Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

 

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Gläns Över Sjö Och Strand

Synth Afterwork: Hejdå

Yours truly, Hans "Run Level Zero" Åkerman and Captain Daniel "Dupont" Jonasson are battling it out on the last Synth Afterwork. Be there or be square :)

Back to the Phuture

What a lineup...  :) Tickets here: Townsend records

New version of ASE Client

The freeware SQL Client for Sybase databases created by yours truly has gotten a long needed update. ASE Client used to eat SQL Advantage for breakfast retrieving big result sets, and was considerably more stable than Interactive SQL. But Sybase tools has improved tremendously over the years so ASE Client is not not really needed any more. But I maintain it anyway, just for fun. It has some nifty features though. Exporting search results to xls gives you the column headers for example. Quickly getting all column names to clipboard is another winner. It will always have the features I miss from the tools Sybase supplies. The ones I have time to implement.

Well, ASE Client runs without installation on any platform that implements java. That's a cool feature. Footbprint is tiny, but big search results craves RAM.

Get ASE Client on http://www.moulin-noir.com/softwareindex.html

I don't have much time, but if you send me a request for a cool feature I will implement it. Find my email on the contact page att www.moulin-noir.com.

Ramblings in blue

I think I'm in need of the brand new blue energy dome. I had not noticed a fabulous new album by Devo "Something For Everybody" is out.. with a completely hilarious campaign on youtube. This is easily the best Devo album since "New Traditionalists". Get the deluxe version!

Wisdom of today: If you don't document changes in the studio, you will at some point have to play a quite boring game called "follow the cable among a trillion other cables". Documantation, documentation.. the importance can't be overemphasized.

Seth Schwartz took a lot of pictures at the Drop Dead Pre party in Stockholm here.

I am finally discovering compressors... after almost 30 years. Well I've always used them, especially on busses. But now I'm discovering mixing in to single band compressors for effect instead of "unhearable" multi band compressors. So I went on a shopping spree and got me ART PRO VLA II, Joe Meek MC2, FMR Audio RNC and RNLA. I already had DBX 166 (the ancient version), DBX 266 XL and recently some digital SSL emulations in the Duende mini. Actually I've tried the 266 XL on the master with marvelous results but wanted different sounding options. No you don't have to have a $3000 compressor for this... don't let any status brand blinded type fool you. If you mix in to the compressor even a 266 XL can sound fantastic.

Drop Dead Preparty setlist

It was a wonderful event.. more about it later. Did you take some photo's? Please contact me. Here is the setlist:

Dance of the Beauty
The House of Richard III
Kiss Me Quick
The Waiting Game
Conformia
Utopia
Windmill
Welcome Home
Spellbound
I Can't Sleep
Maria Calling
Descending (Basement Area)

Drop Dead Preparty, July 23

Moulin Noir Live at Drop Dead Warmup party july 23:d

DJ:ing at SAW June 17th

DJ Dynamo Beat - conspiculously similar to yours truly - celebrates his birthday DJ:ing at Synth Afterwork, 6:e Tunnan, Stora Nygatan 43, Stockholm, Sweden. Expect some fabulous, forgotten and unusual new romantic hits =)

John Foxx @ Roundhouse

Probably the best concert I have ever experienced :)

The noise-modular aka "The Zebra" is finalized!

The last modules were the TipTop Z3000 VCO, Analogue Solutions SY02 (Korg MS-20 inspired filter/vca) and the Doepfer A134-2 crossfader. Placing is pretty dictated by the depth of the modules. Z3000 and SY02 had to go to the right. Schneidersladen helped with a bus extending cable, since the MFB backplane only has eight bus contacts.

Specs ended up pretty impressive: 4 VCO:s, 4 LFO:s, 3 envelopes, 3 VCA:s, 3 filters (though 2 are permanently in series), 2 mixers, 2 mixer/buffered multiplier/inverters, 2 crossfaders (also useable as VCA:s), 2 noisegenerators, 2 slew limiters, 2 808:ish sound sources, 1 random voltage and one 2x4 multiplier.

What didn't get there? Well, sample and hold, but two of the LFO's has the usual random S/H waveform so that is sort of covered. There is no true ring modulator, but the MFB OSC-02 has built in MS-20 like X-OR based ring modulator so that is also sort of covered. I had wanted a waveshaper, but I preferred another bigger VCO with more ins and outs.Yes, the Peavey Spectrum filter is gone.. It's no longer needed.

Component list from left to right

Racks: Schneidersladen

Upper rack:
MFB powersupply/midi interface
Doepfer A-117 DNG
Doepfer A-118 Noise
MFB Dual LFO
MFB OSC-02 Triple VCO
Dopefer A-138b Mixer
MFB Dual ADSR
Doepfer A-132-3 DVCA
Doepfer A-106-6 XP VCF

Lower rack:
MFB powersupply/midi interface
Doepfer A-140 ADSR
Doepfer A-170 SL
MFB Dual LFO
Doepfer A-180 Multiples
Analogue Soulutions MX224
Doepfer A-138c PMIX
Doepfer A-134-2 Dual VC CF
Analogue Soulutions MX224
Tiptop Z3000 Smart VCO
Analogue Solutions SY02 Multimede filter/VCA

This will have to do. Now it's time to make some new music.

Plugiator and other news

I have finally published the images from the Ultrafoxx gig in the pictures area.

The Dynamo Beat club, where Hans and I DJ:ed drew a pretty decent crowd. Unfortunately we were riddled with technical problems, mainly a power amp that now and then refused to work. Shortly after 2 am it gave up completely. Well well, people seemed to have fun anyway.

I am still waiting for the last modules to the modular. In the mean time I bought myself a digital synthesizer. I have been depressed lately, and nothing is better to cheer me up than a synthesizer. Nowdays I have to make sure I get a small synthesizer for obvious reasons, this therapy has some serious space related drawbacks. ;D I had wanted the Plugiator with the Prodyssey plugin for quite a while, and now Thomann had a very good price at a fully loaded one. The technology comes from originally from Creamware (now Sonic Core), who's plugin products for dedicated Sharc DSP hardware is almost the only virtual analogue synthesizers I like. I plan to use the Prodyssey live. In the studio I am more interested with the FM, wavetable and organ synths than the analogue emulations.

The christmas cap was unfortunately not included. ;) I think my needs for digital synths are filled for quite a while now. (I nicked the picture from use audio, but since I endorse the product I hope they don't mind.) I also got an Alesis Multimix 8, to be able to patch in more of my effect boxes. It's simply the best and well thought out 1U rack mixer available today.

Club Dynamo Beat

Club Dynamo Beat - A mysterious event that exists once in a lifetime..

DJ:s Anders (Moulin Noir) & Hans (Run Level Zero) plays a wild mix of synthetic favourites.. From Shock, John Foxx and Krisma to Mesh, Skinny Puppy and Depeche. Expect the unexpected. "Dance, Dance, Dance" sings Claudia Brücken.
Live appearance from the fabulous [twilight] theatre: http://www.myspace.com/twilighttheatremusic
Entrance: Free!
Time: 9 PM
Location: Sugar Bar, Kammakargatan 9, Stockholm, Sweden