wire to the ear

Another great music documentary has popped up on my favorite place I find my daily “TV” viewing aka Best Free Documentaries. This movie called “Scratch” chases down the origins of Hip Hop’s background sound.

Grand Wizard Theodore (the “Thomas Edison of the movement”) recalls the day, way back in 1975, when his grandmother told him to turn down the music he was making in front of his Bronx River Houses apartment. In order to hear her, he put his hand on the turntable, holding the record in place. As he moved his hand, slightly, a new sound rose up. And so, he smiles, scratching was born. - Best Free Documentaries

An interesting side note is that this video is one hour long and it’s on YouTube. They have started rolling out this feature for some film makers. Believe it or not my favorite Scratch track of all time is Reckless from Ice-T… seriously check it out: click here. Oh yeah and while your listening to it listen for the TB-303’s!

Have you put any Scratching into your own productions? Have you tried any of the various Scratch plug-ins?

I visit a great forum at vintagesynth.org to see what old toys people are using. There is a thread going on titled, “Roland SH-3 (not 3a) questions and value.” which I have been following. I own a Roland SH3 so I’m always curious to see how rare it actually is. I’ve mentioned before on this blog that Roland was sued by Moog over it’s filter design in the SH3 and shortly after released the SH3A.

Forum members have been contributing audio samples to see if there is a real difference between the 3 and 3A so I decided to upload a set for of my SH3 for everyone to check out. Each same is pure Roland SH3, no compressor or any effects. Recorded directly into a Motu 828 using Ableton Live. You can download the 24bit Wav files in a .zip or listen to the 320kpbs MP3s batch encoded using LAME and Techspansion’s great AudialHub.

The audio player will play each sample in succession:

You can download the high resolution Wavs by clicking here:
Roland_SH3-24bit_Wav.zip

Roland SH3 by Oliver Chesler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

You can also see some videos of the SH3 in action in my studio: click here

I’ve been trying to remember who the famous producer who said something to the effect, “Keep a fan on in your studio while mixing. The light background noise will aid you.”. If anyone knows who I’m talking about or the direct quote let me know. I never had that problem on my old Power PC Mac’s as the fans were always raging. Today though my Mac Pro is silent so here comes a website to help! Ridiculous? Yes. Cool? Kinda!

“The best free white noise generator on the net”. - www.simplynoise.com

via Musicradar

I really find iStockphoto to be a terrific site for finding photos, graphic elements and videos to use in commercial projects. Do you remember my post, “Use iStockphoto.com for album covers and more.“? iStock is about to launch iStockaudio.

For years now, iStock has changed how the world looks. It’s time to change how it sounds. Welcome to iStockaudio. Starting a little later on today, we will begin accepting submissions from musicians, composers, recording engineers and audio artists. We want music, spoken word tracks, sound effects, ambient loops, wild noises, field recordings – we want it all. - www.istockphoto.com/audio

If you want to become a content producer for iStock and sell audio by earning a royalty on clips sold, now is the perfect time to sign up. To become a contributor you have to pass an evaluation. It’s a simple “test”; you just send in 3 samples of your work. For more details and some very important info if you have a publishing deal: click here

Download the offical press release PDF “iStockphoto Seeks Submissions for New Microstock Audio Offering”: click here

Maria Ovenbröd & Der Einmeier of mimu.eu sent me an email letting me know about a free set of Circuitbent Glitch’d bass mid-loops they have put online:

01) my broken roland tb303 (23 .wav-loops, 122bpm)
02) lofi loops (09 .wav-loops, 122bpm)
03) smack by glitch up (21 .wav-loops, 122bpm)
04) circuit bent noize machine (36 .wav-loops, 122bpm)
05) raw & dirtey (24 .wav-loops, 122bpm)
06) lo- to mid- to high-frequenced digital/analog sqs (33 .wav-loops, 122bpm)
07) mini-minimal (28. wav-loops, 122bpm)

Head over mimu now to preview and/or download the free set: click here

photo credit: jamie_hladky

The artist known as Stretta aka Matthew Davidson has released a free 3GB sound library. He works with Wendy Carlos and is a regular music contributor to NPR (public radio). He also make a living as a graphic designer.

The sound library was created using his modular synth, a Dave Smith Evolver, Waldorf Microwave and Roland R8 drum machine. The sounds are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This means your free to use them in your work as long as you state where the samples came from.

Fragments of the Total Harmonic Distortion sample library have popped up in various places, like the recent OLPC Sample Library Set… This stuff isn’t doing anyone any good sitting on my hard drive. I’d like to make it available to the public. - stretta.blogspot.com

You can download the library from legaltorrents.com. The direct link is:
http://beta.legaltorrents.com/torrents/71

via synthtopia

I received an email today from a guy named Waldek. He asked me to check out his site Beatmatch.info and post some news about it here. I’m open to requests and as long as the site is cool and music tech orientated I don’t mind sharing it with everyone here. Well since you see this post that means Beatmatch.info has some worth to us!

They have four packs of AIFF/Wav downloads available. You can use the sounds in non-commercial work using a Creative Commons licence. For more about Creative Commons read my post titled “Put a Creative Commons License to your music.“. If you do decide you want to use the samples in something commercial you can contact them and work out a deal.

Beatmatch.info is a new project aiming to provide fresh and original electro loops and dj tools for producers looking for fresh and cool sounds. Beatmatch.info soundlibraries and loop packs are great tools for modern music producers who want to explore new grounds or simply add a new flavor to their unique music style. Beatmatch.info just released 2 new loop packs - “Mnml data” and “GTL. - www.beatmatch.info

One cool idea they have going is a podcast featuring work created using the sample packs. You can send them your finished songs and “if they like it” they will play it.

Head over and check them out for yourself: http://www.beatmatch.info/

Good luck Waldek and crew and keep the site fresh with new downloads often!

Just a few years ago if you wanted to play with two Roland TB-303’s a TR-909 and seven Boss Pedals you would have needed about $4000, a bunch of batteries, electric outlets and a mixer. Today all you need to do is click here:
http://www.hobnox.com/index.1056.en.html

It wont be long before our professional music software applications are all completely online. Maybe we will rent each use out or pay yearly. You will always have the latest version. You can save and access your songs anywhere there is internet access (which will be everywhere!). You can have your friends log-in and work on music with you. You can pay Trent Reznor $10,000 to fix the mix in your song ($20,000 to add a vocal verse). Export options include: MP3, WAV and Direct to MySpace. Bring it on!

Do you remember my post “Feedback as a sound source.“? I talk about how it can be useful to add feedback into your sterile digital recordings. Up until now I have had to aim my microphone at my speakers and hit record. One major thing I don’t like about doing that is the chances of blowing a woofer are pretty high when using Yamaha NS10Ms. So I was really pleased to see a new plug-in called Acoustic Feedback by Softube which simulates feedback.

I wanted to try the demo today but when I got to the download page I realized it requires an iLok. This maybe a deal breaker for me because I’ve lost dongles and USB Flash Dives in the past. I’m also out of USB ports on my Macbook Pro. I don’t want to get into the whole copy protection debate. I don’t steal or pirate software. Companies have the right to use iLok or Syncrosoft if they so choose.

Release your inner beast with the first realistic guitar feedback simulator on the market. Go from moderate and subtle to rampant and wild by the twist of a knob (or two). To break new musical ground, try inputting a synthesizer, a violin, or even your mother’s grand piano. - www.softube.se

I really want to hear a drum machine and vocals run though this plug-in. Acoustic Feedback is $99 USD and is available in Native formats for VST/AU/RTAS, Mac/PC.

Spectrasonics has been creating a series of videos for it’s upcoming super soft synth Omnisphere. The latest video is quiet excellent. Eric Persing knows how to get you excited about a product. The video takes a time line tour of arpeggiators in vintage synths. You get to see a Moog Modular, Roland Jupiter 4, Jupiter 8, Juno 60, Sequential Circuits Prophet VS, Roland JP-800 and Access Virus all “arping” away.

I like the implementation of the step sequencer/arpeggiator in Omniphere too. The “oh nice” moment comes when he drops a Jazz midi groove template into Omnisphere and the arpeggiator locks to it. The Omnisphere arpeggiator also has a swing parameter which is vital in today’s electronic music.

To see the video click on “Continue Reading…” because it’s a Quicktime I didn’t want to have it slow down the main page of this site (it autoloads). Read “Superb arpeggiator history video from Spectrasonics.”