bro you just missed Obsolete! it was awesome!
338 Jul 1, 2011 8:30 am
Re: [6/30/2011, online] KOOL SKULL, AND WIZWARS on MorMusic RadioPod! (7 replies, posted in Past Events)
I would've totally listened to this had I KNOWN ABOUT IT BEFORE 4 TODAY GOD
339 Jun 30, 2011 6:26 am
Re: [SF] 07.07.11 • Bit Shifter, crashfaster, The Glowing Stars, starpause (18 replies, posted in Past Events)
I AM SO JELLY OH MY GOD.
340 Jun 23, 2011 1:58 am
Re: Beatjazzerzzz (32 replies, posted in General Discussion)
I should reiterate -- I'm not saying that anything that this particular dude was doing is amazing; rather, I'm just excited for the kind of future music performance he represents. I totally agree with you on both points: the controllers aren't robust enough for the audience to do anything but wonder what the hell is going on when he moves his arm, and the music itself wasn't great.
the thing that gets me excited is that the interface he uses suggests a future in which the music performance is just as important as the music in a way that we haven't seen since the electronic music scene blew up. and while I agree that live loop triggering and playing with the EQ can help the audience build a relationship between the performer and his/her music, I'd argue that it doesn't do enough. people generally don't know the specifics of the parameters we control when we're performing (and this isn't limited to just chipmusicians -- I love me some Nosaj Thing but I'll be damned if I know everything he's doing with that mpd32 up there), and twisting knobs and sliding faders can only go so far. a lot of people don't even know what EQ is! so that gap is still present. this is how you get people like that girl we found a while ago playing music off of her iPod and calling it original material. the skill with the interface doesn't represent a relationship to the music as much as it should (if at all) now that controllers > turntables > instruments.
I just keep coming back to making analogues with classical music performance when I think about this though. no one ever sees a virtuoso violin player or piano player and wonders what parameters of sound he or she is controlling -- all of that is laid out, and the only job we have is to wonder how the fuck anyone gets that good on an instrument. if you give someone like a ballet dancer a system like this but it's super advanced and robust (definitely not featured in this video), you create an experience in which the body becomes the instrument and the audience doesn't have to wonder as much about the parameters the dancer is controlling. or maybe you make that wonder the central part of the performance. or anything! the point being that the skill with the interface (skill at dancing with this crazy controller suit on) actually now represents this relationship to the music that was previously missing.
and one last point: he's making this an open-source project, which is promising. it at least shows that he isn't willing to claim ownership of this style of performance (yet) and is more interested in just pushing the boundaries of what music performance is.
341 Jun 21, 2011 9:16 pm
Re: Beatjazzerzzz (32 replies, posted in General Discussion)
kineticturtle wrote:
I'm getting really tired of the controller culture of electronic music. Everyone seems to think if they come up with a niftier device to make the same music, that they'll reinvent culture somehow.
well the thing is -- they WILL reinvent culture. just not for us!
imagine coming into electronic music in 5 years. the turntable is all but dead and CDJs are on the way out, and controllers are the way to go. I would argue that a kid growing up and wanting to be an electronic musician will be thinking in a completely different paradigm than a kid growing up and wanting to be an electronic musician 10 years ago.
the thing with interfaces (and midi controllers are totally interfaces) is that each one changes the way we interact with the system that the interface lets us interact with. people on turntables interacted with music completely differently than people using midi controllers do. the thing with changing this interaction is that it also changes the way we THINK about these interactions, so again, kids growing up today are going to be thinking about this stuff differently than kids growing up 10 years ago. and because of stuff like this beatjazz thing, kids growing up 5 years from now will be thinking of music and music performance totally differently.
(chipmusic is totally an example of this)
I think this is exciting! it's looking toward a future in which the performance of music is very intimately connected to the human body in a way that we haven't been able to explore in a really long time because we're still getting over this whole computer-as-discrete-object thing. it'd almost be as intimate as a guitar player or a violin player or a flute player exploring the contours of their physical being and how that physicality affects their music, except now we have a bunch of computers as the source of sound rather than a vibrating surface. I'm kind of a sucker for stuff like this that makes electronic music performance into more than just some dude behind a laptop/turntables!
and it looks dumb right now but that's because we're still in the process of this exploration! eventually we'll get to a point where the control of parameters is 1-on-1 with the movement of the body and it's not just some dude moving his arm for a filter effect or stomping his leg to trigger a clip 
(also hi matt!)
EDIT: wow! I just realized this is kind of EXACTLY what I want from music performance! the reason electronic music is fake-performed so often is because people don't know what the performer's relationship with the music coming from the speakers is. it could range from a huge series of button presses and highly technical and fine movements (as in turntablism) down to the single press of a button + fist pumping (as in me )! so anything that allows the audience to connect the performer with the music easier is awesome. and this is totally a way to connect the performer and his music, even if the performance only consists of triggering clips and adding effects. what makes this exciting is when you think about what happens when you get a better dancer with a more robust system. when you get ballet dancers controlling really specific parameters with very finely tuned movements then that's when I say the future of music performance is here.
342 Jun 19, 2011 8:39 am
Re: Henry Homesweet - Essential Chip Mix 2011 (15 replies, posted in Releases)
this looks awesome!
but it is enormous and intimidating ._.
343 Jun 11, 2011 10:06 pm
Re: Space Town Savior - Kill The Comedown Volumes 1-12 (4 replies, posted in Releases)
yeah sorry! that was me taking the link from the wrong place (after deleting it)
I should just give up on this internet thing because I don't seem to be very good at it!
EDIT: fixed the link!
344 Jun 10, 2011 11:53 pm
Re: Space Town Savior - Kill The Comedown Volumes 1-12 (4 replies, posted in Releases)
hey guys! I took this down for a while and re-recorded it and made it better! I think!
so ch-ch-check it out dawgs!
345 Jun 9, 2011 5:25 am
Re: the Glowing Stars + Crashfaster on KSPC radio this Friday 6/10/11 (3 replies, posted in Past Events)
WOOOOOOO
346 Jun 3, 2011 6:42 pm
Re: [LA] OBSOLETE - June 4th - Trash80, Wet Mango, and tons others (3 replies, posted in Past Events)
yo guys this is tomorrow.
I know some of you are in the SoCal area so you should get yourselves to this and RAWK OUT
(with your yeah you know what I mean)
347 Jun 2, 2011 3:14 am
Re: [LA] OBSOLETE - June 4th - Trash80, Wet Mango, and tons others (3 replies, posted in Past Events)
GET HYYYYPE
348 May 30, 2011 10:32 pm
Topic: Space Town Savior - Kill The Comedown Volumes 1-12 (4 replies, posted in Releases)
Hey guys! seems like everyone's been posting new releases so I figured I'd throw one up EVEN THOUGH my full length came out two weeks ago
it's a 30 minute LSDJ mix! it was a lot of fun to make!
you can find it here: http://spacetownsavior.bandcamp.com/alb … olumes-1-3
349 May 29, 2011 11:14 pm
Re: [San Diego,CA]-5.29.11-Trash80,Wizwars,Bleeds,SpaceTownSavior,Elekid! (5 replies, posted in Past Events)
a couple words:
WOOOOOOOOOO
350 May 28, 2011 6:42 pm
Re: [San Diego,CA]-5.29.11-Trash80,Wizwars,Bleeds,SpaceTownSavior,Elekid! (5 replies, posted in Past Events)
this is tomorrow! get HYPE
351 May 25, 2011 5:40 am
Re: [San Diego,CA]-5.29.11-Trash80,Wizwars,Bleeds,SpaceTownSavior,Elekid! (5 replies, posted in Past Events)
oh god! totally forgot that YESTERDAY WAS THE 23RD
good job me! that's why I should be in charge of everything of course
352 May 24, 2011 8:21 pm
Re: This girl is stealing chipt00ns. (175 replies, posted in General Discussion)
I feel like this is kind of a problem with our platform (and most digital music) in general! when the music creation process involves lots of technology and it isn't obviously clear what is making the sounds and how those sounds are being controlled, it becomes really easy to hide underneath an air of authority with regards to technology. basically people think that our setups are too complicated to explain so they don't ask us, and we can continue playing a song off our iPod because we're the EXPERTS OF COURSE WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING.
i'm not trying to say that maybe we brought this on ourselves, but maybe a better way to rectify this (and future plagarists) is to try AS HARD AS WE CAN to inform people about what goes into the music creation process! explain to people that using old video game hardware to make music isn't rocket science and is, in fact, really easy!
people like this can actually gain a following because the general public doesn't really know how chipmusic is made. encouraging people to try it out isn't that hard, and it leads to a general knowledge of digital music and digital music technology! which is important. I know that every time someone comes up to me after a show and asks how I do it, I explain it to them and then add the disclaimer that it's not as complicated as it looks/sounds! and then refer them to here or 8bc for information
people know about guitars. they know that if you pluck the strings then they vibrate and that makes sounds. so it's really easy to tell when someone is faking it because there's a general knowledge of that music instrument that everyone can draw on. it's perhaps more difficult to instill a general knowledge of digital music technology but if we're more open about showing people (and I'm not saying that we're not!) then stuff like this will get less and less common as more people realize what we do!