Won Out Over

I recorded a bunch of AutoPilot library material over the weekend and Anu provided loads of good stuff on Friday. Air King team member Geoff came out the other day and pitched in as well. The RPM Challenge deadline is nearing (2/29) and initial runs (flights?) are going very well. It's now a matter of capturing what it's spitting out.

I used a technique to create the album cover above that Adam from MBO spells out on his blog.

Basically, you go to a quotation site and take the last 4 words (I took 3) from the last quotation on the page and then go to Flickr's recent pictures page and take the 3rd image to the right. Fast, and I like the result.

The CD needs to go via Fed Ex out by Thursday.

I'm not sure what to expect from all of this, but this was a case where the journey was worth as much as the destination. We got a lot of recording done this month and once this album is out, all the AP files will go in the full library.

We will resume daily AP posts in March. I'll post an MP3 of the album as soon as it's done.

San Francisco Symphony Hall

Got some AutoPilot recording done in quick spurts over the long weekend. The little guy wanted to play keyboards on one of the sessions and we came up with an idea: he would create the piece.

So, I got to be tape-op. After running through some different instruments (real and virtual), we ended up on Mtron. Nice.

We honed in on the Yes Strings patch and he recorded a first pass. It sounded beautiful. No edits. Then he decided on Flutes (classic) and cut another pass. Again, no edits. Wow.

I added fades at both end and a little verb. As his class went to the Symphony recently, he titled the piece "San Francisco Symphony Hall". Here it is:

San Francisco Symphony Hall

Now, here's the deal. Put anyone in front of a keyboard with a nice pretty patch that has a slow attack and a long release and you'll see that you have a pretty good chance of creating something nice. Just depends on how slap happy they are between black and white keys. And, of course, mellotron samples only last 7 seconds, so you need to keep those fingers moving.

Mellotrons rule.

Mid Flight Turbulence

Work on the new AutoPilot library is time and energy consuming, and is like a walk through the woods. You may think you know where you're going, but it's easy to get on the wrong track.



Um, the first run of the new AutoPilot was a little rough... I think we're back on track.

Here's a first flight:

AutoPilot 021508-2109

Squelch

Back up in the mountains this weekend and boy, is there a lot of snow! The house is covered. It's become an igloo.

This morning my son decided to clean out my closet upstairs. This is where all the old radios, records, cables, cheap mics, cd players (super vintage item) and loads of other stuff reside.

As he was running around with the Heathkit VHF Monitor (pictured above) with a cheap radio shack "Electret Condenser Replacement Mike" plugged into the Antennae jack, I saw that he had also taken out the GE Monitor 10 Analog radio (pictured below). I have many good memories with this one. It features AM, FM, VHF Lo/Hi, Air, UHF and two Short Wave bands. We've spent many a late night sitting out at the campfire, looking at the clear mountain skies, listening to the shortwave channels - international blasts from China, weird American religious rants, BBC broadcasts and the glorious wealth of scrambled signals that come across as weird electronic chirping.

We recorded some of these chirpings and put it all over the following piece:

Mike Delta Mike

Yes, those are Optigan drums. You'll also notice the ghostly Euro girl voice at the end and that is NOT something we've captured, unfortunately. That comes from the amazing Conet Project's 4-CD collection of shortwave broadcasts known as "numbers stations". These are anonymous, one way communications used by intelligence agencies to communicate to their spies. Read more from Irdial Records, the folks who pulled this album together. I highly recommend purchasing this 4 CD set. Do it now.

Younger Demo

Air King has scored a few games/sites targeted at younger folks over the years, and we have slipped in strains of the Optigan in many of them.

Digging through the digital closet late last night looking for skeletons to reanimate for AutoPilot purposes, I came across 2 pieces submitted to Meez.com, a 3d Avatar site. (Full disclosure: I worked for this company).

The piece they ended up using is strange (go to meez.com and click on See the Meez Movie). It consists of beats for the first half and then moves to beats with Optigan and ambient music at the end.

Here are the pieces they didn't pick:
Younger Demo
This was eventually used for a 2007 Super Bowl/Meez related animation. Sorry, no Optigan.

Sod
This one is made up of analog sourced bits (old analog drum machines and Optigan)

Also, this arrived my CL organ RSS today:

Custom Hand Made Organ/Piano 2 in 1 Only $150 obo
Wow! A custom piano/organ hybrid. Can you imagine how heavy that one weighs? I'm so tempted to drive down to San Jose to check it out. I won't do that, because I would end up buying it....

(broken) drum machine

Thanks to Anu for this one. NuSofting of Italy has a cool little VST beatbox called Broken Drum Machine (BDM). Here's how they describe it:

"Inspired by a combination of several old school beat boxes and the circuit-bending culture that revolves around cheap, and old, hardware musical instruments (such as the “toy” Casio and Yamaha keyboards of the 80s), Broken Drum Machine brings the lively, "ever changing", circuit-bent drum machine sounds to your DAW."

A lot of pluses here for this thing: sounds cool, minimal interface, easily tweakable, easily breakable with the "chance" and "chaos" sliders/knobs, they have available Mods, and it's got a great price point ($49.). My only complaint is that I paid for the non-demo version on Friday night and have not yet received my reg key. The demo version has an evil tone sequence that plays every 45 seconds or so, so it's really not usable for long, as it'll drive you cuckoo. I NEED that reg key.

I'm a big fan of affordable software. I've purchased a few items from Audio Damage (I love Replicant), and I like giving my money to the little guy. At $49, there's really no barrier to entry if you like something enough to buy it. I have no idea if NuSofting is a little guy, but judging from their site, they are. Viva La Little Guy, especially when they're emulating circuit bending!

As soon as i get my regkey, I'll post a piece which uses BDM.

29 Days

My friend Chris and fellow Air King compatriot Derek, along with some others, are collaborating on a cool project called 29 days. The challenge for everyone is: create and post something musical (song, fragment, chord, etc) every day in February. It's a talented bunch and this stands to generate some great material.

The spirit of their project is inspiring. For me, this is the year of the tangibles and what they're doing fits in with my mindset right now. It's all about getting stuff done and getting stuff out there. Not being too precious to share work, old or new.

So, I'm watching 29 Days with a lot of interest and am rooting from the sidelines. Go to the site and check out the directories of each of the participants. Derek is off to a great start with a song called, appropriately, 29 Days. Classic Greenberg! Check it out.

Gay 90s Waltz

Imagine... a real Gay 90's Waltz band at your fingertips! Press a button and hear two old-time pianos, plus bass, guitar and drums, all in lilting 3/4 time. Your right hand plays melody on an 1890 harmonium. Special effects switches provide introductions, vamp, even the happy rhythm of wood blocks.



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