My Favorite Techno Artists

We were supposed to blog on some artists that use synthesizers in their work. I'd like to mention my two favorite techno artists: Tiesto and Moby.

Moby's style (if you discount Moby's actual singing) often involves repetition of short, unvaried vocal samples. Consider the following examples:

Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad


Moby - Flower


This style that Moby uses reminds me a lot of "Its gonna rain" - id say Moby seems to represent a coming of age with regard to the sample repetition started by "Its gonna rain".

Tiesto's style is what I consider to be more of a mainstream, commercial techno sound. Tiesto features longer and more complex vocal tracks than Moby as well as a faster paced tempo, and use of (what sounds to me to be) some sound effects based on granular synthesis.

Tiesto - I Will Be Here


Tiesto - In My Memory

Hamsters Creating MIDI Music

In my search for MIDI files, I came across this project by a Cornell student named Levy Lorenzo. He designed a set up which made it possible for six hamsters to trigger inputs through their movements, which were then routed through a MIDI sequencer. The music was created with 3 voices spanning three octaves and three rhythmic tiers, each with varied by two hamsters which modified the rhythm and the note sequence. The posted MIDI file on the project's webpage is surprisingly easy to listen to, with no random-sounding hamster chortling.

If the hamsters do an album, I hope they call me to design the album cover...