Modulate This! - Electronic & Experimental Music Tech, Technique, & People

Beaming Into the Pacific Northwest Synth Fest in Seattle October 29th

The Pacific Northwest Synth Fest 2011 is this Saturday October 29th from 10-5 PST. Click the poster to see the mega size version or visit http://www.mostlymodular.com/ or the event page on Facebook.

I’ll be telepresently performing and doing a talk on AudioCubes on 1:00-1:30PST. I’ll also be generally floating around Max Headroom style on a laptop throughout the event so he can virtually mingle.

In this talk I’ll present an overview of the Percussa AudioCubes hardware, discuss mapping the AudioCubes to control Ableton Live and Virtual Synthesizers in real-time. I’ll also perform with the cubes, deconstruct a Live song, and discuss his free template for “9 Box Method for performance, improvisation, and spontaneous tribal jams with music, sound, and light” based on AudioCubes. Lastly, I will take questions via interactive video chat.

So if your in Seattle, come find the box I’ll be hosted out and say hi :^).

 

Mark Mosher
Electronic/Experimental Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

Synth Geek Blog: http://modulatethis.com/
Artist Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Notes and Photos from My Talk at May 2011 Ableton Colorado Meetup on Integrating Third Party Instruments with Live

Last night I gave a talk on using third-party virtual instruments within Ableton Live at the Ableton Colorado User Group. I just did a post with notes and photos from this event including my current Synth Picks mindmap on my artist site.

Swing by my artist site to check it out.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

Colorado Ableton User Group May 2011 Meet-Up

Update: See notes and photos from this event on my artist site.

I’ll be presenting at the upcoming Ableton Colorado User Group. Here are the details from the Meetup Page.

Our night is generally divided up into 3 segments. Beginner, Advanced, and End-Game. Each has a focus on Ableton and methods of the programming. At the same time there is much to take away if you are not a die-hard Ableton user or practitioner of another electronic music platform.
BEGINNER : How to defy death using Session and Arrangement View
Alternate Title : Lessons learned in Session and Arrangement View
Marc (DJNSM) will lead the discussion on these 2 views. Experts and beginners are very welcome to contribute in asking and answering questions!

• Basics of the 2 views
• Similarities and differences
• Advantages in the studio and performing
• A method to production for studio to stage and back again

ADVANCED : Making your VSTs environmentally friendly in Ableton
Alternate Title :Taming and Controlling VST with Ableton to extend your sound palette and make these settings manageable and increase patch recycling
Mark Mosher (ModulateThis.com) shows how to painlessly extend Live’s range and palette with third party instruments.

• Step-by-step methods for wrapping instruments
• Performance and deconstruction of a song using instruments to illustrate quick, unique, and creative results
• Coordination of these elements with Live’s standard modulation, automation, and re-sampling features.

END-GAME : Large scale deployment and integration of mind control devices
Alternate Title : Did I say ‘Mind control device’? I meant Ableton and fail safe control. Original presenter Chase Dobson will be out of town as his back-line Ableton work on Mike Posner’s tour got extended to Europe and Asia (how cool is that?).

So we have David Henderson stepping in on Monome+Live+Launchpad. With Mike S. returning from the Gridfest there is a lot of noise about the Monome type applications and David is going to help ct through all the nonsense and get people dialed in on the Monome experience.

We will have Chase sharing his leanings, but not until he is in Colorado for break.

Links

• RSVP Via Meetup.com
• Ableton Colorado Web Site

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer
www.MarkMosherMusic.com
www.Modulatethis.com
9box.ModulateThis.com

April Electronic Music Events in Denver/Boulder

The Electronic Music scene continues to heat up around Denver/Boulder. Lots going on in April.

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April 1, 2011 Denver locals Inactivists War on Jazz Hands CD Release party.

9PM The Walnut Room, 3131 Walnut St, Denver, CO

FYI – if you go you’ll get to enjoy the Theremin musical styling's of band member Victoria Lundy.

http://www.inactivists.com/

 

 

 

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NoiseFold Happening

Friday, April 1 · 7:00pm - 8:30pm, 2011

Denver Art Museum

Ponti Hall, North Building 100W 14th Ave Parkway Denver, CO

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Red+Hot+Cool Downtempo/Chill/Trip

Location: Meadowlark

Time: ‎9:00PM Thursday, April 7th, 2011

This show features Marc Wei (AKA Ableton Colorado ringleader and DJNSM)

No dubstep allowed – lol.

 

 

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Communikey Festival of Electronic Arts April 13-17, 2011, Boulder, CO

Check their web site for details

Here is their Facebook page

 

 

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Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist & Synthesist, Boulder, CO
www.markmoshermusic.com
www.modulatethis.com

Livid Announces Limited Texas Edition Controllers for SXSW

I just saw this on Livid’s blog:

I thought it would be fitting to do a limited Texas edition controller set. The wood choice for maximum Texas flavor? Mesquite of course. Although Ryan Anderson (the head of our circuit board department), insisted that the state tree of Texas is a Pecan, nothing says Texas like Mesquite…

These controllers will be with us at all of our SXSW events to check out if you are in Austin, TX. 

We will be making a limited run of this for a great deal only available this month. We will have one of them up at the Austin retailer, Switched On as long as we offer this model.

Nice touch for SXSW! Read the full post here.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Gridfest Monome Community Event May 6-8 2011 in Sante Fe NM

In the spirit of collaboration, as it is exemplified by artistic endeavor, the monome community is once again organizing a large scale event showcasing the broad spectrum of talent of monome users. Artists from around North America will be attending and performing in a series of concerts and workshops to be held at Corazon and Santa Fe Complex. Funding for the festival is also community based: a Kickstarter Project has been created, seeking assistance in offsetting the cost of airfare, accommodations, venue rentals and promotions.

This looks like a pretty cool festival and I like their use of Kickstarter to help fund this community event. There are all many levels of donation possible. The $250 level is interesting for those who might want to build a Monome clone.

All rewards at $25 level + a four hour workshop where you will learn how to create an arduinome (monome clone). All parts will be supplied, including custom enclosures for the devices and participants will leave with a fully functional grid controller.

By the way, did you know that your Novation Launchpad can emulate a Monome free software? I’ll do a follow up post on this shortly.

More info here - http://gridfestival.com/.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Mark Mosher Concert Sunnyvale March 17 + DEVO March 18 in SF - Stop By and Say Hi

I’m flying out to the Bay Area in March for an awesome whirlwind  extended weekend filled with electronic music. I’ll be playing a show, plus going to see DEVO, plus talking AudioCubes with Bert from Percussa who’s visiting from Belgium. Details below if you want to swing by and say hi at my show or at the DEVO show.

THURSDAY MARCH 17TH 5-7PM
Robert Edgar & Mark Mosher Live @ The Art Institute of California/Sunnyvale

I will be performing a set in my one-man-show format. Songs will include original instrumental electronic music from recent albums performed on keyboard, matrix controllers, Theremin, and visual instruments Tenori-on and Percussa AudioCubes.

Robert Edgar is performing a set using his Simultaneous Opposites Engine for real-time video traversals using MIDI Guitar.

Robert and I are having a conversation on Facebook about the possibility of merging our digital streams for a song as well.

It should be an interesting evening indeed!

Where:
The Art Institute of California/Sunnyvale - ROOM 602
1120 Kifer Rd
Sunnyvale, CA
Get directions in Google Maps

Admission:
No Admission Fee

Event Page (Pass it on):
http://tinyurl.com/digitalperformance-march17

FRIDAY MARCH 18TH, 9PM
Devo with The Octopus Project

Details: http://www.thewarfieldtheatre.com/eventdetail.php?id=29935

If you want to meet up and say hi before or after the show, follow me on twittter @ http://twitter.com/markmosher, and the night of the show I’ll start tweeting out my coordinates.

Duty now spuds,

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Show Report: Two Days in Denver with Robert Henke (aka Monolake)

Photo: DMNS Gates Planetarium

Robert Henke of Monolake and one of the creators of Ableton live came through Denver and performed his work "Intersection" on Monday and then delivered a lecture at Denver University on Tuesday. This invitation only event was hosted by The Digital Media Studies program at the University of Denver.

This was a real treat as this was one of only a small number Robert's performances in the US. Here is a show report.

MONOLAKE “INTERSECTION” CONCERT MONDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH, GATES PLANETARIUM 
"Intersection" is a work which incorporates “field recordings made in Hanoi in 2009, reconstructed through narrative, music and sounds”. The performance was presented in the context of the amazing full-dome digital theater of the Gates Planetarium. 

Before the show started the event host Trace Reddell, Ph.D. (Director, Digital Media Studies University of Denver) introduced Robert who talked a little bit about the piece and the show.

   

Robert described the show as a real-time collaboration between himself and Gate’s Planetarium’s own VJ / Pilot / Scientist Ka Chun Yu Ph.D. on visuals (pictured below).

They had only met a few hours before the show and the concert was almost completely improvised.

Music and Sound
On the sound side of things, Robert describes “Intersection” as follows:

Intersection is entirely created using field recordings taken in November 2009 in and around the city of Hanoi in Vietnam. The field recordings were transferred to a laptop and layered, filtered, slowed down and processed in many ways to form the composition. The idea of using recordings of day by day sounds as material for musical expression is not new. It has been pioneered shortly after the advent of tape recorders in the late 1940 by the French composer Pierre Schaeffer and others. They coined the term 'musique concrete' for these kind of works.

Show Report: Electro-Music 2010 Festival in Huguenot NY

I just attended and performed at the Electro-Music 2010 festival in NY. It was my first time at this festival and I thought I’d share a “show report”.

The marketing copy from the Electro-Music site describes the Electro-Music festival as follows:

Dubbed the "Woodstock of Electronic Music" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, it features three full days of musical performances, video art, seminars, workshops, demonstrations, and jam sessions…These events have been noted for their incredibly diverse assembly of talent, enthusiastic support for innovative and unique artists, and overall positive, cooperative and fun atmosphere.”

Did the festival live up to this description? Absolutely! It was just fantastic and I’ll definitely try and get back there next year. Before I go into detail I’ll just say up front that if you are passionate about electronic music in any way, you’ll find something at this festival for you.

Location

The festival started in 2005 in is an outgrowth of the world-wide electro-music.com community. The festival has rotated through various locations throughout the years. The first few years were in Cheltenham PA, then it moved to Kingsport TN in 2008, Bloomingdale NJ in 2009, and this year was at the remote Greenhill YMCA retreat in Huguenot, NY. This site is also a sleep away camp for kids.

All the events were in one building the main lodge which was really convenient.

As you can see from the next picture, the site was simply gorgeous. Of course being electronic musicians we spent a lot of time all our time inside :^).

Tickets
Ticket options were a 1 day pass for $35 a day, or a 3 Day pass for $350 which included lodging and meals. I’m really glad I opted for the 3-day pass as this allowed more time to get to know other artists as well as share meals.

Lodging and Meals 
      
For those who opted for lodging, it was a fun flashback to summer camp. When we checked in we received sheets, wool blankets, pillow, pillow case, washcloth, towels and soap and were assigned a building and a room mate. Each room had it’s own bathroom and shower. The room was plenty decent enough considering I was up till like 1:00 a.m. every night and just used the room for sleeping. There was too much going on to be hanging out in the room.

Three meals a day were served out of the camp kitchen. The food was good camp food. This ended up being a great place to catch up with folks you met throughout the festival.

Venue and Format 
As you can see from the image below, the format staggered concerts and ran parallel to lectures in the library. There was a jam room in the basement and Stage 2 was used for jams in the mornings as well.

In addition to these events there were DIY projects, laptop battles (the winner got to play Sunday night on the main stage) and more.

Basically, I got up at 8:00 a.m. and was busy till 1:00 a.m. every day!

Mark Mosher Appearing at the Electro-Music Festival 2010 in New York September 10

 

One month from today I'll be appearing at this year's Electro-Music 2010 Festival. I'll be performing the new album I Hear Your Signals live, plus giving a one hour talk on "Spatial, Visual, and Matrix Controlerism with Ableton Live".

Schedule for  September 10^th.

• 5:00-6:00 pm - Spatial, Visual, and Matrix Controllerism with Ableton Live
• 10-10:30 pm Concert where I’ll be performing songs form “I Hear Your Signals”

Here is the full Friday schedule for all events.

If you’ve not heard about this event, check it out here – looks an awesome weekend - http://event.electro-music.com/. Drop me an email if your going to be there so we can meet up.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Musician, Boulder, CO
www.MarkMosherMusic.com