<![CDATA[Ugress]]> http://www.ugress.com/ en-us Sun, 13 May 2012 21:56:29 +0100 Sun, 13 May 2012 21:56:29 +0100 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss GMM HyperJournalizer 8000 Pro Ultimate Edition <![CDATA[Report: Ugress Live Cinema]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1607

Last week, played live with Ugress in a cinema. Some observations.

  • Playing live in a cinema is a splendid idea. It has potential but also challenges. I would most certainly like to continue develop this idea. 
  • It is kind of weird - for everyone involved - to perform in front of a quiet but attentive audience.

    But this is awesome - for everyone involved - regarding concentration, experience, detail and sound quality. I'm not stressed by this, just observing. It's a transition and will probably take some trial and error to find a balance between spectating and participating.
 
  • Concentrated on integrating guitarist Thomas T. Dahl further into the live show. We spent some time pre-producing (sketching), working out new tracks together, and I did new edits of old tracks to make room for him to improvise.

    Thomas is a very talented instrumentalist, with his own unique expression. As is Nasra, my drummer. I could be "hey! play this and that or ELSE!", but I prefer them to bring their own voices into the live shows. They are - or we all are -  very different personalities and musicians and I like the mix of us. Nasra already works exceptionally well, we have grown together over multiple performances.

    So I decided this time to do a show only Thomas and me, to give him my full focus both during pre-prod and during performance. Very worth it. In particular the darker tracks. 
  • The screen. Ha ha! The screen. Oh dear. And the sound system and the subs. Utterly bloody delicious. Why don't music venues spend this effort on their setups? Playing in clubs is often a nightmare for live sound and image. 
  • Speaking of which. The support, assistance and effort put into the show by venue Cinemateket USF was incredible. Also the follow-up with discussion and evaluation afterwards. Awesome people. Very glad to know I will be working more with them this autumn on an upcoming project.
 
  • Tried a lot of new tracks, I don't think we've ever played this many new or changed tracks ever in one set. Most of them worked well. In particular when I'm able to work them in sequence in the set, together with visuals. Might not work so well standalone yet. But really happy to try them out live.
  • The regular "hits" didn't work so well. Interesting! Maybe that's just me, because I'm so used to the spontaneous energy of recognition-response in a club. Perhaps the cinema invites to focus on the darker, more complex tracks. I notice from video footage - at some time Thomas and me get lost in concentration on some glitch-polyrhythm impro, sliding back and forth of taking the lead, while a wordless film-noir dialogue tries (and quite expectantly fails) to say something above us. We're very introverted, concentrated. The images enhance the mood. Which isn't "party". In the cinema format that works perhaps better, than the regular extroverted stage flirt moments of Manhattan and Spiderman. Which of course isn't BAD. Just different. Bigger palette.
  • Spent some minutes this winter on upgrading visuals, to run in full HD at 1:4. That works so nice on a well-oiled and enthusiastic 4k projector. 1:4 is probably the widest widescreen format invented. Also, been battling a visual idea I had for some time. I finally nailed how to do it just a few days before, an endless control-room screen zoomer. Still needs some adjustment, especially in selecting which films and scenes to grab from, but zooming through screens of dozens of live sci-fi control rooms - all in sync with referincing music - looked kind of mesmerizing on the huge screen. It's like meta raised to meta raised infinity.  
 
  • I'm now developing tracks as kind of a "package", not sure what term to use. But music, sound, live parts, visuals and musicians are now developed together and presented live as a complete "experience". I know, that sounds pretentious, I'm sorry, not sure how to label the process really. 

    Everything is now a parallel effort, all developed at once or at least towards the same release. (Which takes a lot of time, which is why I'm more quiet than usual. I'm just concentrating.) Previously it was kind of serial, or layered. First make a track, then maybe a live version a year later, maybe some graphics if it's a release, then live visuals some years later, then musicians when they appear. Now, all of this at once. 

    Of course I'm not doing this for all tracks. And I think it's not a universal solution. As a listener of music, sometimes it is awesome - and correct - to simply grab an mp3 off the web, legally or not, play it on laptop speakers on an improvised late-night kitchen party and find a connection and emotion in a lo-fi recording. Other times, it's nice to sit in a darkened theater and be taken on a surround HD expedition in 4k to other dimensions. There is room for both.
  • Tried an extended usage of Nintendo Wii-motes as controllers. I like that they are wireless and give me physical freedom. I can move over to Thomas and stay close to him when we battle. But the latency for axis movement isn't awesome. Or I'm too quick. Heh.

    Also talked to people afterwards who was like "what on earth are you doing with this and that". For the kids show we're good at communicating and demonstrating what each "thing" does. Maybe I should find some way to communicate this in the cinema show too. 
 
  • There was no backstage or wardrobe. So we had to improvise, the cinema is located in a huge complex and eventually we found a wardrobe on another floor. Afterwards I learned it was the wardrobe for young girls taking ballett classes. I am so relieved nobody from security came in and found me there, waiting nervously in a corner in a white lab coat. 
  • Tried using the Teenage Engineering OP-1 as a simplistic and immediate live sound source. I (sometimes) love the gritty, lo-fi sound of the device, and I filled it up with even grittier and dirtier Amiga Protracker samples. Then playing them live, and processing the sound further through the AirFXes and regular Ableton sfx, controlled by the Wii-motes. That worked kind of neat. I love the tactility of the device.   
  • Tried using two projectors on each side for side-projecting onto us performers, with programmed and scripted lighting. Hahaha, FAILED. That Did Not Work At All. Or, it sort of worked in theory, if you knew when and what to look for, but compared to the 4K projector, the side projectors where hardly noticeable. Maybe they just gave some subtle flair towards the end, when they were running full. I'll put this idea in the maybe-consider-again-sometime-later shelf together with the pixel-rays.
  •  Marketing. Something something marketing. Don't want to talk about it. La la la la la. 
 
  • Did a kids show in the same cinema the next morning which was sort of completely different, but I'm not reporting on that right now, as I'm currently smack in the middle of developing some stuff both for the Ugress Kids version for next year and working on some NRK kids TV stuff also for next year and going analytical on it now will kill the flow but I did manage to hit myself with the microphone and start bleeding, and I'm not developing THAT further.
  • Got a lot of feedback from different angles post-show. Both confirmation on aspects I already knew but also eye openers to things I wasn't aware of, especially from the cinema oriented crowd. 
Summarized. The cinema format for performing live music with talented instrumentalists and many pixels of visuals is absolutely brilliant. It's not perfect, but that's the cool part. Developing and evolving for this format is awesome. 
 
Conclusion: Success.

 

]]> Sun, 13 May 2012 21:07:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1607 <![CDATA[New track: Petri Zoo Tea]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1606

Let's have a nice hot cup of bubbly dub afternoon tea in the laboratory.

While we wait for the upcoming album.

]]> Wed, 2 May 2012 09:32:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1606 <![CDATA[Report: Presenting my work at Barneombudet]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1605

I'm slowly emerging into the scary real world after months of hermit production existence. Just dropped an EP, soon live cinema shows. Last week I popped by Oslo and gave a presentation of my work for Barneombudet. A brief report! 

Barneombudet (The Norwegian Ombudsman for Children) asked me in to present and demonstrate my work. The context was working with culture (and making culture actually work) towards kids. I've sort of stumbled myself into that via the Kometkameratene and Barnas Supershow TV-series, and the Ugress Kids tours for primary schools, through Rikskonsertene. 
 
The theme of my presentation was "Field report on cinematic electronic music for kids." How to make everything that is fun for everyone here…:
 
 
...to just as fun for everyone here:
 
 
I confess, the paranoid parts of me was concerned I was called in to be swiftly and officially beheaded. Barneombudet is sort of a watchdog for kids and their rights. Who knows, maybe I did something wrong. I screw up consistently, but maybe I did something REALLY REALLY wrong and didn't know about it... or a Google alert had picked up some kind of "Ugress beats kids" trigger and set off automatic alarms in the UN.
 
So, as usual I had made myself delightfully nervous, and the crazy security of multiple lock zones on the way in didn't ease me up. But the people inside were delightfully friendly and easy! Phew. An interested and enthusiastic team and office. I was flattered by their attention.
 
I did a presentation that was part talk (theory and observation), part demonstration of tricks and techniques (sampling tricks work well on adults in office landscapes too I noted), and part videos and sound examples of my shows both for adults and kids. I even presented my sensational findings in coffee statistics to great marvel. 
 
 
But in general what I talked about and I think the gist of my concern is to keep my work interesting and ... real? in all kinds of deliverance, without dumbing things down. Or making them over-complicated for that matter.   
 
I invited comments and feedback, and afterwards there was a very useful discussion on some of the observations and challenges I mentioned. Got very smart suggestions and pointers. I'm happy to know I will be working more with some of these geniuses later for an upcoming project.
 
Most of my effort in getting stuff to work (or not) is NOT based on academic theory, the lab coat is just a disguise... I guess it is simply intuition, trial and error, throwing ideas out and see what sticks. If they don't stick, there's always gaffer tape. In this regard, it was very useful for me to put recent experiences into words and figures and sum it up both to others and to myself. To get sort of an overview. I'm currently in discussion with Rikskonsertene of doing another tour next season, after the Ugress album. If that is going to happen I want some changes, develop some things further. There is a lot of value in the kids shows, for everyone involved, but I'm currently not good at harvesting the potential. Working on it.
 
This presentation was a decidedly clever step in the right direction. I was not beheaded. I got a coffee mug. Conclusion: Expedition presentation success.
 
]]> Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:42:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1605 <![CDATA[Ugress Live: Cinema May 5th, Kids 6th]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1604

Ugress thrives in the lit shadows between stage and screen. 

Saturday May 5th, Ugress plays live in the cinema at Cinemateket USF in Bergen. Featuring special guest star Thomas T. Dahl on electric guitar and effects.

  • Ugress Live Cinema feat Thomas T. Dahl
  • Saturday May 5th
  • Cinemateket USF, Bergen (map)
  • Show 21:00, doors 20:00
  • Tickets 150,- (Cinemateket members 100,-)
  • Cinemateket USF programme event article
  • Facebook event

Sunday May 6th, Ugress Kids and Bajazz turns the cinema into a electro jazz rock-disco boom laboratory for kids between the age of 5 and 500. The mad professor and his crew are very enthusiastic in their cinematic disco beats but also rather clumsy and forgetful. There might be need of assistance from individuals skilled in producing noise.   

Performances in cooperation with Cinemateket USF, Bergen Jazzforum, Bajazz. Supported by Fond For Utøvende Kunstnere. 

]]> Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:34:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1604 <![CDATA[Ninja 9000 - Bit Awake EP released]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1603  

New release Bit Awake EP from my Ninja 9000 side project. Retro C64 chip-tronica. It's out now and very available as a pay-what-you-want digital release.

The previous Ninja 9000 EP's are also finally available as HD downloads from the store.

 

]]> Mon, 9 Apr 2012 05:55:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1603 <![CDATA[Videos: Youtube, Merlin, Phonofile clarification]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1602

A few months ago I reported on an agreement for my music on video sharing sites like Youtube. Anyone can use my music as much as they want in personal videos, and the system will recognize it and distribute any ad revenue automatically.

When the system recognizes my music, you might get a message that seems a little cryptic, something like this: 

Your video "Title Of Video", may have content that is owned or licensed by [Merlin] Phonofile, but it’s still available on YouTube! In some cases, ads may appear next to it.

 This claim is not penalizing your account status. 

This message is good news! Phonofile / Merlin are my guys. 

Here is how it works: My label is Uncanny Planet, which is really just a tiny company I run myself. Uncanny Planet delivers and licenses all my material to Phonofile, my digital distributor. Both Phonofile and Uncanny Planet are members of indie label organisation Merlin, who negotiates mega-deals for indie labels towards media giants like Google, Apple, etc. 

This is a nice setup. I concentrate on music, Phonofile concentrate on getting it out everywhere, and Merlin concentrate on making the deals. Youtube concentrate on Darth Vader on a Unicycle playing Imperial March with Bagpipes. Everything is ship-shape gaffer-tape perfectly right.  

I'm sorry it's not clear from those messages that the content is owned by me, and licensed to Phonofile / Merlin. 

]]> Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:15:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1602 <![CDATA[Report: Kids Tour February 2012]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1600 Recently finished another school tour, playing the Ugress Kids show at primary schools this winter. This was the last scheduled tour of the season.

A photo report with profound comments and deep thoughts. 

 
Our rental van and it's captain. 
 
Observe the matresses - two - protecting the wall, in case I run the wrong way. 
 
If you look closely, you can almost see a tiny Darth Vader disappointedly tottering the other way. 
 
I always demand harpoons mounted outside the hotel. 
 
Yes let's send this person to entertain children at 08:30 in the morning.
 
We played there.
 
We played there too.
 
And we're about to play here.
 
And there too.
 
I could go on.
 
Running with oil platforms.
 
One of the shows (reached by ferry above) was at a school with only 6 pupils.
 
Playing for 6 kids on a tiny school. Wonderful. But now, reflecting upon it, I realize… as a child, I set up shows in my bedroom, demanding family to watch and applaud. Now, I'm grown up, and demanding KIDS to watch and applaud. (Yes, really, we demand they applaud during the show.)
 
I got to ride in the cockpit of the ferry on the way back. Best friends with the captain.
 
My home for a week. Working on sketches and tracks in the evenings. Notice carpet floor. Carpet floor on hotels means electric shock all. the. effing. time. I was like an extrovert battery on acid all week. 
 
Believe it or not every button actually does something, including the invisible ones. Though one of the boxes (the Faderfox next to the Taito train controller) is a physical backup in case the iPad screws up. There's also a Wii controller, not on the photo because we hide it for the first track it's a trick get an axe.
 
 
This is embarassing but the keyboard stand has been broken for many years. We've been lugging it around everywhere with the intention of fixing it "when we arrive" but there is never time or equipment or whatever it is the thing needs, so we always have to borrow someone else's stand. Finally, on this tour we fixed it! Or, to be honest, JENS fixed it by magic and something something Claes Ohlson. I can't help it, I am always seriously amazed by people who can FIX these broken things you can't turn off and on again.
 
We had breakfast here every day. Became good friends with the waitress. Together we suspiciously eyed the flaky one-night business travellers. Grrrr. The noobs. More coffee? Mmmm. But I'm kind of a grumpy zombie at 6:30, my only focus is to NOT start a nuclear war on anyone who speaks to me. So no photos from that period of the expedition.
 
We don't know either, but it's located at a place called "World's End", at the coast of Norway. We investigated and deduce: It must be some kind of primitive lighthouse-telegraph, bouncing a fire in the cage up and down for passing ships? Twitter for vikings I guess.    
 
I got a Valentine's card! And a tiny red chocolate heart! My first, ever! SOMEONE LOVES ME!! HAHAHA WHO LOVES ME??? The hotel. "Thanks for being our guest this week. We love you SO much." Sigh. But sweet, in a capitalistic way. We're all just trying to get by. I wrote them back. And confessed I had been stealing chocolate from the breakfast restaurant. So they could keep the chocolate heart of processed sugars. 
 
Best part of the show - afterward, when the kids want to investigate the setup, pressing all buttons, testing all tricks, going bananas making noise and beats. "IT'S REAL IT'S WORKING THEY'RE NOT FAKING IT!" 
 
My life for yet another week, no carpet. 
 

The hours. 

]]> Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:19:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1600 <![CDATA[Tumblr updates]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1599

Bunch of updates to my Tumblr.

Or rather, my Tumblr is the only thing continuously updated, I post regular Instagram photos there. But I rarely mention those updates here.

]]> Fri, 16 Mar 2012 22:03:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1599 <![CDATA[Force fields and VHS: Report from Transmediale]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1598

CTM/ Transmediale is a festival/program for adventurous music and related arts, in Berlin, Germany. This year the theme was Spectral, exploring the current re-emergence of all things ghostly, mysterious and dark in experimental music, avant-pop, and art.  

I was in Berlin at the time. The pretext demanded investigation. Wasn't able to attend all exhibitions, concerts or performances, but here's what I found most interesting. 
 
Between You And Me, Kunstraum Kreuzberg
 
 
Kind of impossible to photograph this one... much better photos and video at artist Anke Eckardt website.
 
It was a completely darkened and black room, maybe 10 x 15 meters. Cutting the room in half, there was a wall of light, maybe 50 cm wide. Transparent, as in, you could see the line of the edges, the space in-between them, and darkened contours of whatever was beyond. You could put your hand into it, through it, and you could walk through it. 
 
Sounds a bit unimpressive in text I guess… but it was magical, really "whaaaat….?". It looked like a force-field, something electric and pulsing and real, physical, yet you could move through it. Best part, when moving through it, there were hyper-directional sound INSIDE the wall, a constant, ever-lasting soundscape of breaking and crashing glass. You could stand, move around inside the wall, and be washed with light and sound. 
 
This work was exceptionally well executed: It was craftily built, it was theoretically interesting, and personally highly inspirational. My previous experiment with projecting on smoke (the darn pixel-rays) didn't exactly go as planned, cough cough. I was happy to see someone pull this off so well. You just need complete control of the room and it's light. 
 
Ghosts Of The Shelf
 
 
A bit easier to photograph this one. At another area of the massive Kunstraum Kreuzberg, there were Ghosts Of The Shelf exhibition, about the slow disappearance of analogue video formats like VHS, Beta, Video 8.
 
What I liked about it, was that they put the focus not on the technical nostalgia, but on the aesthetic of the media, like how one could focus on the grains of film in analog film or the artifacts of mp3 compression. Raise hand if you ever cursed the useless tracking controller of a VHS device. This exhibition investigated the "feel" and "look" of the analog video era and many of the artists who actively used (or abused) the particular aesthetics of this platform. 
 
I think this is interesting. Are we able to recognize the inherit aesthetics of the media we are using right now? What will future generations reminiscence about our age, our technologies? 
 
 
In particular, I really loved the Video Reclames by Joep Van LIefland. An incredible, ever-lasting montage of animated VHS logos of the 80s. Nice idea for a music video, cough cough. Or for live show visuals. Coughing again, with a whiff of embarassement.
 
Honorary mention
 
Dead Record Office. Another completely blackened room at Spectral / Kreuzberg Kunstraum. Again impossible to photograph so it's a photo of the whole Kunstraum building from outside. (Two kids skateboarding the grafitti trench, was afraid they'd beat me up so I took the photo sniper-style from behind a tree.)
 
 
There was a huge sub-woofer inside, pulsing and pouring out sinister pulses and tones, like being in the belly of a techno monster. And then… when firing up the flashlight on my mobile to see what was going on: The floor is covered in vinyl LP's!
 
And they reflect the light of the mobile flashlight in incredible patterns around the walls and ceiling. The walls are covered in… monochrome reproductions (or something weirder) of LP covers? Arranged in huge matrixes. And there are vintage speakers in the roof, blurring out a granular collage of speakerphone voices, alerts, announcements, hard to make out. Completely surrealistic, certainly scary, absolutely awesome. 
 
Conclusion: Absolutely interesting and inspirational. Success. 
]]> Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:05:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1598 <![CDATA[Album Status Report, February 2012]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1596 Been awfully quiet here, I've been concentrating on writing for some months now. A brief note on Ugress album status.

I had deadline February 1st for delivering material for the next full-length Ugress album, if it was to be released this spring. Deadline was met, proud of that. I then went off on a school tour expedition (report follows).

We've spent the last few weeks revising the album material. There is more than enough quantity-wise. But it doesn't have the... "coherence"? I want. It's not bad, there is a lot of interesting stuff, it's just that it's not exactly what I want for THIS full-length Ugress release. It's kind of wild.

So that means no real date yet, looks more like summer or early fall for a full album. I know. I'm grr too. But!

There's a lot of material, and my schedule over the next 12 months looks good. Stuff will happen, and soon. There are plans, and ammunition. Some side-projects are dangerously close to full length releases, though Ugress and Planet U is my first priority. There's a crazy awesome art project that will take most of summer and an exciting film in September, will report and present as they approach.

I'm not panicked about the delay (yet). It feels neat to have a serious catalogue of upcoming, unreleased stuff. For some years now I've always been "behind", always had to create faster than realtime, for better and worse. Now I finally feel a little bit "ahead". 

If this buffer of surplus creation makes for better music I have no idea. It certainly does not make for better economy. Being a one-man-dictatorship means the economy division takes a hit when the artist division runs off into the forest to watch the moon, declare poems and build monstrous Franken-instruments.

I took notes. Reports follows.

]]> Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:26:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1596 <![CDATA[Most Memorable: Top 3 Museums Of 2011]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1595 Ah splendid, last top list of 2011, but most important: Museums. Hard to pick winners, as a museum per definition is a "win". But nevertheless, when it comes to such important matters one must put emotions aside and make a selection, no matter the cost.  

Haus Der Musik, Wien
 
 
Modern electronics mashes with classical historics and skillful exhibition design at Haus Der Musik. They manage both to narrate the past and intrigue about the future. So many weird and awesome things and rooms and sounds and exhibitions to try, touch, listen, learn, figure out  - or just simply conclude "WTF" - which is in my opinion a fully qualified conclusion for anything.
 
Cloud Cities at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
 
 
Huge plastic bubbles representing floating cities in a recycled train station, a huge hall filled with a web of tubes and plants and mechanical devices, water pipes, threads, wires, you can climb inside them! Cloud Cities was delightful. Doesn't hurt that Hamburger Bahnhof also have the eternally dark and coldly awesome Room With My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care in their permanent exhibition and I go there every time I'm in Berlin and LOVE IT.
 
Teknisk Museum / Technical Museum, Oslo
 
 
This Technical Museum is like heaven, made NOT by a god but by gentle geeks. There is something profoundly honest and charming about engineers designing exhitions about engineering. Chaotic, but an informative, enthusiastic mess. And of course what is cuter than an exhibition about mobile technology being outdated during it's exhibit?
 
Honorable mentions
 
Supposedly, there is a Japanese Garden in the Marzahn Park in Berlin. I went there. I didn't find it. Seriously! I walked around the whole park and did. not. see. any. japanese. garden. I left, sad, and confused, but later I realized, of course. It's a NINJA garden! You can not see it, unless it wants to be seen. A park hiding in a park! HOW CLEVER! 
]]> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:22:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1595 <![CDATA[Luftslott EP Now Available In All Services]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1594

The Ugress - Luftslott EP is now accessible everywhere.

Pick your poison: Spotify, Wimp, Youtube, iTunes, Amazon, Last.FM, Soundcloud, Bandcamp.

And of course it's still here on ugress.com, where it appeared first a month ago.

]]> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:51:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1594 <![CDATA[Most Memorable: Top 5 Software Of 2011]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1592 Almost finished with my top lists of 2011, the final geek list (or maybe not), here is the software that made me happy in 2011:

Liine - Lemur

Lemur. Best, most clever and most flexible touch-based iOS musical controller software. I'm very happy to see it on iOS. Wrote a separate post on that.
 
Native Instruments - Kontakt 5 
 
 
NI Kontakt 5. I'm at heart a sample-based artist. When there is an update to the only best sampler in the world, I pay attention. I was underwhelmed by Kontakt 4, but version 5 released this year, was the bee's knees (*). There are some intriguing retro sound enginges, and waow, the new filters, Miss Yumminess would approve of their yumminess. Respectable update. 
 
Evernote
 
 
Evernote. I mention this app every year I think, but every year it grows more important and fundamental to everything I do. I keep everything in Evernote, synced across all devices. If it is not music, video or photo, it's in Evernote. 
 
Renoise 2.8
 
 
Renoise 2.8
 
Grew up with trackers and I like to work that way. The latest version 2.8, currently in beta, it's very fresh, but the new group feature, together with the pattern matrix earlier this year, it makes tracking of more complex arrangements way more elegant and practical. I've always used Renoise for sketching, but now I observe myself using Renoise further and further into the a project. Usually I move the material into Logic as I need more arranging functions and long-term sequential approach to the material, but the border is in motion.
 
Dropbox
 

Dropbox

I'm where I am at the moment and that could be any-where, any-device. Dropbox syncs all my content between all my devices, makes sure my content keeps up, and more importantly - backed up, in the cloud. Thanks to Dropbox I'm not so worried about a laptop dying or disappearing. Whatever was on it is in the clouds and multiple other devices, and if the laptop was stolen I can wipe it remotely.

(* = I don't really know what the bee's knees means, but I've seen it used in settings like that so I'm firing it off there.)

]]> Sun, 8 Jan 2012 19:30:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1592 <![CDATA[Most Memorable: Top 3 Gadgets Of 2011]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1593 Battling the backlog of 2011 memorability. It's geek time, my top 3 gadgets of 2011:

Teenage Engineering OP-1. It's a self-contained music production system from Sweden with certain very Nordic opinions of how things should be ran and how it should sound. Just got it, a christmas present from the Doctor, bless him. After spending some time with the device: Intensely in love with some parts of it and intensely … in disagreement, on other parts. Report and review will follow after some more laboratory and field observations.
 
 
Kindle 4. I move around a lot these times. Read a lot of books. Can't lug lots of books around. Punished by muscles, airlines, porters and baggage-space. And I forget them. And some places I go doesn't have bookstores. (I know! Cursed be the barbaric outskirts of civilization.) Already wrote a review. 
 
 
JH Audio - JH16 Pro - In-ears. The smallest item in my possession but probably the most valuable. These are custom molded super insane high fidelity in-ears velvet laser sound monitors. There are three microscopical speakers made of magic inside each, built by tiny shrunken but happy humans inside tiny shrunken but happy factories. The pair fit only my ears and they are full of stars and they remove the outside world completely when plugged in. I can mix and edit and produce crystal clear, super loud, bass-heavy sound aboard space rockets, while snorkel-diving the Mariana Trench, or in the thickest noisiest jungle nightlife, completely oblivious to the sabre-tooth tiger watching fascinated at the weird human tapping his bony paws happily away at something that glows in the dark. This human is crazy! Let's not eat it and get geek-rabies.

 

]]> Sat, 7 Jan 2012 19:25:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1593 <![CDATA[Most Memorable: Top Music Of 2011]]> http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1591 Sometimes, an album is great as a whole, sometimes singles are better off. I took my favorite tracks from my favorite albums of 2011 and put them into a playlist.


]]> Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:24:00 +0100 http://www.ugress.com/post.asp?id=1591