Saturday, June 6, 2009

Day 156: Back in business.

Ok, I've let the whole Bang the DJ Project slide recently I must admit, I haven't paid much attention to my own goals recently.

Things have just generally been up in the air and all that other life waffle, but today I finally got my focus back on to the music. Remember recently I was praising the Sonic Academy tutorials, well just after watching one or two, it got the creative juices flowing. It's amazing the difference it makes when you have an ounce more control over what sound you are making, rather than blindly trying things out to see if they work.

So here are the fruits of my labour... no full songs, just 4 segments from 4 (count em!) new tracks.

As always, will be interesting to see where these end up, and I may even revisit the other 3 tunes I did to give them a face lift.

Peace.


Pre Party







Projected







Flies in my Eyes







After Party







2/365

p&&l

bang!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Day 155: L-Vis has left the building.

No he bloody hasn't, he's sat there out on the internet polluting every bloody blog post I seem to read right now.

I wish I had this guys publicist. L-vis 1990 this, L-vis 1990 that. The first time I read about him (less than 7 days ago) he'd already invented a new sub-genre of music (Dubblestep). That's good going.

Now he seems to be all over everything. Swine.

However to be fair it's not without reason, good publicist or other wise, sounds like this guy is doing some interesting stuff. Check out this video for his track 'United Groove' (via Mad Decent). Dubby, Ravey, Latin and fidgety all at the same time.

Man makes me jealous...



2/365

p&&l

bang!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Day 154: DJ Hero

No... I'm not referring to me!

You might have heard of that small video game, something about guitars... maybe? Did you hear about that?

Anyways, those wise video game make people have cottoned on that Air DJing is as popular as Air Guitar, and thus we have DJ Hero.

The trailer makes it look interesting, and the hardware looks fun too. I certainly could be tempted to buy a video game player just for this game. Equally though I might not though.

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Day 153: Adacemically Sonic.

I heard of Sonic Academy a while ago, while trawling youtube for tutorial videos. Recently however they decided to do a 50% off promo via twitter. Seeing as I had been wanting to get on it for a while, and it was my birthday and all that, I decided to get on it.

Couple of days later, and bish-bosh, I'm all hooked up on the site with access to all their tutorial videos.

I must say from first look, they seem brilliant. I've only had the chance to dip my toe in, but it's exactly what I was hoping.

Basically they are tutorial videos on music production techniques, but very much focused on dance music, and the latest sounds. Also they are very hands on getting straight to the point and not bogging it down with too much theory (tho enough so that you're not just copying what they do on screen).

I've read books before, and other stuff on line, but synthesis can get pretty dull pretty quickly, so these videos are a god send, and the make a lot of sense straight away. So much so you start over loading with ideas half way through the first video.

Once I have a few of the tutorials under my belt, I'll apply the principles I've learnt to a new track, and see if we can spot the advancement.

In the mean time, if you're wanting to get in to production, it's an excellent starting point, there is a community and support site too for meeting other producers and sharing ideas etc.

Check it out here.



2/365

p&&l

bang!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Day 152: Money can't buy it...

In these alleged times of crisis, people are re-evaluating what is important to them. I always believe that tough times usually brings about social and cultural change for the better. People stop thinking about accumulating stuff just for the sake of having it, and maybe focus more on what's really important to them (unless of course just having nice stuff is important to you).

Here is a video of some Yanks that got laid off and decided to use the time to do something different, and good on them too. Maybe this is what everyone needs, an enforced break to try something new and interesting.

The clip is from some cunty american news site so it has an unskippable advert at the beginning I'm afraid, and I was too lazy to wheedle out the direct link.

Here ya goes.


2/365

p&&l

bang!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Day 151: A post about something.

After yesterdays post about nothing (seriously, don't even bother reading it) it's nice to have a post about something.

Two things really, first of all a quite interesting interview with the Shapeshifters, who after their mega hit with Lolas theme, shunned the opportunity to go all out commercial with a deal from EMI.

Find the full article here. Quite a surprising read, and refreshing to see such possible commercial artists reinforcing how important the feeling of music is.

Secondly, a wicked awesome related video. This is embedded in the article, so if you're off to read that no need to watch it here, but for those not bothering, here you go. Basically it's the Shapeshifters remix of Orbitals '89 classic Chime. Overlayed with loads of Old Skoolers talking about back in the day, that with the obligatory uber mad rave footage that makes me go all goose bumpy and nostalgic.

With these hard times upon us, I really do hope this makes for some good music, as often seems to be the case.

Mega



2/365

p&&l

bang!

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Day 150: A post about nothing.

It's Sunday, and I am sure no-one reads the internet on a Sunday, so I am going to indulge myself and wander back in to blog territory.

The real truth is that I feel super hanging today after a suitably boozy birthday yesterday. Took a trip down in the the river where they were having "Fair of the Nations" which basically means some stalls selling foreign nik naks and lots of food and beer. Did I mention the beer?

After that wondered back in to town hilariously to try and find somewhere to go dancing (no real chance of dancing tho by this point). Came across some live music in one of the squares so took that in for a while. That's what I love about this place, no-one complains as long as it's organised.

A live band blaring out til 3am in a residential area, can't imagine that going on in the UK. However you know if they went 1 minute over the grannies would be complaining to the council first thing in the morning.

Anyway, there you go, a post largely about nothing.


2/365

p&&l

bang!