houses of sound

When I was growing up I understood there to be three different musical houses of worship.

1. There was the record store where one listened and learned until one could debate.

2. There was the live stage, usually a club. Somewhere that allowed a musician to perform to an audience at a reasonable volume and with much gusto.

3. The recording studio. This was in my mind the ultimate destination and the place that led one back full circle to the record store where someone else might discuss the merits or lack there of of one's latest release.

As times change we see these three venues melt away from our normal day to day music life. A music fan and musician goes less and less to an actual store to buy music, has fewer and fewer live venues to see music and no longer spends much time if any in a real recording studio.

The first and last of these two losses can probably be blamed of affordable digital technology while the clubs closing is probably more of an economic issue.

In NYC we also had the joy of a mayor who went after nightclubs with zeal and managed to make things bad enough that much of our cultural bleeding edge was moved out into the suburbs. Can you imagine the greatest city in the world with no night life nor red light district?

Rudy you fucking suck, you may have fooled some people into believing you did good but you are a culture nazi and rezoning doesn't count as lowering crime..

Anyway...

Where does the future music fan find other fans? Where do musicians find work in their field?

I forgot why I started this. I guess it was easier then trying to find the battery cover to my alarm clock.

Doepfer A-117 mod UPDATED

After some more experiments I realized that I would not be able to trouble shoot the module without being able to compare it to one that is working normally.

I did come to the conclusion that this is a module that would respond well to some changes. Being able to tune the internal oscillator against the incoming modulation source is cool. If I can add some control over the additional outs which are static that would be great.

Doepfer A-117 mod

WARNING: this is far from technically sound. I am not a learned EE. These are guesses based of my limited knowledge.

My Doepfer A-117 Digital Noise module started having some issues. At first all I could get was a feeble oscillator noise that sounded more like an analog (non precision) oscillator driver that was used to drive the digital noise generator's clock.

I probed the circuit and found that making a connection to a resistor to one point on the newly replaced ext. input jack brought back the digital noise but now it could be tuned to the source by adjusting the rate knob.

I will post a picture of the board and perhaps someone more knowledgeable will figure what part is actually not functioning properly. Anyone have any thoughts feel free to post of contact me directly.

Maybe this will turn out to be a good and usable mod for others.

Winter NAMM Predictions

and here are some predictions based on years of technology experience...

1. more Kaoss Pad offshoot products that have the fun taken out and replaced with suck. KP3 is still selling so they can still milk it.

2. virtual Ensoniq collection plugin with a Fizmo that even has a special dongle key that is shaped like a bad regulator.

3. digital "tape loop" player with animated hubs on a touch screen that you can flange with your finger.

4. MIDI standard to be replaced something worse.

To be continued...

I've lost another friend

Rest In Peace Tom.
You were one of a kind to many and all.

lets do the time warp again

I posted a bunch of photos of my last studio on flickr.

If mind numbingly depressing not to have what I would consider a workable space but I have had a fair amount of real luxury and luck. Much of my professional life as a musician I have either had a studio or at the very least access to free space in the apartment I grew up in.

At present I will not take any job that requires critical listening or significant volume because i simply don't have any means of accommodating these things in what I would consider to be a professional manner.

We won't get into a debate today about the dumbing down of the recording studio. Just accept the fact that as much as I encourage artists to be realistic with their budgets I am not a fan of just making a shitty product just because it's easy and believe me I have broken every rule spread eagled here so I know I'm not talking smack.

content for other blogs

Because nothing spells creative like changing things around.



Little details are still unsettled but it's more then enough to be functional on a day to day basis.

If the photo is blurry, does that mean it won't end up being used somewhere else?

Who's your daddy?

In the olden days "used" was not "vintage" unless you where talking guitars.

Daddy's Junky Music had a monthly catalog and if you saw something you wanted you probably called using a device called a telephone and spoke to Hirsh. You asked him whether it was still available and if it was you bought it.

The great thing about Daddy's was that if you had a band or owned a studio (which also was a different thing in those days) you could outfit your racks with more processing power, buy extra drum hardware and put together a good PA system for very little money.

At some point Daddy's opened more stores and stopped their "Used Gear By Mail" catalog and business. My memory was that there just was less used gear hitting the market and Ebay had probably had a negative effect as well. I know I was sad. I think the last item I bought was a huge Vox bass cabinet which I paired with a fawn AC-30 and made much happy noises.

Today as I was doing a search for road cases and I hit Daddy's site and much to my great joy, they are back in the mail order business. Touring bands to garage bands can rejoice and afford play.

Euro Wack

With the modular synthesizer business being as brisk as it has ever been I can't quite understand why an affordable power racking solution hasn't appeared.

Yes, Doepfer has released their "low cost" suitcase, which is not at all a suitcase but is still cheaper then a box with a handle. This thing would be fine if you had a desire to buy a bunch of them and then do all the stuff that would make them solid but you'd end up spending a lot of money.

I'm at a point where I'm pulling stuff out of my racks and hoping to run into a good deal on a G6 at the right time but I know too God damned well I'll be the same place again soon enough.

Vacation pocket music

I have mixed feelings about many of the pocket music devices that some people use seemingly just because of their size. Granted I am a stompbox fanatic and I do usually prefer them to much of their rack counter parts.

I recently go a chance to try the Korg DS-10 which has gotten a fair amount of press already. My interest was very small, after all I had always been a little put off by people's revisionism that has turned an ok synth into a classic. I figured it won't kill me to try it and try it I did.

After some inital screwing around I finally put on my test visor and gave the little bastard a whirl. Much to my shock and amusement they managed to not only pull off a fun virtual synth but they added a bunch of extra stuff that makes it better then an actual emulation would have been.

Me? I'll be taking my DS on vacation loaded with Electroplankton, Korg DS-10 and perhaps some homebrew stuff loaded on to my R4.
I have not liked many copies of synths I own and have found many soft synths to also be unwieldy power hungry son of a bitches that can't do anything complicated because the GUI has eaten the processor. Did it have to take some toy company to finally do it right? I'm not sure but if you are going to have a DS anyway you might want to wait for the US release in Sept.