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August 30, 2006
Phillips Entertaible, really interesting interactive surface..
Oh lordy lord. If there ever was a device that was ready for adaption to multi-touch music composition and experimental interfaces action. This. Is. It. The Entertaible is designed as a collaborative & social gaming device, mixing up the board game experience with electronic gaming.
However, a quick look at the pictures has captured my imagination and reminded me of my excitement on seeing things like this. I'm understand that some of the max/msp crowd fiddle around with projection and touch interfaces, and I'm sure if these came to market at a reasonable price they would sell like hotcakes to the indy electronic folks.
Phillips Site Entertaible Via Joystiq.com
A couple more pics after the jump.
Posted by funnelbc at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
Styletap Means Palm Apps (Bhaji's Loops!) on PPC
Styletap allows you to run Palm OS apps on a Pocket PC. Why this is of interest to me, is that I have been looking for a cheap palm pilot so I can try out Bhaji's Loops and some of the other interesting music software for palm.
I love all these small music applications, I think its a obsession with bonsai style miniaturization.
Which is really rather good news for stingy PPC owners who want to try out Palm software!
This information comes to you courtesy of the excellent Palm Sounds
Checkout Styletap now.
Posted by funnelbc at 04:58 PM | Comments (1)
DIY Modular Synth Group in Melbourne
Oh My. I'm a bit excited about this. There's a group of folks in Melbourne, Australia that are getting together and building modular synths. I have signed up, and am very keen to give this a try.
This is an excellent way to share knowledge and a passion for music nerdology. I'm really looking forward to getting involved with this. This band of desparados who wield soldering irons aloft like mighty swords are calling themselves VICMOD
If you have a local synth building chapter and would like to let me know (info at ausmusician dot com), please do and I will post it up your details.
Posted by funnelbc at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2006
Air Guitar Extravaganza.
This thread has been copied straight from AIF (a design nerd forum I happen to a member of).
And was entirely the work of Def, Etcher & Vidman who are truly gods amongst men, they straddle the earth with their mighty man legs and pluck her strings in a glorious cacophony of concentrated awesome.
I have uploaded it to onetonne's server to preserve this moment in time.
Lots more after the jump.
Posted by funnelbc at 11:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 27, 2006
Moo-g or Mogue? My pronunciation conundrum.
Okay. This is a bit of an admission of guilt. But for a long time I thought that Moog was pronounced Moo-g (as in the sound a cow makes with a g on the end). And up until last year I continued to think this, and it still pains me to say it properly Mogue (as in Kylie Min-ougue without the Min and with a M)
I just wanted to give you a heads-up, incase you were in a music shop and you were chatting idly with the shop guy and you accidentally said Moo-g. Because that's not right.
Even though it's more fun to say it that way. Dammit. I want it to be Moo-g. It sounds better.
Inspired by this: Matrix Synth Post
Moog piccy from Flickr
Posted by funnelbc at 03:48 PM | Comments (1)
PSP Homebrew: Control Live Wirelessly
You could be forgiven for thinking that I'm not as excited by the PSP homebrew scene, you'd be right. Mostly because I offloaded my PSP and bought a DS (for the second time) and I really haven't looked sideways since... But here is something very tasty.
It's a homebrew app for PSP that allows you to control Abelton Live from the PSP. It allows you trigger clips, and also lets you use the joystick as an x/y pad controller. Fantastic. The potential for using relatively affordable consoles as interface devices for software is a really appealing one.
Now all we need is a version for DS! ;-)
Via CDM
Download playLive for PC from e-mu.org
Related: PSP2Midi
Posted by funnelbc at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
Toshio Iwai interview on Cubed3
There's a nice (exclusive) interview on Cubed with Toshio Iwai. Amongst other things, there's discussion on Electroplankton, Tenori On & Live performance. It's actually a rather nice conversation and the interviewer asks some great questions.
There is a fascinating insight on the missing save function in Electroplankton.
Cubed3: Having played the game extensively and listened to the feedback of other gamers, it seems to be the general consensus that the lack of a save function is very restrictive. Was there any particular reason why this was left out?
Toshio Iwai: We have discussed a save function many times, and finally concluded not to included it. There are following 2 reasons:
● The first reason is that I wanted players to enjoy Electroplankton extemporarily and viscerally, and I thought if the save function was added, the software would become more like a tool. I did not want a play style where players have to open additional menus or windows, or have to input file names to save.
● The second reason is that it would require large volume of flush ROM and it would take a lot of time to save and read the data in order to save many voice files for Volvoice and Rec-Rec. I thought players could play the software without stress if I got rid of the save function, rather than incorporating the save function and letting players wait for a long time before it’s saved or being told that only little amount can be saved.
Which to me makes a lot of sense. Of course, in my ideal world Electroplankton would have a save function so that indepth programming and using it as instrumentation would be more feasible, but I can respect the concept of the design.
Also covered briefly, and I would LOVE to see this, is the concept of a Toshio Iwai title for the upcoming Nintendo Wii. Very interesting concept, and gathering by the response Electroplankton has had, I'm sure there would be a market for it.
Check out the whole Cubed3 Interview with Toshio Iwai it's rather nice.
Related:
How to Make Electroplankton Rock - A Wishlist
Toshio Iwai has a blog
Toshio Iwai performing at Futuresonic
Posted by funnelbc at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2006
News from hardcore nerd land: DIY Open Source Midi Keyboard
For anyone who's got the itch for homebrew & music creation, there is an excellent tutorial on how to convert a cheap (£5) keyboard into a midi sending machine. It also details how to get it working by rolling your own firmware for the AN2131 Breadboard for *nix.
I can only applaud this effort - there's some reasonably hardcore soldering and general purpose nerding behind this. Excellent.
Headfuzz - MidiHack via Make:Blog
Posted by funnelbc at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2006
Nitrotracker 0.2
On the topic of Homebrew, Nintendo DS and general excellence, there is a new version of NitroTracker out. I have to get away from the computer lest my partner kill me for my collection of hellboy comic books (and not coming to bed when asked to) but it includes a Sample Editor. (Pictured above)
I will have to get off my bum and do a proper review on Nitrotracker. Because it's excellent, and Tobias (Nitrotracker's programming genius) seems like an a great guy from his interaction with Nitrotracker users on other forums, and therefore we should celebrate his excellent software!
Expect more information & coverage on this topic as soon as possible.
Posted by funnelbc at 09:49 PM | Comments (3)
Control winamp from your homebrew compatible DS
I love the idea. Basically it allows you to control Winamp from your homebrew compatible DS. Unfortunately I have abandoned Winamp for iTunes. Ever since Winamp went to version 5 it got slower and they added a lot more suck into an otherwise excellent peice of software. But, I as they say, digress. Basically I was having trouble locating where I enable the required ports on my router, and gave up.
If you actually use Winamp and have a flashed DS then maybe you will persevere. But me. I've got other things I'm supposed to be writing about.
Still if you want to give this a go, and can brave a fairly simple adjustment to your routers settings (and possibly spanish error messages) then check it out.
Here's another application that allows you to stream your Winamp music library to your DS's little tinny speakers.
Snippy remarks about speakers aside. Homebrew for the DS is awesome. I don't care how useful or not this software is, it's still very cool.
Posted by funnelbc at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)
"Hey you now horny disco"
I am testing out Writer a beta blogging program from the Microsoft, so excuse me if something happens that is a little bit strange.
Talking about things that are a little bit strange, Tom from Music Thing brings us this.
It's just too good to be true. "Thankyou green light lovers. Hey you now. Hey you now horny disco." Excellent.
(Update. For anyone who is curious: Writer appears to blow - at least form the perspective of being able to read/edit the post from within Movable Type as it fills it full-o-tags(tm). Also it doesn't like more complex html it seems - such as the embed tag).
Posted by funnelbc at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2006
Creative Release HQ-2300D Surround Sound Headphones
New to the (Australian) market is the HQ-2300D. The cans come with their own little teeny weeny Dolby Digital & DTS decoder. I'm assuming that's what the lumpy thing (not the headphones) in the above shot is. I may well be a dancin' fool but what exactly is the benefit of:
giving expanded and natural playback from DVD players, MP3 players and game consoles.
Maybe the Dolby decoder can transmogrify your mp3's into an amazing surround sound experience. Maybe there's some format which supports this. Or maybe they're trying to pull a swifty. Who knows? Not me, that's for sure. I trust Sim Wong Hoo and I'm sure he wouldn't do such a thing.
At any rate, when you are next mastering a surround sound mix on the fly... but err... don't have cash for surround reference speakers... Er no scratch that. Here's some interesting headphones which will probably sound okay. Check them out if you have an urgent Dolby Digital or DTS need on the move, or in the privacy of a pair of headphones.
Creative Page for HQ-2300D Headphones
Posted by funnelbc at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)
Native Instruments Kontrol 1
Peter over at the mighty CDM has put together a really nice overview of the new Native Instruments Kontrol 1. One observation that has been made elsewhere, but I find personally fascinating is the concept that Native Instruments, essentially a software company have released some rather decent looking hardware.
I think this is a really slick looking piece of kit, and it's entering a hyper competitive space in the market. But it looks the jazz, and that knob.... It's a biggun. However, I think it is a bit disingenuous for NI to state that:
Also included are 3 full versions of Native Instruments software – ensuring you can start creating sounds and mixing tracks instantly.
When further reading reveals that:
the full versions of XPRESS KEYBOARDS, GUITAR COMBOS and TRAKTOR 3 LE guarantee its universal appeal:
The full version of Traktor 3 LE. While I'm sure Traktor 3 LE is indeed a fully fledged peice of software and not crippled in several major ways so that you end up buying the full version out of frustration, because I'm sure that NI are nicer than that... I can't help but feel my scepticism sense starting to kick in. At any rate, I would be a bit wary of any piece of "LE" bundle software being classed as "Full versions" but that's just me.
At any rate, it's equipped with a decent array of knobs and i/o, although the lack of digital i/o is a bit of a stinker. Even if cheap effective digital i/o can be had on a variety of cheap (and not so cheap) cards and breakout boxes on the market. Still, it does look nice though...
Posted by funnelbc at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2006
Super Mario Bros Theme Tune on 11 string bass
You know I'm a sucker for video game theme tunes. Super Mario Bros on 11 String Bass as performed by Jean Baudin.
Via Neatorama
Posted by funnelbc at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)
Using Windows Sound Recorder for good instead of evil...
Got to be seen to be believed. It takes a while to get started so bear with it...
SoundRec32 Rocks! Thanks again Paul!
Posted by funnelbc at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
Tenori-On Protype Video
In Tenori-On related news, there's a Siggraph promo video up on YouTube that has a short clip that has a what appears to be the prototype Tenori-On units, which look much more industrial than anything you may have seen on Yamaha's website. It's 1m45s into the clip.
Via Pixel Sumo
Posted by funnelbc at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2006
CoverFlow for iTunes (mac)
Well, I think this falls into the holy crap that's awesome pile. CoverFlow is a plugin for iTunes that lets you graphically browse your iTunes collection by cover art. Visit the CoverFlow Website to see a proper video of it in action, but it's just an amazingly simple idea. When I'm browsing for music to listen to in my cd collection I have the spines of the cd to remind me which album is which, and this brings the addition of album art really nicely into the digital music player interface.
Unfortunately it's only for Mac at this stage, but as soon as I get into work I shall be installing this on my workstation G5 to give it a proper test run. Until then I will have to make do with looking at my real cds to decide what mp3 to playback in iTunes. Bah. No fair!
But if you have a mac, and have been dutifully updating your cover art each time you load in a CD, or download an album, you have to try this out.
Note to self. Download CoverFlow Thanks Paul!
Posted by funnelbc at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
The Mountain Goats - Woke Up New filmclip
I am a huge Moutain Goats fan. They're a band that do indy guitar folk perfectly. Its the kind of music that recognises that sometimes you feel shit, but picks you up and puts you back on your feet. (Second time In two days I'm using this phrase but) I certainly don't mean to come off as being twee, but hey there you go.
Here is the clip for Woke Up New, which is off their new album Get Lonely, which I just picked up today.
The clip is directed by Rian Johnston who directed the film Brick which is getting pretty good reviews I believe.
Moutain Goats - Official 4AD Site
Posted by funnelbc at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2006
visit palm sounds
Just wanted to mention Palm Sounds. A new(ish) blog that's covering portable music. I'm fascinated by the concept of smaller music production programs, and ones that work on portable platforms are really interesting. Anyway. I've just added it to my rss reader and I thought it was worth a mention.
I am on the hunt for a cheap palm so I can give Bhajis Loops a try, as the palm guys really seem to love it.
(The picture by the way is a early screenie of Synthpad from miniMusic. Interesting.
Go visit Palm Sounds
Posted by funnelbc at 12:15 PM | Comments (1)
aleatoric music composition
I've been meaning to write this up literally forever. But hey. I'm important and busy*. (*not really) Also I like playing video games. I'm sure you can see how that works out.
A mate of mine dylan (webzen: this is not london.com & the world is our soundtoy.com) asked me ages ago to score some music for him. What he wanted me to score was actually what you see above. (but more bars obviously). It's mostly chewing gum and dirty marks on the plastic stripping that is on the edge of train platforms.
I added an extra bar line below so I had the normal 5 lines to work with and fired up Sibelius. What I ended up with was pleasantly suprising.
Results in midi format Download file
There's some really nice little bits in this, some work better than others, but from a compositional standpoint for music scored from bubblegum on a trainplatform it isn't bad. This is an idea I'd like to explore in greater depth, and possibly take some photos myself and score my local trainstation. Perhaps with a few determined music geeks we could score a bunch of trainstations the world over. A correspondingly busy trainstation would result in many more grubby marks to score. The other implication (and this is something dylan's soundtoys really made me think about) is that in the world around us, there are myriad opportunities for musical inspiration, and in this literal sense of scoring as faithfully as possible, the real word theres a really pleasing idea at the core. And I certainly don't mean to be twee, but everyone no matter how untalented (such as myself) can look for inspiration and create music.
Edit: Dylan tells me it's not incidental music composition, but aleatoric music composition!
Posted by funnelbc at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)
New writer on the onetonne block
I would like to welcome a new writer to the onetonnemusic posse! Velcro Smaak will be joining us! He's from the UK and studying Audio Technology, a subject which is close to all of our hearts. He's been published in some of his local papers, and also some student magazines as well.
I am really excited to welcome Velcro, and cannot wait to get more people involved in the site. If you are at all interested in joining in and writing stuff about music or music nerdology (tm) I would love to hear from you. Drop me a line on info at ausmusician dot com and I will set you up with an account and you can broadcast your thoughts and join the onetonnemusical revolution.
Posted by funnelbc at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2006
Lara Stephen - Up In The Air
For the last week I have been listening to Lara Stephen's new album, Up In The Air, almost constantly. Maybe it's the Winter blues, but this album absolutely matches my mood at the moment. Up In The Air is a melloncollie album, it mixes a variety of styles and the whole album can't be put into one single basket. The closest I can get to pinning this one down is finely crafted noir folk guitar.
What underpins the album's slightly wandering musical style is Lara's amazing voice. She has a beautiful low croon that makes each track work. I'm picky with my female vocalists, but Lara's voice is just lovely - but don't take my word for it. Here's a rundown on a couple of the standout tracks. Lara has kindly made them available for mp3 download on her site.
Hello is the second track on the album, and is most likely going to be what gets the most radio airplay on the album. It's a nice song and I like it - but I think the album has better tracks, like The Lucky One.
Download - Lara Stephen - Hello
Speaking of, The Lucky One is a beautiful soft jazz croon. The production values on the entire record are excellent, but this track really stands out. The recording of the trumpet is evocative, and an excellent counterpoint to Lara's voice. The whole track just works so well. Absolutely velvet smooth.
Download - Lara Stephen - The Lucky One
Up In The Air is perfect Winter listening, it's full of soft spoken folksy tunes without being twee. It's well balanced and beautifully recorded. Lara Stephen has an amazing voice, and you could do much worse than grabbing a copy of this when it's released on the 14th of this August. If you get a chance definitely check out this album.
Recommended.
Website Lara Stephen.com
You can buy tracks online here: Martian Music.com
Posted by funnelbc at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)
August Update
Howdy folks, I thought it was time for a small update on the site. I have been away in New Zealand for the last few weeks and have spent the week trying to catch up on emails and all sorts of fun work related stuff. But I wanted to mention a few things that I have on the go right now.
Playlist
I wanted to make note that the Music Reviews Category is now called Playlist instead. I will be reviewing and welcoming reviews of albums and EPs for this section. If you have a band and want your stuff reviewed please drop me a line on info at ausmusician dot com. I am happy to have a listen and write a few words up and let folks know about your stuff. Just so you know, at the moment that means around 600-800 people per day could be reading about your stuff. So if you want a bit of support and free exposure, then please give me a hoy.
Gig Posters
Also on the topic of support for indy bands, I am continuing to do FREE poster design, where time permits. I am booked up for the next couple of weeks, but if you get in contact and I am available I would be delighted to help out. Previous gig posters are here..
Writers (still) Wanted
I am looking to grow the site wherever possible. If you have a passion for music (and music toys & instruments) and would like to write for onetonnemusic I would be stoked to hear from you. If you want to be involved please drop me a line: info at ausmusician dot com. Anyone is welcome to apply, and if you want to write stuff and get feedback on your writing, I am most happy to do so. Even though my webwriting is pretty average, I did support myself through university by writing (for real magazines).
Forums
The Forums are a bit stale at the moment. I am planning to look at the forum Categories over the next few days. I have just implemented some stuff to remove spammers, but basically, I reckon it needs an influx of new people. I'm thinking of running a giveaway to maybe bump up forum chatter. But if you haven't registered an account on the forums and say hello!
Finally, those of you who requested one of the Free Melbourne Live CDs should have (or will in the next day or so) received it in the mail. Sorry it took so long, but sometimes I get swamped... And I'm easily distracted... Sorry.
Cheers folks,
Funnel
Posted by funnelbc at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
Beta @ New Get Lucky Bar in Shanghai
I have a bit of a backlog of jobs in the free poster department - but if you have a show coming up, bung me an email on info at ausmusician dot com and I will try and fit it in! Also, the Trough Lollies are releasing a new album which I am doing the art for, so keep an eye out for that one!
In the mean time, if you are located in Shanghai check out Beta @ The New Get Lucky Bar, 20th August @ 9pm.
More Gig Posters in the Archive
Posted by funnelbc at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)