Week of 19October2009 “Bring the Cold” Edition : The weather is chilling up out there and that means my tube amps and power supplies will turn into heaters instead of the summer sweat lodge.

Events:

Next Meet Up is 22November2009 at the Walnut Room. Watch for the official Post! Put it on your calender right now!

Friday 23Oct2009 at the D-Note [[[http://dnote.us]]] Darren Kramer is live with Live (Ableton). Darren’s site.  Here is a snippet:

“ELECTRIC QUARTET” Latest Release! FEATURING “Electric” Horns and B3 Organ. PERFORMING Original Funk, Jazz & Soul A brand new 4-piece DKO group that primarily features improvisation and the use of high-tech electronics and loops to create innovative sounds and unique textures.

Beta 23Oct2009 : Mochipet @ Beta BPL w Spectre & Ale Fillman – info at Facebook

Via Gear Junkies : At this year’s Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), 365LIVE and Media Satellite present a series of workshops and audiovisual jam sessions, including an introduction to Ableton Max for Live, a fully integrated tool kit for making your own instruments, effects and extensions in Ableton Live 8. More info is available here.

Various

If you are not aware of http://www.remixcomps.com you should be. If you are an infected mushroom fan there is a remix comp going on right now.

2010 Bent festival calling for performers – goto Matrixsynth for information.

Matrix Synth has this link on how to build a synth. I looked over some of this and found it slow moving but interesting. The content is hard to move along without either  getting boring or wooshing by too quick. Why do I mention this? Because there are so many people pushing synthesis with no idea of the roots or principles of synthesis (Did you know that a Hammond organ tone wheel is a mechanical synthesizer or additive synthesis)

What is a vocoder? Here is the answer, vocoded of course.

Visually

Hey! Ableton Tweets has a new (?) site up at http://abletontweets.com!!! and reminds us the Ableton is 10 years old!

There is a video titled “Mickey Mouse Abuse” I placed here.  Well, here is an interview of Kamoni (the artist) on Phuq Radio

Beginning Max Demo (vimeo) “How do you make an application in Max” – Get yourself ready. The Fed’s or duct tape ain’t gonna help you! (Only you can prevent large bears from wearing park ranger hats).

max4live.info Tutorial: Beginning Max from max4live on Vimeo.

Here is Ma x applied to the game of life

m4l.lab.gameoflive from liubo on Vimeo.

Advanced Max for Live – “Live Paths, Objects, and Observers”

Max For Live Paths, Objects, and Observers from max4live on Vimeo.

Editors note on Max for Live: There is going to be a lot of fun out of the box stuff available, but I want to say that we are entering a world of programming with this application. Please send me notes on this topic. I am seeing traditional programming ideas in Max more so than any other software packages. I work in this field and I would love to talk more on the topic where it gets deep.

Official (?) sneak peak of Max:

Max For Live Sneak Peak from max4live on Vimeo.

Circuit Bending for beginners via Matrix Synth.

Hardware :

Flame, uhh. Get ready. Well, first off, these are the cats who make the “Talking Synth” (it uses a vocal processing chip instead of a traditional oscillator – way cool). Well, they have some amazing MIDI gear also. Start here the site is harder to navigate than it should be, but there are some real gems.

Live Block control surface (demo) by Livid. Really good stuff! Info via Syntopia.

Livid Block Control Surface Intro from Livid Instruments on Vimeo.

Is this hardware, hard wear, software, or soft wear? Regardless – This is cool, jump into your own (damn) control surface. . ***Not recommended for anyone with bladder issues***

New midi controller series from M-Audio.  From what I see, this is more like an update of the Oxygen series. I am not too clear on the changes – my use of M-Audio products is almost none. I welcome input or reviews! Send me a message.

Elextro Harmonix has released the Memory Boy “Analog Delay – 550ms of delay time with Chorus and Vibrato” . Fun stuff. These guys have a warm place in my heart.

Tascam, the steady hitters in the audio interface game have dropped another solid unit – the US-2000
the quote:

TASCAM has announced the US-2000, a new one rackspace 16-input audio interface that’s expected to sell for under $500.

Super major FYI here – Touchprone make a bunch of fringe MIDI and similar items. The ebay store – one handy unit is the In line sync start-stop – here is an auction link . This is somethin every MIDI person should know about. There are several companies out there producing, this is but one option for inline start-stops.

Software

Free Alterex VST’s (via Matrix Synth)

Free SPL attacker plugin (via gear Junkies) “SPL celebrates one year of Analog Code and give away one Attacker per computer.” Direct link.

Free Jazz Guitar pack for Knotakt via Synthopia. Pettinhouse has released WarmJazzFREE, a jazz guitar sample library for Kontakt.

Another case of “show your age” – Remember the Korg M1? In our part of town this keyboard was the total “cat’s meow” for live Latino music in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Well, here is a link for a free sample pack via Synthipoa.

Circuit Bent Sounds library via Synthopia here is the quote:

Loopmasters has introduced Circuit Bent Sounds 2, a collection of bastardized electronics, twisted circuits, rewired technology and warped audio.

Pretty cheap and tons of sounds. Check out this page also.

I do not think I posted this – “The Future of Ableton Live” – interesting twist that came via Synthopia:

Online Synthesizer – good job!!!

Personally

Well – I finished my Ableton Rig. This has been going on since February. My goals:

• Fit into a “DJ Coffin” amount of space
• Push Ableton harder than most – but do much of it in the analog / non-digital / out of Ableton world.
• 10 minute set up
• Minimal wires (about 15 connections split evenly between power / USB – Firewire -MIDI / audio)
• Ability to pick up the entire set up and move it on/off stage easily (this gets to be pretty important when playing live)

I have a ton of photos, I will be posting more information soon. This is one of my specialties – I mod gear, cases, controllers, etc and get TIGHT rigs together. My gigging key rig was always a total blast! My Ableton rig is even more killer. Here is a link to a Tumblog I keep regarding audio peripherals and technology. Watch for more links.

Finally – a minor blow to Denver.  I am from NY also and aree with Oliver.  However, there are a bunch of us whoare pushing the envelope.