Posts tagged music
Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter on Samples, Creating Samples, and Studio Production
It’s really hard to say. The whole starting point of that record was to somehow question the magical powers of recorded audio at a time when pop music is mostly recorded on laptops with a small microphone and a pair of headphones in airport lounges and hotel rooms. We’re not really part of that generation. We’re part of the previous generation, where a studio was a collection of hardware and electronic components assembled in a discreet way to try to create a unique global system in a home environment; somehow a distinctive system.
The idea was really having this desire for live drums, as well as questioning, really, why and what is the magic in samples? Why for the last 20 years have producers and musicians been extracting these little snippets of audio from vinyl records? What kind of magic did it contain? Because harmonically the samples are just an F minor or a G flat, something not so special. It occurred to us it’s probably a collection of so many different parameters; of amazing performances, the studio, the place it was recorded, the performers, the craft, the hardware, recording engineers, mixing engineers, the whole production process of these records that took a lot of effort and time to make back then. It was not an easy task, but took a certain craftsmanship somehow cultivated at the time.
We started to say, “OK, let’s see from a production standpoint, also in terms of performance, whether we could create records that embed this level of production and craftsmanship, and see whether the culture would allow for records like this to be produced. ”So it’s true that we decided to try to recreate these circumstances and really select a team of firsthand actors in witness of that golden age, that era and in the same time go back to the places where that magic had happened. We really think, we feel the walls can speak, and at the same time there’s really this idea that these are magical places.
Superquadratic cobbled together a step sequencer with a webcam, Python, OpenCV, OSC, MIDI, Abelton Live, and a bunch of Legos. Oh, and here’s the source code. (Via Create Digital Music)
John Peel's Record Collection is Moving Online
Starting on Tuesday, the John Peel Centre for Creative Arts will begin uploading details of the late DJ’s cherished vinyl, unveiling 2,600 albums over the next six months.
More here. (Via The Guardian)
Tupac 'Hologram' May Go on Tour
“It’s great to be here in CITY NOT FOUND.” (Via WSJ)
A couple weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing false updates on Wikipedia. After some talk and a few drinks, we put forth a challenge: which of us could craft a longer surviving fictitious update.
The winner? Squishbeat, a previously undocumented genre of electronic music constructed of organic sounds samples. After 14 glorious days, Squishbeat was removed for lack of “evidence of notability”.
Anyone care to make it notable so I can make a revisionary retort?
Albini absolutely nails this production. The overdriven bass and ultra-clean guitar pairing is perfect.
Worth appending this bit from an interview with Cloud Nothings’ Dylan Baldi:
[Albini] played Scrabble on Facebook almost the entire time; I learned some Scrabble tricks. He would alternate between that and writing on his food blog. I don’t even know if he remembers what our album sounds like.
Hackers Download Sony’s Archive of 50k+ Michael Jackson Tracks
Amazing:
Hackers reportedly illegally downloaded over Michael Jackson’s entire back catalog, consisting of 50,000 tracks, many never released. Sony purchased the catalog from Jackson’s estate for $250 (£157.51) million last year.
W.E.N.N. reports, “The attack was discovered weeks after hackers targeted Sony’s PlayStation Network in April, but was only confirmed by a Sony Music representative on Saturday.The UK’s Daily Star reports, “Record bosses only discovered the theft of 50,000 music files when a worker saw Jackson fans chatting about it on forums.”
Sony had been planning to release the tracks over ten albums. Other artist vaults, like Hendrix and Joplin, are assumed to have been lifter as well. (Via paidContent)
