Great Scott who always sends me great links sent me these two:
Controllerism is a site decidated to the idea of creating live music using controllers of course. The have some videos that are a must watch for those interest in the computer being a musical instrument instead of just a fancy musical calculator.
This Wikipedia entry on “stutter edit” has lots useful info and I nice list of software to help achieve the task.
Here is a bunch of cool stuff I have found lately:
The Openstomp Coyote1 is a product seemingly made for me. A stomp box that you can program to be any thing you wish. Sound great but it is not yet released. I am going to keep an eye on it there is a lot of potential.
From the site:
What is it?
The OpenStompTM Coyote-1 is an open source audio effects processor built for guitar players. With the Coyote-1 users can develop custom audio effects in software (like distortion, echo, chorus etc.), mix multiple effects to build “patches”, and exchange those effects and patches with the OpenStompTM community.
A companion Windows application (OpenStompTM Workbench) allows Users to combine effects into patches graphically, and to move patches and effects between the Coyote-1 device and their PC’s disk.
The Coyote-1 O/S is open source so users can tweak it to behave any way they like, and the hardware is fully documented so that developers can take control of the whole pedal, dedicating all available system resources toward the implementation of unique custom solutions.
Those Wii remote are cool and have lots of great uses. Macs people should check out WiiToMidi.
From the site:
WiiToMidi allows you to convert signals from a Nintendo Wii controller to MIDI signals. It is a Cocoa application for Mac OS X and uses the DarwiinRemote WiiRemote framework to decode Wii controller signals. It also supports the Nunchuk controller.
From Remix comes some really great tips for make glitch effects.
Karlheinz Essl has some neat software for making generative music. I found this when I got interest in generative music after reading about Brain Eno and Spore.
Gearslutz has a good thread on optimizing your PC for audio production use.
NPR had a cool piece on composer David Morneau. If you follow the link you can listen to the story and a few pieces of his music. Basically he he set out to create 60 seconds of music a day for an entire year. He somehow succeed. OK, digging out garage band samples and the Amen Break might be a little cheap but it had to be hard just due to the nature of life if nothing else.
Once I get settled I want to try something similar only more like a piece of music a week. I have no trouble starting it is finishing that is the problem. I will give it a go when I able.
These pages have been somewhat neglected but that should change. The last two weeks have been a mad scrambled as I moved half way across the country. It is a good thing to shake things up once in a while. I feel like I have escaped from a rut.
Driving a cross country maybe a less of a common occurrence do to rising gas prices(I was thrilled to pay $3.69 imagine.) It was kind of a hassle but good to be reminded of the the the vast an diversity of the country in which I live.
Three days of Road Trip Music was not a bad thing either (though I did forget the banjo music for the drive through the Ozarks.) Road Trip Music seems to be produced less and less often these days. That does make sense through. The road trip is becoming a less common experience in modern America. We travel across the country at 30,000 feet more often or travel my road in SUV’s with DVD players. Jumping in the car with the big V-8 with the stereo blasting with the windows rolled down is a less common experience that has for environmental, economic and demographic reasons become less romanticized. So it is less written about. With oil prices sky rocketing it might become even less common.
It is to bad. The driving song might be relegated to a pleasant myth like Route 66. Long live Radar Love.
No if someone could write unpacking music.
Intua are planning on releasing a music making application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It looks slick as would expect for anything Apple handheld related. Here is the feature list from the site:
16 triggerable pads with polyphonic control
Automatic sample slicing on multiple pads
Edit pads individually
Duration and tonal controls
Reverse
Gain
Output selection (Dry, FX Bus1, FX Bus 2)
Graphical sample bounds editorInstant muting
Muting individual pads makes your song breathingSample accurate Sequencer
Pattern step sequencer
Step velocity editor per pattern
Song pattern sequencer
On the fly live editing2 FX Busses, each rack containing
3 Band EQ
Synchronized Delay
Bit CrusherLive pattern recording
Record grooves from pads to sequencer patternsBrowser
Provided Sound Library
Multiple purposes instruments
Artist Kits
Local Library
Network share
Load and save samples, kits and projectsSong Export
Export your songs to commonly used sample formats
I am going to be a little skeptical until the “introducing” turns to “releases.” It has a lot of potential though. Some of the controls look a bit might be a little trick if you have fat calloused finger like myself. Imagine we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of stuff.
You can find this strange delay effect and other DIY audio goodness at WRONGROOM.
Along the same lines is this great video I found. Analog sequencer in a cigar box is cool enough but controlling other circuit bent gadget is just beautiful noise.
From Kendall Scott is a Basic Guide to Understanding EQ. A good graphics for visual learners. You also can check out my EQ Guidelines & Free Tools.
Robin Schmidt’s Music Engineering Tools has a every practical and useful VST ptich shifter if you scroll down the page. ANd check out the other stuff also.
Euphoria Magazine has this list of strange and wonderful instruments.
Found this cool video on EtherBomb. The one man band is alive.
For those of you that want to turn back the clock and stopping buy the new versions of music software every and just happen to have a old ST in the closet should check out Tim’s Atari Midi World. A nice page on Cubase on Atari. It is where most of this computer music business started. It really is not as diffent as you would think after such a long evelotion. I now a lot of people still use it squence. Why not?
yedey has released Loop Slicer a free VST loop slicer and re-arranger VST Plug-in. Here is the description from the website:
What it is: It’s a Loop slicer and rearranger with some weird FX. So you load in a drum loop wave, set the tempo, and LoopDrive slices it into beats. Now you can use the build-in sequencer grid to rearrange the beats. There is also a “reverse sequencer” which enables you to play selected beats backwards. After rearranging the loop you can apply a filter, bit crusher, distortion, overdrive and even a grain FX. There’s also the possibility to set the FX order, which gives you more control over the FX.
There are also some other things that I haven’t mentioned here, so try it yourself.
I really love plug-ins like this. But then I love to mangle by boring loops. Even better is the .OSM file is available for any Synthedit users to to explore. Cool stuff.
Vonengo Sound Delay is now available for free.
From the site:
Sound Delay is an auxiliary multi-channel signal delaying plug-in for professional audio applications. You may specify delay time in both milliseconds and samples, with a high level of precision. This plug-in - being technical in its purpose - provides a basic signal delaying function only, without signal feedback or modulation capabilities.
Sound Delay also features internal mid/side encoding and decoding, and allows you to delay mid and side channels independently.
Seems to be a useful tool and a little different from the other free delays plug-ins out there.
Available in Windows Vst and Win64 VSTand Mac Audio Units and VST.
Found Via Chip collection:
Here is some video of one of those cool Korg Nano Controllers. More at SOS also.
Found via the excellent Audio Lemon
Even being part of the first generation that will play games there whole life I am not that big of a gamer any more though I do play. Games like most pieces of pop culture tend to be mostly derivative and disposable but I will always be interested when something attempts or succeeds in rising above a simple distraction to art that is innovative, changes the way you look at part of the world or elicits a emotion response. I hope Spore is one of those games. It approach to the idea of evolution could not be duplicated in another medium. I am excited like when I was a kid. I have been playing with the creature creator and it is great fun.
One of the most interesting things about Spore is Brain Eno creating (if that is the right word) the sound track for spore. Eno and Will Wright are to of the biggest innovators of the past few decades. And they seem a good fit together. Ad generative music might be a perfect fit for a game base on a generative model. I am a fan of of a having a little randomness in all things so I hope it works. It does raise all kinds of philosophical questions about generative art of any kind of art rather than creating it in a more traditional way. And I think that is a good thing to think about and bring into debate.
The video is very long you can skip ahead by using the open tools menu.
