Bill Van Loo – Page 5

April 9, 2010

15/52: company7music.com

Something very special happened this week: the solidification of a group of extremely talented musicians that I am fortunate enough to be a part of, called company 7.

This week’s project was getting things organized for company 7’s upcoming releases and Web presence. The group’s new site is:

http://www.company7music.com/

company 7 is made up of Hans Anderson, Rebecca Anderson, Gabriel Craft, Rebekah Craft, and Bill Van Loo. Our current plans are to finish up an EP for release on chromedecay later this year, and begin planning our live performances. I’m proud to be part of such a talented group of musicians.

A little backstory about the members of company 7. Hans and Rebecca Anderson are a husband-wife duo also known as Double Helix. They have recorded for labels like Transmat Japan, Rush Hour and Delsin, producing house music tinged with jazz, dub, and gospel influences. Gabriel and Rebekah Craft are another husband-wife pair. Gabriel is an extremely talented drummer, having played with groups like Cloud 9 and others. Rebekah is a singer-songwriter, taking her talents to the acoustic guitar and poetic lyrics.

We first played together during the fall of 2004, during a burst of creative output. Family life and other commitments obliged us to put this group on hold, however, until fall of 2009, when we began working on new material again. Photos from one such session are found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chromedecay/sets/72157622286457436/

This week, we made the decision to finish up our current set of material for release as an EP, as well as getting our Web presence up and running. The results are the new company 7 website, as well as some more behind-the-scenes work like putting together chord charts, track info sheets, and so on, to allow us to more easily work on finishing our material.

I’m very excited to bring you our music in the near future.

April 2, 2010

14/52: chromedecay: field – demo 1 (bicycle & garage sounds)

This week’s project has been in the works for quite some time, but is just now being picked up again. It’s a demo of some new sound/preset work I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’m calling this first set of material chromedecay: field.

One benefit of being a teacher is that I have my summers off, and I spent some time this past summer with my Minidisc recorder, binaural microphones, and other recording gear, capturing sounds in my house and garage.

One of the sets of sounds I recorded was using my bicycle as a percussion instrument, along with some other random sounds from the garage (like dropping and hitting a plastic pop bottle, and so on). I recorded about 30-45 minutes worth of raw sounds, and then recorded them into the computer as several long, continuous audio files.

At that point (late last summer), that’s where I put the project down temporarily. The work I did this week was to start isolating individual hits and loops in order to turn them into usable sounds. Because I’d recorded the long segments off the MiniDisc into Logic, I started there. Also, I much prefer cutting/editing sound files in Logic compared to Live – Logic’s much more of a traditional audio editor, and I find it works great for that kind of work.

Much selecting, trimming, and saving of individual files was done.

You can see some of the list of files here:

After I had saved out many, many individual hits and loops, I started loading things up into Ableton Live, my preferred composition tool. Live is the ultimate destination for this material, as I intend to eventually make these sets of sounds & loops available (though that’s a project for another week!).

Here’s a couple views of what it looks like when brought into Live:

If you go to the full-size version of those photos, you can see that most of these sounds ended up in Live’s Drum Racks, which is a great tool for this kind of thing.

I then spent some time writing a demo track that would give these sounds a chance to shine.

Here’s the final product:

14/52: chromedecay: field – demo 1 by billvanloo

All the sounds you hear in the demo track were produced from the field recordings I did, with the exception of the bassline.

March 26, 2010

13/52: Charlotte Photos, Part 2

As mentioned in last week’s post, I recently spent some time in Charlotte, NC. I was thrilled to be able to spend some time hanging with my friend Kyle Tait (who’s making some music again after a long break). I’d planned on using our time together to do a long photowalk around Charlotte, taking tons of pictures, but as it turned out our conversation and catchup was more important and interesting. Life happens that way sometime, and I wouldn’t change how I spent that time at all.

However, I did still manage to snap some additional Charlotte pictures after last week’s post. I was in Charlotte for the International Technology and Engineering Educator’s Association conference (photos at my personal Flickr stream), and the majority of the conference was held at the Charlotte Convention Center.

On Saturday, I was able to slip away from the fast-paced conference sessions for a few minute, and I snapped some shots of the Charlotte Convention Center’s architectural details. Architectural work has been a long-time focus of my photography work, and I was thrilled to walk into the Convention Center the first day and see all the great typography and architectural details. For example, the signage was all set in Futura, one of my favorite typefaces.

This week’s project, then, is a small set of what I captured and saw at the Charlotte Convention Center.

March 19, 2010

12/52: Charlotte Photos, Part 1

I always enjoy being in a new city and getting a chance to explore it. Taking photos is one way I do that, and this week’s 52 things project is a set of photos from Charlotte.

Finally: at the risk of making a shameless plug, I took the majority of these on Thursday night while listening to Joshua Schnable’s “Live at FFMUP” live set from the chromedecay live 2009 release:

It made for excellent urban exploration music.

March 12, 2010

11/52: DIY USB foot controller, part 1

For this week’s project, I decided to turn an old wireless USB number pad into a foot controller for Ableton Live. Here’s what I started with:

I was partially inspired to take on this project after seeing this thread on Create Digital Music last year:

Sexy DIY Footswitch for Music, Using the Brain of a USB QWERTY Keyboard

I’ve played with the idea of re-using USB devices as Ableton Live controllers in the past; check out my custom USB QWERTY keyboard as an example. This time around, I thought I’d take advantage of the wireless connection of the number pad and also do some proper soldering and re-housing to make this project even cooler. As a result, this is part one of this project. I hope to have part 2 completed in a few weeks (I have a special 2-part “52 things” set of projects coming up that will delay it a bit).

My eventual plan is that this will become a thin 4-button controller for Ableton Live; something that can sit right in front of my Line 6 Pod XT Live guitar interface. I am toying around with the idea of using the NUM LOCK key to create the ability to have 2 banks of buttons in one, but that will get explored in the prototyping stage.

I began by looking at what I was working with. As it turns out, the wireless USB receiver for the number pad is too bulky to allow another USB device to be plugged into the laptop at the same time, so I decided to hack an old Apple USB keyboard extension so it would work.

The Apple USB keyboard extenders have a little nub inside them to prevent them being used for anything besides a keyboard, but a little work with the Dremel cutoff wheel and a pair of pliers got rid of the extra plastic and the nub.

Now the receiver fits just fine on the end of it.

After getting that squared away, I began disassembling the keypad. Here are some photos from that process; you can check out the complete set of disassembly photos on Flickr.

I’m planning on housing it in a custom steel stud enclosure, as shown on this site:

Steel Studs and the $0.25 Effect Enclosure

That’s all for this week. As mentioned, the remainder of this project will be delayed a bit, as I’m going to be doing a special 2-part set of 52 things projects for weeks 12 and 13.

March 5, 2010

10/52: new live recording – chromedecay live 2009

I’m pleased to announce the newest chromedecay release, “chromedecay live 2009“. This release features live performances from Bill Van Loo and Joshua Schnable.

Each of these sets was recorded in late 2009. Bill Van Loo’s set was recorded at the Dreamland Theater in Ypsilanti, MI, and Joshua Schnable’s was recorded at FFMUP in Princeton, NY.

This release is available for purchase via iTunes, Amazon and other digital distribution sites. Check the release page for more details.

Joshua’s live set was recorded on October 12, 2009. It is a collection of new work; a tribute to the Berlin dub techno movement of the mid-1990s.

My live set was essentially a live performance of the Ypsilanti by Night record, with lots of live tweaks and additions, along with a rare performance of my track “FM Study”. You can view video from the first song of my live set below:

Bill Van Loo performs “Ypsilanti by Night” live at the Dreamland Theater from chromedecay on Vimeo.

See also: chromedecay behind the scenes: bill van loo live performance rig, part 1 and part 2, where the gear and methods used to perform my part of this recording are discussed in great detail.

February 26, 2010

9/52: chromedecay 2010 sampler CD

This week’s 52 things project is the 2010 chromedecay sampler CD. It comes in a handmade cardstock sleeve with one of 5 original photos, and contains a selection of new music by chromedecay artists. It’s $3 plus shipping, or free with the purchase of any full-length release (while supplies last). Read more about this project below.

I often start working on a project idea for 52 things a number of weeks before it’s completed and ready to show here on the site. This week’s project is an example of that type of pre-planning.

I’d been thinking about putting together a sampler CD that would contain new music from chromedecay artists for 2010. It’s important to me that chromedecay releases be unique in some way. The obvious trend has been toward digital-only releases, so I felt the unique quality for this CD sampler would be to emphasize the visual and handmade aspects of it.

I got an email from Snapfish at the beginning of the year, advertising 50 prints for 50 cents (plus shipping costs). I started thinking about what I could do with 50 prints, and realized they’d make great cover art for a small CD-R release.

I then started going through my iPhoto library, looking for photos that would make good covers. I settled on using these 5 photos, with 10 copies of each, for a total of 50 prints:

The prints were 4×6 inches, so I uploaded versions that had a 2″ strip of black to one side in order to produce a final image that was 4×4 inches square. After they arrived, I spent 15 minutes or so cutting off the black strip to produce a final 4×4 square image:

After a bit of work, I had all 5 sets of cover photos cut down to size:

I then set the cover photos aside, waiting for the right time to complete the assembly of the covers. This week, I spent some time in Photoshop creating the overall cover layout, including placement for the cover photo.

I also used the time between the first of the year and now to solicit new material from some of the chromedecay artists. I got great material from both Joshua Schnable and Rob Theakston, longtime contributors to the label. The final tracklist ended up being this:

Cultivating – Rob Theakston
1970 Sumeria – Joshua Schnable
11-14-2009 – Bill Van Loo
5/52 (Rhodes & Reaktor) – Bill Van Loo
1970 Sumeria (Bill Van Loo’s JPL remix) – Joshua Schnable
Vostok Station – Joshua Schnable
Overextended – Rob Theakston
The End of It – Bill Van Loo
Dust Bred – Bill Van Loo

After finishing the layout for the CD sleeve, it was time to print, cut, fold, and glue. Here’s a short video describing that process:

9/52: chromedecay 2010 label sampler CD behind-the-scenes from chromedecay on Vimeo.

You can see more photos of the whole process below:

9/52: 2010 chromedecay sampler photos on Flickr

I’m very pleased to announce that these are now available. As mentioned above, it’s $3 plus shipping, or free with the purchase of any full-length release while supplies last.

February 19, 2010

8/52: Bill Van Loo “The Ghost of an Idea” now available digitally

I’m pleased to announce that a 4-track EP of my ambient guitar work entitled “The Ghost of an Idea” is now available for purchase digitally. This week’s project was getting a page built for it on the chromedecay site, and organizing all the other stuff associated with publicizing the record’s digital release.

This record came together at the beginning of December 2009, when my longtime friend and musical collaborator Rob Theakson sent me the following text message:

That was on a Monday night, giving me 6 days to produce 21 minutes of music. Now, if this had been anybody but Rob, I would probably have laughed at the idea, and given it no further thought. However, Rob is one of my best friends (as previously mentioned) and he has a way of convincing me that crazy ideas are actually good ones.

I found myself staying late at my church on Tuesday of that week and recording a bunch of guitar improvisations after band practice ended. I had a very loose idea of what it should sound like, along with a rough conceptural framework to hang it on.

The title of the record, “The Ghost of an Idea”, is taken from the prologue of Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol”; the four track titles are abbreviated forms of chapter titles. As I started thinking about the story and how it’s structured, I was inspired by the complex and emotional memories in it, as well as the idea of the Holy Ghost inhabiting and inspiring artistic works of diverse forms.

That gave me just enough to go on. I took a guitar piece I’d previously recorded for Rob but which had never been released, and that became “The First”. The other 3 pieces were based on these guitar improvisations, which were edited and layered in Logic Audio (much like “6 strings for a winter’s day“, my earlier ambient guitar work).

The cover image is a photo of a house in Ypsilanti that I took last summer:

Once I delivered the final mixes to Rob, he quickly pressed up 50 copies of the record as a 3″ CD, which is one format that his boutique label releases music on. A number of copies made their way to me, and I sold the majority to recipients of my email list in the following week or so. I have a few left to sell at shows, but that’s it, so I realized it made sense to also offer this digitally.

After looking into my options, I found that RouteNote seemed to make the most sense for this release. Its major difference from other digital distribution companies like CDBaby (who I use for most of my digital distribution, especially for releases that are also available as physical CDs) is that RouteNote doesn’t charge a fee upfront, but instead takes a slightly larger percentage of each MP3 sold. For a release with such a small number of tracks, it would take quite a bit of sales to recoup even the $55 setup fee that CDBaby charges, so it seemed to make sense.

I’m very please that this is now available; RouteNote has distributed it to the Amazon MP3 Store and eMusic. It will be available via iTunes very soon.

You can also check out the growing selection of other releases on chromedecay, both by me and others.

February 12, 2010

7/52: Bill Van Loo remix of Joshua Schnable’s “1970 Sumeria”

Earlier this week, chromedecay artist Joshua Schnable created a new track, and he gave me access to the stems in order to remix it.

Here’s Joshua’s original “1970 Sumeria”, on SoundCloud:

1970 sumeria by jschnable

I got the stems downloaded and started work on my remix, using a very minimal setup – just the laptop running Ableton Live 7, my M-Audio Trigger Finger, and my headphones. This allowed me to start work in my wife’s art studio-slash-home office while she was doing other things.

Here’s a screenshot of Ableton Live partway through work on the remix:

I finished the remix in the actual chromedecay studio today, and now it’s available for you to listen to via SoundCloud:

1970 Sumeria (Bill Van Loo’s ambient JPL remix) by billvanloo

February 5, 2010

6/52: smoke photos + new DIY collapsible softbox

This week, I worked on two photography projects for 52 things: smoke photos, and a new DIY softbox for one of my flashes.

Part 1: smoke photos

After I made my new macro photo box, I started thinking about projects that it would work well for. I’ve done some water photos before (though none that I really loved), but what captured my imagination this week was the idea of photographing smoke.

I set up the macro box, put my Vivitar 283 flash on a boom stand, set my camera up on the tripod, and got out a stick of incense. After taking a few shots, I soon realized that the pure white background of the macro box was not working at all – the smoke just didn’t show up against the white at all. I then tried a black background – here’s an example:

After not much success with that, I decided to see how others had approached this subject matter, and found an excellent article on the subject:

http://www.sensitivelight.com/smoke2/

I realized that I was letting far too much light from my flash onto the black background, and as a result it was washing it out. I adjusted the box so the flash was completely flagged off from the background. Here’s what it looks like (the lighter is there so I could focus on it – autofocus is useless with smoke, so I used it to set focus, then shifted over slightly so it was out of the frame).

Once I popped a test shot, my jaw dropped.

I shot a number of smoke pictures, and with only a little cleanup in Photoshop, I was completely happy with the results.

View the complete set of smoke photos via Flickr.

Part 2: collapsible DIY softbox for Vivitar 283 flash

I also started thinking about my softbox situation. I made a small DIY softbox for the Vivitar 283 a while back, but it had two distinct disadvantages: it wasn’t very easy to stick in a bag, and the front diffuser material was tissue paper, which is quite delicate. I therefore decided to solve both of those problems with a new, slightly larger softbox that would fold up for transport.

As a technology teacher, I made myself sit down and think about this as a design problem, sketching out some requirements and a 3-view drawing.

Once my design was set, I got out materials and started construction.

It’s not quite done yet, as I have yet to finalize the front diffuser panel, but I have some white shower curtain material that I think is going to work great. Once it’s finished I should be able to use it quite a bit since it will fit in my laptop bag, making it easily portable.

View the complete set of DIY softbox photos via Flickr.