BeatMaker – more Pro Audio for iPhone OS

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I’ve already gotten sucked into the amazing synth app noise.io, which is an incredibly powerful synth for you iPhone or iPod Touch.  I’ve also been going back and forth trying to figure out how to realize my dream of electronic music and beats mixed with killer live guitar tones.  That has led me to Reason 4.0 and the Akai MPC.  The latter is a series of stand-alone units that work as samplers and recording studios.  An MPC style controller might be ideal for getting the most out of the powerful Reason 4.0 software, but I know nothing about working such a controller, and they’re not free.

Along comes an iPhone app with a forty-one page instructions manualBeatMaker features an interface that borrows heavily from both Reason and the MPC, complete with 16 virtual pads to tap out my imagined rhythms.  At $20, it might be one of the most expensive apps for sale at iTunes, but it’s still about ten times less than a controller that may or may not work with Reason and that I definitely don’t know how to use.  I think BeatMaker looks like a pretty good alternative.  I’m willing to bet that after I read those forty-one pages, I’ll be a lot closer to understanding what to do with reason and a good trigger-pad/MPC-style controller than I am now.  And I won’t have spent any more than $20.

The other aspect of BeatMaker that is intriguing is an app for your desktop/laptop that lets you take your beats off the phone/pod and actually do something with them.  Now we’re talkin!  And while I may be a bit far from getting that done, I’ve no doubt that, within the next few days, it’ll get done.

Where did I put the super glue?

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Last night I was as good as my word.  I put a set of DR 10’s on my old Travis Bean TB1000S.  I didn’t really get to far beyond giving the old girl new strings, getting in tune and giving her a haircut.  My deposition ended a bit early because my client blew me off.  Glad he’s so involved in the case, that painintheass!  Anyway, I got back around four, downed a Red Bull and got out of my work clothes to see how those new strings felt.  Well, I ended up rocking out so hard that the pickguard came off, as did one of the tone knobs.  It was awesome!  Sorry neighbors.

SourceAudio Tri-Mod Wah – probably voided the warranty

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I’ve never been too good with the wah-wah rocker pedal.  Volume pedal is a different story, that I can handle.  but the wah has never been my friend.  So, several months ago, I picked up this sucker on a whim and it’s a nice sounding unit with lots of versatility.  It can do envelope or LFO and the multi-peaks can get real crazy – that’s always a good thing.

Unfortunately, the switch stopped working several months ago and I foolishly never did anything about it.  The unit still got power and all the settings seemed to work, but I couldn’t work the pedal.  Well, last night, I decided to take a quick look inside and noticed that a spring in the switch had been overly compressed.  I gently stretched out the spring and put it back in place, put all the screws back in and ta-dah! The thing is working like a charm.  I’ll try to get some recording done so you can hear this beauty.  It’s not earth shattering, but it’s a nice little auto-wah/filter unit.

Does this LOOK like a jam band?

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Let’s not worry about ‘prog-rock’ for a minute.  I’ve no real beef with the label.  Labels can be helpful, they can even be necessary.  Certainly ‘jam band’ is a label.  But if you’ve decided to use a label (and I am talking about you), then it’s absolutely essential to realize the infinite variety that can exist within any grouping that may share a single characteristic.  There’s a lot of different kinds of prog out there.  There’s a lot of different kinds of jam bands too.

So, with all that out of the way, let’s get to the topic du jour – Genesis.  Here’s an easy one, an absolute, something you can hang your hat on, unchanging, objective reality.  Gabriel-era Genesis was not a jam band.

Many other popular bands from 1970 through 1975 conducted sonic explorations that happened right before the audience’s very eyes.  They threw caution to the wind and ventured into the world of improvisation where anything could happen.  And such behavior was not limited to the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers, although those are two fine examples from the era.  Even real prog bands would strip themselves naked of any script or predictability and just see what happened – King Crimson is a perfect example.

As Miles Davis was bringing elements of rock into jazz, bands that improvised were really bringing elements of jazz into rock.  Zappa would use his entire ensemble (and sometimes an audience) as an instrument and conduct noise to tell the story or make the point.  In the earliest parts of this period, Syd Barret-era Pink Floyd experimented with music/noise to match their groundbreaking visual show.

One of the most important aspects of improvised music is the relationship (or lack thereof) between the players.  Ideally, great improvisation happens when the group all know one another so well that they can basically read each others’ minds.  The result is that classic moment of the whole becoming a unit that is greater than the sum of its parts.  Its a cliche, but in this case, it is true.

On the other hand, jams can become much more interesting by the presence of a destabilizing influence.  The great example of this is Miles Davis in 1970.  He spent a lot of time and did a lot of touring with band that consisted of himself on trumpet, Gary Bartz on sax, Michael Henderson on bass, Keith Jarrett on keys, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Airto on percussion.  Although the band had a strong improvised element, the whole thing was beautifully thrown off one night when John McLaughlin joined on electric guitar.  Everyone was thrown out of their comfort zone and the thing got even better.

So, once again, Gabriel-era Genesis was not a jam band.  They composed together for five glorious years (all writing credits were always given to all five members) and their goal upon going in front of an audience was to recreate, as much as possible, the sound on the record.  But with all that talent, all that original thinking, all those fancy toys, and all that affinity from years of playing, recording and touring together, I have always wondered, what would it have sounded like if THIS band jammed?  What if they just started with some very basic ideas, musical germs, and noodled a bit and jammed and worked on making something from nothing?  What would that sound like?

And now I know what it would sound like and it is a beautiful noise.  And, in the very near future, I look forward to sharing it with you over at Blogerantz.

Scary! Fifteen Journey interviews circulating on the Dime – Maybe ‘The Answer’ is in there somewhere…

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Now, if I only knew what the question was.  Here is the search string (dimeadozen.org membership required) for those of you familiar with bittorrent and ready to listen to the likes of Steve Perry and Neal Schon talking about their remarkable skills and success for, like, an entire week.  Maybe we can finally understand why ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ has taken on the extraordinary cultural significance that it now has.  Or why Schon ever shaved off that killer ‘stache.

When you’re U2, you don’t sign ‘restictive covenants’ or ‘non-competes’


Apple and Blackberry may be direct competitors in the world of mobile phones, and Bono’s image may be indellibly and permanently stamped onto every iPhone and iPod Touch, but do you think Blackberry cares about that?  And U2 needs as much extra scratch as possible to help pay for all those nice folks helping to move The Claw all around the globe on this tour.  If Steve Jobs is feeling bad that his former pitchmen are now selling Blackberry, well, that’s too damn bad.  Because when you’re U2, you don’t sign a restrictive covenant or an agreement not to compete.  Pretty good video too.

Michael Jack$on RIP – Really Improved Profits!

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In Philadelphia, we’ve seen a tremendous cottage (cheeze) industry of KoP memorial-abilia; lots of buttons and lots of t-shirts.  Philebrity documented the local, entrepreneurial spirit over a week ago, and, with yesterday’s media circus heartfelt goodbye the demand is as strong as ever.

But whatever might be happening in my hometown at the street level is nothing compared to the big numbers that MJ’s untimely end is raking up.  Dorothy nails it down over at Forbes.com.  now all we need is for Staples to start selling the one sequined glove.

We did sing about shooting the angler fish with a secret invisible gun

Well, it seems like a bit of a longshot that Oscar and I will get to do any musical micro-blogging this weekend. We’ll just have to book some studio time when it’s not a busy holiday weekend.

We did, however, have an opportunity to sit down at the piano and sing about going to fight a dragon. I figured that every brave adventurer needs a good bit of epic music to document his exploita. But before we could find the cave of the secret invisible dragon, we first had to take on an evil cyclops, then a bunch of pirates, and I believe there was a killer shark in there somewhere.

There was also a lot of talk (and/or singing) about the vicious angler fish, but because of that monster’s sheer prowess, I think we decided to leave him alone. Or maybe Oscar managed to shoot him with secret, invisible ray gun.

Good times.

I don’t even know what to call this post

I guess it’s another catch-all.  The holiday weekend is pretty much here, so everything is starting to slow down, and that is perfectly fine with me.  I’ve been enjoying (NOT!) some bowel distress over the past 24 hours, so I’m glad that there’s no work tomorrow.  I prep’d my butt off for an Arbitration on Wednesday and it went south on me because the panel didn’t like my client – they actually said that to me after.  Hours and hours of prep down the tubes.

I’m just about done with Greg van Eekhout’s (like Vonnegut?) first novel – Norse Code.  Despite the title, it’s actually been quite a good piece of fantasy fiction.  If I were in another line of work, perhaps I could have read this book over a weekend, but with distractions and trials, it has taken a bit longer.  Great action, well written, and sexy cover.  What more could you ask for?  As a rumination on Ragnarok, it’s a bit more fluid and entertaining than Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.  The retelling of myth is a bit more fluid in Gaiman’s work, but the van Eekhout has been a more cohesive read.  I certainly liked them both, but in being a bit less ambitious, Norse Code is actually more fun.  Although, I don’t think Gaiman was going for fun.

Company’s coming to mpomy HQ to help celebrate the holiday.  We’re looking forward to Oscar and his mom and dad.  Pictures will undoubtedly be posted.  Also, we’ve arranged a trip to Morris Arboretum to hang out in nature’s beauty with my mom and our guests.  It should be just the ticket after my beleaguered week.

Over at Fretbuzz.net, the insanity continues.  we’ve got Mr. Delaruss now actively blogging, which is great news.  I’ll also try to do little more micro-music because it’s so damn fun.  Maybe Oscar can help with the next composition.

We have also found out that a cousin has breast cancer – which absolutely sucks.  She’s got a bunch of little kids and she’s almost definitely going to have to go through some of the most heinous shit.  But she’s got a great husband (Em’s 1st cousin) and they’re within shouting distance of top notch healthcare.  It’s still going to be a bumpy ride for that family, so we’ll be sending the good vibes that way as the situation and treatment regimen become clearer.

And lastly, I’ll be trying to get Em to watch Virtuality tonight.  It seems like good, low-impact fun before our guests arrive, and I need to take another look before I write up my thoughts.

Have a great weekend, everybody.