must_have

rudy’s music stop: electro-harmonix

Four years ago I have bought my Zoom h4n at Manny’s Musical Instruments shop. A nice shop with a quiet wide range of all instruments. Now the shop is closed forever. A new one is too far away in the 33th Street and it is called Sam Ash Music Store. This is what the internet says and it did not mention, that Manny’s is closed. So, while it is raining it decide to go to Rudyl’s Music Stop – A tiny music store vis a vis. I saw it four years ago, but I did not have the time to check it out. Today I did. At Rudy’s I have meat Dave. We spoke about Electro-Harmonix, since I am very pleased with my Memory Man Delay, I was looking for a Reverb FX. He showed me the FX they have in stock and Cathedral made it. Not cheap, but of great quality made in New York. I came to NYC with a decision of buying Korg’s Kaoss Pad Quad. If i would see it somewhere in a shop by chance, propably I would buy it. And now I am happy I did not. I think if Korg is going to work on the Quad as they did with Kaossilator and Kaoss Pad, the updated version of the Quad will be worth of a purchase.
The Cathedral blew my mind! See you again in four years at Rudy’s Music Stop :-)

www.ehx.com
www.rudysmusic.com

Customized Analog Modular Systems

If you are ever in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY – you have to go to this small shop called MeMe Antenna. These guys sell decoration stuff, music and customized analog modular systems. Wide range and not expencive at all. The two nerdy japanese guys are doing the customized stuff and sell this as Modular 3U or 6U Bento Boxes and Happy Ending KIts. Very nice!

Weldroid’s «Protozorq»

tonAtom126_225

it has been a year since weldroid published his second tonAtom release “amateur”. the feedback was extremely positive, leading to two nominations for the schallwelle award. and in the meantime weldroid contributed to several releases here at tonAtom and elsewhere.

it’s spring again and we are proud to see weldroid’s “protozorq” on tonAtom, a release consisting of ten shiny synthetic gems, with seven of them being new original tracks and three remixes by selected artists.
there is a clear line in the works of weldroid leading from his earlier releases on kahvi to this fresh selection of his audio creatures. this time everything seems to be tainted with a slightly darker shadow, with more beats but the same distinctive weldroid atmosphere nonetheless.. and you won’t be missing his characteristic combination of big screen sounds with 8bit-ish textures and agitated rhythms and loops.
three remixes add new colours and aspects, contributed by his long-time collaborator “wolandroid”, by the upcoming french artist “machinophile” and for “AN MOKU”, known to the tonAtom audience as one half of the duo “nation of clang”.

“protozorq” is a refinement of the weldroid sound for 2013 and beyond, suitable for “already fans” and “soon-to-be fans”.

Download: http://tonatom.net/releases/126/

Virlyn’s «Man asleep»

“Man Asleep” is an electronic experiment with a wide variety of instruments. The idea is to deform and reform the classic sounds of various instruments and vocals and to reuse them in an electronic and atmospheric setting. With an emphasis on experimentation the original musical output of the instrument is reshaped and distorted beyond recognition. A second constant is the use of housemade sounds and field recordings, varying from recordings from nature (rain, fire, footsteps in snow) to the use of selfmade wooden and plastic sound reproducing equipment. These field recordings and homemade sounds infuse the soundscapes with a more tangible and less elusive sensation.

Instruments and software: cello, violin, banjo, flute, duduk, percussion, house made sound devices, FL Studio, Audition.

credits

released 23 April 2013
Vocals on ‘Lorelei’, ‘Dawn’ and ‘Kristal’ by Cristiane Silva Corten.
Sax on ‘Dawn’ by Lucas Van Milders.
Duduk on ‘Lilith’ by Lieven Stockx.
Cello on ‘Descent’ recorded by Dominik Grenzler.
Violin on ‘Swan’ and ‘Kristal’ recorded by Frédéric Vanderlynden.
Field recordings by Frédéric Vanderlynden.
‘Mirror’ is part of a collaboration with Dominik Grenzler aka AN MOKU.Artwork by Emma Shoard | www.emmashoard.co.uk

Thanks to Grzegorz Bojanek @ ETALABEL, Dominik Grenzler, Cristiane Silva Corten, Lucas Van Milders, Emma Shoard, Pauline & Anémone Vanderlynden, Hilde Declerck, Mateusz Bąkała @ Widzimisie, Serge Vanderlynden and finally Joannes Truyens for endlessly having to listen to my experiments.

Special thanks to Dominique Grenzler for the musical input.

«How to catch STILLE?» Release!

Hello everybody!

Today is the official release day of the project album «How to catch STILLE?».
It took more than six months to gather all the tracks from the artists worldwide. And before that it took also some months to organize the remixes and to find the right way to go with that project. More informations to come.

On behalf of all artists – we hope you like this project and can support it!

Thank you

AN MOKU

Making of MONONOCLE

«MONONOCLE» is about transforming sounds and wooden noise. Hum, thunk and clunk. It is like listening to repeating sounds in different ways without recognising the source sound. That’s the beauty of the album.
MONONOCLE is a conceptional album based on the session called STOCKWERK created for a Belgic radio show in August, 2012.


1. Melting Point 5:10
The source sound of the opener is a sinus wave sound out of an old oscillator which i used a lot  on my previous album «STILLE». I love the high freuquency sounds. They hurt in the ears. They are heavy and shrill. Kid Schurke told my two years ago, that he is not able to listen to  the whole track «Húm», because he is getting dizzy. That is a compliment!

The basic structure was made in 2010, right after finishing «STILLE». I have added sounds of an old typewriter, which i also used for EREMIT and OKO, and added sounds of my squeaking parquet at home captured with different microphones. Transformed everything.

copyright by Dominik Grenzler

Source:
Exploring new soundscapes
Stan Pete

2. Eremit 8:37
EREMIT and OKO are based on old shots from 2008 made with Reason3. The main synth sound of EREMIT is developed with my patch for Combinator built in 2007. I have called it TP77. That is a shortcut of my old artist name which i used during the first years of Nation of Clang: Tytus Pixiedust and 77 stands for my year of birth. I came up with this sound again in august during a sleepless night while looking for old recordings at my discarted PC and found this recording called Blade Runner. How excited I have been. Some of the TP77 sounds have been used back in the days in Nation of Clang’s «Earth in dust». It is released a few days ago finally :-)

copyright by Dominik Grenzler

Furthermore i used jazz brushes and scratched an old typewriter and a narrow carpet at the same time, placed a microphone between them and enjoyed the sound coming out, sounding like coal-shoveling down in an old scary mine or if you like – digging a grave! I transformed this sound, too and used it in every track of this album in different ways.

The track develops very slowly. A quiet bassdrum in the background. The listener gets enough space for his own imagination. Weldroid made an automatisation which goes up and down on the 2nd synth layer. It is like acting as if in a trance.

copyright by Dominik Grenzler

3. Kodama 4:41
KODAMA is built on the “beat like sounds” made for STOCKWERK. I came up with the idea of that track during my last stay in Tokyo while i was watching rain drops crashing on the ground in a temple. Ending sounds are modified violin sounds. The whole track is made out of «Stumme Orgel, Stumme Geige». The floating synth in the background is made by Weldroid.
Stumme Orgel, Stumme Geige:

4. Stockwerk 44:59
This track is the heart of the album. A friend of mine asked me if i would like to do a radio show. I said – yes why not! – And STOCKWERK was born. The literal translation of the German word “Stockwerk” is “level”, “floor”, the word “Stock” means also “stick” and  “Werk” stands for “creation”, “movement”. Maybe an inspiration by Stockhausen or just by Jarre’s track named “Waiting for Cousteau”? STOCKWERK contains parts of my older works. Especially the wooden sounded «Stumme Orgel, Stumme Geige» and the whole previous album «STILLE». But also a short piano sequence of «The Room» made with Virlyn.
Therefor i have used a selection of acoustic sounds of Violins, Celli, Organ, their cases and my squeaking parquet at home. The intention was to make new structures out of those captured sounds by remixing them. I did this using KP3 and Memory Man while sampling the output with Max5 again and again. The result sounds almost like a kind of beats and altered violin synth sounds. Sometimes like a female voice whispering incomprehensilby or even vinyl scratches.

One shot is a transformed sound out of a coffee grinder recording session which i did for John Cage’s Musicircus in Darmstadt (D). It sounds like a crazy DIY toy sound box.

Some soundscapes have been modified with Gleetchlab3 additiolally.

Source:
Preparations
Geigenaufnahmen
Quitschende Kaffeemühle
Orgelaufnahmen
Monochordaufnahmen
Pianoaufnahmen
Celloaufnahmen
Steinfarben

5. Oko 8:26
OKO is the last track of the album. It is the dark epilog. OKO contains the same sounds as all other tracks but transformed again. The soundscapes have been modified with Gleetchlab3 additiolally.

copyright by Dominik Grenzler

If you need some dark and heavy stuff for the long winter days – this will be your soundtrack :-) 

Credits:
Hardware: Violin, Piano, Monochord, Cello, Organ, Cases, Coffee grinder, Type writer, Pipes, Bells, Tuning fork, Jazz brushes, Oscillator, KP3, Memory Man, Binaural mics, Contact bow, Contact mics, H4n, H2
Software: Logic, Max, Gleetchlab, TP77
Performers: Violin by Anne-Catherine Vonaesch; Piano, Monochord, Tuning fork, Bells by Cornellia Stromeyer; Organ by Michael Schmid; Cello by Jackie Knöpfel
Mixing and mastering: Weldroid
Cover photo:  Dominik Grenzler
Cover design: Mateusz Bąkała

one20: soundtrack for doomsday!

music: nation of clang (an moku & bnibs)
earth in dust: field recordings: bnibs
mix&master: weldroid
artwork – photo: an moku
artwork – design: bnibs
license: cc-nc-by-nd

the two-man orchestra presents – the story of the apocalypse in three acts at 120 beats per minute. a bleak, electronic musical fireworks display of 12:57 minutes length.
ladies and gentleman: your soundtrack for doomsday!

free download: http://tonatom.net/releases/123/

Minute

Minute is my favorite App for iPhone currently. It is very easy to use and it is designed by Henry Lowengard. You can get the new version 1.0.1 for free.

Minute is inspired by works and ideas of composer John Cage, specifically his pieces “Indeterminacy” and “Essay.”

Up to one minute of sound can be recorded, by touching the central red circle.

The recorded sound is analyzed into “words” and “spaces” and then resynthesized in one of these two ways by flipping the “play grays silently” switch.:

  • “Words” are detected and the “spaces” around them are stretched until the resulting sound reaches the specified length, which is initially set to one minute. These “spaces” can be suppressed and played as true silence.
  • Instead of the “spaces” being stretched, the “words” are. The “words” can also be suppressed, so that only the silences between them are heard.
  • The level distinguishing words from spaces can be set by touching the screen, while the desired length of the resulting sound is controlled by the slider. If the stretch amont is less than 1, which can happen if there is a lot of silence relative to the amount of time to squeeze it into, it will suppress playing the stretched sound entirely!
  • A volume slider lets you adjust Minute’s audio to a comfortable level.

  • A message at the bottom of the screen tells you how much the stretched sounds are stretched, and the silence level.

    The parts of the sound that are played without stretching are marked in red, while the stretched or suppressed parts are in gray (or very light gray if they are “silent”).

    You can adjust Minute so that the sound you play is always stretched by setting the “spaces level” very high.