Robert Angier: I never thought I’d find an answer at the bottom of a pint glass.

Cutter: Hasn’t stopped you looking, has it?

Apropos to absolutely nothing, excepts having this quote jump in my head today. Shouts to the Modern Shark fam/collective. I’ve worked on some of their past projects, including the incredible “Feeding Einstein”, which I actually cut the double vinyl on (oh how I miss cutting vinyl, sometimes).

While I haven’t had time to check out any of their live shows in the last year (another penny in the guilt jar), including their album release (sorry Baje), these guys really do their thing (nothing to say here, just wanted to keep the parenthesis rhythm going). And they’re really nice guys too, which goes a long way with me.

Anyway, see their collective and all of it’s artistic eruptions at the website.

I’m talking about The Believer. I know I’m a few years late to the party but I’ve also never jumped on the McSweeney’s train. Even though I’m sure the scenery is great. I am a fan of the idea of their Park Slope store, even if I’ve never exactly been inside. I know, I’m a terrible human.

And they don’t even have a Kindle edition… Want to force me to remember to carry around one more thing. I get it, the magazine probably looks awesome, but damn if you aren’t fucking with my ability to get shit done.

Universe, consider yourself warned. No more interesting things in my lane for the rest of the year.

The Fickle Needle of Fate: “The Highway Hi-Fi record player slides in and out easily and can be operated without taking your eyes off the road.”

(Via The Believer.)

I’ve seen some rumours (UK spelling just for the fuck of it, I’ve got Stevie Nicks on the mind) spreading about them planning on releasing two solo albums end of this year AND a group album next year. That would be awesome if it were true, or if it were to come true.

Most groups/bands/couples are just unstable isotopes always ready to break down and apart. And it’s that great energy that brings about the group’s most brilliant moments and also what drives them so far apart in time. See A Tribe Called Quest and Pete Rock & CL Smooth as examples. Hell, see Fleetwood Mac while Stevie is still on the mind.

Outkast has always had a different chemical composition. Each member could always exist in their own lane and, do it well, but they could also form like Voltron and destroy you, if Voltron only had two parts.

Their last release was a different story. “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” was like an open acknowledgment that they had grown into two completely different artists, but that they still had a lot of love for each other and their respective talents. After that dropped, and in the years since it’s release, and the Big Boi album after that, I became convinced they’d never put out another full length album together. That they had grown too far apart stylistically. I wasn’t mad at that. They’ve left behind a great volume of work that anyone, in any genre, could only wish for. In hip hop they’ve come closest to genuine concept albums. Even if unintentionally, each album nails consistency while it strays from the center. (Note: ashamed to say I still haven’t heard “Idlewild” album so that screws up the math).

So this is great news. I hope they prove me wrong and do make this happen. I’m about due for another Outkast album. I think we all are. I also hope they find a balance in their work. A balance that’s difficult to attain, but that they’ve always handled so effortlessly.

Since my goal was to buy three of them, that gave me reason to pause. At $10 a pop they would only equal about half a night of drinking at the bar. At $15 each that’s almost a full night of drinking.

Since I’m planning on going out tomorrow night, and drinking, that made my choice clear. I’ll wait on the guitar hangers. I’m glad I have my priorities straight.

On the way back to the subway I heard a brass band playing. They were about 100 ft. in the wrong direction but they sounded awesome. I’ve never been to New Orleans and I bet that there are incredible bands out there that can easily seen/heard. But there was something special in it for me to bump into them on the way to the subway, by the Ghandi statue.

Can’t recall ever having heard a brass band in NY before. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention if they were about. This band lifted my spirits, they sounded great. Plus, the night was warm (for January) and the humidity had those brass notes just lingering in the air like someone with time to kill and nowhere pressing to be.

I hung out a little while up top just peeping them. A crowd of folks were doing the same but I wasn’t seeing them. I mean, I’m glad people were enjoying them and showing them love but a selfish part of me wanted them all to myself. Eventually I dropped a dollar in the collection and moved on into the subway.

On the subway platform there was a dude playing the accordion. He wasn’t too bad. Though, unlike the brass band, after one song I grew tired of dude. The train saved me.

Just one of those nights when the city’s found sound puts me in good spirits, despite a shitty commute earlier in the day and the way Guitar Center tried to jack me for my drinking cash.

I recently mentioned spending my commute listening to old tracks, and though I intended to do some vocal mixing, I still felt like I accomplished something. I really need to examine how I spend my time throughout the day and figure out how to be more efficient.

Along those lines, I’ve been trying to go through old photos to find some to tweak and upload. I spent a few hours tonight going through and organizing about half of them. I then spent a good deal of time tweaking one of those photos, because I’m slow and this isn’t my usual gig.

This photo, now added to the header, was taken on Myrtle Ave in Ft. Greene while helping my buddy Neil Drumming with this video shoot.

*The title is in reference to Master Yoda

I’ve had opportunity to work on, or listen to, versions of songs that have given me insight into the creative process as it pertains to these individuals, and their specific process, but also into how a track can grown and flourish over time to something bigger.

As a mastering engineer my job is take take what’s given and make it better. So it has been cool to see the ways it can get better even before it reaches me. There has always been a bit of that in my career, since I’ve done a little mixing in the past and my first gig at The Hit Factory had all of that going on under one roof too. But this is a smaller, more intimate, work environment. There are no wings in the building, yet. We do spend time in each others rooms. There is more cross-pollination of ideas going on.

As a producer it has been quite an education. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve recently looked back on many old tracks with a new ear. Some of that is the natural passage of time and listening to what’s out there in the world at large. But I feel that a lot of that has been compressed into the last few months and the experiences that I describe above.

I won’t get into specifics because they aren’t important and I respect the right to privacy of the individuals involved, but I have heard some songs in their bare-bones construction get built up to something mighty. It does take a particular mind to hear a song and know where it needs to go. It seems that it’s part skill, part talent (though ultimately I truly believe that all talent is really skill made to look effortless).

The reason that’s been good for me is that in the past I would hear something I did, a clear basic track that is mostly a loop and say “well that sounds cool, but it doesn’t go anywhere” or “that’s just a loop”. Really I was just churning out tracks that were foundations. In the past, this foundation quickly and easily became a jail for me. I couldn’t see past it. Now I’ve seen how this basic foundation does not have to be limiting at all. I’ve seen ways to build on it and expand it and, if necessary, destroy it and work from the pieces left in the rubble.

As much of this as is related to skill can also be related to ego. Sometimes the separation from those who do things professionally and those that do it for fun is that the pros are willing to take the risks. Whether it’s the risk of having a non-traditional job/career that doesn’t guarantee a steady paycheck, and all of the issues that flow from that, or the risk of putting yourself out there.

For many of us, myself included in some ways, that last step of putting your creative work out there is a distressing. Or we aren’t willing to stake our lives and livelihoods on the merits of our creative work. But for the pros it’s really a forgone conclusion that they will not only make a living at this, but that they’ll do well and be respected and sought after. There is a bit of swagger to it all. There is some confidence to it all. Even if it isn’t an extreme and annoying amount of ego. Even in the humble creatives there is some of that. Obviously this can’t speak to every successful creative, as there are successful recluses in the world too, but they are on different tracts.

It may not even be consciously thought of in those terms. It might not be as simple as, “I’m the shit and the world will recognize”. But there is a bit of “if you build it, he will come”. I feel there is a lot of listening to your inner-self and knowing that this is what you must be doing. It’s a lot of “Stay far from timid, only make moves when your hearts in it, and live the phrase sky’s the limit” [Biggie]. But it’s also quite a bit of “At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you” [Goethe]. Whatever the mantra, it isn’t simply thought of, or repeated endlessly in meditation, it’s lived.

I fully realize the stupidity of working in a full recording studio and deciding to do vocals in the mastering suite. I could’ve asked any of the engineers or assistants to track me in a booth. But again, the was an awkwardness I needed to get over since it had been a long time since I rhymed, so I’d have to do it myself. Plus, if any of my coworkers do get to hear me, I want it to sound good from the beginning. I can be a bit obsessive about my creative output. Which is one reason it’s strange that I don’t have much problem sending it out into the world via this site.

Anyway, the point of this post was not the recording of vocals, but what happened after. So I had all these takes and needed to mix them. I didn’t want to do the rough mixing and setup work at the studio, sort of for the same reasons listed before. I decided I would lay out a basic mix on the laptop, through headphones. I’ve done this before and had terrible results, but that’s because the whole mix was done that way. This time I wanted to do a basic vocal mix that could be polished off in the studio.

So I decide that if I take the local train home one night it would give me plenty of time to work on the track. I don’t normally pull out my laptop on the train (even though it’s a super old laptop) because I remember NYC when it was a lot worse. Hell I could still get robbed. But I was on the R train, the odds of that happening were slim. Plus I situated myself with my back against the end of the train so there is no one behind me and I have a clear view of all the exits. And at about 9pm the major rush hour is done and the people on the train now are just tired as hell from long hours and wanting to get home.

So I get all excited to do my work and after opening Logic up I realized that I forgot to put my new vocals on the lappy. I was pretty disappointed after all this setup. But I decided to use my time to listen to old beats I had worked on. I was happy I did.

The distance of time and perspective made me look at a lot of them differently. Some of these were over a year old and I may not have heard in all that time. It feels like sometimes when I am in the heat of making music it’s really difficult to see what the music needs. I just listen to the song over and over and have my brain saturated by what is there, not what isn’t there or can be there.

Some of the tracks were different because I had lost a few plug-ins and reinstalling them didn’t bring back the patches I used before. But that was ok. There was something liberating about the destructive editing that did. I will have to go back and tweak the sound to my patches to my liking but it forced me to hear the basic components of the tracks in a new way.

Overall I’d say that there were about 16 tracks that I found interesting and wanted to readdress. About 3 of them I was really happy with and wanted to build on or write to. The rest had something special about the that couldn’t be scrapped. I felt like if I could capture the essence of what I liked and reformed them in new tracks or just took the music in a different direction, then I would be happy with the outcome.

I finally did get around to doing a rough mix of the vocals. A few days later on my commute in. I’m pretty excited about where it’s headed but have some more work to do on it before I’m ready to post anything here.

As I’ve grown up, my relationship with hip-hop has thoroughly changed. My view of the world and music has broadened, albeit from my perch in Brooklyn. Also, my view of the producer of music that I’ve wanted to be, and the music that I want to produce, has changed (that sounds a bit convoluted).

I realized in college that I wouldn’t be able to make the music I wanted, without compromise, and make a living at it. I also realized that I just wasn’t that good, at least not then, and maybe still not now. I may be a late bloomer. I may yet have something valuable to contribute to the music world as a creative someday, but I don’t have the resources to put life on hold while I become the artist I’d like to be.

That’s why I got into audio engineering. It appeals to the geek in me, allows me to remain an integral part of music creation and it allows me to take my lady out to dinner once in a while (though not as often as I’d like). So for all those reasons, I am eternally indebted to engineering and to all those who’ve either taught me or allowed me to work on their projects.

That’s said, my work is still aligned with another master. Namely, the artists, producers and labels who create and shepherd music to the masses. Even if I have ideas or opinions on how things should sound, the final decision is not mine. That really isn’t such a big deal, but it means that I still need my own creative outlets where I’m totally in control. A time just for me.

All things considered, I’m happy with things that way, even if I never make a penny off my music. Even if it always sucks, I won’t have the pressure of having to give someone else what they want.

This all comes on the heels of hanging with a couple of friends on Sunday for a marathon beer and food and shoot-the-shit fest. Not that there was a lot of drinking, but that it went on over a long period of time. Both of my friends are old friends, who are both talented writers. One has gotten considerable notoriety while being able to write about all the things he wants to. A large part of his writing focusses on the his thought processes, so he gets to really flesh out ideas.

My other bud is also really talented and is really on the precipice of some big moves. But he’s still at the point where it all hasn’t come together so it’s still all in a speculative stage. He’s worried about his future, but no one else around him has any doubt things will go well for him.

In some way, I do envy that they are really going for theirs, but they’ve had to sacrifice a lot to be able to. The funny thing is, I am also in a great place as far as my chosen profession. I do love doing it and I’ve also sacrificed much for it, but it just barely misses on that creative front that I mentioned earlier.

Part of me thinks I should just shut the fuck up about all of this. I do have a lot to be thankful for. But a bigger part of me wants more. That second part can also feel like I’m starting to develop some sort of unique viewpoint with my creative work, but it’s just the beginning. There is still much work to do. Still much time and sleep to sacrifice.

Hanging out on Sunday with them reminded me of the sacrifices we all make to our individual gods and masters but it also reminded me of how lonely one’s perspective of the world can be. More importantly though, it reenergized me a little bit.

These feel like slightly connected thoughts of brain trying to figure a lot out.

It does have me thinking about writing rhymes more. If I can find the time and inspiration, maybe I’ll lay something down to this.

This does feel a bit more like a song to me, but I still feel like it’s not quite there yet.

Here it is, “Time Shift” Phase 3:

And just for comparison, Phase 2 (from Logic):

And the original iPhone version, Phase 1:

I have a long way to go before I can do that, not sure I’ll ever be good at it. I get focused, very focused on whatever is in front of me.

While I have so many things I’d like to accomplish in life, many things to steal my focus, I sometimes have to pull myself back to reality. That’s especially the case if I intend to continue having a balanced social and personal life.

The last few months evaporated before I had a chance to even take it all in. Last weekend I took a few days off so my lady and I could take a trip down to Richmond to visit her fam. Normally my Richmond trips are ripe with introspection and weighing the matters of the past and future. This time, however, it flashed past me.

The week before my trip was insane. I had an attended session for this group Sun Zoo on a Friday, with tracks produced by !llmind (who is a fucking dope producer). My man Cool Calm Pete hooked it all up and two of the members in the group Tiger jk and Tasha appear to be a big deal in Korea, or so I’m told. All I know is that they were cool as hell. Everyone was super cool and appreciative, especially after we accommodated a group of like 10-15 and two camera crews. The tracks were great, fun time had by all. I then fled downtown to grab beers with CCP and my man Neil Drumming because I sensed the wall of work on the horizon.

I was asked on the following Sunday to come into the studio to start work on Saigon’s long-awaited album. I expected it would be a late night and I figured I’d end up sleeping at the studio on Sunday. What I didn’t expect was the insanity that was Saigon-palooza.

I was at the studio from Sunday at 3pm till Tuesday at 9am. In that time I got about 2 hours of sleep each night (on some comfy couches). On the train ride home on Tuesday I was actually falling asleep while I was standing. Got home, slept about 4 hours, showered (finally) and went back to the studio to wrap up the album.

We finished sometime around 10 but I had to stick around till about 2am to make sure all the uploads went through. So that night, Tuesday, I got to bed around 4 or so.

That all sounds crazy reading it back but it was a lot of fun. It felt a lot like staying up late in college with your friends and cramming for finals, but without the use of nodoze or other chemical agents. Because we all get along at the studio it does sort of feel like being at camp, which I’ve never been to, so what the hell am I talking about?

I was back at work Wednesday and Thursday, as I had an album to do for DJ Revolution and a few singles to do for Mysto & Pizzi. Those days were not too bad. I think I was out by like midnight or 1am on both nights and I got to sleep in my own bed.

This all sounds like a boring list but really it’s for my own benefit because it already seems like the memory of it all is a punctured bicycle inner-tube, slowly leaking out of my mind. I want to be able to remember this all down the road.

On the subject of the music, I need to add that all of it was fucking awesome! I enjoyed it all and working on it all. All the artists, producers and label people I worked with over that week were great and appreciative.

I missed my lady, my dog (Elijah Craig) and my cat (Soda) a lot, but this is the path I chose. I’ve been trying to make up for it since last week by being entirely present in my time with them now.

I feel like I’m constantly trying to find the right way, the right balance of it all, while still leaving some time and space just for me.

I don’t really love this new version, but I do feel like it’s going somewhere. Thinking about combining them somehow, will need to tweak. Still much to be done to create the feel of a whole song because this feels like mostly just loops to me. But that is a problem I often have with my music, it rarely sounds like a composition, mostly sounds like loops.

The original “Time Shift” can be found: here.

“Time Shift” (Phase 2), below:

I’ve tried to pick it up, again and again, but my mind is restless and always onto the next crazy idea. That said, I do have much hard drive space devoted to photo exlporations explorations that no one will ever see.

Even on that semi-novice level, there are times that seeing someone else’s photo work has the ability to rock me to the core, instantly; to arrest my thoughts and emotions and hold me in suspended animation while I process the image.

Alessandro Simonetti is a photographer that I know fairly well, in a New York sense. That is to say, I’ve know him for a few years, hung out with him over libations and watched his dog, things of that nature. Even before I knew him, I’d seen his photography, and it struck me.

The first image of his that I recall seeing was a shot of the rear window area of a car which held (I believe) a Puerto Rican flag and a small skull (fake).  You can find the image, 8th from the top: here. I’ve always had a hard time putting into words how it made me feel, but it does play on ideas of life and death in my culture, and my personal life, and a shared sense of cultural “voodoo”. What I mean is a shared mythology from ancestors and folks I grew up around.

The photo was also very slice-of-life Hispanic New York, without trying too hard to be. That’s especially interesting because Ale is Italian, as in from Italy, not Bensonhurst. He has a-whole-nother set of cultural sensibilites, but the artist in him can see beyond that to the core of the moment.

That’s something I envy. There is something bold in that. There something bold about twisting your field of vision so that, in that moment, nothing else really matters at all. That visual fragment, that will probably never be seen again in exactly the same way, is of the highest importance; as is capturing it and preserving the soul of that moment. This may not be what is running through the artists’ mind at the time of conception, or even Ale’s, but the luxury of time and distance allows me the indulgence of imagined insight.

I feel it’s doubly bold when the image is of an actual living person. But that just may be my hang-up. One reason I may always be a substandard photographer is my shyness and inability to take a risk. I largely exist within polite social constructs. I am hesitant to ask someone if I can take their photo and more hesitant to steal a quick snapshot of them.

That’s really my own issues. For the most part, I hate being bothered. I will gladly and enthusiastically give directions to someone lost or take a photo for tourists who need a stand-in tripod, but I would double-think someone I don’t know asking to take a photo of me as I would be someone striking up a conversation with me for no apparent reason. I think it’s the urban dweller in me, the “what’s your hustle?” “what are you trying to scheme from me?” I’m much better at that than I used to be, but it’s a long road out.

When it comes to taking my own personal photos of people I don’t know, it’s an inverse of that, it’s me not wanting to infringe on their personal space, even in a public arena. Sure, there is shooting-from-the-hip. I’ve done some of that. But there is something special about a photo of a dynamic subject that is taken with intent.

That’s what I feel my work lacks. A certain soul.

More great photos from Ale, at his blog: here.

When I moved into the new studio and my commute got longer I started protecting ears on my subway ride, with either my in-ear heaphones while listening to some music (at low level) or with earplugs. I’m talking the bright colored earplus that you can find at any drugstore.

Those earplugs do the job I guess, they do protect from loud sounds. And really I must protect my hearing at all cost. There is no LASIK-type surgery for hearing yet, so if it’s gone, it’s gone. And if I don’t work, I don’t eat.

The one issue I have with those earplugs is that they don’t equally lower the outside world at all frequencies. You end up with this muffled sound that makes conversation impossible. Amd while it makes live shows safe, it reduces the pleasure of being able to hear the band clearly.

After the alarm incident, I spoke to a studiomate, Ariel Borujow, about earplugs. He whipped out a pair he’s had for several years that were custom-molded to the shape of his ear. He raved about them. I became interested.

I’d heard of these before, but they always seemed pricey. I started doing research on them and it turns out that they do exactly what I want/need, they keep sounds reaching your ear equally as balanced as when you aren’t wearing them. They just reduce the overall level. Perfect.

At a few hundred bucks it’s a necessary investment. Audio gear often costs ten times as much but while it can be replaced, hearing can’t, yet. I’m thinking about calling up some spots tomorrow to see if I can get an appointment to get a mold made soon.

Updates to come.

I remember thinking, “when I grow up, I can run the marathon”. As I grew older, the day I’d run a marathon kept getting pushed back. “Maybe when I’m…[21, 25, 30]” You get what I mean. I keep putting it off.

Really I don’t know if I’ll ever run it. I don’t do much running ever. While I do work quite a bit, for long hours, I’m not too physically active these days. I’m not a big fan of running. I’ve also never been part of a training program. I’ve never had a realistic goal.

I’d like to follow all that with some lofty goal to spend the next year training for a 5k or a half marathon. Realistically, I doubt that. I may get up early tomorrow and go for a run. I may even do that for a few days this week. Will I go beyond that?

This strikes at the heart of something about myself that I’ve always struggled with. There are many things I’d like to accomplish. Many interests that tug at my attention. But I also have many false starts. I could go down the list of things, but it would be painful for me, and boring for you.

Of course, I am overlooking the enormous amount of work I’ve put into my career in the last decade. But that’s not the point. I want more.

I’ve found that I’m pretty good at several of my hobbies, but I’ve never put in the time at them to really be great at them.

How do I break past that? I’ve tried creating a fixed schedule for myself fitting time for everything. But life happens and work happens. I’ve tried doing the things I feel like doing when I feel like it, making it a zen sort of experience. But a full day of work usually leaves me tired. Really, this all makes me feel lazy. Like I’m not fulfilling some potential.

Part of the problem is that my interests are many. I should focus on one or two things that I can do daily or several times a week and see how far I can take them. Another problem has been TV and video games. Throughout my life, I’ve always found it easier to turn on the TV or play a game for a few hours than to dedicate that time to some pursuit. That really isn’t the same anymore though. I’m bored by just about every show on TV. I rarely play games anymore.

I also need to adjust my mentality. It’s great on the day of the marathon to think, “I’d love to know what it feels like to finish a marathon.” The real work is the journey. It’s the training, the day-in day -out determination. This is the same of anything. Even relationships are all about the work. If you can’t get along on the daily with the small stuff, you’ll never achieve the big things.

So many young kids want to be Eddie Van Halen, so few kids want to put in the time and sacrifice that it takes to be that good and make it look that easy.

More on all of this as I figure it all out for myself.

When I read his words I find myself internally nodding along to all his points. I also no longer feel like the music either belongs to me or is made for me. That was, at first, a painful realization, but I’ve learned to cope over the years. The one big difference is that, because of my job, I can never truly say goodbye.

I get to work on all sorts of music and I can usually separate myself from what I’m working on because I have to listen to the music differently in order to do my job well. But it is inevitable that at some point I listen to it with the sort of critical ear a fan may have. There is no doubt that I find myself humming the tune of a song I spent all day working on, sometimes even enjoying that action.

Add to that the fact that it’s part of my job to stay abreast of who’s who and what’s current and who’s working on it. But those are things that can be done without completely living or loving the genre. I don’t have to be super fan with “Salt N Peppa on my wall”. But I still couldn’t truly escape it if I truly wanted to.

When it comes to hip hop I have a lot of criticisms. I don’t particularly like the way it’s gone at the popular level. It feels like a cousin who had a promising future but threw it all away because he got caught up in some stupid shit hanging out with his “friends” on the corner. But I am sometimes surprised by what happens at other levels. There are still quite a few folks who don’t make music because they expect to be raking in the dough, but because they have something to say or even nothing to say specifically but a cool-ass way of presenting it, or just because they can’t help but make music.

I have a good friend and client, Cool Calm Pete, who fits the mold. He’s fresh to death. Put out his first solo album about 5 years ago. I worked on it. I still bump it sometimes. He always teases that he’s got some new music for me to work on soon. I think he may have his own sort of Chinese Democracy on his hands, in that I’ll believe it when I see it. But he’s super talented, so I hope he pushes forward.

There are many others like him. Occasionally I’m lucky enough to run across their music, sometimes I’m lucky enough to work on their music.

There is a lot of hip hop that I don’t understand, that isn’t for me. There is some that I can appreciate from afar. And then there is some that hits home and makes me happy. It can never make me feel like I did as a kid, but it can provide me a new way to feel as an adult.

One issue is that I don’t have too much time for it. I’ve tried a few iPhone apps, so that I could do things on the run but haven’t found one that totally works for the way I work. My latest try is NanoStudio.

It works well enough. Gives you MPC-like pads to play drums on two separate tracks and a synth to populate four other tracks with music. The synth is cool enough and has some options. I’d love a few different synth options, but it’s a good start. And I guess you could import samples and play them through the synth for more options, though it doesn’t seem to let you chop up a sample and play the pieces over the keyboard, that would be fresh. For now, it seems like you can only do it with one sound.

It’s got a sequencing window too so you can build your track. A mixer with a few effects (could use some more) and a management window to take care of saving and mixing to wave file, if you so choose. Plus it lets you sync to your computer so you can import your own sounds. It would be nice if it had more options, like midi export, but it is a recently launched app, so a good start.

I decided to try to make a track in one day because I was feeling an itch.  I figured I had enough time on my commute to and from the studio to lay down a basic track. One my way in I bumped into an old friend on the subway and we chatted for half of the ride before we had to switch to separate trains. So there went a good 20 or so minutes of music time.

One the rest of the ride in I laid down the drums, with some effects, and most of the synth lines, including the bass. One the way home I finished out more basic synth loops and did a bit of editing and sequencing. The one down side is that I can’t find a window that will tell you how much time has elapsed in the song, it just tells you bars and beats. So, unfortunately my bounce is a bit longer than I would have wanted. Longer than I might have patience for as a listener, since it is still just a basic track.

Also, the mix is very rough, I mixed it in ear bud headphones and the apps mixing capabilities are very basic. I want to change or alter some of the sounds and I desire to add more to the song – more instruments and changes. Basically, those are all excuses to say that this is a rough track, completed in about an hour and 15 minutes, or so, while on the subway, on my iPhone. Also, some of the sound are a bit cheesy, but I can work on that later.

I think it would be interesting to take this song and flush it out into something else. I’ll try a few thing when I have time and post changes and additions.

Sometimes the day ends with ears that are just crazy tired. They don’t exactly hurt, unless you’ve been listening too loud, but they are definitely exhausted. And then you have to brave the sounds of the world as you head off toward slumberland. Ear plugs help to quiet the outside world and give you some respite, but they aren’t always practical, like if you’re driving.

I’m currently near the end of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential”. It’s been a fun ride. He writes just like he sounds on his show, which I’ve been watching for a while. I imagine that is exactly what he sounds like in conversation.

As I read, I thought of comparisons between cooks and audio engineers (I have to think of another term for audio engineers, tired of writing the term). The long hours, thankless nature of the job, being treated as expendable for most of the early part of your career, the semi-secret society with it’s own rules and decorum and the world of esoterica and geekiness around the thing that is being created and the modes with which it’s done. But I also thought of the overloaded sensory info throughout a long day.

Cooks don’t only use their taste buds, the nose is hugely important in taste and the eyes, ears and sense of touch also come into play. Similar things can be said for ear jockeys (there, I think I ride that one for a little while). We don’t only use our ears. Several senses come into play when working on audio, except maybe taste and smell; unless your smelling the acrid burning scent of your gear overheating and about to go up in flames, but that doesn’t really happen. But even though other senses are necessary, the ears take the biggest beating. I’m sure the same happens with cooks and taste buds.

What I wonder is, at the end of a long day in the kitchen, cooking and tasting every dish, are your taste buds spent? Can you not taste anymore? Have things just completely become bland and do you find yourself adding more salt and seasoning than you normally would have? Can taste buds get tired or overused? Is there a taste bud equivalent to tinnitus? Can one overwork taste buds beyond repair just like hair cells?

It’s to be expected, as I was not only still learning the tools and how to use them effectively, but also learning how to hear. Learning when to do things and when it was just better to do nothing.

It is perhaps because of going too far in the past that I focus so much energy on doing as little as possible now. That, and, the fact that some of my elders have shown me this way also. But it does seem that I take certain lessons to heart after I’ve lived them, and especially after I’ve failed at tasks in some way.

In middle school I had a few friends that cut each other’s hair, myself included. There were plenty of great barbers in the neighborhood but it was: A – a thing to do and B – a cost effective thing to do when you’re young and don’t have money to keep your fade tight every week or two.

Of course, the first few times didn’t work out too well. Our early fades were a bit more bold than smooth. Hats were worn often. But it was only hair and hair grows back. Eventually we all got better. Some of it was investing in better tools like those of good barbers. That’s a life lesson all it’s own.

One of the great barbers around the way used to cut his own hair and do really great work with just two mirrors to guide him, one large and one handheld. I thought he held some magical powers that granted him domain over mirrors and hair folicles. I was determined to pick up that skill.

One of my early attempts, in high school, ended with me shaving off more of my hairline than I should have in the goal of getting my, slightly-off, natural hairline to be even on all sides. The worst part was that I created a straight line going from my sideburns to the line that runs across my forhead. We all have some hair around our temples that holds some form of obstuse angled “L”. I turned the “L” into a slanted “I”. I fucked it up totally. I wore a hat when I could, but it was school policy that we couldn’t wear hats, so in school my lack of skill with the clippers was on display.

It was really embarrassing. But I didn’t stop cutting my hair after that and it’s a mistake that hasn’t been repeated. I’ve learned my hairline well and can even line it up correctly with a razor (the ubiquitous type, not straight razors) for a quick touch up.

Same goes for my mastering work. It’s not really that my work was always that extremely horrible. It’s just that it lacked subtlety and nuance. Luckily, I had many friends who made music and allowed me to learn on their work.

To understand why this would be an insult you have to realize that tracking and mix engineers have no regular schedules. The famous or lucky ones can dictate when they want to work, but most of the lot is a mercenary breed, ears-for-hire who will go when ever and where ever the work is. Add to that the fact that most artist aren’t going to stroll into a recording session at 10am, or anywhere near that side of the meridian, and you end up with a bunch of nocturnal mercs.

Stories of long, late, complicated, alcohol and drug-induced sessions abound. They get swapped like war stories and counted like confirmed kills. The alcohol and drugs usually get ingested by the artists at the mercy of their muse, but engineers will also engage, sometimes. Some engineers have quite well-known tastes for chemical fuel, everything from caffeine to cocaine. Sessions go past 12 hours easily. The 24 hour mark isn’t unheard of. Some long album sessions can be staked out in a studio for weeks or months, with breaks to sleep, fuck and eat according to an artists schedule. It’s not always so crazy, but when it is, there is no surprise.

Mastering on the other hand, has always been separate. Since the early days it’s practionioners have erected a wall of smoke, and behind that smoke mirrors to keep out everyone else and stand apart. Even some tracking and mix engineers view the whole thing as some sort of pagan ritual that they don’t get but dutifully accept. It’s not exacty that they think the rain won’t fall and crops will die otherwise, it’s more like they see the benefits but their lens is focussed on a different path. Plus by that point they have heard the songs so much as to lose perspective.

So from their pagan towers m.e.’s have been able to hold domain over their schedules. Also, artists don’t typically show up to mastering. So an m.e. Can go at their own pace and be done when they are done.

I’m sure that doesn’t describe every m.e. It certainly no longer describes me.

I’ve never been one for the rush hour thing, I abhor trains packed to the gills with drones and zombies who at the beginning of the day are already dreaming of it’s end. Having been in that situation many times I remember how mind-numbing it all was. If I ever have to go back to a regular 9-5 I might get an appetite for eating a gun. Weird hours are fine by me.

Yesterday I rolled into the studio around 3pm. Partly because I was sleeping off inebriation, partly because I knew it would be a late night. Ariel, my studio neighbor would be coming in around 8 to do some changes on a mix that needed to be mastered. I usually attempt to get in by around noon and end up staying till anywhere from 8-11pm. Even later, if need be.

Last night, after all the changes and conferences with the producer were done I got to mastering around 11pm, sat with it for a bit and we did some listening in different rooms. I hung out a tiny but after that and left around 1:15am. Took the long late night train ride home (every late night subway ride can easily double a commute) and got home around 3, in bed by 3:30. Up again at 7:30 to walk my lady to the train and start my day.

I’ve been tired at the end of the day many times in my career. Done a lot of late nights. It hurts sometimes but the sleep that follows is always so good, and to be real, I love it. I don’t sleep much anyway, even when I can. Plus now I’m the sole pagan chieftan in a group of mercenaries. I have to rack up some kills even if I do it with smoke bombs and potions.

I first noticed it in college, in two ways that branch off from the same phenomena. First there is the immediate physical reaction to being inundated with a particular set of sensory info and how your brain reacts to it.

In my case, I was doing work-study at the GWU Law School admissions office. Boring as hell. The staff was super nice, though they were a really odd collection that could fuel character profiles in a short story nicely. All I did was file the applications of Juris Doctor hopefuls. Sometimes I got to sit at a desk with a PC that had a Spartan software accompaniment. The only games on it were Solitaire and Mine Sweeper. During the slow season there would be long stretches of sitting at that computer and occasionally taking a phone call to interrupt my count of where the mines could possibly reside. It was mind-numbing. I wish I had an iPhone then, at least I could make a beat or something.

After minesweeper sessions, I would walk out of work and through the quad still spying all around me to determine where the mines were buried. I’d count groups of people and determine there were an equivalent number of mines around them. It was barely a conscious activity but it wasn’t like I had lost touch with reality, at least not totally. It’s just like my brain had gotten used to the exercise and accepted that, together, we’d been doomed to carry this one task out over and over again. A similar thing has happened after long bouts if chess, where my plane of existence has been taken over by moves that can be made by those around me and how those moves can be countered. It’s something I’ve heard RZA and GZA talk about in interviews.

The other way that happens is when it goes beyond a small specific activity, when it falls more in line with a larger system of thought.

I was enrolled in fairly broad media program at university. Plenty of media theory and communications theory but also some production work, radio, tv and video. In the years since I’ve left I know they’ve built a larger facility with more studios and labs and more offerings. I’m jealous to a degree because I didn’t get to use all of that, but still ended up where I wanted to be so I’m not too mad. Plus I think I was too young and dumb at that age to really to advantage of such opportunities anyway.

I digress. I had some great film classes that broke down lots of elements of films. Mis-en-scene, editing, cinematography, sound, etc. After spending all that time criticizing and breaking down films to their smallest components I wasn’t able to enjoy films in the same way anymore. A bad visual or audio edit would drive me crazy and take me out of the experience. It made me like fewer films, but when I found films I liked, I really enjoyed them thoroughly in more than just a pedestrian way.

Having spent the last 10 years of my life living with music on a sonic level has given me a similar experience. When I was young I listened to lyrics first, music second, at least consciously. I retained lyrics easily and often memorized rhymes of my favorite rappers. Now, when I’m working I barely listen to lyrics, except for the more obvious ones or the hooks. Mostly I hear voices for their sonic qualities and whether I need to do anything to change them. Like if the are too dull or too sibilant.

Similarly, I don’t listen to albums in the same way at all. Case in point, the latest Arcade Fire album. It’s been great background music on my subway commutes. I’ve listened to it a whole lot and I’m used to the songs. But I haven’t taken the time to learn what the songs are about or even their titles. My brain used to focus on those things but now doesn’t at all.

I was asked by someone recently which songs on the album I enjoyed most and I really couldn’t remember the titles, though I could probably hum a few bars and certainly tell you about some of the sounds used or the sonic qualities that I enjoyed. For instance, I enjoy “Modern Man” because it has a certain sonic quality that matches up with ’80s era rock and pop songs. Simple, repetitive music driven by a light touch on a rhythm guitar. There is a bit less reverb than an ’80s song but there is this creation of space that still exists on the track that is welcoming. It sounds something like a cross between “Don’t Dream It’s Over” Crowded House and something that Tom Petty would do.

The upside, for me, is that I can even enjoy some of what most people would consider as bad music, as long as the mixes sound great or they tug at some sonic heart-strings within me.

We had a great time. Met a lot of good people. Reconnected with some good friends. Here are some pics of the new space. More to come, at some point, this is just something quick.

I am an only child and, as such, totally comfortable being on my own. For the last few years I had been working out of my own studio, dealing with people mostly via internet and somewhat over the phone. Face-to-face meetings were rare, since most folks don’t attend mastering sessions. At least, not in the numbers that they would attend any other sessions in the recording process. I didn’t mind that at all, though there was the occasional cabin fever. But now that I’m back in a fully staffed studio, I’m really enjoying it. It could be a honeymoon thing since the new-studio-smell is still strong, but I doubt it.

It feels a bit like college. No one has a regular schedule. You meet up in common areas or in each others rooms/studios. There are usually people around 24 hours a day. You get to build on a variety of subjects, especially whatever fields you are actively engaged in and studying. It’s sort of a combo between college and a salon (in the old European sense of the word) in that, while there is a little weed in the air, usually from artists, there is mostly talk that sharpens skills and ideas. There is an enormous amount of “hey can you listen to this for a minute and tell me what you think”. I’ve already thought of a few projects I’d like to get involved with that are totally doable but wouldn’t have been in any other setting or without the great number of resources available.

As I said before, and much like college, no one keeps regular hours. There is some attempt to but people are there when they are needed, mostly. By that I mean, of course if you have a scheduled session you have to be there but it is quite likely that you’ll be there into the wee hours of the morning so you get to miss rush hour completely, at both ends of the day. That suits me fine as I hate trains packed with people. But really, I hate having to be somewhere early in the morning. I enjoy waking up early but I like to ease into my day, knowing fully well that it can easily be a long one and I’m not sure when I’ll be to bed. That is rather strange for a mastering engineer. They usually keep bankers hours, but I’m trying things a bit differently.

Last night I was up till after four in the morning bouncing sessions for a client and uploading them. I’m working on about five hours of sleep right now and I feel fine. I feel like it’s only when I’m doing things I don’t like that I need a ton of sleep. I’m really lucky to have found something that I really enjoy. It was a long and winding path to get here. I didn’t think I’d ever find anything. It may not even be the last thing I do in life. I’m even considering going back to school at some point for a second career, but that will take some time.

This post, while it meanders a bit, is based on my recent experiences at the studio and having, just this morning, read Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in the New Yorker about social networks and social activism, how the tech that makes the former easier doesn’t exactly help the latter.

Reading the piece made me think of my own networks, those that I use mostly for work. When I was working on my own I was manager, secretary, booking agent, intern and, most importantly, engineer. I had my methods for keeping track of projects and seeing them through to completion. I was able to do all of that fairly well and stay in constant communication with clients precisely because I was using all that modern technology offered me.

I know that it is totally doable to exist as a sort of island in the virtual world. To work remotely and stay on task without having to actually see or speak to anyone directly. But in the last few weeks I’ve been finding that that isn’t what I really want. What I want is similar folks around engaged in similar, and yet sufficiently different, pursuits. I want support staff so that I can focus on the engineering and reduce my communication with clients to really be just about the making their project shine (rather than having to talk money or booking as well).

I use technology every single day, to varying degrees. But being back in a full studio is reminding me of the human element and how important it is in a successful venture. It could just be me, that I’m a little old-fashioned. Perhaps kids growing up now, entrenched in a virtual world, won’t miss the human element at all. Perhaps they’ll be ok with a future lived from inside a pod connected to the world by waves of information. I’m seeing that, while I can live that way, it isn’t exactly what I want and need.

Yesterday I was working on a sound mix for a short documentary. Cool film and it has been fun to work on. I spent the whole day fixing sound issues from the location audio; balancing out the tone of the voices, setting equal levels of dialogue, getting rid of clicks an pops, fixing edits and aligning a few scenes where the sync was off. I just have a rough mix and there is still a ton of work to be done on it today.

The point of this story is that I was at the studio until 1am last night. Nothing too odd about that except that when I finally walked out of my room there was no one else in the studio. That was a first as there is usually some overnight staff. I pushed the button to open the front door and heard a strange beeping sound from the wall. Walked back in to check it out and saw an alarm that was starting to freak out like an ornery baby about to go into full lung-blast when needs aren’t met swiftly.

I didn’t know the code. Sleepy as I was I tired turning the thing off by pressing buttons that looked like they had halting powers (right, like anyone would design an alarm that could be disarmed pushing the thief-friendly “stop alarm with this button, no code necessary”). A few seconds elapsed, that felt more like micro-time, and the baby let loose. And it was FUCKIN LOUD. I don’t recall ever being close to an alarm in full wail and hope to not do it often.

I ran back to my room for a little respite and to grab my phone and call the studio owner. Thank all things holy in every culture on the planet that he answered the phone quickly and gave me the code. I punched the code in and felt instant release from the cessation of torture. However, my ears and jaw remained clenched in disbelief that it was actually the end. My ears transmitted a message via nueral nodes to me. “Fuck you, asshole! What the fuck is your problem?!? We’ve always been good to you and you put us in harms way like this? You’re lucky we don’t have legs or we’d walk out on the job.”

After leaving the studio I received a mass email from the owner to the rest of the crew letting them know I was now in the club, as they’ve all been in the same situation before. Sympathies followed.

For the past few weeks I’ve been wearing earplugs on my subway commute to work. I’ve been meaning to write about the experience and will do so soon. Today as I prepared to enter into the ironhorse I made sure my earplugs fit super-snuggly. I’m going to be making it up to my ears for a long time and I hope they don’t catch wind over the nodes that I’ve already forgotten the security code.

For me, and a lot of folks, Slick Rick is one such person. To this day, he’s one of the best to tell an entire story in a song or a verse. And he’s got a level of wit and vulnerability, even within the braggadocio, that I don’t think anyone else has gotten close to, save for maybe Andre 3000.

I don’t mean this to be a report on Uncle Ricky, this is all being written because I’ve had the lyric that is the title of this post in my head for while, though “Hey Young World” is full of quotables. I would listen to that song over and over as a youngin, mastering the timing on going from rewind to play buttons on my walkman (before I had a unit that was smart enough to reckognize pauses between songs) so that I could have the song looped.

The whole song felt to me like he really was an uncle who was telling me how to live life right so I could be a success. The type of thing someone who cares tells you because they’ve gone through some shit or seen someone else do it and want to help you avoid the same mistakes. Sonically, the song even creates an air of mystery and rememberance. It’s what I picture the pensive to really sound like when Dumbledore turns the thing on.

What strikes me about that one lyric now is how much he really sounds like an uncle. Most parents would say “don’t touch drugs, don’t get high” even though they may have done them or still do drugs themselves. A cool uncle, aunt or older cousin might be like:

“Listen, I’ve done drugs. Sometimes I still smoke a little reefer and you know I love my whiskey. But if you’re going to do anything, stay away from the hard stuff and please don’t let that shit take over your life. Don’t let me catch you running around in the street jonesing, nodding or acting like a fool becase you’re high. I’ve seen too many people get really fucked up over the shit.”

All that from “hey kid, walk straight, master your high.” To be fair, he does say a bit more about the pitfalls of drug use in the song, all of it admonishing the user, but those few words rock well on their own.

For the past few weeks I’ve been totally and completely occupied with getting the new studio up to flght status; checking and re-checking the warp core, impulse drive, shields and weapons systems. Everything seems to be in perfect order, except that the replicator keeps adding milk to my Earl Grey.

Anyway, now that I’m leaving space dock I’d like to spend some time getting back to this actual space because, really, I’ve enjoyed the experience thusfar. It’s been a great outlet for thoughts and feelings that I’ve either saved for drunken evenings with buddies, totally bored my girlfriend with during sober times or just kept to myself.

Just a few days ago I was at a usual haunt and ran into a barkeep who works there, but was off-duty. In a rare moment to get to chat with her, I learned that she is really an illustrator by education and would like to be engaging in it by trade, full-time, in the form of childrens books. I love any opportunity to talk to someone about what they truly love to do; their process and their path. Whenever I do that it recenters me in my own pursuits. It’s like a battery in my back.

The ultimate point of my rambling is that after we talked about her particular path, and all the issues and strife associated with it in our current times, she reinfornced how important it was to stay on task, creatively; to keep feeding that inner monster that dreams of doing something worthwhile and great. The result may not be great, in the end, but it will be worthwhile for you, even if no one else gets it or cares.

She may not have meant that specifically, but that’s what I took from it. She made me feel like any medium I happen to be feeling at the moment, I need to invest myself in, fully, because it’s all part of the creative process and, in a larger sense, a part of who I am as an individual. She told me not to fret about all the good ideas being taken and everything being done before because we all need to be our own version of Kali; completely destroying the world that exists to create a new one. She made me feel that even this public journal is creative expression. She made me miss it and want back immediatley.

Thank you Jill. Best of luck with your amazing story!

I was watching some videos in the morning with my egg sandwich. Stopped on one of the pop stations and didn’t stick around too long. There was not much of interest or that I hadn’t heard a ton of times already. Then I eased over to VH1 Classic and just stayed there. They were playing a few songs by The Boss, but it could’ve been anyone. It felt comfy so I stayed.

Now, obviously, that has a lot to do with my age and liking things from the generation I grew up on and with. I’ve always heard that pop music is for the kids, that’s where the energy is. The Boss was a level of pop when I was growing up, though ti was aimed at an older audience. I’ve never seen numbers to prove any of that, but the mania that surrounds pop music, like Beatlemania, illustrates the point of pop being kids music, I think. I, on the other hand, listened to new and old music as a kid, but I don’t know how I compare with the average.

The other idea that’s being driven hard is that kids don’t buy music anymore, or as much as they used to. The thought that’s been floating around for a while is that the savvy of the lot will find a way to get it for free using technology as an aid. I don’t know if this is just stereotyping the youth as pirates or not. Even folks in my age group are savvy enough to steal music, but some of them also have more money than a kid would to support their favorite artist. Do they? I don’t know.

Which brings me to my formal question. Having said all of that, could pop music possibly start to be pushed to older folks with years of life living, taste developing and some disposable income. I mean, that’s who high-end audio gear is aimed at, though that’s certainly a smaller market than pop music. Could pop music become more adult (and I don’t mean that in terms of sex) in it’s themes and complexity to adjust for it’s paying audience? The runaway hit that was Norah Jones several years back comes to mind as a possibility. But that may have been an anomaly.

I counter that with an old thought I’ve held. Most people, of any age group, work 9-5 and hate their jobs. At the end of the work day or work week they don’t want to digest complexity, they just want to hit the pub/bar/club and drink/dance to something they don’t have to think too much on, so it helps when radio force feeds them what they should like. I don’t know to what degree that’s true of the entire population, if at all, but I’ve seen it anecdotally on a small level.

I, for one, would like to see a segment of pop become more mature, but not boring or rote. I think it would be healthy for mainstream music to inject some old blood into it, as long as it isn’t cheesy. I don’t know if there are any older artists still bringing the heat, or older artists that are previously unknown to the mainstream who would bring something fresh.

This hasn’t worked through my mind too well as a polished thought, but, I’m still watching VH1 Classic. I tried switching away and didn’t see anything else worth stopping on. “White Wedding” is on now. I know that was youthful pop music at one point, but I can’t imagine the Billy Idol of today releasing another “White Wedding” today. I need to look into his last few projects to see if there has been any change in his style toward complexity and maturity.

I really wish I had pics of the unveiling because the speakers are beautiful. Again, dumbass. There is still a lot of listening in the room left to be done before I’m totally comfortable with it all but on first listen, I’m pretty happy.

I should clarify that. Speakers in a room are almost like a living thing. There are so many factors that play a big part in what you are hearing. Obviously, the speakers themselves; their size, construction and components have a huge effect. As does the amplifier and how much juice you give the speakers, as well as what type of juice the amp puts out. All of the objects that occupy the room have a say. And finally, the size and shape of the room has a huge effect as well. I won’t get into all the geekiness here now.

Maybe it’s more appropriate to say that all of the items in the room, including the room, carry on a bit of a symbiotic relationship. If you picture air molecules all around you in the room right now as if they where water molecules that would come close to visualizing what I’m talking about. You could see how moving and stationary objects affect motion of air/water causing ripples and waves. You could see how those ripples and waves would affect you differently based on where in the room you are stationed.

I know that I’m not saying anything revolutionary here. This is all pretty straightforward and obvious, but this is what I’m dealing with now. I am moving the speakers, even slightly, left or right, front or back, adjusting angles and height till I get a sound I like. Dumbass that I am I also forgot measuring tape, so yesterday was just setting things up by eye and doing preliminary listening.

Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, Bjork’s Homogenic and several new projects were played and, as I said, so far so good. I can hear how well they speakers are at moving music around and making it sound like it’s unfolding around you, rather than sounding like it’s coming from a flat wall directly in front of you. But I can also hear that it’s all not perfect yet.

Now that the construction is done on the room, the serious work begins for me.