These are from Camouflage. More later, promise!

What you need to do is simple, just click these small images below, it will bring you to new window/tab, then right click the picture and ’save image as’ to your computer.

Enjoy.

As i recall i’ve mentioned about soundcards, softwares & sequencers…. Now i’ll be talking about mixers & the importance of a mixer & a bit of CDJs. Well do you know what is a mixer? & if you ask me “Is it a food processor?” or “Is it a blender?”,………… I’m gonna whoop your arse & make sure you reach Uranus!!!! Hehehehe just kidding mate….What exactly are you going to be using the mixer for??? Live PA, Djing, multitrack recording, work, etc? So whatever the design or price of your mixer going to be, the basic functions of all kind of mixers are to blend as many input signals (Depending on how many inputs the mixer can offer) & control the volume of a number of inputs & route the resulting mix to the appropriate destination & of course you can add external effects, such as graphic equalizer, compressor/limiter & other effects unit to make your sound even better. The more input signals you have i guess is better if you are planning to get more equipments in the future but if you are on a super tight arse budget then get a 4 stereo tracks mixer(equivalent to 8 mono tracks) or less. Most mixers have equalizers, commonly known as EQ, auxiliaries also known as AUX where you can put external effects through it. Unless if you buy a super cheapazoids mixer from a smack or crack addict gypsy in the middle of nowhere, you might get a battery operated volume control only(&batteries sold separately). Make sure the particular mixer that you are getting have the main mixer facilities for your applications.

I used to use 3 mixers but now i only use 2 because of financial purposes. My mixers are Eurorack UB-1832fx-PRO by Behringer (God,i love you & if you love me, get me a Mackie, well nothing fancy shmancy but an ONYX 1620 with firewire will do…please, thanks….) & a limited edition Numark EM-460 with a KORG Kaoss pad built in. Why the hell i need 2 mixers for? Ok, the Behringer is a 14 channel mixer & i use it to separate my drums from my MC-909 cause the Roland MC-909 has 3 stereo outputs so that i could widen or fatten the sounds of drums or bass or synths or strings or whatever sounds i want from the MC-909 & sometimes my KORG Electribe MX-1 too cause it also has an individual output. & as for the Numark,its a dj mixer & why a dj mixer??? So i can play with the crossfader or control any channel with flick of a switch when i’m playing live & the coolest thing about the Numark is the Kaoss pad cause you can play the effects live….Yummy!!! You know why they use the term kaoss pads cause it offers you 10 filters,10 modulations,10 delays,10 reverbs & 10 sfx on 1 bank & there are 6 banks of effects so the total of fx would be….hhhhmmmmmmm…. I dunno,you do the math cause i fail in mathematics in school (always get “F” that means “FUCKED”). But i’m good with anything that have a currency signs, not that i make loads of em’, i just count faster….The problem with Numark is that they don’t have auxiliaries send & return, so you can’t put external effects into maybe of the so much fx that have been given…..toooo much fx might give you side effects.

So for ELECTROFUX sets, usually we use 3 sequencers, KORG Electribe’s EM-1,MX-1 & MC-909,a total of 6 stereo out that means 12 monos. But i still have my other monster, AKAI MPC-4000 upgraded but she is in the workshop for repairs, thanks to my landlady cause when i rented the house, she said the house was in perfect condition & when i came back from a tour with Hard Rock Cafe Bali, i went home, enter my studio & i swear i could have kill the landlady if i have a Colt .45 with a silver bullet cause i saw my MPC-4000 was drenched in water for 2 days. I put the AKAI exactly under a leaking rooftop. Damned i cried……Yeah, yeah call me a pussy for crying but if you check the price for an upgraded AKAI MPC-4000 with hard disk capacity 0f 40gb,8 mono outputs,1 stereo quarter jack output,1 stereo xlr output,1 stereo quarter jack input,1 stereo xlr input,1 stereo phantom input,1 stereo rca inputs with phono switch if you want to sample from a turntable+a cd writer,usb,4 midi out & 4 midi in…..You’ll be crying like a newly born baby to this world but not that i did but you will….So why i was in grief deeply more cause in Indonesia, there is no authorized dealer for AKAI it could take months or years just to get the spare parts. To top that up the landlady doesn’t want to pay for the damaged cause she said it was the rains fault…..BIATCH!!! Hope 1 day Mother Nature will eat her up & let her digest in Mother Nature’s stomach, let my landlady slide in the intestines & return to earth in shit form….eventhough she looks like that!!!!!!

Aight enough whining, so let’s talk about CDJs.

It may sound sophisticated but it has loads of flaws too & you can’t store much sample in it. Then a couple of years later, someone gave me a Roland SP-808EX (Thanks Nin for the SP-808EX….& i still love you.)….now i call that a sampler. The SP-808EX has 16 big pads with 64 banks, tons of effects, 4 track where you record your sample to a song, a d-beam & you can store it all into built in zip drive. & never drop your zip card cause all the data inside will go to the electronic heaven. They do have a sotware for it but it only work on Windows 98….talk about old school…When i use the SP-808EX,i never even midi it to any other equipment. I simply sample a perfect loop & as my other sequencers or drum machines running on pattern loop, i press the sample pads at the beginning of the 1st bar put it on hold & shaaaazaam jam wham bam thank you ma’am…the sample loop is running side by side with my sequencer but as long as it’s a perfect loop sample. (If the loop tempo…let’s say it’s 130 bpm & your sequencer is 130 bpm then you can’t go wrong unless you press the sample pads too quickly or to late.) In fact all of my samplers i never midi to any other equipment, i don’t know why i do that but maybe it’s just the feeling of playing it live just like playing guitars or piano. Til now i’m using akai MPC-4000 upgraded & SP-303(the new version of the SP-202 but with 26 killer effects without killing other human being!!!) i still play like that.

Soooooooo let’s us talk about sequencers… Ok my 1st sequencer was the MC-303 (Thanks for helping me out dad!!!), aaaah the 303,sigh (Damned it i miss her so much)……i think it was made in the very early 90’s & actually it’s more of a toy than a sequencer to me. Even if you can programme it, there is a certain way that makes you look cool by how you play it. Unlike software where you can see on the monitor screens on whatever you are doing & wherever you are going, hardware sequencer, you got to use your hearing, instinct & feelings…..oh & of course patience, a whole lot of it. To me hardware sequencers are like women & why sequencers are like women cause a certain touch & caress & a twist of her knobs makes her moan differently, she can climax into an orgasmic sounds of tranquility & it’s so fun to be with them….just like sex…..hhhhmmm or maybe it’s just me.

I try to understand MC-303 on how it works & sometimes when you programmed drum beats, it sounded thin on the MC-303 but i found a way to make the MC-303 sound louder, just go to the flanger or chorus effects (typical of Roland fx, flanger, chorus & reverb) switch off the time & feedback then crank the level up, boom you got it. Always remember to save it cause if you have a power failure, people from outside your room could hear you swear “YOU FUCKIN’*^$%SON OF A MOTHERLESS CORDLESS DISCONNECTED PENTIUM 1 DONKEY…WWWWHHHHYYYYYYYY?!?!?!??!?!??!??!?” Believe me cause it happens to me except i use the word PENTIUM 2. It’s so frustrating, imagine after hours of long concentrations on programming & when you got it right, power failure!!! Well there are always a prevention if you could afford it & that is ‘U.P.S’, noooo not United Pot Smokers(Unintentinal Power Shutdown,…i think), you know the 1 if a power failure occurs you still have a couple of minutes of power to save your work. (If you use MC-307 & if the power trips too much, the LCD will be dead & you will take a trip to your nearest repair shop & that is if they have the spare parts or you’ll be dead like the MC-307’s LCD)

When some people use presets, for me i programmed patterns by myself just to be more original especially drum beats because they are your backbone of your music. It’s ok to copy or mimic drum patterns from other music when you are learning cause I try to learn to create that intro Prodigy drums,the 1 call “Voodoo People” from “The Jilted Generations” album, fuuuuuck it is soooooooooooo complicating on a drum machine. But after trying so many times, at last i got it. So try to listen songs from other bands (analogue or digital) then create the drum beats as almosts the same as the song. This is just to make you learn better in programming drums. I even tried Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, it took awhile for me to get it right plus a couple of power failure but i got it at last. Just imagine “Master of Puppets” with a TR-808 or TR-909 drum sounds… woooohoooohoooo…. But i don’t want Lars Ulrich to know cause he might sue me. As long as it’s not publish it’s ok i guess but what matters is that you are learning something….right??? Drum arrangement could take awhile to master, especially big beats or chemical beats or breakbeats that is if you are learning by yourself like i did & the easiest to learn are house beats or techno beats but the basics of drum programming are really simple.

(Note,user patterns on the MC groovebox series is where you lay your magic & then you can arrange it in the user songs)

Every roland MC groovebox or KORG Electribe series have 1 octave pad & 1 octave have 16 pads & 16 pads is equivalent to 1 bar. a normal basic simple drum beat is when you put the main snares on 5th & 13th pad(velocity level 110) & the main bass drums falls on the 1st & the 11th pad(velocity level is 127)but this is up to you to change the level, & this is for the 1st bar & if you programmed a 4 bar drum pattern, it is better to put extra snares on the last 4th bar. for instance the last bar put extra snares on the 2nd & 8th & 10th & 15th or 16th pads & always remember to play with velocity cause on the extra snares the velocities is always lower than the main snares (velocity level is around 90 or maybe below for extra snares)the simplest drum beat from a legendary band to me is New Order & the song is “Blue Monday”. They play 8 bar pattern where the main bass drums are on the 1st & 5th & 9th & 13th pads, continue till the 8th bar you do the same to but put bass drums on the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th,1 3th, 14th, 15th & 16th pads.(Hope you get my point if not raise your hands)Do it on step recording so you can do it 1 at a time. Real-time recording can be a real time pain in the butt especially if you are using MC-303, MC-307 & of course the butt driller MC-505 cause you can’t re-edit your mistakes. Now i’m using the MC-909(Thanks Yoda for the 909) one of the most friendliest MC grooveboxes series i ever use cause you can edit & re-edit it if you make mistakes even after saving it. They also have the MC-909 Editor software where you can use a MIDI/USB interface & save your work or edit in your computer so you can have extra memory capacity for your other works & they also have 3.3v smart media where you can save into the card but the only thing that is not smart is that they don’t make a lot of smart media cards. I’ve been searching it everywhere from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Singapore, errr Singapore. NIHIL!!!

(Still you can do a midi dump via MIDI/USB & midi dumping are quite commonly use on any equipments as long as it have midi connections but sometimes i feel a bit skeptical with this because sometimes i might dump it wrongly & all the work done is lost…But human makes mistakes not machine & machines only makes mistakes when a human command them to make one.)

But nevertheless there’s always another alternative way to save it or what you could do is get a piece of paper or a book, draw 16 adjacent boxes and pretend that’s the pads, write each note on whatever shit you have programmed onto the boxes created by you. Whether its beats or notes of basslines, synth or strings, you could store it on a piece of paper. So far that’s my solutions on how to remember whatever i have programmed. Well it’s kind of like a tablature for grooveboxes even on the KORG Electribe series or any drum machines cause all sequencers & drum-machines have 16 pads that represent 1 bar. Basically the lay outs are similar…. Then you can share with other programmers but make sure it’s original. To copyright it in an old fuckin’ school way is to mail it to your own address by post & when it is posted to you back,do not open it, keep it in a safe. A date is always stamp on the stamps itself. So that is your prove that you made the patterns. This is always been ELECTROFUX’s way for copyright stuff cause i can’t afford a lawyer.

Ok so i let some of my secret out for you to explore & for you to understand the basic needs on hardware sequencing & for you to learn the basics drum programming & 909 zillion thanks to Mr Ikutaro Kakeshi the founder of Roland & Tsutomu Katoh founder of KORG. Without them digital music will be less fun & for me it’s unimaginable to live without them ……I’ll write to you more about nothing to something from everything to anything later……..so be ready & steady but do not be greedy.

PS:

(Ironically Mr Ikutaro Kakeshi & his parents have the same sickness as i’m suffering now & that is TBC a.k.a tuberculosis & thank god i’m working in SURFER GIRL in BALI cause i get health insurance!!)

Greeting earthlings, hope you have a splendid day. Thank you for taking the time to read this article, hopefully some of you read this article til the end (Aaaaah so sweet of you & may you have a BEAUTIFUL LIFE) & though some of you may read this halfway (You can suck my KORG,YOU RETARDED ANALPHOBIC CLIT LIP DUMP F**K!!!… cause i put a lot of effort into this). Kidding dude, do what your want!

So this is about nothing to something from everything to anything. It’s an article about whatever comes to my mind whether it could lifestyle, food, love, hatred, sadness, happiness, sex, electronic equipments, stupidity, Maria Ozawa or Jade Hsu or whatever I like (& I would like to apologies if my grammars, vocabularies & spellings is a bit fucked cause i’m a school drop-out)

This article, i’m writing now, is about how to be an electronic musician??? 1st of all what you need is a full length of strength, spirit & courage & always never give up hope… without this my friends you will never succeed in anything you want to achieve…& always remember that giving up is a failure in life….cause i almost did till i got a big double slap wake up call from my webmaster & always have that thinking again whatever i wrote above & that is why i’m writing this to you all…

Ok then, what is your main attempt to be an electronic musician, what really interest you? What kind of music genre are you into??? What kind of sounds you are looking for or what kind of beats you want to make??? For me, my influences are in the early 80’s. Back in mid 82 where i still remember vaguely, i saw a video clip by Depeche Mode,it was “Live In Silence” & i told myself what the fuck are they doing?!?!? What kind of music is this???….Then in the late 80’s came along, bands like S-Express, Bomb The Bass, Pet Shop Boys then again Depeche Mode where they release Music for the Masses & i told myself that this is the kind of music i want to play. A couple of years later came the industial scene… Ok, ok i’m a bit late in music & mind you that there is no internet (Til now i still don’t understand internet) & i have a bit of problem in me & that is reading cause sometimes i don’t understand what the fuck am i reading!!! Duuhhhh!!?!?!?!

Nitzerebb , Einsturzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy, Fatima’s Mansion but Ministry & Nine Inch Nails open my eyes & mind cause that is where the age of rage i was in & i was into distortions & guitars. I made a band myself but it doesn’t sound right cause i was using a real human drummer. Then a drum machine was introduce to me,my perceptions in music changes & plus The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers & Orbital (R.I.P) made it change more drastically.

Ok back to the ‘how to be an electronic musician’. Now you people are lucky cause the gods of software is everywhere (I much prefer hardware but anyway the feeling is mutual).So if you have a PC (I use PC cause it’s more hardcore & i can’t afford macs) or mac (or whatever even better if you have an ATARI 800), make sure you get a good soundcard cause that is the only way to get good sound quality. Don’t expect by using internal soundcard to sound good,usually it will sound thin,believe me cause it happens to me before. Now i use Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS by Creative cause it’s cheap & so far the sound quality is always good to my ears eventhough i have a bit of a stereo problem with my eardrums. So please keep it low & audible to your ears as possible cause you don’t want to reach a certain age & everytime people talk to you,you keep on saying ‘WHAT!?!?! MY CAT’S NOT FAT?!?!’ When people are asking you the time. So please take care of your eardrums, it’s a valueble assets if you want to be a musician,unless if you are Pete Tong.

Then,choose the software that suits you & what makes your work easier for you, make sure you really really really really know what you can do in that software, don’t just because your friends or magazines says, this is good, that is good, you try everything & have no time to get use to a certain software cause if that happens, when are you going to be good on what you do if you try all the software made in this world??? Once you understand the software then you can approach on other kinds of software but my advice is, use softwares that are VST friendly & if you could afford, use original VST software so your computer won’t crash too often & original music software can be upgraded by downloading it & keep your serial number to yourselves, make it like as though it’s your credit card number but if you can’t afford then it’s ok i don’t blame you people, cause some VST or softwares can be FREAKIN’ FUCKIN’ EXPENSIVE!!!!! In Indonesia you can buy a motorcycle with the price of a single software.

(To all software makers if you read this, please take note that many people around the world can’t spend their money like Paris Hilton or any decendant of the Trumps but some of the many people that you don’t know around the world can make you guys rich, so get out of Uranus & please land to the real world cause there are not too many rich or well to do people on earth, so don’t put the price to higH….i know,i know you got to pay taxes & other people for working on the software but do not charge ridiculous prices & also it will cut down piracy & so don’t blame the pirates YOU GREEDY F**K!!!!!!!)

Ok then again, back to the ‘how to be an electronic musician.’.Some of my favorite bands in Indonesia like Goodnight Electric & Rock & Roll Mafia uses Fruity Loops in their 1st albums. Well Mr. Howlett also known as The Prodigy uses Cubase 1st then dumps it & move to Reason but in the end during the mixed down for the “Always Outnumbered But Never Outgunned” album he uses PRO-Tools just to fatten the basslines. …….Hhhhmmm for me i much prefer to use ACID PRO cause i can fatten my bassline by using Sony Wave Hammer(if you have Sony Sonic Foundary Sound Forge,you’ll get Wave Hammer from the audio fx)& of course i like to mingle around with samples & you can cut & paste, blend ten different drum beats to make into 1 drum beat but make sure it’s the same tempo cause it sounds better to your ears but actually you could use different tempos for variations so you could do your own style & different people have different taste in styles so i leave it to you my friends.

1 thing i dislike ACID PRO is that if you want to render a certain loop that you’ve already arranged in a song & if the song is long & the loop is in the middle of it. Then you’ll get a long silence then your loop then a long silence again. Unlike Ableton where you can mark whichever loop that is in a song. You still can get the marked loop rendered smoothly. It’s just that to work with ACID PRO is much friendlier with the mouse scroll compared to Ableton & i like to use both, ACID PRO & Ableton cause it’s like having a 3some with 2 chicks but if i’m unlucky,1 of the chick might behave like a bitch on PMS. For instance my ACID PRO sometimes have problems with VST(My fault, GOD DAMNED YOU CRACKED SOFTWARES!!!!),it’s either a crackling sound or it just malfunction suddenly & my solution is, use Ableton cause they are more VST friendly but if you are using Ableton, do not, i repeat do not, did i say do not cut & paste too much or you’ll get a crackling sounds too unless you cut & paste in 1 midi clip but it’s gonna be 1 hell long of a midi clip.But sometimes it still have that same problem.(Again GOD DAMNED YOU CRACKED WHORE SLUT HELL SOFTWARES!!!!)Then once you get the sounds & arrangements right, render it to wav. format & save it so you can load it to ACID PRO. Then you can start arrange it again. I know it’s a bit toublesome but thats how i do it, maybe there are better ways or easier way, i don’t know cause i never go to music school nor read the manuals, damned i don’t even know how to play the keyboard but 1 things for sure i can write & arranged music, the rest i just use my instinct & my gut feelings.

So my comrads, it’s not how the thunder roars, it’s how you strike your lightings. If you strike the right spot, you can see the mark….I guess that’s all for part1 for nothing to something from everything to anything for now at the moment but i’ll try write more on ‘how to be an electronic musician.’ So start now!!! & A squillion thanks for reading this cause after writing this article, i don’t understand what the fuck did i write but i got the point & hope you do too…….

If you care,you share…..& 1 more thing i would like to thank & a big 1001 inch speakers + 1 000 000 001 mega watts of power shouts to Mr. Nicola Tesla who invented electricity cause without him we still uses pigeons to email & djs will be spinning on a grammaphone,… Aight!!!……….. PEACE!!!!!