it big", I am talking about everybody else that just wants to express themselves and share it with anyone that might enjoy it. Throughout history anyone with some paint and an easel can make something beautiful for others to enjoy, but a musican has always needed some wanker with a studio and money to spread his art. At the very least you need somewhere to play. And now that any average joe can build his own studio and learn to run it by spending his extra cash and time on the internet you feel like it is killing MUSIC!
Cheap recording is to music what cheap food is to an Ethiopian child. I have been starving for years for some decent music and no major label has satiated my hunger since the early '90s. The phat cats in the music industry have been rationing out "quality music" through their locked down avenues of distribution for so long I have never known anything else. These days I look to musicians that do it themselves. Mike Patton does not need a producer and neither does Trent Reznor. The utter bilged that has been passed off as music lately is enough to make me want to take it out of the hands of the majors. So please, spare me your sob story. And if you want to hear what Protools is really doing to music why don't you turn off the radio and MTV and get on the internet. Maybe then you might be able to pull your head out off your ass long enough to hear some music that still breaths with the passion of an artist making music for the love of the music.
August 14, 2008
Prodikeys PC-MIDI
My buddy Stumbled me a link to the Creative Prodikeys website. They were hocking this keyboard for $21 shipped so I jumped on it. I though even if the thing is totally unusable, I am only out twenty bucks. So I gave it a shot..
More after the jump.
August 7, 2008
Make your singer sound like a choir
I found this awesome tutorial at Audiotuts.com about making one vocal sound like many with Clone Ensemble in Cubase. You all know how I do love Cubase. Personally I would also take the original vocal and twist it up with Melodyne, but this is great for getting the quick and dirty done.
Multiple DAWs, one set of plugins
Have you ever tried out a new DAW and tried to set your /steinberg/plugins/ folder as the plugins folder. Then I am sure you are aquantied with the nice dialog boxes that tell you over and over of the multitude of plugins that are not compatible or even the dreaded freeze. Here is a tip, use shortcuts. Make a separate folder for Ableton Live, or whatever program you are setting up, and put a shortcut file for all your compatible VSTs in that folder. Basically all you have to do is go into your /steinberg/plugins/ folder and highlight all the 3rd party plugins that you are pretty sure will work with the new DAW. Then, while they are all still highlighted, right click and select Create Shortcut (mac guys use aliases). Drag all your new shortcut files into your new plugin folder and you are all set. The beauty of this is you can have all your plugins in one spot and several other places as well, and you can have several different plugin folders for whatever apps you may have.
Nocturn Review
So I did a meta-review a while back over the Novation Nocturn. Well, I have had mine for a month now and I feel confident that I can give it a decent review now.
I will start at the beginning with the install. It comes with a quick start card and a install disk, no manual. The manual is in PDF form on the disk. I see more and more companies doing this lately and I have to say that I am not a fan of PDF manuals. Even though I have a dual monitor setup, it is still hard to flip through a PDF the way you would a physical manual and still have the program up to tinker with. But lets just take this as a sign that the setup is so intuitive that you need nothing other than a quick setup, with Cubase SX3, which I use, this is actually the case. You go through the setup...next next next...until you get to the plugin manager. You drag the plugins you want to control over and off you go.
Starting up Cubase I realize that the Automap 2.0 program has made a copy of all my plugins and appended (automap) to the new version. This means that in all my old sessions I will have to go in and save the current state to a preset and unload the plugin, load the automap version and load the preset.
Wait...Viva Las Vegas just came on, gotta sing it to my girl...blame it on the scotch.
Ok, back to work. So to play with my new toy I had to start a new session, no prob. Load up some D'n'B breaks and a bass synth, kick up a loop and get to tweaking. Here is where this thing starts to shine. I loaded Glitch on the drum loop track and hit the "FX" button. This brings up the Automap GUI, and shows all the insert plugins applied over the knobs. You simply touch the knob that corresponds to the plugin you want to control and it shows you all the controls of that plugin mapped out across the virtual nocturn of the GUI with page up and down buttons to scroll through the multitude of parameters that you can tweak with the knobs. By just grabbing a few knobs I can now get some nice Justice/Daft Punk type grooves, so easy. Very nice, but not really my style. Actually it kinda takes the coolness out of music like that.
So now I hit the mixer button and the nocturn takes control of Cubases mixer, Awesome! CRASH!!!! Shit! Restart, reload. Over the next few weeks I get the same thing over and over, crashing. Automap is as stable as my faith in the government...and I am an anarchist. The Nocturn has afforded me an amazing amount of control over my plugins and synths. It makes them feel organic and real, I can easily manipulate everything almost as quickly as if they were physical units sitting on my desk. But I will be damned if I would trust this thing on stage. I would be surprised if you could make it though a set without it taking a shit. In fact last night I had to uninstall, clean the registry and reinstall just to get Automap to start without making the whole system instantly bomb out. This is more than a little glitch, we are talking catastrophic failure if you are on stage. Not to mention that when it is working, Automap seems to make all your plugins take up more cpu than normal, but only when tweaking the knobs. My workflow at home is much improved by my nocturn but it seems offset by the totally unpredictable crashing. Hopefully when Novation updates its Automap 2.0 software they will have worked out some of the bugs therein. Oh and if you were hopeing to use this with Ableton Live, well you are going to have to set everything up manually with midi CC. Don't you wish you had a "real" manual now?
Overall I would still say the Nocturn is cool. I would not however give it the 10/10 rating that Computer Music Magazine did. There is a lot I was left wanting, but it still beats the pants off of manually programing the knobs of my axiom in Cubase. However, if Live is your thing I would not recommend the Nocturn. Since Live has that niffty midi mapping feature, it kinda renders the whole Automap 2.0 program useless. And if you want to use it for your DJ software...forget it. They don't support any DJ software. I don't even know why they bothered to put a cross fader on the thing since it never maps to anything automatically.
Do I sound bitter? Maybe just a bit. I guess it was all the hype that got my hopes up. The Nocturn has a lot of potential, if it could only kick the crash habbit and pick up a few more friends, namely Ableton Live and some DJ software. Oh well, heres hoping to some quick updates.
July 6, 2008
Dancy Thing
Here is a new generic Electronic Rock track that I worked out this weekend. It is not really that good, but it is catchy and I kept it right at three min. Just like all the crap you hear on the radio.
I will update if I ever decide to write some lyrics for it.
June 10, 2008
Burn
I threw together a cover of burn this weekend. I have not posted any music for a while so I though I would put this up. I have been in the doldrums lately as far as writing music goes so I though I may as well do a quick cover to keep the juices flowing. Let me know if you think I totally ruined Trent's song.
April 27, 2008
Nocturn metareview
I am a big fan of the UK magazine Computer Music. It cost me about $20 per magazine but I still find myself buying every one because it is so useful and informative. They recently did a review of a new midi/usb interface for audio apps from Novation called Nocturn. I don't recall ever seeing a product receive a perfect score from these guys before, but the Nocturn did. I must say, I am freaking stoked about this thing. Anyone who has tried to get a midi controllers knobs to play nice with a program like Cubase SX or Protools will testify that it can not only be an excercise in futility, it can kill your creative flow instantly. Not to mention how fucked you are if the program of your choice decides to forget your settings when you are about to go to play live.
Well, Novation has apparently got a handle on their Automaping technology because it has the reviewers at CM doing back flips over how easy and intuitive it is to use. Anything that makes them happy makes me happy. Read the review here.
Oh and did I mention that it is cheap! Only $150 bucks for all the touch sensitive, super intuitive fast mapping glory. I am gonna go get one next week, will update with a real review.
April 21, 2008
Hanging from the rafters
I have never seen a show like this! Dillinger Escape Plan blew my mind this weekend. I have seen these guys a number of times before and have seen their lineup change over the years. Their new lineup kicks ass.
Full account of the brutality after the jump.
December 6, 2007
Girl Pants
This one is kind of an inside joke between me and my friends.
But if you ever go downtown and see a guy wearing pants tighter than your girls tight jeans then you will pretty much understand. I can't check out a band downtown without seeing a thousand of these 80's throwback , hipster, sissy boys running around all over the place. I even have a few friends that wear the girl pants. Seriously, I went shopping with a buddy of mine and he was actually browsing in the woman's section. I slipped over and tried to whisper to him that he was looking at chick jeans and he turned to me and said that they fit him better. Can't argue with that kind of logic.
November 26, 2007
Dead Again
I put together a track for the imaginary zombie movie that I wish I was working on, or maybe a video game. Anybody need someone to work on the soundtrack for their horror/thriller type project. I work for cheap!
September 18, 2007
Smoke in the Air
Potent fluid, comforting abyss. Subtle movement, so slight you might miss
Soft dilation, lights grow dim, and in my hand three fingers of bourbon.
These eyes tell you lies, stories of your dreams.
Fabricate delusions. Cast down, fleeting.
Make your offer, cast your bid.
Maybe all those drinks will do the trick.
Waltz right over and flash your grin.
I close myself off, can you chisel your way in?
Like smoke in the air, she disappears the same.
August 23, 2007
When it's done
Here is a quick trip-hop track I whipped up with a Ableton Live on a friends laptop with some samples I have on a external hard drive.
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