Why I Love My Stylophone

Guess what I bought today:



Yep! A STYLOPHONE!

It may not mean much to you but it's a slice of my childhood. I wanted one for ages and, after much pestering, I got one when I was nine or maybe ten. I played and played that little box. I composed maudlin elegies and triumphal marches which, had they been preserved by sympathetic white-coated EMI engineers, would have made humanity weep, laugh and gnash its collective choppers in a wild-eyed funk. Alas, nothing remains of this output... only my memories...

Yes, I loved my Stylophone.

Unfortunately, I broke it.

This was in the phase of my life where I was taking everything apart but hadn't quite figured out how to put it back together again. A year later, I took apart a transistor radio and actually managed to re-assemble it, none the worse apart from some suspicious scratches around the casing. Had I opened up my Stylophone at 11 or 12, it would have been fine. But I was a little too early and, yes, it was fucked.

Ever since then, a corner of my soul has missed my hornet-toned first electronic instrument. Imagine both how happy and sad I was to hear Stylophone all over Kraftwerk's 1981 Computer World album. If I hadn't broken mine, I could have played along! Waah!

The decades passed by... synths came and went. Always, part of me pined for a Stylophone. But I never bought one on Ebay or elsewhere because... well, I don't know why, really. That seemed a bit too cold. Stylophones are warm, idiosyncratic beasts, their personalities as individual and unpredictable as the drift of their tuning. I didn't want to just go and get one off Ebay.

I wanted one to find me.

Today, browsing round the current hobby-horse of apathetic, apolitical whingers, I went into a shop.

And there was a Stylophone.



Brand new.

In a box.

For fifteen quid.



How could I resist? There was a rainbow, rooted right in that shop. And at the end of the arch was my little electronic friend.

He's been updated a bit - there's now a swanky socket named 'MP3,' to which one attaches ones iPod. The sound of doing that is, of course, gratifyingly terrible. (But it's still better than all you pesky kids playing music on your goddamn phone speakers. Where's the bass? GET A GHETTOBLASTER! Suckas!)

I've been playing it all evening. It's as magical as I remembered. The stuttering contacts, the glisses from white to black note (damn hard to perform on a normal keyboard), the honking, farty, wobbly loveliness of it all. It's one of the best instruments I have ever played, it's so expressive and very human.

I've recorded a little demo tune for you, so you may revel at its stentorian wonder. Here's the Stylophone, all by itself:

Stylo 1

And here it is in a slightly more musical context:

Stylo 2

If you already own the best album ever made, the tune should be recognisable. If you don't, check the ID3 tags.

I'm now tempted to do a whole tour only using my Stylophone. And maybe that mousemat that plays horrendously distorted drums. Watch out, Scandinavia!

I think I'm in love!

(Click here for a gallery of Stylopics!)

RIP Daniel Hansson

I just found out about Daniel's death.

I never met Daniel but we exchanged emails about MIDI, quantisation, timing - the usual geeky stuff that electronic music types love to talk about. He was always unfailingly polite, helpful and friendly. He even offered to give me a tour of the Elektron facility the next time I was playing in Gothenburg. I wish I'd taken him up on that last year.

Daniel Hansson is an example of how one person can reach out and positively affect myriad others' lives. If Elektron hadn't invented the Monomachine, I would never have come to this realisation. I might be still stuck in a musical rut, wondering why nothing felt as good as it used to and wasting money on plugin after plugin, vainly attempting to re-capture a lost feel.

And, of course, I'm not the only musician who loves the gear he helped create - I'm part of a legion of Elektron fanatics. Each of us has been touched and blessed by Daniel's creativity.

You'll be sorely missed, Daniel.

Machinedrum Macros

Say hello to my leetle friend....

(Click da pic!)

Shiny Synths, Buttons + LCDs

Click here to see a few piccies I shot tonight of my beloved glowing friends. And yes, they are electric.

Synth Macros

Earlier on, I took some synth porn macros. Mmmm... knobtastic!

Click here for the piccies!

Jyoti's Panty Pads

You may remember that I've fallen in love with the wee beastie above: the Elektron Monomachine.

I had a mess around making some pads with this not-really-very-monophonic-at-all synthbeatbox. And, as I'm lovely, I've decided to share my labours with you. So if you're a lucky tyke with a Monomachine, download the sysex file and get padding!

Notes:

I saved the pattern from H01, dunno if that makes any difference as I've never done it before!

Now, as for the sounds:

1. Standard floaty pad. Swave Saw, lfos -> unison, filter width and panning for a wee bit of movement.

2. Liquidy Pad - Swav pulse, lfos -> UNIW and filter base. Again, not too exciting so should be backgroundy.

3. Brassy pad - lfos -> pitch, filt env, resonance. This is far more blarty and obvious, more animated. But you can back the blarty bit back by reducing the filter eg amount.

4. Kraftwerky ensemble - lfos -> vibrato. Pretty simple one-finger-chord jobby, just a bit of vib to liven it up.

5. Dpro wave - lfos -> synth WP, WP and to delay time for a delayed wacky harmoniser effect. Now this is far more intrusive, not that much use as a trad pad.

6. GND sin - lfos -> pitch vib, dist, dist. This is just me mucking about, to be honest. Probably better labelled as an 'atmosphere' or something rather than a pad. The sound does evolve for quite a long while if you hold it down.

Bear in mind that all the above were programmed to be played in poly mode. They do work in mono, of course, but even the ensemble sounds better in poly because of the note overlaps.

Have fun! :-D

Made In Sheffield

Above is one of my Christmas pressies: Made In Sheffield.

Of course, I'm going to love this DVD. It's my generation, it's the pop music that I loved as a teenager and that shaped the music I make myself. For a couple of years, music made on guitars seemed completely irrelevant and outdated. Everything exciting, everything innovative, everything that was young and now was electronic. For a few glorious months, we thought we'd killed rock music and all its moronic, leather-clad conformity.

We were wrong. But watching Made In Sheffield certainly gives you a taste of those times. The documentary interweaves interviews with gig footage, one minute we see Phil Oakey now, the next we're seeing him back in 1980, looking like a Dr. Who villain and worrying people's parents. Perfect.

Cabaret Voltaire, Vice Versa (who became ABC), The Human League, Heaven 17 - all the famous Steel City electropop pioneers are there, along with people less well known now like The Artery (Peel favourites), The Extras, Clock DVA, I'm So Hollow and Def Leppard.

This is the only 80s music documentary I've seen that doesn't go for the simple, obvious line. There's depth here and an accuracy that's often lost in these days of Channel 4 '100 Greatest Beermats' or whatever. In fact, it was just great to watch a long piece of music television without the usual D-grade celebs popping up, rehearsed unfunny anecdote at the ready.

The stories in Made In Sheffield are from the people who were actually there, playing in the bands, writing the fanzines, doing the sound or whatever else makes up a vibrant music scene. Jarvis and Saskia Cocker pop up and Jarvis gives his own view of the Sheffield scene at the time. It'd only take Pulp another 14 years before they became overnight successes.

Made In Sheffield is a joy, a treasure. It's a meaty, detailed documentary in an age of fluffy, celeb-culture nonsense. It eschews the easy "HEY IT'S THE '80s!" perspective that blunts so many other accounts of British electropop. It's sober, funny, charming and often heartbreaking.

Then, when the actual film finishes, there's the special features. Loads of DVD extras including interview footage not used in the film. There are so many great stories here about how bands got together and the trials they faced on their road to stardom / obscurity. It is, indeed, a shit business. Then, when you think you're full, there's gig footage from Vice Versa, The Artery and I'm So Hollow. So, you've bought a 52 minute documentary but you get 128 minutes to watch. Yum!

Altogether now...

"Listen to the voice of Buddha..."