Chokai, producer of electronic sounds

On Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:41:00 +0000

Hi All, Chokai is officially on hiatus for a while. All Chokai material is still available to download from the bandcamp - thank you all for listening and supporting over the past 14 years, will probably be back with something new in a year or two. Keep following the blog for Chokai related stuff. Much love. :)

Coldstar EP - Out Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0000

The Coldstar EP is now available to download for a name-your-price at bandcamp right now. Click the linkage below to download it!

http://chokai.bandcamp.com/album/coldstar-ep

New Chokai EP release ready

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:37:00 +0000

Hey all, its been a while I know. Am proud to announce I will be releasing a brand new 5 track EP titled "Coldstar" very soon, probably next week on the bandcamp site. More info to follow, but here is a look at the surreal artwork (kindly donated by my good mate Natasha Wynne).

In other news, Chokai has been involved in an exciting project with fellow producers called "Tunese Whispers". The concept is simple - You start with one track from one producer, you remix it. The next artist remixes the remix, and so on. The track to be remixed is "pheltique" bu the awesome producer Johnny Jitters. Chokai was lucky enough to get the first remix titled "The first generation remix". More on this coming soon.

Am also working on "80's movie robots breakdance competition". More updates on this soon :)
Be sure to keep up to date with all my doings on the facebook.

Chokai mix - Progressive Chillout 1

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:44:00 +0000

The first of many mixes coming from Chokai, now on 8tracks.

A few more tunes on the soundcloud

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:55:00 +0000

A couple of oldies found on the hard disk today, more soundtrack-ish style circa 2006. Hope u like :)
Waiting for Dark by chokai
Judge Ghis by chokai

Chokai music is now free to download

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:15:00 +0000

The electro-funky "86 Space Robots Battle!" EP, "Knowledge and Ignorance" album, "Shoot em up ace" single and the weird "Glade Geita" EP are now all available to download for free from the Chokai bandcamp.
Click here to be taken to the Chokai bandcamp
http://chokai.bandcamp.com/

Chokai remix - Surrounded by iPassenger now out

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:26:00 +0000

The awesome release from iPassenger titled "Surrounded +Remixes" is now available to download from the iPassenger bandcamp, featuring a heafty breaks version of the track remixed by Chokai (below)

Click on the below to have a listen, or head over to the iPassenger bandcamp at:
http://ipassenger.bandcamp.com/album/surrounded-remixes

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://ipassenger.bandcamp.com/album/surrounded-remixes"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Surrounded (+ Remixes) by iPassenger&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

New Chokai Website completed!

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:33:00 +0000

The new Chokai website is now up and running, with lots of extra stuff and a new layout. Check it out now at http://www.chokai.co.uk

Benny Loco Champions Remix

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:11:00 +0000

My latest remix is now available to listen or download to your hearts content over on the awesome Benny Loco Soundlcoud, check it out right here:

http://soundcloud.com/bennyloco/benny-loco-champions-chokai

Nice!

Spring Moves On

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:36:00 +0000

Just uploaded a new, yes new track to the soundcloud. Titled "Spring Moves On" this is a quaint little tune for a laid back lazy afternoon. Hope you like. More coming soon. Thanks for listening as always :)

Spring Moves On by chokai

Download loads of Chokai music free

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 17:45:00 +0000

A few goodies now available on the Chokai website now - First off you can now download the "Iko" and "Knowledge and Ignorance" albums and the "Glade Geita" EP for nothing. Secondly there is a new ableton live pack available containing 2 new sweepy, spacy pads built in operator and analogue.

Enjoy :)

Chokai downloads not available

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 11:12:00 +0000

Apologies all who are wondering why you are unable to purchase downloads of late, the site will be updated with direct download links very soon.

Will also be releasing some free downloads :)

How to build a Gundam model

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:18:00 +0000

I have recently gone a bit mad for all things Gundam, so I thought I would share with you how to build one of these uber-cool little models.

The type of model I will be showing you how to build is a plastic, 1/144 scale HG version AMS-119 Geara Doga, but this can apply to any of the HG range of Gundams. Its relatively easy to assemble, not that complex, and should take no longer than 3-4 hours to complete.

Step 1 - Preparation

Preparation is key folks, making sure you have all the right shit and having areas for you to work in are absolutely necessary. Do not rush, take your time and it will pay off. Lets start with all the bits you will need:

Gundam markers: Fine-point oil black (maybe hard to get hold of in the UK, instead you can use any oil-based fine-tip technical drawing pen), Water-based black (again, any water-based black pen with a paintbrush style pointed end will do fine), Clear dual-pointed "blurring" pen (not sure if you can find here int he UK, but not wholly essential to be honest, just good for "blurring up" the water-based black ink).
A good, sharp craft knife with a blade lock.
Angled "clippers" (one edge is dead straight - essential for cutting parts off sprues).
Standard clippers (for tougher cuts).
Tweezers (for decals (transfers) stickers, and fiddly assembly bits, useful if you have sausage fingers).
A soft eraser (get a good-quality one, not some poncy plastic one).
Abrasives, in particular medium and fine Tamiya abrasives.

Acrylic spray paints. I find Tamiya Color for plastic models the best here, does exactly what it says on the tin. Be careful when choosing your colours and make sure they match the colour guide included int he models instruction. They don't have to be spot on shade wise but do your best to guess.
Matte coating over spray - Very important for the final touches. I find Testors Dullcote perfect for this as it applies great coverage with only 2 coats.

The next ting to do is set yourself up an area to spray in. Some very, very important things to remember here. Spray paint is god damn toxic smelling, so for gods sake protect yourself while your spraying and do it is a very well ventilated area.

Some absolute essentials to be wearing while your spraying:

The shittiest clothes you posses, or an apron over the top of the shittiest clothes you posses.
Face mask. If you don't wear one.. well you frankly deserve to be in hospital right now.
Eye goggles - Again, if you don't wear them, well you wont be reading this any more.
Latex Gloves - have to be latex, not rubber gloves. Simply because there will be some fiddly work involved while your spraying, so having tight-fitting gloves will serve to keep your hands clean they will also enable you to be able to pick up some tiny, teeny pieces without smudging them or dropping them.
A hat / Something to cover your hair. Not totally essential, but without it you will smell of chemicals until you go get yourself in the shower.

Where to spray?

I would not recommend doing it outside or you will very quickly find loads of pollen, dust and wind-carried crap sticking to your parts and making it look really quite rubbish. If your doing it in a bedroom, be sure to stick up as much newspaper as possible as this stuff literally will get everywhere. I set up a little area in the corner of my studio and caked it in newspaper - be sure to cover up any gaps with masking tape. Believe me when I say, overdoing it is the best way of ensuring you don't get paint on things.

Set yourself up a drying area near to a drafty / airy spot - be sure to keep this area a safe distance away from where your spraying to avoid spotting of unwanted colours on your sprues. Make sure you get something to hang the sprues on for drying, with a clear area around it for a nice, consistent dry. I set up some brass hooks, attached to a curtain rail with cable ties right by a window like this:

Step 2 - Getting started

Unbox all of the sprues, and snip-off any different coloured sections that are on one sprue, like below. Remember, not all sprues will need to be sprayed, only the parts you can see. Often you wont ever need to spray the standard "PC" sprue you get with every HG Gundam - these parts are mainly use internally to connect the bigger parts. Inspect all of the sprues first and make a judgement as to if you need to spray or not. The neon parts below for instance, I cut off and only sprayed with a matt finishing spray.

Before..

After..

Group the sprues into colour, then start spraying!

The trick to getting a nice, consistent colour is to spray a good 25-30cm away from the work, lay the sprue flat in your spraying area, shake the living shit out of your can to get a good mix and carefully spray at this distance from left to right, keeping an even flow with the spray can. As this will be the first coat, try to not spray too thick or for too long. 2-3 passes over the sprue will be enough. Once you have finished doing one, leave it for 5 mins before transferring it to a hook for drying, otherwise you'll get a blotchy, runny coat. Repeat for all the other sprues. use matching colours.. of course..

Step 3 - The long bit..

Give at least 30 mins drying time for all your spruce before starting to cut. Once touch-dry, take a spruce and clip off all of the parts. You'll then need to cut off any jagged bits left from the sprue on the parts with a sharp craft knife - be careful not to dig into the part itself at this point.

Part, with jagged bits just cut off the sprue.

Part, jagged bits sliced off and sanded down.

Get some kind of small block - I used an old eraser, and cut one rectangle shape, and one chisel-pointed shape. Carefully cut the abrasive to wrap around each block, securing it with masking tape (see below). Use these blocks to file down any messy, jagged bits left from cutting. Run your finger along the part where the jagged bit was to ensure it is completely smooth. Don't worry so much if you scrape off a little of the paint - the second coat will sort this out later.

Also, Bandai have this annoying habit of making some of the male parts of their model kits a tiny bit too long, so snip of a tiny amount of each of the longer male parts at an angle (see below), this allows for a much tighter, smoother fit during assembly. Be careful not to cut them too short- you only need a tiny bit cut off.

Once you have completed one sprue, transfer all of the parts onto a clean sheet of paper (very important) for the next spray - stick down some double-sided tape for any particular tiny pieces (see below) to stop them being blown all over the place while your spraying. Make sure all of your parts are facing the right way up - in the best possible positions to get a good coverage, and exposing all of the sanded-down parts.

Give your can a ruddy good shake (very important) and spray all of your arranged parts again at a good 25-30cm away from the parts. Go from left to right, slowly and consistently to get a good coverage, and be careful not to spray too thick. Once you have passed over a couple of times, leave it for 5 or so mins, then have a good close look to make sure the areas where you were sanding are fully covered. Re-touch as necessary, if you need to move about any parts give it a good 5 mins until tacky before moving to avoid any blotching or smudges. Leave the parts on the paper to dry - don't bother moving it or you'll run the risk of something slipping off.

While you are waiting for it to dry, start cutting, scraping and sanding down the next sprue. By the time you are finished the previous set should be dry (you should leave at least 30 mins before moving). Once dry, move all of the parts to a tray for assembly - make sure to separate each set of parts otherwise it will make your life more difficult and could result in residual colours contaminating other parts. I find any container I can laying about, and label each set of parts according to the sprue it was attached to, like so:

Repeat the process for each sprue until all of the parts are cut, sanded and sprayed. The longest part is now over, now its time to assemble!

Step 4 - Assembly

So, now you have (hopefully) got all of the sprayed parts ready and organised. All you have to do now is follow the instructions - admittedly now you have cut them off the sprue you wont be able to locate the parts as easily as they are no longer numbered. Be sure to look very, very carefully as you build and double check you have the right part each time. Clicking something together, and then finding out you have missed something or snapped the wrong part on will result in a disaster, and possible snapped bits. Messy glue will not fix the situation, but if you do really cock it up you can glue parts, use your abrasive to smooth it down and re-spray the part.

As and when you complete each part, you will need to ink along the notches and lines to being out the detail in your model. This does not apply so much to darker models, but can be really effective when done right.

The important thing to remember when inking along lines is to test it first - do it on a less obvious place first, and test to make sure your eraser is capable of removing any excess ink. Use your fine point oil pen to ink along any detail you want to bring out, and brush your eraser over the lines again to make the lining finer. I find that cutting a small piece off of your eraser at an angle makes it much easier to get into the tiny gaps and divots in the part you are working on.

Don't worry so much about it looking messy at this point, try to cover as much as you can all the creases and armor lines - the eraser will pull off any excess leaving behind any deeper ink.

If you find your eraser is not working, switch to the water-based pen and then use your eraser - use the clear blurring pen to create any shading required.

As you work through the assembly you may have to attach decals or stickers - i wont go into detail on these as adding these is down to preference. You can either leave them off, and hand-paint on the detail using acrylic paints and some very fine brushwork, or stick them on. I prefer the latter.. a steady hand and your tweezers are essential for this. If you think the stickers may make your model look a bit shit, try out some transfers from a specialist Gundam supplier - I wont go into detail as to how to apply decals at this point, suggest you google it - its really not that hard, just a little tray of water, patience and a very steady hand is all that is required.

Step 5 - Finishing off

Once your assembly is complete - take it apart. Yes, that's what I said. Take off the arms, legs and any additional armour parts such as shields, guns, large backpacks or swords. Lay them all out on a clean sheet of paper in your spraying area.

Now some people at this point will "shade" their model, this involved getting yourself an airbrush, filling up the well with black acrylic mixed with paint thinner (around 1 part black to 9 parts thinner) and gently, at an acute angle, spraying over the parts to create shading of the armour, making sure that the parts are laid out in the same direction for consistency. Unfortunately as I do not yet own a airbrush I can't really advise at this point, it is however worth doing if you are building a particularly light-coloured Gundam and makes it look even more frikkin awesome. When I do finally have one, I will update his tutorial.

The next step is applying a matt coat. This step is quite easy, the key thing to remember here is when you are spraying your parts, keep a good 25-30cm away, and spray in bursts of fine mist - when the coat lands on your parts it will look glossy - this is a good indication of the coverage of the spray.

Spray once over all of your parts - again leave for 5 mins or when the gloss becomes matted before shifting them around a bit to get a complete coverage, and spray over in a fine mist again. Once touch-dry (15 mins or so), re-assemble your model entirely, leaving any excess weaponry and alternative hands dotted around, and give it a final, fine spray all around. let the coat dry on each occasion and inspect closely to make sure you have a nice, consistent coat.

Finally, leave your model for a good 30-45 mins before moving it out of your spraying area. Your model is now complete!

Getting a Gundam model is a pretty tricky business in this country.. In Japan you can more or less get them in any toy or model store, I even found a huge range of these on sale in an electrical store. You can buy Gundam models on Amazon currently for around £25 each, but I recommend buying either in Japan or if you have any friends over there get them to buy one for you - they range from around £7-8 depending on the exchange rate, that's over 50% cheaper. Paints such as the Tamiya plastics range are pretty easy to find, as are the abrasives and the matt spray - I buy all my stuff from here:

http://www.wonderlandmodels.com/

If you do happen to find a place online selling Gundam models in the UK at a reasonable price - do let me know and I will be eternally grateful :)

Hope you have found this useful - may possibly as more builds on here as and when I get get them.. I have one model left to build from the Ghibli film "Nausicaa" also produced by Bandai. Should be fun.

Later.

How a synthesizer works

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:17:00 +0000

I decided to write up a small feature on how to understand how a synthesiser works. Aimed at the complete beginner, this tutorial will guide you through understanding all those hundreds of knobs and parameters to better your understanding of what everything does, and how it affects the sound.

Endlessly twiddling parameters without knowing what its doing can be very frustrating for a beginner, unless you are stoned in which case it’s a good 30 mins of giggling when the sound goes “fweep”.

Synthesis comes in many different flavours, be it additive, subtractive or phase-distortion, for this tutorial we will be looking at Analogue modelling.

I will be using the very basic “analogue” synth that ships with every copy of Ableton as an example but the same principles of understanding how an analogue synth works will apply to hundreds of other plugins and even real-life hardware synths.

Although some features may differ, such as the amount of available oscillators, LFO’s, modulators and effects the principle remains the same.

Let’s go over what each part of a synth does.

OSCILLATOR

This is the sound-producing part. Ordinarily, this is also where you select the type of waveform you would like to use. Types of waveform differ from synth to synth, but most commonly have:

Sine – Good for very deep sub-bass lines.
Saw – Good for lead sounds.
Square – Good for meatier basslines.
Noise – your basic, everyday white noise, just like a detuned TV. Can be pink too.

Oscillators often have other control such as pitch (adjusts by semitone), fine pitch (which adjusts the pitch by cent) and pulse width (don’t worry about this for now).

Most synths have more than one oscillator. The more oscillators available, the richer your sound can be. Altering parameters very slightly using a set of oscillators can produce interesting results.

Analogue has 2 shown below.

What comes from the oscillator is a pure, untreated sound – let’s say your oscillator is set to a sine wave. The sound can now be “routed” to your chosen destination.

ENVELOPE

The envelope controls how the sound will play, and is made up of 4 components. Again this may vary a little from synth to synth.

Attack – How slowly the sound “comes in” when you press a key.
Decay – How quickly the sound dips after it has completed its attack.
Sustain – How long the sound continues to play for after the decay.
Release – How long the sound continues to play, after the key is released.

Envelopes are not limited to just the oscillator – often you will find redundant envelopes where parts can be “patched” in, such as an LFO for filter. The envelope tends to reside most often in the amplifier part of the synth.

Here you have a choice.. To modulate or not to modulate... the sound can be now routed to any of the following:

LFO

a Low Frequency Oscillator: Classed as a “modulator”, the LFO will warp the sound however you like. Controls of an LFO come in many shapes and forms, but the basics are: Rate, Depth, envelope (ADSR) and Shape (mostly sine, saw, square, and noise).

Say for instance, you wanted your sine wave to simply go up and down in pitch, smoothly and slowly to produce a sound like an ambulance siren. Simple – set the LFO to a sine wave, and adjust the LFO to 100% depth. Then adjust the rate until you get the desired effect. The higher the rate, the faster the sound is modulated. You can even make the LFO rate go so high it becomes an entirely new sound near resembling a particularly bad case of the shits.

Adjusting the “shape” of the LFO will case the sound to modulate to that shape – for instance a square wave will produce a harsher, choppier sound like a helicopter. A saw wave will create a more structured pitch-down like a rapidly repeating laser gun firing through space and destroying moons (although you won’t hear the destroying moons part.. that’s just a tangent).

FILTER

This will “shape” the sound, and consists of 2 key components, a filter sweep (or “cut-off”) and a resonance (also known as “Q”). The cut-off causes the filter to “sweep” through the frequencies according to its selected type (below). The Resonance boosts the frequency range set by the cut-off – nice for adding some really high-pitched ear exploding sounds. Watch you speakers when messing with a filter that has a very high resonance! Filters also come in a variety of flavours, most commonly:

LPF – Low-pass filter: Used to cause the sound to play only low frequencies, sweeping the cut-off up will cause an increasing degree of higher frequencies to pass though. Very commonly used.
BPF – Band-pass filter: Used to filter out frequencies within a certain band – as the cut-off is swept, the lower and upper frequencies are cut out.
HPF - High-pass filter: used to cut out all lower frequencies, as the filter cut-off sweeps down more of the lower frequencies are revealed.

Some synths offer a wider range of filtering capabilities including formant, notch and wah – its best to experiment whenever to really hear what they can do.

AMPLIFIER

The amplifier is, of course an amplifier... here you control the overall volume and the envelope. Some synths

OTHER STUFF YOU MAY FIND

The parts listed above are common to nearly all synthesizers - other stuff you may find is too wide and varied to cover in this tutorial, but stuff to look out for and certainly have a play with are: effects (reverbs, delays), ring modulators (wacky modulation of the main oscillator), frequency shifters (changes the tone of sound), vocoders (a whole new ball game), arpreggiators (triggering the oscillator to a set pattern) and sequencers (composing lines, riffs, even whole songs).

ROUTING

So, these are all the basic parts a synth uses to create sound. The confusing part comes with routing the oscillators or “patching”. The key thing to remember here is not everything needs to follow the same path – is your sound. Here is a very basic synth layout, and how it can be routed:

Routing is completed according to how your synth is set up - observe closely to figure out whats going on before starting to make up your sound.

So there you go a very basic outline of how a synth works. Hopefully this will help you to understand all those goings-on knobs sliders and buttons. Synthesisers vary unbelievably in their layout and features, so once you have a synth to play with, always take a bit of time to see where everything is, that way you’ll know where to go to get a sound your after.

Next time: How to create types of sound using a synthesizer.

Back from Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 14 May 2011 10:16:00 +0000

Back in merry old blighty after spending 3 weeks in Japan with family and feeling much better. Shop therapy really works.. although I did end up buying lots of spingly spangly Japanese things. Discovered a new passion while out there, making gundam models! Surprisingly addictive.. and after doing some research on returning back to the UK I find that half of the stuff i need to make the things look awesome I forgot to buy - Doh! Oddly enough, does not seem that popular here and is a bitch to get hold of the supplies. I have an awesome geara doga sitting here waiting to be built.. I my post a blog on how the build goes. Here's one I made earlier:

Strike Rouge!

Anyway, whats going on in the world of Chokai? Well, not much to be honest, there is a new track I am planning to release but it needs to have a nice b-side. I have worked a little on my other, more darker guise "the infinity circuit" on a new dubstep track, a style I am still struggling to refine but am slowly getting results. The plan is to have an album completed by the end of the year but with work, family and career commitments this may take longer than expected.. that and my insane addiction to minecraft which is possibly one of the greatest games ever made.. seriously.

More updates to follow in future, some track to be uploaded to the soundcloud very soon.

Later :)

Forgotten tune now uploaded

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:48:00 +0000

Stupid Tooty Train by chokai

:)

Merry Xmas all, a little gift to you

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:30:00 +0000

Merry Xmas all, as a special seasonal treat head over to the chokai website downloads page to grab yourself a free ableton live pack featuring super set of 8 electro-style drums created in operator and analogue.

Have yourself an awesome new year too, eat pies and smoke.

Ja-Ne!

Wha goin on?

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 10:57:00 +0000

Well, its been a very busy time in the real world unfortunately, which has impacted the productivity of Chokai. However, lots planned for the new year. I am feeling a new album hovering gently on the horizon, which may take a while to reach your ears but is none the less ominously edging towards your hammers anvils and stirrups.

In other news the production version of "Abunai" (live version below or here) will be available to download on the uber-cool new label SKPR Black from January 12th 2011. Watch out for some more spurious and obscure Chokai releases coming to this label very soon.

Got some more live tracks coming your way too, some more exciting, glitch mental beats and am considering getting back to my down tempo roots for a couple of tracks.
Anyway, if i don't update again have a very merry Christmas and new year, here is a link to a nice little album a stumbled the other day from the US artist "towns". Enjoy :)

Towns - From There To Here To There

Excellent ableton tips

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Have been following an excellent producer and performer Tom Cosm on YouTube, has some excellent tips on live performance using Ableton to which I am practicing a lot right now. (hence the vids in previous posts). One thing that is a bit annoying is the fact that lots of plugins (VSTi's) don't seem to be all that compatible with Ableton - one luxury I had with cubase in my previous studio setup. Shame since I really like the free vsti's available online, the "home brew" feel and sounds of some of them is awesome. I guess this means I'll have to be a little more creative with what is available.

You can follow Tom on his YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/cosmcosm or visit his website which has loads of tut's, music and live sets to download: http://www.cosm.co.nz/

2 more live jams

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:32:00 +0000

A couple more live jams now on youtube, take a look:

Sugaku - live version on YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 10:36:00 +0000

Recorded this little live performance of "sangaku" yesterday, one of the tracks I am currently working on - maybe will be released not sure.. got some tweaking to do to it first, but really enjoyed this little jam :)

New site up

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 13:58:00 +0000

The new Chokai website is finally completed.. still some work to do, and some free downloads coming very soon. Check it out at www.chokai.co.uk.

Akai LPD8

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 10:26:00 +0000

Received new pads to replace the fabled Nanopad - Akai LPD8. Setting it all up took around 5 mins - and one immediate difference which I really enjoy is the fact that the pads light up as you hit them. Build quality is a little plastic-y but I cant complain about the £44 price tag. Pads are responsive, and the CC functionality is quite handy too. Came with a library editor, but not much need for it as the first preset was setup perfectly for drum rack on Ableton - nice. Lets hope these pads last longer than 4 months.

Getting much more comfortable with the new setup now - have now completely moved over from sequencing on Cubase with hardware to albleton all software. I really miss the old gear but don't miss the 15 Min's of setup time required to get everything going, not to mention the 15 miles of cabling. Now it's a simple few switches and off we go. Getting some nice results too. Some tracks coming soon.

Can Akai save the day?

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:14:00 +0000

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/42343-akai-lpd8.html

Going to give this a go to replace the korg nanopisspad. Has a few knobs too.. this combined with the chopped up nanopad (x-y pad remaining) should suffice.

Korg nanopad = fail

noreply@blogger.com (Otosan) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 13:11:00 +0000

That's it, the pads have finally succumbed to an electronic-shit-build-quality end. OK, so I should not have expected much for its price tag, but I have only had it for 4 months.. would have thought it would have lasted a little longer. It'll be sticking around as an x-y pad for now until I can find a better alternative.

Korg, you have disappointed me, hang your head in shame you USB powered.. tits..

(Thanks BTW to Nick for your advice on trying to fix it!)