mistrustmusic's posterous http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com Most recent posts at mistrustmusic's posterous posterous.com Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:42:51 -0700 Facebook | Let's get Vienna to number 1 on 11th APRIL! http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/facebook-lets-get-vienna-to-number-1-on-11th http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/facebook-lets-get-vienna-to-number-1-on-11th If Rage Against the Machine and Delirious can do it, so can Ultravox!! Facebook | Let's get Vienna to number 1 on 11th APRIL!. Join the Facebook campaign to get Vienna by Ultravox to Number 1 in the UK charts... If you're not a Facebook user, you can find out more about the campaign and where to download Vienna here on the Official Ultravox website... Just to remind you.... [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJeWySiuq1I]

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:11:51 -0800 Farewell, Motif! http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/farewell-motif http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/farewell-motif After much soul-searching and discussions with Mrs Mistrust long into the night, I've decided to sell the wonderful Yamaha Motif XS6 that I recently won on the Music Tech Magazine forum promotion. It's a brilliant keyboard and I could spend hours playing on it, but the problem is that I just haven't got any HOURS or minutes to use it. With all the stuff that's going on at home with Paul, my stepson, and his Autism, the only chance to make music is for about 10 minutes a week on my laptop, sitting in front of the TV, waiting for Paul to get ready for me to talk on his regular evening ride. This situation isn't going to change for the forseeable future, so I'd rather the synth went to a good home. I can use the cash to upgrade my laptop and take my family on holiday. The Yamaha Motif XS6 is currently listed on ebay.co.uk if anyone's interested....

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:19:43 -0800 Where have all the musicians gone? http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/where-have-all-the-musicians-gone http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/where-have-all-the-musicians-gone  I'm still concerned about the apparent lack of musicians who run blogs on Wordpress and (ahem) Blogger, in fact all the other major blogging sites. Come to think of it, there don't seem to be many "bands that blog" on Myspace these days. When I've looked under the "music" tag on Wordpress, the majority of links and headlines that appear are usually from people commenting about their favourite tracks or all-time 100 love songs, something like that. Not a lot from either established acts or bedroom musicians like me. Why's that? Why not blog, all ye musos of the world? I must be missing something. I'll be they all run blogs on their own websites. That's it. Must be the answer. So, here's the challenge: If anyone knows of either established acts who run blogs on Wordpress (or Blogger) comment back and I'll add them (and you) to my blogroll. If you look at this  blog regularly, you'll notice my capacity for dissatisfaction with my blog theme. I think the people who design the themes are very clever, but the ones on offer at Wordpress.com don't really suite the needs of a downtempo/chillout musician. I've chosen the "blue" one this time, and added my own header (a crop from Music Tech magazine's announcement of me winning the Yamaha keyboard - see thread below). Well, it's different to all the clouds and rivers and flowers, and other pretty pictures. No doubt I'll get bored and go for pink or something soon. I used to frequent a website and forum called "Electromancer", where I uploaded my first "modern" tracks ("Never Alone" included), and where I got a lot of support and inspiration to make more tunes. Sadly, Electromancer folded (read about it in my old blog) and most of its members went over to a site called Nervejam, where they all continue the spirit of support, inspiration (and tomfoolery) and make nice tunes. I'm mentioning Nervejam because the site admin (Nervejam, himself) has changed my profile name/avatar to something that I really like and which I've decided to adopt as my byline on this blog (thanks NJ).... YammyGit Talking of which, you can now listen to this and all my other blog posts in MP3 format. I've got a RSS feed going off to Talkr.com which produces all my posts in audio format with a weird-sounding, automated female sounding voice. I guess I now have my own podcast. Rather than having "listen" blocks in every previous post, there's a link to all of the "podcasts" here at TruMix. Have a listen - it's really quite bizarre.....

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:14:02 -0800 I'm in Music Tech Magazine http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/im-in-music-tech-magazine http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/im-in-music-tech-magazine Just to let you know I'm finally in Music Tech Magazine for winning the Motif XS6 synthesizer! The article is in February's edition - but in case you don't want to buy it, the editor sent me a copy of the page, and I've attached it here as pdf (the whole page) and a jpeg (click to see the whole pic).
Media_httpmistrustfil_etdhm
Other news... the manager of a band from New Zealand called "Pitch Black" has said I can have a go at doing a remix of a track from their new CD, "Rude Mechanicals". If it's good enough, it'll appear on the band's remix CD and as a download on music sites like iTunes and Beatport. More on that soon when I decide which track I want to have a go at.... Non-music stuff: we took Paul to see a residential school in Shrewsbury today. Absolutely amazing place. Part of a 16th century hall and estate. Class sizes are usually 2 students and one teacher - it's for kids with autism. He sounds relatively keen on it, but we'll have a job on convincing the education authority to pay for him. It's around £30,000 per year! Page from MTM magazine reproduced by kind permission of Music Tech Magazine/Anthem Publishing/Yamaha UK (c)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:47:04 -0800 I've won a Yamaha Motif XS6 workstation! http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/ive-won-a-yamaha-motif-xs6-workstation http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/ive-won-a-yamaha-motif-xs6-workstation And it's absolutely amazing!!!! I won it in a promo that Music Tech magazine were running on their new Studionet forum. I went down to Yamaha's R&D offices in West London yesterday and got the official Yamaha training from one of their product specialists. I spent most of yesterday afternoon grinning like an idiot after hearing the sounds the Motif can make and just how incredible the whole thing is. I think I can seriously say goodbye to making music on Acid Pro from now on! It seems to be able to do everything - it's got 355MB of ROM for the internal sounds, 6000 arpeggios, song and pattern-based recording, backup over Ethernet, full integration with Cubase 4. I can predict some long nights over Christmas getting to grips with this thing!!!!
Media_httpmistrustfil_qafja
This is my first post in two months - more about what's been happening later this month. Needless to say, it hasn't been very pleasant.... At least I'll have a nice Christmas present!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:03:32 -0700 Saving the planet http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/saving-the-planet http://mistrustmusic.posterous.com/saving-the-planet Am I saving the planet by not making any new tracks at the moment? I've got lots of things to inspire me and lots of ideas going round in my head, but can't seem to find the time to put them down on the computer as rough ideas. As for saving the planet, I guess that I'm lightening the load on my carbon footprint by not switching on the laptop and the midi keyboard, but if I'm not making any tunes, the conceited view would be to say that someone somewhere is out burning fossil fuel instead of being at home listening to my music. I've been listening to an old tape I made in 1988 called "PMWW" which stands for "Power, Movement, Wisdom, Words". It sounds like a strange title, from a time when I would write endless pages of lyrics and try and fit some music around them, and hope they all gelled together into songs. I probably made about 5 or 6 of these tapes, all with about 12 tracks on each, so that's a fair amount of music. The thing with PMWW and probably all the others, is that although the songs and the singing aren't particular good and the timing of the playing isn't perfect, there are lots of that sound interesting and original. It sounds like I've taken the time to play around with the sounds and the drum programming, made some interesting intros and solos. Fair enough, my playing technique wasn't very good, but there are some decent basslines and chords in there. In those days, I had a Jen SX1000 monosynth, a Casio MT31 keyboard, Kay Memory Rhythm drum machine, and a Yamaha VSS 100 sampling keyboard. Listening to PMWW it reminds me that I used to connect the Jen's output to the line-in on the Yamaha. Then I'd play a note on the Jen and start up the amazing 2-second sampler on the VSS, and build up a few other sounds using the latter's oversample facility. Then I'd start mangling them with the built-in editor. Amazingly, I'd end up with samples that sounded like the Yamaha DX7 and PPG Wave synths and none of my tracks had the same sounds. They were all original sounds, too. The point I'm making is that these days, I sit down in front of the computer with Acid Pro open on a blank page, find some loops that sound good together or load up a soft synth and use the midi grid to paint in some notes, and take it from there. So the only thing that a track comes from is usually something that started out being made by someone else. Alright - I usually end up cutting up the loops, or changing a few of the soft synth presets, but the tune more often than not is a some of its parts, until I go back to it a few weeks later and add a bit of my own personality to it.  I guess it all boils down to lack of time. I usually get on the computer about 9.30 pm one or two evenings a week and get constant interruptions, especially as Paul isn't in school and on Prozac and demands constant attention. Which brings me back to Power, Movement etc. What little time I got on the PC the other day, I started looking at some of my old VST plugins, and ran them through a little program called Cantabile, which lets you play the plugins using your computer keyboard.  I actually started playing some riffs and experimenting with the sounds, trying to make something original, I got the same buzz I had all those years ago, and I've actually been creative! Finally, the O'Neill surfing clips I've mentioned before (and are on my video wall) have found their way on to Sumo TV's website. Apparently, it's a bit like Youtube, but the videos can be shown on their satellite tv station.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>