Asaguare's blog

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Get your daily smacker ration from Tommy!

Today I discovered another online (Flash) sequencer. No, it's not on a new audio mixing site, surprisingly I found it on Aviary (http://aviary.com), a site commonly known as host for excelllent online graphics tools.
Their audio editor, called 'Myna', looks like a standard multi track audio mixing workstation and clips can be imported from Aviary's user library or from local drives. Arranging clips seems to be pretty easy, objects are draggable and can be edited (cut, stretch, pitch, fx). Automation for volume/panning is available. There's also a recording option, e.g. for adding own vocals. Mixdowns can be saved locally or published (they're rated and commented by the community).
All in all a very nice tool, comes handy if you have to create some audio on the fly. Reminds me of the old Splice sequencer a bit.

Whether being musician or poet, when lyrics have to be worked out, we all struggle with the rhymes. At least I do, and often I've overseen words that in addition would've matched the context pretty nicely. Of course there's a bunch of English rhyming dictionaries on the web, but it's hard to find German or French ones.
Therefor I wrote a tiny online app (Rhyme Search) that covers English, German and latin based consonant stems:
http://raschedv.net/tool/rhymsrch.html
There's no specific database behind, it works in a rather simple way by combining the ending of your input word with all kinds of consonant prefixes, generating a list of rhyming candidates. Most of the outcome doesn't really exist in any language, but it's pretty much inspiring though.
For example, if you enter 'mile', you'll find the well-known words 'file', 'pile', 'tile' and 'while' in the list. Reading the results out loudly, you may also detect 'dial' (instead of 'dile'), expand 'xile' to 'exile' or even spot 'denial' in 'nile'. It's up to you and your imagination - happy rhyming ;o)

Ok, now you can download your melodies in MIDI format. The players I've tested use the standard piano sound @ 120 BPM. Some players - e.g. Windows Media Player - may cut the last note, because I didn't append a pause. On the other hand my soundfont player renders correctly, the last note's release is ok.

Being a friend of cabalistic methods, I wrote a little browser app (javascript) for translating text into melodies, based on definable scales. Not quite a necessary tool for composers, but I needed it in one of my projects, an instrumental essay about a particular person. I entered name, date/time of birth, birthplace and other infos and generated a persuant melody (sequenced note names), sort of personalized theme if you will, which I could use in the tune.
The algorithm is mathematically strict but also non-reversible, that is, a generated melody cannot be retransformed into the primary text. Hence we can't talk of a 'hidden message' in a traditional sense; it's rather like comprising an unvisible and unresolvable secret. At the utmost a listener would think 'hm, what a strange melody course', not even assuming the origination process behind the scenes.
Yea, that sounds pretty much esoteric, doesn't it? Anyway, I've put my Melodizer online to let the loonies play with:
http://raschedv.net/tool/tx2mel/tx2mel.html
Have fun ;o)

Today I roamed the web, looking for some fresh musical inspiration, when I stumbled across http://www.magnatune.com.
A contact point for independent musicians and also an interesting place where you can listen to their albums (all titles full length!). They're providing a variety of genres from classical to modern styles, and for each artist you'll find individual background information.
Just like Jamacast, they keep away from major labels and music industry to enhance the financial position of musicians.

Autogun: an interesting VSTi which doesn't require any synth programming skills:
http://www.image-line.com/documents/autogun.html
And why not share outstanding preset numbers?

Maybe a good source for sound hunters:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sound_samples

Wanna know about new music out there? Or read background stuff and reviews? Or just listen a bit to get inspired? Here's where I'm usually going to: hypem.com.
They call it a hype machine, and that's pretty much it: a constantly updated long list of music blog links and also with particular mp3 links - you can play the songs immediately in their on-site player. For unregistered users (like me) the count of player clicks is limited; if you find an interesting band/song I suggest to visit the respective blog directly (by clicking 'Read more...'). Then you can read the whole article on the original site where you'll often find videos and further music links.
I love the broad variety of styles on hypem, not only mainstream but also a lot from classic, jazz, tech/electro and experimental. Ok, the next time you're bored, just check it out and get imbued. I'm sure you will like it.