5/1/07 22:18 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
The Daevl.Plugs have received an outstanding review from Peter Kirn and Liz Knight on Create Digital Music. The review went up late last Thursday and by Friday morning it was apparent I would have a very busy weekend.
My favorite quote from the review is Peter describing daevl.triad: "In other words, it either does subtler random EQ effects or, if you prefer, eats your tracks alive."
It's a great feeling to have the Daevl.Plugs positively reviewed on CDM. It's a well-used Firefox bookmark... I've been a reader for a long time. Peter and Liz, next time you're in San Francisco drinks are on me.
The Daevl.Plugs began as components in my personal sonic bag of tricks. When I first seriously considered releasing them as a plug-in suite I felt certain a group of like-minded musicians would dig them. I had no idea how large that group was, how fully these plugs would be embraced and just where and in how many ways all these shared paths would intersect.
I love this process of finding out.
The 5 Way Path
4/29/07 15:23 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
In December of 02006, Martin Spernau and I were preparing for his coming January Daevl In The Pale Moonlight interview. Martin wanted to create a track to showcase how he was using the new Daevl.Plugs and came up with a wonderful concept utilizing creative limitation: I would send him three to five samples and he would create a track from only that source material. The result was his 6:00 epic journey into transmogrification, "Space Sliced Five Ways."
I was thrilled with Martin's idea and the result. We decided to create a project of it, expanding to more musicians. The end product is The 5 Way Path.
Take 5 base samples. Chop them up, process them in any way using anything - warp them, grind them, atomize and reconstruct them - just don't use any other source material in your track. No synths, no other samples, no instruments of any kind, no vox... nothing but those 5 samples freaked out in any way you like.
You can hear the results on Daevlmakr now. Tracks by Logickal, Kudante, Blue Deceiver, Martin Spernau, DJ L.A.M.P., Legis Sustain, Maehymn (featuring CTRLSHFT) and Beta Two Agonist are up.
I'm still amazed at just how different all the tracks are, how everyone's individual aesthetics shine out even though we all began at the same central starting place with the exact same 5 loops.
March Daevlmakr Roundup
3/9/07 19:32 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Daevl In The Pale Moonlight, March: effect69
Chris Martinez of effect69 fielded a selection of the required way-far-out-there questions and gave a great interview covering everything from keeping the analog sound alive to zombies playing KISS covers. Plus: three tracks of bass, beat and synthesizer boo-yah.
1dot9: Stycky
I've put up the second 1dot9 soundset - nine audio loops created by processing one original source file. Where the first set used only a single effect on each processed loop, this set was created by using multiple, stacked Daevl.Plugs. I'll be placing a 1dot9 group page on Daevlmakr later this week, but for now these sounds can be downloaded from the Daevlmakr main page.
Marting Spernau took the Stycky set and went crazy! Check out his 1dot9 Stycky Remix: a track made using only the Stycky sounds. I love the melody he brought out... I had no idea that was even in there!
Chaos: Daevl.Plugs KVR Audio database entry
Around mid-February KVR Audio placed a listing for the Daevl.Plugs on their main page and all hell broke loose. February was a very successful (and very busy) month. March is shaping up to be just as good.
The 5 Ways: creative challenge
Martin Spernau was also the original impetus for the 5 Ways creative challenge. He created the original 5 Ways track as part of his Daevl In The Pale Moonlight interview. The rules are simple: create a song using only a limited palette of five source samples. The upshot: you can process, fry, freak, tweak and rotate the audio any way you like, using any tools you like, then play them in any way using anything. Polyphonic samplers, wind controllers, Monome 40hs, direct digital placement... the sky is the limit, everything is fair game, just no outside audio sources. This has seen much Daevl.Plug action, but they weren't a requirement.
The final tracks have started rolling in and will probably go up on Daevlmakr at the beginning of April, including two from me: one as Blue Deceiver and a second under the moniker of my free-flowing ambient side-project, SkyBreakBlue.
I'll also be putting up the original source samples and opening the challenge to anyone interested in creating a track for inclusion.
The Immediate Future: Audere est facere!
Secret projects galore... onwards in the best of all possible worlds.
Daevls, Moonlight, Maehymn
2/1/07 22:43 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Maggie Maehymn, Sulphur Princess of Sound and Vision in the Kingdom of Distortion, is the current artist profiled in the Daevl In The Pale Moonlight series on Daevlmakr.
Maehymn creates in a world where differentiation between audio and image is non-existent: her visual art looks like her music, which in turn sounds like her visual art. While formatting the interview, I was ultimately struck by the fact her very words are also of a kind with her images and sound: the Artist as Art itself.
Ruling the land of Distortion brought the perfect experience for her position in The League Of Extraordinary Beta Testers. Daevl.triad owes much of its power to the stomp of Maehymn's Boots.
Discussions of creative individuality and the future of music, staring into the sun with your ears, coat-pocket voids (with cats)... read Maehymn's interview to go Even Further.
Moonlit Daevl: Martin Spernau
1/1/07 22:48 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
The second installment of Daevlmakr's artist profile series is up today.
Martin Spernau, like the previous Daevl In The Pale Moonlight Jeremy Dickens, is a member of the League Of Extraordinary Beta Testers and sonic magician. Martin's wide paintbrush drips a thick hyper-fluid of many media: words, images, sound. Elves, kobolds, space-faring nymphs, science fiction stories, evocative landscapes and worlds of sound flow from its tip.
For sense from what I'm talking about, check out his interview, particularly his answer to Question Two, then listen to his first track farther down the page, "The Plains Of Agrophilia."
One seriously wicked environmentalist.
1dot9 - Bumpt
12/19/06 23:28 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Vast expanses of hard drive space were colonized by test audio during Daevl.Plug development. Cruising through this pocket universe of sound yesterday, I found a few directories where almost every plug-in had been used on the same source material.
A lightbulb went off and 1dot9 was born. I'll be placing a series of sample sets on Daevlmakr containing audio processed only by the Daevl.Plugs.
Each 1dot9 set will contain:
1 original audio source (loop or distinct sonic event)
9 processed variations
The sets are absolutely free for creative use and require no royalty or attribution. They can't be sold, but they can be used to make wondrous music.
The first set, Bumpt, is up now. It's the beginning of the series, so I'm starting with the foundations: each variation has been processed by only a single Daevl.Plug, and all the plug-ins of the major suite are represented.
You can download 1dot9: Bumpt from the Daevlmakr main page.
Daevls In The Pale Moonlight
12/1/06 00:06 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Daevlmakr kicks off a new series of regular artist interview spots today, profiling a rotating cast of creative misfits and mad-people using the Daevl.Plugs.
Leading off the Daevls In The Pale Moonlight series is Jeremy Dickens, aka Logickal. A member of the League Of Extraordinary Beta Testers, Jeremy turns out time and space warping soundtracks for parties you didn't even know were going on in a place 90 degrees away from where you are right now... in every direction.
Jeremy sat still long enough to answer the Nine Questions in suitably occult-laden terms, pondering time-travel, alien musics and coded messages for the illuminated. He also whipped off three tesseract-creating tracks with Daevl.Plugs all over them.
Daevls In The Pale Moonlight: Logickal
Daevl.Plugs Unleashed
10/31/06 23:09 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Daevlmakr is live, the Daevl.Plugs are already being downloaded and installed, and there's a pillow with my name on it.
Many thanks are due The League Of Extraordinary Beta Testers and The Cabal Of Ever-Cunning Advisors, but coherency requires rest.
Happy Hallowe'en!
DaevlPlugs Preview
10/13/06 18:03 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Earlier today, I placed a special DaevlPlugs Preview page online, with lots of info about five of the major suite plugins, plus audio demo clips in nifty embedded flash players.
There are also links to a few development screenshots for those excited to see what the "clean and digital" interfaces look like.
On track for an October 31st release, baby!
Ghosts, Goblins and DaevlPlugs
9/30/06 23:09 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
October has always been my favorite month, culminating in my favorite of all holidays. It's fitting, while I've been obsessing over the details of the DaevlPlugs and their release for months now, my feet should reach the witch's cauldron at Samhain.
I'm planning a Hallowe'en launch. What better moment for the DaevlPlugs to enter the world proper than one of the most liminal days of our year? I'll have an online preview up on Friday the 13th.
Some recent tidbits:
- The DaevlPlugs are now Universal Binary and absolutely SCREAM on my MacBook Pro. XP builds are in progress.
- Integrated html reference can be launched from each DaevlPlug's interface.
- The DaevlPlugs play very nicely with the newly released Live 6.
- Speaking of Live 6, I'm working on single and multi-sampled soundsets for use in Live's Simpler/Sampler instruments for a trio of well loved lo-fi synths and a beastly triad of more rare and unique machines. These will be available on the Daevlmakr site after the DaevlPlug release.
- The slipped Veil of October will breathe life back into me and this space. I'm ready.
Question Your Beliefs License v1.0
8/26/06 18:15 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
After wading vast, swamp-like cesspools of examples and dissections of End User License Agreements (EULAs), I came away mentally numbed and thoroughly disgusted by what even a fledgling software business must do to operate in the field today.
Here's a scenario:
An audio engineer has a high-profile client in the studio. It's a big-money session and potentially a big break into a larger playing field for the studio. Said engineer has installed software from Daevlmakr Media just a few days prior to the client's scheduled block of time.
This engineer, however, has poor computer hygiene, and as a result loses their main audio drive just as the sessions are wrapping. Of course, they have no backups.
The client is pissed. Their product is going to be late. Their deal may fall through. The engineer has lost thousands of dollars and the potential for many thousands more.
Lawyers are materialized. Lawsuits are brandished. The engineer can see bankruptcy in the future. What to do?
The blame game rears an ugly head. The engineer convinces the client's legal representation the fault is with the audio software recently installed. Lawyers, looking for deeper pockets than those of a small studio on the brink of collapse, readily agree. Everyone gets in line to sue Daevlmakr Media for loss of anything they can concoct.
Except... this engineer clicked through my EULA and agreed to limitations on Daevlmakr's liability and redressment.
The problem, or course, is that many software companies release public betas disguised as fully tested and debugged software (I'm looking at you, Microsoft). Sometimes data is lost due to shoddy coding and lack of testing. What should be a relationship of honest understandings is turned into a corporate pillaging spree. Here, I can only do my best to deliver software as stable and useful as I can create it.
Since I couldn't avoid having an EULA, I decided to roll my own value-added version.
Enter the Question Your Beliefs License, v1.0 (QYBL). There is a commercial version for releases like the DaevlPlugs (QYBL-C), and a non-commercial version basically compatible with a Creative Commons license for items like Monome applications or Daevlmakr give-aways I'll be releasing free to the community.
The basic QYBL is quite standard, serving to indemnify and limit, cover and protect the Daevl's ass. The fun, value-added part is within the Conditions Of Use:
You must agree to Question Your Beliefs whenever you use the DAEVLPLUGS. While engaged in direct use of the DAEVLPLUGS, you are not to question the beliefs of others, only your own.
If you need starting points, the following are some suggestions for initial questioning.
Question Your Beliefs about:
- religion
- politics
- natural resource use in a closed system
- the differences between humans and other animals
- your self-worth
- monogamy/polyamory
- the definition of family
- capitalism
- socialism
- self-governance
- good and evil
- your own creative abilities
- the difficulty of change
- money, security and happiness
- the power of a single human being to transform the world
- reality itself
While Questioning Your Beliefs in accordance with this license, you may generate many points of internal confusion, find logical contradictions you hold and uncover cognitive dissonance within yourself. You must regularly discuss these thorny issues and your questions about your beliefs with a partner or group in clear, honest conversation.
To bind this agreement, you must promise to yourself the following on first installation of the DAEVLPLUGS:
"I agree to Question My Beliefs as described in the QYBL-C, and will continue to do so as a condition of continued use of the DAEVLPLUGS. Should I ever stop Questioning My Beliefs, I will discontinue my use of the DAEVLPLUGS."
Objects + Cables + Time = DaevlPlugs
6/24/06 22:49 - permalink - email - category: Daevlmakr
Nine minutes ago I finished the last small audio plugin (daevl.triptych.filtrate) of the DaevlPlugs suite. Bugs have been evicted, interfaces have been adjusted, much test audio has been rendered, my LCD tan has reached maturity as ghastly pallor. Just past the finish line: making music, Monome hacking, soldering, drawing, blogging, socializing and myriad other activities all suffering backburner status during the endless hours of Max patching... how glorious it's all going to be! Copy protection clean-ups tomorrow, then installer package creation and they'll go out for crushing by my wonderful beta-testing friends while I work up documentation and finish the website.
9 major plugins, plus single channel, CPU-gentle versions of some for a total of 18... here's the final contents of the suite:
daevl.cerberus - a triple delay network with FM distortion on each delay
daevl.cerberus.bite
daevl.cubedriver - delay looped bitcrusher/shifter/envelope follower
daevl.hilbertspace - triple Hilbert-transform ring modulation network
daevl.hilbertspace.1d
daevl.noise - audio replacement with pitched/white noise
daevl.noise.pitched
daevl.noise.white
daevl.sixcylinder - triple dual-mono oscillation network
daevl.sixcylinder.twoshot
daevl.threep - three pitch shifters, random instability via peak detection
daevl.threep.eep
daevl.triad - triple bandpass filter FM network
daevl.triad.tattoo
daevl.triphase - triple phase delays in serial/parallel/hybrid configuration
daevl.triphase.isolate
daevl.triptych - triple multiband filter with delay and timeshift
daevl.triptych.monad
I'll be writing more about each of these after release. The path has taken longer to traverse than expected, but was worth it. I'm thrilled at the prospect of using refined versions of some of my favorite production patches in my own audio projects, and hearing what others will do with them.
Chief Iconoclast - Daevlmakr Media
Designing Monsters - vitruvius.livejournal.com
reading
Emma Bull - War For The Oaks
Thomas Jefferson - The Jefferson Bible
Baggini & Fosl - The Philosopher's Toolkit
listening
Beta Two Agonist - Zero Point Field
Daevls On FlightDynamics
Dankoe, Gorbunov, Zemlyanikeen - Far East Sessions
recent
Cycling '74 Loves Cats
Seemingly Solid Things - Glenn Gibson @ GIVEN
drmArm
Life In 3d
It's Full Of Stars
Retracted Landing Gear
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