Tom Moody

tom moody

A while back I posted something about Ministeck fuse beads, a do-it-yourself mosaic kit made in Bavaria since the '70s. The images above come from a page of abstract patterns made using them (by "~syeapa"--who has an Art Institute of Chicago homepage). Also check out this rather obsessive assortment of label scans for the DVD versions of TV shows such as Different Strokes, DeGrassi Junior High, Buffy, Felicity, etc. If Marcel Broodthaers were alive today I believe that's what he'd be doing.

Update: The DVD scan collection is still going strong but the ministeck patterns have been removed. What happened? No lawyer threats, I hope. The page now identifies its creator as Stacia Yeapanis, artist and curator of the DVD museum.

"Procession (Raw)" [mp3 removed]

This is a bare bones version of a tune I'm working on. I've since moved it along several stages, adding more instruments and a bit more elaborate drumming than this lone, slightly hamhanded tom, but this draft has its charms. A sort of folk processional (why does everything I write end up sounding Irish? some deep genetic roots I didn't know I had?) is played on a very flatulent sounding Sidstation, then repeats with some bright house-y chords with a sampled Absynth.

I'm teaching myself to write in Cubase and it's painfully slow because it's not as intuitive as Harmony Assistant, the other program I've been using, or my old Mac. The scheme relies more on key commands and shortcuts that you only learn by accident, or belatedly discover buried in the fine print of the manual. Ultimately the advantage will be more control over more instruments, being able to mix midi and sound files, and having access to some of the juicy plugins that are out there. (Again--I would never talk this way about Photoshop filters: I think music engineers "get it" better than art engineers.)

This week, dear diary, I've learned: (1) how to reset Kontakt to reduce latency (note lag); it's still not 100% but is vastly improved; (2) how to trigger a 120 bpm sampled beat so it plays in sync with a midi part (after some experimentation, I reset the tempo track to 122 bpm and added a triggering note every four beats, which is the length of the sample); (3) how to sync the Sid with an external midi clock; (4) how to turn off program changes in the Korg I'm using as a midi controller, so the Sid's presets don't keep switching as I dial around the Korg. I'm also getting a better handle on bending notes with the Korg's filter knobs.

Bonus: "Procession (Panning Wah-Wah Organ Version)" [mp3 removed]

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