Results for audio

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Phillips SAA-1099 Sample Pack (Copyright-free and License-free)

A new pack of samples by Sebastian Tomczak:

I have made a copyright-free and license-free sample pack of the Phillips SAA-1099 sound generator chip. It is a very straightforward sample pack, consisting of 96 pitched samples and 16 noise samples, across a range of frequencies. These samples have been recorded from hardware. The audio output stage of the sound chip has not been filtered.

Sebastian has also announced a music contest:

It's time to get your chipmusic on! This is your chance to win a SEGA Master System MIDI Interface. Be the coolest musician in your town with this brand new tool that lets you control the sound chip in your SEGA Master System with MIDI data.

More information: SEGA Music Competition: Win A SEGA Master System MIDI Interface!

# Jim Reekes, The Man Behind Mac Sound

From Create Digital Music:

The legend of the early sounds of the Mac remains, apparently, an alluring one. Here, Jim Reekes talks to a Dutch documentary crew (though in English) about his thought process in designing sounds for the Mac, including the famous Mac startup sound.

# New Block Construction

Livid Instruments improves its Block:

Improving on a design and sharing the results with our users is always at the top of our list at Livid. The Block controller has been a great success and we have just made some minor design changes to make it even better. Originally milled from a solid block of wood, the square body with thin bottom has had its challenges, mostly warping and cupping. We have experienced a bit higher reject rate for bodies at the shop before they were built then we would like. Thus, the up and coming stash of rejected bodies in the Livid Graveyard that were never meant to be!

# Waveformless: 5 Ways of Emulating Vintage Samplers

Tom Shear on how to emulate vintage samplers:

When sampling technology finally became accessible to mere mortals and not just uber-rich Fairlight and Synclavier enthusiasts, the race was on to increase fidelity and leave behind the limitations of those first 8-bit samplers. Bit depth and sampling rates increased and memory capacity expanded until the average sampled sound was indistinguishable from the same sound recorded on a CD.

But sure enough, after many years of enjoying the pristine sound quality of the new sampling technology, musicians began to explore and exploit the limitations of the old school samplers. Suddenly the grain of low bit-rate samples and the metallic grit of aliasing is very much in style. So how can you emulate the sonic artifacts of some of the long forgotten vintage samplers? I'm glad you asked…

# Intello – Better Demo of first version (YouTube)

This is the plugin I am currently working on. It's called "Intello". Basically it's a glitch producing plugin and in this first short demo I'm showing you one of the 5 planned glitching modes. The plugin will be controllable by an iPhone application from a listening audience. So the listeners can interact with a performer.

More information: www.zettt.de

The Smalls has launched Street Sounds, a new site created in association with Scion to capture location-based sounds that together reflect our surroundings and define our lives.

Street Sounds is a collaborative and interactive Web site where lovers of art, sound and humanity can document their lives through snippets of sound that are posted on a 3-D map. Filmmakers, musicians and other artists can then search for sounds by keyword and location to use when creating new collaborative works of their own.

Streets Sounds allows users to listen in on everything from such rousing moments as a campus protest in Berkley or subway performers in New York, to funny and intimate vignettes, such as one’s laughter, a patron ordering a beer, or the rain. For contributors and listeners alike, the experience can be enchanting and addictive.

“With The Smalls Street Sounds, we aim to create the largest online collaboration of free, user-generated sounds that will encourage people to listen to the sounds of America and stimulate creative expression,” said Anna Grund, Founder, The Smalls. “Most of our lives are made up of multi-sensory experiences. The Sound Map provides people with the opportunity to focus on one – sound – to present and explore their world, and most importantly to let their imagination wander.”

Every month, the biggest contributors of sounds can win a free iPod.

More information: The Smalls Street Sounds

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Even retro record covers can be used to create something amazing

There are those who will throw away their old record covers but there are those that will use them to create some mind blowing artistic stuff.

One of them is definitely Christian Marclay, a New York visual artist, DJ and composer who used record covers of Michael Jackson , Doors, Donna Summer, David Bowie and many others for this piece of art. The relationship of sound, vision, music, art and performance is the focus of his work.

More on Christian Marclay

# Two Garbage Cans and a Microphone

Rock the party with this DIY sound system.

Peter Kirn writes:

Say you’re an up-and-coming crew with a turntable and some mics. You’ve got a gig this Friday at the middle school gym (the janitor has been bribed appropriately) and the boys on the corner have been passing out your flyers to all the lovely ladies. Everything’s set, except you heard that Kool Herc is coming to battle. Herc and his mighty sound system schooled you last go-round, so you know you need something fresh to rock the bodies proper. Your DIY solution? The 55-gallon drum sound system.

… read more

Some interesting things I found recently:

# Drone Machines by Tristan Shone.

Drone Machines are custom made machines fabricated from raw materials and utilizing open source circuitry.

The devices draw heavily on aspects of industrial automation, robotics and mechanical tools and devices, focusing on the eroticism of interaction with machine.

The machines require significant force from the performer, aligning he or she with the plodding drone and doom influenced sounds that are created.

# Chord Triggering in Ableton Live (Vimeo)

This video shows you how to use Ableton Live’s clips as chord banks and trigger them with one key. It also touches on the following features: Follow Action, Launch Modes, Midi Mapping & Routing, Pitch (midi plugin)

(via)

… read more

Some interesting things I found recently, and not so recently (since it’s been a while since I posted short links).

# Guitare à crayon

The idea behind “la Guitare à crayon” is to be able to paint and play music with the same instrument (crayon mean pencil in english). It’s a custom usb guitar with open source software: namely, pure data (for sound) and gimp, blender, flash (for visual).

Guitare à crayon

• Hardware features:
  • Accelerometer X-Axis (for example controlling the octave)
  • Accelerometer Y-Axis (for example controlling an effect)
  • 6 analog strings giving around 10 bits of resolution
  • External input: 1 analog, 1 digital
  • 4 positions switch
  • 8 buttons
  • 4 pots
  • 1 piezo with velocity filter (for example trigging any sound)
  • 1 ir distance sensor (+-6cm – +-20cm)
  • 1 unuseful led (for tapping the bpm)
  • Pressure-sensitive tablet
  • Foot controller (using a led & a photoresistor)
  • Foot switch (looper, change sound, …)
• Software features:
  • No driver (firmware & bootloader)
  • Linux, Windows, Mac
  • Pure Data poweful DSP (sample, soundfont, fx rack, multiple looper)
  • Gimp for 2d (drawing, painting, photo, …)
  • Gesture tracking on the tablet (linux only)

# 8 Track Walkman-Pod thing (Retro-tech)

Instructables user XenonJohn writes:

This is an admittedly mad project to see what might have happened if Sony had invented the Walkman earlier than they did – and made it so it took 8 track tape cartridges (which came before cassette tapes were invented).

In other words, can I make a personal 8 track player with just headphones in the style of a Walkman?

… read more

Some interesting things I found recently:

# iPhone attack: TR-808, TB-303, Sampler, Synthesizer

Oliver Chesler puts together a track with some iPhone apps (Audiorealism technoBox, Tapestri and Andriod FX by Pure Profit).

Oliver writes:

I was having some music fun on my iPhone and I put together a quick Acid track. I recorded three apps into Ableton Live. There really is something to be said for bringing in audio from the outside world, even if it’s from another computer. I like the slight noise and live interaction the iPhone apps forced. The combined price of all the applications I used here was $11.97. Imagine what a Roland TB-303, Roland TR-808, Akai S950 and Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 would have cost you 15 years ago?

# Want Josh Freese to join your band? Got $75,000?

Former NIN drummer Josh Freese is promoting his new album with some limited edition deals.

There's a lot of funny stuff between the regular $7 digital download of Since 1972, and the $75,000 limited edition which includes things like going on tour with Josh for a few days, have Josh write, record and release a 5-song EP about you and your life story and taking a flying trapeze lesson with Josh and Robin from NIN.

Link via Soundcheck

# ryangruss.com

Ryan Gruss has a cool blog where he posts some free drum tracks.

I am a drummer based in Boston, Massachusetts. I previously lived in NYC and Los Angeles where I had the chance to record, collaborate and tour with a wide range of artists. I started this blog with the intention of sharing, transferring and exploring musical ideas with my friends around the world… as well as anyone else who might stumble across this site.

All of the drum tracks (unless credited) are recorded at my studio using Logic Pro 8. I include mp3s of all my recordings for quick previews as well as a separate link to the original, multitracked Logic files. Feel free to download, cut-up, eq, compress, distort, and mutate my drum parts and use them for your own projects. All I ask is that you send me a link to the final product when you’re finished. Let’s see what happens…

Currently at Loop #17.

# Reyn vs Björk – I’ve Seen It All [Dancer in the Dark] (link to YouTube)

Loving this video of Reyn Ouwehand’s mix of this Björk track.

Reyn writes:

I found this track on the album Family Tree. It's Björk together with the Brodsky string quartet.
Really love this track and version and thought it would be nice to do some looping over it.. Enjoy!..

More on Reyn Ouwehand here. Via Tom @ Twitter