Ahhh the weekend!

I've been mulling ideas all week regarding a piece I'm working on.  I've had to set aside since last tuesday but I'll be back at it again I hope no later than Monday night.  I'm pretty excited about it, so I'm taking time with this one and letting it evolve on its own.

I'm home from work and tired, but can't sleep yet.  I wish I was the type that could focus on a project at this time, but the mind is feeble and can't grasp subtleties at the moment.

Recording Some Improvisation

I finally got my studio set up in a way that makes it much easier to do things!!!! Yay!  I began recording an improvisational piece using only the Fusion tonight.  It is a total sound out really.  I've done a lot of internal synth work using Logic's AU, but I've not done much audio recording into it.  I need to do some investigating on sound levels and what not.  The new controller will have a preamp and be an audio hub so I am hoping I will be able to use that to cut down on hiss - I don't like unintentional hiss.

Things that make one go hmmmmm.

I've isolated an old sound sketch that I had been working on and completely forgot about.  I had started it before the last semester I graduated and it had been tucked away since then.  It is remininscent of early 70's psychodelic mood pieces.  It has an interesting Moog like lead riff that repeats with variations and I am really in need of working on this.  

Up until I had graduated most of what I had been working on was formless in the sense that they were more like soundscapes (environments) or montages to an extent.  As time went on, I wanted more to make them more musically oriented.  Electronica has incredible potential, however I often hear certain things happening in Electronica these days that directly reflect both the incredible power at our hands due to technological advances and also the wide availability of this technology to an ever increasing amount of people.   Now these are both wonderful things as well as not such wonderful things.  The wonderful things need no further comment.  The not so wonderful thing is that when it comes to commercial application (read popular music), everything sounds the same.  It may be the sound usage, or the production style, or the mixing and mastering.  It may be a mix of those things or all of those things together, but everything begins to sound the same.  It begins to sound more about "hey look with this VST does now"! Or this trend in major over compression or or or... 

Much of the way I try to use technology is to make it somewhat transparent, while at the same time not forcing it to emulate or sound like real instruments. This almost the same way I approach digital imagery (photographic) - I wanted my work to look as if it was processed traditionally - not as if it were created in photoshop.  The same doesn't apply exactly with Electronica, because electronica is, well.... Electronica.  However, it is a palette in itself and their comes a fine line between a piece becoming about blips and bleeps only, or a concept.  We all straddle that line.   I want to develop more into using Electronica not so much about complex technological processes, but creating interesting musical pieces (musical or otherwise - have I confused you yet?).  Although I may use familiar sounding instrumentations that may remind one of a piano or an violin or flute, I am not necessarily striving or concerned that it mimic the actual instruments.  For that it would be prudent to have someone who plays those instruments do just that.  Also, I am not at all interested in playing these things like traditional instruments - pianos, guitars, etc.  Much like digital photography and traditional photography, computer music and analog music are two very different mediums.  Rather than argue about which is better, most real, less important etc., I look at both as apples and oranges or two different mediums.

Most often I straddle fine lines between these worlds.  Each piece dictates it's end result.

Phewwww!

All is well now.  I've powered up the Fusion and all is peachy.  I've got a small issue with the way it won't keep my banks in the order I want them - but I'll get it straitened out soon.  I cannot begin to tell you just how powerful a machine this thing is.  I've been a bit reticent about it for a bit, especially since I've been concentrating on Logic 8 for the past few months.  My biggest issue has been that I prefer buttons and sliders and very physical means of manipulation with a keyboard and much has changed especially with software driven machines.  This of course makes them capable of much much more than I could have dreamed of affording 20 years ago, but it also means that user interface suffers.  Now of course there are menus, rotary wheels etc.,.   In actuality getting around the menus on the Fusion is pretty easy and quick - an in real time.  It will never be the same as having everything at your fingertips simultaneously, but it is pretty dame good.  

The Fusion had suffered pretty bad press due to bad software bugs in it's initial release, but they seem to be fixed.  Aside from that the initial sound sets were pretty lacking - but I wasn't interested in a rompler, I wanted manipulation and creation.  I get flabbergasted at the moronic comments left on some forums about (it has sucky sounds blah blah blah).  Look if you're going to spend the money to buy such equipment, you had better learn your way around an oscillator or two and not rely on the presets the factory provides - and this machine is powerful.  If you can't tweak a sound to your liking or better yet, create something fabulous of your own - well maybe stick with playing a piano.

Oh,  one last wish - I'd love to mess around with a Virus C someday (do you hear me Santa?)

It's almost 4 am and spent the better part of two hours reorganizing and updating the Fusion 6HD.  Oh my stars!  What a complete headache.  I backed up the entire volume after getting most of the organization done only to discover that for some screwing reason, the entire volume (the guts) on the Fusion just plain dissappeared!  I've recopied them over from the Macbook but I've not restarted the Fusion yet to see if anything major is screwed up.  Well... if you hear a bloodcurdling scream from anywhere in the world - it may well be mine. :)

Oh No Spending Money LOL

I done dit it agin!  Well I've ordered a new midi controller that I desperately needed. I'm buying the Novation X Station 61. At first I was interested in it solely because I needed something that would allow for better real time manipulation of VST's in Logic.  I really liked the fact that it had all the nobs and sliders necessary and that they where labeled in real world ways (osc 1, Lfo 1 etc.,)  Then upon further investigation I found that it has templates for virtually every VST and DAW so that I wouldn't have to map them myself.  This is a current headache with the Radium I found.  Logic is buggy in that it seems to dump mapped vsts periodically therefore it's unreliable. Although it may be user error, but I haven't found out why it does this.

Aside from the fact that it has rave reviews, and I was hard pressed to find anyone who really didn't like it - I discovered it has a pretty powerful virtual analogue synth onboard. This is truly unique in a midi controller.  Upon hearing demos I found it to be pretty impressive - similar to earlier analogue synths of the 70's and 80's.   It was totally unexpected, but it is going to be nice to have something to physically manipulate after all this time working with a mouse.

At Work

I'm at work again.  I've begun constructing a fairly melodic ambient piece that has a bit of a melancholic mood to it.  But the fabulous part to it is that I found a simulated version of the old Crumar String synth from the seventies.  It would be hard to describe, but if you heard it you would recognize it.  It was big on phase shifting and I've always loved that particular type of modulation. I use it in some way most all of the time - somewhere in my work.  What direction this piece goes is uncertain.  It depends on how long and how repetitive I make it.  I'm tickling with it for the moment.

It Has Been A Very Long Time

It has been a terribly long time since posting.  Life has been busy, graduated and got married to my love of my life - an art has taken a turn or more or less a down turn.  I've moved a bit away from visual work and have been working on audio and sound.  Music concrete and ambient work along the vein of Eno perhaps.  I'm listening to "Not Yet Remembered' of Plateaux of Mirrors by him and it is captivating and minimalist in it's composition.

My problem (and their always is) is my own insecurities and not really knowing how to proceed.  Graduation has flung me out into the world with no structure.  Being terribly shy and pretty much a recluse I don't get out much.  I suppose this piece by Eno has me thinking a bit about that.

Art is a struggle and it is work - I know that.  What I need is to be more disciplined and perhaps a little good fortune to help me along.

I'll be working tonight, but I intend to do some work during the next three days off.