If you like for web pages plain, information limited and samples in great numbers I have the site for you.
The Noise Theorem Sound Library has quite a collection of samples form from classic drum machines and synths just waiting for a nice sampler to adopt them. Roland, Simmons, Casio, Korg, Yamaha etc, all represented.
I found this good collection of Impulse response:
Years ago I remembering seeing a news story on the Sony 777 sampling reverb. I though it was a great idea but it was expensive and a lot of work to get more than the presets that came with the machine. Thank goodness for software. Entry into the virtual world made these convolution effects available to many more people.
I think I have mentioned it before but you can find more impulse responses at the noise vault & echochamber (use google translate if you don’t speak German. ) I have found these reverbs(and other effects using impulses) dependant of the impulses and having enough CPU to do the really big math problems. Any new impulses are welcome because that really determines the effect you can have. You can’t have a hall reverb with out a hall impulse.
The odd thing is convolutions produce the most convincing realistic reverbs and room sims out there but I like best that it can mimic gear that doesn’t sound like a real spaces but might sound good. Like an old revrb unit that may sound artificial but in a good away. But that is just me. And you can get an impulse from anything almost. Speakers cabs, stairwell, silos or whatever. It is way to have a all kinds of spaces and gear in stored on your hard drive. It can really open up creative avenues.
If you own Altverb or Waves IR you know what I am talking about(and I can’t believe you are reading this blog it is about getting by on a shoestring half the time. Kidding.) If you have not experimented with this type of thing you can try out SIR 1 for free and if you like that you might consider the more reasonable SIR 2 or other commercial apps.
I caught this video. I don’t really have cause to use a interactive white board. Or track eye movement. But it has has the potential to track anything. And by doing so control anything. Music and video performance came to my mind. A less than $40 dollar piece of hardware connected to a PC via ubiquitous blue tooth opens a myriad of possibilities. It is a wonderful when a mass produced(read as cheap) hardware can be co-oped into a whole bunch of unintended applications.
Here is some more videos form Johnny Lee’s website:
NUSofting Groove Analogizer is now free. Just what is it:
“Groove Analogizer is an “audio controlled drum synthesizer”, it means that like a vintage electronic drum tone generator (e.g. Simmons) the percussion sound is triggered by an audio input, not by a MIDI message. This also means that you must not load, in the host, Groove Analogizer as a VST instrument, it loads as a VST effect, usually in an insert slot.”
Guitarist silenced by ALS is making music again. A human interest story like this makes me feel like the local news. It something like Dr. Stephen Hawking the music produce I quess. It is pretty cool though and the best thing about PC’s is uses like this. Film at 11.
Call it LastTV. It is a good idea mashing you YouTube and LastFM. It works ok. I entered my profile and it did a fairly good job of finding video that I should like.
Also youtube related is ListentoYouTube. It will make mp3’s of YouTube videos. There is of course other ways to do this but this way is fairly painless. It makes it easy to sample YouTube easily. If you want mp3 of teenagers lip syncing and people creatively injuring themselves this will be your new favorite site.
Hometracked has 10 Myths About Normalization which is often misunderstood.
NPR has this interesting story(audio too) about a interesting mic builder reconstructing classics found via The Rambling of Some Audio Guy.
Now some cool DIY Stuff:
The 25 minute, $25 acoustic panel (or $42.00 bass trap) from the Recording Studio Design Forum is great way to economically make your space sound great. I never new why commerical option were often so expensive.
Make your own Gorilla Pod & Third Hand++: A multi-use helping hand for electronics and other delicate work are great Instructables for giving you a extra set of hands at your work bench. The are cooler than my helpings hands but it works too.
Another Instructable is this Isobaric Subwoofer for those that want to build there own floor rattler.
I found this “Ikea” guitar on Guitar Noize it is kind of what you think. Maybe. More info here.
It is good that DRM is dying. The bad news is that the death throes will take some poor sucker’s music collections out. Thank Microsoft for doing something wrong even when they do something right. There are going to shut down the lisceneing severs trapping music on there current computers unable to be transfered. It not like Microsoft can afford to keep the servers up or anything. Not the end of the world but not cool.
Read all about it at Wired…
Or PC World…
Or probably a hundred thousand other places. People kind of like to bash Microsoft and bitch about DRM issues just a little.
From BoingBoingTV comes this OK video. You would think circuit bending and robots together in the same video would be the coolest thing ever.
Music Boot Camp has this comprehensive list of sites to get free samples and loops.
de la mancha has released the crazy and fun freq show.
Cosmic Boogie Collective reminds us of the days of razor blades and tape.
MusicPlayers.com has a good article on electric guitar miking.
Studio reviews has an interesting article entitled Why Don’t My Recordings Sound Pro?
A while back a posted a link to a talkbox project for blamepro. But that is not the only way to roll get that crazy Frampton guitar mixed with vocals sound yourself. Now here is a slick DIY talk box project on Instructables. It is is pretty well illustrated and explained. I will add one piece of advice for any talkbox project though. Be careful because this project could damage you and most definitely your amp. Any part used including the horn driver should be have double the watt rating of your amp. Otherwise you will be looking for a new horn and possibly an amp as well.
Disaster, Accidental Hard Drive Cleaning or Stuff, Stuff, Stuff
A few days ago I had a disk partition accident. Then I compounded it with my stupidity. Not good.
I am trying to be positive about it. Learning lessons. Moral victories that kind of crap. huh.
The first lesson is when doing something potentially completely destructive read the menu carefully and don’t assume anything.
The most obvious lesson is an obvious one that a lot of people ignore. Backup. I kept most of the non-program files on a second hard drive used to store media and irreplaceable files. Most. OK, that is not a back up solution. But it usually is the drive with the OS(s) that gets screwed up. The idea was that would really minimize that change of losing important data in between occasional backups. I would keep really important stuff on both drives and on removable storage, etc. Well, the saving important files to the storage drive and backing up occasionally fell by the wayside. I did not lose everything. But I lost some. Luckily I had my really important stuff in about ten different places including online storage. Yeah, I know I am not very smart. So, please let this be yet another cautionary. Let this one be the one you pay attention to.
I actually have scheduled a back up reminder. Lets face it not something most people are going to think about a lot. It is not fun. No one ever said I can’t wait to back up my data yippie! Besides neglect the other thing that kept me from regular backups up was disorganization. It not really practical to to back everything up with the gigs & gigs of data we collect now. So when your important data is scattered across multiple drives and in zillions of mislabeled folders and mixed with crap it makes it hard if not impossible to do a good job backing up.
You gotta have a real plan I guess not just a vague intent like I had. There is a million possibilities nowadays so there is no excuses. My plan is basically segregating all the data I create like project files, recordings, written word, etc. Then back that up on a schedule. As long as I pay attention to where I save things and stay organized it should not be that hard.
OK now I have to get a little philosophical. You don’t really realize the amount of crap that you can accumulate virtual or otherwise until you have to replace it. Especially if you have to go through annoying copy protections and have to find install disk you have seen since 2 seconds after you installed a program. Rerip music, etc. Despite all the advances now days in clock speed, bus speeds, memory and bandwidth installing software and data from DVD’s and CD is still slow as hell. You start to ask yourself if you need all of it while you watch the endless procession of progress bars.
The philosophical bit is you realize how little of it you actually really need. Not surprising really considering the culture here most people end up so much we don’t really need. Stuff that does not improve our lives at all and most likely hinder our happiness. Remembering that this here World Wide Web is just that World Wide I don’t know how it is in the rest of the world but in the good ole U.S. of A there is a strong almost religious tendency toward acquiring more and more stuff. Big neon signs, glossy print, screaming radio ads and moving pictures urge over consumption and acquisition overtly. Then there is the strong current drag us down stream with out us knowing it that some call culture. George Carlin describe this phenomenon well in this video. But it really is worse had he puts it. Maybe it is this way in the rest of the Western World and Westernized Far East but I do not really know what life is like other than the bullshit I have seen on TV. But I know how it is here. It is even the supposed answer to your current financially problems. Were are supposed to spend our way out of being broke. Go figure. And People buy into this idea. We are so entrenched in acquiring more and more stuff. I tried to stay organized. And keep my hard drives clean. I would try and get rid of the stuff I never used. But i probably was doing a very good job of that either. My computer was bloated with crap. Crap that hogged resources and diverted my attentions. Nothing good ever came of it.
My Desktop a microcosm of the this materialistic world…you bet. OK, I am not going to bullshit you and say I am glad this happened. I am not it is pain in the ass and I lost a few things I wish I didn’t . But maybe understanding a little better that I should possess only what I need and take very good care of those things is worth something. I should schedule a reminder for that also.