My ChucK

Look at what I've discovered by accident. And its perfect for me too. Now I will be able to fuse both my love for programming/computers with my love for music. Its a new concept if you will. A new programming language called ChucK. Made by this guy called Ge Wang who, like me, was also fascinated and passionate about both Computer Science and Music.

According to the website at chuck.cs.princeton.edu, ChucK is a strongly-typed, strongly-timed, concurrent audio and multimedia programming language. It is compiled into virtual instructions, which is immediately run in the ChucK Virtual Machine.

It also features on-the-fly programming which means you can manipulate code and see the effects immediately without shutting down or restarting or recompiling. Very nice concept.

Here's a video demo of what might be. Its still under active development and many of the tools are in alpha or pre-alpha phase (Read: Not ready for human consumption... Yet...)

My Mojo

Ok, anyone who's anyone and who uses iTunes I beseech you. Go and get Mojo! So that we can share songs over the interwebs : )

My Big Anticipation

Ok so by now you guys should know that Apple will be holding an event on the 9th of September (10th for us in Malaysia because of all that time zone differences and crap). Anyhoo, if you don't already know - SHAME ON YOU - or well maybe I'm just a bigger geek/nerd than I thought I was and most of the world doesn't wait hand and foot for every word that falls out of "The Steve's" mouth (no, not our stevemaesto lololol but the big-kahuna-at-Apple Steve). So, yeah there's this big event coming up and Apple's all hype about it and it seems bigger and greater things are to come (when are they ever not?).

So whats it all about? Well, it seems from what rumours I've been able to gather (i.e from macrumors, tuaw, and all the other usual sites us macgeeks frequent) we might be looking at a refresh of the iPod line-up, iTunes8, new iPhone firmware with alleged "hidden features" and maybe, just maybe... New machines. Well here's to hoping. As at time of writing I can't access Apple's site.

My Absolution

Thank you <3~!

Ps: Charlie Parker is the man! :)

My Current Favourite Song

Its not often that I have one. But this one I just love to bits! Antonio Carlos Jobim is a genius I tell you. With just one note (well two actually...) he made this song. Pure genius. Now this isn't him, but I kinda like this version.

Oh yeah btw, anyone know where I can learn to be a Jazz Xylophonist? ;p

My Companion

Just one word, KOOP. Awesome band. Just my taste too, they play like this upbeat swing-ish kinda Jazz which is right up my alley. I haven't enjoyed a band so much in a very long time as I have enjoyed listening to KOOP. Thanks to The Chay, these past few weeks have been at least bearable. Anyway, back to studying (final finals baby! >_<). In the mean time, here's a taste of what KOOP is like. Awesome I tell you.

Come to Me by Koop. From the "Koop Islands" album

My Goofy Neighbours

(In a country-ish sort of way... I am of course talking about Singapore)

Now, before you see this just keep this thought in mind. You can find out all about this guy, Dick Lee, in the wiki entry here. Suffice to say, he is a very well-renowned musician and composer and has composed National songs for Singapore. So, he's like really up there you know. Anyway, enjoy the video : )

My Realisation

Ok, so looking back on my previous like 10 posts or so. Almost all of them have had something to do with Apple's iPhone, and if you my dear reader's are not sick of it, well I am starting to get sick of it too haha (Maybe its coz I finally got to play with one and be around one for extended periods of time muahahaha). Anyways, its just that looking forward to getting an iPhone is probably the only thing keeping me sane in this really really crappy period of my life. Won't list it out here, but lets just say sometimes I get emo too.

Anyways, been listening to Acoustic Alchemy recently thanks to a recommendation from The Lam (Dude, sorry la but you're name just doesn't sound as nice as say The Chay, The Kash, or The Thong LOL). Yeah, back to Acoustic Alchemy... Listening to the album "This Way" now. And I must say I like what I hear. Very down tempo, very easy listening. And seems they've been around for a very very long time. Since the early 80's in fact. I'm gonna try to get their earlier stuff. So far from what I can listen, their songs have like this really nice groove to it while the melodies are really smooth and the keyboard parts are excellent while still being simple.

My New iPod (Finally...)?

New iPods are out. Nuff said.

The new Nano...

The new Shuffle...

The (new?) Classic...

And the Piece de resistance... The iPod Touch

Blast From The Past!

Wow, I'm sure everyone knows this song. Its like freaking classic man. Tis a smidgen of gay but hey, that was the 80's man. Now I'm not really sure if this is the original music video or just one of them man. Its got everything man. Cheesy white men dancing, cheesy dance moves, with their cheesy fashion, cheesy camera work, fast zooms, but again... Its classic man. So anyways, enjoy : ) ...man.

Misery Business!

Now blogging from my university's computer lab (where I should be studying for my exam) and it sucks! The internet here is so friggin' slow, though I blame the ISP instead of the university. Or maybe I should blame them too! Well whatever it is, until I can get Streamyx (which isn't better by far anyway but its the best under current circumstances) in my house here in Semenyih, I won't be able to blog like usual. Oh well, anyways I leave you with my current favourite song. Misery Business by Paramore! Acoustic too : )

OMG! I think I'm falling in love <3

Paramore and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Paramore : Riot!

Wow! I have been listening to these guys for the past week or so. And all I can say is, I like! They are not super technical or anything, nor are they producing like totally blow-your-brains kind of music but their arrangements are really nice. My favourite song from their new album, Riot!, is Misery Business. It starts out with this really nice 30's or 40's style intro and then goes into their rock riff. Superb! Their lead singer is a female who goes by the name Hayley Williams. She's like a cross between Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Amy Lee, in terms of her voice and singing style. Now, I've actually heard about them quite awhile ago from my friend but never really took notice until now. I will definitely try to find their album and buy it.

Also listening to...

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus : Don't You Fake It

Another Rock band (pop punk according to wiki) whom I've heard of. Kinda reminds me of Blindside this one does muahahaha. 

(Images stolen from wikipedia. So credit to them and to where ever they got it)

Review of The Edirol UM-1EX

As I've posted before, I would post a review of my new "toy" when I got the chance to play around with it. Well thanks to my good friend Lam, I did get a chance to go test this baby out. And to cut the story short, it was everything I dreamed it would be.

First things first,

The specifications:

("stolen" from Roland's website)

• Fast and stable MIDI data transmission realized by FPT (Fast Processing Technology)
  
• 1 MIDI in, 1 MIDI out
  
• MIDI Thru switch
  
• MIDI signal indicators
  
• Complete cable-style body from PC end to MIDI ends
  
• OS native driver support
  
• USB bus powered
  
• Plug and play!

You can see Roland's page of it here

What it Does:

Well basically its a USB to MIDI converter. So the MIDI part plugs into any standard keyboard out there or any MIDI controller. There are two MIDI plugs (one for input and one to output) so you can plug it into any MIDI sequencer and get the sequencer to play the sounds from your computer as well. The USB port plugs into your computer (obviously) and is truly plug and play, as in you don't need any fancy drivers though I can't speak for windows users since I've only tried this out on my mac. It supports Core Audio and Core MIDI so its Mac friendly : ) For those who are paranoid or who want to utilize their "high-quality", FPT Technology, you can install drivers which are available for Win 98/ME/XP/Vista and Mac OS 9/X. Frankly I've been using the thing as a plug and play module and I can say it rocks!

Ok so on to how I use it. Macs come with this fantastic program called Garage Band which I used to think was only good for making techno/trance like music or for playing around and not for doing anything serious. Boy was I wrong. After watching an online seminar showcasing the power of Garage Band I was impressed. Not only can you record you stuff into Garage Band and create and arrange music and all but there is one thing that they didn't mention which I thought about. Which is, you can actually use Garage Band as your synthesiser. That is super cool! Now no matter what keyboard I'm given to use, I can always rely on Garage Band to produce superb sounding instruments. This also means that what was once just Piano and Strings is no more! I am no more limited by the keyboard and its meagre bank of sounds/instruments. And the cool thing is that I can add more software instruments through the use of Jam Packs.

So now, with this means is that the keyboard itself is just a "controller" to my computer which is my synth. I tested it out on two keyboards one August night and I have to say, it rocks! It was exactly as I had imagined it to be. I just plugged it in, launched Garage Band and there it was, I could change the instruments to sound like a 12 String Guitar or a Violin or even a Saxophone. Cool I tell ya! And there's also organ sounds, cool effected sounds. And I even managed to match the organ sound that Matt Bellamy used on the song Feeling Good. I am totally stoked haha.

My Rating:

Well I give it a 4 out of 5. Why? Because out of all the nice things that it allows me to do, I still can't find a way to store it properly because of its "cable" design. So for now, it still sits in its original packaging but I will have to do something about that soon.

I Got A New Toy!

Edirol UM-1EX

Yup, Sunday church services will not be the same again. I hope. Man, the difficulty in locating this thing in Malaysia! Now to test out this thing, I will post a short review on it when I am done playing with it haha. What is it you ask? Well its basically a USB to MIDI converter/cable. What it does is, it allows me to plug in any keyboard with MIDI to my computer and use my computer as a synth. This is good, as it also means that I am not reliant on the keyboards sounds and can do a lot of cool stuff with GarageBand.