This game, as much as any other Sierra game, deserves to be explored thoroughly and slowly.  Every line of dialogue yearns to be heard; every object and cranny begs to be inspected.  No less important, the wonderful soundtrack deserves to be orchestrated with the finest clarity one can bestow.

That’s why I set out to look for a nice soundfont – a bank of MIDI instruments of a higher quality than the paltry one that comes with Windows 7.

The nicest I’ve found so far, with the best compatibility for DOS games, is this General MIDI soundfont by David Shan.  It’s about 250MB unzipped and likely requires a fancier soundcard than an onboard Realtek.  My Creative X-Fi Titanium does the trick nicely.

Unfortunately, getting this sucker installed and applied was no easy task.

After first downloading the above soundfont to a permanent location on my hard drive, I downloaded and installed the Creative Soundfont Bank Manager (which probably only works on Creative sound cards).  I then increased the cache to 250MB and changed the mode to static since I have 4GB of RAM to play with.

I then clicked the Bank button, navigated to the soundfont file, and applied.  Using the virtual piano in the application I immediately heard the improved sounds of the new soundfont.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get the new soundfont to work in Windows, as was evidenced by my attempts to play MIDI files in Windows Media Player.  My reference song, chosen for its instruments and its overall cheesiness, is All That She Wants by Ace of Base.

It seems Microsoft, in all its wisdom, removed the MIDI Mapper from Windows versions Vista and up.  The MIDI Mapper was the application that allowed you to choose which device you wanted to play MIDI songs with.  I couldn’t find this option in the Creative Soundfont Bank Manager, nor anywhere else in Windows 7.  A few Bing searches directed me to this page which appeared to host the precise solution I was looking for: a Windows Control Panel module that mimicked the old MIDI Mapper.

Here’s an alternative download for the Putzlowitschs Vista-MIDIMapper utility, hosted on my server, in case the original goes down.  This is a binary file which seems to work for me, but I can’t attest to whether it is a secure or safe file.

I saved this file to my desktop and double-clicked it which brought up the window you see in the screenshot below.

I chose Synth A, which is the synth I had mapped the David Shan soundfont to, clicked Apply, and loaded up my Ace of Base reference file.  Here are samples of what I heard:

default MS GS Wavetable Synth:

David Shan General MIDI soundfont bank:

The Gabriel Knight soundtrack never sounded so good.  The unfortunate side-effect is that the sharp music stands in stark contrast with the decidedly low-fi voiceover recordings.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Going from gargle to warble

Deadmau5 is a Canadian chap so I Wikipediaed him when I got home.� He’s just a couple of years younger than me, and lives in Toronto, so I assumed a bit of a kinship with him.� After all, Toronto is truly a world-class city, especially when it comes to music, and especially especially in the global history of electronic music scenes as this fair city has producers and DJs to spare.� That’s why I was so surprised and even a little betrayed when I read a quote of his (on his Wikipedia page) about his perception of DJing:

It puts me to fucking sleep to be quite honest, I don’t really see the technical merit in playing two songs at the same speed together and it bores me to fucking tears and hopefully with all due respect to the DJ type that will fucking go the way of the dinosaur id like them to dis-a-fucking-pear. It’s so middle man, they’re like fucking lawyers. You need them, but they’re fucking cunts. God bless them they’re my number one customer right so I’m not gonna go diss every fucking DJ. But to say you become this massive up on a podium performer by playing other peoples productions at the same speed as someone else’s productions and fading between the two of them, I don’t get it.

Damn right you don’t get it.

I’ve been on both sides of the fence, having composed a lot of music myself and later dedicating many years to the hobby of DJing, so I think I’ve earned my fair say on this matter.

Deadmau5 is full of it.� For many reasons.� Here’s the first and most important:

DJING IS VALID.

DJing is a means of creative expression and performance that takes sense, skill, practise, and a gift.� Not just anyone can do it at all, fewer can do it well, and no two DJs will exhibit the same technique.� One’s technique and style are uniquely theirs, and these are things that change and mature with practise and age, no different than any other creative expression.

I’m irritated by those who say that DJing is no more than putting two songs together, and that a DJ is nothing without the works of others.� To me that’s as vapid a statement as calling Deadmau5 a biter because his songs use the 4/4 time signature, or berating Douglas Adams for writing stories in English rather than inventing his own language.� Venetian Snares uses 7/8 time signatures, and Anthony Burgess uses a lot of slavic and made-up words in “A Clockwork Orange”, and good for them, but they’re by no means the epitomical figureheads of their respective media.

Creative expression is all about displaying contrast by means of a point of reference.� You start somewhere familiar to your audience, and you add an element of personality so that people understand the perception you are trying to convey versus that starting point.

• My song is about how much I love my girlfriend and how we will be together forever.
  • My song is about how much I love my girlfriend, but tragedy struck so we cannot be together.
    • My song is about I hate my ex-girlfriend, but tragedy struck and she died so now I’m happy.
      • My song is about how much I hate my ex-girlfriend, but I use all major chords which makes the song sound ironically happy.
        • My song is about how my abusive relationship is an allegory for how propaganda distorts perceptions of fascist dictatorships.

These are all examples of songs, but they can’t be considered entirely original because they all use the same basic themes.� However, each iteration has additional meaning as contrasted with its predecessor.� If one is familiar with this history, their appreciation would be all the richer.

Deadmau5 does not exist in a vacuum that exempts him from this.� From what I’ve heard of him his style is consistently minimal electro techno.� The very name of this genre denotes the major iterations that occurred before he picked up the ball.� I’d love to play some excerpts with more specific examples, citing histories behind his patterns and even his very instruments, but Deadmau5 strikes me as the litigious type.

His biggest hypocrisy is, obviously, the fact that his album “Random Album Title” is beatmatched and mixed.� There is no flare or style to these transitions – they are clinical and utilitarian.� This is precisely the sort of inanity Deadmau5 complained about.� I can think of only one reason he would make this decision if not for artistic merit, and that is to ruin the beginnings and ends of each song on the album so that DJs will have to buy the single.

This is only my presumption, but I cannot respect any artist who sacrifices artistry for profits.

I initially enjoyed listening to this album, but I see it in a new light now that I have some back story.� I can’t see this album as anything but the half-assed embodiment of everything the artist himself hates.� Instant turn-off.

With the definition of poor mixing in mind, what is a DJ and what do they bring to the tables?

A DJ is a musician, first and foremost.� The DJ collects music and weaves them into a contiguous production of his or her personal design.� Like songwriters who choose instruments and weave them into songs, the order and means of playing a collection of songs is what makes all the difference between two DJs.� A DJ’s technical abilities, creative decisions, and the moods they convey will attract some listeners and repel others.

Closed-minded people will say that all DJs do the same thing, just as easily as one unenlightened person might easily say that all hip hop is the same.� Sweeping generalizations about vast genres are rarely true.

I’ll address 2 of Deadmau5’s specific comments.� First:

I don’t really see the technical merit in playing two songs at the same speed together…

I don’t even know what he means by “technical merit”.� Most (but not all) people focus their concentration on non-technical elements of music; more the mood and message, I’d think.� Still, to my ears, it’s far easier to detect the minutiae of a DJ than that of a songwriter – thanks in no small part to the fact that the DJ does his thing live, in real time.

Still, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s the context of interposing one song with another that is significant. Let’s say I have two CDs side-by-side on my shelf: the self-titled album by the band Garbage, and the soundtrack to the stage musical Grease.� A music enthusiast might infer that I have a preference for powerful female lead vocals, while a less-informed person might see only the title of each album and assume I enjoy living in squalor.

To his second point:

But to say you become this massive up on a podium performer by playing other peoples productions at the same speed as someone else’s productions and fading between the two of them, I don’t get it.

This is two points I suppose.� As for an entertainer – ANY entertainer – being treated as someone truly important, I must agree that it is a superficial, superfluous job and the world would be little worse without any one such individual.� But the inference that all a DJ does is fade between songs is what I take exception to, and I’ve got the wherewithal to back up my claim.

http://blog.demodulated.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/juggling.mp3

This is an excerpt from one of my occasional internet DJ shows (www.radiogrounds.com ftw!).� I’m mixing between two songs that I love and am very familiar with.� I know from experience that these songs are complementary and sound good while simply overlapped, playing at the same speed at the same time.� However, to do so would be basic and uncreative – simply the bare minimum effort that one might call DJing.� I apply my knowledge, technique, and love to this scenario and add a little flare, challenging my listeners to keep up with me.

Naturally it’s not always the case with all types of music but Deadmau5 himself admits to being popularized thanks to the promotional efforts of DJs, punctuating the symbiosis and not reliance of one upon the other.

No one pursuit is more valid than the other, and they can coexist just fine without an artist and DJ ever having to co-operate or compromise or endure the arrogance of the other.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Beating a Deadmau5

Some enormous names have been birthed or featuredc by Kniteforce including Luna-C, Cru-L-T, Ham, Brisk, Force, Jimmy J, and Future Primitive.� Their sounds are mostly higher BPM than other labels, probably averaging around 165 or 170, and feature happy piano tunes, aggressive percussive jams, dreamy jungle tracks, and just about every permutation in-between.� It’s all here for free, ripe for the plucking.

I’m going to donate a little something to compensate for the several gigs of breaky goodness I’ve downloaded today.

Here’s the link to the Kniteforce sub-labels page, and here’s links to all the participating labels with free music:

• Kniteforce
• KFX
• Malice
• Knitebreed
• Dyne
• Influential
• Infiltration
• Strange Room

If my wife is goodly enough to endure these frenetic snares over the winter holiday I’ll be sure to post my resulting DJ mix!� I can’t wait to get my hands all over this collection!

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Sheer and utter Luna-C

It’s a concise film but packs a punch factually, enthusiastically, and musically.  Not having owned a C64 I didn’t recognize any of the composers (except Rob Hubbard who was mentioned but not interviewed) but I fully appreciated and greatly admired their analyses of why the C64, a limited machine by any definition, was such a special platform for music.

If you’re a nerd worth your salt you will devour this documentary.

Check out the trailer below, or grab the film from the official 8Bit Philosophy website.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

The 8Bit Philosophy

With a pair of headphones on it’s incredible what a range of crisp, raspy waves the DS can belt out – and simultaneously to boot.� DS-10 gives you two lead synthesizers and a drum machine, effects modules, a mixing board, and a virtual patch board to generate sounds.� A primitive sequencer puts it all in order, and given the small screens and resolutions it does a really good job of conveying and separating information across the two screens, but many of the memory and control features are scaled back due to the limitations of the DS platform so it’s really not much more than a toy.

That’s perfectly okay with me, though, because it’s really fun to toy around with.� The manuals are all in Japanese but the interface is completely English.� Loading up, playing, and modifying the awesome demo song helped me learn all the basics, and with this limited package the basics are as much as you need to know.

Writing music came back to me really easily, and I looped a few little 4-bar jams until I came up with the full-on middle of the song – something catchy and driving.� Then I replaced all the default instruments with some custom ones, which I’d revisit and tweak occasionally.� I had fun with all the knobs and the patch panel, and generated lots of dissonant and swirly sounds with the flanger.

I copied the primary 4-bar pattern to the other 16 patterns and varied them all slightly.� Then I put the patterns in order using the clunky sequencer.� I wanted to make a long song of 6 or 8 minutes but ran out of space very quickly.� This was kind of a shame, but I enjoy working within limitations and found it kind of liberating to be forced to compose little more than a song mcnugget.

It’s ugly and simplistic but I like this song.� It’s the first song I’ve written in 11 years which I feel kinda proud of.� I love the fidelity of the sounds and it recorded quite cleanly with a male-to-male 1/8″ cable in my Audigy 2′s line in port.

As I was recording it in Audacity I asked my wife to recommend a name that describes the sound.� She didn’t hesitate to suggest this one.� Click below to download my song if you’re a real masochist.

Download Brian’s Movement Number 2

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

My creativity dribbles unfettered

Listen to this without delay and solve for X.

Nicky Blackmarket with Stevie Hyper D and MC Moose on CKLN FM Toronto 1996

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

X amount of flavour

The latest version of Audiosurf added last.fm support which was a value-add I couldn’t pass up.� last.fm is a social network service that keeps track of the songs you listen to.� I ran this for a few weeks and was really intrigued by the analytics it presents.� You can see your most listened-to artists, related artists, hear previews of other songs, and see what other last.fm users have similar tastes – the latter being a great way to discover new artists enjoyed by musical cousins you never knew you had.

last.fm calls this voluntary submission of your playlists “audioscrobbling”, and I’d have been scrobbling sooner if I weren’t limited to their crappy proprietary audio player.� Happily, a talented programmer by the name of Florian has released the foo_audioscrobbler plugin for Foobar2000, my very favourite (Windows only) audio player.� The plugin works behind the scenes and doesn’t seem to slow anything down.

Now everything I hear, I can read about later!� And so can you!

As you may have noticed, I’ve added the fantastic and minimalist Last.fm for WordPress plugin to my blog, authored by Rick of Rick’s HideOut.� I much prefer Rick’s plugin to the official last.fm Widget which is too Flashy and ostentatious for my liking.� Rick’s simple plugin does all the processing on the server side.

So have a look at my sidebar to see what I’m into, and click the title under “Playlist” (or just click here) for a look at my full profile.� Feel free to add me to your last.fm friends list, though I’m not much of a social networker.� Unfortunately I had to create a new last.fm account since I wasn’t comfortable publishing my last one, so my listening history only goes back a few days so far.

What do you think of the plugin?� Too much?� Or too cool?

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Descrobulated

I thought I’d post a directory listing (dir /s m:\Brian’s CDs\ > cdcollection.txt) of my collection for posterity. Perhaps some call me old-fashioned for still buying CDs and immediately ripping them, but given the choice between DRMed digital copies or open-access physical media in an attractive package I’d rather spend my $10 on the latter.

Brian’s CD collection

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Brian, musically

Reznor’s done his fair share of daydreaming in advance of this album’s release, it seems, as he is toying with a revolutionary distribution model. He’s selling the album in a variety of formats on the Nine Inch Nails website for prices ranging from $5 for a digital download (in many DRM-free formats) through $300 for a super deluxe package of vinyl albums, CDs, and posters. Definitely a trailblazing and compelling offering, and when I think of how many full-priced albums I bought and hated you really can’t go wrong for $5.

Furthermore, as a taste, they’re giving away the first album for free via BitTorrent, effectively recruiting fans as co-publishers since the BitTorrent protocol forces downloaders to upload as well.

Reznor’s motivation for this publishing scheme is well known – he’s been quoted saying he’s frustrated with the price gouging imposed on his fans by greedy record companies. I’ve easily found quotes on the subject relating to China:

If you can find and buy our legal CDs, I express my thanks for your support. If you cannot find it, I think that downloading from the Internet is a more acceptable option than buying pirated CDs. Our music is easy to find on the Internet, and you might not need to spend much effort to find most of our songs. If you like our songs after you’ve heard them, please feel free to share it with your friends.

And another quote empathising with his Australian fans:

The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music.

Reznor’s message seems fairly consistent here – he doesn’t want fans to pay an unreasonable amount for his music. Fair enough, I suppose. Considering the fact that an artist is responsible for the actions of his distributor (since he endorsed the terms of his contract with them) I consider this to be the first step in taking responsibility and apologizing for his label’s exploitation of his fans.

However, stickler for principles that I am, I’m not entirely satisfied. I find this message inconsistent with the reality of the situation. Here’s some of the text accompanying the official torrent of the first album with my own added emphasis:

Undoubtedly you’ll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file, but if you’re interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5.

My problem with this phrasing is the definition of the term “DRM-free”. DRM means “Digital Rights Management” – an awkward term masking the real meaning, copy prevention technology, in sugary pleasantry. I find this obfuscating acronym curious in this case, though no doubt Reznor didn’t think twice about its common use.

The above quote claims that a higher-quality copy of the free disc, as well as the other three discs, are available only from their website. This is the contradiction. Trent Reznor elects to manage the distribution rights of these digital formats by claiming the right to sole distributorship.

To spell it right out, you and I have the right to copy bits from one part of your hard drive to another, and over the internet from one computer to another. That’s the one and only purpose of the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) which is the fundamental technology the Internet consists of. Anything that gets in the way of this right can be fairly and literally deemed “digital rights management”.

The point I’m trying to make is that Trent Reznor, being a technologically savvy and contemporary fellow, should know the futility of trying to be the sole distributor and thus should have released the entire album, in high quality, DRM-free formats, absolutely free of charge. He’s made his point about pirating music to combat unreasonable prices, he’s pledged allegiance to OiNK, the now-disbanded illegal music sharing community, for filling a void in the consumer space. He’d be delusional to think it would take more than a day (it didn’t) for someone to use the same website and protocol to make the full album available to music pirates.

So why bother? Why no take the high road by releasing digital formats for free and starting the pricing tier at $10 for physical CD media? I’ll tell you why. Reznor isn’t in favour of free music distribution, he’s simply opposed to third parties profiting from his work. That’s understandable, but it deemed this brand new distribution model old-fashioned the day it was invented.

I feel like Reznor and I are two peas in adjacent pods. We’re both musicians, we’ve both released music for free, we’ve both released open-source music accessible to remixers, and we both agree with (but I don’t practise) an artist’s right to ask for money for his works. All that remains between us is that last bastion of forced commercialism.

If you own the copyright to the perfect triangle it’s reasonable for you to sell copies of the perfect triangle you drew with your top-end artist’s gear on the finest Egyptian papyrus. However, everyone in the world owns at least a couple of pencils and a pad of graph paper and they can draw their own low-grade squiggly triangles just fine. How on earth do you intend to enforce the monetization of triangles people draw themselves, and why put yourself through that unachievable exercise? Why not let people draw all the triangles they want until it’s a household name, and when they’re ready to see the Cadillac of triangles they’ll already know where to find you?

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Monetizing triangular logic

I didn’t think to record the first few shows, then I couldn’t get my software (Native Instruments’ Traktor DJ Studio) to record as it should. Luckily my friend Axiom Dadak had the good sense to use a stream recorder to capture my shows in glorious 48kbps.

This week’s show was crap so I’m denying it ever existed. Last week’s show, even though I was temporarily and accidentally interrupted by a fellow Radiogrounds DJ, went pretty well.

I share mit you.

Technophrenia, February 12, 2008
1:11:49, 48kbps mono, 24.6MB

Tune in to my show weekly at Radiogrounds.com Tuesdays at 7:00pm. Check out the website whenever you like, though. There’s a really awesome song request function that lets you control the broadcast.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Another of your sense organs gets Damaged

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Symbiosis

And so, now you can download my same music from another place, albeit with ads, though funding goes at least in part to Jon’s defence against lawsuits by Kazaa’s Nikki Hemming and Wayne Crookes.

Many thanks to P2Pnet for this distinction!

Here’s some succinct words by me on my opinion of today’s music industry, in case they are removed for some reason from my profile:

The only reason the music industry has ever been profitable is because of the relative difficulty of reproducing their product. This all changed with the proliferation of the internet, just like the Great Wall of China met its obsolescence with the advent of the tank and the aeroplane. As humanity steadily and irreversibly evolves we collectively find the impossible becoming possible, and the insurmountable becoming insignificant.

The insurmountable gaps between human bodies has been made all but insignificant thanks to our greatest achievement, the internet. Our physical realm is rapidly becoming digitized while tangible objects become luxuries. This is why music in the 21st century is absolutely worthless from a business standpoint.

Artists’ efforts at stifling evolution are little more than a pothole on the highway – people simply steer around it.

There are some artists who provide tangible benefits to owning albums by including a book or autograph or beautiful design. These are tactile luxuries that are pleasurable to own, cannot be duplicated, cost someone money for materials, ergo artists are justified in requesting compensation. Other artists demand compensation for easily duplicated digital representations of their creations. Such artists are spinning their wheels. Bits belong to no one.

Me? I invite you to consume and copy my creations for free. Please enjoy.

For more insights into my opinion of the music industry feel free to check out my essay on the topic

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Hypnotic Melody featured on P2Pnet

However, I’ve thought long and hard on the issue recently and have come to the conclusion that professional artists do what they do very well, that their talents enable them to create things ordinary people cannot, and that it’s not wrong for them to try to make a living doing what they love. I’ve softened up on the issue a smidge, validating the profession of artist, provided the professional is in tune with the realities of today.

And what is this reality I speak of? Simple. It’s the inevitability of the unauthorised digital duplication of art, coupled with the unbridled ease of mass distribution of those copies. Simply stated, if you make something it will be “pirated”.

I just love the supposed definition of “piracy” these days:

pi·ra·cy (pī’rə-sē)
n. pl. pi·ra·cies

1. 1. Robbery committed at sea.
   2. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.
2. The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
3. The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.

Source: American Heritage Dictionary

In other words, to pirate means to:

1. take something without permission.
2. copy something without permission.
3. create and distribute something without permission.

Doesn’t leave much wiggle room for “content” authors and consumers, does it? This term has been thrown in the spin cycle a couple of times too many. If we are to accept these dissimilar definitions verbatim, art lovers are classified as either consumers or pirates, and artists are classified as licensed or pirates.

This is, perhaps, all well and good for the world of yesteryear, but the 21st century marks the birth of World 2.0 (not to be confused with the commercially enfeebled alternative, Microsoft World 2.11 for Workgroups). Thus, a professional artist who accepts the realities of today is an artist who embraces World 2.0.

I don’t think I can give a better example of such an artist than San Francisco’s DJ Amber.

I discovered Amber while searching for local DJ mix tapes to buy in anticipation of my trip to California last autumn. While I came up empty on locating stores featuring local electronica talent, I was thrilled to find many free mixes for download on her website.

To my delight, my favourite mix of the bunch, Live With Friends and Family, was available both for download and for purchase. Cheapskate that I am, I was more than content with my free copy of the content. But, like all people, I enjoy wrapping my mitts around plastic goods so I emailed Amber to express my interest in a CD. She replied with a PayPal address into which I transferred $10 USD, gave her my home address, and under a week later I had the disc in my hands, as illustrated below!

I had a special request for this order, and as you can see, Amber heartily fulfilled it!

This seemingly insignificant order of events was what helped me solidify my feelings toward the way the music industry ought to be. I’ll try to lay them out as succinctly as possible:

In the age of the participatory internet, World 2.0, people are free to share and download content in nearly any format. One of the media mankind was most enthusiastic to share was music, and the unregulated sharing of this medium is now widespread and irrepressible. This fact spells one thing – music is now worthless. To sell music in the 21st century is to sell sand to Bedouins.

Copy protection is not the solution to this equation. Copy protection only frustrates those who purchased the product. Laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act only wrest citizens’ right to control the products they legally own. Digital Rights Management is merely a pseudonym for “Consumer Rights Revocation” and only makes “unmanaged” “pirated” media appear that much more attractive. To close is to shut out. To open is to invite.

The music industry still has one last hope – to sell NOT music. What is NOT music? Everything but music! DJ Amber’s is a wonderful example of this. I was given the privilege of speaking personally with the artist I admire, I paid a nominal fee that went directly and entirely to the content creator, I received my product in a timely fashion (with no additional shipping fee), and I got my album freaking autographed!! I don’t think anyone ever bought anything more valuable with a $10 bill.

Amber continues to work as a professional musician. She is paid for her performances and her “meatspace” albums. These are unique products and services that only she can provide the world and it is her right to be compensated for her presence and materials. However, Amber is living in the World 2.0. She knows that the internet is a free marketing tool, not a beast to be slain, and she has embraced it by giving her intangible, non-physical creations freely. She knows this material would have been mass-distributed by the populace anyway, so she decided to embrace this inevitability by distributing good-quality copies herself. She’s lost nothing, gained publicity, and smells like roses.

MPAA, your business model is gone with the wind. RIAA, the times, they are a-changing.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Amber is no sap

Here’s what one pattern looks like in one of my songs. For convenience and illustrative purposes I’ve taken screenshots using ModPlug Tracker for Windows:

And here’s a breakdown of what the various columns represent:

I’ve recorded a screencast of my second-ever song, Technophrenia, and uploaded it to YouTube. Take a quick look to see how the plotted notes correspond to the sounds produced.

I’ve written nearly 2 hours worth of music over the course of over 4 years under the nom de plume (or is that nom de clavier?) Hypnotic Melody. If you’d like to hear more, check out my Brian’s MOD Music page. I wouldn’t dream of ever charging money for my music, so enjoy, share, DJ, remix, and republish (with my name) as you please.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Technophrenia

I’ve reminisced about Hullabaloo raves in the past, so I encourage you to read my thoughts on Toronto’s (and maybe North America’s) most famous rave company for some background. My ultimate Hullabaloo moment, which I describe in a little more detail in this post, is when a random girl generously gave me a bead necklace, asking nothing in return. Though I gave away the necklace I kept a few beads as a reminder. While moving out of my parents’ place I found these beads and now keep them in my jacket pocket. I remember many things about that night, even over 9 years later.

One thing I most certainly remember in flawless detail was how much I loved the set of a veteran Toronto DJ, Ruffneck, spinning some very old school techno classics spanning about 1989 to 1993. Not only did Ruffneck play many of my favourite all-time anthems, including 3 consecutive Acen tracks, but he played some of the rarest and choicest remixes thereof – always the sign of a DJ who loves what he or she does. Ruffneck is ‘longsided by a real Toronto rave institution, MC Flipside, who was renowned in the city as one of the most prominent and vocally blessed MCs of the 90′s. I bought the tape of this performance and wore it thin. The current state of my copy makes it unlistenable.

Thus it was with great elation that I downloaded the set, transcribed from pristine DAT, from the Hullabaloo forum’s list of free Bittorrent MP3s. While this is a great distribution method, it is a little less accessible than direct HTTP downloads, which are, unfortunately, prohibitively expensive considering the many gigabytes spanned in this ever-growing online catalogue. Fortunately for me, and especially for you, fair reader, this is not the case at Demodulated!

It is with great pride, and with the kind permission of Hullabaloo founder DJ Anabolic Frolic, that I redistribute my very favourite DJ set out of the 14-odd Hullabaloo parties I attended. Please download, share, and enjoy, as you ought to with all culture. That’s what the internet is for.

DJ Ruffneck live at Hullabaloo 3, Love and Magic, November 22, 1997
192kbps, 44.1khz, stereo
60:02, 84.5MB
Download (right-click to save as)

My extra special thanks go to Anabolic Frolic for generously hosting these mix sets, and especially to DJ Ruffneck and the world class Hullabaloo DJs, many of whom earn thousands of dollars for an hour’s work, for sharing their music with the world for free. That shows a lot of class.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Silver trees and purple sands

And just for kicks (and plugs) here’s a link to a happy hardcore DJ set I mixed a couple of years ago. I’m nowhere near as talented as the world famous Hullabaloo residents and special guests but we all have the same motivation!

Spyrochaete – Inappropriately Happy 79:18
128KBPS, 75MB MP3

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

I’m Happy 2 B Hardcore

I attended my first rave in October of 1996 – Destiny 16 in an abandoned supermarket on Jane street. I instantly fell in love. The place was huge with 2 gigantic “rooms” separated by a curtain, each featuring a stage with a lone DJ behind record decks playing electronic music. In the shells of storefronts were little chillout areas with projectors showing psychedelic animations and vendors selling funky shirts and mixtapes.

Having been to a couple of nightclubs it struck me as very odd to see thousands of people dancing facing the DJ at the front. Nobody was checking eachother out. No slimeball assholes were cruising sluttily clad young women with low self esteem. People were dressed colourfully, were smiling and laughing and carrying on, and sitting down at random to talk with strangers.

But it was the dancers that mesmerised me so. This rolling sea of heads and hands like cilia waving on a hardwood membrane. All in unison.

My friend Joel and I frequented a rave club called The SpacE! at 28 Gunns Road for maybe 100 consecutive Fridays. This little place was the epitome of underground. I adored every square inch of that place. It had a largeish undecorated main room with towering stacks of speakers on either side of a DJ table. A pillar in front of the decks sported a florescent orange sign reminding DJs that “Louder isn’t better, better is better.” A neon-striped hallway led to the second room surrounded by oversoft couches which remained quieter and void of DJs except for on special events.

One such special event was Hullabaloo, a rave featuring a variety of musical styles but primarily highlighting happy hardcore techno. DJ Hixxy was booked that night but supposedly was held up at the airport and could not attend. It didn’t matter. In terms of organization it may have been little more than an ordinary night at The SpacE!, but this thin, intangible sizzling electricity filled the air. A certain breed of raver was drawn to this party for some reason – decent people who didn’t have to know eachother to be happy to see eachother. This was a somewhat foreign concept to me as an 18-year-old dabbling in goth and grunge culture, but it was impossible not to get caught up in the flow. Hardcore, breakbeats, and jungle made my feet move for hours and hours.

In truth it was one of the tamer, less eventful raves I’ve been to, but I’ll never ever forget it.

I braved an inconceivably packed and sweaty bottom floor to see DJ Vinylgroover and MC Ruff at the second Hulla. I reclined against a wall and hogged one of few fans as I watched the enormous and intimidating MC Ruff singing and dancing like an elated 6 year old on his birthday, revving up everyone in the room with every lyric. I couldn’t stand the heat any longer than the span of that one DJ set so I enjoyed the thumpy goodness of the upstairs trance room until the early hours of morning; rectangular sunbeams sweeping slowly over a never-resting crowd.

The third Hulla is the scene of one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I’d been enjoying the night very much and was walking through a wide hall on the way to another room for another adventure when a many-necklaced girl stopped me, smiling. “Would you like a bracelet?” she trilled happily. I asked “How much?” “Nothing! Please have this!” She slipped a thick wooden bead bracelet over my wrist, gazed softly deep into my eyes, planting flowers in my brain with her pupils, and skipped away to give a present to someone else. I stood there for about 30 seconds drinking in the enormity of her action. It would change me forever. I gave the bracelet away to a friend a year later but I kept a few beads to remind me of the goodness of giving. That single act by a stranger saved my life time and again in my darkest hours when I had little faith in the world.

I met my friend Max at Hullabaloo 4 at The Warehouse. I also met my friend Ebineezer Goode that night. Max and I are still friends after these 9-odd years. I’m seeing him this weekend. Our chance meeting was so infinitesimally unlikely and we’ve remained in touch all this time. Mind boggling.

I met my very good friend Jules at another Hulla (7?). I was getting antsy sitting in one of few couches for hours (once you’re lucky enough to get one you guard it with your life) and my attention was wandering from my friends. Near me sat Jules, a lovely girl a bit older than me, who was bummed out because she couldn’t her friend she came with. We chatted and chatted and chatted, finally exchanging numbers. She’s now one of my best friends and we’ll be chums forever. Another insanely unlikely meeting – if her friend hadn’t gotten lost we’d both just be specks in the crowd. The power of the unlikely.

And that’s the significance of Hullabaloo. A Hulla-day was a holiday. I’d think of little else in the closing weeks before a party. I’d bring notebooks for my new friends to sign and stickers to put in theirs. I’d make copies of my favourite tapes and hand them to strangers. I’d buy people water, help friends find lost mates, and I’d be helped by others more times than I can count.

The “real time” of these 10-hour marathons was so tangible you could cut it with a knife. Sometimes I’d find a night dragging on, sometimes I’d blink and it would be over, and by the end of the night my head would be swimming with all the fun and people and activities and music and all-round pleasantness I’d enjoyed that whole night.

The drive home was always a quiet and intraspective conclusion. Toronto sleeps Sunday mornings and on my way home from a Hulla party the city was mine. I’d drive right on the speed limit just to prolong the silent stillness of the otherwise bustling metropolis. I’d think up poetry, I’d mentally adlib with the music I was listening to on my car stereo, I’d plan the rest of my week… the 30 minutes it took me to get home from Hulla parties were probably the most productive for years.

I attended the first 17 consecutive Hullas, and one or two after that. In the end there would be 41 Hullabaloo raves. I outgrew what the scene had become but I’ll never outgrow its legacy. I truly feel powerful knowing I was part of something so underground yet so important. Raving was a movement, but an apolitical movement. We did it because we were free to, and we clung to that freedom with our lives. We really accomplished something by accomplishing nothing.

And so I am ecstatic that DJ Anabolic Frolic, world famous hardcore DJ and Hullabaloo founder, is releasing his huge archive of Hullabaloo mixtapes one week at a time. For a look into the inner workings of my demodulator, be sure to check the site from time to time.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Something Good

By sampling, I mean the act of copying a snippet of content from an artistic work and juxtaposing it into a new, original artistic work. Though the term usually refers to the practice of injecting audio excerpts into a new song, culture has in fact embraced this practice in more abstract applications for centuries. I’d like to delve deep into the culture of sampling, but y (ever so busy) work day is almost over so I’ll get the ball rolling today with an essay on the most common definition of the phrase.

Sampling in its most literal form began in the late 70′s and early 80′s with the hip hop revolution which reinvented the previously one-dimensional turntable as a dynamic musical instrument. Rap MCs would spout their original lyrical compositions alongside their indispensable partner in crime, the DJ, who would accentuate the rhythm and poetic theme by playing and manipulating musical and spoken-word record albums to the beat. Though ancillary sidekicks, DJs like Jam Master Jay, Doug E. Fresh, and Jazzy Jeff became integral to the headliner’s presentation.

Just 3 MCs and one DJ /
We be gettin’ down with no delay /
So Mixmaster Mike whatchoo got to say?
(sampled) “God damn that DJ made my day!”
3 MCs and One DJ – Beastie Boys

The art of musically manipulating records went on to be known as turntablism, and became a popular genre of music in and of itself. LPs containing nothing but consecutive wacky quotations and sound effects were mass produced, while bidirectional needles were engineered to make turntables more gentle on malleable vinyl. Many DJs from hip hop acts (e.g., Mix Master Mike of the Beastie Boys), as well as new solo DJs (e.g., Vancouver’s Kid Koala) went on record their own albums composed of original songs made up entirely of sampled sounds. Acquiring copyright licenses for such productions can be a legal nightmare, to be sure!

Countless turntablist competitions such as the DMC World DJ Championships are held around the world today, celebrating this player-turned-instrument phenomenon which has begun outselling guitars annually. A written scratch notation is even being developed, similar to the classic treble staff, to assist turntablists in transcribing and replicating complex scratch combinations.

Curiously, contemporary philosophers and poets have compared the act of scratching records to a superhuman or godlike state, contrasting the “human” linear perception of reality with the 4-dimensional transitive manipulation of time.

Branching off from hip hop and disco and meeting somewhere in the middle, techno music was born. Though originally consisting of synthesized instruments (Detroit techno) and somtimes accompanied by original lyrics (acid house), sampling found a very comfortable home in electronic music. As the technology of synthesizers and computers became more robust, electronic samplers and digital audio processors added yet another dimension to hip hop’s creative interpretation of the turntable. Classic house songs such as House Master Boyz’ “House Nation” utilized a single two-word sample to fill out the bulk of the song, forcing a new way of thinking on its listeners – letting go of the literal meaning of the words in lieu of the sample’s purely rhythmic properties.

As techno evolved it split into myriads of subgenres including breakbeat and jungle. These genres in particular often featured a single percussive sample, usually between 1 and 4 bars in length, edited extensively throughout any given song. These songs often varied more in percussion than in melody, leading to jungle’s descriptive synonym “drum and bass”. Incredibly, a very large number of songs were underlayed with a single short drum loop, the so-called “amen break“, sampled from The Winstons’ 70′s funk song “Amen Brother”. Though the elements of this clear and distinctive drum excerpt were a signature of the genre, creative editing made it difficult to find the same cut-up arrangement of beats in any two jungle songs.

More recently, innovators of drum and bass have surfaced, culminating sampling and editing into an incredibly complex and staccato mosaic of percussion. Artists µ-Ziq, Squarepusher, and Venetian Snares collectively helped re-reinvent breakbeat into the spastic genre of “breakcore” – a genre with such variable percussion that drums are considered to be the lead instrument.

Sampling has risen up from its underground roots into the mainstream, and is commonly featured in top-40 records as well as television and radio adverts. Proliferation of multimedia home computers have put the power of sampling into the hands of the public which has resulted in entire cultures and movements born from the creative interpretations of aural snippets. While organizations such as the RIAA and CRIA fight to tax and quash such innovators, others such as the Creative Commons work with commercial artists to make their songs, instruments, and acabellas available to the public for use as creative building blocks.

Whether percieved as theft, borrowing, or social interpretation, audio sampling is a pillar of modern culture.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Amen, brother!

A recent hubbub ensued between CRIA and Ottawa law professor Michael Geist over the true meaning of the numbers published by a research agency allegedly in cahoots with the recording industry. In summary, CRIA argues that immeasurable losses in music sales can be attributed to theft by Canadians aged 18 to 29, while Geist retorts that this same demographic is the second largest purchaser of music. (thereby strengthening the argument that music downloads result in sales)

There are obvious arguments supporting both sides of this issue, but as a hobbyist musician I have unique take on this whole situation.

I produce techno DJ mixes, and once upon a time I composed original music. From the get-go I’ve offered my compositions to the world for free, at my expense. Sometimes I deem my composition unfit for publication, or I record a practice session; otherwise I upload the file to my high speed web host or burn copies for friends.

Let’s first take a look at how my music is put together.

My original compositions are, in essence, original in arrangement only. Although I created many audio samples and instruments with my own 2 hands (also my voice, a recording, a MIDI keyboard, and\or some software), the majority of my instruments are sampled directly from commercial CDs or from other homemade open-source music. Basically, each of my songs potentially constitutes tens of thousands of dollars in copyright infringement in its raw elements alone (not even to mention my unauthorized and misnamed remix of Send Me An Angel). I like to think its my generous distribution more than my insignificant obscurity that has saved me from litigation.

Is what I’ve done really illegal? Yeah, almost definitely. Would any court convict me? Unlikely. Although I’ve made something irrefutably unique and personal with tools, regardless of their suspicious origins, artists (like DJ Jazzy Jeff) have been convicted for doing the same. No, my body remains on the free side of bars because I don’t make money from my music.

But is the same argument true of my DJ mixes? I take a bunch of songs and play them in order, overlapping the beginnings and ends to make a nonstop cohesive realtime composition. Many of my tracks are ripped from CD, many are downloaded from my peers. I’ve practised for years to be a good DJ and my mixing style, track selection, samples, effects, and edits are all examples my own personal flare. Yet, the basic building block of a DJ mix is a bunch of commercial songs.

Do I put myself at greater risk by hosting an 80-minute MP3 containing many commercial songs than I do by hosting a 3-minute song made of commercial samples? Is my DJ mix really mine? Is this situation any different from composing music with commercial samples? After all, the original songs can’t be extracted from a DJ mix any more than an entire song can be reconstructed from a few samples.

Whatever the answer, I pay for it. And so do you, fellow Canadians. For 15 years the CRIA fought to enact a levy on recordable media to compensate the industry for piracy. It’s surprising that it happened at all, so therefore not as much of a shock that it took 15 years to convince the Canadian government that every citizen with a dual-tape recorder or CD burner was a criminal. After all, after a decade and a half even I might be convinced that blank CDs have no use but duplicating music. Hell, I might even be persuaded, as was the government, that this insane tariff should be in the ballpark of 50% the sale price.

Of course, it’s not so cut-and-dry. How many Canadians burn data backups, photographs, documents, lectures, audio books, and home videos onto CDs every single day? Is it appropriate for these people to admit their criminal guilt by paying recording artists? How many CD burns fail, rendering the disc useless? Do we get our tariff back in these cases?

Better yet, a question with a less obvious answer – is it fair for me to pay this levy when I burn one of my own DJ mixes or songs? Does this arrangement sway in favour of one party or another? Do the Canadian artists (if any) that I’ve “ripped off” see much or any of the tariff I pay?

Apparently the aforementioned 6 record labels side with Canadians in finding this scheme unfair. Nobody trusts an organization that taxes us for theft and then criticizes the taxed service for being a sink hole.

So, mysteriously, the CRIA been lobbying for the past 7 years to renege on this tariff in favour of more restrictive distribution. This is good news for legitimate users of recordable media and bad news for consumers. If (and when) CRIA’s proposals pass you can expect DRM-heavy content from coast to coast, restricting purchasers from making legal backups and quashing the very Canadian ideal of sharing culture with friends. For now the CRIA fights an uphill battle to convince judges that peer-to-peer file swapping is different from library lending (the main argument defending our right to trade music), but with noisy southern neighbours and especially with a Conservative government we can expect the winds to change sooner or later.

When I find the right office to complain to I’ll share it. Until then, vote with your bucks. Support your local artists, but REALLY support them. Support them by seeing their shows. Support them by telling your friends about them. Support them by trading their music. Most of all, support them by enjoying and appreciating their compositions. Support the art, boycott the business, sez I.

And in the mean time, please support me by enjoying my music and sharing it with your friends, free of charge.

My original music:
http://www.demodulated.com/music.html

My techno DJ mixes:
http://djbriandamage.blogspot.com/

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

I get played, Celine gets paid

The concept was birthed by an ad agency contracted by Levi’s Jeans in an attempt to associate a product with a target demographic by means of nostalgia. The astronomical popularity of the concept was bilateral – it sold jeans and it sold singles. Some of the first artists to license songs to advertisements include Elastica, Madonna, and even anti-establishment The Clash.

The most-used album, and the first album to license every song for use in commercials, is Moby’s 1999 “best-selling album” (in so many ways) Play.

The most famous event in commercial licensing is attributed to Bill Gates’ $12M purchase of The Rolling Stone’s “Start Me Up” to laud his upcoming Windows 95 operating system. The song was Gates’ second choice though – R.E.M. denied a $10M offer for “It’s The End of the World As We Know It”.

Like R.E.M., other artists felt commercial association would dilute their relevance and alienate their fanbase, so they choose to opt out of representing the corporate machine.

Or do they?

A quick search on Canada’s struggling Puretracks digital music store yields about $200 worth of R.E.M. fare. Another search on Amazon.com shows plastic media for sale, published by a little company called Warner Brothers. Pristine as their words may appear, the band expects fans to applaud with their wallets. I presume the chaps at WB take some small stake somewhere along the line.

So what’s the difference between hearing a song on your Ipod or in a Gap ad? It’s all about who’s paying your favourite artist’s salary, I suppose. Ad-happy artists are paid by corporations. Artists “with more scruples” are paid by you. Maybe The Clash did uphold their revolutionary persona after all – by selling pants.

You may ask, “But where do I get my music if not from greasy bearded suits in L.A.?” Well, I’m glad you asked by proxy!

Thanks to the underlying openness of the Internet, and the purveyors of freely distributable and modifiable content such as Creative Commons and other proponents of copyleft, music untethered from commercial shackles is abundant in a variety of formats.

Some free music sites:
Creative Commons Audio
Garageband
The Hornet Archive
Nullsoft Shoutcast
The Internet Archive: Live Music
Brian’s Distraction (plug!)

Even free music repositories are not immune to the call of the almighty dollar. One of the first and most populated free music portals, MP3.com, used to be a primary means of distribution for thousands of independent artists, offering streaming and downloadable songs and albums, message boards, concert listings, bios, and much more. The site was eventually purchased by Internet media conglomerate CNet, who subsequently took ownership of all the site’s assets. Though the company claimed to have destroyed all hosted files, the site’s illegitimate offspring, Garageband.com, seems to have given the old site’s entire catalogue a new home.

So, if you’re a self-proclaimed music purist who insists on supporting artists who are “for the scene”, you might want to double-check your records. If you’ve bought one of their albums you’ve perpetuated the very commercialism you’ve attempted to quash.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Selling or Selling Out – Tomāto, Tomăto