2007 is has been mixed for me. Bitter sweet like Mississippi Blues. But today’s Monday Morning Blues is lined with the hopeful silver of a new year. Here is to a better 2008 for everyone. All sweet like teeny bopper pop.
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
I knew there are are Ion computer/dj products but gadget I just discover caught my eye. It a USB turnable was a handy for transfering vinyl to digital formats.
If you are going to upload vinyl here are some good tips on cleaning up uploaded vinyl using Audacity from Antinlinux.
If you like those Reaper plugins can always use them you can find them here for use with any host.
Digital-Redux is a relatively new company selling royalty free samples via DVD. They currently have 5 genre specific DVD’s. My general feeling and experience with sample collections is that you are not going to love all the sounds. I think that is to much to ask for. I want the sounds to be well organized and having a file names that give you a hint of what it going to sounds like is a huge plus. It nice to have a things locked tight in one genre to increase the number of sounds you might like and the chances those sounds will fit to together. I have very eclectic taste but rigid adherence to genre makes sense on a sample disc. It obvious that they should be well recorded also. I don’t like when they are to processed but don’t like them completely dry either. If all the sounds need to be feed through effects all the time it defeats the the purpose of samples being easy and quick to use.
These collections fit the bill. I wish there were more real bass lines than single bass hits and bass sounds. Any short coming is over made up buy the price. At $40 they are half the price or less than other collections. Another good feature is the many formats on one disc that a lot of of other don’t offer. I use reason as well as a more traditional sequencer and I don’t like have to pick between .rex and .wav formats. You always could just pick .wav and recycle any file you may want but who wants to go though that when you don’t have to. Having both a refill and individual .rex is nice also. Stylus RMX is also supported as well. If you are in the market you might want to check them out.
I am not sure about the intonation of this NES guitar but I am sure the reset button will come in handy when you mess up.
Technological innovations always get a lot of press but the is a secret revolution going that rarely get attention because it is spread across diverse fields and personified by no one thing. One of the new materials more of us are familiar with, carbon fiber, once only found in hi-tech areospace applications before it move to high perfromance automotive and maritme apllications is becoming a more affordable more common place in normal life. These six guitars are an example of that.
Gibson has gotten a lot of ink about its Robot Guitar but can it play 50’s TV show theme’s?
Robot Guitarists-Peter Gunn from dogseat on Vimeo.
More strange guitar here. The pictured punk skate board bass is my favorite. It captures the spirit and activities of my youth on one mobile platform.
This is kind of Melancholy good for a Monday in the gloomy holiday season.
I remember these from my youth. I have the tools to do this of course but it hard to do than it looks. This ridiculous nonsensical humor kind of humor that I love can be tough I make to much sense for it. I can’t believe that last line would apply to me. There is so much fodder of over dub the comedians out there with simple audio tools.
Some how I have missed this Blackheart BH5H for a while. They claim it is “Desperately hoping to be modded.” It makes me want to get my soldering iron out. Of course it is just a Epiphone valve junior with a few bells and whistles. Most of those bells and whistle were mods thought up and employed by the amp tinkering community that rallied around the first EVJ’s. Some might find ‘em cheesy but I even like the tattooish graphic and color scheme.
I am trapped in a cubical for a few more hours. I am wondering how did I get here? I can relate to this song as I am sure others can.
I doubt they will ever be another band like the Talking Heads that makes it so big. What genre or narrow play list would they fit into now?
The NIN remixsite has bee n up for a while the legal issue kind of ignored. It is pretty cool site and a lot of good mixes are there for you enjoyment. The DVD containing the music in multi-track forum is well put together. It is reasonable priced for what you get. It is not just the individual separate tracks but actually individual is it own sample. But better than that songs can be open in fully arranged Ableton Live projects. A live demo is included. Click on the screen shot below to embiggen:
I am assuming the it does the same for Garage Band file open the same way. And there is project for Live Lite also. I have long got to spend a little time with it but is is great fun and makes remixing easier. I hope to find the time to get some of my own done which will require Herculean task of ending my endless tinkering which becomes really interesting and easy with this setup.
The is one small negative that I can find in this whole deal. I am a big fan of Nine Inch Nails but the mangled the distorted sounds don’t always lend themselves to some kind of remixing. I like to distort and mangle all the audio I can get my hands myself but most of the samples it all ready has been pretty process. The isn’t a lot of “clean” sounds to start with but that is to do with the nature of the music rather than any deficiency in the product. You always can mix in you own tracks though.
I there are more things like this to come and I hope it cross genre lines. It is wonderful for all us tinkerers.
The End of the Rainbow or Radioheads Buzz Grab
From Radiohead site:
Seems like a cash grab maybe. But maybe more likely the pay whatever you want download was for publicity. The whole thing lack transparency which sucked. I feel bad for those the wanted a batter format and paid for a bad one. Now you’ll only be able to purchase the music normally now go bu buying the expensive disc box which is aimed more at collectors. They got their buzz and now it will end. At least it got the ball rolling. Trent Reznor got it right though and I hope more follow.