ritmo san

Talent Shows from Around the World

2010-11-23T21:55:00.000-08:00

I've been watching various talent shows from around the world; while the language is hard to understand, it the commonality of the general format (intro, performance, judging) makes it very accessible. Given that this is not a completely new phenomenon, I wondered whether it was possible to observe and learn from the reactions of the judges and the audience, the culture where the show is set in. I am fully aware that much of the show is cut and recut to the directors will, but still.

Paul Potts bone chilling performance was as much created in the studio as by the man himself (I often wonder whether his voice was not untouched by post production). We see a benignly simple man, a mobile car phone salesman, and his sky high ambition of becoming a opera singer, steering us to a 'what' moment. The rest of the clip, is a work of art in terms of it's post production quality; first we see a close up of the tape player, as if we were all waiting for a space shuttle to lift of, the tension building at this point, the camera points at the crowd, they too are tense which re-inforces our point of view; then Paul Potts sings, from this moment onwards, we repeatedly see everyone's reaction, and the judges, and together experience euphoria. I have watched that clip many times, and it seems to always do the same for me.

If in the least it should be possible to extract the popular culture of the place the show is set in, what is normal? what is acceptable? what is it to be talented and deserving of the stage that the show provides. This shouldn't be surprising since these shows are based around being popular and likable.

I was worried that I would extract from the various clips of the shows, the clips I think would fit the way I saw them, and in a way my projections:

The first clip is just that,

Here is a show from Brasil, Qual E O Seu Talento?

It is of a group named Bonde Do Bixo (Bonde is equivalent to 'clique' or a 'crew'), performing the song. What I wanted to ask for myself is, how the audience perceived Baile Funk, given it is of the illicit / prohibited nature?

It was hard to gauge: there seemed to be a lot of young girls in the audience who obviously loved it, but I heard the word 'Baile Funk' mentioned so much that it seemed it was not of the norm or mainstream; so it is perhaps a popular underground culture - but something the general populace is unwilling to appreciate. I really wish I knew what they said.

Loops as DNA for Memory

2009-10-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

In the world of sampled music, it doesn't take a length of sample to recognize a distant tune; you immediately begin to hear the entire loop sequence, the riffs the drums the break-downs and the lifts;

For me today it was Bucky Done Gun, a small sample I heard at the end of a song named Wayun (Booty Breaks) - it instantly set me off, I could see M.I.A flailing her arms around to the timeless miami bass / baile funk like beats.

DnBop and Techno

2009-08-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Soviet DnB

Apparently DnB is quite big in Russia. How Big? I will never know.

Check out the channel for more bopping vids

Tecktonik

Supposedly a form of dance originating from suburbs of france where people began listening to electronic music from the north that was considerably different to hiphop and rock and warrented a crazy contortionist movements.

Cumbiera

2009-07-30T03:30:00.000-07:00

Tune into the slow dubbed out churn of Cumbiera, it has similarties to baile funk in that it tells stories of life in poverty of the people in barrios on the outskirts of the cities. I hope those rich kids don't steal this music too (Bonde De Hole!?!) .

http://soundgoods.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/la-villa-cumbiera-mixtape/ via soundgoods

I stole this pic from here: http://www.fotolog.com/eveesabalera/49171840

Julie McKnight

2009-07-30T03:28:00.000-07:00

Time marches on never ending,
time keeps its own time,
Here we stand at the beginning,
and then goes passing us by,
And I, I,
I can dream for us all,
I hope I'm in a better state,
When here and now crumbles and falls
and you, you,
you who make worlds collide
I knew you'd come knocking one day,
unannounced like a thief in the night.

Where do we go from here,
time ain't nothing but time,
I now have no fear of my fears
And no more tears to cry,
tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow means nothing at all
If we don't hear the line,
when today places its call,
and morning, morning, morning
Won't ever be the same,
now I won't make the same mistakes,
time and time again (5x)

[Chorus ]
So tell me how do you do
Finally I meet you
You don't know what I've been through,
waiting and wondering about you
I had a dream my trip would end at you,
and now I know paradise.

[1st verse again flipped ]

[Chorus (2x)]

Baile Funk, My Favorite Tracks

2009-06-17T00:59:00.000-07:00

This is from Rio Baile Funk Booty Beats Volume 1

Mengao 2000 Part I
Pavaroty
Mulher Coca Cola (coca cola women)

Chapa Quente:

Popozuda Rock' n Roll
Jonathan II (it has the old school 7bit segamega samples!)
Tapinha
Planeta Dominado!
Academia De Furacao I

hip hip chin chin, club des belugas

2008-12-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

Cansei de Ser Sexy - Alala

2008-03-17T02:44:00.000-07:00

first heard on http://www.reasoner.org/archives/355

Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite

2008-01-07T04:14:00.000-08:00

Can you say Deee-Groovy ?

Turn my Headphones Up!

2007-12-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Just heard "Turn my Headphones up" by Joshua Heath (Salted Records) on Dj Dacha's 'Christmas 4 Party' Mixtape (57:00). I couldn't help but chuckle as this wasn't the first time I had heard the phrase.

I heard this on a skit on the Chappelle Show, showing 'puddy' an up and coming rapper who was shot in the ear and wants his headphones turned up.

If this is insprised by the skit, this wouldn't be the first time material from Comedy Central has made it into a House Track; 'Badonka-Donk' is another track which features a crank call made by Spoony Love (from up above) from the Crank Yankers (also played by Dave Chappelle) to the Village Voice to get his rather warped requisites of what he is looking for in a women in the personals. Quite an enjoyable track to listen to also.

Mix 001: Latin House

2006-12-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

- track list coming soon -

file: mix001.mp3

Using Open Source Applications to Mix Your Own Music

2006-12-07T23:24:00.000-08:00

Mixing your own music
... can be a lot of fun but one of the things that stop many people from trying is the cost of the equipment necessary and the lack of knowledge on what is needed.

There's nothing special about a mixing desk, usually it consists of two independent cd/record players and a crossfader to either select or mix which players sounds to send to the main speakers, and a monitor so that you can listen to the other player without it having to be heard on the main speakers. There are other gizmo's in between like equalizers and various effects ... they are just that, a mixing desk is still perfectly useful without them.

A very generic computer (without any special hardware) can be used to simulate a real mixing desk. Almost all desktop grade computers come with an onboard sound card that is equipped with 4/6 channel audio capability for surround sound, while one can still manage with a simple stereo sound card - a channel (left or right) has to sacrificed for the monitor output. With surround sound capable sound cards one line can be used for the main speaker output and the other (usually designated for rear speakers) can be used as a monitor output.

There are a few DJ's that use computers to Mix Music - most likely because they can carry a lot of music along with them and find it quickly when needed. Computer based Desks most likely use either Windows or MacOS, and probably specialized hardware such as an additional sound card and expensive software like PC DJ and Virtual DJ.

Mixing on Linux ?

"Mixxx is designed for DJ'ing for both professional and semi-professional users. Mixxx was started in early 2001 as one of the first digital DJ systems. Today Mixxx includes many features common to digital DJ solutions, but also some very unique features: It is free, and runs on all major desktop operating systems. Futhermore Mixxx has a number of key features to help the DJ in the live mix: Beat estimation, parallel visual displays, and support for many DJ input controllers."

Mixxx is a really great tool, its easy to use and setup* and has everything you need to get started. I am using a AMD Duron 1600 Mhz with an onboard graphics card, I found it helpful to turn off visuals. Mixxx provides parallel visual displays that help you visualise the song as well as provide cues to where the beat are (through beat estimation) ... I turned this off as this is a bad habit, so is using the bpm counter. Think about this, you make this awesome mix, and by chance you were asked to play on real records or cdj's then it'd be very hard or near tragedy. So turn off visuals, it helps your system run faster (esp. if its old like mine).
http://mixxx.sourceforge.net

"JACK is a low-latency audio server, written for POSIX conformant operating systems such as GNU/Linux and Apple's OS X. It can connect a number of different applications to an audio device, as well as allowing them to share audio between themselves. Its clients can run in their own processes (ie. as normal applications), or can they can run within the JACK server (ie. as a "plugin")."
http://jackaudio.org/

Jack also lets you patch streams of audio like you would on an old fashioned telephone switch, "Have you ever wanted to take the audio output of one piece of software and send it to another? How about taking the output of that same program and send it to two others, then record the result in the first program? ...".

Both Mixxx and Jack Sound Server are available on Ubuntu and can be installed with:

sudo apt-get install mixxx jackd qjackctl

(with universe/multi-verse enabled)

A quick summary on running mixxx with jack

open a terminal window and register a su session:

sudo ls
password:

run qjackctl ( kills sound daemons )
sudo qjackctl &

start jack server with four channels (for mains and monitor)
sudo jackd -R -p alsa hw:0,1 -S &

start mixxx
sudo mixxx &

when you are ready to record ...
start jackrec with buffer (creates a wav file)
sudo jackrec -B 99999 -len 123123

switch to mixxx and start mixing, when you are finished stop jackrec by hitting ctrl-c

and thats how I did it!