single strings, dancehall, primary percussion and import duty

Hi all.

Ooops been over a month since our last log, and we were doing so well!

Been a busy few weeks with interesting sample sets for CM and FM. CM wanted sounds of the carnival so we went for some booty shaking dancehall twinned with a load of latin percussion loops. We've a huge box of various percussion here at GCHQ but we surprised to find ourselves without a cowbell and our deadline looming. Mrs Hoodee ended up saving the day with the suggestion of asking our local primary school if they had any percussion we could swipe for an afternoon - the school turned up trumps and supplied us with a selection of pristine cowbells to thump merry hell out of. At least they look used now.

FM was all about bass this month so we fired up the synths and got all low end on their ass (sorry). Just to mix things up a bit and inject the usual GCHQ flavour we had a crack at making and playing a tea chest bass. With no tea chest in sight we used a varity of boxes and bins but found that just a humble cardboard box gave the best results when recorded with a sm57 poked in a roughly cut sound hole.

Apart from being a good giggle, perhaps unsurprisingly our string bass was an absolute bugger to play and pitch without a few weeks (if not months or years) practice. We had around an hour, so ended up running an output from the mixer into a guitar tuner and sampling off as many good. clean pitches as we could before stretching and re-sampling them to make a really warm sounding Kontakt kit. We also have renewed respect to all the skiffle players out there who can play the bloody thing!

In other sample related news, we've just finished a set of drum and percussion loops for the guys at Sample Magic for their Sunset Sessions 2 sample library that should be out in a month or two. really pleased with what we came up with so think the release will be something special.

On the audio toys front we had delivery of a Gakken mini synth-thingie from Japan and a monotonic labs N37 synth pedal-sequenced square wave-whatsit from the states (let us know if we get to technical).

The Gakken is a screw together kit that makes a sort of stylophone-like synth with cut off and is played with a metal probe-like thing on a carbon ribbon. There's no notes laid out like a stylophone but it does make some great sounds and comes in some fab Japanese packaging, complete with a synth mag (in Japanese). These are pretty cheap but be careful as due to some skipping of the small print from the online shop where we got it we got stung for a lump of import duty (although the processing fee from parcel forge ended up more than any duty/vat we had to pay!!) so it turned into a rather expensive bargain. Is great tho.

On the cards this month is a set of nu-gaze samples for CM (don't ask - look it up), a trip to switzerland to see our mate Spoons, if MR Hoodees passport gets back in time (really don't ask) and an interesting set of samples for FM, which we'll blog about later in the month.

broken glass everywhere...

Been a busy week catching up with sample work after our mini break. Set of DnB samples done for the next issue of FM plus it's our turn for the photo shoot. So it's off outside with a laptop, sh101 and our mucka and fab lens-smith Ecki.

Disused railway bridge not far from GCHQ looked grimey enough for an atmos shot, so up went the lights and Mr Hoodee begins to look uncomfortable !-) The shot above and below show the set up for the shoot, will post the actual photo used when we know which one FM used.

The next half an hour or so involved them both sitting or laying amongst the broken glass and dirt, with Mr Hoodee trying to keep his face out of shot. To be honest they make quite an entertaining double act on a shoot and the moaning and insults aside, get the job done quickly - Mr H is turning into quite an experienced model! For bookings just drop us an email..(THATS ENOUGH OF THAT!! - Mr H)

Anyway samples done and turned in, so we thought it'd been a while since we got anything for the studio so we've ordered one of these little beauties from Chimera Synths (also based in East Anglia) - couple of weeks waiting list but we'll shove up a video as soon as we get it.

video naughties

Just finished uploading some videos to you tube. Some have appeared in this blog, a couple never made it.

You can have a butchers here

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 !-)