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Home Brew Techno

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21:59 / 28.07.01

The Crab will be endorsing a product here, so read no further if you think the old crustacean is selling out..

But I've been inspired by a friend who's started the smallest & best record label I know of:

Where's My Hair?

There are tracks available on the site to give you an idea of the music we're generating, but just as good is the ethos of the label.

Its originator, DJ Kix ( nee Friendly ) is a generous soul, and his favourite trick is to use his 15yrs experience with samplers, sequencers & music to enable novices to make & publish tracks. He picks up on people who've never made music before, and invites them to use his studio setup with him as sound engineer/producer, handling all technical issues, ( but also teaching you what he's doing ).Then he publishes their efforts.
Coupled with a strong seam of local musicians who produce their own work, this makes a really satisfying philosophical foundation. Kix is more than just a motivator, he's a big beautiful driving force behind many people finding an outlet through music, being published, & discovering new creativity.

Generosity of the soul such as this warrants recognition. Please post any thoughts you have in response to the site, but I think I'll only pass the nice ones on to those involved!

08:13 / 30.07.01

Sounds like rocking good news, but where is your chum based? Can he recommend decent sequencing software/software synthesizers? I've been plaing around with analogue synths and four tracks for years, and now realise my error in the digital age...

11:56 / 30.07.01

Get a copy of Reason. And, if you want to use MIDI to hook up all your analogue equipment, Cubase as well. Otherwise, Reason is all you need.

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06:13 / 01.08.01

Actually Kix is good enough to pull off the impossible - release tracks written on playstation Music2000. Yes, I know, that's impossible. ( Don't write anything valuable on Music2000 - unless you're a sound engineer genius it will slow down when you introduce a lot of new tracks, ie after breakdowns... hard to hear, but perceptible & even harder to mix. And you'll never find the sample offsets in the first place anyway. But if you're a genius, by all means surprise us, Kix did. )
So he was the first among us to research MTV Music Generator for PS2. The verdict is, pretty much, avoid this turkey like it was a plague turkey with radioactive properties. This time, unless youre a genius, etc, etc, only with even less options than the playstation version, to whit: NO sample effects. Some musicians like digital effects, but the designers of PS2's flagship sampler/sequencer util have decided to simplify things by not programming them.
Sorry to get back on an advice thing & be totally negative, but I for one was excited by the prospect of PS2 and MTVMG being a sample/sequence solution, and I just wanted to pass on the dope - this is a primitive bit of fluff aimed at people who want to sit down in front of it, make a track for 5 minutes from their samples, then sample a rocking vocal track over the top - yes, it's a karaoke recorder... bastards.
I use an AKAI 4000 myself... it's awfully good but then it was awfully expensive.
I still believe the PS2 can hack the math, so someone will write a 'proper' music package for it - until then, him upstairs is right, Reason, ( the PC's va/digital sim of lots of lovely Studio gear - like big akai samplers - etc. ), rules.

13:32 / 01.08.01

AKAI 4000? Is that a reel-to-reel?

I avoid computers in music production. I use Soundforge, because it's lovely... but sequence in hardware. And am planning on frisbeeing .wavs to a hardware sampler via zip disk when I acquire one. Soon. Hopefully.

11:23 / 02.08.01

Cheers for the tips, lovely people. Already playing around with a demo version of Reason; but can you use your own samples (wav files, loops...) with it? How? Why is it all so difficult... I thought IT was supposed to build a better world, but now I yearn for my Tascam Portastudio...

13:14 / 02.08.01

I like ACID on the computer.
MIDI makes my head hurt. Loop me some wav samples, though, and I'm ready to rock!

14:32 / 02.08.01

The man is right, Acid is the dog's knockers, it's the cat's tits. Automatically takes your wavs and fits them to the tempo specified - so you could have a drum riff that is 2 secs long and a keybord riff which is 2.3 secs long and it'll make them fit without chopping bits off etc. Plus you can pitch change (semitones up or down) AND edit the wav there and then - chop it up, move the bits around etc.

The other easy to use essential is CoolEdit, which is yer sampling / editing package. Not as many effects as Sound Forge but much more direct and easy to use.

15:23 / 02.08.01

I'm going to stick an oar in, the oar of "hardware reasoning".

It's not going to work, though. I'm building a teeny all-hardware setup, purely because to get a computer working _decently_, especially with external MIDI gear, is a pain. The safest way involves a boot or an entire computer streamlined for nothing but music: old, 100%-compatible-with-anything gfx card, big fast HDs, nice sound card, and NO: Office, Internet, Games, Modems, nothing. Use another disk or computer for that. This is beyond almost everyone's means.

So... I'm using hardware. Soundforge mangles/edits/chops samples lovelely. Whack them on a zip disk, "Import .wav" on sampler... done. No faffing with SCSI cards.

I'm using a hardware sequencer, all very ghetto (if not ghetto-cheap), and looking to purchase a sampler. It's pricey, and if you're trying out, far more pricey than downloading demos. But I'm happy with what I'm buying: music doesn't go out of fashion.

Reason: yeah, you can use your own .wav files in the sampler, there should be an import button somewhere. In fact, the only think Reason's Sampler _can't_ do is Sample direct through a mic/line in; you have to import a wav file. (And did you notice the name of it? NN19... geddit?)

ACID's great fun, quite handy for trying things out. And only as good as the loops you put in it. Being a music keenie... I'm using magic string and stuff. But finally: P's recommendations for music software:

Reason: fun for a while, and very powerful when used properly.
Rebirth: sod the 303s, the DRUM MACHINES! the DRUM MACHINES!
Orion: this is like Reason. But costs $50 to register. Don't use it personally, but it's impressive, and know many people (especially the www.dancetech.com crowd) who'll swear by it.
VAZ: A great non-realtime synth.
Reaktor: Big, incredibly powerful/complex/deep customisable software virtual analogue synth. Try the demo.

And then Cubase/Sonar/Logic for your sequencing needs; everyone likes their own sequencers.

Gah. I appeared to have rambled. Basically: software is very nice and powerful and has funky software plugins... but sometimes it's nice to have hardware, and everything on a seperate _proper_ mixer channel. Depends how serious you are about it all.

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11:25 / 03.08.01

Paleface: "AKAI 4000? Is that a reel-to-reel?"

Yes... yes it is. And F-18's are biplanes.

I have to go now, my PC's blown another valve.

11:37 / 03.08.01

NN19... Paul Hardcastle (wry chuckle). Along with Axl F, one of the first records I ever bought...

Graham the Happy Scum

14:30 / 04.08.01

Blow that. I just use a tracker, and make the output sound nicey-nice in Sound Forge. But don't tell anyone, certain people tend to sniff at tracker music, thinking it's all dumb hardcore techno or really really bad synth rock.

Am looking into getting a hardware sampler for live spontaneous breakbeat stupidity...

20:08 / 04.08.01

Um...what's a tracker?

20:51 / 04.08.01

Old school music sequencer.

09:34 / 05.08.01

does anybody here know anything about EJAY? it seems like pretty basic stuff, a lego-timeline of assembled samples, but it's a lot of fun if you have no musical talent. I'm trying to figure out the timing of user-created samples.

09:34 / 05.08.01

Hmn. Ejay is entertaining if you haven't paid for it. Oh, and some of the hiphop drumloops were quite nice imvho.

But to be honest, you're better off spending about the same on one of the "Acid DJ" line, or the £80 on Acid Music.

Acid is fairly similar (except it can change tempo/pitch independently)... until you get bored with its loops. THEN it comes into its own - Ejay's a nightmare to use with your own loops, purely because you have to get them right outside of the program. Acid's very friendly, because it just sees them as more wav files, not "importing".

14:25 / 05.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Templar:
Old school music sequencer.

Possibly the extent of my ignorance is not shining through. Software? Hardware? Can anybody pirate me some software, and tell me how to use it? I've just found out Reason costs £300...

19:03 / 05.08.01

Hmn. Tracker = software.

Use the demos for now. Warez are bad, do you hear? And in the music business... Propellerheads spent a LONG while on Reason. And there is a reason it costs £300... not only the quality, and sound - but just think how much the equivalent hardware would be...

Maybe there are other, cheaper alternatives to Reason?

/me points at Orion Pro...

Sorry for anti-warez bitching, but on the music boards i use, we get it quite often. And it isn't fair... it's not like Propellerhead are a big, multinationl monopoly or anything. They're a bunch of enthusiasts, who love what they do, crafting artworks.

/rant over.

20:48 / 05.08.01

Reason is the best at the moment. Well worth £300 quid, although that's not exactly a hobbyist's price bracket. My personal take on piracy is that, in the case of music software, it's perfectly justifyable if you are an amateur. I know someone who would never have been able to make music without pirated software who's about to release an album, and is going to replace all his setup with "proper" versions now that he can afford to. There are, after all, all kinds of benefits to buying the software rather than ripping it.