Sooo......I've been on empty creatively lately and have taken some time off the recharge the fuel cells. I'm gonna take a couple more weeks off but I wanted to leave you with something in the meantime. I wrote this track about a week ago as sort of a low impact creative exercise to keep from getting too rusty. Enjoy and we'll be back in a few weeks.
SickOfItAll - m.0 (right click to download)
ps. There's a half-mixed new Tekgnosis track that's been sitting on the desk for awhile (okay, for a long while) and that will get completed when I plug back in. -m
Opera may or may not be your thing but I found this interesting and fitting clip today and thought it would be cool to share:
As some of you may know, Tekgnosis has been on hiatus from performing this year so we can focus on the studio side of things. That being said, here is the first release from that effort. If you are subscribed to our podcast it'll be waiting there for you or you can download it directly (right click to dowload). More tracks will be released throughout the summer and fall.
If you like the track definitely feel free to share it/spread it.
Tech note: This download is currently @ 128 kbps. When we have a few more tracks completed we'll make the 320 versions available.
I just got through listening to this week's Sonic State Podcast and it turned me on to this youtube vid. The thing to remember as you watch this is that the tesla coil in the video is actually generating the music that you are hearing. I can't even imagine the db's this thing is pushing.
Sarcastic Gamer strikes again with their follow up to "Big Ass Table". This time they've put the new Wii Fit in their cross hairs:
Found these guys through Beatportal. I for one am glad that the whole electro/rock hybrid thing seems to be in resurgence over the past few years. There's just a certain energy seeing electronics performed by live acts in whatever context versus the static nature of most dj sets. No hate for the dj, some of my best friends are dj's.>;) It's just that it's very refreshing to hear those sawtooth leads and square wave blips in a little less clinical context. Maybe it's just me becoming more receptive once again because, at least in my part of the globe, live electronic acts seem to have taken a backseat to the "superstar" DJ yet again.:(
Divebomb - This seems to be their single that's making the rounds at the moment:
Muzzle No.1 - A bit more of an overtly rock track but damn it's been stuck in my head since I heard it:
For those of you that missed Squid Leader's live set on friday, here's the Reader's Digest version. Special thanks to Justin and Erica for helping out with the camera. You can also download it through the Podcast.
Our second episode features the Squid Leader himself with a pretty damn intense live performance, Megamix style. On July 20th you can catch him dropping some live beats at Antidote.
Surfing around yesterday I found this @ macmusic. "bs-spectrum" is a freeware Spectrum analyzer for both Windows and Mac. On the Mac it's available in both AU and VST flavors. I had a chance to poke around with it a little and it's pretty straight forward. As with all utility software nothing fancy is expected. They just do what they do. My only complaints are that I wish it had a higher frequency resolution and the redraw seems a bit sluggish but keep in mind that this is freeware. It's CPU overhead is negligible and for some reason I like that way the level meters are laid out. It's simple and really easy on the eyes. Well suited for across the room viewing. I think it's worth at least checking out.
Spectrum analyzers are a great tool to have around for reference. Especially, in apartment/bedroom situations where sometimes you don't get a true feel for what's going on in all the various frequencies. Especially on the bottom end. Remember this is beta software and although I haven't found any issues yet use at your own peril. While we are on the subject of Spectrum Analyzers, if you haven't tried out Inspector (PC and Mac) by Roger Nichol's Digital I highly recomend it. It's great for when more detail is need. It's free also.
Now that we've gotten the website up (btw, we're working on lot's of stuff for it so stay tuned), I can return to posting random things of interest.:)
Okay so it's getting late and I can't think of anything clever to say. So good night and enjoy.
So this is a bit off topic but this week I seem to have multi-touch interfaces on the brain. I scraped this story from Engadget who in turn grabbed it from Sarcastic Gamer. It's a parody that poke a little bit of fun at the expense of Microsoft's recently announced Surface. For the record, I'm absolutely blown away by Surface and I can't wait for the technology (and price) to trickle down to us musician types.
Found this on my youtube travels today. It's of interest to me because for some reason I had heard that the response time on the Lemur wasn't all that for rhythmic passages. In this vid it seems pretty responsive. Of course there's no real way of knowing until you actually get your hands on one. This was posted by Michael Forrest and he's using his Lemur to control Dblue Glitch.
Also, as a side note he shows of a little bit of sequencing with the Lemur. I'm definitely falling in love with the concept of graphical multi-touch beat making.
I've been eyeing the release date for Krishna ( a cool new soft-synth from the folks at Devine Machine) for some time and today it's here!:D
I'm definitely a fan of these guys ever since I picked up Lucifer a while back. When they announced Krishna earlier in the year it peaked my curiosity because it seemed to have a unique tonal character with its so called "Frame Oscillators". Although I've been setting aside some Benjamin's for it, last week I cracked and picked up the AKAI MPD24 instead (which I'm loving, btw) so I'll have to wait a little bit longer to pick it up. In the meantime there's a demo (PC/MAC) on the site that I'm downloading as I type this. I'll give it a whirl over the next few days and report back on my thoughts.-m
