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Time Travel by Snug

EHX Deluxe Memory Boy - first look

Micah admires my blog!

I just wanted to share this lovely comment I received from Micah about my blog:

"I absolutely admire your blog.I can see you are putting a lot of effort and hard work on your posts, I'm sure I'd visit here more often. You may also want to visit my site. It's about impersonator, acrobatics, unicycling, mentalist and a lot more about other forms of entertainment. Just check it out... "

Oh yeah, and she was also kind enough to include various links to an Australian Entertainment directory. Thank you for your contribution, Micah!

My new love

Okay, well we haven't met yet, but we're being formally introduced in a few days at NAMM (okay, well I won't be there, but I'll be watching through the miracle of the internet)

(I've actually been gazing at this picture at random intervals throughout the day. That's not healthy, is it?)

With that out of the way, I present you with the reasons why I'm so excited about the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Boy:

• analog delay
• tap tempo
• modulation
• expression pedal input
• tempo subdivisions
• modulation shapes
  
• true by-pass (assuming I actually turn it off at some point)
  
• effects loop
  
• apparently, a price point of less than $200 USD
  

The only reason I'm running a digital delay right now is because I didn't feel like dropping $600 on the Memory Lane 2. Truth be told, I went with the digital Memory Man is because it has tap tempo and can do a fairly convincing modulated analog delay (minus the spaceship take-off). Unfortunately, I think it's just a couple weeks away from retirement.

More to come...

P.S. I still love you too Angie, even if you're not an analog delay pedal.

Exporting seamless loops from FL Studio

FL Studio is half-decent at exporting seamless loops when you've got the render mode set to "Wrap". I say half-decent because while it will account for delay or reverb tails, it seems to have trouble with the release phase of instruments (audio)

Here's a pretty straight-forward technique I've come up with to get around this. (In my case I'm using an older version of Sound Forge but any decent audio editor should do)

Step 1. Export what you want to loop, plus a tail of the same length (audio):


Step 2. Load the file in your editor

Step 3. Select the second half of the wave. In Sound Forge I do this like so:

A. Double-click the loop point that FL added to the wave:


B. Set the "Input format" to "Measures & Beats":


C. Change the selection from 16 to 8 and click OK:


D. Double-click the second half of the wave


Step 4. Cut the selection

Step 5. Paste the clipboard at the start of the wave in "mix" mode:



Et voila!

Fun with Ableton

So I've spent the past few days setting up a live set using Ableton and my Novation X-Station. So far it consists of 7 audio channels, most of which have a dedicated effect, with a bunch of stuff pre-mapped to the X-Station.

Here's the channel breakdown as it stands now:

• 1: Beat repeat, EQ3 & auto filter
• 2: Dry
• 3: Saturator
• 4: Phaser
• 5: Grain delay
• 6: Dry
• 7: Auto filter
• Send A: filter delay, compressor
• Master: compressor

Channels 1 & 2 are used for drums, and channel 3 for bass. Everything else is used for whatever.

I've mapped 7 of the sliders on my X-Station to the channel volumes, and the buttons above to the mutes. The rest of the knobs and buttons control various effects parameters. Here's the template from the Novation X-Station editor so you can see what I mean:


Here's a run-down by section:

OSCS-MIXER

• SEND A: send A level (ch1)
• REPEAT: toggles beat repeat (ch1)
• LOW CUT: cuts the low on EQ3 (ch1)
• S. LEVEL: saturator dry/wet (ch3)
• S. BASE: saturator base level (ch3)
• P. LEVEL: phaser dry/wet (ch4)
• P. RATE: phaser rate (ch4)
• G.D LVL: grain delay wet/dry (ch 5)

FILTERS
The filters section is mapped to the auto filters on channels 1 & 7 (toggled via the 1-2 button). Ideally I'd have a separate controller for each filter, but this should do for
now.

• F. FREQ: filter frequency
• FLT. RES: filter resonance
• F.E. AMT: filter envelope amount
• F.L. AMT: filter LFO amount (filter 1 only)
• F. TYPE: filter type
  

LFOS

• FLT. RTE: controls the filter rate for filter 1

EFFECTS

• SEND A: feeds send A back to itself
• F.D. FRQ: filter delay filter frequency

As you can see, I still have a few more sliders I could map to an 8th and 9th channel. I'm thinking about adding one channel for MIDI clips, and one for general effects (swooshes, etc.) that I could trigger from different keys. I was also thinking about setting up some side-chain compression, say, take the low-end from channels 1 & 2 (beats) and use it to side-chain the bass channel and possibly my "swoosh" channel.

More to come on this as it evolves :)

Windows 7, episode 5

And now, the exciting conclusion of my Windows 7 upgrade adventure...

I found the Windows 7 beta drivers for the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 here:
http://forums.m-audio.com/showthread.php?t=10175

I uninstalled the old Vista drivers and gave these a try. So far so good - I'm able to go into standby and I'm not hearing any pops or clicks in the audio.

Update: spoke too soon, still getting pops and clicks, but at least I can go into standby. Really looking forward to non-beta Windows 7 drivers!

I also picked up a video card with DirectX 10 support and all the Aero stuff is working now. The moral of the story here is to run the upgrade advisor if you can! Unfortunately in my case I couldn't, since I couldn't boot my previous Windows installation.

In the end, the only real issue that I have yet to explain is the blank screen that I encountered at the start of the installation process. I may try booting from the Windows 7 disc with my new video card and see if the results are any different. If so I will post my findings.

Overall I would say my Windows 7 upgrade experience went relatively smoothly, all things considered. If you're running XP and things are stable for you then I'd suggest waiting until you want/need to do a fresh install, as it's the only way to upgrade from XP. If on the other hand you are running Vista, I'd say go for it!