IDM Mailing Archive

yes, more funkstorung... just got back from seeing the boys play at the spot in baltimore. (super shouts to sonic soul once again for providing the balt / d.c. area with something to do...) no more comparisons to autechre. it's nonsense at this point... inspired by ae, yes. do they continue to sound like ae? NO. first off, no samplers were used by funkstorung. and no DAT machine containing samples. my point being, no samples of autchre in an attempt to sound like autechre. funkstorung, at this point in time, sounds like funkstorung. no computers of any type were used during the performance. no hiding behind laptops or secret black boxes in a lame attempt to hide what equipment they used. (btw, i think laptop / desktop platforms kick ass. this isn't an 'argument' against computers. it was just a pleasant surprise...) oh yeah, they do use a computer for remixes and stuff. (and patch editing i suppose...) just wasn't present at their performance. as for the use of MAX, that's yet to be seen. for the gear oriented readers of this list (or other curious bi-standers...) you might be interested in the choice of 'tool's used by funkstorung. virus modular synth nord modular (micro) synth yamaha ry-30 drum machine alesis _forget the name_ sequencer (MMT something??) alesis wedge some other wedge-like processor (didn't catch the name...) mackie (i think) 16 channel mixer everything was completely driven by the alesis sequencer while chris and michael processed the sounds coming out of the ry-30 and the modulars. pretty damn amazing from a technical point of view. i had no idea an alesis wedge could mangle sound in such a glorious way... super-wicked drum programming coming out of a rather 'plain' machine. incredible, incredible, incredible... basically, they were stepping through sequences and noodling around with the effects in real time. (while making some adjustments to the nord and virus...) oh yeah, the music. it had a beat. it was rhythmic like in property. you could even dance to it. it was so fucking sweet. lovely little melodies with plently of bass. there's a fine line (at least to me..) between simplicity and complexity. funkstorung have found the pleasant median which divides the two. simple in texture yet complex (or evolving...) enough to hold your attention. instead of choosing the route of the 'what the fuck' beats and odd-note melodies, funkstorung maintain a somewhat accesible formula. still a bit challenging but you don't get lost in all the sequencing jobs. btw, it's almost 5:00 in the morning, so please excuse my choice of words / descriptions... (haven't been to sleep yet) they played for about an hour, but an hour more would've been gladly welcomed. if you haven't seen this 'tour' yet, definitely try and catch it. from what i gathered (in a whole 2 minutes of broken conversation...) they seemed like a very friendly bunch of guys. always remember to do your fast fourier transforms before you eat breakfast. find your infinite impulse response and try and maintain a fourth (or fifth) order butterworth. while graphing the poles and zeros (on a polar plot...) make note of any 'stray' zeros which may lie outside of the circle. equalization of the magnitude must include equalization of the phase. the coefficients of complex and real numbers will help you 'fold' the zeros back into the circle. MATLAB reflected sound waves make for bad acoustics, christian -- " Make More Juice! " ICQ# 15688864

quoted 2 lines no more comparisons to autechre. it's nonsense at this point...

> no more comparisons to autechre. it's nonsense at this point... > inspired by ae, yes. do they continue to sound like ae? NO.

i second that... i can't wait to hear the new album.

quoted 10 lines for the gear oriented readers of this list (or other curious

> for the gear oriented readers of this list (or other curious > bi-standers...) you might be interested in the choice of 'tool's used by > funkstorung. > virus modular synth > nord modular (micro) synth > yamaha ry-30 drum machine > alesis _forget the name_ sequencer (MMT something??) > alesis wedge > some other wedge-like processor (didn't catch the name...) > mackie (i think) 16 channel mixer

they also had a Nord 2 rack, and i believe it was a mmt-8, or mmt-80? something with 8s.

quoted 5 lines everything was completely driven by the alesis sequencer while chris and

> everything was completely driven by the alesis sequencer while chris and > super-wicked drum programming coming out of a rather 'plain' machine. > incredible, incredible, incredible... basically, they were stepping > through sequences and noodling around with the effects in real time. > (while making some adjustments to the nord and virus...)

i had the same exact thoughts.. the absence of a sampler surprised me. there was a very jammish feel to the whole thing, and they got an amazing array of percussive sounds (that were put to good use in great head-nodding beats) from a, as you said, pretty plain machine. it was great to watch, too.. when the beats would kick in, both heads would start moving up and down and four hands would be skittering about, twisting knobs and moving sliders... they never stopped moving, and despite the fact that the crowd was almost entirely people off the street or nightclubbers out looking to dance like a retard with some skimpily-clad rave kitties, f'ng seemed to hold everyone's attention..

quoted 2 lines from what i gathered (in a whole 2 minutes of broken conversation...)

> from what i gathered (in a whole 2 minutes of broken conversation...) > they seemed like a very friendly bunch of guys.

despite problems with their flight which got them to the show after or around 12pm, they were super-ecstatic and smiley, shaking hands with everyone. AND NOW! some funny things i overheard that make me love my city even more than i already don't: Bouncer #1: "i don't even know how to say that... funkstrung? funkastorung? what is that, what language is that?" Bouncer #2: "Russian." Bouncer #1: "no, i think it's..." Bouncer #2: "No, i know Russian, it's Russian." and later.. when Funkstorung still hadn't arrived yet.. DJ #1 (sticks his head out of the door and asks Bouncer): "Seen any germans with keyboards go by here?" he stuck his head out the door and repeated this no less than 3 times. some guy walked up to Mike + Chris right before their set started and shook their hand and said a few sentences which i swear had the word "aphex" repeated 2 or 3 times, but i wasn't close enough to hear the actual content of that conversation. ,rj../k

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, christian a. h. wrote:

quoted 2 lines yamaha ry-30 drum machine

> yamaha ry-30 drum machine > alesis _forget the name_ sequencer (MMT something??)

MMt8

quoted 4 lines alesis wedge

> alesis wedge > some other wedge-like processor (didn't catch the name...) > mackie (i think) 16 channel mixer >

I think that is admirable of them to actually be playng live using midi and sequencing and mixing live. I remember someone commented that they were "repetitive"-- well compared to someone with a laptop who is just playing 100% prearranged sequences or just mixing recording of their hard drive, these guys would have a lot more challenging performance to pull off. One of my peeves has revolved aroudn this issue, actually, as I have played live shows where I was the only person programming the music live (changing and editting the sequencing and improvising the mix) and the audience didn't seem to give a shit. Someone else would go on and mix dats or cdr's and get all the hype. You can't play or do certain things wiht a minimized live midi setup that you can do in the studio, so you can't fully show your potential, and this is why programmers wimp out and don't meet the challenge of doing something live on stage: they might look less slick than on their records. So they play their records, or their dats or cdrs or harddrives (and they insult their audience in this way, IMHO)

quoted 1 line pretty damn amazing from a technical point of view. i had no idea an

> pretty damn amazing from a technical point of view. i had no idea an

quoted 1 line super-wicked drum programming coming out of a rather 'plain' machine.

> super-wicked drum programming coming out of a rather 'plain' machine.

The RY-30 isn't so plain, though, as you can record changes to pitch, filter, pan between oscs/waves, and decay length in each of the drum sequences you make, so the sounds morph within the pattern of the drum beat. This has only ever been matched in the last few years' x0x-box craze (mc303, mc505, jomox, korg er-1). Also, and most amazing of all, any drum sound can be altered in any of its' settings while the beat is still playing. If you are organized in your approach with this box, you can program it to send 2 kits out each of its 4 outputs and essentially have 4 parallel drum patterns of the same length at once, each with a seperate mixer channel/efx.

quoted 3 lines incredible, incredible, incredible... basically, they were stepping

> incredible, incredible, incredible... basically, they were stepping > through sequences and noodling around with the effects in real time. > (while making some adjustments to the nord and virus...)

Ihough I only have found two of their 12"s I liked enough to buy, I would definitely go see them now, especially knowing that they really might be composing live and not just a laptop with their recordings on harddrive. It's inspiring to hear that their are people still playing live sets... solenoid

I have to agree with the others, the show was excellent! A lot of people there didn't seem to know what was going on, though. It was funny. I was surprised more people weren't dancing because much of the show was pretty danceable. I had to get down myself a few times cause the beats were so nice! It seemed like they were ready to keep playing but the club people turned the lights on at 2. I talked to Mr. Fakesch a few times (right before they went on and after) and said a few words to Mr. de Luca as well. Do they understand English very well? They didn't really say much, but were very nice...they just smiled a lot. Maybe they thought I was stupid (all I said mainly consisted of gushing fan talk type stuff). Anyone know when a full-length is due out? If it's anything like the show material it will be fucking great!! Also, there were two DJs on in the same room before Funkstorung went on. They played some cool stuff. It was strange to hear BoC in a club! BTW, for those that were there, I was the guy in the striped shirt dancing like a fool by himself and sweating a lot. :) God, it was fun... Jeff