Thanks to Les Fradkin for submitting this ineresting video from Japan.

Les Fradkin is one of the guitar legends of the 1970’s, a Guitar Synthesizer pioneer of the 1980’s and is now a 21st Century innovator on the Starr Labs Ztar. A classically trained musician as well as being an original member of the hit Broadway show “Beatlemania”, he has found success as a recording artist, composer and producer with MGM Sunflower, ESP-Disk, Bell, Arista, RCA, and Laurie Records. Les has written the well known French hit “La Chansons Des Souvenirs” (”Song Of A Thousand Voices”) for the famous French songstress Mireille Mathieu and the Latin Pop icon Roberto Jordan (”Donde”). He has played Mellotron, 12 and 6-string Guitar, Bass and Piano on dozens of Top 40 hit records throughout the early 1970’s , scoring many US and UK chart placings throughout his career.

More info about Les at http://www.youtube.com/user/lfradkin

Thanks to Pepe Mogt from Nortec Collective for sending this in:

Having fun with Percussa Audio Cubes, This is our First Test Ableton Live and some loops and filters, we will use this set up on our next gigs….stayed tuned
enjoy!
Bostich+fussible

Nortec stopped by our NAMM booth past weeks and decided they had to get the cubes.

More info about their work at http://www.myspace.com/tijuanasoundmachine

They are also Grammy nominees:

If you happen to be going to the Joshua Tree Music Festival in May, be sure to check them out: http://www.joshuatreemusicfestival.com/mayartists.htm. Alternatively you can see them at the MUTEK festival in Montreal, Quebec.

Nortec collective is not a band or a group but a series of compilations created in (and about) Tijuana Mexico where electronica, norteño and tambora music come together with visuals. See http://www.nortec.info/

Nor-tec has spawned audio imitators, Volvo ads, t-shirts, and indie films, popped up everywhere from art installations to MTV and HBO, and now Tijuana’s first-next-big-global-thing finally has its own full-scale scholarly book that lends a critical ear to border beats. With a focused and serious mix of theory, interviews, and lots of listening during long nights in Tijuana clubs, Madrid has done the music and the scene a great service by unraveling its histories and dissecting its meanings for fans and scholars alike.

–Josh Kun, University of Southern California, author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America

Thanks to Okudaira-san from Japan for submitting these nice videos. In the video, Reason 4 is used for live music performance together with Quartz Composer for Visuals. All software is controlled by Percussa AudioCubes.

Making loops with single AudioCube from percussa on Vimeo.

Chris from UCSD emails us with a patch in Max/MSP and accompanying video in which he uses a single audiocube to create loops.

the audiocube’s 4 sensors control 4 parameters of a VST instrument, which are recorded into a looping sequencer and played over the original recording, allowing the performer to create a loop quickly and shape the sound and musical patterns using has hands and fingers, like a piece of clay.

the parameters are recorded in high resolution and speed for smooth continuous control.

the patch will be released as a standalone application in the next months. More info about Chris’ work at http://alloyelectric.com/

FL Studio Slicex controlled by single AudioCube from percussa on Vimeo.

Dan from Schaack Audio just sent us this cool video of a single audiocube controlling the slicex in FL Studio. Dan is building a new version of MIDIBridge using Raw Material’s JUCE framework.

We have been publishing videos for a while on our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/percussa, which has been really useful to show some of the great stuff you can do with AudioCubes.

We recently bought a HD camcorder, and decided to start using Vimeo for publishing our videos. This allows us to publish higher quality video and tutorials, making it easier to learn about music technology. You can visit our Vimeo profile at http://vimeo.com/percussa

AudioCubes FL Studio Tutorial by Spyro from percussa on Vimeo.

Spyro made a package of FL Studio examples for AudioCubes which accompanies the video. Download here: http://www.divshare.com/download/6137902-7d0.

More info about Spyro and his work:

Real Name: Matias Monteagudo
Aka’s: Spyro, Montéz, Tony Alpha
web: www.spyrofunk.com (website) / http://spyro.mediashift.net/klanglabs/ (VST plugins development)

Graduate as “Bachelor in Music under composition area” at the IUDEM, Caracas. Spyro has worked in areas such as movies, short films, TV spots, documentaries, theater, art exhibitions, plain gigs and fashion shows

His recent works includes the soundtrack and sound design for “Plan B” (a local action movie) Also 2D Animation and music/effects for the “Prolapio” series of humour shortfilms, and around 200 TV spots for clients including Toyota, Ford, Schick, Coca-Cola, SubWay, Kraft, Movistar, Bayer, Glade, Pfizer, Energizer and Kosiuko.

In 2005 after his participation in the Red Bull Music Academy on Seattle, Spyro is very proud to release a 5 Songs EP called “Biodegradable” with the label Yoruba Records, owned by his fellow friend, great musician and master DJ, Mr. Osunlade

Spyro also spend a lot of time making VST plug-ins for his brand called KlangLabs, his most known plug-ins are “Vokko” a stereo vocoder, “StompBud” a virtual “body sounds” sample player, and “BackMan” a realtime in-sync backwards audio processor.

Participations – Releases:

• 2008 – Acid Mechanics – (Estrela Records, Salzburg Austria)
• 2007 – WetDreamTeam “Lollipop” – (Schmiede Hallein – Austria)
• 2007 – Chuck Norris “Houdini” – Spyro Remix (Caracas, Venezuela)
• 2007 – Los amigos invisibles “Amar es algo mas” – Spyro Remix (NY, USA / Caracas, Venezuela)
• 2007 – Tony Alpha “Cave Canem” (Beware of the dog) – Axis of evil 12inch (Estrela Records, Salzburg Austria)
• 2006 – Spyro “Quinta Anauco – Raspaito de Tamarindo” Nueva Onda Nueva (compilation, Fundación Nuevas Bandas, Caracas)
• 2006 – “Biodegradable” EP (Yoruba Records, NY/Greece)
• 2006 – Spyro “Miami Spice” – “Miami Spice” 12inch (Estrela Records, Salzburg Austria)
• 2006 – Spyro “Tonada del Cabrestero” – “Simon Remixes” (Mega FM, Caracas)
• 2006 – Spyro “Paz Inferior” – “Caracas” (MiniCord compilation, Caracas)
• 2005 – Spyro “Bad Habit” – “Dance Venezuela” (Gozadera records, NY/Caracas)
• 2005 – Spyro “I Guess” – “Chill Out Venezuela” (Gozadera Records, NY/Caracas)
• 2005 – Spyro/Maliq “Songs for my children” – “RBMA 2005″ (RBMA – Seattle/Austria)

straker on monome and audiocubes from cassiel on Vimeo.

Nick from Cassiel, a well known Max/MSP Ninja just sent us this cool video in which he uses the cubes and a monome with his shard, straker and shado software.
Visit his website for more info about his excellent work at http://www.cassiel.com/

One of our active live audiocube users, Kipp, sent in this video showing how he conducts his live DJ set and gives his audience an understanding of what he does through visuals.

www.myspace.com/runninthingsrecords
www.myspace.com/olias

Thanks!

Chris Warren (UCSD, California, USA) writes us to show his demo of using AudioCubes to control a custom synth he is working on in Max/MSP 5.

The synth connects directly with the cubes without any setup or configuration, and has a mini sequencer built in. Control data is sampled at 1kHz and 10 bit resolution.

As you probably already know, there are no drivers necessary to use the cubes with your Mac or PC. The software can talk directly to the hardware and plays nice with the operating system.

The software will be available in the next months from the Percussa website.

More info about Chris’ work available from http://alloyelectric.com/