RECENT RELEASES | ALL ALBUMS
Ralp
Sequotequal EP
ANgR MgMT
In a World
Nikmis
The Fantastical Nikmis vs. the Evil Dr. Crobe
Ralp’s Biography:
Raül Peix (Ralp). Multifaceted artist member of Device, Distortled Box and Tricoma, independent collectives dedicated to audiovisual creations. Read more…
Posted on June 20th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Albums, Ralp | 1 Comment »
Our planet. It’s the biggest and most beautiful gift we have, yet almost all of us take it for granted. In fact, many of us thoughtlessly cause harm to this great gift through seemingly inconsequential actions on a daily basis. What’s worse is that this type of behavior is condoned and encouraged by our society at large. As the average income ratio of the richest 1/5 to the poorest 1/5 on the planet soars toward 100:1 and beyond, all many of us can think about on a daily basis is what’s on tv or what we’re going to buy next. We live as though we’re not intimately connected to nature and to this planet that we are so fortunate to live on.
Posted on May 11th, 2009 by angrmgmt
Filed under: ANgR MgMT, Albums | 3 Comments »
I recently searched for some lyrics that I had stuck in my head, and found to my dismay that not only did they belong to the Backstreet Boys, but the song had its own Wikipedia page. This made me realize that there may be an unspoken social pecking order among bands where, in our modern age, Wikipedia holds the key. If this is true, the following list should provide a useful indication to your band’s success based on the level of its integration with Wikipedia. Level 0 indicates complete failure to exist in the Internet reality (the only one that matters). Level 10 indicates the maximum possible success.
Any advice on how to improve this list will be properly considered.
Posted on April 4th, 2009 by ramen
Filed under: Tutorials | 2 Comments »
Album art by Joseph Ratigan.
The Fantastical Nikmis vs the Evil Dr. Crobe
Chapter ONE
One day the Fantastical Nikmis was winning a battle against Dr. Crobes minions. He kept killing them till they were dead by shooting them with his magic powers from his hands. Suddenly he flew real fast and then exploded ON TOP OF THEM! “AAAAHH” Stop killing us please they cried But then it was already done and they died. Or did they? They didn’t really die yet because Dr. Crobe their boss made them really smart with his ultra science powers he learned at evil school. BUt it was ok cause then Nikmis said “by the power of happiness YOU SHOULD DIE” and they did badly. Nikmis one the battle but he did not win the war yet although he wins the war in the end. The war isnt over until later. Or is it? Read more…
Posted on November 29th, 2008 by nikmis
Filed under: Albums, Nikmis | 10 Comments »
Remixes are good for the soul. This is true for both the artist and the listener - each grows a bit in moving from the beginning to the end. This album splits nearly right down the middle in terms of whether the remix was at the request of someone or chosen as a special experiment. I hope all are as enjoyable to listen to as they were to make!
Special thanks to my sister Lizzy, as I would never have thought to remix ABBA without her, and my buddy boy James Stimac (whose name you should see more often if you’re into art) for the fantastic album cover.
Posted on November 20th, 2008 by angrmgmt
Filed under: ANgR MgMT, Albums | 2 Comments »
I just found this article on my old hard drive and thought it might be interesting to publish it at last. I wrote it way back in 2001 before the formation of sp00 when Ariel and I were learning how to mix together live and avoid stepping on each other’s beats. It seems like most of the advice is still relevant today.
Rules for Live Mixing of Beatgadgets
by RamenBoy
2/23/2001
–
I am no expert on the live mix, but I am no beginner either. Here is a set of rules that I have found useful over the past few years as a performing electronic musician. As always, rules are made to be broken, but perhaps these will help people take a detour from audio chaos and find a comfortable mix with other electronic musicians.
1. If you can’t beatmatch to it, don’t. Sometimes, you just want to play a track that doesn’t have the same BPM as what your bud’s playing, and speeding yours up just makes it sound like video game music. Sometimes, it’s ok to just let their track fade out instead of desparately trying to line up your jazzy trip hop with their rigid trance beats.
2. Listen, interact, and communicate. Let other people’s beats affect yours. Let your beats affect theirs. Bounce ideas off of each other.
3. Don’t “oversample”. Let vocal bits enhance the music, but don’t bury it. Space out your vocal samples, and use them strategically.
4. When you’re trying to make a recording of your session, watch the meters! I can’t overemphasize this. Too many great sessions have been fatally mauled by severe hard clipping. Keep your dBs hovering around zero and adjust your amp and deck accordingly. Make sure you match your inputs properly.
5. Transitioning from a swing beat to even time and vice versa rarely works. It all depends on the drumbeat, but be careful of sputtering kickdrums and awkward backbeats when you do this.
6. Take turns being the leader, or conductor, if you will. Electronic music devices often have slightly different interpretations of the same BPM, and if everyone keeps drifting, your mix will turn into mush. Have one person set the standard and let everyone else match it. Ari and I have had a moderate amount of success with the following rule of thumb: whoever’s fading in sets the standard, and whoever’s fading out must keep the sync. With more than two musicians, this becomes more complex.
7. If you’re playing with microphones, make sure you turn the mic track off when you’re done with it. Feedback can creep up on you very slowly, and it usually happens when you get up to go to the bathroom.
8. Teach people how to use your PA and mixer. This should really be #1.
9. Ambience is great for state of mind. Find cool lights and make your stage look interesting. You don’t need a laser light show, just a chill mood. Radio Shack may be your answer.
10. Don’t be afraid to add a little “dirt”. Electronic instruments tend to sound sterile and overprocessed unless you make the explicit effort of adding imperfections (This meme courtesy of Tom Dearing, AKA Reverberation Sound System).
11. Don’t rely on drum loops.
12. Don’t ignore drum loops, either.
13. Don’t be afraid to ask one of your buds for a BPM. Why waste time trying to find their BPM by ear when a little verbal communication will do the trick?
14. Experiment. Always. Don’t worry too much about mistakes. This is live music. Live electronic borders on jazz to me. It’s improv. Let the ideas flow.
15. Always look busy. Even if it takes a bit of theatrics, you need to show people that you are creating the music, not just “hitting play”. As an extreme example, think about Crystal Method, playing most of their set off of a DAT recording. Does the crowd care? No, because they’re jumping around and twisting knobs and playing their keyboards upside down in midair. As a less extreme example, watch DJ Spooky spin sometime. Does he ever, ever stop moving?
That’s all for now. Happy mixing!
Your friend,
the RamenBoy.
Posted on September 25th, 2008 by ramen
Filed under: Tutorials, sp00 | 1 Comment »
Today is 08/08/08! Happy 808 Day, everybody!
What are your favorite songs featuring 808s?
Posted on August 8th, 2008 by ramen
Filed under: News | 2 Comments »
THRU THE WIRES
WEDNESDAY MAY 28TH 2007
9PM-2AM
$5 @ the door / 21+ (sorry kids)
@ THE LOFT
420 South Mill Avenue / Tempe AZ 85281 (map)
PARKING: In the lot on Ash & 5th (west of the venue, same side of the street)
LOAD IN: Artists between 8:30-9:00pm
TENTATIVE LINEUP (listed in order of appearance)
Chop/Shoppe
ANgR MgMT
Menagam
Modem
RamenBoy
Chop/Shoppe
Posted on May 12th, 2008 by ramen
Filed under: ANgR MgMT, Events, RamenBoy | 1 Comment »
HI SWEETIES,
Molly_eskonitron is a name that I gave to the type of work I was doing in that range of a year and a half. The older stuff (2002-2004) all had the name of vale_eskonitron. It’s a hard thing to try to describe certain period of life where you have a range of ideas and expressions that reflect those ideas, so I just give these periods names when the word sounds like it fits the ideas. These songs have a similar kind of idea as the vale_eskonitron period, but their differences are more audible to me than their similarities. It’s hard to explain, so I won’t bother. This is collection of songs I usually play live but have never actually released (aside from that one live cd… but that doesn’t count). Most of them are Nintendo-oriented and such. Here’s a bit about how they came about… Read more…
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by captainmarmalade
Filed under: Albums, Captainmarmalade | 4 Comments »
When I (ramen) worked at Borders at Fiesta Mall in Mesa, Arizona (Hi, Kai! Hi, Nick!), someone would always get on the PA around closing time and announce, “Borders Books and Music will be closing in 10 short minutes…”. I found this to be completely absurd, and would often complain, “no wonder it takes me so long to do all these dishes–they only give me short minutes…”.
This album is about not having time to finish. Most of the tracks are under a minute long. Some are longer. Others are finished. For the most part, this is what you get when life hands you the short minutes. The track list might grow if we can find the time to not finish more tracks, so watch this space! (What does that even mean? Watch space? WTF?)
I’d like to take this time to
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Albums, sp00 | 6 Comments »