Segwist

Sending files over the internet is a task that is spoiled for choice. No longer the domain of FTP and email accounts alone, there have emerged a wide range of options and technologies to get those bits and bytes from one end of the internet to the other. In recent years in particular, a handful of services have come to vie for the lead amongst an almost overwhelming selection of contenders. Much like “Google” went from a company name to a verb, the digital hordes are now making a household name out of Rapidshare, YouSendIt, Dropbox and Megaupload. It would appear that the popularity of each particular service is driven almost entirely out of established habits of certain communities, where an internet forum swapping DJ mixes might favour one service by virtue of precedent alone.

For example, Megaupload remains a popular choice despite not only the Flash animation advertising, but a Captcha password page and a countdown timer. There have been criticisms in the past that certain Megaupoad service add-ons contain elements of spyware, as well as a number of search sites that have emerged with the sole purpose of indexing the user files uploaded. The latter is an issue that has caught more than a few music producers off guard. As the creative arts are often the vanguard of file transfer services, countless artists have sent pre-releases, promo mixes and remix stems via Megaupload and Rapidshare without realising that their files are anything but invisible.

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This video of an Adventjah rave in my home city of Brisbane, Australia, in 2001 popped up on a forum recently. Despite it being filmed by Australian cable television station Channel V, I had never known it existed until now. The AdventJah events, along with the System 6 monthly events, are commonly regarded as the tail end of the “Rave” scene in Brisbane, and indeed a similar situation across Australia. For those paying attention, there was a very noticeable shift in electronic dance music culture as the mainstream genres split further and marketing budgets were encouraging the inevitable rise of clubbing culture as a whole.

I was at this event, and I believe it was in the following year that I played my first AdventJah party, having joined a live act that wrote and played Breakbeat. This video does remind me, as someone into Breaks and some of the early Progressive House of the time, that I always found the main room Hard House pretty amusing. Here we are, some 8 or so years on, in the studio writing a 124bpm deep house track in collaboration with a DJ who used to play Hard House at these events. Music evolution is a beautiful thing, but so is fond reminiscing.

Somewhere along the way, over the past few years of metageeking, I have attracted what can only be described as a pile of computers. Looking around the studio late in 2008, I did a quick stock take of all the computers and laptops lying around and wondered if there was something I could be doing with it all. Sure the big tower is for audio production and the smaller one is a media center and download box, but what about those laptops? The Asus M6R is the laptop previously used in my electronic band, the Macbook is its likely replacement and my dipping into the world of Mac and OSX, the Acer Aspire One is my travel netbook I took on a fundraising trip in Cambodia and as for the Toshiba Satellite? I’m not sure. What I am sure about, is that this makes for a lot of idle processing power.

For those who, like myself, have wondered if there was a better use for idle computing power, the answer is a resounding yes! Of course you could convert systems into media centres, try out alternative and open source operating systems like Linux or simply pull them apart and make drink coasters and magnets out of them. That might be fun. On the other hand, you might consider, as I did, utilising all that potential processing power for the greater good. Enter the World Community Grid.

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Seat belts affixed and jet packs ignited. A crony invasion of the Gold Coast. With Mike Redfern and Fergus Alexander of the Logic crew booked to play at Elsewhere, myself, Kris-Ko and Scott Walker from the Sidechain Music crew joined in on a debaucherous night hosted by Audun and a cast of names and faces withheld to protect their identity. Which sounds a little better than “lots of random Gold Coast people”. Possibly.

Of note, the first preview airing of a track by our mutual friend, Chris “Vitreous” Buckridge. Formerly from Brisbane where he was the bass guitarist for eternal festival band My Ninja Lover, Chris has settled in Amsterdam and has been releasing a steady flow of tracks on labels like Dektek Records, Smash Bang Records and BeatGeek Records. As an example of how fantastic the internet is, here is a track he wrote, sent over and the boys played all within the space of a week. Added to that, it’s now also signed and Vitreous will be announcing the release date shortly. Technology wins.

Below is the rough and ready video capturing some of the fun, and “Guise” getting it’s sneaky Australian preview.

If you are even a casual user of Twitter, you might start to wonder where your favourite applications and tools are in the Tweetosphere. While some claim the Twitter service is annoying, and degrading the quality of web publishing, there is a certain potential usefulness to a mere 140 keystrokes of information. That may seem small, but 140 characters are certainly enough for a quick bit of knowledge in music production land. Music production, like in Ableton Live. It’s definitely time that Ableton joined the Twitter party.

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In a few days I’m flying out to South East Asia for the remainder of the year, which means the past few weeks have seen a doubling of reviews of music hardware to cover the street press content in my absence. There have been some surprises, such as the excellent AKG C214 microphone inspiring myself and Kris Ko to record some acoustic guitars on a Segue track that should see the light of day in early 2009. There have also been some bits and pieces that have met but not entirely exceeded my expectations. One of those is the Korg Micro-X.

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It is almost crazy enough to be a joke. Unfortunately for Australia its deadly serious. The Australian Federal Government is steamrolling ahead with plans to impose mandatory internet filtering at the ISP level and will be effectively censoring the internet in this country. The list of sites to block will be and remain to be a secret blacklist, casting even more doubt and controversy amongst digital professionals who rely on the the web for their livelihood. I really don’t need to stress how scary this is. A secret blacklist of blocked sites with absolutely no way for the public to have a say on the content.

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For every collectively run or painstakingly crafted music technology blog there are an exponential amount of others being offered on the whims of an endless collection of creative people. Personal music tech and multimedia blogs are often a fascinating insight into personal opinion and a great way to simply share tips, ideas and resources. When I created the Segwist blog, with relatively obvious name tangents to my main band Segue, I have envisioned simply a place to post up the collection of music production related articles and features I have written over the years. In addition it felt like a great idea to share the horde of patches, programming and sample packs I have put together over the years also. Obviously, this was not a priority. Lately however I have been reinspired.

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Fans of DJ Vadim might have caught wind that samples of his album The Soundcatcher are available care of the Creative Commons remix website ccMixter. Digging a little more it seems that the enigmatic Russian born, London raised and New York based samplist and DJ is stepping up to the plate with some rather intriguing plans afoot. Currently signed to BBE, the home to works from the likes of J Dilla, Cut Chemist and DJ Jazzy Jeff , the accompanying label press guff suggests this is just the start.

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More fun than any new email is a new package in the mail. Its been a good week for packages all round, with Jaymis getting excited over his brand new Vixid. As for me, it wasn’t so much a brand new device as an old friend coming back into the fray. Cue up the unveiling of a Motu Ultralite.

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