Raygun's musings

It's a remix release trifecta!

2009-02-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

Just cuz I haven't updated in a while doesn't mean nothing is happening on the music front. Lot's to report:

I completed a total of three remixes of The Messenger tracks last year. It turns out all three of my remixes have been chosen for a new 2600 Recordings release filled with nothing but The Messenger remixes! My remixes take up almost half of the entire release! Very exciting, and I've never had a release on 2600 Recordings either.

Ivan-I and I have started and nearly completed (in less than 8 hours of work, I might add) a new track to be release on Jah Love Recordings. This is one of those "practically writes itself" type of tunes, with a super solid house foundation that is uber-mixable, and a verse/chorus/verse/chorus vocal structure. I normally don't enjoy working with full vocal lines cause they tend to be cheesy sounding vocals, but we secured some seriously sick dub/reggae vocals that sound awesome with our track. This could possibly be our most refined track, and could be a turning point in our production together. I absolutely can't wait for this one to see the light of day.

Finally, Sufi Life has seen its official release on Tarantic Records. Ivan-I and I finished this remix months ago so its nice to see it finally get its time in the sun.

Farmhaus Records Remix finished (finally)

2008-11-10T13:02:00.001-08:00

Well, it took me... like... forever to finish my remix for Farmhaus Records (which is something I try NEVER to do, especially when a new label is asking for music... it's best to make, oh I don't know, a good impression, perhaps?) But Mr. Jones was extremely patient and gave me the room I needed to get the track done right.

Basically, when one of my hard drives crashed months back, the data on the drive was unrecoverable and I hadn't backed up my projects for a little over a month when it happened. I had started that remix within that month and I was nearing completion at the time of the crash. So all in all, I lost all of the work on the remix. I now have a Time Machine backup drive that backs up all of my data regularly so this type of failure won't happen again.

Starting up the remix had me a crossroads. I had already spent so much time with the sounds at the time of the crash, and starting over wasn't very appealing. I was ready to move on and instead, I had to start over. So the question then became "Do I try to recreate what I had done" or "Do I start fresh and take it in a different direction?" I opted for the latter approach which ended up being the right decision.

I'm extremely happy with the result. I'm not at all happy with the time it took for me to wrap it up, though. But what can you do. I didn't want to submit a sub-par remix, and Mr. Jones understood that as well.

I'm not sure right now when the release date for the track, entitled "Ambre Dor" will be, but I will most certainly keep you posted. And a big BIG thanks to the folks at Farmhaus for the opportunity to try something new.

Too many headphones to choose from

2008-10-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

So I sit down today with the goal of picking a pair of all-around headphones for production. I had already decided that I wanted the ATH-M50s. Closed back design for sound isolation (good for recording vocals), excellent specs and reviews. I've always really liked the quality of Audio Technica products.

Well, I did what you shouldn't do (but are want to do when you have access to something as vast as the internet) and I started searching for runners up. This led to a 2-hour scour of around 10 different pairs. Suddenly, my quick purchase turned into an afternoon of research. By the end, I was so overwhelmed with options, I nearly gave up!

But dammit, I have some unspent birthday money (awww thanks mom and dad!) and I'm not leaving until I've spent it on something. Here's what I found:

Audio Technica ATH-M50

The phones that spawned my search for the perfect all-around cans. True sound, with frequency response of 15hZ to 28kHz. Everything I read claimed comfort for long sessions, but something tells me they match the comfort I get with my current phones, Pioneer SE-DJ5000. They look very similar, and man, I cant stand to wear those for more than a 15 minutes tops. I probably had my finger on the "Buy It Now" button about 5 different times.

AKG K-240 MKII
Everything I read about these emphasizes the extreme comfort. Man, this one was tempting. Only thing is, it has a semi-open ear-cup which means leakage of the sound. When tracking vocals, this leaked sound can end up in the recorded signal. BUT, some vocalists like this open cup style because it allows them to hear themselves outside of the just the signal in the headphones. This intrigues me as I am sometimes tempted to pop an ear out of the cans so I can hear my voice dry. Also, these come with two cords (coiled and straight) which can be really handy. Frequency range of 15Hz to 25kHz.

SONY MDR-7509
What more can be said about these. The Sony MDR-7509s are an industry standard. I've seen these headphones all over the production facilities at CNET. Great for field recording. Flat, true sound with frequency range of 5Hz to 30kHz. I've worn some that had been broken in over the course of who knows how long, and the cups had started to flatten out, making them a bit less comfy. But they sound fantastic.

Sennheiser HD-280
These sound like a fantastic budget buy for tracking purposes. They fit snug on the ears, and are rated high for isolation at 32 dB reduction. I've worn these at CNET a few times as well and they were fine. I wasn't astounded by the sound quality though. I'm in the market for great dual purpose headphones and something tells me these are better for tracking than no-nonsense mixing.

Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO
A last minute recommendation by kmbrown90, these sport a super comfy looking fabric ear cup. Reasonable isolation at 18 dB, wide frequency response at 5Hz to 35kHz. Dammit -- Coiled cable... I would so much prefer a straight cable, but I can deal with that. And man, I want to sleep wearing these ear phones thanks to that damned comfy looking fabric ear cup! Is that so wrong?

What do you think? I'm leaning towards either the Beyerdynamic or the AKGs.

Blessed Dub licensed to DJ Gianni N mix!

2008-08-08T16:28:00.001-07:00

Got an awesome email today from Amit Shoham of Tarantic Records with the news that Ivan-I and I's original track "Blessed Dub" has been licensed for a double mix CD on Indigo. Sweet!

Not quite the honeymoon I envisioned

2008-08-03T11:22:00.001-07:00

I arrived to my desk Friday morning following the studio recording of Buzz Out Loud to find a huge box blocking my seat. The Mac Pro I had ordered a mere two days prior was delivered, waiting to distract me from my day's duties. On top of that I had a dentist appointment late in the day across town, so I had plenty to keep me from going home right then and starting to tinker with it.

I was very anxious to get this bad boy home and start the long process of data swapping from my old G4, and re-installation of the software I use the most. Perhaps a little bit too anxious.

I popped open both machines to start doing the transfer of drives. The drives are so easy to install in to the Mac Pro. You simply screw the drives onto a platter (four screws) and then the platter slides into the side of the machine. No power or data cord to hook up manually. It's done automatically as you slide the platter in it's home. Awesome!

When I went to turn on the Mac Pro, I was greeted with dead silence, followed by the internal fan turning on so loudly, my wife could hear it form the other room in the house. I was perplexed. Then I smelled the burning. ACK! Power off. Did I just get a rotten Apple?

With the help of Allen099 on Plurk (oh and BTW, Plurk FTW cause this dialogue was a lifesaver for me!), I began to investigate the problem. I removed all drives and the Mac Pro powered up as expected. Well THAT'S good! I then dropped each drive in individually. The computer started the boot up process with all but one of the drives. I examined the drive only to see that one of the connection points was twisted, touching another point on the connection. I fixed that and threw the drive into the Mac Pro again. Boot up success!!!!

...except, now that I let the Mac Pro boot up to the desktop, I noticed that not one of those fancy drives actually mounted.

QUEUE "Jason is just smart enough to get himself into trouble" music.

When I took the drives out this time, I noticed that they all had twisted connection points in exactly the same areas (though none of them were touching other connections as they had in the drive above, so there was no shorting out occurring as a result.) This made me ask the question I SHOULD HAVE asked before I started installing the drives in the Mac Pro in the first place. Do these machines use the same type of hard drive?

See, the G4 takes an ATA drive... in my case, I have Ultra ATA drives. I've discovered in the past that ATA drives are backwards compatible with other types of ATA drives. The Mac Pro uses the new standard, Serial ATA (or SATA). Having never put my hands on a SATA drive, I never saw the difference in connectors. I just assumed that SATA was like all other ATA drives: Backwards compatible.

Also, because of the Mac Pro's "slide it in and forgetaboutit" drive installation, I never actually saw with my own eyes that the connectors inside the computer didn't fit the drives that I was installing. They slide into place, and all seemed ok (obviously). But all was not.

So now I just have to pick up some new SATA hard drives for my new machine. It's probably due time anyway.

Oh yeah. Remember that burning smell? Upon further inspection of one drive that I still haven't been able to mount, I found a burnt chip on the controller board! So my only recourse is to either use a data recovery service (that costs an arm and a leg...) or I find another drive of the same brand/model and swap controller boards in the hopes that it works long enough for me to get my data off of there.

The drive happens to be my music projects drive. Luckily, I backed up all my data from that drive one month ago so I only lost the last 30-40 days worth of work. Unfortunately, Ivan-I and I started a track last Thursday. That work is gone. Oh, and I was near completion of a track for a new label, Farmhaus Records. That's gone too. Otherwise, i have the rest backed up (thankfully because of these experiences!) This just gives me a reason to tear into a music project on it right away to meet the deadlines. What better way to get used to using a new computer then under the fire?

What have I learned? Read and understand all (and I do mean ALL) of the specs ahead of time! DER!

This won't be happening again. Why? I went out and bought an external enclosure for my 750 gig Seagate UATA drive so I can still use it with my Mac Pro as a (you guessed it!) Time Machine backup drive! Ahhhh, backup bliss.

Octocore beast! What the power?

2008-07-31T17:03:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I officially ordered a new Mac Pro, with a total of eight cores. It's hard for me to even touch my G4 tower now. It's like the second I sent off the purchase email, my desire to even write music with my current computer dropped off the face of the earth.

But I must move on cause, let's face it, I have more projects in my queue now than I've ever had at one time. I have a handful of remixes in the works on Night Drive Music right now, a remix that is nearing completion for Farmhaus Records, and I'm starting a new remix with Ivan-I for Tarantic Records tonight.

The thing is, my current computer can do what you need it to do. I just have to be creative in how I do certain things. Processor intensive plug-ins and effects need to be written to disk as opposed to leaving them all playing in real-time. Otherwise, my computer chokes to a standstill and there's nothing that breaks your creative flow quite like that.

There is, however, something to be said for making a choice and sticking with it. In the days of computers that have eight freaking cores to manage the most processor intensive applications, it would be easy to keep everything streaming live within a project and never make a solid, concrete decision for the track because "why should you if you don't need to." Sometimes it's better to limit yourself. Make a decision, burn it to disk, and move on. Done. Boom. It makes the whole process (and the amount of time taken to produce) a heck of a lot easier in the long run.

Sure, you might have access to hundreds of plug-ins, and they may all do super-duper crazy things. But have you ever spent a lot of time with one plug-in? Used it regularly to the point where you learn it's strengths, it's weaknesses? Then it becomes a tool that you can use effectively when the time is right. All of that power and all of that freedom makes it easy to learn a bunch of things a little bit. Or leave a bunch of decisions in eternal limbo... and always with the same reason: "Cause you can."

I'll certainly have to fight that urge when I get the new computer in a few weeks time. Learn from the limitations that I already work with regularly, and apply that ethos to my new production experience. Cause let's face it. Just because you can doesn't always mean you should.

Funky Moves starting off strong

2008-06-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ivan-I and I's latest original track on Tarantic Records, Funky Moves, has already made it into the Stompy Top 100 - Deep. Currently it's sitting at 34, and it's still only in pre-release! Awesome to scan the list and see that it's on par with offerings by Johnny Fiasco, Inland Knights, King Kooba and Jason Hodges. I'm looking forward to the official release this Thursday.

Some updates to the site... and more music!

2008-05-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

What a digi-tastically productive Saturday. I spent a bunch of time on the site. You probably won't notice much, but I brought the Releases section back up to date. Added my Twitter feed to the front page (big deal, but it makes things look a little neater).

I also uploaded a 192kbps MP3 and FLAC version of Difference Engine for free download via my Music page. A new addition to the music downloads page is an old release of mine called An Intense Experience of Light and Sound V. I. This was one of my first compilations of electronic compositions and... well, you can tell. But I hold it dear to my heart. If you like the big beat sound that was so happ'nin at the end of the 1990's, you might find a track or two worth listening to.

As for current production news, Funky Moves is set to release on June 5th, 2008 on Tarantic Records. Stompy has a pre-release of the 4-track EP on sale already! Check it out. Ivan-I and I did the original. We also co-produced a remix with Adnan Sharif (aka DJ Adnan).

I have submitted my remixes for Mr. Jones' Cut One as well as Marc Cotterell's Tiz to Night Drive Music for release sometime this year. More on that when I find out a release date. I am cranking away on another remix for Night Drive. My remix of The Messenger's On the Edge of Love should get a release by the end of 2008, I'd guess. Night Drive has a release schedule set far into the future at this point, so I wouldn't be surprised if it actually hits sometime next year instead. (I'm just happy to be a regular contributor!)

And finally, I ran across an opportunity to remix a track for a new label called Farmhaus Records. The label takes a very techy, melodic approach. They also like the minimal, which has me stoked to no end. I'm not counting eggs before they hatch, so no more on this until I actually get a sample pack and start to churn out some tunes as a result.

Polyphonic audio editing by Melodyne

2008-03-13T16:05:00.001-07:00

One of the best tools in my small arsenal of plug-ins is Celemony Melodyne. I was writing tunes for Ed Goldfarb of Madcap Labs for a few radio spots at the time and he envisioned the need to do some pitch shifting with it at the time so he asked that I get a copy. I got it as a student discount so it didn't put me out much. Ultimately, I never got the chance to use it in the ways that Ed envisioned.

But i find myself turning to Melodyne for at least a part of nearly every track I write now. Basically, Melodyne is an amazingly sick pitch/time shifting tool. It can scan, for example, a monophonic sample (or a whole bass part for that matter) and convert it into a piano roll with each note existing on the piano roll seperate from each other. What does this enable? Real-time editing of a static wave file as if it were a series of midi-notes. This is so completely useful, it's disgusting.

A few years back they updated Melodyne to work with polyphonic sound. Essentially you could time stretch polyphonic material out as far as your little heart desired, and you would hear no side effects of the stretching. Just pure, pristine stretched sound which, before I heard it for myself, I didn't believe. This type of stretching is SO useful in creating your own sounds out of nearly nothing.

Try this: Find a 20 second sample on a CD... atmospheres are AWESOME for this. Bring this atmosphere into Melodyne, then stretch the audio file out so that it becomes a 10 minute sample. With Melodyne's immaculate time stretching abilities, it creates an amazingly entrancing, evolving pad out of the sound. A sound designer's dream, really.

So the big news comes by way of an email I received from Celemony this afternoon. At the International Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany, Celemony displayed a new feature to come out in the Fall called Direct Note Access. This feature allows you to scan a polyphonic audio file (for example, a 6 string guitar playing a soliloquy) and break EACH NOTE out on the piano roll. You can then do things like make a minor guitar chord a major guitar chord?! You could mute certain strings and allow others to come through.

Ladies and gents, this is something I have dreamed of but never figured I'd see. How the hell do these people do this stuff?! it blows me away.

Take a look at the video to see what I mean. This is truly revolutionary in the world of professional audio, and I really hope Melodyne gets some much deserved time in the spotlight for figuring this out. I wouldn't be surprised if these guys get bought out by some of the other big guns just for the insight into the technology. Mindblowing. Pieces everywhere.

Two Night Drive tracks near finished

2008-03-08T18:06:00.000-08:00

I am cranking away on two separate remixes for Night Drive Music.

JP and Jones "Cut One" is the first one. Ended up taking a bit of a funk approach with the bass line. Lot's of subtitle high end layering, and a few lush pads to soften it up. Happy with this one AND it only took me three weeks start to finish.

Mark Cotterell's "Tiz Parts" is the second remix, and this one started off super minimal. I have read a little about modern minimal house production and decided to try out a few things with it. This track has only taken me 4 total production sessions to bring it to near completion! i tell you, sometimes the tracks write themselves. Of course, the flip side to that is sometimes it's like murder trying to finish one up.

I'm really proud of a snap/clap sound that really gives the remix some serious dimension and space. Verbed out the clap, edited together two quick snaps together, stereo separation to split them up and make it sound like a few people snapping, then bumped it forward in time about 45ms before each clap hit. The result really sounds like 3-4 people in a room keeping tempo with the track by themselves.

Not sure when these will see an official release, but it seems they will be on two separate EPs sometime over the next 6-8 months, I'd imagine. As always, keepin' ya posted.

The Force Vol 4 - 12" vinyl release

2008-02-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

The folks at Night Drive Music have release a track from my recent "Raygun - The Remixes" EP on colored vinyl along with a few other choice tracks from NDM artists. This is very exciting! Jeff Bennett turned out one of the standout remixes on the EP, and gets the royal treatment on the 12" as the top billing.

Tracklist:
A1 – Raygun – 1st of the year (Jeff Bennett Remix)
A2 – Alectric – Selected Moments (Neurotron Remix)
B1 – Tom Pooks - Yessid
B2 – Vas Floyd – Deep House Soul (JP and Jones Remix)

You can check it out in limited release 12", and of course, there's always digital.

And while we're on the topic of selling music right in the digital age, Night Drive Music offers most of their music in the following formats:
Vinyl, CD, DVD, MP3, MP4, WMA, WAV, OGG, AIF, FLAC... Talk about choice!

New collaboration project

2008-02-04T22:51:00.000-08:00

Ivan I and myself are ready to tackle a new project after taking a few months off for the busy holidays. And it's about time. We've working with each other for a few years now, and really come along way in our abilities, and quality of our productions.

We will be working in the studio of fellow label mate DJ Adnan to remix the last original track we wrote at the end of 2007. This should all see an official release on Tarantic Records.

I have also been approached by Night Drive Music to complete two new remixes for the label. So I must get busy on those as well. I got the source sounds and I like what I received. It's a lot more enjoyable when you actually find a little inspiration in the remix sounds. I'm ready to crank a few out.

Pro Tools 7.4 released!

2007-11-18T11:12:00.001-08:00

The newest upgrade to Pro Tools (version 7.4) is now officially released! I purchased the update for $49 last Wednesday, and with the total rebuild of my newly received replacement hard drive after the total crash I wrote about earlier, it was the perfect opportunity to install and test drive some of the newest features in the update.

The one I anticipated the most was the main new feature of the update, something called Elastic Time. Using a special file browser in Pro Tools, you can scan your available sounds, and preview everything from within that window. This is proving much more intuitive than using the Import command. You like a sound, you simply drag it over into your Edit space and a new track is created for it.

Within the new browser window, you can enable a fit-to-tempo option. Each time you highlight a new sound, the Elastic Time algorithm scans the sound to determine beats and bar length. With the fit-to-tempo mode activated, the loop will then preview in the tempo context of your track. If you have your track playing during this process, the highlighted sound will preview along with the track. So now you know what a loop sounds like within the track without having to import it (if you have a hunch it'll work) and fit it to the tempo manually using something like Beat Detective to make it work. This literally cuts the time down tremendously and is going to save me so much time and head scratching in future tracks.

There are different algorithm selections that can determine how Elastic Time processes your sound. Rhythmic, Polyphonic, Monophonic and Vari-Speed (like speeding up a tape deck, so does the pitch.)

On my increasingly outdated G4, this whole process of evaluating the loop, running it through the algorithm, then previewing the loop in context, takes a few seconds with each sound. It's not as snappy as I wish it could be (or figure it probably WOULD be on a current Mac)... but it isn't a deal breaker. It just requires a little bit of patience. And for the added convenience once the track is imported INTO the track, it's well worth it.

Whispering sweet gigabytes into my ear

2007-11-12T11:23:00.001-08:00

All seemed lost. I don't know why I even decided to try. But I woke up Saturday morning with a thirst to press my luck and see if for some strange reason I might be able to tap into my destroyed hard drive to salvage all of the important data that would have otherwise cost me $2700 to restore. I connected the drive to my Mac, booted up... nothing.

I restarted in Safe mode, nothing. I rebooted into Diskwarrior, it couldn't see the drive. Nothing. I booted off of my OS X install disk to try to run Disk Utility from there. Nothing!!!!!

The only reassuring thing was the fact that the drive was making clicking noises again. If you read my previous entry here, at one point the drive altogether stopped making any noises whatsoever, signaling defeat to my efforts to restore my lost audio projects on a brand new drive. But those noises that I was hearing this Saturday morning invigorated me to push ahead. And let me tell you, am I happy I did.

As I sit there, reading movie blogs on my work laptop, allowing the drive to click away on my desktop Mac for three hours, I realized after filling another cup of coffee that the drive wasn't clicking anymore. I looked up at the computer and sure enough, the drive had mounted! I mean, I couldn't access any files on it, but it freakin' mounted! More than it had done since the moment it crashed a few days prior. I'm not sure why, but by god I wasn't asking questions. I continued to try and repair the drive using Disk Utility. And finally, after another hour, the progress bar appeared, moved, and I was blessed with a "Repair Successful" message! Holy crap!

I rebooted into Safe mode, and immediately started dragging files off of the drive onto my other drives in order of importance. 25 gigs of audio projects? Saved. 7 gigs of photos? Saved. iTunes library and CD library? Saved. My Documents? Saved.

A mere gig away from the totally salvation of all important documents, the drive starts to make the noises again. Progress freezes. The drive is busted again.

I decided I'd accept the gift given to me... that I was able to nearly restore almost all of my files... But dammit, there was a gig left that I didn't get, and by god I wanted it! So I spent more time trying to gain access, and after another hour of effort, the drive decided to give me one last shot. It worked again!

So I then transferred the gig of files over, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that the second that final file transferred over, the drive started to make the noises again. It was done.

You know the overly dramatic scene in so many movies where the person who is about to die asks their confidant to come closer so as to hear the big secret whispered into their ear before they pass for good? Yeah, the drive was about to choke. And I was the confidant, given one last chance. The drive whispered my files (about 100gigs of files to be exact) onto the other random drives on my system... one last transfer, and then it died.

After a total of 7 hours, all data was recovered.

I can't even tell you how lucky I feel to be given this second chance. Most of this data is now backed up to DVD. I am also considering off site backup. Amazon's S3 service keeps coming up, so maybe I'll figure out a system to backup my current year's worth of audio projects off site on a regular basis. Then once January hits, take the previous year and backup to DVD. I don't know, still working on that.

I'm going to post something about all of the other data-recovery solutions that were recommended to me by far too many kind individuals who read my Tweets as well as my first blog post on this topic. Some interesting tidbits there, and nearly all of them rendered unneeded because of my sheer luck this weekend. Nonetheless, thanks for the kind words!

Oh yeah, have you done YOUR backup yet?

Backup your shit!!!

2007-11-09T13:40:00.001-08:00

Seriously! Why you puttin' it off, huh? Yeah, I'm talkin' ta you!

OK, some background here. A few months back I purchased a brand spankin' new Seagate internal drive. 300gb of storage, to replace an older 150gb drive that was starting to show it's age. I decided to take this new found space to dig through all of my other five hard drives to consolidate and create one unified place for all data that I NEEDED to backup to DVD. Then, once I had everything moved to this new drive, I would begin the process of burning it all. Well, wouldn't you know it, my DVD-burner fizzled and died. So I ordered a new one. And my data lay waiting on this new hard drive.

Well, a few weeks ago, I got the DVD Burner and installed it. FINALLY! I could get everything onto a permanent format and be done with it. Well, I wasn't quick enough to the punch. Two days ago, I started to hear some grinding noises coming from my hard drive. Those noises got progressively louder, and quick! I knew something was wrong, so I tried right then to move all of the data over to another external hard drive. It slowly churned to try and begin the request. 10 minutes later (and many loud noises), my computer froze. I did a hard restart and sure enough, because one partition on this hard drive belonged to my OS, my computer wouldn't boot up. Nothing worked. It just kept clicking at me. And then to my horror, it's stopped doing that. Which told me "this drive ain't even alive anymore."

Thanks to Veronica Belmont, I checked out DriveSavers. This is where things got really scary. Alright, people. Two key things you should learn from my mistake here:

1. Just cause it's a new drive doesn't mean it won't fail. It's the stupid assumption I made, and I tell you, I'm paying the price for it. Of all the data that fizzled and died are all of my music projects from 2000-2005. Probably around 80 different music projects. Gone! My whole CD collection? My iTunes library? Gone! Who knows what pictures from the past year? Gone (Luckily, I had been a bit better at backing up my photo library so I have most of my pictures from before 2007) Other things that I have absolutely no idea anymore cause I thought nothing of moving them to this backup receptical only to watch them disappear? Gone.

2. Just cause it's technically possible to recover data after the fact doesn't mean you'll be able to afford the operation. I mean, I always heard that this stuff was expensive. But I never realized just HOW expensive it really is! So check this out. When you agree to have data recovered from a hard drive, you are asked what data is the most important to you. If they recover no data at all, that's $200 just for trying. That's your entrance fee whether you enjoyed the show or not. If they recover any data, your looking at a $900 entrance fee. The more data that they recover that you listed as "important to you" the higher the cost. So if I tell them that the most important pieces of data on my drive are the audio projects from 2000-2005, and they recover all of those files, I'm out the maximum of $2700.

Cuh-shing!!!!!!!! That's right. I knew this was pricey. I never imagined it was THAT pricey?! My god, it took my breath away. A company with mission-critical data on damaged drives might be able to justify that kind of money but I... Mr. lowly independent music producer with hardly enough money to buy a new hard drive for that matter, can not. Sorry to say.

So I find myself trying to figure out how much five years worth of work is worth to me. What WOULD I pay to recover the data (in the best case scenario, mind you, where the data is actually recoverable)... What am I willing to pay to even see if it's worth it?

To be clear, I have most of the actual final products of each audio project. But I am a pack rat. I like to know that I have all of my time and effort filed away to turn to ten years from now when I want to try to remix an oldie. Now I can not.

Learn from my mistake. If your thinking about backing up your shit, chances are it's cause you really need to. And if you really need to, then chances are you've already waited long enough. Get... it... done. NOW!

Jesu is on the horizon for tonight...

2007-11-06T15:58:00.001-08:00

A lifelong Justin Broadrick fan (Godflesh and now Jesu), I am ecstatic to see these guys play tonight at the Great American Music Hall.

A friend that I'm going to the show with sent me the link to this clip from the opening of their first set in San Francisco at Bimbos 365 on April 6th, 2007. I was at the show... first time I ever had the chance to see Justin play live music in front of my face, and it was just one of those experiences that you wait so long for... and once it finally happens, it's about as cool as you ever thought it would be. Something about their shoegaze infused metal really strikes a chord with me. So to say the very least, I am stoked out of my mind for tonights show.

Here's the clip from their last SF appearance:

Oh and, by the way, that's me at the beginning yelling "I've been waiting 12 years for this shit." Awesome, I've been immortalized in the bootleg circuit. Fine by me. Any way I can get myself attached to the Broadrick world, the better. Maybe I'll have the chance to meet Justin tonight. Yeah, right.

Remix from the sky!

2007-11-01T21:10:00.001-07:00

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I found myself inspired to write a solo track. Turns out I had promised Christian Paduraru a remix of his track "Unconditional Giving." Ivan and I attempted to get it started but weren't moving in a direction that we cared for so we bailed.

As I started this new track, I thought "hmmmm, maybe if I throw Christian's sounds over the top and work with them a bit, it'll work." Sure enough, it totally works!

Not sure where this track will see the light of day, but he anticipates releasing it sometime in December. Man, if only I could complete a track in one week every time!

Also, updated my online resume (finally!)

Pro Tools 7.4 coming soon!

2007-10-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

And it has some seriously cool features that I have been WAITING for. The ability to preview loops in the context of your track in real time, what sounds to be an improved time stretch algorithm, and easy MIDI controls for rewire instruments (something that blows me away that it's taken this long to figure out?!)

Here's a video that's pretty sweet:

Resolutions rework out on Tarantic

2007-09-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

It looks as if Ivan and I's recent rework of our Resolutions Remix is now included on a new EP on Tarantic records called "Resolutions - The Remixes." You can find the album out now on Beatport.

The EP will appear next week on Juno Records, and October 15th on Stompy.

Up 'n runnin!

2007-09-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

FINALLY got my power supply working again, and boy is my Mirrored Door G4 quiet again?! Whoda thunk. Very pleasant surprise.

Even better, though, is the fact that Ivan and I can actually do some work on new music again.

We spent time last Friday finishing our latest remix "Resolutions." We're moving on.

Right now we are in a bit of limbo. We have some killer vocals from a private recording session with Thievery Corporation's "Roots". We already placed some of them in a vocal remix of Blessed Dub, to be released soon on Tarantic Records. We are now creating a new tune (starting off somewhat electro-house...) that we hope to grab some vocals from the session and sprinkle about. It's good to be working again.

A frustrating stand still...

2007-09-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

So about three weeks ago, the power supply on my G4 machine fizzled out and died. And damn are they expensive to replace! With a trip to Detroit and Toronto on the near-term horizon, I put off replacing the part until I was sure we had some liquid dough to throw at the problem.

I did find a replacement part on eBay while staying at our friend's place in Detroit, and for a better price than I envisioned. However, they chose to ship using a service called DHL... Or as some have coined, DH-Hell.

Let me go on the record and confirm for anyone scratching their heads about which shipping service to use that DHL is to be avoided at ALL COSTS. Super unprofessional, rude customer service agents. I tried all day yesterday to contact the main delivery branch here in SF (after being told I would get a call back that never happened)... They never answered their phone. Not once. I must have called 20 times, then realized my time wasted trying to get through was just that.. time absolutely wasted.

Now I have to cart myself down to the branch and pick it up in person, which I've learned through horror stories should be a dream, let me tell you.

Long story short, being without this power supply has absolutely killed any forward momentum Ivan-I and I have built recently. I know it'll get better once we're back up and running. But these things just don't wait for the perfect time, do they?

More news once I get everything working again (sigh).

Slowdive guitars

2007-08-13T15:29:00.001-07:00

So this is a big bummer for me. You don't know what you got until it's gone. (I think that's how the song goes...)

I've been *REALLY* diggin' Ulrich Schnauss's music as of late. Some very spaced out electronic pads, and guitars that are so incredibly reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite bands, Slowdive. Shoegazer goodness to the core, and so incredibly enjoyable.

Apparently, Slowdive achieves their characteristic dreaminess by utilizing the Yamaha FX-500 box, a box I owned for YEARS up until a few years ago when I wasn't really doing anything with guitar anymore. So I sold it. I loved it when I wrote guitar tunes in the 90's but just stopped using it when my electronic music making took me entirely inside the computer.

Skip to current day, as I listen to Ulrich and then replay Slowdive and think to myself "Damn I love this sound, I wanna incorporate it into some of my newer tracks." I could, if I hadn't sold the damned thing! (I don't even think I sold it for anything more than maybe $75)

The setting that I loved the most (and the one that seems to be the characteristic of these artists) is a setting called "Soft Focus". The type of patch that, if you hit a few key notes here and again, it will seriously drift the notes out into oblivion. Super washed reverb, soft delays (hence soft focus)... I used it frequently when I didn't have access to a synth, and wanted to create dreamy pads. Plug in an electric guitar, turn on Soft Focus, and plunk away. Drifty goodness.

And now here I sit, listening to this music, realizing as I type this that I had the answer. I just sold it to make techno music. Now I want it back.

So now, the hunt begins again. You really don't know what you have until it's gone.

I love my compu(PFFFT).........................

2007-08-09T16:24:00.001-07:00

I love my Mac... except when the power supply fizzles and dies, and a replacement costs 3-4 times more than what it would cost if I had a PC...

BUT, small price to pay for the 99% of the time that I thank my lucky stars I'm not writing music on a PC anymore. (What can I say, the benefits, FOR ME, outweigh the ickies.)

So yeah. Music is on hold while I check the backseat for loose change and purchase a $300 power supply. Ugh.

Will keep you posted. You, one person. Yeah I'm talking to you, random person who stumbled upon my blog with a Google search term like "tech house san francisco."

Resolutions remix for Tarantic...

2007-08-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

Finished Dub Rotation. We'll see what the release schedule is for that, but it will be out on Jah Love in some sort of digital form, I suspect.

Ivan and I started a new remix for Tarantic called Resolutions. The original track was a slower tune (somewhere's around 110 BPM if memory serves)... We decided to try a somewhat slower BPM remix of the track. Turns out we settled for 120 BPM, which is slower than our standard 125 BPM, but not so slow as to be considered a down tempo track.

We also wanted to try our hand at a bit more electro-ish House. In four total sessions, we have nearly completed the track and dare I say (all hail the broken record) this is one of my favs. Nice smooth synth pads, some really interesting electro-rhythmic textures. Solid beat foundation. And we were able to work a compressor/expander combo with sidechain to get a nice deep (with a titch of funkiness) bassline. Overall, very happy with our progress.

That means it's taken us four 3 hour sessions to pretty much complete a track. Our fastest yet. And we both agree that the level of our productions is increasing.

We re-tooled Blessed Dub with some vocals that Jah Rootz from Thievery Corporation recorded for Mike Tea at Jah Love Recordings. We're honored to have them to play around with, and Tarantic should be releasing "Blessed Dub vocal remix" soon.

We are working on a MySpace page for B-Side Dub (the official name of our collaboration project) and I will post the details here once completed.

Raygun - The Remixes is out!!!

2007-07-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hahaha. Didn't even realize that "Raygun - The Remixes EP" had it's official release on Beatport on July 5th! Already, The Messenger remix ranks in the top 100 deep house downloads on Beatport! Way to go guys.

You can find the following Raygun tracks on the EP:

Raygun - 1st of the Year (Original mix)
Raygun & Ivan-I - 1st of the Year (B-Side Dub Rework)
Christian Paduraru - Grateful Seeker (B-Side Dub Rework)

In case you're wondering, B-Side Dub is what Ivan-I and I and called our dub-house team. Much easier to name it something than always refer to "so-and-so & so-and-so".

Very happy to see this EP out finally. Check it out at Beatport. All tracks are available for sampling and (hopefully) for downloading! Cheers!