« Redesigning
The Add Wiki »

Plogue Bidule

I bought a little USB keyboard, and I’ve been playing with a cool program called Bidule. It’s a super flexible modular… um… music environment? You may have seen this sort of program before — Buzz, Audio Mulch, Energy XT — but it’s basically music-making via flow chart, which is much cooler than it sounds. In the interface, I can wire the MIDI from my keyboard into my mellotron effect — or I can wire it into both my mellotron and a bass synth — or I can wire it into my bass synth and also into a MIDI effect that turns one note into a chord and then wire that chord into the mellotron. And then I could wire the bass and mellotron into a loop recorder that’s synced to the drum loop I’ve got going on. Anyway, you get the idea. I don’t think I would record many songs this way, but this method could work wonders in a live environment.

I’ve tried several programs that do this sort of thing, and Bidule is the best fit for me. Every program has some feature that confounds me and keeps me from doing exactly what I want, but Bidule makes it easy to customize things and do some pseudo-programming, so I’ve been able to overcome the problems I’ve encountered so far. With any luck, this isn’t the last you’ll from me regarding Bidule.

P.S. While I was exploring my options in this realm, I discovered the amazing Jesusonic, the easy-to-progam plugin format. It’s sort of embarrassing that I hadn’t realized how great Jesusonic was, considering that it’s a feature of REAPER, my DAW for the past 2 years. My dream now is that someone will make a modular Jesusonic host. I would be all over that.

P.P.S. This isn’t the final redesign. Don’t panic.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Plogue Bidule”

  1. craig Says:
    July 25th, 2008 at 5:03 am

    In “the old days” before Ableton Live hosted VSTi’s (and had any midi track support), we would run bidule as a rewire client and have it host our softsynths. Nowadays, I’m as intrigued with bidule as ever, but I can’t figure out anything to do with it.

  2. fluffy Says:
    July 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am

    Huh, and unlike most of these tweaky modular environments, there’s actually an OSX version. I’ll have to give this one a try.

Leave a Reply

Music

The Weak Moment

1. I Know My Rights
2. I’m Having Trouble Concentrating
3. One Less
4. We Have the Technology
5. I’m Going Away for a While
6. Chance
7. Method of Delivery
8. Boundaries

[Artwork]

Started as a “mini-album,” I started it in Feb.2006, finished recording in July, and posted the final songs in December. The gimmick here is that I recorded myself playing the songs in order and in one session, and those tracks (lead vocal/rhythm guitar) became the basis for the final versions. I wrote the songs in order as well. They’re all from Song Fight titles. So I’d play through a song I’d written, and when it was over, I’d pick a new title to go with and see what kind of song should come next.

Divider Why Are You Doing This?

1. You’re a True Believer
2. It’s Always Something
3. Let It All Burn
4. It Won’t Last
5. Flagwavers
THE ECHO CHAMBER
7. Don’t Be Afraid
8. Uniter
9. Divider
10. Open Your Eyes

[Artwork]

You can buy Divider at CD Baby.

Started in 2003. Intended to be done in 2003. Instead, I finally tore myself away from the last mix in October 2004. I had to post it on the web just to keep myself from messing with it into infinity. Delays continued, and I finally received my box of CDs for selling in late January 2005, about a week after the inauguration of the original Divider.

It’s a semi-political album… but hopefully more to me than to anybody else. Personally political. I wouldn’t really want it to be specific about that stuff lest the life get sucked out of the music once the national tide turns.

The CD has the video for “Let It All Burn” on it as well as some extra mp3s:
Cold Sweat
Complaining
Don’t Be Afraid (acoustic)
Don’t Let the Waiting Wear You Out
It Comes and It Goes
It Won’t Last (alternate)
Sad Saints
They Will Sing
Voices Constantly
Your God Is an Idol
Your God Is an Idol (Acoustic)

Add Covers Achtung Baby

1. Zoo Station
2. Even Better Than the Real Thing
3. One
4. Until the End of the World
5. Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
6. So Cruel
7. The Fly
8. Mysterious Ways
9. Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World
10. Ultraviolet
11. Acrobat
12. Love is Blindness

Songs written by U2
Produced/performed by Jeff Fal

I needed to work, and I needed to work fast. So I ditched the burden of writing songs. We were listening to this album on a roadtrip to and from California. It was speaking to me.

[Artwork]

Please Let Your Faith and Patience Be Mine

1. Scared to Death
2. Locked Box
3. Towering Inferno
4. What’s Happening to Me?
5. Shades of Black
6. New York
7. Good Morning!
8. Coming Dear
9. Red
10. When Have I Been Wrong?
11. Air Traffic
12. Maybe So

Songs made by Jeff Fal

Made in late 2002 and early 2003, this was an unrealistic project undertaken by me and some of my Song Fight friends. We came up with 12 titles by secret ritual and then attempted to each write and record songs for all 12 titles within a month. We gave up that deadline in favor of making more polished work, which I think is for the better. The companion albums for this are Frankie Big Face’s Smile If You Absolutely Have To and John Benjamin’s Feel Things Deeply.

You can order it here.

Dirty Water

1. Back Like This
2. A Reason to Stay
3. Choose My Battles
4. Dirty Water
5. Alone
6. Carrying On
7. Exactly the Same
8. I Know Better
9. Wears on Me
10. Let It Go
11. I Feel Bad
12. The Smile on Your Face
13. I Know Better

Songs made by Jeff Fal

This album took me all of 2002 to make. Ok, That’s not completely true. Probably 80% of the work got done in the summer. There are a couple of songs from before then, and I did a lot of mixing and remixing afterwards. But all in all, I’d say it’s a summer document. Something about summers… They just get me working.

[Artwork]

Songfight Songs: Feb 2001-Feb 2002

1. Midnight Rendezvous
2. Don’t Dance
3. Shipwreck
4. On a Line
5. Black Hole
6. Dad, I’m Changing
7. Listen Close
8. It’s Invisible
9. Been to China
10. A Thousand Swords
11. I Can See You
12. Do It for Captain
13. Red Robot
14. Birds of Our Own
15. Firecrackers
16. Acid Mouth
17. Experimental Fashion
18. Secrets
19. Hotel

Bad Guy

1. I Won’t Be There
2. Hard Enough
3. Fall Apart
4. Five o’Clock
5. Guess You’re on a Plane
6. I Know This Won’t Solve My Problems
7. Maddie
8. Bad Guy
9. Quit Breaking My Heart
10. Tell You Today

Songs made by Jeff Fal

This is an album I recorded in the summer of 2001. It’s actually the third or fourth album I made, but this was the first one after people other than me and my brother began to listen to my music. Which is fine, because those others weren’t great, and Bad Guy was really the first time I succeeded at recording an album of songs that all belonged together that were also all good songs. Of course, to accomplish that, I had to set myself the modest goal of 25 minutes. Actually, my goal was 30 minutes, but you take what you can get.

[Artwork]