Results for Boards of Canada

Some interesting things I found on August 15th, 2008:

# Korg Kaossilator 4-Bar Loop Hack

David Battino writes:

My favorite electronic instrument so far this year is the Korg Kaossilator, a pocket-size, touchpad-controlled synthesizer with built-in loop recorder. I liked it so much I bought one after reviewing it for Electronic Musician magazine.

What loosened my credit card was a secret hack Korg revealed during fact-check: If you power up the Kaossilator while holding down the Tap and Loop Rec buttons, the loop memory doubles from two bars to four. That may not sound like much, but it gives you time to set up tension and release; I find four-bar loops just breathe better.

Check David’s post for detailed info on the bootup technique.

# Vector Surgeon 1.0 Read Me – Hello, good evening, and welcome to Vector Surgeon, the Prophet VS editor/librarian. This document explains some of the design principles surrounding the program, how to get started, and how to use it effectively.

# Music is Math animation: The ‘Mandela’ Variation

Glenn Marshall recently did his first Processing animation, set to the Boards of Canada track ‘Music is Math’. The Mandela Variation is the same animation with a small but significant difference.

Glenn writes:

I changed the random seed number. This number is basically the starting point for all random numbers throughout the code used to create the branches, particle motion etc.

I thought it would be interesting to see and compare the difference between the first and second videos, with only changing one number. The original seed value was 1973, the year I was born, and I was thinking of what other numbers I could use for a second video, and Nelson Mandela’s prison number came to mind – 46664, which is what is used here.

Glenn’s blog is a nice read, so check it out! He just posted some cool images from his Iris Generator done in Processing.

# mnk::GarageRemote – GarageRemote allows the control of GarageBand's transport functions from any MIDI controller that has programmable buttons.

Some interesting things I bookmarked on del.icio.us on March 21st, 2008:

• FS3M18 – Consists out of 3 modules that can be patched together in any way imaginable. These modules are a Digital Delay (DD) a Graphic Equalizer (GEQ) and a Distortion modeller (DM).

• Atomless – An archive of the work of James Tindall & Collaborators. I love the Board of Canada project.
• Dan’s 20th Century Abandonware – Huge collection of legacy software, computer systems and memorabilia.

I’ve added two new tracks to the KVR contest entries page.

Onzekerheid

The theme for the August contest was Form. The idea was to compose a piece that falls into one of the following musical forms:

1. ABA
2. ABAC
3. AABA

See if you can figure out which one I chose! This is my first entry with vocals (I recently bought a cheap Akai mic at a junkyard sale for a few bucks), and they’re in Dutch in case you don’t know what you’re listening to. I wasn’t too impressed with my vocal performance myself, but it’s common knowledge that poppy songs with vocals tend to do better than instrumentals, so I ended up in 4th place out of 40+ entries anyway.

… read more