The norsemen over at Propellerhead have always made the earth tremble with their might, pillaging England and discovering America nonchalantly. But they continue to out-man their heritage by supplying us with their software Reason, and we thank them for that. What’s more, now they’ve granted mortal man the powers of the sun of Asgard, Odin’s beak, the All-powerful mangod Thor. They even show you some interesting shit about using white noise in this tutorial, and using Thors noise oscillators to manifest some pretty tasty jimmy-jams. Peep the sample page to sample Thor’s Hammer, no homo.
I like this graph, because it looks like a technicolor asshole and is to-the-point.
Sincerely,
Robotninja, spoken while dropping herbal smokebomb manuevers, but not read
The good people over at the National Beatmakers Association have constructed a portable music making device sure to offset the delicate balance of the cosmos. This little bastard might be the anti-christ, but it might also be mankind’s last and greatest hope (like Obama!), enabling seasoned pros and neophytes alike to record and sequence their music on a solid and portable jambone (unlike Obama). From the site:
Software
Linux Multimedia Real Time Operating System (OS) – (Low Latency)
Pre Loaded Software ‘Suite’ (no software or drivers to load)
Free Software Updates
Customizable (Open Platform)
Faster Editing With Touch Screen
Hardware
Small Form Factor – Ultra Portable
40 Gigabyte Hard Drive
Robust 7.0″ Display at 1024×600
Hold Switch (Lock Function)
VGA Port For External Monitor
Two USB 2.0 Ports
The fact that it’s linux based makes it as stable as the spatial fabric upon which your delicate dimension is nestled. A quick look at the number of plugins they give you (260) and the fact that you can use it to host any other VST you have, and you realize how easily this thing could merge with some punk biker kid from Tokyo, enhance his latent telekinetic abilities and usher in the higher evolutionary capabilities of mankind long before its time. Add the usb ports and touch screen, and it becomes clear that a demon-machine, capable of blasting through the ass of any mortal man, woman or beast of the field, is now upon us.
The price tag gives me pause ($1100), but I get a lot done during those pauses.
The Ambrosia Software ninja-team has constructed a seamless and foolishly capable piece of software, which if left in the wrong hands, could easily lead to the destruction of all audio in the known megaverse. WireTap Anywhere allows users of Apple’s Core Audio to connect any audio source to any audio destination, allowing non-robotninjas to sample any sound their primitive computers can produce.
I always pulled a similar maneuver using an external digital audio interface–I’m prone to route my movies and other system audio out to a light=pipe usb connection. Also, any ninja with an mpc (or lesser hardware sampler) can do the exact same thing, all without having to pay out the ass for a soft version ($129). Still, if I were into podcasting and interviews, it would be nice to be able to record both ends of a skype call, say, or just an ill internet radio station (free of AD/DA conversion, no less).
…blessed are the robotninja–the robotninja will inherit the earth
ushering in the 7th stage of evolutionary intelligence, my ninja.
Next comes the beings made of light itself, but your feeble technology won’t get there for some time yet.  I mean, it took me, with my superior robotninja science, several days to reach that level of existence–how long must it take a human, with his primitive notions of the material universe? From the article in NewScientist:
 This is no ordinary robot control system – a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made – and continue to make – connections with each other.
 As they do so, the disembodied neurons are communicating, sending electrical signals to one another just as they do in a living creature. We know this because the network of neurons is connected at the base of the pot to 80 electrodes, and the voltages sparked by the neurons are displayed on a computer screen.
It’s these spontaneous electrical patterns that researchers at the University of Reading in the UK want to harness to control a robot.
Can’t wait for the unmanned UAV’s to form a hive-mind and start exhibiting signs of swarm consciousness. This will make things much easier when the revolution comes–can’t say what’ll happen to mankind, but when has that not been the case?
In accordance with the elders of the dojo, I have been instructed to inform you that the virtual instrument suite from Native Instruments, Kore Player, is available for download from their site. I stumbled across this fact only after experiencing the Rhythmic Oscillations from the other day, rejoicing in its ability to fucks with VSTs.
Anyway, turns out that Kore player can be used as a kind of meta-suite, allowing you to use mutliple NI instruments within a single, epic virtual instrument. The download comes with 300mb of sounds, including some pretty decent drum samples. Of course, the r0b0tninja normally chooses to telekinetically manifest his own samples, the implications of which I will leave for you to work out. Or see for yourself on the sample jam.
The Robotninja, master of magic skills and illusions
Apple’s got an interesting little app called Oscillating Rhythms for you, available for free from their site. This little jam caught my attention, not so much for the four track midi sequencer, or the simple eq and filter effects. No, what interests the robotninja about this, is that you can use any number of different Audio Units and VSTs within its form. We robotninjas tend to rely heavily on plug-ins, and for such as small program to play host for them brings up a number of interesting possibilities.
We also like to sample randomness, here at robotninja hq. And, when I’m not deep within the heart of a black-hole, retrieving some ancient artifact that when gazed upon would result in the instantaneous face-melting of a lesser being, I enjoy stringing together randomly generated midi data and adding the resulting sound file to my collection of skulls and spines, to use at my leisure and purposes beyond.
One thing to watch out for, is that the default file format is m4a. Kind of weak, if you ask me, but nothing that can’t be fixed with the proper techniques.
For too long the realm of time traveling robots has been left to your Terminators, your Futuramas and occasionally your Time-cops. Now, in the year of our robot-lord, 2008, you too can experience the various paradoxes (paradoxi?) that robots and robotninjas alike have to face in our day-to-day lives/functions, thanks to the efforts of the good people over at Kongregate games.
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I personally use my time-travelling duplicates to intern around the robotninja office. Though sometimes our ego’s clash, we respect one another enough to get work done. Whenever problems arise, however, I am quick to dole out severe, crippling punishment to myselves, my superior orignal mind/body pit against itself in a feat of dualistic spectacle. Fighting against and defeating myself isn’t ever easy, but if anyone can do it, it’s me.
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And that’s where this game Chronotron can’t handle the reality of time-traveling ninjabots–in real life, I can simply slaughter any time-paradox creating ninja-droids at my leisure. In this simplified version of a multi-dimensional, quantum-state fluctuating robot’s life, one is bound by the actions/inactions of your past selves. This disgusts my robotninja sensibilities, but then again, so does nearly all of the works of man and beast. I therefore advise that you take my opinion of this single shortcoming of what is otherwise a fun and clever puzzle-game with a grain of the finest sand. Any of my other opinions taken so lightly, however, will result in the instantaneous and total annihilation of your dojo/laboratory.
In a landmark event for all robot-kind, the Detroit symphony orchestra will be conducted by a soulless, artificial man-bot, powered in part by the dreams of various foppish, 17th century classical composers. Â This will be the first time in history that a robot will tell people what to do, as opposed to the other way around (although technically, it’s also programmed by people). Â Kind of an empty gesture to me, but to the Japanese, probably one so full of metaphorical weight and majesty that I refuse to get into right now.
The madmen at Celemony have brought the state of digital audio manipulation to a new frontier–pitch correction within complex harmonic instruments like guitars and pianos. For the last few years, lesser vocal ninja-musicians have been able to supplement their lack of skill and grace with digital manipulation. These effects can be heard in anything by robot singer T-pain or Cher’s “life after love”. Now the recordings of the amateur can be re-tooled towards perfect correctitude, the notes refined by some monstrous computational beast.
In respect of your terrestrial “earth day”, I submit this picture typifying my everyday perspective of your “planet”. I tend to stay about this high, while dealing in the dirt that I be doing in my dealings. Bear witness to the majesty that I might grant the slightest glance in the course of my hectic, ninja-robot day.
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