Pocket-Sized Synths

As I’ve previously written about going all analog, one of the
things I looked into was analog music gear. Specifically, I wanted to find some analog synths and things that I could use to make music without breaking the bank. Most notably, the Korg Volca series popped up.

If you haven’t heard of the Korg Volca format, it’s a small form-factor that Korg uses to make synths, sequencers, samplers, and a few other eletronic music devices. They’re very affordably priced and have a lot of cool features, and they sound great.

But I got to thinking: if I bought four of them at $150 a pop, I’d still need to buy some cables and make a stand for them, and also some sort of mixer. And the more modules you get, the more space they take up.

As part of my philosophy of minimalism, I started thinking “How could I get the same functionality in less space, with less money?”

And then I remembered Caustic. Continue reading “Pocket-Sized Synths”

New Music Project

For the last few months, I’ve been working on a new music project with my good friend Luke McNeely. It’s mostly 8-bit “chiptune” music, made using old-school video game sounds and instruments. Don’t laugh, it’s a lot harder than it looks! But between the two of us, we’ve spent thousands of hours listening to really amazing music written by greats like Takashi Tateishi, played through Nintendo and Atari game consoles.

We decided to call our group “Not Entirely Unlike Chiptune” as an homage to Douglas Adams. So, if you like old video game music, were a child of the 80’s and 90’s, or just want to hear something different, check us out on Twitter and Soundcloud.

Our first official project is an 8-bit tribute album of one of our favorite bands, Five Iron Frenzy. We’re releasing the songs as we go, rather than holding out till we’re finished. Feel free to check it out!

8-Bit Frenzy

Take The Red Pill..

Not sure what to call this… it started as a funky NES chiptune, and kind of morphed into a techneaux/dubstep/art piece. Throw in some clips from one of my favorite movies, a little 808 beat, and there you go. Most everything is done with pretty simplistic square wave synths, nothing really fancy going on there. I used a lot of “slightly” modified waveforms… took a square, and added a bit of noise. It gives it more of a genuine chiptune feel, more lo-fi. There’s a few other tricks in there, specifically using square/noise waves and filters to do percussion. I’m still learning, but it came out okay. Hope you like it!

Caustic 2 on Android, Windows, and Linux

Okay, had some fun tonight! I found a great app for quick techno/dance track creation called Caustic. It’s available as an Android app, and works fantastically on my Galaxy Tab 2. It uses pattern blocks to build songs (similar to FrootyLoops and LMMS) and comes with pretty robust effects and synths. So I checked into it, and turns out the programmer has the Windows desktop version of the app available free on his site! Completely functional, too. This means you can build drumkits, synths, and presets on the desktop first, and then load it on your mobile device and rock it out.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJOT3kgkgYc”]

Continue reading “Caustic 2 on Android, Windows, and Linux”