The Audacity of Audacity

"Record companies - who were only ever banks stupid enough to lend money to musicians - are redundent."
- Bill Brewster, "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life"

Someone declared February "Home Recording Month" and every year the RPM Challenge leads an organized effort to get as many musicians as possible to "record an album in 28 days, just because you can" and share it on their website (rpmchallenge.com).
Last year I signed up but then finished recording the Shop Blindness CD-R in January and didn't do anything the next month. With the Together Festival going on simultaneously this year, it's going to be a crazy February for electronic tuneage.

"It is almost as if sampling had recreated the gramophone record as a craft instrument, an analogue, expressive voice, made authentic by nostalgia. Obsolescence empowers a new mythology for the old phonograph, completing the circle from passive repeater to creative producer, from dead mechanism to expressive voice, from the death of performance to its guarantee."

- Chris Cutler "Plunderphonia"

This Iron for Hire

Just putting it out there...

I have significant professional tech experience and I've been having a lot of success with circuit bending lately, so if anyone in the Boston area's looking for help building or modifying their gear, feel free to drop me an email with any ideas.

Autonomous Bassline Generator

I was waiting to go play at a house party when the mailman delivered a highly anticipated package from Austin; an Autonomous Bassline Generator kit from 4ms. With only an hour to spare, I heated up the soldering iron, put it all together, and used it at the show. I must say I was impressed.

This tiny-mighty is only the size of a pack of cigarettes but it has an analog filter with LDR control, IR sync capability, and a pseudo-random (algorithmic) arpeggiater that makes for really fun improvisational playing. And the waveform/filter combination sounds pretty powerful despite the toy-like appearance.

I can't say enough good things about Eric Archer, the guy who designed it. His site has lots of other great ideas and some kits too (including one for a TR series bass drum circuit clone). His designs make me feel like some of the big manufacturers are asleep at the wheel (or at least out of touch with what the public wants). Why hasn't any of the big names produced anything this affordable, simple, and useful? It shows, I think, a different approach to music making. Even though it's a digital circuit, the ABG captures most of what musicians like about the experience of playing analog equipment.