Wow, Actually Back?

My God, I’ve left this alone a long time. I don’t even know what happened. One thing lead to another in a household that had a little too much appreciation for apathy (not to mention with a psychotic girlfriend), and I just didn’t post anything else. It’s now months and months down the line and I’ve moved to a new apartment in a better neighborhood, bought more vinyl, and gotten a lot better. I am currently just edging back into music production, but during my off-time, during which I spent a lot of time listening to techno, minimal, ambient and IDM/glitch, dubstep, my music taste has changed quite drastically. It has also broadened to include a lot more hip-hop, funk, and world music. Currently I seem to be re-exploring my appreciation for good, smooth, deep and progressive house, but when I went record shopping a few weeks ago, I came home with three records, three different genres.

Anyway, this is to say that I’m getting back at this. Hopefully I didn’t disappoint anyone when I disappeared for a few months. I hope you enjoy what’s to come.

My Laptop and nLite (Smiter of Microsoft)

At last! My laptop finally got back about four days ago. I was saddened to realize that although Staples had fixed my hardware, the operating system was too corrupted to save most of my photos and stuff. However, I keep my important stuff elsewhere, so my music is safe.

Anyway, as I write this, I’m reloading all my music onto my data partition after reformatting and installing a customized version of Windows XP, modified with possibly one of the greatest programs ever to happen to (not by) Microsoft – nLite!

You can read about it on the site, but quite simply, nLite takes your current, in-tact Windows installation and makes an installer out of it. It then allws you to strip away all the parts you don’t want. At last, Microsoft haters can be rid of crap such as Internet Explorer and that laughable software suite, Microsoft Security. You can also disable everything from themes to tooltips to those moronic sounds that windows has that seem to always play way too loud right in the middle of class, coffee shops, etc. You get the idea. MSN doesn’t work anymore, but I’m using Miranda IM, which is better anyway.

So yeah, that’s the latest update, and I will make a concerted effort to get back into production. Probably some time midweek. Later today or tomorrow I will be reinstalling Traktor and I’ll start mixing again during the week. Until then, take it easy, and check out nLite!

Vinyl At Last

Something like three years ago, I figured out how DJing was done, and what turntables were used for. I’ve been wanting them ever since. Yesterday, I got my wish

So, this is my new setup: two SL-1200MK2 turntables which I bought from my good friend Lazy Rich who recently switched over to some CDJ-1000Mk3s (amazing things. About $1700 worth of amazing, each ), the BCD2000 midi mixer I’m borrowing from my friend Jannus (DJ Loki. His website’s not up right now, but I’ll shoot it to you later), my boom box, my roommate Joe’s laptop (mine is STILL away being repaired. It’s been there for 38 days so far), and some duct-taped, 3-year-old KOSS headphones that are absolutely trashed (UR-20’s – I don’t think they even make those anymore).

The turntables were $700 in total, and Rich threw in cartridge and slipmats, and is even letting me borrow a few vinyls until my collection gets moving. Oh, and by the way, get moving is something it will be doing with a vengeance (my eyes are set on “Risingson” and “Butterfly Caught” by Massive Attack, along with some Trentmoller). Up until a few weeks ago, I’d been intending on saving up for Serato Scratch Live. That way I could save money on vinyls and just mix my mp3s in… but earlier today I was messing around with the few records I’ve got right now, and I tried mixing in some mp3s with B-DJ, and the sound difference is staggering. Now, admittedly, B-DJ is a terrible piece of software, and the mp3s were low quality, but even so, it was actually painful to listen to them. The other thing is that with records, I think each track would get the appreciation it deserves. With mp3s, you can pick up cheap or free tracks and not even really listen to them, but with vinyl, you don’t buy it unless you really like it.

Anyway, some point I’ll pick up Serato Scratch Live just because I want to be able to play my home-produced stuff. But for now, this works. Here’s a few more pictures of my setup. Enjoy!

These three and the first one are my favorites. Just some quick snaps from last night with my phone camera (hence the bad quality). Here’s a couple of others, including a really bad shot of B-DJ on Joe’s laptop. I wouldn’t use it if I didn’t have to, but the BCD2000 only does analog inputs if it’s hooked up to the computer.

     

Anyway, it’ll be a while before I get to upload any mixes with these things, I think. I’ll need to pick up some records, and I don’t want to install anything more on Joe’s computer than I have to. But hopefully Jannus will be up for jamming some point, and he has Serato Scratch Live and a very sexy mixer, so that should be awesome.

Until next time, I recommend anyone who hasn’t heard them to go listen to some Massive Attack, Morcheeba, and Tricky.

Why I Don’t Like Technology

I think I’m going to invest in two tape recorders, and some good old-fashioned blank tapes. Not because they have good quality, or because they’re efficient, or because I have that classic love of the good old fashioned analog feel a.k.a. distortion (I’ll take digital any day), but because they’re reliable. Six days ago my computer broke down, and I had to send it in to claim warranty. This will take two to three weeks, with a likely additional half a week due to holiday madness. I’ve had the common withdrawal symptoms, but they all pale in comparison to the inability to work on my music!

Asking Kirk to use his computer is a possibility, I suppose, but truth be told, I don’t think it would feel right. It’s very hard to concentrate on (at least somewhat) artistic activities when you’re worried about screwing up somebody’s stuff or – even worse – they decide they need it back, right when you’ve really gotten rolling.

Having tape recorders would be great, because I could record things as they come to me, without having to worry about the fact that my phone’s mic sucks. With two, I could also overdub and record onto the second tape. It’d be quite nice to make music with purely unsynthesized instruments for a change…

In other news, I’m really starting to get a feel for identifying how minimal tracks go together, and get my head wrapped around the fact that each element sounds totally wrong by its self. Fun stuff. When I get around to getting a job, I would like to do an analysis essay of some of the tracks I have access to.

‘Til then, Happy New Year!

Dead Laptop…

Hey guys, got some bad news. I can’t do any updates for a fairly indefinite amount of time because my laptop’s power source just died. It was smelling kind of like burnt plastic for a while, so I should have seen it coming, but that’s the way it is. Anyway, I’m back in Vancouver, so I’ll see what I can do to get it fixed tomorrow. Hope to be back up soon.

In other news, happy new years!

Hello? Is This Thing On…?

Well, first post, so here’s a basic overview of what I’ve been up to. I’ve been messing around with Ableton Live 6 for a few months, but I just started getting into using it for production a few weeks ago. I’ve got three tracks on the go right now – a trancy, almost horror-movie style track, a dirty electro bassline that sounds absolutely amazing, and a deep, progressive house track with a load of side-chain compression and some trance-y sounds. It’s mostly going great, but the big snag I’ve hit is adding enough elements to create a real crescendo.

So far it seems like finding a hook isn’t too tough (though it’ll probably get worse later on). It’s finding that fourth or fifth instrument or chord to give the track a full enough sound. Obviously it depends on the track, but regardless of how good a bassline sounds, there needs to be something more to call it music, even if it’s dance music. Currently I think I might just be too stuck on those hook concepts, so I’m assuming if I take some time away from them, I’ll get it down. Good news is that I’ve gotten good enough at using Ableton Live that I can use it as a scratch-pad to throw together my ideas without having to worry about the technicalities. I originally wanted Fruity Loops (FL Studio) for that reason, but I’m actually starting to think that Live is easily as intuitive and quick to use as FL, if not more so.

Now, right about here, I’d like to start a couple of big discussions on each of the tracks I’ve been working on, but I just went home for December, which means dial-up internet, so I’m not uploading them. It’s also starting to get late, and I’d like to take advantage of being tired and go to sleep early for once.

Outside of music, I’ve been nerding out like crazy and generally being antisocial – staying up way too late, watching Battlestar Galactica, and playing loads of Half Life 2 (despite the fact that it crashes 1/3 times it has to load anything. I think it’s got to do with some sort of memory errors relating to permission… or my RAM’s dead… or my graphics card needs a driver update). Also baking cookies. We have around 6 inches of snow outside, so I’m going to have to grab my snowboard and head out at some point too.

Anyway, when I get a chance at some high-speed access, I’ll upload my projects, and write a post on the processes I’ve been using to put them together, as well as the individual elements (what makes them sound that way, etc.).