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January 31, 2009
Oh, geeze... Another great i-pod ap!
As if there weren't enough fun toyz to play with, I happened to check out the ap store tonight and, on a
whim, downloaded something called idrum. Now, if everything has to have a stinkin' "i" in front
of it in order to be in the store, that's going to get old quick, but this application is the i-tits.
It's basically a groove box, something to make rhythm patterns with, and while there's plenty
of those available for computers, this one is tons of fun, mainly because it's so easy to use. There
are no instructions needed- and after several days of trying to understand my synth manual, this is a
blessed relief.
There are little boxes, and inside the boxes are other little boxes, and inside those boxes are
littler boxes. And they are different colors. And if there's something in the box, it makes a noise when
the beat comes around. And you can pick what noise it makes.
And even better, you can step outside the box and trace with your finger where you want that noise
to be in the stereo field. Live. Seamlessly.
It's about the coolest interface for mixing I've ever seen. And it cost me $.99. Here's my first attempt
to use it- everything you hear was made using that program except for the lead guitar, which is a
real lead guitar. Thank god, there's still a place for old dogs who can play the guitar...
The Stokers- Groove01.mp3 or
The Stokers- Groove01.ogg
And... no Sakata!
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January 30, 2009
Here's a great shot- a view from the driver's seat, from Sean from Big House. Up top there is a Korg
Trinity and on the bottom is a Kurzweil K2661, like the one I'm trying to learn to operate. Follow the link
to see a nice big version of this photo, let me know if you can figure out what music is on the music stand.
I bought one of these synthesizers because it can emulate the operation of a Hammond organ, with a set of
sliding controls that allow you to change the tone of the thing in real time, more or less. You can hear how well that works on the song Prime the Pump, just below, although I've got to admit that I don't have a clue yet how to
use this thing. The manual for it is probably the most obtuse (in the sense of "indirect or circuitious") piece of literature I've ever read.
And I'm a reader, boy. I actually enjoy reading scientific journals, and dense technical manuals, and long philosophical
excursions... but this manual beats them all. It seems to have been written by seven different people, each given a
particular paragraph in sequence, but not allowed to read what anyone else had written. It doesn't help that
Kurzweil felt it necessary to name everything differently from other manufacturers (although this is common in synth world...), so that "patches" or "presets" are "programs" and "filters" are "FUN". Seriously, it's maddening.
But the thing sounds amazing! I've had a Kurzweil digital piano for years and have never gotten tired of the
sound of it, unlike every other digital piano I've ever heard, which usually stay interesting for about 20 minutes. I
guess circuitiousness in the manual is the price to pay for that sound.
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January 27, 2009
So long, Mr. Updike.
Hey, I came across a song I'd written years ago and never finished because my lyrics sucked. But the tracks
were pretty nice, and I now have something like a Hammond organ, so who needs lyrics?
The Stokers- Prime The Pump.mp3 or
The Stokers- Prime The Pump.ogg
Some of it is bullshit... but hey, that Sakata is in there too!
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January 25, 2009
Tonight I was checking out Bloom with a guitar accompaniment. I wasn't sure how this would work out,
it seemed that it would be hard to play guitar with that much space, but it wasn't so bad. An E-Bow might be
nice, or an Echoplex.
The most fun part was playing along with Robot Eno, the sequence of notes from the i-pod based on
parameters set by the real Eno. Sometimes Robot Eno led and I followed, sometimes Robot Eno followed me.
I also threw some Sakata drums into the mix. Same beat as last one, only slowed down. Oddly enough, it's
just about the same tempo as All I Need by Radiohead. Maybe it's some sort of ambience tempo? Does
ambience actually have a tempo?
The Stokers- Bloom02.mp3 or
The Stokers- Bloom02.ogg
Again, the basic bed of it is that Eno ap Bloom, with some of that MiniSynth
in there too.
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January 23, 2009
If you're new to Steam Powered there are just two things you need to know. Number one is
that there are hundreds more songs available to people who
sponsor the studio.
Number two is that sponsorship is the very best way to pay for the music
you enjoy. It's simple, it's direct, and it just makes sense. Welcome to the future!
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January 22, 2009
Now computers and i-pods are all well and good, but there used to be other ways to
make music. My Sakata DPM 48 was quite a bargain back in 1987, considering that it
was one of the few drum machines with digital samples. But it stopped working a while back,
and I thought it was historical.
Come to find out that there were watch batteries in the RAM module that needed replacement.
Did that, and it's good as new. The sounds are great!
So here's a new song done the way we used to do.
The_Stokers_Saka1.mp3
or
The_Stokers_Saka1.ogg
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January 21, 2009
Who are the most memorable people from centuries past? I was thinking of this the
other night, watching a special about Einstein. It isn't hard to imagine
that Einstein and Hitler will be the two most memorable people from the
20th century. And that's an interesting pair.
What about the century before that? And the one before that? I don't know much
about history, and I'm not interested in making a judgement about the greatest
or most important- I'm interested in who will be remembered, for whatever fool reason.
Could be Napoleon will be remembered, not as a statesman or warrior, but because
when people go crazy, they think they're Napoleon and are always shown with
a funny hat and their hand in their shirt, cross-eyed with their tongue sticking out.
So in that sense, who is the most memorable from the past? For some centuries it's a
lot easier than for others. I mean, who did anything memorable from 900 to 999? Add your
comment, I'll be running the names through Google to get an idea how memorable
people are. (Napoleon just got 42,800,000 hits)
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January 17, 2009
Here's a song made using nothing but the i-pod and some string.
The Stokers- Bloom01.mp3
The basic bed of it is that Eno ap Bloom, with some of that MiniSynth
and PocketGuitar in there too, as promised. I was hoping to get this posted by midnight- well I nearly made it.
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January 16, 2009
I've been doing repairs and inventory around here. You know those darn insurance
people, they'd like detailed lists of contents in case of loss. And it isn't like
I'm planning on having any losses, but that's just the thing about insurance, innit?
This was prompted by my getting an i-pod Touch, which makes it really super
easy to record things like serial numbers while flat on your back under a piano or
while peering into the back of an amp with a flashlight. And because the iOwn software
backs up my list on the web somewhere, I should only have the dreadful chore of entering this information
once. Knock wood.
Yes, it's all about the pod lately. There's a new application from Brian Eno
called Bloom (yes... yes...) that lets you make ambient sounds (thanks, Mr. DiLiberto!), and
between that and MiniSynth and PocketGuitar I'm sure you'll be hearing what that sounds like,
for better or worse, soon.
But I've got to get back to work one of these days. I'm in the middle of the Gadjos
thing, and I have a ways to go with Kregger's music, and Jeff Gibble has
applied some nice leads to a Stokers tune that I need to listen to carefully,
so stay tuned!
Anyway, here's a new featured song, from those mad skilz Liberation Fronters...
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January 09, 2009
Ah. There.
(photo: Bruce Campbell)
Visit the Gadjo's MySpace
page for a sample of the latest thing...
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January 07, 2009
Scott texts Joe: wher r u
We had a great time on Sunday. Sadly, I have very few pictures, but I suspect that
many exist.
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January 04, 2009
Joy of Joys (not).
I've used several different computers over the years to manage this website, and
different software to write the code for the pages and to make the mp3 and ogg files,
and to edit the graphics, and to upload the files to the host site(s)...
None of it by itself has been too tough- a little frustrating at times, but there's
plenty of help out there on the web. But yesterday and today I have been switching
everything over to a new(er) computer, and this has been a chore. I'd rather be making
music (which I hope to be doing here in a couple of hours).
So this post is basically a test of the new(er) computer and software install, just to see
if I can finally consign that noisy old PII heap to the pile of old computers that
I can't seem to part with...
(later) That seems to have worked! Here's a partial list of stuff I use, just to plug it.
Host: Site Ground
ftp software: Smart ftp
Page editing: 1st Page
Song editing: Gold Wave
ogg encoding: OggDropXPd
text editing: NoteTab Lite
That's most of it. I like good software, but as you can tell, I don't care much
about the hardware it runs on. This computer is running Windows XP (the old one ran
Windows 2000). For a few years there I had a good deal going- I would simply
transfer the hard drive from one machine to the next, and never have to re-install
all this software and fuss with settings and all that guff. But then SATA drives
came along and I couldn't do that anymore. Maybe this setup will last a few years...
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January 02, 2009
Thanks to Burt and Dr. D, the new year was bracketed with sponsorships! Rather
than reset the Sponsometer like last year it's going to register cumulative
"steam pressure" from now on.
And theres's another Gadjo Playboys session planned for Sunday... so how
about one of their songs featured for the new year?
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January 01, 2009
Here's a peek behind the curtain- some stats for the site from December '08.
Visits is unique daily visitors, excluding "robots". Pages is the number of different web pages those visitors visited on the site.
Hits is the number of various files requested by those visitors (since there are many
different graphics files on the home page, each visit here causes many hits as the
page downloads). Bandwidth is the number of bytes transferred.
This isn't so bad, I think. Naturally I'd love to have thousands of visits a day, but
an average of 27.35 per day is OK with me for now. Not so long ago it was fewer than 10.
And here are the different files transferred in December. Pretty straight-forward- the top
one has no name, but that's the homepage.
The "Entry" stat is for the number of times this file was hit directly from some external
referrer, like a bookmark or a link in an email. The "Exit" stat is the number of
times people left the site after hitting this file, without hitting another page on site. Those
numbers say a lot about visitors and what they're after.
For example, Orgy of Hate was hit 118 times last month, with all but four of those hits
coming from somewhere off site. That means that there's a direct link
to the song from another site, that people have the song bookmarked in thier browser or
music player, or that people are sharing the link via email. Or some combination of all of the above.
It could be one person playing it 114 times in one month, but I think that's unlikely.
Season of Joy has a lot of plays, but no links from offsite. So that means all of those plays
came from the link on the Steam Powered Studio homepage. It's all pretty geeky, I know,
but this is important information that I can use to promote songs!
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Featured Song:
#260
The Old Time Liberation Front
Feeder Mice Jig
mp3
or
ogg
2:29
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Spons-O-Meter
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Support the Studio via:
Or write us for other arrangements...
Steampowered
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Features:
Repairing a Kurzweil piano key.
Repairing a Tascam Porta-Two.
rant03:
the End of an Era.
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