Just Trance

Here is my whirlwind round up of makemicromusic goodness...

Rick McGowan said:
>Just got a question from a friend of mine... What's the state of the art
>in sampler technologies these days? Are there keyboard samplers, or PC
>board samplers, that can manipulate samples on the computer and/or accept
>WAV or other file formats for download or playing or via floppy?

Akai has just released a couple of 24bit/96khz samplers; if I recall on my
brief overview of them they only have stereo input/output. This seems a little
silly to me as it defeats live performance where you shuttle all the separate
outputs to a mixing board and play the board. I can understand the 2 channels
though for cost if they are really good A/D/A converters.

I have an Akai S6000. It is nice; especially with the USB add on board which
enables you to communicate directly with the sampler from your computer
screen/mouse. You can drag and drop.wav files onto a graphic keyboard to create
keygroups and transfer the samples at the same time; plus edit all the other
menus with nice graphics. The new samplers have the USB connection as well. I
have not created much microtonal material with the sampler, but you can retune
it based on the 12 key layout; no global map if I recall.

If you were to go to Akai route check out getting a used Akai S5000 (only
functional difference between this and the S6000 is the detachable front
faceplate, but that is moot with the USB connection). You can pick an S5000 up
used for $800-$900 used on Ebay and with the USB board it should work like a
charm... check the next item first though...

For a software sampler check out the Virtual Sampler
(http://www.virtualsampler.de/). It is the most functional software sampler I
have seen yet for the price ($75). It is highly recommended. Not sure about
microtonal usage; otherwise this is a mighty fine piece of software.

Kraig Grady said:
>I'd been sampled, that's all
>jacky_ligon wrote:
> http://www.fallt.com/artists/electric.html
> Genius instrument builder Kraig Grady guests on bass bars and

hee hee... yeah this caught my eye as fallt hosts a series called Invalid
Objects from the popular microsound area...

>Very important point: of *our* time. If we ape the past, if we emulate the
>academic or prosaic precursors, we will fail to connect.

Cheers!

Jonathan M. Szanto:
>Wait another millenium, see if people are listening to Boulez or Ives. If
>not neither, then I'll wager on the latter...

I just finished reading an interesting book on the early history of IRCAM and
Boulez. Rationalizing Culture by Georgia Born. It really met with my
sensibility and provided some great information from my perspective and
experiences. If anyone is familiar with this book and has any suggestions for
something in this direction that would be splendid. I appreciated that Born
contrasted modernism vs postmodernism in regard to IRCAM history.

I'm gnawing on some more technical acoustics and computer music stuff
currently...

I unfortunately did not accomplish what I hoped with the Kyma system. I had 60
hours with a fully loaded one this fall. By the time the system was upgraded to
the latest version (5.18) I had 30 hours remaining; until that occurred I could
not run several examples relating to FFT/convolution; so that gave me 30 hours
to work with it. Turns out that my ideas were incorrect anyway. Since the FFT
functionality is windowed and overlapped I ended up creating something like an
EQ instead of being able to accurately suck away harmonic/inharmonic partials.
That is ok though, I learned a lot; IE Kyma is neat, but it is a passing system
entering into later stages in regard to lifecycle. Even with the next big
upgrade within 2-3 years such as system will be obsolete for all intents and
purposes (basically once there are minimal latency direct connections between
computers for audio processing; 2 years min... can't wait). Another pain about
my experience is that the studio at my uni is in poor shape and I found it
limiting to work inside Kyma only. I lugged my computer into the studio to send
out and record material from my machine, but only had the patience to do that
for one day. I'm going to be working on some audio I processed, but that will
be a while still...

I just upgraded to an Athlon XP 1900 and I must say I like it. There is one
musician in my area that I am waiting on to hear back if my previous setup is
spoken for otherwise I am willing to send the mobo (Asus K7V), 512 megs SDRAM,
and Athlon-950 Slot A to someone here for $150. Recipient should be able to
swap parts and have a decent system.

I recently finished a trance track that is on the deep and somewhat tech side
(you don't hear much stuff like this on the west coast at least). I think this
is the best sounding track (3rd one) I have created to date. I was able to work
with a phenomenal musician (Chris O'Connell) to record a flute part. I was also
able to take my track up to a post house in the SF area (have a friend that
works at one) to process my material with a Manley Massive Passive EQ, Oram
SonicComp, and Empircal Labs Distressor. Also got to check out the Sony
DMX-R100 mixing board (very very cool!). I then finished the mixing/mastering
in Nuendo. I recorded the flute in my kitchen with one SM57; how does it sound
to you guys? ;)

http://catharsis.egregious.net/tracks/just_trance.mp3

also available from:
http://catharsis.egregious.net/tracks/ if you need a link...

You guys are the first to hear the final version, so I would love some
feedback. The flute is a little sharp; I couldn't find a pitch shift
functionality that did not mangle it in some way or another, so I left it as is
(closest we could match direct). The synths are tuned to a basic JI scale. I
recommend the Native Instruments FM7 (all synths in this track are done with
it).. It is the coolest soft synth I have bought ever and it supports
microtonal tuning in a pinch... This is actually my first time using FM
synthesis in a track. I like... I like... The FM7 even reads sysex dumps from
the DX/CX Yamaha line!

I look forward to the microfest (hope it is happening again this year). I think
it would be fabulous if we could have a musicians pow wow of sharing
instruments and make some recordings to take back and incorporate in music
after the event. I could bring my computer and recording setup and pass around
CDs to everyone after the session. It would be fun to have a little remix
contest.

I am willing to remix anyones work here for fun if they can provide me with a
multitrack session. At the same time I will master both the original and remix
for free... Just get in contact...

I am still tied up with that school thing, so I must disappear shortly.

And thus ends my early morning rambling....
Cheers,
--Mike
Egregious
"Spiritual renewal through music for those outside the heard."
http://www.egregious.net/