Re: [MMM] Digest Number 832

At 05:28 AM 4/20/2004, you wrote:
>(for those of you new to MMM, Mike/Catharsis is one of our premiere
>"Technology Experts" in terms of electronic music production)

Ahh, indeed... My friends got me out to see Kill Bill (part 2) this last weekend... Tech stuff I have down pretty well, but when it comes to deep microtonal theory I am like a student of "Pai Mei"; constantly getting thwacked on the head with the "stupid" stick.. There is always something more to learn.. :)

>You may not have intended it for me, but that is a very timely tip, as I'm
>wanting to get some project monitors - thanks!

Can't remember if I posted this here yet...

The extra little tip that I've found really helpful for audio interfaces and active studio monitors is to have a passive level control between your D/A and the monitors. These can be expensive and can go for about $150 to upwards of $500+ for really nice ones. Essentially, you want your studio monitors to be turned up to line level and you want full signal (no gain reduction / drop in resolution) done on the computer to reduce the volume via the D/A; you want to do that with the passive control on the analog side.

At least with my monitors if you connect them directly from the D/A and send full signal to it; the amps can barely be turned up a hair until you are blown away. By having a passive control in between and having the amps/monitors set at line level I noticed an decent improvement; plus now have an external monitor control to grab and headphone output (which LynxTwo doesn't have)..

>I got my Aardvark LX6 around the time you moved to the Lynx, and I've been >very happy with what I can do with it - certainly hit my sweet spot for
>price/performance.

The prosumer stuff is coming along nicely. 104 to 108dba dynamic range is decent compared to what everyone was using 5 years ago; though it gets amazing +115dBa. Err.. and yes dynamic range is not the only thing that makes a converter sweet... lots more to it of course..

>Mike, sometime when you get a spare moment let us know what you've been >doing musically - I always enjoyed your pieces/mixes...

I've got a page up here if you've missed anything:
http://www.egregious.net/media/ mix highlight for me last year was Timeless Beginnings; this pretty much contains the earliest electronic music influences I had as a teenager early/mid 90's.. nothing new this year yet..

Musically, things have been a little on the unhappy side. I spent the bulk of my savings last year to start my record label and got the 1st release of 500 out in December. I contacted all of the major and some minor US electronic music distro houses and sent out promo packages and called and called and called and none of them took my record. Techno (the genre) is at a low point in the US currently... I kind of shot myself in the foot by not having a well known producer do a remix (I could have arranged this), but for personal reasons wanted my 1st record to be my own. I did split it with some friends. Recently the only independent US techno label family that I am aware of did pick up 40 of them; half making it to the UK... It just hurts staring at the other 400 over in the corner of the room.. :) I have mp3s up here:
http://egr.egregious.net/ My track (Xenos) features an interesting microtonal analog synth line.. It is hard techno...

So, until I absorb this release I won't be working on more music. I'm pretty much at the point that if something I am working on is not going to be released then I'm not going to make it. Sounds jaded, but it isn't.. I am spending all of my time moving my audio software forward instead. It is coming together nicely. I have a mini white paper detailing where I am taking things here: http://audio.egregious.net/scream/

I am getting more exposure speaking at technical conferences this year (as no performance offers have come in yet). I spoke at CodeCon (www.codecon.org) in Feb.. and am presenting a BOF at Sun's JavaOne on my work. This later opportunity being great publicity for an independent.
I am furiously working on completing a 3D game demo (based on Quake3) that incorporates dynamic real time audio spatialized via ambisonics through Scream/SuperCollider3. Making audio software is cool, but the market is just as grim as releasing a techno record. I am definitely targeting my work at the game industry & film post production market (later software).

As far as my audio software is concerned.. I might just have one of the most advanced spatial interfaces developed by the end of summer. I am allied with Asphodel (www.asphodel.com) out here in SF.. They have a studio with a 16.8 sound system set up in a 3D array. I plan on getting together a comprehensive concert for the fall premiering the 3D interface and an detailed composition/performance including live aspects...

Check out here for other shows though:
http://www.asphodel.com/doc/news.live.html

I've caught Daniel Menche before and he did a great set that was very microtonal oriented.

>Jon (who says "fear not, List, it won't be all tech...")

hah hah... :)

Joseph:
***Thanks so much for the info., Mike, and nice to see you're posting
again...

Definitely I really liked the Blacklight live recording; can't recall if I commented on it last year.. :)

Joseph:
Is it *really* necessary to have two computers in order to do
effective softsynth work?

Nah.. You can really get away with anything over 1ghz; though more power == more play.. :)

I am currently using a PC and Mac networked via Cat5 and ADAT. This is mainly because SuperCollider3 runs the best on OSX and Java runs the best on the PC.. Eventually I'll get off my rear and start supporting the win32 port of SC3.

For an interesting sampling technology that just came out check out the EMU EmulatorX. It looks very comprehensive and an acquaintance I know picked it up recently and was very blown away. I'd reject it as it takes up 2 PCI slots.. doh..

Oh yeah... PCs and stuff... If you have the will to wait 6 more months on picking up a new computer it might really be worth it.. This year computers in general will be seeing one of the largest improvements in a while.. IE the PCI bus being upgraded to PCI-Express... Basically, each single card with PCI-Express has the same bandwidth the current PCI bus shares across all cards. Some PCI-Express slots will be 16X rated (for video cards).
My understanding is that PCI-Express will be launched by/around June.

That upgrade with the new ATI/NVidia graphics cards has me a drooling.. :) I'm doing a lot with OpenGL programmable shading with my software and I'll be in "tech heaven" with that upgrade.. :)

Hah hah.. ok.. enough tech stuff... I do view the audio software development I'm doing as an extended act of composition.. :P

Best,
--Mike

Audio Services
http://audio.egregious.net/