Music Thing

Boring survey: Is Music Thing working OK technically?

2008-05-13T17:40:00.010+01:00

Keith writes: "Hi, I've been reading your blog for years now and took a break from the internet for about 10-12 months. I'm back on and I noticed you've redesigned the page but it loads really slow and crashes Internet Explorer for me every time. Firefox loads it fine but, again, really slowly."
Thanks!
UPDATE:
Based on the first handful of results, just over 10% are complaining of slow loading. I've cut the number of posts on the homepage from 20 to 10. Might also move that huge Google map. A couple of people asked whether the ads make any money. The Google ones make a bit (about £4k a year, hopefully) but the others are struggling to pay their way, so I'll look again at them. Thanks, by the way, for all the compliments.

Squarewave Parade: Fine boutique gear you can actually buy

2008-05-08T22:59:00.003+01:00

I'm always talking about my name and citysake Tom Bugs, but his cool stuff always sells out within hours of being announced. Meanwhile, Squarewave Parade have a shop full of cool-looking things, like the Safeplace - a $59 handmade metal shaker with a contact mic inside it and a tone control on the outside, the Mole - a $229 filter based on the MS20, Downgrade - an analog pseudo bit reducer and Parade - a $44 kit with a circuit board and various pots, which is six squarewave oscillators to tweak together.

Chimera BC-16: First video of tiny, cute, round modular synth

2008-05-07T15:26:00.007+01:00

Here's the first clip of the Chimera BC-16 mini synth in action (covered previously). The synth messageboards have been all over the BC-16, starting with "this is awesome", moving on to "I've ordered mine", then "It hasn't arrived yet", then "It's a hoax" and finally "It's a scam." I don't see any reason to think it's a scam (I can think of about a million easier scams that don't involve designing a tiny circular modular synths) but they're obviously having a hard time meeting customer orders. Still, after seeing this video, I just ordered one myself for £136. Lets see if it turns up...

My Clari-Fi magic box arrived. What do you want to know about it?

2008-05-05T22:40:00.005+01:00

Remember Clari-Fi? The $50 passive gadget which makes lots of big claims about improving the sound of MP3? Despite my scepticism, the inventor has kindly sent me one to try. Before I get to cracking it open and posting pictures of the guts, what experiments would you like me to perform?
My initial thoughts after five minutes of listening via those fancy Sony PFR-V1 headphones:
1. Quality control = fail. My one has a loose connection so one channel cuts out unless you hold the wire in.
2. It's certainly cutting off a bit of top end, but much more subtly than the 'treble reducer' EQ preset on the ipod. I also felt I was getting a rather different midrange but I have ears of clay and wool, so who knows?
3. I feel I can hear a bit of distortion at high levels - fairly warm, soft distortion that isn't there when the module is absent. The module cuts a lot of volume (maybe 10% of the travel of the iPod volume control), so that could account for this. It certainly overdrives when placed after the headphone booster that comes with the PFR-V1s, but that's probably not a fair test.

The Pod: Community Techno Unit

2008-05-02T21:54:00.005+01:00

This clip left me laughing so much I was almost unable to breathe at work today. It's Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh, in The Pod, a short-lived series from a few years back: "The Pod are a late eighties electronic dance outfit trying to cope with the mid nineties post rave come down." There's a lot more goodness on YouTube, including Techno is not a Joke, a three part animated series, and this bizarre interview with Donna Air. (Thanks Michael)

Jomox T-Resonator: Knobs + analog filters + digital delay + feedback = fun?

2008-05-02T13:03:00.001+01:00

This is the new thing from German boutique gear maker Jürgen Michaelis, the Jomox T-Resonator. As a fan of knobs, feedback, delay and filters, I'm quite intrigued, and I love the bonkers-ness of the diagrams all over the case. Some of the sound samples are great (like this one) although judging from Big City Music's video demo, it's pretty hard to control (this clip is a bit more musical). Anyone tried one yet? They're £200 from Thomann, $399 from Analog Haven.
UPDATE: Here's a much better video from Big City Music, via Matrix.

Help find all the surviving music gear shops in the world

2008-05-02T09:59:00.021+01:00

View the map at Google (it's much easier than scrolling round this little
window. Zoom right in - there are loads more spots than in this view)

The most common question asked by Music Thing readers is "I'm visiting London/Tokyo/Doncaster. Can you tell me if there are any good music gear shops?" With the recent demise of Sound Control it's increasingly hard to find real-world shops where you can see and play with music gear, let alone see vintage or boutique stuff. So, here's an editable Google Map. I've started by plotting a (very) few shops around the world - just tiny placeholders, because I haven't been to most of these shops.
How to get edit the map yourself: Click to the Music Gear Shops map. If you're logged into a Google account, you should be able to click 'EDIT' and change text, add new points, add pictures, links etc (remember to hit 'Save'!). The 'Edit Rich Text' option lets you add pictures, enliven links etc. Let me know at Music Thing Tips if you have trouble, or add something particularly cool.
UPDATE: 150 entries in the first 12 hours - wow!

Very pleasing video of five metronomes syncing together

2008-05-02T08:28:00.003+01:00

Man takes five metronomes ticking randomly. Puts them on a slightly mobile plank held on two tin cans. Metronomes run in sync. Magic. Now I'd like to see someone really mess up György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes... (via Kottke)

Turnkey / Sound Control goes bust

2008-04-30T22:24:00.006+01:00

Sad (-ish) news for British music gear buyers - Sound Control group, who own a string of enormo-shops and Turnkey, the UK distributors for Moog, DSI, Jomox and more, have appointed administrators after failing to find a buyer: "Following a review of the Group’s operations the Administrators have today made the difficult decision to close 10 of the Group’s trading locations and bring to an end its telesales and internet sales activities. These changes to the Group’s operations have resulted in 163 redundancies with immediate effect." The group has a turnover of £50m and employed 338 people across Britain. Obviously their competitors, like Dolphin Music and Digital Village are delighted. There's a very well informed thread over at the Sound on Sound forum which includes comments from various former staff.

The incredible mechanical adventures of Tristram Cary

2008-04-25T19:03:00.004+01:00

As Create Digital Music reports, Tristram Cary died this week. Here's the first third of the wonderful Australian documentary What The Future Sounded Like, which does more than I ever could to explain why Tristram was important. For me, aside from all the pioneering and inventing and explaining and pipe-smoking and knob-twiddling and making the modern world a little bit more interesting, he'll always be best remembered as the recipient of the world's greatest ever synth-shaped birthday cake.

Where do bagpipes come from?

2008-04-25T09:00:00.002+01:00

These days, I imagine that all musical instruments are made in one Chinese factory the size of Texas, so I was delighted to get an email from Waqas Yaqoob, sales manager of M. Basharat Dolit Maker. The company is based in Sialkot, Pakistan: "We Proudly inform you that M. Basharat Dolik Maker is family owned business, our family is in manufacturing business since last 50 years since our forefathers. Established by late Mr. Mohammed Hussain, who received the woodcraft of making music instruments from his father M M Khuon. Mohammed Hussain had devoted his life in the field of making music instruments and delivered his manufacturing craft to his son, M. Basharat, who is owner of M. Basharat Dolik Maker. We are manufacturers of fine quality Scottish highland bagpipes, smallpipes, harps, pipe chanters, reeds, congas, bongos, Scottish kilts, sporrans and other music instruments." Sialkot was a British army base from 1849 to independence, so perhaps that's where the sporran connection comes from.

$50 gadget claims to "clean the sound waves of MP3"

2008-04-24T10:23:00.003+01:00

Clari-Fi is a little passive $50 gadget which goes between your iPod and your headphones, and makes some huge claims about digital music: "This technology allows for real-time compression of digital audio, removing harmful digital artifacts and 'spikey-ness,'... Clari-fi's semiconductor was developed with custom silicon with the sole purpose of quasi-logarithmically compressing audio sources having earphone load impedances of 25 to 50Ω. The compression algorithm continuously limits digital artifact peaks." There's a whole page of what looks to me like long words for the purpose of confusing customers, but I'm not an expert. Can someone who understands sound technology better than me explain what this thing is, what it's doing, and why we don't have them built into everything already? Here's a positive review that doesn't tell me anything, with some extremely snakey comments: "It allows ‘good’ high frequencies to be heard and only compresses highs that are peaking...this thing flat out eliminates hearing fatigue." (via Palm Sounds)

Bass Merchant: How long did they look at that logo before approving it?

2008-04-23T09:01:00.003+01:00

It's bad form to mock the advertisers (or bass players), but... seriously.

Echo Nest: the amazing website that can understand music

2008-04-22T21:46:00.008+01:00

Here's a technology in search of a killer app: Echo Nest is a web service. Send it an MP3, and it will send back a 800k XML file containing details about the track, from it's basic BPM to it's detailed structure, melodic content and dynamic range. You get timecodes for the start of each beat (or 'tatum'), then details of the loudness, pitch etc of each 'tatum'. Among other things, you could use the data to automatically chop a track into perfect loops.
It seems like a phenomenally powerful tool, but so far Echonest don't have many ideas what to actually do with it. Their first showcase is This is my Jam, a lame-ish widget to create automated beatmixes with predictable results (Tiesto to Tiesto = Good. Sabbath to Sinatra = Bad). For me, the first sign of real magic is The Jingler - a little novelty Christmas site coded in 12 hours last year. Using the API, it picks hitpoints and overdubs sleigh bells playing perfectly in time onto any song you upload. It's pointless but really clever. If you want to experiment with the system, you'll need to navigate their baffling site and apply for an API key. If you come up with anything cool, do let me know... (Image is 'Black in Black' through Adam Glazier's Echo Nest visualiser)

The most beautiful piece of synth porn I've ever seen

2008-04-20T21:57:00.003+01:00

Here's Charles Cohen playing a beautiful and incredibly rare (only 14 were ever made) Buchla Music Easel. Be sure to click through to the Vimeo page and view full screen for true high def (embedded videos aren't in HD, they're just a lot crisper than YouTube). Here's Charles talking about the Music Easel: "I've been playing The Buchla Music Easel since 1976. With it's color-coded slide pots, it's musically logical panel layout, and it's almost sculptural patching system, I can comprehend the state of the instrument with a fleeting glance. The touch-sensitive, capacitance-activated keyboard responds smoothly at the speed of light to the slightest skin contact, and it's assorted control voltage outputs can be directed to sonic and structural perameters very quickly. The potential to supplely flow into and amongst all the basic electronic sound forms is literally at my fingertips. I am happy when I'm playing this instrument." I'm happy just watching...

Cardboard synth dude Dan McPharlin on the cover of Wallpaper

2008-04-19T12:49:00.003+01:00

Nice to see Dan McPharlin made a nice white reel-to-reel control panel thing for the cover of this month's Wallpaper. There are new models in his flickr set, an interview on Wire to the Ear, the splendid new-ish gear blog, and finally some shots of Dan's own home studio, which runs on CV/Gate from a Roland MC-4.

25 ways to kill a piano

2008-04-19T11:07:00.008+01:00

A couple of years ago, one of the angriest comment threads ever on Music Thing concerned a bunch of students in Aberystwyth who bought a piano on Freecycle, put it on a beach, burned it, and said it was art. Today, YouTube is stuffed with people being mean to pianos. Damn, you must have had some bad piano teachers...

Throw it off a cliff, set fire to it
Shoot it with shotguns and an AK47
Knock it over and jump on it
Jens Johansson (who is Yngwie Malmsteen's keyboard player) smashes up an old piano while giggling hysterically
Back a pickup truck into it
Play it with a JCB digger (this one really is the stuff of nightmares)
Drive over it in an enormous truck
Put on a leather coat and fill it with fireworks
Smash it and sample it
Fire it from a trebuchet (or here at Burning Man, where presumably it's performance art)
Throw it down a hill
Burn it and call it art (again)
Pull it off the back of a moving pickup truck
Drag it behind a pickup truck
Chop it with an axe
Hit it with a sldege hammer
Throw it off a building (Warning: Video contains giggling MIT students, where they've been doing it since 1972)
Bash two together
Drop it off a fork lift truck
Drive a car into a piano shop
Blow it up
In the interests of fairness, here's an organ getting smashed by giggling metal fans
Use a burning acoustic guitar to set it alight
Throw stuff at it
Blow up a grand piano with really a lot of TNT

(Idea from Michael, whose new book Sod Abroad will make you chuckle)

If you're going to do noise, do it properly

2008-04-19T10:33:00.004+01:00

Love this video from Tom Bugs of Bug Brand, demoing the latest £100 Weevil 08, with a mini Kaoss Pad. The only problem with Tom's stuff is that it's impossible to buy - his lastest batch of Weevils sold out within hours. Previously: Tom Bugs in his workshop. (Via Matrix)

Neutrik CrystalCON: XLR plugs with Swarovski crystals

2008-04-16T20:06:00.003+01:00

It looks like a late April Fool, but isn't. Neutrik, who make over 1,600 different types of connector, are launching blinged-up male & female XLR plugs, presumably for the growing diva market. The CrystalCON comes in black with a few Swarovski crystals attached. There's no price yet, but the connectors will go perfectly with a Sennheiser E835 covered in Swarovski Crystals in one of 25 colors. Standard E835 = £60. Bling E835 = £290. And while you're at it, you could be playing this gruesome custom strat which sold last year for £7750.

Mini review: Sony PFR-V1 headphones - all bad, except for the sound

2008-04-15T14:53:00.001+01:00

So, Sony sent me a pair of their new PFR-V1 headphones, which are supposed to sound like you're sitting in front of a pair of speakers. I'm not sure why, as they're not being sold as pro monitor headphones. Anyway...
The bad
So many reasons not to like these headphones: They look absurd - little inch-wide lacquered aluminium (I guess) balls containing tiny speakers, held in front of your ears by little metal tubes which stick into your ears.
Think that sounds uncomfortable? It is. You're sticking a curved metal tube into your ear. It's cold. My wife tried them on for a second and said 'euch, that tickles' and wouldn't go near them again. After a while, it heats up, and feels OK. They're very light, and you'll never suffer from 'hot ear'.
They come with a little inline booster which takes a 2xAAA batteries in a cheap plastic case with an on-off switch and an LED. It could use a clip and a volume control.
The cabling is all super-thin and rubber coated, so it takes a minute to untangle every time you get them out.
Because they're completely open, they're really noisy. Aside from looking like a tit, you couldn't use them in public, or in a room with anyone else.
If you wear glasses, you can't wear these.
They cost £249 from Amazon. That's £50 more than the Sennheiser HD650 at £199, which I suspect is a rather more sensible headphone choice, without doing a direct comparison.
The good
On my iPod, I have lots of snippets of music I've made, just loops and bits. When I started listening to these through the PFR-V1, it was, to use a terrible cliche, a revelation. I heard numerous details I'd never heard before. My normal headphones are Sony MDR7506's. They're comfortable, loud and bassy. They make music sound warm and nice. But the PFR-V1s are about accuracy: the bass isn't exaggerated, but it's there. The mids and highs are super crisp. The stereo image is huge and very precise. I kept hearing things I'd never noticed: clicks on loops, mistakes, sounds that clashed, subtle differences between guitar sounds, wonky mixes, things that sounded great, bass sounds that really worked.
This isn't news to those of you who work in real studios or have proper monitors in acoustically helpful rooms, but the question is - is there any way to get this kind of accuracy in a cheaper, more comfortable, less stupid-looking package? (This feature from Sound on Sound talks more about expensive headphones vs cheap monitors.)

The surprising and wonderful history of Acme Whistles

2008-04-12T16:11:00.008+01:00

I'd never thought about whistles until I stumbled across the bizarre-looking Acme Nighingale in the Thomann catalogue.
Acme is the brand name of Joseph Hudson & Co, based in Birmingham. The company has been responsible for every major advance in whistle technology since 1860.
In 1883, the Metropolitan Police were looking for a replacement for the bulky rattles they'd been using to attract attention. Amateur violinist Hudson created a two-tone whistle whose sound could carry for a mile - it was inspired by the noise his violin strings made as they broke. The met ordered 21,000 whistles, and 45 million have been sold since. (More police whistle history)
In 1884, the Acme Thunderer was developed for football referrees. The Tornado T2000, from 1989, was designed for referees in supersized stadiums and it used at all FIFA internationals. It costs £3.94 and is available in black, white, blue, red, yellow, flouro green and flouro orange.
In 1935, they invented the silent dog whistle, tunable from 5,400 to 12,800hz.
In 2001, they diversified into conceptual art, with the Acme Meteor, a giant brass whistle, designed to be dropped from an aircraft to become the loudest whistle ever. It's not clear whether it ever flew.
Highlights from the Acme catalogue include the three-note Samba Whistle, the Windmaster, which sounds a bit like an old synth, as does the Siren Horn. The Tug Boat Whistle does exactly what you'd expect. The Duck Call looks obscene. Finally, the signal horn is ideal for ravers.

The Tone Generation: Great podcast on early days of electronic music

2008-04-12T10:36:00.004+01:00

The Tone Generation is a ten part series of podcasts about the earliest days of electronic music. Part One [mp3 link] covers Britain - with rare recordings from the 1950s and '60s by people like Tristram Cary, Daphne Oram, and assorted Radiophonic Workshop alumni. The music on offer is all pretty challenging - lots of atonal bleeps and waves of noise and very different from the commercially-minded output of Raymond Scott, who was working at the same time - although with more expensive gear. The podcast is presented by Ian Helliwell, and produced by Simon James, who also did the splendid Welcome to Mars.

Glockenspiel plays the music encoded on credit cards

2008-04-11T14:22:00.000+01:00

This is the Brockenspiel, a project by Brock Craft. It reads the magnetic strip on credit cards and swipe access cards, zips them through an Arduino board and triggers solenoids which bash the chimes. There's no real logic to the music - numbers 1-8 trigger chimes, 0 and 9 are rests. He's had it installed at work for 6 months, although it doesn't seem to be connected to an actual security system. That's a shame, because it would be nice to announce everyone's arrival in the office with their own personal chime. Brock will be demonstrating it at Dorkbot London in a couple of weeks.

From the maker of MidiGun comes the Midi Parasite

2008-04-11T11:50:00.000+01:00

Remeber the MidiGun? It was a camp flouro plastic gun with knobs on it for controlling DJ software. Well, Swindon-based guitarist Stuart Rowe was so inspired, he commissioned Christopher Bauder, who build the MidiGun, to build him the Midi Parasite. I'm not entirely sure how it works - it clips onto his Telecaster behind the bridge, and has various knobs and switches to control Guitar Rig and Ableton Live, and it has some kind of laser theremin setup. It doesn't seem to take any midi data from the guitar itself. More details in the 'Interfaces' section of White Void (enjoy the bonkers 3D navigation) and in the White Void flickr set.

Scientists ask: Can you sing death metal without ruining your voice?

2008-04-10T09:45:00.004+01:00

This video looks innocent enough until you skip forward to 6:30 (NSFW unless you've got headphones and you don't mind people thinking you're a wierdo), when you see full-screen endoscope footage of a singer's voicebox while they're singing in a distorted Tom Waits / Joe Cocker style. It's a terrifying, screaming, shuddering red hole (not unlike the Great Pit of Carkoon). The footage comes from a presentation by Dr Julian McGlashan from Queens Medical Center in Nottingham asking whether the non-melodic bits of singing - the grunting and growling that ranges from Bryan Adams gentle grit to the full death growl - can be performed safely without knackering your voice. The full death metal grunt is at 4:30 in this clip. And strangest of all is 8:50 in this clip - the singer doing 'hello baby' in a deep Barry White voice. It's the perfect valentines video message for a loved one. Anyway, to save you watching the whole presentation, Dr McGlashan concludes that it IS safe to sing like Napalm Death, refuting previous concerns in the Dutch media that "growling destroys the human voice". If you want to learn to grunt yourself, there's an extensive WikiHow on the subject.