English musician Colin Robinson, mastermind o one-man band avant-garde act Jumble Hole Clough, made a software version of The Rhythmicon, the first drum machine. He posted a demo on YouTube:
The Rhythmicon was the first electronic drum machine, invented by Henry Cowell in 1930 and built by Léon Theremin in 1931. More than a drum machine, it was a polyrhythm generator.
It was said that the Rhythmicon was wonderful in every respect, except that it did not work.
I have made a quick and dirty soft polyrhythm generator based on the Rhythmicon, using Mixcraft 8.1 Pro and a Novation Launchpad Mini. Here's a short demo.
English rhythm & noir band Alberteen took their time to come up with a follow-up for their 2012 album Metal Book, but it's been worth the wait. Miss World is a journey through the back roads of Southern England, paying visits to forgotten villages and nuclear facilities.
With a professor of English Literature on vocals and a playwright on bass, the lyrics are far more intellectual that most of their post-punk competitors. Greek mythology, modernism, physics, poetry and history have found their way into overall melancholy of the songs.
Miss World is an album that can be savoured on different levels. There is a thin line between dreams and reality, madness and sanity. The band themselves call it a trip from Folkestone (the city that hosted the first Miss World pageant in 1908) to London, where they dream of the highrises of Canary Wharf being demolished by Godzilla and Mothra (Princess Noise).
Miss World App
Get the full story behind the album with the free app. Full songs, lyrics, background stories and photos. Get it from iTunes and Google Play.
A French Connection, capturing the lure of a love affair in Paris kicks off the album, with more than a hint to Lenoard Cohen's First We Take Manhattan making it clear that it isn't to last. The Au Pairs' inspired jagged rhythms in King's Evil sound like the running feet of the demonstrators attacking the car carrying Prince Charles to the Royal Variety Show in 2010.
The slow Prospect is the soft-spoken tale of the shut down of the nuclear power plant in Dungeness that prevented another Fukushima disaster. It is by no means as angry as London Calling, but far more scary in the end. Alberteen is well aware that there are two sides of the coin in life, a concept that comes to the fore in We Are The Mods (youthful hope for a brighter future) and We Are The Last (sadder but wiser).
Miss World is an album for adults and smart kids. With Mike Bennett (The Fall, Ian Brown) once again the producer's seat, they have come up with a timeless post-punk album filled with a wealth of cultural references that never get in the way of enjoying the music as such.
Alberteen:
Ade Berry: bass, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano
John Rose: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocals, keyboards, piano, melodica
Phil Shaw: vocals
Gareth Warden: drums, percussion
Julia Knight and Kathryn Stephens-Berry: backing vocals
Miss World will be released (vinyl/cd/digital) on Rhythm & Noir records. Release date: May 25th.
An extensive John Cale interview in Air France Magazine. He is using a brand new piece of software for his new album:
It’s seduction. Yeah, it’s definitely seduction.
I was seduced by this software and
how it might help me achieve something
greater than expected if I take the time
to use it. It’s at my fingertips, promising
to give me something extra. Technology
has long been one of the most alluring
elements in my daily routine. I’m a
tech-junkie for certain. It’s embarrassing
sometimes because I can’t stand the idea
of not having every iteration of advanced
technological devices. I’m always baffled
when people claim to be afraid of new
technology—I LIVE for it!
Guitarist Adrian Belew has launched a Kickstarter project for an inventive music app: FLUX. It serves up music in a different way, shorter and never the same way twice:
FLUX is an ever-changing variety of music, songs, sounds, and visual art, that comes at you in quick, surprising pieces--the way life does. You get exposed to a lot of interesting content quickly. And every listen is a new, unique experience, that will never happen again for you or anyone else. While songs do repeat over time, the song forms themselves are short and varied. Songs even appear in multiple versions, with different lyrics and instrumentation. Sometimes a longer song will play in its entirety, but most often you'll only hear a portion of it, which may be interrupted by something else: a startling sound effect or a common everyday noise. There are hundreds of these songs, pieces of music, and sonic "snippets", along with engaging visuals randomly changing with the music. A content management system has been built that let's us assign probabilities to tracks, determining how and when they appear. This ensures that FLUX never plays the same way twice.
Luke Phillips created an onlineThereminemulator for Femur Design. It's a playable touch synthesizer using the web audio API. Works real smooth on Safari and Chrome. Go Jimmy Page from the comfort of your own home.
Some major movers and shakers (Sony Computer Entertainment, Linden Lab, Intel, and more) have unleashed another means of communication. Cull TV enables viewers to create their own channels of favorite music videos. An "Auto DJ", basically a crawler with a recommender algorithm, suggest other stuff you might like. Pretty bizarre results a times at first, but hey, it's a stupid robot.
On the upside: once you add more videos to a channel and dig a little deeper, the robot tends to get smarter, serving up stuff you never heard of, but might actually like. And of course you can turn off the Audio DJ all together.
Streaming music and being able to click through and watch a video of the song if it's on Youtube. Tubeify is a new invitation only (well, sort of) service doing just that. Want an Invite? Bob Lefsetz explains:
Enter your e-mail address and click on "Request Invitation".
You will get this message: "Thank you! We will send you an invite when more are available."
IGNORE IT!
Wait approximately 60 seconds and check your inbox (or spam folder) for a code and link and then sign up!
Tubeify also works as a regular jukebox, you can enter any act and play all of its material (at least all that Tubeify can find!) You can also search for individual songs.
Music geeks rejoice. A new version of Exact Audio Copy has been made available for download by its creator Andre Wiethoff. V1.0 beta 1 comes now with:
Unicode support for all fields (but not CD-Text)
New database engine for storing CD information (old databases can be imported)
Metadata plugin support, for now there is a freedb plugin included. This will be released as open source freeware soon.
Cover support, can be drag’n'dropped from a file, a web page or can be retrieved via a metadata plugin (support included in the freedb plugin). Cover can be written into tags or in the extraction directory
AccurateRip v2 support
Better Windows 7 support (like progress display in taskbar icon, storage of user data in the correct folders, etc.)
Free selection of first track track number (including option to continue numbering from the last inserted CD)
Option to always write the log file in english language
Option for writing a checksum over the extraction log data to the log file
Average extraction speed is listed in the log file
Possibility to write only V2 tags (and no V1 tags)
Free choice of replacement characters for filenames
Range copy selects now the first selected consecutive range of tracks as default
New folder browser dialog (system dialog for folders)
Added two placeholders for filename creation for track length (min and sec)
Test for (command line) compression options (and display of a sample command line)
Menu for removing unwanted/doubled spaces from “cd title”, “artist” & “track titles”
Leitvox is the project of Mexican musician and programmer Christian Cooley. He offers two apps (Mac only!) for free at his website:
Arperk is a dynamic arpeggeator composed of three interconnected, beat-synchronized engines that generate MIDI notes—and each engine has its own independent sequencer. Individual outputs can be routed to different internal and external destinations. With Arperk, one engine could send MIDI information to a soft synthesizer (like NI Absynth), the second one might transmit to your EXS24 sampler in Logic Pro, and the third one (via a MIDI interface) could head for your Roland Juno hard synthesizer. Arperk's vintage sequencing behavior is ideal for live performance, and also is an efficient, easy way to make ultra-tight, mega-strong real-time electronic loops.
Randrum is a one-of-a-kind, sample-based drum machine that lets you create beats with rich random timbres. Randrum features a 32-step sequencer that lets you adjust the gain of each step. Drag a folder with your favorite drum samples, and Randrum randomly decides which sample is assigned to each step. Randrum chooses 32 different samples for every cycle, meaning repetition is practically impossible. Randrum also features a multi-mode internal filter, a stereo spread function, and a internal VST plug-in component—so you can load any VST FX into the drum machine.
The best way to plug your software for musicians ais to use it and his album Transition is a showcase of neo-New Wave electronics about halfway Marc Almond and Depeche Mode with a hint of the Sisters of Mercy. Bombastic at times, and a bit heavy-handed, this is the kind of album that will appeal to post-puberty nostalgic emo's and the Eighties dance revivalists.
Transition is a self-released album. Buy it from his website.
It's a Phish iPhone App and it works pretty good. This might turn into the must have 2010 tour gizmo.
Get the new Live Phish App at iTunes to stream everything you've ever purchased from LivePhish.com. Access your whole Live Phish Stash of shows and albums, enjoy free stream From The Archives, read and post reviews of each show, and browse photos and notes. Tune in to Live Phish Radio through the app for a 24x7 stream from the Live Phish Archives.
For a limited time, every first time user of the Live Phish App will get a download code redeemable at LivePhish.com for ONE FREE MP3 SHOW of your choice.
A Phish "Live Track Pack" for Guitar Hero World Tour is available for download now and features live recordings of "Sample in a Jar," (12/1/94 Salem Armory, Salem, OR), "Down with Disease," (12/1/95 Hershey Park Arena, Hershey, PA), and "Chalk Dust Torture," (11/16/94 Hill Auditorium, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI as released on "A Live One"). The pack is compatible with 360, PS3 and Wii .
In addition, Rock Band has released tracks from year's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, and included is "Wilson" from Phish's Friday night set (2009/06/12).
Wanna mess with some high quality audio tracks and create your mix? The Apples in stereo offer you all 21 channels of their song Can You Feel It? in .wav format. Prizes to be won, fame and fortune not included.
The contest allows fans to legally download the very same music channels for the song “Can You Feel It?” with the same high quality .wav file format that the producers and mixers had for the album. The 21 tracks for download include many elements that are usually coupled together. By allowing re-mixers to download every individual instrument track for the Remix Contest, The Apples are providing the flexibility and opportunity for their fans to truly let their imaginations run wild.
More than 30 years have passed since Pete Townshend dreamed up his Lifehouse concept. The Method is online. Feel free to share and create:
The Method is software that creates music, allowing you to 'sit' for a musical portrait just as if you were being painted. The software 'paints' your music. It will only take a few minutes of your time.
Gibson is proud to present the HD.6X-Pro Guitar System—the most revolutionary leap forward in guitar manufacturing in more than 50 years. The result of years of research and development, the HD.6X-Pro Guitar System — nicknamed the HD LP — combines the incredible craftsmanship of an ultra-professional Gibson Les Paul with the latest, groundbreaking digital technology. The result may look like a traditional electric guitar, but the HD LP is in fact a complete digital audio system that is poised to usher in a new era of music making.
Head to the manufacturer's site for tons of specs and geeky guitar stuff about the updated Les Paul digital six string.
What's next? A model that will play all by its self?
IK Multimedia is proud to announce AmpliTube® 2 Jimi Hendrix Edition, the first authentic software recreation of the complete guitar amp and effects rig of Jimi Hendrix.
Seeqpod is a free web-based thingy to track down media files. It's still in beta, but works fine most of the time. You can add files to a playlist once you have signed up for a account and start streaming them at a volume which suits you best.
SeeqPod works by grabbing music from wild, disparate areas of the Web and presenting them to you in one nice, easy, scrolling interface.
What?Songbird is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox, it is built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source. Keep reading for the Why and How.
Why? Well, why not. If you spend a fair bit of time surfing the web for music, Songbird could be your new best friend. It makes browsing sites like the Live Music Blog, Nugs and Here comes the flood, that much more enjoyable.
Works like a charm, which is amazing considering it's a 0.2 release. It's free for Windows, Mac and Linux. We are talking serious goodness here.
Some moron has hacked the frontpage of bt.etree.org. All of the data is safe and sound. It appears that ibiblio.org's webserver has been compromised. However, you can still access the site through the RSS feed:
