Phoenecia - Echelon Mall

We usually don't promote our friend's music on this site, especially not lately but hell this release is outstanding: Phoenecia - Echelon Mall on Alphabasic. I've been on a experimental, drone and soundtrack spree lately, so this fits right in there. As you may or may not know, Jeswa, who comprises half of Phoenecia was a featured artist in our Workspace and Environment series which can be found Here. The view that extends out of his studio windows are etched in my brain still to this day. I know that his modular system has since gotten out of control, spilling into monster cases and beyond.

- Echelon Mall Site
- Itunes Store
- Jeswa Information
- Alphabasic (Physical pre-orders start Tuesday)

Suit & Tie Guy - Sequencer Family

Suit & Tie Guy and STG soundlabs is slowly moving his products into the Eurorack format and all I can say is: Welcome - we need you! I manage to play with the graphic sequencer at NAMM and was surprised at how easy, fun and quick it was to get something interesting out of the module. The LEDS at the tip of every fader is definitely a plus for those dark studios and live situations. I haven't messed with the trigger sequencer but can tell it'll be an essential pairing. They'll be hitting Analog Haven next week.
Prices are: $295for the Graphic Sequencer, $325 for the Trigger Sequencer and $120 for the Time Buffer.
Come check out these modules for yourself at the next Trash_Audio & Xart Synth Meet on February 21st.

Totally Wired - Additional Content

To coincide with the online premiere of the documentary film TOTALLY WIRED – A FILM ABOUT SCHNEIDERS BÜRO, www.realeyz.tv is presenting previously unreleased, exclusive video interviews with director and Club Transmediale 2010 participant Niamh Guckian Ahern as well as Andreas Schneider, the founder of Schneiders Büro. -Tobias Voigt
- You can view all of the videos on the Youtube Channel: Here
- You can see the entire documentary: Here. Registrations and other boring mandatory stuff required.

Trash_Audio & Xart: Synth Meet 6

Early Warning. The Trash_Audio team and Xart Studios are planning to have the synth meet on Sunday, February 21st starting at 3pm going to 9pm. We're going to have more of a structured format this time. First we're having three special guest lectures from Grant Richter of Wiard, Suit & Tie Guy from STG, and Scott Jaeger of Harvestman. That in itself should be worth coming to see. Also, we're going to have an improv session following John Zorn's card composition method.
While bringing your modular/synth/ keyboard/ drum machine/ whatever-makes-noise is not necessary, we highly encourage it. These meets have been extremely resourceful, informative and invaluable to the midwest community by providing a mass of equipment for users to try first hand. As always, these meets have been free and organized by T_A and Xart.

If you're interested, have questions, comments or bullshit opinions, send an e-mail to trash@thedeepelement.com and I'll be sending out information (addresses, secret handshakes) on the meet later next month. If you're a manufacturer I recommend you send an e-mail to me for arrangements to have your gear featured at this event. Transmission Over.

Tonight, FLESH in Chicago...

Tonight I'll be trying my hand at something I've never done before, which is co-hosting a monthly Industrial/Electro/EBM/Whatever night in Chicago. It's the 3rd Thursday of every month and tonight is the first one...



Flesh.
EBM like it's 1989

Thursday January 21st

Professor Kliq (Live PA)
Polyfuse (DJ Set)
DJ Tacopunch

Occurring the third Thursday of the month at Silvie's Flesh is an industrial electro dance throw down off all things dark and slithery with a kicking bassline.

Admission: Free before 11 with RSVP to info.polyfuse@gmail.com, $5 after

9pm++ at Silvies
1902 West Irving Park Road
Chicago, IL 60613
21+

One block west of the Irving Park Brown Line stop.

- Facebook Event

Trash_Audio 2010 NAMM Video

We had a great time everywhere in Anaheim but NAMM itself this year. You'll notice that this NAMM video doesn't have too much NAMM in it because... well, it sucked and we're separating the useful information from this video. The approximate five booths that kept our attention were the ones that featured a direct line of communication with the manufacturer, engineer or designer themselves. Though, we found a way to infiltrate and see it for ourselves. Most of our time was spent with friends, at our place, on our terms. This resulted in a BBQ that had almost every modular manufacturer show up and having people declare it being the best thing they've ever experienced at NAMM, though it could've been the booze talking. It was incredible to see all of our friends and meet new ones. We already miss you. Hail and horns!

You can see the 2008 video HERE!

Harvestman - NAMM 2010

Scott Jaeger of Harvestman runs through the functions of his Piston Honda and some of the upgrades that are available for it.

Tip Top Audio: NAMM 2010

Gur Milstein from Tip Top Audio spent a moment to explain his new protoype case and the Z8000 Matrix Sequencer at NAMM 2010. Perhaps I've edited out some essential parts but I hope these videos clear up some general questions of the functionality.

Make Noise - NAMM 2010

I'm currently working on our main video and these modular demonstrations are a bit too long to be included so I've separated the equipment demonstration/interviews and will present them as fast as I can upload them.

Here is Anthony Rolando of Make Noise showing off two controllers: Pressure Points and René.

Quick Quick...

Last night in LA, Richard did this and it blew my mind. I think twice:



Tonight Trash_Audio is hosting around fifty complete weirdos for a BBQ, I'll post some random realtime photos via twitter.



And finally, Thursday in Chicago my friend Jason (DJ Tacopunch) and I are going to start a monthly night that we're pretty excited about, I'll post more about this when I am back in town:

One Multipurpose Post! NAMM, Chromeo, Rock Band!

First topic, is anyone going to the NAMM show this year? We'll be there but there's also a cool event happening this Friday evening with a nice lineup of performers, including: John Tejada, Richard Devine, Deru, Laura Escude, Scott Pagano, CPU, DJ Kero, Acid Circus, Derek Michael, Baseck, Eezir, Trifonic, DJ G Ov, Moldover, Henry Strange, Peter Kirn and very likely more that are not mentioned. You can find Workspace and Environment interviews/photos with three of the artists mentioned by checking out the sidebar on the right. This way --->

Besides that, I just found this awesome interview with Chromeo where they are talking a bit about gear:

- Do you ever buy a keyboard or a synthesizer just because you know it was used by someone you look up to?

- Chromeo: Oh yeah. Like I know, pretty much, you can give me any song and I’ll tell you what keyboard was used.

- [Hall and Oates’ 1981 hit single] “Private Eyes”?

- Chromeo: Private Eyes!? That’s a CR78 drum machine, a CT70 Piano. I actually, when I bought by CT70, I recreated [that] song. Cause I had all those machines. [Laughs]. And most of Hall and Oates is CR78, LM1 drum machine, or CT70 piano. And I also know that ‘cause we’ve done shit with them. [Laughs]

Checkout the full interview here.

And finally, I just came across a video demonstrating the 'Rock Band Network' which will essentially let users upload their own music content but also embed the rock band performance data within, so a user can 'sequence' their own patterns to their own songs. I think this will become pretty insane when it launches:

Roland TR-808 Sample Pack

Justin graciously let me borrow his Roland TR-808 and when trying to program some patterns I noticed a few problems. A) I'm clearly too stupid to work this machine - I eventually figured it out but off the bat, both the Pattern knob the Auto Fill In knob were double teaming my brain and left me staring at shifting patterns that mocked me with changing tempos. B) The sequencing buttons themselves have been accumulating grime over the years which makes it difficult to activate a note. I would gladly take this thing apart and clean it but it's not mine. C) It's outdated. While the interface is preferred for many people, I'd rather do this on a computer or something more flexible like a Machinedrum. Long story short, I decided to sample it and save people the hassle of finding/buying one. Oh yeah and it's free.

The Process
All the audio came out of the Hi Level Master Output of the TR-808 into a Focusrite Platinum Voicemaster Preamp then hit a RME Fireface UC and was recorded at 24 bit 48 kHz in Logic and saved as AIFF files. I used AudioFinder to create fade in and outs manually on every sample, batch normalize and rename. I tried to keep the signal chain as short as possible as I've heard TR-808 sample banks that sound like processed garbage. I have two versions of this sample pack - the first one being a dynamic version that includes one shots of the samples as they hit my interface, with the different parameters on the Bass Drum, Snare Drum, Cymbals, etc. the volume changes dramatically. Additionally there is an alternate version where all the samples are normalized to 0 dB. I see reasons to have both as an option but if you're in doubt, grab the normalized version. I made this for myself and was going to share it with a few close friends but figured the world might find some use for it.

- Roland TR-808


Also, I made a modular synth sample pack back in 2008. It's 10 bucks cause I spent a good amount of time compiling it but there are some freebies to download. *01-18-10 note: I'm noticing a pump in sales of this kit and I thank you all!

- Surachai Modular Sample Kit

[co]sen_tasi - Cycled Seances

[co]sen_tasi has been an ongoing collaborative effort between myself and JP Robles for the past few years. We tracked instruments and threw ideas around a few days in his old studio as far back as 2007 and have been sending each other stems back and forth over the years. We released our first EP, Clarity in Japanese, in 2007. Until we start caring about our music in that way, this release is free and hopefully you'll find something to take away from it.

- [co]sen_tasi - Cycled Seances

Make Noise - RENÉ

Shit! When you think someone's figured it out someone else has another take on the same idea. The problem is: I'm not rich and it's because of things like this that will keep me in this financial state! Take an idea like the matrix synthesizer and get two great minds to interpret it and manufacture how they see the ideal matrix synthesizer and you get two products thats are related but will get you entirely different results. At this point it's whatever fits your needs and it's whatever gets you to your goal easiest. I'm excited to see this thing in action next week at NAMM and with a faceplate so I can actually understand what's happening

The new sequencer for modular synthesizers, designed by Make Noise and developed with yerpa58. A short bunch of clips I took one afternoon while beta testing. The patch is same for all clips. Doepfer A-110 controlled by RENÉ CV OUT, Square Wave applied to QMMG which is set to BOTH mode and controlled by RENÉ Gate-X and Gate-Y. The RENÉ sequencer is driven by 3 clocks. The master clock generated by the Wogglebug, and then divided by MATHS to create the second and third clocks. Come see the Make Noise RENÉ, MATHS, Wogglebug and QMMG at NAMM 2010, Analogue Haven Boothe.

Please meet RENÉ from MAKE NOISE on Vimeo.

Trifonic: Next Step Audio

Between Justin and I, we have seen some of the most horrific tutorials online - but surprisingly we always go back when we're trying to figure out new software or learn some tricks not in manuals. I've watched the videos on Next Step Audio and it's so well done that I feel accomplished just watching it.

A few months ago we mentioned we'd be launching a production blog where we talk about how we make our music, and I'm happy to say that it's finally here: Next Step Audio

The idea behind Next Step Audio is to show you specifically how Trifonic works in the studio, and demonstrate some advanced techniques for producing electronic music. Over time we plan to offer various downloads and more in-depth tutorials for the folks that are interested.

We'll be posting new videos every week, so please go check out the site and, if you like what you see, subscribe to the Next Step Audio RSS feed. Hope you find the production tutorials useful, and please let us know what you think!

And for those of you who would rather just have Trifonic make the music, we're hard at work on the next release, which we hope to have ready in the first half of this year... we'll certainly keep you posted.

Best,
LT and Brian

Trifonic: Editing Beats - Part 2 from Next Step Audio on Vimeo.

Surachai - Decrepit

Decrepit is the second addition that follows the soundscape release, Form. It follows the cycles and stages of a plagued memory - that's all the information you get about Decrepit not because I'm arcane or elusive with information, rather I find it incredibly difficult to try to explain this, along any of my other, releases beyond a few words but if you have specific questions, drop me a line. Enjoy!

- Surachai - Decrepit
Artwork by Bridget Driessen