I shipped of the SP-808

Well, it has been done. The SP-808 has been bought by a good guy I know on some music forums. I am confident that it is going to a good new home. I am however now left with this confused notion of what to do. Looking at my music setup and needs I feel that there is no pressing issue for me to try to replace my sampler with something else. I seem to have made some great music the past year without using it much.

Do I perhaps invest in a sampler just to have a sampler in my setup for that odd occasion? I know at least one of my tracks was made stronger because of it. Then again I have always wanted to invest in nanoloop for some on the run 8-bit action. I see myself sitting on the nanoloop site however hesitant to click that buy button because, again I don't really need it. I don't have that dying urge.

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Music Production Blogs Round-Up

Chances are good, that if you are actually reading my blog then you would be intrested in reading more blogs about music production and electronic music. I rounded up a list below of the best music production blogs that I could find.
Whether it surpsies you or not I actually subscribe to all of their ATOM or RSS feeds and read them. If you know of any other good ones plase pass them my way. I am always up for some new blogs to waste my day on.

Topics range from music software, to production techniques, to just personal thoughts on the music industry. Bust out your favorite feedreeder and start reading.

http://www.musichardware.blogspot.com
http://www.musicsoftware.blogspot.com
http://www.livepa.blogspot.com
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/
http://laptopstudio.thunderguy.com/
http://www.audiomastermind.us/
http://createdigitalmusic.com/
http://www.pixelsumo.com/ <------performance art/VJ'ing
http://melodiefabriek.nl/
http://drumkill.blogspot.com/
http://c64music.blogspot.com/
http://beepsnort.org/
http://www.chinesenewear.com/gno/
http://www.dizzyobrian.org/Blog.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/
http://synthwire.blogspot.com/
http://synthosium.blogspot.com/
http://subtlenoisemaker.blogspot.com/
http://monopoly.web-log.nl/
http://maschinensound.de/blog/ <----------- In German
http://gnosticrocket.blogspot.com/
http://www.getlofi.com/

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Ambient Music, Beginnings and Implications, by Chris Melchior

.:Ambient Music, Beginnings and Implications:.

I found this nice article online by Chris Melchoir that tries to outline and explain ambient music. As he states in his aricle, ambient music is extremely hard to define and I personally completely concur. Ambient music itself is such a diverse genre of music and any one particular definition may or may not hold up depending upon the listener of the particular piece.

The ultimate answer to this piece may not be to find a definition of ambient music. I think most ambient listeners and musicians would shutter at the notion of a concrete definition, but this article gives a nice insight trying to explain the qualities of ambient beyond just the sound.

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The Birth of the Technical Creative

While I was growing up as a kid I was constantly told about how there are two different types of personalities in this world. Those who are considered to be creatives and those who are the logicals. The creatives are often times associated with the right-brain and the logicals to be associated with the left-brain.

Up until the computer age it didn't seem that people were afforded options where they could explore their left and right brains, and there did not exist many fields that explored both sides of the classification. I mean artists were generally relegated to being painters, musicians or dancers, while the logics were largely relegated to the math and science fields.

Looking at the progression of electronic music however, particularly computer based electronic music, the distinctions between these groups seems to diminish some doesn't in it? For example we have programs out there now such as Max/MSP where the musicians are literally programming their sounds with math. Trackers for years have turned music creation into the process of placing mathematical numbers, in HEX format no less, into well defined segmented mathmatical time frames. Modular synthesizers, digital DSP, analog has really blended the line.

It is curious to wonder if this progression of the technological age and the computer age will tear down the past common psychological perspectives of the left vs. right and the creative vs. logical. Maybe, we won't have to try to categorize people as a "one or the other" and perhaps we can allow and encourage everyone to explore both sides of their psychological personality. I am curious if anyone in the professional field will ever pick up this change in the younger generations as more and more of the general population is born out of the computer age.


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The Inevitable String of Failure

Throughout my time of making music, I have come up with numerous hair brained ideas that I thought were fantastic, but ultimately did not come to fruitition. Chances are most artists have these crazy ideas floating around, but we are mostly to scared to tell people about them. I would safely bet that they are just as crazy as the ideas that I am about to type about here.

My first crazy idea came a few years ago when I was trying to find new and creative ways to make music. At the time I was beginning to stumble upon different forms of algorithmic music and I thought making an algorithmic album would be fun. For those who do not know what algorithmic music is, it is essentially music created by the computer from some parameters set by the user. The artist does not really create the music and the results are largely random each time.

While this seemed like a good idea at the time, the implementation of the idea was extremely difficult. I really could not develop anything beyond crazy noise.

My second crazy idea was to develop an art show where I showcased fractal artwork that I dabbled in while playing live music to the fractals. Again, while this idea sounded really cool, the actual execution was hard. As I began to create more and more fractal artwork I found that the costs of printing art for display was extremely expensive. When I initially researched it, the costs were around $100.00 per piece.

The third crazy idea was to develop my livepa act into a storytelling session. If any of you out there reading this are familiar with livepa shows or electronic music events, video and visuals are a common theme. The thing that was bothering me at the time however is that no matter where you seem to go the visuals are largely the same; abstract, random images that randomly or partially sync to the music.

My idea was to develop something with a little more meaning, where the music and the visuals were more closely connected and had direction. What I planned on doing was developing a shadow puppetry show where the music told a story. After again researching these ideas the difficulties of telling a story like this live without the feel of it being pre-recorded was extremely difficult. If I planned on doing live visuals and music then it would take many people to successfully execute the project. On the other if either the music or visuals were pre-recorded then the show would lose its live feel and ability for improvisation.

That brings us up to our forth and final crazy project. This one is actually still on my to do list, but we will see if this ever happens.....

This final project was initially designed to be a computer animated movie that chronicled the diary entries of a soldier in a future war. In this story no one knew the identity of the solder or which side he was on. The war would be one that had no inherent good or evil and the reader in this case would be able to take sides with either aprty of the war. To what this topic is exactly I don't know. (Ideas would be great.)

As the years sort of rolled by the idea has slightly changed. I have now modified it into a blog book format where the journal entries are posted on a blog and audio clips in the form of podcasts act as supplementals in forms ranging from music, to news broadcasts, to whatever. While this current idea seems a little more feasible, my excitement for the project grows while my realization for the project dwindles.

It seems every time I want to begin it I have another reason to push it off.

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Ambient Acid Techno: Raging Bull

Ok, here it is. The first of one of the two new tracks. This one isn't entirely new, because it is actually the last track that I posted a few weeks ago as a work in progress.

I changed so much of this track however, that it really is a new piece. This one is much more technoy and features a nice little bubbly acidline, with counter point digital synths. I added a new more rolling bassline and developed the middle section of the piece into a more relaxing break from the begining half of the track.

Raging Bull
.:Lofi:.

.:Hifi:.

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Despite a Bad Start the Day Was Successful

Well, despite a rather frustrating morning (read below) the day actually ended up being extremely productive (musically that is). I spent about four hours this afternoon writing and re-writing some material and then about two hours this evening recording the two new tracks. I'm actually surprised at how quickly I got the tracks recorded. It only took about three takes for each track. For those who don't know about audio recording three takes is a surprisingly short time.

I have the tracks recorded to minidisc, so hopefully they should be up sometime Monday after I get back to my apartment and put them onto the computer.

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Ahh!!! I Just Ruined It!!!!!!!!

Well......After working on a song for about three hours and finally coming up with something that I found useful I accidentally just ruined the song. I am sure everyone has done this with some project at least once in their life.

You have something that looks our sounds pretty good, but you can't leave it alone. You just have to poke and prod at it trying to extract a little something more. Then BOOM!!!! Everything blows up in your face.

In my case I accidentally hit song mode or something on my EMU Command Station changing all of the synth and percussion sounds I had so carefully programmed in into something else. Thankfully all of the patterns I wrote are still there, but now I have to re-program the sounds from scratch.

Here is some good advice for life. Always hit the save button.

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Selling my Roland SP-808

Ok, I am planning on selling my SP-808. The thing is just frustrating me beyond belief. While I love the effects on the thing, the sequencer is just a nightmare.

So I am in the market for a new sampler. I sort of wanna keep the price in the $500 or less range. Anyone have any tips?

I know a lot of people really like the the Korg ESX-1 for live. Another option I am considering is the Roland SP-404. Now, while the demos look great online I am weary of purchasing another SP coming fresh off of my nightmare experience with the SP-808. It does look to have some great features though and with the small size and ability to have upto a 1Gb smartcard it is very appealing. It even allows me to still be able to do the drone loops.

I have never been a hardcore sampler so options of spending a little less for an old SU700, ES-1 or something are certainly open. I suppose I should go for the more sampling memory to grow into though.

I know someone will probably ask what will I be using the sampler for. To be honest, I am not really sure. Probably a little bit of everything. My 808 was so frustrating that I manily used to for drone loops and ambient noise and just could not wrap my head around the sequencer on the thing.

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