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Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

Thought Radio Playlist for February 18, 2012.

Galactic Travels Playlist #776 for February 16, 2012.

So maybe you have SONAR X1 Production Suite running on a killer computer, and now you might have a sound cloud over your mix position; what’s next?  Last week I exemplified how I built and installed a hanging sound cloud and this week I will go into detail how I built corner traps to help [...]

I was asked to make a “The Horrorist” chart for Beatport and so I did. Here’s 10 tracks I love and having “spinning” in my Traktor set up right now. If these tracks don’t make your feet tap there maybe something wrong with you.

“The current Beatport catalog is made up of more than 700,000 tracks, 160,000 releases.” – Wikipedia

Listen to the chart: beatport.com/chart/the-horrorist-top-picks…

Related Posts:

• Beatport iPhone App
• Beatport HTML5
• Beatport releases some nice Banner Generators.

That is sad.

Russian-Born Pianist Yana Reznik Tours the World with Roland V-Piano Grand

As Max for Live has matured, this tool for extending the functionality of Ableton Live has played host to a growing wave of brilliant custom tools – enough so that it can be hard to keep track. This month saw a few that deserve special mention. In particular, two tools help make MIDI mapping and automation recording easier in Live, and point the way for what the host itself could implement in a future update. (Live 9, we’re looking at you.) And in a very different vein, from Max for Live regular Protofuse, we see an intriguing alternative approach to sequencing.

Clip Automation does something simple: it patches a limitation in Live itself, by allowing you to record mapped automation controls directly in the Session View clips. (As the developer puts it, it grabs your “knob-twisting craziness in Session View.”) The work of Tête De Son (Jul), it’s an elegant enough solution that I hope the Abletons take note.

Clip Automation

Mapulator goes even further, re-conceiving how mapping in general works in Ableton – that is, how Live processes a change in an input (like a knob) with a change in a parameter (like a filter cutoff). Live does allow you to set minimum and maximum mappings, and reverse direction of those mappings. But the interpolation between the two is linear. Mapulator allows you to ramp in curves or even up and down again.

There’s more: you can also control multiple parameters, each at different rates. And that can be a gateway into custom devices, all implemented in control mappings. BentoSan writes:

For example, if you wanted to create a delay effect that morphs into a phaser, then cuts out and finally morphs into a reverb with an awesome freeze effect, you would be able to do this with just a single knob…

Again, this seems to me not just a clever Max for Live hack, but an illustration of how Ableton itself might work all the time, in that it’s a usable and general solution to a need many users have. Sometimes the itch Max for Live patchers scratch is an itch other people have, too.

Lots of additional detail and the full download on the excellent DJ TechTools:
Mapulator: An Advanced MIDI Mapping Tool for Ableton

Protoclidean We’ve seen Euclidean rhythms many times before, but this takes the notion of these evenly-spaced rhythmic devices to a novel sequencer. Developed by Julien Bayle, aka artist Protofuse, the Max for Live device is also a nice use of JavaScript in Max patching. See it in action in the video above. There are custom display options for added visual feedback, and whereas we’ve seen Euclidean notions in use commonly with percussion, the notion here is melodic gestures. Additional features:

• Eight channels
• Independent pitch, velocity, and offset controls
• Scale mapping
• For percussion, map to General MIDI drum maps (Eep – darn you, English, we’re using the word “map” a lot!)
• Randomization
• MIDI thru, transport sync, more…

More information:
http://designthemedia.com/theprotoclidean

Also, if you’re looking for more goodness to feed your Live rig, Ableton has added a new section to their own site called Library. You can find specific Max for Live content in that area, as well:
http://www.ableton.com/library
http://www.ableton.com/library/tags/mfl/

This is in addition to the community-hosted, community-run, not-officially-Ableton Max for Live library, which is the broadest resource online for Max for Live downloads:
http://maxforlive.com/library/

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This sound bank is a compilation of runout grooves from most of my record collection of as January 2012. The idea to record and document these grooves came about when I found myself picking out a record with the intention of listening to the runout groove, after the music, for an extended period of time. I wouldn’t exactly call it therapeutic but its a sound I’ve heard ever since I was a child, have yet to grow tired of, and enjoy listening to while working. The patterns are all unique, utilizing the same sound palette of pops, clicks and static but once in a while there is a strange creak, a steady hiss, or a resonant hum from the motor, all in a perfect repeating pattern.

As with all audio and sample banks there are unlimited ways to utilize them. Some basic examples are to use them as source material and mangle it up with plug-ins.

- Sidechained to a kick with Amp Designer
- Soundhack Decimate with Valhalla Room
- Uhbik G with Valhalla Room
- Timestretched with Native Instruments Guitar Rig

A few of the records have etched or blank back sides which create interesting patterns depending where you place the needle and some are picture discs which tend to be noisier. Some of the records have lock grooves which I’ve decided to omit for copyright reasons.

The grooves were recorded with a Pro-ject RPM 1.3 turntable with a Sumiko Pearl cartridge in stereo at 24 Bit 48kHz. The files are normalized -3dB, meaning there is some headroom to play with and dynamics to take advantage of. The approximate natural tempos for a runout groove at 33 rotations per minute (RPM) is 133.6510 and at 45 RPM’s is 180.4290. Every file has fades on the top and tails so that they will seamlessly loop in your audio player without clicking.

Here is a free sampler download. It contains 2 standards runout grooves at 33 RPM, 45 RPM, and a picture disc side. Download Here – 14 mb!

$18 – Full Edition
Includes all 310 Runout Grooves at a comprehensive 1.2 gigs. Over 100 albums recorded and 1 hour 8 minutes of subtle runout grooves, noisy picture discs, etched sides, blank sides and a few incidental sounds.

$12 – 100 Edition
A selection of 100 Runout Grooves 395 mb. An efficient and versatile selection from the Full Edition. 22 minutes.

Here is a sample of the remix I did for the Metal Band Morbid Angel. I remixed a song called Existo Vulgoré. The album is called Illud Divinum Insanus The Remixes. Other remixers include Laibach, Skinny Puppy, The Toxic Avenger, Skold, Mircopoint, Black Strobe, Combichrist and many others. It album will be released next week on February 24. Please note on the sample above I “dropped the needle” in a different place half way through to give you a taste of the two main sections.

“Morbid Angel is the third best-selling death metal band in the United States with sales of over 445,000; with their third album Covenant being the best-selling death metal album of all time with over 127,000 units sold.” – Wikipedia

For more info: morbidangel.com

Related Posts:

• Illud Divinum Insanus – The Remixes
• How to set up a SoundCloud remix contest
• Joyless Pleasure Remixes

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CHECK OUT WWW.FRACTGAME.COM FOR MORE INFO A quick look at some of the things we have planned for FRACT OSC – a first person adventure game inspired by synthesizers (no kidding!). We’re building some really interesting tools that combine exploration, puzzles and musical creation – and we’re really excited to share them with everyone!

More info – http://bit.ly/w4n2mS In our new Ableton Live video tutorial series, “Did You Know?”, Ableton Certified Trainer, Dubspot Instructor, and electronic musician Thavius Beck checks out less explored and slightly hidden features in Live. In this newest installment of Did You Know?, Thavius explains and demonstrates an often overlooked an even more often misunderstood [...]

Third party retrofit kit from Amazing Machines, for adding MIDI in and out to the Korg Monotribe. Amazing Machines has officially released the MIDITRIBE I/O – a mod for the Korg Monotribe that adds MIDI In and MIDI Out. Here’s what’s new in the MIDITRIBE I/O, vs their earlier MIDITribe mods: MIDI OUT functionality (Outputs [...]