Many Many Tracks

I have been working on this one piece and it is evolving as they all do. It difficult to conceive but it is entirely possible that I might have twenty tracks to this one. I'm finding that they may consist mainly of isolated drum and rhythm pieces that contribute to a more tribal feeling that I am hearing in the piece. I am hoping to have it finished and ready for uploading in the next few weeks. I would like it to be sooner, but I know their are many changes that might occur the longer I work with it.

Minor Set Back

Well having been sick with some weird inner ear infection has set me back a few weeks on my current project :( I had intended on having a new piece up within this week but that unfortunately is not going to be. However I should be in shape in the next few days to begin work again. Hmmmmm. maybe I'll finally receive my Novation X that has been on backorder since.... well the dawn of humanity.

Woot

I've just gotten my MB back yesterday after having issues with wifi. They're not quite resolved (things are a bit flakey still). I've resolved a timing issue I've had with one of the pieces that I've been working. I'll be working solely on this one piece until it's finished. I won't speculate to say when that might be, but the timing issue was a big stumbling block. I have random s/h in a multilayered pad that defines the background of the piece, which was causing major issues with the the tempo perceived for other tracks in the piece. I won't go into long explanations on what happened so......

Typical Typical

It's typical of me. I've countless projects started in various levels of completion and I've just begun a new one the other night. I do a lot of compositional sketching - much of which never sees the light of day. However, sometimes I do something that takes me down an other route from what I was working on previously. So, now I have approximately six different pieces I'm working on and none nowhere near being completed. Woe to the Geminis!

Oh The Necessary Tools

Oh the necessary tools.

After much investigation and some chance stumblings upon information I have confirmed that my dilemma with recording audio feeds directly into the MBP is due to a lack of necessary tools. No surprise there. Which makes this need for the Novation X more important to me now than it did before. It will act as the audio hub between the Fusion and the MBP and thusly solve my sound issues (fingers crossed). It is still back ordered and not due for shipping until after the third. I so wish it would arrive - I'm just salivating to get my fingers on all those twisty knobs and slippy sliders yum!

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.

Tink Tink

Yepper, still tink tinking away at the Fusion. I've been trying to figure out the basics of MIDI and utilizing a computer as a sequencer but hit a roadblock. In typical PC fashion my computer refuses to recognize the MIDI/USB hub no matter what I do. I managed to get it to connect to Shawn's four year old G4 Mac but I knew it would. I did it just to make sure there wasn't an issue with the keyboard MIDI ports. I so hate PC's and want to get a Mac but I have to wait a bit. Money money money. PC's are the Devils spawn and need to be melted down into scrap. . . nuff said.

I spent so much time over the past week trying to make this work that I forgot about what I bought the damn keyboard for in the first place, so after another 4 hours of not getting anywhere last night, I stopped and went back to doing some composing. I used the onboard sequencer on the Fusion which is very powerful and did a few ambient tracks. However, wading through submenus on a tiny blue screen is not conducive to really editing things so I've got to get this computer issue straightened out. Until then, I'll be recording sonic ideas in to the Fusion.

Keyboarding Away. . .

Well I'm in total OC mode right now. I've read the entire manual for the keyboard and now things make more sense. I'm in elementary composition mode... making up 8 measure phrases of multiple timbres or layers and recording them into the sequencer. I listen to alot of contemporary music more closely now, particularly electronica, dance and alternative stuff and realize that there is nothing all that complicated about what is being put out there - especially club music. It's not really my area of interest, but I would like to venture into the more avante garde experimental areas of trance music.

Anywho... again coffee has not kicked in yet. . .

Total Backtracking This Past Year

Well this past year has been a revisting of things past for me. First going back to school and finishing my degree in Photographic Fine Art and now electronic music. It's been twenty years since I've touched one. I've always regretted getting rid of my equipment when I first went away to school (needed the money). I've told myself that someday I would get back into it, but someday never came, until recently. It all started with some fussing around with GarageBand on my baby's G4. I did some playing around and made up my mind. So much has changed and progressed. I've just ordered an Alesis Fusion 6HD Workstation. If anyone remembers the old Fairlight CMI's that were hovering around 30 to 60 grand back in the mid 80's, this is kind of like that to a degree, only much much much less expensive. It ain't quite a Korg Triton, but it's a start. It's heavy on the synthesis side and that's what I'm looking for. Also it's an open ended system with hopefully continous upgraded as time goes on. Anywho, where I'm going with this "new" revisit remains to be seen. I've got an incredible learning curve to hurdle :).

Panaramic Experiments

This is my first experiment of hand held panoramic images. I was turned on to this by a friend who is a professor at R.I.T. His name is Joe and he is a real nice guy. He would send me some images of his own usually of him and his father every once and while in an email. There was something about those images that always left me with a feeling of anticipation.

This particular image leaves much to be desired. I like the general subject and composition, but technically it sucks. I went back and looked at one of the images belonging to Joe and noticed that when he does his, he tends to take many shots and then lines them up. One in particular that I looked at seems to have as many as seven shots. This one is only three.

I'm not to concerned about the crazy converging perspectives that are off, I like it actually. It is a collection of individual images taken from the same viewpoint to make one image. It is as if the mind can not fool itself into piecing together what we see through the eye regarding our field of vision any long, because a flat image will not allow it.

I like these panoramas. Up until now every image was a static image that was assumed to stand on it's own. An entire story or emotion conveyed in one image. Then I was introduced to the concept of sequencing and artist books by Professor Pilcher during my last semester. I've really been turned on to the concept of sequencing as well. I intend to take a workshop by the godfather of sequencing, Nathan Lyons. He is the founder of the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY and rumor has it that he may not be doing many more workshops due to his advanced age.

I am not interested in cinematography by any means, but there is something about the panoramas that is reminiscent of the wide frame of a motion picture. The inclusion of more field of vision might be one of the elements. There is less isolation of subjects in the composition as well. I intend to continue to pursue this experiment a bit more over the summer months. I've hit a wall since the semester ended and have begun to feel extremely bored by my style and images.

Going through countless images in the preparation of my final project made me very aware of how similar my images have been. I now recognize that when I shoot. I don't suppose I'm any less likely to shoot the image if I'm captured by it, but I don't approach it as if it's the first time I've ever seen it's elements anymore - LOL! I may just be taking my tenebristic style into the realm of panoramas - who know.

Done for now...

Semester if Over :)

Well I made it through my first semester back to college and me very very happy! As best I can tell I believe I've got all A's but finaly grades won't be available for another week or so. Now I need to keep the momentum up. Let's see what the summer brings :)

Grumpy Frumpy and Mean. . .

LOL, that is how I feel right now. I've been in my bathrobe and fuzzy bunnies since I woke up this afternoon (don't ask). I've been working on images since 3:00 pm then with an occaisional break to munch and do some dishes. Whahhha whahhha whahhh whiney slimey poopey head!

I did too many images today to even remember them - and that bothers me. It is as I said in an earlier post, I'm not about cranking out images for the sank of quantity, but I've got "projects" due. That's how it is. I don't like feeling like images are just temporary incidents to be sniffed at and left to be forgotten as we head for the next quick fix of imeadiate gratification (stab at sardonic observation of contemporary consumeristic society).

Anywho... amongst the minions cranked out today I did play a bit and did this one in a style inspired Robert Frank and Atonie d'Agata (notice the grain and contrasty crappiness hint hint).

Anywho... just pasted up my teeth with some o' that nasty crest tooth whitner stuff and headed to bed... grumpy grumpy piss and moan grump grrrrrrrr argh!

MY HUBBY IS GOING TO R.I.T.!

Wooooohooooo my hubby was accepted to Rochester Institute of Technology today!!! I'm soooo proud of him. He's been waiting to hear back from them after sending his portfolio in a month ago. He was all nervous and doubtful... silly boy! Everything he does is amazing (dat's why he's my hubby)!!! Click his image to visit his blog!

I'm almost finished with a photo project for M.O.C.H.A and I am really happy with a lot of the shots of some of the kids that were there. They were incredibly photogenic! The experience peaked an interest in portriature. There is something in capturing a person's essence. I just wonder how much of what we think that essence is, really isn't us reading into the images our own projections. Unfortunately I can't provide examples of some of the shots due to the confidential nature of the organization.


Another topic. . . Falling in love with an image. What a strange occurance which leaves me feeling empty an sad. I've fallen in love with this image that I'm hoping to include in my final project. I guess it's the issue of images being a dime a dozen these days. We are an oversaturated society of image consumers and thus, images can sometimes feel so disposable. I suppose I treat a lot of my images as if they are people. I find it hard to be dismissive about them. Yes, photography is a ceaseless activity of shooting and processing and of course one will accrue countless numbers of images. I suppose that is what saddens me sometimes. I don't want any of my little "people" to become lost amongst the crowd.