To most people when they hear the name Rhuarb and Custard they immediately think of the 80’s cartoon featuring two characters of the same name. Well think again! Roobarb and custard may begin to become synonymous with a DJ from Leicester who’s tinkering with analog equipment has now 
fully transferred itself into the digital domain. DJ Source as he is better known has together with several other DJ’s entered into this venture using the alias Roobarb. This first offering from Roobarb is For Custard Ears Only (as the title says). This mix brings several genres together seamlessly and with energetic delivery. There are clear references to the Old-Skool and Dub-Step genres while scattered throughout the mix is an underlining house feel that collaborates through the genres like warm butter on a knife.
Roobarb & Custard for Custard Ears Only DJ Mix
Friday, August 6th, 2010Field recordings
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010It been a very long time since posting on the New Time Music Blog; but life has come first. With that said and apologies to those that have emailed me I do hope many of you budding sound engineers have been taking advantage of the once in a life time opportunity to do field recordings in the open without the constant sound pollution that smears the sky’s each day.
Yes a large bonfire (OK Volcano) has caused all planes to be grounded and given field recordings a unique opportunity. Unfortunately due to work I have yet to get chance to do this so it would be really interesting to hear and speak to anyone who has seized this wonderful opportunity.
I’ll be posting a little more frequently from now on, finishing the Return to the Mixes is a priority so keep tuned and good luck with the music.
An analytical breakdown of Ionisation by Edgar Varese
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Released today on the site is an analytical breakdown of Ionisation an instrumental piece of music (or sound whichever way you perceive it) that describes natural objects and physical phenomena through sound. The composer Edgar Varese is one of the original pioneers of electronically produced music, Ionisation describes this forward thinking in terms of composition but without the use of electronics. This analytical breakdown looks at the score to Ionisation and asks questions of the roles played by the individual instruments, while offering answers to the reasoning behind Varese’s choices. Additionally the project contains a brief history on Edgar Varese’s life and a full discography of Varese’s work.
Return to the Mixes Part 1 – Yamaha DJX
Sunday, October 25th, 2009The Yamaha DJX is not what a professional would consider an industry standard keyboard if composing within the genres of electronic dance, house or techno. However when I tickled the plastic ivory (better known as keys) I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the collection of sound this machine had to offer. So much so I opened my wallet and handed over the asking price of 199 English pounds; a steal for a sound module with such interesting sounds. After demolishing the sounds within the keyboard as much as possible with a hardware sequencer, the time had arrived to introduce my production techniques to a computer. Not knowing of any other software within my budget I took the safe bet and invested in Cubase VST 3.5; This would prove to be a wise investment as Steinberg would be (with Propellerhead) one of the first companies to develop seriously the concept of Virtual Instruments. So with a PC running Windows 95 and 90 Hz of pure PC power and a 512mb (yes megabyte) hard drive I was on my way.
One of the biggest draw backs that I had encountered with hardware based sequencers was the limit to the amount of note data that could be stored within the unit’s memory. This is best displayed in the Quasimidi Quasar Sessions; the longest piece in this collection is approximately ten minutes. All very well for pop music but If I was to achieve my goals of one day creating an hour long piece, then this was certainly a hurdle to overcome. Cubase thankfully began making this a reality as note data was no longer an issue; although hard drive space would eventually dominate this area.
With all the above in mind I decided to create a non-stop hour long piece that attempted to use all the available resources of the Yamaha DJX and additional hidden parameters only available through MIDI and a computer sequencer.
Starting the piece was more naturally influenced by the sounds on the DJX rather than any preconceived idea of how the overall composition would develop. One of the first most notable additions to this composition was having a visual way to control the volume of individual instruments. This allowed me for the first time to create velocity curves that were 100% accurate rather than manually added; this was an important first addition when approaching percussion.
For the first 8 minutes the composition sonically displays the best of the DJX’s pallet of sounds with a few minor alterations to each of the timbres through manipulation of MIDI parameters. By this point I was over the initial excitement of the sounds available to me; now for some real story telling.
From 8 minutes the first individual piece emerges, this section would eventually be composed again as a separate piece titled Second Seduction (name derived from the fact it was the second time I had attempted to compose the same piece from scratch). This piece sets the stage for the next twenty minutes, covering the genre of dark dance and hard house. To achieve the darker elements of the piece a large amount of Cut-off frequency is used to trim the top end of the sound of leaving very bass heavy versions of the original timbre, tie this in with the ability to create curves from within Cubase and you have some very convincing and interesting sounds.
For the non technical minded out there the above graph shows two separate EQ Charts the left shows an image of all sound being allowed through (clear no filters) while the second shows what a graphic EQ would look like with some of the sound allowed to pass through.
basically put sound is either allowed or not allowed to pass through. The very concept of using filters to eliminate sonic aspects by this process has in truth molded and manipulated and guided an incredible amount of modern electronic music. More sophisticated plug-ins such as Steinberg’s 1997 release of GRM Tools as a VST Plug-in features a module called Band Pass Stereo a true master at filtering aspects of the electronic sonic scale. More recently
Return to the Mixes
Monday, October 19th, 2009Return to the Mixes is a look back at compositions from New Time Music. With a collection spanning over 400 pieces there are always going to be mixes that are missed. This look back on the tracks and compositions will also go into some detail as to how the track was produced. Some of the wonderful sounds used on these pieces stem from real life recordings to Virtual Instruments.
There is no doubt that software sequencing has revolutionised music production. When first starting out recording I remember how a four track would have been considered serious kit. Gone where limitations (or at least that’s what we were led to believe in the beginning) with it came freedom to express ones individual artistic feelings. Couple this with the ever growing internet and the true out of the bedroom label was alive once more, something not seen in the UK since the early days of Rave and the synonymous mix tapes .
Some of the classic pieces of must have software have all come along way. One of the most notable of these is propellerheads Reason. Through people that I was working with at the time, I was fortunate enough to have been given the freedom of a beta version of Reason. Knowing and understanding the possibilities of the programs claims, I was just itching to get it loaded. Once over the pain of inserting the CD each time I booted up Reason (hard drive space was scarce then) the next reality check came in the shape of insufficient processor power. In truth the PC power was until recently a constant battle between creativity desires and the reality of the PC’s capabilities. Some of the early mixes that I’ll cover where almost production miracles, but necessary learning curves needed to understand both the PC and the software used to create these mixes. Composed on a PC, with latency of around 750ms (running through DirectX that was notoriously unstable) it was more than a 400 Hz PC could cope with if more than 4 tracks ran simultaneously with the barest of colouring effects as additions. The only way to overcome this was to render the four tracks into one, and carry on from there. This approach wasn’t that different to the Quasimidi Quasar Sessions when working with a PR-100 in place of a software sequencer
The sonic qualities of the final recordings are mixed for obvious reasons but the compositions themselves where very good. Subsequently as the technology has caught up with the software’s capabilities all of these techniques have long been disregarded. Ironically (with a few exceptions) the techniques acquired in studios when only hardware was available have begun to become standard practices when working with software
Well on with the dissection of the collection (melodically speaking)
