The best part of Depeche Mode’s NY performance maybe the opening act Bat for Lashes. Natasha Khan knows how to write music and has steller music videos to back them up. This is some great art.
“Natasha Khan (born 25 October 1979), known by her stage name as Bat for Lashes, is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has released three studio albums, Fur and Gold (2006), Two Suns (2009) and The Haunted Man (2012), and received Mercury Prize nominations for Fur and Gold and Two Suns.” – Wikipedia
This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on April 5, 2013 at 6:39 am, filed under music and tagged Bat for Lashes. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post. This post currently has 0 comments.
Gijs Gieskes the creator of many crazy music and video devices such as my beloved HSS3i has some of his work on display at an exhibit in The Netherlands called Sounds Like Art.
“But in the exhibition SOUNDS LIKE ART are not sound artists in the spotlight, but the instruments they make. The result is an exhibition in which the unique interplay of form, materiality and technology of these new instruments can be heard, but also good to see. Participating artists are American Andy CAVATORTA specifically for Björk a set harps made to be played by gravity, hardware hacker Gijs Gieskes from existing special new electronic synthesizers and composing musician / artist Tom Verbruggen, better known as TokTek that ingenious sculptures makes that sound.” – mu.nl
Tom Carpenter’s Analogue Solutions has some wicked synths and sequencers in it’s product line. Tom’s friend Rezfilter has posted a really nice video of the Oberkorn Sequencer, Telemark and some vintage Oberheims. I love how he gets the Depeche Mode/Nitzer Ebb sound perfectly. These demos always make me run into my studio.
“Here’s a little bass jam put together with 2 Studio Electronics ObieRacks, an Analogue Solutions Oberkorn analogue sequencer, and a Telemark V2 semi-modular synth. A five voice!” – Rezfilter
I was looking in the menus of Ableton Live 9 and noticed that there is a keyboard shortcut for Deactivate Clip(s). Highlight a clip and hit the numeric number 0 and it becomes deactivated. Was this there in previous versions of Live? Now let’s get Ninja status ok? Highlight a MIDI note and hit the numeric 0. See that? It works there too! It’s incredibly useful so commit that to memory. Happy music making.
“To deactivate, or mute, a note (or notes) in the MIDI Editor, select it and press [0]. The Deacti- vate Note(s) command will mute the note, making it appear gray in the display. Press [0] again to reactivate notes. You can de- or reactivate all of the notes in a single key track at once by clicking a key on the piano roll and pressing [0].” – Ableton
Here is an interesting find for you all drum machine collectors! How about an MFB 712? It’s a early digital machine with 40 sounds, dynamics and MIDI. The one you see above is on eBay for $300 (link). I really want a 501 if I can find one.
“One of the world’s first digital drum machines. A pioneering piece of electronic music gear from legendary synth designer Manfred Fricke, Berlin. Beautiful in terms of its design and form factor, this drum machine has the same white housing shared by the legendary MFB-501 analog preset drum machine which is next to impossible to find. Used by Conrad Schnitzler, as evidenced by video of him in his studio.” – spinalgrommet (eBay)
Here’s a lost late 80s EBM gem from Micro Chip League called New York. Be a part of it feel the heart of it New York, New York, New York. City of deceivers! At the time this record or it’s album cover probably didn’t stand out and now time changes everything. I couldn’t love this more today. The bass, synth pads, stuttering vocal samples, fake scratches, computer synth voice… audio time machine.
“In the late 1980s, Talla and Jallokin formed the band Pluuto under Talla’s own Technodrome Records (TDI Records) label. At the time, Talla was also involved in the production of several other projects such as Robotiko Rejekto, Tribantura, and Microchip League.” – Wikipedia
I can give myself the chills or goose bumps on command by listening to some of my favorite music. It usually happens when there is a complex amazing sounding part I just love but can’t fathom how the artist did it. Other times it’s just such a strong music piece it blows my mind. Two very songs that give me chills are Double FM “Illusion” (link) and the intro to Depeche Mode “Black Celebration”.
“The medical term cutis anserina, are the bumps on a person’s skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is cold or experiences strong emotions such as fear, nostalgia, pleasure, euphoria, awe, admiration and sexual arousal.” – Wikipedia
Check out Tristan Shone’s machine and music which he calls Author and Punisher. Einstürzende Neubauten where are you?
“Author & Punisher is an industrial doom and drone metal, one man band utilizing primarily custom fabricated machines/controllers and speakers. I have performed and shown these machines in festivals and exhibitions in the United States and abroad recently.” – soundcloud.com/authorandpunisher
This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on March 31, 2013 at 9:32 am, filed under music. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post. This post currently has 0 comments.
Imagine a room which is totally silent. Imagine you hear your own organs. Imagine it drives you insane. Apparently such a room exists at the SAE Institute Adelaide. Living in noisy as hell NYC I wouldn’t mind some silent room therapy.
“Scientists at Minneapolis’ Orfield Labs created their own soundless room, an anechoic chamber. Their studies have found that when putting subjects within the chamber, they begin to hallucinate within 30 minutes. With an average quiet room having a sound level of 30 decibels, the anechoic chamber’s sound level is -9 decibels. The ceiling, floor, and walls of the chamber absorb sound rather than have it bounce off as normal objects do. The chamber is so quiet that the subjects can even hear their own organs functioning. Although extremely interesting, the experience is rather unpleasant. Not one subject has spent more than 45 minutes in the chamber alone. Leaving a person to only their thoughts, the chamber could drive them insane.” – abovetopsecret.com
I really recommend people grab a hardware synth if they make music. For the same price of a lot of plug-ins you can grab something like the new Waldorf Rocket. In the US it’s about $330. It reminds me a little of the Eurorack module from Synthesis Technology called the Cloud Generator in that it’s mostly based on 8 digital Saw waves. Don’t let the digital part get in your way because bringing hardware into a DAW sounds different then using a plug-in. I also like that this box is small and can run of USB power making it cool to have around a laptop on the go. Sure it isn’t going to give you a enormous range of sounds but I’m all about limitations these days. The Rocket also has an arpeggiator, pulse width modulation and some other niceties.
“Monophonic Synthesizer with Variable Oscillator,Variable Waveshaping, Analog Filter, Arpeggiator, LFO, Modulation Envelope, Boost Circuit, and USB/MIDI I/O” – Sweetwater
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