Segwist

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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Despite the popularity of the MPC samplers I am still amazed how many people spent a considerable sum to purchase one and did not bother to read the manual. In case the reason is not having the manual, heres a copy I have uploaded locally. The MPC 2000XL manual. Right here. Short and sweet. Enjoy.

One of the most talked about music production techniques of the last two years has been a staple of the studio environment for decades, but has reared its mighty head with the explosion of styles such as the techier end of progressive house. Producers such as Eric Prydz/Pryda/Cirez D have cornered a trademark sound out of it and even a Segue live set will feature synths run through ducking on the fly to keep things nasty.

This does of course mean the forums of every DAW and synth manufacturer will be full of “how do i” threads. Some of them are useful, some of them arent. In fact, its not even worth my going into it as there are so many online such as this good one, this thread about it, and even this page. You can faux duck with an Auto-Pan, you can use plugins like Kjaehus’s excellent compressor or you can just get entirely silly. Heres my favourite example of sidechain “ducking” to date, care of the Ableton forums:

Quak Quak :P

I think i actually “woot”ed when I got into work and found amongst the usual emails one from Jaymis with the simple text “you need to see this” and this image of Live on a PSP.

What could be more awesome then an Ableton themed loop player for the PSP? Nothing I can think of (at least for the sake of this blog post). Unfortunately thats not exactly what we are seeing here, as one can read in CDM’s PSP Live article. A wireless Ableton controller then. Okay, still rather lovely. I dont think I could take myself seriously standing in front of the Segue or D-KO live rigs at a gig toting a PSP, though it would allow for more self indulgent rock moves then tapping furiously at my MPC allows. Seeing the Live gui on a PSP screen is a lovely thing though, and reminds me of the fun I had with LSDj on the Gameboy, though I can do without frustrating tracker programs thank you very much. Linear sequence arrangements or Ableton’s Session view or GGF!

In any case, the PSP is still a viable platform for an incredible amount of creative digital art implementations so im sure in some small bedroom in Tokyo my dream loop player is being haxord at this very minute…