What Is Noise

Some days I almost forget the 5 years I spent in music school and it seems a distant memory. I still of course play regularly but I forget about the wealth of knowledge that I picked up and somewhat assume that everyone is walking around with a massive musical education in their heads and that it is not simply ingrained into everyone. It’s just something I do and no longer have to think about consciously.

I have too many musical ideas in my head however and really need to get them out at some point. Go play in a band again, write a symphony, or just make noise for thousands to hear. So what’s been actually happening with me musically lately? Sadly not incredibly much when it comes to recorded music. I think that Logic Pro has been killing my creativity. I don’t think I’ve actually recorded anything decent on it yet and I’m considering switching back to Protools. Logic is technically so much better, but Protools just had a tape-deck like workflow that just instantly worked nonstop. I recorded so much stuff in PT and almost nothing in Logic, regardless of it’s power. Plus, over the past while Protools has gotten significantly better. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on this front. The only thing I hate is Digidesign’s audio interfaces. They sound horrid and I hate them.

I’ve been messing with alternate tunings lately. I have one of my guitars tuned in Open D, which is rather fun. I recently put on monsterous .11-.70mm strings on my 335-copy and tuned it down to B, but slowly brought it up to C. It’s beastly and I need to re-intonate it as anything above the 4th fret gets really screwed up sounding (esp 3rds).

I am still plotting a way to get a polyphonic sustainer system going. Rich thinks it’s not possible. People have tried and failed. I don’t care and I want one on my mustang. The mustang is feeling that it needs some upgrades and love. I think a Bigsby system is in order rather soon.

I am going to work a bit on my x0xb0x tonight and finish up a few lose ends. Might add in CV/gate inputs to it. Some day I’ll put new LEDs on it for some prettier colors, but for now the red works. I’m kinda burnt out on working with the C64 and Prophet 64. It’s a great idea, but I honestly got so many more killer sounds out of the Sidstation. Time to build a Midibox Sid as there’s no way in hell I’m paying a grand for a Sidstation.

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A few things for sale. I won’t ship the drumkit- sorry. The others can ship. Paypal ok but postal money order preferred. Cash in person super preferred. I have perfect feedback on eBay.

I have a Ludwig Accent Combo drumkit for sale. My neighbors don’t like it. It’s a 5 piece. I personally think it has really nice drum heads on it that have plenty of life and record well. It has a Sabian B8 Ride/Crash and B8 hats (nothing special, but they work). Ludwig kick pedal with extra beater. Wine Red. Evans EC2 tops on all toms. Genera Resonants on bottom. Snare has a Genera dry top, and Remo ambassidor on bottom. The kick has the standard Ludwig titled resonant head, and on the back has an Evans EMAD head and I have all of the dampening rings to go with it. I also have a tamborine to go on the high hat stand and basic ludwig drum throne. These kits are about $450-500 new. I’d love to get $350, since this kit has heads that are 10x better than the stock ones on it. More photos

I have a Yamaha TG-33 at my parents house. $100 shipped. Something is slightly wrong with it (and Yamaha’s tech support sucks) in that on rare occasion by holding down too many notes randomly mutes all. Something weird with the voice stealing. I’ve gotta find the power supply, but it’s around here somewhere. Asides from that it works great. “Vector synthesis”. I just never got into it and it’s a bitch to program imho. Still works ok, just acts oddly on occasion.
And finally the x0xb0x. I built this last summer, and it’s just sat here. I haven’t used it on a single track. It sounds wicked cool, and it’s fun. I simply do my basslines on a Moog Voyager or if I want something weirder on a C64 (or just play my bass). This is very unique and fun. TB303s are selling for way too much recently. I’ve seen them for nearly 3K. That’s nuts. I have no idea what to sell this for as the market is kinda scattered on it. Make an offer. I’m totally into trades for it as well. Again, no idea on what level. Something more than $500 surely, and likely less than $1200 (the range I’ve seen these sell in without crazy mods). I like anything modular, synths, screwy pedals, compressors, etc. I’ll do any basic mods you want (CV in, etc) if you feel you need them.

One thing about the x0xb0x that I’m going to try to diagnose tonight… the sequencer seems 1/16th note behind. Going to try and reload the firmware which hopefully will fix it, but the hard part about that is getting the firmware writer working in Leopard. Might have to use VMWare here. I should have it fixed by the time anyone want to buy it. These guys are very well documented, so it shouldn’t be hard. This one has the USB option and standard round red LEDs. I have the flatpack ones, but didn’t feel like resoldering all 40 10k resistors to make them 1k resistors…

I’ll take and post photos later. The TG-33 looks like a TG-33, the x0xb0x looks like a standard x0xb0x, and the ludwig drumkit looks like one does if you Google it. Nothing special about them that you’ll be able to tell from pix, but i’ll take them.

I live in Boston, MA in Back Bay.

I also have a C64 with Prophet 64 (no longer made)that I may be convinced to sell. I’ve done some minor mods to the C64 to hook it to my HDTV, but that’s just a few tack solders to the board. I have lots of C64 accessories. I even have the orignal box.

Also: I have a 50 foot 16XLR, 4 TRS snake for sale. $120 shipped. Good condition, just not needed in a tiny apartment and without a drumkit

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Not mine. Brian Carrigan is selling THE Arp 2500 synth that was used in the movie Close Encounters. This is probably the best kept 2500 in the world and it’s got everything you’d ever want. I got to check it out years ago when he lived in Boston. Simply fantastic.

For those of you not lucky enough to ever see/touch one, the Arp 2500 is the big daddy to the Arp 2600. Think a Moog 55 vs a Minimoog.

The reason I’m posting this is so that you can check out (and perhaps buy) a simply awesome synth that you don’t see every day. These things do NOT appear on eBay.

If you wanna see more about it, Matrix Synth has a whole one page on him selling it.

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Trent Reznor has just knocked the ball out of the ballpark. In fact he has ripped the ball to shreds, and broken the bat in two upon impact and impaled the umpire that is the record industry with it.

This evening Trent posted a series of albums online called Ghosts I-IV. The first album Ghosts I he released as a free download via his website, and also posted it to his favorite site The Pirate Bay. Oh, and did I mention all are released as Creative Commons?

The fun doesn’t stop there.  There’s a wide range of physical purchase options. These range from $5 to $300 for a limited box set of vinyl and CDs, signed by Trent. Unfortunately the site tonight is slammed after the Digg post of it and I’m unable to get in there and drop my cash on the big box set. What can I say? I like vinyl, and I’m into supporting artists directly.

I think the concept that people won’t pay for music is being proven dead, after the Radiohead release, and now with this. People will pay for music. It just has to be good music. This crap that the radio is loaded with isn’t worth paying for. Maybe we need to realize that there’s only a handful of excessively talented people in the world that are making music worth paying for?

I have just finished downloading the .torrent file and I’m giving it an initial listen. Using headphones since my neighbors would kill me. So far it’s sounding very dark, well written, sparse and noisy.  He’s working with some instrumentation that I haven’t heard him use before. It’s really nice. Can’t wait to give a full review.

Update: Torrent file of all 4 albums. Please buy them if you like, but hey… it’s Creative Commons. I for one think he deserves my cash.

Update 2: It gets even better. Boston’s very own Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls is playing drums on some of it! Holy Crap! Also, he’s releasing data CDs with full tracks of all songs for remix. More information about the CD’s concept and creation can be found here.

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WhhhhaaaA?

Yes. I said it. And I normally (ok, never) talk about “celebrities” on here. I think that, while I honestly do wish the best for her, that Britney Spears will be making headlines around the globe by 2010 that she has died. Cause of death likely to be either a drunk driving accident, or an “accidental overdose” on some sorts of drug/alcohol combination.

Where the hell do I get off making such a statement? Well let’s be frank, her situation is spinning down quickly. She’s been been in rehab more times than Kurt Cobain was, and seems to keep just getting worse and doing more stupid things.

Her parents even think it! A quote from CNN

 Pop star Britney Spears is an “adult child in the throes of a mental health crisis” whose “life is presently at risk,” her parents said Wednesday night after the singer was released from a hospital.

When it happens, there will be odd press stories about the “pressures of young stardom”. Some news people will question if her parents, “pushed her too hard as a teen” and other horrid accusations. She’s been identified as potentially bipolar (manic depressive).

I’m all up for people having a good time, partying, and generally making fools of themselves so that we can all laugh at the silly things that they do on the evening news. However, at this rate she will end up dead. There’s no question in my mind of it. She needs to have some massive transformation in her life, or she won’t have one. It’s a sad thing, but likely true.

Let’s face it. Many young people have died from depression, too much excess, and poor lifestyles. We even have the “27 club” since many of the great artists died at 27. Ms. Spears is coming up on 27 if I’m not mistaken. Will she be the next member of the “27 club”? Some weeks however I have to wonder if  Lindsay Lohan is competing for who will overdose first.  I’d love to be completely wrong however and both of them to find some balance in their lives.

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