Hemispheres

test

2012-01-11T11:16:00.001-05:00

test

stuff

2010-05-28T14:26:00.000-04:00

This is more of a reminder post for me, but seeing as a good chunk of it is music related, it might be interesting for anyone that reads this (which is nobody). Got a lot of stuff I'd like to get accomplished this weekend, and thanks to the holiday I've got three days to do it.

1. Tonight, I will be doing mixing/post-production/mastering for Hues, Vol. 2, we're close to release now. I may even be throwing some Mopho in the mix.

2. I need to dismantle my old TV stand, keep any pieces I might have use for, and chuck the rest. Also want to go through, well, everything in the apartment and start chucking/organizing things a bit better.

3. Been putting this off for too long due to laziness. Need to get rid of one of my old email addresses, which means rerouting whatever important things still go to that one to one of my current addresses.

4. Going to work on some logo concepts for my next project after Hues 2. NOT going to be under the Fixate moniker, which will remain instrumental. I've got two names picked out, and pretty sure which I'm going with. Going to have to remain a mystery for now.

5. Would like to get some concepts/ideas going for my Lost poster design. Mostly doing it for myself, but will get some made up for friends/family if they want.

6. Clean and tune the guitar, and maybe even get in some practice. Going to be using it a lot more in the near future.

that's a wrap.

2010-05-18T11:28:00.001-04:00

Hues, Vol. 2 is finished! That is, the writing part of it. Now it just has to sit and wait a bit til I feel like playing the part of sound engineer/mixer/mastering tech. Should be ready for release in a few weeks, just in time for me to keep my Spring 2010 promise. The result is a mellower album than Vol. 1, with an almost film soundtrack feel to the songs.

In the meantime, I'm laying the groundwork for the next project. Hues, Vol. 3 is on hold for the moment. Hell, this might not even be Fixate material. I am restricting myself technologically speaking. I don't have the money for a heck of a lot of hardware, so I'm going to treat my software as though it is hardware. In other words, I'm going to treat this next project as though I only own a few different synths. For drums, I'll be sticking only with Goldbaby's excellent 909 Tape sample collection. As far as synths go, I'll be relying on the Blofeld, the soon to arrive Mopho, and a couple other softsynths to round things out a bit, as well as Kontakt for piano or strings as the need arises. I'll also be using guitar heavily throughout this project. And finally, my voice. I'm still not much of a writer, lyrics-wise, but I should be able to make this work. I'm going to be meticulous with this project, this is going to be my baby, my masterpiece.

Sonically speaking, been listening to a lot of classic rock as of late (Floyd, Zep, The Who, etc.). Should give you some idea as to where a lot of influence is coming from.

snagged

2010-05-03T14:14:00.000-04:00

Hit a bit of a snag with the fifth song for Hues 2. May have to scrap it and start from scratch, shouldn't take too long though, I have some ideas.

Also, cover:

Very excited to start working on the next project. Whether it be Hues 3 or something different is up in the air right now.

Welcome back Enemy

2010-04-08T13:26:00.000-04:00

Well, in my last post I mentioned being stuck on a couple songs for the EP. I've since decided that one of them is a lost cause, and needed to bring in a ringer. Enter "Enemy"(temp title). Before the conception of Hues 1, I had a lot of unfinished ideas on my Myspace player, mostly done in Reason. The most finished of these was "Enemy", which also happened to be a favorite of anyone willing to give a listen.

Last studio session I ripped almost all of the MIDI into Live, to replace the synths and piano with my more powerful arsenal of VSTs. I did however keep one Reason synth intact, if only because of the massive modulation, and it already sounded too badass to change. Long ago my friend Hunter helped me out by writing and recording a guitar part for the outro portion, and I still have that original audio. Used to sound kind of iffy, but fits right in with the new synth sounds I've chosen.

1 song to go.

arduinome128 progress.

2010-03-29T15:26:00.000-04:00

It's been about 2 months since I ordered the parts for the second half of my arduinome 128. Finally getting around to getting it together. Over the weekend I've soldered the bright orange LCDs (in contrast to the blue of the first half already built), and put the 64 diodes in their proper place, ready for soldering. Hopefully I'll get that soldering done by the weekend and get the thing wired up before Easter. After that, I just need to look into the enclosure, which means a trip to home depot for supplies. Going to be awesome when it's done, and will make a great production and live interface with the help of the LiveControl app.

I'll be posting up album artwork for the new EP. We're in the home stretch.

60%

2010-03-19T12:12:00.000-04:00

That's where I'd say I'm at on Vol. 2. 3 of the songs are at or very near completion. One's about half way done and I'm a bit stuck on the other. Got some new toys to play with tonight (namely Sylenth), so maybe that will give me some ideas.

new ish.

2010-03-19T11:47:00.002-04:00

From Vol. 2, almost done with this one.

...and beyond!

2010-03-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

If Hues, Vol. 2 gets released before the end of Spring (which it should), that puts it at around 6 months from inception to release. Not bad, I'm getting better at getting shit done. So the goal would certainly be to keep this up, and have Vol. 3 finished by the end of fall. Where to then?

Beyond a physical release encompassing all 3 volumes into one, I'd like to get some more rock influence into my work, and ultimately, vocals. I think Vol. 3 might be able to help me bridge the gap there, and even Vol. 2 (there's some guitar sneaking in there). Now, I'm not a great guitar player, so what's there will either be pretty minimal, or will be played by guests. "Enemy" will likely resurface during this time, though by then it will probably need a little work.

video?

2010-02-26T11:59:00.002-05:00

I'm a proud owner of a Palm Pre, and it looks like today they'll be adding video recording capability in their latest OS update. Great news for me, as I don't have any way to record videos currently. Possibly some studio videos on the horizon.

And furthermore.

2010-02-22T11:07:00.000-05:00

I never really know what direction I'm heading musically until I'm already halfway down the road, so to speak. But if, after Hues 2, that road leads immediately to Hues 3; I'll be thinking about combining them all into one 15 track album, and getting them made into physical copies for sale at shows(hopefully soon)/online/freebies to friends & family/etc. Probably cheap too, around $5-$6.

Hues, Vol. 2

2010-02-22T09:48:00.000-05:00

Wasn't really the original plan, but the creative center of my brain apparently disagrees with that. Hues, Vol. 2 is well underway. I have a majority of the music planned out already, should only be another month or two until it is ready for release. Definitely the quickest I've ever got something done from start to finish musically. More info coming soon, but just as the first Hues, we're looking at 5 tracks, all centered around a central theme of color.

blueprints.

2010-02-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

So my plan of having an album or EP done by the end of February is falling apart somewhat. The past few weeks haven't been all that productive in the studio(being sick is a bitch), though I have come up with some ideas that I feel are pretty interesting.

Before I progress with any of them though, I'm taking myself back to synthesizer school. I've always felt I've been pretty knowledgeable about how my synth and VSTi's work, and how they make the sounds that they do, but I could probably use a refresher. So my goal for this weekend's studio session is to sit down with my Blofeld(and possibly its manual), as well as a few select VSTs, and just work on writing my own new synth patches from scratch; to really understand everything a little bit better. As a bonus, I'll get a nice handful of my own custom patches to work with in the end as well.

numbers.

2010-01-15T13:26:00.005-05:00

I took part in a compilation album about a month ago, in which each artist had to create a song using samples from the Conet Project. This is a series of recordings of old shortwave Number Stations. More info here, as even I do not entirely understand: http://www.archive.org/details/ird059

Anyway, it's releasing today as a free download in just a couple short hours. For now though, it is available for streaming at Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/publicspaceslab/sets/ps015-va-number-stations

When it's available, you'll be able to download it here: http://lab.pubspaces.com/2010/01/ps015-va-number-stations

My track was placed as number two, fitting as the title of my track was inspired by The Prisoner.

Maybe too ambitious.

2010-01-13T14:10:00.001-05:00

From now til the end of February, I'm going to attempt to write a completely new EP (not including the mixing and mastering parts). Similar to the RPM Challenge, but different rules. Doubt I'll make it to 10 tracks like the Challenge, though that would be really nice. I have a really cool track started using the new Tattoo drum VSTi from Audio Damage with a really cool Absynth pad. Really cool and chill so far. So I've got things started.

If all goes well, I'll switch gears for the month of March/April and try to jam out a chiptune album under a new moniker.

By then, Pennsylvania will be thawing out, and I'll begin to think about live shows again. Hopefully there will be someplace cool to accommodate us this time around.

In gear news, I will be receiving the final parts to put together my Arduinome 128 by the end of this week. Lots of soldering to do, and I still have to work out my enclosure for it. Got a faceplate though at least.

much anticipation.

2009-12-24T11:41:00.000-05:00

Audio Damage's new drumsynth/sequencer called Tattoo is very close to completion. It's also going to be VERY fairly priced (I'd even go as far as to say UNfair to AD). It looks absolutely amazing and very fun to play with.

http://www.audiodamage.com/instruments/product.php?pid=AD024

divergence.

2009-12-22T14:06:00.000-05:00

Another uneventful evening in the studio the past week, and I'm not entirely sure when I'll get the chance to sit down in there again in the next couple weeks. Friday's are typically my day for this stuff, but Xmas and New Years both fall on that day. Might still be doable, but we'll have to wait and see.

I do, however, have some new toys to play with once I do get the chance. I installed the new Ableton Live 8.1 update last night, along with Max for Live. I'm greatly looking forward to toying around with SevenUp and Stretta's Max for Live suite, with my Arduinome.

Speaking of Arduinomes, Sparkfun's Free Day is coming up, at which point I will be trying to get the remainder of the parts I need for my 128 at shipping cost.

As the title of the post states, I may need to make a divergence from new album business, and concentrate on putting together a proper Live show. As it stands now, I only have a few songs from Hues set up to run in the old SevenUp Live. One of them turned out really well and could be a great opener, while the other two need some work. I also might work on some new Live only tracks, stuff to keep the listeners interested, or some remixing.

on the menu for this evening.

2009-12-18T13:12:00.000-05:00

Going to continue getting some new ideas for melodies and such as they come to me. The past few weeks I've been almost bored in the studio. After the time spent on getting Hues all together, I think my brain has been enjoying its time off a little too much. If I can't get things jumpstarted on a new song, maybe some remixing of Hues will be in order.

gadgets galore.

2009-12-15T13:48:00.000-05:00

Added a few things to the blog page, including RSS links and a sidebar version of my Bandcamp music player. I also changed some font sizes and positioning. All in all I'm liking this theme a lot.

Musically, still working out the right direction to go with the next album, but getting a lot of ideas down.

Hues, Vol. 1

2009-12-14T11:43:00.002-05:00

Hues, Vol. 1 was released on October 20, 2009 as a free/pay-as-you-want download. 5 tracks of pure unadulterated electronic music goodness (I don't know). You can listen to it using the embedded player below, or visit http://fixate.bandcamp.com. Tell everyone.

<a href="http://fixate.bandcamp.com/album/hues-vol-1">Revolution by Fixate</a>

The Hues series will continue for at least an additional 2 EPs, possibly even 3. It's up in the air yet whether I will continue it immediately or move on to a full length. More to come.

That was the easy part.

2009-12-12T13:32:00.001-05:00

Arduinome shield completed

New junk.

2009-12-12T00:52:00.001-05:00

Is this thing on?

2009-12-11T14:26:00.000-05:00

And we're back. There should be more things going on here in the near future, things are ramping up for the next album.

agenda.

2008-12-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

I like making lists. Occasionally, they keep me on track. So for the next recording session, I'd like to accomplish:

1. Reorganize and restructure either "4am", "acadia", and/or "violet" to prepare for vocals. Setting up chorus and verse and such.

2. Pick/start/finish lyrics for one or more of the above.

3. Continue work on the new file I started last weekend. Somewhat different than the stuff I have been writing. Whether it actually gets used or not is another story, but it's a fun track to work on.

things change.

2008-10-30T10:37:00.000-04:00

Hues, Vol. 1
1. intro(no title yet)
2. all saints day (temporary title, started recording Nov. 1)
3. 4am
4. violet (will probably be renamed)
5. acadia (will probably be renamed)
6. enemy

1.

As for release date, it's still pretty up in the air. I'm looking at an early 2009 release date, probably in the 1st quarter.

tis better to fly by the seat of thy pants.

2008-09-03T15:48:00.000-04:00

I was about to make a new post detailing my "plans" for the upcoming months, where I stand with the new album, and where I want to be in a few months. Then I suddenly realized, that I never succeed when I plan ahead. So instead, I'll talk about what I have accomplished, which is not much.

1. I'm nearly back to step 1, and I'm starting to take a more analytical approach, instead of just opening up Live and shooting off random snippets that I'll probably never use.

2. I have written out short outlines of what I want certain sounds to sound or feel like on the upcoming record. Setting these foundations I believe will allow me to better grow and expand my ideas, it gives me something to work towards. I can say, "Hey myself, I think I'm going to work on Song A today", and I'll say "Okay me." And then they'll come to take me away HAHA! Annnyway, some of the outlines are below:

a. A mellow piano based track, very minimalistic.
b. A heavier rock based song
c. A funky, very electronic song with guitar. Reminiscent of some IAMX stuff.
d. A very drum and bass driven song.
e. A new intro, very epic(of course), will attempt to mesh it right into track 2 on the cd for a nice effect.
f. Reworking of Frozen.
g. Reworking of Enemy (rerecording the guitar)
h. Reworking of Violet (not sure any of you have ever heard this one, very hip-hop-ish, very fucking cool. It even gets thumbs up from my metal friends.)

ta ta for now

achtung!

2008-08-20T23:02:00.000-04:00

As you can see, I've got some things on my plate at the moment. I'm going to begin work on the Losing My Religion cover this week. After that will be the Depeche Mode cover. While I'm working on those I'm sure I'll be messing with my latest song. It only says "better balls" because that is the name of the file(don't ask). I am also working on drums and programming for a Synthetic Solace track, called "the tide". More on this stuff soon.

me wanties.

2008-06-18T14:34:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it can feel good to get away from the studio. It's unfortunate that ideas will happen at these times. I do have a laptop, loaded up with my music software, but without a nice small portable controller, I don't have much desire to get the ideas down. The QWERTY keyboard MIDI driver is a neat idea, but too much of a pain to work with. But now it looks like Korg has answered my prayers:

The only one that I feel that I'll really need is the nanoKEY (the keyboard one, duh). If I'm on my laptop somewhere and need to get some drums down, the keyboard will work just fine for that, and no need to mess with the nanoKONTROL either(the mixer looking one). From what I hear, these are going to be reasonably priced as well. I saw some European prices on some other site, all around £49, which puts it at around $96 here now, at the current exchange rate...wow that's really sad. Still though I think it's worth it.

an experiment.

2008-06-17T15:45:00.000-04:00

i'm getting a little sick of getting into a rut every so often when it comes to writing music. it really happens far too often, and takes far too long to get out of. Sometimes the constant weeding through samples, presets, synths to use in a song can take precedence, and can wear you out rather quickly.

so my experiment for today, is to start a new song. i'm going to leave my VSTs either all at their default setting, or do the entire song in piano tracks. For drums, just going to pick the first samples I see and get to work on concentrating on patterns.

i'm fighting to split apart the two parts of the musical process that have been going head to head in my...head. composition. then production.

we'll see how that goes.

snippet.2

2008-06-05T14:51:00.000-04:00

"when the sky begins to fall"

we've been digging the hole
for far too many years
and it'll be time to say goodbye
when we all just disappear

C:
so is this how it ends
doesn't really matter at all
i'll be right beside you
when the sky begins to fall

the world grows silent
and time slows to a crawl
i'll be right beside you
when the sky begins to fall

what have we done
it's only begun

-----------------------------------

"reflection"

1st chorus:
the reflections that you see
are far too faded for me
i'm fighting to break free
you're not what I'll ever be

2nd chorus:
the reflections that you see
are far too faded for me
i'm fighting to break free
you're not what I'll ever fucking be
it's become so hard to believe
the reality that we perceive
oh how much you've been deceived
I think it's time for you to leave

more ramblings.

2008-05-21T13:08:00.000-04:00

is it just me?

now, I've not been to many "industrial" shows. pretty much Nails and 51 Peg and that's it. but as it seems, when you went to a show for industrial music, it really wasn't all that dissimilar from a rock 'n roll show. you had guitars(albeit likely heavily distorted), on occasion you had a real drummer, and most importantly, you had that same energy.

nowadays, it seems like fans in the "industrial scene*(vomit)" are only interested in "club nights" and seeing the frontman of one of today's terrible "industrial" acts play DJ for a couple hours instead of actually playing music. now it may be argued that energy on a dance floor could rival that of a rock or metal show. Probably true, but it's a different kind of energy. It's not even close to the same.

maybe those of us that are not trying to pander to this crowd should try to garner fans that aren't so diluted. you want to dance? go to a rave. when I start performing all I want from people is to just chill out and enjoy the show, have some drinks, and have a good time.

*I really hate this fucking word.

p.s. I am now 1/4 century old.

snippet.1

2008-05-06T09:19:00.000-04:00

works in progress.
------------------------------

i am my own obstruction
breeding self-destruction
digging a deeper hole
failure i can't control

i've got too much ambition
yet i lack inspiration
this repeating pattern
and it just keeps on turning

i'm backed up to the wall
and there's nowhere to run
can't seem to fight myself
when i've become undone

-------------------------------------

even after all
i'm still stronger than you
you may see a wall
but I just push right through

your greed is a virtue
that i will never share

jumping ship?

2008-05-05T15:43:00.000-04:00

It occurs to me that a growing number of independent artists I have met on Myspace and other such sites(some I would even call friends) are seriously considering giving up on music. Their reasoning? Money(as if it should come as any surprise). More bitching about piracy. More bitching about it not being worth it. Sorry fellas, but if that's the way you see things, then your heart was never in it to begin with. Electronic musicians today sicken me. One for example, has completely given up on industrial. He now fronts a band that plays a style that is very popular on the radio. To me, that is the absolute definition of sell out. Well best of luck buddy.

The real problem with industrial music(or any type of electronic music) today is simple. Complete and blatant lack of originality or substance. Everyone is just out to emulate their favorite "industrial" band(9 out of 10 it's Combichrist). The "scene" or whatever the fuck you pricks want to call it, is so overpopulated with total garbage, that it is hard for something interesting and new to shine through it all.

So, what do people in this situation do? Give up or press on it seems. Honestly, it's going to be nice to separate the true musicians, the ones who are mind, body and soul 100% into what they do, from those out there who just picked up an Access Virus just because it was "cool" and "all my favorite bands use it".

I'm releasing my next album as a FREE, high-quality mp3 download. Probably distributed by torrent.

What side of the fence do you think I'm on?

Fuck off.

plans.

2008-04-24T10:07:00.000-04:00

Firstly, I'm disappointed in you, Pennsylvania. You can probably guess why (hint: it's about politics).

Down to business.

1. The move was successful and I am very comfortable in my new recording space:

2. I'm no longer using Reason as my primary musical program. I'm moving on to Ableton Live and VSTs, and loving it. I feel renewed inspiration now and am really digging in. I absolutely adore the Tension plug-in that came with Live, since I'm a sucker for a plucked string sound, and putting all sorts of effects on it.

3. I've been really messing around with the Ebow lately, and getting some crazy feedback sounds out of it when held a certain way, it's really cool and I need to just record myself fucking around for later use.

4. I'm going to work on a cover soon. It's a well known song, or at least it should be. The band is still recognizable today, and the song is from the early 90's. I can't really think of anyone else covering it, honestly. Everyone can send me a guess. Or just wait.

5. More and more lyrical ideas are coming to me. I may finally be settling into having to be a lyricist. I just hope they sound as good sung as they do on paper, or on the computer screen in this case.

6. I'm going to stop being social soon and really concentrate on the work ahead.

ghosts.

2008-03-06T10:17:00.000-05:00

It appears that the latest Nine Inch Nails release, "Ghosts I-IV", is going to be a HUGE success for Mr. Reznor. I couldn't be happier that this type of business model finally seems to be working well for someone. Sorry Trent, I only bought the $10 version, because I don't have a Blu-ray player and honestly, we both know that the multi-tracks will hit the torrent sites the day it reaches someones hand. That said, the printed book would have been very cool to have.

Onto my point, and why I'm posting this in a blog that solely pertains to my own musical endeavors. Just a couple weeks ago I was pondering over good ways for an independent artist to release music today. One of the ideas I posed was selling a pre-order of your physical CD along with an immediate download of the mp3s. Oddly enough, I was thinking around $10 as a fair price for this, CDs are too expensive nowadays. Now I'm not saying that my idea was stolen or anything, anyone could have thought of it, but it is nice to see that it can work. It just remains to be seen if it will work for someone who isn't as well known as Trent Reznor.

Unfortunately, it's looking more and more likely that I will have to stick with digital release only for now. Now if my fanbase starts to drastically grow when I start revealing vocal tracks, then maybe I can go back to this original plan. I figure as long as I were to sell at least 100 preorders, I could still do the physical release.

More music on the way, for now enjoy a demo version of "Enemy" on my Myspace or Vampirefreaks page.

3.3.08

2008-03-03T22:04:00.000-05:00

productive weekend.

2008-02-25T09:48:00.000-05:00

Saturday I went over to my friend Hunter's garage studio. I am collaborating with him a lot on my next release, since he is far better at writing guitar than I will probably ever be. He and I have both actually been in quite a rut lately, struck with a case of severe writers block. It's looking like I might actually be breaking free from that a bit. While I was waiting for him to come down, I had opened up one of my songs and just hit play. Minutes later I was beginning to structure the song, which I had been sitting on for months now. Maybe the change of scenery was all I needed to jumpstart my creative drive. There is a part in the song where I had wanted guitar added, and Hunter wrote the perfect part for it. Since his studio is undergoing some changes and is not quite set up to record, I simply translated it to MIDI and saved it to bring home with me.

Guitar for the song (the file is titled "Enemy", but the final song title will probably be no where near that) will likely be recorded tonight or later this week. I have been looking through my lyrics for something for this song as well. The structure of the song isn't the usual verse-chorus-verse and so on, but I should be able to find something in my mess of lyrics.

This song is probably going to be the last track for the CD. It just has that feel.

amazing.

2008-02-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

My new computer is a beast. I won't be able to fully make use of it until after the move, but I was able to test one of my Reason files. A song that makes the CPU meter jump to around 50% on my AMD machine didn't even budge the CPU meter on my new Core 2 Duo machine. I'm in heaven.

Unfortunately, not even a half hour after I had installed Windows, the IDE connection died. At least my hard drives are SATA. Rather than dismantle the machine to send the motherboard back, I just put the DVD burner into my AMD machine (it works there btw) and ordered a SATA burner instead. I should be fully in business once that arrives.

I suppose my days as an AMD man are over.

rant.

2008-02-13T16:14:00.000-05:00

take off the fucking gas masks.

fuck your fashion.
fuck your accessories.
fuck your fake hair extensions.

upgrade.

2008-02-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

I finally ordered the parts for my new studio machine. The new beautiful widescreen monitor will arrive today, as well as the case. Another box should be arriving Friday with all of the other parts. This thing is just going to blow my current setup out of the water, CPU load-wise:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz (Currently AMD Athlon X2 2.4 Ghz)
2GB RAM (Currently 1GB)
80GB Drive for the OS and Programs
250GB Drive for audio/reason refills/samples

I'm also not intending to let this machine touch the internet. Not going to let any nasties from the web slow this baby down.

Also waiting on the porch when I get off work is an Ebow. I've just been in love with the audio samples I've heard of what this thing can do, and I'm itching to run it through some wild effects. I plan on jamming with it later tonight, if anything interesting gets recorded maybe I'll put up a sound sample.

toodles.

eight down...sort of.

2008-01-15T10:40:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago I posted some descriptions of tracks I'm working on. That list has now grown from 7 to 8. I should feel like I'm getting close to reaching some sort of milestone for the record, but I really don't. With the exception of the two complete instrumentals on my Myspace/VF pages, the rest of the songs are all simply a collection of ideas right now. They are in serious need of structure and finishing, but the problem is, before I get motivated enough to finish one, I get an idea for the next.

It's hard to say what's going to happen to some of these tracks. I like them all so I will hope that I will get around to finishing some of them soon. Perhaps moving into my new studio space will spark something.

I really want to get some vocals down so you I can give you guys at least a small taste of what's to come. I am still rather new to the whole writing thing as far as lyrics go, and I'm finding it more difficult than I thought it would be.

More release musings.

2008-01-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

This sort of expands on my post about what avenues independent artists can take to sell their music. Trent Reznor recently revealed the sales figures of Saul Williams' last album. A whopping 1 out of every 5 people decided it was worth $5 to download. I have absolutely nothing against piracy, but when an artist puts something out there at such a low price for you, and you still would rather just download the free version or find a torrent, that's just sad. If people didn't like it that's fine (i love the album), but I know there are people out there that just plain feel that music should be completely free, and the artist is entitled to nothing. Ridiculous. Still, there were 28,322 purchases at $5 each. That's $141,610 in sales. Saul's last album sold about that much, but it was on a label, and I can guarantee he didn't see that kind of money. There's certain expenses I'm sure, but that's almost 4 times my annual salary, I could more than live comfortably on that. Obviously you have to have the kind of fanbase that Trent and Saul have to pull those kind of sales, but I'm not looking to quit my day job any time soon anyway.

Music is very different today because of the internet, because of piracy. I don't believe that it has to be a turn for the worse though. We as artists just need to adapt. Stop selling your CDs for record label prices for one, you do not need to be as greedy as they are. $15? Give me a break. The information is out there on the net for anyone to see, and they all know that you only had to pay a couple bucks, maybe $3, to get that CD pressed. This would be fine on a label, considering you'd only get a few bucks or something kicked back to you per sale, probably less. But if you're independent, and getting the discs pressed yourself, that much profit, while nice, is too much. $10? Okay. But you could even go as low as $8 or $6 and still make double your money, which could then go into supporting a tour, or pressing more discs.

I still believe that a physical disc is not dead just yet. Here's a new thought I have had.

1. Sell pre-orders of the album at your designated price(probably $6-$8 by the time I'm ready).

2. As reward for preordering, give them a digital copy of the CD.

3. Offer incentive that if you reach a certain number of preorders (100 maybe), that you'll get the discs pressed and send them out when you get them back, free shipping in the US, or wherevever you're from. (Will probably have to sell for closer to $8 to offset that cost though, but that's still a great deal).

Think about it, you sell at least 100 preorders, giving you at least $800. That's the majority of the CD Duplication cost. I think this model could work out well for the independent artist and his/her/their fans.

ebay screw-up.

2007-12-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

I received my new monitors yesterday. Unfortunately, they are not the same model as listed in the auction. I have the TR6's now instead of TR8's. Rather than having to return them I've decided to hold on to them though, they still sound better than my M-audio 4-inchers. The guy selling them agreed to refund me $50, which makes the price I paid fair. So I'm happy. Next time I upgrade speakers I'll be going all out though.

collaborations.

2007-12-27T11:13:00.000-05:00

As much as I like to work alone, I'm going to be getting some people involved in the making of this record. It should make for some pretty interesting results.

So far two people are confirmed as being a part of this project. A friend of mine who is working to get his own industrial band off the ground will be lending a hand on some of the writing, programming and guitar. Also, an old acquaintance from my high school days who is now producing some well made hip hop instrumentals (soon to have vocals added), is going to lend a hand with some programming as well, and possibly some backup vocals. As a trade-off, I may be producing a track for his album, which is a great opportunity as well.

There may be the possibility of others, but definitely not many more.

greed.

2007-12-21T16:31:00.000-05:00

I posted this a few weeks ago on my vampirefreaks page, it sort of ties into my last post, so here it is:

Greed. It's apparent in just about anywhere in the world. But the kind of greed I want to talk about is the music industry, and the bands as well.

We all know that most record labels are run by corporate slime and are only interested in bands that will make the charts and sell lots of CDs. It's unbelievable that these people still can't grasp why piracy is causing so much grief for their still fat wallets. What's sad about this is that even record labels "in the scene" are acting nearly the same way.

I understand that they need to make their money, but charging $15 or MORE for a CD is ridiculous(I don't care if it is 2 discs, the second disc likely has nothing of interest anyway), and I do not blame the pirates for stealing. I also don't blame one of my favorite bands for not signing to a label yet, even though I'm sure they could.

But when I see a band(signed or unsigned) selling their CD directly to the fans at more than $10, especially with unsigned artists, it gets my blood boiling. I get that you want to get paid, but stop thinking you're some fucking rock star. Don't quit your day job. Go produce for Avril or some shit if you want quick cash. When did it stop being about the music?

when release day comes.

2007-12-21T09:58:00.000-05:00

Its might be a little early to be talking about album release, but fuck it. I don't expect that it will take me 3-4 years between releases like last time. The problem is, in the atmosphere of today's music industry, how does an independent artist with little fan base sell their music?

There's plenty of services out there: Snocap, Musicane, Tunecore(gets your music up on iTunes). The problem with all of these services is cost. You may as well sign to a label and get robbed, it's all pretty much the same, especially for the first two mentioned above.

I personally like the idea of a physical release rather than a download. It actually feels like you've paid for something, and as a designer, it lets me go nuts with the artwork. It can unfortunately be an expensive up front investment. One of the sites I was looking at offers 300 4-panel digipaks for about $1000, complete with CD duplication. Not too bad, but if it doesn't sell you're ripped off.

Burning them yourself used to be the way to go in high school, and it worked for a time, with lousy 20# paper liner notes. I wish I could find my old band's CD, that was just laughable. If I find it and my old release under a godawful name that I can't remember, I'll post them for free download. Good for a laugh. A year or so later I did the whole Staples CD Label thing. No case, no liner notes. Gave away a few copies and maybe sold 2.

For my last album I gave the internet a try. Used my own bandwidth and sold via Paypal. Again only sold a few copies. I posted it myself on a popular BitTorrent site(that unfortunately is no longer with us), and it was downloaded many times, but I haven't heard any comments, good or bad. Maybe they're afraid to admit to the artist that they've "stolen" their work? Even though I put it out there myself, and even posted a link to the torrent page.

Do people get turned off by completely instrumental music? I guess we'll find out once I get some vocals down and release some snippets to the public.

Maybe a combination will be a way to go:

Sell the CD on the specified release date, allowing people to pre-order to receive even earlier.

After a couple weeks or so, sell the mp3 version (192kbps quality). The reason for selling only a 192k version (and later) is because I will want the physical CD to sell rather than the download.

I have to work very hard to make this release something special. If it does not generate interest, then what's the point of even doing this anymore?

guitar frustration conclusions.

2007-12-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

After some experimentation, I've been able to get a decent tone with a direct line into my Firebox and running Amplitube. For the recording process it looks like this is how I will work with guitar. I think my pedal board will work for live and for just fucking around. Another factor that may have played into it might have been that I was just playing to hard. For recording I don't need to look like a rock star strumming like mad. Got over a hurdle, guitar parts should be recorded very soon.

It'll also be helpful to use the hardware effects while writing, since Amplitube won't be running and eating up the CPU (which it LOVES to do). That should be less of a problem once I get my new PC up and running after the holidays:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 (dual core) 5000+ 2.6Ghz, could easily be overclocked to 3.0, if I need it.
2GB RAM
80GB System/Program Drive, 250GB Audio Drive
19" Widescreen monitor, maybe bigger if the prices are down by then.
My Firebox of course, and my new Events.

strummin'.

2007-12-20T19:19:00.000-05:00

event tr8.

2007-12-20T11:47:00.000-05:00

Just scored a used pair of these bad boys for around $300($499 retail). Should be a welcome upgrade to my $150 M-Audio's.

some track descriptions thus far.

2007-12-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

Enemy - A mostly piano driven track, slower paced, with more synth sounds coming in as the song progresses

intro track - You can hear this on either of my music pages, a pounding march-like drum throughout while things build on top until a climax at the end. Features the midiNES's Noise Channel.

noisy2 - a mostly complete track, very "radio" friendly. I'm probably going to restructure it and change some sounds around, it needs to be a bit more aggressive.

frozen - also on my myspace/vf pages. noisy, yet polite. distorted organ sounds, but also soft piano as the song progresses towards an ending breakdown that I am immensely proud of.

untitled1 - the "desert theme" of the album if it makes the cut, which I think it will. I've been making a lot of use of the pitch wheel and portamento lately. It brings a more natural sound that I feel is right for the direction I'm heading.

untitled2 - probably my most diverse sounding track to date. use of several samples of ethnic instruments, while still sounding very modern with a growling bass synth

violet - a mostly dead track, very hip-hop sounding drums and bass. I'm hoping that a collaborator will be able to help me breathe some life into this, it has some potential.

* All of the above titles are either tentative, or simply the title of the project file.

guitar frustration continued.

2007-12-20T09:07:00.000-05:00

Going to toy around with some cable/pedal configurations today, perhaps I can locate the black sheep in my setup. I have some suspects, some older looking pedal patch cables that came with my Ibanez. Some of the things I may try:

1. Guitar > LBM Pedal > Firebox, just a short chain to see how that sounds. Though I may have to throw the EQ into the mix, since that really makes the LBM scream.

2. Guitar > Firebox, with Amplitube loaded on the computer. Cut out the middle man, this will probably be the ultimate way to see if the problem is in the pedal setup. I could also give a few different cables a try to see if I need to throw any out.

3. Synth > Pedal board > Firebox. I'll try to get a gritty dirty tone, similar to guitar distortion and see what kind of result that gives me.

With any luck this shouldn't take me too long and I'll have time to do some writing and recording tonight.

guitar recording frustration.

2007-12-19T10:14:00.000-05:00

This week has been incredibly inspiring for me, a nice break from a severe case of writer's block that has been plaguing me for almost a month now. I've got some good ideas down for 3 new songs, bringing the total of "in progress" pieces to about 7, which is pretty good in my opinion. Now I just need to finish them. I was jamming guitar along to one of the tracks, tentatively titled "Enemy", and decided I would try and get some of it recorded so that:

a. I wouldn't forget.
and
b. May as well record while I'm still feeling prolific.

While I'm playing, the guitar combined with my stomp box setup sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, upon playback of the recording, it just sounds like a muddy mess. So I spent a lot of time(that I could have spent writing more music) trying to figure out what the problem might be. Was it the guitar? My pedals? Cables? I believe I can rule out the pedals, since I messed around with Amplitube and still had the same results. The good thing about Amplitube is that I can record, and still tweak the effects afterward. I may still be able to make this work.

If any guitar players have any other thoughts, please let me know. I have an Ibanez Fuzz and a Little Big Muff Pedal. Perhaps I need to get away from the fuzz distortion?

hello world.

2007-12-19T10:09:00.000-05:00

This will be the first of many photo updates along the course the album's recording process. I hope you enjoy this in depth look into the way I work. I will also be posting written entries as well.