Sad Skelton

I can’t say I ever loved the Embassy.  Nor did I even really like.  But with news of it coming down in the near future it did bring back some very fond memories.

Our first band SEeKing Dawn really cut it’s teeth playing at the Embassy.  It was one of the few places that would let all the band members in, considering they were all 15 & 16 years olds.  In fact I believe the first time we played at the Embassy would have been when Andrew was 13.

The bathrooms were always disgusting.  I made a point of never having to take a crap at a show there.  Just one of those key tips you learn when playing in a band - there are certain places you don’t want to touch.

All in all I think it’s day has passed.  The music scene in London is very different than it was in the 80s or 90s.  Places like Embassy and the Brunswick just don’t seem be able to draw the same crowds.  It’s time was done and though I’m sad those days are over, I’m sure there are better times coming.

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/samtherobot2 to see some classic SEeKing Dawn concerts at the Embassy.

As well read the London Free Press article announcing the news.

This ended up being kind of a last minute show but we’ll be playing at the Outback Shack this Friday as a benefit Sunshine Foundation.  It will be Sad Skelton with Pilgrim and Matt Naylor.  Details below:

Saturday March 21, 2009
Show begins at 9pm
Outback Shack Fanshawe College
$4 at the door/$3 in advance

Facebook event page

Got an email a couple weeks ago from the guys FNA Radio.  Apparently they found some of the tracks we had posted on the The Favourite Game website and Rock went to #2 in it’s first week.  It’s always fun when people find your music and like it without us having to say anything.

Anyway, they wanted to do an interview so we setup a whole Skype thing (I’d never tried it actually but it worked great).  I think it’s going to be airing Wednesday March 18 so check it out at FNARadio.com

Oh yeah and if you don’t know who “The Favourite Game” then check out the website.

I often Google (yes it’s a verb) our band name to find out if there is anything out there about us that I don’t know about (admit it, you Google yourself too!).

Today when I did it there were a couple entries that sparked a smile, and not because they were gushing about us.  The first one had the title “Sad Skelton is forced out of Cole fight“.  I don’t remember being lined up for any fight.  Reading the article a little deeper revealed Matt Skelton (no relation) had been forced out of a fight because of a viral infection.  What are the odds.

Then the second was even better.  Our first descriptive bad review.  They made sure to get our name right (Sad Skelton…yes Skelton) which I appreciate.  I particularly liked the description of our style.  “…a bunch of skinny guys playing guitars and taking turns singing inspired lines about shining plus some lackluster synth junk“.  I don’t think we’ve ever had a review that descriptive!

It really isn’t new but it seems new to me.

First I’d like to say thank you to all those who came out to our show at the museum this past Friday.  The show was a huge success from all angles and we enjoyed showing off our new stuff to everyone.

One thing I didn’t really expect (although I don’t know why, I do work as a web designer) was that the social networking aspect of promoting a band is the best way.  I say that somewhat in a selfish way.  Normally I was the one doing most of the promotion for our shows, marketing and general image.  However within hours after us playing at the museum there were videos posted on our Facebook page.  So cool, a better angle than our camera was getting and someone else did the work of posting it!

All that to say I think it’s really cool and want to encourage anyone who has photos or video of us playing to post it to our Facebook page.  Of course that is if you liked us.

So fun to see videos show up when you Google “Sad Skelton”.

Sad Skelton will be the featured music at the preview of a new art exhibit opening of “Cultivating Care: Life and Treatment of London’s Asylum“.  This is also the first event of the newly created “Museum Underground” program designed to cater to a younger audience.

Show should start around 9:30pm with the ribbon cutting and preview of the exhibit at midnight.

Takes place at Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North in London Ontario.

Hope to see you there!

Facebook Event - Friday Night at the Museum
Museum London

I’ve always had a hard time with overwriting presets on any of my instruments.  “What if I need that one!”.  Like I’m actually going to need a

Seeing MIDI hex code made me think about Reboot

synthesized birth chirp sound.  And yet I still can’t bring myself to overwrite them.

It has become standard with virtual instruments, DAWs and everything computer that you can save pretty much everything.  However I still lament the prevalence of the MIDI standard of 25 some odd years.  But there is hope even with that.

It seems my Nord Lead 2x has the ability to dump all settings as a MIDI system exclusive message.  I just need to find a way to store that data.  Enter MIDI-OX.

MIDI-Ox eases the pain of working with MIDI, if only slightly.  It at least gives an insight into what is going on as well as tools to modify and conform MIDI to do your bidding.

To capture a MIDI SysEx message:

1. Open MIDI-Ox
2. From the View menu select SysEx. This will open a window with 2 panes.  The top one for entry (if your so daring as to actually write or modify SysEx HEX code) and the bottom for receiving.
3. From the SysEx menu select Receive Manual Dump
4. Send SysEx message from the keyboard.  On the Nord Lead 2x you do this by holding the shift button and clicking Dump One for one program or performance, or Dump all for the entire bank.
5. Click done.  Your program info should be now displayed in the bottom pane.
6. Select Command Window > Save to save to a text file.

It’s amazing how little amount of data there is to make up the settings for a single Nord Lead 2x program.  Now I finally can save an unlimited number of sounds.  Here is the sound I saved.  Looks grand!

F0 33 0F 04 00 00 08 04 04 04 07 04 0A 03 00 00 04 02 00 00 00 00 06 04 0E 04 01 04 0A 05 00 00 06 03 0E 07 06 03 0C 04 04 06 00 00 0E 01 05 04 0F 02 03 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 01 00 01 00 03 00 02 00 02 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 03 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 F7

MIDI has been with us as a standard since 1983 controlling synths and various other related musical gear.  It created a whole new way to make music in ways that were previously impossible or extremely difficult.  However it amazes me in this world of fast paced technology changes, how it has survived so long.

In recent weeks and months, MIDI has become the bane of my existence.  Normally when creating synth parts we record the MIDI data into Ableton live with a keyboard.  Have the various tracks of the song in MIDI makes it super simple to edit.  However often commands that you didn’t want recorded somehow get embedded in the tracks that you don’t want.

Last night I fought forever with why my bass track routed out through my Nord Lead 2X synth was fading in as if I had programmed in a volume envelope.  After much banging of my head and yelling at the computer, antagonistically named “Toe-she”, I finally realized somehow in Ableton Live I had mapped the volume control of another track (which was muted I might add) to the output volume of the synth.  Don’t ask me how.

Unfortunately I can’t do without MIDI, it’s too important in the production of electronic music.  But how do you replace a 20+ year old standard?  Well there are efforts being made, the most significant of which is OpenSound Control.

OpenSound Control is a protocol, much like MIDI, designed to send messages between digital devices.  However unlike MIDI, OpenSound Control is far more versatile.  To best illustrate this you can actually download a freeware app called lanniX.  With lanniX you can build virtual controls that send specific messages, much like MIDI.  However the messages carry far more versatile information at greater speeds.

For instance, with MIDI you designate a channel to send on then pass various messages.  An example would be a volume controller.  The MIDI message would have a CONTROL message along with which controller (volume is controller 7 normally).  With OpenSound control you would specify a readable text name instead of a controller number.

The other huge advantage is the speed at which OpenSound Control operates at.  Using UDP as it’s main transport protocol, the bandwidth and speed it operates at far exceed the old MIDI standard.  This just translates into no more midi delay.

I really hope this technology catches on and at some point in my lifetime we can say goodbye to MIDI forever.

We’re finally almost ready to meet the world.  We here at Sad Skelton have been feverishly readying new songs to play our longest show yet.  Hopefully we’ll have the show announcement up here within a week or so.

This site is designed as a way for us to give you a small insight into what is happening with the band, for better or worse.  Sometimes will be songs postings, new dance moves, endless ramblings but always in the spirit of Sad Skelton.

Leave a comment if you wish to say hi, we’ll try and respond promptly.  And if you’re viewing this from our facebook page, click “View original post” to see the full real deal on our own site.

bye for now

If you want to have fun in a band you really should be friends first. Our long standing friendship started before the band with Kevin Black and therefore continues after The Favourite Game ended. But though we don’t play in the same band together it almost makes it easier and more fun to work on music together.

For our upcoming show on January 30th, Kevin Black will be playing with us for some of the first set. We asked Kev for a couple songs and we’re in the process of adding some “Sad Skelton” personality to them.

It’s amazing in this day and age to be able to work on music together even when you live in different cities. We’re pulling somewhat of a “Postal Service”, a band who did a whole album in separate cities.

And now that we’re working the kinks out of the “remote” song construction workflow, we hope there will be many more collaborations with our good friends.

http://www.myspace.com/kevinablack