The video captures a live session by The Palindrones at Knobcon 2024, part of the event’s series of electronic music performances.
The Palindromes are made up of David Battino (Waveform Magazine, Electronic Musician Mag) and Aaron Higgins (1010 Music)
What they shared about the technical details:
Timings:
0:00 Intro
0:09 Reading/Slash/Rereading
6:47 Revenge of the Subway Thief
12:08 Satan, Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas
Recorded live on a 1010music Bluebox. Mixed in Ableton Live. Thanks to Shawn Johnson (The Breathalyzer) for the audience mic. Video effects by Gordon’s WireWorks, Golfshoe Music, and Poor JR.
The video, via Worldwide FM, captures the first session of Triology – a collaboration between Worldwide FM, Gilles Peterson and Rhodes focusing on the art of the classic jazz trio format of electric piano, bass and drums.
The initial Triology session features a tasty performance by Brazilian musician Amaro Freitas on Rhodes electric piano, accompanied by David Mrakpor on bass and Barrell Jones on drums.
The video is an example of something that we’d like to see more of – manufacturers promoting their electronic instruments by simply capturing great performances that showcase their instruments in use. A couple of other great examples of this are the Spectrasonics Sessions video series and the Moog Sound Lab video series.
Watch the video and share your thoughts on it in the comments!
The video, via The Free Radikal, captures a live performance featuring the often-maligned AKAI Rhythm Wolf drum machine and synthesizer.
What they shared about the technical details:
“The Rhythm Wolf is sequencing a Korg MS-20 on the bass section and a Vermona DRM1 plus itself for percussion. The Akai Timbre Wolf is sequencing an Analogue Solutions Impulse Command on 1 channel and also a Waldorf KB37 with Analogue Solutions Medic Modules on another channel.”
The Rhythm Wolf was introduced in 2014, before the renaissance of analog gear of the last few years. The Rhythm Wolf generated a huge amount of interest, because on paper it looked like it was going to be great. This was followed by a backlash when initial demo videos came out, and the instrument just didn’t sound very good in many of them.
While the Rhythm Wolf is built like a tank and has a straightforward interface, the design is let down by pots that simply do not give you enough range of control over the sounds.
This is most notable on the kick, which is pitched. The controls do not let you tune the kick over the full range of an octave, meaning that the instrument will only sound in tune if you’re playing in a key that you can tune the Rhythm Wolf’s kick to. This is the instrument’s biggest flaw, and one that you have to work around, or the results will sound bad – like most of the early demos.
Open Music Labs has an interesting discussion of this at their site, and some suggested mods that they say fix the issue. If you’ve tried them, share your thoughts on the mods in the comments!
