This orphaned mourning

After the ankle injury yesterday morning I received the news that my father's wife passed away in her sleep. This would be the boy's grandmother - Carla - and I believe my step-mother. Does that make her the boy's step-grandmother? I don't ever really know what people are talking about when they reference relatives. They may as well be speaking Italian. I know that you're not allowed to have sex with anybody that doesn't have a step- before their familial designation, and even then it is frowned upon by the other half, the ones that are not a step-anything. The ones that will hang you from the highest limbs of the family tree.

I also know that you're not supposed to beg for a blowjob from the bride on her wedding day. I know that now. In some cultures it is a way of showing honor, recognizing that she is prized for her many marital values and uses. How drunk I was does not seem to work as an explanation for this behavior, also. There are some acts that are not redeemed by abject drunkenness. Some honor others in their own way. That is the lived-truth of my identity.   

I'm not so sure that women have been universally treated very well throughout history. Though, if you really want to investigate how poorly people can be treated you should read up on what has happened to men. Sure, it mostly happened by other men but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just try talking to almost anybody about the frequency of male-on-male rape. You may as well be advocating for the ideas of Heidegger. 

Where am I going with this cis-man ramble? This shuffling back-beat dance of privilege. 

Foxtrot, Tango, Waltz! 

Decrypted: fuck the world. 

Or, maybe: For The Win! 

The step-grandmother was of Mexican-American descent. Does that get us any family credits tallied up in the correct categories. She was Catholic, too. Also, probably a woman. 

All human suffering is the result of procreation. It is wanting babies that some women are finally becoming more Buddhist about. The birth control pill has been among the truest of enlightenments. 

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Or, any other metaphorical cliche

After coming home from the mountains concussed, I twisted my ankle this morning stepping on a tennis ball. The boy and I went to play a little light Saturday morning tennis at the local public courts and while chasing one ball I stepped on another. There was no joy in Mudville. Etc. I went down suddenly and without ease to the asphalt, curling up in a fetal position, unable to walk to the car without limping and complaining, barely able to drive home.

Don't worry, Saturday is not over. I could suffer much more before sunset. At least 23 fewer pounds stepped on the ball than would have a couple months ago. I have been trying to lose 10 pounds a month and have been successful until this month. I hit some sort of plateau on the way down to my idealized weight (~200 or below). What? I'm a stocky guy. 

There comes a time, and it will be soon, when the body won't recover from twisted ankles and knees any longer. My body feels stiff and brittle, much more likely to break than bend. CS reminds me that the end is most often getting nearer. I write this with a mixture of the humor that has sometimes saved people like he and I as well as the sad recognition of its truth. 

I have an ice-pack on the ankle but it refuses to sit correctly on the back, outer portion of the ankle that is in the most pain. I'm too lazy and unmotivated to get up and take something to reduce the inflammation. I am resigned to the fate of suffering, I suppose. 

I would go into more detail, though I do not wish to squander my suffering further today. I want to milk it instead. 

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Concussed

Sugarbowl

I might have a mild concussion. The symptoms align with a fall I had on Tuesday. It has been a while since I've had a fall where my head hit hard. It was in deep powder, even. I fell backwards and there was no powder to stop my head. It snapped backwards and hit what seemed to be the ground. It was probably just ice. But the shock was enough to cause me a few seconds of pulling myself together before I stood back up on the board. 

I don't do much photography when we snowboard. I try to do nothing but the thing itself. I have recorded hours of video footage with the camera you see on my helmet here. I never do anything with it. I barely ever even wear the camera. I might have the footage of me going down backwards. Who knows. Watching footage of yourself snowboarding is boring. I wonder why I have any of it at all. 

The boy's spring break is almost over. He spent it with his parents and their friends in Tahoe. I try not to feel down about such things. But there is something there to feel. I would wish him to be with his friends instead of adults. It must be difficult at times to believe that all of it is happening because of him - the vacations, the time together, the plans to provide experience, the effort to generate pleasant memories. It is impossible to say which of those things might be happening otherwise, or in that way. He still has little choice. He is along for the ride. In just a few years he will probably choose adventures all his own. Or, that is what parents tell themselves. Some kids never launch, they lack all curiosity about the greater world. 

  

Well, perhaps I do have a concussion - looking at this screen is making me feel as if I'm going to vomit. 

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Spring Break

Spring starts tomorrow for the boy, honored and celebrated by a week away from school. California is suffering Old Testament torrents and mudslides. But we have a few more snowboarding vacations left in us this season. They are digging the ski lifts out of the snow as I write this. The roads are washed out, I'm told, between here and Heavenly. This will be a first for us in South Lake Tahoe. I really hope we fit in.

I'm charging every battery I own. I'll have something to do for a while other than obsess about my new home studio. Today I added a real analog synthesizer, a monophonic 64 step-sequencing jewel - Manther. Don't worry, I bought mine used. One of the founders of this synth company was a member of Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Acid Horse, and co-produced many of Ministry's albums under the name Hermes Pan. Half of the Luxa/Pan production duo. He started by playing bass on the Twitch tour. If you used to scour mysterious underground albums like I did then you'll recognize the moniker. He's an industrial legend. Paul Barker is his actual name. 

But he's not why I bought the machine. I bought it for the CEM3340 based VCO IC, and the SSM2044 - boutique analog circuit and filter chip. I won't bore you with the history, but those chips were used in some of the most legendary synths ever built (Roland, Moog, Sequential Prophet, Oberheim, etc). Recently the original manufacturer (Curtis Industries) started manufacturing them again. That, combined with the advances in digital and modular technology, pushed me over the analog edge. A self-respecting producer can rely on samples and digital models only so long. 

My new studio is approximately a week old now.

I don't miss being on social media. Strange, that. What was the appeal if it has no pull on me now? I have so much more time, so little left. 

I just heard Bob Dylan sing about how he would trade lives with any of the young people he sees. 

It went like this:

I see people in the park, forgettin' their troubles and woes

They're drinkin' and dancin', wearin' bright colored clothes

All the young men with the young women lookin' so good

Well I'd trade places with any of 'em in a minute if I could

I'm crossin' the street to get away from a mangy dog

Talkin' to myself in a monologue

 

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Everything, now

There was a small but significant success at work today. Something that I, and more importantly the teams that I work with, have been working towards since I have been in my current role. It will be noted as a "Win" in the monthly report. The first for this project in what will necessarily become a much larger series of wins.

Then, there was bad news elsewhere - the pendulous swing from contentedness to the other. The beautiful cyclonic food chain of life. 

What a strange age to be, this one. I used to invite further strangeness, often knowing where others' comfort level and sense of humor would permit them to go. Not always, though. People surprise me. 

Now they mostly surprise me only if they can grab my doddering attention. I am probably already audibly farting at times without knowing. I should find a mall, if they still exist, go in and wander aimlessly, give the teens an occasional reason to laugh aloud, a little joie de vivre.  

How do you say ass water in French? 

L'eau du cul

I've been looking up phrases on Google Translate. I know it's a horrible thing to do when reading - to look something up online. But it makes me feel more alive, connected, savable and it gives my nightly reading an air of academic credibility that it might otherwise lack. 

Ok, life is too strange and stressful here for me to be coherent; a day of ups and downs; we are too on the eve of the eve.  

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Watch your bass bins

I said a clever phrase to Raquel this morning and meant to use it as a title here. My ability to commit details to memory wanders unfaithfully. I remember being clever, then thinking of my future self here writing, wanting to give myself a chuckle. 

Also, the boy's birthday was months ago. I must have forgotten. 

We were just buying R a birthday gift, a day which she shares with St. Patty, and I asked the boy when her birthday and mine are. He was close.

I will instead write today concerning what I think I came in here for looking for.

I need to learn to stop deriving pleasure from buying new or used audio gear. I have spent a fair amount of money recently. Some would say too much. Though, I do have a functional studio now, one that combines a modest selection between the old and the new, the analog and the digital, the virtual and the actual. I can do all of the things that I like to do, both within and outside of the computer, which has returned to being the central device in almost everything. I attempted to reconstruct a studio environment using only hardware sequencers, with no "computers" as most people know them to be. Almost every electronic instrument is a computer of sorts. There is no reasonable escape from them if you wish to do anything with music beyond playing an acoustic instrument. Even those tend to rely on electronic tuners. 

The newest problem is this: my MPC3000 will need to go back to the repair guy in Oakland to get some more work done. I'm not able to effectively use it because two of the most important keys are giving out on the front panel. More money must be spent. While it's there I will bring several other devices to be looked at. The other important unit being the Tascam 4-track tape recorder that CS sent back to me. I am getting high hopes for what it might be able to do if it proves to be functional or even salvageable. 

I have listened to a tremendous amount of electronic music in the last forty years or so, and one thing that stands out almost more than any other quality about it is its warmth or lack of same. I'm convinced that a significant portion of that mysterious and mercurial quality is achieved by traditional means - using analog devices (synths, filters, effects) and recording onto (or through) analog tape. The Four Ts: tubes, transistors, transformers, tape. There should be as many of those as possible in every signal chain. Even a signal that begins digitally seems improved by being passed through a device with analog components. 

Well, most of the time it does. Some gear just sounds broken. I seek out more of that as I get older also - an old man tinkering in a broken workshop, cobbling together decades of broken devices.

Most people, I am certain, would choose an amateur digital recording over an amateur analog one every time if asked which one sounded better, and they wouldn't be wrong. But amplify that same recording and listen to it next to a good recording done with analog gear and you hear something over time that is, to me, surprising and pleasant: your ears don't get fatigued at the analog sound quite as quickly. This happens without amplification also, it's just not nearly as noticeable. But if you pay close attention to how you and others respond to sounds then you start to gain an affinity for certain kinds. 

Here is an example of the recording sound I hope to be able to emulate (ignore the era and of course the "visuals"). It sounds like they might have also used a hardware sequencer, at least with the arpeggiated riff that comes in at 2:07, and in the general mute/unmute feel of the arrangement - dubby German techno. 

That's my music recording and listening lesson for the day. I spent two decades doing hard drugs in various nightclub's bass bins to develop and gather first-hand evidence to support this elaborate yet incomplete theory. 

GoFundMe, etc.

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Sitting near the feet

I will try not to write about my experiences putting together a personal studio. Though, today I had the first of what I would consider a success: I made a drum loop that I liked working with and listening to. I played it for Raquel, she liked it also. There is still so much to learn, or relearn. I have to remind myself often that the best things I ever did in the studio were not the result of the times I worked the hardest, but rather the opposite. You can only learn so much, eventually you must do the thing you're trying to do. Nothing more, try to have fun doing it.

I will try not to write any more about it. It is all that is on my mind, though, because I don't quite understand why I'm doing it all. After many years an interest rekindled. Life is odd, death is certain.

The boy and I decided not to go to Tahoe, which was for the best. They have closed down several resorts there avalanche warnings, too much snow, temperatures above freezing in the daytime, then more snow. It is a bad combination in sequence. 

We arrive next Thursday night, and it will be snowing even more between now and then. I don't know how to think or what to feel about the risks. This new fear is all a mystery. I will face it stupidly, with the bliss of ignorance. I don't want to die but I do like to snowboard. Maybe I won't have to choose. Life is jawed, death is curtains.

Where the needle goes the thread follows; artha, kama, dharma, moksha. The natural way to live, the continuing entanglement of the passions. Live the Upanishads, death's a burden. Where the needle goes. 

You become what you believe, when there is time. 

I set my heart on the work, but seek rewards. 

The clear path to a lesser goal has becomes the obstacle.

Nothing is written. 

Nothing is riven.

 

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Borrow joy; hide misery

CS tells me that I can be happy if I just make more money. That is, unless there is some underlying cause for my unhappiness that is not monetarily related. The research which he relayed to me this morning does not guarantee results over $500k a year, so this correlation is approximately half the happiness the FDIC insures, but perhaps in time new evidence will suggest an even better return on my investments into happiness. 

I have splurged recently on buying used studio gear. It's like camera gear, it becomes a stupid obsession and before long you own items that are redundant, particularly if you happen to like a certain era or production or type of effect. Apparently I am just in love with rack-mount digital effects and analog filters. 

This is why I need that 4-track Tascam cassette recorder that CS sent to me - to help hide some of those digital artifacts. I have high hopes for it, but I know what it arriving here will mean for me - time, money, and effort. Everything has a learning curve. I told myself that things would "come back to me," but I forgot that I was a drug addict when I learned how to use these machines.  

There are four items on their way to me now, and I have been opening boxes for two weeks as they arrive. I have filled the entire studio rack I purchased and now I must adhere to the 1-in/1-out principle. There is no more space available. I guess I'll only make room for the most expensive stuff now. I suppose I could have another rack just for the guitar effects, but that is shameful thinking. I'm just making excuses for having over-spent, purchasing things that are not all that useful to me. Though it sure felt good to press the purchase button on a few of them.

I made a credit card payment this morning. Usually when I do this I pay it all the way off, but that was not an option. 

My friend, Z, told me this morning that she does not believe any of us were ever addicts. She emphasized this about me in particular. She wants me to attend one of our friend's 50th birthday party in NYC in June where that will be one of the primary focuses. So, this oddly fact-free narrative of hers was motivated at least in part by that. I pointed out that we have all been partying somewhat continuously since the late 80s/early 90s. 

She made a pretty good point: not me. 

What is the word for people who still do hard drugs in their 40s and 50s, and then presumably into their 60s and beyond? Is there a word for it? Those that have learned to cleverly "manage their intake." They all have great jobs, and families, and yet. William Burroughs wrote a book about one form of that behavior. 

Ok, it is a day off from work for me, and I must get to it. I had hoped to keep the boy out of school and go snowboarding but the storms have closed all of the resorts. There are avalanche warnings. Imagine such a thing. Tons and tons of snow sliding down a mountain at speeds that no snowboarder could possibly hope to achieve to escape it. Some of them travel at over 200 miles per hour. Even small ones can get up to 100 mph within just seconds of when they start. Everything in nature can become a horror of sudden death. 

Happy Friday! 

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Because it is

Akai MPC3000LE

Setting up a studio is expensive work. What the fuck was I thinking? I barely have any time to myself as it is. Why did I reignite an old hobby, a yawning money pit. CS sent me the old 4-track Tascam 464 cassette recorder, which was very nice of him, though that unit looks like one more that I'll probably need to get repaired. 

I discovered two failing buttons on my MPC300LE today. I had noticed that neither of them was as responsive as they should be, but I kept telling myself not to worry too much about it. Now that I know the machine will need to be repaired I'll need to go through every button and verify that they all work. The parts and repair will be expensive. The machines go for about $5k, used. I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it, but all these holdups keep me from doing with the machine what I hope to do. This is starting to feel a little bit too much like work. Losing this unit will simplify my life a little bit, for a little while, though. 

I may need to remind myself from time to time that I made a fair amount of music without an MPC3000 at all. I have another sampler that is just as powerful (Akai S3000XL), though without an on-board sequencer. In fact, I only completed a few tracks with an MPC, but in my mind it has become the indispensable unit for electronic music. It is.

Side note about this machine: Questlove, the drummer for The Roots, is making a documentary about a producer - J Dilla - who was considered the preeminent genius bar none on this machine, sometimes referred to as the "Jimi Hendrix of samplers." He used this machine almost exclusively. His 3000LE is currently in the Smithsonian, where it belongs. I'm sure I've written all of this before. 

Today I hunted down buzzes in the mixing board and found at least one brand new cable that was bad and had to be thrown out. This doesn't sound like much, but these things all eat up your time, and that eats up your chances of being creative. Eventually you find all the little quirks and problems and you fix them or you find workarounds for them. Each problem seems to compound the last and the next. Or, you find yourself eaten by them. 

I know that I am just talking out loud to myself at this point. I stopped writing for an audience some time ago. I've mostly left social media, and only check Instagram because I like photography. I couldn't tell you if Donald Trump has legal problems or not. When I was more "connected" with the news I wanted him in prison. That's what keeping up with events will do to you.  

I'd like to say I live more in peace now, but if you remember the first two easily forgettable paragraphs from this post you'll understand that I very much don't. I used to just lie in bed and play the acoustic guitar and read. Now, I have purchases to regret, time wasted, worries out there waiting for me in the future, lurking in the elongated shadows of morning. 

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Analogue Bubblebath

A big part of the "problem" with electronic music is also one of its biggest charms: it does not sound human. It's too perfect, the resolution is too high, it lacks the "warmth" of analog recording techniques. The things that make it unique are what some people don't seem to enjoy. Electronic producers, some of them, go to great lengths to give their recordings the analog "feel" and warmth that is a natural byproduct of traditional analog recording. 

There are extremely expensive analog processors that can help add warmth to a recording without any loss of fidelity. In fact, these processors add fidelity and warmth, but they are prohibitively expensive - $20k-$30k and up. The less expensive and more imperfect way to give electronic recordings warmth is to track them to analog tape, though you can lose the strict timing that is the trademark of electronically constructed rhythm, and you are of course losing some fidelity and resolution. 

It sounds absurd, that a producer would willingly degrade the resolution and timing of their recordings to make something sound older. Many audio experts agree the differences are mostly imaginary, and the perceived superiority of analog recording is one of those lies aging people tell themselves about the world having been a better place when they were younger. If you grew up listening to analog music you can probably recognize the sound of an analog recording when played comparatively or as a contrast with a digital recording. Why? Because it doesn't sound quite as clean and clear, or loud and mixed as well. Yet why does almost everyone who can detect the difference prefer the older analog track?

I've never heard anybody provide an adequate explanation that doesn't devolve into a version of: old people are stupid and they stop growing.

Perhaps, but I believe there's more. I'm trying to get CS to mail me back another gift I gave him years ago. Though, in fairness, he loves having it, I think. It's a cool artifact. Though... he has stored it in an attic in Florida; subjected it to hurricanes; it's probably not sealed; rodents and raccoons have expired in close proximity to it; he drinks heavily; roams the house in dirty underwear, etc. It is difficult to know what has become of the little tape recorder that could. 

I have promised to send him something far more useful in return. I'm still heroically inclined. Maybe he needs a a pre-amp for boosting mic inputs.

The anachronistic in question....

Trashcan Portastudio 464:

These devices are of interest to people like me precisely because they sound worse than what I can do any on given day in my current studio. But they convert certain frequencies in difficult to describe ways that make electronic music sometimes sound better. They do very little/nothing for most applications when compared to a laptop. Any computer made recording will sound better than it would recorded with tape. 

Well, unless you know how to achieve that rare lofi special magic that is in large part the location of the recording, part performance, part production skills, and at least some part luck and dogged repetition. 

Why am I writing all of this? Because I've re-assembled a (mostly) digital recording studio and I am trying to explore and discover ways to make what I do sound less perfect. Almost anybody can make electronic music now. They have programs that can let you choose a key and a modality and it will prevent you from ever playing a "wrong" note. Whichever note you play on the keyboard, the computer will simply adjust it to one that is closest to being in key with the track you've chosen to make. They can even randomize notes and quantize timings to give your keyboard playing more character than it might have otherwise. There are programs that will automatically adjust every sample in your track to the key and time that you're working in. The result: there is a tremendous amount of nearly identical, very boring, homogenous electronic music out there. 

Well, it is easier to make a boring track than it is to make a good one. I've done both. 

Why go back and do something that I did in my 20s and 30s, you possibly ask? I don't know. I miss it, I guess. I miss having a reason to interact with some of my older friends. I became a father, got a job, then got a good job, raised a son, ushered him to an age where he is starting to develop his own interests which are independent of mine and even of me. 

Don't fret, it's not all over, we're going snowboarding, just he and I, this weekend, if the weather invites it. We're still grand buddies with the imagination that suits our respective ages.

Though, there are interests that remain dormant, but you hear the conversations with yourself when you listen to certain music. Produce instead of consuming. 

It seems ameliorative to pursue something of which I am capable, something I can enjoy entirely by myself. All trepidation leaving the body, inhibitions being forgotten, the anguish of lost years being forgiven.

No, I am wanting to end with an exaggeration of conclusion. It is late and I am tired, and the world awaits me sooner each morning now that I've been staying up later. Time passes with unforgiving shifts in regularity, just like the liquid language of music. 

Talking about music is like prancing about acupuncture...

mostly digital; analog filters, mixer

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Alesis Quadraverb

Christ, I've just bought another piece of studio gear. It was either that or hours of bloody, self-lacerating masturbation. I spent three hours today trying to set up something in my studio that should have been very simple. I won't bore you with the details, because they are stupid, but it was a routing configuration that should have been very easy to set up. When I was done I needed some relief, so I bought something I already have. You read that correctly. I bought an effects unit that I already own - the Alesis Quadraverb. If you own two you can call it an Octaverb if you use them in serial.  

I had given it to CS at one point along with some other even more generous gifts. He has never quite forgiven me for taking it back, but I made a mistake by giving it to him. It has this one very specific use - shoegaze reverb - and if you happen to love that sound then this machine is a good way to accomplish it. With two units you can achieve this other thing - serial distortion fields - that only a completely lonely lunatic who did too many drugs in the 90s would love. It relies on the Taj Mahal preset and overdriving the input of the second device with the output of the first. The ready-made ambience of angst. 

So, my precious, I will have you. 

In fairness, I should record 7-8 minutes of this reverb sound and send it to CS, just so he won't think that he's missing out on anything he might have liked or cared about. I am entirely certain that I can get him recording on his home computer in a way that he would enjoy much more than this box in a matter of minutes. The Quadra above is notoriously noisy and dated. They stopped making them in the late 80s or early 90s, and the company never looked back. They never looked very far forward, either. The Taj Mahal reverb lets you modulate the reverb decay times, which creates a noisy shimmering effect. It's part of what made Global Communication's Pentamerous Metamorphosis so great. 

Here is an example, though they're also heavily using the Yamaha FX500. Maybe I should buy ol' CS one of those.  

Just in case one Slowdive track wasn't quite enough for you, here is my favorite. 

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The intelligentsia of a period

"It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year." - Truman Capote

Accomplished - we drove to Tahoe and back yesterday. Six hours in the car for six hours on the mountain. The penance of the middle class. Is penance the right word? Are we middle class? Are we intelligent? In California it's very difficult to tell. Comparing yourself to others here is alternately depressing and infuriating - you are always greatly outnumbered by the wealthy, the imbecilic, and the in between. The multitudes are multiplying. 

We never seem to have enough money to live anywhere else, but we can do things here as long as we remain living here. We probably could not afford to come here to do things very often if we lived elsewhere, so it sort of works out. California is the Disneyland of states. The hot dogs and soda are overpriced everywhere. Florida is the DisneyWorld of swamps. I won't bother with the French and Japanese versions of Disney. I've never been, and my reductionism might sound like silly pride, or nationalism, or worse. Can you imagine traveling to France or Japan and wanting to go to Disney? My guess is both places are exclusively filled with Americans. Well, Americans and some regional retards. It might be fun to visit and try to tell them apart. On acid. 

Skiers are assholes. I've tried avoiding this conclusion. Over time they have won me over. They are self-entitled, rude, and mostly oblivious to others, intentionally. I almost had to punch one of them in the face yesterday but my son was there. That's not the sort of thing you want a child to see. Or rather, you might want them to see it, you just don't want them to remember it for the rest of their lives. Raymond Carver has a story about it. Though in that story, if I remember it correctly, the father and son grow closer because of the fight with the neighbor. I could have that memory all wrong. Fiction interacts with and then becomes the murk of memories. 

I have a friend, an avid snowboarder, who has tried to point out to me how often it is the skiers that are oftenest causing problems for others, or openly transmitting some bad attitude, usually couched in a strong sense of entitlement. Yesterday broke me. Everywhere I looked it was almost all I could see. 

Humans ruin so much. Just look at what they've done to the past.

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The road we choose is always

Of course. I work all day, then try to do something creative in my time away from work, which is what I write about. It's all very dull, working. It destroys as quickly and thoroughly as dissipation or being trapped in perpetual torpor. But it's the images of what I'm doing that kill me. What am I thinking when I post an iPhone pic of guitar pedals? Do I presume they possess some synesthetic quality? It's pure Spinal Tap, without the humor.  

I know better, but there I sin anyway. I am neither writer, nor photographer, nor musician, nor producer, nor even employee to completeness. I am partial to each, resistant to nothing. 

Well, we'll see. A new stereo filter arrives on Saturday and perhaps my studio-building reporting will resume. I sent the picture of the assembling of the home studio to an old friend and his excitement was so great and warm that it cheered me. The ego never tires of being flattered. The older I get the better I used to be. 

Early tomorrow morning we depart for Tahoe. We will be there for the lifts opening. Just a day trip, up into the sierras to the great lake and back. I have grown to like day trips. They are less expensive, financially and otherwise. They require less... determination, they generate less resistance. No, that's not quite it. Raquel and I tend to get along better. What else is there?

A friend passed away this morning - cancer. Life is unpredictable, death isn't. 

I'll try to hold fewer petty grudges, but just the petty ones. 

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Musical Instrument Digital Interface

This is what I was describing the other day. It looks like a simple chain of guitar pedals, but it took me about an hour to get it sounding close to right. The pic below is what I did today. I've decided to use some of the gear that's been locked away in the closet for years. 

Every day now I get closer to something. I doubt I'll ever arrive at a place where I am happy, but it is possible with effort to be satisfied, I hope. With just the gear that's visible in the below picture, my computer, and an audio interface.... I should be able to produce again. In general I haven't enjoyed trying to make music by myself. I've always enjoyed working with other people. It is motivating to feel something come to life. There is too much second-guessing when alone. But the days pass and no one arrives. There is only me, playing the acoustic guitar in the dark. An audience of one.

Somebody once told me: Try to produce more than you consume. 

That's what this is: an effort to produce. 

I know that might look like a lot of gear, but it's not. In the past I have achieved the best results when I focused on only a couple pieces, or one. But the piece of gear that I focus on changes from time to time. It is best to have options, but not so many as to be overwhelmed. When it comes to making music with technology you can convince yourself of almost anything. Every machine in the picture is far more powerful than I know. There is always some new way of doing things to stumble upon. Contrary to accepted opinion it is not possible to recreate very much identically with these machines. Each time is an experiment. 

What you can't see in either of these pictures is my guitar. I am hoping for the first time since I started working on music to focus more on capturing performance. In the past I have been concerned mostly with fine tuning my programming. It is not difficult at all to program the life out of everything. Many electronic producers succeed wildly in that regard. Now I wish to make a human noise - imperfect, unpolished, constructed from spare parts. An orchestra of reflections falling away from their ideals. 

 

I am aware how boring all of this must sound to someone who doesn't care. Anything can be boring for those who don't care. It's very easy. 

An example of what some of this gear has sounded like in the past:

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