As some follows of Wire to the Ear know I moved from Berlin, Germany back to New York about three months ago. I bought an apartment in the city that needs a complete renovation. Not only do I have a new apartment to renovate I also bought a two car garage I am turning into what I hope will be an amazing studio. Because the apartment needs a complete gut my wife and I have been staying in the upstairs apartment in my mother’s house in Rockland County. Rockland is a typical New York suburb just about 20 minutes north of the city. It’s actually quite nice and I am very familiar with the area because I grew up here. The photo above is Ma’s house.
When I was in College at Suny Purchase I took a class called Social Sciences in the Arts. I never forgot a lesson the professor thought was important. The basic gist was that no artist made any art without an audience in mind. This ties into my Rockland chat above because I’ve been doodling a lot music wise on my laptop over the past three months and realize I am making tunes for my mother and Doug (her husband). Little diddy’s about the car they own, a song about the fact that my mother is top sales lady at her office and a song about Milo their dog. Milo is incredible cute (see photo below) but without a doubt is the boss here. He has these treats called “Dingos” which he demands often. When I say he demands them I mean it. A few of us will be in the kitchen talking and he will walk in, bark and growl loudly until someone gives him a Dingo. So without further ado here’s the song I did called “Milo the Bad Dog”:
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Please keep in mind this is no way an official song or anything that I will ever release for sale. It’s just a fun blip that took about 40 minutes last night. I used the few simple plug-ins I have on my laptop and I sang in the bedroom using the Macbook Pro’s built-in mic. The drums are an Ableton Impluse with D16 Devastor on them. The synths are an old ReFx Vanguard and Fabfilter Twin.
Today when I got back from the gym the birds in the driveway were extra loud so I took a photo of the tree they were all in and recorded 30 seconds of audio for you. I used the Griffin iTalk app on my iPhone. You can hear the birds and cars going by on Route 340.
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Something tells me when my apartment is ready I’m going to miss suburban life.
Related post: Recordings from my day yesterday.
This entry was written by , posted on February 26, 2009 at 12:27 pm, filed under music, plug-ins, song writing, sounds and tagged d16, Devastor, fabfilter, Griffin, impulse, iPhone, iTalk, Milo, Palisades, Refx, Rockland County, Vanguard. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDQUpSJGrKg
A few years back a new high-profile software synthesizer was being released every week. That digital transition has cooled off a bit so I get excited when one of my favorite companies releases a new version of one of their sound making toys.
“A short introduction to FabFilter Twin 2, a great sounding and innovative software synthesizer for vst, rtas and audio units.” – Fabfilter
1500 presets, 3 OCS, 2 Multi-mode filters, 2 delay lines, 2 more filters, fun to use futuristic GUI and modulation section.
More info: fabfilter.com
This entry was written by , posted on February 3, 2009 at 8:09 am, filed under plug-ins, synthesizer and tagged fabfilter, plug-in, synthesizer, Twin 2. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a pretty new plug-in for the new Universal Audio UAD-2! It seems to have all the right stuff too: self-oscillation, drive control, stereo tonal shifting, good modulation options and yay a wet/dry knob. No need for me to blab too much about what it can do because there is a great video overview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxpB6mKXDn0
If UA were able to conceive a Moog product, what would it be? The answer is revealed in the soon-to-be-released Moog Multimode Filter, which delivers the first truly analog-sounding VCF (Voltage Controlled Filter) digital emulation made for mixing, performing, creating, or destroying. How can we claim this? The devil is in the details …Created in conjunction with the foremost pioneers in synthesis, the Moog Multimode Filter is a virtual tabletop filter set that combines the best of Bob Moog’s classic designs with select features from his final Voyager instrument. It is an amalgam of the best new and classic Moog designs, with a few innovations thrown in! – www.uaudio.com
If you want to stay native I like the Fabfilter Volcano 2 and Timeless combo.
This entry was written by , posted on August 30, 2008 at 12:03 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged fabfilter, filter, moog, UAD-2, Universal Audio. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The next release on my record label is by French DJ and producer Stamba. I am remixing one of the songs called Deviation. All the tracks on the release are what you would call darkwave, ebm, techno. Don’t you love all these sub-genres? Take a listen:
I recreated his original song in Ableton Live, keeping his vocals but using all my own sounds. Some of the gear and plug-ins used include a Jomox Mbase-01, Vermona DRM1 MKIII, Audiorealism Bassline, Korg Legacy, PSP Nitro, Fabfilter Volcano 2, assorted TC Powercore dynamics and Sugar Bytes Effectrix.
We have released the remix samples under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. If you want to grab the samples for your own fun head to the discography page for this release at Things to Come Records:
thingstocome.com/discog/TTC-017
The full release will be available on August 4, 2008.
This entry was written by , posted on July 23, 2008 at 12:42 am, filed under Ableton Live, hardware, music, plug-ins and tagged Audiorealism, Creative Commons, darkwave, EBM, Effectrix, fabfilter, Jomox, Korg Legacy, PSP Nitro, remix, Stamba, Vermona DRM1. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
One of the nicest sounding software filter plug-ins has just been upgraded to an all new version. I really like all the Fabfilter stuff and use it quite often. I bought all their plug-ins during a Logic Users Group Buy last year. Highly recommended.
We have just released FabFilter Volcano 2, the successor of our popular filter effect plug-in. It has been redesigned from the ground up and includes tons of new features, modulation options and a highly improved user interface. Volcano 2 is now not only capable of high quality filtering, but can even be used for phasing, flanging, chorus and many other effects! – Fabfilter.com
Demo version available. Mac/PC: click here
This entry was written by , posted on May 28, 2008 at 4:21 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged fabfilter, filter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Gearslutz is a probably the most populated pro-audio forum on the net. There is a serious amount of traffic going on there. You find find threads discussing the minor details of a five thousand dollar micpre that go thirty pages long.
Yesterday I started reading a thread started by someone who just found on a vintage Roland RE-201 Space Echo to purchase. The RE-201 is a fantastic vintage tape echo machine. Soon after Mike Manthe’s first post 
claiming he finally found one another person “tstu102″ answers him also mentioning he just located one and how happy he was. Do you see where this is going? Yep. It didn’t take too long for them to realize they both were talking about the same unit. Seems like the seller said yes to both because the second guy was willing to pay more money.
At first Mike thought thought tstu102 had read the thread and went after the unit. But then tstu102 did a good dead and told the seller he wasn’t going to buy the unit and he should honor his first deal. I thought it was a pretty interesting read about the Space Echo and human nature. Read the thread yourself: click here
I’ve used a real Space Echo and they are very meaty. If you can’t get a real one there a nice emulation for the UAD-1 or the new Boss Space Echo RE-20 hardware pedal. Although not quiet the same beast I find myself turning to Fabfilter’s Timeless for a effects in that ballpark.
photo credit: Lorenzo Desiati
This entry was written by , posted on May 6, 2008 at 12:29 am, filed under hardware, plug-ins, political and tagged delay, fabfilter, Gearslutz, roland, Space Echo, UAD-1. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This is a 20 minute Screencast showing Cognitone Software’s Harmony Navigator. You will get to see different “palettes” and accompaniments producing wonderful music. We show you how to create a verse and chorus and then export the midi into Ableton Live. Once inside Ableton Live you will see how to set up your imported data in a meaningful way. The video is nicely sized so be sure to click the TV icon under the player to view the show in full screen mode.
You can also read an interview with Andre Schnoor the developer of Harmony Navigator here: Interview with Andre Schnoor of Cognitone Software.
Be sure to check out Harmony Navigator at www.cognitone.com and Ableton Live at www.ableton.com.
Direct download links:
Download MPEG-4 Video (.m4v)
Download Flash Video (.flv)
This entry was written by , posted on December 31, 2007 at 2:54 am, filed under Ableton Live, Uncategorized, song writing, sounds, synthesizer, video and tagged Ableton Live, chords, Cognitone, fabfilter, Harmony Navigator, progressions, Screencast, tutorial. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a way to get a highly unique sound. You probably won’t want to use this technique on every song you record. I guarantee when you do people will ask how you did it. Take a microphone and aim it at one of your speakers. Carefully turn up the volume. When you start to hear feedback hit record on your DAW. Move the microphone around. That’s the basics but now let’s play more. Add a distorion or reverb plug in as an insert on the microphone channel. Now we have more flavors of feedback. Using these recordings in your purely electronic songs adds some real life.
I have a song called from 1996 called Dark Invader. It was the first release on my record label Things to Come Records. I was searching for bat sounds but instead I did the following. I had a Shure SM-58 microphone aimed towards a large nightclub style speaker. The mic was going through a Korg SDD-2000 digital delay. I had the delay times in sync with the tempo of my song. I recorded the feedback. Lastly, in an Akai S950 sampler I reversed and cut up the feedback and stragedically placed it in the song. Here is an audio sample:
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Early this year I was recording a song about Gary Ridgeway, The Green River Killer. The song is called The Grip of the Cobra. I wanted a dark feedback effect to (more…)
This entry was written by , posted on October 18, 2007 at 6:39 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged delay, fabfilter, feedback, microphone. 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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