Monday, June 30, 2008

Change the color of your skin - Acopa Chameleon



I don't think most people look for this feature in rock climbingshoes, but I must say I'm impressed.

After climbing for 2 hours in a brand new pair of Acopa Chameleons, I was thrilled and amazed to see that my feet had changed into a dark almost forest green color. I was immediately approached at the climbing gym by a group of beautiful girls, obviously attracted to the new look of my feet. SEXY!

But my excitement did not end there. Once I got home, I gave my feet a rinse, to see how durable this new feet coloring technology really was. There was no effect whatsoever! I had to scrub with soap and an exfoliating towel for 30 minutes to remove the coloration. Now, my exfoliating towel is green! That's value added right there!!!

The next day, In an attempt to see how long this effect would last, I began washing the inside of the shoes themselves. After scrubbing the shoes with soap and water, they drained a nearly black, dark dark green color. I cleaned them for 30 minutes, and the water still did not drain clean. That's some potent dye! After finishing with both shoes, I scrubbed my hands with my exfoliating towel but could not remove the dye that had colored my blisters and climbing tears.

Amazing work. Perhaps you could sell replacement dye packs for when the color starts to fade.

--

All kidding aside. This is completely insane. I'll never buy your shoes again (and I go through a pair every couple months), unless you release some that are not coated in this crap.

Monday, June 23, 2008

3L First impressions

I had my doubts.

The only thing worse than stupid 3d objects spinning around, is flying through a textured tunnel.

A program that is built specifically to do real-time 3d rendering would primarily generate this kind of stuff, and most of the demo videos I've seen were examples of this.

Thankfully though, after wrapping my head around the interface, I was able to come up with some interesting results with just a few minutes of setup.


Screen view, MIDI control, and a few peeks at the output

I created two default spheres, changed the draw mode, and assigned two quicktime movies to them. I connected a Behringer B-Control Fader box via MIDI, and mapped some controls to the setup.

There's still a lot for me to learn, but I'm feeling really good about this software. Seems like Artificial Eyes are pretty cool guys, and my interactions with them have been great so far.

Sorry about the cheesy trance in this clip. I was really not paying attention to what was playing, totally absorbed in the visuals.


6 minutes of output testing

Friday, June 20, 2008

New Green Graphics deisgn

One of the joys of working at a print shop, is a limitless budget for printing of in-house propaganda. Whenever I get bored (or we run out) of our business cards, I take the opportunity do design new ones. And I make it a point to challenge the production staff as much as possible.

The cards are printed 1/0 on 130lb French Muscletone. The Green strip is printed 1/0 on 70lb parchment, then glued across both sides of the card.

The envelopes have a similar but bigger strip that covers the flap.

Cutting the strips and manually gluing them is the hardest part of the job, and it is so time consuming we only make a few cards a day.



Fred cutting the invoices.



A box of parts to be glued.



The final product.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

From the archives - "tribell"

Here is another track off the "apple" DAT. 1993-1994 I'm estimating.

This track was played several times at downtempo and ambient events. The one I remember the best was an event put on by "Pro Soy" Called Portal 13.

At the time, I was using a sequencer package called "Vision", which I still miss for some of it's MIDI tools. Nested subsequences, Yum.



Samples were played off of an Ensoniq EPS. This was my first sampler, and my first /real/ audio workstation, and served me for many many years.



I was also using this E-MU Morpheus. The bell sounds and bass in this track came from here.




immersiveArts - Tribell

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Bio For RSC

Rope Swing Cities will be getting a design makeover, and I've been asked to provide an updated bio/photo/discography.



Bio:
Ed Colmar has been working with electronic musical instruments since he was 12 years old. Over 20 years of practice, experimentation, live performances, and noise combat has given him the opportunity to interface with many different devices, people, and waveforms.

He has written exclusive custom tracks for DJs, performed countless live sets, and been involved in the organization and execution of dance related events.

Ed is currently working on a new audio/lighting/video project that will be demoed in the late part of 2008.

Discography:
Fatal Data - Compliation - Fatal Data Records, 1994
immersiveArts - Substructure - SIEGE Records, 1996
immersiveArts - Radiate One - SIEGE Records, 1997
immersiveArts - Radiate Two - SIEGE Records, 1998
immersiveArts - Radiate Three - SIEGE Records, 1999
esc - Tec Trx - SIEGE Records, 2002
Time Slips By - CTRL-N Compilation - Modsquare Netlabel, 2005
Time Slips By - Demonstration CD - 2005
Ed Colmar - San Francisco Laptop Battle Compilation - Daly City Records, 2007
Ed Colmar - Everything Has Another Meaning - Rope Swing Cities, 2008

Monday, June 9, 2008

From the archives - Apple track 3





This one is somewhat of a mystery. The notes with track names is missing, and I have no idea what the original titles were. The only identifying mark on the dat is a little apple.

Written during the period when I was living with Joshua in the sunset of SF, I'm estimating the date at 1993. If I'm wrong please correct me. I'm horrible with dates.


immersiveArts - Apple Track 3

Friday, June 6, 2008

From the archives - "um that jim song"



In 1989 (I think) I went to this recording school in Massieville Ohio for a semester intensive. I learned a lot there, mostly because of the recording and mixing of live bands. Most importantly though, were the friends I met. One of them was Jim. I can't remember his last name, but he was fearless with his music intentionally going for cheesy, insane sounds and melodies.

This is a track we worked on together. It is nuts.

Um That Jim Song


While working on it, he looked at me intently, and said "we need a sample that goes.. DEET DEEET DEEEET FLIIIING" I laughed at him so hard until I realized he was serious. Then I hooked up a mic... It works there don't ya think?

HAHAHA

From the Archives



I'm finally undertaking the task of going through all of my Digital Audio Tapes. Dumping the data digitally onto a set of RAID drives.

I'll be periodically posting material from them that I liked, hated, or think are worth sharing with the world.

Monday, June 2, 2008

powerdelay on WOD



One of my tracks was played on the radio in Colorado this weekend.

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review
download
streaming
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setlist:
.Paul Williams and Jim Henson - Rainbow Connection
.CPU War - Time To Step Up (everyone fight)
.Drop the Lime . Do it now Kill
.Black Unicorn - Unicorn Chemicals
.Lobsang Rampa - elektrojacko
.Exillon - Stomper Acid (Terminal 11 remix)
.Terminal 11 - In Love With You
.Venetian Snares - Herbie Goes Ballistic
.Algernon - track 14
.Algernon - track 15
.Mochipet (remix of Otto) - Earjuice Synthesis (earjuice Daly freestyle...)
.Duran Duran Duran - Hard Girls
.Fanny - Heidi's Goatherd
.Aphex Twin - Mt. Saint Michel Mix/St. Michaels Mount
.Air Supply - All Out of Love
.Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips - Software
.Autoclav 1.1 - This Is Untitled (Broken Face Remix by Sporadik)
.Prometheus Burning - Beyond Repair (Xanopticon Remix)
.Mu-Ziq - Silk Ties
.FFWUC - FFWUC (clean edit)
.Otto Von Schirach - Milk a Cow and Dozy Doe
.Xanopticon - Elfuckin Vibes
.Venetian Snares - Einstein-Rosen Bridge
.Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips - Hardware
.Merk - Euthanasia
.Ed Colmar - Powerdelay
.Phoenecia - Boombonic Plague (Gorge! Binge! Purge! Edit)
.Ukuphambana - Crisie mix by Kolo
.Scooter Computer and Mister Chips - Number Cruncher
.The Wizard - promotional record
.W.A.S.T.E - Suburban Crime Scene
.Drumcorps - Grist
.Syphilis Sauna - The New Style
.Circle Six - Glitch core
.The Vomit Arsonist - For you
.Air Supply - Lost in Love
.Myo - Infinite Complexity
.Converter - Death Time
.Kate Mosh - Crawford's Theme 2
.Devo - Mongoloid (EZ Listening)