About 6 months ago I had an idea for a little event, well, it was more like a day dream about being in a room full to the ceiling with classic synths and drum machines, all plugged in and working, being played all at the same time by a crowd of musicians making one hell of a funky racket.

The idea bubbled around for a while until I decided that we could actually make this happen, so, I found a great venue up at KFM in Auckland and started to put the word out to all the synth enthusiasts I could find. Music Machines is now going to be held on November 21st 09 and you can check out the Music Machines website and Facebook page for all the latest news on the first collection of it’s kind in New Zealand. I’ll be announcing all the guest speakers and performing artists over the next few weeks and will keep you all updated with the full list of kit you’ll be able to get your hands on at the event.

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I’m a bit of a gear head and love anything analog especially when it’s used in a live situation. Greg Brice is a bit of an Auckland legend when it comes to gear and builds some of the best hand made eq’s and compressors in New Zealand. Greg also has an amazing studio full of vintage gear which I’ve actually only visited once for about an hour but it’s the kind of place I could spend days in tweaking knobs and flicking switches. Greg also makes music and will be taking his “ekadek thunderbird 3 live rig” out of the studio and in to the Dogs Bollix this Thursday supporting “crash test for favourite things ”
Greg describes the rig as “a mad station of unprogrammable 60s-70s sound machines” which he improvises with to create his dubbed out “minimal electro grunge”.

For anybody interested in vintage analog make sure you head over to Greg’s website for an amazing collection of gadgets, effects and tapes. You can check out his tracks and also purchase a copy of his album “New and untamed bathtime beats from ekadek”. I got a copy last week and have spent the weekend soaking up the mixture of analog blibs and beeps mixed with beautiful melodies and atmospheres.

I work with different drum machines and sequencers and love to just improvise with ideas and patterns to see what we (the machine and I) can come up with. Most of the tacks on Greg’s CD are one take recordings of the studio rig which gives them the perfect blend of organic and mechanic. Greg sent me a list of his live rig which includes…

• korg ms20
• lowrey organ rhythm ace fr6 – samba ya face off.
• 3 head tape echo box – dirty echoing.
• grampian spring reverb – spacious verb or filthy distorto.

If your out on Thursday make sure you head down and check out the live show, most of the album came from this rig and I’m sure it won’t sound the same as the CD, which for me is the best thing about using this kind of rig live.
“This rig supports BIG PHAT grooves” – I’ve already placed an order for the first t-shirt!

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SampleSwap.org

SampleSwap is one of the oldest collections of samples available on the web and is an excellent resource for all types of sounds for your tracks. The classic breaks alone are well worth downloading as they are high quality version of many classic breaks and beats. The whole site has been recently updated to make it easier to preview and download the samples plus you can now buy a DVD with over 4GB of samples from the site.

Now most beat heads have different views on the use of samples and where you should get your samples from. Shaun J Period has spoken about how he doesn’t use samples any more and now uses all original sounds in his tracks. Josh Davis has also stated that he only uses samples from original vinyl and would never lift a sample from a compilation or from a track which is based around a sample. We all have different attitudes towards sampling and i’ll be posting more about these different views on diggin for samples in the future plus uploading some sample packs from some of my tracks for you.

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Knowing where to get your favourite bit of studio gear repaired is something that can be difficult. In New Zealand you can find some links on the web to a few places but you never quite know if they’re going to be able to deal with your old Roland SH101 or Studer tape machine. With this in mind I thought I’d put a list of people together who I’ve either used or have been used by friends of mine. Most of these guys are “word of mouth” type people who don’t really need to advertise their services and are very highly regarded in the audio field.

• Grant Feist – Keyboard music systems – http://www.keyboardmusicsystems.co.nz – repairs keyboard and synths. Used to do all Rolands servicing for about 20 years, well worth getting in touch with for any keyboard problems.
• Brian Laing – Narrow Rd – http://www.narrowroad.co.nz – if you need any custom cables built then Brian is the man to speak to. Brian does a lot of work for studio’s, location sound engineers, great pricing for high end cabling.
• Clarry Schollum – (09) 817 2634 – will repair any type of valve kit and also has a wide selection of new valve’s. Based in Auckland
• Kerry Adams – The Proof – http://www.theproof.co.nz – Studio and production consultant, equipment supply and setup, mixdown and mastering. If you need to buy studio or hitech kit and don’t want to deal with the usual hi street suspects then give him a call. Based in Wellington now, just check his website for his wide range of services.
• Geoff Edwards – tubehead@xtra.co.nz – has kit to test tubes and also sells new stock tubes. Geoff comes highly recommended and is based in Christchurch
• Greg Price – http://www.ekadek.com – will do some repairs of old tape and tube kit, drop him a mail and check. Famous for building some of the best audio kit to come out of NZ, check his site for some amazing gear.
• Tim Farrant – http://www.buzzaudio.co.nz- Buzz Audio build amazing pre’s and compressors, custom audio install’s and also do repairs for all types of studio kit.
• Doug Jane – http://www.djr.co.nz – based in Keri keri and repairs mic’s and electronic gear. Also builds excellent hand made preamps and EQ units.
• Sean Cooper – http://www.myspace.com/thecooparation – based in Auckland and does training and support for Logic, also has some damn fine synths in his collection.
• New Painting with Sound – http://www.paintingwithsound.co.nz/
  – Murray specialising in service and repairs of vintage equipment and is based in Auckland. Also has a great collection of datasheets and manuals.

Do you have anybody else who you think should be added to the list? Leave me a comment and I’ll update the post with their details.

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NZSound.net is one of the only nz based audio forums covering a wide range of topics from production sound to live sound; audio software and sound post. It’s not as busy as most of the big site’s like Gearslutz or the KVR but it does have a very NZ based user group which can be really helpfull on local industry based topics.

There’s a classified section, resources section and product info and support section. Although there are only about 400 members the actual people involved in the forum tend to be involved in the audio industry and there is a lot of usefull local information available. Several of the members are award winning producers, sound engineers and post production guru’s so it’s a resource well worth getting involved with. Most of the local distributors also answer questions in the “Product info and support” section so if you’ve got any questions on products like Protools you can usually get an answer straight from the horses mouth.

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Bluevibe is my home studio and is based around a Nuendo/Cubase DAW with RME convertors. As you can see from the pictures below it’s a real mess and a pleasure to work in!

I’m a big fan of sampling and still have my first sampler which is an Emu esi32 with a huge 8mb of memory. As any old skool people will know 8mb would go a long way when your slicing up breaks and inserting loop pints in 0.5 second samples!! The emu still gets used but I now mostly use NI Kontakt and the Yamaha RS7000 for my sampling duties.

I’m also a big hardware fan and have a few synths, drum machines and sequencers in the studio when I’m in the mood for some hands on action. The Roland SH101 and the Waldorf Pulse are still 2 of my favourites and are always a source of inspiration. The Yamaha RS7000 is an amazing piece of kit, perfect for sampling and sequencing. The RS was the heart of the Skyman project and is perfect for improvising with sequenced beats and bass.
I’ve used cubase on and off since the days of the Atari ST and still prefer it to any other recording package. I’ve recently started looking at Ableton Live which will probably make it’s way in to the studio soon. The DAW hold a range of VST effects and instruments as well as my UAD1 card, possibly the best bit of computer hardware anybody could invest in.

I’ll be going through some of the kit in more detail in the blog but if you have any questions then just let me know, I’m always happy to discuss the merits of z-plane filters and tape saturation.

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