Its MIDI Time

I have come to the realization that transcribing music is not nearly as fun as actually playing it.  In FL Studio i have been restricted to pure transcription due to the fact that I have no live instruments aside from my guitar and my voice(which is still under construction).

So now i must find the perfect MIDI keyboard.  I have been looking at the Axiom 25 for some time.  Plenty of knobs, pads, buttons and the works.  It wasn’t until something like two days ago that i found the axiom 49.  the larger brother of the sweet little 25.  This sucker has sliders and pads and knobs, and buttons out the door frames.

Im excited…the only thing holding me back now is a) gatta find a place that i can put a brand new midi keyboard in my dorm room and b) i have to weigh the neccessity of a new keyboard over a new cell phone….

I will consult my dreams

Cheesing, Cat piss, and Getting High

ITS A FREAKING TV SHOW…

I was walking around campus yesterday when I heard a guy say, “Dude, does that cheesing thing from south park really work?”

Seriously…It made me marvel at the influence a simple tv show can have on people.  Maybe I should just start sell random stuff, or making music that can get you high.  I could write a song and promote it as a song that will get you high.  Who knows maybe it would work.  You know there is a company that actually sells urine online.  No Joke.  It is intended to pass drug tests but…wow…

America man I tell Ya

CD Case Art & Other Heliolimphnophaticisims

I FINISHED THE CD!!!!!!

I dont know if you can see the crack on the front but Fate decided to add her creativity to the cd case as well.  I did the design on photoshop and got the case from the folks at Jewel Boxing.  I love the cases.  They seems so profesional.  I decided to put a chopped up incense stick into the binding.  I can’t smell it but some people claim they can and that is all that matters.  This is deffinately a step up from the first cd case style.

This one was done with your simple wal-mart brand labeling kit that included some free software for getting the graphics to fit on the labels.  The Jewel Boxing kit came with the cases, the inserts, and some templates that I used in photoshop to get the designs set up before the cases arrived.

 I have given away a few cds so far and I have had over 200 people download the album off jamendo.  I am slowly getting another music library built to pick and choose what to put on the next cd. This may take a while because I am also in the process of designing an official web site that I can have complete controll over. 

THEY CAME THEY CAME

HAHAHA I got my jewel boxes today.  I’m in the student union right now killing time so i figured I would share my excitement with the world.  Oh by the way I am excited.  When I get the first cd put together I’ll photo the thing and let every body see the awesomeness.

Mountain Wisdom

Hey Everybody,

So all is well on the hill.  Apparently some guy thought it would be cool to wonder around campus with a gun today.  Scary yeah?  The school did a great job of responding to the situation.  A notification was sent out quickly and the buildings were put on lock-down within an hour.  As an RA the potentially chaotic situation was taken control of quickly, so that helped me out a lot.  I am really glad that this situation didn’t actually resut in gunfire.  The only thing that bothered my about the whole ordeal was that after they “re-opened” campus.  Everything was still closed.  The cafeterias were closed, The markets were closed, hell, even “Safe-Ride”, the on-campus, taxi thing that supposedly provides a safe ride for students, wasn’t even running.

But everybody survived and thats all that matters.

On the music front,

The Album is doing a lot better than I expected.  118 people have downloaded TEST #241.  I didn’t think that many people would be interested in it.  A german person even reviewed my album.  I don’t know a lot of german, but what I got was “Good”.  He/She rated it a 7 out of 10.  Not bad for a first album yeah?  I am still waiting for my super jewel boxes to come in.  I think the must have gotten lost in the mail or something.  But whenever i get ‘em in I will post some pictures of the artwork I decided to use in these.

Im listening to  guy named David Schombert.  Its this ambient drone stuff he wrote.  He has a few albums up on jamendo.  I deffinately suggest listening to him if you get the chance.

Nothing to exciting is going on really.  I have written a few more songs that I am planning on putting on the next album.  That concept album idea is slow coming.  Most of the music I write takes a couple hours at most so actually planning something in-depth is hard for me.  I like the quick result.

This is such a great artist that david schombert guy!!!

Publicity, Acid, and The Struggles Of A Social Path

Hello again,

 I have begun the publicity side of starting a band.  So far I have had very few exciting results.  I began by starting a myspace page , then starting a purevolume page , then trying to upload the album onto Jamendo.  The purevolume page inspired me to learn html so that was good. (although I have yet to make the billboard on purevolume which I learned the html specifically for)  The myspace page was easy to make considering I grew up when myspace was getting big, so I knew how that worked.  Oh! by the way, for those of you who do visit either the myspace or purevolume page, you will get a neat little treat.  Razors, the dark, slightly psychotic, rambling poem of a cutter is up on those pages.  Consider it a hidden track or something.  Its not on TEST #241,  the only reason for that is it didn’t fit with the rest of the music.  I am currently in the process of putting together a concept album that it should be on but untill then those are the only places you can hear it. 

Anyway back to the story.

 I uploaded my album, TEST #241, onto Jamendo, a cool little site I have mentioned a few times before.  It took something like 3 weeks for the moderators to actually get the album published and certified. But it is up and working so feel free to indulge.  A strange thing happened though.  After the album had been up for something like 3 days, I saw a massive spike in listens to one particular song, Doo Da Da Do Da.  Listens went from 5 or 6 to 1400+ in a day.  I have no idea what caused this.  I think it is a glitch or something.  I only think that because the rest of the tracks only have 5-15 listens.  Maybe somebody left the song playing all night or something, I don’t know. 

But, Jamendo is cool and fun and all that jive.  After I got the jamendo thing working I set up a soundclick account , its a neat little place that works the same as last.fm I think.  The sound click account also has hidden track.  Walk On, I tried to model the song after Boards of Canada, I will rave about them later.  I have a last.fm account also.  I need to hire an intern or something to keep up with all this.  One last site though and I will finish all the plugs.  ACIDplanet is my newest music website account thingy.  I was talking on Collab, an FL Studio community program, to a guy that mentioned it.  Its pretty cool. 

Damn, that was a lot of filling in the world.

So what I am currently into is makeing cds to give to people, or sell (fat chance).  I am looking at those new super jewel cases.  Specifically at a place called Jewelboxing.com.  I like the look and feel of the cases, I also decided on jewelboxing.com because they offer templates for a few photo-editing pieces of software, I’m probably going to go with photoshop.  So I am currently in the process of putting together a bunch of art-work and getting everything ready(and putting some slimcase demo cds together on the side) and debate weather or not to go with the super jewel cases. 

Man that wore me out.

So I’m gonna go to that.

JAMENDO REIGNS SUPREME

I finally got Jamendo working.  Check out the link in the side bar, download my album, and let me have it…I welcome all criticisms and/or praise…

Album Art and Goofie Goblins

So I have begun putting together the art for my Album. Test #241 is an interesting compilation of my FL Studio exploits. Anyway, I downloaded this program called GIMP that rivals Adobe Photoshop. The program is free to download and plenty of fun to play with. It does take some getting used to though. Here are a couple photos that are going in the album.

These are all photos I took, or had taken of me, while I was in japan a couple years ago.

I also got this program called Easy Cd and DVD cover creator , Yeah its a mouth full but it seems to work.

I really have no idea what I am doing as far as putting a cd case together so any help would be awesome. I really want it to look professional. You know the booklet, the back track-list/copyright and credit bit, and the cd sticker cover thingy. I am excited that things are starting to work out. At least to how I want it.

Also sorry about the Jamendo file not working just yet. Apparently the song have to go through this whole moderation period and it is taking a long time for them to get to my stuff.

The Science of Music

I am currently reading a book by Dr. Danial Levitin of McGill University called “This Is Your Brain On Music.” The book covers every aspect of the psychological side of music. If you ever listen to music and you are pro-reading I would definitely recommend this book. Its amazing how deeply music impacts the mind. From the ears to the cerebellum and the primitive origins of emotion, music can activate neurons and build connections like no other external stimuli. Did you know that listening to music activates more mental process than reading. Furthermore, playing music activates even more parts of the brain. Areas that control language, motor skills, hearing, interpretation, creativity, timing, predictions, emotions, and many more are all activated by music. No wonder all those articles connecting intelligence in kids in the band in school and those not are so prevalent.

Jamendo

So If you havent heard there is the website called Jamendo. It is a cool place were a music fan or a musician can listen, upload, and share music. I have officially published my first album. Test #241 is the result of a years worth of playing around with FL studio. Im pretty pleased with the result. I ask for any criticisims, remarks, or whatever you want to say about it. I think it is still in this process of being encoded as of 2:30am on Feb 5th so if its not up just yet be patient. Check out the link in the side bar.