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Monthly Archives: October 2008
GIGBETH ! -Young Knives – The Guillemots – SUGARHILL GANG
Last year Gigbeth and Heducation brought us JFB and Beardyman, This year its bringing us a mighty fine line up:
Clare Edwards, Founder and Organiser of Gigbeth says: “It is an honour to host such a seminal band as The Sugarhill Gang at Gigbeth 2008 and presents a great opportunity for fans of the group to meet their heroes. With this being the first and maybe last performance by The Sugarhill Gang in Birmingham, just having them in the city presents a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of their Birmingham based fans.”
Other headlining acts at this years Gigbeth include ‘Geek Rockers’ Young Knives, indie phenomenon The Guillemots, MOBO winner Kano and dance music icons The Stanton Warriors.
Gigbeth 2008 will take place on the 7th – 8th November at venues across Digbeth with main stages at the iconic Custard Factory.
Tickets are priced at £15 for Friday, £18 for Saturday, or £25 for the entire weekend. Tickets are available by ringing the official Gigbeth Box Office on 0844 888 3883.
The Valve Sound System and Hospitality – Custard Factory.
The Valve Sound System and Hospitality at Custard Factory.
Andy C, High Contrast, Dillinja, London Elektricity, Nu:Tone, Cyantific, Lemon D, Mistabishi, Survival and Bryan G
Even though I had this night on my calendar for quite a while, it was 7pm before my press pass was confirmed, but Ric from the Night Times came though as always. At 10pm Chris and I and headed down to the Custard Factory in Digbeth. After experiencing the cultural wonder that is the number 50 bus on a Friday night, we reached the venue. Why do camera cases always puzzle doormen so much? It’s very rare that i get excited about going to see DJs play. However Hospital Records have been putting out some stuff recently that has made me sit up and take notice, mainly through hearing Chris pumping out the Hospital Podcasts from below my bedroom floor. For anyone who has not heard the London Elektricity track “All Hell is Breaking Loose” (you have to check the music video – posted at the bottom of the page) it’s one of the main reasons I was going to this event. The other main focus was the mighty Valve Sound System. Every time i hear this thing go i am gobsmacked that this is legal. Its LOUD, and EXTREMELY NAUGHTY, and takes the phrase ‘feel the music’ to a whole new level. How can something so heavy be invisible? Loudness is not its special feature (though at 96,000 watts it’s not to be sniffed at), but rather the frequencies it pushes out. It retains the title of the Only drum & bass sound system in the world. I am not normally a massive fan of D & B, but when stood in front of the Valve, it’s stunning.
Links:
Some interesting stuff on the Valve system from Wiki,
The Valve Sound System is a touring sound reinforcement system specifically designed for the playback of drum and bass music. Created by UK artists, Dillinja and Lemon D, the system has a total power output of 96kW. The system consists of 52 subwoofers (designed and built for the valve system) as well as Mid-High cabs made by Funktion One. The full system is not used in smaller venues. It was designed exclusively for drum and bass acoustics and as such is the first of its kind. The inspiration for the system came from the reggae sound systems which were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Growing up in the 80s, Dillinja was turned on by the reggae sound through the systems of such artists as King Tubby of Jamaica and Jah Shaka of the UK. Later, as a DJ, producer, and label boss, he came to be frustrated at the lack of quality at many of the club sound systems when DJing around the UK and abroad, particularly with respect to the deep bass sounds often present in drum and bass. Today, Dillinja refuses to play even ‘standard’ club systems believing them to be inadequate to fully reproduce the bass frequencies to his levels. The whole system has to be carried around in three 7.5 tonne lorries and is generally arrayed as 6 speaker stacks, each around 18 feet wide and 9 feet high.Notable appearances
The Valve Sound System, which debuted at London nightclub Fabric in 2001, has toured the UK extensively, completing a six-month residency at Brixton’s Mass in 2003[citation needed]. Given that the venue (the former St. Matthew’s Church) was not designed specifically as a nightclub, a crew of no less than fifteen[citation needed] was needed just to get it in and out of the building, those carrying equipment having to negotiate four flights of winding stairs. Around this time the Guinness Book of Records showed an interest in the system and wanted to test it for the “Loudest Sound System in the World” category; this sparked additional public interest, even though, when asked about the Guinness Book of Records, Lemon D indicated his opinion that “it’s not about being the loudest, it’s about being the best.”[citation needed] Dillinja and Lemon D were invited to bring the system onto Channel 4′s popular “The Big Breakfast” show, but when they discovered they would have to haul the sound system into the show’s garden at 4am, with inadequate protection from the weather, they politely declined. The Valve Sound System provided the sound for the drum and bass tent at the huge annual Gatecrasher festival in June 2002. Months of hard work was put in to ensure the sound system was ready for this big event, but the British environmental health authorities stopped the system from being played at full power. Nevertheless, the tent was still the most popular at the festival.Hell is For Heroes
Hell Is for Heroes
Its not very often i feel i want to scream and shout about a band, But bloody hell, Hell is for Heros are , in fact heros. I have seen them a few times live and even Dj`d a gig that they played.
Go see them, Go Buy there ablums, Go show them some HARDCORE love.
MySpace link - Click here
Band website - Click Here
Trek Session 88 DH
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The Trek Session 88 DH
[Blog] - [Photography] - [Coaching] - [Gallery]
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- Trek Session 88 DH
Trek’s very sought after New Full-suspension rig, The Session 88 DH.
click for more information and photos.
- The Session 88 DH.
youtube=[http://www.pinkbike.com/v/18565]
Simple HDR Tutorial
As promised here is another simple way to use Photoshop for the stuff it was designed for.
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A HDR photo of Claverdon church
HDR Tutorial
Afternoon,
- Open Photos Using Bridge – Save some time!
I was out on another wedding last weekend, we was at a stunning little Church in Claverdon. I thought it might be a great subject to use as for a HDR photo. But before we start, i know there are lots of software packages that can produce HDR work, but i am just going to use Photoshop.
Where to start ? With most editing work you can pick and choose the effects post shoot, but with a good HDR photo you need to plan a little bit. you need a set of photos (RAW or Jpg) that are of the same view, see sample photo. If you need to use a tripod, that’s cool. The aim is to get a light (over exposed) version, a normal version and a darker (under) photo. your range of photos should cover and show examples of all the details that you are aiming to capture in your HDR photo, why, I hear you ask. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, you are going to make a photo from a set of photos, its going to be a combination of all the elements in the photos combined to show a larger range of colours than one photo could show on its own. So, pick your photos in Bridge using CTRL to highlight the photos you want to use and lets build.
Go up to the menus and find the open in Photoshop menu, then find the merge to HDR button. see the photo if you need help. The next box you will see will be Photoshop asking some questions about which photos you want used, the Bit depth you require and where you want the white balance set. Leave the bit depth at 8 for now or unless you want 16 or 32 bits. Then set the white balance where is seems to set the photo sample next to it at the nicest level to see all the detail. The next step is really simple. Just wait for Photoshop to do all the hard work. If you are new to working in any other bit rate than 8, you should be aware that Photoshop will react different, For example, you can not use all the filters on a 32bit file. Have a read up before jumping in.
- HDR Merge Tools
After Photoshop and built your photo from the elements of all the 3 that you started with you should have a box pop up on your screen. This is the HDR Conversion tool box. In here you have all the normal levels and sliders that you would expect to see. The tool box is giving you the choice in how you wish to convert your photo, have a play with the settings here. I use the Local Adaptation method as my common conversion. Use the Radius and Threshold sliders to see how they effect the output then have a look at the curve and histogram at the bottom. See how the output is changed and find a nice looking combination for your photo and click to set those settings. Let photo shop convert your photo.
You should now be left with a ok looking HDR photo, this time its only 8 bit, but try again with 16 and 32 to see how that effects the look of the photo. But before you do that, we should finish this photo. As always, whenever I can, make your self duplicate layer and hide it, then make another and set a nice blur on your new layer. I like the Lens Blur with some nice soft settings, but feel free to pick what ever blur you like unless its somthing silly like motion blur. Set your blur and then pick Colour Dodge mode for that layer.
Select you magic wand, we need to bring back that detail that we lost when setting the screen mode, in my photo I just want to bring the sky back, so I have selected the layer below my blured layer (even though that is the layer i am going to remove bits from) and used the sharper image to set my selection around the walls and trees, use the Refine edge tools to get a really good mask. When happy, flip back to your colour dodged blur layer using the same selection you set and remove the bits over the sky, or what ever you are trying to let show though.
- Mask and remove bits you dont want
The next few steps are very simple and invole the Dodge, burn and Sponge tools. Go in and really show off some of those highlighted areas, use the Eraser to smarten up and bits of the layers that the mask did not get to, and you should have a photo which looks pretty much finished. On my photo, I have converted merged the layers together with CTRL+ALT+E, set them as a Smart Object then added some Lens filters while playing with some colour settings.
Enjoy, As always, Please send me some samples of edits you have made!
Mail them to Dave@davepiper.org.uk
- HDR Tutorial EDITED
- HDR Tutorial Standad photo
