The studio diary of Junai. Also: mail myspace youtube last.fm friendfeed twitter

Korg DS10

The Korg DS10 software finally eroded my resistance to buying a Nintendo DS. After a few hours playing, what impresses me most is how good the DS is as a programming interface. Short of a fully-featured studio with something like a Monome or Tenori-on as your grid-programming partner, you could do an awful lot worse than the Nintendo. You can flip around between screens using the buttons accessible to your left hand and tweak things with the stylus in your right, and it’s amazing how fast you can get things done. I find myself pleased with what you can do with the software, but I also wish there were some way to give it more channels, oomph, independent effects and so forth (without buying another DS and software cart). The Indamixx, a custom Linux install running on a Samsung Q1, might do it—but I’m not quite convinced yet.
My Chimera bc16 finally showed up. My first experience with a patchable synth, so my approach has been to plug things together semi-randomly and see what happens. Absent a manual it’s hard to tell what’s what, but in very short order I was able to get a gritty ARP-style sound with three cables that (I think) put the oscillators through the filter while the LFO also messes wth the filter. I sense this one will reward experimentation.
My Chimera bc16 finally showed up. My first experience with a patchable synth, so my approach has been to plug things together semi-randomly and see what happens. Absent a manual it’s hard to tell what’s what, but in very short order I was able to get a gritty ARP-style sound with three cables that (I think) put the oscillators through the filter while the LFO also messes wth the filter. I sense this one will reward experimentation.

Good lord. Also, look for the video of 12 of these playing “Rydeen”.

Bent Pikachu Limited Edition (via Kaseo)

A commenter on another of Shiina Ringo’s videos sums it up best: “God is a woman.”

I have the DVD of this and it blows the fucking roof off.

She’s playing live in November; I’m going even if I have to kill for tickets.

Radio silence

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it turns out that concentrating on recording and writing about it are not that compatible — there are so many things in flux that writing about them comes to seem a bit pointless. The dust needs to settle a bit. Blogging also takes up cycles that could better be used making the stuff.

So, what have I been doing (if you’re interested)? Furiously writing lyrics, learning to use the great-sounding but idiosyncratic MFB 503 drum machine, making time to lie down in the dark and listen to Shiina Ringo’s Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana and Scott Walker’s The Drift, realizing that vocals don’t really need reverb or delay on them, and rather enjoying the Tenori-on as a MIDI controller.

And with that, and half a new song (roughly) in the can this afternoon, I’m off for dinner.

First day hasn’t been a roaring success so far — lots of crawling around, digging inside stuff, cursing weird documentation and idiosyncratic user interfaces and hating on MIDI. But gradually things are getting underway. Just going to go back and record some blips and drones and a guide vocal, and then perhaps a cold one is in order.
First day hasn’t been a roaring success so far — lots of crawling around, digging inside stuff, cursing weird documentation and idiosyncratic user interfaces and hating on MIDI. But gradually things are getting underway. Just going to go back and record some blips and drones and a guide vocal, and then perhaps a cold one is in order.

Here we go

This weekend marks the last bit of preparation. The mixing desk, keyboard stands and a load of colour-coded cables should turn up tomorrow lunchtime, at which point I break the studio down into its basic bits and reconstruct it in a more ergonomic way that doesn’t require me to plug things in every time I want to do something different.

Forcing yourself to write lyrics seems to pay off; I’ve got a good start on about five songs now, and I’ve hit that spot where fragments of things start to pop into my head here and there. I found myself humming a new phrase out of the blue at the ticket machine in a car park the other day, which hopefully will find its way into a song somewhere or other.

World’s cutest drum machine, hands down.
World’s cutest drum machine, hands down.

Came across this on YouTube: Depeche Mode playing “Enjoy the Silence” on top of the World Trade Centre.

Bit of needless trivia: the first keyboard I ever owned was an E-Mu Emax that Depeche Mode used on the Music for the Masses tour. (This guy has one too; perhaps even the same one. Correction: I jumped to a conclusion; he’s a DM fan with an Emax, but it may not be one of theirs).

(via sodaspops)

Just finished watching this. Amazing. I mostly listen to an iPod, which didn’t seem conducive to “The Drift”; this made me decide to make some time for a proper listen. It also occurred to me watching Eno’s comments that he must have found it really fucking irritating to work with Coldplay, or at least put on his “screw it, it pays the rent” hat for the duration.