Info at the listing...Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Imaginary Covers
This has nothing to do with electronic music per se, but I found it sort of interesting. The original poster recreated the underrated Pixes' track "Hey" as if Prince had done a cover of it. It's kind of interesting deconstruction of what makes a particular artist sound the way they do. What covers that never happened would you like to hear?
[via WorseBrains on YouTube]
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Nitzer Ebb and Die Krupps Team Up Again
I had no idea this was happening. The bands had previously collaborated in the early 1990's on a track called "The Machineries of Joy". Above you'll find a new interpretation of the Nitzer Ebb classic "Blood Money". You'll find more tracks at here.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Free Sample Friday: Resonator
If you've read this blog for any length of time, you're probably aware that I am a big proponent of using effects as part of the sound design process. Today's free sample selection is a perfect example of that ethos. This sound started life as a simple plucked squarewave sound from Arturia's Jupiter-8V. But after feeding it through Ohmicide, Logic's Space Designer, and D16's Toraverb, it takes on the character of a struck metal pole. 6 samples @ 24-bit/44.1k weigh in at 5.58 MB. Enjoy!
GO GET THEM!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Music Made with Jeans
Ever wonder what Stomp would sound like if they had a fetish for denim? Of course you have.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Native Instruments Releases Reaktor 5.6
Native Instruments has updated Reaktor to version 5.6 which adds, among other things, 64-bit compatibility and improved documentation...
Novation A-Station (selling for Charity) on eBay
Mr. Psyche Poppet is selling his Novation A Station with all the proceeds being donated to the Rehills (read the 2 posts down for their story). So if you've been looking to pick one up, here's a great way to do it and know that it'll help someone in need!
Info at the listing...
Review: Sample Magic Deep House
Product: SM24 Deep House
Format: Digital Download of Apple Loops, REX, Stylus RMX, plus Reason NNXT, Logic EXS-24, and Kontakt 2.
Genre: House, Disco
Distributed by: Sample Magic
Price: £39.90
Demo: Audio demos on product page.
Deep House is the latest sample library from Sample Magic. As with previous releases, this is a collection of both drum loops and one-hit sounds aimed at giving you everything you need to create your own afterhours club tracks. The overall sound of the collection melds elements of classic house, lounge, and nu-disco in a mellow, but head-bobbing hybrid. So let's see what's on offer here...
Let's have a look at the loops first. The collection starts out with a couple of folders of basslines. There's a good mix of organic and synthetic here with both acoustic/electric basslines and funky synth bass alike. Creative use of effects helps these stand out and feel ready to drop right into your arrangement. As with all the melodic loops in this collection, the key of the loop is listed in the name. The two folders of Chords loops feature lush stings, chunky pianos, ambient synths and lots of tasty delay. The Combi loops take things one step further combining basslines, chord parts, leads, and spare drum parts to give you an "almost complete" slice of music to customize. This is followed by an ample collection of Drum Loops (some in multiple variations). There's a nice variety here from stompy 909's and shuffling cymbals to quasi-tribal funkiness, to more minimal, mellow offerings. All are beautifully produced, punchy, and crisp. A small selection of heavily-edited Glitch Vox loops are a nice addition with a very authentic vibe to them. Both the Perc Loops and the Tops Loops are aimed at adding some spice to your standard kick and snare patterns. A nice range of feels can be found here from stiff and driving to loose and funky. Finally, we have some Synth Loops, which include not only lush, electronic beds, but riffs constructed with guitar, electric piano, and other more organic sounds. All useful and well put together.
In addition to the loops, there are a ton of one shot samples in the following categories: Chords and Stabs, Claps and Snares, Cymbals, FX, Hats, Kicks, Percussion, Synthetic Percussion, Tribal Hits, and Tribal Hits. You'll find pretty much everything you need to program complete rhythm arrangements for your house tunes, although most of these sounds would be extremely useful to any sort of club musician. The sounds are generally minimally processed with compression and EQ so you are free to customize them as appropriate for your particular song. Everything sounds fantastic, and I ran into no problems with the sample instruments when I tested them in Logic's EXS-24.
All in all, another job well done from the Sample Magic camp. If you're in the mood to make yourself some chunky, shuffley house tracks, this would be an excellent place to start. [9/10]
I Don't Ordinarily Do This Sort of Thing, But...
... This is too important NOT to post.Charles Rehill and I have been friends for over a decade now. I met him right as he was starting his project Lost Signal, and indeed he asked me to produce his debut album. Many years later, I signed Charles to my 23db Records label and have been releasing his music ever since.
Earlier this year, Charles and his lovely wife Kristine welcomed their first child into the world. Although he was born healthy, he arrived a bit earlier than anticipated and required special care. Despite the fact that the Rehill's had been paying nearly $1,000 a month for health coverage, their insurance company denied the claim for their son's special care leaving them stuck with a bill for over $225,000. That's right. They HAVE insurance and are now stuck with nearly a quarter million dollar bill. Needless to say, this has put the new family in a pretty precarious condition.
I know that the economy is tough right now and that many of us are struggling to get by as it is, but if you are able to help in any way, you'd be lightening their load significantly. How can you help? There's a couple ways:
1.) Kristine has started a Chipin page to accept donations and share their story. It doesn't matter how small your donation is... even a buck helps. This is the fastest and most immediate way you can help.
2.) All this summer, if you order a copy of Charles' "Eviscerate" CD through the Assemblage 23 Online Store, I will waive the shipping cost of your entire order, no matter how big it is and no matter where you live. Note that when you receive your initial order confirmation that it will list a shipping fee, but this will be removed before your items ship.
3.) Head over to Lost Signal's Bandcamp page and purchase any of Charles's excellent releases. Been looking for an excuse to pick up the new "Apparition" CD? Now you can do it and know it's going to a good cause as well.
NOTE: Although the donation site indicates that they are only accepting donations until May 18th, that's actually May 18th 2012.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Logic Updated
Apple has updated Logic to version 9.1.4 which includes the following changes:
About the Logic Pro 9.1.4 update
Compatibility
- Logic can now open songs created by GarageBand for iPad.
Performance and Stability
- Logic now provides more specific messaging when playback is stopped because of hard drive performance issues.
- Resolves an issue in which Logic sometimes performed very slowly after a project that was saved without assets was consolidated.
- Logic no longer quits unexpectedly when copying, pasting, or swapping voices between slots in Ultrabeat.
64-bit Mode
- Resolves an issue in 64-bit mode in which a generic interface for some 32-bit plug-ins was displayed.
Automation
- Resolves an issue in which moving a region to a different Arrange track assigned to the same channel strip could cause automation to be deleted.
- Drag-copy of automation curves now works as expected on grouped tracks.
- Moving an automation node that lies between two other nodes of the same value to the left or right no longer causes it to decrease by -0.1 db in value.
- Resolves an issue introduced in Logic 9.1 in which performing Undo after using the "Move Visible Track Automation to Region" command would delete the automation.
Audio Editing
- Resolves an issue in which performing Undo after creating an alias for a region would shorten the region in No Overlap mode.
- Audio Regions that contain slashes in the name can now be successfully merged using the Glue Tool or Merge command.
- Quantization of audio regions that have stretched or compressed and contain tempo information now works reliably.
- Quantize and Q-Strength now work properly on regions created by exporting a Comp from a Take Folder.
- Resolves an issue where lengthening an audio region could sometimes cause the audio to unexpectedly stretch.
- Performing Undo after flattening Takes on a group of flexed tracks now works as expected.
- Takes no longer sometimes display as soloed when their parent Take folder is disclosed but not selected.
- Resolves an issue in which moving a take region with Quick Swipe Comping disabled sometimes did not move the corresponding take region(s) in tracks within the same Edit Group.
- Fixes an issue in which dividing a take region that had been created by merging several take regions together could cause the area to the right of the edit to disappear.
- Resolves an issue in which moving a take region with Quick Swipe Comping disabled sometimes did not move the corresponding take region(s) in tracks within the same Edit Group.
- Fixes an issue in which dividing a take region that had been created by merging several take regions together could cause the area to the right of the edit to disappear.
- Resolves an issue in which importing a Take folder into a project with a matching track could cause existing takes to be removed from Take folders in the original track.
Control Surface Support
- Resolves an issue introduced in Logic 9.1.2 in which pickup mode for generic control surfaces did not work as expected.
General
- Resolves an issue in which the key commands Next Screenset and Previous Screenset were reversed.
- If the Startup Action preference is set to “Ask,” it is again possible to open a project by dragging it onto the Logic icon while the Startup window is open.
- The default region quantize setting is now maintained after importing channel strips from another project.
Togu Audio Line Releases Version 1.0 of TAL Vocoder 2
This was announced over the weekend, but I was out of town, so I missed it, but Togu Audio Line has released version 1.0 of its free TAL-Vocoder 2. Here's the deets:- 11 band vocoder engine.
- Internal carrier synth (pulse, saw, sub osc, noise, mono, poly, portamento, sync mode, tune).
- Possiblity to route an external carrier signal.
- Harmonic control (adds more harmonics to any carrier signal)
- "Ess" enhancer for a clean understandable voice, also with a carrier that hasnt much high frequencies.
- Clip LED, glows if the input signal will be clipped.
- Panic button stopps hanging notes within the synth.
- Documentation shows different routing possiblities.
- Low CPU usage.
- New Chorus Effect
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Another photo...
And here's a photo of me (that's me on the right) singing for Bruderschaft, a project that raises money and awareness for cancer research, also provided by Chris Christian.
Thank You, Montreal!
Had an amazing time at the Kinetik Festival in Montreal last night. I actually sang two sets back to back, one for Bruderschaft, and one for my own band Assemblage 23. This is one of the best-organized festivals we've ever played and the crowd was absolutely astounding given that it was day 4 of the fest - such energy! Can't wait to come back!(Thanks to Chris Christian for the picture!)
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