Back at the Kompound again, after a fantastic week in Kauai. The only bad thing about the trip was the crying babies on the plane (both ways, natch) and that wasn't even that bad, honestly.

Since I didn't take a laptop, and we didn't actually do very much besides lay on the beach and stuff food in our face-holes, I had a lot of time to just soak up ambience. This turned out to be remarkably refreshing, creatively-speaking. I haven't taken a vacation like this before, the sole purpose of which was to relax, so I didn't really have a good idea of how it would affect my general workaday experience. I think the fact that I spent most of the plane ride home thinking about user interfaces and music and the interaction thereof, via some new ideas I had while laying in the sun speaks to the generally effective nature of vacationing.

I've developed--or more to the point Elle has developed--methods for managing my creativity over the years. She knows far better than I when I'm in a slump, and she knows what to get me to do to un-slump things. But I have to admit that I've never really done a cold reboot like this before, and I'm somewhat amazed at the floodgates opening like this. Do you find that taking some serious Time Away (no work, no creative endeavors, actual vacation time) does this for you as well? I'd like to think this is a tool I can use to stoke the engines repeatedly in the future.

I'm going to be out of the office for a week starting on 3/14. I'll be enjoying the location pictured above in Kauai, Hawaii. (That's a picture of Tunnels, a few minutes walk from the house we rented.) This is the first real vacation (that is: no laptops, no work) that my wife and I have taken since 1996, and I plan to enjoy it by pointedly not thinking about plug-ins, synths, or Amanda Palmer's hubris.

I will be checking my email and this site occasionally via my iPad (my hypocrisy has limits, but I haven't discovered them yet) but I won't be responding to emails that aren't Audio Damage customer emergencies of some sort, so if you have something you just have to get in touch with me for and it isn't "yo, this plugz doesn't work in ProToolz!!!11!", it's going to have to wait until 3/22. You can get a hold of me via twitter, as long as you keep it pithy. If you have my phone number, don't fucking call me.

So this is an open thread. You pick the subjects. Don't break anything while I'm gone.

I've been busy as hell the last couple weeks; multiple plates are spinning here at the Audio Damage Marketing And User Interface Design Facility; I was in dire need of a headcleaner, and thankfully, an excuse presented itself in the form of a new soundbank for the Analog Four by Richard Devine that Elektron put up this morning. After my day's trials and tribulations, I loaded that bitch up and sat down to noodle. When I looked at my watch again, 3 hours had gone by and I had a pretty reasonable jam.

This speaks volumes for both the A4 and Richard's programming skills; in my advanced years, it is incredibly hard to get zoned in like I used to, as there is very little in the music tech world that can excite my imagination at this point.

Anyhow, I thought my noodling was worth a bit of hard drive space, so I recorded a pass, and I figured while I was at it, might as well roll (virtual) film. The video above is the result. Analog Four, MeeBlip, Maschine, and modular. The Maschine and A4 are doing all the sequencing. I used Live 9 as a mixer and recording deck, but nothing is sequenced in it.

Enjoy!

I spent most of the week in L.A. on a business trip (and also: Karting, the which I have the bruises to prove), which will account for my relative silence the last few days. The next few months are going to be very exciting for people that like it when Audio Damage releases weird shit, I'll say that much.

While I was out of the loop, my two favorite sample companies both released new products, the which I will now proceed to pimp:



First up is Standard Beat Company's Black Surface Volume One. As is usual for SBC products, you get a slew of hits and loops in various formats. For the first time, Wade jammed Maschine kits in there, which makes me happy. Black Surface is a bit less roomy than the last two SBC products, more digital and tight-sounding. Recommended, of course.

Next up is Goldbaby's Urban Cookbook Vol. 2, which expands on the original Urban Cookbook collection, and contains roughly one quintillion samples and loops, in every format under the sun, for US$49.00. This, like the previous Urban Cookbook, is a more general collection than the typical Goldbaby stuff, and is a great starter pack to get you a nice, well-recorded multi-purpose electronic drum toolkit for a reasonable price.

If you head over to AudioDamage.com, you'll be treated to a full ground-up re-design courtesy of my lovely wife, Elle Randall. To say that this is mainly a cosmetic update is to understate the matter quite a bit.

The major difference, other than looks, is in the license control. As of today, when you buy a license from us, you may transfer it to another customer free of charge. However, if you bought a license from someone other than us (e.g. on KvR) and you want to re-sell that license, you need to purchase a license transfer option for $4.00. I've been doing all these 2nd hand transfers by hand for a decade now, and it has gotten completely out of hand, so we're tightening the options a little bit.

The other thing, and this won't affect hardly anyone, is that any order over $500 (which usually only means "Everything Bundle") has to be done through Paypal. We've had several instances of people purchasing Everything bundles on stolen credit cards, and we don't find out about this until like 30 days after the fact, when we get a chargeback notice from our credit card service.

No other policy changes at this time, and other than looking and working much better, the store will operate more or less the same. Enjoy, and let me know if you run in to any hiccups.