Mental Floss (Andrew McCallum)
Toronto techno musician of kosmic (from about 1994) who played tracked music live at raves and put out the album Grey Matter; the single source for this page is his TraxWeekly interview of February 1998 (source: s-tw119-interview-mental-floss). Not the same person as Floss (George Nowik) of the 20-minute-chip-compo column.
Facts#
- 21 in February 1998; Ryerson University student, working at Netcom; tracking 6–7 years; ten years of piano, five of oboe, one of guitar.
- Grey Matter (about 1996), radio play on the Dr. Trance Show, the POTS live-to-net RealAudio concert of 1998-01-24; about 60 songs archived to four CDs; a CD planned for 1998.
- Live rig: two PCs (a GUS Classic; a GUS PnP with 8 MB — gravis-ultrasound), impulse-tracker, Cubase, ReBirth, iPLAY, a Yamaha CS1x, guitar pedal boards, a mixer; one pattern per song with channels muted and unmuted as parts; ambient bridges or FX tails between songs because trackers "don't cue well" (live-tracking).
- Wanted from IT: a basic sample editor like fasttracker-2's, MIDI sync/start (midi-in-trackers, sync); asked ModPlug's author for DJ-style cueing (olivier-lapicque).
- Position in the 1997–98 commercial debate: live playing is possible but not required for viability; trackers are studio-capable and free (commercial-tracking).
- Techno is "more monophonic" than other music; theory helps manage layers (arrangement). Influences: FSOL, The Orb, Plastikman, Dune / Orange, Placid, maelcum, early basehead, Timelord, ChuckB.
Related#
live-tracking · commercial-tracking · impulse-tracker · gravis-ultrasound · midi-in-trackers · kosmic · zinc · traxweekly