Music & Audio Sites On The Internet, Part 1

The Internet contains far more information than you could hope to assimilate in one lifetime — the problem is finding things you actually want to know about! In the first of a two‑part series, Derek Johnson & Debbie Poyser don their Tour Guide badges and present a musician's guide to interesting World Wide Web sites... This is the first article in a two‑part series.

If you're already familiar with the Internet, you'll know that using it is often rather more like wading through treacle than shooting the curls off Malibu. Still, for musicians, it's an incredible source of information, help and advice, from basic manufacturer promotional pages featuring product information and prices, to newsgroups dealing with the nitty‑gritty of modifying vintage synths and tube amps. This is not to mention the numerous band and artist home pages, both unofficial and band‑maintained, which can make a diverting read. Finding all this stuff can be a bit of a pain, though, especially at the wrong time of day — during the evening, when telephone calls are cheap in the UK and most people are home from work, it's lunchtime or early afternoon in the States, and busy enough to really clog up the Internet, reducing the rate at which you can access and download information. A list of relevant sites can speed up the process considerably, saving you the trouble of having to scrabble around with a search engine. What follows is the result of us scrabbling around with a search engine, looking for pages we found interesting or useful, with lots of links wherever possible. Happy wading!

Roland US

www.rolandus.com/

At the time of writing, the Roland UK web site (www.roland.co.uk) was under construction. If it's still unfinished by the time you read this, check out the American Roland page in the meantime. This is a well‑designed, comprehensive resource, with a full Roland product index, and specifications and features lists for the latest in Roland gear. RUG Online, also featured here, is the electronic version of the American Roland User Group magazine, which isn't bad as this type of mag goes, and lots of its articles are up here. There's not much in the way of 'how to' features, which is what we all want, but it's still a fairly good read. Worth a mention is the useful Web Toolkit area, which features browsers, audio compression utilities, and audio/video playback applications, all available for downloading. There's also a whole list of Netscape plug‑ins, and in a real spirit of impartiality, Roland US even provide a link to Yamaha's MIDPlug software synth plug‑in for Netscape Navigator!

Stirling Audio

www.stirlingaudio.com

Leading hi‑tech retailer and distributor Stirling Audio's site is one of many on‑line catalogues available on the net. It's clear and easy to navigate, featuring a full product guide for gear available through Stirling, with features lists and prices. The really neat thing, however, is their list of ex‑demo gear and asking prices — recently, an Alesis ADAT digital 8‑track was going for £1200 plus VAT, while an Emu ESi32 sampler was up for grabs at £750 plus VAT. The list changes regularly, and if you want to declare an interest, or simply get more info about a particular item, you just leave your details and Stirling will respond.

Analogue Solutions

www.channel.co.uk/analogues/

Vintage gear MIDI retrofit specialists Analogue Solutions accompany their on‑line catalogue of what they can supply and what they can modify with hints and tips, and an extensive list of gear manuals they will photocopy for you. So if you've lost an essential manual, or bought a synth without one, this is a quick way to remedy the deficiency for between £5 and £15. For the more ambitious, service notes or manuals for various machines are also on offer, though these can cost up to £35. If you're prepared to poke around a bit, this is a useful site, with explanations of analogue synth terminology, the whys and wherefores of MIDI interfacing, and prices for many different mods — for example, adding a CV input for the VCF, an audio input, and a pulse output for the ring modulator of a Roland SH101 will cost you around £20 for a kit, or £39 fitted.

Kenton Electronics

www.kenton.co.uk/

Kenton are well known in synth circles for their respected MIDI retrofits and their Pro Solo, Pro 2, and Pro 4 MIDI‑CV converter boxes. From their web site, you can download a comprehensive Kenton info pack, and if you've bought one of their interfaces second‑hand without a manual, you can even download one of these! The site gives full info about their MIDI‑CV interfaces, including colour pics, plus a list of possible MIDI retrofits and their prices. There's also a fun page full of quotes from famous Kenton users, with pics, a Kenton dealer locator, and a page of links. If you've just bought (or are about to buy) a pre‑MIDI instrument, this is a good place to check out the likely cost of bringing it into the all‑MIDI '90s, and even if you're sorted on the MIDI front, it's still worth a browse.

The TB303 Home Page

www.infomaniak.ch/~trz/TB‑303/tb303.htm

Billed as the "reference pages for all silver box freaks", this beautifully‑presented site is personally designed and maintained by a Geneva‑based Bassline nut. This is the place for all things 303 — including full descriptions and reviews of all the TB303 clones on the market (and there are more of these than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio...), reviews of synths featuring 303 sounds, patches for making 303‑style sounds on other synths, 303 mods and tips, info on backing up the Bassline, and schematics and service notes to download. You can even vote for your fave 303 track and artist, if you're that sad... And did you know that a chap called Woody McBride is currently touring the US with a 303 'orchestra' featuring 12 TB303s playing together? Stranger still, there's a link for a group of Slovenian bassheads who are intent on inducing Roland to rebuild the original TB303 by getting up a petition (or using whatever means become necessary...)

Music Search

musicsearch.com/

This site is basically an on‑line reference for all things musical. There's a huge MIDI resource list here, including stuff like a complete SDS (Sample Dump Standard) specification, and worldwide instrumental archives: all sorts of hi‑tech instruments are listed, with links to other sites. Also on offer are CD reviews, genre and artist areas, and a Music Reference section that lists sites or groups that have educational or technical materials available — schools, institutions, theory, technology and music history are just some of the fields covered on this excellent site. The Music Commerce area covers goods and services related to music, including record labels, distribution, management, mail order, promotion, production, and studios.

IRCAM

www.ircam.fr/

This site is the virtual alter‑ego of its illustrious parent, the French electro‑acoustic music research institution housed beneath the Georges Pompidou centre in Paris. As you'd expect, it's well‑designed and nicely interactive. However, as you'd also expect, it's French. There are English pages, but these are being revised at present. Still, the virtual tour of IRCAM (featuring a map of its various rooms and studios, which you click on to go to a photo and text) is intriguing enough to get you wrestling with that rusty school French... Visit the Synthesis Analysis room, for example, and you can read the story of how IRCAM helped the producers of the film Farinelli: Il Castrato to reconstruct the voice of a castrato singer. Since castration is now fortunately illegal and the last western castrato died in 1902, they didn't have a lot to go on. Still, by cleverly blending the voices of a counter tenor and a coloratura soprano, as only IRCAM know how, they produced something which is believed to be pretty close.

Mutato Muzika

www.mutato.com/mutato/

Devo are perhaps best known in this country for Whipit, their freak hit in the early '80s. However, the band made a lasting, if cultish, impression, with many current dance and techno artists citing them as an influence. No surprise, then, that the band have quite a presence on the Internet. A trawl through various Devo fan‑run web pages (Devopolis, at www‑unix.oit.umass.edu /~vndibere/devo.html, and Spudland, at www.nfinity.com/~nutra/spudland...., for example) always leads to Mutato Muzika, the page run by Devo mainman and Rugrats animation theme composer Mark Mothersbaugh. This site looks good, but its graphics‑heavy nature means that it can be a bit slow to load. The wait is worth it, though, with the end result of a tour of the Mutato studio, loads of Mark's pictures, details of Mark's label, MutMuz, plus audio samples to listen to. There's also info on Devo activity — including recent reunion gigs. The spuds appeared on five dates on the latest Lollapalooza US tour at the end of July, and performed at the Sundance Film Festival (this gig may be released on video). The site also features the Mutato store, where you can buy Mark's latest music, plus Devo CDs and merchandise.

Music Machines

www.hyperreal.com/music/machines/

This site was originally an ftp (file transfer protocol) archive for the Analogue Heaven mailing list, and to an extent still feels like it, but it's evolved far beyond its original purpose, featuring loads of synth info and pics. Instruments past and present, from ARP to Yamaha, manufacturer and distributor lists, and famous name gear lists (including some past SOS interviewees) are all there, and there are specs and features lists, details of DIY mods, and info of all kinds for synth bods. One especially fun feature is a 'what synth is right for you' questionnaire. The associated Analogue Heaven mailing list is well worth a trawl — you can read postings and replies on all aspects of analogue, including some pretty mad stuff — we quote: "Now sit still and I'll explain it to you. Analogue is good. Digital is bad. People who use analogue are good. People who use digital are bad. People who use digital to emulate analogue are very bad. People who use both analogue and digital are bad. People who use analogue but speak of digital are moderately bad. People who switch from digital to analogue are glad. People who switch from analogue to digital are mad. People who yearn for digital are sad. People who construct digital are bad. People who construct analogue are rad." If you think you can take it, the mailing list is full and well‑organised, with a keyword search engine. Search on 'modular', for example, and you can discover the astonishing fact that Batman invented modular synthesis, find out about building your own modular, and so on. Loads of stuff!

The Wendy Carlos Home Page

www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/wendy/

Fans of early electronic music should not miss out on this site, which features a biography and discography of pioneering composer and synthesist Wendy Carlos, whose works include Switched‑on Bach and the soundtrack to the early computer‑animated movie Tron. But there's more on these detailed and great‑looking pages, including a photo archive, examples of Wendy's artworks, and an open letter from Wendy in which she talks about the nature of sound and composition, musical equipment both analogue and digital, and her past and present work. You can even email Wendy, though you probably won't get a reply... Still, here are all those little things you probably didn't know, such as the fact that Wendy develops sounds for Kurzweil instruments and prefers MOTU's Digital Performer for sequencing. Well, we thought it was pretty neat...

The Theremin Home Page

www.telalink.net/~theremin/

Fans of even earlier electronic music will be jumping straight to this page, dedicated to that 1930s eerie noise‑maker, the theremin. Against all odds, this unusual instrument is undergoing something of a renaissance: not only is synth pioneer Bob Moog concentrating on the instrument with his current company Big Briar, but the BBC even featured a theremin performance in this year's Proms. For sheer weight of useful information, it would take a lot to beat this site. It features a comprehensive history, availability, build‑it‑yourself instructions with details of parts sources, a theremin bibliography, known recordings, bands currently using the instrument, where you can see them, classifieds and photos. One ongoing project is the location and documentation of all extant original RCA theremins from the '30s, whether in museums or private hands. There is also an associated newsgroup (alt.music.makers.theremin) and links to other sites on the Internet. This is how a Home Page should be done, and the 27,000 surfers who have visited the site in the last year will probably agree.

Akai

www.akai.com/akaipro/index.html

Although based in the States, this site has a welcome international feel. Not only are comprehensive details on the Akai product range provided, along with spec, latest software versions, news, reviews, tips and customer support, but a nifty worldwide dealer locator tells you in an instant where you can audition or buy Akai products in your territory. A selection of free samples, which changes regularly, is available to download.

Synthzone

www.synthzone.com/

This is a handy synth resource offering a central jumping‑off point for links to, and useful information on, anything to do with synths, old or new. If you're looking for sounds, info, or PD/shareware editors, this is a good place to start. One great link, of special interest to Mac users, is the Twin Cities MIDI Home page (www.cs.umn.edu/~fischer/Midi/ind...). This features lots of Mac‑specific MIDI stuff, including utilities that allow you to translate SysEx files in arcane PC formats to something you can use with your Mac software — invaluable if you're downloading banks of sounds for your synth, or samples for your sampler, and can't get anything to recognise them.

Ninja Tunes Home Page

www.southern.com/PIPE/coldcuthp....

The Ninja Tunes record label is the brainchild of pop partnership Coldcut, who began releasing their own and other artists' material through it when their former label allegedly declined to promote their then‑current album (see the home page for more). This funny, informal site features full info on all NT artists, including a Coldcut biog and production credits, plus the pair's forthcoming DJ‑ing dates. Coldcut's '10 Classix Cuts' tell you what you should be listening to, and there are lots of other selections of funky stuff to seek out, picked for you by a wide variety of artists. In the spirit of Kleptomania (Coldcut's own sample collection) there's also a list of downloadable 8‑bit, 22kHz samples. Be careful what you do with these, though — they don't appear to be cleared for commercial use.

The Similarities Engine

www.ari.net/se/

This site is at least good for a laugh, and might actually yield something useful if you're on the lookout for more fodder for your CD player. The idea is that you key in the name of a band or artist whose music you like. Using information based on a survey of 18,000 music fans on the net, the Similarities Engine then comes up with a list of other bands or artists you might also like, with a 'Confidence' rating of low, medium, high, or very high, for each. Sometimes the results are quite accurate and plausible — keying in Erasure, for example, brings up a list of choices which includes Electronic, Pet Shop Boys, Alison Moyet, New Order, Depeche Mode, and OMD. Sometimes, though, the suggestions are head‑scratchingly bizarre: offering the name of American songstress Aimee Mann, for instance, brings up 'Rush', with a high Confidence rating. Mmmm... Still, it's a fun way to spend 10 minutes.

Next month, in the second part of this feature, we'll continue our trawl across the Web, bringing you more music‑related site info, including the addresses for record labels and music industry organisations. But for now, it's back to the virtual surfboard...