The veil between the living and dead is growing thin, and I… uh, have some free music for you. Sorry, it turns out I don’t have a clever lead for this story, and my segue makes no sense. So let’s get to it!

Friend of the Site Liz McLean Knight aka Liz Revision aka Quantazelle of subVariant has put together a special, exclusive mix for CDM of 117-119 bpm musical goodness, excavated from the “_blippy” folder of sketches on her USB drive. Matt Moldover, who has been working on his CD-as-electronic-instrument album, lent his laptop. (Watch him assembling CDs in the video after the break.)

It’s all in celebration of a Halloweeen party Saturday night in Chicago, headlined by Josh Davis (BitShifter). Party ringleader Liz joins Josh on behalf of subVariant to represent the IDM-glitch-minimal-tech-house side of things, and Mr. Automatic (Front 312) and Onefiftyone (Chicago Workshop) will be joining in. If you’re in Chicago, this looks like the place to spend your Saturday. If, like me, you’re not, well, we have some music and videos for you to bring the party home.

Chicagoans:
Going.com Chicago event link + discount
Presale tickets on FractalSpin

And yes, while Josh is working on Game Boys in 8-bit, our CDM mix is fully 16-bit, baby! I’m telling you, 16-bit is totally the future.

Download MP3

Now, for a bit of Josh tearing it up in glorious 8 bits:

Bit Shifter – March of the Nucleotides from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Bit Shifter // Blip Festival 2006: The Videos from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Bitshifter did an interview recently with Chaos Control, for more on his performance techniques and inspiration.

And here’s a video of what Moldover was up to as Liz perfected her mix on his laptop — assembling special-edition versions of his CD, which, thanks to custom electronics in the jewel case, can double as noisemakers instead of just packaging. (See our previous story.)

I’m incredibly saddened to learn that Charlie Cooper, half of Telefon Tel Aviv, has died at age 31. His death on January 22 was revealed by Josh Eustis on the Telefon Tel Aviv MySpace page.

We have been so fortunate to tour the world together, while at the same time having a massive amount of laughs at one another’s expense.

Aside from Charlie’s singular genius and musical gifts, I can tell you that he was a total sweetheart of a guy, and a loving friend and confidant to people everywhere. His musicianship was surpassed only by his greater gift to the world – his warmth, his generosity, his unquenchable humor, and his undying loyalty to those whom he loved. In the spirit of honorable mention, however, I should mention that he had a shoe collection that was marvelous, knowledge of hip-hop that was profound, and knowledge of wine that was subtle.

He is survived by a sister, a neice, a nephew, his mother, his stepfather, me, and more adoring friends than the Universe has dark matter. As such, his family and I ask for your discretion and consideration of our privacy during these extremely turbulent waters.

Reflections on the news from CDM contributor Liz McLean Knight:

Fairenheit Far Away: Charlie Cooper of Telefon Tel Aviv will be missed [Liz Revision]

I certainly wish to respect the privacy of his family and friends, but I suspect that his musical celebrity is such that some of the details of this tragedy may inevitably become public. XLR8R.com points to a CBS Chicago report that he went missing last Wednesday night; an autopsy is scheduled.

RIP Telefon Tel Aviv’s Charlie Cooper [XLR8R.com]

Elsewhere:

Our friend Charlie Cooper from Telefon Tel Aviv has passed away. An unstable time caused by concrete facts and when it is decided that things have settled – it is we who have changed.

A Friend Passes [TRASH_AUDIO]

My heartfelt condolences to Charlie’s family and friends. The musical world will miss one of its great innovators and creative spirits.

I’d certainly welcome thoughts and memories from readers and ways in which we can honor his memory. Feel free to leave ideas in comments.

I’m Chicago-bound this week, and really excited about the events I’m part of, in case you’re in the area:

Wednesday – Re:vivify audiovisual social: Eco-conscious setting and cocktails, all live audiovisual sets. I don’t know these folks, but looking forward to meeting them! “Alexander Bassett going away party, plus live sets by Release, Lokua, Radius, Unkle Garo, with Glen Stephani visuals, Nikki Magdalena readings, Zac Franzoni painting + more.” Expect to spot CDM’s Mike Una making a cameo. I’ll be doing a full live audiovisual set. And Moment Sound, the powerful musical collective, will be showcasing.

Wed., 9p-2a, Grand Blue Line Stop (722 W. Grand Ave. Chicago, Butterfly Social Club)

[ Re:vivify @ Psymbolic + rsvp | going.com ]

Thursday – Andy Vaz meets CDM’s Peter and Liz at Ramp Chicago: The legendary Andy Vaz, the man largely credited with spearheading minimal techno, meets CDM’s own Liz Revision, largely credited with spearheading amazing parties in Chicago, meets me, largely credited with spearheading CDM and distracting you with shiny gadgets in time you should be spearheading some new musical movement. I’m obscenely excited for this one. Eat your heart out, Berlin. And it’s free. I’d say, hey, if you’re in Rockford, Milwaukee, Gary, Indiana, perhaps even Madison or Champaign-Urbana, change those Thursday night plans and come toast with us!

Thurs. 9p-2a, Damen Blue Line stop (1575 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, Debonair Social Club)

[ going.com | facebook | rampchicago.com ]

Flyers and more details …

CHICAGO IL— Andy Vaz, the Dj/Producer, largely credited with spearheading the so-called minimal movement in European dance music, performs at Debonair Social Club in Chicago, June 26 for a very special date on a four city mini-tour of the USA.

A long time presence in the European techno community, Vaz, introduced the world to the complexities offered by the minimal techno genre in its various regional forms, exposing the world to some of the premiere releases by artists such as Akufen, Geoff White, Deadbeat, Stewart Walker, Sutekh and Oliver Hacke through his highly innovative Background Records label. The Dusseldorf native and now Cologne resident has also made an impact on the global house music scene with his highly influential A Touch of Class imprint, on which Vaz’s keen ear for deep house met his minimal production sensibilities.

Currently Vaz’s work has focused on a new label project, Yore records, which brings Detroit and Chicago house producers such as Terrence Dixon and Rick Wade along with Vaz giving these artists a means to further explore their sounds, transcending their usual classifications as “old school.”

Vaz will be joined by NYC based composer and legendary music technology blogger Peter Kirn, of createdigitalmusic.com fame, as well as Ramp Chicago resident DJ Liz Revision.

Video of Andy Vaz live in Vienna…

On display in Chi-town: giant pods to fill rooms with sound, and a man in a sound-induced, hypnotic blizzard of milk. (Yes, they have winter in northern Illinois.)

Snowy Day at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Octophonopod at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Behind-the-scenes commentary is available on Mike’s site, not to be confused with the domain-squatting personals site that you get if you leave out the hyphen. (Will, someday, an entire romantic community be devoted to Una Love? I wouldn’t rule it out.)

One lesson learned: milk can be incompatible with electronics.

In addition to the week’s worth of discussions and skillsharing classes, there will be two “showcase” nights, Saturday Jan. 19th and Sunday Jan. 20th. For those interested, I will be exhibiting two audiosculptural pieces, Octophonopod and Snowy Day during the event on Saturday. There’s a riduculous amount of talent on both nights, amounting to some of the most fresh and innovative people working in sound and motion graphics today.

[- Michael Una]

A full week of buzzing digital media creation will be showcased starting Tuesday, January 15th through Monday, January 21st 2008, at several venues downtown Chicago.

MGFest 08 features two world-premier theater screenings, multiple post-production studio tours, audio/visual art exhibits, a/v performances, six days of motion design / sound design / and motion programming classes.

These events celebrate creative minds and bright ideas within the emerging media landscape. Whether your a hard-core geek, a dedicated composer, a designer, film-maker, artist, engineer, programmer, educator, aficionado, prosumer, hobbyist, or just someone who likes being close to the creative community, mgFest is for you. The festival has become a destination for creative professionals from all over the Midwest and the nation by attracting the meshwork of companies and individuals that surround creative motion-picture design.

Socialize at one or all of the night events while experiencing multimedia art, video and sound in synch. Watch some of the past years most creative shorts or travel thru alternate dimensions in video art. Come mingle with local art directors and advertising executives, or discuss the technical operations of a professional edit bay and graphics shop with seasoned veterans of the industry. Listen to panels on the newest advancements in delivery technology affecting every media professional. Attend cutting edge classes of your choice within the realms of motion design, sound design and programming. Awaken your creativity at the Imagination College.

( Design | Sound | Code ) .: in motion

Check out mgFest.com for the most current festival information. 

Here’s what you’ll see:

A self-proclaimed “multi-hyphenate,” Liz McLean Knight–the sole woman behind Quantazelle–is thoroughly immersed in technology, fashion, music, and the often-surprising overlaps between. She will be demonstrating and discussing the art of “micro-sampling” and other swell digital music production techniques. Once she gets going, this whole thing might turn into a dance party.

Michael Una, an audiovisual artist whose work “investigates how vibrating waves of energy and human consciousness interact” will present simple-but-effective techniques for controlling audio software and hardware with inexpensive, commonly found devices like QWERTY Keyboards, video game joysticks, and bicycles.

In addition to the knowledge we’ll be droppin’, beer and pizza will be served. W3rd.

Here’s how to set up your own system in a similar hands-free operation style, for about US$10, without having to solder anything. It’ll take you about an hour once you gather the parts required, or less. No joke.

You will need:

• A QWERTY keyboard, preferably with a USB connector. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy an adapter to fit your laptop, which costs extra. You can get one for $7.50 at AllElectronics.com, but you can find them even cheaper at your local thrift store’s “technology pile.” I got mine for $2.
• A flathead screwdriver.
• Ableton Live. Ed.: Live is a perfect choice here, but you may find this useful with other music apps, as well — or even in a VJ set. -PK
• A free keyboard-mapping utility called Autohotkey (if you’re running Windows). If you’re running Mac, the program to use is calledIKey.

  That’s it. Here’s how to make it go:

  
  

  Above: Steps 1-2. Simple enough.

  1. You’re going to remove a significant number of the QWERTY keyboard’s keys, leaving only those spaced far enough apart to operate with your foot. Identify which keys you want to keep with a magic marker BEFORE you go hog-wild with the screwdriver, otherwise you’ll lose track of which is which. I ended up with 12 remaining keys, in two rows. Your feet may be smaller or bigger, so experiment with it.

  2. Glue some squares of larger, stiff material to the keys to give your foot a bigger target. I used some plastic lenses (20 cents apiece at American Science & Surplus) and hot glue. Epoxy or a plastic welding cement might work better in the long run.

  3. Plug the keyboard into your computer and boot up Ableton Live.

  4. Download and install either Autohotkey (WIN users) or IKey (Mac).

  5. Here’s the almost-tricky part: In Ableton Live, you need to create a new project with six audio tracks. Arm recording on all tracks. Turn off monitoring for all tracks except one.

  6. Use the keymappping function (click the “KEY” button in the upper right hand corner of Live’s screen) to assign a keystroke to each track’s “record/play” button. It doesn’t matter which keystrokes you assign, because we’re going to be remapping them anyways. For this example, the keys I used were !,@,d,h,k, l.

  7. Create a new script with Autohotkey and enter something similar to what’s pictured below. The 12 keys left on your QWERTY should be put at the start of each line. The idea is that as each key is depressed, Autohotkey remaps those into a sequence of keystrokes.

  I chose to have my top row of buttons select the track, delete whatever’s there, and begin recording. The bottom row of buttons hits “play” on the corresponding track, which stops recording and begins looping on the corresponding track. You can re-trigger loops this way also.

  Here’s an image of my keymaps in Live and the AutoHotkey script I made. Pretty simple, all things considered. I would be happy to share my blank Ableton set and accompanying AutoHotkey script to any windows users who need a little help getting started.

  
  

  If you’re running Mac, here’s an idea of what you’ll have to do using IKey. It’s very similar but slightly different. For instance, we permanently glued the shift key down, to skirt some of IKey’s trigger-key rules.
  

  8. Save the script, activate it (you’ll see the AutoHotKey icon appear in your taskbar), and you’re good to go. It’s that easy.

  The end result? Not too shabby:

  You can hear a track recorded by myself and bandmate Cameron Moore using two MIDI-linked Ableton Live setups here.
  Note: Cameron runs Mac and I run Windows, and we had no issues.

  Check the forums for a more in-depth discussion, and feel free to ask questions. Also, if you decide to undertake this project, please post your results!

  ]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/08/02/get-loopy-with-the-diy-10-ableton-footcontroller-no-soldering-required/feed/ 60 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/31/meatspace-networking-for-musicians-chicago-demo-swap-party-wrap-up/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/31/meatspace-networking-for-musicians-chicago-demo-swap-party-wrap-up/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:45:14 +0000 Liz McLean Knight http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/31/meatspace-networking-for-musicians-chicago-demo-swap-party-wrap-up/

  Ed.: Social networking, online sites (this being one of them), Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace … sometimes it seems like all the connections are being done online. Naturally, the Web’s real power is when you can meet all those virtual personalities you’ve gotten to know offline. Far better than getting demo CDs in the mail or listening to someone’s tracks on MySpace: meeting them at a party over a drink and getting their music from them directly.

  Such is the genius of Chicago’s Demo Swap. Co-organizer Liz has this wrap-up of what July’s party was like. Non-Chicagoans (heck, fellow New Yorkians), clearly this is a model to be replicated elsewhere. A huge thanks to all of the CDMers who showed up. It was fantastic to meet you, and I hope to see you again soon — ideally with more leisure time to hang out! (I’m in Chicagoland regularly.) I was especially impressed by Karl, who was in Chicago from Austria and was embarking on a cross-country drive across the entire length of Route 66 the following morning. Why is that foreigners appreciate America better than most Americans do?

  Here’s how the demo swap went; read closely for some nice music tips and perhaps insight into how to get a demo swap going in your neck of the woods. -PK

  Having done a Demo Swap for Modsquare a while back, we decided that Ramp Chicago’s 2^nd Tuesdays at Sonotheque residency would be a great venue to host the 2007 resurrection of the networking event. On Tuesday the 17^th of July, having plugged-in and sound-checked our guest live PA artists, Protman and Bounte, the crowd started filtering in just as the doors opened at 9pm, and we slapped name badges on them and encouraged them to mingle and swap their demos.Emulsion DJd a downtempo / ambient / electro set while the crowd started to get to know each other and get their drink on, while I schmoozed with the crowd, collecting demos and handling some last minute line level issues that popped up at the last minute. As I was checking said levels in the booth, Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music and his girlfriend arrived and we started introducing them around to the patrons, which would continue to be a non-stop process, as more and more people would come up to me and ask “which one is Peter Kirn?” Thankfully he was wearing a striped shirt which made my task a bit easier.

  Bounte took the stage (which usually means the two satellite tables we set up in front of the booth) and entertained the crowd with his particular style of downtempo-meets-electro pop / credible, instrumental hip hop, completely off of his laptop, mostly undeterred by curious fans who wanted to ask him about his process, software, and upcoming releases.

  Protman followed up with his signature “wireless set” (photo at the beginning) which means using a wireless Xbox 360 Wireless Controller to trigger clips in Ableton Live 6 via his custom-coded PD (Pure Data) interface. As I was making the rounds with our email sign up sheet, I noticed that about a third of the interested people were confused as to why Protman was wandering around with an Xbox controller, and
  where the sound was coming from. Another third told me that he was “absolutely
  mindblowing” or a similar adjective, and the final third wanted to know who was DJing now (Answer: No one. Protman was playing his set with an Xbox controller. Yes, really.).

  Along the way I collected a serious amount of demo discs and I find it rather inspiring that we have such a dedicated range of talent here in Chicago (mostly, as we had a few non-natives make an appearance such as Karl (CDM member from Austria).

  People from the CDM community that I’ve chatted with on Tuesday include Josh Schnable, Michael Una, Nathan Koch and Karl Petermichl. Check out the post on my blog, where I give an overview of the more notable demos I received. At the end of the night, I had to excuse myself from networking so I could DJ the rest of the night, which I posted on my blog. And I was inspired enough to do a remix myself of one of the demos I received. Overall, the night was a success and I’m confident another one will be in the works. Here’s some more photos from the night.

  

  Previously:

  How To Create a Successful Demo Disc: Tips and Resources

  ]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/31/meatspace-networking-for-musicians-chicago-demo-swap-party-wrap-up/feed/ 10