Peter Swimm

Person of Internet

[peterswimm]

Pulselooper Remix 'Vertabimode' now available

Brazilian chiptune artist Pulselooper asked me to remix a track off his new album “Lisergamida“. You can download it there, or stream it over on my Soundclown.

Pulselooper Remix ‘Vertabimode’ now available was originally published on Peter Swimm

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ICH.BIN won the TURNTNES Compo!

I made a track using only Doomcloud‘s NES samples for the HEXAWE TURNTNES COMPO and it Won! Check out my song and the 17(!) other great tracks on the Hexawe Bandcamp

TURNTNES by HEXAWE

Thanks to the artists who voted, Marc for making this rad tracker, and Chipspeech for the vocal assist!

ICH.BIN won the TURNTNES Compo! was originally published on Peter Swimm

[shrimps]

Our girl Shruthi is in our corner.

[peterswimm]

A Very CIA Torture Report Xmas

Don’t waste time on trying to Pandora DJ your Office Holiday party, instead enjoy this 90min CIA Curated Holiday Playlist. Happy New Year!

A Very CIA Torture Report Xmas was originally published on Peter Swimm

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Vampire Greasers From Mars

My good fiend David Brown posted his high school masterpiece from the late 90’s on the youtubes. You can find some embryonic synth music from me around the 3:00 mark and tons of awesome pathos and vampiric violence before glitter ruined everything.

Vampire Greasers From Mars was originally published on Peter Swimm

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A Laser for Lovers: Unknown 80's Gem Unearthed!

A Laser for Lovers – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (RSFM-0001) by BLEO

Available now on Resofame is a project a few years in the making. I served as “executive producer” of the “restoration” of the found audio and included textual archival data. Support my friend Brady Leo and order it today from the Bandcamp link!

Recovered from storage and forgotten about… until NOW: Resofame Recordings’ debut release! This appears to be the completed soundtrack to the never-completed film, A Laser for Lovers. It’s unclear what exactly happened with the film’s failed production. However, in 2012 we discovered a box in an abandoned storage locker containing a VHS cassette the original score (VHS allowed for higher fidelity than cassette), a (presumably) Brazilian trailer with Portuguese subtitles, an original Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge with a test ROM of the game’s intro screen and a folder with script treatments, storyboards and letters to the composer. We have painstakingly digitally restored and archived our findings and after two years of legal negotiations, we are able to share our findings with the rest of the world.

BONUS! Each purchase gets a hi-res scan of the official movie poster, storyboards, production notes, Brazilian trailer and the abandoned Nintendo Entertainment System game ROM and NSF (Nintendo Sound File), ripped for your enjoyment!

I have a few download codes to give away, so if you are a DJ, have a radio show or a podcast, or want to share the link with friends and family, hit me up in the comments!

A Laser for Lovers: Unknown 80′s Gem Unearthed! was originally published on Peter Swimm

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CHRONOFLAME: Blazing Through History

15-16 years ago, friends of mine participated in this online collaborative thing called ORI Epic, which was basically fanfic for a bunch of bands with mythos like Servotron, Man or Astroman, and Operation Reinformation. Hot on the heels of this, I came up with an idea with a friend of mine David Orr about these time traveling firefighters who solve historical fires.   Alas real life took over, and the idea was forgotten but not before this first act was emailed to Mr. Rick Vodicka,  who in kind sent it to me this week.

I present to you:

CHRONOFLAME: Blazing Through History (working title)

Your characters:

Bruno, a firefighter

Rex, Bruno’s “partner”

Supporting characters:

Moses, a cranky prophet

Aaron Hitler, a European aristocrat

Jonathan Brushneck, the Fire Chief who makes his own rules, but hates when you play by yours.

Joaquim Slinko, a time travel specialist

Dildoledes, a greek scholar in Pompeii and regular bathhouse attendee

Al Capone, a mobster and setter of the Great Chicago fire

Oscar Swellbelly, the firefighters’ archnemesis

Pawny Mittens, Rex and Bruno’s “girlfriend”

Borromel the Swarthy, holder of the sacred Encyclopedia Panmillenia

Act 1 Scene 1

Downtown Dresden, 1945 6:00 PM. Fires ravage the city in the wake of Allied firebombing. Millions of lives are threatened. We see a dark alley in the heart of the city, slowly being covered in soot. All of the sudden, a powerful time machine rolls onto the screen. The pod bay door opens and out step Rex and Bruno.

Rex: Looks like a heavy one, Bru.

Bruno: Yeah, but nothing we can’t handle… together. (Lingering glance)

Rex: HOSE IT!

Foam covers the screen. Title sequence begins.

Scene 2

Exterior of a expensive German estate, home of Aaron Hitler, patron to the arts.

Hitler: That was a close one… it almost got to the orphanage.

Rex: And what’s more, we just barely saved the German poetry archive.

Bruno: That was at the orphanage?

Hitler: (Distractedly) Yes, yes of course.

Bruno: Well, thanks for the hospitality, Mr. AARON Hitler….

Rex: You’re a kindly patron to the arts.

Hitler: (A brief intake of air, and then an exhalation of satisfaction) I love children and I treat the oppressed with a gentle bearing.

Rex: Indeed, you’re a man’s man.

(A short pause to reflect in Herr Hitler’s exuberant benevolence)

Hitler: Before you go, you need to see the animals.

Bruno: I see two right now!

Camera pans to Hitler and Rex, then follows their gaze to look at mounted deer heads.

Wipe to time travel sequence…

Scene 3

(Exterior old office park, tattered sign reads Slinko’s lab.)

Slinko: (As our heroes enter) This is the best fruit chew ever!

Rex: Slinko?

Slinko: Welcome back, fellas! The chief wants to see you! Where have you been? I expected you back ten microns ago!

(Rex and Bruno stare blankly.)

Slinko: Chronos’ Beard! Just a little temporal humor! Get outta my lab!

(Cut to chief’s office.)

Chief Brushneck: Sit down and close the door. Okay, you two schlemiels. How many times have we been over Timecode Regulation 643A-18?

(They smile blandly)

Chief Brushneck: (Holds up four fingers) Four times, guys. Four times.

Rex: (Bored, distracted, staring at nails) We can explain.

Brushneck: I don’t need anymore of your little yuppie-assed explanations. You fools still have no grasp on the dire consequences (dramatic muzik) of your actions while in the Chronozone. We are talking Irreversible damage to the fabric of time… and neither of you have a sewing machine big enough for that job.

Bruno: (Standing, Spotlight) My grandmother was 6’2.” Her arms were the limbs of a redwood. She could split an apple in her fist. Once, she gave my entire seventh grade class a whupping we wouldn’t soon forget! I’ll tell you one thing– I’ll never play tether-ball in the orchard again.

Brushneck: (Engrossed in the digression, but irritated) Could she sew?

Bruno: Oh, yes sir! She could sew circles ‘round ‘most any woman in the county! Even ol’ Hattie McCane was little more than a funhouse reflection in Granny’s chaw-spit when it came to sewing. Fabric of space? P’shaw, I reckon she could sew a half-inch seam in it faster than you can whistle “It’s Raining Men!”

Brushneck: Wow… (Thoughtful pause). You know what… HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP? You screw up like this one more time and you are off the squad, for good! And to make sure you don’t drop the ball again, I’m assigning you two another partner.

Rex: Who?

(Bruno figures it out first, and groans with growing agitation)

Brushneck: Borromel? Get your fuzzy ass in here.

Rex: The pooch?!?!

Brushneck: That’s right. Ladies, allow me to introduce Borromel the Swarthy, holder of the Encyclopedia Panmillenia. If you guys fudge up with this …thing… on your side, I’ll personally tear your Chronolicenses a new pie chute.

(Borromel enters with an dramatic flourish)

Borromel:  Sir, I must protest. I am currently in the throes of a scientific fit! Research for the next edition of the Encyclopedia is only up to the P’s…  this is of paramount importance.

Brushneck: Go tell it on the mountain, poochie. You, Rex, and Bruno are a team. And in the next 24 microhours, you’re leaving for Pompeii, Greece. Now get your bony china-white asses out of this office and into the Chronoprep Bay, ASAPMOFO.

Borromel, Rex, Bruno: But…

Brushneck: (insistently) GO!

To Be Continued… (No it won’t)

CHRONOFLAME: Blazing Through History was originally published on Peter Swimm

[peterswimm]

Review: LPH-001 Quik Lok Stand

The worst part (well except for just about everything else) about being a electronic dude is the table situations in clubs. They are meant for setting drinks on, not making the artist look like a tall confident performer. Every schlub with a laptop has a picture where they are huddled nebbishly over their arcane gear, and frankly I am sick of it, so I went out and did what EDM artists do best with problems: THROW MONEY AT IT.

Enter the Quik Lok LPH-001. This company makes all kinds of stuff to hold your stuff on, and this stand is NO EXCEPTION. It will hold the fuck out of your mixer, your little keyboards, an Ableton Push, WHAT THE FUCK EVER. Anything you got (probably under 15 lbs or so to be on the safe side) will proudly be held erect by the stand with its relatively sturdy tripod design. If you are some mincing laptop dude it’ll hold that too, but why bother pretending you are a proud member of the homo sapien genus, if all you are going to do is just stand up and run MMC transport, right?

Pros: Its a stand. Its black. It holds your moderately size junk at a height that befits your standing in society. Rubber strips keep stuff from sliding around on the surface.

Cons: It doesn’t lower very well, so if you are Mr. Shortstuff, you might to try it on before you take it home. You can set it pretty high but then it becomes super precarious so whats the point? Just get a keytar strap and rock out like your nerd frat is rocking the greek games already. Doesn’t come in colors other than black if you have a problem with shades that match everything.

Final Verdict: If you got $40 USD and a sore back, there are worse things to waste money on.

Review: LPH-001 Quik Lok Stand was originally published on Peter Swimm

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Wave Mixing in LSDJ with Monowave

  Within the recent updates to LittleSoundDJ comes a fix for the kits wave mixing, meaning better sample playback and improvement of a  great sound design trick for LSDJ hackers. I started off with importing a complex waveform with single cycle elements, Monowave. The results were pretty interesting. The key to all the below sounds is using wave mixing and manipulating the resulting offsets between the waveforms to make interesting drones that you can control in various ways.

The basic process is:

Load the kit file (at the end of the article) into a blank space on your ROM

Load a instrument and load your kit into both slots

Pitch is very broad, so you might want to layer the sound on top of a pulse note to help tune it. AFAICT it is in cents, more or less.

Offset will select which step in the waveform the loop will start. You can set both to the same value or slightly offset for cool phasing tricks.

Len is how big the looped section will be. a LEN of 1, is basically a single cycle, and big LENS play more of the sample. Monowave has cool fake filter sweep sections in it, so play around with the kit.

LOOP should be set to on

Speed can be used to half the drone pitch. Heavy Bass!

DIST is another tool to really grime the sound up, be sure to dig the settings mentioned in the manuals hidden mode.

The biggest issue  is this process will murder your DMG-01’s CPU. You will probably have better results on a GBA SP, or even a Color Gameboy. Using the latest version of LSDJ is strongly recommended as well. I posted some screenshots of the patches in the demo below:

Snare Sound

Bass Sound

Drone Sound

Download the Kit

Patch your ROM

Let me know feedback on the kit and what cool sounds you guys come up with. The next project will be making 12 voice kits of pitched waveforms. Four voice chords anyone?

    Wave Mixing in LSDJ with Monowave was originally published on Peter Swimm

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New Track: 'Ghilan' on 'Micro Music For Micro People' Comp

About forty years ago I submitted a track to CDK’s “Micro Music For Micro People” compilation and now it’s finally been released!

The comp is “a chipmusic tribute to Fat Wreck Chord’s Small Music For Small People. 101 tracks, 101 different artists, all approximately 30 seconds or less”. Aside from my track there are ones from some of the most talented artists in the field, many of whom I am privileged to call friends.

You can hear my track, and throw CDK some money at Bandcamp.

New Track: ‘Ghilan’ on ‘Micro Music For Micro People’ Comp was originally published on Peter Swimm

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Do Midi 2.0 At DEFCON

A “A High Quality Publication for MIDI Users” features a micro review by me of the Mutable Instruments Midipal. Available exclusively this weekend at DEFCON and the CODAME concerts.

Order Online

Do Midi 2.0 At DEFCON was originally published on Peter Swimm

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New Arduinoboy from XIWI Electronics

For the last few years I have been abusing the Arduinoboy Midiout feature in my sets to control my external midi gear with my Nintendo Game Boy running LSDJ. This has allowed me to focus on crowd control and trying to remember the three chords each song has with some decent results. For most of that time I have been using a Scienceguy built unit, but I have never been happy about its build quality and worried about the day when the unit finally bites the dust. Recently I saw a new product from Brooklyn based tinkerer XIWI Electronics which looked pretty robust and I figured what the hell, and ordered a unit from their online shop.

The unit itself is solidly built. It has sleek looks and the detachable link cable and power supply are handy in connecting to my various Game Boy units. One thing I noticed is that some modded Game Boys are no longer able to power the Scienceguy via the link cable, so having external power is something I will have to research to see if it has any impact on solving the issue. The unit is powered using my Voodoo Labs pedal power unit that I use to power my Nord Micro Modular, my Shurthi-1, and various other gear with no complaints. The push button looks gorgeous and feels great, but in operation it is a little finicky and may require double presses to select the various modes.

In actual operation, it works like pretty much every other Arduinoboy. Some users have reported problems in getting their Arduinoboy to send midi properly, so here are my settings via the maxpat editor found on the Arduinoboy website:

A quick note:

- I use four channels of midi. 1,2,4 are controlling synths so they are just assigned one CC, CC1 for modulation. The whole range of the CC is scaled across the usable range of the CC message. The noise channel is mapped to channel 3 which controls all my various effects boxes. Here I use various CC messages to toggle on and off various effect settings for my guitars and vocals.

This is a very robust unit high value unit that simply works as advertised. The unit is sturdy and reliable in limited testing and is a good product for those who are looking for getting into LSDJ syncing and external midi control. If anyone has questions please post them in the comments.

New Arduinoboy from XIWI Electronics was originally published on Peter Swimm

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Tutorial: Using Soundfonts in Littlegptracker

Updated 04/02/15: Fixed errors, adding some additional information.

One of the more overlooked (and unknown) features of Littlegptracker is it’s ability to use soundfonts for audio sources.

To help clarify things up I decided to put together a short how-to to cover how it works.

Getting Started

If you have read the links above you already know what soundfonts and littlegptracker (piggy) are, so let’s focus on what the implementation is like and what you can do.

The piggy sample browser does not yet support soundfont browsing, so to create a project you will need:

To manually create a folder: ex. lgpt_Soundfonts

In this folder create a subfolder name: samples

In this folder copy one soundfont.

I have posted an example project with samples from the MT-32 here:

http://hexawe.net/mess/sf2/lgptMT32.zip

You can just unzip and drop this in your project folder to try it out.

When you start your piggy project for the first time you will find that whatever soundfont you have loaded now has its instruments assigned to each piggy instrument.

There are a few features/drawbacks you should be aware of.

Features

If the soundfont has loop points they are automatically selected. You will need to do your own vol fades and kills in the pattern to stop the loop from playing.

You can adjust the pitch of the sample playing back by adjusting ROOT NOTE.

Instruments that are multisampled will be layered across the range of the keyboard per the soundfont settings. Drum kits for example will be assigned to each note. String samples will be correctly assigned so the better the quality of your soundfont the more realistic your sample will be.

You still have the full assortment of bit reducing, and filter options to mangle the sound.

You can use a combination of soundfont and midi instruments in your project.

You can change the soundfont sample assigned to each instrument if you want to create different instruments with different filter or panning options. Try adding a filter cut to a cello sound to make it sound like it is coming from farther back in the “room”.

You can purge instruments to free up instrument slots, the soundfont instruments are still available in your sample pool when browsing.

All of your non loop based piggy effects commands work, pan, filters, retrig .. go nuts!

Drawbacks

You cannot delete or add samples to the soundfont once you start editing it seems. You can always add or remove samples to your font using a tool like Vienna for windows or Polyphone for osx

Larger soundfonts will load slow on handheld devices (sorry psp users!).

You cannot purge soundfont samples you don’t use from the project to reduce folder size

Piggy does not support advanced soundfont features like reverb, chorus, or advanced modulations or articulations.

It will not honor release points, so you have to fade out the loop part, which may sound weird in some fonts

You can only load three soundfonts per project (but each font can have up to 128 instruments!)

That is basically all there is. There are millions of soundfonts available on the net, so feel free to experiment and report bugs and weirdness on the Piggy mailing list or official forum. To get you started check out this zip of old school soundchip emulation hosted by the fiends at HEXAWE.

http://hexawe.net/mess/sf2/oldschool.zip

      Tutorial: Using Soundfonts in Littlegptracker was originally published on Peter Swimm

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The future.

The future. was originally published on Peter Swimm

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New Net Label: Toilville

http://www.vimeo.com/52436812

Toilville is the new Net Label i’m am starting up, aside from reissuing some mid millennial jams we put out earlier this century, we are trying to highlight various releases from working class weirdos.

First up is Seizure Music from Hell’s Own Satan Robot. This video album made with the MTV Music Generator for the original Sony Playstation and is chockful of lofi EBM subliminalisms, and today we posted a preview of the track “Fashion”.

For more information please follow Toilville:

http://www.toilville.com/tag/seizure-music/

New Net Label: Toilville was originally published on Peter Swimm

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"October Surprise" on the Hexawe "Monorave" compilation

Put out a song on the really fine MONORAVE comp. Get it from Hexawe, soundcloud, or the Bandcamp link above.

“October Surprise” on the Hexawe “Monorave” compilation was originally published on Peter Swimm

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Concert for the Gnomes at The Ewok Palace

For Mady!

Concert for the Gnomes at The Ewok Palace was originally published on Peter Swimm