Music.
Ayman Shamma’s iPad steel drum just might revolutionize music on street corners and subway stops.
Shamma made a pair of drum sticks out of conductive material, then wrote an iPad app that mimics the sound of a steel drum, without any heavy equipment to lug around.
You can whip up a pair of drumsticks in about half an hour following his tutorial and start annoying the neighbor’s immediately with Shamma’s preferred apps, Magic Piano or iDaft.
With the infectious tones of “Round and Round” still causing a stir online, Los Angeles’ Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti have confirmed details of their debut album for 4AD. Entitled Before Today, the record consists of twelve tracks (including the aforementioned single “Round And Round”) and will be released worldwide on June 8th 2010 on CD, LP and digital formats.
Six months in the making, Before Today was recorded in part in Encino at the House of Blues (once Tito Jackson’s home studio) with Sunny Levine (Quincy Jones’ grandson) and Rik Pekkonen (Bill Withers, Seals & Crofts, Bread) as well as at the band’s home studios. The result is a beguiling mix of glam rock, West Coast funk and Merseybeat harmonies with a high-production sheen; a contrast to the corroded bedroom recordings that have fomented a fervent cult following over the past decade.
[From 4AD – News – Announce album details, headline NYC show]
Amon is hunkered down in his studio deep in the redwoods of Northern Californian and has begun work on a new album. In addition to researching and developing new production tools and techniques of his own, he’s ensconced himself in a whole new array of gadgetry from the past and the future that will help continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with sound and music.
Tour dates and outside projects have been put on the back burner for now – Amon recently tuned down a lucrative high profile scoring opportunity amongst other things- in order to focus solely on what can best be described as an auditory space walk.
We’ll be posting new info as the album progresses but be prepared for a long haul, these are the outer limits after all. Keep checking back or sign up on the mailing list to stay in the loop.
Palms sweating, hairs on back of neck standing on end territory. I’m feeling this shit like never before, and the grand old sax lion
of hard blowing German 60’s free music Peter Brotzmann is the one killing me the hardest. He’s playing something called a tarogato here that dates back to the mid 1800’s andhas a gut wrenching tone that I can’t explain and which he milks so hard, your soul will ache. Dude’s in his mid 60’s or so circa this footage and still blowing with gut busting fury…I don’t know where some of these cat’s get their energy reserves from at that age, but it’s envious and amazing. Pure soul food:
[From YouTube – Peter Brotzmann / Mark Sanders / Anthony Cox ]
Misa Digital Guitar Demo
Introduction
So, you’ve made it this far. If you’ve read my previous articles in the EGE series you should have a pretty good overview of how electronic music actually works. In addition, you should also be able to put together some pretty cool beats for your tracks! So, what’s missing? You guessed it: Synthesizers. Electronic music is all about synthesizers. You may be wondering how the heck these things work, right? I can understand that many people are intrigued by synthesizers; all those knobs and buttons can certainly seem very confusing! In this article, I’m going to give you a basic overview of how the common synthesizer works and what important parameters you need to know of in order to produce the sounds you want.
[From Easy Guide: Synth programming & Preset tweaking | EMusicTips]
Part I: Building Broadband Absorber Panels
Background:
After reading Ethan Winer’s articles and information from Auralex Acoustics, RPG , Jon Risch’s great DIY site and the enlightening Ethan Winer: Acoustics Forum at Music Player Network, I decided to build a modified version of the 703 2’x4’x4” panel bass traps and then two “Super Chunk” Corner Bass Traps. Initially for the panel traps I planned to build a wooden frame as others have done.
But after reading Ethan’s “Real Traps – Measuring Absorption and the Numbers Game” article I decided to attempt a design more resembling the Real Traps frame. My goals were to build a light yet strong frame and to simultaineously maximize the amount of absorption on the 4” sides of the trap by not using a solid wood frame. Of course at a DIY project I also wanted to to build the traps as cheaply as possible.
Some eighties bands music stands the test of time, while others cause us to look over our shoulder to see if anyone’s noticed the Heaven 17 album in our collection. The English Beat wrote songs with a reggae groove, but with enough pop sensibility to capture the hearts of millions. At a time when it was virtually impossible for alternative bands to get radio airplay in America, The Beat had a string of hits and sold-out tours. Dave Wakeling was the singer, guitarist and mastermind behind the whole thing and when he announced a 2010 U.S. tour for The Beat, we sought him out for an interview. On the phone, Wakeling engaged us for hours with discussions of politics, the music industry, VH1 and the process of making videos. Here are the best bits from our discussion.
[From The Dumbing of America › History Lesson: Dave Wakeling and The English Beat]
Brad Laner (Medicine/Solo)
1. Beatles Remasters / Beatles Rock Band
2. Neil Young – Archive Vol. 1
3. Baby Champ – Faya/Maya
4. Shits and Giggles – Trick or Treat
5. Helado Negro – Awe Owe
6. Where The Action Is! (Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968)
7. Bell Gardens – A Series Of Farewells
8. Slaraffenland – We’re on Your Side
9. Baths – http://www.myspace.com/bathsmusic
10. The Silent League -But You’ve Always Been the Caretaker[From The Dumbing of America › Top Albums of 2009: The Artists’ Picks]
When Apple revealed its documents and templates detailing the process of creating iTunes LP and Extras for small studios and indie artists to take advantage of, it also noted that for the time being, submission would be manual, but that automated electronic submission was on its way. A new report suggests the vehicle of delivery for that submission could be none other than Apple’s own iDVD media authoring program, part of the iLife suite.
[From Rumor Has It: iTunes LP Authoring and Submission Coming to iDVD ]
This limited-edition 180-gram vinyl pressing is the first release on avant-garde label Free Dope and Fucking in the Streets and the first release from Shits and Giggles, an experimental collaborative between Los Angeles weirdo Ariel Pink and the Vas Deferens Organization, and featuring prominent guest appearances by Dallas free-jazz trumpeter Dennis González and his son, bassist Aaron González, on four of the seven tracks. It’s a very impressive—and appropriately bizarre—debut for the label and band.
As the ’60s font, fruity cover art and WTF clown and nudity photo on the back would suggest, this album has a very retro feel to it. Were it not for prominent Speak ‘n’ Spell on “Spellcaster,” the closest thing to a cohesive song, the album’s jazz-based improvisation, left-field compositional turns and sly sense of humor make it sound like something Frank Zappa would have come up with if he’d relented on his drug-free stance and hit the studio with a sheet of blotter and a tankful of nitrous. Stoned UNT jazz students will have a blast with this album. Backward vocals sound at once threatening and hilarious. Drums run through a phaser effect swoop across the speakers like a lead instrument. Electronic noises, bowed and popped double-bass, and party chatter intertwine like some ’70s experimental film gone awry.
Throughout the first half of the album, the elder González’s trumpet floats among the noise, sometimes rising to the surface, sometimes adding background texture. Trick or Treat? It’s both: a psychedelic trickster of an album, and a treat for those who like their music weird.
BEAUTIFUL LOSER, TORTURED KILLER
How Two Veterans of the L.A. Punk Scene Wound Up on a Collision Course, Until Only One Was Left Standing[From Los Angeles Music – Beautiful Loser, Tortured Killer – page 1]
This really cool project allows a grand piano to “speak”. We don’t know any details about its construction but we had to share. The keys are being hit by solenoids in a manner to replicate human speech. Click through to the video, it’s worth it. You may have to allow the popup to see the video, and it is in german, but the piano is clearly speaking english. We want one to keep around the office. It could read our emails to us.
Buchla 200e Series
Another West Coast contender, the Buchla has many similarities to the Serge including the fact that the 200e is also a full-blown modular synthesizer that is current, modern and can be bought brand new today from Buchla. Although the 200e is updated, it’s still fairly similar to its classic predecessor from the 70’s, the original 200 series, making it truly a surviving modern-day classic. Click here for the review.[From Vintage Synth Explorer]
The Eigenmike® microphone array is a patent-pending unique scalable microphone array with elements embedded into a rigid sphere. Individual microphone outputs are processed with a novel beamforming algorithm which enables the ability to record and playback accurate 3D spatial audio.
The Eigenmike® microphone array’s directivity pattern can be controlled in real-time or stored and processed at a later time. Eigenmike® array technology is based on the principles of spherical harmonic decomposition. Some key characteristics include:infinite control of directivity pattern (shape and direction)
any number of unique beamformer outputs
electronically steerable
complete spatial description of the 3D sound-field
post sound-field processing of prerecorded eigenbeam signals
scalable in size and number of elements
uses extremely low-noise, wide-band professional electret microphone capsules
microphone preamp programmable gain and 24-bit, 44.1 kHz A/D conversion
done inside the spherical array baffle (other sampling rates are available)
single CAT5 cable powers em32, carries all digital microphone data,
controls the microphone PGA settings, and reports microphone status.
EMIB interface box converts em32 digital stream to standard Firewire
ASIO drivers supplied: em32 appears as a standard 32-channel sound card[From Untitled]
Shits And Giggles
“Ripcord”
Previously unreleased
In a sidestep from his lo-fi Haunted Graffiti releases for Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label, Ariel Pink has teamed up with underground fringe unit Vas Deferens Organization, plus free jazz trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez and his son Aaron, who plays bass, to form Shits And Giggles. “Ripcord” showcases the group’s work in progress, in what they describe as a “wanton miscegenation of psych/Prog, post-punk, plunderphonics and laptop fuckery”.
