Orion an easy digital dub studio

Unfortunally Linux isn't perfect for simplicity. It enable anybody doing music but like I talk with others dubmaster on versionist, he doesn't integrate so much 'user friendly' feature keeping focus on function available.

The biggest advantage for Windows is: Simplicity.

It's what I had understand using Orion while doing a digital reggae song.

I'm in love with Linux and recommend all to try starting with this OS when moving to computer music creation, but for people searching for simplicity without need to understand all feature... Orion and Windows make a nice couple !

Hot Drop Remix Confirmed

I just receive this morning an e-mail confirmation from Hot Drop !

I'm really happy to see how the Creative Commons license can be employed to collaborate on the web.

Music is a free knowledge and it's really nice to see how online artists are interested to share they work for free using this kind of license. Anyone can try to be a dub-master today, there is bad and good part, but for the moment I only see good ones !

So now I'm hurry waiting to receive audio source and start mixing.

Thanks to Hot Drop reggae band for their open mind !

Worldwide Dub Meeting #1

The first album from Almighty Dub Records are now released ! and for free !

It's a free net-album containing a compilation of tracks done on the Open Dub Foundation featuring me.

Many thanks to all dub-masters/artists active on the foundation, without them this release simply can't be made !

Tracks aren't mastered so volume can change slightly between tracks.

KoCha meets Open Dub Foundation - Worldwide Dub Meeting #1

It's a debut album, the foundation was created in June, I hope quality are going to get higher with next release.

Experimental Connection To The Sun

I just discovered this week-end, a fantastic software (unfortunately running under windows) called Orion.

Orion is a full featured audio studio, it's a modern version of what I used 5 years ago: Jeskola Buzz.

I started creating music using synth an other electronic instrument/effect inside Buzz, and it's made long time that I want to create a kind of trip-hop piece using synth, but Buzz is really painful and I never found what exactly I wanted... before this week-end with Orion.

Here is the experimental track (done with demo version!):
KoCha - Experimental Connection To The Sun

Hope to find something free and equivalent under Linux one day...

Openning a foundation riddim

Really good news for the Open Dub Foundation, I've just finished a new riddim based on the Jamaican classic 'Drum Song'.

This riddim was build to provide a base for building some poetry stuff with versionist community using a midi source file from baroque dub (with of course some modification and a whole arrangement).

But more than only a riddim, I'm actually managing to record vocal from a well know Jamaican reggae band.

So I hope to get in few day this vocal and start recording instrument / dub mixing the new track, with Tolerance and the upcoming free album, there's going to be a major update on the website soon !

Composing music in freedom

I started composing music in 2002 and from this years I was shocked by the price of audio software.

Professional MIDI sequencer can cost several thousands of dollars. But basically what they did is simply sending MIDI messages. I observed same problem with synth module, when wanted to emulate musical instrument with computer I was finally starting to work with SoundFont due to the cost of other professional alternative.

At the begin SoundFont was patented by EMU and usable only on specific Creative product (that include hardware RAM on sound card to load sound wave tables).
This kind of hardware was really useful when PC hardware wasn't able to play (with an acceptable latency) SoundFont.

But today SoundFont can be considered to be an open format. Creative as open documentation and a lot of free tools are available, and today's PC can run it without any problem and without using specific hardware.

So all that to explain that I made transition from Windows to Linux with all what I need to compose music (including SoundFont) with minimal latency. And the best is that it's totally FREE !

I now use Rosegarden as MIDI sequencer, and I want to say that this sequencer is really better than a lot of non-free sequencer you can found on the market.

You find all professional functions needed by a musician to compose a whole song, and with the help of QSynth you can access to huge collection of free virtual instruments using SoundFont technology.

Rosegarden is part of 64Studio distribution, I recommend to all musician working with computer to take a look to powerful Linux tools available for audio production.

Linux is a formidable opportunity for every beginner in music production to start experiment freely professional tools and techniques (preventing use of illegal license in home-studio).

New studio ready !

The studio is now finish and work fine !

I've just receive the new sound card (M-Audio Delta 1010 LT) and after installation spend lot's of time remixing live with the analog hardware. SOUNDS SO GOOD !

I love the analog sound but the use of digital technology to replace multi-track recording is really comfortable. For sure you loosing some warm, but using tube I feel getting the good compromise !

I'm actually recording new materials for ODF, and mixing new tunes to release for free on the records.

Album under Creative Commons

I'm actually building a compilation including the work done between I-self and the Open Dub Foundation, this compilation going to be released on Creative Commons.

So I was happy few days ago to read in my mail-box that a release from Hot Drop (ES) is available for free under Creative Commons !

This make me believe I'm going in good direction, and I hope Hot Drop going to accept to publish a remix on the Open Dub Foundation.

Download the whole album

64Studio an open source audio studio

I have spend some times this week-end and Monday to do my first installation of the 64Studio Linux distribution.

I'm using every day Linux (Ubuntu) on my home PC until the begin of the years and I'm really happy with it, I can do all stuff I done before using Windows but for free and in an open world.

I'm still running Windows on my musical PC, but I wanted to know if possible to switch to linux using open source software. I'm actually preparing the computer for new studio (St-Martin 9) so I took this opportunity to try 64Studio, all can I say: Stop use Windows for audio production ! Linux is so powerful !

The studio PC is a Intel P3 800Mhz with 384Mb RAM and 250 GB HDD (half linux/half windows, I'm not alone to use it... so I needed to install windows too) all hardware was automatically recognized by 64Studio.

But the things fantastic with Linux and the ALSA audio platform is the possibility to create 'virtual' audio card. I plugged 3 standard (SoundBlaster to not name it...) sound card in PCI slots and then using ALSA configuration file I created a 'virtual' 6-in/6-out sound card. I now can record/playback simultaneously 6 mono track !

I'm a lover of analog hardware and use a lot, but I think the use of computer as mulit-track recorder is really comfortable. Using Linux anyone that have standard PC and some good sound cards can build one !

In addition I want to say that Ardour is really beautiful and useful. All feature needed are easy to find and I prefer Ardour's GUI than Cubase/ProTools/...

Next to basic recording software, 64Studio includes other useful free software enabling drum sequencing and midi composition.