Category Archives: Music Production Journals

I’m sick

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Not in bed sick exactly.. although now I’m waring a coat and hat… dressed as I would to go out.. while sitting at the computer in the living room… though this is perhaps more an effect of the “how to we handle the cost of heating the house problem” then it is an issue of me being sick in anyway.

Today I woke up about 3 PM… last night I went to bed about 7PM, I’m guessing… and then woke up for a number of hours, before going back to bed.

I’m really barely out of bed.. not capable of much.. just basic survival.. is kinda where things are at at the moment…

Fortunately I’m an uber computer person.. which means… well that it doesn’t take much energy to do stuff… but.. well, mental energy… and my brain is a little soft and squishy at the moment.. at least when it comes to what you might call serious intellectual labor of any kind.

Well.. I am waiting for RAM to arrive anyway… and much of the real work I’m itching to do requires that RAM…

But…

Just the idea of bringing out the trash tonight.. fills me with dread…

What I think I’m going to do is make something for me to eat.. and then… from there.. see about the trash and bed… I think I’m going to set up a work station in bed kinda situation..

My laptop is decidedly underpowered when it comes to the subject of.. well just what kinda software is installed on it relative to music production… its mostly out of date.. and most of my software I never bothered installing on it.. and its optical drive isn’t what it was… but.. well.. what the hell.. its still worthy of some work…

If I’m just laying in bed.. not even bothering to put in the effort to keep my body upright.. I can sometimes fool myself into thinking I’m not sick at all.. and thus work on forward.. so now I’m going to look into some of that….

Time for Bed

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It’s somewhat late at night… no, I take that back, it’s very late at night.. I should be in bed.. Jesus, I have to get up early tomorrow to… and it doesn’t help that I’m feeling sick.

What’s there for me to write about today?

It’s been over a week since I posted.. which is too long.

Have I posted anything on the subject of all the music work I’ve been doing? This month is National Solo Album Month.. a challenge to try and make a solo album in the month of November.. well.. I’m trying… but I don’t know that I’ll really have anything finished come the end of the month..

It doesn’t help that one project I was working on.. not only did it crash.. but I can no longer open the document.. and that was maybe half a weeks worth of work.

I don’t know about this.. as a project for me at this point.. if it’s quite appropriate for me.. I think I’m supposed to work on these real labor of love projects.. not these scramble to get an album finished in a month deals…

I spend a lot of time, each day, working on it.. and a lot of time procrastinating it.. but.. more or less.. I work from the time I get up till the time I go to bed.. mind you there are hours and hours of not doing anything in them middle there…

And now it’s late.. and now I should be asleep…

And my anxiety is all crazy

And.. I’m not quite functional

and.. I’m not quite sure how to get functional and

Well what the hell.. at least it’s a post.. I should post it!

Late night whatever’s.. .about a day in the life

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It’s 10 30 PM and I’m signing out…

Today was.. not a terribly productive day.. I have a lot of days like this. I feel pretty down on myself for the day… but…. well.. I don’t know…

Hmmm…..

I did work on this music project I’ve been working on for a while now.. I think its coming along pretty well.. just slow..

Ok.. well I think…

So this business of me not being productive… I have this need to find ways of rationalizing this.. I guess its to fight the part of me that gets down on myself over stuff like this.. but…

Well the way I look at it is.. I don’t know if I’d say I don’t believe in free will, just that I think the issue of the will is complex.. and we’ve known for a long time that the conscious will is not really running the show of how our lives unfold.

So what the hell is going on in my unconscious?

Well I think it’s the relative isolation of my life.. not getting out enough.. I think I can afford to go out this thursday… to this.. I don’t know.. social media and journalism workshop…

But I NEED to get out more, to have more social contact.. one way or another.. and I think what it is is it’s really just this.. kinda pushing at me.. and distracting me from my work.. and I think.. its sorta a question of quality of social experience to…

The other part of it is just.. the kind of environmental stressors.. how bad this month has been for me.. how bad everything has been for me for so long…

But the deal is that somehow I gotta pull myself out of it… Like it’s up to me to make my life a better place.. that’s the thing…

And there’s real questions in my mind.. if the way to do it is to work on projects like this music project.. or to work on getting work… somehow… so that I can have more money… and like.. not have to go through the difficulty I seem to go through every month.

And having a job would help my social situation.. and a whole bunch of other elements…. of stuff.

Anyway.. i’m signing out…

Some work reflections

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One of the things I’m wrestling with is “what the hell is going on in my work.” Artists… we often take these giant jumps of intuition.. or perhaps flights of intuition…  we do things and we don’t know why… or.. you do a bunch of things.. you know why, but you have no idea of the bigger picture it’s leading towards or what is going on really.

Really what I think is happening is I’m “fighting my way through the basics:” On the one hand I’m super deluxe bad ass advanced… show me some of the best out there, I’ll show you how I can kick there ass.. one hand tied behind my back.

But.. but.. my incredible super human abilities… well.. I’ll let you in on a little secret… “they are very narrow.” What this means is.. inside of a narrow expressive range.. lets say… lets just use language this way even if it obscures certain things…. and because you’re really narrow.. it takes less time to master.. so you can be like mad master in a short span of time.. just cause you have this much more narrowly defined thing.

So that’s the deal, right? I’m a bad ass.. and I have this whole structure I created.. a structure of bad-ass-dom.

[editors note: what I'm trying to say is that my art represents various systems of narrowly defined ares.. that come together into a larger whole... this relative to skills, talent, whatever, and it's part of what allows to do such a broad spectrum of stuff]

And now.. what I’m doing…. is something different

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

That’s the fundamental question, I believe, we always need to be asking our selves… that is.. our own becoming.. .is the thing…. the important thing.. the thing about life that makes it worth living… the reason for getting up… so what are you becoming?

In a general sorta way I’ve gone through a number of phases… that all sorta seem recent… that are vaguely about “well we’re making electronic music, we should learn something about this.”

Like once upon a time I went out like an anarchist on my own personal journey… profoundly.. to worlds no one else had ever visited… I never even saw the well worn path of.. the way most folks go.. and now I’m sorta searching for the well worn path of… where folks are..

I’m taking this stuff.. these ideas… of.. well lets say the ideas of electronic music.. in a well worn sense..  and trying to bring them into my work.

When I kinda view what I’m doing through this lens.. I realize and understand all the struggling I’m going through… why the going is so slow.. cause I’m trying to climb such a steep hill… and I kinda don’t even want to acknowledge that there’s a hill there.

Once upon a time.. my biggest goal in a project was to “do something interesting.” Interesting… is… well usually it means you’re not trying to do what everybody else is dong.. you’re doing you’re own thing… or you’re finding novel solutions to problems or.. you’re just doing something unique.

As sooon as you start trying to do “what everybody else is doing” you have this really deep problem… and that is.. now it’s really obvious how to measure you.. you’re gong to be measured in how you stack up with everybody else.. .so suddenly.. it’s not about.. this inward voice pointing you in whatever duration… it’s how do you define you’re self as someone worth paying attention to.. in this over crowded room of people… in relationship to those other people.

So… here I am.. in my studio… working.. and.. the thing is.. some of the measuring sticks I’m using have to do with this crowded room situation… trying to work out how to move into that room… and do well in that room… but also.. fundamentally.. I don’t really believe that that room is really my room even… or what I’m about is not about how well I do in that room over there.

Here’s what I think… you gotta go into the crowded room… and you gotta do something there.. that attracts attention… and once you have attention… from whoever you get you’re attention from… that’s when you gotta prove you’re self as being… all that and a bag of chips.. or up to snuff or.. whatever it is you are.

Once you do that.. that’s when you have a real chance of developing a following.. or that’s what I’m thinking… and maybe you can get folks to follow you away from the well trodded ground.

And I guess it’s always about this tension.

What I’m dong now.. with this site.. this project.. all my ideas… is really doing something that’s super out there… so that once I go into the that room… that there will be this amazing trail… that people can follow…

[eitors note, this looks worth posting]

Native Instruments come out with S2, Never Mind that Micro Maschine thing

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It’s a trend in the world of Native Instruments….

Long time readers will now that I’ve wanted the S4 forever.. or since before it came out anyway..

Integration between this controller and the Traktor software.. was just amazing… of course there’s one little problem… it costs $1000 list.

Here’s the S2, only decent video I’m able to find at this moment:

The S2 lists for merely $700

Native Instruments Put up a comparison chart between the two on there site.

I’ve played with the latest version of Tracktor.. and I’ve sorta come to the conclusion, or I had.. that basically I needed was the S4… that was really the deal.. and I checked out some of the competition and still was stuck on the S4.

Looking at the S2, my immediate reaction was one of skepticism… The main reason coming at the top of the chart.. the S4 is a “4.1 channel DJ system” where as the S2 is a “2.1 channel DJ system.”

Mind you this is marketing talk about…

One of the things that the S4 really distinguishes its self from other is in that it gives you hands on control for operating 2 decks.. and it does pretty well.. with compromises…

Playing with Tracktor.. it seemed like working 4 decks was just where it was at. I think maybe 90% of DJ-ing takes place using 2 decks.. but for me.. working with 4 decks was where the magic happened.

Still.. I’m poor.. and the different between $1000 and $700 is significant. Though still my plan has been to pick one up used… which you can’t do with a production like the S2.. simply because it isn’t even out yet!

DJ Fantasies

There’s a lot of reasons why getting into DJ-ing is important to be. Of course the truth is I already have the tools to DJ in Ableton Live.. and so there’s a part of me that’s look at me  and is going “why do you want to do this tracktor thing.”

It must have been 4 or 5 months ago.. that I horsed around with Traktor.. and instantly it was like “oh, yeah, I can dig that.” It just opened up this whole world to me.. and it became real obvious that it was one of the really important next steps in my work.

But because my financial situation sucks so… I’m now much more thinking “Well, I wonder how far I can go using Ableton to do this stuff?” Which is really is a concession.. it’s really a way of trying to feel ok about not being able to do what you really want to do, or not sure about being able to do what you really want to do.

So S2 does move the bar closer.. but.. it seems like fundamentally the S4 is the thing that’s right for me.

You gotta understand where I’m coming from

I see DJ-ing as a potential business move.. for a lot of reasons other then you’re ability to make money DJing… it’s more how it fits in with a nexus of things.

One of the eye openers was.. I had just gone through my studio.. rendering out stuff.. from projects that were left incomplete.. and they were some really lovely snip its.. .awesome bits.. that via DJ-ing.. it was like I could recycle.. and there was a way that.. DJ-ing with Trakctor.. it felt like I could take you through my work in unique ways… provided by the 4 tracks of course.

But….

Well for the short term anyway.. I gotta be exploring Ableton for this stuff

But then there’s this subject of Maschine Mikro 

It’s Machine.. only difference is the controller is smaller… kinda like the S2.. .accept I’m not sure if the S2 is actually physically smaller.. The Maschine Mikro is.. which makes it attractive in a way that the full Maschine isn’t.. in that it’s just that much easier to cart around with you… but again leas buttons and knobs.. and thus a lot cheaper.

The thing you think.. or I think.. when seeing these is that.. what is fundamentally powerful about the idea behind both the S4 and Maschine.. is the idea of the integration of software and controller.. in support of a user experience.. and by mucking about with the controller.. making these other controllers.. you’re changing that user experience… and is that really good or not?

So I don’t know, thought I’d through that at yea

 

 

Knowing the Score

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Should I be spending this much time mucking about with the score? With audio?

I don’t know really..

I view now as sorta pre launch in a lot of ways.. which is like pre-prime time. What this means is… that it’s more about getting ready to be prime time, then it is about being prime time.

I’ve, to some degree, nestled into some new ideas.. on the technical side of things.. which is kinda shop talk-ish… but…

Ableton Live

I’ve come to the conclusion that I should at least try and make it “all about Live” or Ableton Live.. that this should really become the center piece of a hell of a lot of the work I’m doing going forward..

Now what this means.. is multiple things.. the first is that Ableton Live is a program that is about produce electronic music live… as well as in the studio.. and what this means is we are moving towards live performances… and the whole idea of.. shows.. or DJ-ing or whatever.

Another thing this means is.. when I talk about playing this stuff live… I’m really kind about like improvising inside of a framework of sorts… which means…. at least as far as the improvised performance is concerned… that it’s extremely efficient and low labor pains..

Which is exactly why I’m employing this towards scoring videos for the web.. where social web its about consistently coming out with new content… and a lot of content really.. so it’s important that.. that process be as fast and low labor as possible..

Another thing this means is working with a conceptual model of composition that I have limited experience with… compared to what I normally do.. which means.. there’s a learning curve, at least…

More Deeply it means… Ableton… is a world to be explored.. deeply… and that is looking like quite a rabbit hole.. and its going to take a lot of work to really get it down… so it just takes longer cause… we don’t always know quite what we are doing.

Using DP to mix

I don’t even know that I need to use Digital Performer to Mix.. I maybe I could do it all in Ableton.. but last time I tried to work that way.. I found that there were a lot of limitations getting in my way.

But what was kind of interesting to me is that.. the project starts in Ableton.. and.. you know.. it is what it is.. and then we move to this kind of mix stage…

The mix stage is a little more then merely mixing.. it’s also kinda designing.. I guess it just means that we start focusing in on the sonics.. So.. a certain amount of work goes into sound design-e kinds of stuff.. but.. before you know it really.. it really becomes about what you might call “setting up the mix.”

Setting Up the Mix

The setting up period… well you do a whole lot of routing… so you work out how audio will move through you’re system.. and you go in.. and select various effects processors.. and sorta choose some presets or kinda.. set up this and that.. and whatever.. and really it’s like you’re putting things in place.. almost like you’re organizing a set of tools you’ll be using while you mix..

But you’re also kinda mixing.. you’re “rough mixing.” Or.. you’re saying “ok, I want these elements to be balance this way at this point in time” and not really going any deeper then that.

But instantly I get all excited cause.. you can here the pro-ness of it… suddenly it all has that shinny gloss…. that it didn’t before. Before we thought “ah, its ok,” once we’ve put the pieces together.. done the rough mix.. have a sense of what we will be doing.. instantly… it turns from ok to awesome.

Well.. not totally.. but…

This onto it’s self was revelation to me because… well I normally spend a lot of time mixing and it’s the mix that.. is so much of what my work is about.. and working this way.. is so different.. and you feel like “oh, it’s not going to be so great” and as soon as I get to putting the mix together.. it is so great… and… it’s a different process.. one that’s a good deal faster….

But then comes the mixing

The Mixing

The mixing is “the scary shit.” I say that because.. I really think of the mix as… being where the magic normally happens in my work.. and in a way what we are doing is shifting around divisions of labor.. in the workflow context.. that then has certain implications and…

But mixing for video’s a little different. Basically there’s dialog.. and maybe some sounds… that were recorded off the video camera’s microphones.. that you have to be able to hear.. and there’s a story we need to reinforce….

And.. mixing is like.. choosing when you want stuff to be silent to.. like you’ve made all this music but.. it’s not like we need to use it.. and when you edit stuff.. well for this project anyway.. I wasn’t editing to music.. so as a result..  in my mind there’s a number of sections of video that work because they are silent… it’s almost like “That loud silence,” where.. its out of context.. but you could hear a pin drop… all of sudden.. in a crowded place… that kind of silence.

The silence.. is about.. well in this video.. the emotions I’m feeling.. and recording.. that are a part of the video.

In the video I’m working on.. the power of it.. and it’s probably a mostly flawed video… but the power is in seeing me.. facing what’s going on.. and you feel this anger.. this frustration.. this.. pain..

It’s like the series of video that lead up to this one.. are these video’s of me going into hell.. really.. and the hole time I’m making jokes.. being up beat.. but here.. that falls away.. and I’m knocked over and it’s not even “I don’t know how much more I can take” its “this is too much” and.. it’s just whispered… and.. you know that it’s the whisper that’s the.. powerful pain because.. that’s like giving up on life.. like.. “Ok, I’m ready to check out.”

Now.. the issue of being suicidal.. I haven’t brought into the video’s yet.. so.. you might not understand that this despair that I’m feeling is like.. a door shutting in my face and the great despair just kind of washing over me..

And it’s just that… for me to spend too much time there.. is dangerous for me.. and in the video we are lucky… we get pulled out.. and it becomes like the end of this epic emotional arch…

And so you want the audio to support that narrative.. and.. all along I’m like “I don’t know if this is really going to work” and.. I don’t still…. but I’m going with it.

The music has this thundering energy that’s like.. on fire.. pulsating.. pushing.. driving… energy.. and I don’t really know what the hell that has to do with what I’m feeling.. or what the video’s are about..  it might be working against it.. it might be better if the video was just the video minus the score…

I feel.. as the video starts taking shape.. with the audio.. that the audio is somehow a metaphor for my consciousness… that the audio is me.. looking at me.. or me… living in the 3rd person.. that there is always this 3rd person element to experience.. and that’s what the music is.

But its deeper then.. a surface layer of experience.. like its not what you would say consciously.. necessarily… It’s more then that.. so its about you’re spirit.. a kind of confession of the spirit… and its like this totally other story.. then the story we are in… you know? As if it has this bigger picture story.. and the way the music doesn’t seem to relate to the video on some levels.. is like the relationship of that bigger picture story with the moment.. and the issue of trying to bridge the two in the living of life.

(close to the relationship of eternal values with temporal values)

So.. anyway

The Mixing ends up being about.. making the music work with the video.. and really isn’t much of a mix project.. I mean..

This project is a kind of prototype.. to test out an approach… and… you know.. the thing is this thing has to be done yesterday basically.. or these kinds of projects have to be done fast… and…

The Issue of Audio… Going Deeply

Theoretically.. where all this stuff leads.. is to the selling / promotion of my music.. so if a video should get.. well heard.. you’d like it to work as an introduction to the brand… to the kind of music I make. Or to something…

So.. that there should be music, a score.. that audio should be an important part of the videos.. you can see why I would really value that.

What I’m seeing… and you know.. its so hard to tell because.. It’s like in doing this stuff.. I’m really blazing a new trail.. trying out something new and different… and.. you know.. take a small child learning to walk.. trying out something new and different.. and you wouldn’t judge the effectiveness of walking and running based off of the performance of a small child who never did it before.

So.. I’m kinda committed to this stuff.. .but I don’t want to get soo bogged down in the audio as I have for this project.. and probably will for the next one frankly.

Anyway…

So the problem is.. how good do you want the audio? How much work is worth putting into it? How do we find the right trade offs?

There’s a lot of things going on here.. I mean here I am jumping head first into this whole other world of music production.. and in a lot of ways.. what I need to do is not create this score for this video, or any video.. but to instead.. explore the sonic world.. get so I have some powers in there….

Next morning:

Fuck, podcamp is this weekend.. I don’t have much time to finish this damn thing…

A bit latter that day

Yes, it’s a somewhat arbitrary deadline but.. I don’t know.. see I’d generally like to get a lot of stuff in place for pod camp.. cause I mean it’s kind of a thing….

So.. so… so…. shall I pull away from this post and do a post on.. I don’t know.. the plan?

 

Working on Video

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Video.. to me… is like this.. amazing medium… and I guess my whole thing is like.. “I want to create my style.” Or… err, let me give you some background.

I was kinda sorta minoring in video in College…

My Teacher, Tony Ousler.. you know.. did/does work like this:

Err… and my College Major… SIM.. .involved video… and then there were those film classes… and…..

Video has always been a little bit of a back burning “I’m going to do it one of these days!” kinds of things… the big problem being having a computer / tools that were good enough really… Or I’d have tools that were sorta good enough but the internet needed to mature, or never enough disk space and… on and on.

So.. what I did do was a lot of animation.. in Flash.. none of which has ever really been posted I don’t think…. maybe if you way back machine some of my other sites…

In any event

So.. I come at video from a very “art school” / “artist” kind of perspective. And… this is like.. so different from… the conventional world of how most people think about video, it’s production, and whatever else.. that it’s like.. well its like being an alien basically.

But never mind that…

I’m trying to kinda sorta… in a pseudo fashion, follow the Steve Garfield school of video. I say Pseudo cause I think of Steve’s work as “all that is wrong with modern video.” I say that jokingly… I think there’s a lot of video professionals who might say that.. and this bit about “the cult of the amateur.”

But I mention Steve because.. I think he’s a well known figure in internet video.. and he has this off the cuff production style that’s like.. a radically different way of thinking about film making from the conventional world of film making.. and it poses all kinds of wonderful questions about what things like “production values in media” are really all about.

I embrace that.. but I can not escape being an artist. Being an artist.. I’m not sure what that means… but I know in practice it’s like.. I look at video as an art form…

Video / Film as Art, High Art.. do very many people even think this way anymore? Hell, how many people have any kind of a conception of what “high art” is or might be?

The Art of it

So basically video is like.. you have this moving visual image (a motion picture) and you got this audio (talk-e-z)… and um… once you’re at the editing stage.. you can play around with that.. putting text in.. cutting clips together to try and tell a story… doing things with audio…

I like to think of it as a very painter like process.

My big issue.. today.. is really with the tools…  I haven’t used the latest Final Cut, Avid, or Premier / Adobe Production bundle… so I can’t speak with authority about where the state of things is at, at this moment but..

Well lets take audio…

48 kHz 16-bit… is the default. Really? Are you fucking kidding me? What retard made that the standard? Dude.. can you say 24-bit? Like.. if you want to work with the audio.. make it all nice.. it helps to have that extra dynamic range?

48 kHz? Ok.. I figure that probably made a lot of sense when the primary playback system wasn’t a computer.. that could handle whatever sample rate you wanted but…

Ok.. this is a long conversation… CDs are 44.1 kHz… usually when I work.. doing audio.. I do it at 44.1 kHz… if the project I’m working in is 48 kHz.. I’m going to run into conversion problems which create work flow issues. If I had a bit more power.. and perhaps an SSL console in my office… I’d more then likely be working at 96 kHz.. which would convert to both 48 kHz and 44.1 kHz a lot easier.. but.. I’d still like that to have more control over the sample rate of my camera!

What I’m trying to say is.. just on the level of file formats.. conventions… and whatever.. stuff is nuts. This is really… the issue of “legacy” technology.. but…

Then you have the issue of… a video edit is kinda like a DAW (digital audio work station). In that you can find your self mixing together multiple channels of audio.. but.. you can’t “really do that” in the editor.. and the interchange of files between editor.. and then whatever DAW you might like to be working with… isn’t there.

I’m a music producing guy… I’m hard core.. the world of Music production.. audio engineers.. .and whatever… shoot for a production value that is just miles beyond what you normally find in video… you sorta get there in film sometimes… but… or close to there…

So it makes sense that I’d want to deal with audio on my level… and this is just painful workflow wise…

If we then go back to this idea of the psudo Steve Garfield approach… The problem is Steve has to produce a lot of content at zero cost.. which is to say.. maybe you don’t even bother editing it.. or you barely edit it.. and it’s all rough around all the corners… and what you can an can not do.. in that kind of.. approach… is governed by how fast it is to do in the tool you’re working with.

Anyway

So My approach of being an artist is really… once you get some content in you’re video editor.. how you want to put that content together.. how you might add other elements… how you might want to shoot something more.. or maybe I’ll bring in photos.

I like to do the Garfield esk thing of.. just whipping something together as fast as I can.. but to me that’s like “gesture drawing” from the art world… it’s a way of getting something onto the canvas.. a big picture view of things.. that you can refine as needed.. or whatever…

But I love the idea of.. I’m just going to whip a lot of things together.. in a kind of creative way.. maybe mess with this or that for a little bit.. and then I’m done.. .fast..

You really need to be this way to.. in social media world stuff…

But.. I’m looking at this video I’m doing and……

The dialog is just awful.. look at the meters… its way to low.. and there’s no good way of handing that in Final Cut..

So I export a video and audio and load stuff up in Digital Peformer.. my main DAW

In DP I have some muscle… I split up the audio into 3 channels… Channel 1 is the master channel, 2 is the dialog channel, and 3 is the really really hurting dialog channel.

I figure I could go and do a lot of volume automation… to get things to work right.. sit right in the mix.. but really.. I’m too lazy… so I throw around a lot of compressors and limiters.. I’m not in love with the results but.. I get somewhere fast.

Then the idea is “oh yeah” we want to score this sorta.”

In the video I’m doing recording for “sound design” so.. I naturally want to use the recorded audio as an element in the mix… which is like.. basically white noise which means… from a mixing perspective.. it will mask out the frequencies of everything it comes in contact with…

Well typical in video production is you then take those kinds of elements and turn there volume down for as long as the dialog is going. But I like to try and get that back ground noise to sit a little higher in the mix.. so basically I just EQ out most of the dialog frequencies.. from the wind / background noise, push the same ones up on the dialog.. maybe compress both of them a little bit just so I can fit them together a little easier… and.. now I have this other kind of sonic experience.

Thing like this.. for someone who so often spends all day doing nothing but music production.. is just natural.

Anyway

So expect a video soon.. of my adventures in hurricane land

Sonic darkness

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Ok.. I just read through this mad post I wrote last night. Some of it I thought was pretty cool.. and I figure I should continue on the theme now.

The Demons fighting my music

So I had this experience of listening to my music.. with someone.. where we listened to.. I don’t know.. a bunch of stuff.. in a car.

The stereo… in the car.. was rubbish.. my work was killing the Bass.. once the volume was up at a certain level.. and.. this became a real problem for hearing my work.. because of the dynamic range of my work.. how huge it can be.. between quiet and loud.

I think this was effecting some of the dark feeling I was having last night about my work.. that I was hearing it in this bad listening environment…

That and there’s also this thing that happens when I listen to my music with someone else.. I think I hear my music more as they are hearing it.. and thus hear it differently.. sometimes more freshly.. and my view of it shifts.

umm

Ok.. a few moments ago I post about how I hadn’t yet turned stuff on.. sound wise.. and had a half a inclination to do so, and to work on music.. now its on… i just started it, I’m going to take a listen to what I’m working on now…

a DP screen grab

Screen Shot of the project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So.. I’ve done a lot as far as journaled about this projection.. in blog posts I haven’t posted yet.. but lets talk a little about

How this project is innovative in terms of my work

In the bottom left hand corder of the screen there’s a “marker” panel. You can put as many markers as you like into you’re project.. and you just click on the marker in that panel.. and DP will automatically take you to that section of you’re project.

I don’t think I ever used markers before…

What’s really cool about it is..

If you look at the bottom right hand side of the image.. you’ll see a time line.. the numbers on the top of which correspond to measure numbers.. and slightly above those we see our 3 markers.

What I’ve done is.. created 3.. almost like variations… where I assemble elements differently or whatever.. or go and work on different ideas that are related to the theme or whatever… or something.. perhaps just a little doodle…

So the idea is I start out working this way.. in this arrangement view… building pieces.

After playing around with a bit:

Wow, I have very little ability to stick to this.. I think I’m going to go.. idk, do something else

The idea is.. then.. I can combine them.. at a given point along the way… this leads me to an approach to creating music that is… “more like design” then.. my normal painterly approach.

It’s also like.. individual pieces can be like these very complex puzzles.. that you wrestle with for long periods of time.. they can be sources of frustration.. these big challenges.. and.. you can go on till you fix this..

Normally the way I work is from Measure 1 all the way till the end.. and this allows me to kinda.. not work quite so linearly..

Crap… I think I must have messed something up somewhere with this blog… err ok… I think I’ll just post?

The Music Production Journals

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I think.. I’ve already written, and not posted, a hell of a lot.. on this subject… of electronic music production…  or.. I mean.. that are of this form…

See one idea I have.. is I like to treat the blog almost like a journal… it’s like me sharing whatever… and maybe I can read it over time and get something from it personally.. and its a way of helping me to think out stuff… and it’s a way for me… to procrastinating doing real work… and um… it’s a way of me to keep writing..  which I want to try and do every day and.. all of that.

For you.. the reader… I think… well..

Look.. if you’re like me.. as a music producer type… these journals could be of huge value.. depending on where you’re at.. cause they’re like.. me wrestling with my self.. with projects… talking about the projects.. real world projects.. as I try and work my way through them…

So what that does is it gives you a chance to peak over my shoulder and see what I’m doing… and I know I would LOVE to be able to peak over lots of peoples shoulders while they work.. and see what I might be able to learn and take from there approach…

Plus.. I’m crazy.. what I do is more out there then most.. so.. it’s possible that my work is a freaking gold mine.. of stuff.. that you could take from…

Err, but please… do try and mention me along the way… give me some kinda props… or whatever…