Heavy boom bap!

We've never been very good at the whole self-promotion thing but here goes.

We've just finished a HipHop/Urban beats download pack for The Loopmasters.

If you're interested you can find more details here

Ta.

Something old, something new(ish)

We've forced ourselves to have a couple of days off here at GCHQ. Well our bodies have anyway as we've been beavering away for the last 3 weeks pretty non stop, doing dance samples for quite a large (and top secret - okay not really but we can't tell you) project.

The result is pretty much bad tempers, yawns and aching ears - none of which is good for a creative atmosphere in the studio. Sooo a few days off seems in order before we start on the next commission in the que.

To raise spirits ( and make the drum machine geek in all of us here at the lab wet 'emselves) we've just got hold of an Oberheim DX drum machine. A true child of the 80's and smaller brother to the mighty DMX, the DX is big, brash and yet very funky. It uses gritty samples written to Eprom chips and is built like a brick privy.

Almost as large is the us/uk step down transformer needed to run it - good ol' Maplins. We've got a downloaded manual for the V2 of this machine, but ours is the V1 (pre midi) model - so if anyone out there has a copy of that manual get in touch.

Because (as you may have noticed) we don't really like to do things by halves, we also got hold of a Jomox airbase 99. This is a now discontinued, rackmount, totally analog (save lo-fi samples of the clap, and hats) drum synth - really a great 909 clone. Although we haven't really had the time to plumb it's depths yet, it has some heavy punch and a huge kick drum.

So at least we are rhythmically content.

For now at least.......

Tape delays and daleks

As we post this blog the latest (and 200th) issue of Future Music has just hit the shops.

For this issue we did a highly enjoyable collection of samples harking back to the early days of sound design and the work of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

To emulate the basic sorts of tools the workshop had to hand, we cut down on all the modern (and vintage) sound sources available to us and tried to strip it all back to basics.

Because we didn’t have access (or the time - we have quite tight deadlines to work to) to an audio test oscillator, the main source of early Radiophonic tones, we ended up using our battered Akai S01 samplers’ built in test tone as our main sound source. This Innocent enough sine wave was then sent through all the vintage effects and transposed up and down in pitch by hand on the fly.

Of course to really get the right feel we heavily lent on our two tape delays, a Watkins Copycat and our Roland Space echo, including feeding the output of one into the input of the other to get some really abused delays

As well as the tape delays and spring reverbs we heavily used the moogerfooger ring mod as both a sound source and effects box. Pretty much everything got shoved through it in the end.

We wanted to do some cheesy Dalek vocal samples as well, the current DR Who uses the moogerfooger ring mod, but it was only after a couple of hours that we realised how important the voice of the actor was in making the whole thing sound right (and not crap). Unfortunately we didn't get beyond crap so they got binned.

If we'd have had more time it would have been fun to try getting into some tape loops and such like - maybe next time.

Frankfurt Knobs!

Whatcha.

As ever apologies for the slapshot regularity of our posts but 2008 has started off in quite brisk style work-wise, so it's been all hands to the wheel to get our deadlines done.

Anyway we've a few things to post about so will try and get 'em up here as and when.

First up we had another enjoyable trip to Frankfurt for the Mussikmesse, we ended up going on public day rather than blagging in on press day (as normal) and it was a bit mad.

We sat a dreamed at the Moog stand and caught a sneak peak at the new Linn drum 2, being put together between Rodger Linn and Dave Smith - looks very tasty, if only we thought we could afford one when they get released - sorry for the quality of the pics, our phone's not really up to the job.

Everything else that caught our eye was distinctly retro - like the monster modular above. No we wouldn't have a clue how to get a sound out of it either.



One great stand was put together by a German synth mg (whose name escapes me) and it was the biggest collection of vintage synths we've seen for a while -all there to be played with (a brave move on their part we thought). Great fun and a chance to fiddle with some synths we've not had the pleasure of abusing.

Anyway we rounded it all off by watching our good friend Simon Edgoose demonstrate Yamahas new electronic kit, whilst trying to fight off punters attempting to put his in-ear monitors in their dirty lug-holes.

Finished a long but fun day by watching Hoodee's brother-in-law (who lives in Frankfurt) play in his Status Quo cover band (fab) and drunk too much German beer. Much like last year then....

Come on in

Just a quick hello to anyone blown into this site from our www.groovecriminals.co.uk site. The page was so old we've finally pulled it down and everyone gets re-directed to here for the foreseeable future.

I'd like to say we'll have a new site up and running soon but lets be honest the last one wasn't updated for 4 years...so I wont.

Anyway welcome.

Only a couple bits of Groove Criminal news; Firstly we're working on a very interesting collection for the 200th issue of Future Music - a total back to basics set inspired by the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop, will blog about it next week.

And secondly we're off to the Frankfurt musikmesse at the end of the week - will try a grab some photos of anything that catches our collective eye, if we can shake the Bitburger hangover we'll have that is.

Later tater

Dub, springs and retro-leanings

We've recently finished a dub commission for Computer Music magazine. Although dub's not really our thing to listen to, we really enjoyed making the samples as it gave us a fine excuse to dig into our couple of spring reverbs for that 'boing' rhythmic sound on the drums.

As well as a rack mounted stereo spring we've also got a Great British Spring Reverb - the pic on the left. If that looks like a length of plastic drain pipe it's housed in to you, err that's because it is. Hi-fi it's not, but it does sound great.

We've had the unit for a while and initially thought it may have some loose wiring and stored it away. With the studio move, out it came again and this time we gave it (and our mixer) a proper look over. Rather than anything being wrong with the reverb it turned out to be a balanced/unbalanced connection problem (DOH!) which was easily fixed.

Strange thing is although we are children of the digital/computer/software age, (in fact with out these things we would never have been able to begin our production career, let alone make samples for a living), we do seem to be hankering for vintage gear, with all the problems and character that brings.

Of course it's also meant learning a whole new set of skills to deal with the more traditional ways of working vintage hardware - which I guess can never be a bad thing.

Hmmmmm

It was recently Hoodee's birthday, an event that didn't put the old man in the best of moods.

To celebrate we all went off on a shopping jolly around the wilds of the Soho record shops for whatever caught our eye (mostly odd covers, soundtracks and some grimy funk as it happens). We also keep a sharp eye out in the bargin bins for anything we've had a hand in, finding something would be rather cool in a strange kinda way.

Anyway that's all well and good but perhaps the most surprising thing was how the shopping spree has triggered off our hunger for wanting to make records again. With most of our time spent making loops and samples (which isn't the most lucrative living to be honest) we really lost the urge to make music for ourselves, sad but true.

Whether this new found desire to make some music will last or what form it will take, who knows? Might be interesting finding out though.....