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  • Working on Tofu Trouble film post production this week - the story continues!

    Video of my old band -- the Ximen Spiders!

Dirt Star Videos

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  • ableton live — cutting up beats

    Saturday, Oct 4, 2008 7:10PM / Members only


    Ableton Live Screenshot

    Everyone always asks me how to make cool beats - well, its easy.

    Pick up a copy of Ableton Live. Yes, go and get a real copy.

    Then, play around with the simpler and impulse instruments

    a bit to understand the basic sampling capabilities of Ableton.

    After that, check out the video clips available online at the Ableton website to really get an idea of the power of the program.

    Click here to check out the videos.

    Let me know when your new hit record is ready — can’t wait to hear it!

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  • iMovie is excellent for organizing

    Wednesday, Oct 1, 2008 1:16PM / Members only


    tofu-15.jpg, originally uploaded by dirtstarock.

    When Apple revamped iMovie last year, a lot of people were not so happy for their huge makeover of the program. Not me! I really like the new iMovie -- its really awesome for organizing video clips!

    I've always had a lot of video footage -- videos take up a lot of space! So I kept finding myself copying and moving video clips back and forth in between hard disks. In the end, I had multiple copies of all my huge video files, strewn across like 10 hard drives! Aww!

    With iMovie, it was really easy to consolidate all these random files into one place.

    I'll write more about some of the cool features soon.

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  • Boooom!!!! Crazy signs in Shenzhen part 1.

    Thursday, Sep 18, 2008 4:27AM / Members only


    That's a sign I saw yesterday in Shenzhen -- apparently no explosions on the back of trucks are allowed here! (Where is it allowed???)

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  • Ableton Live vs Pro Tools - Soundtrack mixdown

    Friday, Sep 12, 2008 11:33AM / Members only

    Currently in soundtrack mixing mode --- I started off in Pro Tools here in my studio, running on one computer. I was video editing on a separate computer in the other room. So I kept going from one room to the other, which was good to get a bit of exercise - but I wasn't saving any time that way.


    Pro Tools

    For the soundtrack, I started taking a few tracks from Ableton Live, and then mixing them back into Pro Tools one by one. This is what I was using for smaller scale video projects in the past, and it has always worked excellent. 

    But this time around I found myself spending so much time jumping back and forth between programs that I was losing a lot of precious time. Exporting, rendering, reimporting, syncing --- what a drag. I'm not a Logic person, so I don't have the integration with the Final Cut suite that others do, and I'm kind of a really super fast mixer in Live and Pro Tools so it seemed the obvious choice to do the final mixdown in Pro Tools, and using Ableton Live as the instrument. 

    But something happened -- Ableton Live added video support!


    Ableton Live

    Actually, Ableton Live has supported video for the last few versions, but with the latest one they included a video export feature. Well now, we're in business! 

    Now I'm able to complete whole film soundtrack mixdowns directly in the Ableton Live mixing environment! 

    This allows me 

    - Leverage the robust feature and effects setup
    - Develop a chained preset library for commonly used effects (Great for processing voices)
    - Use Live's elastic audio feature (really awesome for syncing and fine-tuning overdubs)  
    - Direct access to my well-organized Ableton Live-ready sample collection. That's my secret weapon :) 

    That might sound really technical, but in any case in the studio it enables me to save a ton of time, and get back to playing more with my baby below :) 


    In a completely independent studio environment where the audio and video production can be completed by two separate teams, I think Pro Tools is a great choice. But Ableton Live is really pushing the limits now, and giving Pro Tools and Digidesign a run for their money in the small production arena. Of course, Logic is there in the game too. But for me as an indie filmmaker (with a DJ and music production background) Ableton Live is quite liberating. 

    What are you using to do soundtrack mixing? 

    1 comment –  Add a comment

  • 8-bit rock! The Trucs rock!!

    Friday, Sep 12, 2008 1:46AM / Members only

    1 comment –  Add a comment

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My guestbook More comments >

  • Please login or sign up for FREE in order to add a comment.

  • Official artistD'in
    posted on Thursday, Sep 18, 2008 3:25PM  [Report]
    your band have a very unique voice!
  • Pirate0926
    posted on Thursday, Sep 18, 2008 12:45AM  [Report]
    HI```o(∩_∩)o...
  • Official artistEvelyn Maria Ng
    posted on Tuesday, Sep 2, 2008 5:56PM  [Report]
    Thanks for being a fan!
  • Official artistDJ TKO
    posted on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008 5:43PM  [Report]
    yo, dirt box...
    come by my crib with the laptop and lets catcha session

    TKO
  • Chang-Wen
    posted on Thursday, Aug 7, 2008 11:53PM  [Report]
    this's my goodfriend cat. . It's so cute right ...
  • Official artistPierre Larochelle
    posted on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 11:34PM  [Report]
    Hi bro,

    Thank's for ur comment, that's cool

    Ez.
  • humbol2
    posted on Tuesday, Jul 8, 2008 6:43PM  [Report]
    Hey DJ, thanks for the great gig in Bliss first of all.

    But, missed you on Monday, my phone mic was dead and you called me from a pay phone I guess... So, went to check out Xiao Fu at 12:05...but no DS...what was going on? You already back in Shenzen? Take care, keep on rocking!
  • Official artistChristopher Lay
    posted on Tuesday, Jul 1, 2008 9:20PM  [Report]
    Sounds like things are going well in Taiwan. Have a good one, Dirt.
  • Official artistPierre Larochelle
    posted on Saturday, Jun 28, 2008 4:29PM  [Report]
    Thank's man, cool.
  • Official artistkillersoap
    posted on Saturday, Jun 28, 2008 1:37PM  [Report]
    thanks!!~
  • More comments >

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  • Dirt Star's sound has been described as a mix of Electro-fied Beetlemania in silver martian space suits, 
a mix of infectious pop music mixed up in with a taste of street culture. ...

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  • Occupation:  Musician , Director , Music Producer
  • Gender: Male
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