I got dj hero yesterday and though I’m finding the game quite hard on medium it’s still an enjoyable game. More importantly though I’ve managed to hook my ps3 dj hero controller upto my mac and using gamepad companion I’ve been ae to get the turntable controller to work (but it only reacts to the heaviest of pushes) the turntable uses the z axis to work and so has to be programmes to use multiple presses if you want it to do anything in GarageBand. Hopefully there will be an app that uses the controller at some point ( especially if I look at makin one :p). An interested side note is that it registers itself as a guitar hero 5 controller. This could mean that existing guitar hero 5 controller midi drivers may work with the turntable.
Archive for the ‘music’ Category
Dj hero and gamepad companion
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Gallows: Grey Britain
Sunday, May 10th, 2009I’ve had this album for about a week now and just looked at my calender and remembered I’m seeing them soon and thought I’d get some things off my chest about the set they will probably play
I bought the Deluxe version which includes the videos of the songs (which by the way had me in stitches as Frank Carter is screaming straight into the camera in The RiverBank.) so obviously I watched the film part of the album first.
The film is a gritty greyscale series of fights with the police and the band pissing off a priest while looking like 80’s ska misfits. There were a few things that made me cringe, like a scene when there’s a riot and the words ‘no future’ are spray painted on a wall. But overall it was fun to watch and I never found myself wanting to skip through them.
Onto the music though, as that’s the whole reason I bought the album in the first place. My first impression was that this isn’t as good as Orchestra of Wolves. The anger and energy that made that album so awesome has been replaced with a more rocky sound.
That is not to say that there isn’t the odd song which could be mistaken as a song that didn’t make it onto Orchestra of Wolves, for instance The Great Forgiver sounds very different from it’s previous track and explodes out of the speakers. I think the main difference between the two albums, apart from the mix is the lyrical content and song structure.
If you were to compare the track Orchestra of Wolves intro (‘My name is Casanova, I am basically a man, I am an animal’) to Black Eyes intro (‘I keep a fresh razor blade in the sole of my shoe, helps me when I can’t stop thinking of you’) there’s a shift from an overly masculine sound to a wounded man sound.
Grey Britain does have it’s moments though and gets better I feel as soon as The Vulture Part 2 kicks in. I would say this album is like Nevermind by Nirvana It takes about 7 Tracks for it to show it’s true face and then it bites yours off.
For first time Gallows listeners I would say get Orchestra of Wolves rather than this album but for any Gallows fan this album is a good follow up there’s just a few tracks which sound a bit watered down