sonicviz

Harmonica players usually have a tough time getting both the right volume and tone without carting around a heavy custom amp rig. The Harp Commander III specialist Harmonica preamp from jfet magician Ron Holmes (http://www.holmeseng.com/) is a great solution, allowing harp players to DI into a PA (or amp) and have full control over their feedback free sound level and tone.

I was coming back from a jam session in a few weeks ago and my backpack split at a pedestrian crossing, dropping my Harp Commander III onto the hard bitumen. Initially I thought it was ok, but it the next morning I had an online gig and it was dead. On further closer inspection it appeared one of the xlr output volume controls had taken a hit, and it was off axis. I sent Ron Holmes a quick note, explaining what happened and that I was willing to take a shot at repairing it myself - something I would never have done pre-hackerspace soldering skills days.

Ron sent me back some detailed tear down/repair instructions, and part replacements specs which I ordered from mouser online. It was my first big desolder/repair/resolder and went pretty smoothly thanks to the detailed instructions from Ron, and over the shoulder checking from fellow TokyoHackerSpace members.
All back together…and ready to Boogie the Bitstream. Thanks Ron!
(fyi detailed info on Ron’s design approach -> http://www.holmeseng.com/index_files/Page937.htm )

After a rough start due to some new client issues, we finally got rolling at the Alphaville Herald launch party in metaplace. Metaplace needs a few more things to assist live musicians, but it’s still in beta so it will evolve. The metaplace crew were rolling out updates to fix client bugs a couple of times during the gig, and it eventually settled down. Mucho Fun had by all!

Thanks to Hathead and Noma for the Interwebz jam , Pixleen and the alphacrew, and the Metaplace team.

After the metaplace gig I hopped over to videoranch , Mike Nesmith’s live music virtual world, for the launch of the memorial day musicrise festival. It used Activeworlds as the platform, and their live video streaming is very nicely integrated into the environment.

Sounded great to me. I love the scaling of the RL video to avatar size, another subtle cue that adds some more immersion to mixed reality gigs like this.

The latest issue of SLang Life, a polish print sl® magazine, has a wide ranging interview with me.

You can subscribe for free and they will send you the magazine for free…very cool!

Grab a pdf copy of it complete here! ktinterviewslang0_new

Thanks to SLang life for the interview!

SynaesthAsia, Music Immersion, and other SL Music Machinima!

While the death throes of the recording industry become more frantic the music industry itself is quite vibrant, and in the new paradigm only two things ultimately count: the artist and the fans.

As such, it pays to take a pause and consider the nature of this relationship and music culture a little more deeply.

A very useful resource on this topic is Nancy Baym’s pdf of a talk she gave recently on online fan music communities. Grab it here.

This NYT article also touches on some interesting points related to getting in closer contact with your fan base and the issues in managing it.

I’ll be writing more on this key topic as I digest Nancy’s doc a little more.

Impress R&D had a great celebration party at BarTube last night for the second edition of their SL™® ;-)) Magazine.

I had a lot of fun playing with a prototype of a new interface that a team working on Softbank’s sim had going.

It was using a 3-axis accelerometer hooked up to a modified client to send control data via chat, driving a big robot holding a box full of avatars and physical objects. The objective was pure and simple - get them all out of the box, while they keep trying to get in! Lot of Fun - go here to check it out. Excuse the quality of the images, taken on a mobile!

Update 05 April 2008: Tori Teatime, one of the developers, has just released a demo video:

Then we had a little boogie blues jam - Komuso Tokugawa [me!] on Harp/Slide/Vox, Hayashi-san from Impress on drums, Kanda-san [owner of BarTube and well know IT/Video journalist] on bass, and Yabush Yamdev on guitar along with japanese rock guitar legend Hatake-san . I left Hatake-san, Kanda-san, and Hayashi-san to finish off the night with some wild 70’s rock classic renditions.

It’s tough when you are a self taught musician. At some point you reach a musical brickwall…you keep playing the same riffs over and over, no way to move on.

Usually this is due to two things:

I recently came across two great resources:

Online voice training - Explore your voice
How music really works which is a very intensive guide not just on how music works but on the science, craft and art of songwriting.

Highly recommended!