I’m very happy to announce I’ll be doing some traveling in just a short bit up the West Coast to be part of the NW Loop Fest, October 10 – 13. More details are coming soon!
iPad Live Looping (2013.06.27) – Dark groove
Yep. Another. This time without a lot of drums, and adding some wicked flange.
Super prolific weekend, live-looping is awesome to get ideas out
One of the things I enjoy about this artform is that it forces you to turn out material really quickly. Sometimes I have a little bit of an idea but while punching in the notes I get another idea. And within about a half minute I have a base of a cool tune. That’s why in this weekend I was able to punch out 3 pretty well-formed song ideas—and have time to edit the videos too!
It all starts with the main iPad. I can lay down a beat, a bassline, or a texture in about 2-5 seconds. Then it’s all about putting some meat on those bones. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and I’ll do a couple of takes, but lately that’s been more about technical issues—I’ll accidentally hit the stop button or set the wrong measure for the loop start/end. True, the solos and melody lines are a bit harder to come up with on the spot, but I’m building up this list in my head of the ones I really like. Plus, I have my favorite chord progressions.
As you can see it unfold on the videos, it takes under 10 minutes to get all that music built out … then I’m bored and want to move on to the next song. If I don’t like what’s going on I could cut it short and just move on to the next idea. During one of my live sets a “song” usually lasts from 1 to 6 minutes depending on how it’s shaping up. (This weekend’s batch of videos each was self-contained so I had to rebuild each song with the annoying metronome for the first 2 minutes or so.)
Before I started doing live-looping it would take forever to get out a song. I’d overanalyze parts, spend a lot of time EQing (and usually get it wrong), rewrite segments, try to put in a lot of different chords. Each song might be 30 hours of labor and constantly second-guessing. But with looping, there are really no take-backs. If you make a mistake you just move on. You build on what you know will work and take a few chances. You don’t have time to jump back to the mixer panel most times and you can’t do fancy progressions. In spite of this, I still find it wonderfully enjoyable and I’m always amazed at how other people can make fully-formed songs in this format—that’s definitely something I’m aspiring to.
Thanks for being along for the ride!
iPad Live Looping (2013.06.23) – Funky stuff
OK. One more for this weekend:
iPad Live Looping (2013.06.23) … slow style
I can’t sleep right now so why not put up a slow jam? Got the GoPro and the ambient lighting set up—it’s easier to see the lighting here: instagram.com/p/a5G9HipYq5/
(It’s not as nice as Rheyne’s setup but I’ll get a better studio setup soon!)
New iPad looping jam video! :)
Featuring some new toys: TableTop, Olympus LS-12, and a DUO-CAPTURE MK2.
Video clips from the March 2013 Mobile Music Meetup
The CODAME Oct 2012 trailer
I realized I never had posted this. 😛 This was the trailer I rolled for last year’s CODAME Art and Tech Festival. It used elements from Starpause’s sample pack and some art from Vicente Montelongo. The background music was by yours truly.
The Use’s 2013 West Coast Tour w/ ANI, Jack Hertz, and Bitwise (Sun Mar 31)
Rocking the Showdown SF with The Use (Michael Durek), Jack Hertz, Bitwise, and ANI. We’ll be massaging your ear drums Sunday, March 31 starting at 8:00 PM. (More details also on reverbnation.com.)
ANI, Timeheater, Starpause, and Mushen at Il Pirata (Thu Mar 21)
Another Mobile Music Meetup is here and we have 4 artists:
We’ll start the music at 7:00 PM at Il Pirata in the Mission.