October EP

October EP Flux Oersted has produced an EP for the band, N=108, released in late October. Sources close to the band report that it was mostly music included in Flux Oersted's Volume IV, but that individual tracks had been remastered, and the selection includes some of the new writes since N=108 was formed. New Beginning is a song that was written as a TV theme or for the opening titles of a film. It features guitar, sampled, and played through an amp simulator. Response has been good for this song, and expect more of this type in future recordings. Down the Road is a song that carries a spooky Jupiter 8V part, and another synthetic guitar, played through a distortion amp simulator. Very reminiscent of early Flux Oersted, but built entirely in a notebook computer. Robby Garner's synthesizer playing is poetic in the forms that he takes against the other tracks in the songs. He has a knack for tracing the melody of the bass against what he seems to consider as the backing synth line for that instrument. The instruments are all softsynths, and as such, are almost imaginary in their makeup, but once recorded, they become alive in the essence of classic machinery and samples of real instruments that have been plucked out of the imagination and into the quiver of an musical archer. These are all songs that might have been recorded a decade ago with FM synthesizer modules, but here they are rendered with modern synth emulators and samples that sound very much like the original instruments. Bass guitar and electric guitar are set forth in a very complimentary form to the synthesizers. All in all, October EP, is just a taste of things to come. Soon to be released on iTunes and Amazon.com, get a taste of it at bandcamp.com where you can find FLAC and other high resolution formats available.

Edgar Allen and the Poe Boys

A modern day Edgar Allen Poe, if he would have had synthesizers, Robby Glen Garner makes music of the macabre that follows your footsteps like a landlord without trust. By veil of darkness, by cover of night, he tasks you, he tasks you, until the day be done. Follow the edeavors of Robby/Flux Oersted and his band, N=108, as they mark their path until dawn. You will not be disappointed, and your memories will not be altered. 

We are the music makers And we are the dreamers of dreams - Arthur O'Shaugnessey 1804-1881. (Willy Wonka)

September's New Album

Volume IV by Flux Oersted

Released August 23rd, 2012, heralding the latests synthetic songs by Flux Oersted's band, N=108. With the exception of the first three songs, these are songs that have been accumulating in the "maybe" hopper for the past year or so. Those first 3 songs were brought back from an earlier, discontinued album due to their popularity in Russia. (Not that they will be buying copies of Volume IV)

This is primarily a digital domain produced collection, with a few exceptions. There are songs based on a real Moog Prodigy, and a few songs have tracks played on a real Roland Juno 6.  But for the most part, these tracks have been bounced back and forth between Apple Logic and Propellerhead Reason. I find Logic easier to jot things down with, and it has some of my favorite virtual synths. But finished tracks are then imported to Reason for mastering and for the addition of vocals and other tracks.

N=108 occasionally use Sonar on an older PC notebook in order to use some of my older VST synths, like OP-X and Absynth, but they almost always finish things with Reason because they like the mastering suite and mixer on there.

As for content, I think Volume IV is more entertaining than the last thing Flux Oersted put out, Fabric and Dreams. It's more raw and has a variety of material that I feel has a broader range of song types.

Volume IV is available in multiple formats at BandCamp.com  Also available from iTunes, Amazon.com, Spotify, etc.

The Creative Processing

Song Writing

I started a new song yesterday, writing in Logic, using virtual instruments. I expect the project to end up in Reason, because I like to finish things in there. Reason has good mastering tools, but Logic has some cool virtual synths and I find it easier to jot things down in there.

It's coming along nicely. I'm wondering if I can capture what I hear in my head with the tools that I have. Usually, my songs end up as a conglomeration of things that I didn't plan. This song even has lyrics coming before I finish it, which doesn't always happen. It is serendipity to have things arrive in this order, so that I can add my pads and accompaniment with the lyrics in mind, as opposed to having to fit the words in between whatever I came up with for music.

The percussion for this song is still a mystery to me. I don't want to use loops this time. I am thinking of playing the drum parts on a keyboard, or possibly not having percussion. Why not break with tradition?

I did say recently that I wanted to get away from my time proven formula for song writing. Vocals/Synth/Pads/Drums.  I think the slower you go the more options you have. I'm still trying to follow that sound in my head to see if I can reproduce my imagination. That would be special.

Process of Making Stuff

The Next Big Thing

I've been thinking about my next record album for a while, and thought for a while that I didn't have enough material to start. Actually, it turns out that I've got enough material to reject most of what I had, but that left me with a firm preamble of material that rocks. I've got to keep rejecting songs that are not good enough for a strong next offering.

I thought about some songs that have my traditional synth bass and strings arrangements, and have moved onto songs that are irregular from my past offerings.

There are some songs that I used to like, and some of them have never been recorded. I'm working with songs that were written in 1982, and they are better than anything I've composed since then. I just hope I can tie them together with songs that originated in the new technology. The older songs are more player oriented, whereas the newer stuff is more voice oriented, more of a sound gimmick than the songs that I originally wrote on piano.

Some of these songs are sort of orchestral in nature, and have parts that I have to coordinate and sync in the scheme of things, but we have the technology.

The Laws of Physics

The Cold Red Eyes of Home

I published my first kindle post yesterday. The Cold Red Eyes of Home is a short story about a man who builds a robot and they have adventures. I chose this story as a test, to see how the publishing process works, but hope to follow soon with more titles. I'm working on a serial story called The Interrogators, and am looking into ways to have it also available as an audio book or podcast. Not sure about the details on that yet. I may publish a collection of essays at some point, if I can find enough of them about. Some of my favorites were written to the Robitron discussion list over the past eight years or so. Some spelunking may be in order to locate them. Luckily, there is a search feature on the messages there. On Amazon.com, you can download free kindle reader software for macs, and there is a free kindle reader for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. I found that useful to me for testing, but now I am interested in getting a kindle. The Barnes & Noble Nook is an interesting device as well. I guess at some point they become like so many remote controls lying about the house.

Finally finished with the setup and distributing of Fabric and Dreams. Now you can get everything from 128k free MP3's to lossless versions in FLAC from our website at FluxOersted.Com. Coming in the next few weeks will be CD on demand from Amazon.com, but apparently it takes them some time to set that up. This makes my fifth offering from iTunes, but we're about to retire two of them, and consolidate our material somewhat. If you're even the least bit interested, you should check out Fabric and Dreams, it really is our best album since Inference Patterns. I didn't know until recently that our best selling single was "Timothy Leary's Dead." It's on The Visitor album. It is a weird and kooky track but I guess the name says it all.

I've been working on a new album titled, Fabric and Dreams composed of songs that I've written over the past year or so. I feel like this is some of my best work. Some of it was written under duress, during times of stress. Other parts were written using some of my latest software tools. It's been a good year for writing.

The entire album is available for free at FluxOersted.com. I decided to release it for free as a normal mp3 file, and then later to make higher resolution copies available in stores and from other pay-optional sites like bandcamp.com. Strangely, the artwork may take longer to finish than some of the songs.

I went the extra step to register the album with ASCAP though on my web page I am using a Creative Commons license so that people can do what they want with it. You can download it, share it, remix it, and nobody will complain, especially me.

Now, on with the show . . .

In the 1970's Radio Shack sold a Moog synthesizer that they branded as "Realistic MG-1 Concertmate." It is essentially the same synth as a Moog Taurus or the Rogue with a few differences. One of the more interesting features it has is an auto trigger that you control the frequency with the LFO. It also has a continuous filter setting that would be like playing a Juno 6 with hold button on.

I've got one of these and it has suffered the ages rather poorly. The plastic end caps were held on by hot glue and these have popped off or are loose. I swapped the actual keys with my Moog Prodigy to restore the Prodigy. So the MG-1 has some broken keys. At one point, I tried to lower the pitch by an octave, and inadvertently changed its tuning so that the frequency change between an octave was off.

I bought a nylon tuning kit consisting of a set of plastic rods that fit into the little groove of an electronic trimmer pot. I have been successful in re-tuning the MG-1, but it has some other problems keeping pitch, possibly from the old broken keyboard, or some component on the main circuit board I'm not sure.

I still really like sounds it makes, so I'll have to keep working on restoring it now that I've become reattached to it again.

New Release

Flux Oersted has released a high definition digital album called Subterraneans on BandCamp and in an abbreviated form on the Creative Commons site Jamendo.com.

This is a very representative album in terms of our style and productions. Some of the songs were originally rendered on 4-track tape, with newer recordings made entirely in the digital domain.

This is all part of a plan we have to start offering 192kb/s MP3's for free, but also offer FLAC, and other lossless or near lossless formats for a small fee. The difference would be lost on most computer speakers, but if you've got a nice sound system, or listen to headphones, you might appreciate the higher fidelity recordings.

Our apologies if this gets cross posted several times.

Flux Oersted featuring Dutch Cartoonist
Photo by Robert Cambron

Dutch Cartoonist

The latest outcrop of mirth from IMS is Flux Oersted's Dutch Cartoonist, featuring Jools Aspinal. Jools has kindly sketched out a few songs for their new release: Solid Mercury EP. This is a 7 song EP that is available for streaming, and free download from FluxOersted.Com. There will be an upcoming album before long, adding more material to the EP's songs list.

What's it like working together with Jools on the EP? "I'm liking the variety of sounds we're getting. I felt like Flux Oersted had fallen into a rut of 80's synth voices and couldn't get up. We're still using the same equipment, just trying to broaden our horizons," says Robby Garner, founder of Flux Oersted Music.

What kind of equipment are you using? "Mainly a MacBook Pro computer and a buttload of software."

What is the inspiration for your music? "I've done a lot of research for this album, reading from history books and women's blogs in Afghanistan. It's all about pain and the release that manifests itself as a crusty stain of synthesizer music."

Do you get much feedback from your fans? "No, not really. They are just download statistics to us. The occasional influx of money from MP3 sales says we matter to some people, and every once in a while somebody clicks 'like' somewhere. We produce music for ourselves. The rest is like a side effect."

What do you see in the future for Flux Oersted and Dutch Cartoonist? "I think it is about 1 o'clock. That will be next for us."

Hear the Solid Mercury EP at Flux Oersted Music

Weren't you at the Meeting?

The November meeting came and went. Little was said about the software I told you about. We had hamburgers and fries.

The office looks better now that we've started finally getting rid of the retired equipment, the monitors that don't work, the stacks of old computer keyboards, and the old PC frames, already stripped of RAM and hard drives. Now they are much better off in a pile somewhere. Somewhere not in the office.

I thought it would be hard to do, and I was a bit forlorn, but it passed. In honor of the move I had a Newcastle Brown Ale.

I want to also convert a room on the top floor to my occasional haunt, because I like the view from the window in there. I depend on setting to deliver mood. I seldom take mood to another place. Working around cats makes environmental stability an issue sometimes. They always have other plans and don't make those clear until you're up to your elbows in something eminent.

Suffering for art can take many forms.

The What For
Just got Reason 5 (and Record 1.5) . . . Love it! These are some great systems. I've already fell in love with Neptune, the vocal pitch perfector and voice synthesizer. Whether I'll ever use the Kong Drum Designer, I don't know yet. I am still just messing around with basic instrument editing and recording.

It is both a blessing and a small curse that you can't use VST plug-ins with Reason. The small curse is small because Reason is a tight bit of code that is rock solid. (something VST can never quite claim onto)

The new mixer in Reason is fantastic. It emulates something that I know nothing about, but the little cartoon I get to look at makes life simpler at the touch of a button.

See you on the bitstream,

Robby.

In The Name Of Expediency

To prevent racial profiling, everyone should have to show their travel papers when asked. Checkpoints should be established between each town, and cars should be searched by drug and bomb sniffing dogs, frequently, and as often as possible. Hiring millions of new guards and police officers and dogs will not only create jobs, but will ensure that I can travel freely from one checkpoint to the next. If I am mistaken for an illegal alien, I should be sent to Australia, or Canada for processing. On my return, I should have to stand in line to re-apply for citizenship, all at the government's expense of course. People should have to pass a drug test in order to vote, place a telephone call, or to buy a pack of rolling papers. Ice cream should be a severely controlled substance since obesity can lead to premature death. A twinky should require a doctor's prescription. Snickers should be banned outright. High fructose corn syrup should be outlawed in a zero tolerance double secret prohibition, but remain available on the black market, sold by shady mafia types primarily. If high fructose corn syrup becomes illegal then only criminals will have high fructose corn syrup, as it is a lethal weapon when wielded by fat people.

Is Brian Eno Really God?

I've seen it countless times, usually scratched into the paint on bathroom walls in clubs and universities, "Eno is God." Is it true?

I can only say that one of the properties of God is perfection, and Eno is not that. His voice is crappy. All his live stuff is like something produced in a garage some place. And yet, as a producer for David Bowie and Talking Heads, you'd have to say that his contribution was priceless, and beyond reproach. He made art, he is an artist, his art is good. The very fact that people continue to praise him in public restrooms must speak volumes about his influence on them.

But what makes the man special? He went where nobody went before? Is that it? He is a great composer? Really? Improvised everything? He tells people to just go with their feelings and somehow turns that into a finished product.

I think his free spirit just sort of lofts above the surface dwellers of this world in a heavenly fashion. That is the secret behind his proclivity for inspiring graffiti artists.

Flux Oersted on Corporate Records

I am releasing two albums plus some new material on Corporate Records, starting today. My own record label, Institute of Mimetic Sciences, inc. takes precedence, but I like the cut of their jib.

Flux Oersted on Corporate Records

These songs are still available on iTunes and Amazon.com, but Corporate Records just seemed like a logical alternative.

"Automatic for the people!"

Robby.

Gilmore Sessions


David stopped by Self house last night for some guitar recording and collaboration on a new song. We've been planning this for some time, and it finally worked out. The guitar part has a jangly kind of REM flavor and is within 4 minutes long. David showed me how to play some accompaniment that he heard for the piece, and stressed a sort of "pushing" theme for the vocals.

He also expressed a desire for a kind of voice, similar to one we used on the Casio CZ-1000, that is similar to the "vox humana" voice on a memory moog. I have the closest thing in the OP-X Oberheim emulator, but may go with a Pro-53 voice for some of the parts.

We recorded the guitar in a neutral amp setting, so that we could build the rest of the song before deciding what kind of amp simulator to use. This is contrary to the Black Sabbath cover we recorded recently, where we wanted the "sound" first before recording.

I've been listening to the guitar track today and have pretty much settled on a vocal line and some of the lyrics, so progress is coming very easily for this one. I think the vocal tracks may enforce David's "pushing" meme, but be very pop oriented.

The accompaniment tracks are revealing themselves to be what David described, but also some good synth parts for the song.

Robby.

Did you know that my song, Sixteen and SINless was first mentioned in a William Gibson novel?

"Mona could see the sun through a couple of rips in the black plastic they kept taped over the window. She hated the squat too much to stay there when she was awake or straight, and now she was both. She was 16 and SINless, Mona, and this older trick had told her once that that was a song, "Sixteen and SINless." Meant that she hadn't been assigned a SIN when she was born, a Single Identification Number, so she grown up on the outside of most official systems. She knew that it was supposed to be possible to get a SIN, if you didn't have one, but it stood to reason you'd have to go to a building somewhere and talk to a suit, and that was a long way from Mona's idea of a good time or even normal behavior". -- From Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson. Published by Bantam in 1988

The width of a circle
Greetings for my first 2010 post. Activities have picked up at the Institute.

We are going through some advances in the facilities here at the Institute. Weatherization and painting have been ordered but not scheduled yet. Hopefully, those activities will not be too intrusive.

I'm starting to work on another musical theme, involving the usual suspects in terms of synthesizers and drum machines. Will let you know of progress there.

I had contact with Neil Bishop recently. He is one of the founders of Institute of Mimetic Sciences. He has given his blessings to our current record label aspirations, and some moral support for the rest of our activities. It seems he has started earthrover.net and is involved in some other mimetic research activities. We discussed ramping up IMS non-profit activities, but I declined, siting recent success as a record label, and my predilection with conversational systems outside the HuMimics realm of software systems. We give our thanks and best wishes to Neil, who continues to be available for consultations.

Sara has been involved in fund raising activities, and has helped us get grants in the form of weatherization, and other fund raisers. She is spearheading our January applications.

We remain thankful for our patronage and for the resources we've maintained.

Stay thirsty my friends, and don't let them know you're thinking.

Robby.