Lots of new stuff posted

Here and there when I've had a spare minute or haven't been able to sleep, I've managed to start chipping away at Legend of the three Fists vol.3: Extronifuzz. I haven't been keeping up with posting about the work, but tonight/this morning I finally put up 9 new tracks in various states of disarray. They include:

















and



These tracks, added to the two batches of songs I posted earlier, plus another half dozen I brought into this project from last year's song a week project, brings the total number of candidates for this album to 22. I'll probably put some of the shorter vignettes/soundscapes as tags on the end of other tracks, and some of these won't make the cut, so depending on what other things I may write in the meantime (never know when that inspiration is going to hit), the album will likely be around 16 tracks.

The next step is to export all of the individual tracks from these pieces out of Ableton Live and bring them into Propellerhead Record. I'll either mix them as is (in a few cases) or continue working on the arrangements and record vocals (the majority of cases).

And the Earth Continues its Revolutions

So school's back in session and I'm knee deep in classes once again. But we had a nice little vacation before the semester started for me and my wife started her new job. We went on a little road trip through the northeast US and southeast Canada. Saw some family, ate a lot of good food, and took a ton of photos. Here are some of my favorites:

www.flickr.com why_style's 2010 Road Trip : Top Shots photoset

I refuse to let school completely derail my personal projects so I've still been taking some photos here and there...but getting to the processing has been slow.

I'm also starting to scan the hundreds (maybe thousands) of old photos of my wife's family from arouns 1965-1985 that she and I organizd last spring. We got this great little scanner that's making the whole ting a snap. It scans to an SD card and then we can easily import them to the PC in batches, renaming each batch as we go to keep them organized. Not sure what we'll do with them yet - maybe make some sort of archive and tag them. After that we'll see about doing the ones from around 1986-2003 when everyone went digital. My parents also have a ton of their own photos as well as all of my grandfather's pictures from his travels - he was quite prolific, as is my mom - so we'll see about doing those as well.

I'm also working on new music when I can. I'm just about ready to start mixing the third and final installment in the Legend of the Three Fists series and hope to have it completed by the end of the year. Here are some of the rough arrangements:

It's been awhile...again

Quick update: started grad school in May: got two classes under my belt, but made for a very busy couple of months. The day job was pretty hectic for most of that time as well with a new exhibition going up. But now on a short break before the fall semester starts, and hoping to go on vacation sometime next month, but haven't decided where yet, and finally getting back to some music.

In addition, I've picked up a new hobby: photography. It's something that always interested me, but I'd never had much success with my various point and shoot cameras, and having already cut out writing and painting in order to commit myself more fully to my musical hobby, I wasn't really in the market for another hobby that would suck time and cashish. But then after being inspired by our wedding photographer and doing some stuff with the camera in my Droid phone (see previous post), I ended up getting a digital SLR camera for my birthday from my wife. Wow, what a difference a good camera makes! And now, of course, I'm obsessed and taking pictures of any and everything I can, including these most recent pics of some of my guitars. I've got a list a whole page long of ideas for photo shoots, so this blog will probably start to include more photo content in addition to music. Maybe even both together in some sort of crazy conglomerated effort!



In spite of this, I'm determined to at least finish off a few of the tracks that have been languishing and get them up in the very near future so stay tuned. There will be tunes!

Where does the time go?

So I'm not sure how I let the last month get away without posting, but it's been a busy time. The day job (plus allergies) has been quite draining on your humble composer, he also got married the weekend before last, and he starts grad school the week after next. Exciting times then. Between everything else I've found little time to write much, but I've recorded a couple little tidbits here and there.



This track is my version of Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole's classic ukele medley of Somwhere Over the Rainbow and What A Wonderful World. I played it on my grandfather's archtop acoustic guitar with a capo on the 5th fret. It was recorded with three microphones: 2 Audio Technica AT2021 small diaphragm condensers on the guitar and an MXL R144 Ribbon mic turned around backward on the vocals. I did some minor editing to gloss over a pair of mistakes and added a touch of compression, EQ and reverb, and there you have it.

Also, I've been having fun with photography lately. It's something I've always wanted to get into but feel a bit too pathetic doing to rally invest in. But a post on our wedding photographer's blog about her iphone photos made me curious to see what my Droid could do. So here is a collage of pics taken recently:

Outside

Sometimes it's really frustrating to look around at the world. There's this whole mainstream media that riles up the blood. Whether it's entertainment or politics or whatever, there's this huge chuink of the world that seems to have the wrong attitude.

But then I remember: I'm not part of the mainstream, never have been and wouldn't want to be. Art comes from the outside, so that's where I'll stay.

The NutLab Studio is back!

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally put the NutLab Studio back together. I'm still working through some software issues, but I hope to be back to recording soon. The whole situation was quite an ordeal. This was partly due to the fact that when my comupter first went down, a blizzard was approaching and I lacked the proper motivation to deal with the problem. Then I got motivated and went from fixing the damaged computer to totally dismantling the whole studio and putting it back together from the ground up. Overall though, I think it's a better setup, and I'm excited to put it to use. Wish me luck!

The bad news...but I'm trying to stay optimistic

I finally got the bad news last night. My computer is fried. It happened three weeks ago. I thought it was a minor problem with a fan going down and causing it to overheat. I replaced the fan, but it didn't come back. Then the snow hit, and I couldn't take it to have it diagnosed. Finally took it in last Saturday and waited all week for an answer.

Seems a power surge took out the power supply which then shocked the motherboard. Beyond that they can't tell me anything. So I can try replacing those parts and hope the processor, RAM, and hard drives are okay. Otherwise I'm basically building a whole new system.

Also because the motherboard needs to be replaced, even if they still work, the hard drives will need to be reformatted and the operating system reinstalled. This means I've lost my most recent projects - pretty much everything since last fall because I didn't complete a backup lately.

I'm trying to look on the bright side. Not having a computer has meant I've been limited to playing my guitars, mostly acoustic. This means I'm really working out the tunes making sure the progressions and melodies are strong and that I can really play them very well. It's actually perfect for this current project.

Secondly, the songs  from my blog project were really just demos, and it's probably better that I'm forced to record them from scratch instead of relying on the half-baked versions I have. Having to relocated all of the samples I used from DVDs will be a pain, but maybe it will be good to pare those down as well.

And finally, it will give me a chance to upgrade. I'll definitely be able to go to Windows 7. And since I'm starting grad school this summer and will need it anyway, I'm considering not taking a chance on this desktop and getting a laptop instead. I'm looking at a Sony Vaio as we've had good luck with them in the past. They use top quality parts and really seem to last.

Mass Scale Individuality

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

The above video really brings to the fore my misgivings regarding intellectual property. Creating something doesn't mean anything until other people see it and spread its message. This whole American myth that each of us is unique and special simply isn't true. Or at least it doesn't have any real meaning. A lone point on a map doesn't mean anything without the context of the rest of the map. It just seems to me that Americans in particular suffer from a mass scale individuality that isn't based in fact. The idea that one person can take credit for something when each of us is the sum total of our experiences within a society just doesn't sit well with me.

We give the creator of things so much credit, but for one, that creation is he product of all of the experiences and influences manifesting themselves through the creator. And secondly, it's those who come along and notice the creation, enjoy it and decide to share it that really bring it to life. So the idea that I write a song and it somehow belongs to me and I should get paid for it and have control over how it's used is very small-minded. In reality, I'm only a vessel for creation, and it doesn't truly become a song until someone else hears it.

This is the problem with today's music industry. A lot of people just aren't buying the old ideas anymore. The industry needs to reinvent itself with an eye toward creating situations where artists and fans collaborate rather than trying to shove crap down people's throats and then complaining that the customers won't pay to have stuff shoved down their throats. That may have worked in the days of radio and television where it was a one way transmission, but this is the world of the internet. Everyone is on equal footing, and the sooner musicians recognize this, the sooner it can evolve into an all new form of entertainment.

My Intellectual Property Circle

Intellectual property has been on my mind lateyl, and I've always had mixed feelings about the whole concept, especially when it comes to art. It goes to the very core of our society, our attitudes about the individual versus the society and how we go about valuing art.

To my mind art is necessarily a social medium. Humans are social creatures and artists can only create out of their experience, the environment in which they live. And art only gains meaning when it's shared with other members of society. As such, it seems to me that a good society should both fund the arts and reap the benefits. I guess that makes me a socialist, but it seems like there are some things that shouldn't be driven by profit - emergency services, health care, and arts. Certain things exist for the good of everyone and should be paid for by everyone.

But then who becomes the judge for what gets funding? In a society the size of our own, every member can't vote on every project. The competitive economy of a capitalist system would seem to be better suited to making such judgments. This would seem to be especially true of the worlds of entertainment or design (which is pretty much our entire word actually, but that's an entirely different post). Fans vote with their dollar and fund the entertainment or designs they prefer.

But even a punk rock band in somebody's basement is operating within a social framework. And it's probably just my own proclivities, but despite the seemingly unfeasible nature of developing a fair system for funding the arts, I just can't shake the feeling that for the arts, the social aspect is just so central that a profit based model destroys the authenticity of the work. Art needs an audience to exist; it can't be the sole property of the artist.

But of course, the social system we've developed, the American way now exported to most corners of the globe, is in fact Capitalism. Economics is the strand that ties us all together. Everything is ultimately boiled down to resources and profitability. That's our value system. So something as ephemeral as a pop song makes a millionaire, while someone who produces a tangible and useful object gets paid 10 bucks an hour, or someone who develops a new model of artistic development struggles in obscurity until years after their death. Does art in this system have intrinsic, or even social, value?

You see how this is a circle I can't escape. Art is by its nature social, but we risk boiling it down to the lowest common denominator. For an even longer, rambling view of my stream-of-consciousness reasoning read more...
Part of me understands that artists, writers and musicians need to be compensated for their work. The only way new art can come into being is if it's funded, if the artist can avoid starving long enough and get the materials needed to produce something. This is one argument against piracy and file sharing: whether it's books, music, movies or software, it's taking money away from those who create, and if it continues, they will no longer be able to develop new content.

Of course, it seems most people today see this as an empty threat, at least for the arts. The thought may be that artists and musicians create because they have to express themselves, and people expect that to continue whether the artists get paid or not. Or maybe, people just don't care as much about traditional media as they once did. Whatever the reason, music and arts are always among the first things cut in education, and the arts don't command much public funding and often struggle to secure private support so we know there's some sort of societal struggle with valuing art. In the case of music, specifically the popular end of things, sure the massive distribution infrastructures may crumble, some (or all) labels may collapse, and record execs may find themselves cut off from the cash cow, but we have the internet. Anyone can distribute, and presumably artists who are committed to their work will release work into the net regardless, and then maybe somehow people will pay for it. And of course, new filters will develop to help the rest of us find the good content, right? And we'll all pay a fair price, yes?

But we're operating in a hybrid world where the old guard is desperately holding onto what it knows and thinks it deserves, and the new method is still nascent, not fully developed. It's a state of flux, where the world is changing, and those filters haven't become functional. No one even knows what this new way of doing things might eventually look like. So yes, I get that there's fear and uncertainty, and people's livelihoods are at stake, but it's all based on this idea that people own that which they create.

Just for a second consider, what if they don't? What if the world, specifically human civilization, is a vast collaboration? Humans are social creatures, and an artist can only create out of the environment in which they exist. Even if that environment is the isolation of a hermit (whether imposed by the self or the group), the fact of the isolation is a key component to the creation. A reaction against a society is as much a part of society as the society itself. Anyone who sits down to write a song is going to be influenced by the music they've heard before, as well as the books they read, the art they see, and the people with which they interact. Who really deserves the credit?

And if you start crediting outside influences, where does it stop? Is an individual just a collection of experiences (or information) that was bound to produce something of a certain form? But we choose many of our experiences, right? I pick which books to read, what movies to watch, what songs to hear. Or do I? If I am just an assemblage of my experiences, and my early experiences were controlled by others - parents and then a state sponsored education system, not to mention the world of advertising that surrounds us and subconsciously infiltrates our minds, do I even have control over the choices I make now as an adult? How much individual agency and free will do I really have?

Or consider that we are truly individual beings. Do we each have only the limited perspective of a single body with perceptions and ideas that are unique? In that case would social interaction be an attempt to rectify the variations in our perception, a constant comparison between separate beings? And would our desire for this interaction be a result, not of our being various points within a single being, but rather of our extreme isolation as individuals? Do we share experiences for consolation, or as an attempt to build something larger from our individual pieces? Should each individual be rewarded for their contribution, and how is that value system developed? Or are all the parts necessary to the whole? What is an artist without an audience (besides hungry)?

From either perspective you end up at a place where art only exists within the context of a social system. I know, this is some fundamental shit, and I've moved way beyond just talking about the arts here, but I wonder if we, especially in America, suffer from mass scale individuality. Just think about advertising. There's this strange balance between appealing to people both on an individual level and a social level. We're encouraged to fit in and find our place in society by expressing our individual talents. Does that even make sense? Don't humans tend to isolate those that are different? The individuality we seek has to be of an acceptable social form. When it comes to producing something that is necessarily social, like art, is it really the work of the individual? Or is it the product of a system simply expressed through a single piece of that system? Could a genius just be the lucky conduit for humanity's shared progress?

What I'm getting at is that I'm not sure the idea of individual ownership of thoughts and ideas makes much sense when those thoughts and ideas only have a meaning in relation to the group. If you look at things that way, walling oneself off and claiming your ideas as possessions, seems like a pretty pointless excercise. Maybe the ideal is for everyone to be an artist in the sense that we are all collaborating to create a work we call society. What then is the value of individuality? A necessary variation in the parts of the system, a safeguard to keep the system dynamic?

Analogue vs. Digital pt.1

I've never had much of an opinion about recording analog versus digital. I mean it makes sense to me that analog would sound more natural to us. After all, we can't hear 1s and 0s. When I got into recording in high school, I borrowed a bunch of my dad's old analog gear, and eventually I got this little cassette 4-track.

That unit died when I was in college, and a friend and I traded some gear and pitched in on a new one - a Tascam 234 4-track and 106 mixer. Still cassette based, not 1/4" or 1/2", we messed about with it for a couple years, but it was quite challenging. It's amazing to me that recording engineers dealt with tape for so long, and that some would still prefer it. Don't get me wrong, it sounded great. Despite our crappy mics and not really knowing what we were doing, those tapes have a warmth that I still love. But having to keep track of counter numbers, the limitations on track count and having to commit to a mix a few tracks at a time, etc. sometimes made for a frustrating time.

We decided that a computer would be better. I'm not sure what our logic was. I don't think we really thought about digital versus analog at first. I think it was more the ridiculous track counts, unlimited editing capabilities and graphic representation that drew us in. Odd as it may seem, we didn't really consider the sound. We were writing material and recording was recording. And now I've been recording almost exclusively in digital for 10 years because it's just simpler.

The 234 didn't get much use after I bought a computer specifically to use in the little studio/music room we'd built. But I still own it and have carted it around for years for no discernible reason. Recently I read an article about mastering and how some mastering houses still prefer to get the material on 1/2" tape. I was kind of shocked, but it got me thinking about reintegrating analog gear into my computer setup, especially since I've been thinking that my newest project should have a more vintage feel. There are plugins that model classic units and their analog circuitry, but why not just run the music through some real analog circuitry? Or even record it to real analog tape and then re-digitize it?

So, out came the 234. Unfortunately, the tape head doesn't seem to function anymore. Still, I tried plugging my electric guitar as well as a microphone into the 4-track and then patching the outputs to my audio interface, essentially using it as a preamp. I did a bit of tracking, and it worked pretty well. There is definitely a difference in the sound. It's warmer but also a little noisier, perhaps in a good way, and you can't beat the look of this old gear.

Two problems with this method: 1) When mixing these recordings and adding effects, the noise gets enhanced along with the instrument. Not a big deal for 1 or 2 tracks maybe, but beyond that, it really becomes noticeable. And 2) I can only record my guitars and vocals this way. Any electronic or sampled parts don't get the same treatment. I think a better method would be to track and mix digitally, record my final mix to tape, and then record from the tape back to the computer adding any mastering effects at that point for a finalized, release-ready recording. That way I also get the sound of tape as well as the analog circuitry, and the entire mix is treated, not just a few individual parts.

I emailed my dad, and I'm hoping his old TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck from the 60s still works (an attic dweller the last few years unfortunately). Otherwise I'll have to pay to have the 234 repaired (which might cost more than it's worth at this point), or buy a reel-to-reel from craiglist or ebay (there are quite a few available, but any in guaranteed working condition aren't cheap). I've actually been thinking about getting a tube preamp too (the Presonus BlueTube), but we'll see where this goes first...

-TFW