SooperLooper and Behringer FCB-1010

Earlier this year I got a good deal on a Boss Loop Station for $150. I tried it out a couple times but quickly realized that as a budding one-man digital artist, I was already relying quite a bit on my computer for beats and synths. The beats in particular were very difficult to sync up with the Boss Looper and I decided to look into alternatives. For digital loopers running in linux there are few choices, and the two that really stand out in form and function are free-wheeling and sooper looper. After looking at the two, I decided sooper looper would better fit my needs. However, it is important that I may keep my hands available for playing instruments and I had to ensure I could control sooper looper's midi-bindings through a inexpensive foot-pedal. After some research, I found that many folks found the Behringer FCB-1010 to work very well for this purpose and it was reasonably priced. I got one for $149 and then sold my Boss for $150 so it worked out well. The FCB-1010 has 10 digital banks of 10 physical pedals giving 100 addressable midi-bindings. It also has two rocker foot-pedals to control volume or similarly modulated effects. For my purposes, I use 5 of the 10 banks to control 10 midi-bindings for 5 different loops in sooper looper. Sooper Looper is a bit complicated but has lots of nice features. I have finally configured it in an efficient manner so that all my loops sync to the JACK transporter which is controlled by the Hydrogen drum-sequencer. In this way I can effectively quantize recorded loops to the length of the drum-sequence cycle.

As it stands now my live-looping setup consists of JACK, Hydrogen, SooperLooper and ZynAddSubFx. I also of course use guitar and I'm starting to experiment more with voice recording.

Music Studio Phase II - sans condenser mic

I have decided to postpone the purchase of a new microphone, since I don't really have much opportunity to do this kind of recording. However, I have found a couple nice additions to my studio set-up (totaling just about $110). I recently made 2 purchases to allow a more flexible, complete, mobile solution to my DAW. I now have the ability to take my studio on the road and use my Sony Vaio.

First I have added a simple E-MU XMIDI 1x1 USB interface ($25) so I can use my midi keyboard with a USB port.

Secondly, I needed a USB audio interface / preamp. After some research I found an excellent solution that offers a substantial "bang-for-your-buck" using an ART USB Dual Pre ($80). The ART is a great solution for me so far. It is very portable, powered by USB, and requires no software drivers. When you plug it in you will find "USB audio codec" added to your sound I/O hardware options. However, you don't have to select this for your system if you run most of your studio software on top of JACK. Instead, just change the input and output preferences in the JACK setup and you are good to go!

I also found software designed to be a guitar effects simulator called Rackarrack which also has an on-board tuner and can route your guitar notes to midi events. Although it has limited sensitivity, this may be a good way to score midi data for someone (like me) who plays guitar/bass better than keyboard.

So What...

i used to think, fantasize or dream with ink or graphite on a fresh new ream
the words formed thoughts, the thoughts told a story
that was way before i got so boring
i've lost some nerves, put out the fire
just the other day i saw my new spare tire
sat down for the barber in his swivel chair as he hacked away at my graying hair

so what if you think life is so unfair?

got a bachelor degree in two thousand three
then spent 7 more years to get a PHD
haven't been a bachelor since i was seventeen
now there's lucas ethan gavin 3 more boys like me
now the misses she be crazy, maybe i'm a bit too lazy
i can not understand she spins my head til i'm hazy
some say that i should "grow a pair" but i know that my situation is rare

so what if you think life is so unfair?


-Shhh!

Virtual Instrument Resources

I've just started finding cyber-hot-spots to get virtual instrument sounds that I can control with a midi sampler (I like Qtractor and Muse so far). So far it seems there are two key ways I can produce sound from my computer sound card: digital synthesizer and recorded samples. There are two classes of sample formats I've seen that I can play with a few different software. SoundFonts (.sf2) are usually downloaded as an archive (compressed to .sf2ARK) and can be decompressed with the SFARK utility (sfarkxtc). I like using Qsynth (by Rui Nuno Capela) to play these samples. GIG or Gigaedit (.gig) files are also available and I have been able to play them best with Jsampler, however, I have noticed some playback trouble on my desktop when trying to control Jsampler with Qtractor and record to Ardour. I wonder if I can figure out how to use Qsampler would it sync better with Qtractor? Jsampler runs with Java, whereas Qsampler and Qtractor (both by Rui Nuno Capela) run on top of Qt.

For a nice library of SoundFonts check out HomeMusician.net

Download

I wanted to make sure that music could be easily downloaded from this site. Below is a simple way to supply any download from my server space. You can right click the link to the song i08.mp3 and "save link as:"

nOe-i08.mp3

or you can download the collection "i" as a zip file:

or as a self-extracting zip file (windows only):

However, it turns out that if you "right-click" the xspf player (look more lefter), there is a "download" option. For me this would open the file with a music player embedded in firefox web browser, but you can still "save page as" under "File" in the browser.

Better than the above link would be using the simple player shown below my xspf playlist (left). I'll have to look into that later.

Home Recording Studio - Phase I

I think it is important to document my progress as I piece together a home recording studio. At this point I have come to a significant stage that I am designating Phase I. Phase I is basically setting up as much as I can without any new hardware purchases.

Phase I

Hardware:

1. In-The-Box:

- American Megatrends MoBo (add specs)
- Pentium IV 2.83 MHz microprocessor
- 2GB RAM (add specs)
- 80GB IDE 56k HD (check specs)
- Lite-On SATA DVD-RW
- SoundBlaster Audigy 1 sound card with mounted breakout box and midi "joystick" adapter

2. Out-The-Box:

- V-Tech vt-1030 dynamic mic w/ XLR3 cables
- radioshack dynamic mic
- Yamaha 12-string accoustic/electric
- Guild 6-string accoustic/electric (recently "set-up" including bridge reattachment $150)
- Epiphone Les Paul (recently "set-up" including jack-plate recplacement $50)
- Zoom Player Pro 4040 (ca. 1995) digital effects pedal
- Morley Wah pedal
- Crate PA-800 800W 8-Channel Power Mixer
- Cybersound 3 octave midi keyboard (given to me by a colleague)

I did, however, recently purchase a Boss RC-20 Loopstation ($150) which is not as much for recording as for assisting the writing process...and just a lot of fun to use!

Software (Ubuntu-9.10):

- Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) audio driver.
- Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK or Jack).
- QJackCtl with the Jack audio server engine which runs on top of an optimized low latency "real-time" kernel (linux-rt). Also acts as a convenient transporter that may control several programs simultaneously such as Hydrogen, Muse, Qtractor and Ardour.
- Ardour2-GTK professional-grade multi-track recorder, mixer and audio editor that syncs with JACK Transporter.
- Qtractor multi-track midi sequencer and audio recorder that syncs with JACK.
- Hydrogen percussion sequencer (syncs with JACK) supporting multiple drum-kits with on-board mixing console and song editor to organize drum patterns into a complete performance.
- JSampler gigedit .gig sample engine
- QSynth soundfount .sfs sample engine
- ZynAddSubFX addition/subtraction digital synth with built in effects

So in total I have spent $400, but that was mostly to refurbish my guitars and buy a looper "toy." As it stands now, I have enough equipment and know how to use what where enough that I have a really good start to being able to make music that someone other than me can hear.

Additions for Phase II:

Condenser Mic for enhanced vocal recording
Stereo Preamp with phantom power

RPM 2010 Listening Parties

Last night I was fortunate to be able to attend the RPM 2010 Listening Party at the Portsmouth Music Hall. RPM was celebrating their 5th year and its participants have collectively produced about 3600 albums. I hope to be able to participate in future years. It is a great experience and really does motivate musical growth. I found out later that the person organizing the listening parties (a huge undertaking for a few hundred attendants at 5 different small venues around downtown Portsmouth) contacted me requesting the song from i that I would like played. At least they still chose one for me even though I did not respond. So track i01 was played at the Music Hall in the group "Electronic/Ambient." I wish I had responded so they played i08 instead. Oh Well.

Whispering

I have found it to be a bit challenging to record music in the house since my usual window of opportunity is after the kids are all in bed. I decided that I can either wait several years until the kids are more self-sufficient so I can do any vocal-work during the day, or I could just whisper-sing at night. My wife and I tried to sing quietly one night recently and it wasn't a complete failure. I use a software amplifier from "JACK-Rack" to boost the signal from a cheap V-Tech vt-1030 dynamic microphone that I've had since my teenage rock/grunge band playing days.

Later I had the idea that maybe I could start writing lyrics designed for a loud whisper. I think it is an idea worth pursuing and at the very least it will give me a focus and project design that will push me to accomplish something. I have aptly named it project Whisper, Whisperer Err, Whisperin Her Err, or something like that.

I will be writing and editing lyrics right from this blog so hang on, it could be a bumpy ride. I will designate project Whisper's lyrics with the following signature:

-Shhh!

RPM Challenge

The Wire Magazine from Portsmouth, NH has held an annual "open challenge" to musicians all over the world (over 2000 participants this year) to motivate the recording of 10 new tracks or 35 min. of music. I have a friend who has participated for a number of years and was finally motivated myself, having been enabled by several flexibile/portable iPod Touch apps I recently acquired. My nOe rpm challenge page is http://noe.rpmchallenge.com. It was cool to see that the fine people at The Wire used xspf as their flash media playlist component like the one on my blog (look more lefter). They also use audio-player for individual tracks on the owners back-pages so songs can be reviewed individually (I'm using that too for embedding into my blog posts). Here also is the collection from i
nOe-i

Overall, I am happy that I was able to participate, even if the final product is a bit sloppy and brief for my liking... At least I learned a lot about what I can now do myself to make music, something I was previously incapable of. I have a long way to go, but I will be tracking progress here along the way.

Some future plans include:
- cutting a more polished nOe album from many of the ideas in i (which I think of more as a musical notebook).
- record some Betsy and Murgatroid tracks with Elia
- sell my Honda Shadow to buy an improved recording studio set-up (research still to do)
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/39751

album cover artwork ideas

listen to the music

Today I learned how to add music to my Blog! It actually didn't take me very long (about 45 min) and I am pleased with the overall simplicity and flexibility.

Above is a single track player that I learned about here. I can add a single audio file to any blog post (as in this one) and will probably use it to track works in progress, audio field-samples and the like. Here for demonstration purposes I added the unedited file from Gavin laughing used on track i08 from my first album i which I recorded almost entirely using my iPod Touch.

To the left is an embedded xspf player that I learned about here, here, and here. I added the code to an html/flash widget offered through blogger's widget store.