Open Thread: What Was the First Electronic Sound That Caught Your Ears?

Since you're reading this blog, it's safe to assume you're probably pretty into electronic music.  In talking to a lot of other electronic musicians over the years, I've discovered that for many of us, there was a specific sound on a song that lit that spark of interest in synths.  For me, it was the eerie Vox Humana preset from the Moog Polymoog on Gary Numan's famous "Cars".  Both that, and the white noise "claps" on that song blew my little 8-year-old mind the first time I heard that song on the radio and a lifelong obsession began.  Was there a similar sound in a song that did it for you?  Most of us have certain types of sounds you gravitate to... what are yours?

(By the way, if you want some free samples of the Polymoog Vox Humana preset as used by Gary Numan, Hollowsun has some great ones in their free sample selection.

Open Thread: Tell Us What You Got for Xmas!

So, it's a couple days after Christmas now... anyone get any cool musical gifts? I got a Rode Deadkitten windscreen for my field recorder which should definitely help with outdoor recordings and a bunch of iTunes gifts cards. Share your haul in the comments!

Open Thread: What Was Your First Softsynth?

I was thinking the other day of how far software synthesis has come since it appeared on the scene and was thinking back to the first softsynth I ever used: Digidesign Turbosynth. It preceded VSTs and was a standalone modular environment for synthesizing sounds and manipulating samples. It didn't work in real time, so you had to render out the sounds before you could hear the results of your work. It was good at distorting and messing up drum sounds, but obviously was quite limited considering the era it was released in. What about you? What was your first software synth? Can you still run it on your computer? And if not, do you miss it? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Interesting Article: Everything Popular is Wrong

Someone shared this article with me on Facebook, and I thought you all might enjoy reading it. Steffan Goldman reflects on the democratization of music-making, why it's not necessarily a good thing, and how artists (a handful, at least) can rise above it all. I'd love to hear what you all think about it.

[via littlewhiteearbuds.com]

Open Thread: Your Favorite Drum Machine Sounds?

We haven't had a good old open thread in awhile, so maybe we're due? What's your favorite drum machine (you can choose separate ones for analog and digital) and why?

For me, I'd say the Korg KPR drum machines for my analog choice. Just for the snare drum alone (which will be familiar to anyone who owns Depeche Mode's first album...)

For digital, I'm going to make an unconventional choice in the Fricke-512B. This not-very-well-known 8-bit drum machine just sounds so amazingly crap that it's brilliant in a way. Reminds me of the Korg DDM-110, which was my first drum machine, but I think the Fricke is a bit more unique-sounding.

So what are yours? Answer in the comments!

Open Thread: Brag About Your Christmas Haul....

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday. Tell us what musical goodies you found under the tree this year in the comments!

My family hasn't actually opened presents yet, as my brother-in-law and his girlfriend are arriving in town today, but I'll gladly live vicariously through you guys!

Open Thread: Where Do You Find New Music?

So in our discussion of Prince's declaration of the Internet as being dead, I brought up that while I thought this was a preposterous statement, I did feel that the value of the internet for promotion was perhaps a bit overstated. A reader brought up the question about how people are finding out about new music these days and I thought this would make an excellent open thread.

As for me, I find new stuff mainly through friends with similar tastes (I have a lot of music geek friends, so it helps), through following the "Buyers Who Purchased This Item Also Bought This" links on iTunes, and through Pandora. What about you? What's your favorite way of finding new bands?

Open Thread Friday: Your First Gig

So on Monday, my band is embarking on a six week tour of the U.S.  We've been playing since 1996, so it's not a new experience by any means, but it always makes me look back on those early days with a mixture of fondness, laughter, dread, and embarrassment.  

Our first gig was a mini-festival of mostly unknown bands in Indianapolis, Indiana called "CircuitFest" (perhaps appropriately misprinted as "CircusFest" on the tickets).  The venue was an old theatre that looked like no one had done much upkeep on it in decades.  Paint chips hung from the walls, exposed wires dangled from the ceiling, and the room was pretty much a giant, concrete echo chamber.  A terrible venue for live music.  But we didn't know any better.  I don't know that I can give an accurate count of how many people were there.  I want to say 75, but I'm sure the fog of nostalgia has artificially inflated that number.  Not a bad showing for 5 bands no one had ever heard of, at any rate.  Speaking of which, that's what the marquee on the venue read: "5 Bands".  Even the venue knew no one knew who we were.  

After the show, we decided to get some booze and have a party back at the hotel.  Being that this was the first time we'd all met, we didn't really know who was with who.  So when we climbed in the van and this excitable, long-haired guy got in the van next to me, I thought nothing of it.  As we drove out of the venue parking lot, it became clear that this guy was blasted out of his mind.  This wasn't just drunk, this was that extra something special that makes it clear as day that someone has been hitting the drugs pretty hard.  I don't remember what it was specifically that he said, but it was all loud, odd, and not the sort of conversation you have with a van full of strangers.  I think he asked us if we were 'cyberpunks'.  All the while, all of the rest of us in the van were completely silent, uncomfortable, and thinking to ourselves, "who the hell brought this asshole?"

When we arrived at the hotel and got out of the van, some of us managed to whisper to one another, "Who is this guy?"  Before long, it became clear none of us knew this guy.  He was just some random wasteoid who climbed in our van.  I think we later learned he was a friend of the boyfriend of one of the singers, but at the time no one knew him.  Immediately, the mission became to ditch this guy.  I don't remember who came up with this brilliant scheme, but someone suggested that he go buy some more beer (because clearly he needed to be more wrecked).  He did so cheerfully, but forgot to ask what room we'd be in.  Mission accomplished.  I often wonder what happened to that guy after he realized he had no idea where he was supposed to go. I bet he had some adventures that night.

So what was your first gig like?  Did weird things happen, or was it totally unremarkable?  Do you remember the show itself (I don't)?  Spill the beans!

Welcome back!

So, how was everyone's Christmas? Anyone get any new music toys? Brag about your haul!

Open Thread Friday: Plug Yourself!

I'm a little burned out from spending the past two weeks shipping out pre-orders for the new album, so I'm copping out today. Reply to this thread to plug your music, blog, website, cool software project, or whatever!

We'll have some more Free Sample Fridays coming up soon, too!

Open Thread Friday: Your Favorite Year for Music?

Have you ever noticed that some years seem to produce an awful lot of really good albums while others produce virtually none? What's your favorite year for music based on the releases that came out during that time?

Mine would probably be 1987 which gave us:

Depeche Mode "Music for the Masses"

Nitzer Ebb "That Total Age"

Prince "Sign o' the Times"

Sinead O'Connor "The Lion & the Cobra"

The Jesus and Mary Chain "Darklands"

The Swans "Children of God"

The Replacements "Pleased to Meet Me"

Midnight Oil "Diesel & Dust"

Echo & the Bunnymen "Echo & the Bunnymen"

Wire "The Ideal Copy"

among others. Really, the whole period from about 1986-1988 was pretty good to my taste (or lack thereof).

Open Thread Friday: What's Your Least Favorite Effect?

Any musician has favorite and least favorite sounds, this much we know.  I'm fairly certain this crosses over to effects as well.  Is there a type of studio effect you absolutely can't stand?

For me, it's flanging.  There are some applications where I don't mind it (such as when Andy Summers used it on his guitar in the Police), but for the most part, I just hate it.  Am I just a cranky old man, or do you have certain effects you don't like either?  (I guess it can be both...)

Open Thread Friday: What's the Weirdest Thing You've Ever Sampled?

There's an unspoken universal truth about sampling. No matter how cultured or refined a person fancies themselves to be, the first moment they get their hands on a sampler, all that goes out the window and the first thing they try sampling is a burp, fart, or other bodily noise. Don't try to deny it. If you try to tell me you've never done this with a straight face you are a damn liar.

But after this initial regression to 2nd grade, most of us move on to try sampling more musically useful sound. I touched on this a bit earlier this week in my post about turning a 60 cycle hum into a bitchin' sub-bass. So it got me to thinking about how often some pretty strange things can be turned into musical sounds.

One odd project I had once was to create sounds out of nothing but the sound of paper. I forget what it was for... I want to say it was some theatrical thing, but a guy I knew who had let me sample some of his keyboards asked me to do it for him. Percussive sounds were obvious and easy, but I was surprised at how, with proper looping, the sound of tearing could be turned into a weird, scratchy synth sound. The other one that comes to mind is the infamous 'thump' that came out of some early Ensoniq keyboards when you switched them off. I recorded it to DAT, transposed it down a few semitones and with a little editing, I had a pretty weird kick drum.

So what's the most unusual thing you've ever sampled?

Open Thread Friday: Your MOST Favorite Synth Sounds?

Okay, so the topic of the day is the opposite of last week's... what are your most favorite synth or electronic sounds? It can be a general type of sound or a specific sound used in a song you like.

I've got too many to name, but I've always been a fan of the Yamaha CP-70 piano (think U2's "New Year's Day"), and the metallic synth playing the two-note motif in Depeche Mode's "Stripped". Come to think of it, I also love the string/voice sound on that trick. Also, pretty much every sound on Nitzer Ebb's "Belief" album.

So what are your faves?

Open Thread Friday: Your Least Favorite Synth/Electronic Sound

Woohoo! It's Friday, kids! Today's topic: what is your least favorite synth or electronic sound? Every electronic musician I know, no matter how into synths they are, has at least one famous synth sound that is like nails on a chalkboard to them. For me, it's a toss up between the DX-7 Rhodes preset that was like a plague in the 80's and the Roland TR-808 'cowbell' sound. So what's yours? It can be a synth preset, a sound from a drum machine, a sound used in a famous song...

Open Thread Friday: What Song or Artist Got You Into Electronic Music?

I thought I'd do another one of these since the last one got such a good response. What was the song or artist that got you interested in electronic music in the first place?

I'm still surprised with how vividly I remember mine. I was 8 years old and my family was visiting my aunt and uncle in the midwest. It was a fall day and my cousins and I were playing on their trampoline in the back yard. We had a radio playing some Top 40 type countdown show and this was the week that Gary Numan's "Cars" first charted in the US. When I first heard those Polymoog strings and the white noise clap sounds I froze and asked my cousins what instrument made that sound. They didn't know, and I wouldn't know until a few years later, all I knew is that whatever made those sounds was something I wanted to hear more of.

Cut to almost 30 years later and now I make my living making electronic music. I often wonder how differently my life might have turned out if we hadn't had the radio turned on that day.

Open Thread Friday: Your First Synth

What was your first synthesizer? Mine was a Korg Poly-800. I was in about 7th grade and had recently discovered synthesizers and became obsessed with getting one of my own. There was a music store (the now sadly defunct "Downtown Music" in White River Junction, Vermont) across the street from the martial arts studio I was taking lessons at and I used to spend hours at before and after my Karate and Judo classes. The guy who ran the store was a friendly guy who called himself "Downtown Dave" (as an adult, I now realize how much that sounds like a pimp name...) who never bitched that his store became my second home despite my inability to buy anything there. I eventually decided I absolutely had to have a Korg DW-6000.

So, I worked all summer mowing lawns and clearing brush and saved my money away. I really worked my ass off, all the time reminding myself what it was for when I'd get tired. Eventually, I saved up almost enough for the synth, and my parents, impressed by my determination, volunteered to pick up the rest of the cost so I could get it. I was over the moon. But, since I just told you my first synth was a Poly-800, you can probably guess I never got the DW-6000. Turns out it was discontinued at precisely the point I had the funds to buy it, and the DW-8000 that replaced it was a bit too much to afford. I was devastated and felt totally defeated. I more or less forgot about ever getting a synth.

Cut forward to that Christmas and under the tree was a second hand, but totally mint Poly-800 with a nice hardshell case, a stand, and a little practice amp. I'm not sure if I even opened my other presents until later that morning. I set the synth up in the other room and played with it for hours on end, undoubtedly driving my family up the wall since I didn't actually know how to play an instrument at that point.

The Poly-800 wasn't a great synth. Truth be told, it's actually a pretty mediocre machine. But I got so much use out of that thing and learned how to use it inside and out. I taught myself to play it, I taught myself to program it, and I eventually recorded 3 90-minute tapes full of (terrible) original music before I even reached high school. I never had any idea back then that it would open the door to what would eventually become my career, but I will never forget the Christmas I got it.

So what was your first synth? What do you remember about it? And how many of you are going to make me feel like an old man by having your first synth be a softsynth?