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migration, the gomboc and an allegory...
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...:::...i've been recently turned on by ideas from david wilcove's new book, no way home: the decline of the world's greatest animal migrations. i turned up the radio while making dinner the other night to hear an interview with him on npr's fresh air...

i was caught by the question of how animals know when and where to migrate...and beyond the well-tested strata of evolution, how climate change has been both erasing certain environments as well as not giving the proper timing cues to animals to "move". as a result, this has disturbed an equilibrium in the food chain and made it unstable, shifted it's axis and center of gravity...(consider a bird that may get it's migratory cues from light versus an insect that gets it from changing temperatures...the food source that the hardwired bird has always known to be in a certain place at a certain time suddenly is no longer there...). the inevitable outcome of this: extinction...

in many ways i think there is a similar threat to the migration of ideas...that discrete thoughts are at risk of being eclipsed by a global norm. it often seems that creative habitats are shrinking, becoming less and less diverse. i think that the exchange of information today is so rapid and accessible that the environments that were once created by a confluence of different ideas are becoming more and more marginalized...shrinking away. instead, cultural monocultures are being manufactured...a rosy apple on the shelf, but mealy and flavorless to the bite...

maybe slowing down is a good way to counter this. to wait for compulsion, desire, clarity to set in before moving onto the next thing. to know feeling in a place. david wilcove ended the interview on migration by describing it as a genetic program that is based on faith. something so deeply rooted in animals and in us (unless you go herzog and examine whether people are really a part of nature anymore anyway) that despite not knowing what has occurred between where we are and where it is that we need to go, we go anyway. because we have to...because we are compelled to...because we are curious. "it is a marvel and a vulnerability"...vulnerable: we are most certainly and wonderfully...

the discovery of the gomboc this year has taken the place of the weeble in my heart. it is the first known homogenous object with one stable and one unstable equilibrium point, thus two equilibria altogether on a horizontal surface...(in other words, it is made of an uniform material and is self-righting (unlike the weeble which is weighted)). i believe people can be like this: capable of self-righting techniques...emotionally angled and balanced through introspection, awareness, perception, creativity, innovation, intelligence...that culture evolves through idea-migration, gaining strength from challenging or accepting other discrete ideas...enriching habitat...

spreading the meme: i was asked to participate in the blogariddims series that is being hosted on weareie. it will be an allegorical mix. i made the initial track selections and handed it off to slug who resounded and obliterated my pre-conceived notions of what i thought a mix might sound like with the given track selection and order. instead, he has turned it into an unexpected one hour ambiant/techno/avante garde mix (performed live via max/msp (max/msp patch development and interpretation by slug)). the familiar tracks i knew have been distorted and i've enjoyed getting lost in it and guiding myself back when i hear an occasional hint...a familiar loop, an associative moment, hooked. be on the look out for it earlier next week...:::...

download: 071210-modyfier-part01

scratch massive – dance (siskid’s gnashing teeth dance final mix) : may 2007 on chateau rouge
guillaume & the coutu dumonts – they only come out at night : nov 2007 on musique risquee
lopazz – 2 fast 4 u (julian ganzer remix) : nov 2007 on get physical music
black devil disco club – another strange skin (polar pair remix) : nov 2007 on lo recordings
dirt crew – how does it feel (tom clark remix) : nov 2007 on dirt crew
shackleton – next to nothing (guillaume & the coutu dumonts remix) : oct 2007 on crosstown rebels
tolcha & soom t – what about us (al haca burial) : oct 2007 on meta
heinrichs & hirtenfellner – ear worm : oct 2007 on karateklub
goldfish und der dulz – 13 klange (plasmik remix) : nov 2007 on dessous recordings
marco resmann – candle dipper : nov 2007 on upon.you records
h.o.s.h. – white elephant : nov 2007 on kindisch
jor-el – heart beat : oct 2007 on international deejay gigolo
audiofly x – blink : oct 2007 on get physical music

download: 071210-modyfier-part02

chromeo – bonafied lovin (jori hukkonen remix) : nov 2007 on turbo recordings
fairmont – fade and saturate : nov 2007 on border community
minilogue – orglar b : oct 2007 on minilogue
till von sein – gestern (efdemin remix) : nov 2007 on morris audio citysport edition
zoexenia – can’t sleep : oct 2007 on connaisseur recordings
francois k – road of life (quiet village remix) : nov 2007 on deep space
stewart walker – perfecting theories : nov 2007 on pulsewith
john keys – a caballo por manhattena : oct 2007 on crosstown rebels
onur ozer – synkope (daniel stefanik remix) : dec 2007 on vakant
al haca – baby blue feat. rqm & olive grimball : jul 2007 on meta polyp
monosylabik – push feat. bee : nov 2007 on kitty-yo
parov stellar – lost in amsterdam : oct 2007 on etage noir recordings
e.stonji – swim suite (part i) : oct 2007 on kitty-yo
scsi-9 – another day acid : oct 2007 on kompakt

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CLAUDE VONSTROKE

Music is mostly about concepts for me. Once I have the concept completed in my head everything comes very quickly. I find that when I do not have a concept I noodle around for days with sounds and drums and the best I can hope for is a “tracky track” which means basically means “average” in my book which is not really something I want to do.The process of this remix went like this in 10 easy steps haha…. (I have to summarize a lot of things that take many hours but this is the main jist of it.)

1. Originally I was offered a few tracks to remix by Alex Flitsch, the label owner. I have been chatting with him for a few years on email because I really like the music on his label. I picked this particular original because I felt like it had an old house piano sound that was very rave and very cool for possible manipulation in my style.

2. The first thing I did was isolate this sound in the parts and then I created 20 to 25 versions of the sound. Some of them were completely blown out with huge reverb tails and some of them had slower attacks so they sounded like they were wooshing in. I also made a few reverses and things like that. The point of this exercise was to see what the possibilities were using the main sound. It is usually impossible to hear in your mind how a sound will be changed by using effects so I like to try a lot of different things at the start.

3. The main groove is what I worked on next. In my head I was thinking that this specific remix would be much different than my usual work, much more techno, almost, dare I say it…progressive? The key to this sound is having a nice hi-hat hitting on the off beat of the kick drum. Usually people use a hi-hat sound but I found a nice clicking sound in the parts and I laid it in and offset it so it sat just a little bit of the beat. This usually gives a more human feel to the music. I have also found that alternative drum sounds make tracks sound more interesting. After that I laid down the kick which happened to be very nice from the original parts and then I added a real hi-hat for accent purposes.

4. After the kick and drum groove was laid down I proceeded to load the sampler with a bunch of the original 25 effected piano sounds. I chose a specific group of the long blown out sounds in general. Then I put a lowpass filter under the sampler so I could modulate how hard the big washing piano sound would hit every 4 bars. This soon became the theme of the remix. (a modulating sample coming in and out harder and softer.)

5. Once I had this all completed I noticed that the track was not really grooving at all. So I loaded in a synth patch but instead of playing it as a pad I programmed it in a step sequencer as a grooving staccato type rhythm part. I made it in tune with the piano sound and it immediately gave the track that feeling like it was alive. Using a synth for rhythm is very cool because you can play with the filters to add dynamics as the track goes from section to section.

6. Sometimes when you add something cool the drums have to do something to help it fit. Because of this new synth rhythm agent I then added a little wood block sound in a very basic Latin rhythm on top of all the drums. This really helped the overall feel and gave it more of the funk that I like to hear in everything.

7. At this point everything was working well but I was really missing a bass-line. I argued with myself that the track did not need a traditional bassline for a while but then I really listened and knew that this was not true. So this is when I started working with the arrangement. The arrangement is the most important aspect of a track. The point at where you decide to add and remove sounds is the entire success or failure of the music. So for many hours I built in breakdowns and played with filtering sounds in and out until I felt like I had a proper intro into a bass drop.

8. The bass drop: the bass is almost always the most difficult because it must be Eq’ed and sit in the mix perfectly. All the other sounds can be marginally perfect but the bass must be absolutely perfect in my opinion. So I played with the placement of the sounds for a long time. Usually there is a battle between the kick and any other low frequency sounds and the bass. There is only so much room in the bandwidth of a track and so if you want everything to sound loud you really have to be careful about where you place the bass notes in relation to the other sounds. All the best tracks I have made have specific ranges of sound where everything fits in and doesn’t clash. Eventually I figured out the correct pattern for the bass to work and still fit the vibe of the track. In the end the solution for this track was not to overdo it and to just lay a nice mid-subby sound in there with short rhythmic notes instead of long hits.

9. After the bass is in I listen to the track several times and I realize that it is kind of boring and it doesn’t have a anything that would tell you that I made it. So…I go through and add a secondary breakdown area where I take the original piano sound and load it into a second sampler device. Then I just start playing little jazzy riffs with the piano sound and it ends up sounding really cool! I get excited and fix any mistakes and now I have a real remix on my hands.

10. In the end I go through all the programming in the sequencer with a fine tooth comb and fix any mistakes. Then I add a filter on almost every sound and decide that a lot of the sounds including the kick will filter in and out on this track (not typical for me.) But it definitely fits the mood of the piece. At the end I do some final Eq’ing on all the sounds and the master output. Then I take a day off and come back and listen again. It still sounds good still so I send it to Alex at Connoisseur and he really likes it so we are all good!

(a lot of this was highly simplified so if anyone has any specific questions I will try to answer as many as I can.

plasmik - process part 055 (pitch it (claude vonstroke remix)) by modyfier

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8BALL

It was the Thanksgiving holiday and my wife was sick, so we spent most of the break at home. She slept a lot, as sick people do, and I wanted better ways to occupy the time than watching shitty television. I intended to keep slogging through the pages (the words are fine) of Neal Stephenson's Cyptonomicon, and/or make headway on my severly stunted NaNoWriMo effort. Instead found myself stuck in my MacBook playing with tracks. A couple weeks earlier I finished a mix of clubbier tracks -- most of them played previously in various sets at the last Burning Man. Cooking with the same set of flavors didn't seem all that appetizing. Earlier this year I mixed some tracks from Rayna's blog, and it all seemed to fall together very easily and fluidly, so I decided to do a sequel; I stitched together tracks that have been shuffling in my iPod for a while, all from her blog, except for the last one, which sneaked its way into the playlist. I almost told it to shove off, but in the end I decided I liked it for a closer. Later I realized that Square One's "Vesuvius" was also on a previous mix; apparently I'm prone to repeating myself, you'll have to forgive me. It was the Thanksgiving holiday and my wife was sick...

8ball - process part 054 (deckless modifying vol-2) by modyfier

01. tosca / superrob / henrik schwarz mix
02. simon baker & infant / plastik
03. delon & dalcan / academy
04. balke / rock over you / paolo martini rmx
05. nick muir / i feel real / chopstick rmx
06. square one / vesuvius / justin martin rmx
07. dino da cassino / don't you (forget about me) / dino lenny original - loafer edit
08. julian poker & john-e & diego miranda / wahnzinn / phonique rmx
09. david k / incoming / motorcitysoul rmx
10. rocha & lewinger / miles davis
11. mihell / the grit / dos rmx
12. jjazzy & alex santos / the look into your eyes / phonique rmx
13. chaim / c factor / audio soul project rmx
14. deetron / life soundtrack ft dj bone / rejected interpretation
15. andy cato (groove armada) / uppers on the south downs / andy cato's hot head rmx
16. trentemoller & buda / gamma / perc rmx
17. alterno79 / gti / groove rebels rmx
18. lusine / push
19. resin dogs / she's gone / kraak & smaak rmx
20. ben mono / beatbox ft capitol a / kalbata rmx
21. t.u.m.m. / fur immer / sweno n & pascal vert rmx
22. gui boratto / mr decay / robert babicz universum disco rmx
23. olivier gregoire / empechment
24. grand theft auto / keep moving
25. makossa & megablast / find it ft farda p