bengston

Sonalksis TBK-3

This might be of little relevance for most but I've just heard sonalksis have a new plugin on the shelve: It's called TBK-3 or "Über Compressor". I'm itching to try it out!!

Waldorf is back

Well maybe this is not relevant to most readers but it is relevant to me :) Waldorf, the makers of the bestest synthesizers who've gone bust a few years ago are back! They are back with a new model of the Q (which I have and which is still defect) and two new models called stromberg and zarenbourg.

been quiet (and busy)

A full two weeks off from work is a good thing. Time for Family, sleeping, cooking, studio and more! One of the projects tackled can be seen below: My brandnew studio table / rackspace solution :) It took my dad and me one day to build this and it took another day to paint it and re-wire all the machines. Feels damn good now :)

A new workhorse

After 4 years of intensive use, my beloved studio PC who gave me so much trouble will be retired. And what you see below are the innards of the new system. I was going to recycle some parts of the old buddy.. but the industry won't let me: AGP grafic cards? no longer on the board. RAMBUS ram? (a huge investment at the time) long forgotten. And I'm not even talking about mainboard or IDE harddrives. One could argue I didn't need a new PC. I think it was about time and if all goes well it will last another 4 years. It'll sure give me a major performance boost, allowing me to use thousands of plugins at once. Well maybe hundreds..

hilarious xiosynth ad video

Well this little machine has landed on my shopping list for it's unique concept: synth, a two octave keyboard controller and an audio interface in one small box. Perfect to take away and play around (i.e. in boring hotel rooms or on lonely mountain vacations or whatever, it even runs on batteries!). Now I discovered these hilarious videos making me want one of these even more which is what advertising is supposed to do right? check 'em out at xiosynth.com

decibel.dj

ich bin vermutlich der letzte, der das bloggt aber der vollständigkeit halber und weils eine tolle sache ist, von so vielen schweizer bands so gute samples zu haben: Decibel.dj ist ein remix wettbewerb, welcher sich an alle richtet, die gerne schweizer bands remixen. einfach oder? ich hab mir auf jeden fall mal die samples gezogen und mal mit den lunik schnipseln rumgespielt. falls was dabei rauskommt gibt's das hier zu lesen und auf decibel.dj zu hören. Schade an der Sache: Die Seite ist schlecht programmiert und nervt mit einem unbrauchbaren Player. Cool dafür, dass Filewile zu den Ambassadors gehören. Gruss an Dejot und Ändu an dieser Stelle!

a source for good vocal samples

I always struggle to find decent vocal samples. movies is kinda dangerous and the net... well whatever those free sample sites promise it's utter crap. I now discovered that by randomly downloading some podcasts, you're likely to end up with a couple of usable lines. and the best: your archive keeps growing by the day! haven't really bothered about wether it's right or not to use them. most likely the poor guy will never ever notice :)

After my Waldorf Q died down a year ago my EX5R, my second digital hardware synth went dead just like that. I was using it for a pad sound when it suddenly went quiet. Now I have two synths to get fixed...argh

creativity and job - 11 tips

Since I have a daytime job I find it harder to produce music. I end up spending 10 hours in front of a laptop and another five or six in front of the screens in the studio. this can be very tiring and frustrating. I found this article over at taniths blog and am surprised how many of the 11 tips are already (partly) in use with me. good read anyway if you are trying to be creative and still need to pay your bills.