In praise of dead software, part 2
Read part one here. When I was thirteen or so I read the novelization of Close Encounters (because it was lying around the house and I was thirteen and bored, smartass). The chapter in which the big-ass modular synthesizer appeared opened with a statement somewhere along the lines of “There are few people in the [...]
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Lost and found department
Okay so get this. On Thursday I posted about that cool book of modern piano music (published 1963) that I picked up on AbeBooks not long ago. Well you may be aware that I’m a bit of a fan of ABC’s Lost, as is my wife. And this evening we were catching up on the [...]
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In praise of dead software, part 1
I talk a lot about music hardware on this site, but the music that I write wouldn’t sound like much without software. Logic is my main audio production app, and I’ve been using it in various incarnations since about 1989, when it was called Notator SL, and was available exclusively on the Atari ST platform. [...]
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New-ish music for the piano
There’s been a resurgence of interest online in 60s-style commercial design, that really evocative screen-print business with the deep cool colours, the kind of stuff Saul Bass made a name for himself with. In the spirit of the zeitgeist (wow, did I just say “in the spirit of the spirit?”) I’ll share the cover of [...]
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Looking a gift Kore in the mouth
I’ve been using the free Kore Player since it was introduced in the spring of 2008. I have started a few projects over that time by just flipping through the sounds looking for inspiration, and Native Instruments has been pretty decent about releasing free soundpacks, so now I have a few hundred to choose from. [...]
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The Reacquaintance
I haven’t uploaded any original music in a while so I thought I’d just toss this one up here for you to listen to and comment on. Recent developments in OS X and Logic Studio necessitated my upgrading my hardware to an Intel system, and to make a long and somewhat geeky story short I’m [...]
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Answers to “A fairly difficult synth quiz”
Yesterday I created “A fairly difficult synth quiz” on Facebook and a number of folks have already been brave enough to test their knowledge of synth geekery with it. To be fair, the quiz is actually quite tough. I had some questions in mind when I wrote it, and upon researching to verify my memory [...]
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Don’t disbelieve everything you don’t read on the internet
I was recently asked to lift Deee-Lite(sic)’s ’90 dance club hit Groove is in the Heart (long story) and shortly thereafter to swallow the factoid that the “I” sample under the line “I couldn’t ask for another” was from the Green Acres theme song. Unable to substantiate this through text-based searches, I discounted this claim [...]
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