SuperMeow Records

Well, I’ve made the switch to SuperMeow Records.  If you want to know what’s going on with me and my bands, come on over to SuperMeow Records. It ain’t much, but it’s home.

High Times Art Show

AES, CharterOak mics and Business Classes

I start attending this free entrepreneur class tomorrow to learn how to set up SuperMeow records. It’s kinda crazy all the stuff I have to think about.

Recording is going great. I find it’s easier to track the recording process with both bands using an Excel spreadsheet. For IF, each song has its own category, so I can check at a glance what needs to be done before we move on to the next stage, which will be re-amping in this case. It’s better than taking notes, in my opinion, because the process needs a flowchart, not a narrative. I got the idea from when I was temping at Coach in the architectural department (yes, Coach builds all their own stores, exactly alike), and they used these super detailed flowcharts to track the process of their architectural projects. Making an album is a lot like building a house in many ways. There’s a lot of people doing a lot of stuff and someone has to know who’s doing what at all times.

AES was super fun! Last time I went I was lucky enough not to have the knowledge to lust after all the stuff I did this time. For example, I’m really interested in these CharterOak microphones. They look awesome, and they sound great, at least according to TapeOp. It’s just impossible to hear those mics at AES, even though they have them set up. It’s a big warehouse! You just hear air.

Oh well, right now this is the only thing CharterOak I can afford.

I just gated my first snare

It had so much bleed and now it’s all snare.

hahahahahahahahah

Gooch and PLATO

In my secret identity, I’m a Masters in TESOL student at CUNY Hunter. I’m writing a paper on Computer Assisted Language Learning, and just came across this little nugget regarding the oldest computerized music instruction ever.

From wikipedia on the PLATO computer learning system

It was also possible to connect the terminal to peripheral devices. One such peripheral was the Gooch Synthetic Woodwind (named after inventor Sherwin Gooch), a synthesizer that offered 4 voice music synthesis to provide sound in PLATO courseware. This was later supplanted on the PLATO V terminal by the Gooch Cybernetic Synthesizer, which had 16 voices that could be programmed individually or combined to make more complex sounds. This allowed for what today is known as multimedia experiences. A PLATO-compatible music language was developed for these synthesizers, as well as a compiler for the language, two music text editors, a filing system for music binaries, programs to play the music binaries in real time, and many debugging and compositional aids. A number of interactive compositional programs have also been written.
Another peripheral was the Votrax speech synthesizer, and a “say” instruction (with “saylang” instruction to choose the language) was added to the Tutor programming language to support text-to-speech synthesis using the Votrax.
The goal of this system was to provide tools for music educators to use in the development of instructional materials, which might possibly include music dictation drills, automatically graded keyboard performances, envelope and timbre ear-training, interactive examples or labs in musical acoustics, and composition and theory exercises with immediate feedback.[3]

(1) I must find examples of these sounds immediately.

(2) I must have one please.

Recording Filthy Savage part 2

Last night we just did instrumental parts because Rudy couldn’t make it. One less thing to worry about

I still am having so much trouble finding 1/8″ to 1/4″ adaptors! How come there’s like a million of them around when you don’t need them? They’re like guitar picks, or lighters. I bought a bunch of them online from Full Compass and they’ll be arriving soon. As god is my witness, I’ll never run short of adaptors again!!!

I made an entire Excel file of exactly where everything needs to be plugged in, and I feel confident now that I can hook up the mixer to the motu. I can’t believe I’m finally using all those ins in the back of the motu that I ignored for so long. That mixer is such a great addition to my gear.

Here’s what makes me crazy though about the motu, and what was so confusing to me for so long:

On the mixer, it’s channel one
On the motu, it’s channel one
In the software, it’s channel three.

Why? Because the motu has two mic ins, so one and two are for the built-in mic pre-amps. ARRRRGGGHHH!!! It’s just so hard to remember the minus-2 equation when I’m looking at the kick drum on the screen and then wanting to boost the gain, and I see the channel is 3 on ableton live and my hand goes over to the gain on the 3rd channel of the mixer. Maddening.

We did two songs last night, then Ron came over and put down some bass. This is my favorite pic of the evening, from ye olde celle phone of course.

It made me feel like my record label is real, bringing people together from two different bands I’m working with.

Oh, and we got the okay from 3 Egg Studios to do an entire Imaginary Friends album, not just an EP!!!!!!

Almost a year

I’ve been doing this blog for almost a year now.

So.

After nearly a year of recording people for small change, here’s what I’ve learned.

(1) Fuck Craig’s List. There’s a whole weird subset of human beings who just hang out on Craig’s List and don’t do much else. I can’t advertise to them– it’s too weird. I met a handful of cool people, but for the most part the effort I put into advertising my little studio on there versus the results was ludicrous. I actually have a lot of great real world contacts out there and I realized this year it’s much better to cultivate them than reach out to the martians that hang out on that board.

The only thing good about it is it pushed the numbers on my blog but whatevs.

Weird Al says it better than me

(2) Some people really WANT to be criticized!!! Sometimes in the past year I realize I’ve been too supportive. Someone will sing and I’ll say, ok that’s great– and they doubt themselves so much that my supporting them reduces MY credibility. I mean, first off, jesus h. christ what the fuck singers? Relax. If you hate your own music so much stop doing it.

(3) As I’ve mentioned before, just working with anyone actually doesn’t improve my own skills– I have to work with musicians that I respect and that I think are good if I want to get better as a producer and nascent engineer.

(4) I have got to find better ways to organize myself. I find Excel works really well for to do lists and such, but I don’t make time for relaxation so I wind up procrastinating. Like my friend Kobie says about the Snooze button. It’s far better to set your alarm for later and get good sleep and be behind schedule than to ride the snooze button for an hour and then feel like crap and be behind schedule.

I have to accept that for four hours a day I’m probably gonna fuck around and hang out with my friends or watch an old movie with my bf or eat a nice meal. And then there’s eight hours of sleep! That only leaves 12 hours for working, and for me that’s not enough. I always schedule myself as if I’m going to do nothing but work on projects for 16 hours a day. But I don’t– I can only make myself work 12, and if I do a bunch of heavily productive days like that, I’ll wind up just stopping for a while and doing nothing and feeling bad.

I’ve learned a lot of other stuff too but I think this blog post has become another form of procrastinating. Today I’m recording Filthy Savage, and THIS time I’m going to have everything set up before they come over. I swear!! Ron from Imaginary Friends is coming over to lay down some bass tracks. Then we’re headed over to Occupy Wall Street (which has been taking up some of my time lately too) to hang out for awhile. Damn Liberty Plaza is a fun place to hang out these days!!!!

Oh yeah my band Reggae Fresh, who I play keyboards for, played last night and it was an excellent show. Here’s a link to our first performance (not from last night)