Monthly Archive for May, 2005

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Installing NTP (time synchronisation)

Published on May 19, 2005 in Linux. Closed Tags: , , , .
Set timezone (optional)
create symbolical link from /usr/share/zoneinfo/... to /etc/localtime:
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime
Set UTC mode (optional)
if your hardware clock runs in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) mode, add
UTC=true
to the /etc/sysconfig/clock file
Make sure ntpd is not running
Use service ntpd stop to stop it.
Choose the NTP server you will get your time from
it can be an internal server that has the NTP service open for clients, or an public NTP server. To be sure, use 2 servers. To check if you can access it, run ntpdate timeserver.ntp.ch
Edit the /etc/ntp.conf file
Rename the current file to ntp.bak.conf and make a small new one:
restrict default ignore
server timeserver.ntp.ch # Swiss time
server ntp.ucsd.edu # Univ of California, San Diego
restrict timeserver.ntp.ch mask 255.255.255.255 nomodify notrap noquery
restrict ntp.ucsd.edu mask 255.255.255.255 nomodify notrap noquery
server 127.127.1.0 # local clock
fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10 #so it only takes over if the rest fails
restrict 127.0.0.1 driftfile /etc/ntp/drift broadcastdelay 0.008 authenticate no
Set your system clock right
Run the following command a couple of times:
ntpdate -u timeserver.ntp.ch # or whatever server you want to use
You will see the initial diffence in time go away afer the 2nd or 3rd time.
Set hardware clock
/sbin/hwclock --systohc
Run the ntpd daemon
service ntpd start
Add ntpd to the services started at boot time
chkconfig ntpd on
Check the NTP results
ntpd -p
will show you what the difference is between your clock and that of the servers you added. You are looking for lines like

remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
==========================================================================
LOCAL LOCAL 10 l 30 64 377 0.000 0.000 0.004 *
192.168.246.107 192.168.246.88 3 u 41 128 177 0.313 5.598 0.345
and not lines like

remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
==========================================================================
192.168.246.126 LOCAL 11 u 37 128 375 0.204 6082.02 6069.84
Jitter is too high!

REQ: Live mashup performance tool

Published on May 9, 2005 in music. 5 Comments


I have an idea for a software that I would love to use to do live mashup performances. It’s based on experiences I’ve had with different types of software and hardware tools, but none has the exact functionality I’m looking for. The inspiration I got comes from different sources:

  • a concert last week of Les Truttes in the Monk. One of their numbers is a 15 minute instrumental medley of great riffs (rock/house/elektro/…). They play it with live instruments, but it should be possible to do something similar with a PC. When done right (like Les Truttes) the audience goes crazy.
  • a reggae dub concert of Zion Train I saw a wile back on Couleur Cafe where the DJ used live dub FX on the singer’s voice and other instruments. I knew it could be done, but I had never seen it done so skillfully.
  • some videos I saw from turntablist DJ Z-Trip, doing live mashups with regular decks. Handling two decks is easy, three harder and four would be rather impossible. What if you could have 16 simultaneous tracks?
  • using a Roland MC-505 Groovebox. The pre-programmes rhythms are not always very inspired, but the user interface is very intuitive for live performances: basically an 8-track mix deck.
  • using Acid Pro 5.0: they already had the best timestretching capabilities, they’ve now added the groove patterns (for e.g. converting a square quantized beat into something with a shuffle feel). But Acid is purely an authoring tool, not for live performances
  • using Ableton Live 4.0: they have some good features for live performances and the feel of the buttons is very musical (if you click on a loop just before the beat, the loop starts running along right on the beat, which feels very intuitive). No support for MP3 files or beatmapped tracks.

The goal here would be to improvise: just like a DJ does not know up front what tracks he’s gonna play in what order, the live mashup DJ wouldn’t know what his set is gonna be like. He just arrives with his portable PC , starts with e.g. a Jon Cutler acapella over Prince’s Controversy beat, throws in some Justin Timberlake vocals, keyboards from Depeche Mode and a De La Soul sample, goes to the break with Michael Jackson’s “Ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa” and Daft Punk with a wah-wah filter. Whatever.


So the software I have in mind would work in the following way:

  • LIBRARY: obviously you start with a large library of audio: 4-bar, 8-bar loops, one-shots, beatmatched accapella’s, in any of the WAV, MP3 or WMA formats. Like ACID, each of these loops/samples can contain length information and/or tuning. Using a C# loop in a G# track would cause the sound to be tuned up 7 semitones (or tuned down 5 semitones). You would have stuff like Missy Elliot accapellas, James Brown grunts, the Funky Drummer groove, the Blue Monday beat, maybe some famous movie quotes taken from DVDs (Monty Python, Chris Rock, Arnold, …)
  • TOOLBOX: you arrange a number of these sound files on a kind of soundboard, a bit like the Ableton Track view, but without the vertical time axis. You can save and reload these toolbox configurations. Beatmapped tracks and loops are synced to the main BPM, one-shots can be either synced (they start on the first beat) or not (they start immediately when you click them).
  • MULTITRACK: you can now drop these sounds on a multitrack, with mute/solo & volume control, a parametric EQ, some FX controls.
  • FX-MANIPULATION: you can drag-n-drop FX on individual tracks or on the master (output) controls. The effects (delay, reverb, wah, compressor, …) can be manipulated in real-time. Ableton Live already does a pretty good job of this.
  • DRUMTRACK: the drumtrack can again be split up in 8-16 instruments with separate volume and mute control and each part. This should work the way the MC-505 Groovebox works.
  • CONTROLLER: ideally you could add a USB/FireWire/Midi controller to the setup so you can use real buttons, dials, sliders and LEDs.
  • BATTLE-MODE: you can connect 2 systems to each other so they run on the same BPM, and 2 DJs can ‘compete’ or ‘cooperate’.
  • MIC-AUX INPUT: microphone and other input (guitars, keyboards, vinyl decks, …) can be routed through the software and used for sampling and FX manipulation.

Does something like this already exist? Would Sony or Ableton be close to creating it?

Chinese music business model: copyrightless

Published on May 8, 2005 in copyright and music. Closed


China seems be showing that in a world where no one wants to pay more than $4 for a CD and most CDs are pirated, the artists can still survive.

In the USA, free downloads of copyrighted music are driving the recording industry to sue teenagers and holler about the morality of obtaining songs for free. But if China is the future, that’s all in vain. The genie is out of the bottle. Eventually, recorded music will no longer make money.
(…)
Yu Quan and most other Chinese pop artists similarly find ways to make money other than through selling CDs. A lot of it comes from sponsorship. Clothing, shampoo and computer brands pay to advertise at a concert. A bottled-water company put singer Wang Lee Hom on its products.
USA Today

The danger with this scenario happening in the US or Europe is that, while the RIAA/IFPI might lose some of their power over artists, that power might be turned over to the (artist management department of) ClearChannels of this world. And however talented you may be, you would better look good or at least ‘interesting’ too, or you might not be able to get a contract.

Just ask Kim Cleysters where Anna Kournikova’s money comes from.

via Standaard In-De-Hoek