I’ve been going without internet for a while now.. well.. actually I only have internet on my laptop, not my desktop.. which is all backwards… I went without any internet for about two days… and this apparently triggered a freak out online.. which is sorta mysterious.. and mystically my friend Greg PC showed up at my door to help matters… he’d never been to my door before.. and somehow the knocking at the somewhat late hour freaked me out and it took a while to regain my head.. so why not talk about this story?

It all started when I bought a certain microphone preamp.. Microphone preamps can be quite expensive.. I’ll likely make a post about this soon.. I got mine for a little less then half the list price.. well, it was used.. but Jesus, half off the list price? I would not have been able to afford this preamp other wise.. and it was a kind of preamp I REALLY wanted! So lots of excitement.. couldn’t wait to try it out.. but there was one problem..

The manual was more adamant then any manual I had ever seen.. on the importance of grounding.. which is to say.. the 3 prong plug thing.. blah blah blah.. and in the room that used to be my studio.. there was no such 3 pronged plug.. which meant.. if I wanted to play it safe.. I’d have to move the studio.. which.. was no small feat!

The biggest issue, of course, was the internet.. Version is my ISP.. it comes into my room via a drilled hole in the wall.. to this modem with wifi.. which I connected to via an ethernet cable but.. its not terribly mac friendly the way they’ve set it up.. so.. in order to ACTUALLY have wifi throughout the house.. and to actually be able to move files between computers.. via Wifi.. I can’t use there wifi..

I don’t really know what I’m doing.. so I wont go into all the gory details… but something funky was going on.. and I don’t get it.. where I couldn’t get my bass station and time capsule to get internet via the modem.. which is both why I had not internet for two days, and also why this laptop is my only internet connection.

I don’t really understand the networking thing today.. all the details..  Mac’s tend to simplify all the technical stuff.. but.. they simplify it to a point that.. if you have to go out of the simple zone.. you’re suddenly in this very disorientating world.. if you don’t know what your doing. Definitely painful!

But the good news is the studio is now mostly moved.. to the TV room.. which is sorta dramatically different, and has 2 dramatic implications.

1. Its a lot bigger.. which means I can bring parts of my studio into service which I’ve more or less had hidden away for ages… like say my 16 channel digital mixer
2. It’s a lot bigger.. which presents a different sorta acoustic situation.. the principle issue for acoustics in this situation is you don’t want the acoustics of the listening space interfering with the sound your ears are hearing.. and small spaces are notoriously hard to deal with… in the TV room.. there’s lots of space.. so.. by the time the audio bounces off a wall or something, and gets back to my ear.. it’s so low in volume.. that its not really coloring my impressions.. plus there are fairly sound absorbing surfaces in the space.. so.. I could finally make the move away from headphones to monitors.

I suppose this bears talking about. For a number of reasons it is considered a no no to mix on headphones.. but, given a choice between low end monitors and a terrible acoustic environment.. and higher end headphones.. take the headphones!!!

The jump to monitors, at least for me, is pretty mind blowing.. and yes… they are, at least in terms of price, low end monitors.. but I think they are quite nice.. as does Mr. BT.. and the guy at the store was like “yeah, if I had only this much to spend this is what I’d get.” Oh.. and not only are they relatively cheap.. but they were having a Thanksgiving weekend special deal on them!

Of course the only trouble is one of the monitors is defective.. so I have to go return it for another pair once they get them in.. hopefully tomorrow.. but.. what you find is a whole lot more detail.. you’re able to hear.

This is a somewhat odd thing.. you listen to.. well mostly I’ve been listening to the sound track of command and conquer.. which I’ve always regarded as a somewhat generic sound track.. but now that I can hear the details.. I’m actually quite impressed.. of course you can argue that they sure as hell should have made it sound better on lesser speakers.. but that’s sorta besides the point..

Anyway… yeah.. so I feel like I’m leveling up!

So… a couple ages ago I started talking about the idea of bringing vocals to my music.. and all this time latter.. still no word from me on the subject.. well, that is likely about to change.. and this post will cover some of my preconceptions on the subject…

I “can’t sing.” Err.. maybe I can, I don’t really know.. but the point is that I don’t sing, and so from a “practice makes perfect” perspective.. if I were to start taking singing seriously.. it’ll probably be a while before I get good enough so that the results aren’t painful.. never mind brining them up to the sorta level I’m aiming for which is like… “good enough to be a part of a music I’m aiming at a global market with,” to put it sorta crudely..

Ahh, but my fine bother’s and sisters.. lets get serious.. I’m a producer, right? I’m an electronic studio guy.. I’m a mad scientist of.. well.. music.. do mad scientists really need to sing? No.. mad scientists have there robots do it for them! Or.. you know.. use technology to mitigate the limitations of the situation… which brings us to where we sit today.

UPS Tracking information informs me that the latest bit of production tools.. the “AVOX2 Antaras Vocal Tool Kit” left Ashland MA at around 5:24 this morning.. for delivery.. Ashland is basically in my back yard.. which suggests its not at all unlikely that it could show up today! Oh the excitement of it all!!!

Ok, so let us  talk about our vocal tool kit.. (Not Necessarily the AVOX2) 

There are many tools in my studio that can be pressed into service for vocal stuff.. but lets just focus on the sorta.. “are actually meant for this kind of thing” tools.

Melodyne

You’ve no doubt heard the term “auto tune?” Basically.. you take a tone def vocalist.. throw him or her through auto tune.. and botta-boom-buttah- bing.. the tones are in tune.. It’s of course more complicated then that.. on a sorta aesthetic level.. but.. well anyway.. so Melodyne does pitch correction.. as well as.. err.. working with.. is it called “foment?” Um.. certain qualities of the voice that can be modified a bit..

I actually have Melodyne studio.. which.. among its other interesting features… you can out put performance data… based off its analysis of the audio who’s pitch and.. err foment? you were playing with.. and this performance data can then be applied to other things.. like say.. synths, or..  a vocal synthesizer…

Cantor

I’ve talked a bit about Cantor in the past.. it’s my vocal synth.. It has, in my view, a number of problems relative to work flow.. but.. so the story goes.. its pretty easy to go and throw the performance data generated from Melodyne.. at Cantor.. so that you now have Cantor singing, kinda sorta, as if it were you singing.. if you can quite dig what I’m saying…

We interrupt this blog post with late breaking news

Looks like the Antares stuff just showed up

AVOX2 Vocal Tool Kit

So.. AVOX2 has been on my radar forever.. well AVOX1 was there to.. but particularly when the thoughts of bringing vocals to my music came up.. or I started to really think about it.. this really looked like the sorta best suit of tools for the job.. and its worth mentioning that the company Antares, that makes AVOX, is also the folks who make a product called “auto tune.” 

The trouble was that this bundle was a little pricy.. or pricy enough, at $600, that it was resigned to sit on a table with stuff I want.. but don’t quite know if I should actually drop the cash on.. fumbling around with the question “is there price equal to, or less then, its priority in the budget scheme.” But then.. and I forget why, just a few days ago.. I decided to go check out the price.. and found it had dropped to $300..  Which is enough to make me feel thankful for the bad economy! At $300 I figured “Ok, I need it,” and so bought it.

The Guitar Center shopping experience 

I went to the Framingham Guitar Center to buy… and I feel like this is a story worth telling.. cause if you’re putting together a studio.. you might run into this sorta thing.

Guitar center.. and I don’t in anyway mean to impune the guys over there I’m often dealing with.. but.. it’s broken. Generally I prefer to buy from Guitar Center over online for two reasons.. #1 I can use cash.. and that’s really the big one..  and #2.. which isn’t small.. I can have some sort of a relationship with someone as I buy.. where I can get information and sorta shoot the shit with.. and whatever.

The trouble, however, is many fold. #1 They almost never have what I want in there inventory.. and it’s not like I’m necessarily buying obscure shit.. Buying a program like Altiverb.. perhaps the industry standard for convolution reverb.. they don’t have in stalk.. and let me tell you.. this is a bread and butter tool for anyone serious about mixing! BFD or.. Big F’n Drums.. they normally have the expansion pack.. but not the core of it.. and its certainly one of the leading drum sample engines.. nearly everything I buy from Guitar Center has to be ordered.

Currently.. Guitar Center is running promotions for the Euphonics MC control surfaces..  tools I really want.. expensive tools.. and the kind of thing you’d really like to see a display of that you can touch and get a feel for before buying.. and they don’t even have them in stalk!!! Ånd they’ve got signs throughout the store promoting them!

Guitar Center.. and I don’t know the details on this.. has some sorta of relationship with musiciansfriend.com, which is probably the #1 online retailer for musical instruments and gear.. and you can order stuff from them at Guitar Center.. plus there’s a guitar Center website were you can buy stuff.. these places actually have the tools in questions.. or most of them anyway.. 

What would make sense, from a brand perspective.. what I would do if I was running all this madness.. would be to view Guitar Center from a brand experience point of view.. it would be all about customer service.. You’d empower the sales staff to do whatever they could to create the best customer experience possible.. but..

Well I’ll put it this way.. to buy the stuff with Cash.. they have to sell me a gift card for the amount in question, and then buy the software with the gift card.. They had a bit of old music mags.. There’s a number of them coming out of the UK that normally go for about $15.. but, as they were old and they want to get them out of the store.. they were selling them for $1… but.. they had to fix the price to sell it to me.. which required finding the manager.. and somehow buying these two things kept me in the store for a good half hour or more (not an uncommon occurrence).. and I had to explain to sales guy about the gift card technique for allowing me to buy the stuff with cash…

Plus.. they want you’re information… you’re name.. so they can keep all that data on you.. and because there computer sales system is.. horrible.. I had to give it to them, along with my email address.. about 4 different times.. as we fumbled through the process.. so like.. you’d have to be a very experienced sales guy to know how to do it…

The way guitar center and musicians friends have managed to be successful up to this point is via competing on price.. and they’ve managed to push much of there competition out of the way this way.. so they are a near monopoly.. There’s certainly no near by stores carry the same sorta inventory.. or by which I can order most of this stuff.. Which is why they can, at least in the short term, afford to be broken.

The thing is.. you really want to buy from a place where you can have a good relationship with.. a kind of relationship that you can’t really get with guitar center.. can you buy a Mic, discover its not right for your voice, and then return it.. or does “doing it by the book” get in the way of customer service? Mind you I’m helping all the sales people there put there kids through college at this point.. the cost of customer retention being so much less then conversion.. I should be getting a whole lot of special treatment.. and I sorta do just by how the guys treat me.. but how far that goes is limited by the system.

Ok.. brand experience rant over.. back to..

The AVOX 2 Tool Kit

AVOX 2 is really a bundle of effects for processing voice.. lets see if we can’t talk about them.

Harmony Engine 

This would be.. the most complex / deep program in the bundle.. as its name might suggest.. it’s a real time plug in for essentially creative vocal harmony arrangements from a single vocal line.. the idea here is.. to both make things simple.. from a process / workflow perspective.. and also powerful.. with a lot of creative control.. I wonder if they support any kind of microtonality?

Throat

Throat is a “physical modeling vocal designer” which.. in english.. much of the sound of your voice, to put it lightly, is a result of.. well.. you’re body and throat.. and what Throat tries to do is.. take the incoming vocal.. neutralize it.. in terms of the influence of your throat.. and then sorta morph it into some other sorta throat..  

Duo

What we got here is a vocal doubler.. using pitch, delays, and vocal modeling / vibrato stuff to try and create a convincing double of a vocal

Choir

As near as I can see.. its like Duo with more vocals.. but.. offers some unique control.. that you want when generating multiple vocals.. basically it’s about creating a choir from a single vocal line.

Punch

Apparently we are talking about compression and limiting.

Sybil

Basically a De-Esser… when singing.. or speaking for that matter.. particularly when you get to EQing stuff.. bad things can happen that De-Esser’s help with.. is the long and the short of it.. or at least the short of it…

Articulator

Here we have our selves “a vocal formant and amplitude modeler.”  Err.. formant, that was the word I was searching for before.. this one probably deserves some explanation..  

Articulator is basically a new kinda vocoder.. what a vocoder does is.. you speak into it.. it analyzes it.. in terms of how loud different frequencies are at any given moment.. you then put another sound through the vocoder.. and it pumps up and pushes down those frequencies.. corresponding to how loud or soft they are at that moment in your speaking..  so you get a kind of funky robot voice.. that you’ve heard before on many an album.. Well, that’s basically what articulator does.. accept now we are talking about formant instead of frequencies.

Mutator

Pitch shifting, throat modeling, ring modulation, and blah blah blah.. it mutates your vocals.. for kinda sound design / special effects type purposes.

Warm

basically this is for coloring / warming stuff, in a tube esk fashion.

Aspire

Basically we are effecting the breathiness of a vocal independent from other attributes. 

AVOX 2 Conclusions

There’s more to be said.. but.. I don’t really know that much as I haven’t jumped in yet.. so stay tuned.. It’s a bundle that’s gotten very good reviews.. and I think.. or I hope, it’ll go a long way in helping me realize vocals in my music.

Areas that need attention 

As I said before.. there are other tools in my tool box.. including a vocoder from VirSyn.. and… well various things..

The real weak point is.. well stuff for recording.. where you really want high quality microphones, microphone preamps, and analog to digital conversion. I have decent, which is to say not necessarily excellent, pre amps and analog to digital conversion.. and I have super cheap / budget microphones. I also have an audio filter that takes out the background reverberations of the space I’m trying to record the vocal in.. 

I don’t really know what the right path is to take as far as the upgrades are concerned.. this kind of stuff tends to be very expensive if you want uncompromising pro studio grade results..  I don’t know how far I should compromise, if I should.. or any of this sorta thing..

My plan is to explore what I got.. and see what happens. Could processing stuff lead to creative results that could mitigate the effects of the weaknesses of my recording gear? How high a priority should I put on recording gear? If I’m planning on recording.. well, drum kits, or field recording.. as a pose to just one track at a time.. the calculous changes.. so thinking about the future of my studio is something to be very careful about given the budgets involved..

Stay tuned for future post where I get into the attack plans.. and reflect on actual production work… and where I’ll be in a better place to talk about how all these pieces fit together in practice.

I don’t know what it is about Adobe.. but I’m always feeling like they are screwing me over.. it seems every interaction I have with the company is hell…  so.. well allow me to give you the latest..

But first, a recap:

Sometime ago I went to the Adobe site.. this was somewhere around a year ago.. and bought the Adobe Web Premium upgrade.. from Macromedia Studio 8. Or I thought I had.. Adobe… among other things, is a company that builds web design tools… So you would think a company building web design tools would be able to get there own damn website right, wouldn’t ya? Well, in the past they most certainly have.. At one point I believe web luminary Hillman Curtis designed Adobe’s site.. but things have fallen far from there.

So what was the problem with Adobe’s site?

Well.. good web design ought to be “user centric.” What this means is.. well there’s this whole process. You have you’re marketing data, and out from that data you put together “personas” which are imaginary people whom are examples of you’re target market.. and you say “this is what this person is trying to do” and you use this to try and think about web design from an end users point of view. 

This all relates to usability which is one of the most important things a web designer has to content with.. 

What Matt was trying to do was buy the Web Premium Bundle upgrade.. but it wasn’t clear which bundle this was.. so he ended up, accidently, buying the wrong bundle upgrade.. There was no way to fix the problem via the web site.. so we had to call up Adobe.

Adobe on the Phone 

Well.. what followed was a nightmare.. I don’t remember all the inns and outs of it.. but I do remember that I had to spend a lot of time on the phone.. and I would be switched from person to person.. and I’d have to give them the same information over and over again.. and.. different people would give me different stories about what was to be done. I seem to recall I lost hours on the phone.. and even had to talk to them.. for who knows what reason, on multiple occasions.

The first person said.. I had to buy the new upgrade.. they couldn’t refund the money.. till the wrong bundle package came in the mail.. so I could then return it.. as it had already shipped.. but it hadn’t shipped cause it turned out it was a download only that I had bought.. so I’m waiting around for weeks for that to show up..

Anyway, long story short.. it was a good 6 months before I got my money back.. and I’m not even entirely sure that I did get my money back.. That latter having to do with my dad’s dementia and getting the mail.

Ok, what happened this time?

I’ve been meaning to upgrade After Effects.. but.. I’d also kind of been procrastinating it.. and eventually I decided I’d wait to see what would happen with After Effect CS4. If it turned out that I couldn’t upgrade to it.. as my version was so super old.. I could always just go ahead and buy an upgrade to CS3.. from like Amazon or something.. and I’d be ok with that.

After Effects CS4 didn’t excite me all that much.. but on the Adobe website.. I was still eligible to upgrade.. so what the hell.. I procrastinated more.. and didn’t bother.. 

It really came down to what I was doing in the studio, you understand.. After Effects is a video program.. and for whatever reason Video was taking a back seat to other things.. for like.. most of the first year.

So any who..

I’ve been gearing up to buy it lately.. I hopped on there tonight.. only to discover.. now I can’t upgrade to the current version of After Effects! UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I need this F’N program.. the upgrade costs $300, and the full version is $1000.

So at this point I was harboring secret fantasy’s of a trip in a van.. with high explosives.. to the Adobe headquarters….  but.. deep breath.. mustn’t do that.. they’re not worth it.

So I searched around looking for some place that might still have the old upgrades… and I found one, and bought it.. an upgrade to After Effects CS3. So, no big deal, right?

The Serial Number Problem 

Well.. next comes time to track down the serial number! My friends.. this was from a very very long time ago.. I opened the After Effects box and it wasn’t there! There’s only one place I can think of where it could be.. in a particular box.. but I have no idea where that box might be! So… a searching will have to go on..

But then I thought.. Hmm.. I did register that software with Adobe.. So I screwed around for a while trying to find an ancient email that might get me in.. and I found one.. only one problem… no serial numbers on record!!!!

So I sent customer service an email about it.. I’m supposed to be hearing back inside of the next 24 hours.. so we’ll see what happens with that. In the mean time if that software gets here and I can’t get the serial number… well.. it ain’t going to run…  

So we’ll see what happens, but in the mean time I’m working on a new song to talk about my Adobe woes.. I’m thinking its going to have to be, at least in part, death metal!

I just don’t like the way I get treated by Adobe.. I don’t like this feeling like I’m getting locked out in the cold like this..  It just gets me sooo upset.. and of course my heart was soooo set on this…. and..  given all the problems I’ve had with them.. I really just don’t want to buy Adobe, you know?

So.. if this turns into a giant mess.. maybe I’ll see what’s going on with Apple’s Shake? 

So I wanted to try and post some stuff on my Christmas experiences..  And today’s story will start out with on December 23rd….

I had sorta lost track of.. when Christmas was, it was creeping up on me, and in the last moment I discovered Christmas was only a couple days away.. so at the last minute I sorta put together the plans for a trip to Rhinebeck NY..

Walmart is Evil 

Now my investment in new cloths has been pretty close to nil for the last year or so.. so I’m a down to about two pairs of pants… or was.. and one of them had holes in them! I had spied cheap pants at Wallmart.. So I headed out there.. and it turns out that Wallmart was going insane at about this moment.. a total pain in the ass…  while I was there I thought I’d pick up a Guerrilla pod for my camera..  and I always kind of have to look at DVDs when I hit Wallmart…

If  you see this image full screen, you’ll note the frustration on that there shoppers face!

As near as we can tell.. this is a $5 movie rack, right?

Looks that way, ha?

Now do you notice Braveheart in the upper left there? I’d wanted to buy this film forever… but found it hard to substantiate paying much more then $5 for it on DVD.. I’m cheap that way, don’t cha know… So I was really excited to find it for $5!..  

So the lines were F’N long… who knows how much of my life was waisted there.. when I finally got to the end of it.. turned out the DVD… there was a sku problem…. So someone had to go check it.. so more waiting.. and everyone else in line has to wait.. cause Walmart can’t get it’s act together, right? Till finally they are taking other people in line.. while I wait.

I was in such a pissy frustrated mood by this point.. was in a rush anyway.. I’m not communicating to you why…. I can only say I wasn’t a happy camper

The women who did the price check.. comes back, and tells me it was $10…

Excuse me, that’s $10? Everything on that rack is $5, did you notice? I’m argue with her.. no she tells me.. that’s what they said.. So I’m ready to rip her fucking head off.. I’ve waited and waited and waited… cause they can’t get there fucking shit together… and now they’re going to tell me it was $10 fucking dollars? How many times has Walmart, in the past… fucked me this way.. cause they don’t put the prices on the DVD? People move things from one rack to another, and you don’t know how much the thing costs.. cause there systems sucks.. and I’m sorry, but I REFUSE to pay for something when its a product of this bullshit.

I know.. I know, why am I getting so pissed off about $5? I couldn’t really tell you now.. the moment has passed.. but I was pissed enough to go pick up my camera and kinda covertly pick document there bullshit.. and post it online…  A kind of “I’m madd as hell and I’m not taking it anymore” kind of feeling.. a.. at least I can participate in the.. rage against Walmart thing…

I’ve had conversations with marketers lately.. about the bad brand experience of Walmart.. shit like this would be an example.. a bad brand experience..

It’s also worth mentioning that the version of a Guerrilla Pod I picked up there.. turned out to be a worthless piece of shit..  

Ok.. deep breaths.. Ok, I’m going to be ok… everything is alright..

Ok.. so this brings us to.. why, perhaps, I got so upset.. that is.. the other stuff going on in my life that might lower my tolerance.. 

Getting Dad Ready for the NY Trip 

Dad has had some health issues lately.. and among other stuff.. is the realization of his declining health. It doesn’t help that my mom died about a year ago.. with all the implications of that.. but now dad’s dementia and alzheimer’s gets worse.. and along with related things.. I’m beginning to wonder how long till I pretty much have to put him in an assisted living situation.. Thus the following story…

Dad would seem to be suffering from incontinence..  so.. laundry must be done before we leave.. and how much of a mess he looked like on our trip to Rhinebeck for Thanksgiving.. 

Getting Dad to do stuff like this had turned rather difficult..  thus, keeping the house in order has fallen more and more on my shoulders.. (which I’m not coping with well) so I figured I needed to kind of monitor him.. to make sure nothing gets too messed up.. and to try and glean more insight into the where Dad is really at… 

Dad had forgotten his glasses.. and had trouble reading the dial… further more.. I discovered him forgetting to put in the soap.. 

All of this kind of thing was like a growing revelation for me…  

There was a lot I had hoped to get done this day.. get Dad to do the laundry, take him to the hospital for an x-ray, get his hair cut, my trip to Walmart, pick up his medication from cvs… make the plans to actually go to Rhinebeck.. get Dad packed, and I can tell you we got very little of that done.. and some of it not done the next day.. when we actually left.. which is why we didn’t leave for Rhinebeck till about 7 PM.

Meanwhile, Kitty watches the whole thing 

So yeah.. that was some of my get ready for Christmas fun