FM video footage (pardon the pun)

Thought I'd put up the link to some old Future Music video of us (well Mr Hoodees foot) mucking about with some stomp boxes and a Stylophone and a BugBrand audio weevil (the insane yellow box).

Check it on my myspace page here

The Godfather

Check the Godfather of soul ripping it up with his bad self (and band) here

Moog baby Yeahhh!

Okay, we're pretty one dimensional when it comes to our interests, so when we decided that a prezzie was in order as a plain and simple bribe after a hard couple of months work it was going to be something for the studio.

We kinda had our eye on a Moog of some sort and when this little beauty popped up for sale locally we just had to have it.

It's a Moog Little Phatty (Bob Moog tribute edition), in fact it's a ltd edition one with DVD and poster - number 1054 of 1200.

Yes we've always wanted a Moog

Yes we love it

Yes we've been like kids in a sweet shop (or mobile phone shop nowadays)

Yes it's sounds sooo fat and warm

And yes we're worth it !-)

.....Well kinda

Tired ramblings

A bit of a gap since our last post so lets get up to date.

Been a very busy couple of months here at GCHQ and we've been pretty much working 24/7 on several sample commissions. Now we've finished (for the time being at least) the results of the work load have hit us firmly around the head and we've been good for nothing for the last couple of days.

It's an odd feeling to have pretty much forced over 3000 sample loops out in the last 60 or so days without any real time off. It does make us wonder (and worry) where it all comes from and if one day all this forced creativity that is required on a daily basis will dry up - lets bloody hope not.

Don't get us wrong we're not complaining, we love our job and know it doesn't involve and hard physical labour or monotonous day after day office/factory slog (although we have done our share of these jobs in the past like most musos trying to earn a living), but it does get worrying when turning the studio on makes you feel physically sick - time for a break i guess.

I think like anyone who is lucky enough to do a job they love (and have chosen), we can get a bit blinded by the daily workload to the fact that we're actually really fortunate to be able to do what we do - work from home, see our kids grow up first hand rather than being away at an office all day, no direct bosses or company politics to deal with, no uniforms or bulling supervisors...the list goes on.

Of course this isn't to say we sit about all day doing nowt, we work bloody hard for what is at the end of the day a pretty modest wage, we'd certainly be better off financially being plumbers or electricians.

But this is what we do and to be honest the only thing we've really found we're any good at which isn't a bad situation to be in at all.

P.s for anyone passing by expecting the usual audio gear-porn, service will be resumed very soon with something a bit special.

GCHQ out.

Alesis twins and New Gunian rock

In our (seemingly) never ending quest to collect as many drum machines as we've got space for, we've perhaps unsurprisingly stalked and captured a few more that were running free out there in ebay/secondhand land.

First up is this pair of popular Alesis beat machines - the HR-16 and HR-16B

Although not rare or analogue, we like the HR's and their chunky sounding samples. Out of the two we definitely prefer the HR-16B, due to it's more electronic sounding content, it also helps it's in much better nick than it's twin. In fact we're considering giving the the grey wedge up for circuitbending, turn it into a glitch monster! We'll let you know.

On a more unusual tip we have this little beauty

It's an analog, preset rhythm box simply laid out with three dials and an on switch. The presets are your usual waltz, bossa fare (although they do sound good), although there is the intriguingly titled New Gunian Rock pattern - a first for us.

Sound-wise it's along the lines of the standard bloop/crack analog vibe, but like so many of it's contemporaries it still sounds punchy with surprisingly little noise.

Junk drums

Just finished another interesting sample commission for Future Music magazine - we made a junk/pots and pans drum kit. Roping in our good mate (and honouree Groove Criminal) Simon Edgoose, we knocked up a kit of watering cans, buckets, plastic bins ect.





We had a bit of trouble getting enough high end on the kit so we had to compromise a touch by including a single, frankly mullered cut down crash cymbal as a bottom hi-hat (a round backing tin was used for the top) and a crasher - a percussion thingy made of strips of metal.

The snare turned out to be another problem as all the buckets and pots we had put aside sounded okay but wouldn't cut through when the rest of the kit was being bashed about. The end solution was an unlikely Ikea lampshade, upended on a snare stand. still did the job with a nice sharp, cross-stick crack.

Luckily getting a good bottom end was no problem, in fact after we miked up the plastic dustbin with a Yamaha subkick it sounded too good! We rectified this by adding a dynamic mic and harder kick drum beater to bring out the 'bin-like' qualities.

After mounting it all on cymbal/snare stands Simon gave it a thrashing.

This is our job you know................!-)

And bend two three....

As some of you (if there's anyone out there !-) might have gathered we like a bit of circuit-bending or modding here at GCHQ.

As we were luck enough to find ourselves with a few hours to spare (okay we should have been working but hey), Mr Hoodee got his tools out (ohh err) and got to work on our Realistic reverb.

For anyone who's never come across this beast, it was made and sold in the UK by Tandy (Radio Shack in the US). Although it says reverb on it, it's much closer to s slapback delay unit. It's rough, sounds a bit odd and we love it. We're not the only ones because those clever types at audio damage (one of the best plug-in makers we've found) made a software emulation of it.

Anyway Mr hoodee had a poke around and added 5 switches, which you may be able to see to the left and right in the photo above). The unit now squeals and screams on it's own, goes into mad feedback loops like a tape delay and also will crunch up, distort and add very strange reverb/delays to whatever you throw through it.

Nice!