Ok, this is a somewhat long-ish story.. the story of Matt’s recent woes.. from anxiety, career, money, banks, and what not to.. well lets say stuff..  which will eventually lead us into my most recent trip to guitar center, the buying of the Liquid Mix 16, and then into the current music production project… 

It all started last Sunday. I was in a sleep deprived state, and as is my way, running late to the Boston Media Makers. The Boston Media Makers is now taking place at Doyle’s Cafe in JP.. (Boston).. so it’s new media plus breakfast…  and so I needed to go to the bank to get money to fill up my gas tank, buy an energy drink, smokes, and still have enough left over for breakfast.. and then things turned ugly! 

The bank tells me I put in the wrong pin number.. a few tries latter and the ATM won’t give me the time of day. WTF I think… but being sleep deprived.. in a somewhat LSD like consciousness.. made even more LSD-ish after watching a documentary on the Beats.. who knows, maybe I did get the pin wrong?

So long story short, got Gas, smokes, and my Monster on credit, breakfast on cash… but it was a stress feast combination of sleep deprivation, running late, and.. the ATM experience. All of which fueled a little extra anxiety over how I presented myself at the media makers..  but that’s another blog entry.

[Editor’s Note: This is a long, sometimes rambling entry.. so brace your self, you hardy souls whom might actually get through it.. also to note is a certain connection between this entry, and the recent social media cool-aid entry.] 

More problems:

1. I was actually planning on buying a computer monitor, at Micro Center in Boston, with cash after the meeting… It’s the closest “good” computer store I know… or at least see if they had the Dell I wanted, what there price was.. and that sorta thing.
2. The food supply in the house was running low.. so grocery shopping had to be done soon.
3. My dad had medication that needed to be picked up from the CVS

I should maybe break off from this and explain my anxiety paranoia at this point? When my mom died I was told, by a couple aunts, not to pay the credit card bills that were my mom’s bills. Someone had talked to a lawyer about this.. and something to do with Massachusetts state law.. trouble is, I never actually talked to a lawyer.. and am kind of vague about all this.

[Editors note: Matt wanted to insert this scene from the end of THX 1138, as it seems express of the psycho reality of his situation.

You’d perhaps have to see the full movie to really appreciate the significants of this clip.. and probably need to read the rest of the blog entry to, while you were at it.. but pay attention to a certain subtext of this blog entry.. its all sorta crystalized here..] 

In any event… there’s lots of credit card companies calling the house.. I have yet to talk to any of them as.. well until I get the iPhone.. I’m a very difficult person to get in touch with via the phone.

Now the LSD like consciousness of sleep deprivation does have… well you sometimes attribute causality to things that, in reality, don’t have a causal connection. These causal connections are truths of a kind of symbolic nature.. they have something to do what’s going on in you psyche.

So what’s going on in Matt’s psyche?

This is really a subject for another time, I mean to really dig into… I will tell you that since my mom passed things have not been real easy… and that most of the uneasiness of it is not something that expresses its self consciously.. It’s kind of a complicated thing.. and I feel like blogging about it might actually be helpful to me.. or at least talking about it.. but it’s somehow hard to talk about.

All these inward tension.. they expressed them selves in the paranoid dilution that.. well I think the bank might actually be one of the creditors… so the paranoid delusion.. was there was something more to my inability to get into the bank then.. some sorta pin number problem. And with this was the fear that I wouldn’t have access to money to pay bills.. so I shouldn’t write a check till I got to the bottom of this.

On top of all that.. another expression of anxiety is a procrastination of bill paying.. so the bills are.. now in the over due column.. and one expects one’s credit is getting dinged.

Crazy is as Crazy Does 

Ok.. so allow me to stop here and try and explain a little of this.. For one thing I’ve been behind on sleep for a little while now… for another I’m being a little operatic in how I’m talking about it.. which is to say I’m amplifying the story a little.. which is not quite to say I’m not crazy.. just that.. I’m turning up the gain of a certain sorta crazy.. or perhaps on the microscope through which we are looking at it… 

[editors note: Matt’s operatic-ness, at this point in the entry, is mainly expressed through with language like “paranoid delusions,” which sorta overstates things “a bit.” And what he’s talking about is the casual connections sleep deprivation is facilitating.] 

Matt’s Plot 

Ok, so lets pull back a little and take a look at my life’s plot, and where this moment fits in it all. I’m trying to do this “artist” shtick thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard the cliche about starving artists? Well.. I don’t believe that being an artist means you have to starve.. but the cliche is at least expressive of the fact that making a living as an artist is no easy feet.. more so when you’re as uncompromising as I am.

Though I march forward in a sorta heroic-ish way.. I don’t think anyone could walk this walk without there being a lot of really huge tension over what the future might bring.. It’s really that I’m crazy enough to not let that keep me from walking this way…  [Editors note: This would be part of the significance of the THX reference] but there is still that fear that it might all come to naught.. and that perhaps all my sacrifices are in vain..  and this is a very big tension.. particularly as it interacts in a larger ecology of tensions.

Now.. if you ask me about the “objective real reality” of the situation.. I’ll tell you.. things are probably “A-Ok.” Allow me to give you reasons why things are probably “A-Ok.”

1. I’m doing the social media shtick. Why would this make things A-Ok? Well.. I’m connected / networked in with a pretty substantial crowd of folks. If you’re reading this, you might be one of said substantial folks? There’s a humanness to.. many of these connections where.. to one degree or another, we really do care about each others well being.. and.. all of us are pretty well connected, one way or another.. and the long and the short of it is.. social media is a powerful tool for finding work.
2. It is not an infrequent thing that.. I get a job lead.. or some connection leads to something. Of course I don’t put a premium on following this stuff up.. because of how focused I am trying to be on trying to do my own thing.. but the point is there is stuff out there.
3. Very sweet and wonderful people have actually come out and asked me what they could do to help. Can you dig that? For me that’s down right mind blowing.. but its true.
4. What I’m doing.. in my own adventures.. has within it’s self the idea.. that I’m putting together a skill set for a job that does not yet exist. And believe it or not I’m actually networking with people who could us those services.. even if they don’t know it yet.

Latter:

There’s more to this story… lots more.. but for the purposes of this blog entry I only want to go so far as to say that tensions can obscure this reality.. so that it doesn’t feel like things are “A-Ok” in the big picture… even if they kinda sorta are. And we could talk about this more but…

Yeah.. so imagine the fear like.. you don’t know if you’re going to be able to take care of your father or your self, that the world could be crumbling down… This kind of stress inevitably leads me into pushing harder in my work.. and my self criticism gets much worse then it sometimes can be anyway.

None of this would have been a big deal if not for.. by that monday.. there was very little food in the house.. and if not for.. I had gotten to the bank that day prior to its closing.. I didn’t realize this.. but our bank likes to close at 4PM.. in order to get there I kinda have to fight my way through my tensions over it.. and so find myself there and.. the bank closed.. and I didn’t even know there hours! And so days passed with this hanging over my head.. all of it.

Add to all this that here I am gearing up on these music projects.. and I need to go out and buy more gear! I was also planning on getting an iPhone.. still needed to buy my Podcamp ticket.. I’m not sure what else.. and all of that was.. at least in my fears, looking like it might not work out.

And the dark clouds reseed.

Well finally I did get into the bank.. did make a with drawl so I have enough cash in my pocket to run for a few weeks.. somehow the pin number.. sorta fixed, accept it still wasn’t able to use it.. so maybe I’ve somehow miss remembered it.. anyway they are sending me the numbers so I’ll have them..

That dark cloud emphasized how fragile I can feel.. way out here in starving artist vill.. and it was a crazy rough week for me.. when the clouds finally did leave.. I finally decided that it was indeed time to make my trip to Guitar Center and pick up Liquid Mix 16. This was a long deliberation.. most of which is documented in this blog.. 

But wait, there’s more! 

I couldn’t find my car keys.. and not only that but I still had grocery shopping yet to do.. I had done a little after the with drawl…  but.. now without my keys, how could I do this? It wasn’t till sometime today when I finally found the keys.. and boy do I hate doing grocery shopping on the weekends, when the places are a crowded madness.. screw that!

So I made my way over to Guitar Center, finally. Was I really going to do it?

I wish I knew these guys names more.. I told the sales guy “I’m here for the Liquid Mix 16.” His eyes sorta widened.. “That’s a great little unit.” What? Every sales guy in the pro audio department didn’t even know what it was.. nor did they know much of anything of any of the mix engineer-ish tools I had been looking for.. but this guy new it.. and was thinking of getting one for him self.

I then rattled off a number of things I had been looking for..

Ok, let me explain. Guitar Center has a thing where you pay no interest for 3 months, 6 months, a year.. depending on what mood there marketing department is in.. what this means is you can buy stuff on credit without interest payments.. which is something you can’t easily do over the internet.. and credit card interests rates being what they are.. buying on credit will add a hell of a lot to your bill.. so going to Guitar Center for the big ticket items is what makes the most sense at this point..

So a number of pieces of gear.. gear that other sales folks had never even heard of.. stuff that you often can’t find on the Guitar Center website.. he could find in the computer.. stuff that the other sales folks didn’t think they carried.

So it was pretty awesome.. I mean he could actually answer some of my questions!

Onto the Liquid Mix 16

I had read where people had had problems with instillation.. particularly with Digital Performer.. and boy have I had software problems lately..  so I was a little nervous.. but the instillation was more or less as smooth as they come.. and before you knew it, I was up and running.

Liquid Mix is… well you get a library of 40 compressors and 20 EQs. I’ve explained this ad nauseam else where in this blog.. but basically you’re getting this library of the most high class EQs and Compressors on the planet.. each of which works in slightly different ways… is good for different sorts of applications.. colors sound differently.. etc. 

The first problem you run into is.. “which should I use?” To further complicate matters.. its sorta like a hockey video game where they can’t use the names of real NHL teams.. where they can’t give you the names of the real gear you’re using.. not that that would make too much of a difference as I don’t actually know the names of the real gear anyway.. but.. if you read interviews with various mix engineers.. telling you what they use for what.. or articles on these subjects..  you’d kind of like to know what you’re dealing with… Fortunately I found an old Sound On Sound review of Liquid Mix that included the names.

The light in my room is out.. so I couldn’t actually go digging through magazines to find that recent article on mix buss compression…  but upon doing the google.. I found this blog entry.. from of all people.. Charles Dye, which covered the subject.. and recommend an SSL compressor for my master buss. (Charles is quite the sophisticated fellow for this sorta thing).

And with that I jumped in

First, you must understand that I usually make crazy music like this (click on the little arrow to hear, and yes, it is a free download.. but it’ll stream for ya fine )

Matt Searles – Offering A Hand To The Ghost

This kind of electronic music has very different sorta mixing requirements from my new experimental electronic metal thing.. I mean.. now I have to try and be “a real” mix engineer. God save us!!! And I was fearful that.. well I hear a lot of stories of the struggles folks go through when they are first starting out..

But strangely.. I felt as if I had discovered that I had a real talent for this…  upon reflection

The Start of my Mix Engineering Training: “The JP Years.” 

After college I would hang out with.. the man we call “The Doctor” aka Diggity Dave.. and Ev-on, as he sometimes refers to him self in the comments of these blog entries.. Now.. these fine upstanding citizens..  well

1. They are artists to.. and were struggling to
2. There was more alcohol and Pot going on then…  lol, good times
3. Crazy adventures were the norm.. one could become quite a fine author with the material our of those times.
4. Diggity did indeed have a stereo system with the best speakers I had ever heard in my life.. at that point.

We’d throw CDs in there.. just to see what we had been missing all these years.. and I was forever analyzing the mixes. Mind you, at the time.. I wasn’t really all that sophisticated in my mix analytic abilities.. but it was surely something.. Dave and Evan’s music tastes had a whole lot of Hip Hop going on.. classic rock.. metal, electronic stuff..  even Curtis Mayfield.. quite the eclecticism.. and I with my Zappa and assorted strange stuff… and there was Jim whom would sometimes be there.. with his punk and indy rock.. and so.. though we were all rather poor.. we were wealthy in terms of the music we were all able to hear.. and it was quite an education.

I’d just listen to those records and dream of the day I could have a chance to put one together.. and could I ever make one as good as some of the stuff we were hearing? Oh my god, so much amazing stuff!!! Seems like these days I don’t get a chance to listen to too much.. but back then, oh wow!

The electronic music Mix training:  

Ok, how about another one of my tracks?

Matt Searles – Vasperian Blogocombat

The production in this track was a little rushed.. so there’s certainly things in there I’m not totally happy with.. but there’s also a lot in there that has me feeling very proud…. that I think is sorta amazing.. the marriage of the mix and the composition.. the experience.. the scenes.. the painting of it.. to put it a certain way.

When you listen to stuff like that.. you can kind of tell I’m really thinking about the mix… even if there are huge problems here and there.. and even the problems.. its sorta like a punk rock school of mixing or something.. where we kinda consider them in a different light.. or something.

So.. my music production is kinda all about the mix, on a certain level… but the mix isn’t static.. nothing stays still. In metal.. things stay still. The guitarist stays over there.. the bass player over there… no ones moving that drum set.. so my electronic music is all about a mix that has a virtual stage that is forever in flux. I regard it much more as being about “Mix Painting” then “Mix Engineering.”

Buckling down into Metal. My god, how am I going to handle this? I didn’t know.. but I knew investing in Liquid mix would be an important step along these lines.

First Impressions on the mix metal path

The first thing you realize is that what you’re really doing, as a mix engineer, is quite subtle. No wonder those guys seem so obsesses over so many little things that I don’t think I can even hear! Being subtle is the first thing you have to get used to… That you’re really thinking in terms of a lot of subtle colorations which, hopefully, eventually lead up to a whole that is more then the sum of the parts.. 

My recent obsession with effects has been one of… well a kind of obsession with with subtleties. 

Next morning (still not really awake):

The metal I have going on right now is.. incredible

The transition from my normal experimental production and composition style.. to a metal sorta song writing thing is a huge jump. In my electronic stuff there are no rules… there certainly isn’t anything like a traditional structure.. and In Metal.. I’m not sure how traditional my structures will turn out to be.. but at least from a starting point sorta perception of things.. I need to figure out how to make my music work inside of the limitations of a popular music format.

The funny thing is.. I’m kind of an amazing heavy metal guitarist from certain perspectives. As a guitarist I’ve never been too terribly big on playing other people’s music.. I’ve maybe learned 3 such songs in my life.. but I’ve certainly learned a lot of riffs.. and what not…   The point is that my guitar playing has really always centered around.. being more interested in making original music then replicating other folks stuff. 

I would say, generally speaking.. my style draws heavily from the riffs of Black Sabbath.. and a kinda speed-e metal of Metallica and Megadeth… and from there comes an original vision. That vision is largely about a strange interpretation of music theory… and a strange kind of aesthetic vision.

For me, a lot of what you of what you see, in say a John Coultrane.. is like.. just natural and obvious? Let me share with you two videos.. one with Coultrane playing, another with a critic talking about it.

In a certain sorta way you could kinda imagine critics talking about my work this way.. hope that doesn’t sound arrogant but..  

Now I’m not sure if Ben Ratliff totally gets it. See… composition is about “organization” of sound, and the framework for how we organize sound.. is the same sorta thing for how we organize facts into a conception of reality… and that’s sorta the implication of what Coltrane is doing… Thus a critics application of the terms of American Transcendentalism is… not really all that far fetched. [Editors note: The second critic quoted.. his “conversion story” has some relation to the earlier THX clip]

So if I tell you that I have a hard time thinking inside of conventual structure, that’s sorta what’s interesting in my work.. So here I am embarking on an adventure to.. think in conventional structure? I’m not totally sure about this, I think maybe its like.. that’s just the starting point.

So I’m obsessing on song writing.. thinking about song writing, or thinking about music making from a “song writers” perspective…..  

It’s so hard to know how to bring you in on this.

In a traditional structure there are lots of possibilities. (sub structural interest?)

Lets say you have a chord progression going on..  Now really, that chord progression could be anything.. but what we usually here is sorta limited… I mean were used to a fairly limited number of chord progressions. Once you have your chords progression, there is the question of how it gets voiced by the individual instruments… What’s guitar 1 play, what’s guitar 2 play, what’s the bass playing… Even if what we have going on is a simple riff… that riff can be interpreted different ways.. you could have two guitarists harmonizing the riff… or playing different parts of the chord.. and perhaps they don’t play it the same way twice.. 

Then you have the matter of how each instrument “interprets” the other instruments.. I mean screw the preconceived chord structure!  This where we are in some ways echoing Coultrane.. or Jazz..  This is especially doable in a metal context because… the guitars are generally not playing the 3rds.. So how is the vocal line to relate to the guitars?

Then you have.. well you have things like how one riff relates to the next… how the riffs are moving around.. In the particulars of how I’m working.. the consideration is generally.. where’s one riff starting and ending.. what’s the chord there.. and then if you look at that riff over all.. where is it hanging out most.. and how do these characteristics relate to the riff that came before? There’s also issues of how the energy works in a given riff.. contrasts in energy.. and a number of other things.

So all of this is kind of how I think about music generally.. when making it, but it’s different in that.. It’s like going from free verse poetry to poetry with a structure. What’s interesting about being forced to work inside a structure is.. you find your self spending more time refining things… as I write vocal lines I’m like “oh, no really, what’s the right word to put here?” 

There also is structural anarchy going on.. which in a certain way you could call the linguistic framework of the music. Or the anarchical aspects create the linguistic interest…

My Goal

My goal is to make something that is.. as good as anything I’ve ever heard before, at least. Good in the sense of.. how developed the details are, in the sense of the refinements of the song writing.. the composition… the mix. Beneath all of this there is the essential idea of what it is I’m doing.. the core of it.. and that… that I think is amazing.. and that’s one of the first things that hits me…. that’s one thing that is already in it.

I think it must be the anarchy speaking.. It must be my difficulty fitting in, in a certain way.. it must be how strange I am.. that that strangeness has been allowed to evolve for so long.. to have its own depths, its own maturity.. that it managed to escape the forces of socialization.. that we are seeing a kind of new animal before us.. one that lives within us all.. and it is like a call to becoming… a voice we have often heard before.. but perhaps did not have the courage to follow.

Creating the Mix and the Song at the same time:

The process is an experimental one.. one where the composition it’s self, at a certain point, is made to fit the mix, just as the mix is made to fit the music…. and the mix even is the music. So again.. I’m drawing from my experimental electronic music.

A we bit latter:

So let me wrap this up

For starters I’d say that I think this new direction in my music.. will correct certain problems I have with my work.. I’ll leave this at that.

Now I want to talk about Anxiety.

A little while ago I did a post entitled Death by Anxiety. It was a kind of strange post. It was strange in that it painted a picture of myself that was.. raw and naked and.. well what it was. After making that post, and the feedback I got on it.. I started to think of my self in different terms then I normally do. The people in the videos suffered from very bad anxiety.. and I both identified with them, and began to see the roll of anxiety in my life in a way that threatened my self concept. This then lead into a wrestling with the subject.. and it reached it’s worst point when I ran into my ATM trouble.

One of the things you run into thinking, or I did, was.. is anxiety an organic problem? Some sorta genetically inherited issue.. was it a mistake to blame my mom for it? Perhaps heavy metal is nothing but a kind of expression of anxiety? Or I mean about anxiety? What is anxiety?

Well you know I’m kind of a philosopher of the mind… and in my LSD like sleep deprived consciousness… I began to explore my mind in relationship to anxiety. Indeed the anxiety threatened to capsize me!

One of the things I notices was that anxiety seemed to be a “normal psychology” that relates to reality in “interesting ways.” Anxiety seemed to be a situation where the unconscious mind is participating in our organization of the details of life, of reality, and painting a picture for us. Reality is ALWAY this… as we experience it.. detached objectivity, though it is a modern ideal, is an illusion. Reality is ONLY experienced through the lens of consciousness. And so it is that anxiety is an adventure into our own depths.. with our depths expressing its self on the world around us, or through our experience of the world around us.

This is obvious enough stuff.. to any student of depth psychology… medication treatment is never about fundamentally changing the matter, its about living with it..  where as the natural way of the psyche is one of changing the matter. Indeed, it would seem that anxiety is actually a kind of advanced process of self evolution. We are confronted with the question of how do we relate to our own depths.. as this is projected in front of us. Our living in the world becomes about a psychological process / evolution.

I have a long held belief, a kind of presumption, that one’s psychological reality is always as it is for a reason. The existence of a psychological phenomenon is there to serve us, if we can just find the proper relationship to it.

As I stated earlier in this entry… there are things In my life that I’m having a hard time dealing with… It’s hard enough that I’m really only able to deal with so much of it at a time.. in a kind of direct experience. When the pressure of it builds up to a certain point.. it forces a confrontation. It can ether do this via a sorta psychological confrontation, or via reality.. by which I mean that the unfolding events of one’s life are direct manifestations of the inward realities, versus a projection onto our understanding of reality.. we are, after all, talking about the first stage here.

When I talk about composition as being about organizing factors that have a relationship to how we organize our understanding of reality.. and when I say my music is prophetic in the sense that I’m developing new organizational methods.. more advanced, I think, then what has come before.. my music, on a compositional level, is a way of dealing with all of this.

This is really deep and profound stuff.. 

Latter:

THX 1138 Revisted

THX 1138 is a dystopia… its is a kind of prophetic vision of our modern situation.. A few points

1. The power relationships relative to mental health, define what is a normal or not normal… and of course proscribe medication.. treatment that, as mentioned above.. is more about coping that dealing with the underlying problems. In THX it is law that we take medication, and when we stop taking it.. we become anxious
2. Consumption is the enforced behavioral norm in THX.. again leading to the behavior control.. the sense that everything is “A-Ok.” We see this in normative modes of being.. in our modern situation.

It’s really all about the power to define a thing. We are now used to –

Next day

I’m thinking this entry is long enough, and I ought to cut it short.. what I want to suggest is that there are connections between social control, anxiety, human potential, the structure of the psyche, collective evolution, and um.. so the symbolic significance of what I’m trying to do… has to do with how I’m relating to this complex of factors, and how my work does..  and we’ll leave this at this for now.

[Editor’s note: It turns out that “The Dr”. Has been hanging out with Carl Sullivan.. somewhere in rock port.. and via a secret under ground army (yes some people in the government know about this, but you know how conspiracy’s go) message got back to Matt, and it was Matt’s Job to publish this report… This accounts for the madness of it all ] 

First a video  

Ok, did you happen to catch that? I mean the symbolic significance, it didn’t get past you did it? Yes indeed-e, the fellow for whom the term “cool-aid” comes from.. more or less… he would seem to be… *gasp* making some sorta social media thing. I mean is he not talking about social media? Danger will Robenson.. how could this be?

Ok… Ok… Ok, dig it.. I’m not a bid Dead head, or anything like that.. and I’m not someone who ever made a life style out of LSD… so don’t chew be thinking I’m coming at you from quite that angle! Lets curve, and swerve.. around a bit.. so I can speak to you about what it tis… 

Yes, Beware that Cool-Aid! 

Well.. it’s not that there’s anything wrong with cool-aid per-say.. the question has more to do with from where the cool-aid came.. something to do with the brewing.. a kind of DNA like imprinting…I’m now given to calling myself a social media philosopher.. that seems like the best kind of language.. at least of what I’ve found thus far, to talking about where I is a come-in from..

Err.. perhaps I should shift my manner of speaking.. so that my tonality might not confuse.. the some..I have developed a systematic, you might say schematic, of the underlying dynamics which influence the evolution of social media. That’s probably not saying quite strong enough.. We aren’t talking about influence, we are talking about “is.” Another words.. I’ve cracked the code.

As near as I can tell.. nobody’s cracked the code yet.. but much like Darwin, I’m not actually talking about it too much.

[Editors note: The Dr.” is getting a little esoteric on your but-ox, Darwin worked out his theory of Evolution long before he actually published it.. he just sorta sat on it for years.] 

[Note to self: Thy readers proll-e think I’m nuts now.] 

Ok.. lets scoot-a-dew on over to some of this here top secret schematical stuff..  

[Note to self: I should probably make people buy ticks before I show them into my top secret Hanger 18 type laboratory.. well as long as the don’t spot my top secret world domination plot, I’m sure I’ll be ok]

Um.. so what I’m trying to get at is.. the DNA… hmm… did I mention information was a virus?   

Take it Away Laurie

So language.. that’s a way of encoding information, isn’t it? So is it language or information that’s the true virus? Language.. at best can point to the truth.. its always somehow removed from the actual reality.. can only take you part way there.. This would be a kind of Kantian thang.. 

So.. When I’m talking about cool-aid, I’m not actually talking about reality it’s self.. I’m talking about something to do with something that can influence our understanding of reality. The reality, in my view.. and the cool aid.. there’s some overlapping truth..  here…

[Editor’s note: Word in the underground was there was some king a crazy banging going on in that there cell block.. just after we lost the transmission, so you’re going to have to make of this what you will.] 

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.

1.  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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

So yeah.. those are some thoughts

[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:

 Ok, I’m done

Well we hope anyway, right?

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. 

In slightly other news I got a link on a blog of one of my heros.. Thomas Barnett.  He posted links to blog posts who mentioned him..

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..

I’ve been having a rough time blogging much of anything lately.. principle because my computer keeps on crashing…. resulting in my loosing whatever it was I was blogging about.. So today I guess we’ll blog somewhat randomly.. and this will be our little chance to catch up a little.

First off there’s the blog strategy stuff.. which in this case amounts to the “why you should bother reading this” stuff. Good question.. I must say I’m an unreliable narrator in this department.. and.. Well.. I’m really just trying to work all this stuff out..

Generally speaking.. I think.. hmm.. I think this blog could have value to.. a kind of wide variety of types. When I write on any subject, no matter how deep I go.. how much I geek out.. or.. just whatever.. I do my best to try and make it so.. if you didn’t know anything about what I was talking about.. you could still follow along.. you could still be a part of the conversation.. And I try to do this in such a way that.. it doesn’t cause me to have to water stuff down.. or simplify things too too much.. That is the person who’s the expert on the subject wouldn’t be bored… Hell, the expert is probably laughing at how poorly I’m treating the subject.

The philosophy of this is.. maybe kind of strange. See, I believe that I can basically do anything.. if I just take the time to learn how to do it: to cultivate within myself whatever aptitudes or capacities are required for the task at hand. My feeling is that we are all capable of this.. but I think…

Well I think we have these notions of Identity inside of which we say “I’m good at this” and “I suck at that,” and somehow we believe that’s the last word on the subject.. as if the reality to that thought wasn’t it’s self a kind of artifice of our own creation… an expression of a static moment that lacks the ability to see the potential trajectory of.. well I suppose the moment.. through space and time, to put it a certain sorta way.

So.. you know.. one of the things that I think is sorta special about me.. is that I’ve transcended that kind of thing.. and that’s something you pick up fast if you follow this blog for any period of time.. that I’ll jump from subject to subject.. where the breadth and depth covered is.. well it might be one of the most impressive things about this blog… so I guess I’m a kind of an exemplar of the idea.. but the thing is.. I think we can all be such exemplars in our own way.. and perhaps we even are but simply fail to recognize it.

Beyond this I think we are all experts in some areas and novices in others…. and there is more area that we are novices in then we are experts in. Frankly, I don’t even really think of my self as an expert in much of anything I write on.. in all of them I’m struggling to climb the mountain.. to be a master of the subject.. I don’t want to be the jack of all trades, master of none.. I want to be the master of all! (I know, I have issues)

I think, on some level, some place in us.. I think we all kind would like that.. but generally don’t have the opportunity. Perhaps we simply don’t know where to begin, or perhaps didn’t even know such a thing was possible at all… or even more likely.. we probably have bigger fish to fry… or what I mean is life has given us other things to concern our selves with.

In any event.. what I figure is I can kind of take you on a little ride.. and you can kind of peer over my shoulder.. to see from a vantage point where you can benefit from whatever understanding I’ve managed to gain from my climb… and perhaps in some way I can cast the light on how one can do this sorta thing.

So that’s kind of one dimension to my thinking about what this blog is.. and why someone might find value in it.

Another dimension is.. I might be blogging on subjects that you might want to learn something about.. and maybe I can help you learn about that stuff. Hell, maybe we can climb together? (What I’d give for a little comradery on with this sorta thing).

Now there are also times where I talk about things from a very personal perspective… You could maybe even argue I’m always doing that. At the very least you could say “now this blogger does not have a detached objective point of view to his narratives.”

Well.. I’ll tell you what.. I think objectivity is in large measure illusory. Even if we take a position of believing in objectivity.. ultimately what you want to do is assimilate that objective stuff into your own thing.. in which case it’s not going to be so objective anymore..

Err, I think I’m doing a crappy job explaining this one.. What I mean is you want to assimilate knowledge, synthesize it with what you already got.. by giving you this stuff in the context of a personal narrative you’re not experiencing it as if it where in a vacume.. further I think there is something known as ’subjective knowledge,’ which for complex reasons isn’t terribly valued today.. but I think there’s something to be gained from it.. particularly when your getting this stuff in that context.

If only I was explaining this stuff better!

The final thing I want to say.. on this dimension of the story is.. there is a kind of personal and collective level to all our stories.. there is a dimension to our suffering that is a universal suffering.. It is a suffering of.. well what is grave and constant in the human experience.. to sorta echo Joseph Campbell.. and even if I’ve gone off in some direction where I don’t have the faintest idea of what value it could have to you…. well what the hell, I’m not really the judge of that anyway, am I?

Beyond all this.. I imagine that some of what I have to say could be of value to you.. and some less so…

Ok.. so I think that more or less covers it? I mean it covers my rational… how I rationalize this blog in relationship to.. blog strategy stuff.. The whole.. know you’re community.. that what you blog about ought to be for that community.. what is it that they want?

But I’ll tell you what.. you tell me what you want.. cause I haven’t the faintest idea.. I’d love to help yeah.. . just give a little yelp in the comments every now and then.. or contact me one way or another.. If this was the sorta blog that had lots of comments.. well.. that surely would help… And I suppose that’s one metric that tells me I’m not doing the greatest job with this blog… but I also know that there’s, generally speaking.. not a high percentage of blog readers who actually comment.. Further more, different blogs elicit different behaviors in readers in relationship to comments..

I have a friend.. lol, he’s kinda crazy.. and I suppose that’s one of the things I love about him… He’s a rather successful fellow.. in the world of PR.. and he does have a hand full of personal blogs.. one of which is a porn blog.. His porn blog has lots and lots of readers.. but guess what? Nearly no one comments..

So.. I guess the note is.. what do you think? I mean do you have any sense of who this blog might be for? Do you think I’m self dilluding in my rational? I don’t know…

It’s late at night.. super late actually.. sun’s starting to come up.. I should be in bed sleeping.. but it’s just one of those late night howling kind of moments.. a need to howl from this blog.. or via this blog.. out into that there internet.. and blah blah blah.

Seems like there’s a million things I want to say, and as time passes.. they slip through my fingers.. those sands of time I’ll tell you!

So I just wanted to write something random.. in the hopes that I might touch upon some of this stuff.

I’ll tell you a big thing I want to say.. Thank you.. you as in the universe.. you as in..  err… God, I do need to explain myself here, ha? And if I do that, I’ll never finish this damn post.. never get to much of anything I might like to touch on.

Well.. what the hell, who cares, it’ll be what it’ll be!

I feel a real need to thank social media….

I believe it was last night.. well, lets back up a little..  Yesterday I made my way to a book store.. aww, the temptations for Bad Matt! But Bad Matt was good, and didn’t give into any of said temptations.. but none the less.. I spent some time in that there magazine section, and in electronic musician monthly there was an article on vocal synthesis… which is to say using a computers to generate a vocal track. This particular article focused on how to do it for free.. It was rather avant guard in its aims… but it got me to thinking.. and reunited me with some old ideas..

I write poetry, or song lyrics or.. not sure how to describe them really. I haven’t written too many lately, but I’ve been keeping note books since highs school…. so I’ve amassed quite a bit of stuff… and one figures, just statistically speaking, there must be something in there, somewhere, of value.

I’m a crappy judge of myself and my work. I really am! I often need to take a good deal of time away from my stuff in order to come back to it, without emotional ties to it, in order to see what’s really there.

So I was having this conversation with someone online.. while trying to figure out what kind of sound synthesizers where out there.. and how much they are running these days.. and um.. well the person I was talking to is a fan, I guess you could say.. a fan of my music, a fan of this blog, a fan of me..

It’s so nice to have such people in our lives.. particularly when you’re struggling to believe.. well this wasn’t really a night of struggle.. but as I was showing said person some of what I was finding.. the subject came to these lyrics / poems / whatever.. that I had.. and could this person see.

Well it just so happens that I was on my pc lap top at the time.. which happens to have folder full of stuff.. dating back to when I got the lap top.. which I’m guessing was sometime in 2004.. simply because that was the date of my Indra’s Net Project… which was done on said laptop.

Matt Searles – Archaic Rejuvination for the Post Modern Male and Female

And um… So the deal is.. I tend to not like showing this stuff… mainly cause I figure it sucks, you know? Like who am I kidding? I’d be embarrassed to show that trash… but ok, what the hell, why not?

Well.. my fan friend was blown away buy it and I was like “you really like that stuff?” Before you know it.. I had sent something like 20 or more of them through the IM.. and I think we were both a little astonished.. this person had, after all, put me in the right mood to see the virtue of it..

Oh my God! This stuff was insane! I almost want to describe it as the words of “a bad boy saint.” It’s stuff that just screws with your head.. It has an intense kind of darkness to it, that almost kinda scares you.. and..

Oh my God, you know how I’m given to talking about Jesus and God and all that sorta thing in this blog? I always feel like.. when you bring up those kinds of subjects.. people kinda want to run away..  run from the Jesus freak.. like talking about religion is just not a safe topic.. its more dangerous then politics.. Well what was crazy about the treatment of the subject was.. it was mystical.. and it was like.. well it was twisted.. just in how it played with it. It was as if it was this crazy heretical sorta thing.. kinda like South Park playing with Jesus and all that stuff.. accept this was like.. way more dangerous. It was more dangerous because it seemed to be speaking truths.. speaking truths that most folks wouldn’t have the balls to say..  I mean it was just crazy.

It had this kind of earthy feel to it.. made me think of Muddy Waters.. but like crazy intellectual.. which is part of how it would mess with your head.. It’s as if there’s the prejudices of our modern time and of authority.. prejudices that produce the mental cages we are all living in.. and it’s tearing the hell out of them…  to the point where it all most hurts.. 

Ok, how about another track from yours truly.. again from Indra’s Net:

Matt Searles – A Short Trip To Another Day

The words called back to me the psychology I had at the time.. I was reminded of the darkness of those days.. of the struggle.. of the darkness. The struggle to just hold on to hope. The pain…  The blood that was just dripping from me.. psychologically.. from the wounds of life.. all the ways life can be cruel.. and how it felt like that then.. and that deep struggle of not knowing if I’d ever make it in life to where I needed to make it. Feeling like… life could get worse then I could really handle.. and that it might not be too long till that reality would be confronting me..

This is the subtext… beneath how I was driven to make this work.. driving to try and make something of me.. get to where ever I needed to get to.

Funny thing is I haven’t gotten there yet! Funny thing is I’m still struggling…  And though, in my current struggle.. though I do struggle with faith, in what I’m doing or trying to do, on a daily basis… I must say there are moments of overflowing hope. That over flowing hope comes through the vehicle of social media.

I’ve had this feeling in my head for sometime.. that in the end it will be social media that saves me. To really explain how this works.. well it would take more then I have to give tonight….

A couple things though.. You meet so many great people. I can’t really tell you how thankful I am. I don’t know how to tell you how moved I’ve been…  I mean like when my mom died and people reached out to me via blog comments, twitter, emails.. At a moment I had anticipated as being the loneliest moment of my life..  I felt the least alone of any moment in my life.

So one of the things that’s giving me this need to Howl.. is just the want to give thanks.. which I am sometimes so bad at.. If you’re reading this.. and we’ve had some sorta social media type.. I don’t know.. we’ve met, had a conversation.. or maybe not even that much… you’re probably someone I feel somehow thankful about…  So.. if I don’t get around to.. doing something that would properly express my gratitude.. I just want to tell you thanks here.

It is the little things that count, isn’t it?

How about another track:

Matt Searles – Offering A Hand To The Ghost

That’s actually one of the few Indra’s Net tracks that was done on my Mac.. With like Reaktor and Cubase SX.. maybe SX2? Maybe 3? I don’t remember.

So back to the story of vocal synthesis and these lyrics:

Well a few years ago there were a bunch of vocal synths that hit the market, and so immediately I was interested. I think people need lyrics to kinda.. “get it.” Or what I mean is.. instrumental music isn’t the most sorta commercially viable thing out there. So….

Well I can’t sing…. I don’t really have a vocalist I can easily call on any old time.. have yet to really invest in the proper microphones.. or learned the proper recording engineer stuff.. and not only that.. even if all that was a go.. It wouldn’t easily fit into my process. So, how to I get there from here?

As it turns out there’s a number of possible directions:

1.  Vocal Synthesis
2. “Vocal Tuning software:” There’s lots of software out there that can make an out of tune vocal in tune.. if you just get the phrasing right… 
3. Integration of found-ish elements.

Category 3 is where I would fit this track for Zar Matt A Thsutra’s Deep Space Adventures:  

Matt Searles – Hanser Show HerStory With Mark

Here we have a field recording type thing, of Mark talking on a train with his then girl friend.. It’s rather crazy experimental.. but I still sorta like it.

Any who, so I’m over tired.. and should prolly post here..

Oh wait.. can post without posting this here clip!

Long time readers… if I ever posted that post I meant to post.. will know all about “Bad Matt.” Bad Matt, as you might well imagine, is an evil bastard! What is the unspeakable evil that Matt is giving to partaking in? Well Matt has been known to spend large sums of money on books, music, DVDs and.. of course.. computer and studio related stuff. And today my fine friends… bad matt has struck again!

That’s right..  well you see it all started when I went to a little Boston Media Maker tech thing, MediaTechTonic. This was a little workshop sorta thing, led by David Tames, that explored WordPress. WordPress is a “blog engine” that’s very popular… In the circles I run in, it is the most popular. Indeed my podcasts, and this blog, run on WordPress. A long standing problem I’ve had is not really knowing how to do “theme design.” Theme design is.. well its like web design with a content management system… so you want to know  your xhtml, css, dom, and what have you.. and then you probably would like to know a little php… and um.. a bit about how WordPress works. 

Theme design has proven, at least for me, to be a major pain in the butt.. in part because I’ve had such a difficult time finding one source of information that sorta pulls it all together. David’s presentation..  gave an overview of some of the issues..  and was enough to really open my eye’s to the power of WordPress. Further, though he didn’t totally recommend it.. he sorta did: WordPress for Dummies.. which is so far the only good source I’ve found that brings all that together in one place.

Next Day:

So of course on my trip to the book store.. I made my way over to the WordPress for Dummies.. but…  Well the badness of bad Matt was such that I didn’t even stop there! Oh no, I went over to the music section! In the music section I found my copy of “The Indie Bible.”

If you’re an independent music person, the Indie Bible is a must have.. It’s basically a giant directory of resources for the independent sound person. It lists, as a for instance, radio stations, podcasts, periodicals, and what not.. that will play / review the work of independent sound people… and it does this by genera and location…

I suppose its worth saying something about where I’m at as it relates to this? As we speak the main thing I’m working on.. if I’m working on anything at all.. It’s at least the preamble to a project of some sort.. that I’d actually ask people to spend there hard earned money on… and of course I don’t know what the project will look like.. even what it will be actually… just that this is roughly my goal..  (which is not to say there aren’t a zillion ideas, much of which can be found scattered around this blog)

To be successful in the commercial aspects of this project… It would make a hell of a lot of sense if I did something to promote the works I’m currently giving away for free. This way.. you can just go check it out you’re self, and if you dig it, maybe you’d be interested in the project I’m now embarked on. So.. if I were able to sorta run a publicity type campaign while I’m working on what I have to work on.. to sorta get the word out.. then I could potentially build a fan base for the upcoming projects product cycle. So that’s the thinking anyway.

If you’d like to check out some of my music you can, of course, go to mattsearles.com/music where you can find 2CDs worth of free music. 

I wanted to give an update on the podcasting adventures.. just in case anyone’s interested.

I have 2 podcasts… which I update pretty infrequently these days..  

The first one to note is the Asymmetric Biz Cult Podcast… For this one I team up with Mark Hanser, and Evan Pew.. where we talk about “the new asymmetric business of culture creation.”  Umm.. this is a somewhat complex subject.. but basically it’s about how modern technology is changing business, and what this means for artists.. or at least that’s sorta what it aims to be. Beyond this I have my own personal take on convergence.. a kind of complex evolving philosophy.. which I regard as having some value.. I think in someways I have a very unique take on what’s going on in these departments.. and if I can ever get the podcast so that its “actually good,” it may just become a must listen.

I think the Asymmetric Biz Cult podcast has faded for a few reasons.. One of which is just the events in our lives.. my mom died, Evan had a baby, and Marks life has grown its own complications. The other reason, I think, is because I’ve been obsessed with this area for a few years now.. and Mark and Evan are sorta new to this stuff to such an extent that.. that I don’t know if they’ve even known quite how they could contribute..

The Matt Searles podcast is another matter. Again, loosing my mom has turned my life upside down in a lot of ways.. and I’m still just sorta struggling to maintain sanity in the wake of it…

My mom’s passing, and the sorta of shifting realities that go along with that.. have really put me in a position where, at least for a little while, I can focus on what I think I need to be focusing on.. in a way I haven’t been able to do for years.. This includes upgrading my studio.. and putting together a tool set that is appropriate for what it is I see myself as all about.

There’s been some real questions for me.. as to what the hell this blog, and the podcast, ought to be about. I think if you want to be successful, and of course it depends on your definition of success, you can’t think of your blog or podcast as being about you.. it’s about your readers / listeners / community. Of course I’m not at a stage where I have an active community.. so its hard to know what a community would want.. so if you have any wants.. do communicate them to me! 

But the point is, I feel like I’m a little to focused on me. I suppose I’m an artist, and my art is what I tend to spend my time thinking about..  and I’m basically just blogging about whatever might be on my mind on any given day.. which, you know, is fine.. but…

Next day sometime:

Well I guess my point is that I want to create a blog / podcast / whatever.. that has value. It’s an odd sorta thing though..  and maybe I’m just speaking from the vantage point of my own anxieties.. It’s almost as if there were certain “strategic considerations” that I’m.. aquatinted with to one level or another.. that have to do with how you gain some success in social media.. but… you know, you gotta be you.. and who I am is in someways antithetical to the strategic stuff.. 

I suppose, in someways, this is the point I mean to get to, and even why I’m here.. in this space. It’s this feeling that we need to harmonize our own internal nature with the external demands of life.. That this is important for our mental health.. and social media might be a way of going about this.. and certainly from the point of view of the artist and the arts.. what a true artist does.. you don’t start from questions of commercial viability.

Here’s the way I would describe it.. and it is perhaps somewhat radical, at least in some ways: You can literally go in any direction you like.. and if you can bring that direction to a certain state of evolution.. of maturation.. you’ll eventually get some place of value.. some place of interest.

A mass media market place has different views on this problem..  and tends to dictate, to one degree or another, what directions could be considered commercially viable, and what directions might not. I tend to believe that if you have something that’s “good art,” wether it’s commercially viable or not has more to do with how we approach the markets then it does the art its self. This might not be 100% realistic, but it’s an idea with some merit. The merit is made more true by the shifting economic realities brought about by our current technological disruptions… This is a shift who’s implications are still only faintly understood today.

This blog, I suppose, is like a journal of an artist trying to explore these new realities.. or at least these ideas of new realities.. as is the podcast. It’s the chronicles of his experience..  often in a very introspective sorta way. That onto its self is interesting, it seems to me… and gives this blog, and the podcast, some value.

Further, I think the challenges I face are not challenges unique to myself. I suppose if I’m looking to nurture a community around this blog.. around these efforts.. what would likely bring us together is the commonality of the challenges we face.

At one in the same time we have both the common and the individual: I’m at this exciting, and somewhat scary, moment.. where I have all this new technology to try and learn.. DP, Kore, Komplete, Adobe CS3, Final Cut Studio, Cinema 4D, and the list goes on… and on and on. My guess is.. when I talk about these technologies.. I’m not sure to what degree we hold these in common.. 

Well I mean I want to write in such a way that a general reader can follow me, even into the most technically challenging of subject matters.. I mean if you want to follow me in there. Sure, it’ll probably be challenging in that you’ll have to learn a good deal in order to follow me so far in there..

See, I read the collected works of Freud and Jung when I was in high school.. And it was wonderful as, in a certain way, I felt like I got to hang out with those guys.. and wrestle with there challenges. I loved that experience.. and I’d love to give you that experience.. to sorta bring you to the challenges I’m facing.. wether or not you’re an artist or not.. or wherever you might be coming from.. I mean if this is something you might find interesting.

Well anyway.. you can subscribe to the Matt Searles podcast via iTunes via clicking on this link, if you like. 

The last bit I want to talk about is the technical challenges..  I have a Zoom H4 that I usually use for podcasting.. its a portable recorder.. with which you can record right onto these SD cards.. trouble is, and I don’t know why, I’m not able to get the files of the Zoom and into my Computer.. so I’ve recorded stuff for the podcast that way, and it hasn’t wanted to work.

Secondly.. I seem to be having some trouble with Digital Performer.. which doesn’t want to export my audio… I finished another podcast episode last night.. but DP doesn’t seem to want to let it out.. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a sorta tricky juggling act..

Latter still:

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