https://audiodestrukt.com A poke in the ear with a sharp stick. en-us Wed, 11 Mar 2026 07:48:14 +0000 https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/strings-and-things.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/strings-and-things.html Sun, 05 Oct 2025 17:41:10 +0000 Strings and things It’s been a while since I put strings on any of my guitars and I keep forgetting my strategy. I have a few stop tailpiece instruments and some floating bridge instruments. Different scale lengths and all of that. I was on a kind of exploratory mission a while back to start putting heavier and heavier strings on… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/impulse-responses.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/impulse-responses.html Sun, 15 Jun 2025 15:02:31 +0000 Impulse responses I’m now resigning myself to using IR for a lot of things. I will probably never buy another guitar amp at this point. I might buy some cabinets, but that’s more to explore things and maybe create impulses of the sounds I like. The little pocket guitar pedal that I got can load IRs and so I went… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/portable-phantom-power.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/portable-phantom-power.html Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:58:38 +0000 Portable phantom power I was on a quest for a small phantom-powered mic pre that could be powered by batteries for one of my live rigs. I had a flute and various small instruments to play along with my synths and I wanted to have a single condenser mic set up and running through my effects. I figured this would… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/live-pa-fx.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/live-pa-fx.html Sun, 01 Jun 2025 11:27:36 +0000 Live PA FX I’ve recently been buying some of the Joyo guitar pedals. These things came onto the scene a few years ago after many years of DOD/Digitech and Boss/Roland pedal dominance. The guitar pedal market never ceases to fascinate me with so many botique pedal manufacturers popping up all the time and now also many overseas manufacturers jumping into… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/small-midi-controllers.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/small-midi-controllers.html Sat, 31 May 2025 15:28:03 +0000 Small MIDI controllers I have been jamming with grooveboxes and synths for years now. I have been doing the DAW-less jams. I’m one of those people sometimes. Sometimes I use Ableton, which is a sane thing to do. I’m not a purist. Most of my synths are desktop modules without a keyboard. I somehow gravitated toward that kind of setup… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/sound-libraries.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/sound-libraries.html Thu, 20 Feb 2025 14:05:31 +0000 Sound libraries I’m trying to build Seq66 on OSX right now. I figured it would be straightforward since everything is mostly POSIX. Turns out that libasound isn’t really ported to mac. This led me to look into what other libraries are out there right now. http://libsound.io/ I have never heard of libsound. These all have such generic names that it’s… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/recording-rig.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/recording-rig.html Fri, 24 Jan 2025 03:13:06 +0000 Recording rig I have been setting up a new recording rack in my studio. It has been a long time since I did any serious recording so I’m kind of re-learning things like patchbay configuration. I have an old M-Audio ProFire 2626 set up on a SFF PC in this old Grundorf rack case. I’m setting up two mic pres… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/alternative-education.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/alternative-education.html Thu, 19 Dec 2024 18:42:08 +0000 Alternative education I’m always looking around for new art and many times I come across fringe art schools or interdisciplinary programs at colleges. When I was in Engineering school there really wasn’t this cross-pollination that there is today. Here is one I just found https://sfpc.study/ The School for Poetic Computation – a place for learning and unlearning. So great. https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/algorithmic-composition.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/algorithmic-composition.html Sat, 07 Dec 2024 15:53:02 +0000 Algorithmic composition I was thinking back to my days of using PD for random glitchy synth things. I was using Markov chains for doing some random scales. I looked around for some other people doing this and lo did I find this guy http://www.algorithmiccomposer.com/2010/05/algorithmic-composition-tutorial-markov.html Algorithmic Composer has not posted in a while but I will be looking at his back… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/trackers.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/trackers.html Sat, 07 Dec 2024 10:04:42 +0000 Trackers I’m a fan of trackers. Mostly out of nostalgia now. I never did get much music written back in the day using trackers but I still liked dabbling. FastTracker 2 was a revelation seeing those oscilloscope displays dancing away. There was something I found called GoatStudio that was a simple curses-based tracker. I have been digging into a few… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/some-thoughts-on-the-ableton-move.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/some-thoughts-on-the-ableton-move.html Sun, 01 Dec 2024 21:08:57 +0000 Some thoughts on the Ableton Move I’ve been using the Move in various situations over the last week. I have traveled with it and used it in my studio. Battery: this thing charges a little bit slowly for my taste. I can’t imagine that the battery is really all that big. I’m using a 60w charger so I know it’s… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/little-sound-dj.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/little-sound-dj.html Sat, 30 Nov 2024 16:59:38 +0000 Little Sound DJ I was pretty intrigued by this a few years ago and then again when Trash80 released the Dirtywave M8. I have a Nintendo DS that I have had forever to play Mario Kart on with my wife while sitting on the couch (we each have one). In order to load ROMs on the NDS I have a… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/ableton-note-is-great.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/ableton-note-is-great.html Wed, 27 Nov 2024 15:49:39 +0000 Ableton Note is great Before I bought the Ableton Move I was looking at reviews that mentioned that it might share some code with the iOS app, Ableton Note. I was intrigued so I bought the app for $8.99. After playing around with it a while I think it’s amazing. Initially I thought it was cool but limited. It’s only… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/moog-slim-phatty.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/moog-slim-phatty.html Sat, 23 Nov 2024 10:52:27 +0000 Moog Slim Phatty I’m still digging though my analog synth collection and just writing some notes. I have owned the Slim Phatty for a few years now. I went through a period of buying synths on Craigslist for a while an this is one that I picked up here in San Francisco. I wanted a Moog synth for a while… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/dsi-tetr4-synth.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/dsi-tetr4-synth.html Sat, 23 Nov 2024 10:22:39 +0000 DSI Tetr4 synth I’m digging through my analog synths right now and taking stock of stuff. I have a bunch of boxes that I bought four tabletop/live pa use. I’m getting kind of philosophical about the things that I own right now and trying to find the reasons that I should have them. I don’t generally sell anything. I usually… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/octatrack-midi-multi.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/octatrack-midi-multi.html Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:32:04 +0000 Octatrack MIDI multi I’m still jamming on my Octatrack today. I hooked up my Waldorf Blofeld to the mix. Same kind of setup where I have MIDI going out of the OT and into the Blofeld. I chose the Blofeld for this experiment because it’s 16 part multitimbral and I can trigger a few different sounds at once from different… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/octatrack-as-an-arpeggiator.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/octatrack-as-an-arpeggiator.html Thu, 21 Nov 2024 19:12:52 +0000 Octatrack as an arpeggiator I was digging through Octatrack settings and realized that the “plays free” feature is pretty useful as an arpeggiator. I never used this feature much and thought it was more for people who did ambient music to just fire off something that plays for like a half hour. There are some things that make it pretty… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/audio-file-format-conversion.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/audio-file-format-conversion.html Thu, 21 Nov 2024 19:04:46 +0000 Audio file format conversion I’m digging through some AKAI format sample CDs that I have in my collection. I converted some things in the past but I’m getting back into the process now. I don’t think I ever wrote anything down before so it feels like I’m starting over now. The CDs are image files of varying formats. Some are… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/octatrack-re-learnings.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/octatrack-re-learnings.html Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:17:36 +0000 Octatrack re-learnings I’m digging back into using my Octatrack and I’m finding that I have to re-learn a bunch of things about how it works. Saying that it’s a quirky machine is an understatement. There are some guides like Merlin’s OT manual that go into the philosophy of the machine, but I’m writing things here with my own live use… https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/live-pa-with-just-two-boxes.html https://audiodestrukt.com/blog/posts/live-pa-with-just-two-boxes.html Thu, 21 Nov 2024 16:12:51 +0000 Live PA with just two boxes I’m calling DAWless Live PA from now on. That’s what it used to be called and I was on livepa.org way back. It’s funny how things progressed. It’s great actually, it’s no longer a fringe thing and honestly everyone’s game really improved. Back then it was people with a bunch of keyboards on a…