thanks, Glen Stefani!
Genki Sudo / “World Order” <-- Google this guy, he's nuts! (In a good way)
Here’s a cool mini-documentary on the Roland TB-303, by Nate Harrison, the same guy who did the Amen Break documentary.
via Michael O’Shea
Reformat the Planet is a feature-length documentary that focuses on some of the personalities behind the 8-Bit / chiptune scene in New York City, featuring some of our favorite Game Boy artists, notably Bit Shifter.
Reformat the Planet (RTP) is a feature length documentary which delves into the movement known as chip music, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using obsolete video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.
…After documenting several live chip music performances in New York City and being invited to film the first year of the now annual Blip Festival, it was clear that they stood before a rich cultural mine that few were tapping in any long-form projects. The decision to focus the film on the varied personalities of the NYC chip music scene was a quick and obvious one.
Here’s a nice article over at Memeshift with a lot of resources from all over the intertrons for getting started making electronic music. Even though it’s a bit old (2008), it focuses on basic principles and components, like oscillators, filters, synthesizer programming, and sampling. A nice resource for people just getting started.
The author recommends Ableton Live as the sequencer of choice, because it allows for both live performance and more traditional sequencing and I agree. I would also add that to get some really advanced sound and have control over it at a very granular level, look into MAX / Msp. Despite the steep learning curve, and somewhat unintuitive interface, it allows for some very interesting, interactive and experimental projects, like these over at Musicthing and these over at Create Digital Music. There’s a guy who uses turntables to video mix, someone who created an invisible violin using a wii controller and bluetooth with MAX/Msp, and a crazy balloon + lights + sound installation by Monolake at Mutek.
If you just want to play with something online and get the feel for making electronic music, Audiotool (pictured above) is pretty awesome.
“How to Start Marking Electronic Music”
Also, if you live in Chicago, there are other physical humans that can help with your quest at
via
Check out our Soundcloud Meetup at Transistor. The folks from Transistor, a cool music and bookstore in Uptown have kindly agreed to host this Meetup. Also, this Meetup will be a bit tricked up. There will be Soundcloud swag and wi-fi, so people can share their tracks.
From the Soundcloud Meetup Group:
Also, the folks from Soundcloud would like for us to record some audio (music, interviews, whatever) from the meetup to share with the Soundcloud community.
I made a Group on Soundcloud where you can post your tracks: Chicago Innovative Electronic Music Soundcloud Group
When: Wednesday, February 9, 2011
7:00 PM
Where: Transistor, 5045 N Clark St
Chicago, IL
Acrylic on canvas, bread ties. 18″ x 24″. 2010. Liz McLean Knight.
Greeting cards are in full circulation during the holiday season, and I had been thinking a while about something that would be geeky and retro, so I went searching for old-school punch cards.
A punched card (also known by various synonyms) is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Now almost an obsolete recording medium, punched cards were widely used throughout the 19th century for controlling textile looms and in the late 19th and early 20th century for operating fairground organs and related instruments. They were used through the 20th century in unit record machines for input, processing, and data storage. Early digital computers used punched cards, often prepared using keypunch machines, as the primary medium for input of both computer programs and data. -wikipedia
You can grab a set of them at Fractalspin: Punchcards.
{READ MORE}
…Learn your own goddamn language. Once upon a time you could get away with not knowing the difference between “their” and “they’re” because in spoken conversation they sound the same. Online, everybody can see that you weren’t paying attention in fourth grade when you mix up “your” and “you’re.”
Remember that text is going to be how you make your first impression over the internet; if every third word you type is misspelled, people will automatically assume that you’re a moron. Even if the public school system fails you, there are browsers that come with spellcheck built-in.
Briefly:
- Don’t Look Like an Idiot When Communicating Via Text
- Don’t Feed the Trolls
- Don’t Use Online Gaming as an Excuse to Act Like an Ass
- Assume Everything is a Scam and You’ll Almost Always Be Right
- Be Responsible with Porn
Read more: 5 Internet Lessons Parents need to start teaching kids
A coalition of African-American activists and scholars released a strongly worded statement Monday citing the “urgent need” for popular media to depict a new black nerd archetype that more accurately reflects the full spectrum of 21st-century American dorkdom.
“Outdated representations of African-American nerds are simply not cutting it anymore,” the statement read in part. “Perhaps in the ’80s and ’90s it was possible for young people to identify with Steve Urkel’s hiked-up pants, nasal voice, and lovable catchphrase of ‘Did I do that?’ But today’s black nerds are different.”
“They may not carry slide rules and calculators, but they do carry smartphones to make posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare,” the statement continued. “Yet where are the modern-day nerds of color in our films and television programs?”
African-American Community Calls For New Black Nerd Archetype