Yeah, it’s just a bit into Saturday, but I saw this earlier this week on XLR8R TV and this guy is awesome. That’s all.
Alfred Darlington, our favorite Los Angeles-based Victorian gentleman, is best known as the prolific producer Daedelus. Here, he charts the evolution of his love of electronic sounds and gives us a private performance on his famous future toy, the Monome.
Probably my favorite episode of XLR8R TV so far!
There’s also this which is sorta interesting, but I am more impressed for it’s “triggering” application of sounds/loops for live performances like illustrated above. (via Computer Music blog)
Final Product // ATTIGO TT from Scott Hobbs on Vimeo.
I couldn’t find a description for this video, but it’s pretty cool. More videos documenting the trial and error process before arriving at this stage can be found here.
This comes from my friend Dave-O. Just watch.
One of the oldest electronic instruments, the theremin in this video was used to do a cover of Gnarles Barkley’s “Crazy.”
Piggy-backing on my NIN (and related) posts from earlier this week, here is a video of one of the members of NIN (I’m not fan enough to know all their names) configuring a monome two fifty six in conjunction with the Jazz Mutant Lemur to control an upright piano.
You may remember that Daft Punk used four Lemurs to perform the back-up music to Kanye West’s “Stronger” at this year’s Grammy’s. Seems like a device that is based on Star Trek: The Next Generation-visuals…which I like.
Well, since I don’t really have much time these days to do any kind of interesting posts I might as well not slack on posting some electronic music video! Above is a demonstration of the FantomX series of keyboards with their extremely slick Spanish Guitar patch loaded. When I go to Guitar Center I often tinker around with this keyboard because it is so slick, but as it is quite expensive, that is all I do. If that person’s playing seems to not entirely line up perfectly with the notes heard it is because with that particular patch, when you hit a key really hard it plays a slight trill on the note.
One time I actually almost bought one of these until I was reminded a) I didn’t have the money, and realized b) I could save thousands of dollars by getting a decent plain midi synth and just replicate all this stuff in soft synth.
Check out this music video for Autechre’s “Gantz Graf” song. It is a trip. Music visualizers for the future? (Apologies for the mediocre video quality.)
Also, for those familiar with Autechre’s style this is par for the course. For those who are not familiar, just say you’ve been warned.
In light of Herbie Hancock’s Album of the Year Grammy Award for his album River – The Joni Letters, I give you this appearance of Herbie on Sesamie Street in what seems like a galaxy a long time ago. The YouTube description reads, “Herbie Hancock and the Fairlight Synthesiser on Sesame Street, featuring a young Tatyana Ali of Fresh Prince of Bel Air fame.” The Fairlight is the first sampling synthesizer ever (popularly we saw a later version of the same concept in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where he samples flu symptoms), something computer musicians take for granted today.
One of my all-time favorite jazz records is Herbie’s Head Hunters and he has been no slouch in musical experimentation such as his (in my opinion) amazing Dis is Da Drum release in the mid-90’s where at one point he uses a grasshopper to keep the beat.
“Hi Clive!”
Very much like how FL Studio works but with a touch screen. The ability to make the tracks repeat at different lengths in juxtaposition to the others is quite rad.
Watch Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater melt your face with his progressive rock synth skills! I saw Dream Theater in concert a few years ago in San Diego. They were absolutely incredible.
Friggin’ awesome. From the Youtube description:
MooT BooXLe performing on the Synthesizers.com modular analogue synthesizer. This is not a perfect performance, as it was improvised in one go. Also functioning in this video are the Moogerfooger CP-251, the Roland Space Echo, and Reason drums. I was controlling the filter cutoff with a CV pedal. [...] Also, I wasn’t looking at the camera, in case you were wondering. I was watching computer monitors, which were showing visual feedback on what I was playing.
Check out the versatile effects that can be accomplished in realtime by the Glitch VST. This is probably one of the best free effects VST’s out there. It’s really easy to use and produces some amazing effects.
I used it on the glitchy parts of my “Jelly Poo Beans” song which can be found here. [Unfortunately, the website for Glitch seems to be down with the explanation: "Illformed is changing servers and changing direction. A new site will be online pretty soon." If you want a copy of it, drop me a comment or e-mail me and I can send you the latest version that I have.]
(via Morgan at Strictly Social)
Here are the final top 5 synths posted a week ago from Computer Music magazine. I meant to post this earlier, but with all the craziness of the AAR, reception planning, and my continued schedule of life itself, I forgot that I have a blog. Check out u-he — the winner who made the top synth — for some of his other impressive products, some of which are free and others of which are in beta stage. Very impressive stuff.
Actually, it’s 10 through 6 today. Today’s vid, just released today, comes form Computer Music magazine where they review (what they consider to be) the top 10 soft synths out there. They play samplings of each one to give an idea of the different sounds. Sweet honey butter to my ears!
If you know your anime and if you know your Nine Inch Nails, then you will probably dig this video. It is a mash-up of scenes from Akira, Lain, and Ghost in the Shell with Nine Inch Nails’ “The Becoming” from their The Downward Spiral album. This video is so perfect with its selection of anime scenes to go with the NIN lyrics; it’s such a great meld. [Warning: some explicit language]
I had previously linked to another interview with Squarepusher, but I think I actually like this one a little bit better because it shows more of the actual tweaking he does with his gear and whatnot to get his crazy sounds.
Friday was mega-busy with preparations to leave for the bay area, where I now am until tonight when we drive the 500 miles back down to San Diego. The above video will definitely have to fill in, instead. (via Dave-O)
Today’s video is another one from Spyrofunk (myspace page). He shows you how to rig up some settings to make a really sweet-sounding “typical electro bass line.” The first few minutes might seem a bit tedious at first, but by the last 3 minutes, he’s set up a really convincing groove, as you’ll see. This setup would work equally well for both live performances as well as recording the scrub in the x-y controller as an automation clip.