David Fisher : What is Noise Blog

I came across Weezer‘s new video this morning. It’s basically the ROFLCon of Weezer music videos. While sadly there aren’t any people in the video or mocked in the video that were actually at ROFLCon (maybe a good list for next year?) there were plenty of memes to be seen.

Check it out:

Trent has done it again. He just released Ghosts a few months ago, and the ink is barely dry on the limited edition box sets. He’s just released two singles in the past month or so (Echoplex, Discipline) and today just released another entire album online. For free of course, and without a record label. The album is called the slip.

Go download it and check it out. I haven’t listened to it yet asides from the singles. Downloading now myself.

I am shocked at how fast he’s able to move and release things now (being free of heroin/drugs and record companies helps!)

My personal guess is that this upcoming tour will be the biggest and best that NIN has ever had. I’d say that they are mainstream music already, but what he is doing is really helping break down barrier even more and bring more people into his music. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Update: In downloading it I’m noticing that Trent is doing a few amazingly smart things. First he’s requiring your email address. He’s also allowing for lossless and higher than CD quality WAV downloads (24bit/96khz). And he has a simple sharing thing to email it to friends. Simple, but surely effective and smart.

He is also using bittorrent as a distribution method for all but the smallest downloads. This is a clear illustration that bittorrent is not always used for piracy, and that ISPs/Campuses should not block/filter/throttle such legitimate services.

I was going through one of my hard drives today and found some music that I had recorded, mostly in 2006. I’m excited about going into the studio on Sunday and wanted to share some of the tracks with you. Few of them are “complete” and most are just short snippets and ideas that I had. I’ll try to make commentary below where I can.

I made this when I was messing around with Scuplture in Apple Logic

I have no idea, but it’s fast and cool. I need to reuse this soon.

This is from right after I got my drumkit (for sale now!) and started messing around micing it. It’s sloppy and was only one take. I got better thankfully.

I can’t remember exactly, but I love this. Need to work on it more later

A few layers of acoustic guitar. Fun imho.

Likely using a JP-8000 on this? No idea.

Honestly don’t remember this, but it was in my personal mix folder so I’m hoping it’s mine

This is a remix I did in 2005 for some guy. All I got was the vocal tracks and a few random other tracks. No drums, etc… didn’t hear the original for several months. Think I got the gig when selling some equipment (god knows what I sold) and he liked my rig. Could have been better, but it’s fun and reasonably mixed

Something I did super quick. It doesn’t have enough harmonic movement imho, but it works. Not a favorite of mine

Ever get a keyboard and think it sounds cheesy? Ever wonder what happens if you fully embrace that and go with it? That’s what happened here.

No idea again, but it’s freaking cool.

I wrote and played this all on drums and minimoog. Nothing else. It was for some Emerson film students. The film was some acid trip about someone waking up only to find their house was a ship and sirens were coming in for some weird fantasy scene. I didn’t get it, but the music came out ok. The music is sync’d with the film, and thus goes with it more than a click.

I wrote this in several iterations. It’s the reason the paint is thin on my desk from bashing things on it for a snare sound. Could have been better, but i liked the general idea. I need to learn to write lyrics.

I was applying over a year ago for this job and they needed to have something showing that I could record a song with vocals. I had only my voice to deal with so I did a cover of “True Faith”. I’m not a good singer and had to put it together in one night. Beware

Something of me playing bass and drums. No idea.

Enjoy!

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.

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