iG.STUDiO: Ilya I. Gerasimenko

I have the original yellow Kaossilator, and I am a big fan. This app, although visually similar in many ways, is fundamentally different in the way it handles the phrases you create; it's not better or worse, it's just different, and if you are to use it, you just have to learn. First of all, it does not record and loop sound, like the original Kaossilator does, it records sequences. The downside of it is that one can't endlessly overdub the track, using the same voice, it will start erasing previous loop eventually (but they do give you five layers to play with, so there is plenty of space to build your riffs). The upside is that you can save, undo, redo the sequense, return to it, re-record, reassign instruments, change the key, tempo, scale, everything, all in real-time, and then save it again.That is big. And the mix play is a very nice feature. WHAT IT NEEDS: Ability to export MIDI Ability to import MIDI (there is no way the tracks in app's library were made w...

It looks like I haven't posted anything for a year. Apparently, nothing to say. How about some music, then? Leaving Manhattan —bossa-nova @ 130 bpm, by yours truly, written sometime in the fall of 2010, after we stopped pretending being rich and moved out of the shoe box size studio on West 95th Street. Technically we didn't leave Manhattan, just the Upper West Side, but the new neighborhood feels quite different... miss the easy acces to Central Park dearly, so the tune is a bit sad. Like 99.9% of all my tunes, really. This particular version came alive with the help of Pat Felitti (piano), Ian Pellow (bass), Raul R. (drums, percussion), all @ kompoz.com. I play tenor sax and EWI. Leaving Manhattan by iG.STUDiO

I absolutely love this little gadget. It does what it says it does, and does it very well. You just have to know what to expect. In my testings, the device recorded the sound of saxophone equally well through the internal and external microphone (I used Shure SM58, just because I have it, I would imagine that the quality can only be better if one uses more advanced studio recording equipment). The recording of a full range performance through the internal mics, taken from the middle of the small auditorium, came noticeable dry on the bottom, just as one would expect from a small handheld mics; once again, using a high-end external mic would definitely improve the results. The recording of the same performance from the mixer's "line out" was absolutely perfect: I use backing tracks and play live over them; the backing tracks sounded identical to the original ones, and our playing and singing over them was captured just as it was going into the system through the stage mics...

First things first—after a year (at least) of drooling over one, I finally decided to cash in my almost-two-years-of-non-smoking credits, and got myself an EWI . It sounds a bit like a medical condition, and frankly, it's quite mental, because I can't stop playing with it. So far it seems to be an amusingly addictive instrument even with a stock soundbank—I plan on making my own patches later, as soon as I figure out how to use that UniQuest joke of a software—worst of all, it can be played in headphones, so I can do it even at 4am if I wanted to. So far, I have more fun then problems playing it, in spite of its little fingering differences (I use SA(x) mode), and totally different breathing technique. Now comes the connectivity part. I've used FastTrack USB for a couple of years with a microphone through the XLR input with no problems, but when I tried to connect a line output of EWI's synthesizer to the line input of the FastTrack, the signal level was very low. T...

Well, to put it shortly—if the best number in your variety show is performed by the quick-change artists, and the second best is Chinese acrobats (and even they cheated and bailed out of properly dismounting from the top of the chair tower), there is something wrong with the rest of the people on the show. I rightfully expect Ellen's Really BIG Variety Show —if I remember the name correctly—in it's dreadfull boringness to be challenged only by the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade . Should have gone to bed at 9 p.m., but didn't. Shame on me.

I must admit that I am severely spoiled, when it comes to public transportation. Having lived in Moscow for half a decade and spent nearly three hours a day commuting, I grew accustomed to the impeccable logic of the one of the world's largest cities' "metro". There are, as I see it, two major rules, which the builders followed through the whole process, and oh, boy, they work; they really do. Rule one: there is one line per physical track . If you got on the train in a hurry you don't have to worry about what train you are on, A, B, C, or E, and whether you have to get off on the next stop and wait for your train, because this one ain't the one you need. It always is. Rule two: the platform is always between the tracks . If you spaced out, fell asleep, or for any other reason missed your stop, all you have to do is get off, cross the platform, get on the train and go back. It is simple and it works like a charm. Overall structure is simple as well; one circu...

I think, I've found a place, where I can hang out for a while. Roth's Steakhouse on the corner of West 93rd and Columbus has jam sessions on every Friday night from 10 pm to 1 am (allegedly, that is, the real time was from 10:30 to 2, and the jam part started around midnight), starting with a set, played by hosts, as usual. First set was actually very good, nicely and tastefully played by a minimalistic piano trio (the drummer had only a snare, a kick drum, a hi-hat and a ride cymbal), the only inconvenience was the location of the stage, which can't be really observed from the bar, so I had to stand for an hour in order to see the musicians: the drummer, the bass player, whose instrument looked like it survived a small hurricane, but was a time or two used as a floating device, and the pianist, working on the weathered upright, seemingly held together by the wall, it was leaning against, and some duct tape. The repertoire was diverse enough to get my hopes up, just a righ...

I have a special relationship with be-bop. In short, I firmly believe, that it ended with the end of it's natural life span. In the forties. With all due respect to all modern be-bop (or, to be scientifically correct, hard bop) players, sorry. All you do is rotating carefully rehearsed Parker's and Gillespie's licks in various combinations. Which is awesome, of course. There is just no music anymore, just a succession of notes in pursuit of speed and fluidity. Will have to find another place for jammin'. Oh, well.

...the surprising level of "doneness" of the top 20 songs, submitted for the American Idol Songwriter Competition is, indeed, just a sign of how well-equipped and prepared all the aspiring songwriters in this country are? I, naturally, expect the work of the professional to be of a better quality, than that of an amateur, but what was that crap about "...you don't have to be a singer, we are going to judge the song, not the performance..." and "...simple rendition with a basic accompaniment is fine...". Yea, right. Just listen to all 20 BORING songs, presented for the America to vote upon. Another thing which surprised me, was how strangely familiar all of the songs were. I had to force myself to give a couple of them a rating of 7, and that was just because they didn't sound like something I just heard. The rest - in my honestest opinion - deserved no better than 3s and 4s. Sad.

Excuse me... err... how do I vote Sanjaya out ? No, really... What's the number?

The things I do, darn. I thought that getting a keyboard will ease the creative process, but, no. It just makes it more complicated. My new bossa, which doesn't even have a name yet, now contains a sequence of descending chords, which is going to make it a bitch to solo over. Why do I do this to myself? I don't know. Probably, for fun. This is my idea of fun, apparently. But it sounds good this way...

Pun intended, naturally. I am not a keyboard player, but after careful consideration I decided that I need something to enter notes into GarageBand , rather than a mouse or a computer keyboard, which displays just a horrible latency, when you type the notes in. My first choice was, actually, a wind controller (and I already know which one, after reading an excellent blog entry , which does compare both leading instruments - Yamaha WX5 and the Akai EWI4000s ), which I still intend to buy some day, but for some tasks, like picking chords, the little two octave keyboard is just the tool of choice. Here comes M-Audio Oxygen8v2 , hence the name of the song ... I am so easily entertained...

At some point in my life I should, probably, stop and think about what is wrong with me. I really should. I am noticing alarming tendencies in my behavior, and I am not happy with them, tendencies. I am close to willful acknowledgement of the fact that I always try to do something I can't do for the reason one or another. The only thing that's stopping me from giving up is the amazing fact that whatever I do that I can't do, I end up actually doing. And eventually being able to. I wrote a new song (a while ago), it's already penciled into GarageBand as a bed for solos and such. The reason why I haven't recorded the sax yet is shamefully simple - I can't breathe during the melody. Design defect, so to say: I failed to leave myself a place in the tune, where I can grab some oxygen, darn it. The solution? I am working on it, for two weeks now - practicing the melody over and over. May be, next weekend I will finally be ready to record it, and stop torturing my wife...

Legend: [-] - Off key, [+] - On key In order of approximate appearance: Madonna [---] - horrible, just horrible. Some news network the next day commented: "...not sure, if John Lennon would agree with this version..." (imagine singing "Imagine" in like three different keys in a rapid succession...) Maroon5 [-] - alternative. Very. Mary J. Blidge [-] - she should apologize to Stevie for murdering his song... Bryan Williams (Beach Boys) [-] - profoundly pathetic... Norah Jones [+] - such a sweet hart, always... Gloria Estefan [+] - consistently perfect. Can't hold, not gonna. Still good. Elton John [+++] - fabulous, just fabulous. Incredible performance. Sara McLaughlin [+] Josh Groban [+] - a bit shaky, when he speaks, belting is perfect Stevie Wonder & India.Arie [+/+] - oh, look, I can sing two octaves lower, than him :) John Mayer [+?] - since he has no detectable voice, it's very hard to say if he was on or off :) Plus for the effort. And he can play ...

It looks like my acoustic setup is finally complete. The sound (pun intended) difference between my old Amati Classic Super (290/2 facing, stainless steel) mouthpiece and newly acquired Otto Link Super Tone Master (10* facing, gold-plated bell metal) is impossible not to notice. It was clear enough even when I test-drove 8* about a month ago (I tried to be as objective as I could, so at the store I picked an instrument closest to mine - YTS62, and a Vandoren Traditional #3 reed), the sound was wider and fuller; that mellow fuzzy hiss I used to work so hard to produce, would come out effortlessly. Needless to say, that 10* does everything even better (I had no idea they make those, I thought 9* was the top number available), and the combination of 10* and #3 Vandoren ZZ (JaZZ) reed completely elimintated those nasty squeaks in upper register, which would pop-up once in a while, if I wasn't careful enough. Merry Christmas to me. That trip to the W 48 St. Sam Ash Manhattan Music Store...

For some reason, unknown to me, today I made a bitmap version of the logo I designed for myself years ago (I added the word "web" just to have an excuse for doing it). Probably, for therapy - I find pixel-level editing very comforting sometimes. Another strange thing I did today: googled up Alexander Rastopchin (we use to more or less know each other during my playing at the cafe "Suzorie" back in Minsk more than 20 years ago). Apparently, he moved to New York in 1993, one year after we moved to Cincinnati, and still lives there, still plays guitar (still very well; he was always great, and he only got better, judging by the samples he has on his site ), and still builds all kinds of guitar-related gear. Now I am very tempted to send him an email and say "Hi, remember me?" He, probably, doesn't. It would be fun to jam some day.

It's beginning to shape up, or, at least, I think so... New in Take 2: Sax (x2) melody out (AULowpass filter to make them sound somewhat like brass) Vocal (x4) melody out by my daughter Dar (AUParametric Equalizer applied twice - one to kill iMic / Line Level Transformer "dynamic duo" noise, the other one - to remove "p"s; I really should get a decent mic preamp, and windscreen, too. I bounced four mono tracks to one stereo track, then added AUMatrixReverb to set it back in space) Background strings fill (Apple MIDI "Orchestral Strings") Sax melody in and solo unchanged with the exception of AUPeakLimiter filter, appears to work very nicely in combination with AUMultibandCompressor, applied to the Master Track. Last but not least - gorgeous piano solo by McBoy. Actually, more, then one solo - dude, you sent me so much of great stuff, so I still don't know how to put everything in... Consider this a teaser preview :) I still need: 1. Real guitar, pi...