Again, great to talk to Nick at Guitar Center today. He suggested I check out this site. He said he learned most everything he knows now about Maschine and Ableton by watching videos from here.

http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorials/

Dig it! Thank you!

Well, I took back the Axiom Pro 61 midi keyboard/controller. I had some success with integrating Ableton Live with the keyboard, but ultimately, this keyboard controller (to the tune of ~$500) didn’t live up to my expectations. It had no “brains” or “guts” inside. No internal sound banks, not even a collection of sounds that you could install on a computer to trigger (like Reason or Native Instrument samples). It’s just a nice semi-weighted 61-key piano surface with 8 faders, 8 knobs and 8 pads to control Ableton (or other software).

In the end, it just failed to work well for me. Admittedly, I’m at a beginner’s level with Ableton, but the bottom line experience was that, even after a month of dedication to getting the Axiom Pro/Ableton Live relationship to work, it wasn’t really going anywhere.

“I’m sorry, Axiom Pro, but this isn’t really working out.”

Fortunately, the recovery period is very short for failed software/hardware relationships. I just had a great 30 minute conversation with a Shure mic rep who happened to be at Guitar Center when I was returning the keyboard, who also is a DJ and musician in Chicago. He heard me explaining the situation to the GC guys and told me how he’s composing and arranging grooves. He uses Native Instrument’s “Maschine” with Ableton to make music, keeping the Ableton software relevant, but replacing an empty shell keyboard controller with a equally priced hardware/software groovebox with tons of sounds and added resources.

Direct link to stand-alone video (uncropped)

He confirmed that the technology out today is amazing, but there are so many options that it can get very confusing trying to figure out what products to invest in. I was totally going back to getting a used Akai MPC 1000, which I’ve been craving for a long time, but I’ll have to seriously consider NI’s Maschine, instead.

Maschine comes with 5 gigs of awesome sounds and integrates with a laptop or other computer. I was surprised to learn that Maschine is not resource heavy, so he said I would be able to use the NS7 and Maschine together on the same laptop (which I thought was incredible). Sweeeet! It functions as a sequencer, a sampler, an arranger and effects array. And it can connect with my existing full-weight 88-key keyboard. No need for more keyboards….done.

Time to do more research…

This guy, Diego Stocco, is doing some really cool stuff combining microphone and recording technology with custom instrument creation. Check it out…

This is where my head is at right now. I am converting my Fortress of Musictude into a DJ Jazzy Jeff production studio for 100% pure creativity, expression and recording power. I just need to figure out a few things, like how to tie together all my music pieces. Ableton Live would seem to have to be in the middle of it all…

Before my pal Alex Leong, a.k.a. “Axel Noel” (his fabled anagram) decided to discover the world and move to Chicago, he spent countless (actually, he counted them…I think 57?) Monday nights playing trombone with the Clyde Stubblefield Band. During his tenure with the band, he purchased a Zoom H4 digital audio recorder and amassed quite a collection of bootleg recordings of our weekly shows. The device was pretty darn cool. It was small and light-weight, recorded to an SD card, made nice recordings, as well as had XLR inputs for use with a high-quality stereo field mic, like my Audio Technica 825. Together, we made and recorded some great music!

Sadly, when Alex moved last fall, we not only lost a trombone, but the ability to record our shows!

So this week, while I had a cold and home sick, I found myself surfing the Net and discovered the Zoom H4n, a newly released and significantly upgraded version of the Alex’s recorder.

This video quickly highlights some of the cool new features.

P.S. Anyone interested in purchasing a lightly used, very good condition Tascam DA-P1 stereo DAT field recorder? It’s rapidly becoming obsolete in my array of recording equipment.

They’ve got great new digs (read the article from Dane101). I appreciate that the UW-Madison, and John Wiley in particular, recognized the campus radio station’s value to the community and their need for support. Congratulations and keep the music pumpin’!

I walked into the west side Best Buy over lunch and was surprised to discover a huge new music center in back of the store. It was chalked full of DJ equipment, keyboards, guitars, amps and accessories of all kinds. Everything was surprisingly high-end, from $4,000 Yamaha and Korg keyboards to top of the line Gibson electric and Martin acoustic guitars. There were even isolation rooms for trying out the amps and making serious noise. It literally was like walking straight into a Guitar Center.

The lone employee in the music area happened to be the head of the department, a young guy who was eager to tell me how their Madison store was one of the first Best Buys in the nation to host a musical instrument expansion. He said he was able to select and hire his own staff, so as to guarantee having floor help with expertise in music and music equipment. Even he was surprised at how much money the corporate folks at Best Buy were pouring into this new market endeavor.

So will this curious and unexpected new Best Buy idea catch on? I’m not so sure. In fact, I’d say probably not. But I’m always supportive of any store promoting the sale of musical instruments and music tech, so good for Best Buy on taking this chance.

Maybe their hope is that all the kids who are buying the stacks of Guitar Hero II “guitars” lining the video game isles will wander over to the music center and consider learning how to play a real guitar or some other actual instrument, rather than just rhythmically tapping the buttons of a glorified joystick in the shape of a guitar while a video game’s soundtrack scrolls by…

Wow! I just watched this great video clip on YouTube after Funky Dee (WSUM’s #1 funk DJ—check out her show!) mentioned she had just recently discovered this herself.

Here is a little background to the video’s making. Some students from the UW-Madison asked Clyde one week if they could interview him and shoot some video of our weekly Monday night gig at the King Club. Clyde said sure, and over the next few weeks a team of folks toting video and sound engineering gear recorded some of our shows and conducted some interviews with Clyde. That was a few months ago, back when it was still very cold outside. I never heard what resulted from the effort. Now at least some portion of the video has appeared on YouTube and can be enjoyed by all. Nice work, ya’ll!

Thank you for all your support and interest in The King Club and our Funky Mondays. It’s Madison’s best kept music secret and is a true labor of love. If you’ve never taken a moment to join us, please do. I’m sure you’ll love dancing to Clyde’s drumming almost as much as we enjoy making music with him in The Clyde Stubblefield Band.

Also, be sure to check us out at the Monona Terrace this Thursday from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for a free outdoor show.

I’m an instrumentalist. My mom is a classical pianist. When I was growing up, I hated the 1980’s electronic drums and synth sounds that began replacing real instruments. But that attitude had to change. Technology never looks back. Through the 90’s, the art of the DJ mixer evolved with sampling technology. Entire albums were developed using elements of literally hundreds of clips from recorded songs. Clyde Stubblefield’s “Funky Drummer” beat eventually became the most sampled drumbeat example of this movement, symbolizing the whole evolution of hip-hop.

I learned to embrace the technology. I still haven’t tried DJing–it’s simply too removed an art for me to believe I could do it justice. I’d rather let the great DJ’s be great DJ’s and focus my energy on making and recording great music the way I know how. Nonetheless, if there was one item that I should have bought years ago for my studio, it would be the Akai MPC2000. It is the M-16 of every great DJ soldier. And speaking of great DJ’s, Pete Rock IS one of my very favorite DJ/Producers that does the kind of magic that I wish I had the time to learn to do.

This YouTube clip is a wonderful display of how it’s done. Enjoy!