Well, it’s been a long time since my last entry. I guess people have figured out the pattern that when I’m busy with something else, I neglect to update the site or devise more content. Because music is the main theme of this site, the current situation throughout the Gulf Coast Region affected by Hurricane Katrina is a relevant issue. Besides my personal ties to friends and their families in the area (Shaun, Ilsa, Charlie, Bob - my thoughts are with you), the city of New Orleans has been a such a vital part of music–more than I ever realized.

French plantation owners allowed slaves to delve into the arts and music. These musicians became part of life in New Orleans–performing in marching bands for parties and parades, and even in an all black symphony orchestra formed in the 1830s. The musical heritage of New Orleans led to the development of the traditions of jazz and blues.

The early traditions of jazz usually go unrecognized for their influence in the recording industry. Early recordings were limited by the duration (3 minutes) and fidelity of the 10-inch 78 records. Artists, like Louis Armstrong developed compositions and performance techniques that worked around these restrictions and developed ‘really old-school’ dance records. Vocal Artists and lyricists developed blues recordings in a similar manner which established vocal stylizing and formats that have lasted through the century. There is a connection between these traditions and current electronic/dance music, and the heritage of our DJ Culture can be traced back to New Orleans.

So next time you’re downloading that ripped album, think about that 10 to 20 bucks you saved and perhaps send it along to the American Red Cross or some other worthwhile charity helping out those in need. (crap…you’re probably immune to guilt tactics

Years Ago when I started doing this webstuff, everything was about ReBirth, and I fashioned nothing but 338 Tracks… This is a collection of tracks made exclusively with the RB-338 and MOds. As a tribute to the end of ReBirth, I’ve posted up these songs in MP3 format. The adventurous can find some of the ReBirth Song files included with Mods along with a ReBirth RB-338, now available through the ReBirth Museum

I just got the news that Bob Moog is battling Cancer. Like everyone else in the electronic music world, I wish him a speedy recovery. For those who don’t know Bob Moog… sheesh!

Lately, it seems like one project after another has been rolling through. For a short period there, I was actually doing music again, but stuff comes up and I have to put the personal projects aside. I’ve been suckered into doing the sound for a flash site. Coming up with the basic sounds was pretty easy using a variety of custom combinator synth devices. Since I’m not a flash programmer, I ended up using a quicktime movie of the screen animation and doing a rough sync up using Logic Pro rewired with Reason. This helped develop the soundtrack so I could balance the pitch and frequency response of the effects in relation to the background ambient noises and music.

The looped ambient bits didn’t loop seamlessly in the final flash movie, but I remember a bit of advice that Fred Hagglund posted on the propellerheads messageboard about synchronizing frames. I squeezed down the loop until it hit the frame marks exactly, and the loop was solid.

Coming up with looped music was dragging a bit, and I couldn’t quite get something that fit. I got a bit sidetracked on my messageboard when JJB inquired about recreating a Frippertronics effect in Reason. I ended up conjuring a new loop delay effect patch that inspired a whole new range of loop ideas really quickly.

I’ve made this tape loop combinator a full blown patch with a skin and documentation, and posted the file to CombinatorHQ.com in the effects downloads. It’s called "Triptronic TL8" and it’s an early version. The patch uses a noise generator to feed a bit of filtered noise into the loop to simulate tape hiss. There’s a little sideeffect where the tape hiss builds up a bit too much as the loop cycles if the tape speed parameter is set to maximum. I decided to make tape speed and delay time independant features rather than have them related on the same combi rotary control. I’m going to work on a few variations of the effect that I’ll be posting here in the near future.

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Jeeze it’s been a long time since the last entry. I’ve been deep in the middle of the book project. I finally reached a big milestone today, so i can get back to a normal life.

Along the way, I’ve been distracted with a new aquistion: a Korg Kontrol 49. I never realized the full potential of Remote in Reason 3.0 until I plugged this baby in. The bidirectional data flow adds an amazing level of control. The LCD displays show the parameter values and the pad switches light up according to ReDrum patterns. It’s really quite cool. Now all it needs is aftertouch…

I gave my old Edirol Controller to my cousin’s daughter who’s learning piano. One day, I was showing her Reason on my Powerbook, and she really picked it up quickly. I installed Reason Adapted on her iMac and now my cousin and the entire family have to deal with Subtractor bleeps going off all day long

I’ve been president of the local JACL (Japanese-American Citizens League) chapter since january, and vice-president (the guy who barbeques for 100 people) for two years prior, but this position is a lot more demanding because i have to go to a lot more meetings and functions. Worst of all I have to meet people and try to remember their names. This is painfully difficult for me. Being elected to this position is no big deal. It’s more like the position was forced on me since no one wants to take on the responsibilities.

A month ago, I had to go to a fundraiser dinner up in Blackhawk in order to present the previous President, Tony, with an award. The food was terrible. the wine was pretty insipid as well, so i had to drink a lot of it. The location was, however, quite interesting. The event was held at the Blackhawk Antique Car Museum. I was expecting some kind of old barn with 50s and 60s chevys and fords. You can imagine my surprise when I walked up to the beautiful facility to see a vintage Ferarri on display in the entrance. The collection was quite amazing with old Rolls Royces, Jags, Mercedes, Ferraris, Mazeratis, BMWs. There was even an old buick or cadillac from the art-deco period complete with lalique hood ornament. Checking out the cars was definitely fun.

There was an embarrassing moment during the award ceremony. I attempted to dawn the award upon Tony, and the ribbon was too small to fit around his head. It was a combination of the ribbon being too small and the head being too massive. Anyways, Checking out the cars was definitely fun.

Kristi Yamaguchi, gold medal olympic blah blah, contributed her time and a big donation to the event as well. Her father was sitting at our table for the first half of the presentations, then she and her mother joined us later. She’s quite tiny, and surprisingly more attractive in person. I guess she suffers from being photogenically challenged too. Anyways, Checking out the cars was definitely fun.

Now I’m committed to going to other events like these district meetings. I went to one in Monterey a few days ago, and the people involved are typically much older, but they have such odd perspectives on issues like education and race relations. It’s like a superficial political correctness without a deeper understanding of cultural awareness. It’s like they’re too assimilated by american culture, and to make matters worse, it’s influenced by California “wanna-be” liberalism. I’m quite tempted to bring the voice of pragmatism to the table and participate on some councils- which is exactly what Tony wants. For now, i think i’ll just play the part of the stereotypical shy japanese boy who doesn’t say anything… Maybe if I sulk down in the chair at meetings, they will forget that I’m present!

We shall see what happens…

I’ve been messing around with some Combinator patch ideas lately. These have been more of a distraction from writing than anything else. I forgot how much I enjoyed skinning and messing around with interface ideas–it just like the good old days of ReBirth. I’ve posted a few of them up in a new Combinator section on my Reason page. Two are just examples of modulation styles, while another two are attempts at emulating the 303 using the P003 Square Bass Refill and the lapjockey Flatpack 1. I’ve got a couple more being prepped to go.

I’ve been experimenting with a little gui trick. Adding a color area behind the knob at just the right size will pass through the notch of the knob and appear as if the knob has a colored pointer.

Also check out the new ReFill which contains only two samples packed especially for the combinator patch included in the fill.

Saturday afternoon, i headed over to Robotspeak in San Francisco where GW Childs and I presented a Reason 3.0 Clinic. Unfortunately, Robotspeak did not receive copies of Reason 3.0, so in order to give the presentation I had to install a beta test copy. GW and I were pleasantly surprised to see the place fill up. Rebecca, a videographer, filmed the event and some of the footage will be put online at the Robotspeak website. Thanks to everyone that came out. Sorry that things didn’t go so smoothly, it was one of those last minute unscripted deals.

Friday night, a group of Reason users from the SF Bay Area got together to meet up for the first time. The evening was organized by Ed (EditED4TV), and a group of 10 of us met up for dinner in downtown Walnut Creek. It was pretty cool to hang out and talk Reason and finally put faces to the names of people on the Props messageboard. Ed did a great job and even had name tags made for everyone. This might even become a regular thing. Anyone else interested in participating in the next one should contact Ed through the props board.

Reason 3.0 is officially released! After several months since the announcement, it’s finally available. Yes, go order it now! If you already have R3.0, I’ve started adding a few small files for R3 on my reason page.

Definitely check out the Combi patches. A lot of us put a lot of time in on these and there are some really nice ones.

My Cousin, Sharon, invited me to go see the Pat Metheny Group last week in Oakland at the Paramount Theater. It was pretty cool since she managed to get tickets in the second row center of the theater - practically right in front of Pat and Lyle Mays. I’m not exactly sure how to categorize PMG music especially since it often flows through lifts or from smooth jazz stations, but seeing Matheny perform live is really quite amazing. He has such amazing guitar skills and as an added gear freak bonus, he uses (still) an old Roland GR-300 (or 100?) guitar synthesizer. Actually, he used quite a few odd stringed instruments throghout the show as did every member of the ensemble. It seemed like each person had to play 2 or 3 different instruments through the course of each song. Pat’s Drummer, Antonio Sanchez was really phenomenal. The last time Sharon took me to see PMG, Lyle Mays had a complete Synclavier rig on the tour, but this time i was a little disappointed to see that he was using a couple of Tritons and a Powerbook and a rack sampler with his MIDI Steinway. There was even a track that had an interesting Techno Filtered synth riff patterns that broke out into some Punk Rock sections for the ultimate in fusion. Lyle even picked up a guitar on this track. Still the highlight is watching Pat play the old GR stuff.

PA:: Next Saturday, March 12 I’ll be up in San Francisco giving a little informal Reason 3.0 Demo and Combinator Clinic. The guys at Robotspeak cornered me into it by plying me with barley wine. Anyhoo, it starts at 1:00pm, and hopefully they will have copies of the Reason 3.0 upgrade and full versions. Hopefully GW will join up and share some of his Reason programming knowledge as well.

R3:: If you’re in the UK (actually close to some of the metropolitan areas of the UK), you should go check out James Bernard’s Reason 3.0 Live PA and demonstrations next week. There’s more information on the Propellerhead’s Website. Follow the UK Reason 3.0 Tour Link under the Calendar section.

Celemony has really dropped the price of Melodyne SE, so much so that I had to finally pick up a copy. All the things people have said about it are true. It really is a revolutionary piece of technology.

I was hoping for a little better rewire implementation, but it’s quite simply a straight synchronization with Reason channels added to the Melodyne Mixer, but Melodyne Bridge with Pro Tools is really outstanding! In no time I was tweaking PT tracks with some standard pitch editing to some crazy formant shifting.