steve cooley presents » Music

sCCweet for korg iMS-20

Steve Cooley Fine Art — Mon, 23 May 2011 06:44:26 +0000

sCCweet (cheesily said: “shweet”) for the Korg iMS-20 is a MaxMSP compiled application for mac os x that connects to your iMS-20 app through your existing MIDI connection (figure that out ahead of time). It randomizes the parameters of the iMS-20 at an adjustable rate so you can explore different combinations of settings that you might otherwise never run into on your own. It’s pretty random. There aren’t a lot of controls. Think of it as a spelunking tool for this synth. Enjoy!

Download “sCCweet for the Korg iMS-20″

Modern Device fluxamasynth shield audio examples

Steve Cooley Fine Art — Sat, 07 May 2011 03:51:34 +0000

If you’re like me, you probably want to know what the modern device fluxamasynth arduino shield sounds like. I decided I would take a risk and pick one up without having … almost any idea of what it sounded like. It’s relatively affordable and runs right on top of an arduino… theoretically speaking, a lot to like about this kind of product. There are some issues that I’m waiting to hear back on (software serial) before I can really dig deeply into it as something I’d use in my live act, but… here’s what it sounds like:

so, do yourself a favor so you can follow along. Open this page up in a new tab:
http://wiki.moderndevice.com/pmwiki.php?n=MD.ListVoices

then hit the play button below to listen to 64 notes of the first bank of 128 different voices of the fluxamasynth shield. I just realized that I hit the record button while I was uploading a new firmware… so when you hear the “piano” start playing… that’s when you start reading down the list of voices on the other web page:
fluxamasynth_audio_samples_bank0.mp3

sCCweet! a midi CC randomizer

site admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:18:06 +0000

Hey, so I’ve been super busy with lots of cool stuff. I’m working on the Beatseqr project, and I’m also putting that to work with my band Haptic Synapses. And along with those projects, I’ve been building some interesting tools with Max/MSP. Here’s one that I’m calling “sCCweet!” and in this particular instance, I’ve tuned it to work on Reason’s MalstrÃ¶m synth. (You can either say that as “skweet” or “schweet” depending on which kind of person you are.)

click through to see the quicktime movie with audio

So… why? Well, a lot of modern soft synths have a randomizer function, but Propellerhead doesn’t follow market trends. They try to influence them.. sometimes to a good affect, and sometimes to the effect of going in the wrong direction of the rest of us. Reason has some really awesome sounding synths, it’s just kind of… funky… about a lot of stuff. So you can either choose to accept the Reason reality as a foregone conclusion, or make your own reality. I prefer to make my own. Anyone interested in getting a copy of the max patch that does this? It’s not limited to working with Reason, it can work with anything that uses midi CC messages. Leave a comment!

live techno â€“ TONIGHT

site admin — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:07:06 +0000

Hey me and my group are playing a live electronic improvised jam session. Two shows, actually. Tonight at Works/San Jose and then next friday night at South First Billiards on the same street as Works… Check out the details here:

http://3rl.us/subzero/

Hope you can make it to one or the other!

turntable tank

steve cooley — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 03:30:56 +0000

I was looking at that turntable drawing I did and thought it would look cool with treads and an antenna. Yep, looks cool.

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Meat Beat Manifesto Feb. 9, 2006

steve cooley — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:44:12 +0000

I’ve been a fan of MBM since about 1992, but I’ve never had a chance to see them play live until last night. I was totally amazed. I’ve never seen so many Mac laptops on stage for a performance like this. Jono and I were extremely impressed. The cables running around on that stage would probably give most normal roadies a heart attack. There was so much small, powerful gear up there. We had a hard time identifying some of it. I’m hoping someone else taking notes will have better luck than me. Jono said something slightly over my head about how he thought they were running Digital Performer, and clock syncing to a DV cam. (correct me if I got that wrong, jono

Anyway, after Dalek finished up, the guys took the stage and played an awesome set. I’m somewhat at a loss to describe how awesome it was. It just was. I’m no music critic, but this was a great show. They played a blend of songs spanning most of the Meat Beat Manifesto catalog. What a trip to hear some of those older cuts performed live! I was smiling a mile wide all night… I kept thinking “holy crap! this is so cool!”

The visuals were mind bending… not content to be straight clips of anything, the visuals were a giant blender of cultures. I can’t even imagine how much work it took to put that show together. We were just stunned.

The crowd was nice.. in demeanor and in size, I suppose. I only had to cut through the crowd once, and everyone was courteous. I know it’s kind of silly to mention it, but, I guess I don’t get out much anymore, so I appreciate a respectful crowd. There were a lot of people there, but there was still room enough to get right up on the stage and get the photos I got.

Jono and I were just buzzing the whole trip home because we were so inspired by what we’d just experienced. This is what a performance can be. This is what a good concert is.

I just posted all my photos here: http://web.mac.com/djcatnip/iWeb/Site/mbm2006.html… enjoy!

Here are the remaining tour dates! GO CHECK THIS SHOW OUT!

February 10 – Los Angeles, CA – Knitting Factory
February 11 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
February 13 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre
February 15 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theater
February 16 – Austin, TX – The Parish
February 17 – Houston, TX – Engine Room
February 18 – Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
February 20 – Orlando, FL – The Social
February 21 – Jacksonville, FL – Jack Rabbit’s
February 22 – Gainesville – Common Grounds
February 23 – Atlanta, GA – Smith’s Old Bar
February 24 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
February 25 – New York, NY – BB Kings
February 26 – Buffalo, NY – The Buffalo Icon
February 27 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
February 28 – Chicago, IL – The Abbey

Technorati Tags: ben stokes, jack dangers, lynn farmer, mark pistel, MBM, meat beat manifesto

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new music picks

steve cooley — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 21:33:22 +0000

all available on itunes…

Different Nu Nu	Towa Tei	Flash
Session 2	Juan Atkins	The Berlin Sessions
Hurt Me	Move D	Digital & Rare Vol. 1
Nightbus to Nowhere (Chairman’s Mix 1)	Andrew Weatherall	From the Bunker
99 and a Half (Featuring Alexander East) [I:Cube Remix]	Alexander East & Phonique	Synchronised (Global Underground)
Sombre Detune	Röyksopp	The Understanding
Fex	Matthew Dear	Leave Luck to Heaven
You’re Fucking Crazy	Matthew Dear	Leave Luck to Heaven
Make It Easy	Lusine	Serial Hodgepodge

happy happy… joy joy…

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remove chapter markers in itunes?

steve cooley — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:57:47 +0000

So, i’ve been downloading a lot of creative commons licensed music from my favorite podcasts/songcasts … does anyone know how to remove the chapter markers from podcasted audio in itunes? The problem here is that when I skip to a new song and I come back to the song I skipped, it starts back up where I skipped from. For talk shows, good. For music, bad. Is there a feature right under my nose that I can’t see? Is there some automator task that will undo this “feature”?

Technorati Tags: apple, applescript, automator, podcast, itunes, songcast

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low polygon turntable

steve cooley — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:42:40 +0000

I’ve created a cafepress store for my low polygon turntable design I made a long time ago. I always liked this design, but it lived in hiding as an old mac os 9 .pict file. I recently realized that Preview.app will open those and I was able to save it back out as a .png Anyway, if you like the design, you can check out the cafepress store.

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Happy 808 day! :D

steve cooley — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:16:21 +0000

Steve: let’s throw a wicked party, 3 years from today, 8-08-08

Jono: novel idea, chaps!!

Derek: Hell ya!! And we’ll get some 18 inch Cerwin Vega subs to really turn the party out!

Steve : http://www.instrumentpro.com/P-CERT36750

Derek: As The ‘Liks say…. “Make room for the crew with beats that thump….beats hittin’ hard enough to dent yo trunk!”

Technorati Tags: music, musik

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some sounds we like second podcast

steve cooley — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 05:46:05 +0000

Hey, I got the second podcast up, check it out over on the music blog: Some Sounds We Like 002 – Derek Scott of DoBox Recordings

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audacity – a tragedy

steve cooley — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 08:11:10 +0000

I guess you get what you pay for… I was literally 10 minutes away from a final mix down of “some sounds we like episode 2″ when audacity crashed, and took my hard work with it, regardless of the fact that I’d been meticulously saving along the way. I’d read up on the “audacity crash recovery” pages, but they all seem to treat the tools for single track projects.. whereas mine was many tracks. I guess I was just using the wrong tool for the job.

We (jono and I) had used logic express to edit the first show, and that was like using dynamite to floss with. O – ver – kill. Now I can see, this isn’t going to be easy. What I should have done is just edit the two mono mic tracks in audacity, mix down as separate wav files, then import to garageband or logic express for the addition of the music clips and intro, etc..

note to self: there is no tool that is easy to use and stable and fully featured… stick to the tools that do what you want.

if this hadn’t happened to me so many times in the past, I’d be really pissed… maybe I’m just getting older or something because I’m just really annoyed. 6 hours of editing down the drain. Maybe I’ll be pissed tomorrow after I’ve slept more.

Technorati Tags: audacity

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skype chat with Olivier Gillet

steve cooley — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 02:20:09 +0000

Most excellent. I just had a text chat with Olivier Gillet, of bhajis loops fame. What a nice guy. I’m planning on a podcast interview with him for my music blog, some sounds we like, probably in the august timeframe.

This is one SMART DUDE!! You don’t even know yet! Holy crap!

Technorati Tags: music, podcast, techno

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Some sounds we like

steve cooley — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 07:45:03 +0000

Hey, I’ve started a music specific blog called “Some sounds we like“, in which I’m planning to release new tracks and podcasts. In fact, podcast 1 is up.

Technorati Tags: netlabel, podcast

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iTunes supports podcasting!

steve cooley — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:16:20 +0000

Wow! I went to the NECC podcasting event last night. It was incredible! There were over 2 times the room capacity, so they had to run the event twice! Photos are here!

So, the great news is that iTunes directly supports RSS XML feeds and will automatically download new content for you. That’s so good. I can’t even begin to tell you how good that is. High five, iTunes team. Ok, now the bug report: They were probably not expecting feeds to contain more than one audio file at a time, which is how my man D is running his podcast, in more of an album/release format with 6-10 songs per post, so only the first audio file is being downloaded. I think there’s probably room for growth here, and this is an excellent step in the absolutely right direction.

anyway, I filed this as radar bug 4165391. I doubt they’ll do anything about it for 4.9. Who knows what’s up their sleeves for 5.0 NOT ME! That’s for sure!

Technorati Tags: itunes, podcasting

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Pay No Mind

steve cooley — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:21:50 +0000

“Give the finger to the rock and roll singer, as he’s dancing upon your paycheck”

what’s not to love about this album? Also, dude, seriously consider he might have done this on a 4 track.

Technorati Tags: beck, music

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new release on dobox

steve cooley — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 07:51:17 +0000

there’s a new release on dobox today, woot!

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DIY Treo 650 headphone adapter leash

steve cooley — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 01:13:21 +0000

I admit I have a hard time sitting still. When I find a problem with a solution within reach, it’s hard for me to not solve it.

the stock treo 650 holster is.. good… at only holding the treo, and nothing else, whatsoever. I think I’d love a treo holster identical to the stock one, but with two pouch pockets on the outside for the headphone adapter, and the earbud mic/headphone for hands free phone usage.

Failing that, I wanted a way to keep my headphone adapter on me at all times for emergency Bhajis loops and Microbe music creation urges. Boy these headphone adapters are expensive for what they do, and holy crap is it easy to lose them… no more!

What I’ve done is to cut a piece of the good 3/4″ birch plywood into a general pill shape, sanded down to have no rough edges… (10 minutes modelling done in second life)

then I’ve drilled a hole big enough to fit the headphone adapter into,

and an adjacent smaller hole.

Into the smaller hole went a zip tie, not cinched all the way down so as to form a loop, and trimmed down to have no “tail”. The locking part went into the the hole in the plywood so as to prevent further cinching, then I glued it in place.

Likewise after the drilling was done, I’ve glued the headphone adapter into the larger hole to prevent it from.. well, ever coming out….

Next was to locate a cheap carabiner and to loop it into the side of the treo holster. Functionally, the next step would be to pop the now leashed headphone adapter into the caribiner, but, aesthetics kicked in, and I painted it black with some acrylic paint and a brush.

Here’s the final product:

Hopefully you’ll be able to keep your headphone adapter with you at all times too!

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dobox netlabel

steve cooley — Tue, 24 May 2005 06:37:50 +0000

My homeboy D got his website running proper now, go check out DoBox Recordings. In fact, he’s releasing one of my tracks on his site, so, really go check it out.

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Tiny URL… well.. a small URL anyway

steve cooley — Fri, 20 May 2005 02:51:11 +0000

Holy crap, TinyURL is so cool. There’s even a dashboard widget for it. The only problem I ran into is that their server wasn’t allowing mysql connections to it. Hmm, bummer. This is a cool service, but.. what’s going on here? It’s a table of urls that they’re encoding some small key to relate to, so when you ping the tiny url, it says “you said ‘EHY54′… and my table says you wanted ‘http://www.google.com’… so here you go (redirect)”

Pretty cool. A very simple idea, but extremely useful. So useful, that I’ve come to rely on that kind of technology to be able to pass obnoxiously long URLs to gallery pages like this one:

http://sc-fa.com/blog/2008/07/06/steve-cooley-showing-at-workssan-jose/

which isn’t really all that obnoxious, but it sure looks like it when you pass it to someone in an email and the URL breaks because of the wordwrap or something. So, since tinyurl.com wasn’t returning URLs, I made my own small URL maker.

It’s basically three components: a DB table, a form to make ‘em small, and a landing page where the small urls turn into big ones. Now if I only had a short domain name..

HEY, I do! http://3rl.us

so, said large url turns into: http://3rl.us/e8c31 which is much smaller.

AND, I added a hit counter, so I can see how many times a URL has been pinged. Now all i gotta do is dive into the widget making world and make my own for my small url maker.

oh yeah! make your own small URL here: http://3rl.us

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