For the past month I have been participating in the RPM challenge, which in their words is,

Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.

What is considered to be an album is either 10 songs or 35 minutes of music. I was shooting for 35 minutes and fell pretty short of the mark.

It’s quite a tall order for if you have other responsibilities in your life. I could imagine it being not so difficult had I been able to retreat to a secluded studio somewhere, or taken a few weeks off of work to dedicate my mind, body, and soul to the task at hand. I knew I would not have these luxuries, but I also don’t think that is the point, nor do I think most musicians, amateurs or professionals alike, have these luxuries.

For me, I was enticed by one of their poster’s tag line,

What if every musician you knew put their music first for 28 days?

Sometimes it seems there is an infinite list of reasons for musicians to put almost any other aspect of lives before their music. I decided to take the month of February this year and spin that list right around. Equally important to the challenge I had with myself was an understanding that their would never be a “good” month to do this, or some magical distraction free place to run away to, and that the next step for me as a musician was to realize that fact and embrace it. In this case, by attempting to put 35 minutes of music on and CD, during the shortest month of the year, without taking any days off work, and mailing it to New Hampshire.

Side-note:

I once saw an interview with Smokey Robinson where he talked about writing a song everyday just because he can. I’m sure there are thousands that never make it onto a record, but he did point out that he doesn’t “have to go on top of a mountain” somewhere so he can work, it’s just a simple part of his day and life. I’m not a huge Smokey Robinson fan, he wrote some great hits no doubt, but that particular aspect of him I respect most.

Positive Effects

Despite throwing in the towel mid-last week when I realized there was no longer a chance of having 35 minutes of music finished, I still feel that some good things came from the experience.

1. Workflow: Having an upcoming deadline forces you to stop tinkering with your setup and start producing material as fast as possible. The RPM challenge is a good way to put your DAW workflow strategies to the test and also realize how they can be improved.
2. Writing Every Day: Get yourself in the habit of spending every free minute enjoying the life of a composer. Doesn’t matter how you do it, record it, sing it, write it down on staff paper, program mathematical algorithms, or just draw some abstract shapes, you’ve got to be creative every day.
3. Form and Completion: This is the one that gets me. I’ve always had more ideas on the table than finished products, but again, that deadline looming over you forces you to figure out how to build on those random bits of inspiration and give your pieces form and structure.

Finally, here are two of the more “finished” sounding pieces that I was working on during February. They are both just one part songs which feature more free guitar improvisation than solid melody, but I hope you enjoy anyway.

The first song is temporarily titled Egypt 2011 because I had been watching news reports of the riots before sitting down to record this one. I tried to give it a dark feel.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

The second song has the working title of Tuesdays which I got when added the melancholy horn lines on a cold dreary Tuesday afternoon. The whole tune ended up having a slightly more wistful feeling than I was really going for, but I guess I can live with that.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments



It’s a shame when life gets in the way of your blogging. This has been the case with me ever since the holidays, but I’ll be back soon with some projects and interesting ideas to share.

In the meantime, I highly recommend listening to 23 Standards by Anthony Braxton. The entire album is amazing, but as a guitarist I was immediately impressed with the performance of Kevin O’Neil. His sense of timing and phrasing is completely original, entirely different from the funk sensibilities of my old favorites such as Grant Green or Melvin Sparks. Rather than constraining his improvisations to the “in the pocket” feel that most guitar players stick to, he manages to push, pull, and destroy the groove more like an avant-guard tenor sax player.

He also shreds with incredible speed and persistence throughout the entire range of the guitar. I have this image in my mind of him having to buy a new guitar every few years or so after wearing down the fretboard on the one he currently owns. It’s probably not true, but his playing sounds that sick.

Give it a listen until you hear from me next. You won’t be disappointed.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

Ardour is a very inexpensive open source DAW software that runs on Mac OS and Linux though the use of the Jack Audio Connections Kit. It is essentially free, however a small donation will give Mac users the ability to save AU settings with a project. In addition to it being open source, many of its functions can also be controlled through OSC.

Considering the high price tag on most DAW software I was a little skeptical of the stability and usefulness of something that was basically being given away for free. No rewire support and its dependency on Jack also made me wonder if it was worth the time exploring.

After using Ardour for a few weeks I have to say I was wrong to ever doubt it. I have found it to be a very stable program that is fully capable for most applications, and the use of Jack to route audio has worked flawlessly on my MacBook Pro so far. In fact, being free from the constraints of what is rewire-able has actually opened up some creative possibilities that I though wouldn’t have been possible before.

TouchOSC Transport

Many of Ardour’s functions can be controlled through OSC. There is an article on the SuperCollider wiki that will give you the most basic commands, but by downloading and viewing the source code I was able to find many more features that can be controlled.

Because Ardour supports recieving OSC commands, I was hoping that I would be able to have my iPod running TouchOSC communicate directly with Ardour, without using any other software such as Max/MSP, PD, or OSCulator, as a sort of middle-man to format the data correctly. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Ardour wants to recieve an OSC message that looks like this:

/ardour/transport_play

However TouchOSC always sends a number after the command signaling either and on or off state:

/ardour/transport_play 1

Because of this I’ve been working on putting together a simple Max5 patch that will re-format all the TouchOSC messages to the proper syntax that Ardour is expecting, which is probably all for the best since there are some other parameters that need a little customizing as well.

I am planning the TouchOSC layout to be 4 pages. The first two shown below are mostly transport functions. The next two will feature zooming, track selection, and individual track functions.

Ardour, Jack, and Max/Msp

Max for Live has been getting tons of attention these days, but all together it can be a rather costly bundle of products depending on what you already own. Jack makes it very simple to route audio from an Ardour track, to Max, and back through the Ardour master fader.

The documentation that comes with Jack explains very thoroughly the basics of routing audio around your computer. There is also a Jack plug-in that provides even more routing flexibility, but I can never get the plug-in to work properly with Ardour. It does however work with Max5. I’m not sure if this is a bug in Ardour, Jack, or just something about the way my computer is set up.

I remember having lots problems a couple years ago trying to perform similar operations with Cycling 74′s Soundflower. Jack takes a little time to set up properly, and depending on the variety of your projects you might need to create several different routings, but it seems to work rather well.

This might not provide you with all the same bells and whistles of Max for Live, but it does give you the same basic functionality. Also, in the spirit of free software I should point out that this works equally as well with PD, a similar program to Max/MSP that is free, or any other program you might want to use.

Potential Drawbacks

There are a few things to be aware of with Ardour.

There is no Rewire or VST support. The developers of Ardour point out that the reason for this is that legally these technologies cannot be used in open source software.

However, if you are computer savvy enough, and don’t mind compiling the program yourself, apparently there is a way to include the ability to use VST plug-ins. This hasn’t been too much of a problem for me since Ardour does support the AU format and most of the plug-ins I like and use work just fine as an AU plug-in.

Even though Jack can route audio in between applications like rewire, what it doesn’t do is sync one applications transport to the other. Syncing feels a bit hackish at the moment, but Ardour does support using MMC and MTC, so there are options. QJackctl is an alternative GUI for Jack that has a transport feature that in theory you can use to sync applications. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t say how well that works.

A cheap professional grade DAW

In these tough economic times, when the price of creative software soars high above what most people can afford to pay for it, and software piracy is essentially common place for anyone looking to get ahead in the digital media world, I am surprised that more attention hasn’t been given to this amazing product.

Though this does seems to be changing. Just minutes after I started writing this post I noticed a new article about Ardour with some great videos on audiojungle. Whether your needs are simple, or complex, I think Ardour is an amazing and affordable option.

If you are excited about me finishing the TouchOSC transport layouts and accompanying .maxpat, leave me an inspiring comment to help speed up the process.

If you would rather have the accompanying patch be in PD format, please let me know.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

A combination of being on vacation, and having the graphics card in my 15.4″ MacBook PRO Laptop Computer fail shortly after I returned, provided an unintentional opportunity to get to know my iPod Touch a little better.

Jasuto gave me plenty to keep me busy while my computer was at the shop. I really enjoy having so much modular synth power on a handheld device, and I found it’s usage to be fairly intuitive.

Have a look at some more detailed tutorials and descriptions of Jasuto’s features at the app’s webpage.

Here are a few exmaples of what I could do with Jasuto after a few days of experimentation.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

/*See post to listen to audio*/

/*See post to listen to audio*/

/*See post to listen to audio*/

In addition to giving me hours of DSP-related fun away from my computer, I have started to think of Jasuto as a good place to hash out new ideas for bigger projects before rolling them over into Ableton or Max/Msp.

Toy or Tool?

Unfortunately, there are a few things keeping Jasuto in the audio “toy” realm, and prevent it from becoming a real audio tool. In the examples above you can probably hear that I am having a hard time keeping the sequencers and audio samples in sync with each other.

It’s great that you can load your own audio samples in addition to using the ones that come installed with the app, but that’s still not enough if things can’t sync properly.

I would also like the ability to create longer sequences, as well as trigger different sequences at different times.

Jasuto’s modular GUI works extremely for my purposes, but there is one situation I wish I could find a way around.

Maybe I am just weird and unique (entirely possible), but often I’d like to use the release/mod information coming off of the left outlet from the Sequencer module and have it control the attack of an Envelope module.

Doing this is not very convenient since the attack input is on the left side of the Envelope module. Jasuto’s website tells me that I can use the Link module do accomplish this, but I always end up having some information delay.

VST

Honestly, I haven’t played with the VST version too much yet, but I should mention that having the possibility to route all kinds of audio through Jasuto seems very powerful. What I find discouraging is that the app and the VST seem to be completely separate at the moment.

I was a little angry earlier when I was planning this blog entry and I realized there was no way to load scenes I had created on my iPod into the VST.

To me this is a real drag. If I feel creative on the train, I’d like to pull out Jasuto and let the ideas flow, but then again, why get involved if there is no way to transfer my work into more appropriate mixing/recording mediums.

Calling for Help

In lieu of it’s faults, Jasuto’s forum page seems to be very active and peoples questions’ get answered or addressed often.

The idea and layout of this app is definitely new and unexplored territory for many, and I am no synth-genius myself, so there may be ways around all of these issues that I haven’t discovered yet, but even if there isn’t, I love having Jasuto on my iPod to experiment and generate new ideas with.

That being said I do still have high hopes for some big updates in the future.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

An assortment of random guitar samples, mostly of the funk variety, for use with Beatmaker on your iPhone. I wouldn’t recommend trying to make a song with these samples alone, although some can be used together, most of them are at different tempos, and in different keys; as well as being mixed differently.

I just wanted to offer up some guitar samples to the BeatMaker community. The process actually took much longer than I thought. Honestly, I think some of the samples are a bit rough around the edges, but whatever, they are free for non-commercial use, so slice’em up and have fun!

Here are a few examples of what you get when you download the kit. Also, I have included a small .txt file that gives the bpm for each sample to save you some trouble.

Bb7Lick
/*See post to listen to audio*/

2guitars
/*See post to listen to audio*/

Eb2Guitars
/*See post to listen to audio*/

Sexy_Gm
/*See post to listen to audio*/

MinorTurn
/*See post to listen to audio*/

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

Recently I sat down to do something I haven’t done in a long time. Make a MixTape for a friend. After hearing No Room For Squares by Hank Mobley, my friend admitted that she was much more knowledgeable on the subject of vocal jazz as opposed to instrumental jazz. So, I offered to make her a MixTape of some songs that she might like.

These are the tracks that I decided on. By no means is this a list of tracks I feel to be the most important or most influential in the jazz genre, but rather a compilation of tracks that I enjoy or find unique for a particular reason. Please feel free to leave comments on any of the tracks that I mention, or ones that you feel should have been included.

The Real McBop Live at the Blue Note by Arturo Sandoval

• Recorded June 10-11, 2004 at the Blue Note, NY
  Arturo Sandoval (Trumpet)
  Dennis Marks (Bass)
  Felipe Lamoglia (Saxophone)
  Rene Toledo (Guitar)
  Tomas Cruz (Percussion)
  Alexis Arce (Drums)
  Phil Magallanes (Piano)

This album includes a DVD of the performance as well as the CD version. Well worth the money, especially since halfway through the performance Arturo plays an imaginary Acoustic Bass and does some extended vocal solos that are better appreciated seen than just heard. The DVD also includes some interviews with Arturo Sandoval as an added bonus. The opening track, The Real McBop, is a fast Bebop tune pushed along by Afro-Cuban rhythms. I love this sound, and clearly nobody is doing it better these days than Arturo Sandoval.

Moontrane Unity by Larry Young

• 1966
  Larry Young (Hammond B3 Organ)
  Woody Shaw (Trumpet)
  Joe Henderson (Saxophone)
  Elvin Jones (Drums)

A friend of mine gave me a cassette tape version of this album when I was in college. I loved it so much it pretty much stayed in the tape deck of my car for a few years. Then, one hot sunny day while moving across town, I took it out and left it on the passenger seat — it melted. After that I bought it on CD. Moontrane is a Woody Shaw composition, and you can hear the original version on his album Moontrane, but I think this version is the best. I also saw John Scofield and Jack DeJohnette do an amazing version at Yoshi’s in Oakland several years ago. As a guitar player, it was nice to hear another guitarist play the melody of this song. I find it to be a rather difficult one to really nail as it alternates between quarter-note phrases and triplets, and also triplets that tie into quarter-note phrases.

Keiko’s Birthday March Puttin’ It Together by Elvin Jones

• 1968
  Elvin Jones (Drums)
  Joe Farrell (Tenor & Soprano Saxophones, Flute)
  Jimmy Garrison (Acoustic Bass)

Usually, I don’t like such high pitched instruments like the flute for extended soloing, but Joe Farrell manages to pull it off somehow. The song is beautiful. I can almost imagine Keiko doing her Birthday March. This song was also a recent discovery for me and I felt it was even more appropriate considering I live in Japan.

Self-Portrait in Three Colors Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus

• 1959
  Charles Mingus (Piano & Acoustic Bass)
  John Handy (Alto & Tenor Saxophones, Clarinet)
  Shafi Hadi (Alto & Tenor Saxophones)
  Booker Ervin (Tenor saxophone)
  Jimmy Knepper, Willie Dennis (Trombone)
  Horace Parlan (Piano)
  Dannie Richmond (Drums).

Every mixtape must have a track to slow the pace and give the listener a glassy-eyed retrospective feeling. See the movie High Fidelity for further instructions on how to make a mixtape. This is my track to do just that. It is an old favorite of mine for solitary pondering over the complexities of the human condition. Mingus is a master of creating texture within his compositions.

The African Queen Cape Verdean Blues by Horace Silver

• 1965
  Horace Silver (Piano)
  Joe Henderson (Tenor Saxophone)
  Woody Shaw (Trumpet)
  J. J. Johnson (Trombone)
  Bob Cranshaw (Bass)
  Roger Humphries (Drums)

Horace Silver is a mean piano player, but I also really like the way he arranges songs. The saxophone, trumpet, and trombone all crescendos and decrescendos beautifully over an addictive slow groove. The only further advice I could give is to sit back and crank up the volume to concert levels for full effect!

Ilya The Best of Irakere by Irakere

• 1978
  Chucho Valdéz (Piano)
  Arturo Sandoval (Trumpet)
  Paquito D’Rivera (Alto Saxophone & Flute)
  Oscar Valdéz (Percussion & Vocals)
  Carlos Puerto (Bass)
  Carlos Emilio Morales (Guitar)
  Jorge Varona (Trumpet)
  Tato Alfonso (Percussion)
  Bernardo Garcia (Drums)

I first heard about Irakere listening to KCSM in Oakland, CA. They were doing a radio show about Irakere and one of the members (I forget who) said they started the band with the goal of killing Jazz Music. The 70’s surely wasn’t the best decade for Jazz, but after hearing that comment, and a few of their early singles, I went out and got the first album of theirs that I could find, which happened to be this Best of Irakere compilation. I know that “Best of…” compilations are generally looked down upon among collectors, but what can I say, it was cheap. I believe most of the album is live recordings too, so as far as compilation CDs go, I think this is a pretty good one.

Belle Isle Yusef Lateef’s Detroit by Yusef Lateef

• 1969                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Yusef Lateef (Tenor Sax & Flute)
  Danny Moore (Trumpet)
  Snookie Young, Jimmy Owens, Thad Jones (Trumpet)
  Eric Gale (Guitar)
  Hugh Lawson (Piano)
  Cecil McBee (Acoustic Bass)
  Chuck Rainey (Electric Bass)
  Bernard Perdie (Drums)
  Roy Brooks Jr. (Drums)
  Ray Baretto (Conga)
  Albert “Tootie” Heath (Percusion)

While I was a student at Hampshire College I was lucky enough to take some classes with Yusef Lateef and I have been a huge fan ever since. His music and compositional style really transcends classification. I am somewhat partial to his funkier albums during the 1960s and this one might be my favorite, but then again Live at Pep’s might be too. I originally was going to put the track Livingston Playground on this CD, but at the last minute I changed my mind. Both tracks are pretty funky tunes with some nice signature sax playing by Dr. Yusef Lateef, however, Belle Isle is a bit more up tempo and “intense” sounding. Listening to this track with headphones on in a crowded train station may cause you to dance (or strut) your way through the crowded turnstile.

Tapscotts Blues The Moontrane by Woody Shaw

• 1975
  Woody Shaw (Trumpet)
  Steve Turre (Trombone)
  Azar Lawrence (Tenor & Soprano Saxophone)
  Onaje Allen Gumbs (Piano & Electric Piano)
  Victor Lewis (Drums)
  Cecil McBee (Bass)

The first version of Moontrane I heard was the version recorded on the album, Unity, by Larry Young, which I mentioned earlier, however, after hearing that I had to go out and find the original too. I still like the Unity version of that song better, but if you ask me Tapscott’s Blues is the gem on this album. I wonder if it has anything to do with Horace Tapscott, who I read about in Wax Poetics magazine recently?

Stopover Bombay Journey In Satchidananda by Alice Coletrane

• 1971
  Alice Coletrane (Harp & Piano)
  Pharaoh Sanders (Soprano Saxophone & Percussion)
  Vishnu Wood (Oud)
  Tulsi (Tamboura)
  Cecil McBee (Bass)
  Charlie Haden (Bass)

Alice will be the only Coletrane on this list. Alice Coletrane can create a sound environment like no other. It is free flowing, spacious, and undulating, without suffering from becoming atonal or arrhythmic. Pharaoh Sanders is also greatly responsible for helping her achieve the vibe. You’d be hard pressed to think of anyone who could have played a better sax on this album — except for maybe her brother.

Joshua Fit De Battle Ob Jericho Feelin’ The Spirit by Grant Green

• 1962
  Grant Green (Guitar)
  Herbie hancock (Piano)
  Butch Warren (Acoustic Bass)
  Billy Higgins (Drums)
  Garvin Masseaux (Tambourine)

Grant Green is by far my favorite guitar player. I even read his biography. It’s hard to decide what to recommend if you can choose just one song. There are so many amazing tracks that he played on, on both his albums and as a sideman in other projects. Feelin’ The Spirit is an album of old spirituals reinterpreted with some jazz-funk sensibility. I ended up going with this track cause its got a nice dark tone and a funky rhythm to it. Grant plays the song’s gorgeous winding melody quite masterfully as well. Herbie Hancock also does an amazing job of keeping things funky and simple on piano, while the guitar solo is full of Grant Green’s signature soulful licks.

Little B’s Poem Organic Vibes by Joey DeFrancesco

• 2006                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Joey DeFrancesco (HammondB3Organ)                                                                                                                                                               Jake Langley (Guitar)                                                                                                                                                                                                       Ron Blake (Saxophone)
  George Coleman (Tenor saxophone)
  Bobby Hutcherson (Vibraphone)
  Byron Landham (Drums)

This is the most recently released track on the tape. Joey DeFrancesco is a monster on the Hammond B3. I have always enjoyed the way he played, but I never owned any of his albums. I bought this on a whim a few years back and never really listened to it until recently when I put it on my iPod. Every time I set the iPod to random, and this track comes on, I find my self taking it out of my pocket to find out what track is playing. I particularly like the way the melody almost seems to ramble on and digress, yet at the same time refrains from being noodling or wasteful.

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

This Beatmaker Kit is my attempt at putting together a Lo-Fi collection of junky soundbits for rough noisy beats.

Most of the sounds I used for this kit are from a collection of field recordings that I did years ago on a hand-held tape recorder. My goal with this collection was to create an appealing Lo-Fi kit from what essentially was, just some moderately interesting recordings with low quality sound.

I also added a few homemade samples that I recorded directly into my computer as well. Have a listen to what I did with it and download the Kit if you like.

/*See post to listen to audio*/
Junky Kit Download Link

Get Beatmaker Here

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

I’ve been having entirely too much fun with this awesome iPhone/iPod Touch application by Intua. I put off buying BeatMaker for a long time because of the 19.99 price tag. When there are so many good music applications for much less, why bother, right?

The reason I bothered was that you can upload custom sounds. I searched and searched for a cheaper application that has this same functionality, but in the end I just gave up and dished out the 20 bucks — it was totally worth it!

I don’t really want to make this a review since there have already been plenty of great reviews on BeatMaker, (you can find a very thorough review here) but I do want to show some of what I have been doing with it.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

After playing around, making beats on the train like the one above, and learning the ins and outs of this app, I finally got around to creating my own kit. I used a collection of samples that I downloaded from freesound.org, (attribution page included in download) and I also made some samples using my keyboard and guitar.

I wanted to have an amount of variety with each sample that I created. The C7_Rhodes, Organ&GuitarVamp, and OrganBass samples are probably all best used after slicing down the audio file to a specific section that you want to use. This isn’t a problem because you can crop down any audio file within BeatMaker easily. Here is a little beat I created with my custom set.

/*See post to listen to audio*/

I am posting this kit on my downloads page. Anyone is welcome to use it, or any of the individual samples, as long as they credit me for the samples I created, and/or the original authors of the samples used from freesound.org. The samples that I downloaded were also treated to some effects and editing in Ableton, so my versions may sound slightly different from the orginals.

Have fun, and feel free to leave comments or suggestions!

BeatMaker

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments

This is an early rough draft of a composition I started working on recently. It utilizes the Max/Msp patch that I wrote about in my first post on Midi Generating LFOs. At the end of that earlier post I listed four things that I wanted to work on for the next step in this project. I haven’t done any of it. Except to sync up the LFOs in my patch to a musical composition. So far the piece has an electronic drum track, keyboard, and the Max/Msp patch – as well as a handful of other effects. Hope you like it!

/*See post to listen to audio*/

maxBreakwell.com - Music, Sound Design, and Multimedia Art Experiments