[- mass konfuzion.com -]

Slightly Awesome Funk Improv

mass konfuzion — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:25:52 +0000

After listening to some LakeShore Vibe, and going to see them play shows twice (in a week!), and watching their kick-ass guitar player kick ass on guitar, I got inspired to pull out my electric guitar and try to rip an improvised solo (even though I hardly ever play it).

I also whipped out my bass guitar and laid down a phatty bass line with it. A few hours later, I had a funktacular unscripted slam session (that you have to be at masskonfuzion.com to listen to, as usual )

I decided to put it online, even though I made a few mistakes toward the end, because… well… because it’s my website and I can do whatever I please, with absolute indemnity. *evil cackle*

Enjoy my experimentation.

A Monster Is Born

mass konfuzion — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:50:43 +0000

Over the past week, I spent some time chillin’ with my old neighbor, turned rockstar, the infamous Jimmy Hegarty of LakeShore Vibe, and also LakeShore Vibe…

We came up with some ideas and recorded them, old-skool style, with ~~only a computer and a microphone~~ the 2010 version of a tape recorder (and I bet half the people reading this don’t even know what a tape recorder is…)

Jimmy stroked the acoustic, and I massaged the bass axe. Here is the chronololololology of the jammage we wrought:

We did this brainstorm first.
Then we played around with that idea until we came up with this jam in B-minor.
We weren’t satisfied (or maybe we just got carried away), so we made this other jam in B-minor.
After all that, we weren’t finished, so we switched to D-major and jammed some more

Click here to load all of the songs in the player (only if you’re at masskonfuzion.com. Otherwise, these links won’t work)

It was a busy week (more like 2 days)! But it was a lot of fun, and now we’ve created a monster. Expect more stuff from the lab in the coming weeks/months/years/centuries.

After listening, you might wonder who Jenna is. Don’t worry about it

Kanye’s Not The Only Dude w/ an 808

mass konfuzion — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:48:58 +0000

At some point in college, when I was staying up until at least 2 AM every night fooling around with beats, I got my man Th.adde.us started on Fruityloops (back when it was still called Fruityloops.. It’s not anymore, because of a trademark settlement with Kellogg’s cereal.. no joke)

Anyway, Thaddeus started a beat, called 808, and I liked it, so I asked for the files and added to it. We had sort of a Big Boi/Andre 3000 dynamic, where his style resembled jazz/fusion, and mine resembled hip-hop.

808 is more of a ‘beat’ than a ‘song’–it’s REAL bass-heavy, so crank your subwoofer up. If you don’t have one, get one

Let’s see if you can figure out which part of the song is his, and which is mine….

(and as usual, if you’re not reading this at masskonfuzion.com, the links to the song won’t work)

Questions? Comments? Drop a line.

I Have Amazing Spanish Skills (or not)…

mass konfuzion — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:25:04 +0000

Now that the site’s up and running, I’m going to start putting up new music and filling you in on some behind-the-scenes info about the songs.

…starting right now… Here’s the F! True Hollywood Story (I can’t use E! because that’s already taken…)

Back in late 2007/early 2008, I started playing around with a program called Linux MultiMedia Studio. It’s supposed to be the open-source answer to FL Studio (which, if you didn’t know, is my weapon of choice, since 1998). Naturally, being an open-source project, LMMS has some growing to do before it’s as mature and robust as FL is, but it’s enough to get the creative juices dribbling down your leg…

I decided to give it a try, and after a few hours, I had created this song. I called it “Lo Que Hecho Dos”, because it was my 2nd LMMS project and also because I don’t speak Spanish and I have no idea if that even translates correctly

Enjoy it responsibly.

(Of course, if you’re reading this from Facebook or wherever else on the internet this post ends up, remember that you actually have to be at masskonfuzion.com for the link to load the song.

Also, if you get tired of hearing the song, just hit the “Play All Songs” link that’s tucked inside the Player flap.

And, if you were paying attention, you noticed that this song was my 2nd LMMS project, but I didn’t mention my 1st LMMS project. That’s because it sucks, and it will never be released (until after I die and they make a documentary about me).

This is a long parenthetical statement. I think I’m done now…)

Leave a comment, and please let me know if the site’s not working right, or the player’s not loading or something.

Madd Site Updates Underway…

mass konfuzion — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:14:30 +0000

I finally got some sexy web development done. You’ll notice that I removed the Player “page” and replaced it with a little tab that says “Player” in the top-right corner of the screen (to all my Facebook friends reading the site, you’ll have to actually head over to masskonfuzion.com to see it…) The tab is collapsible, and it hides the media player I’m using.

That media player is sexy for 2 reasons–1) it’s flexible and customizable, and 2) it can resume mid-song from where it left off. That’s important, because the blogging system I’m using is designed to be a top-notch tool as far as writing is concerned, but it’s not built as a dynamic web app like GMail or Facebook (or any other so-called “Web 2.0″ app). In other words, every time you click a link to read a post or navigate somewhere on masskonfuzion.com, WordPress reloads everything on the page, including the media player. Normally, such a reload would cause a pedestrian media player to “forget” what it’s playing, but the XSPF Jukebox is superior, and it isn’t affected by that type of nonsense

Now, you can listen to songs (relatively) uninterrupted as you browse around the site. I’m going to add more music and upgrade the interface over the next few weeks.

Until then, jam on…

In other news, I’ve tested the site so far with Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 3.5, Opera 10, and Chrome 3.0, but I need HELP making sure the site works with different web browsers and different versions of the Adobe Flash plugin. I also need FEEDBACK!!!! If you think the site’s awesome, I’d like to hear it. If you think it sucks, I’d like to hear that, too (but less than I would like to hear that it’s good ).

One last ramble: Something having to do with Google Ads in the WordPress template, er at least I think it’s in the WordPress template, is causing IE6 and Opera 10 to put up ugly “page not found” error graphics in the middle of my posts, and I can’t do anything to fix that at the moment… But I’ll work on it.

Merry Christmas!

mass konfuzion — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:17:00 +0000

That’s right! Merry CHRISTmas! I said it.

Even if you don’t celebrate CHRISTmas, you still get a few presents. Video! Enjoy yourselves. It’s a celebration!

TSL – Step With Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm9zyKHb8Gs

TSL – Club P.O.V.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLkTGT01RJA

TSL – Rum n Coke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmjGXGpiU8Q

Man…

mass konfuzion — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:04:26 +0000

It’s been a long time….

…I shouldn’t have left you……

…without a dope beat to step to.

Which is why I’m starting work on the website again. I’m updating the media player, so it’ll be integrated into the main page, and you’ll be able to listen to music while you browse (no more media-player-hidden-on-a-separate-page syndrome). I’m also adding a bunch of music that’s been sitting on my hard drive, waiting to be released, as well as some older stuff that people have been asking about and wondering why it was on the old site, but not on the new site.

Expect some new developments in the next couple of weeks. If you don’t see anything, yell at me.

Really!? (I could get rich off this story)

mass konfuzion — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:58:50 +0000

Let me tell you a crazy story. I couldn’t make this up, even with my ridiculous imagination. I’m not even the main character of this story, but it’s so outlandish that I have to tell it.

On Monday, I left town for a business trip with one colleague from Chicago, and another colleague from New York. The trip was a 5-day affair, taking 3 days in Indianapolis, IN and 2 days in Shelbyville, KY. On Monday, we all traveled separately–Ms. New York and I took flights down from our respective cities, while Mr. Chicago drove his own car from Chicago to Indianapolis, because he needed to return to Chicago on Tuesday for a meeting, after which he planned to fly back down to Indy and join us. From there, we would carpool to Shelbyville, do our duties and then fly back home.

That was the plan. That’s not what happened…

What did happen deserves an Academy Award for best story. First, after spending all of Monday in Indianapolis, we discovered that Mr. Chicago had developed a slow leak at some point during the day, because he had a flat tire on his car that night. Naturally, we found this out after every tire repair shop and car rental location had closed, forcing Mr. Chicago to go to the airport, roughly 30 minutes away, to get a rental car to drive back to Chicago.

The next day, his scheduled morning meeting got pushed back to the afternoon, which prevented him from returning on the flight he planned. He ended up having to drive back to Indy in the car he rented. As if that weren’t enough, while he was in Chicago, a freak thunderstorm pelted Indianapolis with quarter-sized hail and probably put some dings in his car, which was parked in the uncovered lot outside the building. (As an aside, that same storm downed trees, destroyed windshields, and even knocked over a gazebo several miles west of where we were).

After that ordeal, he finally made it back to Indianapolis. A couple of hours later, when we decided to grab some food, Mr. Chicago noticed that his wallet was missing, much to his exasperated chagrin. That made his hotel check-in interesting, since he had no ID or credit card.

Mind you, it’s still only Tuesday in this story…

Wednesday almost restored our faith in the balance of the universe. We were able to get the flat tire repaired, return the rental car early for a reduced price, and we even had good meetings that day. Aside from Mr. Chicago not being able to drink a mojito with us at dinner, the day was the highlight of the week for him. Also, it was Ms. New York’s birthday, so she and I had a celebratory shot of something painfully minty and called it a night.

Then, Thursday happened. That morning, we had to drive out to Shelbyville, but not before our requisite intravenous caffeine injection coffee run. Somehow, Mr. Chicago misplaced his cell phone! He said he thought it happened at the coffee shop, but he didn’t find it when he went back to look for it. Add that to the fact that he still had no wallet, and therefore, no money to buy gas to drive from Indianapolis to Shelbyville (and certainly not from Shelbyville back to Chicago), that cell phone incident basically ended the week for him.

It’s unbelievable..

Becoming Beethoven

mass konfuzion — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:41:18 +0000

Recently, I’ve made a breakthrough discovery: a little free app called MuseScore. It’s not a studio-quality synthesizer, sequencer, or recording tool, but it will still revolutionize the way I make music. MuseScore is musical notation software–in plain English, it’s a sheet music editor that lets you listen to what you’re writing. Lately, I’ve been getting more interested in “natural sounds”–actually playing my instruments, as opposed to “cheating” by programming the notes with a sequencer, such as my beloved FL Studio. With MuseScore, I’ve started writing music as a musician would read it, as opposed to the piano roll style that FL Studio uses.

Now, any digital musician worth his/her salt knows that other pretty powerful programs, like Cubase, already include a score editor. In fact, Cubase’s score editor is so sophisticated, you can record yourself playing whatever you want through MIDI, click a button, and you’ll instantly have the sheet music. MuseScore can’t do that (er, it can, but not as well as Cubase can). For that reason, it’s just as powerful a learning tool as it is a creation tool. Plus, it’s FREE! It’s completely gratis, open-source, and awesome.

So, now that I’m writing sheet music, expect a symphony sometime soon

Obama ’09/MassKonFuzion Does Video

mass konfuzion — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:58:28 +0000

Lately, I’ve been adding to my multimedia skillset by fooling around with video editing, and my latest creation is up on YouTube. The video is a mashup of clips I shot while in Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of Barack Obama. The temperature was frigid, and I slept less than 3 hours the night before the ceremony.

And it was worth every second.

I shot the video clips with a regular ol’ Panasonic DMC-TZ3. It’s not fancy by any means. In fact, it’s kind of bad for shooting video.

Gotta start somewhere, right?

So check out the video, and leave some comments.