Blogz

Gig Prep & setlist 

well, the last few weeks have been pretty stressfull, I've had a no. of tech & life set backs that have made preparing for this gig on may 4th a real pain to march through, though I'm in the final 2 days of work now, & will be tying it all together fast!

decided on a final setlist of

May 4th Live Set

1. Life of an analogue monster
2. Miskin
3. Snap ya
4. Thump Gauge
5. Over the rainbow
6. Light Eater
7. Rollback
8. 30r
9.Grump Strut
10. Forlease

a few new tracks in there, some recent(ish) ones & a golden oldie... (I figured why the funk not!?)

I hope many of you can make it out to the gig, as its always nice to play to some familur faces, aswel as some new ones

see you all friday

S x

slow n loud (a return to playing in front of people) 

so, back into full gig prep mode again now, its been a LONG time! I really need to make the effort to try & find more live gigs after this one appearence. Its always takes seems like a super electro-monkey effort to shake the cobwebs off & get fluid in the live domain, its takes a LONG ass time to also prep new material for live performence aswel.

the last year & a while I've concentraited soley on score based music for film, to which I've kinda lost that bump a bit. which made this gig a little interesting to prepare for, as in the old days nearly every idea I'd have (& cultivate) would always be instantly evaulaited for its viabuility as an interesting live track, but when I look back at the material from the last year, its all score based. So thats an interesting limitation in unto itself.

I do have some newer tracks though that seem to fit the bill, "Rollback" for instance is a nice slow bumbling grumble of a piece with a really uplifting melody. "This is my work" is not a stoltz track in the classic sense, as its so slow & rather simple (both tracks mentioned are based around a 4/4 beat, which is wildly rare for me!) I have had alot of people really get into that one though, so it stands up on its own as another viable live candidate.

past that, I have a cover I've been toying with for a LONG time now, it needs work still in that have to find the arch for its structure, but the sound itself is all there. & then theres the killer app that I originally wrote for a film, but was always destined to be a single in its own right. no ones really heard it yet so it should really get people moving & into a good place.

then, theres a wild-card, a demo that takes the swing of house & just dirtys it through pulsing synths & running counter breaks. "30r" should be fun & get people moving.

past that, I'm left reviewing alot of older material thats been sat in my hardware waiting to be played. at first I was uninspired by all of it, to me its all old hat, but in reality most of it has only been played twice, maybe even 3 times at the most! so it still carrys something unique & fresh that most people havent been expossed too yet... is grunt strut dance'able??? guess we'll find out!?

the next week is gonna be a total fucking SLOG while I push the hardware to its limit squeezing as many sounds into it as possible!

speak soon electro-monkeys...

SMB x

Grohl is right, & electronic music isnt wrong. 

I came accross this artical on a website I frequent - Dave Grohl Backpedals On His Grammy Speech

Basically it refers to a speach gave while drunk at the grammys & accepting an award, he made reference to how its a testiment that the humen eliment of music is still being honoured & loved, & not forgotten within the current climate of computer created music.

From this speach apparently the electronic music ferturnity (of which I am one) )became riled up & took offence to dave's comments as a slight against they're way of making music.

Dave Grohl then took it upon himself to release a clarification statement, stating that he endorses electronic music, & wasnt directly aiming a critical venom to those artists who work within that medium.

I guess this got my attention a little, I just wanted to chime in with my say.

Basically Mr Grohl is write. His statement was totally taken out of context (by those who took offence). as an electronic musician, I came to the conclusion many years ago while developing my sound & what I like to hear in music that the humen eliment that Dave refers too, the minor mistakes that crop up intrinsically in all recorded music, is one of the things that makes music so soulfull & inviting to the ear. while we all strive to be as good as we can be at different things in life, countless times the public have spoken to the simple reality that when compared to perfection, the humen race always cares greater for that which is floored, this is because as humens, we know personally that we all are floored.

I've always worked hard to build that humen eliment into my music, where possible always playing my synth & sequence lines into my timelines by hand (no matter how stinted my chops are) & past that, even making a point of building mistakes into my recording & creative process on purpose.

Electronic music is now the standard in the music industry, & has been for many many years. but the methods that Dave Grohl mentions will ALWAYS be a massive part of the process, even influencing that which is perfect to begin with, to aspire not to be.

an excellent exampel of this is found on the many many electronic music production forums around the wide worlds web. thread after thread is available for reading on the subject of the worth to old anologue synthesizers, & what lengths music software developers go to recreate that sound. of which is very simple. old anologue cuicits are inaccuret & add in small failures to the sound that they should be perfect with (off-tuned pitch & minor distortions & noise levels between the different stages), but those failures are what I call "pure failures", in that they are organic to the process itself, pitfalls of the method or technology used to get that sound. Point being, an entire industry actually exists, not to correct those failures but instead to recreate those pure failures for greater future reproduction.

Another interesting offshot of this, is how entire music genre's & styles have stemmed from these pitfalls in themselves. stuff like glitchcore, that takes the failed "cuicit-bent" sound & techniques & incorperates it into the sound itself as a sonic convention. The famed TB303 was originally designed as a bass acompaniment machine for guitarists to practice with, but failed horribly at emulating the sound & feel of a bass player, but when noticed in isolation from an individual who wasnt looking for a bass player replacement, its pure failure was instantly used as a unique strength, which spawned the whole genre of techno music. countless other examples of this can be appllied to all facits of music (electronic & acoutic).

ultimatly though, its the hument eliment that is most important, not the method that is used to create, capture or convey this.

Mr Grohl, I take your original statement in the proper context, & agree whole heartidly.

respect

electro monkey

VJ camera's 

some random pictures taken from odays rig prep, the new rig webcam angles for the live VJ stream




showing the main keys & performance FX, this is so you can see what I ACTUALLY do to make sounds happen






The ever luvely Yamaha AN1x in all its (hardware) virtual anologue glory... my 2nd oldest synth, & still as sweet sounding as teh day I first brought it :)





The Control Board, with the 2 drum machines & the main hardware midi sequencer... notice the LACK of audio laptop people still doing it the old way ;)

Set List Break('in it) down for May 22nd 

sooooo been working my little whats'its socks'its off for the gig on the return gig on 22nd of may, which is slightly odd as I originally planned to just do this as a minor warm up & See how I feel about playing live again, but it seems to have ballooned very fast (in typical punk'in it fashion) into a total overhaul of stoltz'ins live! if you check on the Front door news section, in the newest tracks player you'll find another little sneek peek at a beat jam offshot that will end up in or around teh newer version of war righst live, its call "Reality Stack (war rights)"

so anyways, what I figured I'd do for teh very first (& perhaps only) time is put out the set list I expect to drop on saturday, & break it down, some thoughts on the tracks & how they're shaping up for a good live rump! so here goes... 

Life of an anologue Monster  - This is THE new live track for me. it came out of nowhere & I pretty much wrote the entire thing in about 50 minutes flat. its got such a cool building vibe, to teh point that if I was to re-invent trance music, this is how it would sound! perfect way to break that first time back in pblic sweat & just ease people in to teh stoltz way... definatly a great "welcome to the life of an electro-monkey" peice! cant wait to show it off to you ya'l, coz ya gooona love it!

Prayer Beats - & so the mood suddenly changes.... this is always a challenging track, to play its a pig, & to experience its alot to swallow... but man is it worth the work! balls to teh walls dark breaks & horns all round, & "that vocal"

Miskin - I basically whipped into the sampler & sequencer JUST for my VJ, since he has a major hard on for dub-step, & this is quite duby... definatly a fun little swinger of a track with a cheeky groove, a nice easy exit from preyer beats to say teh least!

Egyptor  - this was always a fun track to play back in teh day, & it still seems really quite relivent even now! a very cool unique sounding peice... & (god forbid) I even break out a 4-to-the-floor beat! (get it while you can folks... thats a rarity!)

Thump Guage  - well, this one was always gonna be a no-brainer really, not particually fast (I seem to be hovering around that 130bpm-140bpm range of late), but this has all the eliments of a classic stoltz track, its ballsy, unique, aggressive, hip, a little quirky, with a switch-blade egde... will be alot of fun to play!

Drumth - Now, when I play live... some of the most fune eliments to do are the jam parts, where I have beats nsounds up on teh keys & I do away with the sequencer & just let it roll natrually... that WAS ment to the be case here, a total drum workout... but it kinda mutated into sumin a little grander... starts out pretty standard, but gets holyer than thou by the end of it, a great string melody tho!

War Rights - This IS one of my all time favourite peices! its not a particually complicated or intelligent track, but man does it have "that kick" to it. the horn sound ALWAYS sens shivers up my spine, as if sumin REAL mean from the distance is on its way to change shit for real! the live version seems to up that feel even more, & the new "Reality stack" section I added, just ooooozes cool! its only been played once ever... so will be nice to finally let this git out the basement to reek a little havoc ;)
Light Eater

Rave - Finally we have RAVE. this is a total slugfest of a track, you start flailing at the begining, & you dont stop till the cool break in the middle.... get ya breath back... then continue breaking shit! its way cool, & will be loads of fun as usual to unlesh it.

so... thats your lot for saturday! some of you may be wondering "wheres warder?" but I decided to give that eice a rest for a night & let the new guns out to play, test the fresh granades & see what kinda mess they make :-P to I'm sure warder will be back, along with snap ya (the epic that never lets up on me) & of course runst burn will be back at some point to make a calamity of shit....

so... see you all saturday! will be a fun night, with some cool atmosphere, even cooler people, & 1 happily over-worked grand master electro monkey!

S!

cranking ear meat out of teh live machine  

haya guys, so blogging again for the upcoming gig

back in the REDroom working exclusively on stoltz again now, feels great! for the first time in TOOOO long I've been working on live material, with the upcoming may 22nd gig (see Stoltz Future for details) looming over my head hard, gotta put the hours in to prep! surfice to say gettingmy head back in that right place again was very difficult, its been distracted doing other things the last 21 months, & I havent quite fully stayed true to the live cause. that time is now over.

so... first thing I did was play about with a random drum beat I mashed up a few weeks back. I call it "drumth Jam" & theres a small 3 minute video on the news page & the Malgatude Movies page. its a fun litle peice, nothing too complicted tho I have updated the jam with ALOT more samples & added a cool little string section to wind it up a bit. that was a cool thing to warm the engine up other.

then I turned my attention to a live version of thump gauge, since its such a raw track & has that classic stoltz grump! that one has troubled me a little bit, as I've hed to really become inspired as to how I should approach it live. tho I have to say, even if I just play it in a carbon copied way to the current website version, it'll sound hard & fresh ;)

while playing around with thump gauge tho... I accidently stumbled on a really deep & thick sound I had previously programmed on the good old Yamaha AN1x (my 2nd oldest & most trusted synth). was REALLY nice & instantly got my mind working on how it could biuld with loads of other sounds... so I shut down thump guage & about 30 minutes later I had this HUGH building grumbling synth heavy peice, that grows momentum & then crashs through with a massive drum beat & come alive, gave me goose pimples & had me jumping round the room to it... always the ultimate hint that a tracks rumping! returned to it later that night & really locked it down in the sampler & on the AN1x, & now its almost ready to let rip live! people will love this one as its a slow builder, but really hooks you in. has kind of a big-beat sound with a trance style to it (tho only in effect, not sound... trance is shit boring!) the tracks called "Life of an anologue monster" & I full intend to open the gig with it... so look out for it!

then we have light eater... I wrote this about a year & a half ago, & was always sad that I never got a chance to play it out live (since I stoped playing live at that point, & didnt know if Id return). its a fucking monster, REALLY moody & heavy as a 9 ton git! not sure if may 2nd is teh right place for it, as its definatly 6 minutes of focused dark matter, tho I'm gonna play it anyways just to see if I can get everyone moody & stretch its legs GRRRRR. again if you check the Malgatude movies page you should find a cool video of me experimenting with it on there.

those will be the 4 NEW tracks to the live playlist I think, as I dont hink I'm gonna have enough time to really generate & produce anymore for this gig without sacrificing a needed amount of practice time. some other tracks I'm currently thinking of playing tho will be War Rights, as thats such a cool track (I really like the live version, ESPECIALLY through a chunky sound system). Egypter - sprint eidtion, this is such a cool version of teh song & reallt gets things moving, & possibly either Rave, or Prayer beats, (if you look, ou'll find versions of these tracks in the site player) but I guess I'll know more once I start really playing with the tracks again & see whats good & whats not.

anyways, REALLY looking forward to finally testing the music again in front of people, & firing up the hardware live-style! its always a total ruch when I play live, even if it goes wrong! LOL so with any luck, I should see you all from teh noisey side of the room alot over the coming summer!

end of meat

s (electro-monkey grand master)

Stoltz Live 2010 

so, not announcing anything yet, but there are some things starting to pop up again & it looks like I'm gonna be picking up a few dates over the summer & actually dragging all the hardware to play out live again this year. stoltz hasnt made any live racket since september 2008, so its been a lengthy stay on the bench this time, looking to stay consistant tho once the ball is rolling again so me & ash will be out there & hoping stirring a little panda love again. so keep ya ears sharp & 1/4 of an eye on the stoltz calender, as it will be in use soon ;)

see you between the speakers

sy x

time for an overall check up with Dr Norman 

haya guys. quite word-typing to let you all know I'm still about. convince some of you that I have been busy in some way or another LOL

so... what have I been uptoooooo????

well, a few months back, I volentered to assist a friend of a friends with a comedy hip hop track he wanted to put out, based on facebook. so I spent a good few weeks, produced umpteenth instrumentles & finally we agreed on a backing track for his vox. got the old snapper-wipper in the studio, shoved a rode infront of him, & off he went... vocalling away. anyways I just yestaday finsihed the track, which funnily enough is called "Facebook". The tunes uploaded to the "newest tracks" music player on the
front door page, check it out. also... if you DO have a facebook account (of which you'll enjoy it most hah) then copy this link into the status update "links" box, & the tune will post directly to your status for all ya buddys to here > http://stoltz.co.uk/files/Facebook.mp3

the majority of my winter so far has been taken up with scoring & editing the music & sound for the LONG awaited release of hand island episode four. the episode gave me a great oppertunity to dissimilate & ape 2 of my favourite scores, Aliens, & Terminator 2. the Aliens one was of particular interest to me, as the score for the first 3 films are actually on my daily playlist anyways, so I found it really interesting pulling it apart & braking down the different styles of sounds & how they were orchestraited. it was a very difficult thing to do with just midi programming but I managed to pull of a peice that I feel captures the feel of the film quite well (& it works great as a suportive peice to whats going on on screen). after that came the editing & mixing, of which myself & the editor have discovered some rather STRANGE bugs in final cut & its exporting of sound via OMF, & its inabuility to re-import mixdowns IN SYNC... slight proffessional OPPSIE there apple!... the episode itself was actually alot easier to edit this time round, using the external recorder on set (boss'd by myself obviously) was a real boon, as the sound I was able to achive off bored the camera was vastly supiror to the that of episodes 1-2-3. overall technically the episode is a marked improvement all round so I DEFINATLY recomend giving it a watch, & partically the aliens scene! (which I actually was the prop builder for also haha)

The episode can be watched in its entirity here
www.handisland.com - Episode four 

hummmmm... what else? well, tonight I got into a new track, this one is actually a full on underground dance peice akin to 98 DnB (with a typical stoltz original flavouring). its quite powerfull, has an angry ambient vibe to it, with some tribal eliments haha. I should finish it in a few days (when I'm not drunk) & will post it up on the site

well... thats all for now folks, Im due an emo bath! I hope you all have a charming new years 2010!

all the best

da sy (stoltz)

plastic decision 

been a rough & tumble couple of days! tho its the kinda rough n tumble I dig ya feel me :)

the production crew I work with, entered into a 48 film competition, basically on friday (25th, sep) we were given a brief of a genre, a prop, a charecter with a name, & a line of dialogue, to which we were then charged to make a complete 4-7 minute short film, within the space of 48 hours, & hand it back in sunday the 27th at 7.30pm.

was a hectric ride, a group of us met until 1am saturday morning, then a writing team (the guys behind hand island) stayed up all night writing a script. 8am saturday morning the crew & cast conviened as our project managers house, & we went to work hard filming all day & night till 12 o'clock. I myself was lead boom operator & sound recordist, preping all sound design dutys for the short film. While filming was taking place, between shots & lighting setups I bevered away on a (pretty useless) casio auto accompanyment keyboard, writing the notation for the score.

I was back in the REDroom by 12.30 recording the score & was finished by about 3am. while I grabed a few hours kip (& rested my ears... very important) the guys stayed up all night editing the peice together. By 10am the guys droped the edited film over to me, so I could edit all the sound, design any special effects, & lay the score tracks on the peice, ready for final mixing. this was all done by 4.30pm, where a final render was very quickly spazed out (after a few sync hicups) & then at 5.30 2 seperate teams set off with final burnt copies of the film, desperatly scraping they're way to london to try & turn the short in on time. just when time was running out, the DOP & lead writer litrually had to jump out of our producer/AD's car & SPRINT the last mile to the drop point in the center of london... we made it in at 7.29pm

we're now offically entered into the 48 hour film, with a charming & fun little peice called "364 days later", to which I did all the on set boom recording, completed original score, sound design, editing & mix down, all within the 48 hour time period.  keep an ear & eye for news on how we fair in the competition... :)

as a quick additional, I awoke VERY late today (after a well deserved mooga sleep) & decided to spend the afternoon poking about on some soft synths (in a very infocused maner I must say hah). I ended up knocking out a score like track that sounds quite cool, its called "Metal Decision" & is availible on the sites player now for listening. give it a play, you may enjoy :)