Category: Gear

My first Reaktor instruments

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I spent a lot of time as a kid playing video games, and although it drove my parents crazy, I really loved the music and sound effects on some of those old games on the Nintendo. In particular I really enjoyed the music of the Mega Man games, Cobra Triangle, Bionic Commando, The Guardian Legend, and of course the Mario and Zelda games. This music has a strong nostalgic appeal for me and I really love a lot of those chiptune tones.

A while back I stumbled onto Adventure Kid’s single cycle waveform libraries. Continue reading “My first Reaktor instruments” →

The Original Sonidos

I recently posted a sound collage featuring the original field recordings I captured with my H4n in Cuba. These are the sounds that eventually became the foundation for Sonidos de Cuba. I’ve also gone through my sound collages and commented to label the various sounds they feature. I should be posting two more soon. One will feature recordings I gathered on Galiano Island here in BC. The other will feature some recordings I did with a few mics from Cold Gold Microphones. They were kind enough to lend me a few to test and I really enjoyed using them. I actually brought the simple contact mic with me to Japan and Thailand. It was a lot of fun to use on mechanical devices.

I’ve been listening to a lot of music from astrangelyisolatedplace lately and I’d really recommend checking it out. There’s some beautiful ambient soundscapes there that you can listen to free of charge by some talented artists.

Free EP on Bandcamp!

I’ve released a free EP of some of my older work on my Bandcamp store. I discovered and developed my unique style of working with field recordings in these four songs. Sonidos de Cuba was born from these early acoustic explorations. I like to think of them as musical larvae or protozoa, which is why I’ve called the EP Proto-Sonos.

The first song is Rain Down. It rains a lot in Vancouver. Therefore it was a natural choice to use a bed of rain recordings as a foundation for a song. Continue reading “Free EP on Bandcamp!” →

Upcoming gig at Sequential Circus 11!

I’m pleased to announce that on August 18th I’ll be opening at Sequential Circus! Playing at one of these shows is a real honour for me as they’ve been a big inspiration for my own music. They’re a bi-annual party focused on live electronic music. Always a lot of fun with a friendly happy crowd.

Here’s the official word: “Sequential Circus is dedicated to promoting the understanding and recognition of live electronic audio/visual performance as an evolving artform. Through our events, we will provide a venue for artists to explore and develop expressive technologies and to perform before an appreciative audience.  We will strive to provide the best possible experience for artists, audiences, volunteers and staff, and to foster a healthy artistic community with Vancouver as its capital.” http://sequentialcircus.ca/

One of the guys playing is someone that I actually learned from in developing my own live set. If you’re looking for some ideas or instruction on how to acquire and put together a live electronic gig he’s got a very thorough blog entry. He’s got some other great stuff on site too so it’s worth checking out. http://tarekith.com/assets/playinglive.html

For my live set I’ve stemmed all of my songs down to 8 tracks. Specifically Kick/Snare, Percussion 1, Percussion 2, Bass, Chords & Leads 1, Chords & Leads 2, Chords & Leads 3 (this one is usually my solo horn stuff), and SFX. That way, I’m using each track on the APC40 and I don’t have to scroll side to side. I use a custom Live Effect Rack on each track with Looping, Bit Reduction, Distortion, High and Low Pass Filters, and an Auto Filter. I’ve got Delay and Reverb on sends. I use Send C for my white noise sweeps. I have a noise generator controlled by an envelope follower that I created in Applied Acoustics Tassman on Send C, and each track is sending full blast to that return (along with Sends A & B). I use the crossfader to control volume and the Cue button knob to vary the cutoff frequency. It occurs to me now that since I’m not ever changing the value of Send C I could assign that one to something different if I wanted. I’m also not making use of the Panning controls at this point. So there’s still a couple things I can change to spice things up. Oooohhhhh the possibilities!

One last bit of exciting news: I’ve been featured on CITR Radio! You can listen to a podcast here: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Citr–ClassicalChaos/~3/ZXbm3uVjU6g/20120722-090104-to-20120722-100117.mp3

Ableton Live Launchpad Demo

I’m performeding a demo of Ableton Live for Erickson Music using the Novation Launchpad and the Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 as part of the IAM Collective’s Wall of Sound Sessions today. Come by the Tom Lee Music Music Hall if you want to come check it out.

http://www.iamcollective.ca/events/