Not to be confused with the Birdie song, as that is some hype that cannot be lived up to. This tune is named such after the bird that chirps in with its own tune during the first few seconds, which is arguably much better. The track features acoustic guitar with some reverb and delay added in Ableton Live, some ahem mad keyboard skillz (note the ‘z’ which makes it roughly 15% better than normal skills), and some midi pad drumming. The midi pad drumming is still in its infancy so the kick and snare had to be forced into place, but the hi-hats, those bad boys are 100% live. This bird was cooked in an extremely hot Amsterdam apartment for about 30 mins (no basting required).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Another song, this time the acoustic guitar was recorded with those crappy mics you get with pcs and the drums come from a drum break lp. I’d like to redo this with a cleaner recording (and less error strewn, although thats character isnt it) and ideally a nice female vocal, although i dont have one of those so…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Heres another home/half baked experiment, same recipe as previous;

Chop finely one beautiful folk song, blend pieces till unrecognisable, sprinkle with beats and serve.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Heres a wee tune I was messing about with in Ableton Live, the folky sample was chopped up and rejigglified using the M-Audio Axiom controller, and the drums were programmed using the controller pads and then cleaned up (way out of time). Its not particularly good and the drums are pretty weak but it sounds ok for starters.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

A remix of the 96 classic Gonch, this is a pants version just to emphasise how good you had it first time around. The track was created by flailing wildly at M-Audio Axiom 25 and then piping the resulting noise through a rhubarb patch. Some sci-fi movie directors from the 80s have travelled through time to enquire about using the futuristic sound in their films, flangers crossed!

Amongst the many wonderful things you receive when you are thirty, one will be a Soundbite XL – Loop Sampler and it is indeed great. Just play the record and the sampler will pick up on the beats per minutes (if its unable to to this you can always tap it in) once you have the bpm you can tell it to record from a quater beat up to 32 beats. This a great fun and ‘perfect loops’ are only a few clicks away. Extended outros and intros for live mixes are easily done as well as creating loops to record on to pc. The recorded loops will also speed up or slow down when you are playing a new sample, so building layers of loops is easy too. The soundbite XL doesnt gave any long term memory so all loops are lost when the device is switched off, so you just have to remember from what record the sample came from after fannying about for a few hours.

Heres a quick demo of simple example with a looped sample and a beat:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Also a quick attempt at layering guitar sounds over a beat using audacity:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

and whilst i’m waxing musically heres…

Some songs i have been listening to of late:

lone pigeon – concubine rice, daybre – air (feat doom), bibio – fi, felix la band – crooked breath, king biscuit time – all of black gold, kid koala – your mom’s favourite dj, pink floyd – pow r toc h , happy mondays – loose fit, gladys knight & the pips – part time love, elvis presley – gentle on my mind, tommy guerrero & gadget – mechanism, boards of canada – left side drive, clouddead , led zeppelin – What is and What Should Never Be