Music News: No Touching | Music Discovery XO

MUSIC RECORDING
ELECTRONIC ROCK NEWS
01-03-2021 20:45 GMT

NO TOUCHING 

Music industry update | Seoul, South Korea | Indie band, Love X Stereo

We recently talked about how we are (secretly) obsessed with our favorite musicians’ gears and instruments in a previous post, and somehow new discoveries have been popping up left, right and center since. Have you heard the new single “Push The Play” by South Korean electronic rock duo Love X Stereo? Have you seen the amazing and even more spectacular music video? Well somewhere in the video there is a white theremin that the band claims to have bought on eBay. They later discovered that the cute little thing had been used by American singer, songwriter, musician and producer St. Vincent on tour. Isn’t that so exciting? Why doesn’t any cool stuff like that happen to us? Sigh!

But wait, we forgot to tell you what a theremin was. It’s the first known electronic music instrument. It was invented in 1920 by a man called Leon Theremin. Of course back then it was around the size of a small writing desk, as almost every electronic device was, but now it’s available as a handheld device. It’s a weird musical instrument because it’s the only musical instrument you play without touching. How many musical instruments do you know like that? 

So how do you play it then? Well, it’s quite simple actually. It’s got an antenna and a volume loop thingy. Once the instrument is powered on all you have to do is move your hand close to the antenna to raise the pitch and move your hand closer to the volume loop to lower the volume and eventually silence the instrument. The fun part is you can also move it closer to and away from other objects, not just your hands, to make new and exciting sounds. We haven’t mastered it yet but we are getting pretty good. It even comes in handy for detecting the origin of notorious recurring farts in the office. 

Check out the music video for Love X Stereo’s single “Push The Play” below and see if you can spot the white theremin. Download the track on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify and all popular digital music services. 

Music News: Frank Palangi's Microphone | Music Discovery XO

MUSIC RECORDING
ROCK NEWS
21-02-2021 05:16 GMT

FRANK PALANGI'S MICROPHONE

Pictured: Frank Palangi (L), Robert A Hyde Jr. (R)

Musicians and bands bring us a lot of joy in our daily lives, so getting a cheeky sneak peak behind the curtains, even if just for a couple of seconds to see what goes on behind the scenes in the recording studio, rehearsal studio or even the dressing room is always exciting. Almost every music fan would naturally get a rush from knowing what their favorite musicians are playing with, although sadly not every one of them has the pleasure of experiencing it. If you are like us, you’d like to go a step further and touch and feel it too (nothing weird though, but if you are a rock star you WILL catch us fingering your guitar backstage if you leave us alone with her, and we’ll tell you the same thing we say every time we get caught - "she was begging for it" 😊). 

Let that be our little secret though, or Frank Palangi will be cringing at the thought of what might happen following the recent revelation of his favorite studio microphone earlier this week. Don’t worry Frank, we won’t kiss it when you're not looking. 

Well so here it goes. The go-to microphone for New York’s critically acclaimed, often emulated but never duplicated independent rock star extraordinaire, and the only guitarist to make the US national anthem sound like a psychedelic classic since Jimi Hendrix; is the Shure KSM44A multi‑pattern capacitor microphone, which is great for a wide variety of studio applications including everything from vocal recording to electric bass and kick drums. It’s been shown several times in at least 4 of his music videos but if you haven’t seen it there is a picture of it below.