I made a podcast for a ten year artist project called A Decade With Mars by Ella Good and Nicki Kent. It’s a 15 minute soundtrack made up from music and recordings compiled from their work for the past year, within which, Ella and Nicki have been following the progress of applicants of the famously ambitious Mars One project as well as hosting happenings throughout the year in the form of space balloon launches.
I swear I actually had this idea about four years ago! Ok, I probably not the first to think of it BUT… wouldn’t it be wicked if a smartphone had an adaptable surface which changes depending on what screen you’re on, this way you can have tactile feedback on a touch screen device. Maybe they could work like a Pin Point Impression but using smaller more detailed pins…
I just came across this, which could be the closest we have so far… (click the image to find out more)
This is apparently the world’s most advanced prosthetic limb. I’ve seen more advanced than this, from the CIA, but their one is currently under development. The company that make this version is called Bebionic, you can find their website here…
This is maybe one of the best things I’ve found on the internet. I saw it a few years ago fully expecting it to have had loads of views by now but it’s still amazingly only had about 100 views on youtube. Check it out and give this guys some credit for the effort and skill gone into making this lo-fi but brilliant Daft Punk cover…
Since about 2007 I’ve been using grooveboxes to make music. They’re wicked. They’re immediate, fluid and portable. Probably the most fun you can have making electronic music because, if you use a good groovebox, you can make something that sounds great as quickly as you can using a normal instrument, like a guitar or piano, and on top of that they look mega geeky but in a retro supercool way.
A groovebox is like an all-in-one music making unit. They have drums and synth sounds along with some kind of miniture keyboard or pads to play with your hands as well as a few knobs, faders and buttons to twiddle away at. You can chuck them in your backpack and they essentially fit on your lap if you’re out and about.
These are the top kiddies in my book of grooveboxes.
Korg re-invented the groovebox in the late 90s with the Electribes, they made them small, simple and modern. This was the first groovebox I ever baught and, to be honest, I’m still trying to find one that tops it. Massively diverse, a far as sounds go, you could write d ‘n’ b, house, techno as well as indie music with this. I even saw an electronic noise artist use one at The Milk Bar the other week. I wrote most of my music with Tumbling Squares using this little beaut and the only problem I’ve ever had with it is that it eventually started to crumble underneath my fingers. I still have it now but it’s barely usable, the pads are unresponsive, the fx knob has completely come off, and the pattern wheel skips. Saying that when these babys work they really really work. Sh*t… I need to get mine fixed.
Not technically a groovebox, the MPC is a sampler and MIDI sequencer; to the layman basically the same thing. The MPC range is renown as being the staple of hip-hop music, I’d say 75% of all hip-hop from the 90s was written using an earlier version of one of these. They are slower to use and not quite as instantanious as the Electribes but those 16 pads on the front are like magic, this machine is the closest you’re gonna get to a box feeling like a real instrument. There’s also something about the sound of the samples you make with the MPCs, it always sound crisp as hell and punchy too. They also let you make rhythms without a fixed timing meaning you can make rhythms that sound natural and real rather than K-R-A-F-T-V-E-R-KÂ G-R-I-DÂ M-U-Z-I-K.
Ok, with these last two I’m kinda cheating cos…I’ve never actually used them! (lame). They’re way out of my price range. These are top spech models.
The Tempest is a groovebox made in collaboration by Roger Linn and Dave Smith Instruments. Both of these companies have a serious history in electronic music. Roger Linn built and designed the Linn Drum in the 80s which was the first ever drum machine to use actual samples of real drum sounds (used by Prince and Michael Jackson no less), he also helped Akai to design the MPC60 and MPC3000 both which are said to be the best MPCs ever made. Dave Smith Instruments come from predominently a synthesiser background, they built the Mopho, a synth I’ve been drooling over for the past six years, and the Prophet 5, the first synth to ever feature a save function (I mean, not particularly glamorous 👴 but still…notable).
If you heard demos of this baby you’d be like “whoaaah”…
Seriously cool, the OP-1 is like the apple mac of grooveboxes. It’s *tiny* and it’s battery powered, and it’s beautifully designed. An independant Swedish company Teengage Engineering have kind of, what you’d think is like an outsiders perspective on drum machines and synths. Whereas the Electribe, MPC and Tempest are all made by giants in the field the OP-1 is the new guy. The sound is totally different to anything else, being really digital and clean sounding, and the design is also very different. The work-flow as far as I can tell works almost like a dictor phone. It has this little pretend tape machine inside it which you use to record all of your sounds, as if you were a kid making your own radio show at home, but once you’ve done this you can also usb it into your computer and transfer all the sounds you’ve made onto your computer for editing on a big DAW like Logic or Ableton. Really neat and really nice, only problem is…it costs about £500!
Maaw…someday.
If I had all of these at once I’d basically have a different act going on for each one. They’re all totally different in style but really cool in their own right. Nothing beats a groovebox.
Roger Linn is a legend in electronic music history. He built the Linn Drum, which leater led to the MPC, basically the foundation for at least 60% of all hip-hop music. He’s totally humble and an all-round-cool-guy. Check out Wired’s new article on his latest instrument, The Linnstrument.
SUPERBEAT 