So Specimen A gets a copy of Automaton which will no doubt be put to odd use.

This weekend, write, record, and mix a song in 10 minutes, from bare empty tracks to finished. (Rendering time doesn't need to be counted.) Post links to your tracks here, and I'll pick five and have a poll on Monday when it is cool again. The winner will receive a copy of Automaton when it is released. Obviously, we wouldn't expect A Day In The Life or anything of that sophistication, but it would be interesting to see what can occur in such a short span of time in the various genres to which the readership of this blog ascribes.

(Oh, wait. I never took marketing in college. If I had gone to college, perhaps I would have.)

In any event, in that light, I've begun my barrage. The first salvo is, as always, adding the product to the AD store. After that is done (as it clearly is) I'll start assembling some audio demo material. For this plugin I'll also be doing video demo material, since without the video it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So, the next step is the demo stuff. This is also where the most extensive usability testing of the plugin is done, for the win.

I demoed every screencast package for both Win and OSX, and have determined that, for all intents and purposes, they all suck, but in completely different ways. Camstudio has fairly good (and by "fairly good" I mean "barely mediocre") editing tools, and titling and such, but it is on Windows, so no CoreAudio, which means using it with a DAW fucking blows, and involves all sorts of Polish Engineering. Screenflow is on the Mac, and has really nice tools for adjusting the focus of the screen and animating about and such. Also, since it is on Mac, you get CoreAudio which means you can record right out of Logic or Live. However, it has no captioning tools, which is just about the stupidest thing ever. Plus it's on Mac, which means "cute" trumps "useful."

So, after much experimentation, I think that I'll end up doing titles in Combustion, capturing with Camstudio, rendering that to MOV, then editing and making the final production in FCE. Ain't nothin' easy in this world, is there? First video should be done by the end of next week, circumstances permitting.

I stopped doing Fucktard Of The Week last year, mainly because I was starting to feel bad, especially when the fucktards would write me and provide a spirited defense for their actions, which was happening more often than not. However, I seem to have gotten over that minor flaw in my personality, so (for the now) we will return to everyone's favorite cage match beat-down.

In that light, I give you Mike Silverman, keytar virtuoso. (Actually, "virtuoso" implies a certain knowledge of timing, which Mike lacks.) Mike is the keyboard player for The Downtown Trio, a jazz/pap ensemble who's main purpose seems to be to make the Yellowjackets look good when they play state fairs. (And no, we don't even want to talk about Bach To The Future.) So here you go, Mike. A couple thousand free views of your YouTube video. Enjoy.

I would have done this last week when I got the sample set, but between Automaton, house guests, and, you know, leisure activities, I didn't get it done in a timely fashion. My bad but hey, that's why you don't have to pay a subscription fee for this site.

Anyhow, what we have here is the (Bowed) Piano by Soniccouture. It is a fairly crafty set, and (like most Soniccouture sample sets) unique. You don't have to worry about accidentally doubling up on a particular sound with these guys. It is, as the name suggests, a 9' Baldwin grand, with individual strings bowed by a rosin-coated fishing line contraption (essentially a garrote, if you're a ninja/pirate). In typical Soniccouture fashion, the set is complete overkill, with round-robin samples of three different flavors: hard legato, soft legato, and staccato. Apparently the staccato sound is done with a horsehair/tongue depressor gee-gaw.

Of course, you can, and should, read all that stuff on the Soniccouture site to get the low-down on what is what. What you really want to know is whether it's good or not. Since I don't have all those other bowed piano sample sets to compare it to, it has to stand on its own merits.

For the two legato sets (switched via the mod wheel), pads are the comfort zone. It is an odd sound, but nice and pleasing, and organic as hell. The soft legato sits in a mix in the same way that violas or a cello played on a high register would, albeit with a far greater range. The hard legato is fairly bright and active, and frankly you'll have to essentially invent new music to use it with, as it is simply too lively for normal pad usage. I really like how the bottom two octaves are essentially only second and third harmonics on the hard legato. The sound of this is hard to describe but extremely cool.

The staccato mode (accessed via whacking B6, versus C7 for legato) sounds like nothing so much as an oboe with a lot of lip, for want of any other descriptor. That isn't to say that it actually sounds like an oboe at all, lip or no. It just reminds me of that more than any other sound.

The nice thing about this set (and the Hang Drum set, for that matter) is that these aren't instruments that you think of needing, as in "boy, you know what would really set this off? A bowed piano!" These sounds, and many of the other Soniccouture sets, work in the opposite direction. You get the set, install it, start fooling around, and ideas come. I think that's worth its weight in gold, and as inspirational material this sample set would be a bargain at five times the price. (Which is, by the way, fifty quid.) Audio samples and all the info at the Soniccouture site.

So what's your favorite tabletop and why? I suppose we can count the 303, since technically that's what it is, but I'd be heartily disappointed if that was the overall favorite.

While most will remember him for the ridiculously kitschy "Shaft" single or the tedious fart humor of Chef, Isaac was a keyboard player of no mean skill, and played piano on many of the Stax/Volt hits. (His piano playing on "Try A Little Tenderness" versus Booker T's organ is one of the all time great keyboard combos in any song, in my opinion.) Never mind some fantastic songwriting. Walk on, Black Moses.

That said, as far as big-ass production numbers go, the opening ceremonies the Chinese put on last night were made of pure WIN. Since I know a thing or two about production (doing lighting and production design for medium to largish events was my paycheck during the Lean Years) I can say with a relatively qualified background that the complexity and technical difficulty of that thing was simply unsurpassed; it was like about a thousand Superbowl halftime shows rolled in to one, with the distinction that it was actually interesting to watch. Too bad NBC ruined it with commercials and the utterly banal commentary of the Matt And Bob Show.

Anyhow, we have a house guest for the next couple days, and that coupled with the American men's basketball team will conspire to keep my attention on things other than musical endeavors for the next while. Therefore, this is an open thread. I'll leave the topic up to you for the now.

As far as I can tell, it's really as simple as saying "I'm writing a book about Blah, and furthermore some pleasant bits about Blah Blah," and people will send you money so you can go get your Barton Fink on. I'm totally down for that. I just have no idea whatsoever about what to write it on. ("Full Of Techno: The Unauthorized Biography Of Diamond Dave" is one thing that came to mind.)

So this is for the publishers out there. Send me a check and I'll write you a book. I don't even need 300 large. I'll do it for waaaaay less than that. You can even tell me what to write it about.

I'm working on the ad for CM/FM today, and I need a tag line which will be used on the image above. I had originally gone with "Open The Pod Bay Doors..." but my wife pointed out that the less... uh... imaginative of our potential customer base would get stuck on the word "pod," coupled with the image, and think this was something for the iPhone or some shit like that.

So, the first person to come up with a single sentence or phrase which will happily grab one's attention gets a free copy of Automaton (a US$49.00 value!!!) when it is released. Don't spend too much time thinking, as I have to finish this today.

EDIT: Okay, the ad is sent off and we're done. I came up with my own, but someone here posted it simultaneously, so he can be the winner. I'll be contacting him shortly.

(As an aside, isn't it funny how, in the music industry, we always assume someone is male until proven otherwise? Not funny "ha ha," but funny "queer.")