Instrument For Making Horror Music

Must. HAVE!!!
Via Videosift.com

Kitara: Awesome Synth Guitar

Welcome back 80's style keytar...
Via: Boingboing.net

Real Guitar Video Game

So you aren't just punching buttons thinking you have any talent like some kind of jerk.
"Vision is a self-teaching electric guitar. It’s an LED-lit neck and body working in unison with guitar learning software. Tune is always tune, reducing the time a student uses on this elementary task. Vision teaches through games involving visual and audio feedback. Chords, percussion, and popular music are played alongside the student to provide easy assistance, allowing the student to become familiar with the instrument in an environment they’re basically already used to."
Via Uniquedaily.com
(Click the pic to check it out!)

Electronic Drums VS Acoustic

Bands that use Acoustic drums: 90% of the time your live drums sound like crap. There. I said it. Looks neat, sounds like crap. Like your beating on various sizes of cardboard boxes. Or since the venue is kind of small, you are overpowering the rest of the music with your dry uneffected sound. Especially electronic based bands. The lovely sound men of the world aren't mic-ing them correctly no matter how great they are, and if they do mic them correctly they aren't getting them to a decent level until your last 2 or 3 songs. That's all good to know isn't it? Especially since you are having to lug all that crap all over the world, set it all up, and paying to the change the heads every few shows. Acoustic drums in a modern rock band is like playing an acoustic guitar with distortion.

The only thing is, Acoustic drums are much easier than Electronic drums. You hit an Acoustic drum and it makes a sound. It plays, power or no. The soundman knows they are working, if he doesn't hear it in the PA he knows it's his problem, not yours. Plus, soundmen that are acoustic purists aren't going to screw with you. They love that flat-assed uneffected drum sound. Not so much with Electronic drums.

Electronic drums are hard to do. No power no play. If the venue power isn't grounded right all sorts of fun could happen. They can look dinky. Most of them don't have flashy looking cymbals, so why you hit a crash there is no movement. You don't feel the sound coming from the drum kit like you do an acoustic set, you hear it from the PA, so it almost seems unreal. HOWEVER, when an Electronic drum kit is okay in a live mix, it is kicking all sorts of ass over an acoustic kit. Each kit is premixed, with each sound specifically tempered for each song. It is tight, and it is powerful. Also, you never have to replace a head. About every 2 years of so you have to replace a drum, but the cost doesn't add up to all the acoustic heads you have to replace on an acoustic set. Also it travels well. It's at least half the size of a regular kit with 100 times the amount of sounds. I can pick up almost the entire kit on a rack set it on stage and it's good to go after plugging in a few things. BAM!

Just sayin...

Haptic Drumkit

"Learning an instrument can be a long, difficult process, requiring years of dedication. The 'Haptic Drum Kit', shown at MIT's Fourth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, intends to streamline and improve the learning, getting musicians up and drumming in no time. Using both audio and vibrotactile (read: buzzing the wearer) input, the player not only hears the noise of the kit as he or she pounds away, but feels it too."
Azil X does not need this. Azil X will teach the computer how to drum.
Via Newlaunches.com
(Click the pic for more info!)

Touch Pad Guitar

Cool Synth. Not really a guitar. Maybe cooler.
More info: Misadigital.com

The Roland SP-404SX Sampler

The laptop Lucid Dementia uses for the drum sounds has become too problematic:
1. It can't keep up with AzilX's fast playing, specifically on complex hi hat parts and lags horribly.
2. When first turned on, it sometimes kicked out the external audio interface, forcing AzilX to restart the laptop, and hold her breath that it finally loads. This contributed to the band taking too long to set up at the Dallas show, and ending up having to cut the set short.

For these reasons we are replacing the laptop with the Roland SP-404SX Sampler. It plays back waves, has software so that samples can be edited on a PC, and can hold up to 32GB of data. We should start testing it when it arrives sometime between January 14th-20th. If things go well it will debut on the February 13th show...
(Click the pic to check it out!)

New Toy for Nik: WMD Geiger Counter Distortion

It sounds like what it's name describes. Very noisy, very crunchy.

Music Medium Sales Chart:

A chart that shows the rise and fall of each music medium: 8-Track, Cassette, LPs, CDs, Downloads... What's next?

via j-walkblog.com
(Seriously, click the pic so you can see the whole chart...)

Throbbing Gristle: The Gristleizer

Neat:
"Smashing Guitar issued a limited commercial version of The Gristleizer, the custom audio effects unit that Throbbing Gristle used in the late 1970s to create uneasy listening music and define the industrial music genre. TG co-founder Chris Carter had made the first unit based on a design printed in Practical Electronics magazine. Now, Smashing Guitar has built a run of thirty Gristleizers in a stompbox form-factor."

via boingboing.net/

(Click the pic to check it out!)

SCSI For Samplers:

Sheldon uses some older model synths so that in order to back up his sounds he used to have to use Zip Drives. Zip Drives are horrible. They all seem to break down, or the disks go bad.

This guy ("JD")started a company for guys like Sheldon. He sells alternate storage devices for older model synths that used the now outdated external SCSI drives and what not. If it wasn't for this JD, it would be really hard for Lucid Dementia to be able to play some of their older songs, like "Twisted".

Another bonus: the JD is a stand up guy. His prices are reasonable, he's full of useful information about updating your old synths, very professional, and he is quick to ship you the stuff you order. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
(Click the pic to check out the website!)

Chauvet F-650 Fog Machine Fogger w/ Fluid & Remote

Sheldon haz this. It's smaller than the picture looks, but it makes the fog. Oh yes, it makes the fog. Prepare to get foggy.
FOGGY! Cost: 38.99 - Free Shipping!
"The Hurricane foggers by CHAUVET combine reliability, performance, and value into one package. Each machine features a fluid level indicator located on the front of the unit, and comes with a specific heater, fluid capacity, and wired remote that is particular to the ordered unit."
(Click on the pic to check it out on ebay!)

Fog Machine:

hmmm...
Maybe?
"The Hurricane™ foggers by CHAUVET combine reliability, performance, and value into one package. Each machine features a fluid level indicator located on the front of the unit, and comes with a specific heater, fluid capacity, and wired remote that is particular to the ordered unit."
Fog is cool. I saw the band Ludovico Technique use a fog machine that was connected to a foot pedal that the singer could trigger at will. Sheldon wants to do that too.

Drum Kit Bike

Someone show this to Bradley from Chant. Or better yet, but it for him.

via uniquedaily.com

(Click the pic for more info!)

AzilX got new headphones

Ever since the beginning of the band AzilX has played to some form or click track. We use backing tracks, so she has to have a click track. Nothing is funner for the band than to finish a song only to find out we synched out of the click track and there is 4 more bars of music still playing. Yes, we have done the old "Row row row your boat" a few embarressing times...

She's always had problems with the headphones she has, they are hot, heavy, and the cable is jangly. Thanks to advice from Bradley from the band Chant she has now purchased a brand spanking new pair of in ear headphones. She had tried some similar ones, and they worked brilliantly. So in a few days she will have these:
(Click the pic to check them out!)

Awesome Trombone

That's right! I said it! Awesome. Trombone.

via Neatorama.com

(Click the pic for much more!)

New Digital Televion to screw up Wireless Music Devices:

Now that television is being switched over to digital (which is the first step for the government to take over your internet access, but that's a different posting...), it's going to wreak havoc with wireless music equipment if you don't know how to set it up properly (actually, because of new related cell phone frequencies). The music equipment company sweetwater has put out a handy dandy guide on how to handle all this:
(click on the pic to check it out!)