On Friday I'm going to Birmingham (Sutton Coldfield) for three months (until early may) for an engineering internship. What should I know? What's the Birmingham area known for amongst Britons? What should I absolutely not miss in my down time? What social norms (at work or otherwise) might be unusual to me? What do locals do for fun? What parts of the city should I wander around in to get a sense of the place (and in which areas would doing so get me killed or served with an anti-social order)?
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posted by phrontist
on Jan 27, 2010 -
14 answers
I was playing around with a keyboard at a Guitar Center that had an auto-harmonize feature. Below a certain note pressing a key would play a chord instead of a single tone. What was interesting was that playing chromatically (white and black keys) it played chords that retained a firm sense of key (C major) - if you jumped around randomly or did chromatic runs it didn't sound like there were a bunch of modulations taking place. What formula do you think it used to do this?
posted by phrontist
on Aug 31, 2009 -
8 answers
Is there anywhere in the DC area I, being relatively broke, could practice on a real piano?
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posted by phrontist
on Aug 21, 2009 -
7 answers
Who produced
this psychedelic video for Within You, Without You by The Beatles? Is it part of some larger project? Where could I find it at higher res (how would I search for a torrent)? Where could I find the interesting mix of the song used in it (which samples a drum break from Tomorrow Never Knows).
posted by phrontist
on Jun 6, 2009 -
3 answers
Can anyone recommend music that makes use of somewhat advanced counterpoint but doesn't have the rhythmic feel generally associated with baroque music?
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posted by phrontist
on Aug 4, 2008 -
20 answers
Why are sine waves considered "pure" tones? Why do we consider sinusoids the building blocks of periodic functions?
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posted by phrontist
on Jun 28, 2008 -
35 answers
I can't believe I'm going to blow a question this, but here goes:
I keep hearing this really lame hip pop track that features the artist calling out:
Whooooooooooooooooo?
Yoooooooooooooooooou!
and then some references to superman. It's stuck in my head. I can't seem to google it. I've listened to everything on the charts. Help me go to sleep.
posted by phrontist
on Sep 2, 2007 -
5 answers
Name my radio show, which focuses on electronic music, centered around genres like: idm/braindance or whatever we call it these days, dub, trip-hop, chip music (as in... gameboy's and C64's), aleatoric, grime, dubstep, minimal, electrofunk, deep house and so forth.
I would say the primary theme of the show is music that is interesting not only for doing something creative, but for doing it with newly available technology (for it's time). I also have a bias towards music that is rooted in Jazz or other improvisational traditions. Aside from what is decidely artsy-music, there is also a smattering dancable music and mashups deemed clever enough. There is no dance music of the foor-to-the-floor variety though, and it is not primarily a dance show.
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posted by phrontist
on Jul 26, 2007 -
26 answers
When I read the biographies of artists I admire, they always seem to start with lines like "began playing the piano at 5", "got first drumkit at 7", and so forth. Every great musician I've known personally got started at a very young age, usually before age 12. Have there been any successful (defined here as having produced music enjoyed by a significant number of people) who came to music relatively late in life? Past 18? 30?
40?
posted by phrontist
on Apr 22, 2007 -
29 answers
I'm looking for a sample pack of all of the words/letters/numbers/phonemes from a Speak n' Spell (and/or derivatives). I'm not looking for crazy circuit bent samples... just something I can piece together words/phrases out of. Surely someone has done this.
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posted by phrontist
on Jan 20, 2007 -
9 answers
I'm looking for artists/songs that sound like the slide-guitar/banjo intro to KMFDM's WWIII. I'm not really very familiar with bluegrass (is that even the right genre?) outside Bill Monroe, and none of his stuff sounds much like this.
posted by phrontist
on Aug 27, 2006 -
7 answers
I want to learn to play keyboard, a continuation of sorts of
this question. When I say this, I mean a MIDI controller - for the sake of being a midi controller, not as a stepping stone to piano. My goal lies primarily in doing something creative musically (dare I say "compostition" at some point down the line) with software synths played live (by me, not a tracker). So the answers to that last question have sent me on my way theory wise, but how do I learn to actually, you know, move my fingers around?
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posted by phrontist
on Aug 1, 2006 -
9 answers
What is the sound first heard in Lazy Lover by the Brazilian Girls (heard at a later part in the song in
samples found here)? I saw them live last night and it was, as I expected, sampled/synthesized and possibly hawaiian in origin.triggered via keyboard...
It may be a unique sound, but I could have sworn I've heard it somewhere else, and that it's a real instrument, and I associate it with hawaii for some reason.
posted by phrontist
on Mar 4, 2006 -
6 answers
This idea for a visual effect has occured to me, and I want to implement it, just to see what it's like. I know Perl and C/C++, but I am heavily biased towards a *nix environment. Description of video transformation inside...
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posted by phrontist
on Feb 23, 2006 -
7 answers
Theatre Audio Filter: I'm looking for stereotypical "award show" music, the kind of thing they'd play at the Emmy's when an acceptance speech runs to long. Or perhaps the kind of thing you'd here as the contestants walk on stage during a beauty pageant. More Inside!
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posted by phrontist
on Jan 30, 2006 -
4 answers
Seeking reccomendations for music with Dutch vocals, any dialect, any genre.
posted by phrontist
on Dec 14, 2005 -
11 answers
Anyone know how to use an
Octapad?I have recently aquired a (used) Roland Octapad II, an old MIDI drum trigger set that looks like
this, via eBay. I want to test it to see if it works, but I (presently) have no synth/drum machine or anything else with a MIDI IN to test it with. (more inside)
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posted by phrontist
on Dec 7, 2005 -
4 answers
Is there a commerical version of something like this
eDrum project? I've found severa "drum modules" that take input from drum trigger devices and turn them into MIDI, but most of them are quite expensive. I'm hoping this is because they include built in sound generation. I am simply looking for a box that will take trigger inputs and produce MIDI output for as little as possible.
posted by phrontist
on Nov 9, 2005 -
3 answers
Could a vocoder be used to imitate some elses voice? If you had a recording of someone speaking, could you make a sample of their "carrier" sound and modulate it with your own voice? You would have to vary the pitch of the carrier to sound like normal speech, but assuming you could do that (a big if, I know), it would be fairly convicing no?
posted by phrontist
on Aug 9, 2005 -
5 answers
I'm going to Belgium (Gent area) in a while and I'm interested in really exploring european music (electronica/dance espescially). I'll be there for the last 5 days of
De Gentse Feesten. I'd like reccomendations for live acts to see (electronica or not) and places to pick up vinyl that would be unavailable/expensive stateside (dance music in particular) in Gent.
posted by phrontist
on Jul 9, 2005 -
3 answers
I'm the webmaster (well, host is more like it) for a band of talented young men with whom I attend high school. They're having a concert in an auditorium with seating for over 500 and I'd like to see it filled. How do you go about promoting a small local band's concert? [mi]
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posted by phrontist
on Mar 30, 2005 -
11 answers
