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About The New Beatmaker

Hi!  I'm Lee.  Welcome to my blog.  Here we talk music: news, reviews, interviews, tips, tutorials and more.  I'm also working on the upcoming podcast  Influenced  as a guest, writer and researcher alongside music aficionado Mark Williams and friends.  Watch this space! I have been a lover of music for as long as I can remember, an amateur lyricist for 25 years, a music writer for 15 years and a hobbyist musician and blogger for almost 10 years. My tastes range from jazz to house to hip hop and I love helping artists from all genres develop their sound. My music, videos, reviews and interviews have been featured in a variety of magazines and websites, including: B-Boy Tech Report Gimme That Beat Humanhuman Audio Skills Dream House Beats Where Did the Road Go Beat Tape Co-Op Push Power Promo Drum Magazine You can find my music on Bandcamp: Monkey Mind Sounds AKA LeeTNB And you can find me on Facebook: The New Beatmaker page Lee's personal page

NAMM 2013 Hardware Selections


Apologies, I really wanted to bring you some of the great footage from the NAMM show 2013 by some of my favourite sites that bit sooner, especially when the quality of the products and the footage is this high.  In the name of 'gear lust', here's some of what these lucky people got up close and personal with in Anaheim last month

Korg KingKorg Synthesizer


Beautiful looking and more importantly, absolutely stunning sounding, this gem from Korg is masterfully demonstrated by Korg Rep Richard.  I can imagine those types of sounds on a Cameo record or something of that nature and if I were to hit the lottery this weekend (not that I play) this would be copped faster than you could say 'Candy'. 

For more, visit: Future Music

Ableton Push



Something for all the Ableton heads out there.  Ableton's Head of Documentation Dennis DeSantis gives the guys over at DJCityTV the low down on their latest, a rival to the MPC.
In addition to this video, there's some great footage of Jeremy Ellis (natch) gettin' it in with this thing.

For more, visit: DJCityTV  

Arturia SparkLE and Minilab

 
Here's another TNBM favourite checking out the new SparkLE drum controller and software in conjunction with the new Minilab keyboard controller and software synthesizer.  When I talk about drum controllers (I'm using that term loosely here) on the site, I often over-simplify the playing field into MPC / Maschine and I shouldn't.  I've heard a lot of good things about the SparkLE.  There's some footage floating around from a few years ago of DJ Quik going crazy over the Spark during a 'Detox' session, I'd love to hear what he thinks of this latest addition to the Arturia family.

For more, visit: SoundsAndGear.com

Image Credit
musicradar.com

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About The New Beatmaker

Hi!  I'm Lee.  Welcome to my blog.  Here we talk music: news, reviews, interviews, tips, tutorials and more.  I'm also working on the upcoming podcast  Influenced  as a guest, writer and researcher alongside music aficionado Mark Williams and friends.  Watch this space! I have been a lover of music for as long as I can remember, an amateur lyricist for 25 years, a music writer for 15 years and a hobbyist musician and blogger for almost 10 years. My tastes range from jazz to house to hip hop and I love helping artists from all genres develop their sound. My music, videos, reviews and interviews have been featured in a variety of magazines and websites, including: B-Boy Tech Report Gimme That Beat Humanhuman Audio Skills Dream House Beats Where Did the Road Go Beat Tape Co-Op Push Power Promo Drum Magazine You can find my music on Bandcamp: Monkey Mind Sounds AKA LeeTNB And you can find me on Facebook: The New Beatmaker page Lee's personal page

Learn How to Play D'Angelo's 'How Does it Feel': Piano Couture

Barely a week goes by without me playing 'Voodoo' at some point and with it, a desire to learn how to play 'How Does it Feel'.   This tutorial video by youtube user pianocouture is one of the best 'how to play' videos I have seen for the classic track.   I think that instructional videos like this are good for two main reasons.  Reason one: obviously, a learner player will gain confidence and enjoyment from learning a favourite song of theirs.   Reason two: Even if a beatmaker has no desire to learn to play the keyboard, but wants to create a loop or a riff (a feeling) similar to 'How Does it Feel', what better way to, than playing the song itself (or similar sounds), sampling it and chopping it up? Either way, this is a great tutorial video.  I've subscribed to Piano Couture's youtube page and, if you are looking to get your key game up, I suggest you do too ;) Related Posts: ?uestlove talks new D'Angelo, J Dilla Video: youtube.com/user/pian

Objects In Orbit 'Panoramas'

REVIEW :  The New Beatmaker favourite changes his name, hones his craft on potential best album of 2020 Producer, Sound Engineer, Musician and Videographer Objects In Orbit has been a favourite of the site since 2013. Whilst there is not a single bad project in the catalogue of the artist formerly known as Evil Alex, he has evolved and improved almost constantly from one project to the next. He is a master of sonic suspense with many of his projects sounding perfectly at home in an art installation or art-house cinema. His trademark style mixes hip hop born sample-based techniques and 4/4 beat composition along with jazz influenced time signatures and experimentation. He often incorporates eerie, industrial stylings and at times dissonant tones.  Whilst predominantly instrumental, Objects In Orbit finely weaves into layers of musical samples either long stretches of dialogue, which make the listener feel as though they are eavesdropping on private conversation, or snip