Music of Sound

I’ve invested lots of thinking time & research into launching a new parallel site to this blog & I thought I’d share some of the resources & sites i’ve been using to formulate my plans… My new site is hopefully only a month or so away from going live, but as with all things it will be a continual work in progress… Accordingly, please add any links to sites or resources relevant to online music/media distribution in the comments that you think I should also check out… thanks!

Thinnerism: Constraints to overcome towards the total netlabel

Media Futurist – Gerd Leonhard

Liz Rosenthal – Power to the Pixel

Peter Broderick

Fans, Friends & Followers by Scott Kirsner

Andrew Dubbers New Music Strategies

Bob Baker

Music Think Tank

Dave Kusek – Future of Music

Creative Commons

How To Negotiate A Creative Commons License: Ten Steps

The Workbook Project

Lawerence Lessig – Remix

Digital Audio Insider

Know the Music Biz

HypeBot

David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists

This speech given by Jim Griffin at Midem 2009 is definitely worth a read for an overview:PDF here

that sound would be perfect in a drum&bass or dubstep tune!

& excuse the lack of posts this week; we finished the final mix for Under The Mountain last friday, screened the mix yesterday afternoon & are now busy making all the subtle changes with deadline of finishing by the end of Wednesday. Then its print master & deliveries… and then I’m on holiday!

Got 3 new modules coming for my synth; a Doepfer theremin controller (cant wait to try it bending AFG subsonics) plus a Doepfer Waveshaper and a Flight of Harmony Plague Bearer… which will hopefully arrive to coincide with my newfound freedom! Being too busy to make music is one of the best forms of delayed gratification!

from a youtube commenter: “The device works by sending two ultrasound beams. One has the carrier wave and the other has the modulating wave. People don’t normally hear either, but when they cross, they add up and the difference of the two signals becomes audible e.g. 48 kHz + 46 kHz produces what is called a beat frequency of 2 kHz which people can hear.”

More info here: “The last key property of HSS is its ability to focus sound. The ultrasonic waves don’t dissipate, traveling pretty much straight ahead. So sound from an HSS speaker can travel 150 yards without distortion or loss of volume, while anyone outside the path hears nothing.”

Company site here

thanks for the tip Michael!

I just love the planar grid that slowly undulates – it makes me think of a certain kind of slow music…..

First trailer for Where The Wild Things Are by Spike Jonze

While the idea is intriguing it feels like such a missed opportunity eg the best shot for sound is the last one, the wide shot… and imagine the resequenced beats that could have been made from a beat with individual hits/shots of drum/cymbal smashes… & i’d swap all that tom pounding for a funky minimalist backbeat any day…. oh well…. heres the making of:

There is a very funny review of the trailer for Transformers 2 here – watch it below to see what she is talking about:

I remember seeing Transformers 1 on a plane & thinking wow! Its really like bad television – I’m sure on a big LOUD screen it is totally overwhelming but on a little screen the lack of story & character development was writ larger than any giant robot. But it will undoubtedly sound fantastic – Ethan & Hoppy are supervising FX & Dialogue respectively; the same duo who brought you the LOTR trilogy & King Kong…
Respect where due, but I suspect I’ll catch it on a plane or DVD sometime…

Its a phenomena that I suspect most musicians have experienced; driving through the countryside dreamily looking at power wires & thinking about how the wires resemble the staves of music manuscript & imagining the birds as notes…. So its simply gorgeous to see someone has done exactly that here, with the birds playing a prepared piano:

So beautiful!

I remember as a kid sitting in the back of the car on road trips & when i got bored I would click my teeth every time a power pole went past. In hind sight I think i was teaching myself about sync & timecode While feeling nostalgic I couldn’t but help find this video:

love to see them play some John Cage! or a Thomas Newman film score…

There is a great doco about stompboxes, here in six parts… heres part one:

Favourite quote so far: “this picks up FM from Mars!”

Guitars aside, many digital synths have built in effects units but adding a stompbox or outboard effects to analogue synths is almost essential to push them beyond their (lovely) raw sound. So its not a coincidence that The Harvestman released the Stilton Adaptor module which allows stomp boxes to be matched into the signal levels of eurorack modular synths.

I only own three stompboxes: Ibanez swell flanger SF10, Akai Head Rush2 looper and a local classic; the Hot Cake distortion pedal, hand made by Paul Crowther. Theres an article by Chris Knox here about the Hot Cake…. love the names of his pedals; another one is called Prunes & Custard! (I also own a few desktop stompboxes: the Metasonix TM6, Jmox T-Resonator, Frostwave Resonator, Moogerfooger LPF and Murf – which are all to special to be put on the floor & stomped on!)

Whats your favourite stompbox?

Its World Silent Day 2009 tomorrow!

While this is apparently aimed at reducing activities that produce green house gas emissions, tomorrow is also Nyepi Day – the Balinese day of silence….

I love the fact that if you make a noise on Nypei Day in Bali, you will be arrested!

so Shhhhhhh!