Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=19892

Looking for an epic lead instrument sound that’s a bit different? Consider converting your lead vocal. In this sound design and mixing tutorial, Mo Volans shows you how he used a vocal part as a lead instrument in one of his recent projects. Even if you work with a different DAW or style of music, you’ll find this screencast useful.

Read more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/audiotuts/~3/F_heW7PrxQ8/story01.htm

Looking for an epic lead instrument sound that’s a bit different? Consider converting your lead vocal. In this sound design and mixing tutorial, Mo Volans shows you how he used a vocal part as a lead instrument in one of his recent projects. Even if you work with a different DAW or style of music, you’ll find this screencast useful.

Read more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/audiotuts/~3/F_heW7PrxQ8/story01.htm

[Idle Hands]

Coming from a multicultural melting pot of Bristolian dance culture, house enthusiasts Outboxx have established themselves in short order, maturely brewing their easily recognizable sound. Equipped with rhythmic sensibility of Jacob Martin (alias Hodge) and Matthew Lambert’s keyboard skills, they’ve succeeded in forming an aesthetic of their own, combining big, warm bass with lush, synthesized melodies to create strangely familiar yet exuberantly fresh tunes. We’ve already heard them expand their style through several releases on Immerse Recordings, BRSTL, and Well Rounded Housing Project, but nowhere is their bold versatility displayed better than on the newest offering, their self-titled album on Idle Hands.

Spanning nine compositions, Outboxx largely remain in their sunset-lit territory of yearning vocal chants and echoes, but with each subsequent piece, their approach slightly changes. Opening song, “Home,” a nostalgic slow-burner, glides through dreamy pads and crackling background sequences and eventually introduces Naomi Jeremy, their long-time collaborator and apt vocalist. While the bass provides just enough bumpiness to make the ride worthwhile, Jeremy’s lyrics somehow don’t fully integrate into the template, despite her audible vocal effort. Similar mismatch happens in the soulful broken-beat piece “Lost Soul,” but this time her vocals outshine a limping, almost intentionally disjointed rhythmic flex. In the end, it’s the mournful, echoing synths that give both songs just enough cohesiveness to succeed. Listening to “All The Right Moves” and “Jaded,” it becomes obvious the Bristolians fare much better when extracting the sweet soul plasma of repetitive, disembodied vocals without definite semantic meaning. Freed from the anchor of Jeremy’s diction, a whirl of vocal snippets and uplifting melodies breathe much needed space into the album, still firmly positioned into gentle slow house tinkling. On paper, it seems like a fairly simple formula, but it’s only through their specific understanding and control of space that their melodies get poignant openings in the mix — and when they derive those motifs from classics, is when they get really anthemic results. “Sunshine Mills” effectively uses samples of New Edition’s “A Little Bit Of Love (Is All It Takes)” and turns it into a thrilling, driving piano-led, deep-house jam, sure to become one of this summer’s highlights.

The duo move away from their established style and focus on negative space in the latter portion of the album, adding dubby chords, distorted bass howls, and many textural details with slight sonic reference to their usual winning recipe. And surprisingly, it’s this last third of Outboxx when gets most exciting, with three compositions (“Thrashing Groovster,” “Withdrawal,” “My Destination”) almost completely lacking immediate hooks. This emptiness is no detriment, though. Through obvious and pervasive touches of delay and reverb, it allows the percussion to draw a distinctive, clattering signature in a crackling but sensuous environment. This move makes perfect sense since dub pervades everything on the album, and this final spacing-out essentially balances a well considered collection of quality tracks. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable listen from start to finish, revealing many cultural and sonic streams intersecting and flowing together. None of its pieces tries to be the newest or most memorable track on the block, and that’s why Outboxx is more than just the sum of its parts. With all its victories and slips, it is music that’s vital to understanding our present moment.

Read more: http://www.littlewhiteearbuds.com/review/outboxx-outboxx/

Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=19874

We all know by now about the (re)emergence of Sweden’s Frak in 2012, a trio of strange fish who had managed to fly under the radar of most of the world up until a string of releases last year, most notably on Digitalis and Kontra. So after such a high profile year it was odd to find their new mini album, “Erase” in the back of a shelf in a record store here in Dublin a few weeks, one I had no idea existed and at the time it didn’t seem to be knocking about online too much either – this has thus changed – even though Discogs stated that it had a February release. I’m figuring this is down to it coming out on Psychic Malmo, a small Swedish label with less clout than the other labels.

There is nothing complex about what Frak do and this simplicity can sometimes lead to moments of tedium but when they get those direct, monotonous hooks right it can all be rather wonderful and the “Erase” release is just that. The stark drums and uncomfortable vocal drones of the opening title track slowly but surely drag you into their murky mind-set, either wearing you down with the groove or maybe putting you right off (it was the former for me). They ease off with the near whimsical electro bumpin’ on “Talk On Answer”. While not as grinding as the opener they are still all about pulling you slowly along, layering jolting notes and acid over each other, though in a much lighter fashion. It can feel like it goes on forever, though maybe not this time in the best manner possible, but hey, plenty reading this are Djs so get to work on it. The A-side closes off with the “Bonga-Dance”, an industrial-tinged slow mo banger. One gets the feeling that Frak sometimes get a perverse kick out of making you feel like you’ve taken some horrible mongy drug. I’d like them to take this as a compliment btw.

The B-side starts off with “Classic Bass (do the Frak)”, it’s title creating an image of the trio teaching their fans some sort of weirdo dance to go along with their weirdo techno. It’s bouncing bass, flowing hi-hats and murky vocals calling us to do the frak is in contrast to the throbbing a-side cuts and then they amusingly cut it off early while before it was all about seeing things to the bitter end. After bringing us into the light with the Lps shortest cut, it’s time for the centerpiece of “RZA”, all quirky jumping assonance and skipping 808s, with what sounds like a playful melodica riff (though i’m half-guessing it isn’t that either, but another equally cheap bit of gear) plus another semi-atonal keyboard line. It’s pretty much everything Frak does in one track, raw kicks, those loose hi-hats and relentless riffs that beat you over the head. It’s fantastic. They close off proceedings with the house-centric “Controlled tie”, once again utilising their knack for an off-kilter, unsettling riff with an acid line coming at you from a distance, this time backed with some classic 707 rhythms. The synths sound like they are coming from afar too, on one hand creating a spacious sound yet it feels like the cavern they’ve invited you into has no way out. Frak don’t often deal in pleasantries and things are so simple with them at times it’s interesting how they’ve managed to carve out a sound so individual, but after 20 odd years at it maybe shouldn’t be all that surprising either. Sometimes playful, sometimes ardent and most of the time  downright odd, when they are on form like with “Erase” it’s all worth it.

Read more: http://infinitestatemachine.com/2013/05/20/frak-erase/