Well, as my readers kinda know.. I’m a bit on the liberal / progressive side.. but you know.. I still kinda feel this as a loss.. and why does it seem like everyone’s dying these days?
Tony was absolutely amazing, skill wise, as a white house press secretary. You know.. I think the Bush communications program has been amazingly bad.. and on a kind of skill level, Tony seemed to me to be the only bright spot. I mean the guy had the political skills of a Bill Clinton really.
Of course I wasn’t a Tony Snow fan.. he was an object of frustration.. for me with my political stripes.. but he was still a pleasure to watch… on that certain level… And I think it really sucks he had to die like this.
Ok.. so… according to my stats.. when I was blogging like every day.. sustained for.. however long I sustained it, my stats doubled…. so there is a pragmatic value in at least pumping something out every day.. which.. is pretty well known… but um.. it’s striking to see.. so I’m going to try and do that, put out something at least every day.
You know.. I have this habit of writing sorta long entries.. which.. for various reasons isn’t the greatest blog strategy thing.. I suppose if I’m forced to blog every day.. maybe what happens is I don’t feel the same need for the long stuff..
Still.. the long stuff is so me.. the long kind of think pieces, I guess.. .
Latter that night:
Into the Sound Studio Stuff
I’m debating more studio tools things.. kind of an old story that I’ve probably blogged about too much as it is.. but.. its on my mind, and talking about it sometimes helps me get think it through, so here goes:
I’m looking at Liquid Mix 16.. which is half the power.. plus a little less hardware interface / controller then the full Liquid Mix.. The full is selling for $800 these days, and the 16 is at $500… last I checked… and my thinking is sorta evolving.
This is software that runs on a processor that is a part of what you’re buying when you buy these packages. Basically.. if you’re a sound engineer on a budget.. this is an awesome deal as it puts really good quality emulations of classic EQs and Compressors at your finger tips…. for way less then it feels like these things should cost..
As a point of reference… Waves makes a native software emulation (meaning it runs on your computer’s processor) of the EQ and Compression found on SSL consoles.. the list price for which is a grand, and I think they’re now selling for a little over $700. The SSL console EQs and Compressors are highly prized items… with the exception of dealing with short attack times.. what I’ve hears is the emulation in Liquid Mix is better then what you get in the Waves bundle.. plus you get a boat load of other highly sought after EQs and Compressors and what not..
Ok.. so here’s the deal with 16… You get 16 instances.. an instance counts as being able to apply both the EQ and the Compressor to one mono channel in your mix.. as a plug-in. If your dealing with stereo that number drops down to 8. This is at a 44.1 kHz sample rate.. and it might even include 48 KHz. Without explaining digital audio, 44.1 kHz is the sample rate found on CDs.. It is now considered standard.. when doing music production, to be working at substantially higher sample rates… I wonder bother to bore you with the explanations why.. I’ll just go so far as to explain this much.. . Now the deal is.. as soon as you jump the sample rate up.. with Liquid Mix.. your instant count cuts in half… and if you go really high, a quarter.
So I’m thinking.. $500 for 4 stereo instances (each stereo instance counts as 2 mono instances) versus $800 for 8.. perhaps I should go with 8? There is an expansion card.. I wanna say it’s running at around $250.. that will give you your full instant count at the higher sample rates… In any event, you can see why I’d be leaning for the full version.
But now I’m starting to contemplate this from a different angel. For starters there’s the question of what I need / what is optimal.. which is a difficult to answer question. First off how many channels do I have running in an average mix anyway? The answer is probably less then 8… although that number reflects working on a G4.. which was very limited in how many instruments I could get going at once anyway… So in point of fact we don’t actually know how many instruments I’d be using when I’m in a situation where I basically don’t have limits…
The second question is how many instances of EQ / Compression do I use? The primary reasons for EQ and compression is.. exerting control over the dynamics of your mix, and carving out frequency spaces for the individual components of your mix. The process I have always used, and I’m sure this will sound crazy to many a sound engineer… is one where I don’t actually use any EQ or Compression at all!
That said.. we have about 3 things going on that are changing.
As the number of channels / instruments in your mix expands.. the need to exert control over the frequency space, at least, goes up… Thus if I do start dealing with higher track counts the need for EQ and compression go up.
Besides one’s mind and ears, EQ and the compressor are the most important tools to the mix engineer.. so if I want to really master art and science of mixing.. well, I’m gong to need to start using more of this.
I’m getting into a Heavy Metal production thing.. which is a style of music that needs EQ and Compression in a way that the music I was doing previously didn’t.
So.. Basically how many instances of EQ and Compression we would need is an open question at this point. That said.. between what is currently a part of my studio tool kit, and what I’m imagining will soon be a part of my tool kit.. there are other nice EQs… and perhaps even nice compressors… so, running out of instances doesn’t necessarily have to be a big problem.
When I think about where I’m likely to go with the metal I see a few possibilities:
I could treat my instruments as mono instruments.. guitars and bass and vocals.. The guitars would no doubt be multi tracked.. meaning there would be many component tracks of each guitars, each wanting its own EQ… But we are still probably only talking about around 8 instances.. maybe add 2 for the stereo buss.. 2 for the drums.. another for the bass.. lets say 4 for the vocals.. and assuming I’m working at 44.1 kHz… I’m only ok at only 16 instances.
So clearly there are trade offs.. but it also seems like those trade offs might not always be too significant… and when I then stop to think about what I could do with $400, the price difference between the full version and the 16… It becomes clear that if I were to work with smaller sample rates.. perhaps a limited number of instruments… I’d have a better studio.
Next day sometime:
There are problems with Liquid mix out side of the issue of instance counts.. one of the bigger ones is latency. Latency is the time gap between when you play a sound into your computer and you hear it played back. Latency is a big issue… the way you work with Liquid Mix is.. via your DAW, via production.. in a way where latency no long matters.. You don’t use it in a live setting. I have some mind to work at being a live sound engineer… a context inside of which liquid mix is worthless.. and there are many contexts inside of which I would want an EQ or compressor that didn’t suffer from latency issues.
In the broader mix of my sound work at this moment.. these kinds of applications are at a minimum.. but there is a huge revolution going on in my sound work.. and we don’t really know what its going to look like at the end of the day.
The Road Map
I have a vague sorta schematic of ideas.. which.. may or may not be indicative of what things will look like at the end of the day.. the trouble is.. for most of these ideas.. the cost of the technology is prohibitive. Lets look at some of those ideas… mind you we are not to take them too seriously.. in terms of what they are.. but more if we can see these ideas as manifestations of thoughts in one moment of time.. that are more expressive of a trajectory then what they are at the momment… which is a little hard to explain but..
Live sound engineer: I know a reasonable amount about the mix engineering field.. even if most of that is directed at making records.. the task of bringing those to bare into the live context.. at least to get started, its not so bad. The business reasons for being interested in this are multi fold: Networking inside of the local music scene.. I have packages I could offer bands.. from web design, recording mix engineering, some kind of a studio, photography.. I could do your live mix, and also a record based off that live mix.. social media marketing… video production.. internet and social media strategy more generally… and the list probably goes on.
Electronic Music type DJ: There’s always been the challenge of.. well how making music live fits into how the music business usually works.. doing the live DJ thing is certainly one approach to trying to solve this problem. As with the live sound engineer stuff.. what we need here is a lap top plus a few other software odds and ends. For DJing.. it might make sense to look at hardware controllers.. the digital equivalent to turn tables..
Lets become a street Musician: This is sorta equivalent to the DJ shtick.. again we need a laptop.. some sorta PA system / amp thing that makes sense for this context.. perhaps a controller.. grab the guitar, midi food controller.. You could sell your CD, hand out free postcards / stickers that relate to your web presence.. not to mention the free music from that.. You could do live video streaming on the internet of these performances.. etc.
Lets put together a Band: I suppose I really just need a real guitar amp, right?
I’m going to cut this short.. as this is really something that, to really go into.. it would take a whole other blog entry, at least.. there’s more stuff to list.. but this gives us a broad brush stroke outline of some of where we might be going. It’s enough to bring back to the subject of what sorta gear we ought to be looking at.
Verdicts, I think, where all this leaves us is..
Going with the Liquid Mix 16.. might very well be the best choice. There’s a fairly cheap bundle of effects I’m looking at that runs at $200 that offers various eqs, compressors, and other odds and ends of this sort.. which I think could really offer some good stuff to my mixes for not a lot of money… this would then leave another $200 for other stuff.. I’m thinking digital delays and reverbs.
Of course there’s another part of my brain that’s thinking Max/MSP/Jitter Check out this DIY controller someone mad… working with said software.
I haven’t talked too much about the Max/MSP/Jitter thing in this blog yet. It’s a bundle that costs $700… for electronic music.. its on the geek out side… But it’s also the land of the hard core serious electronic music stuff.. this is where the serious cutting of the edge happens, right? Perhaps this and CSound?
Basically.. this bundle is sorta equivalent to Native Instruments Reaktor… with certain pros and cons…. of which I don’t know as much as I’d like. My understanding is the Max/MSP/Jitter this is better on your processors.. also.. Jitter is a program that does very interesting things with video.. in an interactive way.. which is probably the only solution that makes sense for certain video ideas I’ve been playing with.
[editors note: This was written a few days ago.. Matt sorta touches on some of what he’s explore for his new “super duper” heavy metal.. which is a kind of crazy combination of heavy metal and electronic music.. the electronic music element being mainly about music production techniques rather then genera.. mostly all this as it relates to guitar playing, and aesthetics more generally]
I just got in, a little while ago, from Guitar Center. I went there to pick up picks, found it was a big sale day.. so I bought a audio cable to. I also came dangerously close to buying an electronic drum kit.
On Electronic Drums.
Super duper long term readers will no doubt know.. that I’ve been thinking about buying an electronic drum kit for about 3 or 4 years. The reasons are as follows:
They are generally cheaper then acoustic kits
They produce MIDI, I can sequence them into my electronic music’s work flow
Electronic drum kits are probably pretty good for heavy metal production styles
They don’t make to much noise, so neighbors won’t hate me
It would allow me to create a situation where folks could come over and jam
learning to “think like a drummer” is pretty important for what I’m doing
Hey, it’s a pretty cool thing
Did I mention I have a fairly substantial drum sample library? Battery, Kontakt, Reason, Ableton Live.. all come with such things.. plus the LMR4 from Steinberg.. and the Waldorf Attack drum synth..
So.. Guitar Center had $100 off a super cheap-o electronic drum kit. The sales guy was actually someone I felt pretty good about.. asked questions.. and it came around to the feeling that I would need to buy a special double bass piece to go with the kit.. and the whole think would be… oh, around $700. This would be a little more then what I’d planned to spend, should I get a kit.. but maybe it would be worth it?
I had him go searching for the kit.. the box.. and it was found that there were no boxes in the store, the only option was the display unit, and I just wasn’t willing to buy the display unit without further discount so… I returned home without the drum kit, and feeling a little relieved that I hadn’t parted with the money.
Onto the Guitar Madness
It’s been a while since I picked up my guitar.. or at least it feels like that. I still don’t have Melodyne working in DP.. accept that it will load up inside of Kore, so I figured that was good enough for government work in the Bush administration.. so decided to pull out the guitar.. which of course is why I went to Guitar Center in the first place.
It was time to restring my guitar… which I haven’t done in.. well probably a couple of years! So it’s interesting to hear what my guitar is supposed to sound like..
So I started to monkey around with Guitar Rig 3.. which I still haven’t done all that much with… just to kind of see what I had..
What blew my mind was.. even though I’m rusty as hell.. my hands are super duper uber fast. Yes boys and girls, I was meant to be a metal god!
On the negative side, though I wasn’t playing with melodyne as I was playing around, it was clear that my metal guitar playing isn’t really monophonic… which means those non-monophonic parts might not translate to terribly well. It was striking me to take notice of just how much of my guitar playing wasn’t monophonically orientated.
Ok.. so here’s the deal.. Monophonic basically means playing one note at a time. Metal is generally ether one note at a time or a “power chord.” A power chord is as good as monophonic… your two or 3 note move together.. and generally speaking the intervals stay the same wether it’s minor or major as there’s no 3rd in a power chord.. it’s just route 5th… The 3rd, of course, is the note that tells you if a chord is major or minor.
Here’s the think about my playing.. It’s all about blurring the root, 3rd, or 5th.. This is done in such a way so as the make my playing “extra dark.” My playing is perhaps “slightly darker then Black Sabbath.” In any event.. these moments of blurring are often polyphonic moments… and this blurring of the root, 3rd, and 5th is pretty much a corner stone of my style.
I spent a little time going over the usual suspect sorta riffs.. riffs I have lying around that I haven’t really gotten around to using for anything yet. When you figure there’s very little guitar playing in my music generally… these are most of the riffs I’ve come up with over the last.. 15 or so years.
So, early reflections on what I could mainly do?
I think its time to really think about song writing on the guitar: This is actually a lot of work. Though in recent posts I have characterized my notion of working with guitar and this sorta software as allowing me to be a more lazy guitar player.. the process of actually writing the music.. if you do it organically, without relying on the computer for at least your main riffs.. its still a lot of work.
Hours latter:
Well I’m going to interrupt the train of thought…
Guitar Rig 3’s Possibilities
I’ve been spending a lot of time playing around with Guitar Rig 3.. which is an interesting program. Guitar Rig models various amps, and effects, and what not.. It’s basically “everything you need for your guitar,” and bass guitar to for that matter. You can just go line in to your computer… and you’re good to go. Some will argue there are better ways to go, but it suits me well enough.
What makes it interesting, however.. or interesting to me today.. is that as of version 2 Guitar Rig has had elements of synthesizer architectures built into it. This amounts to various “modulation devices.” A “modulation device” is something that “modulates” “something.” Modulating something means that it controls that something… which will make more sense once I explain the modulation devices…
You have various modulation devices.. A basic one is an “LFO,” or low frequency oscillator. You could think of the second hand on a clock as an LFO, it’s frequency of oscillation is one cycle per minute. When the second hand is at 12, it could be generating a number like.. say 100, and when its at 6 o’clock.. lets say that’s zero.. as the second hand moves… the the number changes.. So, if you used your second hand to modulation a distortion effect.. when the second hand is at the 12 it’s really distorted, and when it gets to 6, its clean.. no distortion.
Now.. and I’m not even sure off the top of my head if Guitar Rig does this.. but you can have different “wave forms” of oscillators.. one way to conceptualize this is imagine of instead of a clock being a circle.. it was a triangle.. so the the numbers coming out of our clock don’t change evenly with respect to time.. sometimes it goes faster, sometimes slower.. repeating this in a constant pattern at a constant rate. Do you follow this? Well it doesn’t really matter… I just want to give you a basic idea of this.
Now there are other types of modulators.. modulators that respond to how hard you hit your strings.. or respond in relationship from when you hit the note.. or any number of other things.. and all modulators can be used to control anything in Guitar Rig 3.
So why is this interesting?
I’m not totally new to mucking around with these modulators, or Guitar Rig for that matter. What is new is the notion that my guitar parts, the audio of them, can be sequences, as can the over all mix, as can the parameters of Guitar Rig… and now even the audio being fed into Guitar Rig. This is a situation where the whole is more then the sum of the parts…
What I’m looking at now is the possibility that I could be making electronic music that doesn’t sound like electronic music.. I’m looking at electronic music that sounds like.. a real guitar player. I am, of course, a real guitar player.. but the situation, at least as far as I can tell, is I’m entering a situation where the only real limitations are my imagination.
I don’t know where I’m going, this is all an exploration of the unknown… I’m sure there’s lots of bands out there who are benefiting from these kinds of tools.. but I’ll bet not too much of them are using these kinds of technologies in a way that’s about exploring new possibilities.. it’s more about managing costs of production in a market place where the funds band have for working in the studio are drying up thanks to the implications of P2P, among other things. It’s about creating an idealized version of what bands have been doing forever.
I don’t believe in the idealized visions.. Ideals.. they are so often about “removing imperfections” as if the imperfections where not perfect. All things are perfect in there own way, the question of perfection is more, at least in my introverted prejudice’s point of view, more about relationships of things then things onto them selves… or its an ecology between these things.
What I’m interested in doing is like turning heavy metal into a fine art.. It’s a heavy metal that doesn’t live inside the old heavy metal box… This isn’t really some sort of elitism, and I don’t believe it carries the same sorta baggage that prog rock did.. It’s more like every piece of the puzzle gets more attention then it traditionally would.. and by doing this we can transcend the old forms.
For a long time I’ve been thinking about cliches.. The funny thing about cliches is that they carry inside them certain truths, certain meanings.. that somehow, the one who’s employing the cliche, has lost touch with. In any form of art, what you need to do is push beyond the preconceived notions everyone has.. or that’s what you need to do if you’re going to do anything worth while. You can do this via a cliche as long as you’re doing something with the cliche that’s worth while.
I’m in a crazy sleep deprived state, mind full of beats.. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burrough’s beats… Passions and revolts drive madly through me.. I thought of a part to a poem earlier.. when I was less sleep deprived deranged… I wonder if I could remember it.
God is not man made
Not even man is man made
perhaps this is why he is so miserable
in his modern world
So what do you think? It’s just a fragment of something. There was other stuff I was thinking of putting with it, but those memories have faded.
I wonder what you could do with those words, can you imagine? You could have those lines repeating over and over again… drenched in effects; an ambient timber.. some sound painting.
Perhaps its just a fragment, just a couple riffs looking for more riffs, to be come a whole.
Perhaps these are words that should be surrounding by still silence.. little movement.
Perhaps these words are no good at all.
My mind has gone off in so many tangents in this state… I’ve had so many dreams to write about.. reflections, attempts at self awareness… feeling like a moth who bangs his head upon the glass in search for the flame… Even if I and the fire are one.
As I read through the DP manual to try and get Melodyne working, I notice that DP would seem to have the same features as Melodyne.. How these compare is not obvious to me… surely Melodyne’s up coming ability to work with polyphonic audio sets it apart.. and one expects a tool so specialized to.. well be special. Still, looking through this feature in DP is enough to give me second thoughts. What’s more.. DP’s features will no doubt integrate with my DP work flow a good deal better!
It does seem that melodyne does have a number of special features.. and surely its nice to have the ability to work with a program like Ableton Live in this way… or other such programs. If I ever go back to Cubase, which I do harbor many thoughts of (I’m way faster with Cubase then with DP after all)… this will prove helpful..
So as I try and say in this blog.. I’m not an expert, more someone struggling along his path, and we look at stuff inside of this context.. which strikes me as valuable.
I’m in software hell, or so it seems. Perhaps computer hell would be a better way of putting it? I mean.. just the amount of issues I’ve had since I bought this computer.. between Apple doing a shitty job of getting this computer to me in a reasonable time frame.. issues with, I suppose, guitar center and native instruments.. with both Komplete and Kore… Issues with Adobe.. and now onto the issues with Melodyne.
So I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in this blog yet, but I ran out and bought Celemony’s Melodyne Studio. My hope is this could revolutionize the way I work, but that still remains to be seen… cause I’ve had a hell of a time getting the software to run on my machine properly.
First it wouldn’t install.. tech support got back to me pretty quickly.. and we got it installed.. only with a number of snags.
ReWire isn’t working.. which is fairly crucial to me.
Now both Ableton Live and Reason aren’t working.. again pretty crucial.
Molodyne will not run as a plug-in.. which is pretty crucial to me…. haven’t tried to get it in ReWire mode yet.
Then tech support started to slack off a bit, I suppose you could say.. and I was only getting about one email a day… and then yesterday I didn’t hear anything from them.. so I emailed today, wondering what was up.. and explaining that this problem had sorta stopped my work, and all that.. and they tell me it is definitely not a known problem…. and gave me some instructions on how to.. I guess uninstall and then reinstall the software, and hopefully clear up whatever the issue is.
I haven’t bothered to go through the hassle of trying to follow those instructions yet.. only just got in the door a little while ago after all… Think I might jump in the shower, get something to eat, and see what happens. Mean while it’s about 12:15 am…
Some first impressions of the new possibilities
I will give you something of my first impressions.. first impressions based off playing with some of the tutorials: I think melodyne could absolutely revolutionize the way I work.. and could be what I’ve been looking for for years…. I’m very excited about it, but we’ll have to see if can live up to that kind of excitement and expectation.
Still, even with the questions marks hanging over the situation.. dreams do flow. If, with the help of a little software, I can kinda sorta sing… that seems like an amazing possibility. I could write songs about anything! It’s not even that I have a lot of confidence in my song writing ability.. it’s more like.. well maybe confidence in my imagination.. I feel like I could do some freaking amazing stuff.
You add to that that you’re supposed to be able to sequence audio like I can sequence midi / program performances for electronic instruments? Dude, I could make metal like no one has ever heard before!!!
The combination of these two things has me dreaming in ways I’ve never really dreamed before. It has me feeling like a sound artist in a way I haven’t felt before.
And if dreams can become reality? Well… lets just say I have a lot more confidence in the possibility of making a living from my work then I had a month or two ago.
So, how does this change our plot?
Next night:
Back to the tech woes
It’s about 1:20 AM, I followed the tech supports advice.. and now Melodyn is installed, and Reason and Live are working.. The only snag is DP is not recognizing the Audio Units plug-in.
Let me see if I can sorta explain this a little bit: Melodyne studio has a plug-in called “Melodyne Bridge.” What you do is put the plug-in on the first insert effects slot of the channel you’re working on, and it streams the audio out of your DAW and into Melodyne Studio.. or something like this? Maybe it just puts it in Melodyne studio? In any event, if you want to do the serious audio sequencing of your stuff.. you do that in Melodyne Studio… and you do that via Melodyne Bridge.
Melodyne Studio will also allow you to work with Melodyn via ReWire, but as near as I can tell this means that whatever audio you’re working with has to start out in Melodyne. For the project I’m working in now.. I have audio in Live that I’d like to, one way or another, be able to mess with in Melodyne. This would be the crazy processed vocal tracks… It might be nice to control there pitches.. to whatever extent I could.. [editors note: the “crazy processed vocals” references a post I have yet to post.]
They are so processed that it is likely that Melodyne won’t work well with them.. Melodyne like’s signals that are as dry as possible, which is why you put the plug-in in the first insert slot of the channel who’s audio you want to work with.
Seeing as I haven’t actually worked with Melodyn yet.. not in these kinds of contexts.. I’ve only done a few tutorials and skimmed through the manual, I don’t know how all this works in practice… So what I’m saying here is not as reliable as it could be.
The fear I have is… one of work flow. Ideally I’d like to be able to see what’s going on with what in an integrated fashion.. So if I’m sequencing audio.. I’d like to see those pitches in the same place that I see my MIDI notes, and as far as I can see, this is an impossibility. The best solution I can think of is to finally go ahead and take a look at getting a second monitor. I’ll likely do this sunday after the Boston Media Makers meeting.
The Second Monitor
I’m looking at Dells.. Dell offers 2 24″ HD monitors.. one is a bit more econo class then the other.. Origionally my plan was to go all econo class.. though I ended up running out and bying an acer, which is sorta super econo class. This isn’t really a problem.. I mean I still love the monitor and it’s amazing to me that you could get a 24″ HD monitor for so cheap.. but..
I really want my second monitor to be capable of playing movies from some sort of a Blue Ray type DVD drive.. or perhaps from cable.. and the higher end Dell has a much higher contrast ratio and.. well if you’re serious about color, which as a visual artist you can’t help but be, you really need the better monitor. Another feature I like of it is the built in card reader plus the USB hub. If that weren’t enough it’s rotatable.. so it can be a horizontal wide screen sorta thing.. or a vertical tall sorta thing. This latter option would be absolutely awesome for working with Reason.. among other things.
How’d the tech support leave ya?
So, how do my technical challenges, and experiences with there tech support, reflect on Celemony?
I think the problem came down to some sorta corruption on the installer DVD.. which is why, as the tech support guy said “this is anything but a known problem.” While it would be possible for the tech support experience to be better.. having to wait around to hear back.. and then having to email back to hear back.. and all that.. I have to say that.. I don’t feel that it was that bad.
How many times do you feel like it’s not really a human interaction with the tech person you’re dealing with? How many tech support people will treat you like a moron? If anything they might have assumed I was more sophisticated then I am.. He told me I had to repair disk permission as a part of the process.. but didn’t explain that you do that through Apple’s hard disk utility.. I sorta knew that, but I wouldn’t necessarily imagine the average user would.
I think it was a stump the experts sorta situation… and that these kinds of things happen.. well that’s just the way things are.. so it doesn’t bother me too much. So over all it was a positive sorta thing.. my first interaction with company.. or I certainly don’t feel pissy about it.
So if the software works great.. yeah, I’ll be recommending it a good deal..
Back to how all this effects our Plot:
I dream of a creative process… a process that is very different from my current process: My current process is very much a slave to technical considerations.. I see the possibility, at least, of leaving those shackles behind. I could sit down, write out some lyrics, see what I think.. sit down on my guitar, riff away.. come up with something here, something there.. and just sorta put it together in the computer.
Conventionally, if I want to put guitar playing into my music.. just a simple riff, it’ll take me about a day, between the conception and getting the performance up to par.. When you’re dealing with integrating guitar based music into an electronic context.. the beat of the electronic stuff is robot on perfect, which is different from how real humans play… this robot on perfect then highlights the imperfection of your playing, calling you to a higher standard. This isn’t always ideal.. there’s value in human imperfection..
In any event.. when I work on the electronic music side of things, I tend to work very very fast.. my compositional process is one of reacting to what I’m producing.. so if the process has to get slowed down to the point that it takes a day just to put in one guitar part… that kinda throws a monkey wrench into the process.. it disturbs your perception of your musics ecology..
If, on the other hand, I could sit down at my guitar, come up with a riff, record it, fix it, and go.. the process will not be disturbed.. If my guitar playing is more like.. a basis for something.. that I can then transmute into something else again… we’re really talking about limitless possibilities.. I mean the music I make will not be limited by the limitations of my musicianship.. which is really why I got into electronic music in the first place.
Video’s to End on
This is mildly off topic, but fits into the larger conversation, and I thought it was real interesting to take a look at.. from the 1980s
How about that.. a compact disk or “cd” using laser beams? Pretty sci fi ha?
[editors note: This is yet another one of them unpublished blog entries.. it’s a long one.. that never real gets to what it aims to get to be about.. this idea for a “new super metal.” Think of it as part one, or like a fragment of a larger idea. ]
My process, at the moment.. at least in some areas, is more about thinking then doing… and at the moment this involves an awful lot of research related to sound studio tools. As wee speak, in fact, I find myself gong through about 4 or 5 years worth of Sound On Sound magazines.. SOS being a music production orientated mag… and um.. checking out various web sites and just.. doing a lot of poking around.. and I suppose in all of this I’ve only started to do my research.
It’s probably not a good idea to dream too much about what you could do with a tool.. till you actually have the tool.. as.. well dreams and realities in this area can be two very different things.. but none the less, one of the things I’m dreaming about is the notion of creating a new “super metal.” Allow me to try and explain this.
I make a kind of experimental electronic music. At this point in the story of this, I’m interested in exploring different sorts of processes as a part of my productions… That said.. there are certain processes that are sorta like foundational elements of how I work. I call them foundational because.. its as if when ever you do anything.. you develop muscles by which you can do that thing better.. perhaps more efficiently.. perhaps whatever..
In my production process, one of the strongest muscles I have has to do with programing the performances of various instruments and effects… indeed the mix to. This muscle is very very strong.. but also very limited in the scope of what it can do. A part of exploring new processes is about broadening the scope of this muscle.
It’s looking to me like Melodyne will fit into this process in a rather exquisite sorta way… Allow me to speak of this.
For starters… when the new version comes out.. it looks like you’ll be able to sequence audio in more or less the same way I do with MIDI now…. err, kinda sorta. But to put it simply.. if you can change the pitches, and where the notes fit time wise.. well, I can build guitar performances the same way I can build any other sorta performance.. for any other sort of instrument.
The history of MIDI as a part of the electronic music production environment is one that is dominated by keyboards as you’re controller.. Most people will play a keyboard into there computer, edit there performance.. and that will be how they work. I, on the other hand, program from scratch. While I’d love to work in a process that starts with a keyboard performance.. the truth is that I’m not much of a keyboard player. One can be not much of a keyboard player, and still use ones keyboard playing as the basis of a production.. and so rather effectively.. but this is a process I have yet to really explore.
Now.. if you can take a guitar performance and basically edit it the same as you would a MIDI performance.. well, exploring the possibilities of using my guitar playing as the basis of a production.. starts to make a lot of sense. Further, because you can convert the audio to MIDI, to then control various instruments.. well now we are entering a world where.. in a lot of ways, working this way might make a lot of sense.
As a guitarist I’m.. I have very good technical chops. Indeed I could be a regular guitar hero.. accept that I’m not really a “whole guitar player.” What I mean by this is.. basically I have other things to do then play guitar all the time.. so my guitar playing has a lot of flawed areas, never mind that it’s perhaps not growing as much as I’d like. But the thing is.. if I can compensate via sequencing type editing of my guitar performances? Well now we’ve got some really interesting possibilities.
The commercial issues of metal versus my experimental electronic music
From my point of view there is the issue of commercial potential. The kind of electronic music I made is, basically, a kind of “serious electronic music” which doesn’t fit into a popular form too terribly well. I can imagine it being popular.. but it does carry a lot of challenges with it. A significant part of those challenges is simply that.. it doesn’t fit into any known genera which really complicates marketing…
Heavy metal, on the other hand, is one of the most popular music forms going.. It’s a much larger market, and it’s a much easier market to reach.
Another interesting element is.. I don’t really know that much about the electronic music market, electronic music genres, the history of it.. or anything really… So I’m at a real disadvantage. Metal, on the other hand, is something I know very well… even if I’m not totally up on what’s new in Metal.
What I’d do with Metal
One of the things that’s really important to me is that my music have a lot of integrity.. The notion of moving to metal because the commercial potential is better might sound a little like selling out…. but there’s no reason that that has to be the case…
Another interesting point is that my interest in electronic music.. started out with a notion of exploring things that might have metal type applications… It was as if there was a certain metal aesthetic behind how I was thinking about electronic music. This was more then 10 years ago.. and I certainly have evolved but… there is this strange way where the structural thinking of my stuff has certain metal kinds of things behind it. How about some examples…
What I want you to take note of in this is.. The way its a kind of heavy metal roller coaster ride.. the technical sophistication / demands of the music.. It might also be worth noting that we see harmonic minor modalism going on in here… both the roller coaster and the harmonic minor modalism I take to further extremes in my music… you could think of my stuff as almost like megadeth on steriods in a certain sense:
Not that I’m the biggest Metalica fan at this point.. but here’s Metallica at a similar stage.. Note the changes.. again roller coaster ish metal
Of course… what I’m thinking of doing is a little more candy coated…
[editors note: Matt wishes you could hear the line “just who’s mystic am I anyway” a little better.. sorta fits into the conceptual continuity of the blog, ya know?]
Of course, I plan to be “a little” more creepy… as unlike Manson, I shall be presenting serious philosophical challenges to civilization as we know it. Err, and did I mention I want to be explicit about corrupting you’re children? (too complex a topic to go into here.) The other thing to make me more creepy is I tend to indentify more with God.. which is a hell of a lot more scary then Satan!
Another type of Candy:
So what do you think, to much compression in there production style? I’ve always thought these fellows where a little too candy coated:
Ok.. so lets cut the BS, ha? Lets see something much closer to where I’m coming from… how about this? (No one does slayer like these guys!)
I think there’s a lot to the Metal genera to be critical of.. cliché’s up the ying yang.. a kind of stupid pose.. A way the form often has more to do with low budget commercial conceptions then anything like “art” or creative possibilities.
I suppose the metal quality to my work might be something like.. a surface glaze?
Much Latter:
Ok, well lets talk about my metal, lets see if we can get to it.. cause I’ve been working on the design for.. geeze, a good 15 years or so?
There’s a kind of starting point.. and then there’s how it stretches out into abstraction. See, as you no doubt know, metal starts in rock, and rock starts in blues and… well metal also starts in Jazz.. but…
So I start out in minor chord progressions.. the “minor” quality and abstract into synthetic scales.. which is sorta.. well welcome guitar geek-dom, right? Well music theory geek-dom anyway. I’ve mention in the above Megadeth track.. that there was “harmonic minor modalism” going on.. modalism is probably most often associated with Miles Davis.. and harmonic minor comes from classical.. It’s what gives the Megadeth it’s middle eastern flavor.
Modalism, really, is a kind of.. lets call it “a tactical response to the challenges of improvisation.”
[editors note: So Matt sorta stopped writing around this point, which is probably where things would have likely gotten interesting.. *sigh* and then there was this other fragment that he was going to try to integrate into the flow latter on.. well, lets have the fragment]
Well it starts with Ozzy actually. When I was first starting to listen to music / explore music.. Ozzy was one the first bit of music I found that was like.. I’d listen to endlessly… and it was also some of the first stuff I started playing on the guitar.
[editors note: And that’s where it ends, just like that.]
[editors note: I wanna start publishing stuff.. even if it’s just thought fragments]
Normally, my ears and antennas are open.. so I’m always reading reviews, and whatever.. on gear that might fit into my studio.. trouble is I’m not usually in a position where I can actually get too much, so what I follow tends to be limited in scope.. because things have changed, I’m now in a position where.. I need to do a lot of make up research..
My starting point has been.. well not uber thoughtful. Waves bundles, and a few big name other things… and blah blah blah. It’s clear to me that what I need is a mix of tools.. to cover a mix of bases.. any given bundle would really only answer a limited amount of those bases…
I tend to favor bundles because that’s often the best way to get the most bang for you’re buck..
[editor’s note: That was all I wrote, but I figure it’s worth just throwing up, this thought does extent in future entries, what follows is just.. a little something more]
Yeah.. so the research project has been evolving forward at quite the rate… there’s more to say but..
[editors note, yeah.. this was written a day or so before posting]
Laura Fitton, aka @pistachio, was having a small cook out today for Scott Stead, so he could meet Boston area media makers… I got to the area late, as seems to be my bad habit / curse… and then had a kind of heart breaking anxiety attack that lead me to… well driving back home.
It is heart breaking.. I spent about an hour in a parking lot, drove by the house about 5 times (though a few of those were just trying to figure out which house it was).. but wasn’t able to overcome…. and eventually drove home..
Next day sometime:
Anxiety has always been an issue for me. It seems to stem from my mom.. though I love(d) her very much, even all this time after her passing, my rage can run hot.
I’ve missed out on a lot of what life has had to offer thanks to anxiety… Indeed my life need not be as hard as it has been.. and I think, when in the heart of the of the anxiety related issues, about what life could look like if I could just overcome it.
Truth is.. I’ve been feeling like I have been over coming it.. The last 8 or so years of.. unemployment has been a great help.. finally able to take the path of self becoming… the becoming over comes.
Social Media has been a great help to.. So much talk about Social Media’s ROI seems to miss the point.. social media is saving me.. hell, its even helping me to develop some social skills. My point being that social media has more to it then is often understood in the land of “the experts.”
It used to be that I was too shy to comment on people’s blogs really.. but I forced myself. I felt a little bit like a drunk dialer.. like a phone call you’d get late some night from a drunk x lover.. me with my crazy comments!
Around this time I left a crazy comment on Laura’s blog.. at this point I don’t think she was yet the web celebrity she is today… The next time I saw her was at a Boston Social Media Club thing.. I wanted to cringe and hide.. but oh no.. apparently she REALLY liked my crazy mad comment.. and so she brought me into whatever conversation was going on.. which lead me into a conversation with Bryan Person about the New England Podcaster group.. but that’s nether her nor there… though still a thought on my mind.
I suppose the point is that Larua’s someone I have a lot of affection for… She’s someone whom I think, in a certain kind of way, embodies the spiritual core of what social media is really all about.. and I guess its a mix of her kindness and this feeling, that made last night an especially heart breaking sorta anxiety night.
When I got home.. I had this kind of defeated feeling.. I was just so sad.. which was a strange and mysterious sorta reaction..
It had taken me 3 or 4 months before I got up the courage to actually attend a New England Podcaster Meet Up… down in Quinsy. (The first social media group I started going to) The social media club was harder in the early days.. Boston Media makers wasn’t so hard.. but I still have a hard time telling them what “I really do.” I’ve only just started going to the Havard Berkman “blogger” group… that took a little while.
Yeah, so anxiety is killing me…
Found this video, thought I’d share:
I don’t think I have it that bad? Though I have had it pretty bad in the past.
I kinda liked this one to:
And how about we leave on a cover on of that great Ramones track:
I have a ton of entries in draft form, waiting to be published, and at the moment I’m thinking of just.. going through them and kinda editing them.. and posting them more or less as is… The reason being is that they document a thought process that lead me to this point.. The point that I’m at now.. and I’d just like them to be on here…
I have such a bad habit of writing sooo much that I never post….. *sigh.*
I’m still feeling critical of how I blog.. I’m hoping that by just pushing forward, eventually, things will kind of click for me.. and I’ll get past my self criticisms.
My self criticism is.. is really from a kind of social media / blog strategy perspective. I’m not sure if how I’m feeling, in relationship to.. the shticks of folks who talk about social media / blog strategy… What I mean is I have a certain sorta reaction to these fellows.. and I’m not sure how I feel about my reaction.
Of course.. there’s really only one possible reaction to all this:
Frank Sinatra, believe it or not, was apparently a fan of this version of his song.
The extent to which I’m not sure of this reaction… well I do feel the need to wrestle with this stuff a lot more, I suppose.
Barnett has been a hero from my day’s as a C-Span addict…. It was just one of those mind bending moments for me.. I think that and a presentation by David Weinberger where the two big ones of that time period.. These were presentations that… It’s a little hard to explain this really.. It was a little bit like hanging out with aliens in a sense..