Category Archives: Cool stuff

Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio, Uncategorized

Bernadette !!!

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Today was interesting. First of all, the temperature was SO LOW that it never got above a Trump dating age.

Second of all, I got this new plug in for the MicroKorg 2 that takes two 6 sawtooth waves and allows you to detune them. So I recorded a few loops, then tried to do drums on them. It sucked. Everytime I try to do drums it saps all the fun out of trying to make music. I was pissed. So I texted my friend Dave (who has 2 Roland SP-404 samplers… I’ve been calling him the king of sampling). I told him, “Come thru. I’m makin music tonight!” He showed up a little late but all good.

We broke out the beer and whiskey and created this from the crappy loops I made. The drums are still mine, but considering how good everything else is arranged? WE BOTH FEEL that this is the most magical thing we’ve done together thus far.

ENJOY! And most of all, LISTEN IN HEADPHONES or WITH SPEAKERS SPREAD APART. Listening from a phone will not provide the “effect” required.

Things used:

  • Ableton Studio 12
  • Korg MicroKorg 2 with new RiffOsc oscillator plug-in.
  • Korg Kaossilator Pro
  • Korg MiniKP (the legendary red box)
  • The samples came from Dave (the sample king).

And yes, that is Bernadette in that image above!! Feels kinda dumb and MAGA… Yeah whatevers!

CHOB, Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio

MicroKorg 2 Version 2 Update = More Ambient

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So Korg put out a firmware version update (v2) of the MicroKorg 2. It was a little painful to install because I learned that not all USB C cables are for data. Some are made just to charge phones. You cannot tell the difference by looking at them. After finding the right USB C cable, I finally connected the keyboard to my computer and the version update applied itself.

This version update added some really amazing stuff to the looper function and allows for third party plug-ins for effects. I used a third party looping effect on this one. It repeats what you play as if it is using two looped recorders, but one of the loops is smaller, so what you play is constantly changing. I made some background loop and then played on top. At one point the loop falls apart because I was messing with the settings but I just played over top of it. It makes a kind of “blap!” or “blurp!” sound that ping-pongs between the speakers. I just let it in there.

AS ALWAYS, SOUNDS BETTER IN HEADPHONES.

CHOB, Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio, WMOM

11th Hozpitality Album-After Hours

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FINALLY, the 11th Hozpitality album is now live and available for haves (see?)…

The reason this album is titled “After Hours” is because a lot of it was put together with various talented and creative people who stumbled over to the living room after the bars closed to make crazy attempts at making music.

There are many characters involved in this Hozpitality initiative on this album. They are as follows:

  • CeMeGo (myself, Hozpitality founder, voices, drums, keys, bass, talent wrangling, etc.)
  • Bitchin Bob (Hozpitality founder, voices, drums, keys)
  • Denise/MsNeeBo (Hozpitality founder, samples)
  • Danish (drums, keys)
  • James Cooper (fretted and fretless bass)
  • Dirty Dave (samples, bass, drums and random noises)
  • Tuggy (bass)
  • Mike Ortiz (sample and arrangement inspiration)
  • Richard (production, keys, drums, arrangements)
  • maybe other people… I have to think about this a little and maybe update the list later. After posting all of this to youtube and writing this post, my eyeballs are drying up.

Many devices and instruments were used in the creation of this album. There are too many to list. Ableton version 9 and, later version 12, were used to arrange and record everything.

The reason this album has 23 tracks is because I have been compiling and editing down very long winded jam sessions (some 2 or 3 hours long) for years to remove the corn out of the poop/find the diamonds in the rough. Some of these tracks were recorded as far back as 2020.

The album can be streamed from my youtube home page in the playlist section.

OR you can just jump right to the album’s playlist itself with this link.

CHOB, Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio

Twinkly Yamaha Reface CS Loop

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So I cropped this looping segment out of the How Not To Be Musical post I made when I first bought the Yamaha Reface CS because I found it to be pretty.

NOTE: This original post is over 30 minutes so it is a hefty undertaking. This is why I segmented this part out.

Someone told me, “way to go, you made wind chimes”. I said, “yeah but wind chimes don’t loop”, so SUCK IT!

CHOB, Cool stuff, Grinds My Gears, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio, WMOM

MicroKorg 2 aka FedEx Sucks

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Today, FINALLY, my new MicroKorg 2 arrived. I ordered it Saturday January 4, 2025. I BARELY got it on sale before the Trump tariffs kicked in.

The reason for the “Fed Ex Sucks” is because Fed Ex is THE WORST delivery service in America. They promised it would be here Thursday and required a signature. This meant I had to cancel all my plans and remain home for when it arrived and required my signature. I stayed home like an excited child canceling all my evening plans and waited. IT NEVER CAME and was rescheduled for today (Friday). The most annoying part is, the delivery man chucked it on the sidewalk in the snow, lightly tapped on my door, ran away, and NEVER ASKED FOR A SIGNATURE. Fed Ex is a SHIT OPERATION.

This purchase is nothing more than G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), as I had an original MicroKorg for years and it was a very useful part of my music creation arsenal. I was excited about the newer edition and had to have it. It has a full color screen for editing sound.

The original MicroKorg requires the sound architect (me) to fight through a matrix of battleship game like settings with two knobs and it made visualizing the settings rather difficult. Also there are a lot more bells and whistles on this one.

I used:

  • A chopped drum sample from Bill Laswell’s song Cybotron (to jam on).
  • The MicroKorg 2 (obviously).
  • The Korg Mini KP (red box for various audio effects).

The fancy part about this keyboard is its very easy to tie any sort of effect or action to the mod wheel. This made adding all sorts of strange effects in real time quite easy.

Here it is. As always, it’s best in headphones.

CHOB, Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio

Korg Wavestate Native VST

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Korg Wavestate Native

Today I acquired the Korg Wavestate Native plug in. I always thought the Korg Wavestate synthesizer was neat because it allows for these very involved sounds. Everything has a tail that does something crazy. For example, you hold a piano note and a million things happen before the sound releases. The Wavestate is good for sound creation and layering.

Korg does make an actual hardware synthesizer for this but I’m out of room for devices so I bought the software version of it.

IT BLEW ME AWAY!

I recorded myself playing 4 different presets on the thing. There is no overdubbing or layering. This is really a lot of fun. Makes me sound better than I am.

CHOB, Chronicles of the Absurd, Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio, silly, WMOM

Stupid Twiki Shit

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What do Godzilla, Buck Rogers and Twiki, Gloria Estefan, Prince, and the word “Booty” have in common?

This video above is the answer.

This is a song made after a Phillies NLCS game, late night, and drunk.

Concept was by Mike Ortiz. We pressed the buttons, I made the video, and made this miraculous concept a reality.

Things used:

Ableton 9 (too cheap to upgrade it) for the music.
Arturia Keystep 37 (to play godzilla noises).
Novation Launchpad Pro (to trigger the samples).
PowerPoint to make the video.

In summary, “Bidi bidi bidi, booty booty booty, B-b-b-b-buck!”

Cool stuff, Music Sound Noise Audio, Polls, WMOM

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

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I AM STILL getting over the passing of Burt Bacharach. (I know I know… GET OVER IT CHAD!!!)

This has always been one of my top Burt songs done over by Herb Alpert. Today I found that the original, which I love so much, he had redone in the past few years. It’s such a yummy song, that I like them both. Here they are for comparison.

This is the first time he did it. This is off my favorite Herb Alpert and the TJB album, SRO from 1966.

From Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, SRO (1966)

Here is the re-do from his 2016 album Human Nature.

From Herb Alpert, Human Nature (2016)

Which do you prefer? Vote below in this crappy old poll plug-in I’ve had in WordPress for a million years.

Which "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" do you like better

View Results

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Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio, WMOM

My Favorite Burt Bacharach Song

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I’ve always been a Bacharach fan. His music infects me like COVID. After 52 years, and I like to think I’ve been listening to music that long, it has come to my attention that I can safely select my favorite Burt Bacharach song.

It is KNOWING WHEN TO LEAVE

Dionne did it best with the lyrics.

The symphonic Burt one without the lyrics. Good one to test your speakers with.

And I have to include the “Karen” version. This one is special because it was never released. They did it as a medley with other Burt songs, but this is it ALONE which makes it wonderful.

It may be desperation or whatever, but I’ve decided to post more. DEAL!

CHOB, Cool stuff, Hozpitality, Music Sound Noise Audio

Korg Minilogue XD Ambient 1

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Today I took the Korg Minilogue XD out of cold storage and found a way to make instant “music for airports” style ambient music with a tortured twist.

It was really easy to do and fun once its established

I forgot that the arpeggiator on the XD has a randomize feature. If you SEQUENCE the arpeggiated notes that are randomized (randomized within the chord you play) it makes nice random changes. Basically, each of the 16 sequence blocks holds 6 notes (two 3 fingered chords). Every time the sequence moves to the next block it plays those notes in that 6 fingered chord randomly.

So the little sequencer light is like: CA-CHUNK, play 6 random notes in the chord, CA CHUNK play 6 random notes in the next chord…. over and over down all 16 CA CUNKS of sequencer blocks. This creates a long random sequence of chord structures.

Once the sequence is set, then you can just diddle the hell out of the knobs while the sequencer loops with random chord structures that you predesignated. It’s really fun to mess with.

There are THREE oscillators (sound makers): Osc1, Osc2 and the Multi/User Osc.

I started with just the first oscillator. It was set as a triangle wave which makes it mellow. Then I slowly mix in osc2 which is a sawtooth which is a brighter sound. Then I slowly mixed in the multi/user oscillator using the “FAT 2” user oscillator setting to add growl.

The first minute is just the mellow osc 1, then there’s a pause. Then it comes back while slowly mixing in each of the other 2 oscillators adding some body and crunch to the sequence. I mess with various reverbs and low frequency oscillation throughout the piece to keep it freaky.

There is a ping pong reverb and chorus in there so it kills in head phones.

It’s like electronic wind chimes for the talentless (pretty much music for airports).