Electric Skateboards are pretty Sweet

Whoa, it's been a long while. I don't even know if anyone is going to be reading this one. But i stumbled back into this blog so i thought i'd take a minute to update the lastest happenings over here.

I recently just bought an electric skateboard, and let me tell you, they are freeking awsome. Feels like your just gliding. I don't know what else there would be worth telling you.. you should check them out yourself at the place i bought mine. Neptune Electric Skateboards

Interaction With Music -- Is Multitouch The Future?

Music Production for the last couple of decades has for the most part been a digital affair. Even more so now days is this the case, with software becoming the norm in most music studios as they slowly do away with their expensive hardware counterparts. Gone are the good old days of the whole music making process, at least for electronic musicians, being an entirely hardware affair. In my days of surfing forums I have learnt a little about what the shift from analog hardware to digital hardware to software has meant to electronic musicians. Not only are people missing the perceived positive aspects of the 'analogue sound' such as 'warmth' but they are missing the physicality of having a piece of hardware to react with and to feel. So, to fill this void people have been working on exciting concepts to control the software. Besides the normal midi controllers and trigger pads some innovations have emerged as what i think could quite possibly be the future of music making for electronic musicians..... Multi-touch!!

Multi-touch isn't a new thing, corporate and defence sectors have been using it for a while... but only in the last couple of years has it become a reality for musicians

The first Multi-touch interface i stumbled upon was the Lemur designed by a company called Jazzmutant whose multi-touch interface brought control possibilities beyond the X-Y axis, it became a popular performance tool alongside programs such as Cycling 74's Max/MSP


Further developments have been the Reactable (left) which brought Multi-touch surfaces to another level. It's designed to be used not just as a control surface but as a modular synthesis platform in which one places blocks representing modules on a table top surface to construct a modular synthesis environment. The Reactable has been recently popularised due to its prominence in Björk's recent performances...



(Above) A Demonstration of the Reactable

Furthermore, It was as recent as last week that the well known company Microsoft released a Table top Multi-touch computer called Surface, not designed specifically for audio, but for the entire home media centre and computer. This could well be the way of the future...

All in all, this is not only an exciting technological development because it replaces the physicality that was lost when we switch to software... but because it could completely revolutionize the way we sequence, create and perform electronic music.

Sticky beak

My Website

Ok so, with the help of an artist friend of mine my website is starting up.... however, it will most likely not be fully funtional until some time in the uni holidays. I will be posting snippets of my work there.

BrokenHeads Official Website

Are You Saturated??

Unless your talking about a Nord then the colour red is usually a bad thing in audio. In the digital realm, it signifies clipping/clipping distortion which is unanimously considered a 'bad' thing. However, if you push analoge tape to its limits you don't get clipping, you get saturation.... aaahh yes, sweet saturation. It actually sounds great. I often saturate many things with tape.... sometimes a wierd melodic line but usally a secondary drum part. that's all im gonna say about it..... just listen to it. listen to any of boards of Canadas work and you shall see what I mean!

Looking for a unique sound?? -- Then bend your childhood toys

A few years ago I tried my hand at producing Psychedelic Trance..... Although I wouldn't say I failed in my mission to write what I thought was Psychedelic Trance, I could see that other people couldn't relate to it as specifically, 'Psychedelic' trance... why? well.. I'll tell you what i think.

Psytrance, has had the tendency to become a uniform style of production and structure at the mercy of a few different elements. Two specifically spring to mind.... that is.. the very distinguished characteristics and modulation possibilities of the Clavia Nord Lead and the Access Virus synthesizers. For me, classifying something as psychedelic then restricting it to particular sounds-scapes seemes to lead the genre on a path to self destruction... and so... although I still participate in the festival part of the scene I no longer wish to participate in the production of the music itself. Sure, genres can always be lead in different directions and I could have attempted to do this but it seems I have became more interested over time not so much in dynamic modulation of filters, envelopes and oscillators that Psytrance artists do so well, but in Signal manipulation.... that, and I wanted to experiment more with percussion... Psytrance by its very nature restricts this somewhat.


So, signal manipulation.... what is that exactly? for me, it implies a form of manipulation of a digital signal that extends beyond the usual modulations of the synthesizer..... why is this so interesting? well, the process by which you do this can be entirely unique... giving you a sound that can be truly yours, which is something many artists aspire towards. Using the machines other people have made is going to render you with similar results that others will have using those same machines. But, how many people have opened their toy piano and messed with the circuitry the same way you have... well, not many; this is the appeal of circuit bending. Circuit bending is the art of rebuilding machines, toys or whatever to make unique sounds through their unique circuitry.... fascinating.




(Above) A video demonstrating some circuit bending in action

Unfortunately, I do not have skills in the field of electronics and so I haven't done any as yet, although, I do have a toy piano I picked up in an op-shop in rural Victoria just begging to be messed with. For some excellent info on Circuit bending visit Getlofi.com

John Cage & Brian Eno -- Pathing the way for sound today!

Recently whilst walking to Uni on a particularly sunny day I was listening to some music I had composed, I tend to listen to my own music many times over particularly when i am working on a particular project. I was pondering on how one can see their own music in an objective manner... so, I turned the music off and decided to leave it for a while. In this period of non-listening and thinking about objectivity I started to wonder why it is that I like the particular music that I do. Surely, it has a lot to do with my personality and what I'm looking for in music but I realised it has a lot to do with the pathways in which my own personal musical evolution has lead me. Also, I realised that music that is currently being released is in many ways the result of the past..... so, what was it that shaped genres such as IDM and experimental electronic music to be what they are today? Well, amongst the myriad of artists that have influenced me and others... two artists stand out for me; John Cage and Brian Eno.


John Cage (above), prominent in the 1950s, was actually a classically trained musician, however, what he did was very different. He was one of the first to challenge the limits of what people would define as music. He challenged the traditional harmonically structured approach to music and instead used things such as prepared piano and everyday sounds in his compositions. He also pioneered what is known as chance music through composing in such a way that the outcome of the performance is seemingly random.


(Above) John Cage performing 'Water Walks' on a TV show in 1960

Brian Eno, is a well know electronic music pioneer who still writes today. His work with tape loops and randomly generated music has been an inspiration to many electronic artists today. Notably, his album 'Music for Airports' has been an inspiration for my own compositional style although a completely different aesthetic. Using tape loops at different length brings a pleasant randomness to a composition if done well.

It has been through these founders of electronic and experimental music that aspects of the music have evolved to be what they are today.....

Reactive Light/Music installation

Quite interesting, Installation and New Media artist Chris O'shea has created an installation of two speakers that site on a pool of lights that react to the music called 'Muon'. The project speaks for itself and really has to be seen to understood... so check out the videos here.