Music From Outer Space - The WSG.
My project for the holidays will be to build my very own WSG (Weird Sound Generator). It makes funny noises. Yep.....it sure does. And this is the best thing of all - the cover to the WSG has dials that ALL GO TO ELEVEN. Matt made a great tutorial on the building the WSG that the makers of the WSG have also linked to from their site...its that good. The WSG isnt the only cool thing from their site. There are tons more.
One reason I love the idea of this so much is that last Xmas I got a Microcontroller Kit. I've been tinkering with it here and there. I've been trying to get it to make funny noises and have been supra-minimally successful so far, especially with the help of a friend of mine who just so happens to have a masters in computer science. Heh.
So unleash the nerd in you this Xmas and buy a WSG, solder it all together, and put it inside something really original like what this guy did. Feel free to disobey the instructions and create your own circuits. You will then be a certified Circuit Bender. I've got a great idea for my WSG and I wont hesitate to post it up to you all when its done. I will also post some 24bit samples for your listening pleasure.
Its so hard not to tell you about the next music project that I've probably started on too early. If I tell you too soon before publishing then my idea will *poof* disappear and others will do it better than I can. What I really need to do is finish the project I'm already working on.
But the beauty...oh the beauty.
You will understand what I mean when you hear it. Sigh...hopefully soon.
I took the above picture in Colorado last year and I've had a chance to work on it to really bring out the contrasts. I dig it.
I think, "I must not let my camera get sand in it." This repeats in my mind and becomes my afternoon's mantra. I swear, someday I'm going to get one of those waterproof housings that divers use for underwater photography, and snap away in hostile environments with impunity. I will ignore the perplexed gazes and snide remarks and will feel safe because my camera is safe, thank you very much....May I have a glass of tea please? I'm parched, thanks. My my, but isn't this just the nicest glass of tea....
I start to the realization that there are three horses approaching from the distance, walking with the wind just out of reach of the lurching attempts of the sea to bathe their hooves in primordial saline. I cannot yet make out the species or gender of their riders. "Hmm, yes. Homo sapiens," I finally decide. I must find a place to let these symbiotic organisms pass without knowledge of my presense. I must capture them in their natural element or there will be no tea and snacks. There will be none to be had.
They pass as I hunch behind a dune in clandestine observation, like Paul Atreides, the Kwisatz Haderach from the planet Dune, in his less pan-galactic years. As I take a volley of shots, I imagine how different this scene would be if the horses were minus their tourist mounts - sundering across my desert without names - feeling good to be out of the rain behind them, as Dewey Bunnell of the band America sorta/kinda said.
I love this beach....I must not let my camera get sand in it.
A window of elsewhere
As Dean Moriarti would say, "Let's dig everything as we walk by!" Well, I dig graffiti. It is both a social and artistic statement. I must admit that I care little to nothing of what the artist really may be trying to say in most urban art pieces. It's more-or-less just a clever way of signing one's name or pseudonym in many cases. I love the graffiti that goes beyond that. I really enjoyed the graffiti of Amsterdam, where it's legal in certain areas. You can see evidence of layer upon layer of egos overlapping each other, trying to outdo or erase the other's existence and live louder in the minds of peers or strangers. Somewhere I have a picture of myself riding in front of a vast expanse of urban art in some hole in the city. I was on one of the thousands of discarded, tire-tattered bicycles you can find in that dirty, wonderful town. The bicycle was one that happened to not be attached to a tree or lamp post, rusting itself away, forever waiting for its master to come back with the key or combination to its enslavement. Like patient, thirsty horses waiting for their cowboys who were shot days ago in a saloon or waylaid by the Sheriff.
Street smiles
So to the unknown artist: I can offer nothing more than a smile and thanks, and perhaps chance for your work to live a little longer here. :) Thanks.
NEWS August 15, 2008 - NEW PHOTOGRAPHY - I've been meaning to finish some photos that I took in Colorado a year ago that were along the same lines as the panorama project, but without the strain on my RAM. I'll try and leave it up to you to decide if you like them. It's hard not to go into the reasons why I pick a certain photo to publish. I've been accused of artistic fascism before - in telling the audience why they should like a piece. So instead, I'll explain what I don't like about the Olympics.
I sit and watch these games where people are trying to be the best in the world at _________ (fill in the blank). And then I realize that, well...I don't care. Or rather, I shouldn't. So then the real mystery becomes: Why do I keep watching? I can't stop. These words are blurring on the screen before me. I need to know who wins the Women's Individual Sabre and I will not drink beef or eat mead until I find out.
NEWS May 26, 2008 - NEW THINGS ON THE AMRK.NET WEBSITE!! - I have included a FORUM for everyone to say what they need to say, whatever that might be. It's my effort to allow for some kind of anonymous feedback.
Glitch VST by artist dblue. It's amazing.
NEW HARDWARE!! - For anybody that cares about this sort of thing, I just got some fantastic Alesis M1 Active 620 studio reference monitors. They're these big expensive speakers that allow me to make sure that what I'm programming on my PC sounds correct on sound systems other than my own. They produce the sound frequencies as flatly and accurately as they are being output from my sound card. Your standard consumer speakers are designed to make things sound as good as possible by spicing it up for your ears. You would think that paying big bucks for speakers to "not sound as good" would be asinine. However, Its the essential tool in "mixing" any given track. In other words, the "rate-limiting step" in the process, for you chemists out there. As I understand it, mixing is most effective and cheap if you're able to begin mixing/mastering it the moment you write the first riff or paste the first sound of Chuck Norris' foot hitting a bad guy's crotch. You want Chuck's foot to have the right kind of aural punch or else what are you making here? You'll be making girly karate kid crane kicks with a swept leg, thats what.
So yeah, I haven't written in a while but things are coming along nicely art wise I think. I've really been enjoying learning more about the software I use and music theory in general. I'm gathering some hardware for a neat idea I have for a music video that I hope to make within a year or so. I've been honing my video editing "skills" in anticipation. On a personal note, in the last 6 months I've graduated medical school and had my first child, an inordinately cute and curious boy (if you ask me). I got a job and will start practicing medicine in July 08. I imagine my hobbies will suffer more than they already have, but I had to grow up sometime.
Revolutions
NEWS Oct 30, 2007 - NEW TECHNIQUE - This July I spent a month in the Colorado Rockies near Fairplay,CO. As you careen along highway 285 SW out of Denver through treacherous "rocky" mountains full of hot dog stands and gift shops, you most abruptly find yourself turning a corner and stumbling sideways down a mountain into a sculpted beauty of a valley. Keeping the "photographic third eye" open, I see a hill in the distance and drive over ranch land to arrive amongst an audience of cattle that eye my ascent up the small slope with......scorn? Having already lost one camera to water damage, and being wary of the daily afternoon shower that tends to hit this area, I took ~60 pictures of the 360 degree vista. Every image was large format 10.2 megapixel on my Nikon D80. I marked the exact spot on my GPS at N 39?17.461’ W 105?51.209’ and 9669Ft elevation. My return found me approached by a rather mean looking bull with long pointy horns and that same scornful look. It is widely known that cows hate art. I slowly backed away and thrice denied any harkening for form and aesthetic and praised and lauded the various wonderful attributes of grass (of which there are legion), and quickly entered my vehicle. I drove away as it began to rain - and I didn't cry - I swear. Now, months later, I realize that the hard part was compiling the pictures in a way that didn't look absolutely ridiculous. YOU try fitting together 60 different huge images taken from the same spot but at different perspectives. In mid-project I bought two extra gigs of ram. Days of work bring you the above product. When you click on the thumbnail above, Mozilla and IE will let you zoom in and scroll side-to-side.
NEWS Oct 28, 2007 - THE EXPERIMENT CONTINUES. It appears that the hearsay hypothesis of "procreation" as put forth by a small contingent of the scientific community may have merit. Ostensibly, their research was of dubious conception, poorly conducted, and only published in a fringe Norwegian horticultural journal. Yet our data - insofar as the most subjective and anecdotal observation can merit - does support the essence of their claim. However much the lay-community perpetuates unvalidated "fact" it is not the practice of this institution to give credence to this kind of jibber-jabber. We remain taciturn in anticipation of the statistical analysis of this portending data which shall be completed in about 12 weeks. Auspiciously, the current data sure is cute.
NEWS June 10, 2007 - NEW HUMAN - Being a member of the human race and a scientist, I decided to conduct an experiment. Everyone had been talking about this “reproduction” thing as though it had some bearing on how we come to exist. “Pooh,” I said, with a mouthful of saltine crackers – spraying my conversational companion across the table. However, the idea was an attractive enough venture - in and of itself – given the necessary faculties, which I managed to have at my disposal. A team was quickly assembled and a lab was secured. Forthwith, we entered the active research phase of the project. The NIH laughed at a grant, we were ceremoniously rejected. Yet, we persevered at our goal. Above you may view the fruit of our efforts. It would seem that there is some validity to the theory; however, we are still in the preliminary phases of our study and it will take another 7 months to compile the data. We will keep you posted. Note: No baby seals or trees were harmed in our research.
NEWS Jan 13, 2007 - NEW SONG - Favourite Things - As usual, it is also in the music/video section. This is a song that I had promised to expand upon and I finally have. I built it entirely with Fruity Loops, which I never thought I would do, having spent so much time In Ableton Live lately. If I ever decided to do any of these live I'll be in trouble because of all the different programs I'm using. I'll cross that bridge when I get there...then blow it up! In retreat we have to slow down the Axis advance! But keep the enemy confused by feigning interaction at random. As is a good policy with most fine dining conversation.
NEWS Dec 30, 2006 - On lower quad picture with borders of white, be the debut viddi I finished last night. I had no idea that video editing could be so fun. In the music/video section there is some more info on the making of.
The Eye of Power
For the past few months or so I have been in self-training with my new Nikon D80. I have cast of my mortal coil of analogue image reproduction and I have let slip a personal dog of the digital age. I say NAY to the purists that might try and diminish the triumph that I see in bypassing the chemical means for image capture. All that needs to be done is to look through history and see how any new technology has had to fight for its bragging rights even in the face of such obvious inferiority of previous methods. I believe we witness such fights on a daily basis, such as gasoline vs. electric (or any other means for vehicular transport aside from strictly combustion), up vs. down, east coast rap vs. west coast rap, and beer vs. my pants. As a previous purist, all that had to happen for me was to have a unit that could stand up to the quality of a standard 35mm print and say, "Ha! I am more efficient and almost the same quality!", and yet leave some change in my pockets. The Nikon D80 with its 10.2 functional mega pixels says that very phrase with every snap of the shutter.
My self training in digital has branched off into the inevitable consequence of such digital power, post production. With the quick and easy availability of massive amounts of images without any thought of "how much will it cost to develop this many rolls of film?", I have embarked upon a project to capture serial images that tell a story, some might refer to this as time lapse photography. My major hurtle is understanding how to piece these images together effectively in Adobe Premier and to make it match with music. Perhaps I will have to start a new song? I have never made music for anything other than the purpose of the sound itself. Hopefully I can make the transition to making music for the sake of image without too much pain. The stage is early and exciting in this venture, so I worry not.
This is the cover for the supposed album that soon shall exist.
And now I return to another mortal coil, the freedom that I have loved this last few weeks is disappearing quickly and I must again rejoin my pursuit of livelihood.
NEWS Dec 2, 2006 - ALBUM UPDATE - Nowhere near finished! Slowly but surely I'm cranking out a snippit of a beat here, learning a new piece of software there, applying an extra VST here, procrastinating there. Percentage complete = 40% :P I will place new songs as they become complete. Remixes as well.
NEWS July 22, 2006 - Please read the history and listen to the amazing music of "Fifty Dollar Dynasty". I grew up with the lead singer of this band and we used to be in a band together, named "Critical Mass". Press the Music/Video tab above and scroll down to "Fifty Dollar Dynasty" in the "Unsigned Artists That Deserve Recocnition" section.
NEWS July 1, 2006 - Please take a moment and listen to a new sample of the song Things I'd Rather Forget Its a slight turn from the more traditional electronic stuff I'd been doing but I dig it. This clip is also in the "Music/Video" section.
NEWS June 27, 2006 - Please give a warm welcome to a new addition to the amrk family. The Blue Snowball USB Microphone I've only been using this mic for a few days and I must say, it's a vast difference in the quality of recordings I've been making. The USB interface has been flawless and thank God it works with Ableton Live. And it LOOKS SO NICE!.
NEWS May 25, 2006 -
I was recently able to coax a member of the TSDC away from the computer the other week and we headed to Mount Mitchell State Park. I had no idea a place like this existed east of the Mississippi. We thought we were so clever…spur of the moment trek through mountains. With the warm sun following us, it took many hours to arrive in our climate controlled car. We got to the ranger station and stepped out of our vehicles. At that moment I found myself in the middle of an argument. Water molecules were at odds amongst themselves on whether or not to be liquid or solid. They made a compromise somewhere between, on my face. At about the same moment I realized that I did not bring anything of warmth other than t-shirts and a dress shirt. I was also responsible for my friend's bedding which I promised I would furnish from my house. Having failed at that and other counts of boy scout preparedness, we immediately and ceremoniously got back into our vehicle and headed to Asheville, NC, the most likely closest WalMart and hotel room. We had to write off our night as a learning process. We made feeble efforts to rationalize our ignorance in order to maintain our manliness. But neither of us believed any of it. We were noobs (by "we" I mean "me").
The morning after.
With the help of a little Snoop Dog and some Sufjan Stevens we made it to the top (thanks fellas). We set up camp still enshrouded in a…shroud, with that semi-solid/liquid blowing horizontally at us. Most of the afternoon we spent in the tent and we joked about the cold and how it we might have to snuggle up in the middle of the night to stay warm. This was an impossibility because I had just seen the movie Brokeback Mountain…enough said. The rest of the weekend improved and we made as much trouble as two relatively responsible young men could make on the highest peak east of the Mississippi.
NEWS May 22, 2006 - The photo section is COMPLETE. If nothing, it’s sizeable. It’s a collection of all the best of the photography I’ve done in the last 5 years. I try and note when any given photo is collaborative work. Well don’t just sit there GO TO THE PHOTO SECTION!!!!
"Guns dont kill people, Lasers do." -TSDC
