Trash_Audio

Background
I grew up in a village just outside Cambridge, England. After A-levels, I worked doing electronic technician work for a local firm. Outside of work, I spent most of my time at home making music & playing computer games. I work for the wonderful Version Industries (65dos & Big Black Delta fans will surely know of us) here in London as well, so I can’t see a need to move right now.

My first foray into music making was probably when I was 12. I gravitated towards people who looked and dressed like me (as you do at that age), hoping people shared the same taste in music. This being the early ‘90s in England, you either liked pop, indie, rave or grunge. Within the first week at school I clicked with a guy called Martin due to our mutual love of Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains & Soundgarden. At this time I couldn’t really play any instruments that well but Martin could play the guitar to a reasonable standard. Instead of following in the footsteps of our musical heroes, we took to forming a experimental-noise (read: shit) duo heavily influenced by our favorite band, Mr. Bungle. I took up vocal / FX duties whilst Martin basically played thrash guitar / white noise. We used to get together at weekends at his Mum’s house, get drunk and record an album of mad shit into a C90 tape recorder. I would then spend the next week at school designing stupid album covers before we recorded again the following weekend.

Music making got a bit more serious when I was 16/17 and started getting into u-Ziq, Squarepusher & Aphex, thanks to my friends Mike & Jos. I quickly got into programming on trackers (ModPlug being my favorite to this day) & and an outboard step-sequencer (Yamaha RM1x) to start making glitchy beats and weird FX stuff. I bought a couple of cheap Behringer rack FX units and a cheap mic and started making weird, experimental noise with Jos under the name, The Project Mindrape. It was when we were mixing down an album of this stuff in the cold, damp barn at Mike’s house, that I played Mike & Jos what would become the first tracks I made under the name, Accelra. They suggested I should probably put it under a new name, as this music was decidedly more melodic and tuneful than my previous stuff. Since then I’ve learnt how to play the piano and to a lesser degree, the guitar. These now form the building blocks within my music as interfacing starting points to the sounds I make.

When I started making music as Accelra, I used to just make music for the sake of it. Compartmentalizing tracks into albums with no planned release in mind, then just moving onto the next batch. I would then design artwork and give CDs out to my friends. This slowed a bit when I moved to London due to a lack of good space to make music within coupled with my increasing disposable income, that I ploughed into computer games (life’s great, wondrous, time sink of an activity). In more recent times I have been working on-and-off on about four albums worth of material at any one time. Most recently I have completed a remix for Big Black Delta. My friend & work colleague, Caspar pushed me to get stuff up online as I’ve been a bit secretive with my music for the past few years. I’ve now started releasing my earlier work on Bandcamp, which gives me time to focus on more recent projects.

Current Favorite Hardware
Squier Jagmaster guitar: Over the last six months I’ve strived to add new input methods to my music outside of my day-to-day keyboard interface. I felt the natural progression from my more recent music was to add a guitar-based input to my creative process. I didn’t have a huge amount of cash so I bought a secondhand Squier Jagmaster (with a Bowie-tastic, glam silver sparkle finish) and gutted the electrics and hardware so I could rebuilt it. My girlfriend’s brother, James, is a stunningly good guitarist (who also knows how to build and fix guitars) so between us we did it up. I’m a massive fan of the sound of the Fender Wide-range Humbucker so I got a custom one made and partnered that with a P90 in the bridge. Both these pickups react really well to layers of FX processing and can give me a wonderful clean sound.

Apple Magic Mouse: People may complain about the lack of a simple rechargeable battery solution but it makes navigating DAWs far easier. It must have sped up my workflow no end over the last year or so.

Current Favorite Software
In terms of DAW, I use Logic Pro these days as my main arrangement interface. Alongside that I use ModPlug tracker on the PC.

My Macbook Pro pretty much allows me to go silly with FX layering and process chains in Logic. I can essentially craft tonal palettes in terms of FX and then save that off as my own preset. That capability alone revolutionized my sequencing environment and Logic’s straightforward interface means it’s really easy to bring those processes into an existing track when you want to experiment.

ModPlug Tracker never gets old. It handles just about every tracker format and I still prefer the vertical timeline of trackers to that of modern DAW’s horizontal timelines. I can forgive the crude sample handling and VST support as it was born of a time when each new instrument channel meant lowering the sound quality of the whole mix. You had to be ruthless to get a good sound of it and I still think all my old tracker mixes sound like shit today. Luckily it doesn’t handle the lion’s share of duties these days but I’m loath to give it up entirely.

Plugin wise, I’m a massive fan of Apple’s reverb plugins. They work nicely out of the box and have low latency and CPU drain, which is all good in my world. I’m also a big lover of convolution reverbs (mainly as I can’t afford to utilize anything other than the space I’m in). I’m looking into getting IK’s AmpliTube or NI’s Guitar Rig at some point soon to muck around with some amp modeling.

Workspace and Environment
The space around me really does have a huge impact on my creativity. If I can’t control the space, I find it hard to concentrate when it comes to playing around with ideas. Because of this, when my girlfriend and I bought our first flat in London, I built a studio/workspace at the bottom of the garden. I have a background in electrical engineering & was always helping my Dad with home improvement projects, so me and my girlfriend’s brother, James, built the studio ourselves in about 3 months. After living in numerous Victorian terrace flats in London, it was nice to dictate the number of power points in the room by wiring it myself. Building the studio was a tough process but it’s really nice to be able to create music in a calm, sound-proofed environment.

It all started in my parent’s house when I was still living at home. Then I moved around a number of rented flats around in North London before building my studio space at the bottom of my garden. Initially I ran a crappy PC computer, dual CRT screen on a couple of desks in my bedroom but that has moved onto a control room style studio space with a Macbook Pro + PC laptop. If I move again, I’m planning on a larger space with a dedicated live room.

Ergonomics
An ergonomic chair is a must. I used to foolishly use one of those ergonomic chairs you kneel in but basically sat on it in such a way that I probably fucked my back up more than sitting in any regular chair would’ve done. I currently sit in a Herman Miller Embody chair in a very bright orange color. On a good day you can feel like Captain Kirk or Blofeld. On a bad day you’re just thankful that you’re not permanently damaging your back in a ‘stylish’ office chair that will turn you into a hunched Gollum within a year. I have a nice big white desk to work on that contains most of my stuff for music & work (again it could always be bigger!). Its set to my perfect working height so I’m not messing my shoulders up or giving myself early RSI. All boring stuff but it really helps when you are working / making music, not having to worry about the detrimental health affects of your workspace.

Ostensibly I would say that it’s more down to my mood than anything else when it comes to the style, quality and feelings found in any given piece of music I make. I am aware however, that the space around me heavily dictates my mood so I would say that although I don’t take direct narrative points from my surroundings, I’m probably subconsciously driven to sound ideas by proxy.

Ideal Location
As nice as my studio space is, it could always be bigger! I would like to say a countryside setting with nice views but the last time I was in space like that with a mind to write music (in this case the Big Black Delta remix), I ended up going to a local zoo instead. I did see some cool goats, so not a total loss. However, I do like seclusion if I’m honest. Most, if not all of the music I’ve made as Accelra has been made on my own, when no one else is around. As much as I like working in a vacuum, more recently I’ve been collaborating with some very talented friends of mine. Collaboration at the ideas level is a weird experience for me, as I am more used to a ‘show and tell’ method in terms of working on projects with others. I have some new joint projects on the go at the moment that are true 50/50 collaborative efforts and I’m finding it nice to get stuck into a new way of working alongside my normal processes.

Work Ethic
Sometimes I try to force ideas, which does throw up some good stuff occasionally. In more regular work I’m probably guilty of getting caught in stylistic moods that frame periods of tracks over a year. The positives of this is that I can have a lot of different and sometimes conflicting stuff to draw from when working out what to do with it. Bad points are that I’m a lot more ruthless when it comes to the care I have for the tracks themselves as more time passes. I’m doing my best to deal with this by simply releasing what I’ve sat on for the last three years rather just filing it away as stuff that just didn’t work out right or not having enough companion pieces to become something bigger.

Extra Curricular
Aside from my own projects I occasionally do original music, sound design & foley recording work for Version Industries on websites and other projects. High profile examples are the Beyond Apollo pre-production film website & the JLo Love & Glamour perfume experience website. In an ideal world, I would love to do music for computer games (especially RPGs) or film scoring.

- http://accelra.bandcamp.com/
- http://twitter.com/accelra
- http://www.versionindustries.com/

Richard sent the above video to me which reminded me of the Weddell Seals.

This video is relatively short as the modules are simple and in this case simplicity is beautiful. The beauty of the modules is that you can independently accent the modules rather than an entire step of the sequence where all instruments would be accented on the TR-808. There are some subtle additions to the modules that don’t compromise the original circuit such as a higher gain stage that creates harmonics not found in the original design. I recommend checking out the manuals are they are an interesting quick read to the functions and history.

SD808
Complete recreation of the TR-808 snare channel with Level, Tone, Snappy and Accent. “The noise source generator in the original TR-808 machines were revised in later production batches, resulting in variation in sound across the production run. The SD808 uses this later, revised ciriuit to create a snare drum hit that is slightly darker, has more body, and is more realistic”

HATS808
A module that expands on the original design. The HATS808 modules has everything from the original – level and decay but there is a very special addition: the Filter Q section. The Filter Q section has a bandpass out and a CV Q input so you can modulate the sound of the module.
“The original ‘choke’ circuitry that makes it sound so dynamic and tight is fully implemented, just like the original, but can also be disabled if needed by disconnecting the internal connection between the two hats”.

- Tip Top Audio

Here is the Tip Top Audio BD808 Overview video. Click HERE if you want to read the post.

This sound bank is a compilation of runout grooves from most of my record collection of as January 2012. The idea to record and document these grooves came about when I found myself picking out a record with the intention of listening to the runout groove, after the music, for an extended period of time. I wouldn’t exactly call it therapeutic but its a sound I’ve heard ever since I was a child, have yet to grow tired of, and enjoy listening to while working. The patterns are all unique, utilizing the same sound palette of pops, clicks and static but once in a while there is a strange creak, a steady hiss, or a resonant hum from the motor, all in a perfect repeating pattern.

As with all audio and sample banks there are unlimited ways to utilize them. Some basic examples are to use them as source material and mangle it up with plug-ins.

- Sidechained to a kick with Amp Designer
- Soundhack Decimate with Valhalla Room
- Uhbik G with Valhalla Room
- Timestretched with Native Instruments Guitar Rig

A few of the records have etched or blank back sides which create interesting patterns depending where you place the needle and some are picture discs which tend to be noisier. Some of the records have lock grooves which I’ve decided to omit for copyright reasons.

The grooves were recorded with a Pro-ject RPM 1.3 turntable with a Sumiko Pearl cartridge in stereo at 24 Bit 48kHz. The files are normalized -3dB, meaning there is some headroom to play with and dynamics to take advantage of. The approximate natural tempos for a runout groove at 33 rotations per minute (RPM) is 133.6510 and at 45 RPM’s is 180.4290. Every file has fades on the top and tails so that they will seamlessly loop in your audio player without clicking.

Here is a free sampler download. It contains 2 standards runout grooves at 33 RPM, 45 RPM, and a picture disc side. Download Here – 14 mb!

$18 – Full Edition
Includes all 310 Runout Grooves at a comprehensive 1.2 gigs. Over 100 albums recorded and 1 hour 8 minutes of subtle runout grooves, noisy picture discs, etched sides, blank sides and a few incidental sounds.

$12 – 100 Edition
A selection of 100 Runout Grooves 395 mb. An efficient and versatile selection from the Full Edition. 22 minutes.

Richard’s building his new studio and sold some gear the past few months. Unfortunately when gear doesn’t sell to friends, Craigslist is a last resort. Here a reply he received from Craigslist in Atlanta, GA.

Robert Clouth of Vaetxh.

Background
I was born in Abergavenny, a smallish town in South Wales. I went to uni in London for 4 years and now live in Bristol. I started messing around with computer sound when I was 12 or so when my family got our first computer (an epic 186mhz) on this shitty MIDI programme called Evolution Audio Lite. I wrote a couple of potential xmas number ones on that – one anthem called Losenge, and another that consisted of one of the demo songs compressed down to a single beat. Then later got Fruity Loops v1 on a pirated mega-disk of music software my brother brought me back from Thailand, then worked up through every version until now (10).
Listening to the IDM classics got me motivated back then, these days music doesn’t so much. I have real motivational issues sometimes with music, especially when I’m under deadline pressure. The spiral usually goes like this: leave it too late -> don’t think I have enough time to make it as good as possible -> don’t think it’s going to be any good -> put it off -> leave it too late, etc. There a lot of other things I like doing and sometimes music doesn’t get my time for weeks (but when I go back I remember what I was missing and have an all nighter).

Current Favorite Hardware
If it counts, first is my computer by a long, long way. Most stuff that can be done in hardware can be done in software, and if it can’t someone is usually working on it. One thing software can’t very well yet is imitate the real world, so second is my Zoom H2 recorder and mic collection. I bloody love it. As soon as I bought it a couple of years ago it became my camera and I always keep it in my bag, just in case there’s some sound that I want. I’ve got some nice mics to go with it – some deep-ear binaural mics, some waterproofed contact mics (double up as hydrophones) and this relatively new one, a coil mic that picks up the electromagnetic fields of electronics (you can hear CPUs crunching numbers, it’s nuts). I’ve also modded the H2 ready for a soundfield mic that I’m making for capturing ambisonic recordings, for post-rec panning with head-tracking experiments. Third favourite is this little Roland Dr-Drum that I’ve taken the back off to expose the synthesis circuits. When you poke it, it sounds like the scream of someone trapped in a digital nightmare. Instaglitch. Crack a bit of reverb on it, job done.

Current Favorite Software
Synthmaker is fuckin wicked. I started playing with it when Max dropped their export to VST feature in favour of the Max for Live thing (which I have almost no use for, and when I thought I might do I’ve found it can’t do it yet). It’s done so many things right and in some ways I prefer it to Max. It’s so quick to prototype stuff in it that it’s changed what VSTs mean to me – now I tend to knock out ones that create a specific sound for a specific track, rather than more flexible synths etc. Plus it’s tightly integrated in FL which which is great. I’m a Max fan though, but I just use it for live stuff and sound generation, I’ve never found a way of knitting it fully into my setup. A couple of years ago I started programming, and that’s changed things because now I can make new tools for sound design and sequencing. For example, one thing I’m working on is sound painting – sculpting sounds from the ground up by painting their spectrums using a digitizer I got for xmas. Another is a tool for sequencing fractal-structured tracks with infinite zoom (i.e. as the track slows, the next layers emerge in the opening gaps between the beats), a bit like that fold 4 wrap 5 Autechre tune but controllable faster and slower. As for actual VSTs, xoxos.net has some really weird physical modelling ones which are great, and also the convolver that comes with FL is excellent – you can record the impulses of other plugins with it.

Workspace and Environment
I know this is Workspace and Environment, but they don’t really effect me too much to be honest. I find that when I get into the zone it doesn’t really matter where I am. I’ve snapped out of sessions and realised that I haven’t eaten since breakfast and that I’ve been needing a piss for the last 4 hours – where I am is the least of my concerns.

Are Ergonomics Important?
Very, after one summer without a mouse and keyboard and the savage aches and pains in my wrists that resulted. I sorted it out then and haven’t had a problem since.

Does Your City Affect Your Output?
Definitely, but I’m far more affected by the people around me than the music scene of the city itself.

Ideal Location
The massive dweeb answer: virtual reality. It would be bonkers. Music wouldn’t be just sound anymore because sound waves wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t have eardrums to hear them if they did. Everything would become general sensory input. Smelling music and hearing light, etc, etc. Sound/visual synths that you control just by thinking about it. It brings up some interesting questions. How fast could you press a note of a keyboard or twist a dial if you weren’t limited by the physical speed of your finger? How many separate parameters could you control at once? I’ve thought about this way too much. A slightly more realistic location would be in some sort of floating sky-booth that sits above the clouds, like the London eye but not shit, a lot higher and with a stonking sound system.

Routine
Generally I make an effort to experiment with new techniques. It’s too easy to get locked in the same formula. A while ago I got muscle memory tweaking this one reverb to exactly the same sound, and put it on almost everything. I try to avoid that now. Though I guess my general process is to listen back to the tune I’m working on for little hooks and ideas (not necessarily intentional ones as I use some generative techniques), and then develop those. It’s by expanding and emphasising these anomalies that my tracks are made basically.

First Piece of Gear
My Event TR-8 monitors. Loved em then, love em now. When I bought them I cracked them on the floor facing each other and lay between them, listening to rain sounds of all things. I know you can more expensive ones with flatter responses, but unless your studio is in an anechoic chamber inside another one in space it seems a bit pointless getting posher ones since the room has much more of an effect…and I’ve been in acoustically turd rooms since I got them.

Last Piece of Gear
10 radios for one of my half-finished projects. My thoughts of them now are that I’ll probably never end up using them so I should just offload them to the chazza shop, but probably won’t. My thoughts of them in the future will be that I should have offloaded them to the chazza shop because I never used them, and now they’re just going in the bin.

How Many Workspaces Have You Had?
As many as I have had houses in the last 5 years…so 7. It hasn’t changed that much to be honest. It’s not the best studio but I only really use the monitors to listen to things really, really loud, generally I find a good pair of headphones better for mixing. The biggest change it got was when I got a sub a couple of years ago. The first thing I did when I got it (as everyone must do when they get a sub) is do a 20kHz to 20Hz sine sweep. I got a call 2 minutes later from my estate agent because the lady next door had ran to the office to complain that my ‘drum and bass music’ was rattling her picture frames. It goes down to 20Hz, and having this entirely new chunk of the spectrum really affected my music (and the neighbours), putting 20Hz rumble in tunes and that.

Extra Curricular
Me and my housemate made this silly animation recently that seems to be going down quite well on youtube. The internet does love cats it seems. Too much in fact because some people have actually bought the track. Some german public TV show contacted us to feature it and we’re getting 40 quid out of it which is nice.

- Vaetxh
- Rob Clouth Soundcloud

- Via Jonathan Snipes of Captain Ahab’s Twitter

This podcast will hopefully illuminate the world of synthesizers and the people who use them along with the people who build them and repair them.

A great podcast featuring in depth synth interviews conducted by a regular at TRASH_AUDIO events, Bizarro Lord Zool. There are only 4 interviews at the moment but I saw him hustling around NAMM interviewing lots of people so expect more.

- Waveform City Podcast

waveform city episode 02 gorillabox by waveform city

waveform city episode 01 christopher jon by waveform city

By Stretta

hardware: Livid Code
software: harmonic designer, drone designer and wavestep

download this software at http://cycling74.com

This is the companion video to Working With Hardware part three. In addition to a tutorial on how to build your own Max applications that use the Live Code, four free applications are included. These applications are demoed in this video.

http://cycling74.com/2012/01/04/working-with-hardware-livid-instruments’-code/

Drone Designer hosts audio effects plug ins, the sends of which are controlled from the Code. An Audio Damage Eos reverb was used on both the Drone Designer and wavestep examples. A tempo synced delay is included in wavestep.

Eric Avery has wrapped up his second solo album and is currently part of a music project with Brent Hinds of Mastodon, Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Jon Theodore.

Background
I was born here in LA. I arrived here by being born – it got messy. Ive made music since I was a lonely wee lad. I had lots of time not having alot of friends and not getting laid, a few good motivational sources there. What keeps me motivated is my desire to keep motivated. I make as many decisions as I can afford to based on what will keep me interested and keep the proverbial flame lit, and of course I’d like to continue getting laid.

What is your current favorite hardware
Favorite current piece of hardware is almost always the most recent piece of hardware, right? That would be Make Noise Phonogene module, right now. Actually captured a spam cell call in the Phonogene this morning and fucked around with it, love that little thing. I would have to probably describe my access virus c as THE piece of hardware I couldn’t live without. Since a friend gave it to me, yeah, I know; GAVE it to me, I found its the workhorse. It does everything great. I also love my Andromeda A6, Little Phatty, etc. Oh , fuck, did I forget my OP-1? Christ that thing is creative.

Favorite current software?
Soundtoys. Decapitator. Decapitator. Decapitator. Did I mention Soundtoys?

Workspace and Environment
I try to shut out the day as much as possible. Its the Las Vegas casino strategy: if you don’t know what time it is, you’ll just get lost in it. I find ergonomics generally feel more fascist than comfortable. Just as long as you don’t move, you feel perfectly comfortable? Not me. Not for very long anyway.
I don’t think municipalities can always really have much of an effect on your work. Not site specifically really but LA has because I grew up in a multigenerational film family. My grandfather was an LA transplant re-recording engineer, father was an actor. Academy members, involved in the business and art of film. I think that directly informs my work, always has and probably always will. To a greater degree than anything else. Regardless of the style of music I am ever currently interested in, I am always listening to things in a cinematic way. A sense of place or environment has always been more important than melody or other more musical concerns. Not always consciously but always just the same.

What is your ideal workspace?
Wherever I am really. When I get too concerned with anything being just right, I generally just get a bigger than usual dosage of the blank canvas syndrome. The blank canvas becomes a giant white wall. Ok, everything is just right…ready…set…go…make genius happen now. I hope that makes sense. Plus, if I lived in a big scruffy warehouse space on a beach with a great surf break, I might be too busy counting my blessings everyday to get anything done.

I adhere to the by-hook-or-by-crook strategy. Whatever gets it done. I always hear people talk about rules “all the best music just flows out easily” blah, blah. Not for me. Sometimes the music that just flows out FEELS great but when I listen back a few days later I just think, “oh no its happened, I am officially a douchebag”. Sometimes it’s my best work but sometimes my best work comes from hammering the shit out of some idea for years until its listenable or makes some sense one day. Some folks might have tidy creative rules that apply. Not me. look at the accompanying pic of my workspace. I’m a fucking mess.