So following a post about a Guitar Hero type program that teaches you how to play the real thing with this post... is perhaps overkill, but this too excited to ignore. It combines my geeky yearnings with my musical needs!
This video is of a guy who has modified the Guitar Hero controller for the Wii, and turned it into a synth. It's basically a synth controller that is triggered by the Guitar Hero controller, so in reality it's not that impressive - in terms of a new instrument, it really isn't one. Except that it's just plain awesome, because it's a Guitar Hero guitar being used as a real instrument! Hahahaha---!
Watch him play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with it. It actually works!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Guitar Hero for Real Guitars (plus hilarious variations)
I have mixed feelings about Guitar Hero: On the one hand, I can understand how it's fun. I also think it's a really good way to integrate and market music, since it's not just background music, but integral to the experience. Yet the experience.... is essentially just karaoke for guitar, an enhanced "air guitar" experience. Don't get me wrong, I actually think Air Guitaring is really neat, especially those competitions they do - If you've never seen clips of it, you should check it out.
My hesitations however, come from the fact that there are people out there who are REALLY good at it. The time spent perfecting a song on guitar hero... could have been spent playing and learning the real thing, and it just seems like such a waste. Perhaps I'm being harsh here, because it's not like anyone says "the time spent jumping in Mario could have been used to become a better high-jumper"... because it's a video game after all. Yet because the experience is so close - the finger movements, the picking, even the whammy bar - it seems like it's a relatively small jump to make (that being said, I actually play guitar and I can say with confidence that I suck at "guitar hero", so I'm not saying the two are THAT similar. I'm just saying that it's relatively similar, compared to say... jumping in Mario, and jumping in real life, where there is really nothing in common at all).
Enter "Guitar Rising". Guitar Rising is a game that is currently in development, which can be easily summed up as: Guitar Hero.. for Real Guitars. Using an electric guitar as the controller, it's essentially a rolling, colour coded guitar tablature that follows the music. The biggest challenge for the developers though, is in making this an entertaining experience, rather than a chore. Learning an instrument involves lots of mistakes, frustrations, and patience - which is why learning an instrument isn't necessarily all fun and games. But as Guitar Hero has shown, people are willing to learn difficult and repetitive motions so long as it keeps entertaining. It will be very interesting to see how this product bridges the real instrument with the entertainment that guitar hero provides!
-----
Bonus Section!
Here's some hilarious Guitar Hero/Rock Band accessories and variations that exist...
Air Guitar Hero - Now you can play guitar hero, but without the plastic guitars!! Get closer to the real Air Guitar experience right at home!
Rock Band Fog Machine/Strobe Light!! - What good are the screaming girls and guitars... if you don't have a fog machine and a strobe light? Well fret no more! Rock Band has an official fog machine and strobe light. Hilarity.
And Finally...
Guitar Praise, because God hates rock music - Sick of the secular and sinful nature of popular music? Want to play Guitar Hero but your mom won't let secular music into the house? Then Guitar Praise is for you! ...Even if you don't like secular music, both guitar hero and rockband support custom songs, so why is there a need for this??
If you know of any other hilarious variations or add-ons, please share!
My hesitations however, come from the fact that there are people out there who are REALLY good at it. The time spent perfecting a song on guitar hero... could have been spent playing and learning the real thing, and it just seems like such a waste. Perhaps I'm being harsh here, because it's not like anyone says "the time spent jumping in Mario could have been used to become a better high-jumper"... because it's a video game after all. Yet because the experience is so close - the finger movements, the picking, even the whammy bar - it seems like it's a relatively small jump to make (that being said, I actually play guitar and I can say with confidence that I suck at "guitar hero", so I'm not saying the two are THAT similar. I'm just saying that it's relatively similar, compared to say... jumping in Mario, and jumping in real life, where there is really nothing in common at all).
Enter "Guitar Rising". Guitar Rising is a game that is currently in development, which can be easily summed up as: Guitar Hero.. for Real Guitars. Using an electric guitar as the controller, it's essentially a rolling, colour coded guitar tablature that follows the music. The biggest challenge for the developers though, is in making this an entertaining experience, rather than a chore. Learning an instrument involves lots of mistakes, frustrations, and patience - which is why learning an instrument isn't necessarily all fun and games. But as Guitar Hero has shown, people are willing to learn difficult and repetitive motions so long as it keeps entertaining. It will be very interesting to see how this product bridges the real instrument with the entertainment that guitar hero provides!
-----
Bonus Section!
Here's some hilarious Guitar Hero/Rock Band accessories and variations that exist...
Air Guitar Hero - Now you can play guitar hero, but without the plastic guitars!! Get closer to the real Air Guitar experience right at home!
Rock Band Fog Machine/Strobe Light!! - What good are the screaming girls and guitars... if you don't have a fog machine and a strobe light? Well fret no more! Rock Band has an official fog machine and strobe light. Hilarity.
And Finally...
Guitar Praise, because God hates rock music - Sick of the secular and sinful nature of popular music? Want to play Guitar Hero but your mom won't let secular music into the house? Then Guitar Praise is for you! ...Even if you don't like secular music, both guitar hero and rockband support custom songs, so why is there a need for this??
If you know of any other hilarious variations or add-ons, please share!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Sony PS-F5 & F9 "Flamingo": The Portable Vinyl Player
Back in April, I posted a blog entry on Mister Disk, the portable vinyl player. Since the statistics on this blog indicate that it's the most popular entry, I thought I would post another entry on a similar, rival machine.
Sony also released a similar machine to Mr.Disk in the same year as Audio Technica - 1983. That they look eerily similar seems strange, but the Sony machine has several differences from Mr. Disk.
Known as the Sony PS-F5, Sony's machine also has the cool ability to play records upright due to its record clamping system, direct drive capability and linear tracking. This meant that you could actually mount the PS-F5 on a wall and play the record, which is pretty neat. Like Mister Disk, it has dual headphone sockets and runs on batteries as well as on external power supply - but I don't know if the batteries last as long as Mister Disk (12 hours for Mister Disk is pretty damn impressive). You could also buy rechargeable batteries, and a car battery cord (I'm not entirely sure what that means - I assume it's a car charger, used through the cigarette lighter).
Its cousin, the Sony PS-F9, had a few more features than the F5 (What I state from this point forward is based upon the Japanese brochures, so I don't know if the overseas releases were different in specs). In Japan, both models were sold as the "Flamingo". The PS-F9 has a quartz lock system (better speed control), a line out, and an automatic record clamp (instead of the manual clamp that the F5 has). The coolest thing about the F9 though, is that it comes standard with an internal stereo FM transmitter. That's right, it's not a receiver, but a transmitter! so you can broadcast the record over FM radio in your house! Very cool.
*If you want to know more about the specs, and some detailed information about the PS-F9, go to my blog post here, where I go into further detail.*
If you want to see a larger pic, just click the picture and it will open in a new window. It's an old Japanese brochure, basically stating all the specs:
The PS-F5 in action:
The PS-F9 in action:
If anyone knows of any other portable, battery operated vinyl players, please do share!
Sony also released a similar machine to Mr.Disk in the same year as Audio Technica - 1983. That they look eerily similar seems strange, but the Sony machine has several differences from Mr. Disk.
Known as the Sony PS-F5, Sony's machine also has the cool ability to play records upright due to its record clamping system, direct drive capability and linear tracking. This meant that you could actually mount the PS-F5 on a wall and play the record, which is pretty neat. Like Mister Disk, it has dual headphone sockets and runs on batteries as well as on external power supply - but I don't know if the batteries last as long as Mister Disk (12 hours for Mister Disk is pretty damn impressive). You could also buy rechargeable batteries, and a car battery cord (I'm not entirely sure what that means - I assume it's a car charger, used through the cigarette lighter).
Its cousin, the Sony PS-F9, had a few more features than the F5 (What I state from this point forward is based upon the Japanese brochures, so I don't know if the overseas releases were different in specs). In Japan, both models were sold as the "Flamingo". The PS-F9 has a quartz lock system (better speed control), a line out, and an automatic record clamp (instead of the manual clamp that the F5 has). The coolest thing about the F9 though, is that it comes standard with an internal stereo FM transmitter. That's right, it's not a receiver, but a transmitter! so you can broadcast the record over FM radio in your house! Very cool.
*If you want to know more about the specs, and some detailed information about the PS-F9, go to my blog post here, where I go into further detail.*
If you want to see a larger pic, just click the picture and it will open in a new window. It's an old Japanese brochure, basically stating all the specs:
The PS-F5 in action:
The PS-F9 in action:
If anyone knows of any other portable, battery operated vinyl players, please do share!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
How Dancing Should Be
I recently posted about dancing and why I don't understand it. There's a video that's been making the rounds though, that I feel captures my personal understanding of dance.
In my previous post I talked about how I don't quite understand why people are moved by dances. They can look sexy and impressive, but in the end I felt that dances were not very emotionally moving - at least for me.
That being said, I personally enjoy dancing. I think it's a great way to just let go, and be yourself. Enjoying music is often not just about listening, but moving to it. It's for this reason that I used to go to raves back in the day, because unlike clubs, there's a true sense of everyone being themselves. No one is judging how you dance, and no one cares - in fact, if anything, you get compliments for doing the strangest, craziest dances. Why the compliments? It's not mockery: It's a recognition that they are really getting into it, and really enjoying it.
That got me thinking, that perhaps dance is supposed to be emotionally moving because you can easily relate to the experience. I was comparing dance to music, or paintings, or film... but perhaps it's a very different type of art. I think the way to enjoy dance is closer to the way that we enjoy someone else smiling. It's contagious, we recognize what it means, and it makes us feel something because we know what it's like to be smiling, to let go and be laughing. Just like a smile, when we see a good dance, we can relate to that moment of musical immersion. It's that ability to relate to that moment, which makes us enjoy dance.
So, for me personally, the dancing in the next video is much more moving than most choreographed works. It's honest, it's spontaneous, and it's fun to see this immersion and how it spreads across several people. We all want to be there! How great would this be? How awesome is it that the guy who starts the whole thing is completely into it and doesn't care?
I think that part of the reason - because there's more reasons than just the dance - that the "where the hell is matt" videos were so big is because of this (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here. If he was doing the same thing but just standing there, I suspect it would not have been as popular as it became.
What do you think?
In my previous post I talked about how I don't quite understand why people are moved by dances. They can look sexy and impressive, but in the end I felt that dances were not very emotionally moving - at least for me.
That being said, I personally enjoy dancing. I think it's a great way to just let go, and be yourself. Enjoying music is often not just about listening, but moving to it. It's for this reason that I used to go to raves back in the day, because unlike clubs, there's a true sense of everyone being themselves. No one is judging how you dance, and no one cares - in fact, if anything, you get compliments for doing the strangest, craziest dances. Why the compliments? It's not mockery: It's a recognition that they are really getting into it, and really enjoying it.
That got me thinking, that perhaps dance is supposed to be emotionally moving because you can easily relate to the experience. I was comparing dance to music, or paintings, or film... but perhaps it's a very different type of art. I think the way to enjoy dance is closer to the way that we enjoy someone else smiling. It's contagious, we recognize what it means, and it makes us feel something because we know what it's like to be smiling, to let go and be laughing. Just like a smile, when we see a good dance, we can relate to that moment of musical immersion. It's that ability to relate to that moment, which makes us enjoy dance.
So, for me personally, the dancing in the next video is much more moving than most choreographed works. It's honest, it's spontaneous, and it's fun to see this immersion and how it spreads across several people. We all want to be there! How great would this be? How awesome is it that the guy who starts the whole thing is completely into it and doesn't care?
I think that part of the reason - because there's more reasons than just the dance - that the "where the hell is matt" videos were so big is because of this (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here. If he was doing the same thing but just standing there, I suspect it would not have been as popular as it became.
What do you think?
Monday, August 10, 2009
Simulating a Guitar with your Voice
I seem to be posting about vocals a lot lately...
Continuing on with the trend, here is a neat clip of a guy simulating a guitar with his voice, and - I presume - effects pedals. It's actually quite indistinguishable from the real guitars which are playing along side him, so I found it quite impressive.
We've all seen beatboxers simulate drums, cymbals, and all kinds of synth sounds and DJ scratches, as well as the "mouth trumpet", but I don't think guitars are that common. I've seen a couple other videos of people doing it, but it's never quite blown me away in its accuracy like this video. I tried to find out more about this guy, or where this came from, but I haven't had any luck. If anyone knows, please share!
Makes me realize what an awesome instrument we all have. What other instruments do you think could be simulated with your mouth?
The Man is Playing Guitar with His Mouth - The best video clips are here
Continuing on with the trend, here is a neat clip of a guy simulating a guitar with his voice, and - I presume - effects pedals. It's actually quite indistinguishable from the real guitars which are playing along side him, so I found it quite impressive.
We've all seen beatboxers simulate drums, cymbals, and all kinds of synth sounds and DJ scratches, as well as the "mouth trumpet", but I don't think guitars are that common. I've seen a couple other videos of people doing it, but it's never quite blown me away in its accuracy like this video. I tried to find out more about this guy, or where this came from, but I haven't had any luck. If anyone knows, please share!
Makes me realize what an awesome instrument we all have. What other instruments do you think could be simulated with your mouth?
The Man is Playing Guitar with His Mouth - The best video clips are here
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Screaming Dance Music
It's funny how life works. A couple of posts ago I talked about the art of screaming, and now I come across this...
I have to admit I wouldn't actually listen to this on my leisure time, but it's certainly an original idea. I'm sure it fills a niche that never existed before!
What am I talking about? Ever wonder what would happen if dance music incorporated death metal screaming? Me neither. But someone did, and here's the result. Whatever you think of it, I think we can all agree it's worth listening to once, because this is definitely different:
I checked out their other videos, but they seem to be more of a rap group than a dance group. Screaming and rap didn't surprise me as much, so I posted this video instead. If you like it, they are called brokeNCYDE.
I have to admit I wouldn't actually listen to this on my leisure time, but it's certainly an original idea. I'm sure it fills a niche that never existed before!
What am I talking about? Ever wonder what would happen if dance music incorporated death metal screaming? Me neither. But someone did, and here's the result. Whatever you think of it, I think we can all agree it's worth listening to once, because this is definitely different:
I checked out their other videos, but they seem to be more of a rap group than a dance group. Screaming and rap didn't surprise me as much, so I posted this video instead. If you like it, they are called brokeNCYDE.
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