'25 Great Music-Making Tips From Musicians' via Music Thing

Some Good advice. Thanks to John for the link.

1. Like Kraftwerk, have a non-music day every week or so (Anonymous computer musician)

2. If things go wrong, just maintain that you were playing jazz (Max/MSP enthusiast)

3. Play less (Guitarist, and lots of other people)

4. When learning to play a piece of music, play it first so slowly that you don't get a single note wrong. Then slowly increase the speed. Then, play louder than normal at the proper speed and you'll play more confidently (A bass player and a synth tweaker)

5. When editing, don't cut the breath off before someone starts talking or singing (Guitarist)

6. Finish the first draft (Bass plyer)

7. It's essential to begin every recording by asking 'Are we Recording?' (Guitarist - is that you, Peter?)

8. Before you start for the day, go for a long walk (Computer musician)

9. Listen. Listen very carefully. No. REALLY listen. (A guitarist, although 115 people used the word 'listen' in their tips)

10. Wear earplugs (Drummer)

11. Hit it hard, ye massive ponce (Drummer)

12. Grab some string and bend it. If it doesn't sound right move up a fret and try again. (Guitarist)

13. Start now, don't wait (Keyboard player)

14. Get into the groove / Boy, you've got to prove / Your love to me (Guitarist)

15. Retune your guitar, so you don't know the notes, then try making music with only your ears as guides (Keyboard player)

16. Tune your guitar, play in time (Guitarist)

17. Do it in triplets! (Programmer)

18. Make, go sleep and check again tomorrow... (Synth tweaker)

19. You may think you're playing your instrument, but what you're really playing is the audience (Studio engineer)

20. Keep your cigarette lighter away from my drummer - He'll set fire to anything that burns (Nord Modular enthusiast)

21. Do something every day. Even if all you do is make a beat or write some lyrics or a bassline or whatever, do something. Even if you just have a few minutes a day to spare, the material you have quickly builds up (Field recordist)

22. "Play more things that make me dance around and less things that make me sit and look miserable in a plastic chair" - Brian Eno (Guitarist)

23. Learning any instrument is about scales. Scales. Scales. Scales. The trick is to make learning the scales interesting. Which is hard. And I've never done it. Which is a shame (Studio engineer)

24. Never listen to the same loop for longer than 10 minutes (Beat maker)

25. Write as many songs as you can and pick the best (Guitarist)

(Source)

- C

Interview Max Farnea / Creator of The Sound Destruction Unit

I've been admiring Max's work since (again, I know I am obsessed with them!) CDM posted about this incredible modular synth from their flickr pool back in August. Here is the "The Sound Destruction Unit" if you haven't seen it in action.



I have just conducted an interview with not only Max the creator, but also Audrey his wife and fellow artist. These two co-exist with music making, circuit bending, robots, recycled art, dancing, photography and japan. Amazing. It's an interesting and long read, it's in full over on my mog.

Here's more,

"MAX: since I was younger, in the early 80s, electronic music, video games and home computing were my first interests and I lived electronics and computer technology always with a creative point of view. I went deeper in my hobbies studying for some years electronic engineering and taking piano lessons for seven years. Thanks to my studies in electronics I went addicted to robotics and I built a mini-robot for a couple of national competitions."

"AUDREY : my interest in making art with recycled stuff has started when I was watching Max making his electronic experiments and all the junk or surplus material he left on the table. Since now I like finding shapes like faces or body parts in every plastic or metallic piece I take in my hands. After I find such shapes, assembling them is really a natural process. It’s funny when you image me into skip diving in Verona, really funny indeed, but it’s incredible how many unused things can be found simply at home. One of the most beautiful aspect of this kind of art is giving a second life to things...Watching max working on his instruments I’ve found a lot of ideas to make my robots more alive and interactive with little lights and circuits."

"MAX : More than half of my retro and vintage stuff was mine when I was child or teenager. Other hardware comes from friends or eBay bids. The line in balancing the old and new when I’m making a new instrument is always different and is traced putting the old stuff in a modern context, and if needed ignoring also the original rules on which it was based on."

I am really impressed with these two. Everything they make is done in their spare time, and not for profit (though they are both planning to sell work in the future). I wish them the best and hope that they find more avenues to show off their talent.

For more about Max and Audrey. My mog interview.

- C

Rising Rents Give Rise to Shrinking Audio Studios via Wired

Wired's media/tech section has an interesting story on how recording studios are getting smaller thanks to improved technology and the high cost of space. Although I doubt John and I will ever have the need for an E-Trap (well, who knows) or can afford the services of the Walters-Storyk Design Group, I think the idea and acceptance of this new model can only be encouraging for those of us already used to restrictions and working with them. Our 'studio' sits on my bar!

"Tiny little studios like this one are popping up all over the world, thanks to new technology and ever-increasing rents in cultural capitals like New York, London and Tokyo. As digital equipment becomes more compact, studios can fit into ever-smaller locations."

"To compete with bigger studios, Garcia and his partner, Eric Offin, had to shoehorn two mixing rooms, a voice-over/foley room and a machine closet packed with digital-processing equipment into the conference-room-sized apartment. They even found space for a marble-tiled bathroom and a kitchen-cum-screening room equipped with both a Sub-Zero fridge and a giant flat-panel monitor."

Or, you can build this impressive DIY pro-audio studio by CayoCosta. I wish!

Link

- C

Another Mention / AudioLemon & Matrixsynth

I have been giving props to every online and offline entity that has helped us lately so I feel it's appropriate to mention a few other blogs that have given us some much needed traffic and exposure. You probably already know them but I really need to say thanks from John and I. Not only that, but like the many websites or people we mention, their content is always interesting and a great way to start your audio surf session.

AudioLemon - One of the first blogs to feature our cardboard synth, this blog has everything related to analog, synths and experimental music. One of their latest features is about Scanner, or Robin Rimbaud who uses a radio wave scanner as an instrument.

"The scanner picks-up mobile phone conversations, police/airport/hospital communications which which manipulates and mixes with his music live. He also uses recordings of electronic sounds particular to an area, such as the walk now signal/police siren, to make a sonic map of specific locations."

Read more about it here.

Matrixsynth - This blog is updated very frequently with all the latest and wierdest in the synth world. I eyed one of the latest articles about The Electronic Arts Foundation,

"The Electronic Arts Foundation was started by Tom Rhea, David VanKoevering, and Les Trubey (my father) to promote electronic music and preserve historical electronic musical instruments.

What follows is the text of an article written by Tom Rhea in 1976 for Contemporary Keyboard magazine. Reprints of this article were included in an info package with each synthesizer sold." Link

So-net.blog (In Japanese) - This was one of our first Asian blog mentions and we were so flattered to have our saw theremin featured. Arigatou gozaimasu! Link

Much appreciated. Sorry for the belated thanks.

- C

(Photo of Robert Rimbaud from AudioLemon)

Thank You / CubikMusik Music Blog

A fellow music blogger I met over at mog has generously written up a post about fotosis on his site cubikmusik. It's a great write up and a wonderful thing to read first thing in the morning, especially with a warm cup of Lyons ;-)


Very kind of you Cubik, 'go raibh maith agat'.

Link

- C

Fotosis Featured on Lijit.Com / The Power of People

A big thank you to the lijit.com folks who have featured us on their homepage (we are in rotation with some other interesting sites when you refresh the page).

I found the Lijit search tool when we first launched this blog and I really liked the idea of using our own blog and extensive blogroll as a means for people to find recommended and related searches; and being a part of a friendly network. Lijit actually provides a personalised service useful to our readers and others with similar interests - something that unfortunately gets overshadowed by the abundance of web 2.0 products launched over the past couple of years. I actually opted for Lijit over the Google search.

"Using the power of people, their content, and their connections, Lijit enhances the way your readers search for and discover information on the internet. You serve as a filter for all of the results your readers could possibly receive, ensuring they only receive the most relevant results from the source they trust…YOU."

I like that.

You can learn more about Lijit here. Thanks again for the feature.

- C

P.S. We are working hard, more fotosis creations to come.

Deviant Synth: For all your Synth Oddities

Again something from the musicthing blog. A new synth orientated site that purports to only post about totally out their electronic oddities. Their manifesto states no "links to fansites for Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Can, Tangerine Dream, Ultravox, Gay Fairy Twinkle, or any other hideous 70s or 80s funny-haircut nostalgia keyboard act.... All tech must be ODD".

The site is called Deviant Synth and I will be checking it often thats for sure. The site creator says they are looking for contributors and anyone interested with a wordpress account can add content to the site.

-J

Yuri Landman: Experimental Luthier

I came across Yuri Landman several months ago while doing some online research into alternative guitar construction. At the time I thought information on Yuri was limited to a wiki entry on him as I somehow missed his official website hypercustom. So I was thrilled today to find a link on the musicthing blog to a pitchfork article all about this very interesting artist. The article describes the reasoning behind many of his guitars features and the logic he has applied to his instruments tuning and the materials he likes to use.

He has recently been creating unique guitars for a number of bands including one of my all time favorite groups Sonic Youth.

His guitars look amazing, I cant wait to hear the sounds these wonderful instruments produce. I love to read about other people exploring new possibilities in the realm of electro acoustic music as it makes me feel more positive about my own experiments in this area.

-J

"Electronic artists find inspiration in vintage gear" via Reuters/Yahoo! News

Well, this is something I didn't expect to see on a mainstream news feed. The Reuters/Billboard article states the obvious but it does express enough generally to capture at least the love of those passionate about analog.

"People are realizing what's missing from the sounds they're getting out of software," Phil Moffa of production/DJ outfit Vinyl Life says. "They're conscious of how everything is sounding the same, and digital replication is the same every time. The magic of analog is it's never the same, depending on the weather, where you are in the world, the electricity supply." Great last sentence.

"Moffa dumped all his digital sounds for good in 2005, going fully analog for Vinyl Life's "Flashlight" (Ultra) and each release since. Simian's "Attack" contains no samples, and was entirely made with hunks of such audio antiquity as the Korg MS-20 (1978), ARP Instruments ARP 2600 (1971) and Roland Juno-60 (1982)."

Agree with the experimental aspects and dynamic nature of analog sound, but I think every medium has its' flavour. Nothing wrong with mixing it up, nevermind the hefty price in collecting. Or better, you can always make em like we do!

The full article can be found here. Phil Moffa's site for Vinyl Life is here.

And as a bonus, here is another find from CDM on caring for your vintage synths 'How Healthy Are Your Vintage Synths?' by James Grahame. I've been wanting to link to it for ages so this post seems fitting for those of you lucky enough to have vintage gear to care for!

On another note, we are still in the building phase right now. We have more to come, thanks for your patience.

- C

(Picture from Reuters)