I’m very busy recording an album, but nevertheless I sumbled over this sound today.

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It’s a new toy I bought in my holidays, and the one or the other might feel reminded to the opening track of my my debut EP imperfect objects for perfect moments.
You can listen to this track on my bandcamp page.

Recently I got a kalimba (thumb piano) as birthday present. Unbelievable how much fun that little toy is! Following examples were recorded with a contact mic.
With effects:

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Without effects:

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I’ve been busy quite some time lately, different projects catched my attention and destroyed my free time. First, there’s a Capybara320/Kyma in my studio now. Wonderful sound design workstation, I must admit.
On the other hand there’ve been just enough summerdays left not to stay in doors too long, keeping me away from the Kyma a bit.

Nevertheless I’ve been working hard on two projects, first my Fairground Recordings, which I’ve been able to give a listen and further postprocessing. I’ll probably finish a sample pack this winter, if you’re interested.

Apart from this I found my bandcamp page somewhat half-empty. So I decided to work on a follow up to my imperfect objects for perfect moments EP. Have a first glance:

Also some time ago I placed this demo recording on soundcloud. A different version of this song will end up on the EP:
opaque texture by ab-arts

I’ll report when the thing is finished and released, meanwhile please also watch my soundcloud and bandcamp!

I took the saturday afternoon to do some field recordings of fairground organs at the Volksfest in Nuremberg. A more detailed post about the recording session itself will follow. Some cool results came out when the organ recordings got in touch with my modular system. Some results of this event follow now.
A short segment, looped with the Doepfer Sampler module:

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The same segment, but with pitch modulation by a Woggle Bug. Gives us quite some tape-flair, doesn’t it?

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And a droney segment:

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And last but not least, here’s a teaser for the original (=unmodified) recordings, which I will upload at some time.
Fairground Organ by ab-arts

Latest addition to my Eurorack Modular is the MOTM E-340 Cloud Bee Generator.
A short droney demo is here:

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Idle Chatter, that’s the title of a classic computer composition from the pioneering computer musician Paul Lansky.
But it’s also what happens when you turn on the Flame Midi Talking Synth, a weird synthesis unit that happens to be here in my studio for some days before it makes it’s way to it’s owner. The Midi Talking Synth is out of stock and used units are rare, but fortunately Flame offers a Talking Synth Eurorack Module, which basically is half of the Midi Talking Synth without sequencing and midi functionality.
I had no time to dig deeper into this piece of synth, so this demo was made tweaking the Midi Talking Synths’ joysticks, buttons and switches randomly.

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Playing live is always an ambitious project – but it’s especially when it comes to new material.
I got this new toy, the Electro Harmonix 2880 looper, which is more than awesome. It enables me for the first time to play the songs of my EP “imperfect objects for perfect moments” live. So I started practicing.
You can judge yourself how hard this is; my first live interpretations of my own songs sound clumsy.
Ends (live, excerpt) by ab-arts

It’s here! My “new” Beyerdynamic MCE86N(C)S! This shotgun condenser mic will be my new companion for field recordings. Today I tested it in the field, using a Rode Windshield and a Rode pistol grip. Unfotunately the mic is a little too big for the shockmount of the pistol grip. It fits, but I expect the mounting rubber to wear off rather fast.
I tried it out with my Olympus LS10 on the parking place of the Rock am Ring festival, one of the biggest open air music festivals in germany. Shows start tomorrow, but people start going crazy today. I missed taking pictures, sorry. Just listen:

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… a microphone and a cheap 9.5u multieffect. I hope that the microphone will help me especially when recording in the field. This excellent article about field recording gear by Tim Prebble inspired me to hunt down a shotgun microphone. Tim’s blog is worth reading, be sure not to miss it!
The 9.5u multieffect is needed for my ongoing development of a live performance setup. I need reverb, lots of it, but not necessarily of high quality, but rather for forming texture. I’ll try this out at the Happy Knobbing next month, where I’ll play a short piece on saturday evening and post a recording of it here in this blog.