Two gigs in two days

So on May 17th, I played some Indian solo music at work in celebration of the Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This was followed by our band, the Bollywood Rockerz, performing at Sabang Restaurant on the 19th. Both the shows went reasonably well, and you can view more photos on my flickr page. We still have iron out a few things, and there is room for improvement. But it was a lot of fun and it was a great venue to play at. . . and we hope to do another show in a couple of months time.

In other news, I will be in Calcutta from June 10th-22nd.

Gig at Sabang

As more and more of our band members graduate, and get busy with graduating, Antardhwani is looking for a makeover. In the mean time, I have joined a new band. It is under the overall umbrella of Minakshi Entertainments, though I am not sure what we are calling our little gig. Anyway. It does not matter. Come listen to our music-- that's the good stuff. We have had a couple of practices so far and it is sounding really nice. Also, if you have never had Indonesian food before, the restaurant is really good too. Bollywood Music and Indonesian Food-- a good way to spend a Friday evening.

Where: Sabang Indonesian Restaurant, 2504 Ennalls Avenue, Wheaton, MD 20902 Ph: 301-942-7859
When: Friday the 18th of May, 8:30 PM - 11:00 PM
Charge: $10 cover charge + All you can eat buffet @ $9.95 per person.

You can download a flier here. Do come. Especially if you live nearby. See you there!

Music News

Between the stresses and strains of things I ought to be doing, there is always room for the little distractions of life. My latest distraction was Reason Adapted 2.5. This software had come packaged with my M-Audiophile 2496 soundcard, and because it was a stripped down version of the original I hadn't really used it much. I started playing around with it recently, and started really enjoying the wonderful subtraktor synth and the possibilities of analogue sound making. The Redrum is also a great place to create rhythms from scratch, so it one can come up with some very interesting creations with just a few minutes of tweaking.

The next breakthrough came when I figured out how to switch to the ASIO driver on Project 5, which is a similar music making environment by Cakewalk. Turns out I had to switch to 32-MSB instead of LSB as "justification". . . I still don't know what that means exactly. Until now I wouldn't use it much because of latency issues, but now with latency down to 6 ms it's been great fun layering different synths to produce lush atmosphere sounds to back up the Casio. Furthermore, the surround speakers and subwoofer are now adding to the overall impact, so that's cool.

I feel I have all the tools at my disposal to making professional quality music. All I need is the time and dedication to do so. And skill. Perhaps watching someone who is really good at using this stuff would also provide new insights.

Anyhow. In other news, we have been preparing for our upcoming India trip. Shopping. I have to get my F-1 stamped again in Calcutta, so have been doing a bit of worrying for that. Also had to get a Direct Airside Transit Visa for passing through UK. . .which thankfully came through without a hitch, except for the 70$ fee.

I guess there is nothing left to do except go and get married. Which seems to be a fairly passive albeit hectic process. Our friends Vinay and Vidya got married recently. Neither Anyesha nor I have attended a wedding in over a decade, so it will be a new experience. . .especially so because it is our wedding. Hoping to submit the second paper before going to India. . . but a setback occured (I need to make a cross-breed flies to produce a new one that I need to test), so I hope I can stay on schedule. Life goes on.

Seven Years and computers.

Last weekend, we recorded "Seven Years". Do check it out. Words by Alap and Amrit, Music by Amrit, Alap. I did some of the music but mostly the mixing and production. It is a lot of fun, even a somewhat obsessive process, doing these compositions. One of my favourite quotes, that make me feel like my head is going to explode is by Andrew Koenig: "Abstraction is selective ignorance". I feel there is something of that in the composition process too.

In the movie "school of rock", Jack Black says that Rock music is all about "sticking it to the man". You need to be angry. Or in love. You need to feel strongly about something. Can't just sit back and be harmonious and complete. Can there be a music of completion and contentment? That wouldn't be music. . .that would sound like. . .cows mooing in a meadow and birds chirping on a sunny day. When a melody hits you, you can't think its antithesis. . .that causes destructive interference and silence.

Ok. That's enough pseudo-intellectualism for one day. I am also reminded of this line from Cactus flower (which can be adapted to read): "A tune struck me. I struck back."

Anyway. I am going to try to be ticked off about something. There is plenty in the world that I am ticked off about. Work up a frenzy. Write some music. Hmmmm. (All of this is really me, looking at the water and not jumping in.)

Not to lose my techie touch, it's time to talk about what is cool in the computer world. This guy has built a computer with just fans. It's fairly ugly, but cool. Apparently it does not cool PC's any better than the one/two fan conventional towers. It must be making a lot of noise though, the whirr of all those fans together.

The other cool thing is this computer desk from Lian Li Industrial. It is truly made with computers in mind. With power sockets, wire holders, multimedia ports, all built into the main desk unit. It's the desk of the future. But then, I think it costs as much as all the furniture we bought from Ikea to furnish Anyesha's appartment. So one needs a hi-tech salary to lead the hi-tech life.

Delhi School of Economics Show

It was a complete success!

Actually, the whole weekend went pretty well. On Friday night we had a dress-rehearsal/party at Amrit's place. Sowmya happened to drop by. And happened to agree to join us for the big show. Which was wonderful, and we quickly incorporated her into the main practice routine. . .which we did in front of a live Audience comprised of many of Amrit's girlfriends. Amrit's pretty resourceful at this sort of thing. The real fun began after the rehearsal ended, and the impromptu singing began. There are few things better than being in a band.

Saturday, DU Economics group got together at Nyumburu. It was a very official, professional affair with most of the "delegates" suited and booted. Our show started at around 9:30, and went phenomenally well. The sound mix was perfect (thanks to Anyesha). This was also our first debut of all our new gear. . .Mainak's HPD-15, Amrit's V-amp system, Alaps bass guitar, and Supratik's new rhythm guitar. . . and our sound was completely professional. I am fairly amazed at what we have become. . . and the quality we are beginning to achieve.

In the midst of it all, we snapped a D-string on the lead guitar. . .and Amrit took a breather while he tried to fix it. In the meantime, Ayan, Sowmya, and the rest of us did some impromptu numbers. . .including Pehla Nasha (which I love playing). . . I particularly liked how we had the coordination to just keep going. It was a very satisfying 1:30 hour performance.

New Gear

Last week, in anticipation of our upcoming performance at Nyumburu, Amrit, Alap and I went to Guitar center to buy a bass guitar. The store is more "corporate" than Washington Music, and is very organized and clean. I personally love the Washington music store, but its main showroom is packed with instruments and too many people are around browsing them. . . this makes for a distinct lack of peace. When I had gone there to buy my keyboards, I was not impressed with the Korg Tritons, simply because I couldn't hear them properly and play with them in peace. . .there were too many people in the room. The Guitar Center at Twinbrook is a relatively quite, spacious place. After a point these chains start looking like Disneyland.

But I wasn't complaining. . . while Alap and Amrit tried out many different bass guitars, scrutinizing the crunchiness, reverberence, and sustains of their individual sounds, and trying out different pick-up settings, I'd pop over to the keyboard room and play the good stuff. Yamaha Motifs, Roland Fantoms, and Korg Tritons. I kind of figured what makes a professional keyboard professional. .. and what the big deal about them is. I suppose these keyboards require a different kind of thinking. For my purposes, the casio was still the best buy. . . but I admire the sound making potential that they have packed into some of these big boys.

We finally settled on an Ibanez bass guitar. Prior to this, the bass phat sounds in our music had to be provided by me holding down the chords with the left hand. . .now we fill in those frequencies beautifully and expressively with Alap's picking. . .and since the stuff is picked it goes better with the prevalent rhythm of the song. We have to record some of this stuff.


We also ordered the Behringer V-Amp 2 to add all the effects to the electric guitars. And this unit is really cool. For 80 bucks, we are getting a library of effects that would have cost us many hundreds to buy individually. I can't wait to get together this sunday and do a proper run of Sayonee. . .with the electric distortion and the playful bass, the song is bound to rock.

Dinner with the band.

On Friday night, all of us went toSkewers to celebrate our first "professional" performance. It was a nice enough place, and the kababs were pretty awesome. Later that night, Mainak demo's his new Roland Hand Percussion unit.

The HPD-15 seems to be an extremely versatile instrument with very realistic sounds. Crystal clear expressive tablas, congas, drums, along with a bunch of really unusual and exotic instruments that we haven't ever heard of. There is a pretty large Indian percussion section, which is good for us and our kind of music. All of us had a lot of fun strumming the D-beam and the ribbon controllers. . .

On Saturday Anyesha borrowed a Nissan SUV for getting a desk from a lady in Germantown. . .she had found it in an ad on SCI forums. So picking all that stuff, lunch, and then grocery shopping took up most of the day. Later at night, we had a wonderful dinner at Jason and Megan's place. . .mostly a relaxed affair-- good dinner, good conversation, topped off with a little pictionary.

Sunday was spent walking up and down Ikea, coming to terms with their complex ordering process. We really want this one sofa called the Fagelbo. It is an awesome sofa which turns into a bed, and I am excited enough about it to have cut out it's picture and put it up on my collage. Sadly it is out of stock. We'll keep trying until we do get it, I guess.

Abhiram's Birthday Performance

Our Performance at Abhiram's Birthday Party.

The Performance Went Really well. On Saturday night, we had all the rental equipment, so we did a whole bunch of live recordings, and compiled it into our first live CD. It sounds great. Then today, we did our performance. . .and the sounds were perfect, and the whole thing played off really well, and the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves. I am very happy with the whole thing.

Dil Chahne Laga

The realization is beginning to creep up on me that Antardhwani is the biggest thing I have been in musically. So far in my life it has been playing for one or two people, Durga Puja performances, sometimes even with guitars and percussion and vocals. Sometimes the audience has been huge, e.g. 1000's while performing for Oasis with the BITS music club. But this is the first time that we have a small, core team with whom we can make creative leaps and write stuff on our own. There is something amazing about bringing a completely new song to life. (Though more work is needed to scrub the song into a beautiful final piece.)

This is also the first time that the individuals haven't gotten together for just one performance. . . and this is certainly a lot more continuity than I am used to. Anyway. This is big. We are crossing over from repetition to creativity. We are discovering and playing with our sound, and expressing our culture. This stuff is big.

Listen to our initial attempts here. It still needs more work, but there is a gem in there.

In other news, I had my MOCB Retreat on Wednesday where I presented a talk. On the "Role of Rel transcription factors in mediating specificity in the Drosophila immune response." My talk went decently, I thought. . . and was mostly a repeat of my fly meeting talk earlier this year. It was a very well organized meeting, and I particularly enjoyed Dr. Jonathan Yewdell's talks on his own work, and later on How to succeed in science. He spoke of the glories and the challenges, and put the scientific career in a very nice perspective. Above all, he stressed the importance of loving what you do.

I am still looking for a career that I can love. And his talk did convice me, that perhaps the sacrifices and the single minded dedication that an academic career appears to require, may not be my idea of a perfect life. Maybe a job where my scientific skills are used for R&D, but where I don't have to worry about tenure and all that, would be ideal. I also feel I have a lot of other skills mainly Organizing, People skills, and handling Computers. . .and a job which also utilizes these strengths would probably make me happier. As I get closer to graduation, the search is on.

The rig

Check out the photograph on the link. Both keyboards are hooked up to my mixer. The mix along with the microphones goes to the analogue inputs of my soundcard. MIDI outputs of the keyboards go into the digital inputs of the computer. It's really cool.

Reviewing the WK-3500

I reviewed my new keyboard at Harmony Central. I guess that says it all.

I have also been working on my presentation for the Fly conference at San Diego. . .
as an afterthought.

Casio WK-3500

On Saturday, I bought the Casio WK-3500. It is wonderful.

I am getting used to its 16 channel MIDI, gazillion sounds, 140+ rhythms, built in digital special effects, and other presets. The presets appear to be carefully arranged and organized so that one can harness some of the sound-making potential of the casio with relatively ease.

However, part of the reason why I bought this thing is for its "tweakability". It has a 1.44 MB floppy drive and Smartcard drive. These can be used along with a computer to do sampling, rhythm creation, special effects creation, and tweaking of existing sounds. . .both through a vintage Hammond type draw-bar organ analogue synthesis, or using preset patches as a starting point and changing their ADSR envelopes and other characteristics. The creation of rhythms appears a bit tedious in the sense that there seem to be strict guidelines about programming in fill-ins, beginnings, and endings. However, it makes sense to have that.

Unlike the higher end workstations, the sampling and rhythm creation does need to be done on a computer. But I don't mind that at all. And using the computer panel to generate new sounds is. . . more intuitively satisfying than navigating the menu system of the small blue screen of the casio. I feel this keyboard was built with computers in mind. . . while still maintaining its capacity to do the many of the same things through relatively complicated menus.

To summarize, so far this unit is a great live tool. And one can program it to do amazing new sounds, rhythms, and effects. Save those effects as registrations which can be accessed with a touch of a button. That makes it great for performances with bands. . . all parameters can be pre-tweaked, and be ready for performance in seconds. I am looking forward to letting it do its stuff for Sparsh.

From Juno to Triton to WK3500

So over the past week, I have been obsessed with keyboards. I wrote a review for my old trusted CT-670 here, while I lusted after younger, sexier, and high maintenance models. I haven't actually used any of these boards. . . so these are just my theoretical opinions.

It all began when I visited the music store last weekend. That's when the bug bit me. Since then, I have been looking through the feature sets of potential keyboards I'd like to buy. Tweaks Guide recommends the Juno-D as a low end studio keyboard. Without having played it yet, my impression is that it is a very good value for money in terms of features and sound. It seems to be perfect as a MIDI controller, and for playing along with bands, with its awesome sound making potential. It has some in built rhythms, which can be played using different drum-sets, but the auto-accompaniment isn't what I as a fingered-chord player am used to. It does have a bunch of preset arpeggiations though. . .which would add loads of style to any performance. If it didn't feel like cheating to be using these pre-programmed flourishes instead of actually playing it. The Juno also has some very nice controllers. . . I particularly like Rolands D-Beam which allows one to control modulations using an infrared sensor. . .that detects your hand movements over it. It must look cool on stage to be doing that. The damage: c.a. 600$.

There was an awesome deal on the Triton 61-key LE. Selling at 1000$ it seemed to have most things Triton, without the sampling component, which can be obtained with an upgrade. People seem somewhat dissatisfied with the piano sound. But in terms of features, it seems to have all the synthesizing functions of Juno D, with an additional 16 track sequencer and external memory built in. Most of the presets appear to be better tuned for dance music. The Triton workstations are a bit of an industry standard. . .some people sell all their equipment and buy one of these . To some extent, the cost is because of the cool Triton sounds. . .and I obsessed about its plethora of features for a while. . .but figured I don't need my music to have their sound. Any good piano will do.

Which finally brought me to writing my review for my old and trusted CT-670. While writing it, at the end, I wrote a little wishlist of what I wanted in my keyboard. And this prompted to me to check out the gear Casio has been churning out recently. It seems, that they have taken every suggestion of mine and implemented it. In the lower price ranges, I think Casio has better sound than Yamaha, or Kawaii. And the features appear less gimicky and more sensible. I zeroed in on their high end WK-3500 model, featuring velocity sensitive keys, smart media and floppy drive storage, functionality to create your own rhythms, 6 track sequencing, pitch and modulation wheel, GM compatibility, and small time synthesizing capabilities. For 400$ it seems like huge bang for the buck, and the reviews are all stellar. So this is the board I am currently drooling over. . .I can totally see this complimenting my computer music making home studio set up, and for small gigs. It's not considered a studio level keyboard, but I don't care about these labels. As Amlan might say. . .they are mere social constructs.

Now I have to hold on to my horses, and not buy the keyboard until my heart has calmed down and stopped lusting, and my head is back in charge.

I also read somewhere that my CT-670 is now considered "vintage". Apparently they sell like hot cakes on e-bay. I'll hold on to it and wait for Antiques Roadshow to come to town.

Antardhwani

This friday, the band really came together. We started practice around 8 PM and went on till almost 1:30 AM. I think everyone was feeling it. The magic. The potential. At times like these I have a tendency to get too excited and ahead of myself. . . start dreaming too much of future greatness, and not enough about the concrete road to getting there.

After much deliberation, we decided to name our band Antardhwani. The Sound Within.



On Saturday, Anyesha, Mainak, Sowmya and I went to two music stores in the area. . .the House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park and Chuck Levines Washington Music store in Wheaton. We bought a Pandeiro, which is a Brazilian Tambourine, to increase our rhythm making capabilities. And I went a little crazy at Chuck Levines, where for a brief moment I started seriously considering buying a new keyboard. Visiting music stores was a lot of fun. . .especially after the high we were on.

In general, the former music store is a more friendly place. The store owners are very knowledgeable about music, and can demonstrate how to play almost any instrument out there. The only drawback is that they carry mostly "acoustic" instruments. Washington music has all the keyboards, electric guitars, and electric/electronic stuff. . .but it's a more impersonal huge store where I tend to get lost a little. Partly because for most of the customers there, it seems to be more about attitude and money. . .and less about the music. My kind of music at any rate. It feels like we are too staidly dressed for the place. . . (and with too little purchasing power). . . with not enough cool points to really have the store reps take us seriously.

I stayed up till 5:00 AM doing a collage for our band. And setting up our soundclick account. Check it out at http://www.soundclick.com/antardhwani

So yes. I have been spending way too much time obsessing about this band. And dreaming where it may go. In my mind we have already become famous all over the east coast, and are getting calls from New York to Georgia to go and perform at their respective shows. In reality. . . nobody knows who we are. :(

Anyway. We have to do some proper recordings and get our music out there on the web. Do good performances so that word of mouth recognition begins to develop at least with the University of Maryland student group. The path to recognition has to be walked steadily and patiently. . . while at the same time improving our coordination, sound, and repertoire of songs. And gelling together as a group.

But yeah. The excitement. . .the potential of what this can become. . .is very seductive.

On the path to zero latency

So one of the things I am interested in is getting my
home studio in gear. I highly recommend the tweaks
guide at http://www.tweakheadz.com. Very inspiring.

It all started when I was 10 years old, and my parents
bought me a mini 49 key casio keyboard. And a couple
of books by Kenneth Baker to learn how to play it. I
managed to play my first song. . .Merrily We Roll
Along, with chords. A proud day for me.

At school in Bonn, Germany, I was involved with the a
bunch of after school activities including choir and
orchestra. . .where I used to play the recorder. This
taught me how to sight-read music. At that age I was
very self concious about my musical tastes and
preferred listening to soft Richard Clayderman type
stuff. Using the books, I began to get better at
playing the keyboard until 2 years later, my parents
bought me a Casio CT-670. . . a 61 Key wonderful
sounding full size keyboard.

In Delhi, I managed to play at some school
performances. We formed a small band. . .along with
guitars and tablas, and performed at Durga Pujas.
Practicing with the group was valuable experience, and
I got better at picking up music by just hearing it.

Later on in Burma and Pilani, was a quiet period when
I practiced and played mostly in small gatherings for
friends. In Pilani, I did join the music club in my
first year, and that was fun for a while. But then
academic priorities took over and I had to quit. That
was after I had managed to perform with Music Club for
the first year Oasis. . .and that was a large crowd
indeed.

Now after coming to the US, I managed to make myself
an awesome computer. An AMD Athlon 64 3000 Chip, with
a Gig of RAM, an ATI Radeon video card, and an M-Audio
2496 Sound card. I also hooked up my keyboard using
MIDI to my computer. And for the audio components, I
got a mixer. Along with a bunch of really cool
software synthesizers, I have my own home studio.
This is a lot of fun, especially now that we have a
"garrage" band. . .we meet every friday and practice
stuff for upcoming performances.

So finally yesterday, I read up some stuff and started
using my ASIO sound drivers for my sound card, and
that brought down the latency of the sound
dramatically. This was exciting because in the past,
whenever we'd jam there'd be like a 35 millisecond
latency. . .and there'd be a lag between the time
people sang and the time they heard the reverb. Now
the latency is not noticeable. . .it's under 5
milliseconds.

Now that I have the history of my keyboarding out of
the way, I can get more down and dirty technical in
future. To celebrate my little victories.

So long.