Return of the Ruckazoid! Check out this crazy turntable that was created by Vestax with design input from the Ruckazoid and D-Styles of famed Low End Theory residency. The magic secret that separates this deck from any other wheels of steel on the planet - it controls tones like a musical instrument. Using the buttons on the side or an accessory MIDI device, DJs (ahem, musicians) can scratch a record and control the pitch at the same time. Dig this bad-ass video demo:
As far as I can decipher, he's using the pitch shift buttons to change the tone on the center table spinning the main riff, while the table on the bottom playing the bass line is being controlled directly via MIDI keyboard. Looks like Controller One is able to adjust the motor speed of the table to instantly accomodate whatever note on the keyboard is played. Hot damn. There's certainly all kinds of crazy tricks to be pulled with this device, such as getting the record on the right screen to play backwards.
Brooklyn based band The Depreciation Guild grabbed my attention on the Blip Fest 2007 DVD, which featured them rocking out their song "Butterfly Kisses" with an extra emphasis in the sound mix toward their song's 8-bit counterparts. An indie rock band that bases one-third of its sound around a hacked Nintendo Famicom? Sign me up...
The Depreciation Guild's sonic landscapes span vast virtual worlds with lush dreamy guitars and sweet melancholy vocals, all punctuated with the signature bleeping and blooping tones and crunchy drum effects unique to classic video game technology. The result is a transcendant shoegazing experience to get lost in for hours. The Famicom elements never distract or become a mere gimmick and the songwriting holds up in its own right.
Go check out their website where they have their album In Her Gentle Jaws available to download for donation or free. Gems like the epic searching of "Sky Ghosts", the frantic infatuation of "Butterfly Kisses" and the haunting nostalgia of "Nautilus" make this album and this band an unforgettable listening experience.
The Blip Fest is basically the Mecca of electronic low-bit "chiptune" music. Held annually by collective group 8bitpeoples in New York City, artists from around the world converge and go wild, destroying braincells and eardrums alike using old home computers and hacked Nintendo systems. Basically it's my boyhood dream come to life, where playing a Gameboy makes a crowd of people go crazy, almost as if my secret childhood hobby of recording NES music onto cassette tapes to listen to on my headphones later has a sense of legitimacy now. Whoops, did I just type that out loud? Better distract you all with this video now...
Almost every artist uses some sort of creative implementation of now antiquated technology, predominantly Gameboys, Famicoms, and old Nintendo systems hacked to emulate sequenced music through their obsolete but oh-so-nostalgic sound chips. From solo acts to full on bands, they rock out on stage in front of an amazing light show with screens featuring glitched out motion graphics by visual artists inspired by broken NES cartridges.
Blip Fest 2007 was just about the best $15 I ever spent online. The production value is legit, definitely some very nice work by 2 Player Productions, everything is shot on some very nice cameras and the editing is superb. I still haven't even jumped into the special features, but the videos for Anamanaguchi, Virt, The Depreciation Guild, and Bit Shifter all made this DVD worth repeat viewing. Perhaps not for the easily motion sick or the epilleptic, but then again that's why they always put those warning labels in the instruction manuals next to the Nintendo Seal of Approval.
Paul Shirley wrote a brilliant article for ESPN.com comparing jazz music and NBA basketball, and understanding why they both come off as niche markets for the people that understand the fundamentals. This paragraph simultaneously made me realize why I love jazz music, and why basketball is my favorite sport to watch. Just replace "basketball" with "jazz" and "sport" with "music."
"Basketball is an abstract sport. Its players are required to adapt to ever-changing variables, and there is very little planning that can be done because the game is designed to be played with as little stoppage as possible. Football and baseball, on the other hand, are relatively predictable. The roles assumed by players of those sports are rigid and there isn't as much room for creativity. That's not to say there isn't any -- watch a quarterback navigate the pocket sometime -- but after each play, both teams stop and plan for the next situation, employing more cognition than is possible during a basketball game."
It's funny that I find myself in the exact opposite situation than Paul's since for me, jazz and music are where I critique with my ears and experience, whereas I've always wished I was talented at basketball.
Up until my RC-50 Loop Station purchase, the most I've ever spent on a musical instrument was $50. Snagged my bass in Santa Barbara for a cool $50. Plundered my M-Audio Radium 49 MIDI controller from a pawn shop for $50 and made two albums worth of jingley-jangley beats with it. Somehow amps and software just seem to float my way as well, which accounts for my generally ghetto-rigged situation.
Seeing as how I could use an upgrade from the Casio CT-655 that has been rockin' it as my main live synth, the one keyboard that really caught my eye is the MicroKorg. It's light, portable, has all kinds of sweet knobs and settings to mess with, a sick-as-hell looking interface, and is generally a cool customizable synthesizer. Only downfall, small keys.
Which led me to look into the MicroKorg XL, and led me to this enjoyable video:
I've run across this jetdaisuke dude a few times from different products I've been interested in (such as the Kaossilator), but this is the only one I've seen with the annotated subtitles, which confirms my suspicion that the dude is truly hilarious.
Possibly my favorite feature of both the Micro and XL models: the vocoder. Also my favorite part of the video, jetdaisuke's comment that vocoder is "shameful in public."
On a recent trip to Guitar Center I had the chance to try out all three of my researched prospective keyboards, the MicroKorg, MicroKorg XL, and Korg R3. All three were super neato, the small keys on the Micro are a factor, but not an enormous factor, and I'm still completely undecided on whether or not any of them will be in my immediate future.
Now dig this... 6 analog synthesizers, drum machine, and turntables. All controlled at the same time by one dude. Needless to say this is probably the closest example I've ever found to what I would want my music and live show to strive for, if only I had unlimited resources and lots of vintage analog equipment... not to mention the know-how... a-hem, without further ado, RUCKAZOID.
The dude has skills that are out-of-this-world and a bangin' sound to match. He designs his own turntables to boot, talk about some mad science right there. YOU MUST head over to Dublab and check out Ruckazoid's set...
About a month or so ago I got this bad boy right here in hopes that it could take my "studio" tracks from Garage Band and Reason and perform them live. I've been jamming with my buddy Nate on drums, and was just noodling around layering multiple melodic bass loops borrowing my roommate's RC-20XL loop pedal, which made for some pretty interesting stuff, but the time came for me to make a purchase and I figured it'd be best to go big, so I sprung for this super deluxe model. While the reviews online tipped me off to a few of the setbacks (the biggest being that changing the tempo with the pedal drastically distorts the sound quality), it's thus far been definitely worth it. My master plan is to get some live shows going using the Loop Station here hooked up to my bass, keyboard, and -- wait for it -- iphone.
A quick breakdown of all the pedals here, from left to right, Play/Overdub, Stop, Tempo, Undo/Redo, and then the three phrase pedals to record to and toggle on and off.
