How long have you got before you can leave work for the weekend then? Half an hour? An hour? That means you can watch this video at least 10 times. Or you can bookmark this page and watch it when you get home.
I’m a complete sucker for stuff like this, I completely don’t care that it’s musical drivel (which totally contradicts things I have said prior to today regarding virtuoso musicians, BeatBoxers, DJs etc).
If you can find a single better use of a computer (or indeed the internet) than this, please get in touch; luke@routenote.com or @monkeyhotel
I am only really uploading this because I was shocked at how few hits it had received on youtube.
I have a bit of a problem with all of this “music out of objects” stuff. I mean, it’s a bit old hat. Charles Ives was doing it over a hundred years ago and composers like John Cage were basically already bored of it by the 60′s, but now pop singers are doing it, they’re “oh so talented.”
I’m also pretty sure that this wasn’t all recorded live, any of you who’ve ever tried to sample the sorts of noises he’s using will know that to get it sounding as crisp as that you need more than a dynamic microphone.
Anyway, here is the video. I hope you enjoy it more than I did.
Ignore the bizarre cover story on this site, amusing though it is to imagine falling down a rabbit hole to a universe in which the Beatles were still together and gigging, nicking a tape of their latest album (CD’s haven’t been invented in the parallel world) and , and just go straight ahead and have a listen to the mashup/remix that the guy perpetrating the myth has produced (you can download a .zip). Essentially a throwing together of late Beatles stuff, with samples from Wings and the ex-Beatles solo stuff, it’s a pretty well put together imagination of how the fab 4 might sound if they’d been time-ported to the 00′s before they split. There might be some copyright issues waiting to kill this off, but it’s a substantially different product to it’s constituent original bits of Beatles, so it may well scrape through. Daft though the website may be, it has done it’s intended job of generating amused interest from the media – publicising your music by making it stand out from the crowd is difficult to do, and this is a novel approach.
Does it bug you when you can’t figure out where the catchy sample in that new track came from? Fret no longer, gentle reader – a quick visit to whosampled.com will wipe away those tip-of-the-tongue blues. The site is a repository of information about who an artist has sampled and who has sampled them, with user submitted lists that are already pretty comprehensive given that the site was launched less than a year ago. Checking out who your favourite artists have sampled is also a great way to be introduced to the music that influenced them and to find other artists you might like in the process. Dr. Dre’s sample list, for example is a wealth of more or less obscure funk and soul masterpieces – another way of discovering new music to listen to and of wasting half an hour on a Sunday before the pubs open.
UK games developers Rockstar ( famous for Grand Theft Auto series)have produced a platform/sequencer for producing tunes on the PSP. The “Beaterator” has been endorsed by US hip-hop producer Timbaland (watch his review here) who has contributed to providing a library of around 1600 samples. The Sequencer tool also has capabilities to accept any new samples you want to import yourself via memory stick.
The audio engine bounces along at 16 word-length, 22kHz sample rate and includes a mixer with eight stereo tracks, these can be looped wit a built in synth or/and a sequencer pattern. because each pattern can include up to eight sample channels you can create up to a maximum 64 samples in each tune. Extra techy info includes each mixer accommodating up to two insert effects including compression, EQ and Multi-mode Filters along with others soon to be announced. The Beaterator comes with a virtual-analogue synth (mono) with three oscillators. Each oscillator allows you to move and bend the noises with its sinewave anything up to as much as 10 percent. You can see the live demo here. The sequencer also has built in multi-mode filters and two assignable LFO’s (low frequency oscillators). On top of the standard song arrangement (which you’ll probably use most of the time) there is a session mode for playback of your loops or you can just wing it live an make it up as you go along! Glow sticks and whistles at the ready! Buying some external speakers are a must surely!
The Beaterator is due to come out in the US at the end of September (29th) at around $40, an in the UK a month later on October for £30. The developers have announced they intend to release a version of the Beaterator for the AppleiPhone, which has around twice the processing power of the PSP, for the autumn. With some expansion on the synth concept with the touch screen hopefully.
Jangly, jarring tunes over uncomfortable electronic backgrounds somehow come together as a coherent and listenable whole, and then give way to slow, gentle guitars and violins and spoken samples. Something like Modest Mouse making an album with Boards Of Canada when they were feeling nice and relaxed one weekend round at Lemon Jelly’s house. Despite the awkward bits in this album, I somehow get the feeling that someone nearby was making a blackberry and apple crumble they were all going to enjoy once the recording session was over. Especially on this track:
<– Buy it on iTunes