Drawdio: A Pencil that lets you Draw Music

What is Drawdio?
Imagine you could draw musical instruments on normal paper with any pencil (cheap circuit thumb-tacked on) and then play them with your finger. The Drawdio circuit-craft lets you MacGuyver your everyday objects into musical instruments: paintbrushes, macaroni, trees, grandpa, even the kitchen sink...

Get more info at Drawdio.

Video of kids having everyday fun with Drawdio.

Thanks Jay Silver! You're just brilliant!

Do you Tango?

SmartAV's Tango

Touch screen has already taken over the mobile world by storm. It seems that the audio industry is going to be influenced by it. Here's another contender to JazzMutant's amazing multitouch control surface.

You can decide now on your:

Learning curve?
Re-thinking workflow?
Another Mojo to add to your creativity?
or just another sci-fi decor for your next studio client?

Some interesting videos on the Tango here.

Joss Stone - Right to be wrong

Video Link

Joss Stone
Right to be wrong

I've got a right to be wrong
My mistakes will make me strong
I'm stepping out into the great unknown
I'm feeling wings though I've never flown
I've got a mind of my own
I'm flesh and blood to the bone
I'm not made of stone
Got a right to be wrong
So just leave me alone

I've got a right to be wrong
I've been held down too long
I've got to break free
So I can finally breathe
I've got a right to be wrong
Got to sing my own song
I might be singing out of key
But it sure feels good to me
Got a right to be wrong
So just leave me alone

You're entitled to your opinion
But it's really my decision
I can't turn back I'm on a mission
If you care don't you dare blur my vision
Let me be all that I can be
Don't smother me with negativity
Whatever's out there waiting for me
I'm going to faced it willingly

I've got a right to be wrong
My mistakes will make me strong
I'm stepping out into the great unknown
I'm feeling wings though I've never flown
I've got a mind of my own
Flesh and blood to the bone
See, I'm not made of stone
I've got a right to be wrong
So just leave me alone

I've got a right to be wrong
I've been held down to long
I've got to break free
So I can finally breathe
I've got a right to be wrong
Got to sing my own song
I might be singing out of key
But it sure feels good to me
I've got a right to be wrong
So just leave me alone

No VSTs = End of the world?

This is a very bold stand, considering 99.99% of DAW users in the world rely pretty much on VSTs. Like some comments stated, we strive to make all kinds of plugins work no matter how many times it crashed the system. Having a good sounding plugin is like putting on a good pair of undergarments, feels right and can never live without it.

Crazy folks at Propellerhead thinks otherwise. My initial thought was, 'They'll definately release a VST-friendly version to squeeze upgrading profits from this...' Apparantly, I was wrong...


Statement released on Propellerhead's RECORD.

http://www.propellerheads.se/company/crew/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_plan_cmt&PID=18&ID=27&PlanCmtID=1818

AVANTONE CV-12 [Red Hot Love!]

AVANTONE

There are loads of companies recreating classic sound and toys using modern low cost manufacturing techniques. Here's one very good example. If you have the desire for a Telefunken M16, which I would do almost anything to have a try at, this might be a more wallet-friendly version.

Check out the thread from Gearslutz.

Soundcraft's guide to Mixing

It's great to see that more and more companies are acknowledging the importance of Audio Basics in real environments. With the advance in technology, we are frequently armed with more powerful tools of the trade or sometimes, Weapons of Mixing Destruction (WMD).

Soundcraft has put up a condensed and simplified versions of reality.

DVD Video

PDF version

PALME Asia 2009

Yup! PALME Asia is back again. Whole bunch of exciting seminars lined-up.

PALME Asia 2009

Feel like singing with it...

A lot of times I've indulged so much into drooling over the maple flame tops, sweet overdrives and sexy amps, that I've overlooked (more like 'under-hear') the beauty of the song itself. Apparantly, music encourages emotions, gears encourages desires...

Taken from Gearslutz.com

Mixerman:
Vocals are often times what makes or breaks a mix. Get them too loud and you dwarf the track. Too soft and the vocal then seems unimportant. Too strident and they hurt the listener's ears. Too muddy and the listener might have difficulty understanding the words.

How you EQ and place the vocal has to do with a great many factors. I can tell you, if you find yourself wishing to give different EQs to different sections, you're not the only one. There are many factors that can contribute to this, some that might be your fault and many that could be out of your hands. For instance, if a singer has particularly bad mic technique in combination with a wide dynamic range, they could very well be hitting the compressor or limiter perfectly on the verse and way too hard on the chorus. This could make the singer either unusually strident on the chorus if you have the verse right, or unusually dark if you have the chorus right. Sometimes I do vocal splits as sends to the compressor to combat this particular problem.

On occasion the vocalist tends to shift around causing changes in the tonality of the vocal. This problem gets magnified greatly on those occasions that you have the singer using a dynamic microphone (And yes I've ended up with a dynamic on quite a few singers). Personally, as a producer, I like to deal with these tonality issues during the comping phase, but as a mixer, I have to deal with what I'm given. Analog tape was way more forgiving for these sorts of tonality changes, but it's not like I didn't have to do occasional splits when the preponderance of projects were coming in analog. So it's always been a necessary evil at times.

Now I'm not suggesting that you need to automatically start splitting vocals. Personally, I search for a compromise setting before I do that, and start splitting once I realize I have the best compromise I'm going to get, and it's still not good enough. However, if you feel as though you're chasing your tail from top to bottom of the mix, changing the EQ the whole mix, then you might consider getting the vocal right for sections by using different EQs and compression settings for those sections. If the vocal is strident in the chorus, compress a little less, and send more low end into the compressor to combat this phenomenon. Attack and release settings will also make a big difference where this is concerned.

The best and only way that I know for judging whether the vocal is in the right place, is if I feel like singing the song with the singer, while simultaneously physically moving appropriately to the track. As much as we'd like to have something a bit more concrete than that, this is what music is about, and really, how the song forces you to physically react is the best indicator of where you're at in the mix. But feeling the need to sing the song has as much to do with the instrumental as it does the vocal. One doesn't live without the other. For instance, if you have busy guitar licks stomping on the vocals rather than filling the holes between the vocals, the listener won't be sure where to focus, and not only will they stop singing, they'll probably hit the skip button. Your job as the mixer is to force the focus of the listener. When the vocal is on, that's what you want the listener focusing on 99.9% of the time.

Space is also an important consideration. If you're mucking up the middle of your mix with instruments that consume a similar frequency range to the vocals, then you're making your life more difficult. This is why so many mixers prefer to pan hard left and right, myself included. You'll see this referred to as LCR mixing, which means there rarely is anything that is placed anywhere in the field that isn't either Left, Center, or Right. Even with LCR panning techniques (reserving the middle for bass, kik, snare, and vocal in rock music), if you have too much of a buildup in the upper mid-range, you're going to find yourself really trying to thread the needle to get that vocal to sit in exactly the right spot.

Then there's the space around the vocal and how that helps fit it into the mix. Sometimes a complete lack of space (totally dry vocal) works the best, sometimes a delay tail or slap helps to fit the vocal into the track better. On big tracks a semi-short delay can be put on the vocal to help it sit better in the track, even though you might not actually be able to hear the delay in the mix. And don't be afraid to change how much delay return you use in the verse as compared to the chorus. A more dense section of the song might require more delay so that the vocal doesn't seem bone dry, despite being obviously wet in the verses.

Then, of course, there's the riding the vocal. In my world, it's an absolute necessity in mixing. If you want that vocal to sit exactly right in the track throughout, you need to ride the vocal and the track around the vocal. How compressed you're willing to have vocal sound, along with how well it was recorded, and how disciplined the singer is on the mic, will dictate just how much riding you need to do.

The vocals are where you earn your money. It requires patience and perseverance to get them in the right place in relation to the track. But they all live and work together, and you have to constantly ask yourself whether the track is positively affecting the vocal, and if not, fix it Dear Henry. Fix it!

Good luck!

Enjoy,

Mixerman

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix

Video Link



You can't get any geeker than this!

Damien Rice - Cannonball

Video Link



Still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
Still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
Still a little hard to say what's going on

Still a little bit of your ghost your witness
Still a little BIT of your face I haven't kissed
You step a little closer EACH DAY
Still I can't SAY what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball

Still a little bit of your song in my ear
Still a little bit of your words I long to hear
You step a little closer TO ME
So close that I can't see what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannon

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to cry
So come on courage!
Teach me to be shy
'Cause it's not hard to fall
And I don't WANNA scare her
It's not hard to fall
And I don't wanna lose
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know

Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter

Video Link

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...

'Til I find somebody new

Go for dedicated Firewire PCI !

Taken off M-Audio's Website


Q. Why is a dedicated FireWire card with a Texas Instruments (TI) chipset important on a PC?

A.
FireWire was developed by a partnership of Apple, Texas Instruments, and several other companies. FireWire is a great method for transferring streaming data like audio and video, which require a lot of bandwidth and CANNOT have the signal interrupted without serious degradation to the signal. Because this format was developed by Apple, the architecture is optimized for Apple systems. Some PC manufacturers don’t do as well as others integrating this technology.

PC’s base their architecture on a system of interrupts, and typically use synchronous data transfer. FireWire uses asynchronous data transfer, or a specialized version of asynchronous data transfer called isochronous data transfer. Synchronous transfer will guarantee that data packages will be delivered, but will not guarantee that they will be delivered at a certain time. Asynchronous transfer guarantees that packages will be delivered at a certain time, but if there is interference or delay, the packages may be dropped and will not be re-sent. This means that no data will be lost when using synchronous mode, but it could happen that packages are delivered late because they are re-sent if they are lost for some reason. For audio, it's useless if packages arrive late. Late audio is delayed audio and pauses in the audio. The guarantee that audio is delivered on-time is what s important to digital audio; and that's why FireWire audio devices use the asynchronous transfer. Any lost packages will appear as audio drop outs. So, as you can see it is important that FireWire data is not interrupted. However, PC architecture (ACPI) is built on the concept of interrupts. While the interrupts of Windows systems may be problematic, firewire audio can operate efficiently if the data is managed correctly.

This is where the FireWire controller chipset is VERY important. Because timing is so important, there are many controls which manage the FireWire bus to ensure the high transfer rate. The FireWire controller must initialize and release FireWire devices connected to the computer, communicate with all FireWire devices connected to the bus, assist those devices in dedicating a single clock for the timing of the entire FireWire bus, manage the electrical power distributed to the devices, construct a hierarchy of device priority in the system, and manage the data being transferred. There are several FireWire chipset developers that build chips that are significantly cheaper than Texas Instruments, and for this reason, PC manufacturers are starting to use these less expensive chipsets. Unfortunately, many of these other chipsets are not as reliable as those manufactured by Texas Instruments. M-Audio cannot simply say only use Texas Instruments chipsets, because some of these other controllers actually work very well, and M-Audio does not want to endorse any particular manufacturer. Some firewire chipset manufacturers are improving the quality of their controllers, but when problems are encountered, the chipset is the first place to look. When a chipset is in question, M-Audio does recommend using the controller chipsets which have a history of being the most reliable.

Even if your motherboard has an on-board FireWire controller with a Texas Instruments chipset, you may encounter problems because all onboard devices, including the FireWire controller, are run through the Southbridge of the processor. This means that there is a lot of traffic that the FireWire signal must compete with for access to the processor (all USB, onboard audio, onboard video, serial ports, network controllers, etc...). Data coming from all of these devices creates a bottleneck and greatly increases the chance of the FireWire signal being interrupted. The interrupted data is dropped to maintain the delivery time of the rest of the data. When too much data is dropped, the audio signal may be appear as distorted, completely dropped, or the computer may even drop the connection with the FireWire audio device. To avoid this on a PC, we always advise installing a dedicated FireWire card. This is because the PCI bus runs to the Northbridge of the processor. The Northbridge provides more reliable access to the processor because it only manages the data from the PCI, AGP, and memory.

Art of Mixing Seminar by SSL

Dear Friends, Media Industry and SSL Enthusiast

Solid State Logic - The Art of Mixing Seminar

Damien Egan direct from Solid State Logic, Oxford•England a.ka. Phattbelly will present SSL’s Duende and Pro-Convert. These products are a must have for serious engineers/producers. Learn tips and tricks in perfecting your mixes using SSL's pristine audio tools. Phattbelly's previous success includes his work on UK's No.1 hit album "If You Come Back" by Blue signed to Innocent Records. He also co-wrote tracks for two others albums: ”The Artful Dodger" and "All About The Stragglers”, Which sold over 500,000 copies as well as the UK Top 20 hit "Luv U Anyway" by Denada. He also co-produced five tracks for kool & The Gang's "The Hits Reloaded" album.

Your are cordially invited to SSL- The Art of Mixing Seminar

Date: 23rd May, Saturday

Time: 2.30pm to 5pm

Location: Singapore Management University Administration Building

81 Victorial Street – opp Carlton HotelLevel 4, Seminar Room(pls park in SMU Admin Bldg, Nearest MRT: City Hall)

Presenters: Mr Damien Egan

RSVP, Jerome – 81112020, or E: jerome@steinbergasia.com.sg

We look forward to seeing you at the seminar.

Not often do we get such a free seminar. Thanks Steinberg Asia!

Bricasti Design's M7

M10 remote

Bricasti Design

Thanks Brian for loaning the M7 from Bricasti Design for testing.

It's a great reverb unit. Tons of very useful patches, which can be recalled at an instance. Hence it's versatility in enhancing every application.

I guess the only drawback is the lack of reverbs with more pronouced delays. Wasn't able to to set one that works during RP's Student Life Activity Fiesta '09. But it worked wonders for Dikir Barat and band performances.

Orientation Programme '09 @ RP

TRCC's 1st outdoor show for 2009. Fairly simple setup but not with a few hiccups. Since I was tied down with another show, I wasn't able to be on-site to supervise tentage setup.

Thankfully solutions weren't too far away.

I thought it's a great idea to be able to think out of the norm in favour for convenience and ease. Apparantly, looks and appearance matters over everything for some

Lighting boys

Some monkeys at work

The Ninja exposed!

Avolite Diamond 4

Digidesign Venue Profile

Jerey loves his subs!

Dragonforce Live in Singapore '09

Bhelliom secured the opening slot for 'Guitar Hero' idols.

Pre-production talks went on to show the organiser wasn't very prepared for such touring bands. Many details weren't confirmed and everyone had to make do with what comes. Very frustrating at this age of Hi-tech communication tools. Eventually, the opening act suffered.

Here's the result from 15mins setup and 20min soundcheck.

Yamaha's O2R96 was my weapon

That's my lovely bass! :)

Dragonforce

Yamaha's SB168-ES Ethernet Networking System

Dear Yamaha Pro Audio Users,



Yamaha has recently released its Stage Box SB168-ES and we are launching our product on April 17, 2009, 1:30 in the afternoon at our YDACC. On this event we are going to conduct a seminar regarding "Networking Audio" together with our new product "SB168-ES and IMX644" We will also show you how this device is being interconnected via Ethersound Networking.



With this, we are inviting you to attend our products launch and to register, pls click at this link provided http://www.yamaha.com.sg/Event_Reg_PA.html so we could count you in. The deadline for sending in your email registration form is on April 09, 2009 at 2PM. We are going to confirm further on your attendance on this event!

Thank you!

For assistance, just in case you are unable to click on the link above. Please copy and paste this on your URL Address on your current web page ( http://www.yamaha.com.sg/Event_Reg_PA.html ) or call us for more details.

Lou Garcia

Email: louriz_garcia@gmx.yamaha.com

Gordon Lee
Email: gordon_lee@gmx.yamaha.com



Lawrence Tan
Email: lawrence_tan@gmx.yamaha.com



We hope to see you on our SB168-ES launching event! Best Regards, PA/CA Department Yamaha Music (Asia) Pte Ltd Tel: +65 6740-9821 Fax: 65-67472668

Cubase 5 Launch @ SMU

Steinberg Cubase 5

Dear Friends, Media Industry and Cubase Communities

25 Years and Still Getting Better – Cubase 5 Launch

In the past 25 years, Steinberg has been creating software with the aim of supporting musicians, composers and producers in realizing their artistic dreams. Cubase 5 represents the apex of this development, incorporating not only all the engineering know-how but also the many years of working with our customers that have been key to Cubase becoming the worlds most popular music production software.

Your are cordially invited to Cubase 5 launch, the first Asian Official Launch

Date: 25th Apr, Saturday 2009
Time: 2.30pm to 5pm
Location: Singapore Management University Administration Building
81 Victorial Street – opp Carlton Hotel
Level 4, Seminar Room
(pls park in SMU Admin Bldg, Nearest MRT: City Hall)

Presenters: Mr Evan Roberts and Mr Raymond John Rodrigues

RSVP, Eugene – 9487 2302, or E: eugene@steinbergasia.com.sg

We look forward to seeing you at the launch.

Best Regards
Eugene Guo
Steinberg Media Technologies Asia

Lisa Hannigan - Silent Night

'Silent Night'
Lisa Hannigan


Silent night, broken night
All is fallen when you take your flight
I found some hate for you
Just for show
You found some love for me
Thinking I'd go
Don't keep me from crying to sleep
Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, moonlit night
Nothing's changed
Nothing is right
I should be stronger than weeping alone
You should be weaker than sending me home
I can't stop you fighting to sleep
Sleep in heavely peace

Bhelliom Live at Penang Metal Tyrants

Weather wasn't good when we arrived at Penang's Bus Station (Sungai Nibong). Which kinda summarised the mood for this trip. Nothing much to look forward to except for cheap food/beer and good company.

The Guesthouse (with good-looking babes hanging around)

A backpackers' area with nightlife bursting with all kinds of local flavours along the street stalls.

The Venue (dodgy as Penang hell)

Here's to Bret. Thanks for the jamming session up north.