DMb | Dance Music blog & Podcast » Film

AVICII – Levels Music Video Contest

djnth — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:43:41 +0000

Record your own version of AVICII – Levels (street performance, children’s choir, flash mob etc) and upload to YouTube. Winners get to be a part of the official video for Levels. Contest ends November 1, 2011 so get moving.

Check out the full Info and Rules here.

Visuals: The Evolution of the Electronic Music Live Performance

djnth — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:22:27 +0000

Seems everyone is rushing to get their live shows announced with some creative way of doing a video show to hide the fact that a one-man band just physically cannot be playing all of the instruments in a song live. With a few exceptions there haven’t really been many Electronic Musicians that have put on good live shows, and the word “live” is generally used to indicate that the artist may be triggering patterns or muting and unmuting tracks on the fly but generally not actually playing any instruments live. Personally I have nothing against this, what else can really be expected of one person? One man standing in front a few pieces of equipment, generally with a laptop in tow, doing a “live” show seems to generate less excitement than a DJ behind a pair of decks playing other people’s music.

The Solution
Stand in front of some mysterious piece of gear with lots of really cool looking synchronized 3D graphics and flashing lights to distract and hypnotize the crowd while bobbing your head to the music and moving your hands around like a conductor pushing buttons and occasionally pointing to the space above the crowd.

Underworld has always been one of the top Electronic Dance Music acts to put on a great live show. They always had the visuals provided by Tomato and an energetic vocalist jumping around the stage with a guitar.

Daft Punk pretty much set the stage for the current formula being used by many artists in the Electronic Music world with their Pyramid of lights and visuals. They also didn’t really play an instruments live it was more like they were tour guides through a mash-up of their entire discography. Entertaining, no doubt.

Etienne de Crecy did in next with his Visual Cube, taking the same formula as Daft Punk and the anonymous equipment in front of him. Etienne recently released a compilation available on Dim Mak Records called Beats n’ Cubes which contains some of the music from his show.

Then came Amon Tobin with Isam and the bar was raised. Incorporating perfectly synced 3D visuals projected onto a stack of boxes, Amon and his team created a show that has left people with their jaws on the floor. He’s still touring if you can catch this show do it!

Then there is Daedelus with his wall of moving mirrors and lights “Archimedes” which is not quite as visually engaging but still cool looking nonetheless. It’s obviously very hot having all of those lights right behind you sending heat rays right into your body.

A few others whose shows I have yet to see any video of is M.A.N.D.Y. from Get Phisical who are doing a premiere of their new visual show on October 15, 2011 at Electric Brixton in London, and Mark Knight from Toolroom Records debuting his Live performance “set to a Ground Breaking Visual Show” on October 1, 2011 at Toolroom Knights 5th Birthday at 02 Academy Brixton.

If you get video for either of these events or know of any other Electronic Music artists that are doing amazing things visually please post links in the comments.

Max/MSP v5.0 Available Q1 of 2008

djnth — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:56:50 +0000

Cycling 74 has announced Max/MSP 5.0, the next-generation of their popular media development tools. This version offers a completely redesigned multi-processing kernel and a streamlined development environment built on a platform-independent foundation. With a new patcher interface, searchable database of objects and examples, integrated documentation and new tutorials, the new Max user will find a smoother learning curve while experienced users will see improved productivity.

This is Max for the next twenty years, CEO David Zicarelli declared. In addition to a modern infrastructure designed to support today’s multi-core processors and tomorrow’s operating systems, Max 5 features a new UI intended to aid in the expression of complex ideas in a fluid manner. Max’s concept of interactive graphical programming has enhanced greatly with their new presentation mode, which de-couples programming logic from user interface construction, allowing clearer patches as well as richer user interfaces. The idea behind Max 5 is to create a new paradigm so the users both advance and new can take advantage of their unique working environment.

Max version 5 will be available first quarter 2008 and, if used with its digital audio and video extensions, will require updated versions of MSP and Jitter. An upgrade price for Max 5 has not been announced.

Offical Website: Cycling74.com

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Adobe to Release Audition 3.0

djnth — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:59:03 +0000

By now many have forgotten that Adobe Audition was once the great free tool, CoolEdit. I fondly remember the days of CoolEdit and their ability to morph effects from one setting to another (something Soundforge is barely able to do now). It has been interesting to watch Adobe beef up the program and constantly improve it. I look forward to trying out some of these interesting new features.

From the Adobe Website:
Recording, mixing, editing, and mastering â€” AdobeÂ® AuditionÂ® 3 software is the all-in-one toolset for professional audio production.

Use Adobe Audition 3 to:

Create your own music
Record and mix a project
Produce a radio spot
Clean up audio for a movie
Compile and edit a soundtrack

Whatever you do with audio, Adobe Audition 3 software helps you sound your best.

Top features in Adobe Audition 3

VSTi virtual instrument support

Enjoy support for a wider range of virtual instruments. Simply add a MIDI host track to your mix, choose an instrument, and then record new audio in the Sequencer.

Improved multitrack editing

Save time and increase accuracy by editing grouped clips together. Auto-crossfade clips in multitrack view to quickly mix files together. Click-and-drag fade handles on multitrack clips and in the Edit View for faster editing.

Enhanced spectral editing

Make a free-form selection in frequency space with the Effects Paintbrush and apply effects in varying degrees to that selection. Smooth over a selected region to automatically repair clicks, pops, and other noises using the Spot Healing Brush.

Top/Tail Views

Need a quick and easy way to tweak the start and end of a loop or other audio file? The new Top/Tail Views allow you to zoom into the beginning and end of a file so you can quickly add precise fades while keeping the whole file in view.

New effects

Adobe Audition 3 includes new effects such as Convolution Reverb, Analog Delay, Mastering tool, Guitar Suite, and Tube-modeled Compressor.

Superior performance

Get superior performance and take advantage of the new multicore processors. The optimized mix engine allows for more tracks and effects on the same machine, offering more variety and faster processing.

Audition Product Page

Boy’s and Girl’s Guide to Getting Down

djnth — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:09:19 +0000

I recently had the chance to preview this movie in Hollwood and I found myself laughing at the witty dialog, wincing at the “ouch” moments and feeling like I knew many of the characters in the film. One can’t help to find the similarities to many of the characters if you’ve ever been into the club or afterparty scene. Everything from power hungry bouncers to getting free drinks to drugs and sex. I definitely enjoyed this film and recommend it for some good laughs. Check out their website listed below for showtimes and trailers.

From the filmmakers:

All over the world, kids are getting down. They are getting down at the club, at work, in the car, at the party, in the alley and at your front door. And chances are, if youre a kid, you want to get down too.

Part documentary, part narrative, part instructional film THE BOYS AND GIRLS GUIDE TO GETTING DOWN teaches kids about the things they’ll need in order to get down things like vodka and drugs while showing them how to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with this lifestyle like the police and getting sick.

Learn the real reason people go to bars. Marvel at the ways to gain entrance to the coolest club in town. And learn what not to say to that girl whos been eyeing you across the bar.

Years of painstaking research have gone into the creation of The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down – from Dr Heizakeit’s experiments with alcohol and mice to observations of Hollywood hipsters in a party environment. The Guide truly gets into the science of getting down and is replete with charts, graphs and kick ass graphics.

THE BOYS AND GIRLS GUIDE TO GETTING DOWN is written and directed by Paul Sapiano. The film was edited by master editor Enrique Aguirre at King Cut in Venice, California. All the films graphics were done by design marvel Larimie Garcia of Gigspot.

Official website: www.guidetogettingdown.com

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