Film About Don Buchla

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Vibe

The following is a message I received from the Electronic Music Foundation. Check out the campaign here!

Clarity Films, in Berkeley, has mounted a Kickstarter campaign to fund their new documentary about Don Buchla and his many musical inventions.

Buchla is the inventor of the Buchla synthesizer, the Lightning, the Marimba Lumina, and other devices that seem to spring more from magic than engineering.

We’re tracing his path from the early days of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s to the present. Many stars — among them Morton Subotnick, Jean-Baptiste Barriere, Marc Battier, Gino Robair, Joel Davel, Suzanne Ciani, Ramon Sender, Mark Goldstein, Alessandro Cortini, and many other composers and musicians — light the way.

Buchla designed a set of wands for Lightning virtuoso Forrest Tobey’s performance at the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square. Buchla sounds were among the last sounds heard in the 20th century.

Everyone should know about him. And this film can make that happen.

DJ Shiftee Takes On Traktor DJ

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Vibe

I keep reading great reviews on the Traktor app for iPad is. The April 2013 issue of Music Tech magazine gave it an excellence rating of 10/10, a great value, and innovation award. While I have no intention of looking into iPad DJing for myself, it does look like a fun and powerful app. Check out DJ Shiftee as he hits the streets of Berlin, armed with Traktor DJ.

TRAKTOR DJ brings the leading pro DJ software to iOS with an intuitive app for instant, high-impact DJ sets. Create mixes in seconds – put your hands directly on beautiful waveforms and manipulate them using gestures you already know.

Auto tempo detection makes track syncing effortless while iTunes integration turns your library into a virtual crate to dig through – TRAKTOR PRO’s acclaimed sync engine keeps tracks locked together so mixes hit hard. TRAKTOR DJ also syncs effortlessly toTRAKTOR PRO 2, allowing you to share essential track data – beat grids, BPM counts, and cue points.

This isn’t just an app, this is the most tactile way to get TRAKTOR power to date!

GET IT TODAY!

TRAKTOR DJ is available at the iTunes App Store for $19.99 / 17,99 €

BUY NOW

Requires iOS 6 or higher, iPad 2 or later, or iPad mini. 500 MB free storage/disk space recommended.

GZA Drops Science at New York City School

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Vibe

I loved this story and had to share it. It comes from David Drake at Complex Magazine. Check it out below!

Back in November, we posted about GZA’s plan to teach science through hip-hop in New York high schools. CBS News recently did a feature on the program, and they interviewed GZA (and grab footage of him rapping for the students) as well.

Although he dropped out of school in the 10th grade, GZA says he has a lifelong passion for science that he wants to share: “The goal is just to awaken the children, make them more aware and embrace science, and everything else connected to it.”

[Via Rap Radar]