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Daft Punk toured big in 2007. Justice toured pretty big in 2008 (right?) It’s always interesting to see acts like these play massive shows because, typically, when you see them in a big space they’re not doing DJ sets (Justice still does a fair number of DJ sets).

Keep in mind the kind of music these guys play: heavily formulaic, pre-recorded, processed dance music. I don’t fault them on the formulaic thing - 4/4 at 128bpm can sound really awesome and guys like Justic and DP are at the top of their game making dance music exciting.

But after listening to these guys’ music I had to wonder: how do they pull these things off live? This was, of course, well before I was educated on the staple of these two’s setups: Ableton Live.

That being said, there’s a lot more to their setups than just an instance of Ableton Live running on a MacPro, so here’s a breakdown of the gear and setups I was able to find for these guys.

Justice in Rio 2008 (originally from here)

3x JazzMutant Lemur (link)
2x MacBook Pro
1x Korg MicroKorg (link)
1x Korg ZERO8 Live Control (link)
1x Pioneer DJM800 (link)

Pretty amazing setup. Three Lemurs must be an awful lot of fun to play with, especially live. I’d like to know what they need to different mixers for (the ZERO8 and DJM800). I’m sure they need a few FX returns, right? But what else are being plugged into them? They clearly have labels, it’d be cool to see what they say, though!

Now onto what Daft Punk used for their most recent tour. Some surprising equipment, in my opinion.

1. ABLETON
“The show revolves around Ableton Live software on custom made super-computers, which we remotely access and control with Behringer BCR2000 midi controllers.”

2. SCREENS
“Next to the ethernet remote computer screens there are four Minimoog Voyagers, the classic analog synthesizers. They’re a 30-year old design.”

3. MOOGS
“We can mix, shuffle, trigger loops, filter, distort samples, EQ in and out, transpose or destroy and deconstruct synth lines. We keep some surprises on the side too!”

4. VISUALS
“There’s a direct connection between our rig and the lights and visuals of the show. The light and video engineers can also add or control layers during the show.”

5. SYNTHS
“Inside the pyramid are synthesizers and remote controls connected to the rest of the music equipment and computers, which are in rack-mounted towers off stage.”

6. TEAMWORK
“Working the music equipment, lighting and video equipment, and building the pyramid for each show takes around 10 people, including both of us.”

You may also notice a few Lemur’s, too. Seeing what these things can do live at AES, its very easy to understand why these will soon become to defacto controller of choice for any kind of sequenced, computer-based music. (Above picture and text originally appeared in Mixmag and was found on this site)

Everyone does a year-end list of their favorite albums, songs, and whatever else they’re into. Since I blog, and it seems like somebody is reading all of these lists, I figure’d I give it a shot. I may be a little later than most on this, but no matter. Here it is (in 56k friendly thumbnail form!) :

I have a 15th favorite album: Deadmau5′ “Random Album Title,” but was unsuccessful in finding cover art for it. Sorry! The albums are in no particular order, by the way.

Variety is reporting about todays Golden Globe nominees for all categories, but I’d like to post about the ones relevant to my (and your’s) interest.

Alexandre Desplat - “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button”
Clint Eastwood - “Changeling”
James Newton Howard - “Defiance”
A. R. Rahman - “Slumdog Millionaire”
Hans Zimmer - “Frost/Nixon”

Seeing names like James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer are expected…but Clint Eastwood? Did he really compose the score Changeling? If he did, he really is tackling all aspects of movie making, isn’t he?

Other not-so-common names (at least to me) are those of Alexandre Desplat and Bollywood-heavyweight A.R. Rahman. Click their names and check out their IMDB profiles for their credits.

“Best Song” category is rather boring.

“Down To Earth” from “Wall-E” - Music By: Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman; Lyrics By: Peter Gabriel
“Gran Torino” from “Gran Torino” - Music By: Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens; Lyrics By: Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens
“I Thought I Lost You” from “Bolt” - Music & Lyrics By: Miley Cyrus, Jeffrey Steele
“Once In A Lifetime” from “Cadillac Records”
Music & Lyrics By: Beyoncé Knowles, Amanda Ghost, Scott Mcfarnon, Ian Dench, James Dring, Jody Street
“The Wrestler” from “The Wrestler” - Music & Lyrics By: Bruce Springsteen

Further proof that Clint Eastwood has his hands in some of the audio production for his films. Also nice to see Peter Gabriel on the list.

Aside from the slew of Golden Globe nods yesterday, I found some good news surround the Dark Knight “Best Score” debacle I previously wrote about. The Academy has reversed its decision thus making the Dark Knight eligible for the “Best Score” Oscar! As Reuters reports:

After reviewing the submission, [the academy] concluded that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard were the main composers and deemed the duo’s work for Warner Bros.’ Batman blockbuster as eligible. The academy said that since ballots had not been mailed, the decision would not affect the voting process.

Good news for all the people involved with the score for the Dark Knight. So far, from what I’ve found, there’s no list of Oscar Nominees for 2009, but as soon as there are, I’ll post the “Best Score” nominees.

It should be no secret (by now) that I’m first a foremost a nerd. Whether it be recording/music gear, technology, or video games, I’m a nerd.

I’ve followed Blizzard and played their games since my Dad first intorduced me to Warcraft II. Since then, I’ve been somewhat of a Blizzard fanboy. I’ve purchased all the games, played them to death (I’m still playing World of Warcraft), and have always loved the music and sound design.

When I saw that the Echoes of War set would go on sale, I immediately pre-ordered the “Legendary” edition: 2 music CDs, 1 behind-the-scenes DVD, several art cards, and a pretty lengthy booklet containing information about some of the key musicians on the recording and some really nice commentary about the whole process.

So here’s what I think about the set as an audio engineer/normal guy and not so much as a musician/theory guy:

The Music: Well, assuming you bought either versions of this set, this is probably why. The music is amazing. Its moving, its epic, its huge. You can really tell, in listening, how much love, blood, sweat, and tears went into this project. From the scoring to the composition to the actual recording…its simply amazing. Being familiar with all of the universes covered (Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft), the music really took me back at times. I can remember being younger and playing Warcraft II matches against my neighbors on my awesome 56k modem.

Going back to the overall quality of the music and the recordings, you can tell that the musicians chosen for this project were some of the best in the world. Because, as you know, good players are the base of any good recording.

The music is amazing. It is the reason you should be buying this now.

The DVD: The icing on cake. It’s around 50 minutes long and full of awesome content. You get to meet a lot of the key players in this project: from the composer, to the arrangers, to some of the recording engineers behind the console at the studio. Its just awesome.

My favorite part about the whole DVD was the theme of “challenge.” None of what these people did is easy. From concept to planning to execution. Its all very difficult.

They even talk about the difficulties of an acutal recording session at times. The interviewees talk about recording for three hours and MAYBE getting ten minutes of music (and that’s pretty generous). Long days, frustration, and little-big-mistakes (turning a page too loudly while tracking) are all very good depictions of what real, efficient, professional recording sessions are all about. Not all recording sessions are Auto Tune and drugs.

The Booklet: This is a nice addition. I won’t go on and on about it, but it was really nice to read about the musicians who made this happen. It was packed with info about the songs and what game universe they’re from. It even contains some nice commentary from a one Nick Kolan. It’s not the best part of the package, but since when were the liner notes the reason you bought a recording?

Overall, this package proved what I already knew: the recording engineers behind this and all Blizzard products have my dream job. I want to do what they do…badly.

All jealously aside, this is an amazing project spanning quite some time and involving people from all around the World.

If you’re a fan of Blizzard and the music in the games, you NEED this in your life. You wouldn’t be a fanboy without it.

Go here to buy this. Now.

Man, Auto-Tune really is hitting a high-point of popularity. The above excerpt was taken from an early week edition of Conan O’Brein in which Kanye West talks about his use of the “Audio Processor.”

I wonder what corner of television Auto-Tune will show up next at.

On another note, happy Thanksgiving!

Personally one of my favorite SNL skits ever. Blizzard Man faces off against the King of the Re-Tune Setting, T-Pain. The skit is also proof of how mainstream programs like Auto-Tune (and to a lesser extent) Meoldyne are.

In case you’re not familiar with Auto-Tune, the “T-Pain Effect, or terms like “re-tune speed,” check out this video here. I think it does a pretty good job at illustrating what T-Pain does.

You can also read this hilarious gem which talks about whether or not T-Pain uses Auto-Tune or a vocoder.

If you want my two cents, I personally think T-Pain uses AT and he probably doesn’t know his own vocal chain (as suggested in the Gearslutz post)

Oh. My. God.

I don’t know how many of you who read this (if any) are life-long gamers, but I am. I’m also a huge Blizzard fan (from Warcraft 2 and on), so when I read this post, my heart nearly skipped a beat.

What you see above is a year-long International project consisting of music from Blizzard spanning ALL of their titles: the Warcraft universe games, Diablo, Starcraft…it goes on.

It comes out on November 22 in two versions: a regular for $30 (90 minutes of music) and a “special edition” that includes CDs, DVDs, and art books for $50 (the SE is available now in limited numbers). Quite cheap when you think about all that you’re getting.

PS: Check out the Kotaku post for some nice studio pictures.

My birthday is next week so my fiancee bought me a Nintendo DS. A few weeks earlier, I had imported the Korg DS10 game cart (Japanese version; American version comes out in October according to Amazon). I’ve been playing around with it endlessly for the last week and found it to be a pretty powerful little app.

Neddless to say, it was nice when I saw Kotaku’s story about the DS10 today. It’s about the first “album” produced using the DS10. Check it out here. Among the DS album, you can also find a really nice DJ mix using music performed entirely on the DS10.

The album and the mix are actually very entertaining. They sound like pumped up 8-bit chiptune songs, and with some mixing love I think the tracks coming out of it could be amazing.

I can’t wait to pump some audio out of my DS and into Pro Tools so I can play around with some tracks.

There’s a new interview up with Tetsuya Shibata, Kota Suzuki, and Wataru Hokoyama, three of the audio post-production guys on Resident Evil 5.

Among topics in the article are why they recorded the large-scale orchestras in Hollywood instead of Tokyo and this gem, which doesn’t seem to be a popular opinion judging from the other guys’ answers:

Kota Suzuki: I get the impression that production at western, particularly American developers are ahead of those in Japan. But, I think that more and more in Japan, the process of making video game music is becoming specialized. More and more Japanese production companies are working together with foreign companies, and sound production quality in Japan is approaching that of the west.

Anyways, click here to read the full article. It’s really good.

If you scour the internet for multi-tracks, you’ve probably seen the Beatles’ four tracks, the complete sessions for “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and just about any other type of multi-track recording you could think of.

Well, add the entire setlist of Rock Band and all the Guitar Hero games to that list.

Apparently some guy somewhere figured out how to open up the afformentioned games and grab the .mogg files: the Ogg Vorbis files inside the game. When you pull those from game and drop them in Audacity, all of the sudden you have a multi-track session from one of the games. Now, you should know that the MTRs aren’t 32 track MTRs, rather a few stereo tracks and a few mono, usually totaling around 10 (maybe a few more). So you get the printed stems of the songs.

I won’t link to the site that directly links to downloads for all these songs (it’s still illegal, you know) but here’s a slightly edited (for grammar and clarity) FAQ that was posted on the blog that broke all these songs to the internet:

All of the .mogg files open in Audacity.

First two tracks will always be stereo tracks but will be split into mono in Audacity.

The typical tracklist for these .moggs are:
1. Kick (stereo)
2. Snare (stereo)
3. Overhead/room mics
4. Bass
5. Guitar(s)
6. Lead Vox
7. Everything else (strings, synths, backing vox, etc)

A lot of the MTRs are covers. They should be clearly labeled as such.

The original multi-tracks were taken by Rock Band’s developer pre-mastering. The developers (or a studio that works for them) mastered all the material inside of Rock Band.

I’ve grabbed a lot of these files and it’s pretty cool. My only concern is that a lot of the masters clip pretty relentlessly. A friend of mine suggested it was the engineering, but I’m not willing to bet on that. I think, if anything, the clipping occured from transfering the masters from Rock Band to some guys computer.

All-in-all, this is a pretty cool hack. I’m sure Harmonix won’t be stoked to find out this is happening, but it’s cool for the rest of the world. If you’re interested, go try and search for the blog to find the tracks. I guarantee you it will take about five minutes in Google.

EDIT 10/21 - Commentor Samwise had this to say:

Hey man, they peak cause they are all playing at once at an almost mastered volume. The truth is the OUTPUT is peaking, not the individual tracks. If you can pull them up in something like Pro Tools (although Audacity works fine, it just takes longer), pan them all out, and lower them all, it won’t peak…

Hope I helped 

And he’s totally correct. I did this with a few of the tracks I downloaded and it instantly sounded better.