[rant] Does no one care that OS X is unix?

And, don't get pedantic. 

UNIX or unix, BSD, Linux or OS X, Solaris - we're probably all using a lot of GNU software (because it is free and we can use it for production without fees and it works incredibly well). I for one used the GNU compiler on Solaris (8 and 9 if you care) for what I had to do in a production environment - mainly for compiling Perl modules but also bespoke C and C++ imaging applications. Nothing clever, mind,  but why does no one ever document anything about OS X properly online?

I had to look up some vaguely (although not very) esoteric options for the unix find command tonight - why can I only find the answers on a Linux site? Does anyone actually use the *nix side of OS X apart from developers? 

Does anyone know that OS X is basically a BSD unix?

OK, I am not an ObjC programmer and I find C / C++ difficult but... OS X runs pretty fast. I do a lot of music on it and I can have 20+ tracks of audio, with realtime effects (a lot) processing on them running on a dual core 2GHz machine with 2GB RAM - this is pretty impressive (and very important) to me - this is a flaky old Mac... why is it working better for this than a Windows box with 2 or 3 times the power?

Not being an Apple fanboi I do like the OS... try and look up bash scripting on OS X and how limp the advice is. I friggin hate Apple's silly little gadgets but I think the computers are pretty good - ok their servers do have a tendency to fall over (generally when you're asleep) but hell, they're cheap.

If I had to work, professionally on an OS of choice it would be Solaris but OS X is not the end of the world. Linux really before Apple though.

And, no, I don't really like Java. And, no, it does not work properly on OS X.

PS vaguely esoteric was simply this:

find -E ~/ -regex “\.*c|.*\.o” -exec rm -f {} \; 2>/dev/null

Not the end of the world is it?

Nothing on an Apple forum though.

</rant>

PS - Duncan and Kathryn - great news - so pleased for you!

[Live] tFE and Cabaret...

On Friday (6th July) I am playing with The French Electric at this place - on Inverness St in Camden, just down from The Good Mixer. We'll be playing this for the first time live, which should bring a smile to a dead man's face.

On Sunday (10th July) I am doing live sound for The Rude Mechanicals who are ace, at Bar & Co - map etc is here. The Cesarians are also playing. This is worth coming to if you suffer from Pre Monday Stress... I know I do. It'll work wonders for your serotonin levels...

[Live] The Miller Test

Two Miller Test gigs coming up - one tomorrow at the Bully in Oxford and one on Saturday at the 229 Club in London on Saturday the 2nd of June. Jubilee celebrations indeed...

[Gear] No Input Mixing

I hadn't used this mixer for years, mainly because it sounds absolutely horrible and clips the minute you look at it in a very nasty way. It's a Behringer... I won't say any more than that.

Finally, however, I have found a use for it - no input mixing. This seems to be something it is vaguely good at. I created feedback loops all over the place with it as you can see, so every control actually affects the sound and unlike the other TEAC mixer I use for no input mixing, this one works in stereo. Some definitely good fun to be had by plugging and unplugging the connections to create some fairly intense bursts of noise. Interesting that both mixers sound different when you create feedback loops on them and work in different ways. I think I prefer the sound from the TEAC but that is currently being used as a prop in a play. Also, the Behringer is tiny so it's easy to carry around to gigs and stuff.

One really cool thing is that by using the headphone socket for the output the level of the output signal can be attenuated which doesn't happen on the TEAC. This is good because it means you're not just sending peak output to a PA or soundcard.

I used it on Resonance FM - more pics here where I played a couple of sets with Vultures Quartet and Anton Mobin who was over from Paris recording with us and playing live in London.

Anyway, nice to find a use for crappy old equipment that never really worked in any satisfactory way.

I am now wondering what would happen if I start trying this stuff with a 32 channel, 8 buss Mackie desk ;-)

[Update] All sorts of stuff

I just created one of those Facebook page thingies for my music. It's here: http://facebook.com/Astrometria 

I am adding all kinds of videos and stuff to it and it has a gig listing page - although that doesn't mean I won't be posting stuff on this blog or updating my website.

Also, I realise I haven't really been posting much on this blog for the last month or so apart from gig dates. Well, this is because I have been really busy, recording, rehearsing and gigging.

The recording stuff is going well - in fact I will be mixing a new version of Lacrosse by John Zorn this afternoon by Vultures Quartet which will hopefully be released on Zorn's label, Tzadik, along with some of his other "Game Pieces". These pieces are a lot of fun to play will feature guest musicians as well as the normal VQ line up.

The next Vultures Quartet release is currently being mastered - this will be called What's Wrong With Me and will initially be released as a vinyl picture disc (remember those?). It will be coming out on Zos Kia Sounds later this year, followed by a CD release which may or may not have different material on it - undecided at the moment.

So, lots going on and more to be done...

[Live] The Miller Test 10th May

I am playing with the Miller Test tomorrow... here are the details:

THE MILLER TEST IS LIVE AT THE WORKSHOP, OLD STREET, THURSDAY 10TH MAY, 8PM 

(Actually, the website is questionable - here and here might be more useful.)

£6 on the door, no messing about.

[Live] The Miller Test - 100 Club

The Miller Test return with a gig at the infamous 100 Club this Friday 20th April at 8pm. We've been working really hard on our set and are looking forward to playing this gig a lot - should be a lot of fun.

If you haven't heard what we do, you can hear it here on the "Ear, have a listen" page.  

[Live] Why Camels Have No Wings

Why Camels Have No Wings are playing at Boat Ting on Monday 16th April. It's a new(ish) quartet comprised of me, Kay Grant (vocals), Daniel Thompson (acoustic guitar) and Will Connor (percussion).

Should be a really good night. Well, Boat Ting is always good!

[Album] The French Electric FREE DOWNLOAD

The shiny new album from The French Electric on which I play synth is going to be available to our Facebook fans, for free, for a limited period from 2nd of April. 

You can become a fan here - do it now and get some excellent, new, free music next week. 

You can listen to a couple of tracks here.

And keep an eye on the site for upcoming gigs.

[Live] Shugoran gig - 31st March

I am playing with Shugoran this Saturday, 31st March at Power Lunches in Dalston. It's a Transient Constellations event - always fun and weird. You will not be disappointed.

[Live] The Miller Test at Nambucca

Oh, yes, The Miller Test returns to Nambucca, this Thursday, 15th March at 10pm. We love it in there as the sound is great. So come and have a few shandies and a jump around.

[Live] The French Electric

I am playing synth with The French Electric on Saturday night (10th March) at the Buffalo Bar in Highbury. Should be an excellent night in a pleasant bar...

The French Electric - new single and gig

The first single by The French Electric is out now. You can hear a snippet here. It should be on iTunes soon if you want to buy it.

We're playing a gig tomorrow in Whitechapel at The Urban Bar. I get the feeling it is difficult not to spot the place... never played there before so am looking forward to checking it out.

[Recording] New compilation

I'm on this new compilation of music made using Open Source Software. It's called No Tobacco and is under my name of Astrometria.

There's some great stuff on there and thanks to Walter for putting this all together.

[Theatre] Johnny Head in Air

Well, the next theatre piece I am performing in is Johnny Head in Air which is a Bhuto dance piece with live music by Vultures Quartet. Again this is a piece by Tom Bailey and the Mechanical Animal Corporation and really exciting and strange. I love it.

Sadly for the audience VQ will be onstage dressed like I am above. Hmmm. Oh, I haven't put loads of weight on I'm wearing 5 layers of clothes as it was so cold in the rehearsal place. 

We're on at 11:45 am at the Arnolfini in Bristol on Saturday 25th February. I hope you Bristolites I know will come - that means you, Leila, James, Mark, Anna, Annette and Caroline!

We're going to do some other performances at other festivals later in the year.

As ever - thanks so much to Martin and Mary Bailey for putting us up, putting up with us and cooking for us as well as scooting all over Bristol in a car full of maniacal props. It's a wonder the police don't stop us...

[Pd] Finally...

After what feels like months of working on stuff where I work with other people I've finally made a new piece. It's on my site - on the Audio page and is called The Chase.

The patch is composed of 4 sets of FM synths (well, ok they may not be strictly FM) and, well, anyway, you can see how it works above.

[Live] Videos added to astrometria.co.uk

Just found some videos online of Vultures Quartet - most notably footage from our 50th gig at Boat Ting in December 2011 and footage from a gig we did at Tate Britain in December 2010. There are some others from The Foundry (with Ampersand) and one from The Others.

I'd forgotten footage existed for these gigs. They're on my website.

Thanks to Giles for recording most of these. You can see more of his films of bands here on YouTube.

[Programming] FAUST

FAUST or Functional Audio STream is an amazing discovery. It is a functional language designed purely for writing DSP applications. What makes it really useful is that programs can be compiled to standalone applications (as in the picture above, which also shows almost all of the code written for that app) using the Qt library. More usefully, for me at least, it can be used to compile Pd externals.

It took me a while to understand how to write code in this language but it seems to be fairly simple once you get the hang of it and is definitely much more concise and simple to write than the C++ equivalent and because it is translated to C++ then compiled it runs just as fast.

As well as being able to compile standalone apps and Pd externals it can compile to all sorts of other plugin/app formats (VST, LADSPA, Max/MSP, iPhone and more). 

The code for the above app is as simple as this, and I think I have probably written this badly - I am sure it could be much easier to read - as you can see most of the code is for the positioning and creation of the GUI elements. The actual DSP stuff is quite simple.

declare name "SINES";


import("music.lib");
import("oscillator.lib");
import("math.lib");
import("effect.lib");


samplingFreq = 44100;


osc_group(x) = vgroup("[0]", x);
osc_group1(x) = vgroup("[1]", x);
knob_group(x) = osc_group(hgroup("[1]", x));
knob_group1(x) = osc_group1(hgroup("[1]",x));
kg1(x) = knob_group(hgroup("[1] OSC", x));
kg2(x) = knob_group(hgroup("[2] LFO 1 (SINE)", x));
kg3(x) = knob_group(hgroup("[3] LFO 2 (SINE)", x));
kg4(x) = knob_group(hgroup("[4] LFO 3 (SINE)", x));
kg5(x) = knob_group1(hgroup("[1] Filter", x));
kg6(x) = knob_group1(hgroup("[9] Output", x));
kg7(x) = knob_group1(hgroup("[2] Echo", x));


vol1 = kg1(vslider("[1]Volume [unit:dB] [style:knob] [tooltip: abc]",-30,-120,+4,0.1) : db2linear : smooth(0.999));
freq1 = kg1(vslider("[2]Freq [unit:Hz] [style:knob]", 440,5,200,0.01) : smooth(0.999));
squw1 = squarewave(freq1) *(vol1);
sine1 = oscr(freq1) *(vol1);


vol2 = kg2(vslider("[3]Amount [unit:dB] [style:knob]",-30,-120,+4,0.1) : db2linear : smooth(0.999));
freq2 = kg2(vslider("[4]Freq [unit:Hz] [style:knob]",440,0.01, 10, 0.01) : smooth(0.999));
sine2 = oscr(freq2) *(vol2);


vol3 = kg3(vslider("[3]Amount [unit:dB] [style:knob]",-30,-120,+4,0.1) : db2linear : smooth(0.999));
freq3 = kg3(vslider("[3]Freq [unit:Hz] [style:knob]",1,0.01,10,0.01) : smooth(0.999));
sine3 = oscr(freq3) *(vol3);


vol4 = kg4(vslider("[5]Amount [unit:dB] [style:knob]",-30,-120,+4,0.1) : db2linear : smooth(0.999));
freq4 = kg4(vslider("[5]Freq [unit:Hz] [style:knob]",1,0.01,20,0.01) : smooth(0.999));
sine4 = oscr(freq4) *(vol4);


moog_f = kg5(vslider("[4]Freq [unit:Hz] [style:knob]",5000,1,20000,0.1) : smooth(0.999));
moog_r = kg5(vslider("[5]Q [style:knob]",0.01,0,0.99,0.01) : smooth(0.999));


N = int(2^19);
interp = kg7(vslider("Interpolation [unit:ms] [style:knob]",10,1,100,0.1))*44100/1000.0;
dtime = kg7(vslider("Delay [unit:ms] [style:knob]",0,0,5000,0.1) : smooth(0.999))*44100/1000.0;
fback = kg7(vslider("Feedback [style:knob]",0,0,1,0.01) : smooth(0.999));
dvol = kg7(vslider("Volume [unit:dB][style:knob]",-120,-120,+4,0.1) : smooth(0.999));
skew = kg7(vslider("Skew L [unit:ms][style:knob]",0,0,5000,0.1) : smooth(0.999));
output = kg6(hslider("[4] [unit:dB] [style:knob]",-30,-120,+4,0.1) : db2linear : smooth(0.999));
a = sine1+squw1 <:
_, *(sine2) :>
_ <: _, *(sine3) :> 
_ <: _, *(sine4) :> 
moog_vcf_2b(moog_r, moog_f);


process = a <:
_, ((+ : sdelay(N, interp, dtime)) ~ *(fback)) /(dvol) : 
((+ : sdelay(N, interp, (dtime+skew))) ~ *(fback)) /(dvol)+(a), _+a :
*(output), *(output);