EarWaxx Sessions Week 4 recap

                        Going…going…STRONG! And a legend surprises all.

words by Drew Spence

I would never say that I hate on something, but I am a skeptic. I mean, when news about the EarWaxxSessions first hit my Editor’s desk I said “Every damn week?! These kids crazy. It’s Long Island; you can’t get kids offa that couch and outta that house EVERY week. Nah, son, they need to do this joint monthly.” I was wrong and I can admit it.

Crowd still strong? Yes.

Still enthusiastic? Yes.

Still well-organized and starting on time? Yes.

Tight Acts? Yessir

 

So, now that I see this engine has got no quits in it, let’s recap, rewind and reflect on week 4 for Long Island’s freshest artist/producer/talent showcase. The night opens with hosts @ChadLaw & @Rah_licious welcoming the crowd at exactly 10pm. [Yep, they be starting on time] After a few barbs and well-deserved attention to the lovely Rah_licious, ChadLaw brought out Fallout Shelter for the opening producer showcase part. Conflict of interest aside (ahem), it was a live hybrid-set of beats, bumpers and skits. The energy of rap arrived right after as Keez, YRA, CASTLE HEAD and the crowd that is Frank Buick by himself, tore up the stage.  Shaun Sutton got the ladies going with some sultry R&B. A.T.E BOYZ and AMA rounded things off before a surprise appearance by rap veteran and Juice Crew member Craig-G dropped his science for a new generation that’s more trappy than backpacky. It was an angry old man showing showmanship and why you still want a few veterans active in every war. Now that they’ve added guest appearances to the mix, there’s no telling what you’ll get next week.

 

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Why should you care?

Every artist and entertainer needs a place to show out and the EarWaxxSessions is providing a dope atmosphere by having a dope crowd assemble to enjoy and support good music. If you was thinking of doing it, get it together and do it there. Finally, we have a growing spot that combines generations, genres and future greats. Make Tuesday more than the day that follows Monday. They have.

 

Born-on-date a little early? Don’t know as much about hip hop as you should? Read into the history and career of rap veteran Craig G. There’s a lot more than the legendary verse on Marley Marl’s posse cut “The Symphony” and his own rap classic “Dropping Science”. Oh and if you are a fan of those battle rap leagues, this guy was doing it when it was raw.

 

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ASR 10 FlexiDrive Installation and Notes

FloppyEmulator.com Return of the Ensoniq ASR-10

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Part I: FlexiDrive

Harden your Hardware and forget your Floppy – words by Drew Spence

FlexiDrive Multi-Volume mounting mission

They don’t make them like this anymore. We turn back to a time when a sampler meant you recorded audio and created…samples. The Advanced Sampling Recorder is a classic piece pulled from the days of hardware-only, in a time when a collection of crates was known as your soundbank. Writer Sean Maru has covered the ASR-10 in great detail in his Vintage Series article in issue 01 (page 35).  Here, we take a look at ‘dropping the floppy’ and adding a more modern storage system to the ASR-10.

FloppyEmulator.com is all about replacing the floppy drive on your machine with USB and SD mounted media. They cover a wide range of brands, including Kawai, KORG, Yamaha and Roland.

[More info here: http://www.floppyemulator.com/category/applications/musical-instruments/]

For this article, I will focus on my own experience with the ASR-10. I chose the $385.00 USD FlexiDriveMV-SD, which is a multi-volume SD card-reading drive. I could have also chosen the USB reader for the same functionality and cost. The idea is to have EVERY floppy disk saved on a single SD card (including the O.S. Disk). They boast a single card solution can store up to 2,500 Disks and that’s more than enough.

Faceplate and Facepalms

Firstly the disclaimer: Producer’s Edge Magazine is in no way suggesting you follow this article or video as an instructional guide and is not responsible for any damage to you or your equipment. Maintenance and upgrades should only be done by qualified persons and any attempted alterations may void your warranty.

My package from FloppyEmulator.com arrived shortly and included a nice SD card reader and a 4 Gigabyte Kingston SD card.

There are numerous screws on the bottom of the ASR-10. I removed these to lift the faceplate and get access to the internals.

ASR-10 Internals

The FlexiDrive sits in the same bay and connects to the exact same cables from the floppy drive. I took pictures as a reference to see how everything was connected. I also took note that the ASR-10 was upside down, so the drive bay would be installed upside down. Although the FlexiDrive came with proper mounting screws, I reused the ASR’s screws. I used two different screw drivers, a normal Phillips for the body screws and a smaller PC Phillips-head driver for the smaller screws that secure the drive’s mounting bay. Since the holes are in a tight space, I used tweezers to hold the screw in place and then screwed down from the space above, in the drive mount’s frame.

ASR-10 getting Screwed

Once secured, I only used a few bodily screws to put the faceplate back on since I wanted to make sure the new drive worked before closing up the ASR-10. Nuts! The drive powered up, but the ASR didn’t see it. I opened her back up and re-secured the drives’ connecting ribbon and voila, we are in business. Oh wait! I forgot to make an image of the O.S. Disk before removing the floppy bay. No problem, you can find ASR-10 Operating Disk images on the internet in various places.

AND HERE: http://www.ProducersEdgeMagazine.com/griffinavid/asrosimage.zip

When I start the ASR-10, she tunes the keyboard and then asks for the systems disk. I use the browser on the front of the new FlexiDrive and load the image of the O.S. floppy and the ASR-10 boots up.

Overall, I’m quite happy with this purchase and the tech support from FloppyEmulator.com. It’s a relatively expensive solution, but when weighed against the cost, concern and hassle of maintaining an extensive library of floppy disks, it’s more than worth it. FloppyEmulator.com

**** NOTE: You can load an image of your ASR-10 Operating Disk and save it to the INTERNAL DRIVE of the FlexiDrive and load that image first upon start up.

This means you can skip the step I show of loading your ASR-10 O.S. Image every time you start the ASR-10. This is much better solution. The instructions are located in chapter 2 of the Settings & Functions pdf.

Alternatives Storage Recommendations -10 (well, maybe two, not ten)

There are other solutions for working with a single loading floppy bay emulator. The HxC Floppy Emulator is a hardware unit designed to retro-fit and can be found on a few sites and eBay for ~$70.USD

There are numerous USB to Floppy drives available, ranging from $30 to $60 USD. These work for normal PC floppy drive operations but DO NOT work for reading/writing/emulating our specialized drives and their formats.

My modern PC [Griffin Avid edit: It’s really old, but runs Windows 7 just fine] doesn’t have a floppy bay/drive so I decided to visit the nearest mom & pop computer store and pick one up for $15 USD. I had old spare ribbons sitting around and luckily, my mother board had the right slots. The next mission is to archive all of my old floppy disks, on my PC and then transfer them to the SD card reader on the ASR-10. isoBuster is next.

Drew Spence has Adventures in Poor Taste – the interview & Mark of the Griffin

Drew Spence & Mark of the Griffin have Adventures in Poor Taste

I hope everyone’s New Year is off to a great start. The Producer’s Edge office is counting down to Winter NAMM and we can’t wait to see what all of our favorite manufacturer’s have in store- eh, no pun intended.

As most of you know, I’ve been working on the comic book and web series Mark of the Griffin. It’s about a regular guy who gets recruited into an organization called the AGENCI and grows to become a fearsome vigilante-like detective. I illustrate the comic, create the soundtrack and run around in the web series. It’s been an awesome experience and a well-received project.

I did an interview with the hugely popular blog Adventures In Poor Taste. Check it out. Thanks for all your support and don’t forget to ‘be a Mark’  tweet, share and like.

Drew Spence on Adventures In Poor Taste

Oh and one more thing. New music from Domino Grey. This is a special song with an important message to help start the New Year get rolling. A big thank you to RadioWaves.US for adding on. We have a lot going on in 2013, I hope to hang with you some more.

– Drew Spence

Editor In Chief, Producer’s Edge Digital Magazine

New web series Mark of the Griffin 1st Trailer and Episode -1 is here

Angel of Mercy and Daemon of Vengeance.

Readers, Edgers, Greys and Markers;

Mark of the Griffin season 01 trailer 1

As we speed towards the next issues of Producer’s Edge and Rapper’s Delite magazine, I’ve created a new action-based web series called Mark of the Griffin. Yes, Griffin Avid was delighted about the name.

I play Marcus Griffin, a would be vigilante who gives up on his dreams of making a difference until he is recruited by a shadowy organization called the AGENCI. This is the season 1 trailer and a -1 episode drops this Friday soon to be followed by episode 0.

There is a graphic novel and soundtrack for every video. Music is supplied by EDM artist Domino Grey, Dynamics Plus and the rest of Fallout Shelter.

Episode -1: Failure of an Angry Man with a Gun

 

Thank you for supporting our projects. Don’t forget to share, like, subscribe, comment and basically become a Marker for this series. Stay tuned in!

Drew Spence EIC
Producer’s Edge Magazine

Video Link
MOTG Website

Blog Mark of the Griffin

Facebook for the Mark
Twitter for the Mark

Fallout Shelter Radio Show on IndieRock FM

Tune in, Get Turned on as we Turn it out!

The Fallout Shelter hits your airwaves starting on Friday, April 27^th    from 8 to 10 pm. Every Friday night Griffin Avid, Drew Spence, Domino Grey and Xodus Phoenix mix up anything with a groove that makes the needle move. From electronica to experimental hip hop, it’s a radio show unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

Guest DJs drop in to the Fallout Shelter Radio Hour and spin the best in electronic music. We’re on IndieRock.FM. Point your browser to the number one international independent online Platform for hearing the best underground music from around the world. It’s Lower East Side radio blasted by the Fallout Shelter!

Tune in, Get Turned on as we Turn it out!

IndieRock.FM

LRS.FM | Live Radio Shows |was founded in 2011 and will be providing quality radio to the public. Located in the heart of the Music Industry in New York City, the Lower East Side.

Fallout Shelter Radio Show on IndieRock FM