Abductio Ad Absurdum

4:45am: So Boring and Tedious!
Y'know what gets incredibly boring and tedious? Ripping CDs to iTunes, tracking down album artwork, and placing said artwork with each track of a given CD. I've spent eleven hours so far (broken up into two sessions), and I've still got a ways to go.

Y'know what is going to be even worse? Digitizing cassettes. Why would I undertake that? Because I have a bunch of music on cassettes (mostly mix tapes) that I am not likely to find anywhere else.

Y'know what is exciting about it? Well, aside from having a large portion of my collection of music on my HDD, I'm gonna' be able to have a large portion of my music collection on my new iPod Classic!

Yeah, Kari got me an iPod for my birthday (another late present, lol). Originally she'd bought me an iPod nano with 8 gigs, but then she said to me, "I was thinking, for $30.00 dollars more, I'd return it and get you the one with twice the storage space."

And I said, "Well, y'know, I was thinking about getting the 160 gig Classic. How about I chip in $100 and we get that one instead?" Well, she figured that was a great idea.

So yeah, I had it at work tonight, and it was so great having it hooked into the stereo at work and having so much selection at my fingertips. I know--many of you have had an iPod or MP3 player for a long time now, and perhaps this novelty has worn off, but, I tells ya', I'm pretty impressed. Moreover, it is really nice because I don't have to take my CDs to work, where they often get bounced around and scratched in the player. I certainly have never taken any of my collector type CDs to work, so it is really great to have them available to play at my whim now.

Mwahahahaha: assaulting the public with Nurse With Wound, :zoviet*france:, or the like is good times! It's the best when people look back behind them with a nervous look on their face and ask, "What's that noise?" And then I get to tell them it's music, heh.

One of the best comments I've had so far was, "I think your radio is broken."

3:51am: Exquisite Treasures Lost
New song: part of the Silhouettes of Vanished Places project. Don't have any artwork for it (yet?), so here's the (possible?) cover of the project in its place.

Find more music like this on {nd}

1:54am: Late Birthday Present
Well, I finally figured out what I wanted to get myself for my birthday--a whole month after the fact, lol--so I went out and picked up a BCR2000 this past Sunday. Here's a pic of mine:



While it is actually a very diverse MIDI control surface, I bought it mainly to use with Reason. I don't currently know very much about how to program MIDI gear to interact, so I guess that's something to learn in the future, but this baby comes ready to use with Reason pretty much out of the box (I had to do a firmware update, and that was more-or-less straight forward). It's really great because all the knobs link to various adjustable parameters in any given Reason device, and this makes tweaking sound on the fly so much easier--and enjoyable!

With the Oxygen I was limited to eight knobs and eight faders, which do not by any means cover the amount of parameters in a given synth. For example, go here to check out a picture of one of Reason's synths. As you can see, there're much more than eight faders and knobs present on the device. This meant scrolling through variations on the Oxygen's presets--and not all presets allow control over all parameters. A further problem with using the Oxygen's knobs and faders is that when you touch any knob or fader, the corresponding parameter in the device jumps to the setting of the knob. So I would often end up trying to figure out what parameter suddenly got adjusted to what level, and where was it set at before, anyway? Basically, it was time consuming and interrupting work flow.

So in with the BCR2000. As you can see, there are four rows of eights knobs--so 32 parameters can be mapped at a time--but wait!--the top row of knobs have four banks--so add another 24 knobs for a total of 56 potential parameters: shear awesome! And here's the best part--all the knobs are endless rotary knobs, so what it does is receive a signal from Reason, and it sets itself to align with the parameters of a given Reason device. Those pretty little LEDs? Yeah, they correspond to the current settings of the device the BCR2000 is controlling, and when I switch the control to a different device in Reason, they all reset themselves to mirror that device's settings: huzzah!

So yeah, I've been using this sweet unit the last few nights, and I love it! It makes tweaking so much fun and super accessible. Now, the Oxygen's controls are still great when I'm tweaking smaller devices--like effects units--that only have a few parameters to map to, but hands down the BCR rules for the more complicated synths and such.

7:07am: You, Me, I, Them, Us, etc.
There are but two options in life (which, of course, resolve to a unity):

1): We can over emphasize what is.

2): We can under emphasize what is.

What is, is Nothing at All (read yer existentialist and/or quantum mechanical and/or Buddhist literature, and you'll see, perhaps).

This Public Service Announcement brought to you by No One in particular.

5:49am: How About Something More Upbeat?
If {nd} were to produce something a bit more dance oriented, it might sound a little something like this:

Find more music like this on {nd}

Check back to ndlabs in the next couple days for a write up, and some pretty pictures, if you're interested in such things, aye.

6:27am: An Other Death Day
An Other trip 'round the Sun.

Happy Death day to me,
Happy Death day to me,
Happy Death day
Dear Zero,
Happy Death day
to me.

5:45am: On the Verge of the Autumnal Equinox
As of approximately 5:00 am, Spooky Ph.D. resides in this world no longer.

If there is more
to being than our
mere brief moments
in these material
shells,
may what arises
bring you only
joy.

4:40am: At the End of His Days
My mad scientist hamster, Dr. Spooky, is nearing the end of his life. This fact makes me sad.

I've had him for three years now--the average lifespan for a hamster is about two to three years. And he was a bit older when I got him--probably a couple months. He appeared to be the last One of a previous brood, and I picked him over the younger Ones 'cause I didn't think any One else would, and, well, I didn't want him to end up as snake food or something. So yeah, he's getting pretty ancient as far as hamsters go: I guess somewhere in his secret mad scientist work he stumbled onto a bit of longevity.

He's been an awesome little hammy though.

These days he's made a nest right under the water bottle, and spends much of his time sleeping. I'm pretty sure he's gone deaf as he doesn't seem to respond to noise whatsoever. I'm also fairly certain he's lost his eyesight in the last day or so. He doesn't seem to be able to focus on anything--like if I hold my hand up in front of him, or look him in the eyes. I mean, I used to know when we were looking at One and Other, and it doesn't seem like he's able to make that connection anymore. I think all he's got left is the ability to smell, 'cause this is how I let him know I'm around: I put my hand close to his face before I touch him, so he can smell me there--it's the only way I can touch him without startling him.

Well, I'm not really sure how many more days he's got left. I reckon it's not very many. I simply hope he's not suffering in these final moments of his life. He doesn't seem to be, but then, I can only attempt to derive so much from observation.

Spooks, I miss you already: may you rest peacefully before you suffer too much. You've been the most brilliant mad scientist hamster that the world has ever seen.

3:47am: Mixing the Music of an Other

Find more music like this on The Mix-Up


I heard this song when neoplasm posted it to her Live Journal. I gave it a listen, and enjoyed it--found myself listening to it a few more times. I quite liked the instrumentation, but the mix needed some work...(continued)

4:43am: ARGH!
So, I've been working over some loops and what-not the last few nights--trying to get together an Other part of the "Silhouettes of Vanished Places" endeavour. Well, I have this One loop I made for it, and tonight I noticed, damn it, it doesn't loop quite nicely--there's a bit of a "pop" where it ends/starts. So, OK, this'll take a bit of work.

As an aside, in working with sound this way, I've noticed that it can be easy to miss these little imperfections initially. Like, say, I get a little too caught up in the sound, my ears get fatigued, or I'm working at a lower volume: somehow these errors get by. And then, later, I come back to a given loop or something, and I find some problem that needs to be fixed.

Anyway, I get to work on fixing the loop. This One was a bit of a mother(shut-your-mouth!). Took a fair bit of doing to get it to loop with no flaws. So I finally get it to loop the way I want, and with the processing that I want--huzzah! But now, because I only have four sample banks on the KP3, and I've used three of them on getting this damn loop the way I want it, I've gotta' reload my original program.

OK, I gotta' save the two loops that came out the way I want them. No problem, I get 'em saved to the SD card. OK, now reload the original set of samples. Done. OK, go back and reload the One sample I made that I want to work with in conjunction with the Other three. No problem, right?

Well, I load up the first One, give it a preview, no, I want the Other One. OK, load it up. Wait a sec, it's the same damn loop. WTF!?!?! Then I realize, I've managed to save the original problematic loop over both the fixed up and perfected loops.

MON DIEU!

Yeah, I kinda' wanted to cry, throw something, or freak out in some Other manner, but I merely tossed my head back, sighed and muttered, "ah fuck." Back to the fixing up I guess, ffs.

At least I got some recording done with the fixed loop before I trashed it, lol.

4:10am: Hunh
So, with the old Firebox, I used to have this thing: from the moment I plugged it into the Mac, the Mac would make these weird clicking sounds at random intervals. I was quite concerned at first, 'cause it didn't seem right, and I Googled the problem, and came up with an account that said it was because of the way power was being routed through the machine.

OK. So it didn't say if this was good or bad, but only that this might be what is causing the clicks. It didn't seem to effect the performance of the Mac, so, after I purchased an external HD, and got everything backed up onto it, I felt less concerned about it.

Now, with the new Firebox, there're no clicks. None. Not a sound. This leads me to believe that the problem with the old Firebox was in its firewire port--something wasn't right.

So yeah, with the new 'Box, not only are there no more strange clicks from the Mac, I swear the sync light on it is a brighter blue than I ever saw on the old One, and it also seems to me that both ingoing and outgoing audio sounds a little better, a little more clean.

SCORE!

I also ended up picking up a few more of those Mickey's beers from the Kensington Wine Market. Probably gonna' crack One pretty soon...

All in all, a pretty fine first day of the mini staycation.

6:21pm: Huzzah!
Well, I got up early enough to get my self together, grab my bike, and head for the train to get up to Long & McQuade in order to address the Firebox issue.

They were totally helpful, and the guy tested it out to see if it would work on their machines.

Nope. It was cooked. Guy didn't really know what might have happened, Other than it was likely a power supply issue. The solution? Swap it for an Other One! So I don't have to wait for repairs or anything, which is sweet. And they also re-started my warranty, so I've got an Other year's worth of coverage--huzzah!

Yeah, it's pretty nice to see that little blue LED glowing strongly on the 'Box. Never imagined I'd get so attached to an LED, lol.

A little tuckered now though, 'cause I decided to ride home from there instead of taking the train. Was a pretty good ride though--got to see some areas of Calgary that I hadn't really seen.

So yeah, maybe a bit to eat, then to work on some audio, perhaps with a nap in there somewhere later.

5:19am: About Some Stuff
Well, my mini "staycation" started this evening. I'm taking a whopping two extra days off, so I get the next four days to do as I please, which is nice, but, sadly, will not be enough--in the sense that it'd be a whole lot better to take, say, a month or two off work!

But, ya' gotta' look for the half full glass, sometimes, anyway, and so, to celebrate this little blip of freedom, I bought myself a 750mL of Herradura. Yeah baby.

Tonight was my last night of working with my coworker Tyler. He's been at the store for two years, has been a pleasure to work with, and I'm gonna' miss him. We always got along great, he was good at the job, and needed very little direction or supervision, which makes my life easier. We shot the shit about the Raptors and the NBA in general, he put up with me when I'd slip into my "Kids in the Hall" style of humouring myself, and he was kinda' a bit like a younger sibling to me. It was neat watching his character and demeanor develop over these last two years (and it's also kinda' fun to have had a bit of an influence on said development). Anyway, he's been totally broke over the summer, and living off Bow Valley, so I bought him a twelve pack of Alexander Keith's, which is his favourite--being the Easterner that he is--as a goodbye gift.

In Other somewhat sad news, it seems my Firebox has decided to die on me. It sorta' went through some death throes last night, and hasn't worked since. Luckily, it's still under warranty, so I can take it back to Long & McQuade, and they'll probably have to ship it off to be serviced (so long as it is actually the Firebox that has died--I'm pretty sure it is--and not a problem with the firewire cable, the device's adapter, or, heaven forbid, my Mac). So that'll kinda' suck.

However, I probably have a work around with the Zoom H4n recorder, as it can, apparently, also act as an audio interface. So, I'll still be able to use the KP3 and R3. The only snag that I can see is that I won't be able to use the Rubicons for playback, although, I still might if I can get a 1/8" stereo jack to two 1/4" mono males adapter cable. Oh look, I guess such a thing is available. Although, I might have to do some creative cutting on that cable in order that it'll serve the purpose that I need it for--the Rubicons are about three and half feet apart, after all.

Anyway, happy holidays to me.

5:43am: Beautiful!
"Holy!"

That's what I said as moments ago I witnessed One of the most--if not the most--brilliant meteors I've ever seen.

From the time when it came into view to when it finally dissipated, it covered (holding my hands out as far from me as they go) about sixteen to eighteen inches of the sky. Totally bright and brilliant bluish-white, several times more luminous than any Other light in the night sky, and probably about five times the size of the average background star. The tail was somewhere around ten or so inches (again, using the above mentioned mode of measurement), and as it traversed its path (lasting somewhere around a second and a half in duration), it faded, got real bright, faded again, and got really bright One final time before going out.

Amazing!

3:37am: Some Reviews of New Things
Well, I went for quite a bike ride today. It started out as run to Kalamata grocery to pick up the best priced smokes in town, and turned into a quest to find some minis of top shelf tequila to try. The former was an easy success, and the latter turned out well too--although I ended up visiting three liquor stores, from downtown, to Kensington, to 16th Ave NW.

It's funny going into Other liquor stores, 'cause I always start comparing prices to what our store sells things for. We haven't dropped our prices yet (since the AB gov't rescinded their large tax increase), but Other stores don't necessarily seem to have either. I noticed that, yeah, most of our 750mL of hard liquors were selling at a few dollars more, but wine and beer seemed very comparable. Some of our wines were even cheaper than some of the prices at these Other stores.

Anyway, I ended up picking up a couple singles of Mickeys beer, and they turned out to be alright. The first few sips I wasn't sure what I thought of it--it kinda' had a tinny taste, but this faded pretty quick. It turns out it's very similar to Other green bottled imports like Beck's, Stella, or Heineken--although definitely less skunky than the latter. It's tasty enough--kinda' thin and crisp, right?--and I'd likely buy it again on occasion. The bottles are a neat shape--like old pineapple grenades or something--and there're little pictogram puzzles under the cap. Gimmicks, yes, but I guess these sorts of things add to the overall experience, yah?

I did find a store that was selling minis of Patron, which is supposed to be the creme-de-la-creme of tequilas, so I bought three of the Reposado in order to give it a good sampling. And, y'know, it's pretty nice. Fairly smooth, with a hint of the richness and spice that marks Other types of Reposados. Is it the best? No. Yes, it beats 30-30, which is my go to value priced 100% agave tequila (in the same price range as Other tequilas that are blends--typically 52% agave, and 48% corn liquor--like Cuervo, which is total shit, and Sauza Gold, which I buy when there's no 30-30 available), but I think I'd purchase Heradurra easily before this (at about a third less the price), and, if I recall correctly, Dos Lunas has more character as well. So, in the end, an excellent tequila, yes, but not so excellent as to put its price so much higher against Other tequilas at least as good as, if not better.

On to music, I had a chance to listen to a good portion of the 3 disc Reformed Faction box set, and it's pretty sweet. A couple tracks were somewhat "meh," but for the most part it's an Other excellent effort from Storey, Spybey, and cohorts. The use of real guitars and drums doesn't stop them from being pretty weird in the well established Zoviet-France style. Each disc is exactly One hour long, and is pretty much a free flowing whole, which, for the most part, slips seamlessly from track to track. It creates an alternating flux of drum n' base/dub style in contrast to the experimental/industrial stylings of more traditional releases. In the end, it's much like an urban twilight zone of soundscapes which are a pleasure to explore.

Currently, as I write this, I'm listening to irr. app. (ext.)'s Ozeanishe Gefuhle, and am, as always, entirely impressed by Waldron's efforts. He is clearly a master alchemist of dark ambient/drone/experimentalism: it's no wonder Stapleton has gathered him up and uses him on several Nurse With Wound efforts.

3:03am: Latest Work from (nd)

Find more music like this on nd laboratories

7:10am: The Old Days, the New Days.
Some thirteen years ago, when I was still living in county 23, and, like today, had my own place, I would often entertain myself by playing music. No, not playing the music of Others, but creating my own sounds.

Back then I had a couple guitars, a couple small practice amps, and a Boss distortion pedal. Sometimes the creation of sound would simply be cranking up the patched together amps, leaning the guitar against the little stack, and twiddling the dials on the pedal. This would produce various frequencies of distortion and feedback. There were times when I'd loose myself in the waves of sound for hours.

My poor neighbours, heh.

Once again, I find myself easily lost in haphazard, spontaneous, and improvised noise. Except now I have some outrageous exponential increase in the amount of sonic seduction I can create. If I could lose myself in sound for a few hours with One instrument and One effect, how much more time can I pass with such a variety of Other possibilities at my beck and call?

And, like then, if I can find some combination of frequencies which are pleasing to my ear, well, that's all I'm after.

Lead and Gold are easily the same to One: it's only the Other that needs to be convinced.

5:31am: LAB Report
Well, I gotta' say, this R3 synth is a total blast, and an excellent addition to my gear.

The last couple nights have been all night jam sessions. I fire up the KP3, the R3, and open up Reason. I start messin' around with the synth, find some nice sound--like maybe with the arpeggiator, say--and then tap out the beat on the KP3. The KP3 tells me what the BPM is, and then I input that number into Reason. Then, say, I sample some of the synth output with the KP3, and process that into a little loop. Then I run the loop while changing the voice on the R3 to something new, let that run on the arpeggiator while I grab a Redrum machine in Reason and program up a drum loop. Then maybe sample the arpeggiator sequence, and run it through a loop on the KP3, change the voice on the R3 again, and play along with the loop, the sample, and the drum machine. After I get tired of that particular jam, I simply start a similar process all over again!

I'm in sonic Shangri-La.

I haven't been doing much recording though. I mean, I recorded a couple tracks on Sunday, but, really, it's all been about play since. Simple, pure, play: seeing how I can fit the pieces of my gear together, hearing what different sorts of combinations produce, learning how I can integrate the different parts into a harmonious whole.

And it's required me to ramp up my keyboard skills as well. Heh, at one point earlier I was even doing some dual keyboard action: left hand playing a simple run on the Oxygen which was running a NN-XT sampler in Reason, and the right hand stroking out a little riff on the R3. It got me wondering if I might be tapping into long neglected muscle memory from when I played piano as a child? *shrug* I dunno', but a few of my fingers are a little achy, that's fer sure!

As an aside, it's kinda' humbling (and perhaps a little regretful) that as an eight year old I could read music and play the keys with much more skill than I can as a thirty-five year old...

It's also got me thinking that I really might have to brush up on some music theory. I mean, I've a spotty history with music theory, and basically my structural defaults are the major scale, and the minor pentatonic (or "blues") scale. This is pretty much everything I might play and hear as "correct." But there're several Other alternatives out there, which are entire vistas of musical territories, that I simply don't currently have an ear for. But I can change that if I want--I may be getting older, but I don't think any One is ever too old to learn something new. These things are merely a matter of will.

And, dammit, I will.

5:30am: The New Toy for August
Well, I bought a used Korg R3 earlier today. It's hella' fun! I got it for about half the price of a new One, and it seems to be in really good shape. Everything works, anyway. Currently, I've got it patched through the KP3, and that equals a whole bunch of potential sonic mayhem.

I had been looking at some synths lately on Kijiji & Craig's List, and had passed on a couple previous ads--they weren't what I wanted, I guess. But this R3, well, I watched some youtube videos of people using it, and I fell in love with the sound. There's some really great presets, and, of course, they're all capable of being edited across a variety of parameters, plus there is also the ability to build sounds from scratch--although I haven't got to figuring that part out yet, but I will, heh.

I've run out of space on my work desk though.

:)

5:55am: Some Things I Saw Today
In the Sky:

A little while ago I watched some really nice lightning lighting up the clouds off in the distance. It was quite a show, and it was far enough away that there was no thunder--only bursts of light casting various silhouettes throughout a rather large mass of clouds.

I also saw a meteor. It's getting to be that I've seen many "shooting stars"--a byproduct of staying up all night, smoking cigarettes on the deck, and having nothing better to do while I smoke than stare into space--but each time I see One it is quite enjoyable!

As well, something in the night sky winked at me. I was looking out at the Big Dipper and about an inch above the star that makes the upper point of its basin on the right side, there was a sudden and relatively bright burst of light. It was about the same point size as a star, but a couple times more intense, and it only lasted a moment. I'm not sure what it was: I don't think it was a plane, 'cause it only happened once; and I don't think it was a satellite or Other space debris reflecting the light of the sun, 'cause that always seems to be observable over some sort of arc, with varying brightness as it begins to catch the light of the sun, then peaks, and starts to fade out. So I don't know what that was about.

On the Ground:

I went to the Folkfest for part of today, and saw Kid Koala. He was totally amazing! I guess many people think of him as a DJ, but I always call him a "turntablist" 'cause he is certainly in a whole 'nother class compared to those folks who simply play records. Hell, I'd say he's even a league or two beyond most Other turntablists. The guy has MAD SKILLZ. He's crazy busy for the whole set--changing records, scratching records, manipulating the mixing board--with three turntables on the go, he'd even be manipulating two at once. It was mind-blowing. And he has such an eclectic taste in the records he uses, which I think is a big part of what appeals to me about his work. And did I mention he's mad tight on the beat? Truly a phenomenon. If you ever get a chance to see him live, DO IT.

7:46am: So...
tonight at work this nouveau punk girl is at my counter. She's got a bunch of patches, n torn up clothes n' shit: typical punk stylings that I see on so many of today's youth. Anyway, written on her ripped up, patched up denim vest in obvious Sharpie scrawling is the phrase, "Maggie you cunt." This, of course, goes along with the large Exploited backpatch.

So I ask her, "Hey, is that 'Maggie You Cunt' on yer vest about Margaret Thatcher?"

And she says, "I don't know. It's a song by The Exploited."

So I says, "Yeah, it's about Thatcher. It's a political thing from awhile back."

And she says, "I don't really pay attention to that stuff."

So I says, "Don't worry too much about it--it's ancient history now anyway."

Geezus. Kids these days, yah?

(I'm an old man now, that's fer sure)

And then, next dude in line n' I get in a conversation about kids at art school who dig the Repo Man soundtrack but have never seen the movie. That's a *head meets desk* if anything is.

7:10am: Sometimes...
I read Other people's journals and Info pages from following links from some community or Other, and I find myself wondering...

seriously? Are you for real?

And then I wonder...

have Others done the same thing in regards to me?

The World is a vast and very strange place--humans all the more vast and strange.

How can One ever comes to terms with their own Self n' Shadow...

when One can hardly come to terms with the worlds of so many fucked up Others?

2:05am: A New EP from nd!

Please click the above link to hear nd's latest release: streaming audio, artwork, downloads, and more!

5:30am: Hunh.
In some somewhat whimsical surfing, I came across a song by Philip K Nixon called "444."

Now, it's been a few years since I had any direct contact and/or interaction with Wes Unruh, so I've no idea if this particular piece by PKN has anything to do with me (I'm leaning towards "I doubt it"); however, it has given me a pretty good idea for a composition to be working on, heh-heh-heh (sample this, sample that, next thing you know, I've got some tracks!).

6:00am: Lo-Fi Drone

Find more music like this on nd laboratories