More goodness from the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives on Flickr. These fantastically-yellowed photos, probably taken at the Skunkworks facility in Palmdale, CA in the 80’s, almost look like illustrations.
It’s not often that get very excited about modern audio equipment but when the name Neve is attached there’s always room for an exception. Rupert Neve Designs (not to be confused with AMS Neve) announced this week at Musikmesse a new desktop console dubbed the 5060. It’s meant to be a sort of studio centerpiece and features a 24×2 mixer with sends and transport control. There are other products out there that do this (the SSL Nucleus for one) but none do it while looking this good (although not quite as good as the original Neve Sidecar). Unfortunately, as is always the case with quality recording equipment, with a MSRP just under $8,000 USD the 5060 is way out of reach for all of us mortals and will most likely exist only in the world of medium to large sized professional studios. I guess I’ll just hold out hope that in 40 years I might find one at a garage sale of some lady who’s “son left it in the attic when he moved” or whatever cliche scenario it seems like everyone acquired their choice vintage gear via.
More info at Neve’s 5060 Page
Artwork by Michael Cina
My name is Chester Raj Anand. I’m from Upstate NY. I’m 20. I grew up in a small town called Red Hook. My brother got me into production at a very young age. By second grade I was used to experimenting on computer programs like Acid and Fruity Loops. I remember telling my 2nd grade teacher that Aphex Twin was my favorite.
It got to a point where I would lock myself in the basement everyday after school and make like 5 or 6 beats a day on my PC computer on fruityloops everyday until college. I’d mess with Indian tapes and records and keyboards. I never really knew about a beat scene at all. I didn’t even think that other people were doing the same thing or that this would become somewhat of a culture. I discovered people like Dilla & Dabrye and Madlib and it all blew my mind.
I decided to make my music public on my 17th birthday. I released an experimental beat tape called “17 Years” which got the attention of people at Asthmatic Kitty and Astro Nautico. And then I did some releases for them and changed my name from InfinitiRock to Lord RAJA.
Music has always been the biggest part of my life. I have always loved experimental and electronic music. I think I liked the idea of communicating with sounds rather than lyrics since a young age because when I would hear Indian music in the car I couldn’t understand the words. I just focused on the instrumental loops and saw that as a new form of expression or reflection. I was obsessed with records and all that. I like to mess with film also. I like to mess with everything.
via FactMag
I’m seeing a lot music apps lately that have amazing potential but this one has a uniqueness to it thats built in. Soo happy to see a label like Ninja Tune grab the bull by the horns and drive deep into the musical making experience, my only worry is that it gives the younger generation the mindset that they might own a song that they made with other artists samples, just sayin’.
head over to createdigitalmusic for a great Q&A about the app.
When’s the launch?
Today! April 11th, 2013
How much is the app?
It’s free to download and comes with 1 free tunepack (Beats and Pieces 3). You can purchase single tunepacks for a launch price of £0.69/$0.99, or “EPs” of 4 tunepacks for £1.99.
What tunes and artists will be included at launch?
Coldcut – Beats and Pieces 3 (comes free with the app)
Mr Scruff – Wobble Control
DJ Food – Dark Lady
Coldcut x Hex – Timber (Seiji Remix)
Two Fingers (Amon Tobin) – Fools
Bonobo – Eyes Down
Falty DL – Atlantis
Martyn – Masks
Starkey – Blood Roses
via CDM
I’ll always be a sucker for “Cold War Design” its usually the color then the paper that does it for me. Makes me want to tear down walls in old Polish apartments to look for printed patterns on decaying dry wall.
via present&correct
Some new stuff from one of my favorite designers, Leif Podhjaski. He’s been doing a lot of work for musicians lately (Tame Impala, Bonobo, Youth Lagoon to name a few). Loving that Horrors boxset packaging.
This is my second year going to NAB, a trade show each year in Las Vegas that includes cinema and broadcast manufacturers. Every component of moving image creation is changing quickly; lenses, camera sensors and editing / post applications, so I felt it was necessary to get out to Las Vegas and handle these things before I decide to throw down the price of a car and wait for a brown box to arrive.
After hearing and seeing a lot about the Freefly MoVI in the past few days, it was one of the first booths I stopped at. The MoVI is a handheld gyro stabilizer. What this does is stabilize your shots with little motors that constantly counteract any movement. Upon grabbing it, the first thing you notice is it’s REALLY light, however, all that was on the rig was a 1DC ( DSLR ) and Canon Cinema Prime, not too huge. It was easy to toss around and it remained relatively smooth. There’s something that no one has really mentioned yet, you need an AC to pull focus and unlike a Steadicam rig, you need someone remotely operating Pan / Tilt. I went in thinking it could be usable as a one man operated piece, but really it’d be a stretch. EDIT : After seeing more about it, they are showing a mode called “Majestic” and there is a “Lock Off” mode for one man operation. We all know that proper film equipment is not cheap, so it’s price isn’t too high for professionals, but it’s absolutely too expensive to be a “Change Gamer” as some people have said. There is a lighter version for 7500 coming later in the year, but still remains too high to get in the hands of the masses such as the 5DMII. It’s a breakthrough for the professional market though. I’m still hunting to find video of it with an Epic mounted on it. I’d love to have one or try one out on a shoot, though. The only good photo I got of this was a man doing the Lion King with it as onlookers were horrified. I did take a little video of it as well.
It felt fitting to shoot this man handling the camera in slow motion. Also, those are the real sounds of the people at NAB.
Phantom announced it’s own 4K camera that shoots up to 1000fps at 4K, the Phantom Flex 4K. The image I saw coming out of this wild animal is really smooth and has reached a cinema quality level. They are even saying that it will shoot 23.976 sync sound speeds so you can shoot it as your main camera in 4K and the image will be comparable to that of any other digital cinema cameras. These will come in around 160,000 loaded up. Oh and the 2TB CineMag that holds the footage is around 35,000, wow!
At NAB last year Red announced “6K resolution for 6,000 dollars”, with a sensor upgrade on the Epic camera with a sensor called Dragon. Coming across a few delays this year they started swapping out sensors today, at NAB. They built a “clean-room” at their booth and were literally building cameras at the show. It was cool to see an almost “behind the scenes” look at what happens to the cameras in the factory. Being an Epic owner, I’m excited about this and will most likely go for the upgrade at some point soon. I also got to see some proper 4K footage on a 4K screen at their booth and it has to be seen to be believed. The best way to describe it is when Apple introduced “Retina” on the iPhone. Only time will tell if it becomes adopted for home viewing.
I didn’t have a lot of time to check out Adobe or Cinema 4D at NAB, but there is a lot of coverage here on what they announced prior to the show. Most of what they did at NAB was demos, since it’s software, not too much to handle. The big things they have announced are native support for Cinema 4D files inside After Effects, yes inside. This is one of the biggest announcements for me, since I spend a lot of time in both applications. Check out the link above to get all the details, but it’s really cool.
Canon didn’t have any new announcements at the show other than a new addition to their Cinema Prime family. If you follow Canon in the digital cinema world, or attended NAB last year, it was almost the exact same thing. Their lenses are great, their products are great, just nothing too shocking.
I did get to handle a couple lenses I am absolutely in love with, the Arri Zeiss Master 35mm 1.9 Anamorphic and the Leica 35 1.4. Collectively, they’re both a solid downpayment on a home.
Blackmagic Design once again drew a huge crowd with two new cameras that stunned everyone. One is a camera that is literally a little bigger than an iPhone called the Pocket Cinema Camera. It shoots 1080p Prores, has 13.5 stops of dynamic range and is only $999.00. On handling it, it’s absurdly small and light. I can see this camera as a replacement for GoPros in some situations when you need a better image. I also see it for a lot of people that want to do visual effects work in a small light package. If a video artist or someone that works in After Effects that’s experimenting visually, they can have this camera in their desk with a lens and a couple batteries and really get some incredible footage out of it. Things like this are “Change Gamers”.
The next camera they announced was the Blackmagic Production Camera. This camera is a super 35mm sensor with a global shutter and shoots 4K. Here’s the kicker it’s 4,000.00. I still haven’t wrapped my head around this camera, but this also has such an incredibly low price point, every studio will have one.
The one thing I think is great about these low cost RAW cameras is what’s going to happen in the hands of visual effects artists. A lot of the barriers to great imagery are completely gone now, which brings me to my takeaway.
What does all this mean? There aren’t any technical / visual limits anymore. I think now everyone has an opportunity to make great images and it’s in the hands of the artists now to make things happen. Sure we’ll all geek out on tech, but I feel like the DSLR movement is sort of over and now we have real robust tools made for making real stuff.
Christie DLP 4K Projector, looks like it’s rideable.
This guy was doing event coverage with a 3D Epic rig at 5K, no one has told him 3D is over.
The FT-ONE is a 4K 1000fps camera, to me it looks like it’s a bread warmer.
Grips are getting fired.
The nicest zoom lens at the show.
If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to respond. I did see a lot of stuff and just pulled a few of the stand out moments.
Really happy to announce that I’ll be taking a break from the studio this summer to play the Lightning in a Bottle festival on July 14th, 2013. Always wanted to check out LIB, excited to be a part of it.