We’ll be roaming the floors of NAMM today and tomorrow. As we check out new gear, snap photos and media, and have a look around, you can follow more detailed updates if you’d like more information.
We hope to do more with both these accounts in 2012, too. Marsha Vdovin is here, and counts fully as a NAMM veteran (that sounds really wrong), James Grahame, creator of our MeeBlip synth and the blog Retro Thing is about, and of course I’ll be out and about, too, posting impressions. Stay tuned.
Barcelona-based, Los Angeles-edited PublicSpacesLab is an example of what a netlabel can be. Instead of just another dumping ground for sounds, it feels like a well-curated cafe, pairing regular but thoughtful releases with reflections on music making. Everything is Creative Commons-licensed, free music, from a variety of artists spanning geographies and genres.
For listening, there’s a bit of something for everyone there in their near-20 releases, including ambient soundscapes and a crackling compilation that sounds like your radio waves have achieved sentience and begun singing maths. Ambient and noise are typically the order of the day. But the latest and apparently most popular of their releases is decidedly at the warmer end of the spectrum.
Paul Croker’s medium is sampled vinyl, but to me it’s just as interesting that some of the perceived organic, warm and fuzzy quality comes from the low-fidelity digital samples, too. Paul’s apparent workflow: sample vinyl to MPC, use the MPC for the “vibe,” arrange on DAW (apparently Ableton). The specifics are less important to me, however: it’s the combined crunch of the turntable with the digital sample that works here, true to the traditions of hip hop.
The Creative Commons license covering Paul’s two releases for PublicSpacesLab is sadly problematic. Because of the current interpretation of US Copyright Law, the fact that the samples themselves aren’t cleared means you probably aren’t free to do what you like with this. You are free to listen, however – and, as I said, if this isn’t your cup of tea PSL has plenty else to explore.
And because the release was disseminated via Twitter, Twitter becomes a forum for feedback. (Oddly, Twitter commenters are often more positive and enthusiastic than the troll-leaning web commenters, I find – perhaps because they reserve their time for the stuff they like.) Thus, Kieron James replies via Twitter:
“Primitive, raw and beautifully crafted. A collage – components collected and mounted with complete respect for their musical heritage on a cave wall (solid, dependable rhythms chipped, cracked and twisted into something new). More pretentious feedback you won’t have read for some time, but I want to convey something of what your music speaks (to me)!”
Volume 36 iz here and I’m back on track with a new joint with a slow track with a Pop/R&B kinda feel to it. After a conversation with a new singer/songwriter, Jamie Lynn, about what kind of tracks she was looking for to write to for her first demo, I was inspired to create somethin that had a Jordan Sparks feel to it. Basically, somethin Jordan Sparks would sound good over (according to me). So, here it iz! CHECK IT OUT!
It should come as no surprise, but Twitter can compose existential nihilistic poetry.
Just ask the creepy, detached voice of Marvim Gainsbug. The robotic, generative songwriter will produce a “song” from Tweet keywords of your choice. And be prepared for some finger snaps at the end of his beat-poetic recitation.
The evil genius of this work is the product of a duo from Recife, Brazil. Details:
Marvim Gainsbug is a musician, singer and composer, created in 2009.
His main influences are Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Dylan, the Brazilian Northeastern Musician, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Alan Turing, Deep Blue, HAL, Wintermute and Marvin, the paranoid android.
Marvim Gainsbug is a software that acts based on Twitter, implemented to compose and to play songs, with music and lyrics, in real time.
The tweets are transformed in verses which are interpreted by Marvim with his singular voice. The melody, the harmony and the rhythm are directly linked with the words of the verses.
Developed in Processing, using Sphinx4, FreeTTS and Twitter4j libraries, by Jeraman and Filipe Calegario. For further informations, visit myspace.com/marvimgainsbug
Even the harmonies, melody, and rhythm are generated algorithmically from the tweets themselves.
Thanks to co-creator Jerman for sending this our way; see: http://jeraman.info
Here at CM we’re always keen to take advantage of new social networking technology – as long as it’s not Twitter – and from now on you’ll be able to get the latest Computer Music news by following computermusicuk@googlemail.com on Google’s new Buzz service. Enjoy!
YES! ONCE AGAIN! ITS THAT TIME! This go around I only have a short amount of time on the camera battery so, why not try to beat the clock? I go vs the camcorder battery to create a track for artist DIVINE SEVEN for an upcoming Model/Artist show where ladies will model clothing while artists perform. Sound interesting? IT IS! I try to make something that will fit that venue… Click play…
It’s Richie Hawtin Watch time! The latest: NI teases an upcoming DJ controller by sharing video of Richie playing it in a club. The surprise: it’s actually what he’s doing with Maschine that seems most interesting to me. And if you recall the Twitter DJ app that he promised in the spring, it’s here, ready to use so long as you have Traktor and a Mac. (If you’re reading, Richie, do let me know if I’ve gotten my facts straight…)
Native Instruments yesterday pointed me to a video they’ve posted of Richie Hawtin DJing at Berlin’s lovely Saturday Adventure Club. The point of this is, of course, to tease an upcoming DJ controller they intend to announce in detail in November. You can already tell a lot from watching the video: it’s a hardware controller (or two chained together) that focuses on the Traktor working method. That is, there appears to be an emphasis on control of multiple effects, and cue and loop points, and it seems you can control Traktor’s full four decks. (At least, that’s what I get from squinting at the video; I could be wrong.) Regular Traktor users may be able to tell more, so … um, squint away.
To me, actually, it’s what Richie is doing with Maschine that looks most cool. He’s using NI’s drum machine to program in live beats and loop those, and it appears he’s then using Traktor as a sort of software DJ mixer / DJ source / effects unit. This shouldn’t be a big deal; in an ideal world, we’d have lots of DJs getting crazy playing their own beats atop their mixes and really mixing up the stuff they’re playing. Sadly, too often what you get is people playing tracks straight, which means you could just stay home and drink and dance in your living room. Richie’s sets do a lot more than that – and of course, what a lot of us are looking forward to is a rebirth of his original Plastikman stuff on tour, expected some time in the near future. If you’re interested in what he’s doing in his live sets, and his fellow minus mates, let me know and I can find out.
Before anyone complains about his line-up of gear, Richie was involved in the development of all these products, including the Allen & Heath mixer. So I would expect him to use the stuff!
In other news, the TwitterDJ app is now freely available, for Twittering tracks live from Traktor. The bad news is, the installation and setup is pretty involved, and it’s Mac-only. I like the idea – part of the vision of TwitterDJ is getting DJs reporting tracks they’re playing, so producers get paid when their music is played. And letting clubgoers discover tracks they’re hearing is also a great thing. I suppose the advantage of it being on Twitter is that it’s accessible to people at clubs with cell phones. But you do wonder if a Web-based format wouldn’t be better, and given that underneath is the cross-platform Icecast streaming server, it seems too bad to me that the app is Mac-only. Building networked apps is a perfect application for platforms like Java and Python. But don’t get me wrong: it’s great to see someone who plays out as much as Richie does experimenting, and sharing the tool he built. I’d like to know if the tool is open enough that other people could take it and adapt the idea to other platforms and servers / communication media.
The past weeks Cakewalk is ‘hinting’ what the next version of Sonar will be like. Everyday they release a detail on Sonar 9. All thanks to the wonder world of Twitter!
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