Die polnische Softwareschmiede D16 Group, die für qualitativ hochwertige Emulationen von Roland-Synthesizern bekannt ist, hat schon seit längerem eine sogenannte Silverline Collection. Das neueste Plugin aus dieser Reihe ist das Toraverb VST-Plugin. Werfen wir doch einmal einen Blick darauf!

D16 Group's Toraverb

Das Design von Toraverb ist sehr gut gelungen. Wie es sich für die Silverline Collection gehört ist alles schön in Silber gehalten, sogar die Regler glänzen metallisch. Was auch schon die anderen Plugins von D16 Group auszeichnet, ist auch hier wieder der Fall: Das gut durchdachte Design erleichtert den Umgang mit dem Plugin, da alles sehr übersichtlich ist.

Toraverb hat alles was ein Reverb-Effekt haben muss. Besonders gut ist die Möglichkeit die der „Early“- und der „Late“-Bereich bietet, nämlich die Early und die Late Reflections des eingehenden Signals zu beeinflussen. Beide Bereiche haben einen kleinen EQ, der eine Einstellungsmöglichkeit für die Frequenz, einen Gain-Regler und einen Bandwidth-Regler bereitstellt.

Um die beiden Bereiche („Early“ und „Late“) im gewünschten Verhältnis zu mischen gibt es den X-Fader.

Der Schwerpunkt bei diesem Reverb-Plugin liegt allerdings in der Berechnung der Diffusität. Laut Hersteller wurde hier besonderes Augenmerk auf die hohe Qualität gelegt damit das sogenannte Flatterecho fast vollständig vermieden werden kann. Im Test konnte man toll erkennen das ein Verändern dieses Parameters in Zusammenspiel mit dem Size-Regler den gewünschten Effekt, nämlich den Raum größer oder kleiner wirken zu lassen, mehr als zufriedenstellend erfüllt wurde.

Um das ganze abzurunden hat D16 Group dem Toraverb-Plugin noch eine regelbare Modulation spendiert, welche die Filter der Diffusion direkt beinflusst um eine realistischere Schallausbreitung zu simulieren.

Dass Toraverb mit sehr rechenintensiven Algorithmen arbeitet, merkt man auch daran dass die empfohlenen Hardwareanforderungen hier schon bei einem Multicore Prozessor mit 2,4GHz und 1GB RAM liegen. In meiner Testumgebung mit einem Dual Core 2,4GHz und 2GB RAM hatte ich daher keine Probleme und kann deswegen leider auch nicht beurteilen ob es bei einem Rechner mit weniger als der empfohlenen Ausstattung zu Problemen kommt.

Fazit:

Toraverb ist eines der realistischsten und eindrucksvollsten Reverb-Plugins und steht qualitativ auf einer sehr sehr hohen Stufe. Der Klang ist sehr klar und brillant, zudem bietet das Toraverb-Plugin aber auch die Möglichkeit richtig abgefahrene Hall-Effekte zu erzeugen. Die mitgelieferten 24 Presets machen Lust auf mehr und laden zum basteln ein.
Eine Demoversion, sowie Audiobeispiele, die man sich auf jedenfall einmal anhören sollte, sind auf der Webseite der D16 Group verfügbar!
Das Plugin wird von Windows und Mac-Systemen unterstützt und ist momentan zu einem Preis von 35,- € erhältlich.

I always hesitate when I type words like that – customisation – I was taught in Australia and New Zealand to spell it with an “s”, yet I find in my job, typesetting, that many here now prefer “z”. I’m guessing most readers here are US based, so I usually use a “z”. What an absurdly ridiculous thing to have to give so much though to.

Neuroprogrammer 2 is still a favourite of mine. I like the style of the supplied sessions. They’re cleaner and more simple than the Mind Workstation equivalents. I also like the ease with which the sessions can have quite dramatic changes made without editing. The “Customize” button makes accessible many of the capabilities otherwise accessible only via the session editor.

The “General” tab allows the session’s tracks to be muted – any combination of Background Sounds, Noise and Tone can be selected, although the suggestion is made that Noise and Background together may be unnecessary. Fade In and Fade out can be adjusted – worth remembering when worrying about start and end volume when designing sessions.

You’ll all know the Session Countdown Timer - here under the General tab you can change the countdown time. I find a longer settle time useful when I’m using biofeedback.

Digging deeper into General, we find “Customize Volume/Intensities” and the Advanced Customization dialogue. Here you’ll find most of the controls that would otherwise be found using the Node Edit in the session editor.

The controls are divided up according to the type of track they are relevant to – Tones, Noise, Background Sound.

Tones and Sound/Music volume are obvious – changes the volume of the sessions binaural, monaural or isochronic beats or the sound tracks respectively.

Noise also has a volume control. In addition, the smoothness of the noise can be altered. In its most basic form, noise is a random value in each bit time of the audio bitrate. Smoothing limits the random range, making the sound softer and less “hissy”.

The background track can have the intensities of the Pitch Modulation or the Crossfeed adjusted. Pitch Modulation varies the pitch of the sound track at the entrainment rate and to a depth selected by the Pitch Mod Intensity slider. Crossfeed swaps left and right channels at the entrainment rate, again to a depth set by the intensity slider. It’s is possible to trigger entrainment with any repetitive stimulus, but these methods are much more aesthetically pleasing than effective.

Noise and sound files can be pulse modulated at the entrainment rate. The noise track or sound track is modulated in the same way a tones track is with an isochronic beat. The Pulse Intensity slider determines how much the volume of the track is varied – maximum chops the sound into discrete pulses.

A Low Pass filter blocks high frequencies, allowing only low frequencies to pass. Low Pass modulation is similar to pulse modulation, except that it only acts on part of the frequency range of the sound track.

Autopan shuttles the audio perceived centre left and right, just like quickly flicking the balance control on a stereo back and forth.

Next along is the Scaling tab. This deals with all matters relating to session length. In the Session Options, when editing a session, a pair of Ramp Markers can be set, beginning and end. When scaling a session the entire session, including ramps, can be stretched or condensed, or just the part between ramp markers. Play to Infinity plays the last node forever – take care using this if the session has an end ramp. Start and end times for any selected recordings can be set, however this is best left alone unless you wrote the session – the main purpose is to begin suggestions when the session reaches the point where maximum suggestibility should have been achieved. “More Info” takes you to the Customization page of the NP2 Help file.

Want to experiment with lower pitch sessions? Under the Tones/Sound tab is the opportunity to over-ride the session’s designed pitch(es). Even if the session usually changes pitch throughout, specifying the Tone Pitch will make the entire session play at the selected pitch. This tab is also the place to replace the default background track with your own – either music or hypnosis/NLP content. If the session is longer than the background track, the sound file will be looped. To prevent noisy transitions at the loop crossover, a selected number of seconds can be overlapped and faded. “Advanced Customization” takes you to the same dialogue as the “Customize Volumes/Intensities” in the General tab.

The AudioStrobe Flashing tab contains all the controls for the visual side of things. AudioStrobe can be turned on or off. If you have sensitive hearing and can hear the high pitched AS tone, this can be a useful option if you’re not using light glasses. Adjusting AS brightness here can overcome some problems with getting a satisfactory lightshow and an acceptable audio volume on some mind machines. The Screen Flashing colors are used in conjunction with the “Use Screen Flashing” checkbox on the main NP2 session screen. Screen Flashing can be effective, but don’t let it put you off getting a proper AudioStrobe decoder and glasses.

From the Recordings tab the way suggestions and other recordings are played can be controlled. Usually recordings fade in and out over 20 seconds to prevent startle, but some recordings may need to be started more quickly, if the important content begins immediately. Panning the “speaker” left and right can be quite effective with suggestions – Pan Modulation will occur at the entrainment rate, with the depth adjustment varying how dramatic the left/right shift will sound.

The final tab determines what happens when the session ends. I find the “Shut Computer Down” option great for sleep induction sessions. The “Open and Play Session” option allows sessions to be run in sequence. By setting the session end options of the called session, any number of sessions can be chained together. If you have a habit of falling asleep during sessions, the “Play Sound File” option will let you sound an alarm. I have yet to need to have NP2 launch another application when it finishes, but it’s nice to know I can if I do.

At the bottom left of the Session Customization dialogue a button marked “Save Config As” has been lurking throughout. When you customize a session, this customization is saved under the same name as the session, and becomes the default customization for the session thereafter. If you want to keep particular session customization, you use the Save Config As button. When you hit the “Customize” button, the first thing on the Session Customization dialogue is “Saved Configurations” – from here you can select any pre-saved configuration, including ones devised for use with other sessions. Supposing you customize the “Alpha Alternating Hypnotic Relax” just the way you want it and you want to apply the same tweaks to “Alpha Hypnotic Relax” – open the Alternating Hypnotic session, click “Customise” and choose the config you saved for the plain Hypnotic session.

It is this customization facility that is a distinguishing mark of NP2. To change a session in Mind Workstation means getting in there and editing tracks. MWS is a session creator’s tool, with more controls than most people will ever find, let alone use. NP2 provides maximum flexibility for the user who is mostly going to want to play existing tracks. With NP2 significant variation in the character of a session can be achieved with negligible effort. The easiest way to become familiar with all the settings is to set up a session containing one plain tones track, a simple background and an unmodulated noise track. Change customization settings one at a time and listen for the difference.

There’s a lot I like about NP2. Of the Transparent packages, NP2 offers the most comprehensive selection of sessions, all designed in accordance with the best research and trial information available. It’s the first piece of real brainwave stimulation software I bought, it’s what got me totally hooked, and it still delivers some of my favourite sessions. I’m loooking forward to seeing what NP3 will bring – improved user interface and fully editable sessions, I believe, among other things. I hope it doesn’t stray too far from the clean, simple listener-oriented interface of NP2.

Cheers,
Craig

by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. His songwriting e-books are here.

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There are lots of things that songwriters do to keep a song from getting boring. Varying instrumentation, throwing in rhythmic surprises, coming up with an interesting solo or bridge – these are all ways that we typcially hold a listener’s attention. I love the solution that the Dave Matthews Band uses in “Shake Me Like a Monkey”: a complete change of key in the bridge that moves the song from minor to major. It really works, for a variety of reasons.

“Shake Me Like a Monkey” from the Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King album is powerfully energetic and punchy. The harmonic underlay is simple: for most of the song, G minor is strongly driven home with lots of unison work between guitar and bass, and until the quasi-bridge section at 2′10″ the only progression that really appears is the refrain-like harmonic progression “Eb – F – Gm”.

So the chordal palette is somewhat limited in this piece, and for good reason: to really drive a piece home with energy, you need to limit your chord choices, and let the song “sit in there.” Too many chords can take away from the sizzle.

There can, however, be a danger for songs that work with limited harmonies. You run the risk of having your audience feel that they’ve heard it all before you’re even halfway through. You need to do something to keep the song sounding fresh. What DMB does in this song is to do a complete key change at the bridge (2′10″: “Cigarettes and coffee broken heart…“)

The thing about this key change to D major is that it doesn’t really relate all that strongly to the original key of G minor – at least not with regard to musical material. The change from minor to major is pleasantly surprising, and this allows the song to refresh itself by seeming to move in a different direction with a completely different style. The move back to the original feel and key occurs at 2′26″ (the instrumental intro to “Kiss Kiss make a wish..“).

I call it a bridge, but it’s really simply a new section that pulls us in a new direction. A bridge usually grows out of the chorus and amplifies the thoughts and emotions of the chorus. Moreover, bridges are usually ways for the writer to take the song to the next level, and to help maintain and build forward momentum. While lyrically the connection is there, this section exists for one main reason: to prevent the song from becoming stale, and in this sense, it works like a bridge.

And it really works. Just those 16 seconds of “diversion” in a new key with a different style allows the previously-established musical motifs to return with renewed vigor and energy.

You may find that changing key in this way is a great solution if  your song has lots of punch but just seems to run out of steam. If you’d like some suggestions for key changes that might work which move from major to minor, or vice versa, try playing around with these. The progressions are just samples from each given key. The first example gives an idea of a song primarily in C major that makes use of a new “bridge” section in D minor, with possible progressions, including a smooth way to get back to the original key. The second sample puts together a progression from A minor and F major:

C major -> D minor. Ex: Chorus: C Am G C ->Bridge: Dm Bb C Dm -> transition back: Bb C D Gsus G)

A minor -> F major. Ex: Chorus: Am G Em Am -> Bridge: F Bb Gm Am -> transition back: Gm Am Gm Am)

The possibilities are endless, so experiment!

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Sometimes you need to stop, step back, and look at your songs from a different perspective. Gary Ewer’s songwriting e-books allow you to do just that. They show how good songs work, and how to get your own songs, chord progressions and lyrics working again. Download them here.

I think that the coordination system should be a matrix of sub-block (sB, blocks(B), and super-blocks(SB). sBs would hold small articles like roads and item units, as well as building geometry. Bs would hold buildings and large items. SBs would hold larger items like clouds, large mountainous things, and when zoomed out, they could transfer into new SBs while using the old SBs as Bs in the SBs.

This concept I like to call zoom levels (ZL).  ZL1 would house regular SB1s with Bs in them, and then the Bs will have sBs in them. Whereas ZL2 will house SB2s with SB1s in them, and then the SB1s will have Bs in them.

—

-ZL1->(SB1[  B{  sB

-ZL2->(SB2[  SB1{  B

-ZL3->(SB3[  SB2{  SB1

—

/n

^^Here is a concept for the coordination system

“Simply making Verse 2 louder than Verse 1 isn’t the answer. Simply making things louder doesn’t give you the natural energy build you’re looking for.”
Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website
Follow Gary on Twitter

I’ve mentioned recently in several postings that the basic energy level of your song should rise as the song progresses. It’s this increasing of song energy that keeps a listener’s attention and makes them want to hear more. But what do you do in a song with several verses? What things can you do to build energy in a natural way?

The volume or level of loudness (called “dynamics” in music circles) is one way to increase the power of your music. It explains why people often turn their music up too loudly: they perceive the power that comes from volume, and want more of it!

But simply making Verse 2 louder than Verse 1 isn’t the answer. Simply making things louder doesn’t give you the natural energy build you’re looking for. An increase in dynamics needs to be joined to the modification of other musical elements. In verses where the musical material is essentially identical, the changes need to be subtle.

So here are some hints for making subtle differences in energy between two otherwise identical verses:

1. Use implied chords for Verse 1, and fuller chords for Verse 2. An implied chord uses one or two chord tones, and the easiest way of achieving this is to simply use bass in Verse 1, then add a chording instrument in Verse 2.
2. Add instruments to Verse 2. And it doesn’t need to be much (and in fact shouldn’t be much). Depending on the genre, we’re talking about adding a hi-hat cymbal or other light percussion, a second chording instrument if one was already in use, or even some background vocals. (Be careful with the background vocals… they work best in the chorus, so perhaps an upper harmony in occasional spots is all that’s needed.)
3. Using higher guitar/keyboard voicings in Verse 2.
4. Add a rhythmic motif. Similar to a hook, find a rhythmic fragment or idea that can work in the background, then add it to Verse 2 in an inobtrusive way. Used well, listeners often don’t even know it’s there, but that little rhythm will subtly add to the energy of the song.
5. Change key (but usually later in a song). Changing key between Verse 1 and Verse 2 (i.e., at the end of the first chorus) may be too early, so you need to let your ears be your guide. It’s far better to consider a half-tone rise in key between the second chorus and Verse 3. That rise in key will build a considerable amount of energy, so be careful how you use it. (Also can become quite corny if done more than once or twice in your repertoire of songs.)

And one more thing to consider: there are some things that you can do with reverb and the basic backing rhythm, but that needs to be carefully assessed. And if you do a song where these elements are changed (i.e., you add reverb, or go into what’s calleddouble time, it makes it very difficult for you to use again in a different song. Those modifications are so distinctive that they will become trite and overused very quickly.

“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” shows you how to write great songs. It’s just one of a suite of 6 songwriting e-books written by Gary Ewer. (His newest e-book, ”The Essential Secrets of Songwriting- Chord Progression Formulas” is being offered for free when you purchase any other of his songwriting e-books.) Let these six e-books show you every aspect of how to write great songs! Read more..

I accidentally hit snooze on the alarm this morning. Having had about four hours sleep, I was absolutely bushed. In a haze on hearing it the second time, it slowly dawned on me this leg of the tour was coming to a close. I had a flight to the ‘pore to catch, and it was time to get a wriggle on…

Up, shower, check out. I was rather touched to get a call via the taxi driver on the way to the airport from the hotel receptionist, telling me he’d undercharged me a whole US dollar, and could I leave it with the cabby? No please, no thank you.

My tripadvisor write up of them will reflect just how I feel on that one…

So, an overpriced coffee+croissant as I wait to board. And mild confusion as to the radio they’re playing. 80’s and 90’s ‘classics’ (and I am using that term VERY loosely you understand), from Bryan Adams, Whitney (whose new song million dollar man I love), Mariah etc. But when the song reaches the rousing climactic key change, they’re skipping onto the next song.

I mean, it’s the key change (or modulation if we’re being pedantic), for Christ’s sake. The whole song hangs off that euphoric moment. Still, I digress.

The near disaster of the morning, Jetstar nearly didn’t let me board my flight back to SG to make my London connection. Twas meant to be a two part return, Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and then onto Singapore. Same plane, just a quick stop.

Before booking my bus to PP and changing my plans, I double checked with Jetstar that I could skip flight part one and just get on at PP. Computer said yes.

This morning however, computer said no. The computer said I didn’t exist, therefore I couldn’t board, and would need to buy a new ticket. I thought at the time phone call with Jetstar went a tad too easily. I obviously got the call-centre equivalent of the McTrainee with 0/5 stars to their name…

Amazing what a little mild flirtation, charm and humility can get you. So, to the lovely check in supervisor who ended up going from stern to putty in approximately 90 seconds, I thank you for your assistance and securing my safe passage back to the ‘pore…

Iain is off for lunch in SG, and bidding a fond farewell to Cambodia and her friendly people…

As a followup to my Eos tips and tricks post, I thought I’d share some more reverb tips. All of these have been tested with Eos, but should also work with a wide variety of hardware and software reverbs.

• Set the high cut filters to a fairly low frequency. Older hardware reverbs, such as the EMT250 and Lexicon 224, had a hard cutoff at 8 KHz to 10 KHz, due to the low sampling rate of the machines. The high cut filters in many reverbs have a much more gentle slope than the high order filters used at the inputs of these old boxes. To emulate these old boxes, try setting your high cut filters to a fairly low frequency, such as 2 to 4 KHz. This also corresponds more closely to the absorbtion of high frequencies by air in a large space, such as a concert hall.
• Use the low cut controls to make the reverb sound less “tubby.” Many concert halls actually have a much longer decay for low frequencies than mid range frequencies. This is useful for classical music, but for most popular music forms, the amount of bass energy that is present will sound flubby when reverberated. Set the low cut controls at 200 to 400 Hz, or even higher, for a clearer reverb sound.
• If you don’t have low or high cut controls, put the reverb in a send bus, and put the EQ of your choice before or after the reverb.
• Try compressing the input or output of the reverb, for some neat sounds. A limiter before the reverb will keep spikey transients from dominating the response, and will better emulate the transformer-coupled inputs of the old high-end hardware units. Compressing the output of the reverb will change the exponential decay response to something much weirder, depending on your settings.
• Plate reverbs have a lot of high frequencies in the decay, so make sure that the high frequency decay multiplier (or the high frequency decay filter cutoff) is set fairly high. These controls are usually separate from the high cut controls, that shape the sound at the input (or output) of the reverb.
• Adjust your modulation depth based on the decay. For long decays, you may wish to back off on the modulation depth, as the sound will travel through the modulators many more times compared to a short decay. Each pass through the modulators causes more detuning. A modulation depth that works for short decays may sound seasick for long decays. Of course, if that’s your thing, then go for it.
• Use the Size control for the desired echo density, but be mindful of how it affects the modal density. For example, if you want a small drum room, then set Size to a smaller setting, as it will make the echos closer together. However, a smaller Size setting will sound more metallic for longer decays, as the modal density goes down as the Size decreases. Longer delay lengths = higher modal density = less metallic = lower echo density. For short decays, the low modal density may not matter.
• The Size control is often given in meters. This has nothing to do with any real physical world metrics, in most cases. A real acoustic space with a 30 meter maximum dimension will have a few orders of magnitude higher modal density than your typical digital reverb with a 30 meter Size setting. Just tune it by ear to where you like it.
• Shorter Size settings may also result in deeper modulation for the same decay setting, so be sure to retune this for your tastes.

Hope these are useful to people. If you have any more tips, feel free to add them in the comments.

Eos has been out for a month and a half now, and the reception seems pretty positive. I thought I would share some tricks that came up during the development of the algorithms, as well as some more recent ideas.

• Gated reverb. The Attack control in Superhall allows you to approximate a gated reverb sounds Set Attack to around 50, Decay to a low value (<1 second), Diffusion to 100, and play around with Size to get the gate time. If the sound is too grainy, turn up Decay a little higher.
• Reverse reverb. Same settings as above, but set Attack closer to zero.
• “Shape.” The late 80’s Lexicon reverbs had “Shape” and “Spread” controls to control the initial onset of reverb energy, with high Shape settings resulting in a reverb that fades in slowly. The Superhall Attack control has a similar function, in that the first few hundred milliseconds can have an exponential decay (for high settings of Attack), a relatively flat response (Attack=50) or fade in slowly (Attack=0).
• Using an external chorus to simulate the EMT-250. I recently heard sound examples of the EMT-250, and that thing had TONS of modulation. In Eos, the Superhall algorithm can get similar levels of modulation right out of the box, but the plate algorithms have a somewhat drier sound for the first few hundred milliseconds. By running a decent chorus or ensemble plugin in front of Eos, and using the Plate 1 or Plate 2 algorithms, you can get a sound that is closer to the EMT-250 (the Plate algorithms are closer in concept to the EMT-250 than Superhall). Set the Low Crossover and High Crossover frequencies at 1000 Hz, set the Size to 30 meters, Mod Freq to 0.5 Hz or so, and Mod Depth at max, and then tweak your chorus until the initial sound is as “wet” as you like. Obviously, this works better on a bus send. The internal modulation of Eos will give you spreading sidebands as the sound decays, that you just can’t get out of a convolution reverb.
• Ethereal vocals. Use Plate 1 or Plate 2, set the Low Cut frequency to a fairly high value (800 Hz to 1200+ Hz), and the High Cut frequency to a similarly high value (8000 Hz or higher). Set the mix to a fairly subtle level. The fundamental frequencies of the vocals will not be reverberated to a great extent, but the syllabants and consonants will have a fair amount of reverb. This type of sound can be heard all over Simon and Garfunkel albums – I’m not sure if this was due to the 7-story staircase reverb chamber at Columbia studios, or over enunciation of consonants, but it is definitely a good sound for those choirboy things.
• Emulating older reverbs by backing off on the diffusion. The Superhall algorithm took some of its sonic inspiration from the Lexicon Concert Hall algorithms, but Superhall can have a much higher initial echo density. By turning the Diffusion parameter down to 50% or so, the more “spacious” or “grainy” sound of the older algorithms can be achieved.
• Longer reverb time. In your host’s default parameter view, move the Low Crossover to a high frequency (>8000 Hz), and set the Low Multiplier to 2.0. This should increase your maximum Decay time to 20 seconds.

If you have any Eos tricks that you would like to share, feel free to post them in the comments.

No, I’m not talking about the endless loop of Journey coming from the frat across the street again.  While music is usually a positive thing, unfortunately our military and intelligence agencies have decided to use it against “enemy combatants” in the war on terror.  The Society for Ethnomusicology, the professional association of ethnomusicologists, condemned this practice in 2007.  It took the American Musicological Society (the equivalent for musicologists) until 2008 to get around to taking a stand but hey, better late than never.

It’s been known for a while that American pop music has been projected into battlefields and used in torture chambers to get suspects to crack–both by offending their morals and/or aesthetic taste.  It’s usually part of a more sinister and well-honed torture method (laid out in chilling detail in Naomi Klein’s 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, which I’m only now getting around to reading), in which our spooks (or, you know, other countries’ spooks that we subcontract) first deprive prisoners of any sensory input and then flood them with stimulus in the form of strobe lights, electroshocks and loud music.  This causes prisoners to regress to a childlike state, lose aspects of their memories and become extremely vulnerable to the power of suggestion–which is how torturers get confessions out of these guys.

That’s where this list from Mental Floss via the WSJ comes in.  The CIA’s top choices?

1) Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the USA.” I really don’t like Springsteen either–I think it’s the terrible drum machine.  I hope that doesn’t make me a suspected terrorist.

2) Christina Aguilera, “Dirrty.” Apparently the interrogators chose this one because its sexual content would offend the moral views of some of the stricter Muslim suspects.  I hadn’t seen this video in a while–I forgot about those horrendous assless chaps she used to wear.  Remember when she came on the scene in the late 90s and she was the classy one out of all the teen pop stars (which she kind of is again given the Britney trainwreck)?  Like, my grandma bought me the album with “Genie in a Bottle” on it.

3) Nancy Sinatra, “These Boots Were Made for Walking.” I mean, it’s not the greatest song ever, but I don’t think I’d crack after listening to it for a long time (except for maybe that part where the bass line sounds like the bassist is just slowly detuning the instrument…).

4) AC/DC, “Shoot to Thrill” and “Hells Bells.” I dislike AC/DC so much that I am refusing to embed the clips.  Take that, Gitmo.

5) Barry Manilow’s oeuvre (so to speak). I will let this quote from the article speak for itself:

The New Zealand town of Christchurch recently blasted the crooner’s tunes throughout their central mall district to drive away the local punks who had been littering the area with graffiti, drinking in public and doing drugs.

I wonder how it feels to be the entire world’s punchline.

6) Barney the Dinosaur, “I Love You.” Given that 90s nostalgia is apparently au courant right now, just watch this clip and party like it’s 1993 (and you’re at preschool).  Note the dramatic half-step modulation around 0:31.

I generally think of systems in one of two ways: static, and dynamic.

Static systems are systems that operate on a fixed code/algorithm that does the same thing every single time. A program that types a certain quantified string of characters every time a person clicks a button is an example of this.

Dynamic systems are systems that operate on a dynamic code/algorithm that is hinged upon a set of variables that change over time or stimulation. A program that types a dynamic string that is pieced together according to what a person does before they click a certain button, is an example of this.

—

Vectors as I see them are objects that behave in a certain way according to a mathematical algorithm. If I drew a line on a image editing/creation program and then zoomed in, I would eventually find that the line was pixelized close up, this is because all I did was change the value of the individual pixels. If however I drew a line with a vector graphic creation program and then zoomed in, I would see that the line was smoothing itself out as I got farther down, this is because the line is generating itself as it goes.

Arquitetura e indústria se fundiram no projeto desse quisque modulado e pré-fabricado. Criamos um espaço mínimo de trabalho onde varias atividades podem ser desenvolvidas de forma que o espaço onde o cliente desenvoverá sua atividade seja flexível. Ao adquirir um módulo o cliente pode escolher entre vitrines, balções, fechamentos, portas e bancadas. Essa possibilidade de composição a partir das peças disponíveis permite que o quiosque seja condicionado a atividade executada e não o contrário.

Além da possibilidade de criar um espaço único, tambem é possível criar uma sequencia de lojas por meio da modulação entre as unidades. As possibilidades de modulação são grandes e permitem adequação ao local de implantação. Para montar esse quiosque bastam algumas ferramentas, alguns homens e algumas horas de trabalho já que trata-se de uma estrutura pré-fabricada.

ELEMENTOS DO CONJUNTO

ETAPAS DE MONTAGEM

EXEMPLOS DE COMPOSIÇÃO

EXEMPLO DE IMPLANTAÇÃO – VALE DO ANHANGABAÚ

Projeto de Carolina Catelan, Carolina Leme, Fellipe de Carvalho, Mariana Damião e Mariana Pessoa; 2007; disciplina: Arquitetura e indústria

Modularization 1 <– the original concept

Below is an example of Systems Of Management (SOM)…

In respect to the example below, all OPs hold one(1)/two(2) unit of value , all systems after the first add/multiply two of the of the system units below it together.

Not very special

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Multiplication allows the SOM to become exponential.

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1025^625 this number is extremely huge.

Note: the number should be 1024 because 4^5 is 1024, still though, you should get the picture.

Note also: UOP = Ultra Operation, and HOP = Huge Operation. Should probably be the other way around.

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This is just a thought of mine so it might not be correct (the general principals aren’t wrong though). Object oriented programming uses this, however it doesn’t ever give you enough room to interchange variables with other variables, and systems with other systems. So in a way modern object oriented programming is static, where as a more advanced system would be more dynamic, Static OOP and Dynamic OOP.

Here’s a list of the 12 greatest key changes in pop music. Of course once you start a list like this, you open yourself to criticism. So I’ll add my two cents. Though the author suggests that it’s a legacy of Michael Jackson, the process of modulating to an unrelated tonal area is older than that. I will note several examples drawn from an essay by Walter Everett, “Swallowed by a Song: Paul Simon’s Crisis in Chromaticism,” in Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, edited by John Covach and Graeme Boone, 115-153 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997):

• Paul Simon, “Baby Driver,” 1969
• Bobby Goldsboro, “Honey,” 1968
• Zager and Evans, “In the Year 2525,” 1969
• Classics IV, “Traces,” 1969
• Toys, “A Lover’s Concerto,” 1965
• Bobby Hebb, “Sunny,” 1966
• Four Seasons, “Opus 17 (Don’t You Worry ’bout Me),” 1966
• Playmates, “Beep Beep,” 1958
• Jan and Dean, “The Little Old Lady (from Pasadena),” 1964

And from Richard J. Scott, Chord Progressions for Songwriters (Lincoln, NE: IUniverse, 2003), here’s a portion of his list of Beatles songs:

• “Norwegian Wood,” 1965
• “Fool on the Hill,” 1967
• “Things We Said Today,” 1964
• “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” 1968
• “And I Love Her,” 1964
• “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” 1967
• “A Day in the Life,” 1967
• “My Sweet Lord,” 1970
• “Another Girl,” 1965
• “Here, There and Everywhere,” 1966
• “Lady Madonna,” 1968
• “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” 1963

And I’m sure we can trace similar processes at work in other types of music, particularly in the work Debussy and some of the twentieth-century composers.

Modulation:

1.  “an inflection of the tone or pitch of the voice ; specifically : the use of stress or pitch to convey meaning”

2.  “a change from one musical key to another”

This past Sunday we sang the song “You Are My All in All” by Dennis Jernigan.  It’s a song from our songbooks (the Best of the Best in Contemporary Praise & Worship), and the editors decided to modulate the last chorus from the key of F to the key of G.  It’s a nice effect, and I found that it drew my attention more closely to what we were singing.  Further, I came to the realization that we rarely, if ever, use this musical tool in the context of hymns, although it’s used often in choir arrangements.  It’s something that you might want to explore and use with your congregation every once in a while.

In fact, you can write your own modulations.  Here’s a simple rule of thumb.  Use the forth chord of the scale that you are moving into as the transitioning chord.   For example, in “You Are My All in All”, we used the C chord to transition from the key of F to G because the C chord is the forth of the G major scale (G₁, A₂, B₃, C₄).  If we were moving into the key of A, we would use the D chord (A₁, B₂, C#₃, D₄).  Just be careful that you are not modulating to a key that makes the highest or lowest notes unreachable to your congregation.  You will find that most people can sing from low C to high C, while enough people can reach from low A to high Eb to carry the congregation but a sparse few can reach beyond these limits.  Once you’ve decided on a modulation, you will also need to transpose the chords into the new modulated key.

Cultures 1 and 2, an RTS(?) about vikings trying to complete tasks and other things, was great. I clocked many hours on these games when I was younger, it was hard not to become attached, it was so easy to work with. Without going into the game itself I can break down the concepts. You controlled individual people (something I like to call IC or Idividual Control, as opposed to SC or Statistical Control, where you control many people at once) and made them do things, they fulfilled their needs by themselves, all you had to do was assign them to a task. They worked in buildings to create things, or to generally help the village as a whole, whether it was building furniture or building weapons, they almost always worked with buildings. The only exception would be when they need to gain natural resources (or to kill others).

Modulation of tasks via buildings, using automation of units  to carry out the tasks.

The automated units move resources, work, and move around in order to benefit themselves and others. Only buildings are used for working, this is strict, they cannot create things if they don’t have buildings. Natural resources are obtained by the units themselves in order to be used inside the buildings, they are obtained from nature and all that is required is the unit itself.

I think someone would be hard pressed to find someone making computers,  or preparing food out on the blacktop somewhere. In the average society, you create food inside, or you assemble computers in a manufacturing plant, we use building in the same way the vikings did in cultures.

More to come on this subject.

So have lyrics for Ani’s song “modulation”, which I refer to in my post below, from her album knuckle down.  You can find them here.

“course, neither of us were wearing helmets and our blood was just everywhere and when the morphine kicked in later the censors threw their hands up in despair”

Abstract
The present study investigates whether the difference in comodulation masking release (CMR) for different modulator types is due to the different degrees of modulator regularity, as suggested in the literature, or results from different envelope distributions. Thresholds of a sinusoidal signal are measured in the presence of a noise masker which was either broadband or narrow band. A square-wave modulator with different degrees of regularity is used that preserves the envelope distribution. The measured CMR does not decrease as the regularity decreases. This finding argues against the hypothesis that the difference in CMR for different modulator types reported in the literature is due to differences in regularity. The data for the narrow-band conditions which either mimic the auditory frequency selectivity or preserve the modulation spectrum indicate that most of the CMR of the present study is due to within-channel cues. In agreement with this finding, within-channel models using either a peripheral nonlinearity or a modulation filterbank predict a CMR of a similar size. In contrast to the model predictions and the findings for the narrow-band conditions, the CMR for the broadband masker increases as the regularity decreases. This suggests that the CMR is not solely determined by the envelope distributions

from Hearing Research

Although responses to auditory stimuli have been extensively examined in the well-known regions of auditory cortex, there are numerous reports of acoustic sensitivity in cortical areas that are dominated by other sensory modalities. Whether in ‘polysensory’ cortex or in visual or somatosensory regions, auditory responses in non-auditory cortex have been described largely in terms of auditory processing. This review takes a different perspective that auditory responses in non-auditory cortex, either through multisensory subthreshold or bimodal processing, provide subtle but consistent expansion of the range of activity of the dominant modality within a given area. Thus, the features of these acoustic responses may have more to do with the subtle adjustment of response gain within a given non-auditory region than the encoding of their tonal properties.

from Hearing Research

I am sure Westlife are nice guys but I have just been doing some research into my upcoming Irishnite gig and I couldn’t help but notice that Westlife are in fact really shit. Take Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl’ for example, not only did they do a shit version of it but they had to stick a gear change in at the end! I wonder who suggests these gear changes or is it a contractual thing. One thing to their credit however is that I managed to get through an entire song with them which is more that I can say about D:Ream!

Come to Irishnite. It is going to be the best thing in London this Saint Patrick’s Day.

mp3

lest our hearts unwind
and our stars misalign
and the rise of love in our hearts decline
as we part unaquatinted in time
let not our lovely love story run its course and rewind
and rewind

mp3

consider the
necessity
of miscellaneous
amenities

and absolutes
from partisans
which cultivate
exclusivity

please don’t pretend
to make sense of it

deliberate
bring scrutiny
miscalculate
with certainty

please don’t pretend
to make sense of it
when its bullshit

accountability
transparency
ingenuity
prosperity

please don’t pretend
to make sense of it