Visual_Random: Richard Devine & Jeswa

Remember Jeswa or Richard Devine off our Workspace and Environment series? Of course you do, cause I just linked you. Take a look at their modular setup from back then (around 8 months ago) and compare it to how it stands now, you'll realize that addiction is a disease. I'm not proud when I say I have even supplied their dirty habit with modules from local listings. As you can see, their setups have more than doubled between the both of them with Jeswa having a monster case and Richard carrying around a Cwejman alongside 3 G6's. You can check out the visually updated article at Elektron: here and listen to all that gear be compressed into a teeny weeny mp3: here. Be sure to check out their 'gear' section which is essentially anything that has ever made a noise.

Richard Devine passed the word that he and Josh Kay/Jeswa went to Duncan Laurie's studio in Rhode Island this weekend for seemingly awesome times. I remember we all talked about 'not really wanting much more'. Lies. We will lie. We lied to each other and to ourselves. We will steal your money and starve ourselves for modules. We will think about how much that vacation would cost in relation to how many modules we can get. We will accept gigs that pay in modules. But also, we'll let you play with them.

audio_Art: The Steampunk Modular Synthesizer

With the amount of steampunk stuff being cranked out, I thought I would see something like this sooner...

More info about how it was built: matrixsynth, make:

More photos and a video with sounds from space (19th century space) ahead!

Visual_Random

This picture was taken sometime last year when we were in Logic 7 and I've forgotten about it until Justin posted it up on his myspace page recently. Whenever I leave Justin's place I usually leave a little present. Pointing his shower head towards him, obstructing paths with cardboard boxes, putting random objects upside down, or the said picture. I hope he's not documenting everything I've done to him... and I still wonder what this sounds like.....

Workspace and Environment: Ignatius

I just noticed that we breached the 100k visitor mark a while back and this blows my mind! Thanks for everyone that has dropped by, sent an e-mail or commented on our page. Sorry if I've been slow at replying to e-mails but I think I got them all this week! It really means a lot that I can say my agoraphobia and slight misanthropy teamed up to make something informative and interesting. With all the corny thanks out of the way I got one for the weekend here is Ignatius!

How long have you been involved with making music?
since 1995/6. that's when i got my first synth and started making sounds and recording them or just saving patches figuring i'd use them later. what motivated me was just to hear new sounds. i had a good friend/housemate who was a DJ and was always bringing home records and another good friend who worked at a record store who has a completely insane record collection. so, there was always tons of stuff to listen to and explore and get stoked on. so, yeah.. i just wanted to make my own sounds and stuff that i heard in my head and just generally learn how to make electronic music. i always gravitated to the weirder darker stuff and wasn't really getting my fill of that from going to clubs etc so that probably played a part in it too... plus it's just fun. that's what keeps me motivated. making new sounds and jamming and creating weird patterns being surprised by them when they all fit together into a track. plus it's self expression and i need that.
i was born and raised in florida. i grew up in miami and lived there until i was 25 or so then moved to san diego to work in a recording studio and lived there for about 7 years. 3 or so years ago i came up to portland. i've had my studio in half a dozen places. usually half in the kitchen and half in the dining room. i only once had it in a spare bedroom until now of course where i've finished out a room with some acoustic panels and a bit of room isolation.


Where can we find your work?
ignatius is the name i've worked under the longest. tunes can be heard at these links:
http://www.virb.com/ignatius
http://www.myspace.com/sleepdepfun
http://www.buriedintime.com/
http://www.ignatiusmusic.com/
i do have a side project or two that revolve around live jamming then recording and editing. A friend, who goes by [SiK], and I have a weird acid x0x box type project that we work on from time to time called !!!Dica but we haven't edited down the hours of material we have yet. We did take a bunch of left over bits and make sample packs that we sent out to friends who in turn made tracks in many styles. The outcome of that is called "Acid Offspring" and is the 4th release on the label i run called Buried In Time

What are your current favorite pieces of hardware?
I've been pretty hooked on the elektron monomachine for a couple years now. it integrates with other hardware really well and is just so easy to get around and fun to jam with. once you spend some time with it you can get some great sounds out of it. i'm really getting into the MPC 1000 w/JJOS2 lately though. i've never had an mpc so it's a nice change from other ways of working. it's easy to get around on but has some nice features for processing/shaping and getting expressive results. plus it's small and stable and gets me away from the computer more. it's hard to say what a favorite piece of hardware is. usually it's whatever is in front of me but i do gravitate towards the elektrons + the modcan and the waldorf microwave XT though the evolver is always surprising and perhaps the best bang for the buck in a synth ever.

What are some softwares or plugins you prefer?
Audiomulch is what i've used most in the past 7-8 years. it just makes sense to me and i love having a non-notebased sequencer to work with. it's great for so many things but i use it mostly for composing entire songs and getting crazy w/the automation of snapshots of the various contraptions and VST's then record all of that and put the files in logic for mixing. I use Live some too for editing since audio editing in logic can be cumbersome some times.
i use the logic plugs often. i like sculpture and the ES2 though all the plugs are useful and can sound good in the right context. the ringshifter is great. I use kontakt in logic as well. it's great to stuff it with samples from the hardware and then use all the sound shaping/filtering/modulation etc that kontakt offers. NI stuff is generally really good for that kind of thing. i like weird delays and filters. the PSP stuff is great. I like nitro a lot. Also, uh-e filterscape is really awesome and does some great things to drums and is great for adding movement to anything really. the audiodamage stuff and smart electronix stuff is really cool too. I love the soundtoys plug ins. there's not much like those out there. They just sound 'natural, warm. analog' and can so some great rhythmic delay things and the filters/pitchshifting is awesome. the URS eq's are really nice. i like the classic EQ bundle with the A and N series eq's.

How does your physical space and surroundings influence your workflow?
i like a nice secluded dark place so i can forget about what's going on outside my little space. if i'm distracted i just can't get things done. but i guess if i had a big quiet room w/windows looking out into a forest or lake or something i might like that too.. so far i haven't been in that situation. I think i might like making music on the bottom of the ocean as well.

Could you describe what you might think your ideal location would be?
well, i think i'm pretty much there though some times i'd like to be an hour or so away from a small city. in the woods or on a mountain or something. some place where i can walk out the door and not see another house or person and wander the woods for inspiration or something. be some kind of nerdy monk.

What was the first piece of hardware you remember obtaining? The last?
i bought a yamaha cs1-x in 1995/6. since then any kind of synth that has a matrix editor interface has been a cakewalk. the last piece of hardware was the MPC-1000

What is on your current 'wish list'?
hmmm. there's always a module or two for the modcan that i'd like. i have been waiting for my cyndustries quad low pass gates for over 2 years so i guess that's what is high on my wish list. but if i was dreaming i'd say a 20 channel tonelux rig with 8 eq's and 4 compressors and a small 500 series lunchbox to go along with it. but really i'm happy with what i have and i'm not lacking for any sound shaping tools...though a chandler germanium compressor would be nice. that and audiomulch 2.0 :)

Do you have a mobile studio setup?
it depends. if i'm going to see some family then i bring something. either a laptop or an elektron but if it's a trip not conducive to bringing gear then i grab the yamaha qy-10 just to noodle on. usually i just read when traveling unless i have some kind of deadline or am on some kind of creative roll.

Do you have a setup for live performances?
for a while it was just a laptop running audiomulch with a patch that i had tweaked for a while. I would just press play then improvise. After a while though i kept improvising the same type of thing and i got really bored. I played an ambient set a while back with the laptop + audiomulch and the monomachine. that was nice. Lately i've just been jamming with friends w/the elektrons and some roland x0x stuff. I'm working on a new audiomulch patch and i finally bought a controller so i'll design the patch around the controller and maybe plug the monomachine into the set up some how and see how spontaneous i can get. improvisation is the fun part for me but it's nice to have some safety nets.

Have you ever heard your music being played at a random/public place?
i have some friends who are DJ's who have play some of my tracks from time to time. that's always cool to hear. Also, at decibel festival in seattle a few years ago they played the entire first release from Buried In Time outside of the auditorium where they do the ambient showcases. that was cool since i had just handed out a bunch of them the day before.

Are you involved in any sound work outside of your own projects?
I track vocals for friends now and then and it's nice to work in that capacity where i'm just trying to capture someone's performance. When i lived in san diego i did some sound design here and there but nothing high profile. It was enjoyable when that work would come along because it broke up the usual things i was doing like working long hours on other people's music as an engineer/assistant engineer or studio manager or just being the guy who ran things in the studio.. I used to do a bit dialogue editing as well. I'm not motivated to go seek out that kind of work anymore as i don't care for the pressure or tedium and would rather make my own tunes for their own sake. Not that i haven't considered writing a bunch of 30/60 second jingles in a certain style and try to license them and I'd love to score some goofy indie sci fi or horror film. that'd be fun. Being in a commercial studio can be great as well.. about 50% of the time anyway. there are always compromises.

Fuck it! We'll do it live! - Polyfuse

Here are some shots from this past weekend. I found out I was performing with Justin when he sent an e-mail to Jesse and I saying we were in his 'band'. I guess it's supposed to operate like Prodigy: He makes the tracks and we dance around like assholes. The gear list goes something like: Access Virus Indigo, Access Virus Polar, Doepfer Case filled with goods, Moog MF-104z, Korg padKontrol and a Macbook. The colored photos are by Bridget Driessen and the Black & Whites photos by Allison Tenn. I'm still looking for pictures from our improvised acid set on sunday that included a TR-808, X0Xb0X, Sherman Filterbank II, Moog Delay, AD-9....

Harvestman Tyme Sefari Featured in PC World

I would like to give props to Scott Jaeger of Harvestman Electronics for making gear lust worthy enough to be featured in PC World Magazine. He was featured in the Workspace and Environment series a while back. It must be a trip having your instruments being sported on a random but seemingly popular magazine. On a related note: I recently took his Malgorithm Bit Crusher and Polivoks Filter on a two month tour that wrecked 3 sound systems in Europe. That being said, I would totally recommend them!

Click here for the article!

This is a video that made me dream about throwing a Tyme Sefari in my system for an extended amount of time. And definitely thought about throwing my economic stimulus package his way. Speaking of which, I still haven't received mine.... Who do I put in a headlock to get this money quicker?


first look at the tyme sefari from loopcycle on Vimeo.

LIve audio_Output: Live Acid Improv, TONIGHT!

Live audio_Output: 6-6-08

Tomorrow! If you're in Chicago, this show should be pretty interesting and offer some intense variety. Ambient, 8 Bit, Dance, IDM and from me, electro/industrial under the name Polyfuse. I am dragging Surachai into this mess to help with processing through his modular, and another keyboard player (Jesse Meyer) to help make this performance an actual performance. More usefulness below.

theflashbulb.net
polyfuse.net
presale tickets
going.com (All Details here)

Workspace and Environment: The Teknoist

Big day here! If you have been stalking us, you would already know I've uploaded two Surachai albums which can be found: Here. They'll be permanently available through my profile page to the right. Justin has some goodies lined up for you too. On a related topic, Justin will be performing as Polyfuse this friday at the Abbey Pub in Chicago. Details: Here! With all that crap out of the way, I present you with Mike Teknoist!


Background
I was born in Manchester but grew up in North Wales and moved to Bristol. I'm looking for somewhere new to live though. As I said, I get itchy feet. I blame ADHD haha. I've been playing records in clubs since I was 15 years old, it was a natural progression I guess. I started messing around with Amigas and Ataris and trackers etc but then sort of just went back into playing records solely, turntablism and stuff. I wanted to master those kinds of skills 1st. Then I started playing around with Cubase on the PC and haven't stopped. The amount of ideas that I was having I guess was motivation enough at the time, constantly sampling noises, speech etc from all over the place. And the fact that there wasn’t enough of the type of sound I wanted to hear around. There'd be the odd track that blew me away and I could never really understand why there wasn’t more along that vein so the obvious choice was to make it myself. Staying motivated isn’t that hard, it's kind of 2nd nature to just get up and write music 1st thing in the morning. My whole day revolves around that, that and watching movies or reading. Its not really a choice, more an instinct kind of thing (like a zombies hunger for brains). I cant imagine not doing it so I rarely have to find motivation because its all I want to do. You can find my *ahem* work on my own label ‘Ninja Columbo’ for a start and then on a lot of other electronic music labels such as Planet Mu, Deathchant, Rebel Scum, Cock Rock Disco and soon Ad Noiseam, Deathsucker… I could go on with upcoming stuff but I wont. You can get a taster on my myspace obviously, myspace.com/ninjacolumbo

What is your current favorite piece of hardware?
Hahaha… heres my kit list at the moment: a laptop, a pair of Sennheiser HD25 headphones… not even a midi controller atm.
So I guess its my laptop, it was custom built 3 years ago and its like my brother. 17.5inch screen, 3.4 Pentium 4 processor, 2 gig of ram. It’s a tank, although the screen needs replacing as an inch or so on the right hand side is now broken because I dropped it. Finding time to send it away when I'm touring etc is hard so I've been working with it broke for a while.
My girlfriend blew my monitors getting far too carried away listening to music so the headphones have been a saviour. I seem to do alright.

What is your current favorite software or plugin?
I'm using the Ixl spectrum Analyzer a lot on my master out for visually checking my eq but effect wise I use PSP Nitro a heap and the GRM tools bunch. The SSL compressor also.

How does your physical space and surroundings influence your workflow?
I'm actually a vagrant at the moment and kind of have been for a while, I can't settle anywhere it seems but I'm looking for a new place. I'm staying in a friends spare room but the surroundings are gorgeous. No neighbours, just fields and farms so that’s really relaxing and it’s a joy to wake up there. I go for a run around 7am and do some stretches while watching a variety of US sitcoms like Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond haha :s … then make some tea and fire up my laptop. I have adhd so I've got to do quite a few things at once and constantly get up and mess with something else, start watching a film then turn it off 20mins in then back to work on a different track, then wash the dishes, then the film again etc haha.. When I have settled for a while in a place I found it so nice and productive to get up and have that set work area that everything is just waiting for you to switch on. Then again I've written some of my best tracks while on the move in other countries so im kinda on the fence on whats the best. Although I think my not having a proper base time is finally up. I long for my own studio space now though so il get back to you when Im settled with some new kit etc and tell you how im doing, what films im half watching etc ;)

What was the first and last piece of hardware you remember obtaining?
My Atari ST and a really dodgy midi controller was the 1st. The last were a pair of Event tr8 monitors

What is on your current 'wish list'
I've got a list of essential things that I intend to buy over the summer in time to hibernate in Winter 08 but no specific models really as yet. A couple of pairs of different kinds of monitors, an analogue desk and a new midi controller..

How many physical locations have you had your studio setup?
Jeez! Umm.. A LOT. Iv had 2 decent set ups in different locations. One in Manchester and one in Bristol. They were pretty much the same as each other, big desk, laptop and pc, midi controller and some decent monitors, turntables, dj mixer etc. But mostly iv just lived like iv been touring because I guess Iv just never really stopped properly so its juts been my laptop and headphones.

Have you ever heard your music being played at a random/public place?
I was on a tram in Manchester once and heard a guy in front of me listening to an old rave tape of mine with an mc shouting my name on it.. that and the same happened in Wales when someone drove past in their car.

Workspace and Environment: DuranDuranDuran

HAI! Justin and I have shitty little profiles to the right now. Before they linked to our websites but now they are filled with information for you to stalk us. Also, if you're Chicago write us an e-mail (to the right) so we know who to spam when we have a party. A heads up: Justin is performing next friday in Chicago and we'll give you more details on that when it gets closer. We're both working on releases to be given away on Trash_Audio aaaaaand... I think that's it. Here is Ed Flis of DuranDuranDuran!

Background i was born in philadelphia in 1980, moved to berlin earlier this year. fell in love with the place when i came hear for the first time back in 2003, and since then i've known more and more people who've moved here. eventually realized it's about as cheap as philadelphia and i could get more work, and there's less of a chance of becoming a violent crime victim. this city blows my mind every day. i used to fuck around with a program called soundedit on my dad's computer when i was a kid (precursor to soundedit 16 if anyone remembers that), started making music proper when i was about 15, so i guess about 12-13 years now i've been doing this. jesus.

What is the name you work under and where can we find your work?
mainly working under the name Duran Duran Duran lately, tho i have a bunch of other projects not worth going into, main side project now is RAVETASM POSSE. you can hear some of this stuff here:
http://www.rhinoplex.org/edflis
http://www.myspace.com/duranduranduran
http://www.myspace.com/ravetasmposse
and for people who still buy music you can get most of my stuff from systemicaudio.com.

What is your current favorite piece of hardware?
never been able to afford hardware really, other than the odd piece of shit dollar store synth.

What is your current favorite software or plugin?
i'd have to go with logic 8, especially the ultrabeat drum machine plug in.

How does your physical space and surroundings influence your workflow?
i can work pretty much anywhere it seems, as long as i can be loud. occasionally i get bored of staring at the same 4 walls and will go sit down in the park or a cafe with a pair of headphones. one thing i will say i've noticed is i'm more productive when i'm around creative people.

Are you involved in any sound work outside of your own projects?
i've done a bit of mastering for bands, would love to get into film composing. especially porno, think that would be ace.

What was the first piece of hardware you remember obtaining?
hard to say, if you count guitars the first thing i remember is getting my shitty yamaha fender ripoff back in 96, first synth i remember scoring was the casio sk-1 off ebay in 98. uhhh last piece of gear i bought is probably my soundcard, which is on it's way out at the moment.

What is on your current wish list?
jesus are you kidding? i want everything. eventide h8000 at the top.

Do you have a mobile studio setup?
just a laptop and a decent pair of headphones is really all i need.

Do you have a setup for live performances?
varies from show to show, usually just a laptop, soundcard, midi controller when i travel. shows closer to home could contain everything from contact mics to lawnchairs.

How many physical locations have you had your studio ?
well as a proper studio i'd have to say just here and philadelphia, haven't really changed much!

Have you ever heard your music being played at a random/public place?
yeah embarassingly i heard a track at a party a few months ago and thought "damn i need to make more music like this" then realized it was one of my records...

audio_Output: X0XB0X meets the Atomizer

Yesterday I did two small software upgrades to some gear. I installed the Evilx0x (.5) firmware on my x0xb0x and also found there was an update for the Virus TI 2.7 Beta software, it's now at Beta 4. I was happy to find that the Atomizer is now a lot more stable when using it in Logic 8. So with the two upgrades, I decided to test them both out at the same time. On the x0xb0x, the new firmware lets you do some new interesting things while it's playing such as various swing modes and shortening of the pattern to 8, 4, 2, or 1 steps in length. The Atomizer effect on the TI is basically a live audio slicer/freezer kind of thing and the mod wheel controls which frequency's will be effected by this, left untouched it will slice the whole frequency spectrum, and as you move the mod wheel you can chop just high frequency content, or just low frequency content...

Anyway, I recorded everything I was doing as I was figuring it all out, here are some random chunks:

x0x meets atom - 1
x0x meets atom - 2
x0x meets atom - 3
x0x meets atom - 4

Cat + Synths..

"Hi, I am sleeping. Oh I mean, I KAN HAZ SLEEP, or I CAN HAZ SYNTHESIZER, or... fuck it, we'll do it live."

We'll do it live! Fuck it! - Surachai Gear Tour Diary

From the massive herds of 800 in Liege, Belgium to the desolate crowds of 20 in Zaragoza, Spain this tour was as moody as a buffalo's teat in June. There are a few things I will remember to do next time. 1) Print out a personal bio on little cards to hand out to everyone because the essential (but exhausting) question of 'what do you do' can only be extravagantly lied about so much. 2) Put more filters in my modular system in order to kill more sound systems that don't have limiters. Between our performances through the nights, we killed 3 systems. One of the systems even had a light inside the speaker to warn of impending melt-death. Pretty sight, bad smell. 3) Travel lighter! Plugging the modular system in the line-in on the Macbook gets noisy but it saves me from carrying an interface and mixer. The act is noisy by default so it turned out to be desirable.

I could talk about interesting setups I saw which included a family of Kaoss pads, or Wii controllers used with max but it more or less consisted of laptops and midi controllers. My camera's LCD display got smashed in leaving me to take blind shots early on the tour. Not that I would take decent pictures anyway! Here's an abbreviated tour.....

Liege, Belgium


Rotterdam, Netherlands



Madrid, Spain


Paris, France




Hamburg, Germany


Amsterdam, Netherlands





Modular through an X-Ray!


The setup!

x0xb0x: Waiting List = Eternity (Updated)

Most people are probably pretty familiar with the x0xb0x by now. If not, basically it's the closest TB-303 clone you could possibly get/make created by ladyada. The kits to build these have just been discontinued To attain one of these clones you have to be put on a waiting list for an indefinite amount of time, but you can still build one, you just have to source all the parts yourself (Which could be a little difficult with some of the rare components you'll need).

With that said, I've just found on the fourms this nicely modded x0xb0x created by a character by the name of Subatomic, and it sounds mental:

CLIP 1
CLIP 2
CLIP 3

More info here.

Add us on Twitter

Just a quick update, Surachai and I are both using Twitter now, so if you use it too, add us! I am (user name) justinmcgrath and Surachai is of course (user name) surachai. Also, I'd like to get a show of hands (via email on right) of all of the people living in the Chicago area. We'd just like to send out event notices for possible upcoming Trash_Audio events. We're not quite sure what this will entail, it could be anything from a small gathering with beer, to a show, or a 25,000 person analog modular rave. Now, back to my helicopter...

*update: Sorry, I am still using Web 1.3, added actual useful links to our accounts.