Hi. I'm Debug (live), an electronic muso who's been
writing "techno" tunes for fun since about 1992. I am one of
those button pushing people who stands surrounded by odd looking hardware
at dance parties / clubs frantically mashing buttons. (aka. live performance
& not a DJ!)
Most of these tunes (appart from a couple of remixes) are original and
I play / sequence them live at gigs. :-) I've only recently started recording
my Synchronicity gigs, mainly
because people keep asking me where they can get my tunes. So here they
are for you. Enjoy!
My philosophy is that "live" music should be sequenced "live"
in such a way that if I walk away from my rig it will infinatly loop the
last 4 or 8 bars I called. I personally think having pre-arranged tunes
and simply "tweaking" the parts doesn't equal live (although
some seem disagree with me!). So...
-- I control all "mute" functions for drum parts (BD, SN, hats,
cym, sfx, etc) manually. This includes build ups and drum fills.
-- Instrument parts (bass, keys, ambient bits, etc) and samples (via MIDI)
are triggered and muted live.
-- Effects (delay, etc) are configured on-the-fly. Cut-off / filter sweeps
performed live - usually on two knobs. Must buy MIDI controller!
-- All screaming 80's solos are played on the DX7 or microkorg - not transposed
- I occasionally hit a wrong note when overexcited
-- Some samples are triggered live by hitting various pads on the Sampletrek
or KP3
-- I program about 3 "saftey" states per tune so if I totally
screw with the config of a song I can snap all the settings to a state
in one hit
-- I choose when to progress to the next tune. This is usually quite sudden
because track blending isn't an easy option on the 505.
So that's what I'm doing up there! Any why I'm generally concentrating
pretty hard instead of jumping around.
| About the Live Setup | |
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Most of my gear is quite old. I think
my last bit of synth gear is dated 1999! - ROLAND MC505 (1998) - My main box. I know this unit inside-out (appart from the "arrange" feature) - ZOOM SAMPLETRAK (1999) - A whole 2MB of RAM! I use mainly for short drum loops and C64 samps. - YAMAHA DX7 (1983) - MIDI'ed to 505. I use for secondary bass lines and for jamming on. - KORG KAOSSPAD (2007) - Effects Processor. I sometimes manually trigger "link-song" samples. Bits I occasionally borrow: - Korg MicroKorg (thanks Ev) - Ultimate portable keyboard & great Korg sound. Runs on 4 AA batteries! - Roland Juno 106 (thanks Mike) - Awesome synth from 1980's. I repatch for basslines sometimes. What... no laptop? No Ableton?! My original live setup was put together years before it was viable to use a PC or MAC solo on stage (1996) - I had a 486 at the time with a Soundblaster AWE32. Ableton was probably just a good idea in the back of someones head. The MC303, meanwhile, was stable(ish), didn't glitch, and combined everything in a portable box with a MIDI out. Hence I've stuck to hardware sequencers ever since. They just work! |
The following tunes I'm releasing under a "if-you-download-and-like-it-then-come-to-the-next-gig-and-have-a-beer-with-me"
basis.
| DOWNLOADS - Synchronicity
Party Live Recordings |
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| Debug (Live) @ Synchronicity Bush Party July 2008 |
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Live outdoor gig - middle of nowhere - freezing cold
night but chunky tunes :-) |
| Debug (Live) @ Synchronicity NYE Jan 2008 |
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I've put this up by request. I don't actually think it's a particularly good mix / remix but it shows my some of my psy stuff. I don't really have the sounds to make psy. The first tune is a cover of Batdance (Prince) from the late 80's Batman movie. |
DOWNLOADS - Old Live Recordings |
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Debug (Live) |
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A Compilation of Live to Air performances
of some of the "classics" that I put created a few years
ago. Actually half a lifetime ago...! Tracks included are: 1) Pest (0:00) - Recorded Live from RRR, 2001 2) Panic Attack (5:50) - Recorded Live from RRR, 2001 3) Wandering (11:43) - Recorded Live from 3SSR, 2000 4) Random Dirty Remix (15:20) - Recorded Live from 3SSR, 2000 (if anyone knows this sample let me know) 5) Falling (18:30) - Recorded Live from 3SSR, 2000 6) Crystal Bomb (22:50) - Recorded Live from RRR, 2001 (not the best version, but still banging!) Track 1 & 6 are probably the best from that era. Bass is sloppy due to lack of compressor back in early 2000's. |
| Debug (Live) @ 3SSR FM March 1999 |
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It's sitting on a chrome TDK D90 in my bedside draw. Recorded off air on my old Sony minisystem so quality is v. questionable. Tunes are very daggy too! (Uses MC303) |
DOWNLOADS - Early Amiga "Studio"
Works (just a few! more to come) |
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Debug (Studio) - "Mind Melt" |
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A recent House / Breaks tune I wrote using a Commodore Amiga 500 (7.9Mhz, 512k of RAM, 800k Floppy). Tune tune is 69kb including all samples and notation data. And thats uncompressed! (best optimised samples I've ever made) It also won a music compo - up against stuff written on PC with much more modern software. ;-) I'll be doing live performance off the Commodore soon using homebrew software. We have the code working and just need a front end as we have the tunes playing and so far can control volume, note values, mutes, live seq, etc. Kicking. |
| Debug (Studio) The Ultim8 (remix) Feb 1994 (made under alias cTrix) |
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This has to be my favorite of the old tunes!
Classic 1989(ish) samples stolen from who-knows (ripped from a random
MOD I havn't found since). I half finished this tune in 1994, lost
it on an unlabeled floppy, found it in 2005 then finished it off
in 2008 adding additional build ups using the same old software.
Remastered to add extra chunk. |
| Debug (Studio) - "Crapbox" (remastered) Dec 1992 - Feb 1993 (originally made under the name cTrix) |
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The tune that started it all!! My first crack at
electronic music in 1993. Created using 8-bit software on the ledgendary
Commodore Amiga 500 platform. Samples lifted from everywhere including
CC Music factory (guitar hit) to Technotronic (beat) to Inner City
(main chord hit). The other instruments from Sampletracker disks. I've remastered this version (compressor, EQ, etc) so it's lost a bit of 8-bit charm... but if you have an Amiga or a PC with a MOD player (say, winamp or VLC) you can download the original Protracker source MOD file here. |
| Debug (Studio) XTC (remix) Feb 1995 (made under alias cTrix) |
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Armed with fresh samples (spent xMas '94/'95
holiday hunting for MODs on BBS and at swapmeets) I made this tune
/ remix using techno samples - which again - I can't credit because
the the source I got them from didn't credit them. Remember, this
was before anyone really bothered to credit samples properly. |
Uhhhhh..... |
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Sometimes it's just fun to make cheese! I didn't have access to many samples when I started this. Sample carts were expensive back in the day - like $110 (a lot of pocket money in 1991!) and I didn't really have anything to sample anyway. I ended up with a PC + sound blaster by 1993 anyway. I "borrowed" some of the samples from Pinball Dreams (by a Blaizer of TBL, great musician) and the rest from the original Sample Tracker disks. These were a set of "standard-ish" sounds for Amiga that everyone had. Hence it is very much reminicant of the computer music that was around in it's day. |
LINKS - Videos |
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Video |
In case anyone is interested, I'm working on some reactivision stuff: Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fVWg_rfq0w |
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Hope you've enjoied dropping by and dig the tunes. Come say g'day at a gig someday. Check out the Synchronicity Website for Dates.
