#granular sampling

[spinningvoices]

cocoquantus 2 jam

[tmbgareok]

Hi Johns!

I recently wrote about “Hall of Heads” and how it unlocked a long-buried memory of the Return to Oz “hall of heads” scene—which I now can’t separate from the song.

Musically, it reminds me of Dick Dale or Duane Eddy with a sinister twist—Phrygian Dominant scale, steady snare, that twitchy twang. Like a Midi Sample infused tmbg flavor of surf music.

So I’m curious—was surf music a conscious influence here? Or just a glorious coincidence of tone and arrangement?

Here’s the piece if you’re curious (includes the movie clip too):

Hall of Heads: Twang, Terror, and TMBG

Thanks for the music and the nightmares.

— Chase

Kiss Me, Son of Blog

JF: Cool!

So, as I just posted the other day, yes I was listening to a lot of surfy things in the early 90s (diving deep into the Pixies and The Beach Boys Pet Sounds at that time) I did have a Dick Dale CD and even saw his personal, and highly customized, guitar in a guitar shop where it was getting repaired or set up. It seemed like a beast.

Hall of Heads is very much an experiment turned into a song--and like Spider and The Guitar, it's a long walk into the MIDI cave that seemed so boundless at the time. Working with materials that seemed entirely new at the time was such a thrill, and even though I still enjoy working electronically and getting super granular with those sounds, I don't know if anyone can really get fully back to that moment. It is so married to that era...

[tavina-writes]

I'm not exactly sure how I want to phrase this yet, but I think a lot of the utterly weird takes I see sometimes float by me on our cursed blue hellsite (esp when it comes to mdzscql fandom) is coming from a refusal to meet the genre where it's at.

Like, why are we trying to interrogate classism in MDZS society, MDZS is a romance, the societal worldbuilding is just enough to support some general big ideas and the provide context for the romance. We can't get ANY kind of read on general classim/sexism/anything else from. this source material. if you think you can get granular when your sample size of characters from various social and gender strata are so small and we don't know how the vast majority of people in here live you are making stuff up.

Like, meet the story where it's at: it's a romance novel.

[anghraine]

I'm trying to redirect my political thoughts from my fandom escape blog again, but I found something interesting enough that I thought I'd talk a little about it.

Occasionally I choose suffering (looking at the more granular 2024 exit poll breakdowns rather than the summaries that I mostly don't trust much at this point). Anyway, I did find something intriguing, if not particularly surprising, in the CNN exit polls, which were done in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin with a sample size of 22,914 voters.

(I mention the specific states forming the sample because this pretty notably excludes any blue states while including some reliably Republican ones.)

Anyway, most exit polls including CNN's let respondents identify their place on the US political spectrum: conservative, moderate, or liberal (reminder that "liberal" in US usage can be a pejorative for "less leftist than me" but also a shorthand for "radical leftist" but also for "anyone who doesn't seek a cishet white Christian ethnostate", but also can be a more neutral synonym for progressives and/or leftists and is often used that way, as here). So you can look at the election results for each of these ideological factions and what share of the overall sample size they represent.

The interesting thing: this "liberal" category accounted for very similar proportions to 2020 of the overall vote in the sample (24% in 2020, 23% in 2024—a difference well within the margin of error of exit polling). There is no need to explain liberals/leftists staying home in 2024: at least in terms of proportions of the overall electorate, they didn't. Just under 1/4 of voters in 2024 were liberals or leftists, just as in 2020.

Okay, if the most leftwards faction of the US political spectrum actually formed a similar proportion of the electorate, then who did they vote for?

Harris. In CNN's own exit polls from 2020, 89% of this faction voted for Biden, and (surprisingly!) a full 10% voted for Trump. God knows what motivated that 10% Trump share after four years of his hellscape of an administration at the height of COVID, but in any case, that support cratered in 2024. 91% of this group voted for Harris and only 4% for Trump. It's an estimate, but it looks like these very peculiar Trump voters had enough of him in 2024 and around half either voted third party this time or for Harris.

So which faction is Trump's victory coming from? Further consolidation of the far right?

In part, yes! 90% of conservatives voted for Trump in 2024, vs 85% in 2020—likely, some conservatives who voted third party or even for Biden in 2020 came "home" this year. However, conservative turnout was actually a little down in 2024, proportionally speaking: conservatives dropped from 38% of the sample in 2020 to 34% in 2024.

But there's one more major faction in all this: "moderates" or centrists. To be clear, we're talking about the US version of centrism, given that this is a US organization polling US voters about US politicians, not "Bernie would be center-right in Denmark" or whatever. This moderate faction jumped from 38% of the overall sample in 2020 to 42% in 2024, and they swung hard towards Trump, though Harris still won a plurality of them. In 2020, 64% of moderates voted for Biden vs 34% for Trump. In 2024, 57% of them voted for Harris vs 40% for Trump—that is, the Democratic lead among centrists dropped precipitously from +30 to +17.

Tl;dr—ideologically speaking, this data suggests that Trump owes his victory to gains among both right-wing and centrist voters rather than some faction of would-be leftists or progressives apathetically staying home or voting third-party or otherwise deserting Democrats (because they're insufficiently radical or for any other reason).

Oh, and if you're curious as to how this compares to CNN's 2016 exit polls, I also checked those! Harris's 84-point lead among the most leftwards faction is a significant improvement from HRC's 74-point lead in 2016. Trump also got 10% of that group in 2016, as in 2020, so it's this campaign—not Hillary's or Biden's—that managed to eat into whatever the hell is going on with that group.

Harris's +17 with moderates is actually a slight improvement on Hillary's +12 in 2016. Biden's jump to a +30 lead among centrists in 2020 represented either a backlash against Trump from centrists, or Biden's own rapport with that group, or some mysterious issue some of those voters had with both HRC and Harris (I wonder what it could be!!), or some combination thereof. Regardless, there are a lot of actual ideologically centrist voters in the USA and not just would-be leftists who haven't heard the good news of Marx yet. And Trump has an iron grip on the right wing at this point: he beat Hillary with conservatives by +65 in 2016, then beat Biden with an even larger margin of +71, then leapt to a 81-point lead over Harris with right-wing voters this year.

[petro1986]

Wiki page to remind yourself which visuals go with what music

If multiple, I'm sorry that there's no granularity with Tumblr Polls, reblogs for larger sample size is greatly appreciated!

please also checkout the poll for the "which part of fantasia gave you a kink/fettish?" as that's lagging behind and I won't accept that Tumblr isn't as horny as it is traumatised!

[aholefilledwithtwigs]

Conversing with Machines

I mentioned in a previous post that one of the ways i use modular (and one of the reasons I 💖 it) is creating patches where i am having conversations with the system. I realize if you’ve never played with modular, that may not make much sense, do i decided to record a short video of what i mean. watch me attempt to play one handed while recording

I am playing the pads on the MPC (think of it like a piano keyboard) which is converting that note information into CV (control voltage). What that means is that playing a note is sent as two messages, one which is the pitch, the second being on/off (is the note being played, for how long, etc, think duration). This information is sent as pure analog electrical signals (the voltage = the pitch, it is not saying ‘play middle C’ it’s sending an electric current at a voltage scaled to represent that note).

Once it leaves the MPC it reaches the modules. Some of the modules are designed to take that Pitch and Note On information and synthesize sounds (when people talk modular they usually call these ‘voices’). From there, the sound is passed through others that manipulate/effect it (sampler, granular reverb) before coming back to the MPC to be recorded.

The power of modular is that pitch and on/off aren’t the only signals you can send, and not the only uses for the signals. Basically every knob you see can be turned by hand or by electricity (control voltage). This voltage can be a simple pattern like a triangle wave or something as complex as an audio wave (basically imagine turning a knob SO FAST that your knob twisting is a sound unto itself). You can have the curve of one sound shape a second and then trigger a sample to play at a speed inversely proportional to its volume. If it exists as a basic math or computer science function, there is a module for that (modular is basically playing with math at audio frequencies)

You can make everything interrelated and interactive and chaotic. What you see me doing in the video is playing a simple melody, and then responding to how the system interprets that input. It is intentionally unpredictable. I want playing it to be a two way interaction. I really mean it when i say this is a conversation. I’m talking with my machines 💖

[noisytenant]

what was ur trajectory for getting into hardcore?

Short answer:

Vocaloid -> Tumblr mutuals give me a taste of hardcore -> hardcore touhou arranges and lolicore -> hardcore autism -> 4lung links me a copy of FL studio -> Perpetuates the cycle

Long timeline below the cut:

c. 2009-2011: get into vocaloid because a high schooler TA at art camp plays World Is Mine and a few other classics, and i think it's just the coolest thing ever.

c 2012-2013: still really into vocaloid. it's my special interest. finding myself enjoying electronic stuff but not knowing anything about genres. going on youtube deep dives, listening to anything i can find reuploaded off niconico. i have a bookmark folder from around this time with a good hundred or so songs in it lol

2013-2014: introduced to things like wolfgun, pendulum, and more experimental electronic like osamu sato by tumblr mutuals. some of my mutuals make their own music. they and quite a few others i follow are into lapfox but i never went out of my way to listen. the callout drops and i have no idea what anyone is talking about but i avoid the subject.

i want to get into making music. i had a tiny bit of background when i was in elementary school, but i still struggle to read sheet music, i don't know shit about playing the piano, and i don't know what programs to use. i watch Cakewalk videos in mystified awe, unable to read anything on it. i am very bad at searching for information online.

somehow, i get myself into using UTAU, mostly just converting USTs, doing a little tuning, and trying to edit in Audacity. I start using Famitracker. While I struggle with the interface, I finally for the first time understand music. The process of synthesizing a sound makes sense for me, and I want more.

2014-2015: i'm into 8tracks and i like, like fucking, electroswing and glitch hop and shit. i'm just listening to random dancey electronic. i don't know. i liked the hotline miami soundtrack

2015: old vocaloid producers are retiring and moving on, the slump is starting to hit. i get a new computer, i deleted my old tumblr coinciding with losing most of the people i spent time with on there, i focus more on school. but i'm on twitter and soon i've remade my tumblr.

i start making new friends. i get invited to play nekodancer with one of them, and get introduced to their friend (hi ein). i think he put on like a goreshit song or a touhou arrange or something but it just really cracked my brain open.

i get into touhou, i get into touhou arranges, and this is when i meet gabber and breakcore. i'm also pretty into lolicore but i have a hard time talking about it due to it being called lolicore (oh, how time changes a person)

2016: at this point, hardcore is my special interest. i'm collecting things in youtube playlists, i'm getting really granular about genres. i'm slurping shit off of lolicore.ch

i want to make hardcore but i don't know how. i try doing things in sunvox to no avail. i try playing around in audacity to no avail. but the hardcore spirit is within me

additional events of note:

2016 or 2017: i don't know when or how i ended up finding out about 4lung, probably a twitter mutual. i like her stuff and she puts out a lot of it. the fanbase is friendly.

if you ask, 4lung will send you a pastebin with a link to FL studio, sample packs, and tips on getting started making breakcore. so i get FL studio. i'm still busy at school, but i make some practice tracks for assignments.

2017: i make the first E-R0 MAID.f track.

and then i just kept going. my music-related special interests wax and wane with my ability to focus on them compared to other things going on in my life but they never really fade completely. in early 2023 i started djing so that's brought it back.

so yeah that's roughly my trajectory thanks for listening

[covid-safer-hotties]

Reference saved in our archive (Daily updates! Always open access!)

TL;DR: This study from 2022 shows covid damage to stop parts of the brain from healing or growing, leading to memory imparement.

Abstract Recent investigations of COVID-19 have largely focused on the effects of this novel virus on the vital organs in order to efficiently assist individuals who have recovered from the disease. In the present study we used hippocampal tissue samples extracted from people who died after COVID-19. Utilizing histological techniques to analyze glial and neuronal cells we illuminated a massive degeneration of neuronal cells and changes in glial cells morphology in hippocampal samples. The results showed that in hippocampus of the studied brains there were morphological changes in pyramidal cells, an increase in apoptosis, a drop in neurogenesis, and change in spatial distribution of neurons in the pyramidal and granular layer. It was also demonstrated that COVID-19 alter the morphological characteristics and distribution of astrocyte and microglia cells. While the exact mechanism(s) by which the virus causes neuronal loss and morphology in the central nervous system (CNS) remains to be determined, it is necessary to monitor the effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection on CNS compartments like the hippocampus in future investigations. As a result of what happened in the hippocampus secondary to COVID-19, memory impairment may be a long-term neurological complication which can be a predisposing factor for neurodegenerative disorders through neuroinflammation and oxidative stress mechanisms.

[open-hearth-rpg]

#RPGaDay2024

RPG with Great Writing

I’m torn on this one. My first instinct is something from Rae Nedjadi– Take My Revolution, Apocalypse Keys, BALIKBAYAN. All solid and evocative– but I also know Rae personally so let me move further afield. Blades in the Dark is another great read for learning the game, but fell down a little when trying to reference things in play. So I’m going to go with another one, a game I haven’t yet played but I read cover to cover. 

Eclipse Phase 2e, for some reason, really grabbed me. It really shouldn’t have. It’s a trad-heavy space game with waaaay too many moving parts for me. But weirdly I really enjoyed reading through it. It went down smooth despite all the world background, conceptual complexity, and granularity. 

I love how it’s presented as well– with a set of distinct campaign frames presented earlier on and a complete collection of sample characters for each– with the idea that you could mix and match these. Right away it focuses on how you onboard readers into the world and players into the game. I love that approach. I particularly dig games where there’s clearly been serious thought given to the presentation and how folks will be using the book. 

It has a ton of details– as you’d expect with this kind of transhumanist, high tech setting. But unlike some other sci-fi games (for example Infinity 2d20 or Mindjammer), I didn’t find myself with eyes glazing over and skipping forward over great swathes of the book. IDK if I’ll ever get to play it, but Eclipse Phase is something I’ll go back to when I want to consider how to present something big.

[rimouskis]

omg now all i want to know is everything about your music taste. what do u like. how do u curate playlists or do u listen only straight thru albums? if you had to pick your five favorite genres and one song from each genre, what songs and genres would u pick? what genre do you feel like u listen to the least? the most ? what's the three most fascinating albums you've ever listened to. i need to know 🫧🎶

I sincerely believe the question is more “what DON’T I like”!

Alright this is a fun way to spend my Friday night in after walking 8 miles today and then doing dinner with friends ahahah so 1. Thank you for this and 2. Let’s go through this point by point:

1. What do I like? Man… I like a lot of music. I’ve gone through phases in my life: I was raised on my dad’s love of 80s/90s rock (think INXS, U2, Melissa Etheridge, Peter Gabriel), I discovered KISS FM in middle school and was a fiend for Top 50 pop then (the pussycat dolls were my everything back then lol isn’t it hilarious that I didn’t figure out I was gay until my 20s. also timbaland was consistently on my favorite songs.)

then in seventh grade I did a heel turn and got really into metal after my older cousin lent me his iPod at thanksgiving (I really liked Disturbed’s album Ten Thousand Fists)... then within the same year I did an even MORE hilarious, second heel turn and discovered K-pop, which I lived & breathed for like two years (my favorite band was SHINee; I still sometimes pop into the K-pop world to sample what’s coming out these days, though I don’t know the new generation of bands well).

THEN in high school the indie alt pop phenomenon hit and I was all in on the bands of the time… bastille, alt j, the 1975 (before they really blew up, #hipster), glass animals, lorde, walk the moon, chvrches, x ambassadors, the naked and the famous, halsey, grouplove, milky chance… like, if it was on tumblr, I was listening to it, hahaha.

Then in college I got really into alternative music, like chelsea wolfe and susanne sundfør and son lux and ms mr.

In adulthood I find that all this musical influence has meant that I like all kinds of music. I like trashy pop country. I like heavy rock. I like top 50 pop. I like rap. I like hyperpop. I like 80s synth pop. I like indie folk. I like it all, man. I have been in a pretty heavy rock era for the last, like… four, five years, though, so I think I probably primarily register as a rock listener, and if we were to get even more granular, I really love guitar-forward rock.

2. I’m a HUGE user of playlists. Spotify is the only streaming service I pay for, and I’ll pay for it for many many years, I imagine, haha.

I have over 100 playlists on there and really enjoy curating them as a little art form for myself. I rarely listen to albums, which I kind of think is too bad, because I DO think the album ~as a cohesive piece of art~ is kind of becoming a lost art in the age of streaming, and I’m not helping the cause at all.

But, on the flip side, playlist curation is a really enjoyable form of curatorial art, imo, and I deeply love and appreciate it. I love making playlists for anything and everything. One of my favorite playlist I’ve ever made is actually a reylo playlist, lol. I also made a killer Batman playlist after seeing rpattz’s batman, and I have some good old check please playlists as well. Fun fun stuff.

3. This is HARD but okay, I can do this…

Alt/indie rock: “Change For You” by Friday Pilots Club

Pop punk: “Why Do I?” By Set It Off

Electronic: “Fake” by Mystery Skulls (BUT A VERY VERY VERY CLOSE SECOND IS “DANCEFLOOR” by NOISY and Charlotte Plank)

Folk: “Leaf Off/The Cave” by José González

Rock: “Thrown Away” by VAST

Since three of those are rock/rockish offshoots (I am who I am, sorry), I’ll give you a few more divergent others:

rap would be “Boss Bitch” by Doja Cat OR “Von den fernen Bergen” by Ali As

house would be “Derezzed” by Daft Punk

disco would be “You Win Again” by The Bee Gees [my dad loves disco lol so… so do I]

country would be any and all Orville Peck [though normally my country tastes veer WAY WAY WAY trashy country pop lol sorry but it’s catchy]

and my pop pick is obviously Most Perfect Pop Song Of All Time, “Lonely Dancers” by Conan Gray

4. The genre I listen the least to is R&B, probably. I wasn’t raised listening to it and I’ve never really gained a taste for it, even though other genres I wasn’t raised listening to (country and rap, for example) DID grow on me. That being said, I really enjoy THEY., who is technically categorized as R&B.

Like I said earlier, I was really raised on rock music and I think that foundationally I am just a Rock Music Kinda Gal. I love guitars so much, man. But a close second is probably pop. Just as I was created to love guitars, so too was I created to love synths.

5. What makes an album “fascinating”? 🤔 I think this is hard, because first and foremost I am not an album listener, but also I don’t think I examine my music through a critical lens of fascination. I usually operate on a pure “how-much-straight-up-dopamine-is-being-poured-into-my-system?” scale when it comes to music, haha. Like, I’m not even primarily a listener of lyrics. I pay attention to the music first.

That being said…

Album 01 is going to be “Strange Trails” by Lord Huron. To be very, very annoying: I was into Lord Huron since their first album, and when they blew up due to a song from "Strange Trails" getting included in the TV show 13 Reasons Why, I was very annoyed because I think their sonic output shifted, and for the worse.

Anyways, I maintain that their first two albums are as close to perfect as albums get, and “Strange Trails” is what I find to be their strongest narrative album. There’s a whole storyline through the album that follows a fictional character Ben, the frontman, created. There was a comic book to accompany the album too, and I think the storyline is very lovely and I love some tragic love and magic wrapped into my music:) My favorite song off of “Strange Trails” is “Fool for Love.”

Album 02 is going to be “Bad Blood” by Bastille, which I also find to be Bastille’s finest work. Dan Smith wrote all these songs by himself in his den and—I really believe—perfectly embodied and channeled the sound of the 2010s indie moment. The entire album is so strong, and not only is it so strong that it doesn’t have any skips… even the EXTENDED version, “All This Bad Blood,” has no skips. Whatever Dan was fermenting in the lead up to “Bad Blood”’s release, it was pure gold. Nothing else quite captures the feeling of it being 2012 as much as this album. My favorite song off off “Bad Blood” is “Icarus” <3

Album 03 is going to be “Dream Machine” by Des Rocs. Des is on a one-man cocaine-fueled mission from God to bring back hard glam rock and I sincerely could not support his mission more. He constantly churns out bangers (his EPs “Martyr Parade” and “Let the Vultures In” are also worth checking out) but I found his songwriting to be simply ~exceptional~ on “Dream Machine.” I think he’s wonderful at writing evocative, classic-rock inspired lyrics that read as poetry to me:) From “Natural Born Thriller”:

Roll, thunder, roll / Riding like a freight train down on the tip of your tongue

Rattle in your bones / Shockwave ripping through the sky, in and out of your lungs

Love, lock and load / Fire in your eyes and you’re ready when the fever gonna come

Way down the road / Big wheels turning to the rhythm of the blood-red sun

Half a man and half apocalypse / The chase, the thrill, that you cannot resist

Day and night, every time / That one there is a natural-born thriller

Like MAN... that’s poetry in action to me. That’s just good writing. I also find the lyrics and storytelling of “In the Night” fantastic, and “Dream Machine” is such a perfect tone-setting, atmosphere-building track for that album to open on. It’s just one of the best constructed albums I’ve heard, full of bangers. My favorite song off it is probably “Natural Born Thriller.”

Damn that took me like two hours to get through, mostly because I got to experience the joy of scrolling through all my music and painfully selecting a few. This was delightful. Thank you, anon!

[ekssperimental]

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗙𝗹𝘂𝘅𝗲𝗿 is a versatile multi-effect packed with powerful modules designed to inspire creativity and exploration:

𝙏𝙖𝙥𝙚 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙚: Add authentic analog warmth with hiss and character controls.

𝘿𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝙈𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙤𝙙𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨: Includes a “bipolar” filter with COMB mode for unique resonances.

𝙏𝙬𝙤 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙗 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙚𝙨: Each offers 3 distinct modes for lush spatial effects.

𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧: Features traditional shapes (Ramp up/down, Triangle, Square, Random) and a configurable custom shape with 1–5 steps.

𝙁𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧: Choose from 4 versatile modes for modulation.

𝙂𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙚: Granular-based effects with rhythmic gating, pitch shifting, and reversing.

𝘿𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙮 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙚: Granular delays capable of pitch-shifting and reversing audio.

𝙒𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙧: 11 modes for dynamic distortion and tonal shaping.

𝙇𝙤-𝙁𝙞 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙡𝙚: Add texture with bit and sample rate reduction.

𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙥��𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙧: A simple yet effective auto-compressor for dynamic control.

𝙇𝙞𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧: Offers soft, hard, and clip modes for flexible limiting.

𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘 𝙀𝙌: Includes high/low shelves and a mid-band with frequency and Q controls.

𝙋𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙊𝙪𝙩𝙥𝙪𝙩 𝙇𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙡: Fine-tune your mix with precise control.

Additionally, independent audio jacks on the 𝙂𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝, 𝘿𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙮, and 𝙒𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙧 modules provide routing flexibility for advanced setups.

𝟭𝟯𝟬+ 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 are included to get you started, showcasing the wide range of sonic possibilities that 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗙𝗹𝘂𝘅𝗲𝗿 offers.

[gazedapaisleystare]

Hologram Electronics

Microcosm | Granular Looper & Glitch Pedal

“Microcosm is a granular effects pedal that rearranges and reinterprets your sound in new and exciting ways using a variety of sampling, pitch-shifting, delay, and looping techniques.

Cascading micro-loops can be locked into tight, tap-tempo synced rhythms, diffused into glacial ambient textures, woven into hypnotic drones, and much more.” - Hologram Electronics

[leota-nexus]

name: ¿? (pronounced "you think about all this way more than I do!") (pronounced "to pronounce it correctly, I'd have to cut out your tongue!") (pronounced "make a noise & see if I respond!") (no pronunciation) (super helpful pronunciation guide audio recording below!* <3)

alias: V

gender: probably not

lifepath: streetkid techie who later got into hacking

favorite ripper: Vik Vektor

favorite fixer: Muamar "El Capitán" Reyes

favorite weapons (no particular order): Bloody Maria, Hypercritical, Comrade's Hammer, Byakko, & Cottonmouth

favorite clothing style: crystaljock bombers & daemon-hunter ballcap

favorite colors: 💣💎😈🔮🧠 (& anything metallic neon synthwave/darkwave)

bonus fun facts:

fan of AssaultBots & MythSploders (2077 versions of BattleBots & MythBusters yes we just made them up but it's absolutely true anyway)

favorite MythSploders quotes include "When in doubt: C4" -Savage Adam & "Jaime wants big boom" -Jaime the CyberWalrus (yes these bonus fun facts were just an elaborate reason to include these quotes yet somehow still important characterization anyway)

*super helpful pronunciation guide audio recording:

(bonus pronunciation description explanation below the cut)

While asking questions about ¿?, I kept thinking of a joke that seemingly would only work in text:

"I'm ¿?"

"Wha- WTF was that?! How do you pronounce that again?!"

"¿?"

"You know what? Nevermind."

Because it's cyberpunk, I kept picturing it as "*opens mouth, tech glitch sound comes out*" until I finally realized I could create that sound!

So, if I may, let me take you on a journey of how my brain works:

First, I looked for a recording of V saying, "I'm V." Simple right? I came up empty. So I went through the character creator, waited for the music to calm the fuck down, & recorded both voices multiple times just in case. Then I took a sample of just "male voice" V & put it through a granular synthesizer where I was able to do this:

That's left (¿) & right (?) audio (dots omitted to minimize sonic overload) each tracing separate paths through the audio "I'm V" at the same time. I was like

"lulz let's hear this chaos!"

"..."

"oh no I love it"

So I hit record, only to realize they're slightly different length lines at slightly different speeds creating this shifting effect over multiple loops. I decided to record a full cycle loop & see if there's a "best" one. Except first, I was curious what it would sound like if I isolated each loop & layered them all on top of each other, like so:

"Oh No I LOVE It"

I panned each loop differently to really emphasize the movement of the sound so if you're listening through headphones, it really does end up sounding like something resembling "¿?"

But I don't want to make final decisions about my partner's character, ya know? Luckily it only took a single listen:

"Yeah, that's how it's officially pronounced. Good luck trying to pronounce that!"

So there you have it! "Good luck!"

(Personally, I just say "your streetkid V" outloud, WAY easier lol)

damn I am fucking OVER typing the words "pronounced" & "pronunciation" @_@

[pedaloftheday]

Now that the NAMM Show is over, you'll have plenty of time to check out my demo for the amazing Qi Etherealizer Chorus Delay Granular Reverb Multi-Effect, which is a wicked collaboration between Walrus Audio and Yvette Young!! Featuring stereo connections, MIDI capabilities, presets, tap tempo, a Freeze function and more, it's a true ambient creator's dream piece of gear…the demo isn't short, so settle in and see what this beauty can do, cheers!!✌

[dustedmagazine]

Andrew Forell’s Dusted Year End 2024

Mukqs, Photo by Brett Naucke

Well, that was a clusterfuck of a year. I barely have the words and frankly enough has been said about not just 2024 but the augurs for the next four years and beyond. So, to the music. It was a strange one. I felt like I could barely keep up with the amount coming out and after a while I stopped trying and slowly learnt to let go of FOMO and concentrate on what came my way and the serendipitous finds from the occasional rabbit hole excursion. Below are my favorite records of the year and a bunch of others I’ve enjoyed and recommended to anyone who asked (and a few who didn’t).

Mukqs — Eye Frame (Orange Milk)

Apart from the technical aspect of his live sample-based improvisation, Mukqs’ Eye Frame is like an aural version of Fantastic Voyage. It feels like you are travelling through the sounds of your own mind and body sometimes in reverie and sometimes into the eddies of anxiety at its core. As I said in my review “Mukqs moves his music seamlessly between light and shade, combining waves of sound with microscopic detail, using staticky glitch to enhance natural sound and recognizable new age tropes to ameliorate the unfamiliar.” Each subsequent listen has revealed further dimensions in Eye Frame and I’ve found myself returning to it more than other record this year.

Francesco Leali — Let Us Descend (Until Riots)

Francesco Leali and his collaborators create a disquiet world on Let Us Descend. Fascinated by the ideas of coercive control and psychological manipulation as the heart of modern society, Leali holds a scratched and tarnished mirror to our gaslit world. Using a minimal palette of electronics, percussion, and strings, this is some of the darkest and most distressed music of the year. An appropriate, and ironically, consoling response to the events of these too dread times. Leali creates moments of great beauty on tracks like “Catatonic Blue” and “Hexed” that provide glimmers of hope amongst the terrible mess. 

Arab Strap — I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 (Rock Action)

It’s always a pleasure to hear Aidan Moffat’s exasperated, heartfelt poetry. Taking stock of the deleterious effects of social media has been a staple of the last few years but Moffat’s ability to combine scathing satire and emotionally resonant turns of phrase can stop you in your tracks. Behind him Malcolm Middleton moves from big beat to gruff Pet Shop Boys to lush Bacharach inspired orchestration to delicate acoustic guitar and string arrangements. Whether wielding scalpel or bludgeon, Moffat is at his windmill tilting best. A lovely rollicking ride this. 

Iceboy Violet, Nueen — You Said You’d Hold My Hand Through the Fire (Hyperdub)

Barcelona-based producer Nueen provides grainy washes and granular details that frame Manchester artist Iceboy Violet’s dissection of a lost relationship. The music slips from interstitial space, mercurial, shapeshifting. The voices weave though, now submerged in smoke and murk, now crystal close, expanding the liminal spaces between grief, loss, and lust. Violet processes their pain and regret in language that moves between poetic abstraction and breathtakingly specific detail. An album of real beauty and pain.  

KMR/KMRU — Disconnect (Phantom Limb)

On two lengthy tracks “Differences” and “Arkives”, Nigerian sound artist Joseph Kamaru AKA KMRU discusses colonial power, history, and identity over Kevin Richard Martin’s ambient dubscapes. On the first, more abstract piece, Martin layers KMRU’s voice so that it echoes like the oral histories so vital to the transmission of culture in his homeland. “Arkives” is an explicit and telling condemnation of the colonial obsessions with suppressing language and fetishizing the collection of artefacts. The pair then perform haunted deconstructions on both tracks. “Difference”, Differ”, “Ark” and “Arcs” work as shadow miniatures, reducing the words and music to ritual abstraction that work on a psychogeographical level as hypnotic invocations of knowledge and being. 

Sinaïve — Pop Moderne (ANTIMATIER)

French trio Sinaïve bring the cool. Looking like Warholian foundlings, all sharp edges, mod clobber, sunglasses after dark and an effortless way with a beat or a riff especially when they’ve copped it from a song you didn’t even know you loved. “Providence”, which sounds like Brigitte Fontaine over the tidal swell (and decelerated riff) of “Taillights Fade” and a rickety drum machine is a magnificent undulating slab of melodic sludge. “Dasein (Oder nie sein)” careens along the open road, all motorik drums, squalling guitar, and a thrumming bass riff. Pop Moderne never fails to provide an electric jolt. 

Some others:

Angry Blackmen — The Legend of ABM (Deathbomb Arc)

Being Dead — EELS (Bayonet)

Alan Braufman — Infinite Love, Infinite Tears (Valley of Search)

The Bug — Machine (Relapse)

Burial — Dreamfear/Boy Sent From Above (XL Recordings)

Camera Obscura — Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)

Fin — Cleats (Hausu Mountain)

Damaged — Ghost Dubs (Pressure)

Daryl Groetsch — Above the Shore (self-released)

Drahla — angeltape (Captured Tracks)

Font — Strange Burden (Acrophase)

France Jobin + Yamil Rezc — Un diá en México (LINE)

Geotic  — The Anchorite (Basement’s Basement)

HAPTIC — Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions (LINE)

Kim Gordon — The Collective (Matador)

KMRU — Natur (Touch)

Marwan Allam — Bab Bhar (self-released)

Mick Harvey — Five Ways to Say Goodbye (Mute)

Neutrals — New Town Dream (Slumberland)

Nexcyia — Exodus (Haunter)

Patrick Higgins — Versus (Other People)

Reunion Island  — Night Words (Tall Corn)

Sandwell District — Where Next? (Point of Departure)

Skee Mask — D (self-released)

Umbrellas — Fairweather Friend (Slumberland)

Yosa Peit — Gutbuster (Fire)

[b-blushes]

Do you love to get into the nitty gritty about how one guy uses their planner? Then do I have the video for you! This one has it all:

discussion of every spread I drew

somewhat granular breakdown of how I’ll use each page

some thoughts about good things about using a planner

lists of all the stationery items I talk about  

‘This could have been an email’ but video version about this notebook I drew and had made <3 A love letter to the habit of keeping a daily planner for years and years and years <3 This is the kind of video I want to watch from my friends so I have created it :P 

It seems that lots of videos like this are about products though - sorry, I just made them for me, I’m not able to manage selling either physical or digital products at this time! Hopefully I talked in enough detail though that you could make your own personalised to your planner needs if you wanted. You can do whatever you want forever >:)