Ethan Winer’s Audio Myths Workshop


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

Ethan Winer from RealTraps grabs a panel of knowledgeable people at AES to show you what you think you hear may not be reality. Ethan makes some respected sound treatment products in Connecticut. You can download the non-YouTube compressed audio files to go along with this video here: www.ethanwiner.com/aes

“This is a video version of my Audio Myths workshop from the October 2009 AES show in New York City. In this video you will hear what phase shift sounds like, compare high- and low-end converters, learn about proper test methods, understand why hearing is not as reliable as test gear, and much more.” – EthanWiner

So what do you think? Is it real or is it Memorex?

via Miro Pajic

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on January 23, 2010 at 7:22 am, filed under interviews, political, video and tagged , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” in Ableton


http://www.youtube.com/v/eU5Dn-WaElI?hl=en_US&fs=1

I think it’s pretty interesting to see where the samples came from. This song also has one of the best music videos ever made attached to it.

“How to make Prodigy’s legendary track “Smack My Bitch Up” in Ableton. Video describes, which samples were used by Liam in this wonderful track.” – jimpavloff

Download the original song: click here (iTunes)

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on December 24, 2009 at 6:14 am, filed under Ableton Live, video and tagged , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Song Sharking


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHv2LkWkhm8

I was reading an interesting article on Wikipedia about a long gone practice called “Song Sharking”. Essentially there were businesses who ran ads asking poets to send in their poems which would then be turned into songs by professional musicians. In 2003 PBS produced a documentary about Song Sharking called “Off the Charts”. To see a full preview: pbs.org/independentlens/offthecharts/ It’s also available on Amazon: click here I wonder what other old music business practices that have long been forgotten.

“The business of recording song poems was promoted through small display ads in popular magazines, comic books, tabloids, men’s adventure journals and similar publications with a headline reading (essentially) Send in Your Poems – Songwriters Make Thousands of Dollars – Free Evaluation. The term lyrics was avoided because it was assumed potential customers would not understand what the term meant. Those who sent their poetry to one of the production companies usually received notice by mail that their work was worthy of recording by professional musicians, along with a proposal to do so in exchange for a fee. The early 20th century versions of this business involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates.” – Wikipedia

Read the full entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_poem

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on December 3, 2009 at 6:12 am, filed under song writing, video and tagged , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Interactive sound poetry installation


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpvH47SlrOQ

I’d like an installation like this permanently in my living room. Created in Berlin by Joerg Piringer he calls this work [untitled] and describes it as “an interactive sound poetry installation”. Be sure to check out Joerge’s other interesting installations too. I like the one’s that spit out random Twitter feeds.

“the visitors speak, shout and cry into a microphone to evoke a dynamic world of letters and vocal sounds. image and sound are created immediately by speaking and vocalizing into a microphone and modifying the voice through signal processing while the software is analyzing the sound to create animated abstract visual text-compositions.” – jörg piringer

For more info: joerg.piringer.net

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on November 14, 2009 at 7:43 am, filed under live performance, Uncategorized, video and tagged , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



SoundCloud gets a killer update

SoundCloud iPhone App from Oliver Chesler on Vimeo.

SoundCloud has become the best place for musicians to store and share music online. The Berliners have continutally upgraded their site’s services listening to it’s customers. Beyond the new features the site is managing to scale well and it looks very pretty. Here are some of the new tools in the latest release “Taylor”.

SoundCloud already had the best embeddable audio player with a great waveform display and comments along it’s timeline. Now there are two new player widgets called “Artwork” and “Mini player”. Here they are:

Artwork Player (Roll/click your mouse over for effect):

Mini Player (Click Play to expose mini waveform):

Sharing is much better now too as they follow Flickr a bit here allowing users to grab a Secret Link to send out. Stats is greatly improved (where there even Stats before?). Just take a look at these Stats from the past seven days:

SoundCloud_Stats

Here we go with a big one: an official SoundCloud iPhone app! Take a look Ma no flash (Video above).

Finally there is a new pricing structure that could make more sense for the unemployed and skeptical. For more info: click here

Follow me on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/thingstocome

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on November 11, 2009 at 6:26 am, filed under iPhone, music, promotion, video and tagged . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Moby’s Drum Machine Collection

Here’s a nice look at Moby’s Noahs Ark of vintage drum machines. He also goes into the virtues of replacing your band with electronic instruments. I agree completely. I once performed at an early “rave” in Washington DC with Moby. Before fame he used to DJ a small bar near Suny Purchase (my alma mater).

“Motherboard heads deep into the bowels of Moby’s Manhattan apartment-studio, where he unveils his prized assemblage of rarified gadgets, bizarre synthesizers, and outré drum devices.” – Motherboard.tv

For more info: www.moby.com

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on October 22, 2009 at 5:50 am, filed under interviews, video and tagged , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Subcycle Labs Multi-Touch Interaction


multi-touch the storm – interactive sound visuals – subcycle labs
from christian bannister on Vimeo.

I received an email yesterday from Christian Bannister of Subcycle Labs asking me to view a video of a project he is working on. This is another example that shows how transforming touch screens are going to be for musicians.

“This is part of a series of sketches exploring the potential to bridge the gap between sound visualization and musical instrument. With multi-touch interaction it is possible to manipulate multiple characteristics of a sound—visually, and simultaneously. This shift has the potential of bringing the experience of synthesizer as music instrument to a whole new place. This approach allows the performer to have a more tactile and immediate experience of the synthesizer and also creates a visual reference for the audience. In the performance of electronic music it is fairly common that the audience is alienated from the process and performance of the musician. This project hopes to create a common visual language and experience for the electronic musician and the audience by enhancing the perception of sound and music on both sides.” – Christian Bannister

For more info: www.subcycle.org

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on October 11, 2009 at 6:56 am, filed under hardware, live performance, video and tagged , , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Neurosonics Audiomedical

Neurosonics_Audiomedical

Here’s a great find via Bjorn Vayner. If you think this video took a bit of work to create you would be correct. If you “head” to the Neurosonics Audiomedical website you can see a long list of credits and photos detailing the behind the scenes work.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

“RT @kleinenberg OMFG http://www.vimeo.com/6223439 this is unreal.. LOVE THIS!” – Bjorn Vayner

Don’t let the high production value of this vid discourage you from making your own music videos on the cheap. Remember a great song and interesting story will go a long way!

For more info: www.neurosonicsaudiomedical.com

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on August 30, 2009 at 8:25 am, filed under video and tagged , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Burning DMX EPROMs with Goldbaby

Oberheim Drum Machine

I once owned a Oberheim DMX drum machine. It’s a large early 80s drum machine based off samples. You can burn sounds using EPROMs (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory). The key to this and many hardware drum machines is the groove/sequencer. Beats just sound super tight. The outputs also add a certain grainy loudness to the samples. They have started to rise on price on eBay and for good reason. Goldbaby, the guy who releases sample packs of drum machines and other gear recorded onto analog tape has released an excellent pack of DMX samples. He even created the video below showing the EPROM burning process. I’ve never seen EPROM burning in action so big thanks to Mr. Gold for the video!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT1_aaTwWCA

“The DX was a lighter version of the classic DMX drum machine. In fact its look, features and programming method are basically the same as the DMX. The DX has individual tuning knobs for the drum tones and an external trigger input. Its sounds are sampled recordings of actual instruments. The DX only has 18 drum sounds and the DMX has 24. Both drum machines have a number of human like feel effects such as a great swing function, rolls, flams and other weird time signatures and grooves. Best of all it’s easy to operate. There are also 6 individual outputs like the DMX for easing studio use. It has been used by Hip Hop artists since the very beginning of Hip Hop! It has been used by Apollo 440, Daft Punk, and Jimi Tenor.” – www.vintagesynth.com

I honestly believe a person would get more out of a DMX and Prommer than a new Elektron Machinedrum.

Goldbaby Custom DMX is available now for $24: click here

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on August 27, 2009 at 5:10 am, filed under hardware, sounds, video and tagged , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.



Beautiful Synthesizer Meeting


Analogue Heaven Northeast 2009
from stretta on Vimeo.

I was watching videos shot with the Canon 5D Mark II on Vimeo last night. The Canon 5D is in the new class of DSLR cameras that also shoot HD video. The innovation is that you can use all the different lenses available to SLRs. The footage you get from the 5D is the best I’ve ever seen outside of a movie theater. I must have missed the above video on Matrixsynth. It’s stunning and it really makes me want to put my synths on the floor and call my brother over to play for a while. When the red Macbeth M5 appears my jaw dropped!

“Once a year, analog synth enthusiasts gather to socialize and play rare and unusual musical instruments. I captured the May 2009 gathering with a Canon 5DmkII and a 50mm f/1.4 lens. I simply sat the Camera on a tripod, frame the shot as I would a photo, focused and captured. The music was produced using a Euro-format analog modular, controlled by Volta. Aside from the drums (MOTU BPM), everything was analog.” – stretta

I know many of you follow links from my Twitter and Facebook pages here and some of you are not musicians. Therefore I present you with a Squirrel shot with the Canon 5D M2:


Canon 5d Squirrel Footage
from Scott Blackburn on Vimeo.

Awe, ok now back to camera chat. I think it’s vital musicians all make their own music videos. I don’t practice what I preach but that’s going to change soon! To see more gorgeous footage check out Canon 5D footage on Vimeo: click here

This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on August 25, 2009 at 4:58 am, filed under hardware, synthesizer, video and tagged , , , , . 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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