Friday, February 26, 2010
The vast majority of music that I hear is recorded, and if you’re reading this the same is probably true of you. Most people don’t have a clear idea what the recording process is like, especially using computers. Here are my adventures in recording. I grew up in the eighties. Cassette recorders were just starting [...]
Filed in hardware, music, software
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Also tagged analog, audio editing, autotune, book, computers, electronica, hip-hop, improvisation, looping, mashups, music, pro tools, recording, remixes, revival revival, sampling, sequencing, synths, tape, tape editing, visualization
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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 [...]
Filed in music, video games
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Also tagged abbey road, analog, 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
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One of the greatest weirdnesses of electronic music is the sampling keyboard. You press a key and any sound recording you want pops out, at whatever pitch. The recent passing of John Hughes made me think of the scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when Ferris samples his coughing and puking on an E-mu Emulator [...]
Filed in hardware, music
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Also tagged beatles, book, eighties, ferris bueller, grateful dead, jazz, john hughes, keybs, mellotron, midi, music, reason, recording, recursion, sampling, synths, tape, yello
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Auto-tune makes producing music easier. It can also make understanding music theory easier. The way you dial up different keys and scales doesn’t just guide your ear, it also guides your eye. Your voice can produce a smooth continuum of pitches. To sing, you eliminate most of those possibilities, vibrating your mouth and throat only [...]
Filed in math, music, software
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Also tagged autotune, binary, book, coltrane, electronica, harmony, hip-hop, informationtheory, kanye west, lil wayne, math, music, music theory, pro tools
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How do you get sound in and out of a computer? There are two steps. You have to turn the sound into electricity, and then you have to turn the electricity into numbers. Turning sound into electricity At the physical level, a sound is a rhythmic vibration of air molecules. Your ears can detect subtle [...]
Filed in math, music, science
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Also tagged audio editing, binary, book, computer evolution, electronica, imaginarynumbers, math, music, perception, pro tools, recording, visualization
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Saturday, November 8, 2008
I produce electronic music, on my own and with my bands like Revival Revival. We use a lot, and I mean a lot, of samples of copyrighted material. If you’re worried about our legal well-being, be at ease. We have yet to make a nickel from any of it, and if we ever eventually do, [...]
Filed in music, software
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Also tagged audacity, audio editing, book, copyright, creative commons, electronica, hip-hop, mashups, memes, mp3, music, opensource, pro tools, reason, remixes, sampling
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