Wire to the Ear

Here’s a funny story going around. Apparently there is a David Guetta “Dj tribute act”. Loudat severely hates the idea. I think we are in a free world and if someone has the balls to try this and people want to see it why not.

“Well this is new. A tribute DJ. I’ll say that again: A tribute DJ.As in: a nobody who is pretending to be a Famous Disc Jockey, advertising himself as such and actually getting booked.” Loudat

Read the full story: loudat.com/david-guetta-dj-tribute-act-i-shit-you-not

via Dave Lane

• Under the Sea
• How we use to do it! Energy Flash tribute.
• CitySounds.fm is the Music of Cities

The Dream Machine by X-Ray Pop will soon be re-released by Dark Entries Records.

“La Machine á Rêver is the B-side to the L’Eurasienne 7″ single by X Ray Pop released in May 1984. It will be re-issued on Dark Entries Records in July 2012 on a compilation of early material by this influential French band. This video first appeared on a collection of scopitones by X Ray Pop recorded at Elysee Sound March 1984. X Ray Pop are Doc Pilot: Casio PT20, MR10, Vocals + Zouka Dzaza: Lead vocals.” – darkentriesrecords.com

For more info: darkentriesrecords.com

Bye Donna!! You were one bad girl!

“Donna Summer, the “Queen of Disco” whose hits included “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” “Love to Love You Baby” and “She Works Hard for the Money,” has died, a representative said Thursday. She was 63. Her publicist, Brian Edwards, said Summer was suffering from cancer.” – CNN

For more info: donnasummer.com

• Great pro-audio videos from Tech Stuff on Qoob.tv.
• PPG Wave 3.V
• Propellerhead Automation Clip Toolbox

A video demo of the wicked looking Pittsburgh Modular Foundation synthesizer I previously mentioned (link). There are great things happening in the Eurorack modular community. If your don’t already know and are interesting in these type of synths and modules be sure to spend time over at the Muffwiggler forums.

“The Foundation is a fully modular, eurorack, analog synthesizer. A patchable system styled after the great monosynths of the past with no hardwired signal path or fixed voice architecture to restrict creativity. Driven by two wide range analog oscillators the Foundation produces a huge, warm sound that can’t be matched by digital or VST synths. All of the elements of a classic voltage controlled synthesizer are available as an open, patchable, modern synth.” – pittsburghmodular

For more info: pittsburghmodular.com

• Pittsburgh Modular Foundation
• The Moogseum Project
• JS1K Speech Synthesizer

It’s never too early to start your spawn off with musical instruments. Pitch Painter from Morton Subotnick for iPad is a good one to put next to the crib. Honestly I’ve downloaded this and will probably use it on a song or too (not kidding). $2.99 in the App Store now.

“Morton Subotnick is one of the pioneers of electronic music and multi-media performance. He is an innovator in works involving instruments and interactive computer music systems. His work Silver Apples of the Moon has become a modern classic, and in 2010 was entered into the National Registry of Recorded works at the Library of Congress, which selected only 300 recordings in total for this esteemed archive. Subotnick is also a pioneer in offering creative musical tools to young children. He has authored the educational CD-ROM series Making Music which has been widely used by parents and educators to let children experiment with the fundamentals of pitch, rhythm, sounds and styles of music. Pitch Painter is his latest endeavor in utilizing mobile technology to ignite the musical creativity of children.” – appadvice.com

For more info:

• Badlion’s Garage Synth
• The Doepfer R2M Midi Ribbon Controller.
• Sync Trigger

The Merkel government has proposed a plan called “Rewarding Life’s Work” which is essentially a 350 Euro per month social security contribution that would be required by all the self employed. Add the new tax to required health insurance, rising energy and food costs and Berlin may loose some of it’s appeal for musicians. My personal opinion is my generation is now seeing it’s first real economic challenge. There are bridge tolls in the NY area that are $15. $10 is more like $1 used to be. We can complain but the world’s resources are being fought for and there are smart people on the other side of the world working all day for pennies. I would like a Utopia where artists could just concentrate on art but I don’t forsee that happening. My advice is work hard and use technology to your advantage. Use it to create pockets of time to paint and sing your masterpieces world be dammed.

“The German government’s plan to force freelancers to pay a compulsory retirement ‘contribution’ will kill off entrepreneurship and destroy millions of independent careers. That’s the opinion of Tim Wessels, an IT specialist from Hamburg who has launched a petition against the so-called “Rewarding Life’s Work” law. Freelancers will be forced to pay €350+ a month to support the broken pension system, on top of the €300-€600 they must already pay for health insurance (plus other taxes). Demanding that entrepreneurs fork out at least €650 a month in contributions before they earn a single cent will end innovation in Germany.” – deskmag.com

For more info on Rewarding Life’s Work: Skrufff, Exberliner and Deskmag

photo credit: lampenlee

• My new single is #2 on the German Club Chart.
• The sweet sound of elevator music.
• Keywriter is a German typewriter VST for PC.

Here are two wonderful modular videos to get your week started. The first Buchla video above is from Italy and is just so very THX1138. Giorgio Sancristoforo does a great job creating lovely FM radio and filtering white noise. The next video shows Brazilian Arthur Joly’s incredible wall of metal. May these blips set the tone for a terrific week.

“A shortwave radio scans through North-African, Chinese, Russian, French, English and German channels, the output is then forwarded to the Buchla. Inside the synthesizer a white noise is processed with three narrow bandwidth band pass filters connected in serial configuration so to obtain quasi-sinusoids sounds. Both the sources are further processed with a balanced modulator and a frequency shifter and stochastically controlled by the Source of Uncertainty 266e module.” – giorgiosancristoforo.net

For more info: giorgiosancristoforo.net and Arthur Joly

• Foundation Demo
• Flickr Synthesizer Slideshow
• Planning a Modular

One of the items my father gave to me when the music department closed down at Fairleigh Dickinson University was a Wurlitzer Swingin’ Rhythm. It’s an analog preset drum machine from 1968. I used it on a song called Blood in the Sand (1999). Looking back now the song is a bit of a premonition. I foolishly didn’t think the box was worth that much so I left it behind during one of my many moves. A few weeks ago I was able to get one really cheap on eBay. Welcome home Wurlitzer. Today would have been my father’s 80th birthday.

“The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes. Over time Wurlitzer changed to producing only organs and jukeboxes, but it no longer produces either. Deutsche Wurlitzer, owner of the Wurlitzer Jukebox and Vending Electronics trademark, was acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.” – Wikipedia

For more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wurlitzer

• Rhythm Studio
• Korg KR-55 Rhythm Machine
• Transistor Rhythm

If you were ever wondering as an musician if your maximizing your revenue The Future of Music site lists 42 ways you can make green. They also explain some of the differences between royalties and publishing. Take a look at the list here: link

“If you’re a musician or composer, you probably have a basic sense of the ways you can make money. Some revenue streams are simple to understand, like playing shows, or selling CDs or t-shirts. But there are many, many more ways that musicians can earn money from their compositions, performances, sound recordings, brand, or knowledge of the craft. We list 40 of them… So if you hear Patsy Cline singing “Crazy” which was written by Willie Nelson, Willie created the musical composition when he wrote down the notes and lyrics. Patsy created the sound recording when she performed Willie’s song, and it was captured on tape. As you browse the list, it’s important to keep these distinctions in mind since there are many times when different parts of the creative team are paid differently.” – futureofmusic.org

For more info: money.futureofmusic.org/40-revenue-streams

via shocklee.com

• CD Baby Vs iTunes
• My thoughts on the Apple iPad
• Musicians can’t make a living

I’ve used this technique with drum racks for a while. It’s a great way to to get changing grooves that surprise people and are very dancey. You can download the rack in the video above: here.

In this tutorial Danny J Lewis shows you how to create a rack that emulates the mechanics behind the way the drum patterns switch in the recently released ‘Figure’ app.” – youtube.com/user/pointblankonline

For more info: ableton.com/blog

• Ableton Live 7
• HRP-4C Singing Humanoid Robot
• Robot Drummers! The new Roland TR-2010?

Jono named after it’s creator Jonáš Gruska is a MaxMSP synthesizer inspired by the modulars. It has a sequencer and a random patch generator (nice). It’s 15 Euro and if you don’t like it they will return your money.

“JONO is a software musical instrument inspired by modular synthesizers. By providing a mixture of classical and experimental elements it can serve as an interesting addition to your setup or as a standalone tool.” – jono.zvukolom.org

For more info: jono.zvukolom.org

Soundcloud is about to be replaced with an all new version! I use SoundCloud all day. Whenever I finish a track I put it up there so I can listen to it in my car. I am very pleased they are continuing to innovate. Sign up for the beta and read in detail all the new changes coming up here: next.soundcloud.com

“Today is a special day for us and we’re so thrilled to finally be able to share with you what we’ve been working on for a while: Next SoundCloud, meet the Community. Community, meet Next SoundCloud, the next phase of our mission to unmute the web. Since 2008, we’ve been focused on building the best social sound platform on the web. Today, SoundCloud has grown to over 15 million with more interests and needs of SoundCloud. With Next, we are taking a first step to reflect this.” – blog.soundcloud.com

Follow me on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/thingstocome

• More SoundCloud invites available.
• SoundCloud Player Customizations
• SoundCloud for iPad

Here’s another piece of hardware to help you go back in time. Zvex makes some of the best effect pedals. Besides being built out of metal and hand painted many have rare tubes and unique electronics inside them. Their Instant Lo-Fi Junky uses a Belling Bucked Brigade and National Semiconductor op-amps to create a warbling, broken turntable, compression chorus effect. $219.00 for the Vexter screen printed panel version and about $350 for a hand painted version. Needless to say I’ll be getting one soon. If there are any effect pedals that do something similar please let me know.

“The ILJ was designed to produce the sounds and textures of our Lo-Fi Loop Junky in real time, but it does so much more. It features a compressor, filtering(lo-fi), luscious chorus settings unlike anything we’ve heard, vibrato, and a mini toggle switch to change the waveform(sine, triangle, square pulse) of the chorus and vibrato.” – zvex.com

For more info: zvex.com/ILF.html

• ZVEX Effects prototype pedal stolen at NAMM.
• SID Machine
• AirVox

Another good episode from Nick and Gaz. This week they cover MIDI Designer Pro, Grain Science and Orphion.

“Gaz is in for a flying visit this time, just back from Paris where he is working on a major Rock opera production. Still he’s managed to get some quality time with the iPad working on this project. We hear about the apps that have really helped him out.” – sonicstate.com

For more info: sonicstate.com

• The Horrorist interview in Sonic Seducer
• Sonic Charge µTonic Patternarium
• TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch

Google+ Hangouts live “On Air” are now available to anyone. This is certainly going to be great for musicians. If any Wire to the Ear readers broadcast your studio or a live show please let me know. I really like that you can record the sessions.

“Today we’re excited to launch Hangouts On Air to Google+ users worldwide. So if you have something to say—as an aspiring artist, a global celebrity, or a concerned citizen—you can now go live in front of a global audience. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to: Broadcast publicly. By checking “Enable Hangouts On Air,” you can broadcast your live hangout—from the Google+ stream, your YouTube channel or your website—to the entire world. See how many viewers you’ve got. During your broadcast, you can look inside the hangout to see how many people are watching live. Record and re-share. Once you’re off the air, we’ll upload a public recording to your YouTube channel, and to your original Google+ post. This way it’s easy to share and discuss your broadcast after it’s over.” – Google

Follow me on Google+: plus.google.com/10268…

photo credit: gigaom

• Google Plus
• Record music P2P with Google+ Hangouts and Ableton Live

Sometimes it’s good just to turn your equipment on and make a sequence for no reason at all. MFB-522, Slim Phatty, Mbrane, Clap Track and DM-100 Delay.

“A real sequence is a sequence where the subsequent segments are exact transpositions of the first segment.” – Wikipedia

For more info: youtube.com/user/thingstocomerecords

• Ableton Live tip. Shift – Space Bar keeps you going.
• April Fools
• djay and Tangerine

This is my favorite Beastie song.

“Now my name is M.C.A. I’ve got a license to kill I think you know what time it is it’s time to get ill”

For more info: beastieboys.com

• Les Paul the Electric Guitar Man
• Ableton Live stars in the new movie Berlin Calling.
• The Archive. A short film about a lot of records.

As I am about three fourths of the way done with my next album and my studio is a mass of wires. I’ve become obsessed with syncing my old drum machines and analog synthesizers using various methods. I’m not looking for perfectly quantized MIDI. I’m looking for some Control Voltage madness. Last night’s experiment will definitely make it to a full song. I haven’t shared anything with you in a while with regards to my upcoming music but it’s time I start breaking the ice. The audio sample may not be your cup of tea but the method can be used to create all sorts of nonsense in many music styles.

I have an old Korg Rythm 55 drum machine. I go out of it’s Trig Out to a Doepfer Dark Time analog sequencer’s Click In. On the Korg you can set the sequencer to trigger in various times. If you select a 16th note you will get your typical Giorgio Moroder type of thing. This time I have it set to follow the Korg’s kick drum (blue arrow above). The Doepfer is hooked up to one of the oscillators on an Analogue Solutions Telemark synth (both pitch and filter). This time around I don’t want the Dark Time telling the synth to play different notes. I only want it to Trigger a very slight pitch change and that’s why (see the green arrow) I have the pitch line stop after the second step. The two steps are just slightly detuned. The filter does change open and closed over 8 steps (which you can only hear when the filter is partial closed at the beginning). If you notice there is a grey Midi cable plugged into the top of the Dark Time. If I wanted I could play different notes on my attached MIDI controller and the entire sequencing line would change pitch.

Hit play on the Korg and off we go. I turn up the filter, bring in the Korg’s snare and you have something from a different decade. To add to the whole vintage feel the Korg has some Boss DM-100 on it. You can hear when I hit the fills on the Korg the synth follows and it’s really magic. One last thing to note is if you look at the Analogue Solutions Telemark photo above you see that orange arrow? That points to the other oscillator that’s not being controlled by the Doepfer. Its another reason you hear a detuned sound. I can bring it and the noise knob in and out for great effect (or verse/chorus parts). Time to add the vocals.

“At its most basic, an analog sequencer is nothing but a bank of potentiometers and a “clock” that steps through these potentiometers one at a time and then cycles back to the beginning. The output of the sequencer is fed (as a control voltage and gate pulse) to a synthesizer. By “tuning” the potentiometers, a short repetitive rhythmic motif or riff can be set up.” – Wikipedia

For more info: thehorrorist.com

• SyncKontrol for Monotribe
• Electro Harmonix Sequencer Drum
• Future Sound Systems Decade Counter DC1

Acidlab who already make great Roland TR-808 (Miami) and TB-303 (Bassline) clones is recreating those products in beautiful Eurorack modular form. As far as pro-audio gearlust these things rate high on the wow I want to touch them scale. You can read an interview I did with Klaus Suessmuth here. Klaus posted these photos and information over at the Muffwiggler forum (link).

“The newest products are FRAME with 84TE space, a 5-ch Mixer and the POW-Modul. 3HE Case is at 75 Euro; the Powermodul with powersupply is at 65 Euro. POW-modules’ performance is +12V/700mA und -12V/700mA. Another new products will follow in the near future: 6HE Case, 303VCO & M303 (303-module); the 808-Drumodule will need more time. -a V/Octave to V/Hz Converter (for Korg-CV & Metasonix) will follow, too!” – Klaus Suessmuth

For more info: muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55660&highlight=acidlab

• Acidlab Autobot
• Wire to the Ear Interview with Klaus Suessmuth of Acidlab
• Acidlab Miami Demo Video

In the late 1960s Mike Matthews worked as a salesmen for IBM. He then started Electro Harmonix in NYC. The legendary effects pedal company is still going strong. His most famous pedal is the Big Muff fuzzbox. I’m far more interested in his very early analog products. One of them is awesomely named the Sequencer Drum. It’s a simple analog synth with an 8 step sequencer. You can hook two together and they will be in sync. You don’t buy these for their features. You buy them for the sound. Like calves liver it’s something not everyone is after. After watching the video above some of you are already on eBay. You won’t find these often. If your looking to recreate an early 80s Soft Cell demo cassette this is a good starting point.

“The Sequencer Drum is one of the rarest Electro Harmonix pedals. Unlike some of the other EH obscurities, this one is actually useful and sounds amazing! Not only is it an 8-step CV/Gate sequencer, but it has a built in synthesizer and a mode that allows you trigger the sequence at a set decay! The leather pad on the front is meant to be tapped to activate the trigger (hence the “drum” in the title). This particular sequencer is the fully patched out version, with an input that allows you to clock the unit externally, and CV and internal Clock outputs for sequencing other synthesizers.” – Matrixsynth (captured eBay description)

For more info: ehx.com and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-Harmonix

• Electro-Harmonix V256 Vocoder
• Just Playing
• Nomad Factory Echoes