My Weekend? Eh, Just Normal.

So recently my father has been buying woodworking tools on eBay. In his travels through the largest online auction site, he also managed to get a few things for me, which have greatly helped my more experimental side. Here's to KORG!! (I bloody love KORG, by the way)

This is pretty much a small electronic workstation. From left to right: microKORG, miniKP, monotron, Kaossilator. The miniKP (dynamic effects processor) has the microKORG running through it. You may also note that the microKORG/miniKP assembly is atop my M-Audio Keystation 88es. That's because I don't have a table for the KORG stuff just yet. That's in the works. However, I do have the Keystation connected to the microKORG via MIDI.


Here you see my nano stuff. The top one is the nanoPAD, and the bottom is the nanoKEY. The incredible usefulness of these two working in conjunction with each other is indescribable.



So, aside from sounding amazing, this used bass has very few problems. The jack was smashed in but still functions. The last owner apparently didn't really care much for his instruments because there is residue of stickers, sweat, general grime, and other just stuff all over it. But, for $99, it's practically a steal! And I'm not just saying that because I didn't spend any money: this thing can be priced for $750 to $900. We found one on eBay that was similar for $400 as a starting price. I can't really tell exactly what model it is, but it's either a standard or Special model.

...Ok, slight HTML problem there... basically, new bass. Aria Pro II RSB Series II. Oh, adn the torn apart thing is a KORG Pandora PX5D guitar multi-effects processor. Input jack has problems.

-*-OTHER SUBJECT CHANGE-*-

Dad has friends in odd places. We went to see a few of them this weekend, and one of them has a rather large collection of computers, mostly laptops. They all have problems, though. The guy decided to let me have 3, and he gave me another to work on for him.

What were they? One was an IBM NetVista All-In-One. It does boot, but with no hard drive, and a mere 512MB+128MB RAM, you can't do much with it. I plan to get a 160GB HDD and 1GB of RAM (its max) for it, then maybe use it as either a server for Minecraft (probably not) or a pure music production workstation (if I can).

I also ended up with two Apple Macintosh Powerbooks: a 5300cs and a 3400c. No problems as of yet except for no power supply. It needs a 24v, which I can probably find at like Wal-Mart or something. I'm pretty sure Claire is jealous (she's a MacAddict. Not kidding.)

The one to work on is a Dell XPS M1330. No hard drive or power supply. It's like a mix of the IBM and Apples!!

Here is a pic of all 4:


And a pic of the 5300cs:


So yeah, pretty interesting weekend, actually.

Rock on!

PS: Dad, if you're reading this, when you do finally get into glasswork, do you think you could make this for me?

Merry Christmas!

I am pleased to imform you that this Christmas, December 25, 2011, has been yet another cheer-filled day for pretty much everyone. I've not a clue what one could say when they blog about something like this, so uh... oh, what to talk about...

Oh, I'm sick. My sinuses are clogged. That kind of is a lead into what I was going to talk about...

Gifts!! This year was one of the few I've actually been able to get Dad something that he wanted rather than some last-minute craft thing like I usually do. Now, of course, I've yet to get a job, so I used his money, but it's totally the thought that counts.

Now, how does this correlate to having clogged sinuses? Well, one of the things I got in what I will now call Musical Ex-Mass (sounds kinda fun) is a Digeridoo. If you don't know, it's basically a tribal Australian instrument played with the embrochure of a tuba with modulations performed with your tongue, throat, and really whatever else you can use to 'disrupt' the flow of air.

As you can well imagine, breathing, especially circular breathing, is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, now. I can really only play it for about 20 seconds at a time. But, hey, that's enough to learn with.

Now, the reason this particular christmas was so Musical is because I got a bunch of musical stuff:
Electronic drums
Mixer
Microphones
Digeridoo
Korg Monotron
Zildjian sticks
MIDI cable
Headphones
Metronome (like one of the awesome ones. Y'know, like in the mahogany box n' stuff.)

I mean COME ON! Tell me that's not a pretty epic Christmas for a musician.

Of course, this does mean something: I need to take my music to the next level. NAO.

Rock on.

[Music] Chinese Koto

This thing's just awesome.

Ok, so in a mall around here there is a Chinese store with all sorts of Chinese stuff. Like this:

Yeah, it's a Chinese Koto. I forget the actual name of it, but dude, when I get a few grand I can spend on whatever, this is mine.

That's all.

Rock on.

Oh, wait, PS: Tell me this wouldn't make an amazing band name:

It says Apothic Red. Sounds like an epic Goth-Metal band. haha

[Guitar] YouTube Vids!

So, I have started using my Flip Mino and am currently uploading my first of hopefully many lessons: How To Change Strings.

I started with a tour of my studio. I started getting a feel for the camera with that vid, and I also found that occasionally the audio needs help (mainly for noise removal).

Now, I still have frame problems, but I feel as though you will be able to get a really freaking good grip on how to change strings. Most of what I will be doing will not be a total of 25 minutes long as this string-changing series is, thankfully. I can only imagine how effing annoying that would be.

I went really in depth into the entire process aside from part of the tuning process and part of the restringing process (mainly because I messed up several times on just one string). I hope this series helps you out!!

What do you want me to go over next time? Tell me in the comments!!

[Psych] Fasting Eminem Hates The World.

I've decided to start adding beginning titles so you can skip boring posts. Or for organisation. Whichever.

The title says it all in a funny sentence, so let me extrapolate: The last few weeks or so, for whatever reason, I've been not hungry, like, at all, listening to a BUNCH of Eminem (and other depressing or hatred artists/songs), and still hating most of the world. Why? Well, I'll tell ya what I think.

First and probably most true explanation: I'm a teenager and it could be hormones. But, man, that's the typical answer. Eff that crap. Let's be creative!

My explantion is simple... kinda. I'm thinking the reason I haven't been hungry is because I easily weigh over 200 pounds and my body's like, "Mayn, lose dat junk!" Well, it's an idea.

I feel the last two (music and hating the world) kinda go together. Now, I have generally hated most of humanity since I started studying psychology. I noticed just how stupid people can be. Even today, in math, my math teacher made 3 errors, one after the other. If you take a square root of (x2), 2 being squared, it's x, not x2. Derp.

So I also recently rekindled my likeness for Eminem. Recently being like... 2 months ago? Anyway, in the last few weeks, I've acquired a few more Eminem songs, mainly ones that pretty much perfectly reflect what I've been thinking about:

• Revenge
• Love and hate
• Retaliation
• Standing up for yourself and your friends
• Apology, sorrow, and sadness (kinda all the same deal)

Of course, with thoughts like that, you can imagine I'd have to keep it all to myself, or at least not take action.

I also found that I kinda like Skrillex, who, of course, has a song that has one theme: "I want to kill everybody in the world." Hm, not a bad idea, Skrillex. Too bad I can't do that. But, I also can't really act like I want to kill people, so all I do is keep to myself.

Dubstep, also, is something I've been getting more into. I've liked dubstep, but I'm talking hardcore, brash stuff. Oh, and turn it up to 11. Nah, 12, just because. I'm thinking, due to past experience, this is due to my renewed hatred for humanity. I mean, really:

When I was mad, I would listen to metal. When I wanted to kill people, I'd listen to dubstep and death/black metal. When I wanted to kill people and metal didn't help, I'd take a sword to my archery target and an hour later be vacuuming its remains.

I once had a perfect body pillow. Soft polyester and cotton. Now it has several holes in it, one of which was done by a blade that I decided to effing murder with. It's a big hole :)

I've been thinking about anger management, yesh. But, well, that costs money. I need at least a scooter, if not a car, and a license, soon I'll be moving out (well, within the year hopefully), and I want upwards of $10,000 worth of music equipment, instruments being only half of that. I can't afford anger management. LOL.

I've been like this for several years now. I found, going through legal records, that I've always not given a crap, too. No, for real, the records lady wrote that I had a "devil could care" attitude. This is known as stoicism, aka not giving a crap. Of course, I have feelings, but I've found it's hard to access them, but possible.

What's my point with this whole blog post? Um, rage post? Explanation of odd behaviour? Why I've been blocking out most of the world? Yeah, let's go with the last one. I'm unsure of how this will turn out. I'll either be hated by all, dead, or go back to normal (which is predicted to be the best chance). So yeah.

Basically, your fellow musician/architect is messed up. Aww yeah.

About those songs...

Turns out, recording songs is a rather problematic thing to do when you record each track separately and attempt to turn it into one big homogeneous song. Also, I found it it could possibly break at least 3 song's copyrights. Check it:

The song is called Sum It Up. It's based off of Sum 41's "Pain for Pleasure". Turns out, this song is inadvertently based off of Simon and Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade of Winter." So, instead of following through with piecing together a song with horrid bass lines, out-of time guitars, and no drums (more on that later), I'm going to post the Audacity project, Guitar Pro 6 file, and PDF tabulature, on Mediafire.

About the drums: So, I created a MIDI file of the drums, threw it into Music Maker 15, chose a sick sounding set, and tried doing a mixdown. For some odd reason, MM15 dies at the end of the mixdown process. It creates the audio file, but otherwise fails epically. Anyone know what's up with that?

But, I have (aside from a few small projects) all day to work on songs tomorrow, and maybe I'll not mess it up and produce a decent song! I'm not sure which song to do, but I'll figure it out. I may do an easy song and wait for my Flip camera to come in so I can show you the process.

WAIT, WHAT????

Right, yes, of course, remember when I was saying having a camera would be awesome so I could vlog and do lessons and whatever? Well, my dad found an epic deal on a Flip Mino HD: $40! It should be on its way now. I hope it is, anyway.

Until then (whenever that is, exactly),
Rock On!

Preferrably with your new Jackson, of course:

Dumbfounded look and Runescape all the way, baby!! Ok, not the best pic. Whatev.

C'est une update

For those of you who don't know French, This is an update. But, this isn't just an ordinary, boring (no promises) update, this is an update on life and music and other good happiness stuff.

Starting about 2 months ago (lol), my father and I moved from Alabama to New Hampshire. I used to live in New England (and mainly New Hampshire), and lived there -- here -- whatever for 7-ish years. I then moved to Alabama, and now, due to my dad finding and getting an epic job, we now live back here, which we like to call home. Alabama was referred to as hell simply because it was only slightly less hot than hell. Well, ostensibly.

After an oh-so-fun move in a 17' U-Haul, a neat stay in the mountains (epic biking trails, by the way), and a fair amount of stress later, we ended up here in Exeter, NH.

Aside from that, life is now again fairly standard: wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, help with housework (as in fixing the house), chill in the studio, and sleep.

_____As for music related news (seeing as how this blog is for music and such)..._____

If you did not know, I have both a Soundcloud and a Bandcamp account. Soundcloud carries my electronic music, whereas Bandcamp holds everything else. I don't have much on either, but at least Soundcloud makes sense because I don't have much electronic stuff.

My reason for stating that is not just because it's a place to listen to and download my stuff, it's where a burst on inspiration came from. If you go to Soundcloud and click on the first song "Damn High," you will note that it is a rather shoddy 'political dubstep remix' of Jimmy McMillan's governor debate. But, for some reason, this song has inspired me.

By inspire, I mean that it has for some unknown reason made me want to record and produce a bunch of songs I've just had waiting. Hopefully I will do such a thing to at least 5 songs within the next two weeks. But, knowing me, well, things can not always go to plan. We'll see what happens.

Expect to see songs such as Sum It Up, The Rain Song, Baaesh (electronic), hfs, Hi, and maybe others, showing up on Facebook, maybe Youtube, and the above listed sites.

_____EPIC THOUGHT TRANSITION_____

So, I've been thinking, how neat would it be if I were to start doing YouTube vids of lessons, vlogs, and maybe even show you the process I go through to create a song? Well, I've been thinking it would be really cool since my YouTube channel is rather boring and unused, and it would be fun for me and educational for others.

I would be able to do this normally, but my current webcam takes blurry, slow-mo videos in poor quality. I was thinking of using an actual camera, one that can shoot in clear 720p. I can do audio separately if need be. I found out there are several for under $100, so it's a plausible idea.

___small thought transition___

Instruments!! Gosh, I feel like I'm becoming an instrument connoisseur. Not to boast, but to proclaim, I have a:
Crescent violin
Stradivarius violin
Dean Vcoustic
BC Rich Warlock Bronze Series
BC Rich Warlock KKW
Rogue LX205B 5-string Bass
Harmony H-802
Epiphone C-25
Korg Kaossilator
M-Audio Keystation 88es
Train whistle
Recorder
Tin Whistle
Fun Gear Harmonica
Tanzanian Kalimba
Kazoo

And that's not mentioning my accessories or the new instruments I've gotten since moving:
Jackson Dinky (or Soloist, not sure)
Vintage hammered dulcimer

And so what am I wanting to buy along with of Starbucks coffee and socks? Well...
Korg X50
Korg M3
Korg Kaosspad
Korg MicroKORG
Ibanez 7-string (forget which one exactly)
Schecter 8-string (forget which one exactly)
YouRock MIDI guitar

And that's just a few of the things I'm looking at. Yes, I am looking for a job. Speaking of which...

I have a few applications out to various places all asking essentially the same thing: any job, minimum wage. Turns out, even the place with the "help wanted" sign by its front door isn't really hiring just random people like you'd think. It kinda bites because a local music shop is selling the MicroKORG at a mere $300. I know the X50 is only a little more, but the MicroKORG has a vocoder (same engine as the MS2000, actually) and is smaller.

We just won't mention the $2600 M3 that has like everything, y'know...

___Nearing the End!!!___

Right, so, uh, anything else random that you might care about (as if you cared about the rest)... mmm, nope, not really.

So yeah, hopefully I can get a camera (comes 2nd in my list of things I want to buy, first being nice stuff, like anything not pertaining to me), that would be cool. Also, new songs (assuming all goes well). I may finish one tonight. I'm thinking of just adding a neat harpsichord bit over the drums and sustained synth and it'll work out nicely!

Until then...
Rock on!!