Bit of an ebay find, no work today then!

Another reason for our lack of progress today (see post below) came in the form of a surprise from Ebay. We knew we were getting a Korg MR-16 midi drum module with some kind of pitch mod but when we fished it out of out blue wheelie bin (been away for a few days - don't ask) it appears to have been circuit bent to hell (a good thing).

With no manual or instructions (the unbent unit needs neither as it's pretty easy to use and contains 16 sampled drum sounds you trigger via midi) we had a fun couple of hours trying to work out what the 16 switches, single pot and rca patch bay did.

Of course we still don't really know as random effects and sounds are the real beauty of circuit bent instruments, but had a great time mucking about with it. Would hve uploaded a video but were a bit dissapointed in the quality of the earlier one (below) so didn't - just crap film makers I'm afraid :-/

Android Fx, Ipod and Murf

Okay so we should be working on some drum and bass loops for next months Future Music, but sometimes we just get sidetracked (sorry Will !-)

In the video (sorry about the quality, it goes a bit mad for a few sec's for some reason - hey we're sound men not film makers !-) is the Android FX app on the ipod touch thrown through a moogerfooger Murf filter.

Nothing really planned, just a couple of mins of knob twiddling with the sound sent straight from the mixer into the PC - might be a few milliseconds out with the video but hey bite us!

Another fine messe (sorry)

This week saw us pop over to a very sunny Germany for this years Musikmesse. As usual we stayed with MR Hoodees brother-in-law Paul and were joined by GC drummer and old mucker Richard 'spoons' Spooner who drove in from his new home in Switzerland.

We were glad to see the usual big turn out for the messe, with the usual suspects all there and only a slight reduction in the size of some of the stands pointing towards the global economic woes. As usual there was a fine display of knob-laden toys to lust over (and fiddle with) and we also had a couple of planned meetings that went well, including a very interesting one with the guys from Steinberg - more on that at a later date.

















Amongst the things we really liked the look of was Doepfers Dark Energy mono synth and the usual array of goodies from Jomox. We were also a bit puzzled by the sheer amount of people who wanted to strap on Rolands new keytar and strut around in an 80's style!

In other news we're having a few days break for easter next week, then striaght back into our next Future Music commission in double quick time. It's also Mr Hoodee's daughters' 9th (where does the time go!) birthday tomorrow, so a house/studio full of kids is expected, which should be fun, planning to dig the BBQ out as well, so it's sure to rain!.

We've also finally sorted some server space for the possibility of posting up some free samples to download, and we're working on some kind of limited run sample cd (working title of "Mr Hoodee's phat kick lucky dip" at the mo) to sell on Ebay/direct from us -more news on both of those when we get some time to sort 'em out.

Game Boyz

In accordance with a promise to ourselves to blog a bit more frequently, here we are in the middle of a sample set for Computer Music. Deadline's tight as we're away at the Mussikmesse for a couple of days next week.

The theme is computer game/chip style samples so we've broken out the game boys (didn't realise we had so many laying about) and the Nanoloop and LSDJ sequencing carts for some bleepy goodness!

The DS is running the rather fab DS10 cart which although great in it's self, is a bit too clean and shiny sounding, so we'll probably not use it on this particular set of samples - 4 bit all the way !-)

touchy touchy

For all you gadget heads with restless fingers, we thought you might like to know we've contributed a few kits to the rather fab digidrum app on the iphone and ipod touch.

We treated ourselves to a touch for Xmas and can honestly say it's one of the few essential gadgets we've owned (this is big praise from us as we're not the most avid of Apple fans, far from it) - we've ended up checking our email on it, bothering our twitter followers, watching films, but funnily enough not really listening to a lot of music !-) Also you can get a direct port of the Amiga classic Pinball Dreams, which is just class...

Timing is everything

Another busy spell here at GCHQ as we've sample commissions flying all over the shop at the mo and limited time to get it all done... Hey, but what's new.


Just finished up the dark dubstep set for FM, quite enjoy that dark slower style, nice excuse to get out the tape delays and spring reverbs - and to put pics of 'em on our blog!


The dusty bit of pipe to the left here is a 'Great British Spring Reverb', which I know we've mentioned before in our blog but after crawling around behind our rack and mackie mixer, we finally got around a problem we were having with our aux send/returns, so the bloody thing is finally up and running as it was meant to be - and great it sounds too!



We also finished off the hiphop samples for CM by completely changing our mind and doing some auto-tune vocals after all. Many thanks to Nat Edgoose for stepping in and doing a session of ohhs and ahhs for us to treat. Think we might be hearing a bit more from Nat in Groove Criminals sample sessions from now on.



On the gear front, we've been quite happy to cruise along with our current set up but when we heard that all production has finished on the Korg Microkorg (to make way for the V2 which we thing is bloody ugly), we managed to get hold of one of the ltd edition reverse key models.

We reviewed one of these when it first came out (for some mag or other) and really liked it, although the keys do feel like they are from the cheapest casio kids keyboard you can buy. Not quite sure why we never decided to get hold of one until now, but that's just us and timing.

As one sample commission gets sent out another replaces it so we're dug into some chip/computer game/8 bit style samples for CM - a grand excuse to get the gameboys and sequencing carts out - more on that in a later blog.

Only other real news is it's almost time for the Frankfurt Musikmesse again, we're all ready in plenty of time for once, with flights booked and show pass sorted. We'll be staying at our brother-in-laws again and will attempt to blog anything interesting either whilst we are there or when we get back.

That's about it, catch you later.

beats and pieces

March already? Where does the bloody time go?

GCHQ v.2 currently rocks to the sounds of hiphop and dubstep (for CM and FM respectively). On the hiphop tip we've decided to avoid the whole T Pain autotune abuse as with any luck it'll be all old news soon enough -beats and synthy loops are enough to be getting on with. Deadlines are tight this month so no time off for a couple of weeks, which is a bit crap but not that unusual round these parts.

Mr Hoodee managed to get out of having his ugly mug in our bi-monthly photo shoot for FM, instead we went for a shapely hand and moog combo - nice!

In other news we've been working on some beats for a forth-coming Sample Magic project and are still giving our Wii a thorough thrashing. On the playlists are the retro soul/funk sounds of Sharon Jones and The Dapkings and The Haggis Horns.

Anyway back to the boom bap...