I just discovered C64 Music. It been around a few years and I wish I had heard of it sooner. If you like or have any interest in 8 bit music, SID chip or geek retro computing you must check it out. The is so much cool stuff.
Tag Archive for 'info'
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.
Ableton Live 7 & Ableton Live Suite are now available. I love Live’s minimalistic look and the way it turn half instrument half DAW but Live getting to version 7 very rapidly and it is questionable at the very least whether all the update have been worth of a whole new number and the price tag. The any audio engine improvement to any product should always be welcome tough. Live Suites is just a version bundled with the Ableton instrument that fit so snugly with live for all you completist out there.
I think I may have listed this before but if so it deserves another listing. Tunetorials has a bunch of great video’s to help you make music. The Reason ones are especially good.
This video on making glicth beats is an example:
Loopbe1 Free is a cool free utility for passing midi information from on application to another. Also see MIDIOX and Hubi’s MIDI Loppback.
XYplorer Free is a free non-music utility but music maker stend to be power uses when it comes to file management and spend a lot of time using Window Explorer bouncing around our sample bloated hard drives. XYplorer is a replacement of the Windows Explorer and it one of those programs you don’t know how you lived with out it once you get used to it. The audio previews, color coding, batch renaming, favorites tagging are so very useful. Plus it will run off a memory stick. The paid version even come with more goodness.
Hidden amongst the good stuff at Beavis Audio Research is the handy pedal wiring diagram for you DIY’ers.
Cyberworm’s sample blog has samples yea!
Recording Mecca has 5 Tips for Mastering. The good common sense tips. Common sense is so rare these are welcome.
Earlier I mentioned the NIN DVD with tracks in mutli-track format to let anyone remix the songs. The was going to be a website to upload and share the tracks which would heave been cool. But big business intervened & Reznor rants. Read it here. The DVD is still available though and for the price of some Normal CD’s it might be worth it to allow anyone to completely remix a big time commercial release.
I was on the Sonic Transfer site and saw a name I never though I would see on a music site. It was the name of one of my hero’s The Amazing Randi. He is most famous for is exposing Uri Gellar & Peter Popov as frauds & is million dollar prize he offers if you can prove psychic powers. You can find out more if you visit James Randy Educational Foundation. As suggested by Sonic Transfer do a search for Stereophile. That million dollar prize was extended to them to prove some of there claims. You should also check out AudioCritic another critic of Stereophile and some of there pure nonsense like $10,000 dollar cables. I have often wonder but this kind of thing. Now, I am not even close to being an expert or even knowledgeable but now that I have built a few of my own gadgets and gain more of electronics applied as applied to audio applications things just seem more and more silly. Electronic is of course a well understood science and so is acoustics. It is not magic and think everyone should be skeptical when there is no scientific reason for it. It is not magic and there is not “mojo.” Provide a valid reason why a device is better. And conduct double blind tests to prove people think it sounds better. You almost never see them and I think there is a reason for that.
This of course does not just affect people with way to much money to spend on stereo equipment. It effects musicians as much if not more. Guitarist have it the worst. There is all those guitar idols that we aspire to sound like. We we take that fools errand and try and sound like them and fail it is all to easy to attribute their sound to that obscure magical piece of gear. When of course Jimmy Page sounds like that because he is well Jimmy page. It is not magical cap or this pickup wiring etc. It is all of them together combine with the man himself. The complication with guitar is the signal chain is complex with pickups to pot and caps to pedal to amp and back through mics into the mixing environment. They all have to play nice to get great sound. And there is not a single magical ingredient. And the is no “holy grail” of guitar gear. Combine with the fat that electronic is somewhat mysterious to most operating invisible.
Don’t get me wrong I think some product are great. I think there are both new and old products that are wonderful and worth the hype. I just think here need s to be a lot more skepticism and we need to use our “non-golden” ears with as much detached objectivity as possible. And demand more form the supposed experts. It to easy to let your gear lust and want of a magic bullet to cloud our judgement.
More reading:
Cables, Interconnects & Other Stuff - The Truth from Elliot Sound Products
Craig Anderton on Guitar Cables
Realy long thread on these kind of products and claims on DIYstomboxes forum
These might be helpful:
Here is an interesting Live Tutorial Video.
Some tricks for sequencing bass line form Sonic Transfer.
Tips from EM on show to make your midi sequencing sound well not like midi sequencing.
Music gear geeks have been drooling of this for a while Basically because it looks cool. Well, some people have got a hold of it now. There is a good review from Music Thing.
Ableton Live is being updated to 7. That is a lot of versions from a DAW that has not been around as long as most of the others. It is going to be available before the end of the season.
Deviant Synth I love. It has a DIY coolness and electronic weirdness combine in an unholy union of badass. The are very anti-synth nostalgia which I find refreshing. Vintage gear worship gets so tiresome.
Bill Machrone post this great guide on how to mod a guitar to have a USB out. Cool stuff.
gaussmarkov.net has this nice collect of stompbox circuits.
CD Paper Case show you how to make holds of your Cd’s out of you guessed it paper.
Here is an interesting read on mastering.
The Internet is of course for finding porn, steal media, creating a 2nd life cooler than your real one. The other thing is bitching about the RIAA. The is a lot of coverage of the new RIAA evil but here it is at Ether Bomb.
And because I am listening to it now and it is wonderful. Check out SomaFM. 11 channels of of mostly mellow but eclectic music from Cowboy Country to Cliphop. Music you will not find else where(at least not together.)
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.