My remix is being given away today as a promo for the new Dark Esquire release.

get it

      

Seems the Circlesquare remix contest (which was announced on XLR8R.com) winner was never announced. The deadline was moved from November 2nd to the 15th, but that date has come and gone with no announcement. Anybody know what happened?

You can here my entry here:

      

Take a listen and leave a comment on the timeline:


Themes-DarkEsquire-PolitBureauMix-J.reading by resonancemultimedia

      

The Dark Esquire "Situation" Official Music Video from Mike Ferrara on Vimeo.

      

Check out this drum machine/sequencer written in javascript using the latest HTML5 spec.

HTML5 looks to unseat flash as the dominant web, audio/motion graphics platform. Cool!

http://www.randomthink.net/labs/html5drums/

Firefox 3.5 or Safari 4.

From Ajaxian, author Brian Arnold states:

I'm also working on something like the ToneMatrix or Tenori-on (Flash and actual devices, respectively) in pure HTML/JS. It works too, but the sounds aren't exactly designed to be great together (it's currently working on a C scale) and so if you're careful, you can get some decent sound but otherwise, it'll hurt your ears.

      

Nick at SonicState is at LIMS and gives us a first look at new synths from Roland and Yamaha.

First the Roland Juno Di, which is an "entry-level price" synth in the Juno family. New feature are a USB port for a thumb drive and mic input. Nick promises a "proper demo" later.

Roland Juno Di @ sonicState

The Yamaha S90xs is a more top-of-the-line model with all sorts of fanciness

Yamaha S90xs @ sonicState

      

We have heard the news of the great, new oberheim SEM's that Tom Oberheim just released; the original of which are much sought after and indispensable to many producers including Goldfrapp's Will Gregory.

So what pops up on ebay? Two high school yearbooks of the the man himself from 1954 and 1953.

Now you'd have to be the ultimate fanboy or Tom himself to want to get these, but I thought that it was quite funny to see these and wondered if it was due to the recent news of a new SEM. Unbelievable....

      

Many have heard of the live twitter playlist from Richie Hawtin. But check out this cool little app that just got updated. Yes, on the face this is silly; but hell, why not?

Tweet A Sound: getting started tutorial from Andrew Spitz on Vimeo.

Tweet-a-sound.

We eagerly await the Windows version.

      

Just thought I'd pass on a link to the digital audio hacks at hack-a-day. Often times, cool music related hacks come up that any self-respecting music-making nerd must love.

How about a homemade 8-bit sampler? Or a Robotic snare drum?

Check it out.

Also, be sure to check out the portable audio hacks.

      

I normally don't post on things from other blogs, but I thought I'd pass on a very interesting post on Matrixsynth (which was a post on the AH mailing list).

Looks like the Monkees were the first to use a Moog on a pop record with the song "Daily Nightly" in April '67.


Quite a cool song in it's on right. Most of the commercial work with the Moog was done by Beaver & Krause

Check out the post for other interesting early Moog work and more on Beaver & Krause.

      

Here's a very interesting piece that has come up on eBay. The Crumar Cordatron. I have a Crumar Tocatta, which is a neat little preset organ, but this is very odd indeed. It's an accordian splayed out in a keyboard fashion.



From the auction:

I can't find any information by running a search on this board. It must be incredibly rare. It might even be a prototype for all I know. If anyone has any information on it I would greatly appreciate your expertise.

What is so unusual about this piece is it couples accordian style buttons into an electric organ. The power output is very unusual also. Unfortunatey I don't have the power adapter & don't know where to begin on trying to find one. I'm dying to know what this board is capable of. Because of this I'm selling it as a collector's piece. The previous owner owned a music store that specialized in accordians.

Crumar is not know for their great build quality, so I'd be surprised if it powered up. Looking at the inputs on the back, it's think it was meant to connect to another controller or control an amplifier (maybe a leslie type device)...



Anyone heard, heard of or seen one of these?

      

I like hardware. There are more than a few music tech blogs that tend to share the software side of things, but I really like hardware. My studio looks like a museum of obsolescence, but hey I can get down with Reason and Live at times.

Regardless of my feelings, this has to quicken the pulse of any self-proclaimed music geek, "The Most powerful sound design workstation on the planet"






Here's a cool audio morphing example, drum loop to a voice:

      

Here's an interesting story about a Math professor, with a love of the beatles and his attempts to formulate their song structures. Nothing earth-shatteringly new here, but cool none-the-less...

Jason Brown listens to the Beatles with a uniquely analytical ear. The mathematics professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, says he's figured out the math behind the best of the Fab Four. Now, using "mathematical tricks" he's picked up from the band, he's written a very Beatles-esque song of his own. WSJ's Christina Jeng reports.

      

Good sound design is invaluable in selling an idea. It's timeless, memorable, and above all transparent.

Spent a great deal of time this holiday watching the Stars Wars movies (all 6) with the kids and it got me thinking about how good the sound design is in those movies They really are the White Album of sound design.

Here's a top ten list of the best sounds from Star Wars (compiled by some one with an opinion!) from the King of Sound Design Ben Burtt:



The amazing thing is the simplicity of some of the sources. The Tie fighters are pitched down elephant calls, blasters are contact mics on cables on the a bridge:

We climbed to the top of a hill where there was a small radio tower in the hopes that the wind would make some interesting sounds in the tower or the support cables.  I picked up a rock and banged on the cable just for fun and Ben said,  "That sounds like the imaginary laser gun ought to sound!" 

SO he recorded the sounds there and later in California he looked around for other towers and finally found one that he especially liked in the Mohave desert in California. There was a broken brace hanging on the cable that added a special quality to the sound and that was the one he used in combination with some other sounds to create the sound of the laser gun

All of these sounds are forever linked with a particular image and added more to the success of the Star Wars franchise, then any other single element.

Ben Burtt has moved on from LucasFilm to Pixar and did the work on the lastest Pixar masterpiece Walle. Look for the DVD extras that give a glimpse into the creation of the voices. Good stuff!

      

Happy to announce that ResonanceMultimedia (the sound company that owns this blog) has a SoundCloud account. In the future it'll probably be used for client work, but at the moment it's just public.

And you can always send me your tracks through my dropbox and I'd be happy to comment on them:


Send me your track

      

If you are like me and are lucky enough to have gotten hold of an Optigan ($40 in the late 90's, whoot!), chances are that you have had a few scratchy keys or buttons. In my case, I have had inoperative chord buttons since I've owned this thing. Not even a crackle or pop could be heard no matter how I jiggled/pressed/molested them, so I always figured the electronics or sensor had gone bad. Well to my surprise, they just needed cleaning! I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have working chord buttons, since they really are 75% of the charm and sound of the Optigan.<< MORE >>

"The Price Is Right Theme" by Edd Kalehoff:



I just love the passing flutes lines and the counterpoint on the horns (yes, I actually said that and mean it). Funky, bouncing bassline and moogy interlude; what's not to love?

Bonus:

Here's possibly the greatest piece of incidental music ever. I suggest you email this video to your co-worker the next time he or she screws up.



Extra Bonus:

Here's the track played before the showcase showdown. It's called "Dig We Must." Indeed.



Extra Extra Bonus:

Can't forget the Consolation Prize Theme. Definate Bacharach influence here

      

Sorry for the lack of posts recently...

Been away cutting, sawing, hammering, screwing, lifting, panting, smoothing, transporting, plugging in, pulling out, chopping down, digging, hiding, finding, turning, programming and drinking...

I'll be posting soon about a new project (mega-rack 2008) and updates on the guitar mod project, as well as new demos.

soon.

      

Check out this amazing video of micro/click House guy, Andreas Tilliander.



Pretty cool in this day of soft synths to see a new-school guy with no DAW in sight....

But look how much gear he has running...

      

Came across Boards of Canada Old tunes Vol. 1 & 2 (~1995, but I believe older than that) recently and I'm simply blown away. Classic Boards of Canada that many may have heard from the Skam releases, but two things definitely stood out. The humor and levity and the amount of tunes here (60+)...

I do feel a bit ill-at-ease with having gotten these through questionable sources (I'm firmly against piracy), but more so because this music wasn't intended to be released outside of their circle of friends. Oh well.

Lots of interesting stuff in here. Early versions of other tracks, pieces that were reintroduced later on Music Has the Right to Children, funny samples. Really, really cool stuff. And I most certainly hear a WaveStation on Magic Teens.

BoC definately suffered a post-IDM backlash (wow, are we post-IDM now). I'm reminded of an interview with Matthew Herbert, wherein he told us he was "bored of Canada." mmhmmm....

Regardless, this is the stuff that keeps me going. And it still sounds fresher than more than half the stuff out there now...

But I do feel a little guilty. I think I'll send them a copy of my vinyl release. Fewer people have probably heard that!