Google+ Hangouts live “On Air” are now available to anyone. This is certainly going to be great for musicians. If any Wire to the Ear readers broadcast your studio or a live show please let me know. I really like that you can record the sessions.
“Today we’re excited to launch Hangouts On Air to Google+ users worldwide. So if you have something to say—as an aspiring artist, a global celebrity, or a concerned citizen—you can now go live in front of a global audience. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to: Broadcast publicly. By checking “Enable Hangouts On Air,” you can broadcast your live hangout—from the Google+ stream, your YouTube channel or your website—to the entire world. See how many viewers you’ve got. During your broadcast, you can look inside the hangout to see how many people are watching live. Record and re-share. Once you’re off the air, we’ll upload a public recording to your YouTube channel, and to your original Google+ post. This way it’s easy to share and discuss your broadcast after it’s over.” – Google
Follow me on Google+: plus.google.com/10268…
photo credit: gigaom
This entry was written by , posted on May 7, 2012 at 7:32 am, filed under live performance and tagged Google, Hangouts, live performance. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Sometimes it’s good just to turn your equipment on and make a sequence for no reason at all. MFB-522, Slim Phatty, Mbrane, Clap Track and DM-100 Delay.
“A real sequence is a sequence where the subsequent segments are exact transpositions of the first segment.” – Wikipedia
For more info: youtube.com/user/thingstocomerecords
This entry was written by , posted on May 6, 2012 at 8:06 am, filed under drum machine, synthesizer and tagged Electro-Harmonix, Jomox Brane, MFB-522, Moog Slim Phatty. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This is my favorite Beastie song.
“Now my name is M.C.A. I’ve got a license to kill I think you know what time it is it’s time to get ill”
For more info: beastieboys.com
This entry was written by , posted on May 5, 2012 at 12:50 pm, filed under music and tagged Beastie Boys. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
As I am about three fourths of the way done with my next album and my studio is a mass of wires. I’ve become obsessed with syncing my old drum machines and analog synthesizers using various methods. I’m not looking for perfectly quantized MIDI. I’m looking for some Control Voltage madness. Last night’s experiment will definitely make it to a full song. I haven’t shared anything with you in a while with regards to my upcoming music but it’s time I start breaking the ice. The audio sample may not be your cup of tea but the method can be used to create all sorts of nonsense in many music styles.
I have an old Korg Rythm 55 drum machine. I go out of it’s Trig Out to a Doepfer Dark Time analog sequencer’s Click In. On the Korg you can set the sequencer to trigger in various times. If you select a 16th note you will get your typical Giorgio Moroder type of thing. This time I have it set to follow the Korg’s kick drum (blue arrow above). The Doepfer is hooked up to one of the oscillators on an Analogue Solutions Telemark synth (both pitch and filter). This time around I don’t want the Dark Time telling the synth to play different notes. I only want it to Trigger a very slight pitch change and that’s why (see the green arrow) I have the pitch line stop after the second step. The two steps are just slightly detuned. The filter does change open and closed over 8 steps (which you can only hear when the filter is partial closed at the beginning). If you notice there is a grey Midi cable plugged into the top of the Dark Time. If I wanted I could play different notes on my attached MIDI controller and the entire sequencing line would change pitch.
Hit play on the Korg and off we go. I turn up the filter, bring in the Korg’s snare and you have something from a different decade. To add to the whole vintage feel the Korg has some Boss DM-100 on it. You can hear when I hit the fills on the Korg the synth follows and it’s really magic. One last thing to note is if you look at the Analogue Solutions Telemark photo above you see that orange arrow? That points to the other oscillator that’s not being controlled by the Doepfer. Its another reason you hear a detuned sound. I can bring it and the noise knob in and out for great effect (or verse/chorus parts). Time to add the vocals.
“At its most basic, an analog sequencer is nothing but a bank of potentiometers and a “clock” that steps through these potentiometers one at a time and then cycles back to the beginning. The output of the sequencer is fed (as a control voltage and gate pulse) to a synthesizer. By “tuning” the potentiometers, a short repetitive rhythmic motif or riff can be set up.” – Wikipedia
For more info: thehorrorist.com
This entry was written by , posted on May 3, 2012 at 8:18 am, filed under drum machine, hardware, synthesizer and tagged analog sequencer, Analogue Solutions, Control Voltage, Doepfer, Doepfer Dark Time, Korg, Korg KR55, Telemark. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Acidlab who already make great Roland TR-808 (Miami) and TB-303 (Bassline) clones is recreating those products in beautiful Eurorack modular form. As far as pro-audio gearlust these things rate high on the wow I want to touch them scale. You can read an interview I did with Klaus Suessmuth here. Klaus posted these photos and information over at the Muffwiggler forum (link).
“The newest products are FRAME with 84TE space, a 5-ch Mixer and the POW-Modul. 3HE Case is at 75 Euro; the Powermodul with powersupply is at 65 Euro. POW-modules’ performance is +12V/700mA und -12V/700mA. Another new products will follow in the near future: 6HE Case, 303VCO & M303 (303-module); the 808-Drumodule will need more time. -a V/Octave to V/Hz Converter (for Korg-CV & Metasonix) will follow, too!” – Klaus Suessmuth
For more info: muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55660&highlight=acidlab
This entry was written by , posted on May 2, 2012 at 4:12 am, filed under drum machine, hardware, modular, synthesizer and tagged acidlab, Eurorack, Klaus Suessmuth, modular, roland, Roland TB-303, Roland TR-808, synthesizer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
In the late 1960s Mike Matthews worked as a salesmen for IBM. He then started Electro Harmonix in NYC. The legendary effects pedal company is still going strong. His most famous pedal is the Big Muff fuzzbox. I’m far more interested in his very early analog products. One of them is awesomely named the Sequencer Drum. It’s a simple analog synth with an 8 step sequencer. You can hook two together and they will be in sync. You don’t buy these for their features. You buy them for the sound. Like calves liver it’s something not everyone is after. After watching the video above some of you are already on eBay. You won’t find these often. If your looking to recreate an early 80s Soft Cell demo cassette this is a good starting point.
“The Sequencer Drum is one of the rarest Electro Harmonix pedals. Unlike some of the other EH obscurities, this one is actually useful and sounds amazing! Not only is it an 8-step CV/Gate sequencer, but it has a built in synthesizer and a mode that allows you trigger the sequence at a set decay! The leather pad on the front is meant to be tapped to activate the trigger (hence the “drum” in the title). This particular sequencer is the fully patched out version, with an input that allows you to clock the unit externally, and CV and internal Clock outputs for sequencing other synthesizers.” – Matrixsynth (captured eBay description)
For more info: ehx.com and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-Harmonix
This entry was written by , posted on May 1, 2012 at 6:45 am, filed under hardware, synthesizer and tagged analog sequencer, Electro Harmonix Sequencer Drum, Electro-Harmonix, Soft Cell, synthesizer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
If you are in the New York area please come and see me talk at Tekserve this Friday, May 4 from 4:00PM – 5:00PM. I will be doing a presentation as part of their Creative Friday’s series. I’m going to give you 10 absolutely killer tips to make your music and music career better. You will see/hear some DAW tricks, analog hardware ideas, inspiration tips, promotion tips and more. If you don’t know Tekserve is a legendary Apple Store in Chelsea. It’s a really fun place to visit and shop. Please come I would love to meet you in person! Tekserve is located at 119 West 23rd Street, New York NY 10011.
“Join us at Tekserve at 4 p.m. on Fridays for special art exhibitions, musical performances, video screenings, readings, and more – all by artists from the New York City community. Each showing will feature an interview and demonstration of the creative process, so you can learn about the digital tools artists are using to make the art of today.” – Tekserve
For more info: tekserve.com/learning-events/creativefridays.php
This entry was written by , posted on April 30, 2012 at 5:23 am, filed under live performance and tagged Event, Tekserve, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Earlier this year I did a remix for German artist Tomas Tulpe. He’s an interesting person and I am pleased my remix of Ich Tanz auf Dich appears on his brand new album Hatschi! (scroll the audio player down to get to an audio clip). You can read a very thorough review of the release at Reflections of Darkness (link). I hope to meet Thomas in person during my upcoming Berlin week.
“…The final of the album is the HORRORIST remix of ‘Ich tanz auf dich’. This version of the song is faster, alienated and put into a technoid electronic format perfectly fitting to the dance halls. This one surely will become a collector’s item, not many will love it, but if you do, then you’ll love it a lot! And so, one of the trashiest albums ever found the way into my ears was ending. My reactions reached from rhapsodic excitement to tired yawning and moaning while listening to ‘Hatschi!’ over and over again. Except of ‘Ich bin ein Grufi’ all songs could be heard through internet here and there already. ‘Ich tanz auf dich’ and ‘Disco’ will be stuck in the ears of the people who ever heard it forever. My conclusion: Buy the album if you like experimenting. It is worth it! But don’t be miffed if it does not flow from beginning to the and. And first of all, don’t take this album serious!” – reflectionsofdarkness.com
For more info: tomastulpe.de/hatschi
Buy the album: Amazon
This entry was written by , posted on April 27, 2012 at 10:59 am, filed under music and tagged Germany, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records, Tomas Tulpe. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
For quite some time I’ve been wanting to add a hardware effects unit to my live show exclusively for vocals. While Ableton is an incredible live tool I don’t want to be fiddling with pixels while I sing (scream). Although I could have a dedicated MIDI controller set up just for my vocal effects I don’t want to complicate my set up further as I already have a controller for synth/drum parts and Ableton is running a HD video in sync with the live show. I’m a huge fan of TC-Helicon. If your a reader of the blog you know Voicemodler for Powercore was my favorite plug-in and I recently picked up a Voiceworks Plus in my studio. I had my eye on Helicon’s live voice boxes for a bit but honestly they seemed a little pricey and complicated or too large. I am at my very limit as far as suitcase weight goes. I overlooked a January Namm announcement they made for a box they are now selling called the Voicelive Play. What I really like about this box is that I can set up presets, name them and click through them easily as my show and songs progress through a live set. The great feature that made be buy the unit is the HIT button. Basically it’s a second layer of effect(s) that you turn on for say a chorus or break. Watch the smartly produced aka easy to watch and learn from online manual above to get into everything this $250 box can do. If your a Sound on Sound subscriber you can read their review of the Voicelive Play here: link. See you at the show!
“Whether you’re at the top of the charts – or just a dreamer with a microphone, VoiceLive Play gives you hundreds of song & artist presets to choose from, helping you create amazing vocals. Featuring automatic backing harmonies, vocal double tracking, pristine EQ and compression, lush reverbs, hard-tuned robo-voice – all the the goose-bumps-on-your-arm effects that make today’s Billboard hit vocals “pop”. If hundreds of presets wasn’t enough, you’ll be able to download new and exciting artist presets each month for free via VoiceSupport.” – tc-helicon.com
For more info: tc-helicon.com/products/voicelive-play
This entry was written by , posted on at 5:59 am, filed under live performance and tagged live performance, TC Helicon, vocals, Voicelive Play. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s something for the obsessive record collector to do with his free time: catalog your vinyl on Discogs. I would really like to do it too but as time accelerates I don’t want any of the past to steal from the future. Maybe I can get someone to do it for me? I never knew you could export your collection as a .XLS file… good stuff.
“Learn how to quickly catalog, appraise, and sell your records online using a free site called Discogs.” – Cnet
For more info: discogs.com
This entry was written by , posted on April 25, 2012 at 7:00 am, filed under Uncategorized and tagged cnet, collection, Discogs, records, Vinyl. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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