I’m pretty pissed about this and I’m going to march in there this week and take my A6 from them.  They’ll call me if this part ever comes in (in one piece) and we’ll take it from there, but hopes aren’t high. 

The moral of the story I guess is, if you ever want to buy a major, modern flagship synth like the A6, make sure the company that manufactures it is still manufacturing it and that they have a good track record for repairs.  Another arguably good sign is if the company updates their synths with “version 2″ hardware and constant OS updates.  While the A6 was an instant classic when it came out in 2001, it’s in limited production and Alesis have had their share of problems as a company. 
This experience makes me wonder about the upcoming Waldorf Stromberg.  With Waldorf going under and resurfacing numerous times in their history, and given how problem-ridden their recent Blofeld was rumoured to be upon release (at least before the first OS upgrade), I have strong doubts that Waldorf would be able to support their Stromberg if and when they do finally release it.  Not to mention the fact that Waldorf is taking so many years to release the Stromberg, which really doesn’t look good for their financial situation.  Oh, and Waldorf shipping the Blofeld with “secret” RAM and selling a licence to unlock it later on is without doubt a major dick-move IMHO. 
A good looking company is one like Access, who updates their Virus-line every few years, and Moog, with new and alternate versions of their flagships fairly regularly.  So perhaps, unless you’re T Rizzle and can get every new flagship upon release without too much pain, maybe it’s advisable to stick to the big names without getting too esoteric in your investments. 

This means one very cool thing - finally my studio has multiple outputs!  At last, I can run individual channels through hardware FX & synths, and at live shows I can separate the backing tracks to give better FOH clarity & control. 
Well, in theory, this is what I can do. 

Unfortunately my main production environment is my iMac running Windows via Bootcamp.  What I have found out after getting the MOTU is this - MOTU products are not supported for use under Bootcamp!  It has to do with the firewire port, and despite upgrading all necessary drivers and reading all possible forums I have come to the inevitable conclusion that I simply cannot use my MOTU Ultralite Mk3 under Bootcamp.  This was confirmed by MOTU’s tech support when I finally contacted them with my problems.  They replied with an abrupt and succinct single sentence: “MOTU products are not supported for use under bootcamp”.  Well, fuck, that’s great… 
The good news is, the MOTU works perfectly on my VAIO laptop, as well as on the Mac OS partition of my iMac.  So what this means is that I am going to have to switch to Mac OS, probably accompanied by a jump to Cubase 5, when I can afford that upgrade.  Oh, one other thing you’ll need is a Firewire 400-800 adaptor, given that the MOTO is Firewire 400 only, and the iMac has 800 ports…  This was obtained easily enough from an Apple store..

In the meantime however I’ve been testing the MOTU preamps by doing some recordings on an environment that supports it.  The recordings are noticeably clearer and more satisfying than my old Tascam US-122 - really a night & day difference there.  I’ve also been having fun with running live loop-based jams on my VAIO, using Ableton Live, and routing individual channels through my KP3.  This should come in very handy at future Plague Sequence gigs. 

I’ve also been getting some serious mileage out of the DSI Mopho, which I’m unfortunately going to have to finally part with next week when I move.  Initially I thought it covered much the same ground as my Moog Little Phatty, in that they’re both analogue monosynths, but the DSI has a very different set of functions.  It’s sound is very different and much brighter/glassier, but the main difference is in the sequencer/arp.  I downloaded the Mopho software editor and this unlocks the yellow box (we’ve nicknamed it the “Bee-Box”) to some amazing tweakability.  Hit the Sequencer section for some really crazy possibilities, where you get 4 x 16-step sequencers that can be assigned to different paramaters.  If you can’t have fun with this sequencer, chances are you are dead inside.  It’s got a very contemporary electro sound, but it’s also a dirty little EBM machine.  If it had an analogue overdrive circuit I’d probably have to hook up my reproductive organs and try to make little Bee-Babies with it.  The other well-appreciated feature is that it never seems to go out of tune, despite the fact that it’s analogue.  I think the Moog Little Phatty is the best synth ever made (and I own an A6), but given that it has no internal tuning reference I have to tune mine before every recording, and sometimes it goes out by 100c.  I think I’m going to have to add a Mopho of my own, or a Tetr4, to my “list”…..

When screaming/shouting, it’s incredibly important to never run out of breath.  We spent time going over Shiv-r songs and noting points to take breaths so that I don’t run out.  It’s not only to keep the vocal power up, but if you are shouting and run out of breath, the muscles in your throat will push against your voice box and do some serious damage and it’s a quick way to get nodules in your throat which have to be surgically removed (not fun). 
Food: stay away from dairy the day of the gig.  If strapped for time and all you can get is Mickey D’s (which is an unfortunate and unplanned post-soundcheck/pre-gig ritual of mine), it’s okay because the meat and the bread is fine, but try and just eat half of it and take out the dairy.  The ideal food - sushi!  Very clean, not too heavy and the wasabi is good for clearing the nasal passages.
Alcohol: Absolutely stay away from red wine the day of the gig, as the antioxidants will cause your throat to flare up.  White wine is the best thing you can drink (if you have to drink), which is largely inconvenient as I can’t stand white wine (I think it’s a male thing), but I guess it’s time to learn to like it.  Stay away from anything carbonated, but if a beer is necessary, go for a blonde or something not too carbonated.  Other than that - white spirits are A-OK as long as they’re mixed (thank christ for that), just don’t go crazy. 
Warm-up: probably a good idea to do this before soundcheck just so you sound consistent and the engineer knows what to expect.  Just go over 5-minutes of the set or do 5 minutes of scales to warm up.  This’ll last for 3-4 hours max so a re-warm-up before the set might be necessary if soundcheck is much earlier. 
We went over a bunch of shouting tricks and the “vocal fry” technique, but for further learning she recommended the Zen of Screaming DVDs by Melissa Cross.  I’ll definitely be checking these out. 
Mics: My teacher recommended a Beta58 for my voice, which is what she uses as well because it suits her voice and has better feedback rejection than an SM58.  This echoes something an engineer friend of mine told me, which is that apparantly Covenant’s engineer’s choice of live mic for Eskil is a Beta58.  Definitely something to consider as I currently use SM58s (and the troublesome 520DX/bullet). 
Touring: Make sure you cough up the phlegm out of your throat at the end of the night.  Singing always results in phlegm and if you leave it in your throat it’ll breed more.  Ideally put a hot towell over your head and chill at the end of the night to clear it out.  Also, make sure your voice is in shape by practicing for at least half an hour a day for a month before back-to-back gigs.  The voice is comprised of a muscle, which will perform better when exercised.  Basically, a night of singing will stretch out the vocal chords, and they will need to resize to their regular form.  If they’re in shape, this will happen faster and you can sing again sooner, but if they’re out of shape they can take over a day to get back into their regular form which will mean wavery vocals in back-to-back gigs. 
Hydration: Drink 1litre of water for every 20kg you weigh in order to keep your throat sufficiently hydrated.  For me this is like 3-4 litres…ouch. 

There is a great deal of technique that was imparted as well, such as making an ugly nasal sound while running scales to unlock methods of projection. 
In the studio, when I’m not shouting I tend to rely on a very breathy, whispery sound for effect.  Unfortunately this really doesn’t translate live because it uses a tonne of air which is highly damaging and not so loud.  After these lessons I’ve learned to project these sections naturally which should add a lot more power to future gigs. 

Ah, what a pleasingly evil-looking pair…
The camera is the Canon 450D (in my completely unskilled hands).

Hacker by virul3nt

Anyway, today I got into it and the thing is really damn impressive.  I’ve recorded a short demo so I’m going to basically let the Mopho speak for itself rather than review it’s features.  After all, I’ve got remixes to do…

Oh, one other thing to mention though, is that obviously DSI has just brought out the Tetr4, which is essentially 4 Mophos in one box, for not much higher a price.  Well I say “ho-hum” to this.  The Mopho simply WORKS.  There’s really a lot to be said for mono-synths, and I think the Mopho is perfect in what it is.  So I think, my friend James shouldn’t be throwing his Mopho out the window to get a Tetr4 anytime soon.  As to whether I will pick one of these up myself, while I think it does offer a different sound to the Little Phatty (mmmm, curtis chip…), I don’t think the features justify the expense given what’s already in my arsenal.  But hey, the Mopho rocks!

Audio Demo - everything except the kick drum is from the DSI Mopho:

p.s. doesn’t the quality of the pic look better than usual?  We also picked up a Canon 450D camera recently too.  It takes stunning photos…

Next up will be some audio samples and videos…

• It looks cool, like something from another time;
• It’s something a bit different to your stanard SM58-shape, so would be cool for live performances;
• It’s technically a harmonica mic, designed to be plugged straight into a valve amp and overdriven loudly without feeding back, so its super-narrow bandwidth should prevent excessive feedback; and,
• Said narrow frequency range should make an interesting effect to add to the sound pallette

I contributed guitars for several tracks on this album, as well as programming the MIDI files for the 2 covers on the album.  The guitars were recorded in my London apartment, using my Gibson SG Menace & Line 6 Pod.  Len from Implant sent me the demo tracks as mp3s and I layed down a bunch of guitar riffs and sent them back to him as 24bit wavs.  For the MIDI files, Len wanted to cover a couple of old New Beat classics (”Businessman” by Logo and “Los Ninos Del Parque” by Liaisons Dangerous), so he sent me the tracks and I manually translated each note and hit in the song into MIDI. 

I haven’t heard the final tracks yet.  Alfa-Matrix is sending me a promo copy, but “you guys” will probably hear it at the same time as me, so I hope it’s okay!  Based on the samples in the above video, I think this sounds like it’s going to be my favourite Implant album!