Electro Cinema

After talking to a few people about what low budget condenser mic to obtain, I went with the Rode NT1-A, purchasing it online from Sweetwater.com. I enjoy working with sweetwater's sales reps, they are very resourceful and non-pushy, which makes me comfortable purchasing from them.

What I need for my voice is a microphone that pics up the subtle nuances, since I have a quiet voice. My vocal treatment is more a la' blonde redhead, so vox recording for me has always been a task.

This microphone, with a pop filter, and plugged directly into my Mbox Mini is exactly what I need right now to record tracks for my EP. I also plan to record a violin player using the same setup. Lets see how that goes! I feel I will have more problems writing out the music for her than actually capturing the audio.

FUN!

I posted a link below to Amazon's site which has the same product, and is sold by several different suppliers, as well as has a few used ones. BTW, I am an Amazon.com affiliate, but feel free to browse other reviews and purchase it from wherever you choose!

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So I have gotten pretty comfortable in arrangement view, but I realize when I want to move chuncks around it is really difficult to line them up beat by beat, I must be doing something wrong! This is really difficult and time consuming.

I am going to try to cut and paste them into the other view, and re-copy them over...Anyone have similar problems in ableton, and if so how do they work around it>

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I've been busy working on songs for the EP, so I haven't updated much, since I have been really going back and fourth on the arrangement on a few songs, pushing what I can do, and making at least one mistake to every success. A really great reference for me as of late has been the book I linked above, ableton live 7 power.

I am a 'big picture' person -- They type of personality that doesn't really like to hit instruction manuals unless they want to do a certain thing or know of a certain problem. Self taught I think is the best way to learn. Make songs, break songs, and fixx. Also, late night tweaking after going to clubs/bar, when you are a bit sympathetic and mellow after a few drinks, also helps, lol.  But what do you do when you want to technically achieve something in a song and you can't ask anyone at 4 am? I am not one to wait...I need a reference.

So, after a few months of tinkering in Ableton I want to be able to do more with envelopes, effects, beats, tricks, ect. I bought this book, and its both interesting, teaching me more about the different panels of ableton clips and arrangment views, while every now and them talking about stuff like swing 16 (which I first heard from by a guy that made house music in the early '90's).  I am not finished with the book yet, but I already feel its been a reference for the new stuff I am working on, and also getting the tracks in better shape to hand over to others.

As I apply stuff I have learned in the book I am breaking my comfort zone. I admit, sometimes I have to go back to a few versions back from a song I have been tweaking, and decide if my changes are good/bad -- but again, what I am going for is a selfish experience, haha.  It just matters If I feel I am getting what I want from it, hardy har har.

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download here

Tar Washed Ashore -- Roar/rr Dance Mixx

This is a song that I remixed for Proud Simon. Hope you find it super dancy and cool! You can download it at my PureVolume site for RoaR/rr.

I just want to post it up on the blog temporarily before Proud Simon releases the professional sounding (professionally mixed and mastered) version of the song. If you like what you hear drop them a line at ps.proudsimon@gmail.com and sign up for the band's mailing list --they play NYC at cool places now and again, and they always have fresh songs to perform!

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Photo by Peter Domorak for The Big Takeover

This article in "The Big Takeover" called Something Wicked This Way Comes: New York City’s New Dark Sisterhood talks about up and coming New York Acts and features the ladies of Cruel Black Dove, Shock Cinema, Tamaryn, and Religious to Damn. Great inspiration, keep it up!

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In this clip I found on youtube, Edward has the most beautiful description of his music -- perhaps explaining the large amount of material he writes. He speaks with such a soft voice, its darling! His answers are bound with imagery, the large aptitude of ideaphoria he must have to create his songs are evidenced in his words...

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I was changing hard drives in my G5 last night. Looking at the gobs and gobs of Ableton Live files, songs that I have and not touched in months. Are they good? I don't know. I don't care, really -- because my version of good is probably someone's version of loud and gaudy, to fast and too many synths or just plain boring. I let those little oddly named files in that backburner folder for a reason and it was because I moved on, like a decent relationship that was blah - I moved on and didn't think twice.

What I think is good is what I am excited about, and that's essentially all that matters in my music making.

And I realized that is what attracts me to my friends, their excitement about what they are doing and what projects they are working on. I have peeps that share similar obsessive qualities, and I am 100% happy and proud being around them, rooting for their projects and having an ear for their failures. Yes, we are a nerdy bunch, but we make fucking awesome stuff.

I want to restore whimsical nature - the beauty of discord, the naive nature of 'just doing it for the sake of weirdness' to my workflow. I want to explore music on a more personal level, because change is exciting me right now, the acceptance of who I am in society, and I am rather whimsical, I am rather quirky, and its kinda cool. You can call it whatever, but its being restored...

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A friend is teaching me how to mix my songs, and he is ever so knowledgeable! On his suggestion, I am making a playlist of songs that are mixed well, to compare my home made mixes to for reference. My very first song on this list is Download's 'Toooly Hooof', since every time I hear the track (through headphones) it never bores! Another track I really love off this Download album is 'Mzeo B'. The bass line is treated in such a way that it sounds that you are outside of a warehouse rave, waiting in line to get in. Love it!

Anyone else have any songs that they love the mix on?

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The 'How Pixar Hires' blog article and linked video about what they look for in candidates is a good reference video of what art students should be getting out of design school. Art school is a time to experiment, be brave, be interested in strategies and really be a 'go to person' when people need help troubleshooting -- a creative problem solver.

What I gathered from the video linked above is that they are looking for those creative problem solver types that do not fear failure. They are looking for 'interested' -- not interesting people -- people that take cues from the environment around them and strategies possibilities instead of saying 'can't be done'. The idea of creative play is discussed, improvising with others and listening to others and becoming a team player.

These same expectations of what they consider 'depth, breadth, communication, and collaboration' can be applied not to just animators to but to other digital ways of working, in my case Video Editing and Music Making. Watch the video, take notes, and get inspired!

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Right now I am listening to the track 'Design Fault' from Ka-Spell's solo album 'The Blue Room'. Rather sad to be listing to this while merry trucking away my amateur CSS skills on my mac, but I'm a little bit gother than the Williamsburg hipster stereotype...

So I often get anxiety when I sing on tracks, and its mostly because I am not confident of my weird voice. I have a little bit of a unique voice, I don't pronounce words correctly (English was my second language) and my phrasing is totally out of the ordinary. I have extreme shyness about it, or maybe its perfectionism striking up its ugly head...

The people that know me can admit that I am a painful perfectionist -- working on tracks for 6 months and then completely starting over, having faults with 2 or 3 too many frames in that dissolve, yeah its funny and a bit sad...lol.

I love Edward Ka-Spell's voice, but I don't think his voice will be on the next Coldplay single. I guess we all have to be confident with what we have to share, and accept the flaws in our 'experiences through experiment'. One of my goals for this year it to accept -- accept the experiment, and be less critical of those minor changes that really are more time killers than 'make it or break its'...

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