Category Archives: gear

chaos

Posted on 14 August, 2009 | Leave a comment

over the last few months, i seem to have acquired a whole bunch of new musical toys – the loop pedal, ableton live, portable recorder thing – and in quite an impulsive/frivolous fashion. i guess i’m forgetting/ignoring those lessons i supposedly learned [and pretentiously included in .pdf compilation liner notes] way back when.

the purchase i made today was (ever so) slightly less frivolous, as i’d been eyeing up this particular gadget for quite a while:

yes, it’s the Korg Kaossilator! and in limited edition pink! [apparently there are only 3000 pink ones in existence - though, i bought this one simply because it was the last kaossilator in the store...]

i’d held off buying one for a while. mainly due to doubts of its necessity. also, was kind of hoping someone would make something similar for the DS – and maybe one will pop up soon enough. but, in the end, i just had too much fun everytime i tried it and just had to get it.

here are youtube search results for “kaossilator”. it really is as fun as it looks.

so, yeah. now, i should probably stop buying new gear and focus on using the gear i’ve bought to record stuff…

will get to that presently.

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the bottom line

Posted on 2 February, 2009 | Leave a comment

ever since i moved to japan, something had been missing from my life.

not anymore:

read all about it.

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ramping up

Posted on 30 January, 2009 | Leave a comment

so, it’s just over a day away from the beginning of another Record Production Month. tomorrow evening, i’ll probably be following my tradition of stoking inspiration by watching The Greatest Film Ever Made About Music.

and then on sunday, it starts.

unusually for a sunday (for me), i have the day off, which is nice. the plan is to spend all day – and one or two after that – relentlessly recording improvisation [and perhaps some field recordings]. from the 3rd or 4th, i’ll start attempting to sculp some song structures/skeletons out of all that. and then from week two till the end, i’ll be recording over those.

unlike previous years, i’m not restricting myself to any particular instrumentation, so i’m hoping it’ll turn out a bit more eclectic. but i guess we’ll have to wait and see…

this year, i’m going to make more of an effort to post about the album’s progress on my rpm blog, so head there if status reports are of any interest you.

meanwhile, this site will remain relatively un-updated until the album appears feb 28 or thereabouts.

till then…

EDIT: i just impulsively signed up to twitter and have added it to this site – see above. stupidly regular updates will go there…

oh, also:

solution to the ouch problem (for now):

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ouch

Posted on 23 January, 2009 | Leave a comment

so, it was pretty annoying when my macbook failed after its warranty had expired – and i had to shell out 45,000 yen to get it fixed.

at the time, i remember saying that i didn’t feel that bad – namely as the failure was through no fault of my own; that i was just unlucky; that it wasn’t like i did something stupid.

well, less than two months later, i did something stupid.

while hooking up the computer to a friend’s tv in order to watch a movie, i stupidly knocked over her lava lamp which then hit the [closed] computer, which i had stupidly placed on the floor.

opening it up, i found that the bottom right part of the screen was fucked:

the lava lamp was fully intact.

we were still able to hook up the comp to the tv and watch the movie – and the picture was fine. so i can just connect it to an external monitor…

which is what i will be doing, because to get this fixed will – according to apple anyway – cost more than 90,000 yen. a brand new macbook would cost 115,000.

ugh.

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new year, new RPM, new toy

Posted on 11 January, 2009 | Leave a comment

and a happy new year to you.

music-wise, 2008 was quite a productive year – probably the most since the golden days of naïveté [i.e. 2002-2003; when any file consisting of any sounds i managed to generate were deemed worthy of an upload]. hopefully, that momentum will carry forward into 2009.

i’ve still got that rock song under construction. i plan to get it done and out of my system before…

february: a.k.a. Record Production Month. the last two februarys, i’ve recorded two albums and it’s looking like i’m going to do be doing it again. haven’t really begun to think of themes or subject matter or anything like that.

sound-wise, though, i have some ideas: one thing completely absent from both of my RPM albums is electric guitar. considering i’d consider it my instrument of choice, it seems like it’s about time i include it in an album. i’m also toying with the idea of including a fair amount of samples/found sound. though this may depend on time available to sample/find…

closer to/during feb, i’ll probably be posting some updates on the old RPM blog.

one thing that may come in handy is this new toy i bought completely on impulse in the dying days of 2008:

given that i can quite easily loop stuff when recording – and given that i haven’t exactly been doing much live stuff these days, it does seem like a silly purchase. however, as soon as i tried it out, i saw how being able to loop – and overdub – on the fly is a fantastic facilitator (?!) for spontaneous composition. definitely going to have fun with this. hope to share some results soon.

yosh.

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