tladb

Project: Electribe Practising song mode with the Electribe. It is not that good but it is a start of something. It is a self motivation exercise. To publish is to complete something even if just at the introductory stage.

Electribe: Today I worked through the Electribe EMX-1 manual trying out the different oscillators, effect and ways to enter in new patterns. There is a lot of versatility with the oscillators while reduced control may be limiting the overall effect allows a good range on instrumental sounds. There is always the PCM sampled waves to fall back on and the sounds which come with the preset patterns can be used as models.

Reference: The Drummers Bible by Mick Berry and Jason Gianni gives examples and a short description of a big/complete range of percussion styles and comes a a cd. The value I see and hear with this book is the ability to add a wider range of drum styles to my music. Recommeded

Soundcloud Music: banmier and Beast_JG started following my soundcloud account so I listerned and followed back. I recommend both. Beast_JG is electronic dance music with an an emphasis on House. bannmier has a surprisingly wide range of styles across and within his songs.

Electribe: The Korg Electribe MX arrived and it is working well and sounding good. I normally like to get my hardware in Australia due to warrantees and electrical power differences but the high price and lack of availability of the Electribe in Australia required an overseas purchase. The Electribe has a price of A$1200. I brought it through Sweetwater for US$499 and even including the postage and power converter from Jaycar the overall price was about half.

The Electribe MX can take audio in for processing (not sampling) which makes it work with iPad apps such as Crystal synth and Bassline. I have also connected the MIDI output from computer programs such as Live and Numerology which provides a lot more sequencing options.

MOTU Ultralight Mk3: My excuse of this purchase was I needed more audio inputs from the iPad, iPhone, Electribe, Microphone etc. The Ultralight really puts ous good sound and the included CueMix software is useful. I particularly like the FFT window which has the EQ settings superimposed over a frequency and spectrograph display.

Two issues though (now one). The volume knob does not seem to actually control main out volume. (Correction: I just needed to set up the monitoring group.) More importantly. When connecting the Ultralite to the computer with USB it conflicts with NI Maschine. It does work with Maschine when using the firewire connection.

Teenage Engineering OP-1 I ordered this on the same day as the availability announcement and it sold out the same day. Perhaps I should have waited for actual hands on reviews but from the limited demos I saw the OP-1 looks to a new style of instrument. It’s about eight weeks to go.