Friday 26 June 2009

Navs Live @ 48 Stunden Neukölln



I'll be performing live as part of the 48 Stunden Neukölln arts festival in Berlin tomorrow. Here's a taste of what you can expect:



Weather permitting, I'll start patching at around 16:00 at Parzelle 20 in the 'Hand in Hand' Kleingarten Kolonie in the Rütli Strasse. Full address and details are here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page: I'll be on after the scary-looking bloke with the megaphone!

Look forward to seeing you!

EHX Stereo Memory Man w/ Hazarai Demo



A live patch showcasing the EHX SMMH's multi-tap mode:



This box is lots of fun and very easy to tweak on the fly. Ironically, probably better suited to modular musicians than guitarists: it's not the sort of device that you should just set and forget.

Sadly, it doesn't 'pitch' the delays when the time is adjusted and the tap-tempo function is a PITA (viz Loop Mode), but if you just go with the flow and twiddle the knobs, it's capable of some great sounds.

Liv (aged 6) rocks the microKORG XL

With a little help from her dad, fellow canecutter and main man nomsi:

Liv - Superstar!



She seems to be pretty handy with those Nanos too ;)

Lily Allen should be quaking in her Little Boots ...

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Borg, Boogie & the Thwap Test



I only went to Schneiders yesterday to pick up a second Doepfer mixer...



Enjoy the recordings.


Borg Low Pass. Starts in LPG mode, then manual tweaks.


Borg Modes. EG + Manual tweaks


Boogie Modes. EG + sequenced/ random CV of mix relationships (Cwejman VCA-4MX).



I also borrowed a Makenoise QMMG to run a quick 'Thwap' test.



For some, the gold standard in Euro is still the Plan B Model 13. Decide for yourself.


LPG Thwap Test. M13, Borg, QMMG.

VCO and envelope were multed to the three LPGs. The Borg, QMMG & M13 all use different vactrols with different response times, so I adjusted the modulation depth until I got a similar timbre. The M13 was used as the 'control' i.e. offset at zero, MD at full.

Thanks to Schneidersbuero for the loan of the modules.

Friday 12 June 2009

Music Minute - Tempophon



Second composition in the Music Minute series featuring Flight of Harmony's Plague Bearer and Tom Erbe's Soundhack Delay Trio.



The Soundhack delays generate some unique results. My favourite is the pitch delay which is modeled on the Tempophon or Springermaschine, which you might remember from this post on the TU Berlin Studio.

You can download the trio here:

soundhack.com

Shorts - f(h) Plague Bearer & mfb DRM04

Two quick demos without much ado:



Flight of Harmony Plague Bearer





(processed signal first, then source material)

A little too idiosyncratic for my taste, but a good, cheap FSU module.



MFB DRM04 Kick Drum Module



This module is fully CV-able and is capable of a wide variety of sounds - the trigger sensitivity has a marked effect. The overdrive is great, if a little 90's. You can download the zipped folder (12MB) here.