Well I haven’t posted much of anything in a little while.. but.. I have been writing up a storm, so with any luck, I’ll be pushing some entries out soon.

I’m now in a mode of working from the time I get up, to the time I go to bed.. all be it with breaks to watch a movie, play a computer game, or whatever.. as I go…What seems to be emerging is something amazing. I have an intense about stuff to try and learn.. enough to knock me out, and indeed I am getting knocked out.. The work I’m producing is largely just early steps in trying to work out these new tools.. the new studio, and the new possibilities this is opening up to me is awe inspiring.

I move forward through this project with a certain about of fear and and awe. The biggest fear is that it will all suck… It’s hard when you’re just starting out.. what you’re able to achieve, for all the work you’re putting in.. seems so small.. and when you’re aiming so big, you wonder if you’ll ever get any place where you’re dreams might seem at all realistic.. But, if I keep to this course.. sooner or latter I will get to a point where I know what I’m doing.. Where putting in this much work will yield much bigger results.. in terms of out put.. 

It’s a little bit like panning for gold.. and I’m looking at these little flakes of gold.. and realizing I’m onto something.. and that something seems to me something more amazing then I can fully articulate.. and I can’t wait to be able to share some of it with you.

As we speak I’m getting ready to go for a walk.. where I’ll finally get a chance to catch up on some of the podcasts I’ve been falling behind on. Podcasts, of course, are a central source of information for me.. and I feel like I’ve been a little  cut off from that information for a while.

Not only that, but I’ve been stuck inside this house for more then a week, it seems.. so to finally get out will surely do me some good…Anyway.. hope to see you around… hate not posting so much…  

[ editors note: I believe this blog entry was started yesterday, but I was to tired to finish it last night, so here it is now ] 

I’m still sick mind you, which roughly translates into barely capable of doing much of anything, but.. sitting at a computer isn’t always one of those things you can’t quite do.. I suppose it depends on the cognitive demands it places on you.. actually.. its about 6 30 PM, as I write, and I’m feeling about ready to just collapse… so maybe I’m pushing it a little by writing this.

So… I wont go into all of it.. but I got Digital Performer going on this computer.. The first challenge was just getting it to work right. You would think this would be pretty straight forward.. but it proved its self more difficult then that.

I’ve been using DP for a number of years now, though never as my primary DAW, and I must confess that it still represents something of challenge to me.. Though I feel up to the challenge, it’s pretty clear that I’m in the early stages of meeting that challenge. If the size of the manuel is any indication of the level of complexity we are dealing with, the Digital Performer manuel comes out to well over 1000 pages. Fortunately ones doesn’t have to read quite all of that to get up and running. 

The complexity level is made worse by the fact that I have the full Komplete bundle to worry about.. and for the moment, without the benefit of Kore. I’m feeling, as I scratch Komplete 5’s surface, the need Kore addresses… which is to say.. how do you manage / navigate your way through the thousands (is it 7,500?) of instruments and sounds you now have on call?

At the moment I’m lucky if I can figure out how to load the instrument up into DP, let alone edit it’s MIDI sequence.. I’ve set up some mixer routing stuff.. which DP is a little more sophisticated then the versions of Cubase I’ve used in the past.. though I understand the latest version of Cubase has moved some steps forward on this front.

Basically.. in approaching these kinds of projects you ask questions like.. well first you select your sound pallets.. which is to say what instruments you want to use (which has something to do with what sounds might go well together), and possibly which effects.. and go about a little mixing, and a little sequencing, and in a short space of time.. it starts writing its self. But.. when you’re in a position where you have thousands of new sounds to choose from.. and you’re not entirely sure what’s up with the effects you have to choose from.. it’s a little harder to move forward…

As much as I’ve read great things about DP’s effects, new effects that have some since last I used it, I must confess that I’m feeling a little underwhelmed..  now mind you I say this as someone who hasn’t spent more then 15 minutes trying to come up with a decent reverb sound… so please take this with a grain of salt.. but my impression is that the effects bundled with Digital Performer are.. perhaps good enough to get you started, but probably not enough to get you all the way there.. to put it a certain sorta way.

All of which is enough to give me a moment of depression..  if not for the fact.. and this is funny as they don’t really emphasize this too much, that Kore comes with 32 different effects.. including a number of reverb and delays sounds! So it may not mean that I have to go out there and look at effects packages just yet. 

In truth, however, I don’t think you can normally expect to buy a DAW and have all your bases covered, right out of the Box. I guess I was hoping that the need would be less pressing.. I have, as I may have mentioned in recent blog entires, been at least taking a look at various effects bundles that might add something to where I’m at.. It’s just that.. 

Latter that night: 

Moving from Cubase to Digital Performer 

Perhaps I was over stating how much I have to learn when it comes to DP. The truth is that I’ve simply forgotten a lot, and much of that comes back pretty fast.. Still, I have far to go.. Much of which has to do with knowing the best way to approach certain problems.

It’s often said that a given DAW is like a religion.. they each have there own way of going about things.  I use enough of them so that it’s mostly intuitive for me, picking up a new one.. But what of the DP way versus the Cubase way?

For the moment DP feels a lot more unwieldy to me.. I say for the moment because I’m quite sure that if I knew better… it would be a lot less unwieldy.. It’s like going from a master of one thing to an amateur of another.. you’re a lot more effective as a master. 

To some extent.. I might have said gong from Reason to DP + Komplete, and I’ll explain why.

Without really knowing what instruments are what, without really being orientated to this new world.. I found myself jumping in with certain presumptions. For instance.. when I think of my music production I think of certain categories of instruments.. of sounds, that I would conventionally mix together.. and roughly, based off what I know of the Komplete bundle.. I jump into those instruments which might have sounds that fit that need.. but without any clue as to how the specifics might work out.

So I start with Battery, loading up a rock type drum kit. I don’t bother to figure out anything with regards to how Battery works.. I just want to load it up.. There’s not really that much in the rock category of drum kit, as it turns out.. and the resulting kit I’m not entirely sure how to be expressive with.. This for two reasons.. #1 A certain cluelessness about DPs MIDI sequencing.. and its editors.. and #2 A certain cluelessness about the drum kit its self.

It turns out that DP will generally throw out a default velocity value of 64. Velocity, in MIDI, is a number between 1 and 128. Velocity represents how hard you hit a key on the keyboard. Now in the case of Battery and our Drum kit, this has two significant implications.

#1 How hard you hit a key impacts how load that instrument is going to play.. how sensitive a given instrument is to velocity is something that can generally be programmed into the instrument.. So.. bare this in mind..

#2 Battery has a hell of a lot of velocity layers in its sample maps…Ok.. this is going to take some explanation:  For the purposes of Battery, a sample map has two things to think about.. A, What drum are you hitting.. another words.. what key are you pressing.. depending on what key, that’s going to effect what sample.. is it a bass drum, or is it a snare drum? B, Velocity layers means.. at different velocities.. at different numbers between 1 and 128, different samples will get played.

It is perhaps important to note here that drums are a kind of instrument that are expressive in how hard they are hit, as well as there timing.. so to speak.. or lets say rhythm.. and will sound very different depending on how hard you hit them.. and indeed, on a real acoustic drum kit.. where on the drum head you hit them.. so they really do need to take advantage of velocity layers, right?

Ok.. Digital Performer sends a default value of 64… And I’m used to production environments that send a default value of 100.. that’s point one. Point 2 is we are dealing with an instrument that is deeply expressive relative to how hard you hit the thing.. that’s point two..

Now when I say a “default value” what I mean is.. you’ll open up an editor.. lets say a keyboard type editor.. and you’ll mouse onto a note on the keyboard to hear a sound.. by default you get 64.

If we compare this to Reason for a moment.. Reason is much less expressive then all this. In some cases Reason drums only have 3 velocity layers.. hell, maybe only one.. so if the entire expressive range of an instrument is squashed down to that.. and you’re used to be expressive in that world.. there’s a certain type of leap you need to make to be expressive in this here Digital Performer + Battery world.

Interestingly enough.. if you listen to my music.. you’ll note that an awful lot of what is going on is mixing.. it’s via mixing that I get expressive in how loud or soft sounds are.. generally. Or you might say that’s almost like my default way..

Ok.. I don’t mean to make this drone on forever, but now its time to bring up another thing.. that I think I meant to say in a blog entry sometime ago.. It’s as if I have music production skills that.. lets say were X deep by Y wide.. That depth and width is more then what I can bring into my consciousness in a single day of playing around.. What happens is.. I need to warm up.. and once I’m really warmed up.. why yes, velocity is absolutely something I’m expressive with.. but I’m not generally all that expressive with it when I’m just warming up. 

Arguably.. Digital Performer is set up to be more expressive in terms of velocity, by making 64 the default.  Believe it or not I was using Performer back in the early 90s.. when it was only a sequencer.. and at that time, velocity was the only way I was able to be expressive with volume.. though DP may have had some ability to automate mixes then that I might not have known about.. 

Ok.. so that covers the challenges of Battery, right?

Well next I gotta turn to Massive! 

By no means do I have a clue as to how to work Massive. About all I understand of Massive is that it has “some aggressive applications.” Well ok, I’ve read a little more then this about it.. but basically. 

Well, upon bringing Massive into the mix, the first thing I notice is that Massive overshadows all the other instruments in the mix.. or at least the patch I selected did. This is what we call in the biz “a problem.”

Mind you at this point we are just throwing paint on the wall.. eventually we will react to that paint, and develop something out of what we see in the wall.. so facilitating process is important.. and by Massive having this sort of effect.. well, that means we need to figure out how to approach process again…

Ok.. so the reason Massive is over shadowing all the other instruments is because it is a frequency hog! The job of the Mix engineer is to isolate the various instruments into there own frequency spaces.. so you can hear everything.. and Massive wants to be in everyone’s frequency space. The answer to this problem is simple, we call it EQ.

Or is it so simple? For starters DP offers us two EQs.. a parametric EQ and a “Master Works EQ,” which, as it turns out.. is a kind of parametric EQ.  Ok ok ok.. I know,  your asking “what the hell is a parametric eq anyway?”

Basically, all sound are fluctuations of amplitude across a frequency spectrum. Amplitude being loudness to softness.. frequency being something similar to pitch. With a parametric EQ, you first select what frequency you want to effect, you then choose how much you want to turn up or down that frequency, and then you decide how broadly you want the effect to happen.. the sort of curve if you will, around your target frequency. Make sense?

In Cubase you have 4 bands of parametric EQ as a default part of every channel in your mix… In DP you have to actually add plugs into to your channel to get your parametric EQ. In DP the Parametric EQ can have 2, 4, 0r 8 bands. The Master Works EQ in Digital Performer is a 5 band EQ, but its much more complex then just that.. enough so that it takes up 7 pages in the manuel.. and I haven’t gotten around to reading it all just yet.

Basically.. when you’re creating a mix, when your job is to isolate different parts of the mix into there own frequency space.. what you would conventionally do is throw a parametric EQ on each channel (or sub group, but I wont explain that here as that would only make this all too complex, not that it isn’t already).. and you would turn up the frequency that instrument was basically taking place in, and turn down the other frequency.. doing this with all the instruments.. taking instrument that occupied overlapping frequencies and putting them on opposite ends of the stereo field..

The trouble with my music is it’s “kinetic” which is my way of saying.. things move around.. and I like to have the freedom to move things around.. what this means is that if I’m to throw a parametric EQ on any channel.. I have to then automate that in a way that makes sense for what the content of that channel is doing at any particular moment.. which at the very least is an extra layer of labor for me.. which will impact process negatively.. at least until such time as I get warmed up..

A little latter:

I haven’t really gotten to the heart of the Reason VS DP + Komplete thing, have I? Or what I wanted to get to here. The best I can do, for tonight, is to say this is all but once small nuance. What I had wanted to get to talking about is working with REX files (a kind of loop technology) in Reason versus in Kontakt.. which will use REX, as I understand it.. but Kontakt is a very different sort of loop player then Dr. REX, as we find in Reason.

There’s a lot more going on in my production, that seems worth mentioning.. but alas I am too tired..

Right now my brain is turning towards.. well.. You know I hope you don’t take any of this as me putting down Reason.. Reason’s simplicity is what makes it great.. but what makes DP + Komplete + X great is its unbridled power.  This probably doesn’t make any sense as a way to assess these things.. but one way is to look at price tags.. my off the cuff statements here could be off by $100 here or there.. but you’ll get my drift.

Reason costs around $400 or $500. Digital Performer’s list price is around $800, or was last time I checked.. and Komplete’s was somewhere between $1500 and $1000… and probably a substantial savings at that. If We were to throw the mixing effects into the bag.. add another grand to that.. so how’s a $400 or $500 environment to compare with a $3000 environment?A little more if we were to add Kore to our equations?  My experience has been that the cost of software often has a certain relationship to it’s complexity.. and I must say that I feel like I’m jumping back into the deep end.

So far, and I haven’t scratched the surface.. I have to say that its “un fucking believable.” Massive, the more I listen to it.. and just that one patch I’m using.. It’s just amazing sounding. I mean it has all the richness of.. well lets say a guitar sound.. in a lot of ways.. I mean it has a lot of the character of it.. you could see it being in Marilyn Manson’s studio, or something..

And the drum kit I’m using.. gosh it just sounds so organic.. I find myself wanting to make the kinds of mixing decisions that I normally hear grammy award winning mix engineers talking about.. which is such a subtle craft.. I often wonder what the hell they are talking about.. but now I feel like I’m in a world where it all makes sense.. ahh but if only I had the money to get some good studio monitors and some acoustic treatment for my studio.. then I could really be in a position to make those kinds of critical judgements..  well I guess that’ll just have to wait for gainful employment or.. budget revaluations of what kind or another..

Well I’ve spent the last 2 or 3 days sick in bed.. the kind of sick where you can barely sit up… where to move your body an inch, one way or another, is like some major engineering feet..  I’m still feeling pretty crappy.. but my mission is to try and make it over to guitar center to pick up some software I had ordered: Komplete 5, and Ableton Live.  I don’t even know that I’m up to the task.. Well the first step has to be making my way into the shower.. get this gross film off my body… 

Hours latter:

So I’m installing Komplete 5……  Komplete 5 is spread out among 10 DVDs 

A few latter: 

Kontakt, that would be the sampler in Komplete, on its own has a sample library 33 GB, Native Instruments has a video where you can kind of see what this is all about, view able here.

Many folks are now saying that Kontakt is the best software sampler on the market today.

Latter:

I apologize for being sick.. sorta limits by ability to blog coherently.. none the less, lets explore this Komplete 5 stuff. Komplete 5 Includes Kontakt 3, Guitar Rig 3, Massive, Reaktor 5, Absynth 4, Battery 4, Akoustic Piano, Elektrik Piano, B4 2, FM8, and Pro 53.

Much latter:

Ahh, the instillation didn’t work totally.. I’m too sick and out of it to deal with it at the moment.. Native Instruments has proven quite a pain, as far as getting there stuff to work.

Well, I suppose the real deal comes when you’re working the Komplete Bundle with DP…. (or similar DAW) Ok, so back to what all this stuff is.

As I was saying.. Kontakt is a software sampler.. though that doesn’t quite do it justice.. It’s a “modular sampler.” …Hmm, you know some of this stuff doesn’t make the most sense to me? See, here’s how I work:

I have a DAW.. (digital audio workstation) and.. in that DAW I program out performances for various instruments…. and I’ll put various effects on those instruments, and create a mix…

With a program like Kontakt.. the part that I don’t totally understand is.. well you have all these effects built in…  Wouldn’t it be better to provide for me stand alone effects units that I could use on any instrument? I don’t have experience with the new Kontakt.. but it looks pretty kick ass.. and I can’t wait to get into it. I’ve owned older versions.. only trouble is that I never had enough computer power to totally take advantage of Kontakt..

Gosh.. I realize I must be pretty incoherent at the moment..  

Guitar Rig 3: Guitar Rig is.. its software that will emulate various amps, effects, microphone placement, and all the rest of it, for guitar and bass. 

Next Day:

Here’s Dwezil Zappa (son of Frank) demoing guitar rig:

Here’s a guy from Native Instruments talking, like a year or two ago, showing us FM8:

Here’s our Native Instruments Guy talking about Massive:

Here’s a couple with him talking about Kontakt:

And of course Part 2, I think he does a better job of taking you through this then I.

Here’s a look at Absynth, one of my favs:

Absynth is very cool.. and I should add, not very difficult to learn how to program..

Next is Battery 3, which is a drum sampler:

Here’s a video, made by someone else, on Akoustic Piano:

Might have been nice if the video wasn’t so compressed, ha? Particularly as there isn’t actually that much movement in it, and thus doesn’t need the compression.. 

Native Instruments doesn’t put out this one either.. nothing for Reaktor.. Reaktor is pretty amazing.. you can use it to make your own synths, samplers, effects, beat boxes, and what have you.. Its probably the most powerful tool in Komplete.. and also the one that wants the most power from your computer.. thus it’s the one you’d most want the 8 cores of goodness..

Anyway, so this is a video by a fellow who goes by “maltcus” who’s gives a fair bit of color to the subject of making your own instruments:

The biggest problem with Reaktor is it’s steep learning curve.. It’s not a real easy tool to dig deeply into.. and there really isn’t a lot of good information out there on how to get up to speed.

The second biggest problem is.. because it gives you complete control for designing instruments, effects, and what not.. it’s not as optimized as other soft synths.. thus the need for a beefier machine.. which again, is probably fine for my Mac Pro… Though I have no idea how well optimized it is for multithreading.. which is the technology by which it would be able to take advantage of multi core processors.

Ok, so if you’re keeping track.. you’ll note that we are skipping over much… There’s just not too much in the way of videos for much of this.. *sigh* well ok, so be it.. lets move on to Kore:

This is a trailer for Kore 1.. Kore 2’s controller got rid of the audio interface elements. I purposely bought the Kore 1 controller (with a free upgrade to Kore 2) for the interface.. the reason being that.. well at the time I thought I would be getting a lap top.. and thought Kore might make for a pretty good on the go type audio interface.. and even if not for that.. it offers a higher resolution for recording then my current studio, for the most part, supports. 

Ok, good enough, here’s a video of our Native Instruments guy showing us Kore 2:

Ok… So that’s a reasonable look at Komplete + Kore.. which, besides Digital Performer, is really the the biggest upgrade I’m making to my sound studio at the moment.

Well, here’s a video for DP 6, which isn’t quite out yet:

Feeling burned out yet? Well the Digital Performer video has like.. a couple more parts to it, but I shant subject you to that. Instead let me try and wrap this up a little bit.

So what exactly does all this madness mean for my music?

I think you have multiple dimensions of answers.On the one hand you have a learning curve, via which you would go about learning how to maximize you’re expressive creative.. possibilities.. Some of this is digging deep into the tools, learning to program them all.. and some of it is just asking “ok, so what’s the application for this feature in the larger creative scheme of my work.” 

A big, right off the top, change is a larger sound pallet.. Some of these tools, in one incarnation or another, I’ve been using for years.. but still, as they progress to new versions, we find in them larger libraries of sounds, and new features.. I mean Kontakt, on its own, now gives you something like 33 GB worth of samples.. over 1000 instruments.. That’s freak’n huge! 

One of the more impressive parts of the newly augmented Kontakt Library, and I don’t know how far or deep this goes, is the inclusion of selected parts of the VSL or Vienna Symphonic Library. VSL is an industry standard library if you want to create realistic realizations of symphonic music.. It’s probably as close as you can get to hiring a real orchestra to perform your work. I believe the full VSL runs in the $5K department or so.. and requires multiple computers to run.. so clearly what you get from Kontakt is less then that.. but still, there is at least a taste of that.

In my music I’m interesting in exploring composition and production in ways that are not in anyway mitigated by tradition.. It is a kind of resynthesis of formally disparate elements. Another words, traditions and styles normally contextualize things like.. what instruments your using, what sounds, what style, what whatever.. even production techniques.. What I’m interested in is creating a musical style where I could go in any direction, at any time, for any reason at all.

I’m interested in creating something like a cinematic experience.. a kind of sound painting.. 

So the enlarged library, along with a more powerful computer, goes a hell of a long way along these lines.

So Where does the Studio Go from here? 

I have a lot of different ideas as far as where I’d like to take my studio.. right now I’m in a mode where I need to do a little more research and eventually come to the question of reevaluating my priorities. Arguably the problem is that I’m trying to explore a lot more then just sound.. from video, to animation and motion graphics, the world of 3D, special effects.. and all the rest of it. So the budget has to be distributed broadly between these categories.

From a strictly sound studio perspective, I think what is probably most needed is an investment in the tools of the mix engineer.. reverbs, EQs, Compressors, that kind of thing. The trouble is, at least at the moment, the sorts of tools that have my eye… costs in the thousands of dollars. What I’d really like to be able to do is.. Invest in part of that now, and then more of it latter on.. sorta piece meal my way through it.

There are other issues of course.. I imagine to really get where I want to go would require selling the house.. .

Well anyway, that’s probably enough for one entry. 

Closing Notes:

I’m still feeling terribly sick.. There’s a thing I really wanted to go to this weekend.. It would provide me a more in depth look at Final Cut Studio, Light Rigs, serious Video cameras, and what not.. Including a couple workshops taught by David Times. Thus the challenges to my reevaluations.

Well.. I figure I ought to try and post something before bed.. though I’m a little out of it.. I should be in bed now.

There’s events going on that bare speaking of..  On just how things are kind of progressing.

As I finally get around to sorta filling out this computer.. that is getting real software on it.. This here Mac Pro.. I can tell you this thing is bad ass as hell..  Mind you I’m still coming from a G4 perspective here.. but omg… I was goofing around with Photoshop open.. while at the same time I had Final Cut doing a batch capture… something I’m still not 100% on.. but basically you put a tape into your video camera.. you connect your camera up to your computer, and Final Cut controls your camera.. you go through the tape and select sections of the tape that you’d like to capture.. selecting in and out points.. and when you’re done, you tell it to do a batch capture.. and it brings that video onto your drives.

I’ve probably explained this, but just incase I haven’t.. My Mac Pro has 4 drives in it..  Two are set up as RAIDs.. basically you hook up two drives to work as one, and get about twice the performance out of those drives as you would from a single drive.. It has the unfortunate problem that if ether drive dies.. you loose all the data on that drive.. thus we call it a “scary raid.” I’m hoping that Blue Ray HD comes to the Mac soon.. primarily I think it’s an issue of the OS, so we’ll be waiting for the next OS to stop buy… and at that point… why Blue Rays will more then likely come to the Mac. You can currently buy Internal Blue Ray drives.. but I don’t know what the whole story is on this.. the problem would be that you wouldn’t be able to watch Blue Ray movies until this issue is worked out.. 

All of which is a bit of a side story.. I should go so far as to say that I’m waiting for Blue Ray HD burners.. because they would allow you to burn a huge amount of data to a Blue Ray disk.. which would give you a means of backing stuff up.. once my RAID fills up.. its close to one TB worth of storage on that drive.. I have another 500 GB drive where I intend to put stuff once it’s finished..

So we are digitizing via Final Cut, fooling around in Photoshop.. and then to make things even more fun.. playing a computer game.. all at the same time.. more or less.. and still I’m only using a small portion of the processor power.. which is a little on the mind blowing side for me. I mean you feel a little as if you’re using multiple computers at once..

I suppose this sorta opens the topic.. of just what is up now. As I think I’ve said else where.. I want to give myself about 6 months to play around with all this new technology.. before I start having high hopes of actually producing anything..  

I’m adding a huge amount of complexity to my world.. a huge amount to try and learn.. and hoping to learn it all in a ridiculously short period of time.. I mean.. what I’m talking about here is.. between Final Cut Studio, Adobe CS3 Web Premium… and then add to that Digital Performer.. Ableton Live.. Komplete 5 and Kore 2.. while I know my way around all this software, to some degree, as is.. the amount ahead of me to learn.. why that’s probably more then 6 months of learning… and then add to that After Effects, and some kind of serious 3D graphics tools.. 

Oh, well I’m too damn tired to try and get through this. So we’ll leave this as is.

Well its an exciting moment, I’ll tell you folks! Adobe CS3 Web Premium includes Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, and Acrobat Professional, among other assorted odds and ends. Most of this software I’ve been using for years, some legitimately.. some on the down low…  I generally have ethical problems with using software illegally.. and some of this software… well I haven’t been able to afford upgrades to.. some I’ve been using OS9 versions of for years.. some of it I’ve never even used.. So to go legit.. to full versions.. on a new Mac Pro.. OMG, its just awesome…  So lets talk a little bit about this suite, and what its all about.

Dreamweaver 

In the design and development world, opinions probably very.. as far as what’s the right tools for what job.. Dreamweaver was, for quite a long time, the only WYWYG (what you see is what you get) web design tool to.. to be taken seriously… well there was a little battle between Dreamweaver and GoLive.. but Dreamweaver would eventually win the day.

Today, however, the story is a little bit different. Today, good web design is done via web standards.. which involves things like CSS, DOM Scripting, and Unobtrusive JavaScript…   And the truth is that Dreamweaver doesn’t really do all these things, the right way, right out of the box.. If you want to use these kind of technologies.. you’re probably not going to be using Dreamweaver as a WYWYG editor.. but as a code editor and site management tool. Still, its not quite fair to say these tools aren’t pushing in the right direction… It’s just they’re not quite moving fast enough..

Fireworks

It’s been a long time since I was up to date on Photoshop.. in fact, for a number of years I became a kind of Fireworks guys. Fireworks is a funny kind of app.. one of the interesting cool features of Fireworks is that it does both bit map and vector art.. I shant explain this here.. but there will be some explanation coming. 

Fireworks is a graphics app for the web.. and includes things like.. well means of adding code.. and what have you.. It’s not a bad tool.. but as with Dreamweaver.. it’s had a little bit of a problem when it’s come to web standards design.. which, again, is not to say you can’t use it for web standards design… but you need that extra level of understanding to make it happen.

The new version of Fireworks, however.. is a little bit of a different tool.. See Fireworks was a tool from Macromedia.. and Fireworks’s closest competitor was probably Image Ready, which was bundled with Photoshop back in the day… Fireworks was the better tool.. but everybody needs Photoshop.. so to get it free with Photoshop.. aww, well you see the war that was being waged! Then, Adobe bought Macromedia, and Adobe CS3 Web Standard and Web Premium.. are the first post acquisition offering.. Which means, obviously enough, that the niches these programs occupy had to change a little. And so it is that we see Fireworks moving in a “rapid prototyping direction.”

I’m very interested to figure out what the hell this means in practice.. But basically it means you could layout an entire web site inside of Fireworks.. as a part of the early design phase.. and it will model out interactivity for you.. and shows you what’s up.. prior to going into actually coding stuff.  So.. that’s a pretty cool thing… We’ll, no doubt, be see how well this works in future blog entries.

Photoshop Extended

Seems like Photoshop has been the industry standard graphics app since the early 90s. Photoshop rocks! That’s my long held position. My view has always been that photoshop is a great tool to just kind of jump in and play with.. learn it that way my friend..

Again.. this is one of those programs that I haven’t used a new version since the OS9 days.. some folks will argue that nothing much has changed in all that time.. the real reason for upgrading is just to get it so it’ll run on the your current OS with your current processor. Seeing as I haven’t dipped in too far yet, I couldn’t really dispute that too much.. Though I can say that.. I, the once Photoshop Master of Disaster.. feel a little disorientated.. and I’m no longer so sure of myself.. so sure that the way I’m approaching a problem is the fastest / bestest (bestest being a technical term) way of doing something…  So I’m feeling like I have a whole lot of catching up to do / skill set atrophy to take care of.

On the positive side.. the extended version of Photoshop.. which is the one that’ll run you a hell of a lot of money.. is a tool that now goes into the world of video.. has special tools and abilities for this space.. which is rather exciting.. and for me, with my upcoming video projects.. a very very good thing.

Illustrator

Illustrator is what we call in “the biz” a “drawing tool.” How “drawing tool” got to be a technical term, I shall never know.. particularly as one can “draw” with photoshop, flash, fireworks, or even painter for that matter.. But any who.. Illustrator is a “vector” drawing tool.

Vectors are all about “resolution independent” graphics. Another words, you could make a graphic that is 1″ by 1″ and scale that sucker up to cover the empire state building if you wanted to..  This has certain advantages over bit map graphics.. that would look like a bunch of squares at that point.. While Illustrator’s history has been to cater to print designers.. the resolution independent nature of vectors has always played a large roll in Flash, as vectors also have the advantage of having a very small file size..  generally.. and so now Illustrator’s integration with Flash is supposed to be better then ever.

The biggest draw back to Illustrator is its learning curve.. it’s a little tricky to wrap your head around.. once you do, you realize the advantages of the Illustrator process. Further.. I think the way you really want to be using Illustrator.. most of the time at least.. is by integrating it into a larger work flow.. which would likely include photoshop, among other things.

Flash

Flash is, arguably, a strange bird. It started off as the best tool for web based animation.. but has since evolved into a full fledged web application development environment. The hard core Flash developer uses Flex.. not Flash.. but those of us on the design side of things.. we use Flash.

The biggest update to Flash is ActionScript 3. AS3, as we say, is way more powerful then past versions.. for animation based on AS3, it runs a hell of a lot faster.. and now has a more native support for XML.. for working with things like RSS.. and web services.. which is to say “the web 2.0 shtick.” 

The only problem, of course, is AS3 is a very complex sort of universe to try and explore.. you really have to learn to think like a developer.. and the real developer skill set is not one easily acquired ..

Acrobat Professional

Acrobat, as you may know, is a great way of distributing web documents, other wise known as PDFs.. and Acrobat is the authoring tool for this. Much of the significants of this is the E-Book.. which is still an evolving space.. what has be excited about Acrobat is that there is, apparently, now a way of integrating a kind of Google adsense into Acrobat.. so you could create free E-Books, with integrated adds.. with the opportunity to make money via the adds.. which is a very very cool thing… and is something I’m planning on exploring as I move forward…  

Also.. I’m planning on using Acrobat as a means of creating my resume.. 

There’s much more to this story… which we will be going into in future posts.. one assumes.. but for now.. this is a big event in my life.. and it is now time to orientate myself to this exciting new world..  

I really gotta work out a better system of making it to the boston media makers… the long and the short of it is I end up going without sleep for.. like.. way to long, end up there in God knows what kind of shape.. then go home..

Today I almost got in a car accident… or I mean yesterday. I’m driving rout 9 into Boston.  This is a road who’s speed limit varies between 35 and 50 MPH… at one point on this drive.. this guy decides to drive into traffic.. he’s coming it at maybe 5 MPH…. and if he goes into my lane, I will not be able to stop for him…  does he see me? Does he know what he’s doing is crazy?  Guess what? Yup… he goes into my lane.

The brakes screech.. the kind where smoke comes up from your tires… you’re trying to skid to avoid the car and yet not end up on the side rail.. I thought I was going to hit him, I thought I was going to hit him….  My car must have stopped about an inch away from his car.. I have no idea how this happened.. how disaster was escaped.

And what does our scary driving friend do? He finishes getting out onto the road.. and making his way over to make his turn.. staring at me with a sort of astonished face.. going on with his day like nothing happened.

I had to veare off into the slow lane, contemplate stopping entirely.. I was in one of those mental modes where you’re just… not ready to drive basically.. you need to get your heart down to a normal level…. all this sorta stuff.

And of course all this was going on while I was in a sleep deprived state.

Well anyway….. I had the strangest dream… I was walking around with this group when we realized we were within 100 yards of where Jesus was berried..  I don’t remember much else for details… its all sorta faded away into the ether…

I was going to try and quit smoking.. this as usually the best way for me seems to be… well, if it takes about 3 days to get through the worst of the with  drawl.. if you can sleep through a day of it… you’re probably doing pretty well. But this didn’t work out… 

This will be my attempt to write something short. It’s got to be, I’m crazy over tired.. to the point of not really being in control of myself. I think I’ve blogged under similar conditions before. 

Hours latter:

I was just woken up by this screaming. Sounded like the sorta scream you would make if you had just lost it, as a result of killing someone, and were now even loosing it more… angry at that person for dying on you.. you scream and hick him all the more. I was in comma mode sleep.. where I’m just not going to wake up…. but this had the adrenalin pumping through me.. like I was going to go up into that scene, and deal with the murder…

My reaction is a sort of interesting revelation to me. I mean most folks’s gut reaction, when in a comma, is not to charge into a scene like that.. fight or flight, we’re going to flight, right? Ahh, but you see my brothers, I AM a tuff guy! No, really… I mean I think it is true that I’m a kind of warrior at heart.. even if I’m not a functional one.

Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that it was simply that my father had the TV on upstairs.   

It’s late at night, got lots to talk about, but probably won’t talk about a 10th of it.

One of the thoughts I’m thinking about.. is, “the magic.” I’ve written a rather long blog entry on this subject, not published.. and what’s worse is I now feel inspire to extent those ideas in new directions, but how can I do that without posting that last entry?  God, I got a lot of stuff I should post….  

So this subject of magic. This is a complex subject, but.. when I talk about magic, what I’m really talking about is something going on in my music right now.

It’s a strange thing.. you go out there and start hacking away.. and eventually things start coming together, but it doesn’t really feel like the coming together is really something you’re dong… its more like you’re a vessel of something.. you’re channeling it. If you were to take a very deep look at the creative process, you’d find that the artist is actually creating the work.. (I know, surprising, right?) but I mean.. the artist is creating “the magic.” 

All this talk is like back story… because I don’t really care to layout before you a psychology of the creative process at this time.. though this is no doubt a very interesting subject.. It’s more like there’s something going on in my work that compels me to write, and I should somehow find a way to speak to this…. so lets talk abut this from the angle of the music.

I have some kind of a system of composition. It’s a system from another planet, as I don’t really understand “how you’re supposed to make music.” It’s a system that is rich with my own inventions. I think most of the music we hear.. I don’t want to say it’s soo derivative.. but it is more conventional. My music is a kind of giant leap into the unknown.. and I think that’s the most compelling part of it.

It’s an attempt at invention.  You have a lot conceptual frameworks.. These frameworks are ways of thinking about various aspects of music making. This could be ideas about harmony, orchestration, counter point, melody, rhythm, mixing, process, sound synthesis, um.. a lot of different things.. These frameworks question the presumptions of the inherited views on these subjects… and they provide alternative answers to certain fundamental questions.

Why I tell you I don’t really understand the conventions.. I’m in part saying.. look, I rebelled very early in my artistic development.. So I never really listened to the conventions of tradition enough to really have a deep understanding of what all that is about. 

I don’t really take my frameworks too seriously.. or I should say that they are just ideas to get you part way there.. They are like a starting place. I suppose its like this idea that.. language has certain limitations for what it can say, what it can point to.. and what is really important is something beyond language… but of course language has it’s utility.. and it will take us part way there.

Eventually you have to put down all our ideas and simply have a direct experience..

I feel like I’m speaking in  such abstract terms..

Hmm.. some time ago I wrote a blog entry on “my process of philosophy,” which I think speaks to what I’m trying to get at here. For all intensive purposes, we are talking about a philosophy of music here.. all be it in a way that’s really.. kind of about process, and pragmatic issues of the artist.. It might not sound like there’s anything pragmatic about it.. but.. in my process of philosophy, though I don’t recall talking about “magic” does in fact talk about something that.. if I were talking about magic.. I’d eventually have to get to this…

Magic.. in part.. well here’s what you gotta do.. pay attention to details beyond the degree to which reason would suggest it as important. Pay attention to details for the purpose of the psychological process.. not just from the perspective of the logic of the physical universe.

Ok, here’s a quicky on “who God is.” (are you impressed by my balls yet? I mean to bring up God here?) God is a symbol for the unknown..  The deal is.. that the ratio of the known to the unknown is a ratio of 1 to infinity.. Our conception of reality is.. sorta ridiculous in relationship to “the real thing.” The meaning of anything has to do with context, and when you realize that the ultimate context of anything and everything is mystery.. my gosh.. interesting..  

So you see here,… my talk of mystery management.. is um.. perhaps a deeper idea then it might often seem.

Anyway.. so the point is.. paying attention to details beyond what rational ideas would suggest, in part.. is saying “listen I recognize that mystery has more to do with what makes the world go round then my conceptions.. and so for the sake of that, I should try to work beyond my understanding.”

So when I say something like “I feel like there’s something going on in my music,” what I mean is that there is something going on beyond my understanding.. that’s going on a level that is beyond what my conscious mind has consciously been creating.. my efforts to go beyond are starting to pay dividends.

It’s an effect of the interrelationships of the details I’ve been paying attention to. It’s the implications. 

Let see if I can explain how this works in a more tangible way:

At a certain point in the project I’m working on (as of this writing, you might be able to hear it here, though it shant be there for long).. at a certain point I start playing with microtonalism. I’m writing monophonic lines.. inside of a diatonic framework.. Each instrument is playing around with various chord tones.. but the microtonalism is abstracting it from there.. so that the actual harmonies, and counter point stuff, is not something you would find in your text books.. 

I understand that for the average reader.. what I’m talking about… it’s as if it were in a foreign language.. What I’m saying is something “a little technical” which has interesting implications.. which I’ve probably gone into in past blog entries somewhere.. for now I just want to say.. this is an example of a sort of crazy attention to details.

At the same time as this going on..  you have various blocks… where different instruments seem to be taking on different rolls, and what instrument performs what roll.. or how the the different instruments come together to divide of the labor of the rolls.. is in a constant state of flux.

Ok, hold up right here.. If you’ve been reading me for any length of time.. you’ll no doubt realize that that the “organizational principles” of the music I’m creating are following ideas I have concerning the organizational principles of social media..  my answers to “the technological disruption we are in the middle of.” So in a very interesting way.. the music is exploring social media / new media disruption..  This is something I’d like to go into more detail with but.. I’ll leave it here for now.

 Another aspect to all this that seems to me worth talking about is.. that I sorta approach the music making process from the stand point of a painter.. Or it seems more like the work of a painter then a music person. One are we this being realized is in the mix, and how the mix integrates into with the composition.. The instruments in our mix are in motion.. They are in motion in relationship to our listener.. the are close to us, they are far away from us, moving from one speaker to the next.. 

This is a sorta tricky juggling act..

Latter still:

well I must run.. got a Boston Media Makers thing to run off to.. so I’ll have to finish this up latter.

[editors note, this was started yesterday] 

I’m not doing real good on my effort to write short blog entries today..  I’ve written parts of two really long ones.. for some reason these never seem to want to get published.. oh the pain and suffering of it all!

As we speak, I’m preparing food.. just chicken, I’m starving.. 

Today I watched some internet TV which has me thinking a little differently about what I’m doing. I’m thinking I might want to think more seriously about Qik. Qik is a website that allows you to stream video live, via a cell phone, out to the internet, where anyone could watch. Of course you need a special sort of Nokia smart phone sort of cell phone, and a special sorta internet connection.. to make it happen… but the more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking “wow, this could be cool.”

The question, of course, is how much it costs. You need a phone.. they seem to be more then $500… you need an unlimited data plan.. I have no idea how much these are going for.. Apple’s is what, $60 a month for the basic plan? So basically, I have to look at my budget and fiscal situation, and try and figure out just what my priorities ought be..  

So here’s sorta what I’m thinking: Pseudo Life Casting. What I mean is that it’s a means by which you can bring an audience into your world…….

I haven’t quite figured this all out yet.. But the way I see it is.. I’m creating a story.. between the blogs and podcasts and media work. There’s what we might consider “a total story” and then there’s “particular narrative threads.” This is perhaps terrible terminology, but bare with me.. Any particular consumer of my story may only be interested in particular threads.. For instance.. perhaps you’re interested in music production.. so only the blog entries in the music production subject of this blog are of interest to you.. you really don’t care what my cat had for lunch! But then there are other people.. perhaps friends, who might actually be interested in what my cat had for lunch… or at least they are interested in pretending to be interested…

So.. can you create a granularity… where someone can tune into a grain.. and only get that grain’s content.. and not have to suffer the rest of it? I doubt it.. or.. I’m sure there’s ways of achieving this..  but I don’t think the technological ecosystem of the moment is capable of doing this out of the box, put it that way.

It might make sense to not go a qik route.. as I think of it.  What is the meaning of Live? How important is live content? As I ask this question multiple thoughts come to me. For one thing… Live can mean user interactivity.. where you can comment on the live feed, and the person in the video can in someway react to what your saying..

Also.. imagine Live as one part of a larger whole. Lets say you’re life is the narrative. You have twitter, which is pretty close to real time.. lets call them grains of thought. You have a blog which is.. well ideally I’d like to think of it as a daily thing.. A podcast, which ideally is probably a weekly thing.. In someways, doesn’t it sorta seem like.. the closer to real time you go, the closer to the person you go?

I’m almost thinking.. forget about the audience.. in terms of thinking what might be interesting. I mean who knows, right? Lets just do our thing and see if anyone tunes into it..  Imagine you’re just constantly creating content.. almost like breathing. Would the constant flow of content, almost on it’s own, generate an audience? Sorta like.. I could type out anything here… and Google, and other search engines.. will see this text, and it’ll show up in searches.. so that it probably doesn’t even matter what I say.. if I just keep talking, an audience will develop.

Well no, not really.. who wants to read crap, right? Sure, you’ll see it, you’ll read a couple lines.. and then you’ll go “wow, this is stupid” and run away… so sure.. I can get zillions of people to take that first look, maybe.. just as an effect of creating lots of content.. but that’s not really what we want to do.. what we really want to do is to have folks who actively follow us.

I suppose we could look at these followers in terms of various segments.. There are people who might know who you are and casually follow you.. say if you connect with someone in a particular context.. they might be curious enough to sorta visit your stream…  That person is a consumer.. but you know.. not a big consumer.. Then you have someone who’s.. lets say a fan.. or better yet, we are talking about a hard core fan! The hard core fan, depending on how hard the core is.. that person is likely to consume a lot more content then the person who’s only occasionally bumping into things.

Ok.. so look at that.. Isn’t that interesting! What I mean is… the hard core and the casual consumer want different things. The way I would look at it is like this.. the casual consumer hears your music on the radio, the hard core consumer buys your CD. When you only know a band by there TV and Radio appearances.. that you happen into by chance.. versus someone who actively seeks this band out.. you have qualitatively different experiences..  When communicating with the casual consumer… you speak in sound bites, when speaking to the hard core fellow, you speak in paragraphs.

I guess my point is.. you can see why a social media strategy would want both.. and perhaps the full spectrum in between. 

In marketing, the subject of “conversion” is not insignificant.. of how to convert someone from a casual consumer, lets say, and a hard core consumer.. or even from a non consumer to a hard core consumer. 

Next day:

Good enough, lets post