RSD - Rob Smith leads the way

About 75% of the music labelled as dubstep sounds like melodic death metal done on a laptop. Only a handful of producers aim for a dub sound, in other words fat riddims made with nothing but drums, bass and echoplates.

Album review: Mad Professor - Audio illusions of dub

The Mad Professor will mix any kind of style you'd care to throw at him. That's why i expected Audio illusions of dub to be a dubstep album (or at least have a few dubsteppy tracks) because the dubstep 'label' is being used to promote this new album. But it turns out that's just a bit of illusion (or marketing).

Wycliffe 'Steely' Johnson R.I.P.

It's the end of an era. Steely & Clevie was one of the greatest production teams ever. Here's a link to the Jamaica Star: Steely will be missed. And more news and a tribute from the Gleaner.

Does humor belong in music?

Fresh!

DIY coconut headphone

I like i-and-iPods but the earbuds suck and most big headphones that sound good don't look good. The solution: a diy coconut headphone.

Dub Conference feat. I-lodica and Rich from Dub Revolution

After they had conquered the Future Reggae festival at Ruigoord (NL) I-lodica and Rich from Dub Revolution visited the anoxic and overheated Dubshot Dub Shelter for a bit of jammin. We did three tunes, they're in the player and on Myspace. The first track is called don't mess with bill. The second tune called dub party is based on the party time riddim and it also features Marcus Hillman on guitar. The third tune is called new world disorder.

The Big Gundown: Boss RE-20 Twin Pedal vs Roland RE-201 Space Echo

The Boss RE-20 Twin Pedal is the digital cousin of the classic analog tape based Roland RE-201 Space Echo. The Boss pedal was released in 2007. Here's a small demonstration at NAMM 2007.

Science and the loony bin

Everybody knows that you can’t sit on the word chair, that you can’t eat the word bread and that there's no such thing as a 33 or a 2009. Words and numbers are abstractions. If you try to drive around town in the word car you are making an abstraction error. If you persist you are on your way to the RUBBER ROOM.

Miracles are nothing special says E. J. Littlewood

If you have never experienced a miracle yet that simply means that you're not normal and you should probably see a doctor. The famous British mathematician E.J. Littlewood has proven mathematically that miracles are to be expected at a rate of about one in every 35 days. If you don't believe this check the details over here and do the math yourself.

Schoenmaekers and Mondriaan - positively mystifying

Mathieu Schoenmaekers (1875–1944) is remembered as the philosopher behind the Dutch art movement De Stijl, made world famous by Piet Mondriaan. Here's a short account of how this happened: in 1910 the philosophically inclined Schoenmaekers (a former Catholic priest) came up with a new religious view. He called it Plastic mathematics or Positive mysticism, the word ‘positive’ meaning scientific.

RE-201 Roland Space Echo impulse responses 25-200 BPM

A hardware secondhand Roland RE-201 Space Echo is very expensive nowadays. These IRs don't offer the same flexibility as a real Space Echo but the sound is as warm and as analog as it gets. Please note that the noise was removed so if you need more realism you have to add a bit of noise. You can even try using only the left or right part of these stereo IRs, or set the wet signal to mono.

Visual dubbs

Mr. Wassily Kandinsky from Moscow was one of the greatest abstract painters of the 20th century. Or maybe i should say THE greatest. When he painted he heard sounds at the same time (synesthesia). That's why i think it's fair to say he was not only a painter but also a dub scientist. This year there's a really big Kandinsky exposition in Centre Pompidou until the 10th of august.

Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters (and some tech talk from the heavy rollers)