Download audio file (torley-friendly-greetings-01.mp3)

Anyway, I was a shy kid, and it was hard for me to get my intentions across. In person, I'd start to stammer and lose focus. Over time, getting past my introversion, I learned if I was more upfront and simple about how I said hello, people would like me more. (And those that didn't, I could weed out quickly.) But a lot of people said "Hello!" In elementary school I had a good friend named Jared who was masterful at going "Yo!" So I thought to myself, "What would be accessible enough to be easily recognizable and help me meet new people, but not so generic… or alien that it'd be majorly offensive?"

Hallmark, for all the undeserved derision they get, is always onto something. And I thought of various staples like — well, Season's Greetings! But it isn't always the "Season" as in… the holiday season. But I am a pretty positive and friendly guy. So — hey!

"Friendly greetings" was born.

Or should I say, reborn, as it's no unique phrase by any stretch of imagination, but has become so associated with me because I use it frequently in my Second Life and other videos. I say it like I mean it, and yes, I mean it like I say it too.

I wish I had a way to easily search for the first time I typed "Friendly greetings!" on a forum. There've been many introductions over the years, but it's served me so well from one destination to the next: hearing "Friendly greetings!" said back to me makes me incredibly happy as it (harkening back to being a kid who was afraid he'd be forgotten) acknowledges my presence and positive influence on others.

Here's a picture of Daniel Voyager and me proclaiming "Friendly greetings!" today. You should really check out his Flickr sets, he travels so much in Second Life and voraciously photographs the many cool things he finds along the way.

Memorability matters, after all.

Today, I just googled and I've got the #1, #2, and #8 #7 matches for "Friendly greetings!". I didn't set out in the beginning to accomplish that, but it's been a secret hope. Well, secret no more.

And now you know, as Paul Harvey (who's moonwalking with Michael Jackson, no doubt) would say, THE REST OF THE STORY.

And I am ever-so-thankful for all the wonderful people I've met in my lives' journeys because of "Friendly greetings!"

VRM is advertised to make your headphones sound like speakers in different scenarios. Why would you want to do that? A matter of cost and convenience. Just like guitar amp simulators have provided time travel through a pedigree of famous sounds, there's a lot of home studio owners who don't have the luxury of a variety of environments to test their mixes in. Focusrite claims:

VRM effectively overcomes the major obstacle for mixing with headphones by giving you multiple perspectives on your mix, as if you were listening through speakers. Noise levels from mixing through speakers can make it impossible for most to mix at home, especially late at night. But with VRM you can mix any time, anywhere.

Also related, Redline Monitor, an earlier, simpler approach:

Redline Monitor is a listening, mixing, and mastering tool. It replaces the extreme stereo separation that is characteristic for headphones with the detailed stereo image of near-field monitor speakers.

And I know Audio Ease Speakerphone isn't designed strictly for this purpose as it's aimed (if I can say that — beloved thing is so goshdarned versatile) towards grittier stuff, but it's been a great joy to hear what my mixes might sound like in different spaces. Including through a windy cellphone.

Why I prefaced that is because I've gradually accumulated a number of piano-based pieces on SoundCloud which aren't on my main Piano page. (Which is getting long, I realize.) I took a few minutes to create a set (after seeing it done on other sites and wondering how I could attain the same), and if you missed any of these performances earlier, hope you enjoy!

P.S. That Fringe theme continues to be popular. Almost 150,000 downloads now. I wonder what spurred the traffic, as I noticed it spike around the season finale. Word-of-mouth from fansites? Alas, SoundCloud stats don't yet show referrers, whereas BandCamp does.

The white picket fences have been strewn apart, cascaded across what once was a lawn, the individual spikes now resting as yellow-grey in the low sun. You brush the creaky door wide, step inside, and instinctively pull the switch — but of course, the lights fail to illuminate.

So you come deeper. And there it is, unmoved after all these years of what they call growing up. Your worn, used upright piano. And you can close your eyes for a moment and tune out the street traffic, be brought back to your youth, when you first took lessons, those very beginning melodies that streamed from your fingertips. They were naive, and in that freshness was an honesty you'll never recapture. At least you don't believe you will. But if you have enough faith, anything's possible.

Just about. Then you begin to play.

It's not too late to make my dreams happen, you think to yourself, smiling at the chipped ivories.

Performed with Native Instruments Akoustik + Audio Ease Speakerphone.

1. Go to VLC menu > Preferences.
2. Click Video tab.
3. Change Output module to Color ASCII art video output.

BEFORE

AFTER

Play a movie and get out the bitcrushed popcorn. To screengrab a still shot like this with Skitch, I had to drag it into the VLC playlist, play it for a sec, then quickly pause it.

A brief google shows me not many know about this, so spread the lofi word! Previously related is my "8 Inspiring Stories of ASCII Art" for Smashing Magazine.

Some of us aren't yet ready to make first contact — because that civilization yonder there, as promising as it may seem, is still riddled with civil war. They need to sort out their problems first. And send some explorers over to meet you. Maybe then, an intergalactic treaty can be formed.

Some planets are fertile and ripe with resources!

Others have been strip-mined, said F-U you to the environment, or… are barren.

And when we can take the consciousness & soul of a person and put it in another body, well, that'll be like extraterrestrial colonization.

Not necessarily in that order.

A bad GSM connection on a busy sidewalk, a bullhorn with feedback and a helicopter overhead, or a 1952 rockabilly guitar amp in a recording studio live room: The Speakerphone audio plug-in gives you authentic speakers of any size together with their natural environments.

Yeh, pretty versatile. That's somewhat justification for the "pro price", but I did think carefully before plunking my bucks down, and strove to understand all I could! Now, here's my "out-of-the-virtual-box" firsthand impressions as spread across 6 videos; YES, this thang does a super-warm "Giallo" sound too! And check out my heavy piano distorto amping. Schweet.

(Click and drag the position circle to track ahead after it's buffered, I wish it worked with a single click like YouTube's native control.)

In my mind, I voyage to places, travel to both realistic and unrealistic worlds (and many in-between). Since actual human teleportation hasn't happened yet and it's costly to add rooms with various acoustic characteristics to my hizzouse, here's the proverbial "next best thing": just pump the sounds through a Speakerphone preset, tweak-as-needed, and close your eyes. Feels like you're there!

Clearly, Speakerphone has many timesaving uses to place noises within contexts.

And even tho CPU usage ramps up noticeably as you stack on the effects, it still appears reasonable. It's really convenient to have all these effects in a single, well-designed plug — I was using the free iZotope Vinyl for ol' turntable simulation, but Speakerphone goes beyond having a "Gramophone" module and it allows you to sound like a gearluster's list of turntables throughout the ages:

Plus, its pitch-detuned wow sounds more characteristic. Which means one of my lateral goals is to come up with a nostalgic VHS preset.

But I've naive on Day One and need to gain experience. I can already say Speakerphone's usability makes it very rewarding to use. I first heard about it from Ugress, who's a fantastic purveyor of tracks which possess character from ages begone. And ProToolerBlog has a more blow-by-blow review. Apparently, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails uses Speakerphone too, which is why creator Arjen included Trent's voice on the site tour. Arjen has some pretty nifty video tutorials showing his face on webcam too, so check them out if you want to learn more.

Imagine the possibilities!

And then do them. There are plenty of opportunities here for spicing up stock ambiences and foleys — while I haven't heard of Speakerphone being used a lot in machinima, that looks like a likely consequence for those who can afford it with their dedication to the craft. If you've got multitracks of sounds that need cohesive gelling to sound like they all happened in close proximity, this is a much more convincing approach than a generic reverb wash.

As a tool, Speakerphone flows with creativity: you don't have to think "band-pass EQ" to get a phone-like sound, as a cabinet full of models are already labeled for consumption. Those who know better can buck the names and explore stranger domains, but the point is: plenty of solid starting points have already made me happy in targeting the kinds of sounds I'm going for.

What could be awesomer?

I'm having occasional crash problems using Speakerphone with Ableton Live 8 and there appear to be preset saving issues too — I've sent bug reports to Arjen, and he was already quick today to help me get the app authorized.

The sonic adventures continue… !