The Patience of a Saint I - by Carl Sagan's Ghost

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Recording artist Daniel Davis, a.k.a. Carl Sagan's Ghost is a fellow electronic musician and Seattleite. We met on Twitter when I signed up for his MAAP: Excursion One (Multiple Artist Ambient Project). I was a few days too late to be included in the first round of that project but we hooked up in person for the Ghostly 10 Year show at Decibel Festival. I was invited by Daniel to participate in a (January 2010?) live performance of his forthcoming album At The End It All... featuring The Patience of a Saint I, II & III.

I have offered to compile some live visuals for the performance and below is one of my first layers...

My Current Top Ten iPhone Music Creation Apps

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In no particular order:

Bebot 
This app is truly made for a touch screen device. No other app gives you as much expressive control as Bebot. Plus it's cute.

NLog Synth
My pick for the best sounding analog synth on the iPhone.

bleep!BOX
Amazing new app. Super tweak-able sounds, great looping/stutter effects in "performance mode", great looking UI.

BeatMaker 
Without a doubt, the best drum machine/pad based sample player available for the iPhone.

Star Melody
Super simple/beautiful UI and great sounds. I have created many melodies/song ideas on this app.

Sound Scope Space 
Trip out and scare your pets all with one simple app. The "KUZMOSCILLATOR" is my favorite. Plus draw your own waves... It's like an Asian Horror movie soundtrack creator.

Xewton Music Studio
It's like GarageBand on the iPhone... right down to the over dramatically lit, super detailed instrument illustrations. This app has just about everything an entry level DAW should have. ON YOUR PHONE! Unbelievable!

JR Hexatone Pro 
Thinking way outside the box on this one, Amidio has changed the game for iPhone music creation apps. This thing is endless...

iTouchMidi (iTM) Series: iTM Keys, iTM Matrix, iTM Pad, iTM Tilt, iTM MCU, iTM Dj
Midi control made easy. Download the iPhone app and the desktop app, run, connect, assign controls, done.

TouchOSC
Midi control made hardcore: Not quite as easy to get running as the iTM series but so much more power. And with the latest release of TouchOSC Editor you can create custom layouts on your laptop/desktop and upload them to your iPhone. Limitless..... 

Hard at Work

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I am currently working on two new tracks. I hope to have them completed in the next few weeks. I have also been digging deeper into some of the music apps that I have been collecting on my iPhone, specifically SunVox, JR Hexatone, 8Bitone and iSequence. These apps are very easy to purchase and play with, but sometimes I have a hard time slipping them into my Ableton Live workflow. I usually get so caught up in Ableton that the songs kind of finish themselves before I can even get to the iPhone. I guess I just need to start by capturing the output from the iPhone and building a song off of that. 

Creative Cycle

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I have been learning about my own creative cycle over the last few years. It took me quite a while to even notice that it was a cycle. I would just get into these terrible creative slumps. I would fight and fight and fight with myself to crank out work whether it was design jobs for my freelance clients or art/music for myself. I would get very depressed and feel as though I should just quit doing anything creative at all. All my work sucked. No one cared. Blah. 

Shortly after hitting bottom,

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Computer Artist Glenn Marshall

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Computer artist Glenn Marshall is from the future. A future where the artist uses code instead of a brush. That future is now. His amazing visual creations are made with Processing.

“Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions.”

http://processing.org/

 

The Nest That Sailed The Sky from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

Eric Tsutomu on vimeo

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This kid is amazing. I'm just blown away.

The Brick Factory from Eric Tsutomu on Vimeo.

From Eric's vimeo profile:

"I'm a High School student that lives in the Bay Area. I am a huge fan of the Golden State Warriors. I film with a pretty inexpensive camera called the Canon HV30 w/a Raynox DCR-6600 wide conversion lens. I use a Rode NTG-2 shotgun microphone for my sound and I edit in FCS2."

Electron: for iPhone

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Just downloaded Electron. [App store link] My first impression is that this may be a little more advanced than many of the other "Matrix" style music apps. Electron allows multiple layers and patterns as well as the ability to change pitch and instrument sounds. 

Upon opening this app you are greeted with a 16x9 LED matrix. After about 5 seconds the Song List view scrolls up from the bottom giving you the opportunity to either load a current song or create a new one. You get to name your song, tap the Create button and you're back to the matrix. At the bottom of the screen are several navigation buttons. Rewind, Play, Layer and Pattern selection, Options, and Mode.

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