Turntable + Analog Drum Machine + Step Sequencer motif = Drum Buddy

Speaking of the step sequencer design motif, here's a video of the Drum Buddy, a hand-made, fantasmic analog drum / filter instrument thing, only 10 of which exist, and all of which are sold out (at $5000 a piece!). Note the rotating spool with marks, which are read by optical sensors hooked up to analog oscillators and filters. But unlike piano rolls or music boxes, this guy can be spun in a manner any DJ turntablist would appreciate.

The Orb, Little Fluffy Clouds, and now Little Grey Clouds

The first ambient techno electronica CD I ever listened to was back at PENN (circa 1990), at the new CD store in Houston Hall at its listening bar. The title of the album intrigued me "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Underworld" and right away I was hooked by the first track called "Little Fluffy Clouds." It has a processed sample of Levar Burton (Reading Rainbow, Star Trek TNG) interviewing Ricky Lee Jones, asking her about the skies in her childhood.

Last night on KCRW I heard an hysterical parody version called "Little Grey Clouds":

Sesame Street animation: 3 striped Balls & a Polka Dotted Ball

I'm very glad someone found this little stop-motion animated clip from Sesame Street in the 1970s. I've had its synthesizer music in my head since I was a child, and it's greatly influenced my sense of melody and arrangement.

If anyone knows who created this piece, please let me know!

Robot + Pet + Analog Synthesizer =Thingamagoob

For $100, this adorable pet Thingamagoob can be yours to love and give a good home. Each one has a customizable color scheme and is a simple monophonic analog synthesizer hand-made by John-Michael Reed over in Austin, Texas. I met Mr. Reed at Bent '07 here in Los Angeles. Formerly a grocery store clerk with no formal electronics training, he has cleverly turned his music tinkering hobby into a full-time business.

Dr. Who Theme Making-Of Video

Permanently etched into my inner ear is the tune from the Dr. Who theme. Dr. Who is a very long-running (20+ years?) British sci-fi television show meant for kids, though it's tone is deadly serious and at least until recently, its special FX laughably (charmingly?) awful.

The show's original theme by Ron Grainer was arranged using elaborate electronic equipment not meant for making music, manually adjusted and spliced together using magnetic tape by the late Delia Derbyshire. I grew up with this version, hearing it on the episodes with the fourth incarnation of the Doctor, played by Tom Baker.

The version demonstrated in the video is for the fifth season with Peter Davison as the Doctor. It's still quite good and I love seeing the old Yamaha CS-80 and ARP Odyssey (1970s era) synthesizers, which are pre-MIDI (hence the need to record them directly to magnetic tape). But it's not quite as mysterious and other-wordly as the original.

Computers -- Bad for Music Creativity?

I really have to agree with this article from the Chip Collection Blog. When I first began composing with a computer, I had an 8Mhz 2 Mb RAM Atari ST running a very simple sequencer called Hybrid Arts EZ Track, with a total of maybe 16 total MIDI-only tracks. I had one keyboard (a Korg M1) that could play up to 8 instruments at a time. I had one drum machine for better drum sounds. With it, I was quite productive. It never crashed. Once I figured out the basics of my equipment, I was ready to go.

Since I moved to the PC, I've barely finished a piece. First, getting all the drivers for the audio & MIDI interfaces to co-exist on a single version of Windows has been gnarly. Then, whenever I chose a platform to learn, the company making it would either die or get bought out and abandoned, rendering my tool extinct. Finally, the sequencers out now are ridiculously complicated. Sure, they're powerful, but sometimes you don't need an F-16 fighter plane to get to store to buy some milk. And they crash, put glitches in your music during playback, and make my brain work really hard to the point where I lose interest and go watch another episode of The Office.

Granted, the short bits I do end up making can sound amazing. With dozens of software instruments and thousands of sounds and samples, I could sound like Vangelis, or Vince Clark, any Hip-Hop / Rap piece or The Orb if I wanted to.

But ultimately, the PC has taken a decade to where it is remotely useful to me for making music in an inspired, relaxed way. Interface design and stability are the culprits, in my opinion.

Joe Ranft & Bob Moog, R.I.P

Ack! The world lost two greats this week. First, Joe Ranft, one of the Pixar story-gods and voice artist for several of their films. Then, Bob Moog, creator of the first popular synthesizer.

I was fortunate enough to meet both these guys this year. Bob was at a "Legends of Synthesis" event in Chatsworth a few months ago. I asked him what kind of music he liked to listen to. He said "Rap, Hip-hop mostly." Joe was at Jeff Pidgeon's wedding (for which I was "Bridesman")