I gots me a little life left in me, till next I dip back into unconsciousness, and I thought I’d a use this time to.. spit out the cantankerous who-b-jew-b knows what-b the matter with whatever I’m not conceiving of, previous to this incantation… 

I’m not one of those fowl fools who puts the non in the sensical: my senses are keen, to that which tongues still do not touch… It was that, standing on the other side you understand, who hired me to do a little PR, so here I R, speaking to you like this.

ERr.. I don’t know.. too much NyQuil perhaps? 

Given the gist of the jizz, that jazz B gentrified from.. in the interest of intercessions… by those who fear mass numinous breakouts.. to speak for that.. I can only say that.. It’s a question of who do you think you are, and pudding style foundations of civilizations that don’t quite qualify as the rock.. but rationalizations have been collectified to such an extent that the emperors clothing be the latest sensation to sweep the nation.. and nations for that matter.. can you feel the draft? And do you really believe in your powers of putting to rock transfigurations?

A screw it, I’ll just post this as this…

As I write this I’m.. super sick, in bed.. nice to have the laptop here with me, wish the internet connection was better… feeling slightly out of my mind.. as a result of it…

Any who… I’m thinking about social media engagement.. It’s sorta like a stupid obvious kind of thing…  but.. that if I were to get super serious about it.. this could be a key piece in getting me where I need to go.

What is this “social media” you speak of? 

I assume that most of my readers aren’t social media people.. so it might be worth explaining a little bit about this…

Basically.. social media, as we know it today.. is mostly about online communications.. perhaps focused around twitter, blogging, podcasting.. this sorta thing.. throw in your face books and your myspaces.. youtube’s, and linked in and.. seesmic and.. many other things.  

All of these things are like communications channels.. ok, so why  is communications important?

Err.. it occurs to me that I’ll never finish this post if I keep on  this trajectory…  But communications, as any good marriage counselor will tell you, is an important element in managing relationships..  put it that way. Business, as it turns out, is all about relationships.. relationship with you peers, relationships with your customers, employers, clients, coworkers.. etc.

So engagement in social media is all about these relationships.. and so obviously enough.. it’s powerful along multiple trajectories..

Basically.. for me.. at this moment.. the idea that I should engage more.. means commenting on people’s blogs, and spending time on twitter. It’s about engaging in the conversations people are having.. and hopefully adding to those conversations.

Tales of a miscellaneous niche 

Now.. off in the land of social media.. and this might not be a totally fair statement.. I think people tend to get focused on there niche’s. You start a blog on subject X, and you engage with other bloggers who are into subject X. I mean this is the way its done.. But what I think is key for who I am, and where I come from.. is to engage along multiple vectors.

I am a “follow you’re passions fundamentalist.” I believe.. we all, to one extent or another, have various interests.. I believe in pursuing all these interests..  That the path to you’re true potential lys in the development of a “whole self,” that the goal ought to be to develop all these interests to a relatively mature and sophisticated form.. in proportion to your level of interest.

Also, I believe that innovation is a synthesis of formally disparate fields of knowledge.. another words..  the more your knowledge and skills are diversified.. the more capable you are of innovation…

This is not entirely an “anti specialization” idea.. The idea is that what is you’re area of specialization is something that you define by you’re passions..  That it is a synthesis of what would traditionally be considered disparate fields.. 

For me.. much of the blog o sphere.. and the world of podcasts.. its a way to explore my interests.. learn from people who are really smart in the various areas I’m interested in…  So I think it makes sense for me to engage along the lines of those interests…  

Matt’s Interests 

Just for the record, what is Matt Interested in?

1. Philosophy
2. Psychology
3. Politics
4. Diplomacy
5. Business Management
6. Marketing
7. Public Relations
8. Technology
9. Music Composition
10. Music Performance
11. Music Production
12. Sound Synthesis
13. Music
14. Film
15. Film making
16. Animation
17. 3D graphics
18. Special Effects
19. Directing
20. Performance Art
21. Painting
22. Graphic Design
23. Web Design
24. Web Strategy
25. Social Media Strategy
26. Photography
27. History
28. The Arts
29. Human Sexuality
30. Social Sciences
31. Poetry
32. Religion
33. Theology
34. Cultural Studies
35. Mythology
36. The Military
37. Computer Graphics
38. Human Potentiality
39. Entrepreneurship 

Well you get the idea, right? I mean the list goes on from there.. 

Miscellaneous Niche Strategery

So, roughly speaking, I describe my self as a “Media Artist:” I work with different medias.. different mediums.. from sound to video to animation to painting to whatever, right?  At the moment I seem most focused on the sound part of that.. lets go make an album… etc. But clearly I see myself in broa —

A couple days latter:

Still feeling super sick, feeling like i should just post, cause I don’t have the energy to finish up this train of thought.. lol, and I don’t know where that last sentence was going! 

I think this is kind of an ongoing theme for this blog anyway.. so..  yeah.. ok, posting..

So I got this kind of crazy comment on a post..  from John…  which I think I could safely characterize as “insensitive” in its criticism…. which I don’t totally understand, accept that sometimes when one interacts with folks online one can forget one is interacting with real humans. In any event.. I don’t think John’s criticism was exactly constructive.. none the less I find myself searching for grains of truth in it.. which is an instinct I find a little dubious….  but it is what it is.

So I thought I’d sorta address his comment in a blog post.. well sorta.

If you have discerning eyes, and you look at this blog, you’d probably come away with an impression that “this cat has no desire to be a social media rock star.” Or to put it another way.. ( picture spoken in a somewhat Frank Zappa esk tone ) “This blog has got no kinda game at all.” 

I’m not really sure why that is, to tell you the honest truth.  I feel as if it’s just sorta indicative of the state my life is in.. which is.. difficult. Somehow, one way or another, I need to ether work this out or just accept it. Maybe.. instead of all my obsessions and whatever.. I should just focus on healing.

The difficult feeling of an artist.

When you go to art school.. coming in the door you realize you’re kind of screwed.. well unless you’re a designer or something. The plight of the fine artist.. is a difficult one.. and often we toil our lives away for little to no material reward.. In fact, just getting your life in such a situation that you can seriously focus on your work.. That’s a pretty substantial accomplishment on its own.

I think its a kind of addiction actually.. an addiction to the state of ecstasy that art making can bring you to… That feeling that you and the Gods are one. For me, I suppose, I really make art more for God then living souls… Or more for that internal spiritual nourishment. I mean it’s just the one place in my life where I feel truly alive. So if there’s anyway that I can make my way through this life, via this art, then I will call my life a success. That’s really all I’m looking for, you know?

I imagine to be a whole human, however, one needs a bit more. How about starting a family? The only way I could ever see that working out is if I found one hell of a women.. cause God knows I can barely take care of my Dad!

I don’t really feel like I have a choice in what I is.  

So the deal is.. if you make art the way I do.. where you’re serious about exploring your own unique creative vision, regardless of what’s up with the market place.. well..  I don’t know.. What can you realistically expect?

I guess I’ll leave this at this — I’m kinda tired.

Haven’t been blogging so much lately..  bad Matt!  But how about a short little post? ( He says realizing short never happens for him )

So there’s basically 2 things worth talking about today.. or thoughts, or things I seem to be up to. #1 Is the music production stuff and #2 Is thinking about promotional efforts.

The Music Production Adventures

Though I didn’t post anything.. I have been writing about a new project I’ve started… inside of Ableton Live.. This project reached new hightes today.  So lets explore a little:

Of all the DAWs in my sonic arsenal, Ableton Live is the one I’m weakest with..  I have certain ways of working.. that I’ve been evolving for the past 15 or so years..  and I’m not sure how Live could fit into that way of working. Usually I think it has the potential to bring my work in new directions.. and so that’s some of what I find myself exploring…

The first stage in the current adventure has been creating loops.. I have a rather large library of audio.. music I’ve made, stuff I’ve recorded…  The process is one of loading up the audio files, and selecting loop points. Live will do the beat matching for you.. so whatever the tempo of the original work… Live will match it to the tempo..  

But the real fun comes from shaping looping envelops that control the parameters of whatever effect you might want to place on your loop.. Via various processing you “design loops” that are often unrecognizable.. from there original. This is, at least for me, a fun and unpredictable creative process… which yields results I wouldn’t other wise be able to achieve. 

Today, however, brought all this stuff to a crazy new level. As I began digging around my hard drives in search of audio files.. I started to find some interesting things….

A shape forms

Some of what I found were recordings made..  Well the podcast episode I recorded hours after my mom had passed… Left phone messages from my therapist and collection agencies.. There’s a collection of sounds that.. as I started putting together an arrangement of this stuff..

Well it was probably some of the most emotional sound art I’ve ever heard in my life.. It was powerful as hell..  It was also emotional draining, to the point that I felt on the verge of an emotional breakdown from going there.. but I think it was also therapeutic.. and I have this feeling that I really do need to go there.

So that’s basically that on the music production side of things..

Online Music Marketing

While running a few errins, I was seduced by the evil Barns and Nobel.. in to buying “Web Marketing for the Music Business” by a Mr. Tom Hutchison.. brought to us by Focal Press… 

Well I think this is about the best book on the subject I’ve come across. As a “social media peep” I’m hyper up on how marketing and communications are changing in this new media space.. Even if I’m not executing on it, I am an expert on social media strategy…  or something of one.. ( seeing as most of the people I look up to as mentors / experts in this area claim not to be experts these days )… In any event… this puts me in a unique place to evaluate such a book.. never mind all the music marketing type books I’ve read in the past.. and I’m here to tell you that this book is totally top notch.. from what I’ve been able to gather thus far.

So reading a book like this brings me to rethinking my strategy / shtick..  

So I’ll kinda leave this post short.. with just a couple finishing comments:

I’m feeling inspired by the promotional adventures ahead.. but also somewhat in awe of the challenges of it..  so wish me luck… 

I figure.. even if I’m totally consumed by other things.. I ought to try and at least get up a post a week or so.. so here goes

These posts might be getting repetitive on this point.. but allow me to describe for you the first track.. as it stands

Lyrics

It’s based on some lyrics I tweeted.. I don’t have them handy.. but I’ll probably post them in good time.. kind of surreal / dada-distic, so to speak.. a strange style of writing.. pretty out there.. extraordinarally deep.. though there depth lys in a place that makes them difficult to understand.. seems almost like gibberish in places.. 

If I were to try and put it in a sound bit.. its as if it’s blaming our current economic problem as an effect of extroversion in the modern situation..  but I’m not sure if that’s what it’s really doing.

Vocal Performance

The performance is to be realized via VirSyn’s Cantor.. which is a vocal synthesizer.  I’ve really only fiddled with Cantor thus far.. so I’m not entirely sure about.. well if I’m going to be able to get an acceptable performance out of it.. not sure how it’ll end up working.. not sure if the work flow I’m attempting is realistic.. so this remains the big question mark.

The way I’m working it is to write out a synth line.. that’s the vocal line.. a kind of stand in.. and to take that performance data.. and put it into Cantor.. and basically fine tune it from there.

The frequency space of Cantor, versus the synth that’s doing the mock up.. will be different.. so.. a part of the process will be trying to make Cantor intelligible with all the other stuff going on in the mix..  well its actually slightly more complex then even this.. Basically.. we have a tun of instruments.. that I’ve brought down into a few groups.. the plan is the put EQ and Compression on the different groups individually.. via Liquid Mix 16.. also put something on the master buss.. and kinda automate the EQs as needed.. 

I also expect that.. once the performance data gets brought into Cantor.. I might start messing around with it.. and possibly there’ll be stuff like backing vocals.. and who knows what.

The Music

The music is pretty insane actually.. I’d say it’s sorta Indra’s Net-esk.. only more so.. taken to a whole new level. 

What goes into it

So far the production features about 30 instruments.. and about 8 auxiliary effects.. We’re talking 2 instances of Digital Performer’s convolution reverb.. 2 delay orientated Guitar Rig Patches, one EVerb from Digital Performer.. 2 reverbs from Kore 2… and I’m not sure what else.. 

To appreciate the insanity of this.. For each instrument.. besides simply telling it what notes to play when, and how hard to play those notes.. you have the automation of Pan position, volume, 8 auxiliary sends.. very often pitch bend and modulation.. and some of the instruments have other performance parameters that I might play with over the course of a track. So.. that’s what..  12 times 30? So that’s 360 parameters you’re programing.. never mind the notes.. So the production is very time consuming.. And though I’ve put in a lot of labor.. it’s currently only about two thirds of the way through… and only a little more then 3 minutes long.

Results thus far

As I was saying before.. It reminds me quite a bit of my Indra’s Net stuff.. only more so. The things I felt critical of in Indra’s Net.. well.. it overcomes those problems and limitations.. There’s more instruments, more effects.. more advanced software, way more powerful computer.. What all this means to the music is… well I’m not really sure.. but I think it’s something kind of big.

While we’re at it, I might as well share with you one of the question marks it presents me with…  Because the amount of instruments, and what not, are so much higher.. things are way more complex. Structurally, my music is not big on repetition…  at least not in a conventional sense..  One of the reasons repetition is important to.. say pop music, is it assists the digestion of the music… it is, after all, “the hook.” When my music was a few order of magnitude less complex then the current project.. I think the simplicity made it easier to digest.. So one of the things I worry about is.. well.. how difficult it might be to appreciate / digest / whatever… So… that’s like a design consideration question.

If we just listen to the music and try and appreciate what it is..  

Well its like a first step into a new world. I think it might be some of the best stuff I’ve ever done. It is full of amazing moments.. flying between a kind of symphonic like aggression kind of LSD trip.. to adventures in ambient space.. where we feel the contraction of space its self.. beneath our feet.. Along the way we travel through so many different sonic spaces and environments.. experience so many different sonic phenomenon.. From classical to all out electronica..  I just think its amazing.

On Lyrics and Music

Now.. beyond all that.. the music is actually a kind of score to the lyrics.. so the music moves through space in such a way that.. it in some way comments on the lyrics.. There’s a line “to creep the reaper out” and we feel the darkening of the space around us…. 

It seems, in a certain way, that both my lyrics and my music are like “adventures in run on sentences.”  It’s all stream of consciousness stuff..  we can go anywhere at anytime.. for any reason.. but..

The spirit of the lyrics is playfully subversive.. seeking to express truths that.. are somehow how in our collective shadow.. My lyrics are very often dark.. living in the abyss.. some of there darkness has to do with there.. transcendence of conventional.. limitations.. which is it’s self an expression of freedom.. all be it free to give satan a bare hug, or something.. freedom  to be monstrous… 

The music is another matter.. A music that is programmed.. note by note… where we’re probably programing something like.. well how many parameters per note? A lot…  That’s a slow a methodical process… It’s not really free as the breeze in quite the same way the lyrics are.. It’s more “free to exert influence over the momentum of the flux in question.” 

So the free as a bird lyrics becomes the central axis point of the whole production.. It’s like a stream of consciousness construction that’s.. somehow taken to this very extreme point of being realized.. via a slow and methodical process? The slow and methodical process is stream of consciousness to.. just that it’s a stream that takes place for days.. as a pose to a couple of tweets on twitter.. 

Going Deeper Into It.

It may sound like I’m just throwing a lot of random inane facts at you… that’s because I’m fumbling in the dark to try and express something I’ve yet to articulate… ok.. read onward for the break through.. or stop here.

We have streams of consciousness that happen at different time scales, what does that mean? Look at your self..  at some point.. and try to become mindful of all the thoughts as they stream past your consciousness.. We could be talking about.. “lets smell this flower” to “I think I shall now turn my head to find out what that dog is barking about.” 

You can look at it in such a way so as to see many thoughts as being made up of smaller thoughts.. and.. if you could imagine your thoughts as grains.. that made this kind of gass.. that filled a space.. you could say “show me all the grains that correspond to this theme” and you would start to see patterns in how various smaller thoughts where components of multiple larger thoughts.. 

I have a kind of pscyho-philosophy that has explored the dynamics underlying how all this works.. Why we think of what when.. what drives our attention.. and how this related to our concepts of reality and life, and what not.. And as it turns out.. this psycho-philosophical blah blah blah.. underlies my thoughts on aesthetics.. and is a major part of my the conceptual framework I use in making my art and music.. 

The idea that we’d be, essentially.. scoring streams of consciousness.. with streams of consciousness.. in a rather operatic way.. The idea that its sorta all on a lark.. that we then become committed to.. if for no other reason then to.. see what might happen.. that in a sense the whole production is nothing but a little experiment to see where all these thoughts lead…

Well that’s my problem with trying to articulate something.. how do you articulate an intuition? 

Well I guess that’s all I’ll write about on that track for now…  lol, but wait.. there’s more.. there’s also a Reason project in the works

The Reason Project

I was starting to feel a little burned out on the huge sound project.. so I thought I’d go take a stroll through Reason..  This project had me starting out via programming a couple Thor patches.. 

I don’t think of myself as terribly talented in the field of sound synthesis.. but.. sound synthesis is.. well I’ll end up with something.. and that something will probably give me something unique to try and go explore as a part of the larger production.

This project also had me loading up REX files..  Ages ago I blogged about how I had invested in ReCycle.. and used cheese open source voice synths to realize some lyrics.. and how I’d processed the hell out of those lyrics.. and then chopped them up into REX files.  Well.. I decided to take one line from that project.

This gets into another whole set of ideas I was playing with.. at the current stage… The idea is that we could eventually put together a track that would be.. that whole song.. with all the lyrics to it.. but for now we have one sentence.. going into this new project.. or one sentence.. cut up.. distorted.. processed.. rendered FUBAR.. played for it’s textures.. not even meant to be recognized as the sentence it is..

Here the vocals become.. a strange texture explored.. we emphasize a few words.. out of context.. as it turns out.. the word we are emphasizing in this project is the word “context.”

In any event.. there will be more to be talked about latter.. I’m over tired here.. what I will say is there’s some very interesting things coming into play with how I’m starting to play with lyrics and how they relate to the structure of the music I’m making….  leave it at that…

I’ve been meaning to sorta write some film reviews, or start talking about film.. in this blog, since I started it.. but I haven’t done much of that.. I should confess, before I get on with it, that the way I relate to film is somewhat idiosyncratic.. and so my reviews / talking about it will be.. I probably won’t tell you what a film was about in a literal sense.. cause I’m not sure if that even matters to me.. we’ll.. you’ll see for your self if you read on.

So Micheal Clayton is a film… features George Clooney… who’s one of those few actors whom.. the chix seem to dig, and yet I dig as well..  My favorite performances of his probably being his stuff with the Coen Brothers.. and perhaps them heist films of his.

Anyway..

So the first thing that impressed me about Micheal Clayton was the cinematography.. the photography. There’s a kind of subtle beauty going on here.. 

Structurally.. things are not the usual, which I like.. no, we were in good hands here.. directorially speaking.. and how freaking rare that seems these days?!  You know.. modern Hollywood films.. what can we say of them? These are films that are.. so much more about commerce then art that.. well box office returns are more important then if the film is any good.. it’s not about artist concerns.. it’s about market concerns.. and the results are usually crap.. and at best a good pop corn film.. 

Well Michael Clayton doesn’t suffer from these sorts of things..  it’s a mature film, made by mature film makers, for a mature film going audience.. as a pose to… err.. I’m not even going to get into it.

So the structure is a deviation.. not a big deviation, but enough of one so that you don’t feel like…  Ok, I like my films to be a bit of an adventure.. where we don’t really know where we are going..  a film could be anything, and yet we are always sorta getting the same thing.. at least if we’re talking about the big Hollywood stuff.. I mean its as if they have a few emotional arches they feel the need to recycle endlessly…

I’m sorry.. this isn’t so hot of a film comment..   but..

I’m reminded of the first time I saw George Lucas’s THX1138.. Here’s a film who’s idea was to make a film that felt like a foreign film.. in the sense that we are being taken into a world that doesn’t even seem like it’s totally the product of our culture..  so its awesome in the adventure of it.. and its wonderful graphic style… cinematic conception.. lots of things.. we’re hanging with artists whom are inventing and creating…. Wonder why this doesn’t happen more..

I’m not meaning to put Michael Clayton on the same level as THX, or anything like that.. but just to say it has at least some of that kinda mojo going for it..  I mean yeah.. it does have the weakness of George Cloony…. the weakness of us having seen his work before.. we know what to expect from him.. so the adventure isn’t so.. far out, or anything but..  

Anyway.. so this is a film to see.. I recommend it as being…. drum roll please… not total crap

NaSoAlMo: What it is and why we like it

This month, or November actually, I plan on participating in NaSoAlMo, other wise known as National Solo Album Month.. This is a thing where various musician / sound artistic types.. decided to participate in a challenge to create a solo album in a months time..  Basically.. it’s an excuse to get serious.. for a month.

Last year, as long times followers would know, I created ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures.. for NaSoAlMo….  This, I must tell you, was one hell of an adventure. There’s nothing like working your ass off on something, if you want to grow by leaps and bounds… and at the end of last years National Solo Album Month’s thing..  I felt like I had made a giant jump in my music production / etc skills..  And so now, we embark on the next adventure…

On the Stategery and tactics of taking on such a challenge

Generally speaking.. if I’m working in my conventional ways.. and didn’t have a lot of other stuff to contend myself with.. was very focused.. I could maybe spit out about a track a week.. which might be around.. oh lets say an average of about 6 minutes a pop…. which comes out to what, like 24 minutes of music? Well.. the challenge is to make an album of at least 29:09 minutes.. so that’s not quite going to cut it.. and seeing as I have other things to deal with in life.. and seeing as last year I only found out about this about half way through the month… one must develop alternative strategies and tactics.. which is perhaps another interesting thing to deal with… 

So, lets take a look at last years strategies.. and this years strategies.

ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures Production Strategy 

I found out, as I said before, about this challenge, about half way through the month.. but had already begun work on a few tracks.. so figured I could still make a go of it.. If I tried something radicle.

My radical process started with.. working with different types of sound generating type programs.. where you improvise via tweaking various parameters and record the results. This instantly creates a whole lot of music.. but then you have the question of “is this interesting music?” So the next challenge is “how do we make this interesting music?” This became the jumping off point for an experimental sonic adventure. For the most part, this involved the following approaches:

1. Lets Process the crap out of these audio files.
2. Lets mix stuff together different versions of processed audio into a kind of composite audio file.
3. Lets slice up the audio file into discreet loops n stuff
4. Lets sequence the loops
5. Lets integrate this with our usual way of working 

 Well, that’s the broad outline anyway.. 

Tools Used

1. Ableton Live
2. Arturia Storm
3. Native Instruments Komplete (mostly Reaktor)
4. A Wimpy G4 Mac
5. Reason
6. A guitar
7. A Zoom H4 field recorder 

Ok, so that’s the basic broad brush stroke outline of it.. You can read more of my writings related to this project here…  That would be the full list.. The writings where I wrote during the production are as follows: Off In Reaktor Land, Red Rum Re Drumed, and finally Gonzo adventures in music production.

Should you like to hear the album in it’s entirety, you can find it on over here at mattsearles.com/music. 

At the time I created it.. I wasn’t real sure of it.. but since then I’ve gotten a lot of good reviews from people.. and now figure.. well, it’s probably a pretty good album.

The New Production Adventure

Tools likely to be used:

1. The Bad Ass 8 Core Mac Pro
2. This here new MacBook (2GHz Due)
3. Komplete 5
4. Kore
5. Ableton Live
6. Reason
7. ReCycle
8. A Tascam 16 channel Mixer as a MIDI controller
9. An M-Audio DJ like MIDI controller
10. A Guitar
11. A Slide Bass
12. Digital Performer
13. Liquid Mix 16
14. Couple of budget Condenser Microphones
15. Zoom H4

In addition to all that madness..  I’m looking to add VirSyns Cantor Vocal Synth and… VirSyns “Take Five FX bundle” which includes Bark, Matrix, Reflect, TDesign, and VTape. Indulge me as I talk about these a little, won’t you?

1. Bark is a pretty interesting looking  27 band filter / EQ and compressor
2. VTape is a set of analog tape emulation plugs that emulate tape based saturation, delay, and flange. I’m very much in need of a tape delay type effect.. and very much wanting some sort of analog tape emulation warmth.. 
3. Reflect is an Algorithmic Convolution Reverb. Even in the current version of Digital Performer, I’m not feeling like my reverb bases are covered quite enough.. and I expect Reflect to really help out along these lines.. and the integration of Algorithmic and Convolution technologies into a single reverb unit is a quite attractive thing.
4. TDesign is a Transient former.. I don’t know too much about this sorta effect.. but it does give you control over your dynamics / transience.. and there are quite a few production folks out there whom are very into such things
5. Matrix is a Vocoder, and according to a recent issue of Sound On Sound, a very impressive Vocoder.

 So… as you can no doubt see.. We’re talking about a massive upgrade from last year’s project.. studio wise anyway, so, what of the plan off attack?

Plan of Attack

I have lots of music ideas, and I’m pretty sure this project isn’t going to be able to explore them all.. but, we’ll certainly see how far we can make it.

• The first thing I want to do is.. See if I can’t jam out some stuff using Kore to control various Reaktor beatboxes, sequenced instruments, and sound generators..  This will effectively create one box full of building blocks.
• Next I want to experiment with a somewhat traditional-ish approach to sequencing.. where you play around on a keyboard, quantize stuff, and put together stuff that way..
• I want to use ReCycle to create REX files out of some of the results.. to use as building blocks that way.
• A rather central thing I want to explore is.. vocals. These vocals will probably be ether.. me speaking into microphones and vocoding the hell out of it.. / Melodying the hell of it.. or Cantor stuff.. somehow creatively mixed into the music.
• I’m actually thinking of the possibility that this album project could feature some sort of a narrative / lyrical whatever.. that might sit at the center of the album.. which would be a really huge jump for me to take.
• I see a part in the process where I jam away on guitar and bass to construct.. well… something or other.
• I imagine a part of the process where I have all kinds of content loaded up into Ableton Live.. and use the MIDI controllers / Mixers to kinda improvise out something…

 Of course, in the end, all this stuff must me integrated into one giant process… so, wish me luck…

Since I got the new MacBook I’ve been obsessed with a new video blogging project. This seems to have come out of the blue.. not that I hadn’t been thinking about video a good deal prior.. but jumping into this like this.. The level of commitment I’m now feeling for it.. the excitement and passion I’m feeling for it.. The feeling of just being possessed by it… that is very surprising to me.

It’s as if God spoke to me and said “Matt, you must start video blogging, you must become a video blogger.” “Well God, that’s a little random, don’t you think?” Of course the trouble with God is.. there’s really no one to turn for for second opinions.. well I suppose there’s always Satan but…

It comes to me like a revelation.. like one day you wake up and you realize “this is what I’m supposed to do,” and though you had thought about it prior.. never did it command you.. . not like this.

What’s brought Matt to this new video blogging project? 

Ok, brace you’re self.. this could get long.

Somehow I always wanted to be a film maker.. since I was little kid… So it should be no surprise that I took some video and film making classes in college.. though.. the equipment at Mass Art, the only state art school in the US, was not capable of.. well I couldn’t do what I wanted to do with it.. so I never really got too into video or film making while there… really only dreamed about it.. though I did take a few film criticism type classes to kinda.. prepare I guess… 

But I can remember hanging out in the dorms.. getting high with some folks.. and telling them how in a few years anyone can own a video camera, the tools to edit it, and how we’d be distributing it via the internet.. imagining that world of possibilities.. and so.. I sorta went in that direction.. with my music, learning web design skills.. etc.

Somehow.. somewhere in there.. perhaps it was a result of my first “real job” as an interactive designer.. I was able to afford a video camera.. I also bought Premier and After Effects. I think I must have been on a G3 that could barely handle it.. it didn’t have a DVD burner, and the hard drive was tiny… so in practice I didn’t do much video.. just played around a bit.. shot video.

I started creating a kind of video library of.. just raw footage.. some of it dating back to the collage years.. with the idea that I’d eventually do something with it.

Sometime latter.. still on that old G4.. I started dating this girl whom.. I fondly refer to as Sue of Zen. Sue was hard of hearing.. needed subtitles to watch tv or films. When she was thinking about getting HBO I saw my opportunity..  ”No, you should get Net Flicks I said… I was thinking “if she needs subtitles to watch films.. she probably will be fine with foreign films.” So.. I conned her into letting me pick the films.. all the great film makers of film history.. for the year or so that we were involved.. I’d see up to 8 films a week.

The effect of Sue of Zen and I watching so many films was.. I became a horrible film snob.. I mean when you watch that many films.. that many of the greatest films ever made.. it’s hard to tolerate the crap!  I haven’t watched films like that since.. and I’ve grown a little more forgiving of Hollywood.. 

Well there was one other effect.. I became a lot more sophisticated about film.

When it came time to buy my Mac Pro.. I was thinking Video Making when I bought it. 8 Cores, a better then standard graphics card, 1.7 or something or other terabytes of space.. go for the 2 24″ HD screens..  etc.. I was even budgeting in professional video cameras and lighting rigs.. . 

But the thing was.. I wasn’t really jumping in head first into the video production stuff.. Hell, I wasn’t doing much of anything.. well, that might be over stating it. 

A few latter: 

Anyway.. so a long story, right? I can’t really get into everything about what I’m up to.. so lets go into what I’m up to at the moment..

Adventures in Apple’s Motion 3D

Motion is a motion graphics program.. that’s sorta 2.5D-ish, that’s a part of Final Cut Studio.  Motion graphics is basically animation with tittle graphics for film and TV.. My approach is basically painting plus the dimension of time… 

So I don’t know Apple’s Motion..  And Apple hasn’t done a real good job with thinking through the learning process… as the manuel is rather sucky. They have a few training videos, but they don’t really get you up to speed.. they just kinda give you a few things.. and from there you just kind of fumble around.

For the last couple days now.. I’ve been doing these little motion graphics projects.. which are perhaps more about learning the software then it is about making great work.. I’m aiming for great work, but who knows if I’ll actually get there.

Still.. I can see the potential…   

A couple days latter (I think):

I’m slowly getting to the point that I kind of understand what’s going on in Motion.. It’s not really that hard to pick up.. though there’s a depth to it that still seems a little out of reach, maybe? Or maybe there’s just a lot of things I figure I ought to be able to do, that it should be able to do.. but I can’t figure out how to do it or even if you can do it.. but then I’m new to the case….I’ve rendered out a number of motion animations.. and.. I have mixed feelings on them.. of course there not exactly meant to stand on there own.. In any event, that I now feel like I’m getting a feel for the program.. my expectations for what I ought to be able to achieve.. is now to start really going up.My latest sets of projects have been to take stuff that I’ve designed in photoshop.. or created in photoshop. In Photoshop these images are constructed with lots of layers.. In motion I take the images of the different layers, and set them up in 3D space.. so the layers now have spatial relationships between them.. and I’ve got a few lights going.. and I’m goofing around with the cameras.. and everything is sorta moving around a little..This really does feel like painting plus the dimension of time… Painting in motion, if you will. Though using this kind of language to talk about it seems to overstate it a little.What I’m doing is very much in keeping with the kinds of stuff I was doing with After Effects those few years back. The After Effects CS4 upgrade is now on my “to get list”.. and I may likely get it rather shortly.. assuming that I continue my video commitment.. 

Motion Graphics / Animation Goals

My plan of attack, technology wise, is to start with Motion.. of course. Eventually I’ll jump into After Effects… of course.. And then, assuming I can get Cinema 4D to run on this computer, well.. there’s that. The first objective, I guess, is to obtain some serious competency with Motion.. and then into After Effects. Cinema 4D I expect to be a giant learning project, and for that.. the goal is simply to get to a point where I’m able to start creating stuff to integrate into this sort of motion graphics / animation pipeline.. as a pose to going all out into 3D animation. What I mean is.. I get the ball rolling with this stuff.. and then just add pieces to it.. a process by which I hope to develop competency with the other stuff.. but real competency with that stuff.. only needs to be at a level determined by this stuff.. if that all makes sense.

Conclusions

I don’t know what will come of all this stuff, but it’s a fun adventure to go on.. and I have laid down the ground work in many ways.. to hopefully do something great.. We’ll see what happens………..

[Editors note: This was written yesterday.. and seeing as Matt bought the MacBook, its likely he may start posting endlessly on the subject, and thus asks me to apologize on his behalf.] 

I’m sitting here thinking “hmm, I wonder if they’re in stores yet?” Should I race out and buy one? I’m so frightened.. yet in a rather Mark Hanser-ish way, tingly…. Ok.. so let this be an entry to help rationalize the damage I’m about to do to my fiscal situation…I don’t know if I can rationalize it, really.  Do I even need a laptop? I mean.. hell yeah, I want one, but do I need it?

I have a crapy laptop.. the sort a self respecting person refuses to take out in public.. Plus it has no hard disk space… and I can’t really do anything with it. Right now it rests by my bed side as a DVD player.. and even for that it sucks.. cause of the screen.. depending on the angle of view.. you can’t see things.. and you certainly can’t do design work on it.. plus it’s a PC so half my software won’t run on the damn thing.

Yeah.. there’s lots of reasons to want a new laptop…  and yes.. I do believe in the notion of having both a laptop and a desktop.. ether that or just a really powerful laptop.. but seeing as I have a monster of a desktop.. the laptop need seems less.. is it just for computing when I’m not sitting in this chair? 

I wonder how such a laptop could change my life. When I got the cheesy laptop.. I thought “oh cool, I’ll be able to work anywhere,” and I fantasized about the meaning and implications of this. But the reality was.. I was lucky if I got 2 hours of battery life out of it.. you could barely watch a whole movie on battery.. I certainly couldn’t do design work on it.. and lets face it.. it’s a pc, and who likes PCs? And there was the issue that it was rather heavy to have to lug around.

It did become my main computer for a time… My G4 PowerMac was so much more wimpy.. all it had going for it was hard drive space.. 

Latter that night, having picked up a new MacBook

Yup, I got the MacBook. How is it? It’s pretty awesome.. I have a video review I hope to put together..

There’s some technical issues.. I’m planing on replacing the hard drive.. which means I can’t really install any software that’s copy protection scheme ties it to the disk.. So.. so far about all I got on there is DP and Reason.. none of the Native Instruments stuff, Liquid Mix can’t run on it cause it has no hard drive..  

I suppose I could put some of that stuff on there in demo mode but.. thing is it literally takes about a day to install all my software.. and I’m not even sure that it would all totally fit.. and what if, in the interest in disk space.. if I should want to not put certain types of stuff on the laptop.. how should I divide my stuff up?

So yeah.. long story short.. I have limited software on there for now.. as I wait for a new drive to arrive.. once I get around to buying the thing…

I will say that battery life is way better then my old Dell… it’s also lighter, better constructed, less bulky, better designed, better OS, significantly more power all around… better features.. and.. well, costs a good deal more. (The old one was free after all) 

So.. I’m already feeling like the experience will be substantially different then what my experience was before.. We’ll see. 

So, if you haven’t heard.. a couple hours ago from this writing, Apple announced new laptops.. revisions from the MacBook Air to MacBook’s to MacBook Pros.. I’m not feeling totally up to speed on things… but I’ll give you where I’m coming from.. But I’ll give you the basics of what’s new, and follow it up from there.

What’s the hubbub about?

First off, what’s new and exciting?

• New “unibody:”  Stronger, lighter, thiner, nicer design
• Multi Touch Track Pad supporting gestures
• New Screen: Better color
• All Around more speed: processor, RAM speed, bus speed
• New Graphics system.. Apple claims up to 5 times the speed of the old laptops (Adobe CS4 stuff ought to really take advantage of this)

Ok, so that’s really about it..  Contrasts between MacBook and Mac Book Pro

• MacBook Pro offers two graphics processors.. one that consumes less power, the other is more powerful.. where as the MacBook only has one. 
• 13″ versus 15″
• 4.5 pounds for the MacBook, 5 pounds for the Mac Book Pro
• MacBook has 2 USB 2.0 ports, where as the MacBook Pro has 2 USB 1.0 ports plus a Firewire 800 port.. and oh yeah.. the MacBook Pro has a ExpressCard/34 slot.. 
• MacBook Pros have faster processors.. though not by large margins
• The new MacBooks Start at $1300, the Pros at $2000.

Out side of all that.. you do get more hard disk space on the pros.. and blah blah blah… but its all custom configureable from Apple’s website. There’s a New MacBook Air on the way.. which is significantly more attractive to me then there first model..  so.. What computer makes sense for you, of course, has to do with what your needs are.. to illustrate this concept, I’ll give you what I’m looking at. 

Matt’s Laptop Needs

I own a Mac Pro.. and an outdated cheesy pc laptop. In a new laptop I’m really looking for a secondary sorta Mac.. so for this reason “cheap” is good… There’s been roomers that Apple would announce super cheap ultra portables.. If they did, the question for me would be “is it the right mix of stuff?” This didn’t happen, though might still happen in the future.. one would think this could have a huge effect on Mac market share if it did.. so one assumes there’s some likely hood to it.. but even in a secondary laptop I do want “some power.”

I do everything from video to sound to animation to graphics to web stuff.. and who knows what I’m forgetting to mention.. all of which like power.. but um.. ok, here’s what I’m really looking at:

• To be able to do presentations
• I’m thinking of looking at doing work as a live sound engineer, and to have a system for making those live recordings.. and latency willing.. possibly effects processing.. where I can use my effects as a pose to what a house system has on offer..  Along with this goes a making multitrack recording of live performances that then can be mixed and potentially done any number of things with.
• Live Rig as musician.. use my synths and effects.. this can be my rig.
• The usual not being tethered to a desktop stuff.
• Some software allows you to connect multiple computers in order to increase your power.. like render farms for 3D graphics.. this kind of thing.
• If I were doing web work.. I could show you right from my computer.. what I was working on for you.. This is really ideal.
• Being able to watch movies portably.

Because I have a Mac Pro.. this laptop being secondary.. power not being so important and portability being more important then power or other considerations..

I find myself looking at the 13″ MacBooks  

Size matters 

The first issue is screen space.. 13″ is not happy time for pro apps… productivity is an issue.. but you can connect up a second monitor.. and I happen to own a 17″ monitor that’s not getting to much play these days.. so instant duel monitor at home.. and 13″ does have a portability advantage over larger laptops. And we’re only talking about 4.5 pounds.

But I want my Firewire Port!

Currently my studio features 2 pieces of Firewire Gear.. an audio interface and Liquid Mix 16. The latter is a DPS processor that, do to how it connects to your computer.. has huge latency issues making it useless for live applications.. Still.. not being able to use it with a 13″ laptop is still an issue. 

On the interface side of things.. stuffs a little more complex. My current interface would like to be updated.. the trouble is that, generally speaking, firewire interfaces are better then there USB brethren: USB 2.0 doesn’t have the same data rates.. not to mention requires more processing power… so in USB interfaces you don’t get the same number of ins and outs, and or sample rates.. as you can get over firewire. Things like MicPres are more important to actual sound quality.. but the better Pres are often limited to more high end gear.. and that gear is on the Firewire side.. it’s sort of suggestive that I might have to buy 2 interfaces.

Of course, as it turns out, my studio does have 2 USB interfaces: a Kore 1 controller plus an H4 Portable recorder.. the latter featuring phantom power even.. So really the only reason I would need to invest in a new interface is for live applications where I had a band going into the laptop.. and it turns out there are fairly cheap interfaces that can handle the mount ins I’d likely be wanting to handle.

I suppose the other issue is most video cameras want the firewire port… and Firewire drives are surely preferable.

So those are really my only complaints / Issues

There maybe more issues when I look more closely at the subject.. we’ll see.

The model I’m likely to go with probably runs $1400 plus a kind of extended warranty deal. In addition to that I’m thinking of getting a Mobile Me account and a $500 1 TB Time Capsule.. and a $50 AirPort Extreme Card for my Mac Pro..

Of course the trouble is.. I have limited money till a CD matures in a few months.. so I don’t know but..

And the other thing is a social media friend is looking to sell his old Mac Pro.. I was feeling pretty serious about buying that.. till Apple announced the new MacBooks..

Later that night: 

Well, I just discovered that hard drives are super cheap for this sorta computer.. we’re talking $80 for 500GB.. which means Matt’s going to go for a cheaper laptop and buy a drive to swap in there.. So.. anybody wanna buy a lap top drive?