June, 2008 archive

Sonofcastille has published a set of videos demonstrating beautiful steampunk-style synths and noise generators.
Here are a few of the coolest:
WSG

This is Ray Wilson’s Weird Sound Generator circuit off of musicfromouterspace.com, plus audio amp scavenged out of a Radio Shack amp. The case was an old telephone from the 70s.

Digidesign has announced the immediate availability of its Transfuser virtual instrument for Pro Tools.
Transfuser comes with nearly 2 GB of loops and phrases to get users started quickly. By combining a series of modular drum machine/sound generators, dedicated sequencers, loop manipulation tools, and effects with an intuitive drag-and-drop composition/editing interface, users can easily create, manipulate [...]

In this video, new age artist Kitaro explains how and why he uses the synthesizer as he does. He also offers some criticism about the “wrong” use of that instrument.

Digidesign has teamed with The Crystal Method, artist community Fuzz.com, and Remix magazine on a remix contest using a new track from The Crystal Method’s upcoming studio album, due in stores this fall.
By visiting www.fuzz.com/remixingprotools, you can download The Crystal Method song session, create a remix, and then upload an MP3, by September 30, 2008.
The [...]

Waxy’s Andy Baio has taken a statistical look at how the record industry has changed in the last fifty years, and it looks like there’s a good reason why you hate so much mainstream pop music: the variety of pop music is less than half of what it was in the sixties:

According to Billboard, the [...]

Big Fish Audio has introduced a new sample library, The Jazz City Collection.
Description: Inspired by the classic 1950s and 1960s jazz albums of artists like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and others, Jazz City features 14 construction kits of traditional Jazz loops.
Also included is a substantial amount of extras and alternate loops, bringing the [...]

Nine Inch Nails has announced the first wave of tour dates for their Lights In The Sky: Over South America 2008 tour:

Tuesday October 7, 2008 – via Funchal, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Thursday October 9, 2008 – Pepsi on Stage, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Sunday October 12, 2008 – Coliseo El Campin Bogota Colombia
Wednesday October 15, 2008 – Poliedro [...]

Waveshape – Spektral Zwei was uploaded by: bellerob
Duration: 557
Rating:

Daft Punk’s Electroma – an art-house style movie that doesn’t feature their music and is only thematically related to their other work – is now out on DVD.
The movie follows the two Daft Punk robots, Hero Robot No. 1 and Hero Robot No. 2, on a road trip across the US Southwest.
The film explores the [...]

via Chip Collection: You can now place advance orders for Dave Smith & Roger Linn’s LinnDrum II drum machine.
There are two models: the all-digital “LinnDrum II”, available from Roger Linn Design and the “LinnDrum II Analog”, which adds four analog synth voices and 32 dual-function voicing knobs, available from Dave Smith Instruments.
Pricing is $1400 for [...]