Disassembling a Korg Radias

If you are like me, and want to know what's inside a Korg Radias, check this thread on www.korgforums.com . These are some pictures taken during the process of replacing a faulty encoder.

Delia Derbyshire teaches how to loop

This is as raw as it gets. Delia shows us how to create a theme using tape loops. She make it look simple, but we all know it is not. No it isn't. We have all this technology at the tip of our fingers and we can't play a straight 4/4 loop. Watch her making polyrythms with a click. You go girl !

Folk Collectors for the Web 2.0 generation (?)

In June 1933 Alan and John Lomax set out on their first field recording expeditions into the towns and villages of America to collect and make recordings of American folk songs, with a particular focus on contributions from African-Americans. This process, of taking the oral tradition of folk music and placing it in a secure and accessible environment for posterity and in perpetuity for future generation to experiences is something which had been going on for some time in the UK, was generally a preserve of antiquarian scholars of the late 1800's. It is these people we have to thank for such classics as “God Rest You Merry Gentlemen”, “House of he Rising Sun” and “Good night Irene”. These people took it upon themselves to formalise that which remained informal, and threatened to disappear.

We stand now in the midst of a new communication age, the internet provides the opportunity for informal communication between one person and another, there remains no consistent repository for the collection of cultural artefacts created and shared on the internet. Is this important? Well it's almost as important as the collection of folk songs around the turn of the century, these cultural artefacts are an important barometer of social opinion, thinking and activities.

There remains a number of issues, when Lomax started the process of collecting folk songs he had the backing of the Library of congress, however there will be no such support from the US Govt. on a project of this kind, much of the interesting and unique works that exist only on the internet exist beyond any grey areas of copyright legislation, firmly in the Black. This makes it problematic to host any large collection of these works in a single easily accessible place, as these would then obviously become a target for legal action.

I'm not sure it's yet to to the point where we need to try and forcibly preserve these works of art, but in the context of an ever changing internet, with no guarantee that a page hosting a particular piece of music will remain into the future, it is plausible that the works could potentially be lost in the future.

I think it's important that we maintain our connection with the past, and people's interpretation of that, it would be a shame if we were to lose such classic social commentary as this:



OK, so this was released as a white label boot leg as well, but you get the idea.

Photo courtesy of New York Folklore Society, video courtesy of Osymyso

Aries Modular + Eventide PitchFactor = Awesome

Dusty pointed us towards this demo of an Aries Modular synth being processed by an Eventide PitchFactor. The demo was posted in youtube by the good people of BigCityMusic. We are still debating if it is legal to have sexual feelings towards a piece of kit.

Why are there no OSC Sequencers?

This was a question posed via Twitter by @artgillespie and retweeted by @CDMBlogs. I sat around and thought about it a bit, and came up with the following.

Quite simply, I think that OSC is in a development phase whereby it is being used to plug the weakness in MIDI - e.g. resolution of realtime parameter control being the primary failing of MIDI, and the main use for OSC, as opposed to creating a unified approach for control. There are sequencers for OSC, however they centered quite squarely on sequencing the control of specific parameters, or eccentric approaches to composition. It's a case of fixing the most broke stuff first.

MIDI has many issues, however the timing accuracy of simple note data, as controlled by a sequencer is not a major one of those, there have been many people who have criticized the quality of MIDI timing (BT comes to mind) but the reality is that the system can, on a good day, with the wind behind it, delivery note position accuracy of around 1/1500th of a beat @ 120BPM, when compared to the significant issues surrounding the control of parameters, and the 127 steps, this seems like much less of an issue.

The second reason there is less of a demand for OSC sequencing is that where one wants to create sets of data which require that level of accuracy, it is unlikely (but not impossible) that they are going to be recorded live, and quite often there is not only the timing consideration, but a timbral one, variations in timbre of that level of detail are very difficult, if not impossible to edit effectively, and therefore it makes more sense to use an audio recording system (which has a higher resolution anyway!)

There is of course the definition issue - MIDI is nice and easy and pre-defined, you press a note, and the synth knows what it is and plays along nicely - OSC has no such consistent definitions, you would need to write the definitions for yourself, and I personally don't fancy having to specify definitions for every single parameter I want to control, then have to start on each note, and the constituent parts of those notes - at both ends of the system, just as part of the set up of my system.

OSC works really well at the moment in it's current applications - I really enjoy Touch OSC and the other Hexler Apps on my Ipod Touch, but I don't think it will be hogging much light in the mainstream until a more user friendly set of definitions is established that manufacturers can conform to, and yet, at the same time I think that would be very sad, principally because the extensibility of OSC is one of it's real strengths.

Interactive Flash Video

Slow Joe has pointed us to a very lovely website with an interactive Flash video. The authors are Labuat and the song is called "Soy Tu Aire". Click on the link to get there and enjoy it.

http://soytuaire.labuat.com/

Bootlegs - what's the point?

Thanks to the internet, bootleg recordings of live concerts by bands are easier to come by than ever before. No longer do you need to trawl the obscure record shops of the world, in underground grimy basements to check out a new white vinyl sleeve recording of a concert some 1970s supergroup performed before you were even born.

These days, you only need Google and a Rapidshare account, and the world of bootleg recordings is at your fingertips - often within hours or days of the actual gig finishing.

Record companies and many acts themselves have long tried to squash the bootleg business, saying that you only get poor quality recordings, or the songs weren't as you were meant to hear them. The point was that they considered that they were missing out on the money themselves of their own performances that bootleggers would be getting. And you can see their point - why should some bootlegger be making money out of their songwriting and performance?

But now that, bar a Rapidshare (or other provider) fee, these bootlegs are now free to all with a sturdy web connection. And now we are left to debate these recordings on their merits - they provide the thrill of a live gig that you could not have attended, presenting the band (for better or for worse) in their raw, naked glory with no studio trickery to hide behind.

As a huge fan of Pink Floyd, it's a revelation to hear live versions of the band performing as a four-piece unit, without rows of extra musicians to hide behind, and to be able to hear elements from their sound often neglected in the studio recordings - in the Floyd's case, hearing Roger's bass licks or Nick's kick drums and their tight interplay together.

You also get extended, jammed out versions of songs, or DJ mix sets that only existed in that place at that time - the uniqueness of the event is now recorded for posterity. As for sound quality - this obviously varies, but some oustandingly good quality recordings are out there - you just have to search through the junk!

So, go out and grab some bootlegs, now! I'll be detailing some of my favourite bootlegs in later posts, and include some links as to where you can get them. Stay tuned.

Polyrhythm & Bass - An Afrobeat Sampler

A couple of months back, way before wondrous things such as MusicObject had been orgasmed into existence, I gone and done an Afrobeat mix. What is Afrobeat, you say?

Afrobeat was born out of poverty in 1970s Africa - a heady mix of furious political indignation, traditional African polyrhythmic drumming, funky bass operating on dub like sub-bass frequencies and stabbing horns.

The genre's most famous proponent was the might Fela Kuti, who repeatedly fell foul of Nigeria's military government - he was an ardent critic and he and his followers at his commune were often subjecting to beatings and raids of up to 1000 soldiers. His musical imprint was enormous - his band the Afrika 70 (there were 70 people, mainly dancers in the band) went on to cut album after album (9 in 1977 alone!), many featuring just one endless groove of a song stretching over both sides of the LP.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Shango - Peter King
2. Kye Kye Pe Aware - The Sweet Talks
3. Because Of Money - The Third Generation Band
4. Akula Owu Onyeara - The Funkees
5. Upside Down - Fela Kuti

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

Free EP from DJ Zinc

Drum n bass legend DJ Zinc has made his Killa Sound EP available free on his Myspazz blog.

Following the success of his anthemic breaks outing '138 Trek' a few years back, this EP takes on house, breaks and bassline vibes to create a genre he's calling "Crack House" - with dancefloor-smashing effect.

The 4-track EP features vocal performances from 'Foreign Beggars' and 'No Lay' and is still available to buy on vinyl for the purists, but he's making the MP3s freely available.

Freebies don't get much better!

Oh, and if you want a better idea of what this "Crack House" is all about, here's a DJ Zinc promo mix for you.
http://sharebee.com/fe1d6d90

The bestest dance traxxx ever! (Part 5)

#30 Cerrone - Supernature
See, the French were making cool funky electro-disco long before Daft Punk were invented. In fact, maybe that's Daft Punk there, in the donkey masks. Who knows?


#29 Farley Jackmaster Funk - Jack The Bass
One of the granddaddies of house music with a raw, percussion-led track that will still rock dancefloors today.


#28 Alexander Robotnik - Problèmes d'Amour
Another beautiful slice of synth-led disco funk, this time from Italian Alexander Robotnik. Love that bass sound.


#27 LFO - LFO
What do you get if you cross a Speak & Spell with a warehouse full of ravers? This is the question LFO set out to answer and, as they discovered, the combination produced a bleep house anthem.


#26 Royal House - Can You Party?
Sampling Public Enemy, Run DMC, Mantronix and the Jackson 5 (all in the first 30 seconds of the tune) - even people who weren't part of the 80s house scene recognise this blistering hand-in-the-air track. It was later ripped off in a quite wholesale fashion by Technotronic and even the Jungle Brothers - but neither touched the original.

Control Ableton with your phone?

This new Iphone application sends wifi signals to your PC / Mac - allowing remote control of any compatible software.

Read more here.

Unfortunately the app is not available on the Apple store yet, but watch the developer's site for release news / updates.

Strange instruments

Odd Music is an amazing site dedicated to eccentric, bizarre and downright weird musical instruments with loads of pics and audio examples.

Here's just a few of the wonderful devices:


A Harmonic Generator.



A Sequential Resonation Machine.



The Uberorgan.

"For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will."

Dangermouse vs. EMI - Round 2.

Without EMI kicking up a fuss over his controversial Beatles / Jay-Z mashup "The Grey Album" most people would not have heard of DJ Dangermouse.

Now the cheeky samplist is at it again, using a legal battle with EMI to boost publicity for his new project, a collaboration with Sparklehorse, David Lynch and a host of guest vocalists.

This week he released the following statement:
Danger Mouse's new project Dark Night Of The Soul consists of an album length piece of music by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and a host of guest vocalists, along with a collection of original David Lynch photography inspired by and based on the music.

The photographs, which provide a visual narrative for the music, are compiled in a limited edition, hand numbered 100+ page book which will now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'

Due to an ongoing dispute with EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to release the recorded music for Dark Night Of The Soul without fear of being sued by EMI.

Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night Of The Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is.

Surely EMI cannot block the sale of a blank CD, and whether the album is any good or not, this approach to sidestepping a costly legal battle is sure to win the project a lot of free publicity.

In the meantime, keep an eye on http://dnots.com/ for more updates and download the album from here.

Stanton Warriors - free track!!!

The Stantons have released 'Raw Meat' free through noiseporn.com

Chunky breaks, hip hop vocals and boomy bass in effect, yo.

Grab it here.

Pixelh8.

Music made with old summing machines and computational devices. Awesome or not ? You decide. Here's "Math" from the album "Obsolete?".

A paper organ.

Yeah, you punch holes in a piece of paper. Then roll it across the organ. And music comes out from the other side. Why didn't someone think of this before ? Oh, wait, that's how CDs work.

You can buy it here, and some DIY skills are needed. Not mad skillz, but some skills.

The 50 best dance tracks evuhr ! (Part 4)

#35 - Kosheen - Slip & Slide Suicide

Two step drum n' bass serving as the base for a powerful female voice. Can't get better than that.



#34 - Nuyorican Soul - It's alright, i feel it - Roni Size Remix

A classic drum and bass piece. I never thought i'd live long enough to talk about "classic drum n' bass" .



#33 - DJ Hype - Ready Or Not

Great vocals, and a sinewave bass that makes your pants flap. Gotta love those snare rolls. Classic 90s. I don't know where to put my trigger finger, though.




#32 - Mickey Finn & Aphrodite - Drop Top Caddy

Funka - Funkadelic - Funka - Funkadelic ! From slow, massive hip hop, to drum n' bass in a single tune.



#31 - Prisoners of Technology - Trick Of Technology (Remix)

Check out the technology ! Information overload ! All those radios poisoning the airwaves !




More music after i sip my tea.

Funkzilla – A hip hop and funk mix.

Remember when hip hop wasn't all about icy chains? Remember the days when a rap track didn't need an autotuned hook?

Well, before you get misty-eyed and mournful, take hope in the fact that some people are still 'keeping it real' and making music that throbs with funky instrumentation, fat drums and raw vocals.

With this in mind, tOtALcULt presents a brand new mix for your listening pleasure:
tOtALcULt Presents... Funkzilla

Track List:
1. Skeewiff – Put Your Hands Up
2. A-Skills & Krafty Kuts – Ain't It Funky (Fort Knox Five Vocal)
3. Eric B & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul (Acapella)
4. Flow Dynamics – Shock Ya Mind
5. Break Supreme – If You A Bad Chick (Acapella)
6. Aquasky Ft. Blu Rum 13 & DJ Format – Legs
7. Badboe – Nothing But The Funk
8. DJL – Jump (Acapella)
9. Million Dan – Mic Chek
10. Beats In Progress – Crumpet Chase (Quantic Remix)
11. Color Climax Ft. Gabe – She Took My Love
12. First Aid Ft. Million Dan, MC D & Rodney P – Devon Cream
13. Runaways Ft. Master Ace – Express Delivery
14. Mr Scruff Ft. Quantic – Donkey Ride
15. DJ Muggs & Planet Asia Ft. B-Real – Lions In The Forest (Acapella)
16. Quantic Ft. Ohmega Watts – Blow Your Horn
17. Malente – The Fever (Boca 45 Remix)
18. Martin Brew – I Can Do My Thing
19. The Bamboos Ft. Ohmega Watts – Get In The Scene
20. Quantic Ft. Aspects – Primate Boogaloo
21. Amp Fiddler – Pay Party
22. Mr Scruff – Get On Down
23. Q-Tip Ft. Amanda Diva – Manwomanboogie



This mix was made using M-Audio's Torq DJ system, which allows MP3s to be played alongside vinyl or CDs and enables digital tracks to be cut, scratched, looped and effected in ways old skool DJs could only dream of.

The timestretching algorithms have some room for improvement and artifacts are especially problematic when slowing tracks, but mostly it's a pretty solid system.

Anyway, enough techy-talk. Get up, get down and enjoy.

Propellerhead announces new DAW

This week the creators of the massively popular music software Reason announced a new audio-recording package aiming to provide "an intuitive, straightforward interface and a hands-on approach to capturing performances".



More info here: http://www.propellerheads.se/products/record/

Debate is already raging among the music tech community. Does the software offer anything new? Will it appeal to anyone but existing Reason users? Has it been pitched and marketed at the wrong people?

Time will tell. In the meantime, Music Object is signed up to Beta-test the package. Expect an update once we've got our grubby little hands on it.

The 50 best dance tracks ever! (Pt 3)

#40: Proving that you don't need a drum machine to move feet, Rusty Bryant's relentless funk groover Fire Eater opens this part of the chart. Check out the break at 7.53 - Bad ass drumming!


#39: Mid 90's US house music was dominated by one act - the production and remix team of "Little" Louie Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzales, recording as Masters At Work. Here's a soulful, uplifting vocal classic.


#38: Carboot crate-diggers and former members of Pop Will Eat Itself, Bentley Rhythm Ace exploded onto the bigbeat scene with their quirky, funky sounds and promptly disappeared without trace. Gone but not forgotten.


#37: No "best of dance" chart would be complete without this anthem. Insomnia needs no introduction.


#36: After Faithless' glossy epic we're getting lowdown, direct and dirty with another old skool masterpiece. Violent hoover action ensues in Dominator by Human Resource.

Fruity Booties

Love them or loathe them, bootleg remixes are here to stay. Access to thousands of tracks, as well as samplers and all the other technology required to dismember and reanimate tunes is more widespread than ever before.

Like the new Streets tune but want to play it at a drum n bass night? Simple! Just slice and dice the original, nail some new beats and bass to the underside and voila - a bootleg.

Due to the copyright complexities involved in getting remix permissions, many artists choose to keep these unofficial remixes for their own DJ sets, or simply give them away for free - thereby avoiding the problems of profiting from somebody else's creation.

Here's a selection of some laaaaaarge booties doing the rounds at the moment.

Eric B and Rakim - Know The Ledge (Atomic Hooligan Remash)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/59419785a4178727/
A classic of 90s hip hop gets thoroughly mangled and recharged with chunky bass and breaks by the mighty Atomic Hooligan. Get it while it's hot.
http://atomichooligan.com/

4Hero - Mr Kirk's Nightmare (Cloak and Dagger Remix)
http://www.dnbshare.com/download/4h...Remix_.mp3.html
Another 90s track gets the 21st Century treatment, this time 4Hero's spooky, sinister tune is put through Cloak & Dagger's dubstep machine.
http://www.myspace.com/cloakanddaggerdnb

Isaac Hayes - Walk On By (Kabz Remix)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/5923951315fc874c/
To prove that no era is out of bounds, Isaac Hayes' funky strutter is given a moody grimey re-dub by DJ Kabz. Loving the extreme distortion on this one.
http://www.myspace.com/spacecakeproductions

Babe Instinct - Disco Babes From Outer Space (Selfsimilar Remix)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ddqthyzdmda/Selfsimilar_DiscoBabesFromOuterSpace_Bootlegmix_320.mp3
A filtered disco, vocoder house track given a dubstep rinseout? Yep, it's true. So get those hands in the air and wait for the drop. Turn up your sub and watch the walls crumble.
http://www.myspace.com/selfsimilardub

SL2 - On A Ragga Tip (Division By Zero Bootleg)
http://ben.j.abbey.googlepages.com/sl2-on_a_ragga_tip_dbz_remix_web.mp3
Leaving dubstep behind for a moment, let's turn up the BPM with DBZ's massive relick of this old skool anthem.
Find more Division By Zero Music at http://www.beatport.com

Haashim – Al Naafiysh (Friscko's Electro Booty Remix)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=357794
Deep electro meets drum n bass in this rawkus and relentless remix by Friscko.
http://www.myspace.com/arontinnitus

The Specials – Ghost Town (DJG Bootleg)
Don Carlos – Late Night Blues (DJG Bootleg)
http://djgblog.tumblr.com/
Two slick bootlegs from DJG – guaranteed to mash up any dubstep party. His blog is well worth a read as an insight into the sort of problems artists encounter when trying to release bootlegs.
http://www.myspace.com/djgsf

Daft Punk – Harder Better Faster Stronger (2 Ninjas Dubstep Remix)
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?itwg2awkrtk
The instantly recognisable vocal makes this possibly one of the most bootied tunes of all time. 2 Ninjas give it the bouncy dub treatment with a couple of massive drops and some nice breaks thrown in for good measure.
http://www.myspace.com/stevevelocity

La Roux – Going In For The Kill (Small Skree-Rub)
http://www.yousendit.com/download/dVlyT ... NVdGa1E9PQ
DJ Small Fry takes an annoying chart pop track and turns in a pretty decent progressive breaks remix.
http://www.myspace.com/djsmallfry

Lily Allen – The Fear (Noiseboy Bootleg)
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ac6ac83533021d4bd2db6fb9a8902bda
Another annoying pop track getting the prog breaks treatment, this time courtesy of Noiseboy.
http://www.myspace.com/noiseboy88

So there you have it. Think you can do better? Fire up your sequencer, grab some classic tunes and get your booty on. Feel free to send your finished tracks to musicobject@googlemail.com – who knows, we may even feature them in the future.

The 50 best dance tracks ever! (Pt 2)

#45: Continuing our chart rundown, and moving to a more modern track - the irresistibly bouncy Fasten Your Seatbelts by Pendulum and Freestylers.



#44: One of Fatboy Slim's lesser known tracks, hidden away on his 'You've Come a Long Way' album - Acid 8000. Expect fierce synth-tweakery and rolling breaks.



#43: Yes it's Hip Hop, but it's still a solid gold floor-filler. Rob Base and E-Z Rock blow up the spot with It Takes 2



#42: It's a filtered-disco workout, but please don't confuse this tune with all the pseudo-balieric crap around. This is serious booty-shaking funk. Treasure Fingers - Cross The Dancefloor.



# 41: And finally for this installment, it's time to break out the whistles and head back to '91 for a Slipmatt and Lime classic. SL2's DJs Take Control.

The 50 best dance tracks ever !

The good people at www.fwonk.com have decided to gather the 50 best dance tracks ever recorded. Some will probably be in your memory banks, some other are probably new to you. Some will be incredible good, and some others will be awfully outdated by todays standards. Anyways, without further ado... here they are, the FIFTY BEST DANCE TRACKS EVER.

#50 - Jeff Mills - The Bells (Live): The brief take of "I feel love" inside the song make it.



#49 - Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar: Hot, sexy and groovy. Ssssppppiiiinnnn ,,, ssssppppiiiinnnnn ssssuuuuggggaaaarrrr !




#48 - Quench - Dreams: Coming right to you from 1993. It puts you in a trance or else it gets the hose.



#47 - Prodigy - Out of Space: Prodigy kicked ass back in the day. This song is guaranteed to take your brain into another dimension with the piercing synth leads, the sped up vocals and the wonderful dub breaks.



#46 - Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness

It's R2D2 singing over the drums. Or a TB-303.



To be continued after dinner.