Of all contributors to the 60×60 Buzz Compilation, which you should download, I am the only one not credited under a pseudonym. I am still trying to figure out the deep insight this fact reveals about either me or the Buzz community, but I’m sure it’s there.
So Roland announced their latest Juno synthesizer, the Juno Stage. It’s another rompler, this time more performance oriented. Roland have a long history of making good romplers. I have not played extensively with the new Junos myself, but friends who have them assure me they are worthy additions. However.
Why would they resurrect the Juno name for these? The original Juno was an afforable analog polysynth. People interested in a Juno 60 or Juno 106 today are most likely:
The new Junos, on the other hand, appeal to people who want to get some decent keys, pads, and other classic rompler sounds. No doubt the two groups overlap somewhat, but I suspect not too much.
The best analogy I can come up with is that the Juno 60 was a budget alternative to the Jupiter-8, while the modern Junos are budget alternatives to the Fantom family.
A tune of mine appears in the 60×60 Buzz Compilation, which you should listen to anyways. 60 songs x 60 seconds = an hour of modular madness. It’s actually quite fantastic.
The collection was organized by the tireless n3wjack and is an excellent showcase for our favorite quirky music application. From now on, when someone asks me what kind of music I make, I’m just going to hand out a copy of this compilation.
My tune is the 51st minute, which, for those of you who are neither computer programmers nor soccer fans, starts at 50:00.
EDIT: Oh yeah, the bonus mix, comprising Buzzalicious tracks that didn’t make it into the main mix for one reason or another, is pretty fab in its own right. Especially if you like Hamsters.
I was flipping through some pornography the other day, admiring some pretty guitars. Specifically, the maple-top Taylor T5 caught my eye. Of course, Grl’s 614CE is not exactly an eyesore either. Then I wondered: what gear do I have that’s nice to look at? The yellow-cone KRKs? The padKontrol? I love my kit, but it’s not pretty.
Guitarists can find an axe with any body shape, color, finish, and wood they like. Synthesizers, on the other hand, tend to look functional at best and butt-ugly at worst.
Sonically speaking, classics like the MS-20 or DX-7 were revolutionary. Visually, they look more like appliances than instruments. I would love to get my hands on an ARP Odyssey, but it’s pretty unattractive. At least oddities like the Wasp and the Fizmo are so ugly they’re cute.
What synths are beautiful? Pics and ramblings after the jump ..
Yesterday I mentioned the iPod game Phase in passing. Phase is a music game: you listen to a song and score points by pressing buttons in a pattern in time with the music. The cool feature is that you aren’t restricted to playing with the game’s built-in soundtrack: you can add any song from your library to the game. If that description sounds even vaguely interesting to you, it’s worth five bucks.
For me, the quality of the follow-along patterns make or break a music game. The patterns should be intuitive for a player with a good sense of rhythm. In other words, the challenge should come from following the patterns, not figuring out what they are. This is pretty tough, and an algorithm to generate them is quite a technical challenge. Here’s my experience.
House of Jealous Lovers, The Rapture. I boldly opened the game on “Medium” difficulty. The song was pretty fun to play, and the pattern kept the beat nicely. But it was very easy; I got nearly perfect accuracy on the first try.
Supernaturally, Nick Cave. I bumped up to “Hard” difficulty. I thought this song might give the algorithm trouble; in addition to the distinctive rhythmic figure, the loud songs on this record are compressed to hell. To my surprise, the generated pattern was fantastic and quite intuitive. This song was tons of fun to play, not the least because it’s so stirring and easy to get into. Man, I fxn love this song.
Tigerbastard, Mu. The pattern started off fine, but it sorta lost the plot during the break. I felt like I was just striking buttons at random for a while. Unfortunately the break is pretty long, and I got a little bored of this track. Being a masochist, I moved on to ..
Pygmalion, Venetian Snares. If you’re not familiar with him, this song might euphemistcally be described as “high information content.“ I wasn’t sure what the algorithm would make of the complex and irregular rhythms. The pattern seemed a tad too regular during the frantic parts, but I’m seriously picking nits here.
Any flaws? It’s way too easy to press pause accidentally. My hand hurt pretty badly after three or four songs, but I have comically large hands and a comically small iPod.
Overall, I was quite impressed with the technology. The game is a fantastic time-killer if for no reason other than forcing you to pay more attention to your music.
I just got back from a trip for Day Job. Some notes:
Future Publishing, the outfit behind such periodicals as Computer Music, launched their reviews and tips site MusicRadar. It’s actually several months old at this point, and I’m not sure how it stayed off my, um, radar for so long. It reads a lot like an issue of Computer Music, but with a broader scope and, you know, not three months out of date.
Here is a theme song I made for The Offside podcast about a year ago. They decided not to use it, which doesn’t bother me; but they used some kind of lame audio clip art non-song instead, which does. Weak. I was all set to rip some Jose Mourinho quotes off of YouTube and layer them in.
As for the actual match, at first I found it hard to get excited for yet another Man U-Chelsea clash. But no matter how you feel about the teams, you can’t deny that they are both stacked with talent. And for that matter, Chelsea’s reputation for cynical football is a bit overblown. So I decided to stop worrying about hatin’ on the big-money clubs and just enjoy one more big-time game.
Music Thing created a cool Google map of music shops around the world– you know, actual buildings where you can walk in to look at and play with instruments. It’s an open map, so you’re free to add your favorite joint. I was flattered that I had the chance to add Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center to the map.
If you fancy yourself a musician and live anywhere in the mid-Atlantic USA, you need to make the pilgrimage to Chuck’s. It’s massive, occupying four ugly buildings in an ugly strip mall in ugly suburban Maryland. The selection is huge and the staff are phenomenal. I was there with my dad one time; he was looking for a guitar stand, which seemed like a good enough excuse to make the trip. I think this was around Christmas time, and the place was jam packed with people. But the clerk who helped him must have spent ten solid minutes asking about his guitar, comparing different models, showing him how they folded up, like he was Bob Dylan.
Happily, this is not one of those “please support this great independent joint or it might disappear” rants. Despite operating out of a single location, insiders tell me Chuck’s is the only music retailer in the US with enough clout to compete with Guitar Center on price.
The Washington Post had a great feature on Chuck’s a few years back that captures the feel nicely.
Have you been to Chuck’s? Share your love below.
In the market for an Oberheim OB-Xa? Well, now’s your chance to have Debbie Gibson’s.