robbierabbit

It's not about how they play it live. It's about how it sounds.

This should have been a Hallucinogen release rather than a Shpongle release. Or perhaps even Younger Brother, because that sound is all over this album. It's good, but it's not Shpongle, which thrives in the lower tempos, away from the four on the floor.

The problem with this album is, the opening track is nowhere near as good as Jack's Cheese and Bread Snack, and the last track is not even in the same league as Smoked Glass and Chrome. I mean, yeah, the Ott flourish is there, technically it's probably flawless, but the melodies are way, way, way too simple everywhere. A Shower of Sparks shows real promise, especially for the entire length of the flute piece (and since this is the part previewed on the twisted site, I thought this track would be really awesome), but then that stupid female vocodized singing comes on and always seems to go somewhere, but the tune stays stuck, and stuck, and stuck. Some of the other tracks have their moments. The Queen of All Everything is pretty damn good. But, seriously, too much of those female vocals all around. Expectations were always high on this one for me. Blumenkraft is pretty much like nothing else out there. But still, even with those impossible expectations, I just wanted something really awesome, you know? I say Ott should go back to the remix desk and bring up a Shpongle cocktail album. Not bad, this one, but seriously, it's something Enigma or Massive Attack could churn out. Ott's way better than this.

Quick, raise your hands: How many know Chakra and Edi-Mis?

You know what I want? A Shpongle-Ott collaboration album. No remixes, but entirely new tunes. I'd prefer that over a solo Shpongle effort, even though a fourth Shpongle will most likely be very good.

Does using 1 shitty Casio keyboard (no synthesizing functions, just preset tones) and 2 tape recorders with recordings alternated between them with each new part or instrument added count? If so, 11.

You can use the vocoder module as a makeshift spectrum analyzer. Split the output of your main signal (main mixer out) using a spider device and patch one of the connections into the vocoder. I don't have access to Reason right now, so I don't remember if you patch it in as a modulator or not. Good luck.

Well, as long as someone doesn't come up with a program that gives you exactly what you need to make music and gives it a less than astronomical price, no one on this forum's gonna complain to the pirate-nannies. And I've been here for years and years to vouch for that.

Well, they're different programs, really. And you'll probably prefer one working method over another, so, first download Live's demo, and learn it with its snazzy inbuilt tutorials. Then download Cubase (gimme a W, gimme an A, gimme an R, E, Z) and read it's tutorial manual and work with it. It's certainly more cumbersome than Live, I have found, but I still prefer Cubase over Live. If you asked me why, I'd have no answer. This whole which-prog-is-better debate is inherently personal, and there really is no one program that is for sure better than everyone else.

Is not on the list.

I bought Reason 2.0 from them when it came out. No problems at all.

If you're using a sequencer, just use the mixer fader's automation track to draw in your silences, and keep copy/pasting them. That's how I do it in Reason. There used to be an amazing piece of software a couple of years ago, Tuareg, available at either bambros.com or brambos.com or brambros.com or .org (I can't be arsed to check). I'd bought it, it was like a predecessor to the whole software studio thingie, and it had, among other things, a great gating unit for splicing, rearranging, silencing, cutting, etc etc of any sample/loop/song. Lost it in a crash. Edit: checked anyway. It doesn't seem to be available on hitsquad.com/smm (Shareware Music Machine), which pretty much means it's dead. You could try p2p; I really think it's worth the 5 megs or so of download time.

A cheap way of going about it is simultaneous crossfading and filter sweeping so that the frequencies of the first sound dissolve into the frequencies of the second. Best way, though, would be vocoding if your vocoder unit supports wet/dry. You could keep the knob turned all the way to your source sound, then record its automation and turn it all the way to the modifying sound, of course, you'll need to keep playing the modified sound on a seperate channel and fade it in in sync with the wet/dry automation. You won't get very good results this way always, either, because morphing completely depends on the sounds you intend to morph.

You people really don't have anything else to do, do you?

Spring reverb with a little EQing to get the base frequencies in the mix again (cut the highs off bass drums, cut the bass off hihats etc) and very light phasing. You could use minute amounts of delay (set to 50-50 dry/wet) with an out of sync millisecond delay amount to add a bit of life to the beats. In Reason (2.5 onwards), chain your drum device through a RV7000 (it has two nice dub presets, and try out the plates as well), split the signal using Spider (group bass parts together, high parts together), chain it through two two-band EQs, one for the highs and one for the lows(most will say use EQ as the last in the chain, but to get that dubby effect it's necessary here). If you're really anal, try introducing a slight delay between each signals set to 100 percent dry with very short millisecond delays to get that Bob Marleyish twing. Patch through to a phaser, and tweak the phaser till the phase is only just noticeable. Delay is, as I said, optional. Good luck.