Ethan Hein's Blog › video games

Category Archives: video games

video games

Starflight

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The best and most thought-provoking game of the DOS era was Starflight. Kids today, with their intuitive graphical user interfaces. They have no idea what a pain it was to use computers back in the eighties. DOS especially was an autistic nightmare. Bill Gates is some kind of genius to have convinced so many people [...]

Also filed in | Tagged cold war, eighties, fractals, scifi, space, starflight, video games, writing | Comments (1)

Halo is a giant mashup

Saturday, October 10, 2009

My taste in video games mostly runs to the cartoony Japanese stuff: Mario, Zelda, Katamari. But I had access to an Xbox and a copy of Halo for a while, and I couldn’t rest until I finished it. I walked around thinking about it whenever I wasn’t playing. Every aspect of it was familiar, except [...]

Also filed in | Tagged bungie, christianity, halo, mashups, microsoft, remixes, ringworld, scifi, star trek, star wars, video games, xbox | Comments (2)

DDR at Turkey Day

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

My family does not, as a general rule, dance. Maybe individually. Very rarely together. It takes a wedding or bar mitzvah or other major state occasion to get even some of us on the dance floor. When left to our own devices, it doesn’t happen spontaneously. At least not until last Thanksgiving, when we tried [...]

Also filed in autobio, music | Tagged book, dance, ddr, family, video games | Comments (0)

The Beatles were an electronica band

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Why are the Beatles still so cool? By which I mean the late Beatles, Revolver onwards. I like Please Please Me as much as the next guy, but it isn’t why the Beatles are cool now. No, I mean the last few records, especially Sgt Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road. If any of [...]

Also filed in music | Tagged abbey road, analog, audio, audio editing, beatles, book, common, divorce, hip-hop, john lennon, kanye west, mellotron, memes, mixtapes, multitracking, paul mccartney, prince, remixes, rock, rock band, sampling, tape, tape editing, video games | Comments (2)

Game controllers as musical instruments

Friday, August 21, 2009

This is a picture of my electronic funk-soul-R&B band doing a show. From left to right, it’s Nicole Bishop, me and Barbara Singer. We were the whole band for that show. I did all the beats, samples and keyboards from my computer using a video game controller. Here’s a screenshot of the program that the [...]

Also filed in autobio, hardware, music, software | Tagged book, composing, electronica, hip-hop, improvisation, interface, keybs, mapping, max/msp, midi, programming, reason, sampling, sequencing, synths, video games | Comments (2)

Welcome to warp zone

Monday, August 17, 2009

When I was a kid I played a lot, and I mean a lot, of Super Mario Bros. My grandpa once asked me to explain the game to him after he’d watched me play it for the nine thousandth hour. I tried hard and couldn’t do it. There’s a lot that defies intuition. Like how [...]

Also filed in autobio, hardware, math, music, science, software | Tagged autobio, book, chiptunes, computers, eighties, electricity, electronica, microchips, nintendo, remixes, super mario bros, video games | Comments (1)

Tuning systems, jigsaw puzzles, Giant Steps and Tetris

Friday, August 14, 2009

Expanding on “Learning Music Theory With Autotune” If you’re a science geek and you find yourself in San Francisco, the most fun thing to do there is to go to the Exploratorium.

Also filed in hardware, math, music, science | Tagged audio editing, book, coltrane, exploratorium, giant steps, india, keybs, lego, midi, music theory, pitch, pitch shifting, sequencing, tetris, tuning, video games | Comments (2)

Real guitars are for old people

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Here’s one of my favorite bits of South Park.

Also filed in music | Tagged america, beatles, book, dance, electronica, gender, guitar hero, masculinity, recording, remixes, rock, rock band, simulation, south park, video games, visualization | Comments (3)

How musical instruments work

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

There are a lot of different musical instruments out there. Just about all of them share four basic components: a harmonic oscillator, a source of noise, a control surface for modulation, and a resonator.

Also filed in hardware, music, science | Tagged book, chiptunes, guitar, music, music theory, overtones, physics, resonance, singing, synths, video games | Comments (0)

Nah, na na na na nah na naah, Katamari Damacy!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Japan doesn’t have a substantial psychedelic drug culture that I’m aware of, but you’d never guess it from Katamari Damacy.

Also filed in music, software | Tagged book, chiptunes, design, japan, katamari, music, video games | Comments (3)

Search for:
Pages
Categories
- autobio
- books
- computers
- hardware
- math
- movies
- music
- science
- social media
- software
- tv
- Uncategorized
- video games
- web
Twitter
- RT @wayneandwax: don't know bout y'all, but the best "social network" for finding, discussing, listening to, and bonding over music is c ...
- Unhearit.com - get that damn song out of your head. http://unhearit.com/
- Reason has a very decent set of sampled bass clarinet sounds, and those are fun and all, but I want to let rip on a physical one.
- Next time I have five grand burning a hole in my pocket I want to get a bass clarinet. My inner Eric Dolphy is yearning to break out.
- 8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live http://ow.ly/2yB82
- RT @whosampled: UK peeps, check out the Fireplayer app by @bouncemobile - remix the likes of Rick James and Jackson 5 on your iPhone! ht ...
- RT @MicheBella: On why #Ping is no #MySpace killer. http://michebel.blogspot.com
- Another Michael Jackson mix, this one a little further out: Gone Too Soon vs Earth Song vs HIStory. http://ow.ly/2yg7G
- RT @debcha: And about as useful. RT @dirkler: Live Nation powering #apple Ping concert listings and purchases... That's about as sexy as ...
- RT @slainson: Not possible for most, but a good story. http://tinyurl.com/3x8zewb How I Landed a No. 1 Album on iTunes Using Social Media
Delicious
Blogroll
- Delicious
- Ethan Hein
- Facebook
- Flickr
- Friendfeed
- Last.FM
- Tumblr
- Twitter
- Youtube
Recent Comments
September 2010

M T W T F S S

« Aug

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30
Most-commented posts
- The desktop metaphor is, like, so five minutes ago
  6 comments
- Nah, na na na na nah na naah, Katamari Damacy!
  3 comments
- The Minus World and the Blue Screen Of Death
  3 comments
- Real guitars are for old people
  3 comments
- The Minus World and the Blue Screen Of Death
  3 comments
- Popular posts Tool for Wordpress by Teofilo Israel
Advanced Random Posts
Tags

audio editing autotune beatles book computer evolution computers copyright dance drum machines drumming eighties electronica evolution funk guitar hip-hop improvisation interface internet jazz kanye west keybs looping mashups math memes michael jackson midi music music theory physics pop pro tools reason recording recursion remixes revival revival rock sampling sequencing social media synths video games visualization
Meta

September 2010
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Aug
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Category Archives: video games

Pages

Categories

Blogroll

Recent Comments

Most-commented posts

Advanced Random Posts

Tags

Meta