GADGET SHOW GADGETS: BREAK THE MUSIC MAKING MOULD!

Is anyone else getting bored with the same old sounds cropping up in numerous songs all over the country? To me it seems that the current trend for the vast majority of aspiring music producers is to play it safe; attach themselves to a specific genre of music, and attempt to copy the sound and the structure of what already exists. They will judge the completion of a track upon whether it sounds like what already exists, and whether they can envisage it ‘fitting in’ within their chosen scene. They will let their personal artistic judgement be clouded by what they see as the ‘norm’, and go along with the crowd in an attempt to gather an easy following. Their equipment of choice will be decided by what they see their musical idols using, and they will strive to achieve those exact same sounds!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration! There is no such thing as a completely original idea, and so taking inspiration from other artists is inevitable, and encouraged! If another artist creates something that you find truly fascinating, then why not learn how to do the same and manipulate it in your own way for one of your own tracks! My moan here is with ‘artists’ that seek simply to copy another artists style, jump on the current trend bandwagon, and saturate a 'style' of music with the same old sounds! A good example of this would be within the Dubstep scene, where every week, hundreds of artists release similar sounding material, each with the same rigid drum beat, song structure, and tiresome wobbly synth bassline! Again, there is nothing wrong with this type of song, they serve a specific purpose, but after an hour or so of the same stuff on a night out, it does become rather boring! In my opinion, if an artist is churning out track after track of material with almost identical elements, sounds, and structures, year after year, then they have lost touch with the most important creative aspects of music making, and have simply become a machine, with the primary function of making money and gaining popularity and fame.

I once ventured into the basement room of a nightclub to find the sound technician still setting up the rig by plugging wires into a mixer on a table. I stood and watched for a while waiting for the proper act to start. There was an incredible amount of feedback coming through the speakers, so I assumed that something was wrong, and I felt a little sorry for the technician, desperately plugging and unplugging wires to try and eliminate the offensive feedback. Just as I was about to leave to go back to the bar upstairs, three men in the corner caught my eye, bobbing up and down to some kind of invisible music….then it struck me! The guy on the stage wasn’t the technician at all, he was the ARTIST, and he was creating feedback loops at different frequencies to create music! Now I have to admit, that it wasn’t greatly musical in the traditional sense, and I couldn’t discern a proper structure, and so in my fickle youth I escaped to the safety of the upstairs bar! But looking back, I think, ‘fair play’ to that guy! He was doing something completely different and radical, and I have massive respect for that! The whole musical scene would become stale if it weren’t for people like this, people who didn’t stick to the usual musical ‘rules’ and standard pieces of equipment, and sought to create new and exciting sounds!

Now this brings me on to the main purpose of this blog entry…did anyone else see the Gadget Show the other day? The episode where two of the presenters were set the challenge of recreating the shows theme tune using alternative methods and instruments. Click here if you missed it and want to see how it went!

THE GADGET SHOW - LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!

The basic concept of the show was that Suzi was given the challenge of re-creating the shows theme tune using unusual instruments, whereas Jason’s task was to do the same, whilst using gadgets that he modified to suit a musical purpose. Both presenters actually managed to do a fantastic job, and I was especially fascinated at how Jason managed to modify a selection of children’s toys into an impressive, unique digital orchestra. However, my job for today will be to give you a little run-down on some of the unusual instruments used by Suzi, in the hope that you too may be inspired to wander off the generic musical equipment path, and begin to experiment by using non-orthodox instruments, with new, unique, and surprising capabilities.

THE GADGET SHOW - ROLAND V-DRUM TD20KX

The first piece of kit encountered by Suzi were the Roland TD20KX electronic drums. The kit comes from Roland’s new V-Pro series, and comes jam packed with hundreds of powerful and expressive sounds, allowing the user to create their own custom drum kits to suit their specific needs. This essentially allows performers/composers to get really creative, and mix-and-match sounds that would not normally be associated with each other in one kit! For example, why not have an electronic kick drum, with a rock cymbal, and a wooden snare? It sounds crazy, but you never know!

The kit is designed so that when a drum is hit with varying strength, it not only changes in volume, but also changes in tone. And tone also changes depending on where the drum is hit. For example, playing the snare from near the rim toward the center produces a smooth natural change in tone, just like a real acoustic kit!

The Roland V-series drums all come with patented mesh head technology, which are meticulously designed to capture all your drumming nuances in a natural way (e.g. flam, roll, rim shots, etc), allowing the kit to accurately reproduce your drumming techniques with outstanding responsiveness and sensitivity. Essentially, the mesh heads actually feel like acoustic drum skins, and so you do not have to alter your style in any way to play with the TD20 kits. The multi-layer mesh design allows a much wider tension range than single-layer mesh heads, so you can easily tension the heads for exactly the right feel to fit your playing style with a standard drum key.

The extremely durable mesh heads are also crafted to produce very little acoustic noise when struck, which brings me onto one of the main advantages of electronic drums; they are volume controllable, or even usable with headphones, meaning that you don’t need to annoy the neighbours ever again…unless you want to! Plus, they also come with a sequencer and mixer to record your performances!

Roland V-drum kits are available in various set-ups, with prices ranging from £492.15 for the smaller HD1 Lite kit, right up to the beast that is the TD20KX kit at £5099.15. You can also check out our Youtube channel for visual demonstrations of the kit!

However, whilst she was quick to express her excitement about this piece of kit, she admitted that it was perhaps a little too conventional compared to the next products we are going to look at…

THE GADGET SHOW - ROLAND HPD-15 HANDSONIC

Another piece of kit from Roland that was encountered by Suzi, was the HPD-15 hand percussion multi-pad, which also makes use of the V-drum technology. The large circular pad at the heart of the piece of kit it divided into 15 zones, which can be assigned to different sounds and triggered independently or simultaneously. The built in pressure sensors allow for realistic muting and pitch control of sounds,and the main pad also supports positional sensing, for realistic timbre changes depending on the area of the pad that is struck. The HPD-15 comes with 300 percussion and drum sounds, and even includes onboard reverb and multi-effects processors.

As well as including a selection of dials to control drum timbre and pitch, the HPD-15 also makes use of D-Beam technology, which uses an infrared light beam to detect the position of your hand from the HPD-15, and control parameters such as pitch, filter cutoff, or drum triggering. The unit also features a built-in 4-part pattern sequencer, providing 99 preset and user patterns. And with MIDI In and Out, you can use the HandSonic as a sound module or as the ultimate controller for playing into your sequencer. Perfect for composition or live performance (especially if combined with an optional hi-hat controller and kick trigger).

The HPD-15 is available for £849.15, or in the less feature-rich version, the HPD-10 is available at £526.15.

THE GADGET SHOW - YAMAHA TENORI-ON

We have only recently posted an in-depth blog entry on this fantastically unique piece of kit (click here to view it), but I will take the time to give a basic overview of the instrument for those of you that are not aware of it’s capabilities.

The curious looking Tenori-On is constructed from a 16×16 LED matrix, allowing a unique way of intuitively playing and visualising compositions. The Tenori-On features a number of different performance modes, each allowing you to create musical output by pressing the LEDs in different ways. Tenori-On layers can then be built-up and sequenced, giving the unit full compositional capabilities. The interesting light effects created by the Tenori-On make it perfectly suited to live performance, and the features that it has built in also suit live performance applications perfectly. As it’s methods are not completely conventional, it may take a bit of practice to get used to, but it will go a long way to gearing your performances towards new and unique levels. It is currently used by artists such as Little Boots, the hilarious Bill Bailey, and the fantastically experimental Four Tet.

The Tenori-On is currently available in two formats, in the original Tenori-On (£839), and the Tenori-On Orange (£569), which only features one side of LEDs.

THE GADGET SHOW - KORG KAOSSILATOR PRO

The Kaossilator Pro is the latest incarnation of the extremely popular Kaossilator from Korg. The product features an intuitive X-Y touchpad for realtime control, making it another gadget perfect for live performance. Simply rub, stroke, or tap to produce complex musical gestures, with horizontal motion controlling pitch, and vertical motion controlling tone parameters such as cutoff, feedback, or modulation depth. Hence, the Kaossilator Pro can be used to instantly create complex sounds, which would otherwise require much time and care, playing with synthesisers, envelopes, LFOs, and automation parameters.

The Korg Kaossilator Pro comes complete with 200 sounds, from modern synth sounds to diverse acoustic sounds. It even includes a number of one-shot drum hits, and complex percussion patterns, and vocoder programs for creating some unusual vocal effects.

The Korg Kaossilator Pro comes with no less than 31 scales to add to musical expressiveness, from major, minor, blues, and beyond. It is possible to specify a scale and a key, and then use one finger to program in perfect melodies and phrases, that would be a struggle with a standard keyboard. The unit also features a number of more unusual scales such as Spanish, Ryukyu, and Raga, allowing you to create a variety of unorthodox melodies, especially when combined with the built-in gate arpeggiator.

Loops may be recorded into the Kaossilator Pro, either from the unit itself, or from an external source, making it an extremely versatile piece of kit, with some awesome capabilities.

THE GADGET SHOW - EIGENHARP PICO

The Eigenharp Pico is another one to add to our list of weird looking instruments. With it’s 18 playing keys and 4 mode keys, a strip controller and breath pipe, the Eigenharp Pico is extremely versatile, yet simple to use. The instrument is extremely light and portable, and as well as featuring the standard solo play mode, can be used to play loops, change musical scale and key, transpose, alter tempo, program beats, create arrangements, and switch and layer multiple sounds, all while playing live. It’s ideal as a solo instrument or for playing in a band.

The breath pipe is sampled at 2000 samples per second, and responds in the way that you would expect: by blowing down the pipe at varying pressures. It is also sensitive to both blown and drawn breath, making it an extremely powerful piece of equipment indeed. As well as drawing sounds from it’s in-built library sets, the Eigenharp Pico can also be used to play custom soundfonts, or hooked up to control a virtual instrument, meaning you can now manipulate some of your favourite technologies in a completely different way!

THE GADGET SHOW - SMULE OCARINA

The Ocarina application from Smule makes your iPhone or iPod sensitive to your breath, touch, and movements, and turning it into an ancient flute-like instrument. It gives advanced options over diatonic, minor and harmonic scales, and is played by blowing into your iPhone’s microphone, and placing your fingers on the screen’s ‘hole’ combinations to create sounds, and tilting the device to control vibrato rates and depths, and melodies may even be recorded and played back at will. Click here to visit the iTunes store and download Ocarina for yourself (£0.59).

SUMMARY

Here, I have just taken a brief look at a few of the masses of unique products that have not yet been fully embraced in a commercial sense, and hence offer the possibility of pioneering a new sound for a new generation. Don’t let yourself get boxed in and stuck in the ‘standard’ way of doing things. Draw influences, but along with this, experiment for yourself and discover unique sounds and ways of working. Go on, push the boundaries and break free…I dare you.

AND JUST INCASE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ANY OF THIS EXTENSIVE RANGE...

[Purchase the ROLAND TD20KX+P V-DRUMS KIT WITH STAND]

Purchase the ROLAND TD9K+P V-DRUM KIT

Purchase the ROLAND TD9KX V-DRUM KIT WITH MESH HEADS

Purchase the ROLAND TD4K V-DRUM KIT

Purchase the ROLAND TD4KX+P V-DRUMS KIT WITH STAND (ALL MESH HEADS)

Purchase the ROLAND HD1 V-DRUMS LITE

Purchase the ROLAND HPD-15 HANDSONIC HAND PERCUSSION PAD

Purchase the ROLAND HPD-10 HANDSONIC 10 PERCUSSION PAD

Purchase the YAMAHA TENORI-ON

Purchase the YAMAHA TENORI-ON ORANGE

Purchase the KORG KAOSSILATOR PRO

Purchase the EIGENLABS EIGENHARP PICO ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENT (BLACK)

Purchase the EIGENLABS EIGENHARP PICO ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENT (SILVER)