Orbital are back!!! At least for one performance, and pictures of their new live setup are up on the net. Looks like some fantastic analog porn in this shot. Anyone know what modular is in the back? http://www.loopz.co.uk/
via LivePA.org
I am a total sucker for Tesla Coil performances and I cannot think of a better song that is worthy of being performed on one. Here we have two Tesla Coils performing the Dr. Who theme in total geeky fashion.
via Wired.com
Satellite (8 of8)
Every once in a while I stimble across something that just brings a smile to my face. That thing today was this live video by the group Recorder. The video above has them apparently covering a song Skater Boy by Avril Lavgine. The song is called Satellite Not sure if it is that or not, but I love the mix, the stage presence and just everything about them. Check them out at their myspace page http://www.myspace.com/recorder
via Matrixsynth
I think I may have just found our Doppelganger site. DeadAct is an online blog geared solely at showcasing electronic LivePA acts who blatantly fake their liveset. Love the idea, name and concept
“DeadAct.com is an online archive of videos found in the public domain that show electronic performers blatantly faking their "live set". To qualify as a Dead Act, the performer must have pre set out their performance in such a way that if they were to drop dead, the set would keep playing on as normal. Bonus points for fake knob tweaking, failed attempts to play real instruments , and good orgasm faces. ....Do they think we're stupid?”
.:Soundcloud.com:.
So tonight at 6:00 PM Eastern Soundcloud.com officially launched to the public. I jumped at the chance and signed up to it right away to give it a quick run down and find out what it is all about. After exploring the site for an hour or so I think the simplest explanation of what it is, is Twitter for music sharing. The core of the site exists around musicians being able to upload their music (of any size and length) and then share it with followers. It has a similar followers system to what Twitter uses and you can subscribe to artists on the site. 
Sounds pretty basic right? Well it is, but there are a whole slew of other cool features on the site that make it really cool. For example, one such featured is what they called a timed comment. While you are listening to a track an user and insert a comment on the timeline of the track right where they want. They can for example say "That was a great buildup" and insert it right at the point of the track where it occurred. 
Also on the site there appears to be some excellent sharing features to embed your music externally. But, one of the coolest features is the dropbox feature. Soundcloud provides you a link to to allow anyone to drop music off for your to listen to. Feel free to drop music at the link below
Dynamic Interplay's Dropbox
So, overall this site is very cool and has a huge potential to allow for musicians to interact with each other. If anyone else out there is using the site or signs up, send me a request on the site and we can get to sharing some music. My username is DInterplay. Let me also point out that there are no file size limits to the music you upload!!!!
How to Create Your Own Daft Punk EL Suit
You love Daft Punk's live shows, right? Who doesn't with their amazing visuals, giant pyramids and outstanding costumes. While it may cost you $65,000 to buy your own Daft Punk style helmet you can create your own EL suit for considerably less. Instructables.com has a great tutorial up for those DIY'ers who have the time and patience to build the suit. even better is the fact that this little DIY tutorial is lead by the very same person who created the original suits for Daft Punk. How about that?
via Engadget.com
.:Tesla Coil Performance at the University of Illinois' Engineering Open House:.
I just had to post this one, being that U of I is my alma mater. So we have all seen Tesla Coil performances before. They are all the rage apparently. I don't think we have seen any quite as involved as this one however. So what we have here basically is a performance that occurred during the Engineering Open House that the University does every year to entice new slaves students to the engineering department. U of I for those not in the know has one of the country's primer engineering programs (I was in Poly Sci.....yes.....ahem). Anyways the department every year puts on these crazy demonstrations to wow students and parents on the campus and this year they did a Tesla Performance in a frightening cold 4 degree night. Check out the quote below for how they set it up. Click on the link above for the Quicktime video.
Mark Smart performs live in Urbana, Illinois on March 7, 2008. This outdoor concert was part of a student-run open house for the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. Tesla coils were used to create musical pitches via a control system designed by university student Steve Ward. Two coils were used. The right coil is playing a pre-recorded Midi track, acting as the bass, and the left one is performed live as a lead sound via the Continuum fingerboard. The Midi track as well as additional audio backing tracks were played via Cubase running on a Open Labs Neko workstation. In spite of the frigid temperatures (4 degrees Farenheit, 26 mph winds), the concert was well attended and was voted the most popular event of the open house.
Everyone loves lasers right? Sure you do. You are probably not really into harps however are you now. Now what if those harp strings were lasers? I would bet that you are a little more interested. In the video above we have a great laser harp constructed by Stephen Hobley.
Quote:
Stephen Hobley just perfected his laser harp. The audio is adjusted by breaking the beam between the source and mirror array above. No, you can't buy it, but we expect it to appear with a Ukrainian dressed in animal skins at Eurovision 2008.
Well it looks like we are out of the convention season and from that we have seen quite the round of micro-laptops coming out from different manufacturers. Everything from the Asus eeePC to the OLPC it looks like micro-laptops are here to stay, and for the better I say. Since we have there seems to be quite a few of these little laptops coming out on the market I think it might bet worthwhile to perhaps provide everyone with an overview of the features and specs between the laptops. I have whipped up a little chart above comparing some of the features for each of the laptops. Some have better values over others, but overall I think they all have a unique perspective that they could bring to the table for Live artists.
As I have mentioned before, you are probably not going to be running Ableton Live on this platform, but some other software such as music programming languages, trackers or midi software might be perfect for them and since I am mentioning it I think I might as well list some of the software out there that I think could be useful for for performing or general music production
Music Programming Languages
ChucK
CSound
Pure Data
Bidule
Trackers
MilkyTracker
Renoise
CheeseTracker
Jeskola Buzz
Psycle
Modplug Tracker
Goattracker (8-bit Emulator)
Raster Music Tracker (8-bit Emulator)
Midi Software
IXI Software
SEQ24
Tutka
[ttrk] TekTracker
MidiOX
Well that is just a small taste of some of the software I think these machines might be useful for. I am sure all of the readers could come up with much more creative ideas themselves and I am sure you are all aware of software I have never heard of.
Show Review: Sequential Circus 2
Sequential Circus 2 was a show at Open Studios, Vancouver BC, on January 19th of this year, put on by East Van techno guru Mux of the Listening Room Collective, which has previously been responsible for a popular series of shows at the Vancouver Planetarium. The show featured a sound system that was actually two systems put together, a total of four double-18" Yorkville bins and four Yorkville tops plus an extra system to help flush the sound out (two Mackie SRM450s and a pair of Mackie 1501 powered subs) that delivered perfectly balanced highs, a crisp, appealingly crunchy midrange and very, very visceral bass. Also utlized was Open Studios' large video wall, upon which mixed psychedelic visuals were projected during the performances.
The night opened with a performance by Haagen (aka Dasz), a factory preset designer for the popular Clavia Nord Modular G2 synthesizers, who delivered a smashing first-ever livePA performance that mixed minimal and hard techno with a truly energetic progressive house flourish. Naturally, a pair of red Nords were utilized for the show, as well as a Yamaha RS7000, among other things. Dasz prepared his innagural set with care, and only after borrowing my headphones several times did he deem his instruments ready. During sound check, his music exploded to life, possibly larger and louder than he had ever imagined. It filled him with giddy adrenaline and pride, which resulted in a very well executed and highly energetic set that seemed to have a style all its own. If this first-ever set is any indication, "Haagen" Dasz is someone to keep an eye on in the future.
Next was yours truly, J. Wells (aka God In The Machine) with a set of stripped down breakbeats underpinned with amp crushing bass. Overall, the set was described by many as "heavy metal dubstep", and drew comparisons also to hip-hop, DnB, trip-hop, and of course industrial music. Though the sound system cut to silence very abruptly a couple of times during the set, possibly from too much bass tripping the main mixer's internal failsafe, the overall result still made many heads nod.
Following closely was Vancouver livePA staple Transgress, who dropped an absolutely flawless set that drew heavily from old skool techno, breaks, trance, and even psychedelic dub-like textures. Having worked under many different names and in several bands, Transgress, aka Peter "Fish" Fisera earned his stripes by performing techno and trance live, with no sequencing or automation on stage, playing everything by hand. He has since entered the MIDI age, using a pair of Alesis MMT-8 sequencers and an array of old school hardware so complex and well coordinated, it requires a handwritten manual in order to play-- which made an remained in Fish's lap during most of the set. To describe this old school angle is somewhat misleading, however, as there is nothing stale or overplayed about Transgress' music; on the contrary, it is a more refined sound than one might expect, a clear progression of electronic music that seems wholly separate from the long succession of unimaginative dj music which has dragged electronica down over the last decade. It seems to spring from something older than the fatal popularity of the so-called techno sound, and springs straight past those lowered expectations to present itself for what it really is: extremely well crafted, unpretentious, and futuristic electronic music.
Next came San Francisco's Komega, who used a minimal setup of an iBook, two control surfaces and his colourfully lit home made wireless controller, the keytar-like Live Pad, to drop an Ableton Live-fueled set of what he terms "tech breaks". Resembling a cross between cutting edge tech house and west coast chemical breaks, Komega's glitching IDM leaves other Live-based performers in the dust without a clue. Unlike many Ableton Live performers, his set was anything but repetitive and predictable, proving once again that software performance is only limited by the creativity of the performer.
The final performance of the night came from the duo John Tennant and Ricardo Almeida, whose brilliant set of 100% improvised music went well beyond the scheduled cutoff point of 3:15 am. With a setup that could only be manned by two master technicians like themselves, John and Ricardo's sound took shape right before our eyes as an ever-changing yet entirely cohesive continuous mix that was as engaging as it was creative. Particularly interesting was the duo's use of Nintento DS handheld game systems running custom sampling software, which they used to record, warp and playback samples on the fly. Truly defiant of categorization, their set was a feat of true artistry fused seamlessly with remarkable engineering.
The above photo, courtesy of Matthew Trentacoste, gives a limited view of the geargasmic chaos from the back of the stage. Setups for five of the six performing artists can be seen (although not in their entirety), with John Tennant and Ricardo Almeida's gear resting in the foreground (John to the left of the mixer, with the Electribe and Akai sampler, Ricardo on the right with one of the three red Nords visible); above and to the left are Komega's shiny silver boxes, the iBook and controllers (Live Pad not shown); on the right, just behind Ricardo's vintage Roland JX-3p analogue synth is my own setup, identifiable by the trusty livePA hallmarks that are the Juno 106, Yamaha RM1X, and another Electribe sampler, and a bottle of water, among other things; finally, at twelve o'clock is Haagen's dual Nord and RS7k setup. Transgress' old skool gear wonderland not pictured.
It was the kind of show where it is hard to pick a favourite performer because everyone brought their best to the table. Differences in style, gear and aesthetic brought a lot of variety to the show, with each act having something significant and genuine to offer the crowd. All in all it was a rare chance to see a truly diverse group of artists from near and far throw down their best, brightest, or in my case heaviest sounds, the sort of show that could never happen twice. There isn't the remotest possibility of an exact repeat, in fact; the venerable Mux tells me that each Sequential Circus event includes an entirely new lineup, with no repeat artists, in order to ensure the most variety from show to show.
Recordings are due out soon. Until then, be sure to check out the Sequential Circus website for news about the next Sequential Circus, tentatively slated to happen every six months, plus recordings from the previous show on July 7 of last year. When the recordings for the Jan. 19 show finally escape the post-production blackness, they will be there too.
Forum member Audioelectronic over at the livePA.org boards brought up a very interesting point in one of today's posts. He noticed some very striking similarities between the newly announced Akai XR20 and the Alesis SR18. As you can see in the above picture both machines share the exact same rear panels.
The similarities do not end there however. They both have 32 mb sound sets; have 100 preset/100 user patterns; feature EQ, compression and reverb effects. Those LCD screen layouts look eerily familiar as well. Coincidenc? I don't think so. Both Alesis and Akai are owned by Numark now adays it might not be any surprise that they are sharing resources, but damn, these are the same machines just one has MPC pads and one doesn't. Lets hope they at least have different soundsets.
Well we have had quite the rush of drum-machine news over the past week haven't we? With all of these new drum-machines out and coming out you surely must have your heart set on one of them. So which one are you craving the most? Checkout the new poll on the right hand column of the main page of the blog and vote for which drum-machine you want the most.
Well Christmas is fast approaching upon us here. we all have our wishlists, gear lusts and wants. Sure there is something on there that you may be getting, but lets face it. Not many of our friends or spouses can afford to drop $1,000 or more on a gift. That still leaves us with your lusty gear lists of wants that we may or may not get. So do you have a gear list that you are just wishing for? Lets hear it in the comment section if you got one.
Here is mine.
Jomox Xbase 999
Elektron Machine Drum
Elektron Monomachine
Korg Kaossilator
Korg Mini-KP
EMU Roms (Darn these things are expensive these days)
Korg ESX1
Haken Audio Continuum
Nord Modular
Novation K-Station (I Still want one of these)
Anyone have $15,000?
.:2x's the Tesla Coils = 2x's the Fun:.
And you thought hearing the Mario theme on a Tesla Coil was sweet. Now hear it in stereo!!!!!
In the latest episode of The Electronic Musician Podcast, I covered as my topic for discussion LivePA. Essentially my discussion is an outline of my LivePA Getting Started Guide posted here on the boards. If you are interested in hearing it, or if you are just interested in checking out a great (wink, wink) podcast for electronic music producers head on over to http://www.tem.podshow.com to check it out.
Well the results are in on the first poll. Man, I gotta say I was expecting more of you out there to respond. Only 20 votes? Now we are by no means a huge traffic site, if anything we are about as niche as you can get, but we are getting well of 100 hits a day on the low end.
Perhaps I was just naive to think that many readers were actually performing live.
Besides all that though, the results came up to be pretty interesting. I was not expecting so many people to be using hardware only these days. It also looks like our strongest group also then swayed to the Mac+Gear camp. That sure debunks my impression of most LivePA artists rocking out on a Dell with Ableton Live.
So anyone have any suggestions for another poll?
Free to be DIY for you and me....
Authors Michael Dean and Chris Caulder have a released a new creative commons book outling music creation from anywhere and everywhere from your backpack.
the author states:
I came up with the idea for this book, Digital Music – DIY Now! in early 2005. I’d just finished writing three books by myself and making two movies and wanted to do something different. I wanted to write another book, not by myself, but with some really smart buddies.
I wrote a proposal, pitched it to my agent, Matt Wagner of Fresh Books, and he secured a publisher, Que. Que is a well known publisher with a lot of decent tech books out, and they get their books into everywhere.
Que liked my idea of writing with several other experts, and I thought I’d enjoy the challenge of working with others. It seemed like a nice change from the isolation of writing a book by myself.>
Woot!!! Woot!!!
Blogger went live with template polls today so we can now post polls in the sidebar for everyone to post to. If your reading through the RSS feed head on quickly over to the main page and give our poll a quick vote.
We are starting off real simple on this first one. The question is "What are you using for your LivePA?".
Hardware, PC, Mac or some Hardware/Computer combination.
Let us know and lets find out what everyone is using.
