By Madeon:

Also via reddit.

Filed under: abelton, beats, madeon, novation, video · 0 Comments

I’ve never seen this video before.. It’s based on “Esther’s” by Amon Tobin. Found via this incredible MeFi post about Ninja Tune.

Filed under: Amon Tobin, beats, Ninja Tune, video · 0 Comments

I found this video on the Engine-EarZ Experiment YouTube channel. It’s a live dubstep collaboration between the Engine-EarZ and Nathan “Flutebox” Lee:

Filed under: beats, dubstep, EngineEarz, flutebox, tabla · 0 Comments

XFCE4 from Debian unstable (“sid”) does not seem to bind the hardware volume-up, volume-down, and mute keyboard buttons on my ThinkPad to any actions.  It’s convenient to be able to control the sound card with these dedicated buttons – no twiddling around with the mouse to reach for a volume slider when NWA hits your playlist and the boss walks over.  I suppose this is just a rough edge with the current XFCE integration; Gnome seems to handle this pretty well out of the box, but then again, Gnome is a bloated pig compared to XFCE. So here’s one way to make the buttons work in XFCE.

First, you’ll need to make sure some prerequisite packages are installed: the package that provides the “amixer” binary, and some variant of awk. Open an XFCE terminal window by clicking on the XFCE “mouse” logo in the XFCE panel, then clicking “Terminal”. Become root by running the following and entering your root password:


su -


Then install the appropriate packages — here’s how to do it in Debian:


apt-get install alsa-utils mawk


Once the packages are installed, drop root privileges:


exit


Then let’s pick a place for our scripts to live. This example will assume that they will go into a ‘bin’ directory underneath your home directory; so, let’s make sure that exists:


mkdir ~/bin


Now, on to the scripts. Copy and paste the following script as “~/bin/alsa-toggle-mute”. Probably the easiest way to do this with a stock Debian system is to start the ‘nano’ editor with:


nano ~/bin/alsa-toggle-mute


highlighting the script below, and then using your middle mouse button to paste the script into the nano terminal window, then using “Ctrl-x y ENTER” to save the file:


#!/bin/sh
#
# alsa-toggle-mute
#
##########################################################
#
# AMIXER: path to your 'amixer' binary
AMIXER=/usr/bin/amixer
#
# CONTROL: sound card control to adjust: run 'amixer' to find this
CONTROL="Master,0"
#
# LEVELKEY: pattern on 'amixer' output lines to search for that provides
# the current control level
LEVELKEY=Mono:
#
##########################################################
#
$AMIXER sset $CONTROL \
`$AMIXER sget $CONTROL |
awk "(/$LEVELKEY/) { if (\\$NF == \\"[on]\\") { print \\"mute\\" } else { print \\"unmute\\" } }"` > /dev/null


Make the script executable:


chmod 700 ~/bin/alsa-toggle-mute


Then attach it to the hardware mute button with the XFCE keyboard settings manager GUI. Click on the XFCE “mouse” logo that should be on the edge of your XFCE panel; click “Settings” from the pop-up menu; then click “Keyboard”. Click on the “Application Shortcuts” tab. Then click “Add”. XFCE will ask for a path to the command; enter the full path to your alsa-toggle-mute script, e.g., “/home/username/bin/alsa-toggle-mute” — of course, you will have to substitute your username in that command. XFCE will then pop up a box waiting for the “Command Shortcut” — at this point, press your hardware mute button.

That should be it! Your mute button should now work.

Now let’s add support for the volume-up button. Save this script to “~/bin/alsa-volume-up”:


#!/bin/sh
#
# alsa-volume-up
#
##########################################################
#
# OFFSET: amount to increment/decrement the control level: e.g., -1
# decrements the volume, 1 increments the volume; values with
# a greater absolute magnitude will decrement or increment the
# control level more quickly. Use "$1" if you wish to pass
# the offset in from command line parameters
OFFSET=1
#
# AMIXER: path to your 'amixer' binary
AMIXER=/usr/bin/amixer
#
# CONTROL: sound control to adjust: run 'amixer' to find this
CONTROL="Master,0"
#
# LEVELKEY: pattern on 'amixer' output lines to search for that provides
# the current control level
LEVELKEY=Mono:
#
# LEVELFIELD: awk field number of the current control level
LEVELFIELD=3
#
##########################################################
#
$AMIXER sset $CONTROL \
`$AMIXER sget $CONTROL | \
awk "(/$LEVELKEY/) { print \\$$LEVELFIELD + $OFFSET }"` > /dev/null


Make it executable:


chmod 700 ~/bin/alsa-volume-up


Attach it to the hardware volume up button by following the same instructions as for the mute script (above), but in place of “/home/username/bin/alsa-toggle-mute”, use “/home/username/bin/alsa-volume-up”. And rather than pressing the hardware mute button, press the hardware volume up button.

Then let’s handle the hardware volume down button. This time we will take a shortcut. Rather than copying and pasting another script, we’ll just copy and edit the volume-up script that you’ve already saved:


cp ~/bin/alsa-volume-up ~/bin/alsa-volume-down


Then edit the ~/bin/alsa-volume-down script in nano to change the line that reads “OFFSET=1″ to “OFFSET=-1″:


nano ~/bin/alsa-volume-down


.. edit the script, then use “CTRL-x y ENTER” to save.

Then, as before, attach the script to the hardware volume down button by following the same instructions as for the mute script (above), but in place of “/home/username/bin/alsa-toggle-mute”, use “/home/username/bin/alsa-volume-down”. And rather than pressing the hardware mute button, press the hardware volume down button.

Filed under: beats, code code, commandline, linux · 0 Comments

Karin Dreijer Andersson made it on to Resident Advisor’s Top 100 albums of the ’00s list twice, once for her solo album as Fever Ray and again for her collaboration with her brother as The Knife.

Here is an acceptance speech that Fever Ray gave at an awards show in Sweeden. It is one of the best acceptance speeches ever given:

Filed under: beats, fever ray, video · 0 Comments

- Tom Waits, via reddit

Filed under: beats, Tom Waits, video · 2 Comments

snoop dogg, talib kweli, and buzz aldrin, together at last.  just heard the song on the radio today.

Filed under: beats, excursions, lifehacking, old timers · 4 Comments

Pink Saturday was amazing.. there were at least a trillion people there!

Peliom took this picture of TikiTV VJ’ing on the main stage at Castro and Market:

Filed under: beats, pink saturday, pride, san francisco, tikitv, tronix, video · 0 Comments

I went to bed at 2am last night. The alarm went off at 6am this morning . It was waaaay too early to do much other than check the internets, so that’s what I did, and found inbflat.net. This site is magic.

Eventually I realized I had to stop playing with it and do some work, but I wanted to keep listening. So I made the Bb Buddha Machine.

It probably doesn’t work in IE. It brings linux machines to their knees. But I listened to it for at least eight hours today. Enjoy!

2011 update:

Some awesome people have taken the Bb Buddha Machine and modified it to make new versions! Check them out:

1. Bb Buddha Machine
2. Dynamic Buddha Machine – a version by curiousjapan that dynamically loads YouTube videos tagged with “In Bb 2.0″ or any other phrase.
3. noiZe vieW – a version by Peter Heß using his own recordings of his circuit-bent instruments.

Also, I have put the code on github for easier collaboration.

Filed under: beats, Bflat, Buddha Machine, inspiration, video · 2 Comments

Here are some old pics of Sam and Peliom vj-ing with the open source TikiTV software at the Timothy Leary Archives event at 111 Minna. Way fun!

Filed under: archive, beats, cocoa, code code, opensource, photos, san francisco, tikitv, video · 0 Comments

Wait for it…

Filed under: beats, video · 1 Comment

Daft Punk vs. Adam Freeland – “Aer OBAMA”

The following is a mixed-media stop motion music video and celebration commemorating the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of these United States. Audibly showcasing Adam Freeland’s remix of Daft Punk’s “Aerodynamic” and the imaginative stylings of forward thinking toy artists Dalek, Bill McMullen and Kubrick to name just a few. Independently animated and directed by the progressive minds of the directing team GOLD, the piece is a labor of love that invites everyone to join in or create their own celebration this coming Tuesday January the 20th.

dunno how I missed this until now! via Laughing Squid.

Filed under: beats, DaftPunk, obama, video · 0 Comments

Since 2001, we’ve spent Halloween morning with a few hundred of our freaky friends. This year we had a spectacular new location and plenty of donuts and bacon. Thanks for another crazy year, Brass Tax crew!

(more…)

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Sign of the times: following the Bay Area D&B float with a stroller and chillin in the civic center playground while craziness swirled all around us.

Filed under: beats, loveparade, san francisco · 0 Comments

Wally and I went to check out AES after Loveparade and saw this rotary subwoofer. It looks like a fan and has a frequency response that goes down to 0hz!

Filed under: AES, beats, subwoofer · 1 Comment

Here is a intelligent little interview with Mark Hosler of Negativland talking about the creation of the CC Sampling License. I forgot this license existed; it is not linked anywhere on the CC site as far as I can tell, and is not offered by the chooser tool. Mark also talks about his general disagreement with CC.

“Let’s be Positivland for a moment here…”

Also, this music video remake of Negativland’s Time Zones was linked from MeFi today. It’s amazing how well old Negativland stands the test of time.

Miguel Soares, who made this video, has done lots of other great video and blinky-light pieces.

Here is a simple and awesome piece called Do Robots Dream of Electric Art?

Filed under: beats, CreativeCommons, MiguelSoares, negativland, tronix, video · 0 Comments

Last month, RadioLab interviewed Zoë Keating about the music she makes by live-looping cello. We didn’t listen to it until last night.. It’s beautiful and haunting. Check out Zoe’s blog for more.

Filed under: ambient, beats, cello, podcasts, RadioLab, ZoëKeating · 1 Comment

I would so LOVE to go on a ride w/ these guys!! Check out da bikes! – I love that each of them has a playlist.

(via Josh Spear who apparently gave away a free glow in the dark foldable bike to the person who sent in a link to the blingiest bike on the web. I wish I’d known about this sooner!!! nonetheless you can still see a fab collection of links to blingy bikes on his site.)

Filed under: beats, cycling, madeinqueens · 2 Comments

Ulrich Schnauss at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado on July 8, 2008, with A Shoreline Dream, Cacheflowe, and Ian Cooke.  A remarkable show, one of the best.  Music was great, crowd was appreciative, and the musicians had much love for each other. Multiple encores.

Audio sample one; audio sample two.

If anyone happened to record this show, please post a comment below, I’d love to get a copy. Same lineup is playing July 9 evening in Denver at the Falcon.

Filed under: beats, inspiration, photos, via phone · 0 Comments

We went to the Holi festival in Sunnyvale today! Lots of fun :)

(click play to start) (Link to other sizes)

Happy Holi!

Filed under: bay area, beats, holi, video · 1 Comment

We went to see modeselektor last night at Mighty! It was super-packed.. a huge crowd for a Wednesday:

The Camo Bus was rockin outside… I love the fact that no one complains that there is an absolutely thunderous soundsystem set up on the street :)

Here is a short video of modeselektor being introduced. The Mighty soundsystem absolutely crushes the little microphone in my camera, so this video is kind of pointless but still fun. What you can’t hear in the video is an insane amount of soul-destroying bass:

(click play to start video)

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Wow, I really wanna see this! It’s going to be at the Lumiere on 3/28. More videos over here and more beats over here:

• DJTEE
• IAMISEE
• Peter Miser

Who wants to go?

Filed under: beats, dance, upcoming, video, why are we here? · 3 Comments

A couple days ago I heard this song on the radio and it seemed familiar for some reason. I’d never heard it before, but it reminded me of the music my mom used to blast on our tiny tape player in the kitchen when I was growing up (which I think I used to hate but now find strangely comforting…kind of like fish sauce on mangoes).

The song is called Shave Your Beard by Dengue Fever and it’s a cover of a classic Cambodian pop song. I don’t think my mom ever listened to Cambodian pop when I was growing up, but she listened to a lot of Cantonese pop…I guess there must be some similarities.

Anyways the song also made me hungry!

Filed under: beats, music pop cambodia · 0 Comments

Remember that Soulja Boy video that May posted? Well, here is Richard Stallman (yes, RICHARD STALLMAN) doing the Soulja Boy dance. His entourage is wearing labcoats, and he is holding a laptop. In a more perfect universe, it would be required that all music videos feature RMS.

via via

Filed under: beats, RMS, SouljaBoy, video, wtf??? · 4 Comments

After we went to The Missing Peace opening party, we went to see Daft Punk’s Electroma at the Clay Theater. Nate, Mario, Shag, Richard, Sonya met us there, but somehow we missed Aryana.

The DJ set before the movie was awesome. All movies need DJs, robots, and lasers.

Filed under: beats, DaftPunk, Electroma, film, photos, san francisco · 0 Comments