Blog category: Motherboard

Electric Independence at the Growing practice space

Posted on 270510 in , and

A new episode of Electric Independence lets us see the practice space of Growing. we get to look at their equipment and get the story behind their transformation from effects-heavy drone into the complex, synapse-shifting sound they create today. Cool episode!

Motherboard visits the practice space of the band one day before the release of their eighth album PUMPS! and the start of a 6 week North American tour in support of it. We also capture their first show of the tour in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and talk with the band about their sound.

 

www.motherboard.tv

 

www.growingsound.com

Steven Mann uses water to make the perfect sounds

Posted on 030510 in , and

New Sound Builders up today about Steve Mann who makes organs from water. Even his hot tub is an instrument!

 

Steve Mann is possibly the world's preeminent hydraulophonist. A hydraulphonist is someone who makes instruments that creates sound from moving water. He specializes in water organs and he even has one of them merged into his hot tub. Interesting show with a guy really passionate about sounds and water.

In Episode 4 of Sound Builders, we travel to Toronto, Ontario to visit the amazing Steve Mann. While at MIT, where he earned a PhD in Media Arts & Sciences, Steve founded the Wearable Computers Group at the Media Lab, and built musical instruments using brainwaves and compressed hydraulic fluids. Lauded by some as the worlds first cyborg, and the initiator of the mobile blogging movement, Steve is now a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto.For this episode, Steve volunteered to be both guest and host, using his human/cyborg first-person perspective to show us his studio, talk about his past inventions, and ask members of the circus to play the latest of his inventions: the hydraulophone, a highly tactile and mellifluous water-based instrument that Steve hopes can offer the blind and deaf a new method of music-creation. To submit your own instrument idea, and win $1000, visit www.motherboard.tv/contest.

Sound Builders Episode 2 - Diego Stocco

Posted on 300310 in , and

A new episode of Sound Builders from Motherboard.tv lets us meet sound designer Diego Stocco. Another of thoose sound chasers out there using the most incredible resources to make the sounds he wants. He uses sand, cornflakes and trees for instance... Keep going Diego Stocco, how about trying out the sound in a scuba tank, Big Mac or a jar of tar?

 

In episode 2 of Sound Builders, we travel to Burbank, CA to hang out with sound designer and composer Diego Stocco. In addition to writing music for video games and little films like Terminator, Diego has committed his life to discovering hidden sounds in objects most people dont associate with music. Hes used trees, sand and cornflakes to produce unbelievably listenable compositions. In this episode Diego goes shopping at Home Depot for parts to make a brand new instrument. He spends the afternoon building in his backyard ad we then get a private performance.Want to win $1000 and have your very own episode of Sound Builders? Submit your instrument creations at www.motherboard.tv/contestAnd watch more Sound Builders at www.motherboard.tv

 

Pt 1

 

 

Pt 2

 

Via motherboard.tv

Awesome Sound Builders - Peaking Lights

Posted on 230310 in , and

Motherboard TV has a new series called "Sound Builders". In the first episode we get to see the dup Peaking Lights and their inspiring work to create sounds.

 

Our new series Soundbuilders travels to Madison, Wisconsin to visit Peaking Lights, a married musical duo famed for their pulsating looped-rhythm tracks composed on re-purposed scraps, stereos, and lo-fi gear. We watch as husband and wife prepare for tour by paring their studio down to the bare essentials needed to produce Peaking Lights distinctive sound.

 

Pt1

 

Pt2

 

Via Motherboard

Great Electric Independence Interview with Gavin Russom

Posted on 190210 in , , and

This time Electric Independence meets up with Gavin Russom to discuss dance musik, synths and composers.

 

"Gavin Russom is a wizard, and not just because his long, red flowing mane is reminiscent of a medieval alchemist, or because he was once a stage musician. The former engineer for dance label DFA (where he earned the "Wizard" moniker) has been making and remaking synths since a young age. After living in Berlin, Gavin finally decided to come back stateside and get back to his roots. In this episode of Electric Independence, we sit down with him to talk about the state of dance music, 20th century composers and more."

This is the trailer

 

For the full clip, visit the Motherboard

Ralph Lundstens andromeda galaxy

Posted on 091209 in , and

If you haven't seen this already, you should do it now. Swedish electronic music composer Ralph Lundsten shows us that music really is a way of life, whatever direction that way may take. Since Ralph started making music in the 60s, he has made over 100 records, and his most famous piece is probably the Swedish Public Radios theme song "Out in the wide world".

VBS.tv meets up with Ralph Lundsten in his pink Frankenburg Villa near Stockholm in Sweden. A place which you have to fill out a visa application to get in to. A really strange application as you will see in the clips. I guess Ralph is a bit protective about his own galaxy. I would be too, if I had his gear and intriguing furniture.

 

"While ze Germans usually hog all the credit for pioneering electronic music in the 60s and 70s, there was actually a rainbow coalition of northern European nutballs contributing to the rich cosmisch stew that eventually got strained down into "krautrock." Sweden's Ralph Lundsten is just one of those balls."

Pt 1

Pt 2

Pt 3

 

Laptop orchestras

Posted on 241109 in , , and

First of all, yes this is oh so nerdy! Now we know a little more about what nerds do on weekends.. But lets face it, sometimes when nerds come together, they deliver something quite cool. No, I'm not talking about live fantasy battles or queing outside cinemas for weeks. Check theese clips out, its laptop orchestras.

"Laptop orchestras first started at Princeton University where they gathered a group of students with Macbooks, built custom speakers and experimented together. This gave birth to PLOrk, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra.The students perform with a software called ChucK, a software designed by Ge Wang and Perry Cook specifically for the orchestra. ChucK gives students the ability to utilize their computers keyboard, trackpad and tilt-motion capabilities to perform and control keys, volume, pitch, effects and that kind of stuff. In some cases, they even use wiimotes(you’ll see in the video). The music they do together isn’t exactly what you’d expect from an orchestra. It ranges a lot more in the experimental genre. But regardless, it’s still cool."

Unfortunately this clip is spoiled by the nerds talking about their lap top orchestra... If you want to start a laptop orchestra you can find some pointers from the PLOrk HERE

 

The japanese have a more visual approach, the tokyo laptop orchestra:

I think the japanese really put the Princeton gang to shame here

More

A moscow laptop orchestra

A Berlin laptop orchestra

Via Motherboard

 

RJD2 on Electric Independence

Posted on 101109 in , , and

Motherboards Electric Independence meets up with Ramble John Krohn - RJD2 in his Philadelphia home/studio. The Mad Men theme writer has some fantastic gear in there - Yamaha CS-80, Elka Synthex etc. He also builds his own modules, really cool stuff. Too bad he makes a low fat low sugar cobbler...

Pt 1

Pt 2

Via Motherboard

Moby interviewed in his Manhattan studio

Posted on 211009 in , , , and

Motherboard* meets up with Moby in his Manhattan apartment-studio. He sure has some fine gear in his huge collection of analog instruments. He has the Noahs Ark for drum machines!

 

Over time I have just bought more, and more, and more equipment.

Moby

*Motherboard.TV is an online video network and community focused on the exploration of the nature and culture of technology, as viewed through the lenses of curated editorial content, community, and dialogue.

A great initiative by Dell. Of all companies, Dell.. ?

 

About the author

I Have Synth, Links
Author: 

I Have Synth

Biography: 

Been into synthesizers for 15 years, but never a technical geek. I'm a member of the band Velours Perfect, and have had electronic music as a hobby since I stopped playing with G.I Joe Figures. I buy and sell synths all the time, sometimes manically, and my favourite synth varies, right now it is the Alesis Ion. On this blog you can read about whatever comes out of my mind, mostly synthesizer-related stuff though. Bzzt!

 

I'm also on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and off course Ihavesynth.

 

More about Ihavesynth in this interview

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