Greetings my ninjas and/or robots. In conjunction with the bombastic jazz ninja Herbie Hancock, Ableton Live is holding a contest to see who can represent Herbie’s music with the funkiest soul power. Sample, re-record, or be inspired by Herbie’s abstract funk: his pattern-based thought process offers countless possible candidates. The winner’s music will no doubt be heard by the Man himself, and almost as amazing, will win the latest as yet unreleased version of Ableton’s extraordinary music production software, Live 7. No doubt, the R0b0tninja is well-versed in Herbie’s massive musical proliferations. Witness the results of this challenge on the R0b0tninja, and who knows, maybe R0b0tr0n itself will take notice. But beware–the corporate entity’s blessing is as deadly as its curse.
R0b0tr0n offers exciting new careers in such fields as: multi-dimensional bomb- droppery, advanced turbonics, logistical metaphysics and diamond robotics. Come see which robots are right for you! Act now
Use magnetic tape, my ninjas. Please. For years, the most respected ninja-audio scientists have known that analog and digital recording offer two distinct sonic possibilities. Analog recievers/recorders tend to use tubes to amplify the signal, and magnetic tape to record that signal. This process, as I will tell you, disregards the odd-numbered harmonics in a given sound, leaving the signal with a warmer, richer tone (for examples, see the latest posts on my music sites, or, compare early Bob Marley to his later stuff). Digital recording, in comparison, either includes odd numbered harmonics, or excludes even numbered ones. And for any of my ninjas hopelessly confused: all sounds are conglomerations of smaller sounds called harmonics. The almagamation of these harmonics become the sounds that we all know and recognize. It is the sworn duty of anyone bearing the title of R0b0t Ninja to honor and refine these sound wave harmonics to the macro-evolutionary apex at which we find ourselves. Which led me to purchase this little number on the ebay.
It’s amazing. I love it so much, as does black jesus–feel free to witness it’s sonic warmening on the R0b0tninja, as well as the R0b0tr0n/dub R0b0t interwebs. It is called an Akai M-8, 1/4 inch reel to reel tape recorder, with bloody, wonderful orange tubes glowing inside it. Ancient, high ninja-technology represent.
My silent but deadly ninjas,
Eidos, maker of such classic games as Tomb Raider and a few others, has developed Traxxpad, a mixing and sampling software/game that allows beginning beat-smiths and seasoned beat-masterdragons alike to mix beats in the comfort of their train-station, automobile and aeroplane dimensions.
Considerably less powerful than a laptop but far more powerful than a cell-phone, using the Psp as an audio production machine both interests and enrages your usually agreeable R0b0tninja, for reasons that I will soon describe.
Technology has always been a mainstay of music production: the first pianos, organs, harpsichords, and drums, were all pieces of high technology at their time. Intense dedication was required from the individual to transform these intimidating and complex machines into instruments of beauty and creation. This PSP sound system, therefore, represents a powerful, portable and accessible instrument that allows the common lay-ninja to create on similar levels to that of a R0b0tninja warl0rd. This pleases me, but it also fills me with a murderous rage that can only be quenched by spilling countless gallons of the blood of mine enemies.
For it also stands at the nadir of a trend of musical dumbening, pioneered by sony with its playstation title MTV’s music generator. Guitar hero, parappa the rapper—-these are the classic, you-can-do-it-too, douchebaggy games we all know and love, that allow anyone with 50 dorra to make what amounts to awful cartoon rap and classic rock. What the music generator and Traxxpad do is extract the you-can-do-it concept from the goofy, classic video-game modality, and create a soulless, musically deadening synthesis of edutainment and homogenous culture.
A stripped-down music production tool that lets average users ‘create’ beats using pre-selected samples and auto-quantized rhythms, Traxxpad lets you step-up to the genius-level status of the last 10 years of pop music with ease (although, I do think it’s cool that you can record using the psp mic and import your own loops with a memory stick…). I still have trouble accepting producers who only use samples and pass it off as their own–whatever happened to self-mastery? Now is the time, my ninjas, to bring it back to the skills.
R0b0tninja mind/body connect
R0b0tic dubs for the masses: giving form to the formless, light to the dark, knowledge to the ignorant, strength to the weary, blessing to the cursed.
I ninja Dreadren,
Who wan tes. As Iman would say, praise be to the most high in all him forms and works. Blessed is Iman robot, who would help H.I.M. bredren to behold Jah glory, decapitate baldhead vampire, and who in him breath, make babylon tower fall. Blessings be to Iman ninja who, by Jah mercy, slay the seven-head beast with him hand, and teach overstanding to lost I-dren along the Way. Jah Bless.
Myninjas, when I attempt to describe the ninja-blasting potential of different synthesizers to you (in these posts, and in the greater soundscape), I can only offer you different aspects of certain instruments, midi structures and samplers that people like Ableton and Propellerhead have taken the time to create.
That being said, for the more esoteric ninja for whom the current synthetic lexicon is never vast enough, Native Instruments Reaktor 5 allows the discriminating r0b0tninja to forge his own weapons of mass destruction and distribute them worldwide in the online Reaktor 5 user library. Good luck battling the US military, although as a r0b0tic ninja you probably have more important things to worry about…
The Reaktor core is unlike anything else. While several audio applications can mangle audio into feedback loops, leading to chain reactions of deafening proportions, inside the Reaktor, highly unstable elements can be multiplied together exponentially. Different levels of macrocosmic and cellular elements can be combined to form instruments, the user able to arrange and assign knobs and sliders to any of the endlessly customizable inner connections. Combine that with its ability to be used as a VST (virtual instrument) inside Live or Logic or whatever, and you begin to understand the pure nature of its sonic potential; as in life, the uninitiated will risk certain deafness, while the pr0b0t faces only the risks of being def.
Explore vast regions of inner and outerspace with the R0b0tninja! Witness, as he manifests the combined output of mankind’s most powerful synthesis techniques!
Most venerable and esteemed ninjas: one of my many arch-nemesis is up for auction! Be forewarned–the next owner of this fire-breathing, car-eating R0b0t dinosaur will be, as per agreement, subject to R0b0tninja preemptive attack. The last time I fought this bastard, it had ate the back half of my 1999 subaru outback while I was in the store buying a blunt. I just ran in for like…five seconds, and I come out to see this R0b0saurus ass nigga eating all on my whip. I beat him down hard, but not before he ate like half my ride up.
Now, I know that the R0b0tninja seldom breaches the topics of Robots and pro-audio, but I must make an exception: Ninja Gaiden Sigma is the most accurate depiction of a R0b0tninja’s lifestyle that I have seen thus far. The Hagakure, the Book of Five Rings, the Tao: all of these have attempted to give a framework for the robotic pan-asiatic ninja warrior’s mindset. So far, unfortunately, none have correctly depicted our skill sets as aptly as the latest Ninja Gaiden, released for the completely ridiculous and financially unfeasible PS3 game console prefecture.
In the latest installment in a series that, like all true Robotninjas, began life as an 8-bit rendering, you play as Ryu, a ninja (and possible robot–it takes place in the future), who somehow begins his journey in ancient Japan. His village is destroyed by a black samurai (with a purple cape, so, not just black, but also clearly Black). In revenge, he explodes the black samurai’s blimp after first exploding a grotesque cyborg that shoots lightening. It gets better.
You take the time to learn ninja magic, wield multiple swords, and to use the numchucks (spelled here in their original ancient pronunciation). Infiltrating the black samurai’s block in, what I assume is some kind of ninja city, you spend most of your time killing shit, like soldiers on motorcycles with rocket-launchers. This may be the first game to make decapitation a matter of such little concern, as you literally murderate everything you come in contact with.
Gamespot gave this game a 9 overall, but I would have to give it a 999–as a ninja and robot, I am always talking to my robotninja colleagues about the lack of fair and accurate portrayals of our kind in the media. People are always going on about our deadliness and limited applications in the “real world”, where instant decapitation isn’t always an option. It’s nice to finally see some fair and balanced representation, where our sometimes inappropriate needs for vengeance and ninja-magic are finally given a chance to be understood. If you don’t mind shelling out like 500 dollars for a PS3, and then another 60 bucks for the game, by all means, see the world through my eyes, if only for a moment: you will never be disappointed.
