This week I finished constructing and hanging six broadband acoustic absorption panels in the studio.  The purpose of these panels is to improve the overall quality of sound in the studio by dampening problematic frequencies (frequencies that the room naturally amplifies).  I have a small studio with parallel walls - which in the acoustic engineer's world is a recipe for disaster!  You can buy professional products to address these problems, or you can build your own if you're slightly handy.  In the brief research I did, you can buy a panel similar to the ones I made for about $250. ...

I've posted three new tunes for your scrutiny, enjoyment, annoyance, rapture, etc: Ely [5 MB - 5:28] Pure sliced-beat joy on a backdrop of some soft textures. Raising the Roof of the Lab [3.52 MB - 3:50] The scientist lives [link]. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this tune, but I decided to post it as a set up to the remix... Raising the Roof of the Lab - Chemist Mix [3.71 MB - 4:03] The scientist dances. Technorati Tags:...

Songza is a music search engine.  Stream the results through your browser.  Send songs to Twitter, email them to a friend, or embed results on your web site.  The range of what Songza finds is just average - not a lot of rare stuff, but I love being able to click around and find other tunes/artists by accident while searching for something else.  Who knew there was a 50 Cent vs. Helmet track?  I didn't. Sound illegal?  You can't download the songs, and Songza pays ASCAP for the rights to stream the music. It's completely legit and free for...

Look and listen to Scientific Method. If this tune doesn't give you a headache, then you a) aren't listening closely enough, or b) aren't listening to it loud enough. It's a beast. Drums and more drums. And then more drums. In case you want to dig a little deeper and hear some extra stuff, here are the drum breaks used in the tune, including slowed-down versions of a couple of them for your dissecting pleasure: Ripper Break #1 Ripper Break #1 - slow version Ripper Break #2 Ripper Break #2 - slow version Amen...

My music library (www.kindohm.com/musiclibrary) is back online after a multi-week period of downtime.  The downtime was caused by my last Subtext upgrade and I just chose to ignore the problem until today. That being said, there are a few nuggets of musical goodness I stumbled across recently on my old music computer.  I hope to upload them soon.

Installment I of the Sidetracked Project is complete.  This is the result of a two-year effort by me and Jason.  Available for download are all of the mp3s, a liner notes PDF, and m3u playlists for both my and Jason's preferred listening order.  Our music leans toward the heavier end of the musical spectrum, in case you don't know what to expect.  My favorite three tunes we worked on are Revenge of the Pinatas, The Missionary Song, and Empyrion.  However there is plenty of other great music, including some very, very serious (</sarcasm>) stuff.  Technorati Tags: music sidetracked project mp3 rock

That's right.  I finally found one of these: I've been looking for one of these for a long, long time. Zildjian doesn't make them any more, and they've been hard to come by on eBay. I ended up winning one in an eBay auction yesterday. It's used and according to the picture it looks like it was taped up at one time, but it was also half the price of a new one. I just hope it sounds close to my old/current/cracked one. Technorati Tags: cymbal swish zildjian crack ebay auction

If you downloaded Threat Precedence earlier this week, please download it again :) I discovered some very bad problems with the mix yesterday and just finished correcting them. If you have an old copy, I encourage you to compare the old with the new and let me know what you think. Specifically, the snare in the main break in the beginning of the tune had a lot of low-end attack, and under compression it made a very annoying low-end pop on its attack. It bugged the hell out of me. I also tweaked a few...

I've whipped out yet another new tune. I was thinking of how to describe this one, and all I could think of was this: imagine graphing a quadratic function on a TI-95 calculator, throwing the calculator into a garbage disposal and obliterating it while fending off someone attacking you with a knife. Or something. Threat Precedence 5:37 5.14 MB [direct download] tags: music electronica audio flstudio aggression

Neil and I took a brief diversion after lunch and went over to Groth Music today. Groth is a great because they carry a lot of other stuff than just mainstream gear (ala Guitar Center). Anyway, I picked up a couple of egg shakers, and also one of these: Spring Drum It's a "spring drum", a.k.a "thunder drum". I'd never seen these before. The funny part was that I tried to flex my musicologist musicles and tried to convince Neil that it was a "cuica". The next thing I knew, Neil figured out what it really was...

Check this out: A simultaneous mix of the seven tracks from the Basic album. Enjoy. Or run away. You have been warned. tags: music weird noise basic

This article, Demystifying the iTunes EQ, gets a little bit technical about equalization and explains to non-audiophiles how to use it to tweak the music playing through iTunes. Most, if not all, audio players (such as WMP, Winamp, etc) have this equalization capability. Unfortunately, the article rubs me the wrong way a little bit. It's partially because I produce my own music, and partially because I'm just weird - so don't listen to me. Messing with the EQ while listening to music is like looking at a painting through tinted glasses. Even worse, it can be like...

I recently discovered a CD in a desk drawer that has a demo of an old tune of mine. Go have a listen. The CD had a few other goodies on it too, but I'm not willing to share them yet as I'll probably use them for future material. I'm secretive like that. tags: music demo song

I got a call from the county electrical inspector saying that my electrical permit was expired. He said unless I could finish my electrical work for him to do a final inspection on Monday morning that I'd have to renew (and pay $50) my permit. So, here I am this weekend finishing all of my electrical work instead of getting ready for painting. Basically I've had to wire up all the outlets (23 of them), switches, light fixtures, and fans. Yesterday I got all of the new circuit breakers and circuit hookups completed in the electrical...

Here's a word of advice out there for all you do-it-yourself'ers who are doing your own electrical work at home: make sure that if you're testing a circuit with a light on it that the light bulb isn't burned out. I estimate that you will save about 60 minutes of work if you take this advice. tags: electricity work homeimprovement

This is what we did on Sunday: We're about 99% done with the studio sheetrock. I can count on one hand how many small pieces I have left to put up. I wanted my helpers to focus on the big pieces that I could get done on my own. All I have left are a few things around the electrical panel, one piece above the window, and one over the doorway. I should be able to get those done in an hour - maybe two if I'm slow :) I'm so glad that we made great progress yesterday, and it was outstanding...

I just set up a date (1/29/2007) with my sheetrock contractor to begin the drywall work in the rest of our basement. This is sweet. We'll have a basement with walls in a few weeks. I can hardly believe it. Yesterday all I wanted to do was spend time in the studio because it was 1/3 done with sheetrock. I'm pretty excited about this. It's been a long, long time getting to this point and I can't wait for it to be done.

I just uploaded a few pictures of the progress made thus far on the studio sheetrock. You can view them all at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kindohm/tags/sheetrock/. Not a whole lot to see but you can get a feel for the progress, the room size, and how things might turn out. Heh, I also walked down there just now to make sure it's all holding up. I'm crossing my fingers hoping that 1.25" of sheetrock doesn't come crashing down onto the floor :)

This past Sunday I completed the first round of hanging sheetrock in the studio. I made about 1/2 the amount of progress that I expected and only finished the ceiling and one wall. The work went very well though - it was just slow. First, we re-hung the resilient channel on the ceiling. We added a few strips to decrease the spacing from 24" to 16" apart. We also re-oriented the channel so that it was easier to hang sheetrock by its 4' or 8' lengths. We also needed tp spend some extra time planning out...

Life and work have been insanely busy lately and I thought I'd make sure things don't get too stale around here an post a quick update... On the basement front, I now have 41 panels of sheetrock in my basement, ready to be hung. Nikki's stepdad and I carried them down the basement 1 at a time last week, and I don't care to ever do that again. Now it's a matter of finding a weekend to wall-up the studio room. I'm currently reading Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. It's the fourth book in the Halo series and chronologically it takes place...

Today I purchased four cases of Green Glue. It was something I had to get done so that I could start hanging drywall in the studio before the contractors begin their work. It was a big hit in the wallet, but a necessary purchase. In fact, the biggest expenses of our basement are coming up now with drywall and carpet. Everything else we'll be doing ourselves though.

I just got my first issue of a free magazine called TapeOp. TapeOp is a free music recording magazine that makes its money through gear advertisements. So far I'm loving it - they interview producers, engineers and musicians about studios and gear. The interviews range from experienced pros who have rare, expensive gear to unknown guys who buy used stuff and accept any offer to record someone's music. Even if you're only mildly into recording then you have nothing to lose by signing up for a subscription. I've read about three of the articles so far and I've already learned...

I've uploaded a new tune to my music library entitled Ursa. Go read about it and download it here. It's a 9.5 minute tune of the electronic ilk. Hope you like it.

Last night Tim and I went out to see ARP of the Covenant at the Nomad World Pub. It was an excellent show and the guys can play. They're playing again on December 19th at the Uptown Bar. If you like rock injected with prog-rock and mass improvisation then you should go see these guys. I'm hoping to catch them again on the 19th.

Yes. This is huge. This is a major milestone. I am so happy that my basement's rough-in inspections passed today. The inspector left me with a very small list of minor things to take care of that I can get done in about five minutes. Other than that, I can start drywall whenever I'm ready. There was a point at which the inspector was questioning my use of vapor barriers in the studio and started by saying I'd need to tear down all the insulation I put in, but he backed off after I told him that I...

For the past six months I was planning on writing a tutorial about do-it-yourself "soundproofing" [1]. I decided to write a tutorial because I had come across nothing but useless, incomplete, or poorly-written information out on the internet while researching my home studio construction. I've learned since then that my own knowledge wasn't much better than all of that bad information I had found - given that I installed my own resilient channel upside down. In the last couple of weeks I've come across excellent resources (books and internet) that I wish I had found years ago when I was...

I just scheduled an inspection for the basement next Monday 10/30/2006. This is a huge milestone - I've been working for this day for about two and a half years. It really should have been less than that, but I'm a slacker with too many hobbies. Unfortunately, my biggest hobby is really being hindered by the fact that the basement isn't done, so lately I've had a lot more motivation to finish it. This past weekend I tore down all the RC from the walls, put up the remaining required fire blocking in the frames, and...

ARP of the Covenant will be playing a gig on 11/7/2006 at the Nomad World Pub. Here are event details.

After much researching over the past couple of days I've made a decision about what to do with my resilient channel problem. Regardless of what I decided, I have to tear down all of the RC from the walls. I've decided to not put it back up, but I'll still keep it on the ceiling. What I've learned is that there is an arguably better product to decrease sound transmission through walls called Green Glue (GG). GG is an adhesive that you sandwich between two layers of drywall, and then you put the whole sandwich up...

Dammit! If you know me, then you know that I rarely get angry, upset, or down about almost anything. This afternoon I found some information on an excellent recording studio construction site that made my heart sink. I was visibly upset and my coworkers noticed and they asked what was wrong. I had learned that I installed all of the resilient channel in my studio upside down. Seven hours later, the shock of this knowledge has disappeared and I can think reasonably about it. In fact, I've learned a lot about studio construction as a result of it because I've researched my...

Man, I wish I had seen this write-up three or four years ago before I started working on my basement: http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html Thanks to my co-worker Tim for pointing me to it. In reality, I probably wouldn't have changed very much in my music room design in my basement even if I had read it before. But what I'm most concerned about in my music room are the parallel walls and how they'll cause a lot of unwanted sound reflection. While this article talks about how to construct your room to avoid those things, it also talks about how to eliminate them in...

Last week Jason and I held a recording session at my house for some acoustic guitar work. Here are some videos that document the very important event: Session video (15 MB) Session video (happy version) (7 MB) Keep in mind that both videos are to be taken very, very seriously. The "happy" version is of the same ilk as a previous video we did last year that you can view here. I'd prefer to upload these to YouTube rather than hosting them on my domain except that as far as I know YouTube doesn't support the wide screen ratio (grrrrr)....

I just won a Teledyne EC161 off eBay for $25. Man, this is the first thing I've purchased off eBay in about two years. I have no idea if this mic is any good or not, but it's a cheap, small-diaphram condenser which is the type of mic I'm most interested in finding right now. The seller says he uses it for mic'ing a snare, which I'd like to try (someday). For $25 I figured I couldn't go wrong. I've got some other condensers I could experiment with, but I'm a little afraid because they were a bit pricey and...

Wow. Check these guys out: www.ArpOfTheCovenant.com. In my hunt for a percussionist I came across this band's site while Googling for an old friend, who happens to be their drummer. I had no idea he went so far musically. He's a talented drummer and plays with a talented group. The band plays electro-funk, avant-jazz kind of stuff. Odd time sigs. Ambient to groove to frantic drum-n-bass-inspired insanity. Lots of improv. The guys have an interesting live show too. For audio and hi-res video of a few live performances, check out their press kit page. The audio and video both have great production quality,...

The Medalist wind ensemble is looking to fill a vacancy in its percussion section for this fall/winter/spring season. If you or someone you know are interested, pleast contact me through the site. Medalist is a volunteer, community band. When people hear "community band", they think of a group of people who get together on the bed of trailer at the state fair and play in a parade. Not the case here - Medalist is actually a top-notch volunteer group. It's about as good as you can get for a non-professional group. I have no...

I've decided to re-join Medalist again this Fall. I took the summer off and it was a good break. I wasn't sure that I would come back this Fall, but Lee is now the new percussion section leader and a few other percussionists have quit, and I think we'll have a really solid section this year full of good players. I've been looking around for something new to carry around all my percussion gear in. I have a stick bag, but it's not very good for hauling around misc. gear like triangle clamps, papers, music, tuners, or Mad Libs [1]....

A little YouTube artifact... the Melvins on some German show (circa early 90's?) talking about album covers. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K56dW1jp0Ik Also, the Melvins are out of the studio and will be releasing another CD on October 10th (supposedly). They'll also be playing at the Fine Line in Minneapolis on September 25th, but I'm not sure I can make it. We shall see.

I just thought I'd write a list of the top 10 rock shows I've ever been to. Here they are, in order from best to not-as-best: Helmet, summer 1996?, First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN. The Melvins and Skeleton Key opened. Helmet was (and still is) my favorite band of all time and that probably made it the most memorable experience. However I had never seen the Melvins play until that night and I didn't realize how loud and damn good they were until then. Helmet played a pretty extensive encore too that night and dug deep into some noisy old stuff too. Nothingface,...

I was looking at a bio of Meshuggah and stumbled across this picture: The guy on the left is wearing a Wild jersey. I knew they were good people :)

Helmet has a new CD out today entitled Monocrhome. Hands down it sounds like classic Helmet. Think along the lines of a more polished Meantime and that's what Monochrome sounds like. Hard, indie metal. Lots of syncopated odd-time guitar riffs over 4/4 drums. Grinding distortion and shouting. It's like home for my ears.

I added a new rss song feed to my music library tonight. Instead of blogging about every little experimental tune that I upload, now you can find out about them for yourselves, you greedy readers you. http://www.kindohm.com/MusicLibrary/SongFeed.aspx The only catch was that I needed to modify my domain model to include a "date created" field on songs. How do you assign a new date created value to 250 existing tracks? UPDATE my_secret_table SET DateCreated = GetDate() Yes, unfortunately each track had to get its date created value set equal to each other's. However, I bumped up a few of the good tunes to...

In an effort to kill time during lunch and let people know how terrible of a musician I am, I'm featuring a tune from my music library: Queen (click to view). I'm not sure exactly how this tune came into existence. It's just a random metal punk thing, and about 4/5 of the way through I accidentally dropped my drumsticks and just stopped playing. I recorded the guitars over the drums and just ended it there where I dropped my sticks. Perhaps the most unique aspect of the song are the lyrics, which are 100% improvised on the spot. I was...

Yahama has now replaced their AW16G hard disk recording workstation with the new AW1600. The new model has a number of new features, but the key ones are eight combo inputs (versus two) and a USB interface for transfering data with a computer. Man I would have loved to have had those features for the past few years. Looks like the old AW16G's have a "buy it now" price on eBay for about $500. Ouch. I was hoping for a higher trade-in value. I really would like to trade in my old model but...

Neil has been trying to pursuade me to try out and use Yahoo Music for a while now, and yesterday I finally caved and tried it out. I don't know why I waited so long - it's a pretty cool thing. For $5 a month you can subscribe to Yahoo Music Unlimited and have access to a ridiculous amount of music. If there's a downside to it, it's that there's so much music that I can't focus on anything specific. Their software allows you to search and link to related music as you're listening to something. ...

Here's an excellent explanation and analysis of perhaps the most well known drum break on the planet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac It's the Amen break. If you listened to music in the 80's and 90's you have heard it. I think the video is excellent. It is 20 minutes long, and pretty dry, but very interesting. It covers the history of the original song the break is from, the emergence of samplers in hip hop music, and how the break can be sliced. Ultimately the video arrives at a discussion about copyrights, the legality of sampling, and an argument of...

Here's a new tune for your aural enjoyment: x386 (Old School 16Mhz Mix) - 6MB (click to download) Big beats for the masses. Enjoy.

Jason and I have been laying down drum tracks for our project over the past few weekends. Check out these pics and see what we've been up to, or you can also read about it.

Download Mass Refactor (6 MB) This one ended up sounding very different from how I envisioned it in the beginning. I didn't envision so much synth and melody stuff happening, but those dimensions just made the tune better (I think). Like the tunes in my last post, I really have no idea how you'd categorize this one. It's electronic, there's samples, there's synths, and there's a hell of a lot of drums happening. I also created a zip file with all of the samples, the main loops, and the synth lines. It's all wav files, so you can remix and slice...

I dug out some old electronic stuff I produced about 1 - 2 years ago. I don't know exactly how you'd classify it.... IDM, downtempo, midwest softcore, chaotic breakcore, whatever. "Genre-izing" music isn't too important anyway. Either it's good or bad. But I digress. These tunes were all made using cheesy synth samples and inadequate software [1]. I hacked together wav files and made things happen with what I had at the time. The drum samples ain't so bad though. Here they are in approximate chronological order: Travel (5.8 MB) - This was my first shot at trying anything, and I...

Take a listen to this recent Edgey track: EDGEY-My_Tactic_-_Vengeance.mp3. Increase volume, try to keep up, and let your ears bleed a little :) This track made my day yesterday after work. Edgey's stuff just keeps getting better. Tool's new album 10,000 Days came out yesterday. I didn't think they'd be able to top the cover/case art from their last CD, but they did. This CD's case is unreal, complete with built-in 3D viewing glasses and images, CGI graphics, very cool artwork, and a sweet design and layout. As for the music - it's Tool alright. In one way I wish the...

I've decided not to play in the Medalist concert band this summer, and I probably won't play the next season starting in the fall either. It costs $150 per year to be a member, and this year's repertoire was light on percussion, so for $150 I spent a lot of time sitting around waiting to play. Plus Medalist is community-service oriented and we travel out of the Twin Cities metro area to neighboring rural towns and play. Last night we had a gig in Cannon Falls - a 1.25 hour trek from home. But perhaps the...

Late Saturday and Sunday nights this weekend I re-worked Elegance and polished it up. I added a little intro, brightened up the drums, changed the pad sounds, and added a few subtle parts. Download it here

Go back to Music home Mike's electronic music. x386 (Old School 16Mhz Mix) (6MB) (6/14/2006) Mass Refactor - midwest melodic ambient-core. Whatever. it's nice. Download the Mass Refactor loops and samples (23 MB) (5/31/2006). Elegance - another IDM thing. Rotator - a legit DnB/IDM mix (10/9/2005).

I've been a percussionist for 17 years. It never ceases to amaze me how other percussionists at all levels do idiotic things that make either them or their ensemble look and/or perform badly. While playing a gig this afternoon, I felt compelled to write up a few tips to help large-ensemble (e.g. wind ensembles, orchestras) percussionists succeed in the non-technical aspects of their craft: Use flat surfaces (e.g. a horizontal music stand) with towels or other soft surfaces to put instruments, sticks, mallets, and other equipment on. You can never have enough. Do not put sticks, mallets, or instruments on anything other...

Here's a preview of what I've been working on for the past 1.5-2.0 years: preview.mp3 Just a quick compilation of some bits and pieces. There are 12 instrumentals total that I have lined up, and no lyrics yet. In fact I'm not planning on doing much else with these tunes until the studio is built. Plus I'm thinking that I'd like to record vocals directly to the studio computer rather than the digital recorder, so I might as well wait for the new computer too. So in the meantime, nod your head briefly to this stuff :)

Last night I was experimenting with a tune that I'd recorded a while back, trying to make it sound good. I discovered something that absolutely changed the sound of the entire song and I wish I'd figured it out before. It's just a subtle change, but the impact was huge. I mic both the top and bottom of my snare drum and record each mic to its own track. The top has a lot more tone and a lot of low frequencies. The bottom pretty much just gets the bright snare sound. The snares tend to...

I've been looking for this video for about three years. Believe it or not, I saw this on my wedding night. I'd never seen a band this heavy play on national network television. I think it's somewhat impressive that Corey (vocalist) left out all of the f-bombs in the lyrics without accidentally slipping one in. Anyway, this is an excellent modern metal performance. Even if you don't like Slipknot or heavy music you should watch this. Ah, this makes me miss going to shows :) "Toy".

I received one of these as a gift this weekend: It's a Samsung YP-U1X mp3 player. I've been wanting a cheap little mp3 player for a while so that I can listen to music while mowing the lawn and stuff like that. But this one is really cool because it also has a built-in microphone for voice recording. My old cassettte tape portable recorder was always a hassle to use because it wasn't digital. For those of you who know me pretty well, you know that I really liked that recorder and got all kinds of interesting...

I dug up a few old demos again from the Basic album: Complicated Maze Demo (listen to the real version) - I actually recorded this tune about five times before the final version. The main reason for that is because it was the first tune I really worked on after I got my Yamaha digital workstation. There are a few other demo versions of this song floating around my house on CDs somewhere, but here's the first one I've ever posted. This is one of my poorer vocal performances. I sound bored. I'm not singing...

Thanks to Jake's post about YouTube.com, I've uploaded a few videos. YouTube is pretty cool, but so far I can't find a way to get widescreen videos to display correctly. They get squished to a standard screen size. Bah. Here they are: Get On Your Knees and Bark Like a Dog 7-21-2005 Sidetracked Project (widescreen squished)

I was thinking this weekend about what 10 albums I'd want with me on a deserted island, assuming that I can't ever go home and get a different album, go somewhere and buy a new album, and that I'd have some method of playing music (e.g. boombox or iPod or whatever). If you know me, then I suppose you probably won't be too suprised ...

Second chord sounds in a 639-year concert: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1972430,00.html I love John Cage.  I had the opportunity to play his Living Room Music about ten years ago.  I'm not as familiar with his work as I'd like to be, but there was no composer like him.

I came across this article which has a few paragraphs that ring true for any artist: When it comes to the arts, be it music, photography, surfing or anything, there is a mountain to be overcome. What happens is that for the first 20 years or so that you study any art you just know that if you had a better instrument, camera or surfboard that you would be just as good as the pros. You waste a lot of time worrying about your equipment and trying to afford better. After that first 20 years you finally get as good as...

I'm really into this Edgey track right now: http://www.edgey.net/mp3/tracker2.asp?trackURL=EDGEY-SufferRhythm.mp3 An excellent DnB mix.  Great production.  Damn good.  You.  Listen.  Now.

UPDATE: this content is now all located on my music library pages. Pleaes go there and click the Studio link.

Jason and I had an interesting little chat today: Jason Bock says: I'm going to do a mathematic's Master's thesis on Meshuggah's time signatures Mike Hodnick says: "Explain how Meshuggah's time signatures support the theory that imaginary numbers are strongly tied to human emotions such as aggression and anger" Mike Hodnick says: Use a differential equation to solve for the rate of change of the number of accented beats per measure on track 2 of Meshuggah's "Nothing" album Jason Bock says: LOL Mike Hodnick says: Using linear regression, determine whether a time signature of 5/16 versus 11/8 causes a significant change in the number of dotted-sixteenth notes played per measure...

As most of you know, Jason and I are collaborating on the Sidetracked Project.  I've been burning the song demos we've worked on to CD's, then ripping them using Windows Media Player to my laptop at work.  It's often entertaining when WMP can't find a good match for your own tunes and it comes up with what it thinks is the best. We have a tune called “The Missionary Song”, and here's what WMP came up with: How WMP thought that our tune was something by Lil' Kim is beyond me. The title, the picture... it made me laugh quite a bit. Enjoy.

I came across an old demo of “Standing Here For Days” from the Fury Stopper sessions.  I haven't heard this in a long time.  It's basically the first take I ever did with the song.  I'll be damned if I can ever capture the drums on tape like that again.  I remember that I recorded the guitars directly into my Yamaha AW16g without using any external preamp or anything - just plugged directly into the board.  I used the AW16g's onboard amplifier simulation for the final guitar sound.  The vocals sound pretty decent.  Despite the lame guitar tone, the mix as...

The Medalist band will be playing a couple of holiday concerts in the next few weeks.  One is tonight at the Bloomington Fine Arts Center, but it's $10.  It's a complete rip off considering we're playing a FREE concert on December 5th.  The holiday music just isn't worth $10 when you can hear oodles of free holiday music in a lot of places all December.  If we were playing more of a standard show featuring Grainger, Ticheli, or Stamp, then I'd say it'd be worth the $10.  The holiday stuff is fun, but it's not the most interesting from a musical...

The latest in Electronica from yours truly: Elegance (6.3 MB, 4:35) I like this one a lot better than the last one I posted.  Comments welcomed.  Enjoy.

Your wildest dream has come true.  Please welcome Kindohm Radio to the site.  Actually, it's just an m3u playlist, but whatever.  Click the Kindohm Radio link above in the main nav bar, or you can link to it here. Pretty much everything is in the playlist except tunes from Plastic.  I'm just not very proud of that one.  Anyway...  play it, shuffle it, and repeat.

This weekend in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday I took a few minutes to play with a Beat Slicer plugin for FL Studio.  I took a drum beat from the good old Food track and the classic “I can't find my pants” line from the Joey track, completely cut and hacked them up, and created something new: http://wss.kindohm.com/Music%20Remnants/Kindohm-PantsMix.mp3 The Pants Mix.  Enjoy it, or fear it.  Your choice.  

The Bloomington Medalist Concert Band is playing at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on Monday 10/17/2005 at 7:30 PM.  The best part is that this concert is FREE.  All of the other Medalist concerts are usually between $5 and $10.  This show will feature two other bands from the U of M, and we're playing last.  So if you're looking for something to do next Monday, come see me play an array of percussion instruments.

I'll be to the point: if you like the heavy stuff, go buy Soulfly's new album Dark Ages right now. Go listen to the tracks on Amazon.com if you're not quite sure. This is one of the best metal albums I've heard in a long time. This is Max Cavalera's 5th studio effort with his Soulfly project. It sounds like he's finally achieving the "sound" that he's been striving for after leaving Sepultura. Dark Ages has the South American, tribal-metal flavor that the other four has, but this one is the heaviest. It has remnants of...

It's been a while since I've produced anything, but here's something new: Download Kindohm.Rotator.mp3 Kinda my first legit DnB/IDM mix.  I've done some of it in the past but I was using lousy tools and it just sounded corny.  Hopefully the first of many installments.  Enjoy.

Look to the right.  Yeah.  It's cool and you know it.  At least you wish you had something like this on your website. I use the last.fm/Audioscrobbler plugin for WMP, and they make all kinds of XML/REST feeds available for user stats (example). I decided to throw my top 100 artists feed on the site just for fun. Now you know what I listen to all day. So when you see Winger get into the top 5, you know there's a bug somewhere.

If you want to find out what a Studio Supplement is and what happens when two musicians consume them, watch this: High Res (29 MB) Low Res (9 MB) The original “Joey” song can be found here.

I was out of the Drum & Bass and IDM musical genres for a while, but I've gotten back into them recently. I think its mainly due to my latest tinkering with Fruity Loops Studio and my obsession with creating breakbeats. After attempts at creating some tunes in FL Studio, I have a much greater appreciation for DnB and IDM producers than ever before. Often the stereotype of electronic music is that it doesn't take musicianship to create it and that anybody can do it. I think that stereotype is half true. In my opinion, being a musician requires some...

Yesterday I broke one of my favorite cymbals that I own - my 18" Zildjian Swish. They don't make them anymore either: There's been a crack in the cymbal for a while that originated from one of the eight rivet holes that I drilled in it a long time ago. I was playing yesterday and suddenly noticed that it sounded really funny, then looked up and saw the damage. I really liked the cymbal because it was a good cross between a typical crash cymbal and a china. It has more sustain than a china, and I played it like a crash....

If you subscribe or keep up with Sidetracked Project News (which you should), then you know that there's some new stuff we've posted recently.  There's a video from our last practice, and an mp3 of some spontaneous shredding. 

My new double-bass pedal arrived on Friday. After the LAN party Friday night, I couldn't wait and opened it up and tried it out (quietly) at 1:00 a.m. Over the weekend I had a few chances to actually play out more and break it in a bit. All I can say is that my left leg is sore today :) Imagine that since you were 13 you've known how to ride a bike, but the only bike you've ever ridden only has a pedal on the right side. Now you get a new bike and it has pedals on both...

I just bought a set of these: I haven't bought any drum equipment in... years? I don't know exactly how long, but I think it's been more than two years. I also bought some new drumheads and sticks with the pedals. I tried these out at Guitar Center on Monday, but they didn't have them in stock and I ordered them online at samash.com. For the money they were the best. My first choice would have been some Tama Iron Cobras but I'm not willing to spend that much. And they're built much tougher than what I'll be using them for....

So today I randomly decided to refinish one of my snare drums (view all the pictures here).  All I got done today was disassembling the drum and sanding off the original finish.  Unfortunately, I never took an picture of the original drum before I started working, but in this picture you can see some blotches of the old color on the inside of the shell: Next, the challenge will be to actually find time to paint and laquer the damn thing. Sanding took about 15 minutes tops with a power sander. But painting is a more delicate and patient process. In...

If you don't ever check in on www.sidetrackedproject.net, then you don't know that there are video footage and images from last night's practice.  Find them all here.

I posted a few audio snippets of what Jason and I have been doing with the Sidetracked Project.  Take a listen at http://wss.kindohm.com/sidetracked.

Nikki and I finished cleaning out the new baby room and prepped it for painting yesterday.  Thus, I moved all of my music gear out of the room down into our storage room in the basement.  I didn't realize how much crap I actually owned until I had to move it all.  Guitars, amps, comptuers, mixers, etc, etc, etc.  Last night I really wanted to get some music-related work done, so I set up shop right in the storage room among shelves of camping gear, christmas decorations, the furance, the water heater, etc:  

Last night's concert went well.  The small turnout was a bummer, but that seems to be the norm.  Either we don't get the word out or music for winds and percussion is a dying art form in suburbia.  Anyway, since Lee (my friend and percussionist) and Shannon had their baby last Thursday, Lee couldn't make the concert.  So, he had his sister Anna come and play as his replacement.  Holy crap.  I can't imagine coming fresh into a concert and sight-reading the entire show.  Anna did an outstanding job - especially since she had never before played most of the music...

If you've always wanted to tell me how bad my music is but never had the guts to say it to my face, then today is the day you've been waiting for!  Each album page now allows comments, so you can write about how my guitars are out of tune, how I can't sing, or that I don't have a clue about songwriting.  Get started by clicking on the Music link. 

Go back to Music home (2002) The 2nd Kindohm CD, recorded at the Crystal house. This songwriting era generated a ridiculous number of tunes. OS also contains an abundance of B-sides and alternate takes. Check OS Thicker Choice Inside View Home Day I Lived Gathering Dig Matter Hey Puppy Interlude Snow Type-Class-Attribute-Operation Sliver Terminator Sleeper Steal Special Request Postlude Stimulus and Response No More Squids B-Sides, demos, and outtakes Adapter asdf Beast Bob Boing Dadiali Eye Opener fdsa Happy Song I can't play the guitar Idea Mecca Mercury Munkie Puppet Queen Recursive Reg Riff Step Wild Anthem

Go back to Music home A collection of anything else that isn't really categorized yet. Kindohm-Experimental Heat 1.mp3 - Acid loops, latin style. Kindohm-Experimental Heat 2.mp3 - more Acid loops, latin style. Kindohm-WTF.mp3 - my first dabbling with Acid loops. Kindohm-Continue.mp3 - one of the last tunes recorded a the Orange Hut in Crystal before I moved. Kindohm-Pop.mp3 - another of the last tunes from the Orange Hut. I Am a Hacker.mp3 - It's good to be an Inetium hacker. That's Not Organic - A D&B flavored ditty used as the background soundtrack to a Sidetracked Project video.

Go back to Music home (1995 - 1998) - This compilation contains some really bizarre compositions and sketches. It's what happens when you have extra time on your hands in college. There's also some neat drum machine compositions. Kindohm-Clips-BRUSH.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-CAVE.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-DEATH.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-DINNER.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-DRAFT.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-FOOD.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-HEALTH.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-HOO-AH.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-HYPERSPA.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-JAM2_O.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-JAM3_O.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-JOEY.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-JUNK.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-LLAMAS.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-LOVESONG.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-NUTS.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-PANTS.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-SCURVY.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-SERVO_2W.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-SNORKEL.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-SPACEFUN.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-STAIRS.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-SWING.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-TEC.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-THING1.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-THING2.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-THING3.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-THING4.mp3 Kindohm-Clips-THING5.mp3

Go back to Music home (2002) Recorded at the old house in Crystal. These tunes sound pretty good considering the tools I was using at the time. Drums were only on one track, and no guitar amps were ever used. Definately some of the more creative songs on this one. Kindohm-Sonar-01-Kindohm.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-02-Layoff.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-03-Overconfident.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-04-Lighten.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-05-Oblivious.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-06-Trusting.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-07-Idle.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-08-Interlude.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-09-Dorothy.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-10-Uprising.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-11-Dormant.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-12-Congest.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-13-Misdirection.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-14-Explanation.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-15-Enoughy.mp3 Kindohm-Sonar-16-Sonar.mp3 Demos, B-Sides, and Outtakes NullRiches Congest (Version 1) Congest (Version 2) DJ Dunno Hard Liquid i Kiss Orbital Digital Ping UPrising (Version 1) Waaa