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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And a Closing Statement to my Social Media Friends 

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

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

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

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

Ok, well here it is

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

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

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

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

Commercial Objectives 

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

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

How I sorta conceptualize it

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

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

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

There’s “the Mystic Prophet Philosopher shtick.” 

Latter, next day:

So I quickly whipped up some stickers:

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

I kinda dig this one. 

Feedback

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matt Responds to Feedback 

To Paul’s point (hbeeinc).. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

To DJ City Maus’s point.

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

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

To New Ape V / Evan Pew’s Point:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Latter that night

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

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

A day or so latter:

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

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

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

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

Ok.. so…  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few days latter 

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

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

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

I should perhaps add that I love those guys?

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

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

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

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

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

How the first steps feel

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

The work flow goes something like this:

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, what’s it like in practice? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The bad news

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

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

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

Dreams 

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

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

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

Fucking Up My Life

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

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

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

A happy story 

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

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

The struggle

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

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

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

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

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

Latter:

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

Latter that night:

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

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

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

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

Matt’s Ignorant take on things

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

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

What concerns me mid term

Fill-er up 

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

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

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

Gore’s Nightmare

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

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

In Search of a Perfect Storm 

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

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

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

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

What’s this got to do with politics?

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

lol, how about a video to illustrate?

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

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

Yeah.. them taste tests were rigged!

Next day sometime:

Things are looking a little less creepy today..  

First I wake up.. out of smokes.. and can’t find the car keys to make my way to the gas station.. so.. eventually I break down and walk to the nearest gas station.. a round trip that takes a bit longer then an hour.

Latter that day there’s knocking on the door. “Who the hell could that be?” So I tare myself away from my computer… to find a police officer at the door. “Are you Matt?” What fun moments.. Turns out that my relatives thought I was dead or something.. because they were not able to get to me via phone..  Umm.. couldn’t they have tried an email before they turn to the police?

Next to the officers feet was a soaked box….  mail I hadn’t gotten..  Yup, that’s right, Digital Performer 6 had arrived. I’ve spent a good deal of the night trying to install it.. but somethings not working.. so that’s been a real pain.

So yeah, I think that constitutes a strange day, how about you? 

Oh.. and just about an hour ago I finally found the keys.. and um.. yesterday I couldn’t find the pen to go with my art tablet.. and it was right in front of me the whole time.. discovered it while looking for the keys, lol! 

[Editor’s note: Matt doesn’t know what the hell his problem is..  yes he reads folks like Chris Brogan and has some appreciation for the value of writing brief entries.. and though Matt would argue that long can be good to.. if at least well written… surely this entry must fall short on both fronts!!!] 

[Editor’s Note part 2: This blog entry was originally written about 3 months ago… and thus represents a now out moded point of view.] 

So I just bought DP 6… well actually I haven’t bought it, but before I finish this blog entry I will have… as we speak I’m going through the feature list on motu’s website. This is an exciting development.

I’ve been doing a lot of research into sound studio type tools. The trouble, of course, is that these tools are expensive.. There’s a lot of questions around this stuff and the best… at least conceptual solution I’ve got.. seems to be to try to move forward organically.

Latter:

Let me see if I can explain the problem:

There’s a whole variety of “tools” one needs when on tries to do what I’m trying to do. For the purposes of this blog entry, we are talking about “plug-in effects related to mix engineering applications.” In the magical land of DAWs.. which is to say “Digital Audio Work Stations” there are.. market forces at work that would seem to have big long term implications to DAW developers. 

I’m thinking of Apple’s Logic. Assuming I’m not miss remembering anything..  the current Logic costs about $500 or $600… and is really the most complete DAW, right out of the box, in terms of digital instruments, effects, and sample / loop libraries. If I were to advise someone on what DAW to get.. for most folks, I’d say Logic.

This is not to say there aren’t pros and cons to all software of this type and class.. from my understanding of the subject, there are many ways you could argue that Digital Performer is a superior product to Logic (and perhaps vice versa)… but from the stand point I’m talking here.. I probably wouldn’t be thinking of spending as much money on effects if I was starting from Logic, as a pose to DP.

Digital Performer actually has a pretty good library of effects, with respect to the mix engineering job. DP has a great EQ… but.. beyond that really.. you kind of have a range of stuff that’s.. really old technology that doesn’t really stand up to modern scrutiny…  or I should say that some of the stuff in that range is in need of updates. The new DP doesn’t solve this problem, but it does take us a few steps forward.

Ok, let me back peddle a little… The instruments and effects I’m looking at are.. of a very high quality. Logic may ship with tools that cover many of the bases of the tools I’m looking at.. but do they do so at as high of a level of quality? There are areas of subjectivity in here.. but I think you’d have to come down on the side of no… even though I’m largely speaking out of my butt on this one…. do to not being a Logic user… But.. come on.. there’s no DAW that ships with EQs and compressors as nice as Liquid Mix.. and no DAW which ships with a convolution reverb half good as Altiverb… 

I seem to be getting side tracked by complicated philosophical topics.. Let me come out of this rathole with just one line of thought: Generally speaking, you don’t want to use the sounds “directly out of the box,” if we are talking about effects, synth or sampler patches, loops, whatever.. The reason being is that everyone else who has those tools has the very same sounds you’ve got so you’re probably not going to be all that distinctive in your sound.. if you just go with what’s in the box. The more you’re box of tools is comprised of tools from different places..  different companies, different whatever.. the more distinctive your sound will likely be..  So there’s something to be said for the path I’m on… not to mention that we all have different needs, and building a tool set custom to your needs is, of course, a huge advantage.

Of course I must confess that I’m lazy and often do use the sounds straight out of the box.. with little to no tweaking..  but as soon to be released blog entries will show.. this is a trend I’m looking to curve.

Back to a more direct rout into the idea of an organic studio evolution:

There’s a kind of question as to if you should invest in tools in bundles, or piece meal individually. My shtick on using tools from different companies, and what not, supports the piece meal path… but often when you buy a bundle you get more for less.. however you don’t really get a lot of say in what’s in that bundle.. and if some of what that bundle offers is something you don’t need.. well that’ll effect you’re calculous.

The big new effect in Digital Performer is a convolution reverb. DP has sucked for reverb.. and now it looks like it might just rock… The thing of it  is that there are two bundles I’m looking at that have convolution reverbs in them… so the question I have is.. is the DP convolution reverb “good enough” so that I might not want to go spend a lot on Altiverb? Or perhaps might not need to? It’s impossible to tell till you get to go play with it.

What I will say is that DPs new convolution reverb does look… interesting. As near as I can tell it’s a long way from Altiverb, but it does have some very nice things going for it… lets explore:

•  Surround Sound! For the bundles I’ve been looking at.. the included convolution reverbs do not support surround sound… or, as in the case of Altiverb, you have to pay a lot more for surround sound.. 
• Dynamic ducking? I frankly don’t understand why it would have a feature like this but.. basically as the dry signal gets louder, the amount of reverb applied to the signal lessons… the result of this would be that quieter sounds will sound further away.. which you may or may not actually want.. but it’s not a bad feature to have.. at least not from the stand point of my production style.
• It looks like you can make you’re own convolution samples.. or load samples from other libraries?

The Down Sides:

MOTU’s site raves “includes dozens of preset acoustic spaces.” If they had said “over 100,” well, I’d be digging it…  I should say that convolution reverb is to other types of reverb what a sampler is to a synthesizer… and though there are samplers that will in some ways behave like synthesizers in how they can modify a sound.. generally you get what you get.. which is true of convolution reverb to.. that there’s not really much you can do to modify a sound..  

It might also be worth pointing out that convolution reverb isn’t really the end all be all of reverb effects..  In part because you can’t really modify sounds all that much.. you end up loosing some control of your ability to place sounds in space. This is not to say that convolution isn’t great… just that it has it’s pros and cons.

Ok.. lets step to the side here.. One of the bundles I’ve been looking at is from Waves. There Natives Power Pack is… strangely enough… both very powerful for the cost, and very well tailored towards my interests and needs.

This Natives Power Pack bundle includes a convolution reverb that is in many ways better then DPs.. the “over 100 presets” immediately comes to mind… though waves’s IR-1 does look a little neutered when compared to the ‘fuller version,’ which even then doesn’t support surround sound…What makes comparisons down right impossible.. from just reading stats is.. what makes a convolution reverb sound good has to do with the quality of there samples..

In any event.. of the sorta mix needs I have.. having a good convolution reverb fits very high.. and is currently my most pressing need… Much of my excitement about the new DP comes down it’s inclusion.. and the feeling that it will, if nothing else, lesson that need.. which in tern allows me to spend more time plotting an organic studio upgrade map. We will, after all, see if Motu’s ProVerb is indeed good enough…

All of this said, as near as I can tell, the Atliverb looks like its by far the best convolution reverb going.

[Editor’s note: Matt Should have ended this entry around here, don’t cha think?] 

I do feel the need to wind things up here.. but..  DP comes with yet one other new effect.. Masterworks Leveler. Perhaps it’s my design / arts background, but I hate the interfaces on a lot of DP’s effects.. which causes me, if nothing else, to further think they aren’t all that great.. well, the Leveler’s interface looks pretty darn cool.

As near as I can tell the Leveler is a kind of automatic limiter / compressor… and it looks like it’s pretty sweet at that.

The compressors DP has ships with.. I’m not a big fan of, though I’m not really all that big on compression anyway.. and the limiter DP has shipped with.. well I think it’s pretty good.

As far as compressors goes.. my eye is now on liquid mix 16, or Liquid Mix. Liquid Mix, as near as I can tell, is really the ultimate place to go to for EQs and Compressors.. which are the most important tools for anyone doing mix engineering type work.. though where Liquid mix starts to break down is in the area of fast attack times.. as compressors with fast attack times.. well, those are limiters, aren’t they? But its something to do with using convolution to sample a compressor.. that when you get short attack times.. things start to not go so well.

The last downside to Liquid Mix, at least from my point of view, is that it runs off of hardware.. which sets limits on how many instances you get.. In Liquid Mix you get 32, and in Liquid Mix 16 you get.. yup, you guessed it, 16. These numbers represent “mono” instances.. if you’re applying this to a stereo channel.. you get half the count.. and if you increase the sample rate, you also get a cut in your instance count.

Another problem you get with Liquid Mix is latency: You play a note on an instrument.. and latency is the time between when you play it and when you hear played back to you through you’re speakers / headphones. Liquid Mix must send the signal out from your computer via firewire, to its hardware DSP processors, then back to the computer via Firewire.. all of which adds a lot of time to your latency… The result is you wouldn’t want to use Liquid Mix in any situation where hearing things back in real time is important.  

With software based effects running on your processor.. you get as many instances as you like.. limited only by you’re computers horse power… So for someone on a Mac Pro with 8 processor cores.. do I really need software running on special hardware? Further.. you probably want EQ on every channel in your mix! (I don’t currently do this, but trust me, I’m moving in this direction).. 

Summing up the effects:

In practice DP 6 sorta makes “making do” more viable.. but that’s about it.

That was a quick summing up, wasn’t it?

But Wait, there’s more!

(God Help Us!)

1. New Interface: Um.. in someways DP’s old interface felt a little like we were living in the dark ages, compared with other software of this type.. and from what I can see… things look pretty good this way. 
2. Final Cut Integration: One of the areas where DP is very strong in is when it comes to scoring film and video. Today, among independent film makers, Final Cut is kind of the standard… and it’s big all around. Indeed, I own Final Cut Studio.. so the integration features look rather nice to me.
3. Burn to Disk: Just as the CD format goes down the drain.. MOTU decides to make CD Mastering that much easier…  go MOTU? Here’s the deal: You can export to CD, with markers and all that, directly.. which is pretty awesome actually…
4. There’s other stuff.. indeed this old blog entry feels like a little bit of an echo of this entry.. So read that if you still want more…

To sum up my feeling of the over all situation: 

I used to feel like getting a big waves bundle.. like say Gold, Platinum, or Diamond, would really cover all my basics. Mind you.. the price for Gold is..  $975, Platinum is $1,575, and Diamond is $2,850. Now when I look over there product lines I see… that they do indeed cover all the bases.. but not quite well enough for me. They do have software that is.. similar to Melodyne.. which has the virtue of being simpler to use.. but the vice of less depth.. they do have software that would cover some of my vocal processing bases.. they do cover the reverb bases and many others… blah blah blah.. but.

Well I will say that they have a lot of different bundles, and if I were to go that way, at this point, I’d probably be looking at ether the Power Pack or the Renaissance Maxx bundles.. both under $500… (I now lean towards the latter)… 

I guess the thing is.. if I’m going to spend $1000 or more on plugins.. I really want to feel like I’m both getting a lot for my money and covering all my basic bases. If not that I want to feel like I’m kicking serious ass in a few departments to such an extent that its worth not having all my bases covered.

So for instance, a bundle with Altiverb, Speakerphone, and a couple other do-dads.. You feel like you’re getting the best of breed Altiverb.. Speakerphone is such a unique sound design type tool with so many different applications.. I feel like they set the bar in what I should expect, and Waves, at there best, doesn’t really come close enough… and the same holds true when we compare waves to liquid mix. While Waves does offer some tools to compete with Melodyne…. If, as I’m starting to suspect, Melodyne will start to play a central roll in my productions.. that’s just not an area where I can skimp.

Out side of the world of these expensive tools.. there are lots of “little things” to look at..