Like the final track on Sergeant Pepper, like the Beatles themselves, the end for EMI came with a sob and a sigh. At tea-time on Monday, the world’s oldest record company declared losses of £264 million and no hope of recovery. A sale was announced to Terra Firma, an equity firm which will strip the ship for early resale, probably to Hollywood rival, Warner. A century of record history and the heart of British music was tossed onto the auction block with no regard for public sentiment or the devastating cultural consequences that attend the destruction of tradition.

Jason Page and Michael Kelly spoke to GDC attendees about creating next-generation audio on the Sony Playstation 3. In a surprising discussion, Sony's Jason Page admitted that the future of video game music may be based in technology that's considered antiquated by most: MIDI. Many developers have been moving away from MIDI to pre-recorded, orchestrated background music, but in the process, the interactivity of game music has been sacrificed.

If you really, really like Synth Popmusic you have to check out the BBC 6Music website. This music channel for alternative music has a very cool Top Ten for you.

Here's the chart in full:

1. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric?
2. A Flock Of Seagulls – Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)
3. Duran Duran – The Chauffeur
4. John Fox – Underpass
5. Daft Punk – Da Funk
6. Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
7. Gary Numan – Metal Who
8. Naked Lunch – La Femme
9. Men Without Hats – The Safety Dance
10. Kraftwerk – The Model

Best of all is you can listen to the tracks in FULL and any time you want. Isn't the internet cool or what? Just enjoy them as I did, over and over, and over!

The reactable, is a state-of-the-art multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical artefacts on the table surface and constructing different audio topologies in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

On YouTube are some video demos.

reactable: basic demo #1
reactable: basic demo #2
reactable: basic demo #3

 (More)

Gearjunkies have a lot in common with Audiofiles. They both get excited by cool gear. We strive to find the latest news and get excited when a manufacturer comes up with a new product. Especially when it is based on new technology, or when it uses old technology on a new basis. But I don't want to talk about technology. No, I want to talk about art. Sometimes a product can be so incredily beautifull that you get real excited or just feel goosebumps on your arms.

Via AVBuzz I came across a picture of a hifi set!

Ok what does this mean? Well film company ZU33 is planning to make a movie on the gods of electronic music. ZU33 is set to begin production next month on SYNTH GOD. After more than a year's worth of intensive R&D, the makers of the critically acclaimed film MOOG are embarking on a far-reaching search for the gods of electronic music in this ambitious new feature-length documentary film project.

From the ZU33 website:
Filmmaker/musician Hans Fjellestad will write and direct the film. Fjellestad explains:
"Since the late 1960s, keyboardists have used the synthesizer to stake out new territory in popular music, perhaps in a way unparalleled since the baroque organists of the early 18th century or the concert pianist 'rock star' romantics 100 years later or speed-demon ragtime pianists 100 years after that. Now with another century past, musical styles and technologies have taken off in all kinds of unexpected directions. And the Synth Gods lead the way. Their pantheon is massive and full of all shapes, sounds and flavors. I want to paint a huge crazy mural that illustrates the history and currency of every Synth God species on the planet, and the instrument that gives them their power."

Producer Ryan Page adds:
"The support from the music community has been amazing. There are so many people who have already stepped up to participate behind the camera and in front of it. This project is shaping up to be something more comprehensive and huge than any doc we've made to date."

This is the third music-oriented documentary feature from Fjellestad and Page.

As a true gearjunkie and lover of electronic music, this project tickles my fancy! I can't wait....

The late Bob Moog who brought electronic music to the masses, has been inventing and building electronic musical instruments for nearly half a century. Moog's inventions continue to shape musical culture with some of the most inspiring instruments ever created.

Maybe I have mentioned this here before but in the 80's I matured musically. This period I became aware of my love for music. In retrospec I think this period is so interesting because the music from this period is really different then music of now. With this I mean in the 80's that new thing called electronic music became apparent. The synthesizer revolutionised the music industry. With this new instrument complete new genres were created. Just think of the dance scene.

Blancmange, Psychedelic Furs, Flock of Seagulls, and so MUCH more.

So, with this in mind I have yet another goodie for you. I came across Milinkito. This is an archive of links (towards YouTube amongst others) of very cool music videos from the 80's (and of course some of the 90's too). For example the very first link is from A Flock Of Seagulls. For me personally one of the great (weird) bands from that time. This track made me very happy, and made me write this post just to share this resource with you! Just check it out, it's amazing!

Earplug represents a new voice for the massive and innovative, but largely disconnected, world of electronic music. We offer only pure editorial content and unbiased news — no money is accepted from any artists, promoters, or marketing companies seeking mention.

Earplug is part of the Flavorpill network. Flavorpill delivers quality, accessible, usable information about events, art, books, electronic music, and fashion — filtered bits of knowledge that help you better navigate an ever-expanding sea of cultural options. In simpler speak, we provide worthwhile motivation to get off your couch, and your computer.

EARPLUG

With my daily wanderings around the internet, I came across the website of Valerio Spoletini. He is a graduate student at the University of art & Design Lausanne. V-scratch is his diploma project. As he is into scratching and vjing for several years, he had the opportunity to combine these imterests in one: V-scratch.

His project is of course not completely new. More and more we see the fusion of (live) audio and video these days. Even the big boys in the industry have recently released mixers that combine audio and video. Numark's AVM02, Korg's Kaptivator, and more on the way. Next to the DJ the VJ takes an important place in the 'dance scene' these days. So the visual dimension of music is getting more important.

V-Scratch is a slight diversion from the above mentioned, as Valerio scratches live and the sounds are being translated in visuals in real-time. Check out his website where he has published two videos.

V-Scratch

If you are on the internet, you probably know YouTube. A website where people can show their videos of almost any subject. I know them mostly from the videos of funny TV shows, jack-ass wannabees, sporting accidents, what ever. As I said all kinds of subjects.

But, next to these, let's say 'pretending to be funny' videos, there are some really, really cool videos too. I did a search at YouTube for the keywords: Vintage, Synthesizers, Analog. And this search returned a list of very interesting videos.

- Ever wondered how the inside of a mellotron looks like?
- Exploration of the Korg PS-3100
- Discovering Electronic Music - educational film

This are just three examples of videos that a true Gearjunkie would enjoy watching. So if you look carefully there are some real gems on YouTube that definately will warm the hearts of true Gearjunkies. ..... Yeah you know you are!!!!

Long time ago, I discovered 'new' music. It was the late 70's and early 80's. This NEW music was the music generated with electronic instruments. It was the time that synthesizers emerged to the music scene. It was that time that one of my all time heroes touched my music heart, Monsieur Jean Michel Jarre.

I can remember listening to his albums and getting all excited by those incredible sounds. Sounds you never had heart before. Because this new musical technology gave us the synthesizer (and sampler) you truly could speak of new music. In my opinion of course. From that time on I slowly started to become a gearjunkie. Always wanting to see and hear what GEAR musicians use. And if you read this, ... the chance that you are a gearjunkie too is above avaerage. Right?

So that's why I called this post a 'Must See', because I came across these videos of Jean Michel Jarre, where he explains his gear collection and set up. The quality isn't really good and you have to speak French to understand what Jean is saying but it is still a fantastic watch.

Video

And more Jean Michel Jarre

"It is a conceptual software which makes it possible to work with samples in a completely new way by making them available in a manner that does justice to their nature as concrete musical memories."

Above is the 'concept' of sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ! It is a project by Sven Koenig where he cuts up tracks and makes sound snippets which are stored in a database. These snippets can then be played using any (midi)device and even your own voice. The used snippets are stored in the database by their sound signature (tone). ... Well actually, the concept is really very complex. I am not sure if I understand it myself, but does it tickle my interest? Oh yes for sure. So instead of me trying to tell you what it does, check out a cool video that explains the whole deal!

To summarize the concept, the sub-title says enough I think: "sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ! is a Realtime-Mind-Music-Video-Re-De-Construction-Machine."

sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ!

Uhm yeah, ... I am not talking about the Noise reduction platform. Nope! I was referring to mr. Thomas Dolby. A pop/electronic music icon of the 80's. Well that is where I knew him from. He is still performing as we speak. I came across mr. Dolby's personal blog and read a very interesting post of him about his Gear Setup for his current live tour.

An excerpt from that post: "My live show is running primarily in Logic Pro 7.2 on a Power Mac G5 dual 2.0Ghz running OSX 10.4. I have a rack containing an uninteruptable power supply, Firepod audio interface, MOTU MIDI interface, and a Nord 3 rack synth. My three keyboard controllers are a CME 7, a Novation SL25 ReMOTE, and a Virus TI Polar (below). This is the only one of the keyboards that actually generates its own sounds–it’s a new kind of hybrid, as it has its own plug-in/editor in Logic so you get all those advantages without the CPU load or latency. The others don’t make sound, they’re just used as MIDI controllers."

For the real Gearjunkie this is of course very interesting info. A live rig setup which doesn't cost a fortune. If you look at the gear he mentions in his post and add the costs up, you get to a very decent 4000-5000 dollars. That is quite amazing I think. I sure would have expected a whole lot more when thinking of a setup for a live tour.

Next to information on the gear he is using he writes about his working methods. Personally I love this stuff. Reading how pro's use music technology, how they choose their set up, and more.

Thanks to CDM. For the rest of the setup story of Thomas Dolby please visit his personal blog.

Ok then this is quite amazing. For some of us, working with software is the way to go. Music software is already taking over the world of music production as we speak and is doing this for years now already.

Would you say that you could have a decent software studio for under 64 GB, in size of course? Well, nowadays you can!

Kanguru Flash Drive

This flash drive has a capacity of 64GB! Isn't that amazing? That's almost as much as my PC. Incredible. And I think 64GB is more then enough for an average music production setup. Don't you? Pretty cool that you can travel around with a complete studio in your pocket. On a USB stick the size of a small cigarette lighter. But don't start running the your local store, as the price is 800 bucks! A bit on the hefty side, I think.

These last two years (give or take one year) the iPod has become the most popular personal music player in the world. Apple has made hundreds of millions in profits and the stock price of Apple went through the roof. Just with this little, flat, white box you can put in your pocket. That's pretty neat. And let's be fair, its design looks pretty cool too.

Last year Numark came with the iPod mixer. Surfing on the popularity of the iPod they made a mixer for your iPod(s) so you could mix your music tracks with just the iPod and a mixer. The whole scene got into the buzzzzz. Good publicity I thought, but nothing more then that. The iDJ mixer didn't have pitch control, scratching was not possible and you needed two (!!) iPods to make this concept work. So! Nothing to take serious, ... right? At least not for the real DJ's among us.

But what happened this year at the MusikMesse? Yep, ... Numark introduced the iDj2! Now with the features the first iDJ missed out on. Because now you can scratch! And you only need one iPod, since you can play two songs off of it at once? And Numark added not only pitch control but loop cross-fading? And you can use any USB hard drive!

So yes, the new iPod DJ-mixer from Numark got some real usefull new features, but did it become more serious now? Is this iPod mixing craze for real? I can't imagine seeing my favorit Dj's coming to the club with just a iPod and a small flight case with the new iDJ2 mixer. .... I just can't!

This week the MIPA (Musikmesse International Press Award) 2006 were presented. From numerous gear categories they chose the winner in that particular category. Press from all over the world got their votes in. I will name the winners and the other contestants in the categories we as Gearjunkies are interested in (winners are displayed in BOLD):

- Synthesizer (Hardware)
* Access Virus TI
* Dave Smith Poly Evolver
* Korg Radias

- Stage Piano
* Clavia Nord Stage
* Kawai MP8
* Roland RD700SX

- Keyboard Workstation
* Korg OASYS
* Roland Fantom X-Series
* Yamaha Motif ES

- Software Instruments
* Arturia Prophet V
* G-Force Minimonsta
* NI Reaktor V

- Mixing Desk (Project Studio)
* Mackie Onyx
* TL Audio M4
* Yamaha 01V96V2

- Mixing Desk (High End)
* AMS Neve 88D
* Digidesign ICON
* SSL AWS900

- Recording Software:
* Digidesign Protools 7
* Logic 7.2
* Steinberg Nuendo 3

- Recording Hardware
* M-Audio Project mix I/O
* RME Fireface 800
* Universal Audio LA3A Re-issue

- Recording Effects (Hardware/Software)
* AudioEase Altiverb 5
* NI Guitar Rig 2
* TC Electronic Voice Pro

- Sampler
* NI Kontakt
* Steinberg HALion 3
* Tascam Gigastudio

- DJ-Tools (Hardware)
* Akai MPC-2500
* Korg KAOSS Pad entrancer
* UREI/Soundcraft 1620LE

- DJ-Software
* Ableton Live 5
* NI Traktor 3
* Stanton Final Scratch 2

Well some are right on the money, but some results are surprising. Take this list as is. Make up your own mind and put your personal MusikMesse choice in the comments!

Last night the backend server of the Gearjunkies.Network was unavailable. A lot of development is going on right now with the framework technology and the trusty OpenBSD firewall machine had a hickup.

So...how do you like our bee flying around?