News

Survive To See Tomorrow

Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago

Hey there, kiddos. There a new MiniAir track floating around these internets. It's called Survive To See Tomorrow. It's still a work in progress, but you'll get the idea. The first half was part of my live set back at Static Glide last month, but I added a long, psychedlic ending with a lot of delay plugin abuse that hasn't been heard before. This is going to be part of my nest project...which is so far untitled, of undetermined length, and has no set release date. I'm hoping this year, but we'll see. Read More...

Better News

Posted 1 month, 1 week ago

That pesky CPU bug I mentioned earlier? Fixed. My set is running smoothly again. For the record, it was a delay plugin that couldn't deal with silence and sent errors upstream to the mixer plugin. Odd stuff, but it works now. Just swapped out one very utilitarian stereo delay for another, better coded one.

Also, Scobot has just been added to the Static Glide lineup, providing live visuals! Yet another reason to enjoy the middle of your three day weekend at the Baltic Room. Read More...

The Good News, The Bad News

Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago

The good news: My live set is about 97% finished, give or take a little bit of time spent cleaning up the sounds and adding some extra effects to play around with. The actual composition is basically done, except for about 8-16 bars to take me to an ending point. I know how it's going to end, I just need to actually write it. I'm in the home stretch, barely 7 days away from the show.

The bad news: The software mixer plugin that I'm using has decided to start using an ungodly amount of processor power at a handful of specific points in my set, and I can't figure out why. there are 5-6 transitions that cause the mixer to use 60% (or more) of the CPU power of my Core 2 Duo Macbook. For reference, the normal range of CPU use for that plugin should be closer to 3%, maybe peaking around 10% if I'm moving a lot of faders at once.

So, now I need to spend some time hunting down the cause of this spike, and eliminating it. Because performing live and having your music slow to a crawl and get choppy is pretty Read More...

The Skillz

Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago

I didn't realize this until Thursday night, when Hjalti and I were doing our dry run of our live sets, but I've been working on this set for so long, and setting it up so logically, that I can play it without looking at the screen. I would be sitting there, hunched over my MIDI controller rocking some plugin or other, and I'd look up and see that my screen had gone into screen saver mode. Once I hit F5 (the Buzz shortcut for play), it's all hands on knob action. No mouse clicking and staring at the screen for me! I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment, even though I didn't plan things that way.

If you're reading this blog and I haven't sent you a friend request for D.iscontent on Myspace yet, I recommend you get on over there and yourself to our list of virtual friends. for my own selfish reasons of course. But it will also be informative and useful, as the D.iscontent cadre ramps up their activities over this summer. Read More...

Pwnage

Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago

Not to be completely insular, but I'm listening to Hjalti run through his live set right now, at Casa D.iscontent. It's fucking killer. This shit is going to own your ass at the Baltic Room next Sunday. It's glitchy, minimalist, industrial, melodic, and dark. It's a fucking riot. I am not joking. I can't wait to hear some of these bass drops on a nice, big PA. Read More...

More news at the Miniature Airlines blog...

 

About

2005 marks the official debut of Miniature Airlines (originally known as Airliner), with the release of the 6-song Apparel EP for free download. A collection of tracks loosely based around the theme of clothing, Apparel demonstrates a keen ear for shaping simple melodies and pop structures, while exploring the possibilities of random and pseudo random processing. The newly released followup, Pushpin Revolution is a set of retro-futurist pop that recasts classic synthpop for headphones and dancefloors. Miniature Airlines is the project of self-confessed pop junkie Dylan Abbott, who counterbalances a taste for songcraft with a healthy fixation on more experimental sounds and techniques.