Hi folks, long time no blog.

I've been pretty busy lately with travel & a new job & a variety of smaller music/audio projects, but I thought I'd highlight one in particular.

I recently worked on a sound design project for a wornderfully talented artist by the name of Talitha Balan. Talitha's work was featured in
the recent Lightwave Festival here in Tasmania, and included this pretty epic video (5m30s) + a trading card inspired by Pokémon landscapes
and some painting and calligraphy techniques of the Himalayas."

This work in particular features a repertoire of techniques including Talitha's recent handmade paintings: Mimikyu in the Bardot, Parry Creek
and Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, digitised and rendered in moving image via AI.

My contribution to this, is everything you hear - with the exception of some background ambient noises, which are actually field recordings of Talitha
working on one of her mixed media pieces. The theory behind the sound design, at least in my mind, was to create soundscapes that draw the viewer in to
artwork further, rather than being too distracting. I wanted to try to create a meditative state for the viewer to sink in to vivid colours and their
contrast to depth and darkness that each work has. In addition to that, I wanted to make use of recurring sounds, that change and evolve over time
throughout the length of the video - the same way that some of the visual cues change from one section of the video to the next.

You can see/listen to a lower res version of the video here:

For any sound-nerds out there, the audio was primarily made in the box (for recall reasons), using Kontakt, Massive and various other soft-synths -
but with a healthy dose of field recordings and eurorack derived bass drones and glitchy effects.

To see more of Talitha's work, head over to her instagram page at: https://cargocollective.com/Talitha/

And for any digital artists out there that need sound design for their upcoming works, shoot me a message! I really enjoy working on this kind of thing!

One of my favourite things to do when I travel is just walk through a city, see how different everything looks, smell how different everything smells, and hear how different everything sounds. It's like people watching without giving a crap about the people, I guess. New-thing-experiencing? I dunno. Anyway when you're in a large city, a big proportion of the hearing section is retail stores (and billboards etc) playing the current top 10-20-40-whatever pop songs.

So I thought I'd make a quick playlist of - maybe not the top 10 most popular songs because you can google that on billboard, but the songs I heard the most on my trip. I mean I heard these songs at LEAST 3-4 times a day just walking around Tokyo.

I find it interesting that there are subtle production ideas & mix techniques that are consistant throughout them all. I have no idea if that's a current thing or a long standing thing (eg. Everything being UBER clean, for some reason even the distorted guitars sound clean, nothing is particularly overdriven to the point of fuzzy/grittyness).

Anyway, here we go:

1. Ado - Show

Holy crap. Like, every single day, at least 7-8 times I'd hear this. No matter if it was at Shibuya scramble or deep in the Japanese alps, I swear this would always pop up somewhere. It's such an eclectic song that bounces from style to style, genre to genre. I really love that about a lot of J-pop (& K-pop, although I don't know if they like being grouped together). The vocal performance by Ado is really kinda crazy (in a great way). I assume there's supposed to be some sort of mystique about her persona? Every performance I've seen has been a silhouette - also kinda cool!

One thing though. I am 150% sure she says "ra-ta-ta horny!" instead of "ra-ta-ta warning!". I've heard it. I can't unhear it. I'm sorry! haha

2.  Yaosobi - Idol

Possibly popularised overseas by AvantGardey's performance dancing to this track on America's Got Talent, but this track was HOT in Japan. I don't even speak Japanese but I memorised phrases from this song purely from hearing it in probably every single store in Harajuku and Shibuya. I'm not mad, it's a fun song. Yaosobi is a total Queen and had at least 4-5 songs in the Top 10 (one coming later), but this was easily the most popular.

3.  King Gnu - SpecialZ

This was used on Jujutsu Kaisen, which is currently a wildly popular anime (a lot of these songs are popping up in anime), and King Gnu were about to head off on a big arena tour while I was travelling through Japan. I think I saw billboards playing this on repeat at at least 80% of the larger train terminals through Japan.

4.  Queen Bee - Mephisto

Jesus christ what a vocal performance! The studio version was of this song was heard more commonly but I'd like to highlight this recording - in the original MV there's a lot of distorted sections and cinematic sections etc, and in this version you can really appreciate the amazing breath control and extreme vocal range of Queen Bee more easily. Plus I love live strings, and they compliment Queen Bee nicely.

5.  Atarashii Gakko - Tokyo Calling!

I mean, I heard this a LOT on the streets and in malls, but I heard it a lot more jumping around in my hotel room late at night, still hyped up after a bunch of beers, highballs, chu-hai's & yakitori chicken livers (seriously, I love that shit). The horns on this beat are Akira Ifukube "Gojira tai Mosura"-esque, "Simon Says"-esque "get the fuck up" kind of beat & I fricken love it. I saw someone refer to Atarashii Gakko as the female Beastie Boys and while that's more musically evident in this track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Su2XQX3yI, a Beastie Boys cover they did years ago, & their live shows, this is the most recent track, their (currently) hottest track, and the one I had to post.

Really big fan of the new leaders. A lot of the songs on this list have been big on tiktok lately, including this one, but this one comes with it's own dance steps!

6.  Yaosobi - The Brave

Another jam by Yaosobi that just seemed to be everywhere.. it follows a lot of the same patterns as "Idol" so I was reluctant to include it, but that breakdown was EVERYWHERE & it was too big to ignore. Another one used in a popular anime, this time it was a part of the Gundam franchise in the "Witch from Mercury" series - which you can see in the MV below.

7.  Todome No Ichigeki feat. Cory Wong - SpyxFamily Season 2 ending theme song

Really, the secret to pop success in Japan seems to be to land a spot in an anime.. This one popped up all over the place as did the anime it's included in. (FYI SpyxFamily is adorable/hilarious and well worth a watch).

Ok, that's all for now. There were probably a few others that could have been included in this list, but I like to keep it short and sweet. I already can't wait to get back to Japan, bust out Shazam on my phone again and see what's overtaken these tracks.

I've recently returned from a pretty incredible 6-week journey across Japan, staying in 11 different cities, and visiting many more areas. There's a lot of music/audio/sound related things to talk about from that trip, so the next few blog posts will be about that. In no particular order, lets start with:

So on my recent trip to Japan, I was lucky enough to be in Tokyo while the 2023 Tokyo Festival of Modular was taking place. I was mulling over the decision to attend or not for a while, because really, while I do love modular synths, there are just SO many other amazing things you can do in Tokyo.

Anyway, I eventually decided to make the trip over to The Face Daikanyama and check it out. I probably should have decided earlier, I only managed to catch the final 5 acts, and a few of the earlier acts looked pretty interesting too. Oh well, live and learn.

The Face is basically an underground basement, completely made of concrete. So yeah, not great for sound, but it was decent enough to get the idea. I bought my ticket and walked in, turns out there was a lucky dip/raffle on entry.. I won a patch cable! hah! You really can never have enough, so hell yeah, it's much appreciated, thanks TFOM!
There were eurorack rigs (& non-euro rigs) set up around the back and sides of the room, and a small stage area in the corner for the performers. One artist played "Boiler Room" style in the crowd, but I'll get to that later.

Another reason it would have been good to get there earlier is so I would have had an opportunity to play around on a few of those rigs, some of them looked pretty epic, but it was already dark and noisy, so not ideal conditions. I decided to pass and just watch the performers.

The first act I saw was Ipnoteca, who played a set that ranged from sparse soundscapes to erratic beat-centric IDM. It kept the listeners guessing and flowed along nicely. Good times!

Following Ipnoteca was Yi Seunggyu. This was a glitchy harsh noise set that at times teased at rhythmic passages before slamming back in to noise. I couldn't quite see what Yi Seunggyu was using, but I think it was more of a laptop and mixer (possibly mixer feedback) set than eurorack? I could be wrong.. There was some very cool, industrial-esque sound design going on in this set which I really dug. Noise sets are often challenging to listen to for me, they're abbrasive and require a conscious effort to find something to latch on to. Maybe that's the point? I'm glad that I saw this set second, it worked like an exclamation point between questions marks, adding emphasis to the evening. (that makes sense in my head)

The third act I saw was Nick Tsai from Taiwan. Nick played a very chilled out, melodic and mellow ambient set which acted as a cooling balm after Yi Seunggyu's face-melting set. I actually could have drifted off to sleep during this, and I don't mean that in a bad way, it was just deeply relaxing to listen to. I need to look in to more of Nick's work, he seems to be quite prolific!

The penultimate act for the night was tamiX. This was the Boiler Room set I mentioned earlier. It made sense to be played like that, as it was straight up techno - which the crowd loved, with all the build ups and drops of a club set. People were cheering and dancing around the Buchla rig with drinks in hand, which, as someone that regularly has to clean spilt drinks out of CDJ's, made me nervous to watch. I guess people were mostly holding cameras and phones though, trying to snap a pic or a vid, and tamiX jumped around a lot too, and the music was great, so a fun time was obviously had by all!

The headliner for the evening was the excellent Anthony Baldino. Anthony played a great IDM set that encompassed amazingly detailed, cinematic sound design. Huge percussive sounds, ripping bass at times, lush pads, leads, all the things. There was just a really good "sound" to this set too. It felt like the most well rounded mix that I saw, and the most well produced set. Big fan of Baldino's work and it was a treat to see him play in a concrete bunker in Tokyo.

Over all it was a very cool night and a great way to display the versatility & range of modular synth rigs - they are what you make them. There was a second day of performances at The Face which I unfortunately didn't attend (there really is just TOO much to do in Tokyo), along with a few days of workshops afterwards. It's an awesome event that coincides with other electronic music & modular synth events around the country, so if you happen to be in Japan while it's on, I highly recommend heading along and checking it out!

So let's talk about audio DIY. I originally got in to DIY through a combination of curiosity, GAS, and perpetually being broke. I was always a studio gear nerd, but I knew nothing about electronics and DIY. A friend introduced me to the likes of CAPI and DRIP Audio who both got great reviews, but seemed somehow inacessible to me.  A bit out-of-my-league as a complete novice.  Well, over the past few years DIY has morphed in to it's own passtime for me. I find it's a good way to feel like you're still being productive when you're in a creative rut, and a good way to save money on equipment (of course, whether you needed that equipment in the first place is a whole other argument).

It took some time to build up the confidence to start, but I finally found a project I wanted to try. I always wanted an ARP 2600, but there was no way I could ever afford an original (still can't!). I saw that the Human Comparator had a DIY kit to build your own version of a 2600, and from all online reviews at the time, it was pretty decent. That was good enough for me! I ordered the PCB's, panel & components kit, & then bought an iron and set out to learn how to solder. I realise I probably should have done that in the reverse order, but who can really resist a good impulse buy? Deal with the consequences later.

Thankfully, the PCB's were really well labelled, and the component kit was all packaged and labelled to make it as easy as possible. It was a pretty huge build, a massive main PCB and a lot of components, but it went well. When all the components were in, I nervously fired it up and there was no magic smoke. WINNING! It mostly worked first time! There was one small solder bridge to fix, but fortunately I work with a great audio electronics tech who found it and fixed it in about 0.3 seconds. After that it was all systems go!

With the success of the TTSH, I tried on a clone of a piece of vintage audio processing kit. I built a Hairball Audio 1176 Rev A clone for some friends as a wedding gift (they're both musicians, obviously.. it's not like I just give 1176's to anyone). It also turned out pretty well and I loved how it sounded. At some point in time I'm definitely gonna build another one or two (for myself this time).

After going 2 of 2, I decided to go big or go home. Or rather, go big and then go home. Go home every night and solder for hours and hours in a tiny shipping container shed. For months. But at the end of those months I had a something damn cool! A Black Corporation Deckard's Dream! And lo and behold, that also fired up first time with no problems! The Deckard's Dream is a remake of a Yamaha CS80. So if I couldn't afford an ARP 2600, there was no way in hell I could ever afford a CS80! This was good enough to quench the thirst.

After all that, the pandemic hit, so I had a bit of extra time on my hands, that's when I started getting in to Eurorack - as a lot of people did. It was really great for a while, I built some basic utility modules to get my head around the whole Eurorack thing, but then I hit a roadblock. Surface mount. Scary. Apart from a couple of caps on the TTSH (which I managed to do by hand) and Deckard's Dream (I actually got the audio tech from work to do the SMD stuff on the Deckard's Dream because I thought it was beyond me). The first SMD module I tried was a full size Ornament and Crime, which to this day is still one of my favourite modules. The components were all 0805 size (which is probably the largest surface mount size you'll find in Eurorack), and all the forum folks said it was probably the easiest surface mount module to tackle, so I watched a bunch of youtube how-to videos, grabbed some cheap chinese practice boards to warm up, and dove in.

The first Ornament & Crime I built worked fine apart from an issue with one jack. It was one dodgy solder point on a capacitor which I managed to figure out just by following the trace from that jack connection and going back through the components that lead to it. I reflowed the solder point and all was well! Since then I've built another 5 Ornament & Crime modules and I use at least three of them in every patch.

The next logical step after Ornament & Crime is the open source Mutable Instruments modules. I built Branches, Shades, Ripples, Clouds, Tides, Shelves, Veils, followed by a few of the NonLinear Circuits and Befaco through-hole modules just to break things up a bit. I managed to amass a pretty solid sound-design based eurorack rig after all the soldering was done (who am I kidding, it's never done).

But now it's time to dive back in to building processing gear. I have a 500 series rack that is begging to be filled with nifty preamps and EQ's, so I recently decided to grab a couple of the Link Audio Design SLQ51X EQ's. I went with the Brown version, which is based on the classic EQ section from an early SSL 4000 series desk. I figure they'll be a good workhorse EQ, I use SSL EQ plugins a lot, so why not give a hardware version a crack, too?

The build was once again pretty straight forward, there are quite a few components but everything is nicely labelled and the build guide is super handy. Assembling the units requires a ribbon cable (provided) and the PCB's fit together in a "book" style, which I hope to see more of in 500 series DIY, it makes for easy trouble-shooting!

Both units powered up first time, and the voltages are roughly where they need to be. Next up is the calibration process, which is always a learning experience but should be fine. I look forward to integrating these in to the workflow!