Blog

Strange Culture by sam_squarewave

Here's a track made with the Waldorf Largo Synth.  Runs $250 for the AU or VST.  Sounds pretty darn nice with some interesting patches and a boatload of options, routing and control.

The patch browser is a bit weak - shows many duplicates and sometimes doesn't filter.

We're in the process of buying a house and it seems like I haven't been doing much music related exploration lately, hence the posting has been a bit sparse.  I'll have a music room that will be roughly twice as large.  More ceiling room and concrete floors which will liven the drums up a bit.  My current room can be a bit dead - but it's been a good thing, since I'm no acoustics expert.
 
Worked out a few more Sole remixes.  Did this one last weekend.  http://samsquarewave.com/track/swagger-like-us-squareroot-mix
 
He announced some preliminary winners, which I sadly wasn't one of.  He did send me a note saying that my Double Down remix was one of his favorites - "Strangely". Word. I'm sure I learned a thing or two during the process of these remixes.  I'll have to share in the future.
 
Still working in Logic mostly.  Enjoying the pedalboard effects very much.
 
Played drums in a big basketball auditorium for a College show in Las Cruces NM.  http://vimeo.com/album/215979 for some recordings. 
 
Copped a pair of Motorola ROKR headphones which work via bluetooth to play back music and do calls on the phone. 
 
We have a new site design up for Littlebird, which is our home business.
 
Hope to get working on some more AudioPropellor tutorials after the move.
 
That is all for now. 

These tips masquerade as being written for 'Poetry Slam' performers.
 
http://web.mac.com/tmali/Bakers_Dozen_/Start_%3E.html
 
Written by a master of the poetry slam, but seem to be relevant to music, songwriting and performance in general.

I have some versions of some sole songs I did today up here:
http://samsquarewave.bandcamp.com/album/remixes

We've had a computer connected to our TV for the past two years.  Our Samsung 32" LCD has a VGA input.  We had cable for a year since it was coming free with our internet, but cox got stingy and decided to take that away.  For the 5 years before that, I didn't have cable.
 
We've been sampling the growing bounty of online video which has sprung up in the past few years.  You could say we have been on the bleeding edge of the HTPC (home theater pc) revolution.  We have been experiencing a golden age which I think will be coming to an end soon. 
 
I got a new remote control in the mail today.  It controls my playstation and everything else in my entertainment center.  It can learn from other remotes and it can control the stereo system, regardless of what unit I have selected.  Brilliant!
 
I still have to use a mouse to click around to several different sites to find the content I want - but it's wonderful.  There are at most TWO commercials in every break.  TWO commercials. 
 
I was thinking it would be nice if I could press a button on my new remote and I could watch HULU, or Netflix.  No mouse, no clicking on icons or tracking down content - just plain easy entertainment from my couch with the non-fiddly remote control. 
 
But there is a problem with this.  When a HTPC becomes this easy to operate, everyone will be using it.  And when everyone is using it, there will be the ratio of commercials to content that exists on cable and network TV today which is 7:3 - 3 hours of commercials for every 10 hours of content.  
 
Perhaps technology will save us and marketers will find a more efficient way to market to us at a lower ratio.  I also wouldn't mind paying a little money to watch the shows I like without commercials.  The current iTunes pricing of $2.99 is far too much. 
 
My dillema for the present is that commercials on some sites are too damn loud.  In the old way of broadcasting video segments were piped through some common hardware which might have had a limiter on it which could control levels.  Of course, some broadcasters on cable still like to blast the commercials.  However, the commercial volume level online varies wildly, enought to make me a little grouchy. 
 
I need a volume attenuator for the commercial breaks.  I'd also like a aux input which can mix a MP3 player into my audio while I'm playing games.  This could probably be done with a small mixer with an onboard compressor effect - which would probably cost more than $100, but might be well worth it until the online TV world sorts it's self out both technically and commercially - and when that time comes I'll probably be ready to leave it.

We got a new camcorder today - the panasonic HDC-tm700. They've come a long long way since I was a kid - but what hasn't technology-wise?

It's got the HD and 3 sensors, which used to be a feature you could only get on cameras costing a few thousand clams. This means it works very well in low light - which is most shooting conditions indoors. I plan on using this for audiopropellor extensively - I'm going to do a few videos on recording drums and mixing them. 

Of course it beats the pants off of the iPhone camera, which I've been using for all of my performance videos. 

It also has timelapse on it, which my wonderful wife listed as her first requirement - as this was her birthday present!  It also has audio inputs and outputs and adjustable parameters for the onboard 5.1 microphone. 

Did I mention it could probably fit in my pocket? 

Here's the deal.  Everyone in this little project submits two samples: one rhythmic, one melodic, both recorded before 1980. 

Everyone grabs the pack and creates something out of it. 

I submitted a recording of a very old time horn band I found on someone's hobby website.  He also had a recording of a jamming signal from world war II, which I thought was quirky and would probably give an interesting texture to someone.

I listened back to all the samples and picked my favorite little sections and threw them into Ableton.  A few hours later I had the basic track. 

You can listen to it here - http://theb-roll.com/?page_id=29

My track is called Lint by Sam Squarewave.

The monome people are a very creative bunch and the tracks have a lot of care put into them.

I've been working on this tutorial site for a while and finally decided to just put it up.  I've got a few videos on MainStage and will be doing some Ableton videos as well.  Enjoy!

http://www.audiopropellor.com

I put this bandcamp page up today which has a sampling of the first quarter my new musical collection.
http://samsquarewave.com

Here is my first release under the name Sam Squarewave.  It's mostly made up of things I have created over the past year with Mainstage and Ableton.
It's somewhat unconventional, but is hopefully an interesting listen.