Open Hearted Technology

I enjoy the process of making things, but I also enjoy all the fun little toys I get to use in making them. This often presents a problem as the toys can become a separate hobby all their own, and a rather expensive one at that.

I currently have what I need to crank out some awesome stuff, but as technology advances, it doesn't hurt to take advantage of some of the improvements to the process, as well as things that let you produce a much stronger product from a relatively low-budget home studio.

So in a few months, funds willing, I'm going to do some upgrades, potentially including a full platform change. Here's what I've been looking at.

MacBook Pro - I want a laptop, and having a separate machine dedicated (mostly) to productivity is something I've always read is good, but have rarely ever accomplished (I'm so good at being unproductive). My new interface is portable, so having a laptop to pair it with makes a lot of sense.

Going to wait until at least September, since they're updating the line, of course.

Also macs are known for being very stable reliable machines in the field of audio/video production. Plus the platform changes allows for this next update...

Logic - One of the most popular recording platforms in the industry now. Still not as ubiquitous as ProTools (which I hate) but I've read it's the most popular among the real creative types, ie: composers, producers, song-writers, etc. Plus it seems like it has a lot of tools geared towards actual composition, which would be useful since my process is sometimes a little scatter-brained, which leads to it taking an excessively long time to complete projects.

Now on to the real "toys", mostly not "necessary" but still very useful:

88 key MIDI controller (keyboard): Even though my piano playing is miserable, it's still at least a few steps easier to input the notes for MIDI instruments, and there's even the option to play it badly, and then correct for rhythm. I heard the M-Audio Keystations were pretty hot, but the hammer-weighted one was disappointing at Guitar Center. So I'll either settle for the semi-weighted 88 key one (only $199 and fairly compact for 88 keys) or I'll spring for something a little more with better feel. But really, what do I care? I'm a guitar player.

Best Acoustic Guitar Ever: Normally I hate Ovations, because they sound terrible unplugged, but I stumbled onto this one back in my days teaching at a small guitar store in Wisconsin. It's ALL BLACK which is pretty metal, plus it sounds decent unplugged, even better plugged-in (Ovation always has great electronics) and the best part, it has a perfectly contoured neck with ebony fingerboard, which means I can easily play anything on it. Acoustic fusion shred-wankery, here I come!

Shure SM7b: On a budget, my AT4040 is pretty much the perfect vocal mic for me. But I'm trying to maintain a normal looking bedroom at this point, which means not having half of it covered in sound foam and moving blankets. So I need a decent dynamic mic so I can do lots of vocal recording without caring so much about the acoustic environment.

The SM7b is a large diaphram dynamic (so it's more sensetive but still not as much as a condenser) that has been used on some legendary recordings, including all the early Iron Maiden albums (see the video for Flight of Icarus) and Michael Jackson's Thriller. And the best part, they're still only about 3 and a half bills, new.

Superior 2.0 - This isn't so much necessary, since dfh Superior has been serving me well, but since I'm eligible for an upgrade at 1/3 the normal price, it seems silly NOT to upgrade, since this is such a great product.

(Hey Matt, wtf is the product then?)

Superior 2.0 is the flagship update from the people who brought us Drumkit From Hell Superior, which I use for drums on all of my demos. dfh Superior is pretty sweet, but Superior 2.0 is amazingly lightyears beyond in terms of capabilities and flexibility. Its nuts. Plus add the dfh expansion pack for a whole newly recorded extra metal-oriented dfh drum kit...sexy.

That's the boring laundry list of gear for now. Toodles.

Making Stuff

So with all these various mediums in which to create what do I plan to do with it all?

Sooo much...

The Band - I've been telling people I'm in a band. The "Me" Band. That's because even though no one else is in it, that's not really that important in terms of the band's direction. See, I'm not so much going to start a band as fill in the open positions in the one I already am. No silly misguided democracy this time around. There will of course be creative and stylistic input from the other members, but they'll all have to be aware that I have a plan, and I have songs.

The Songs - I have some songs that are more mainstream oriented and may not really fit stylistically with The "Me" Band, even though technically the point of The "Me" Band is that it can stylistically play anything I feel like writing. But whatevs. I think I have a few gems I wouldn't be opposed to letting some other shmuck put the leg work in on, while I sit back and collect. Cha-ching! So I'll give the songwriter angle a shot at the same time. Hey, it worked for Prince. He pretty much wrote the 80's.

Musical - I like musicals. But only the not-shitty ones. And that's really only a few in my opinion. So I figure I'll write one that isn't shitty.

Screenplay - Sometimes I wanna write something that isn't music, and I have a few ideas for stories that don't really lend themselves to music anyway. I really like the medium and format of the screenplay, so I'll give it a shot for fun. Share with my friends, etc. Plus if I ever visit LA I'd simply feel left out if I didn't have a screenplay.

Those are all the major mediums I plan to work in, in the near future. There may be some overlap. We'll see.

Matt Out.

New York City / Identity

I live in NEW YORK CITY. Here it is. It's been two years in blog time, and I've actually been living here since January, but I think it's time we got back on track. That alright with you? Terrific.

If you're new here, and I hope you are because the previous few posts are rather obsolete at this point, lets start with who I am.

Identity is something I've been exploring in quite a lot of detail in the past few months. Most people immediately think of their job as their identity. But we're a lot more than what we do. While still not nearly the whole of it, what we want to do is somewhat important. So I'm going to start there.

I've been off to a slow start in New York as far as my intended career and I think I've figured out why that is, like... just now.

There are too many things I want to do, and unless I pick one and focus on it for a while, I'll never get any of them started.

Lets work back to front.

Musician - Duh. But wait, that's pretty vague.

Guitarist - We know I rock the strings like nobody's business. NYC is a little slow on the uptake. I mention I know the guit-fiddle, but no one's really being exposed to the full extent of my ability to wank the masturbitar. Wow, that sounds dirty.

Composer - I writes me some songs. I've found I can work the full range from short poppy stuff to fully masturbatory, I mean, artistic, epics. But the simple short poppy stuff still comes out with a bit of a twist, which is how I like it.

Singer - Yeah, I know. Well, I've gotten a lot of practice. I've become a full on karaoke addict I used to mostly hear people say "yeah, nice backing vocals" or "Cool, but uh, stick to guitar" or the best "Sounds great, so when are you going to get a singer to sing on it?"

Now some of my karaoke friends and I aget "Oh my god, are you guys in Rent?" Which of course I respond to with... "Yes...yes, we're in Rent." And then of course "Fuck off, I hate Rent. But yes...we're totally in it."

Or at the very least "Who are you? Are you in a band? Are you a professional?" The correct answers to which are "Matt", "Yes, The 'Me' Band" and "Hells yeah"

So it's safe to say I rock the mic.

Writer - I like to write stuff other than music. I haven't done a ton of it lately, but I'm going to start, mostly for fun, but if it turns out well, it may go somewhere. You won't see much of it at first because the first attempt to write something in almost any medium is typically a large sack of poo.

So let's summarize.

Guitarist, Singer, Composer, Writer. I like to summarize all of these by simply telling people: I'm Awesome.

And modest too.

Matt Out.

Son of a Bitch

The company that I applied for a "Real Job" at (I was surprised as well) just took down the listing for the position on their "Careers" page. So in other words, I'm dicked. This was the job that was going to allow me to scale back my teaching (which I only realized this week I really want to do, because I'm sick of getting financially screwed over by 12 year olds), erase my debt in a matter of months, and buy lots of neat toys. Now it's back to looking for that second part time job that won't quite make me kill myself.

Ironically I was just thinking about how I need to blog more and need something to write about, and well, there's something. Not quite what I was hoping for of course. I was actually excited about the prospect of that job. And I hate jobs! Now I'm really tempted to look for something similar, even if it's not as steady. If I got this last week, I would've been pretty damn depressed, but for some reason I feel oddly positive (now that the initial "SON OF A BITCH" wore off). Hey, I'd still rather have the fun job that pays money, and maybe it's just the exhaustion screwing with my mood.

Anyway that's all for now. Maybe later I'll cross post the recap of the Gamma Ray show. That my band openned for. Because we're awesome. Mostly.

You're All Nerds

I just realized the other day that everyone is a nerd. At least everyone with enough intelligence to take a particular interest in something. The problem with our society is certain "something"s aren't considered nerdy to be hopelessly pointlessly obsessed with. Best example that will probably come to everyone'd mind when you think of non-nerds is: Sports. Some die-hard sports fans are the biggest damn nerds on the planet, but because their psychotic obsession is sports, it's considered the opposite of nerdy. When you know the names of several years worth of players on a given team, and individual player statistics, you, sir, are a NERD.

The idea came to me when I was about to call my two roommates collosal nerds for geeking out over a National Geographic channel special about the building of some super crazy high tech dam system or something in the Netherlands. I don't know the specifics, I don't NERD on that stuff. But obviously I'm a total music nerd. (geek and dork are pretty equally applicable terms depending on the particular context) The truth is that it's only cool to be apathetic or mildly disdainful towards things. Any real exertion to demonstrate enthusiasm one way or the other leads to nerddom.

So yeah I guess what I'm saying is barring exceptions I haven't thought of yet (this idea hasn't incubated very long) you're probably either a nerd or a moron.

Unexpected synonyms: connoisseur, enthusiast, afficianado

Start Spreadin' the News...

Ok, I started writing this huge entry about how I haven't set any wacky "by the time I'm 30" goals, nor did I have any by 25 ones, but now I have ONE goal for 30 and it's simple (which is why I'm rewriting it in about 1/20th as many words). I have a secret no one knows. I've told it to people but no one KNOWS it. It's music. It's the music inside that I haven't yet been able to properly execute such that people hear it and go "Yes. Yes, I see." and then their heads explode. I WANT EXPLODED HEADS. *ahem* sorry. Anyway, that takes care of that so on to the other point of business.

Fuck Wisconsin. Yeah. I said it. Growing up in Milwaukee I was never one of the whiny "this town sucks, I need to get out of here, there's nothing to do" shmucks. Because it's not true. Milwaukee's a pretty snazzy city when you get down to it. It's just the rest of Wisconsin that doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's the increase in gigs at sad little middle-of-nowhere dive bars, where blue collar 30 somethings who I subconciously impart with a southern accent come up to me and say "Man, you guys are awesome. You sound just like Iron Maiden and all that metal in the 80s." NO! FUCK YOU! Oh, wait, that was a compliment? Don't get me wrong. Iron Maiden rules. THEY RULE. But to sound like them is to fail. FAIL MISERABLY. Only Iron Maiden gets to be Iron Maiden.

So what am I saying? This isn't turning out THAT much more succinct but here goes... I need to live outside of Wisconsin at some point in my life, preferably in a LARGER metropolitan area. No, you don't need to "move to make it" but YES there are more opportunities in certain cities. There's just stuff going on that isn't going on most places. And the audience is larger and more diverse.

So here's the deal. At some undisclosed point in my life, when circumstance dictates it is prudent, I am going to move to New York (Yes, City, but no obviously I won't live in central Manhattan, I know all the cold hard cost-of-living facts, so just skip the lecture). I have family out there, who know people, and it's just an unbelievably awesome city. I'm not moving right now, obviously. Mainly because of Mirror Black and my lease. But as the song goes "It's only a matter of time."

The Last Day and the First

Yesterday was my last day of college. I had my final jury (sucked, but it doesn't matter) went to work for the arduous TWO lessons I had to teach, went out to dinner with my Dad (always pleasant) and then desperately sought some appropriate graduation celebration.

Having already failed to gain more than one person's interest in my master scheme for celebration, the complete posse descending upon Karaoke Kid, I was looking for a backup, to have SOMEthing going on while I rescheduled the huge singing endeavor. After shuffling between botched plans and resisting my natural instinct to "not feel like it" when I have plans available to me, I went out to meet long-time friend Sarah (we've known eachother since age 7, but have seen eachother maybe 3 times in the 5 years she's been in Madison) at Paul's Club. Which is a bar. With a tree in it.

Now I must have had a pretty good time because for SOME reason I remember meeting the greek goddess of war. But I guess that's another story... No. Not really, it's the same story. I just don't feel like writing that much.

All in all, it was a surprisingly appropriate transition. There were many elements which gave a significant 'adieu' to the School of Music, and there were many inspirational discussions pertaining to how life after college is going to be better than college because without school in the way one can make the changes they've been meaning to for a while. Like going out when some little voice in their head says "I don't feel like it." But then when plans fall through it says "Oh man, I wanna go out so baaad!" But then when plans are ressurected, "Hmm, I dunno. It's cold." So I clubbed him over the head with a brick soaked in chloroform, locked him in the dank slightly hidden room in the basement, and went out anyway. And thus developed my new years resolutions which will follow at a later time. Success!

PS. A Note on Redundancy

As I have not made any grand transition to my new/old stand-alone blog from my LJ, etc, and there are still a lot of people ON Lj who would probably read this, AND as copy/paste isn't that hard for someone once trying to go into comp-sci (HA, math sucks), I'm going to temporarily dual-post to both this and my LJ. Until such time as I can gain enough interest to get everyone to make the effort to read the blog on my site. That is all.

Beginning Again for the Last Time...Again

This is the third time in the last year, and possibly the 5th or 6th time in total, that I have created/moved/recreated my blog. I don't feel like I'm having particular success with any of the bigger community oriented sites and so I'm going to try once again to run one privately off my own website, and hope that it catches on eventually through other channels. Ironically this is in fact the original blog I made with blogger (after posting a few manually HTML'd entries on my site) when I first got into this stuff. Of course I've revamped it and gotten rid of the old 2002 entries.

This, along with other things I haven't quite thought of yet, seems somehow appropriate as I'm graduating from college in about two weeks. I will have a BA in Music Performance: Guitar, and before you ask, I don't plan to do a damn thing with it. Come on. It's a BA. If you're actually seeing this and don't know me already, I already have a job teaching guitar, but my real job, which currently pays nothing is as a writing/performing musician. Anyway, finally graduating seems like a great reason (excuse) to do some minor reinvention and make some bold gestures at the world. Ones not involving my middle finger so much. I can find daily reasons for those.

So let's hear it for graduation! In under 7 years! If that's not some kind of record...then my name is probably Matt. But, you probably knew that, because I am assuming you can read.