Greeting to All

Johan over at Beards of Habib has asked me to contribute to this new blog thingy he's put together. As this is my first post I'd like to introduce myself.

I am General Midi.

Now I've got that out the way, I can give you some indication of what you might find in the forth coming blogs. Basically, when i remember to update the thing, you'll got a whole bunch of half baked, badly research, highly opinionated, highly plausible rantings, that should amuse and sicken in turn.

Keep watching..............

x

Wave Editor - $79

Anyone who works with audio more than as just a passing hobby should appreciate this deal on right now from the chaps at Audiofile Engineering. For the price of a few rounds of drinks, you can legitimately own an absolutely pro bit of audio editing & mastering software. No, this will not make your music sound better. But if you deal with editing, format and sample rate conversion, DDP file creation ... plus a whole bunch of stuff I don't even use it for ... this application will make your life easier. Stop using that cracked copy of Bias Peak. Get Wave Editor. Mac only.

Incidentally, I think more software should be around this price bracket. Appreciated that development costs money but in the same breath it's easy to spend $50 to $100 and be able to justify it. Charge over $250 for a single application and the whole exercise starts to get pricey ... especially like me where you have a machine full of programs, many of which only get used a handful of times per year. Wave Editor on the other hand, gets used after every track.

Hello Breakbeat World!

Hi all your Truskoolers out there. This is just my first post to say hello and let you know a little about me.

I'm High Eight, and I'm into all things breaks. I make tunes, I play tunes, and I run the Re:Connect Recordings label when I get some spare time.

I guess I'm really here to talk about things going on in my world, and in the breakbeat scene in general, so expect to hear about upcoming gigs, reviews of things I like, and occasionally I might even get a little geeky about some technical stuff.

Massive thanks to Johan for asking me to be part of this. Let's hope I can bring something good to the table, and with the rest of the good peoples in the team it's a table I'm very much pleased to be sitting at.

Oh, and I'm just finishing up an exclusive mix, just for this blog, for download. Watch this space for the link!

Welcome to Breakbeat Royalty - the blog

This is a blog, obviously. A blog where people of the Truskool* persuasion** share their thoughts on music, gear, gigs, running labels and well... life, really.

In a time where religion has little or no place in peoples lives, other walks of life take the role of religion, be it golf, gardening or music. Sometimes there are fanatics, but I've always thought a more relaxed approached to be desirable. We are no purits. That said, nothing gets on my nerves more than bad music, whether it is hearing it or even reading about it. But in the end bad music is all subjective. The things I react badly to are often aimed at people of the non musical persuasion. People to whom music does not matter in the way it does to me, or to the lovely people I have invited to contribute to this blog.

We will be blogging our hearts out about music (obviously) with some pretty decent focus areas: production, DJ-ing, gear, industry insights and last but not least, rants. That pretty much sums up what we will be doing here. All in good spirits, of course. And yes, there will be free music.

Let me just quickly introduce you to the first line up of contributors, hand picked for their special skills:
Johan Soh (international man of good taste), Myagi (builds his own synths, for crying out loud), High Eight (all around nice guy), Dan F (the best rants on the interweb) and General Midi (breakbeat superhero). More contributors will be added as we go along.

*Truskool (noun): A mock genre that has yet to catch on, due to marketing funds being spent elsewhere. No clear definition, although "breakbeat for grownups", "breaks, bass and beyond" and "breakbeat with a beard" have been used frequently. Broadly used to describe genre defying music of the bleepier kind.

**Persuasion (noun): An effective attention-getting device, a strong appeal to self-interest, a stimulation of desire for a product or service, and a powerful call-to-action response. (Dictionary of Business Terms, 3rd edition, Barron's Educational Series)