Adobe has announced new versions of there Creative Suits…  You can see video presentations of all there new software at tv.adobe.com. What I’ll be talking about in this post is stuff relating to what I’m sorta evaluating.. which is the Web Premium Bundle.. and After Effects CS4. On that note, lets start with some of the videos…

Adobe Web Premium CS4: 

As you might expect from adobe.. the video lies.. (I say this due to my past bad experience with Adobe… ) The video lies in that it suggests that Indesign is a part of the Web Premium Bundle.. and it is not!

My bad Adobe Experience

I thought I had posted on this.. but haven’t been able to find the post so.. here’s the deal:

I went to buy the web bundle.. but um.. the adobe site wasn’t real clear.. bad usability, and all that.. which is sorta ironic for a company building design tools! So I bought the wrong bundle by accident…  I was on the phone with Adobe on 4 ceperate occasions trying to streighten it all out.. each conversation had me moving between various people to talk to.. each seemed to take upwards of an hour.. an it seemed that nearly everyone was giving me a different story…  the long and the short of it was.. I don’t know if I’ve been refunded yet for the wrong bundle! And if you ask me it’s all about what’s bad with Adobe…. and this video being misleading is just more of the same!

On the Subject of the Bundle 

I wrote this post around the time I bought the bundle.. and provides some reasonably good background on the subject.

Web Standards

The problem with the bundle.. well it feels a little bit like Adobe “doesn’t get it.” One of the biggest revolutions in the world of web design has been Web Standards.. we design sites in such a way to separate out content, presentation, and behavior..  and introduce graceful degradation..  If this is done right.. then whatever you’re using to view the site.. be it IE, FireFox.. your PDA, iPhone.. if you have accessibility issues so there’s a voice synth speaking out the page.. whatever..  it will work on your platform in the most ideal-ish sorta way.

The trouble with the Adobe software has been that it does not enable this sorta industry standard development practices…. The learning curve nessisary to doing this kind of development is great.. and you’d like tools to help with that.. Not only that but.. “designers” tend to think visually.. and so you’d like tools that allow you to think visually.. as a pose to think code.. in terms of working out a design.. from a process perspective.. and blah blah blah.

Adobe has been… about 6 years late to the standards party? And you know.. on the internet things move really really fast.. so I don’t think there’s any reasonable excuse for this.. In any event.. Fireworks.. which is a web graphics orientated program.. will now spit out standards compliant code.. which is a groovy thing.. and Dreamweaver looks like.. they’ve done a number of thing to help with a standards based work flow.. so I am digging that.

Dreamweaver.. as of CS3, introduce the AJAX Spry framework.. This allows you to, via WYWYG, put together AJAX stuff. AJAX is.. how web applications are made, basically.. It’s kind of a way of using XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, XML, and server stuff.. to do certain kinds of stuff.. lets say. AJAX is a groovy technology and all.. but it is not without problems.. though it should be said that, as with most technologies, the problem is not so much the technology as how the technology is used…  and um… the problem with the Spry framework.. is it is much less then best practices… in how it does its things.. 

My feeling is.. I’d like to see the software get better at standards out of the box.. but at least its headed in that direction.. if at an unforgivably slow pace…. and I really need to get my hands on the software before I can really judge these things too well. 

Flash CS4

Flash CS4 is the most compelling part, at least for me personally, to the Web Premium bundle upgrade:

Flash has ALWAYS been the best tool for web based animation.. trouble is.. not a hell of a lot has happened to Flash, as far as animation is concerned.. since like.. Flash 5… we are talking the last tech bubble here! Most of the excitement in the Flash platform, since version 5.. and including version 5… has been all about the developer side of Flash.. and since FLEX is were a serious Flash developer would turn.. you’d hope you’d see better design and animation tools in Flash.. and indeed, we are now seeing them.

The new feature of being able to modify different parameters individually.. be it transparency, scale, its location on the screen.. being able to modify motion curves…  in a rather After Effects-esk way. This will revolutionize how I work with Flash.. and it’ll do this, really, on a process level.. which is a very deep thing. 

But Adobe didn’t stop there! They finally gave us IK (Inverse Kinematics.) Basically we are talking about Bones here.. which is a core feature of character animation in 3D graphics. This is also a very big thing for animation.

If all this isn’t enough.. we get some kind of a new 3D tool..  It didn’t look all that impressive from the presentation.. though I didn’t think the any of the Flash stuff looked all that impressive in the presentations.. unless you kinda knew what was going on…  I mean they were using a very boring project for there examples.. but this could be a very cool thing to.

PhotoShop CS4

There’s a lot of new stuff in Photoshop that looks interesting.. New ways of dealing with camera RAW.. the ability to bring 3D objects into PhotoShop and paint directly on them..  There’s bad news that Photoshop will not be 64-bit on the Mac.. which is a big downer.. but Adobe claims there new way of using your graphics card will more then make up for that.. This, as we say in the biz, is spin…  

Sound Booth CS4

Sound Booth is new to the Web Premium bundle. I do a lot of music production.. and for a lot of what Sound booth does.. I have better apps.. However.. it does have some spectral editing abilities.. which I would really love to play with.. and Sound Booth is more geared to working inside of this kind of media production environment.. as a pose to music production more generally.

I think it’s nice they put Sound Booth in.. for anyone who’s doing Flash.. I think sound in Flash isn’t really good enough.. I mean Flash projects don’t have enough attention paid to sound.. and this ought to help that a little bit.

After Effects CS4

Here’s the After Effects video:

So what do you think of that? Let me take you through it…

Mobile Us 

First we have a tool for creating content for multiple mobile platforms. My first impression was “Why are you putting this into after effects?” I mean.. After Effects isn’t a video editing tool.. it’s a special effects, motion graphics, animation, compositing type tool….  If I’m creating stuff in After Effects… that stuff’s next stop is a video editing program… before it’s final output.

Now ok.. this is a little complicated but..  what are you creating content for? What percentage of content is purely for mobile platforms? What I mean is.. that same content, don’t you probably want to stick it on youtube, or some other online distribution platform? If that’s the case.. you want to render stuff out of After Effects at the resolution of.. well the highest resolution you’re making your stuff for. As a result.. when you render stuff out of After Effects.. you’re not going to be saving on render times.. by aiming at smaller resolution platforms..  

The only thing I will say on behalf of this new feature is.. having guides that tell you when and where stuff in your frame is going to be cut out of on a target platform.. is very important.

Search

This is a very interesting part of the Adobe Suites… Basically.. there’s meta data that follows media through out the system.. and this is a fairly central part of the search. This is quite revolutionary stuff.. but.. if After Effects is you’re only Adobe Video / Production sorta program..  of what use is it to you anyway?

In my studio Final Cut Studio is where I work with video. When it comes to music production, that might have something to do with a scoring video… that’s taking place in Digital Performer, Ableton Live, Reason.. etc. None of this stuff will carry that meta data…  So for folks in this position.. you’re basically waiting a few years to see if Adobe’s stuff.. gets adopted by a wider echo system of developers.

I’m basically working on.. . lets call it the pro side of the DIY spectrum… what this means is I don’t often have an actual production team… and the process of inputting the meta data into this system..  will likely be neglected in most cases.. particularly if the pay off is lost as soon as I start working in one of those non Adobe products! Though apparently some of the Adobe stuff will turn audio speaking into text for the meta data… 

Matt’s Choice

Price 

The Web Premium bundle will now set you back $1700… and the upgrade (which is what I’d be buying) goes for $600. After Effects $1000 for the full, and $300 for the upgrade. That, at least in my world, is not chicken feed.

Economic Considerations 

You know.. there’s a couple things here..

1. The economy is slowing down. What does this mean to the budding entrepreneur / whomever? It means its time to stop spending money on stuff!!! I mean if the great depression 2.0 is just around the corner? Things will hopefully not be that dyer.. but whatever you think about this sorta thing.. one wants to be careful about the choices one makes.
2. On a Personal Level… I have a limited amount of cash to live off of.. until I sell the house.. and I’d like to not sell the house till the housing market / economy is in a better position then what we find today.. So again, I gotta be careful about spending money.

CS4 Bundles thangs

A lot of people you talk to are saying “There’s a new CS4 already?” These are complex tools and its hard to keep up with it all. My situation is even worse.. cause in addition to that bundle.. I’m doing video, music production, and 3D graphics..  photography.. etc..   At $600, am I going to get my money’s worth out of the new versions?  That’s my big question mark.. I mean.. If Firework’s standards support is actually pretty good.. the Dreaweaver stuff turns out to make a difference.. Of course we expect Flash to be all that.. Having sound booth has its advantages…  The photoshop stuff could really mean something..   You know I’m just on the fence about it.

After Effects 

After Effects is another matter. I own After Effects 4.0.. which is like.. pre Mac OSX… and will not run on an Intel Mac.. So I need to drop the money on After Effects just to have an After Effects! If I was getting on After Effects CS3, I think I might be passing on this upgrade.. but as of now, there’s no question that I’m upgrading. 

Other Expenses? 

So here’s some other things I’m thinking of spend money on.. in the relatively short term

1. RAM, probably a couple hundred dollars worth
2. HD Camera, probably around $700
3. Cantor Vocal Synth $400
4. Breverb reverb: $280
5. Binarual microphone set up thing.. I think we are talking about $200
6. Laptop..  more then a grand
7. If I go with such a laptop.. add $500 for time capsule 

 Out side of this.. There’s the possibility of other software upgrades…  and can I afford those?

Day’s latter:

 Hmm.. I think I should just post this as is.

So recently I’ve been reconnecting, a bit, with folks from my college days at Mass Art.. and in the Studio of Interrelated media program.. with an interest in checking out folks work.. Which brings us to todays subject of Mr. Bobby Abate.

I believe I first met Mr. Abate while I was in the August Studio Program at Mass Art.. This is a program for high school students.. where you take a bunch of classes for the month of August.. it was an amazing time, living in the Dorms.. I met him and a girl he was hanging with.. while smoking butts outside the dorm.. just sorta randomly.. and ended up doing something that night.. don’t quite remember what.

Any who.. Bobby was a brilliant Artist.. I mean he just made a lot of really amazing work.. and what do you know.. his work’s still quite great.. and he’s one of the folks from that time who’s still very serious about his artist’s pursuits… 

So here’s a Youtube video of his I really liked:

One of the thing’s that struck me sorta funny about this video is.. he mentions Tony Oursler as  the guy who got the funding he was trying to get.. What I thought was sorta funny about that is that Tony was the video professor at Mass Art while we were there..  Tony is often hailed as one of the top 5 or so video artst’s to come out of the US ever.. so pretty stiff competition, right? But also this video makes me think of Tony’s work.. in that you have this kind of degradation of video in a way that calls attention to it’s video-ness in a way very similar to Tony’s work.. a sort of similar aesthetic..  Though clearly Bobby Abate’s work is.. well I want to say more erotically charged? And um.. has a certain dangerous quality in that and.. well lots of stuff really.

You can see more of his work at his official website.. sweetkitty.com, brilliant stuff. 

I should maybe close on.. in reference to the video.. I don’t actually know a heck of a lot about the art world today. My carrier vision has always been about searching for new existential / asymmetric relationships to the market place.. but.. working out the art world part.. is something to do.. as I tend to want to go down rather serious avant guard -ish paths.. In any event.. you look at how Brilliant his work is.. and… well shouldn’t he be in a very high stratosphere?

So I guess it was thursday.. they had all gone out to eat some place when Melissa had an allergic reaction that lead to the UMass Medical Center in Worcester Mass..

in “critical but stable condition.” I didn’t actually hear about this till a phone message this past friday from Aunt Jackie.

[That’s a picture from our 2008 family reunion in upstate New York.]

So we arranged that we’d meet and see her this Sunday, aka today… And it was this morning’s call to confirm the let me know my sister was doing significantly better… which was nice.

Waking up dad is no easy feat.. especially not lately, and especially not this early… but somehow I got him up, and it was off to a late start.

It was about a 45 minute drive to the Hospital. There was only one catch.. the directions where wrong.. the address was wrong, Goggle Maps is a lier… but eventually we made it.

I haven’t seen very much of my sister since I was a kid: My sister has sever mental retardation and autism..  and was a kind of nightmare in terms of the amount of stress her condition put on my parents while I was growing up.. and was, by extension.. an issue for me. So sometime around.. well when I was in high school.. so late 80s, my Sister went off to live in a home in Western Mass. 

My mom died this past december.. It was a combination of lung problems.. related to cancer and cancer treatment.. as well as a bad heart condition.. which was first created in the stress-fest days before Melissa went to live at Archway. My mom had kind of set things up so my Aunt Jackie would take care of Melissa’s affairs, and what not, after she died.. though I now play some kind of a roll.. a roll I don’t do so well at, this and taking care of my Dad with Dementia…

In any event, I haven’t seen my Missy since Mom died… and this certainly wasn’t the best of circumstances.

She sure does look different, shockingly so to me.. My memory of her is.. well of her being both a good deal younger and having a good deal more weight.. as a result of all the medication she was always on.. and bouncing around through. She looked like a women.. and that somehow startled me a little.

But my Father tells me she didn’t look thin to him.. but that she seemed less responsive and less alert then usual… but then he hasn’t seen Missy for a long while ethier.

Because of the direction problems I wasn’t able to meet up with my Aunt Jackie.. but from talking to her on the phone since getting home.. it sounds like Melissa was really only responsive to the people from Archway.. and apparently at some point she had asked for Mom. I don’t know how well she understands that Mom died. 

In any event, I thought she looked pretty good considering… and sorta.. it’s hard to explain really. I felt like there was something going on behind her eyes.. wishing I could somehow connect to her. That’s the way with Autism though.. But I felt this more then I ever had in the past.. She just kind of sat there rocking.. oscillating between smiles, a kind of looking around thing.. and this far off look..  

I sorta tried to connect in a kind of non-verbal-ish way… I don’t know if it did anything.. but there you go, right? It was kind of awkward, as it always is for me, not really knowing quite how to act.. I’ve felt that way since I was a little kid.. going to the special needs camps and whatever.. just not knowing how to relate to that world.. So I let my father take the lead on this part of things.. and that seemed to work out well.

And a Closing Statement to my Social Media Friends 

Out side of all that.. I want to thank all my social media friends.. who’s kind words have been so helpful while these sorts of things have been going on.. and not knowing if my Sister would be ok, and all of that. You guys are why I love social media!  So thank you.

It’s almost 12 30 as I write this. This past Friday I was notified that my sister was in critical but stable condition, having had am allergic reaction to something.. It’s made for a bit of a difficult weekend.

My sister suffers from severe mental retardation and autism. She lives in a home in somewhat western-ish Mass. When my mom died last december.. it sorta fell on me to.. I’m not sure what.. but to make sure things were.. not so bad. But also I’ve been in the position of being in charge of taking care of my father who has dementia… Between this kind of thing and like.. sorta normal challenges of life of which my mom largely shielded me from… I’m greeted with a set of challenges I’m generally not feeling totally up to… That I must find a way to rise to…  And it surely doesn’t help that career wise I tend to be the starving artist type.

So now I’m waking up dad and getting ready to leave to go meet with my Aunt Jackie to visit my Sister in the hospital. The good news is my sisters condition has stabilized.. and she’s being moved out of the ICU.

Ok, well here it is

The full sized version can be found on flickr over here. You probably want to look at the full size version to properly evaluate it. I myself still don’t know what I think.. when do I ever?

I basically look at it as a first step and exploring a direction that.. well I have another post in draft form.. that talks about it a bit.. but.. ok, screw it, let me give you some of the challenges:

I want to combine fine art and commercial.. a fundamental difference between the two could be described as.. fine art being about expression where as commercial art is about communication… and has to do with.. whatever the goals of the business objectives are… Strangely.. (expression has to do with the goals of the expresser.. if business is an amplification of natural processes.. and social media takes us closer to the humanness, so to speak.. you can see why this sort of approach might make sense in a social media context) the process of this project is one of “we’ll figure out our goals along the way.”

So I suppose it’s like a kind of cubism.. you can view it as art or as commercial art, right? I say cubism in the sense that in cubism you have multiple views of the same object in the same image.. so to speak.

Commercial Objectives 

The goal is to refine our objectives.. At the current state of things.. this is a flyer for a friend.. who’s putting them up around town, so to speak, to help promote my stuff..

My feeling about it is.. that this project…  well you want your campaign efforts to be coordinated and thought out.. and this is kinda thrown together..  but basically we’d like folks to check out the site and down load the music. Beyond that there’s branding… and we are telling people something about our selves.

How I sorta conceptualize it

The first thing I want is for it to be visually compelling. Is it? That’s the first thing I want you to respond to. Why? It’s a brand value… And its a brand value that has a very particular importance in my brand. And so.. I basically want it to act as a painting first.. and then as you get absorbed into the painting.. you start getting the messages. That’s what we hope anyway.

So it operates in a way that’s different from like.. poster design…  although it is somewhat modeled after the psychedelic posters of the 60s.. that’s an influence anyway.. as well as the art around the rave scene of like.. the 90s..  and other strange things..

So.. lets say you’re like “Ok, this is pretty groovy visually.” You get the name of the site pretty quick.. and then you get.. ok.. its free electronic music..  

There’s “the Mystic Prophet Philosopher shtick.” 

Latter, next day:

So I quickly whipped up some stickers:

Again I’m not sure about the one above… It was whipped up so fast..  

I kinda dig this one. 

Feedback

I haven’t been real sure about these designs..  For the flyer design.. I posted a link on flickr with a request for feed back.. here are a couple of the responses I got:

@hbeeinc @MattSearles re:flyet - that’s just about the busiest thing i’ve seen for a long time. also is it supposed to be “world of the know … 

@djcitymaus @MattSearles flyer is cool. but i don’t know about the little matts inside the head of the big matt. uh, does that make sense? 

NewApeV @MattSearles AHHHHHHHH!!! Dude, this is PURE 100% AWESOME!!! Seriously! The text sort of mirrors your musical feel and that pic..

NewApeV @MattSearles …that pic makes you look 10 years younger, too! ;

Many thanks for the feedback..  As you can see, it’s perhaps not real easy to communicate much about a visual work via twitter but…   

Matt Responds to Feedback 

To Paul’s point (hbeeinc).. 

I’m not sure if he was saying it was “too busy” or not.. though I have gotten that comment from other’s..  and others have said it’s not too busy..  so perhaps its busyness is an issue, or at least something to think about? What I will say about the busyness is..  

I think the busyness.. relates to the communications issue.. which is something I think I need to work on.. You have a lot of things competing for your attention.. and as a result I don’t think it works in certain contexts. Another words.. in modern web design ultra clean simplicity is a big trend.. a long term one at that.. and a reason for that is usability.. people fly through websites so fast.. that it really needs to communicate in a kind of billboard kinda way.. quick, fast.. no time to contemplate… 

So.. I think if you’re helping me put these things up..  You probably want that flyer.. or perhaps printed as a sticker.. up in places where people are sitting around and waiting.. have a chance to look at it for a while.. say like at a buss stop or something… As a pose to some place where they’re moving buy quickly.

I’m not sure what Paul was getting at with if it was supposed to be “world of the known,” when I first got his tweet I a looked at it I went “oh shit, I think I fucked up.” When doing these kinds of designs.. / signs.. its incredibly easy to screw up spelling.. or have things where you word it all wrong..  Further.. I’m not 100% on the language.. but.. it is a rush job so..  as we say in the Bush administration “good enough for government work.” … (And we hope Billy Bob Neck doesn’t object to that too much)…

[editors note: After looking things over Matt ws surprised to see that the word “world” is miss spelled in the first sticker.. just where Paul seemed to find the problem in the flyer.. which leaves Matt feeling baffled and.. well creepy mystical feeling] 

>>> [Editor’s note part 2: After posting this, Matt found the issue] 

To DJ City Maus’s point.

This could be one of those subjective things..  I like the little Matt in the big Matt cause I think it’s sorta disturbing looking..  like a screwed up face.. flesh somehow horribly disfigured…  

There’s also a “conceptual continuity” thing going on here… Perhaps we could call it fractal reality? It is eastern philosophy stuff.. the idea that.. who are you really? That the ultimate answer to that mystery is to say.. that in every grain of sand is the universe, in you is the universe…  

To New Ape V / Evan Pew’s Point:

My theory of this whole process is that there’s an organic unity to the whole thing that happens on an “expressive level.” I mean.. the same sorta impulses that are diving the design / painting are driving the music..  so there’s a unity to the whole that you don’t get when Led Zeppelin doesn’t do there own album art… and this is sorta central to what I’m doing and what I think is exciting about what I’m doing, assuming I can meet the challenges of all this.

Ok, this post drags on a little too long I think..  so lets end it here. 

I seem to be inside of strange place where instead of actually producing music I’m… kinda like designing the building blocks of music production projects…. Or I’m programing synthesizers anyway.

I’m in Absynth 4.. Seems like the last time I sat around programing Absynth.. it must have been a couple versions back.. In any event, I find myself digging down deeper.

Because all my programing is now “Synthesizer X + Kore” there’s a kind of.. strangely different way of thinking about synthesizers. I’m a software synth guy, you must understand.. so I’m not used to having a lot of hardware controls via which I can get expressive with a synthesizer.. So I’ve never programmed a synth with the notion of “if you move these 8 knobs, and 8 buttons you’ll find this groovy expressive potential in this sound.”

Absynth.. Is interesting in that.. It’s one of the first synthesizers I ever kind of fell in love with programming. Absynth’s expressive potential for ambient music.. for evolving sound scapes.. is just awesome. And there’s something about programming it that gets my imagination going like no other..  It’s all a bit more like creating a sonic puppet then a conventional synth patch.. In the sense that you’re going in and finding different ways it could be expressive.. as a part of how you program it.

Latter that night

The patch I’m currently working on, as I write this post, is one that I’m not real sure if it’s usefulness as an instrument.. I mean I have no idea how it could fit into my work.. but I will say.. its fun as hell playing with… perhaps I can take a swing at trying to express what I mean by this….

Conventionally.. I don’t really use compressors or EQs.. or I didn’t until recently.. and I’m still at an early stage of learning how to integrate them into my work. Now conventionally EQs and Compressors are… well like the most important tools of mix engineers. EQs and compressors help you to shape various aspects of your mix.. But how I usually do it is.. in the choice of what instruments I use.. Another words.. how I shape the things EQ and Compressors shape.. I shape by things like what instruments I use.. which is.. in a lot of ways.. kinda better.   

A day or so latter:

You used to be able to just embed these.. but I can’t work out how to do that since they changed last.fm a little bit.. in any event.. here’s a direct link to a track called A Short Trip To Another Day. (clicking on it will open it in a new window.) The reason I link to this track is.. is it’s an example of something created based off.. well the same sorta spirit I’m working in now..  

I’m jumping around in this post a little.. so try and bare with me..

A Short Trip To Another Day was one of my first attempts at programming Absynth.. The program I created was.. one that I didn’t really know how I would be expressive with it.. or how it would work in my music.. So the process of creating A Short Trip to Another Day was one of exploring how it might fit into my work..

Working in this sorta way.. I think it pushes you in different directions then you might other wise work in.. which can result in more interesting work.. and I have to say that this might be one of my favorite tracks.. and so it illustrates what I’m talking about in this entry. 

Ok.. so…  

As I was saying before.. I never used to use EQs or Compressors in my productions.. and um.. EQs and Compressors are tools via which to craft a mix.. and they indeed are tools that I could use in order to exert some control over the sounds created by my synth programs..

So.. looking forward from where I’m at at this moment.. I see growth potential in my music, along a few different lines..  

1. There’s the process of learning to program various synthesizers and the power of custom sound libraries.. and all there implications… This isn’t a totally new concept.. but we are learning to program new synths / new versions of synths.. ad exploring new possibilities along these lines.
2. There is the issue of the hardware / software control.. thinking about sounds as puppets.. with various ways of getting expressive with our sounds.. that are much more complex in how they might be expressive.. then normally found in my work.
3. There is the subject of how to use EQs and Compressors in my work.. where they might make my work better, or perhaps make my work not soo much better.. but it is about the exploration of what there roll can be.. which is in large measure a more artistic thing then a conventional technical thing of.. the way things are conventionally done by people.
4. There is the possibility of using Kore 2 for “Super Instruments,” which is to say.. You create a patch.. that combines any number or synthesizers and effects into one giant “super instrument” and what that could bring to the table.

In talking about these possible directions..  for growth.. We are talking about how this work could become enriched. 

Latter that night, over tired (after a synth programing catastrophe)  

I started in on a new Absynth program today. What happened is.. I figured out how to have the.. well performance sliders, lets call them.. things I’d probably control via the Kore 2 controller.. modify envelopes. This would be a fairly simple thing.. but it’s enough to get me excited… With envelopes you can create rhythms… and you know.. these rhythms could evolve over time.. but also you could have different parts of your synth program playing different rhythms of different lengths.. that loop.. So its like.. well lets just say that’s pretty cool for the way I like to work..  (though I don’t normally use synth patches that include rhythms)… but the polymeric possibilities are very exciting to me..   

Anyway…..  So you can take one of these rhythms.. and you can make it so that one or another performance control alters the tempo of the rhythms… and in one patch.. you could have a lot of rhythms… So what I wanted to do is build in some way of controlling the relative amplitude of different rhythms, as well as there tempos… and also just kind of throw some fun stuff on the fire. Now.. .

Ok, groovy enough.. But allow me to attempt to explain what’s exciting to me about this..  out side of just the usual “and these are the reasons polymeric stuff is good for ambient music styles.” We’re actually not just talking poly-metric… where talking poly-tempi…  Another words.. we’re have multiple tempos going on inside of a single synth patch… I guess it’s like you have the main tempo.. that’s the tempo of the project  your working on.. and everything is synched to that tempo.. and you can shift that tempo around if you like.. but that’s like “the conductor tempo.” But.. you could have.. various instruments that… while being able to start out with an obvious relationship to that tempo.. can go off the rails in one way or another.

The difference between music and noise is probably your ability to recognize a pattern… And for patterns to be interesting.. they probably need to reach an optimal state between simple and complex, with respect to ones ability to recognize them… 

A few days latter 

Ok, I’m going to leave it off right here.. without finishing this, cause other wise it probably wont get posted.. but at least its an interesting look at what I’m up to. 

So I’m participating in this project called So Me Election 2008..  This is a project started as a part of the Boston Social Media Club.. and I guess the idea is like.. politics shouldn’t be a spectator sport.. and this like.. lets document this thing.. but perhaps even more important is like.. a participatory / collaborate project… 

Any who..  Mr. Adam Zand did a talk shoe kinda podcast today.. talking about it.. A thing where we could all just kinda call in… and participate in the podcast. This was happening at 12 PM today.. and.. shit.. I wasn’t awake yet.. but here it is, wanted to share: 

I should perhaps add that I love those guys?

I’ve been thinking for a long time that there should be more of these kinds of things.. social media collaborative projects..  So I think its really cool that we’re doing it.

Oh, and here’s a link to the site: someelection08.ning.com

So, Cantor has a.. I’m a little confused about this.. but it seems to be a 30 day or 20 hour trial.. seems I’ve been stuck with the 20 hour one! In any event.. I’ve downloaded and installed said software.. and started playing around with it.  So allow me to talk about it….

In the instructions it explains that Cantor is not meant to be a ‘vocalist replacement,’ but a means for the exploration of vocal synthesis.. which is interesting..

Err, I should slow down to explain the back story.. or at least kinda what I’m talking about here…  Cantor is a vocal synthesizer. You can find a video demonstration of an older version of Cantor here.. to see for your self. What a vocal synthesizer is is… well.. it creates vocals for you.. the old “singing computer” trick. I’m interested in it.. because I can’t sing.. and the notion of putting vocals in my music is kind of exciting.

How the first steps feel

When you first jump into this here Cantor and its new fangalled vocal synthesis..  once you kinda figure you’re way around the program a little bit (I’m still in the middle of that process) you realize that its time to learn something totally new.. which is to say vocal synthesis. Well.. maybe that’s over stating it a little bit.. but you are jumping into the world of “how do I program a vocal performance.”

The work flow goes something like this:

1. Program you’re melody line
2. Type in the words you want it to sing
3. Arrange “Phonemes” for desired result
4. Screw around with volume levels over time.. for each note
5. Screw around with “tension levels” for each note over time
6. Screw around with pitch bend and vibrato of each note over time
7. Screw around with a few other parameters over time  
8. Concern you self with other elements of the production

That’s more or less how it works.. . I mean if you were to actually achieve a realistic vocal.. it would be via how you program these performance parameters. This basically means you need to start paying attention to the human voice a whole lot more.. and sorta develop your ears.. and go from there. So long story short.. my work features some robotic type singing.

Ok, so what else is there to know about this subject? 

Some of you might be wondering what “Phenomes” are. Well.. if you take a look at all languages.. the component sounds are “Phenomes.” When animators go about animating mouths.. they’ll often look at the Phenomes.. So, when you “arrange the phenomes” you’re basically saying.. over a long sustained word sung.. when the vocal should move from one word sound to the next.. got it?

There’s other features in here to.. like the ability to create you’re own voices.. and other stuff I haven’t quite gotten to figuring out.

Ok, what’s it like in practice? 

For starters I’m feeling a little like it might be time for them to release a new version.. cause this version has not only been around for a while.. it appears a little clumsy to use. Now I say this without yet fully understanding it.. which isn’t fare.. but so far it’s a bit of a pain in the ass..

You spent a lot of time crafting your vocal.. a phrase or two.. then you want to move on to the next phrase or two.. and it’s just.. kinda clumsy in how you move around..

Still.. it’s way better then what I’ve been messing with thus far..  (all of which has been free tools)… It’s relatively clear that it should integrate with my usual productions pretty well..  much better then the other process I’ve been trying out.. which are all horribly time consuming…  And there is something terribly cool about programing a vocal performance.. My verdict on it comes down to.. “I think I’m going to have to play with this a bit more.. and see how it goes.” At the end of this time period.. I should have a better sense of how well it fits into my work.. my process.. and if what I’m now perceiving as flaws.. really are flaws. 

After that its just a matter of looking at other similar programs. 

Ok, so its not really morning.. But I wake up late so… 

I’m paying bills.. I have not been paying bills for a while.. not a good thing..

The bad news

1. My father almost lost his health insurance
2. I lost my life insurance.. the one that pays out when I die… 
3. One credit card has been declining.. this one not so much my fault.. haven’t seen a bill.
4. It seems that Comcast is still billing me.. never mind not giving me the check they were supposed to.. I had canceled all my comcast stuff.
5. If I don’t go to the DMV right now.. My license will be revoked for not paying a ticket, and it has grown in expense
6. Guitar Center’s card is screwing me…

I’m not sure what else.. but I am fearful.

I don’t know what my problem is.. save that my mom used to pay the bills.. Its one of those new responsibilities I’ve had since she passed away.. and the problems I’m having paying them seem to be, at least in part, related to morning..

Dreams 

I had a strange dream a week or so ago. In the dream my mom came home.. I grabbed her, gave her a big hug, told her how I missed her.. and then being like “Wait, you died, you can’t come back, you’re not really here.” Somehow by saying that she vanished.. and the dream ended.. only to be followed by another dream with her appearing again.. this time seeming all the more real.. more convincing that she was really there.. and I reacted the same way.. like “wait, no, your not really alive, are you?”

There’s details to the dreams that I can’t quite remember.. I don’t understand the dream, but its one I keep thinking about.. One way I’ve been thinking of it is… that a part of it is about my own denial of her death.. The way it still doesn’t feel totally real to me… Its as if the dream was an expression of this unbelief and my own attempt to confront it.

My mom has been a huge, and complex part of my life.. which I suppose we all could say.. assuming we had moms.. but I think think her roll was huger then the norm perhaps… in.. I guess how close we were, and whatever.. There is the whole.. how she fucked up, was fucking up, my life part of things.. I say this not to blame her so much as to try to understand it all myself.. to kinda move through it.. and of course there’s also the love part of it.

Fucking Up My Life

This seems worth talking about.. or trying to.. that normally I don’t feel very comfortable trying to blog about it.. if for no other reason then that I’m not sure if I’m totally being fair about it…

There was, for a long time.. this idea that my parents were abusive to me. This is what we call in the biz “a very difficult thing to deal with.” The first problem is.. you internalize it… you believe the problem is you.. and that you would accuse them of being the problem.. is more evidence of how fucked up you are. 

We are talking about my collage years here.. and it probably doesn’t help that everyone says there parents fucked up… and that’s the reason they are how they are. There’s a kind of pop psychology to there take on these things.. It often plays a roll of…  ”aren’t we the victim you should feel bad for.” As a result.. when you say “oh, yeah, my parents fucked up, that’s why I am the way I am,” from a superficial reading of it.. it doesn’t really matter what the reality of the situation is.. or the reality of its long term effects.. it can be seen as an expression of..  well looks like someone who’s being stupid.. and blaming there parents for what’s wrong with themselves…  and so.. if you really are dealing with some form of abuse.. you have this prejudice to try and get through.. on top of the actual thing.. and this prejudice is trying to tell you “hey, its you’re fault, get over it.”  

A happy story 

Well, then a ‘fortunate’ thing happened: My mom was diagnosed with cancer, the reality of which exacerbated my father’s alcoholism to such an extent that it was no longer hide-able.. and after being rushed in an ambulance to the hospital.. after he had slipped on his own urine.. not being able to control his bladder.. being so waisted.. crashing his forehead through the bathroom tiles, blood rushing out.. and the doctors talking about his blood alcohol level.. the clear evidence that he was a raging alcoholic.. that he need to go through AAA, see an addiction specialist..  the specialist saying he was lucky to be alive given all the drinking he was doing.. etc etc etc… well, my mom’s denial over the situation finally broke.. and now I had something real I could point to as.. having something to do with my damage..

The story of.. “how my parents fucked up my life,” is more complex then this… And it is something I’m still struggling to wake up to. Since she died I’ve had multiple moments of wishing she was alive so I could strangle her.. for this that or the other thing… wanting to scream “what the fuck is wrong with you that you would have done X?!!!” 

The struggle

The thing is.. that many of the stupidities and mistakes of my parents.. are still things I struggle to understand as being there fault… So this isn’t an easy task.. this is something you have to struggle through.. and it has to be ok to say “They really fucked up, didn’t they.” None of this is to say I don’t love them with all my heart.. Just that love isn’t something that seeks to white wash things…

This is not an uncommon thing at all.. but one of the mistakes of my mom was.. her getting in the way of my own growing up / maturing / adult becoming. Now that she’s died.. its as if I’m forced to go through the process to get to where I need to get to.. at a break neck speed.. or else the sky will no doubt fall.

This is something that is somehow internalized.. something I see as my fault.. for not being where I need to be.. It is something that I have huge levels of shame around… And this is the psychological dimension to my struggles at this point in my life.. The problems that go beyond simply loosing my mom…. which is not an easy thing to deal with on its own..

Paying the bills means walking through the fire of all that.. and that’s why I’m having trouble paying the bills.. 

There are huge mountains ahead of me… that I must climb.. less the sky really falls. In all of this I feel amazingly alone.. and full of fear.. A fear that gnaws at me regularly..  

Latter:

So I think the biggest part of the challenge is really an internal psychological one.

Latter that night:

I suppose this is a good a place as any to end as any. 

So by the time you get around to reading this.. you’ll no doubt have noticed that the sky is falling..  err.. Major financial institutions file bankruptcy.. shit has hit the fan.. Were talking madness we haven’t seen since the Great Depression’s preamble! 

I’m no economist.. and don’t know too much about the markets.. But my understand was “that couldn’t happen again.” Reason having something to do with market regulations.. the roll of the Fed, and all that kinda thing..  or at the very least markets are more stable these days.. and not susceptible to that sorta madness.. but you know this web 2.0, globalization 2.0, whatever 2.0 world.. we have all sorts of new madness we can spring on you..  so who knows… 

I don’t know if the sky is really falling…. seems more like we are at a moment where we are… more enable to stare down into that there abyss.. then is our usual mode of operating.. which strikes me as healthy..  and it does feel like the danger is at least “all too real.” So lets all hope the US economy doesn’t collapse, ha?

Matt’s Ignorant take on things

Seeing as I don’t know what I’m talking about, what better time for me to tell you “how things are.” Social Media makes you an expert, don’t cha know?

It strikes me that the US economy hasn’t really been a happy place since our president’s name was Bill. Of course those days were bubble days and not really realistic anyway.. But what I mean to say is it seems like its been all down hill from there.. I mean not long after that we had our 9/11..  and on and on it went..  Things seemed healthy.. not soo bad.. but not real good ether… and then there was that housing bubble…

What concerns me mid term

Fill-er up 

So the cost of oil is.. well going down at the moment.. but still, its rather high relatively speaking, isn’t it? So that drives up the cost of everything else, ha? The future of the fuel issue isn’t really a happy one. 

What concerns me is the long-ish term fuel story: We have two issues here. #1 Oil sources are finite.. #2 Demand for Oil is rising. If our economy depends on oil… this means, long term, we are fucked. (that’s a technical term). 

Now of course economics 101 tells us that.. as the cost of oil rises.. other fuel sources that were hither to too expensive.. now become viable.. when they hit mass production / as the technology increases.. stuff gets good..  but the curve that all this has to follow.. its not one that makes for a “happy economy.”

Gore’s Nightmare

Al Gore has rang the environmental alarms.. some on the conservative side of the isle are still saying “hum bug;” they think the earth’s warming has to do with solar wind, or some such thing.. rather then some sorta human made thing..  But.. it doesn’t matter what the hell the problem is.. global warming does present a danger.

I’m not here to say what the danger really is… I don’t really know..  but I will tell you that.. the shift of power from greece to… eventually Briton.. was not unconnected to global warming! What we will see happening, among other things, is a shift in where food comes from.. 

In Search of a Perfect Storm 

This fun turn of events can produce a little thing we like to call in the biz “mass starvation.” If you think that sounds bad.. imagine crazy political realities.. the kind of wars that can spring from this sorta thing.. to say nothing about the issue of limited fuel sources..  If you were to add to that a “great depression 2.0,” I dare go so far as to say “Mutually Assured Destruction” might prove to have its limitations.. 

I’m not saying that all this sorta thing will happen..  I’m more saying.. the possibility is more real then we are thinking today… In my view.. this is a monster that does lurk out there.. somewhere over the rainbow if you will..  and its a monster that if we do not deal with our modern challenges.. really could happen.

Of course perhaps I’m just paranoid.. but do you remember when 9/11 “couldn’t happen?” 

And of course if you wanna get real paranoid you could ask “what happens if this doesn’t happen till India and China become the dominant super powers?” 

What’s this got to do with politics?

Admittedly what I speak of sounds far fetched.. but.. I think what all this points to is.. how important it is that we take the issues we are currently being confronted with seriously.. Cause if we fail to choose “wisely” well…  

lol, how about a video to illustrate?

lol, I hope you can excuse me for saying this.. but have you noticed how modern politics seems to be “brand warfare?”

And here you thought Pepsi was the choice of a new generation!

Yeah.. them taste tests were rigged!

Next day sometime:

Things are looking a little less creepy today..