Music – The Stupid American Tourist

Strum GS-2!

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Mar 282015

I’ve always been a fan of Applied Acoustic Systems’ software, mainly because I love how how it sounds, but also because I love the idea of using software to model instruments instead of relying on gigabytes of samples to create the same sounds. Their Strum GS-1 guitar modeler has been around for a while, and while it’s serviceable as a guitar sound, they just came out with a new version, GS-2, which for now only does acoustic guitar sounds.

For starters, the sound is incredible for a modeler. It sounds … well … like a real guitar. And it behaves like one, too. (And in the end, it’s all about the sound, isn’t it?) There are plenty of patches to play around with to get a good variety of sound colors, and since it’s not much of a memory or CPU hog, it’s pretty easy to run them through whatever VST FX you want to to dirty them up.

The playing interface is also updated, with three new modes. In the first mode, it plays like a keyboard instrument. Hit a key, get a sound. Not much to say there.

In the second mode, it plays like a rhythm guitar. Press a key on the lower half to select the chord, then press a key or combination on the upper octave to strum it. This mode is slightly tricky to figure out. Just banging out major chords is relatively simple: if you want a C, play a C. But if you want a C7, what do you do? You play C and then play the first white key below it. If you want Cm, play the first black key below it. And since F and E are right next to each other, they keys still operate the same, so it’s a little weird. Don’t think in terms of half/whole steps. Think in terms of white/black keys.

I really like the rhythm mode (called Guitar in the program), especially the variety of strums. There are also six different chord types, with different root positions and fingerings, so if you want open chords, you can choose those, or if you want power chords, you can choose those.

To get chords like a sus2 or sus4, you have to chord it out like a regular chord on the keyboard, and experiment! Hitting C-F-G will give me a Csus4, C-D-G a Csus2, and C-F-B a C7sus4. There are a lot of chords lurking in there, you just have to bang around a bit. The major/minor/7th chords are easy to find, though, and that should make simpler stuff easy to knock out.

The last mode is the loop mode, and that’s the most fun to mess with in a mindless kind of way. Hit a key, and the program will auto-strum it for you. To change patterns, select a different key on the upper octave. You can choose a bunch of different patterns, so that makes it fun to play with.

The upgrade was only $30 or so, since I’m already a registered used of Strum GS-1. I can’t recommend this upgrade enough! It sounds wonderful, and it’s really fun to play with.

Obviously, if you’re going to lay down something professional, you’ll want to get a real guitarist in, but for laying down a good acoustic track before then, this should work fine.

Computer Music Also Does Free/Alchemy and SFZ

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Feb 132015

A couple of things:

One, the March issue of Computer Music Magazine is doing a huge Free VST/Sample focus, so you don’t need to speak Japanese to learn all about free VSTs. They’re doing a big tutorial on Synth1, too, which I think is worth reading if you’re interested in Synth1. It’s a pretty powerful free synth that has been around for a while.

Also, if you’re looking for the Alchemy player, CM’s crazy software bundle that comes out each month has the Alchemy Player in it. It’s not the same as the full version of Alchemy, which I love, but it’s better than nothing.

There’s a bunch of other free stuff they stick in there software-wise every month. Most of the “CM” versions are essentially demo versions of real products, with some of the juicier features removed, but you can use them all you want as they are. It’s a good way to demo products you may not even know you might need. (Or you may not need. You won’t know until you mess with them a bit.)

Two, I totally forgot that Alchemy will load SFZ format files. I just spent 20 minutes playing with the violins in SSO, creating a really neat pad in Alchemy with them. It’s dead simple to do, too, since Alchemy supports the format. Such a shame that they got bought out, and we’ll probably never see the new version of Alchemy. Good for them that they got the money, but bad for us, since Alchemy is a brilliant piece of software.

I’m kind of bummed that all of the Alchemy add-ons are unavailable now, but now I can go into my SFZ files and make my own. So it’s part loss, part win.

Lots of Free VSTs in the March DTM Magazine

Japanese Language, Music, Technology Comments Off

Feb 122015

I just got my copy of DTM, a Japanese electronic music magazine, and they had a big issue this month on Free Stuff, with useful things like reviews and stats, and they were kind enough to dump a bunch of them on a DVD-ROM that comes with it.

Of course, being a Japanese electronic music magazine, you need to know the language to get the most out of it. But it’s a pretty interesting collection compared to some of the standard free VST recommendations out there. The most useful bit is the little graphic showing which plugins are 32/64 bit, and which are Mac/PC only. That’s the really useful bit for me, because I run Live in 64 bit mode exclusively. I have Reaper set in 32-bit mode, but I don’t use Reaper that much. That’s more like a “I have to record this ancient 32-bit plugin to a stem so I can work on it in Live!” kind of thing.

If you want to pick up a copy, go to Amazon Japan and search for DTM 3æœˆ2015å¹´.

Live School

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Feb 092015

There’s a really good Intro to Ableton Live course going on right now on Coursera, taught by Erin Barra of the Berklee College of Music. It’s only three weeks long, but it’s a good way to meet a bunch of different people who are into Live, make some music, and pick up some tips.

I’ve been using it as a way to practice working with Live and Push, and as a way to create music on deadlines. That helps a lot. Having an obligation to a group inspires me for some reason, even if it’s for 4-5 people. The music is all going to be hosted on Blend via Dropbox.

And the music I am making for the class can be found on my Blend, right here.

One of the restrictions I’m putting on myself is to only use the tools in Live Suite, no outside VSTs. So far, it’s been fun. In a way, it’s freeing in that I don’t have to obsess over picking the “perfect” synth from my stupid long list of VST plugins, instead I’ll go with the instruments in Live, which are really good in their own right.

In order to get a little deeper into some of them, like Sampler and Analog, I’ve been using MacProVideo.com’s videos to go into more detail. That’s also kind of cool– using the class as a springboard for further individual study.

The assignments themselves are also fun, in that each assignment has basic minimum requirements that have to be met, like four tracks, two audio and two MIDI, and so on. The restrictions work both as minimums and as something to prod creativity.

Another nice part of the class– Ableton is letting students enrolled in the class demo Live Studio free for 30 days, and Studio usually runs in the $600 range, if I remember correctly.

Free Orchestra Sounds and Free Sample Players

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Feb 052015

I’d love to get some of the top-shelf orchestral libraries, but I don’t really have $2,000 lying around. And I love Free Things!

So I’m going to suggest taking a look at Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra. It’s free as in free speech and free beer. The quality is good, not great, but that’s all I need at my level.

The SSO library uses the SFZ open format, and the only player I can find anymore is the free SFZ sample player at Plogue. I tried to find the Cakewalk SFZ player, but all I got were 404 errors.

Plogue also kindly assembled a bunch of free samples for the SFZ player from Garritan, Digital Sound Factory, Analog Industries, Patch Arena, and Plogue as well! And they’re free!

The Cheap Guide to Making Music, Part 3: Why Are You Paying Full Price??

Education, Music, Technology 2 Responses »

Oct 012014

Paying full price is for Suckers.

Ouch, that’s harsh, isn’t it? But it’s true. When it comes to music production software and hardware, just about everything software (and some hardware) goes on sale 2-3 times a year.

There are a few products that never go on sale, but those products are a minority. A small one, at that. The perpetual sale nature of the software industry makes me question what the real value of any of this is.

It used to be that gear would go on sale once or twice a year. Now, every month there’s a huge list of companies making desperate offers to get you to buy their stuff. So, if there’s always a sale on, is there really a best time of the year to shop? Yes, there still is.

When? Around Black Friday, right after US Thanksgiving. (Check before, just in case.) As an example, I bought Native Instruments’ Komplete 9 Ultimate, which usually goes for $1100, for $575 last Thanksgiving. And I bought a few other things at very steep discounts (like SynthMaster), because I am what? Cheap! (Well, cheap but impulsive when I see a really good deal for good software.)

Komplete 9 was on sale one more time after that, and that was this past summer, but the deal wasn’t as good as it was last Thanksgiving. Same for Synthmaster. It’s been on sale, but not as cheap as it was then.

Black Friday is a great time to gear up a new studio, but sometimes companies have once-a-year deals that are outside of that time, so it pays to keep an eye on things year round.

I have a few places I check on a semi-regular basis:

On the front page of KVR Audio (or just follow them on Twitter), check the What’s New feed, and click on Deals.
Or go to Rekkerd.org’s Deals page.
Also, look at Rekkerd’s “Deals Archive.” That’s amazingly useful for bargain hunters like us, because companies tend to repeat the same offers at fixed intervals. (Some are regular like clockwork!)

If something has just come off of a deal, then you’re going to have to wait a while for it to come on deal again. (Unless it’s a Waves Audio plugin. I swear, they have everything on sale all the time, or so it seems. In fact, Waves has sales every weekend.)

You can also get some crazy deals at plugin resellers. The two I use the most are:

Both are totally legit, but you may have to wait a day or two to get your license codes. Plugin Discounts tends to have bigger savings, but Plugin Boutique will give you cash back in the form of a credit, which you can apply to your next purchase. Shop around!

As an example: iZotope makes StutterEdit, which is a great glitch plugin. It retails for $249. It just came off of a sale at $99 on the iZotope website, but I found it on Plugin Discounts for $88.

$88 for a $249 plugin? Yeah, I can do that.

When you do decide to start buying plugins, please go slowly. Don’t go broke buying tons of them. Buy smartly. And when you see a synth or plugin you like, make a note of it, and wait for it to come on sale. Most will, eventually.

A Few Closing Thoughts

First, when you go to pick out a DAW, make sure of a few things: does it use VSTs, or does it have its own plugin format? (Reason and ProTools use their own formats for plugins.) If you want to go cheap, stick with DAWs that use VST for now. It’s not an ideal solution, but it offers the biggest variety and the most potential cheapness.

You can hook up a VST to Reason through a VST host application, but it’s one of those things that’s kind of a kludge, and I don’t know that it’s worth the trouble. Rewire Reason into your main DAW instead.

Most VST makers will let you sell your plugins to other people. (License transfers.) Reason does not let users transfer Rack Extension licenses. You can transfer the Reason license, but not the RE license. If that’s a deal-breaker for you, keep it in mind. Read those EULAs! Rack Extensions are pretty cool from a tech point of view, and they make Reason really useful, but it’s a walled garden.

Some DAWs, like Studio One Artist edition, won’t allow the use of external plugins. Whoops! Gotta buy a more expensive version there! Studio One is a good DAW, but read the fine print. Same goes for the Studio One Vocaloid Edition. It only lets you use the Piapro Studio plugin. The rest are all Studio One only. If you don’t mind that, Studio One is an excellent starter DAW you can usually get for around $80-$90, and the full version is around $200-$300.

If you want to use Nerve and Serum in your music, you better make sure they’ll run in your DAW first! Read the developer’s website, and check for compatibility! Some plugins just don’t work with some DAWs, and you won’t know until you pay and suffer.

When it comes to copy protection, there are a few different ways companies do it– the worst in my opinion are the USB dongles, because they ruin your ability to go portable. How can I hook up gear if I have a dongle in every USB port? iLok and eLicenser are the more egregious ones. I can’t run Cubase without a dongle, so I tend to run Ableton more often. Native Instruments and Ableton both have very good copy protection, in that it’s not aggressively annoying.

It’s sad, but I tend to avoid perfectly good software if it uses iLok or eLicenser. I hate being shunted off into that kind of copy protection, especially when I’m a paying customer. (Even if I am cheap.)

This leads me to my final advice: learn how to program! I mentioned it briefly in part two, but making your own gear in Reaktor, Max For Live, Bidule, or C++ is a great way to save a ton of cash. It’s also a great way to learn more about audio and how those sounds are made.

Stay cheap, do your homework, and don’t forget to make some kickass music!

The Cheap Guide to Making Music, Part 2: Free/Cheap Synths, Effects, Sounds!

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Sep 252014

We have our DAW and maybe some gear. One perfectly valid strategy is to simply use the included plugins in your DAW of choice. If you’re using Reaper, then it has all you need to learn with for now. Master that stuff, and come back here when you’re bored with it. Whenever that is.

If you want some external synths and effects, please go easy! It’s really tempting to get a bunch of synths, thinking, “I AM POWERFUL! SEE MY SYNTH ARMY AND WEEP!”

But the only one doing the weeping will be you. Because you won’t know which freakin’ synth to use. You may even forget which ones you have.

Get one plug-in or synth at a time, learn it, know it in and out, then it’s okay to get the next one, if you need it.

Some of the best artists limit their choices to free up their creativity. “I’m only going to paint with blue.” “I’m only going to draw dudes bowling.” “I’m only going to write angry songs about my ex.” In your case, how about, “I’m only going to use one synth?” Try to stick to that for at least a month.

Here are a few good starter synths, and they’re all free:

Synth1 (download) is great because it’s really deep and sounds great, even if it’s kind of ugly. (English manual here.) It also comes in 64-bit version if you have to.
Podolski by u-He is an excellent virtual analog (VA) synth.
So is Tyrell N6 V3 (which you can download here, scroll down to the “Download XXX Version” links in the middle of the page.)
Zebralette is a smaller version of u-He’s Zebra, but it’s useful in its own right.
Togu Audio Line’s TAL-U-NO-62 is a lot of fun.
Their Noisemaker is also a lot of fun.
Tone2’s Firebird synth is free (32-bit only.)
FreeAlpha is a cut-down version of LinPlug’s Alpha synth (click on downloads, then look for FreeAlpha.)
There are more at this article on the best free virtual analog synth plugins over at the Bedroom Producer’s Blog.

Get a Few Free Effects

What goes for synths goes double for effects. Go easy on the effects, because there are even more effects out there than synths. How many reverbs is enough? One, maybe two for now. Same goes for compressors, limiters, gates, and EQ. If what you’re trying to learn isn’t in the effect you’re using, then by all means, keep looking, but know when to stop and go back to making music.

So, here are some good sources for free plugin effects:

GVST has a ton of free effects plugins. (They have synths, too.) Their effects plugins are great for learning the basics, because they don’t fill up your screen with a lot of crap. They don’t necessarily sound the best, but they’ll do the job for now.
The KVR Developer Challenge is where devs go all out, make free plugins, and fight for prizes. It’s a great way to look for something new/free/cool.
Also, check out KVR’s list of the most popular plugins, and check out the Free category.
Also check out their Free News category, for the latest on free plugins.
Xfer Records has a page full of free effects to play with.
Limiter No. 6 is awesome, too. Download here.
George Yohng’s W1 Limiter is a nice Waves L1-style limiter for free.
Tokyo Dawn Records has some really good free effects, and some you can buy.
Voxengo has a nice selection offree effects plugins.
Audio Damage’s Rough Rider is a great free creative compressor. It adds a lot of squash, dirt, and crunch to sounds. It’s really good on percussion sounds you don’t like.
Luftikus is an awesome free equalizer that’s similar to the Maag EQ (download). It even has an “Air Band,” which will make everything sound like it was made at 11.
The Klanghelm IVGI Saturation and Distortion plugin adds some warmth and grit.
Sound on Sound has a list of their favorite free plugins, too.
Drummic’a from Sennheiser, available only from their German Site, is an incredible drum library. It comes with the free version of the Kontakt player. Grab a buddy who can sprechen Deutsch, and go at it. You’ll need to register with the site, activate it by email, then use the code for activating the sounds. It comes as a Kontakt library, but it’s awesome. And it’s free! We like free! (And it’s by Sennheiser, who make great mics!)

I’ll add more as I find them. There’s a staggering number of good free plugins out there.

Or, if you own Native Instruments’ Reaktor, Max For Live, or Plogue’s Bidule, you can make your own Synths and plugins, and save a ton of money. (Minus the cost of the programming environment, of course!)

Samples, Patches, and Instruments

This is a short section, because it links to some massive content. (Pun intended.)

This Reddit thread that contains an insane amount of drum samples and Massive patches should tide you over for a while. It’s useful more for the drum samples than the Massive patches, because we’re cheap here.

Here’s another Reddit thread on readers’ favorite free VST instruments.

Pay a Little, Get a Lot: Computer Music and DTM.

I recommend Computer Music magazine, specifically it’s 200th issue, because it comes with some great stuff, like the full edition of Cakewalk’s Rapture synth. Get the electronic version of the magazine through iTunes or Google Play, set up your username/password, and go download a bunch of free plugins. (If you use Google Play, when you go to download, tell them you got the magazine off Zinio. It works that way. There’s no drop-down for Google.)

One note about Rapture. Yes, it’s the full synth, but read the license carefully: it says no commercial use on the synth. So… yeah. Use it as a practice synth, then go buy the real thing, I guess.

A few of the included plugins are full versions, but most of these are “CM” versions of commercial plugins, which means that they’re functional, but kind of stripped down in a few places, because it’s hard to make a living off of free, and they really want you to go out any buy the full version.

It’s a great way to play with an unlimited demos. SynthMaster CM is essentially a “lite” version of SynthMaster you can play with as long as you want. (SynthMaster is one of my favorites, but not free. It goes on sale once or twice a year, though!)

It’s also a good place to get some free samples, because each issue comes with free samples. Buy a few issues, and you could build up a seriously crazy sample library.

Computer Music (CM) is also great for reviews. They’ll tell you if something sucks, so you’ll save money. (So will the posters at Gearslutz. In fact, they’ll tell you a lot of things suck. If they all say something is good, then it’s probably godly good.)

CM also has a ton of tutorials that come with each issue. Not to sound like a shill, but for a few bucks a month, it’s a great deal.

If you don’t care about Rapture, then just get the latest issue of CM, and you can still get some sweet gear for “free.” Well, minus what you paid for it. I think it’s like $5 an issue, or $40 a year. Your money, your call.

If you’re into the Japanese music scene, can speak the language, and can spare the money, try to hunt down DTM magazine. They also have a lot of tutorials, reviews, and free plugins. But it’s paper only, each issue is around 1500 yen, and that doesn’t even include the shipping, which can get ridiculous. (And I did say it’s in Japanese!) Cheap-ish if you live in Japan or near a Japanese bookstore, though!

Spend $130 to Never Buy Patches Again!

Now that we’re spending a little money, I’ll recommend one other thing I know, and that’s Syntorial. It will save you a stupid amount of money on patches, because you will learn how to make your own damn patches. (As you should do, anyway!)

It’s a program that teaches you how to use a synth, one knob at a time. Then it teaches you how to use your ears to figure out how sounds are constructed. It’s brilliant.

You watch a short video, then do exercises, watch more videos, do more exercises. You can quit whenever you want, but it gets addicting.

In my next (and last) post on this, I’ll give you my “How to buy plugins like a cheap badass” advice.

The Cheap Guide to Making Music, Part 1: Get a DAW!

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Sep 222014

To make music these days, you need a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation.) There are dozens of different programs that will do the trick, and most of them have horrifyingly high price tags. So to save yourself from the ultimate beginner misake, which is, “Oh my god, I bought this DAW, it cost $700, and I hate it more than doing my taxes,” let’s look at this rationally.

Getting a DAW from my point of view is a process where you’re going to first learn how to use a DAW, and then go shopping for the DAW you’ll be using for the next few years.

How do you learn how to use a DAW without a DAW? Easy. Get a starter DAW. Use it to learn what the basics of music production, then you can shop for a DAW intelligently.

There’s no better starter DAW than Reaper. (Or any DAW that comes bundled for free with software you buy, I guess, but I’m going to assume you’re not buying anything, because this is for Cheap People.)

So why Reaper?

Because Reaper has an extremely generous demo. You get a 60-day full working demo. After that, if you keep using it, you should pay the $60 for the amateur license. (Because nobody likes leeches.)

Download the 32-bit version for now.

Why 32-bit? Because you can run all the plugins that way. Not all plugins are available in 64-bit versions yet, and some older plugins will never be available in 64-bit, due to their age, or because the developer doesn’t want to re-code them. You’ll only need to go 64-bit when you start making monstrously huge tracks. Until then, 32-bit is fine, and yes, 32-bit Reaper will run in your 64-bit OS.

Seriously, Reaper will even run on OS X versions 10.4-10.5 on PPC macs. It’s amazingly flexible.

Now go learn the basics of Reaper. Try Tutorials for Reaper’s YouTube Channel for starters. Or just do a search on YouTube. (This is the cheap guide, after all.) If you happen to have a subscription to Ask Video/MacProVideo.com, they have good tutorials on Reaper, and a ton of other stuff, but it costs money, and this is the Cheap Guide.

You can also read the fine manual.

What About Hardware?

Ah, you need a keyboard, monitors, and a USB audio interface, right? Well, maybe.

Since you’re just starting out, and maybe you’re just seeing if it’s interesting to you, I’d say hold off for a bit. This is a hobby that can get really expensive, fast.

A new crappy MIDI keyboard, runs $100. (Good ones can go over $1,000.) A USB audio interface runs $150 for a cheap one, and a cheap pair of monitor speakers starts at $100, and $100 monitors really suck. Really, really suck.

If you have to get anything, then I’d say it’s okay to a MIDI keyboard, but hold off on the other stuff, unless you need to record live instruments… in which case, why are you going cheap???? Read some other guide.

Cheap MIDI keyboards are all the same, with sloppy action, few controls, and a general cheapness that means they won’t last long. M-Audio makes a good generic crappy MIDI keyboard. If it’s like my old M-Audio keyboard, it’ll mysteriously die after a year or two. Not even my pencil could save it.

For a USB interface, I like my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. It’s a stupid-cheap USB audio interface. It’s not the sexiest or fastest, but it gets the job done for me. I use it with some KRK-6 monitors I got on sale. They’re not great, but they’re good enough. But even those cost around $350 on sale.

At any rate, we’re not aiming to release a record right off the bat, so it’s okay if your gear is on the OEM janky side for now. Improve it as your budget allows.

My Two Iron Rules of Music Production

Before you go shopping, keep these two rules in mind. They will save you a lot of cash, and a lot of headaches down the road.

Rule One: If you can, demo the hell out of everything before you buy it. If you can’t demo it, make sure there’s a good return policy. (At least a month.) If anything feels off or uncomfortable, don’t buy it/return it. That slight discomfort in the keybed you feel? That isn’t ever going away.

Rule Two: Ignore the hype and look at the product carefully. Every single product out there has a slick marketing video with professionally made sample tracks alongside it. Don’t get suckered in. That guy making sweet music with the cool box of lights or whatever random VST? Yeah, he’s a pro. He’s got years of experience, and he probably spent at least a few weeks working with the product in question, and knows it way, way better than you do. Take the hype and dial it down a notch.

I’m not saying some of this stuff isn’t awesome– some of it is! But it’s like a great pair of size 9 yellow shoes. If you’re a size 9, and like yellow, then hot dog! This is for you! But not all of us are size 9, like yellow, or even need another pair of shoes.

So do your research and buy gear carefully, or just do it later, when you have a better idea of what you’re doing. (I recommend the latter, but I understand the former.)

Next, we’ll start looking at free synths and effects plugins! Yay, finally!

The Cheap Guide to Making Music, Part 0: Get Some Knowledge For Free!

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Sep 202014

I’ve been kicking around the idea of making this kind of guide for a while. Why? Because every day on Reddit, I see 2-3 posts of the, “I want to get into EDM or EMP, but I only have 35 cents in my pocket right now. How do I do it?”

First, you need to get the right attitude towards doing this. It’s going to take a while to get good at it (I’m still not good), so you need to have your expectations set at the right level.

It’s Okay to Suck at First

Listen to Ira Glass, who is talking about producing news for radio, but this advice applies to everything. See? Even he sucked for a long time before he started to get good. So it’s okay for you to suck.

Now, I hope you’ve adjusted your expectations accordingly, so you don’t feel like you want to jump off of a building if nobody likes your first song, or even your first fifty.

It’s cool! We’ve all been there. That’s how we learn.

It helps if you focus on not sucking. (This is a great article to keep in mind.) But it’s hard to not suck at first, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing, so don’t beat yourself up too much.

The same guy who wrote the article on how to not suck wrote this excellent article that you need to engrave upon your soul. You really need to read this before you make the mistake of wasting a lot of time and money on stuff you don’t need.

Step 0: Now Get Some Knowledge (But don’t go overboard.)

Before you do anything, buy anything, whatever, go get some knowledge, but don’t bury yourself in it. Get enough so you know the basics, understand what you’re doing, then move on to making music. Don’t get caught on the hamster wheel of over-training. There’s a fine line between getting knowledge and never getting off the starting line.

This also goes for things like shopping for gear, talking on forums, etc. I’ve talked about this before with respect to Japanese– it’s the meta game. It fools you into thinking you’re doing X, but you’re not. You’re talking about X, you’re preparing for X, but you’re NOT doing X.

With that caution in mind:

Coursera has a bunch of free music classes. Look for the Berklee classes:

Intro to Electronic Music Production. That’s an awesome free way to get a ton of knowledge, fast.
And Pat Pattison’s Songwriting class is a great way to learn how to write lyrics.

Or you can just take apart your favorite songs, and try to rebuild them yourself. Your call. I found the classes to be pretty useful.

Other resources:

Dave Conservatoire, which is kind of like Khan Academy for musicians.
Music Theory, the TL;DR version is a free/pay what you want PDF book.
Musictheory.net has a lot of resources for learning theory on your phone or PC.
Hooktheory is another phone/PC app/book combo with some cool stuff in it, too. Hooktheory’s “Theorytab” is really useful for figuring out chord progressions from a lot of famous songs.
Kunst der Fuge will give you total access to all of its MIDI files and PDFs for a one-time 20 EUR fee. Analyze away, or just add the MIDI files to your chord progression database.
The Dance Music Manual is great if you want to get into EDM. It’s a brilliant book. Rick Snoman has forgotten more about producing than you’ll ever know. Yes, you have to spend money on it. But it’s not much money, and you’ll get a ton out of it. This is a good way to avoid sitting through 8,000 hours of videos.

There are some great YouTube channels out there, too. In no order I like:

ADSR Sounds for Reaktor and Massive in particular, but they do a good job on all Native Instruments software.
Sadowick for Ableton and general music production advice.
Seamless for FL Studio, IL’s plugins (like Harmor!), or Serum.
ArtFX for Massive and other plugins.
SonicState for witty banter, music production news, and reviews.
DubSpot for a variety of tutorials for a lot of DAWs
Point Blank Music School for all kinds of tutorials.
Tom Cosm knows a ton about Ableton.
ScanProAudio has some great Push tutorials, and a lot of other useful info.
Pensado’s Place, because he is a god of ProTools, and even if you don’t use PT, he knows so much about producing, it’ll make your head spin. Really good stuff.
ReasonExperts for Reason
TherSiteZ also for Reason (and his awesome voice!)
This video is part of a series on How Music Works. A good watch.
Part two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five of that series.

And many more!

Pick one or two primary sources, finish them, and then see what you want to do next. Use the YouTube videos as sources of inspiration.

While you’re at it, find someone to teach you piano or keyboard. If YouTube doesn’t do it for you, then check out your local community centers. You might find something cheap there.

I love the Older Beginner’s Piano Course. Book 1, Book 2.

And remember to make music!

Mac Pro Video

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Sep 152014

I own a couple of Macs, but the newest one is a Mac Mini from 2006 or so. So why did I sign up for Mac Pro Video? Well, it wasn’t for Mac-anything. I found a good deal on their site– $15/month for as long as I want. And since I also finally bit the bullet and signed up for Creative Cloud, MPV looked like the best compromise for me.

I’m really into music production, but I’m also really into visual arts, web design, and programming, even. MPV has some absolutely awesome video series on music production, covering not only theory, but also DAWs, and some of the harder-to-get-used to plugins. And while there are a lot of great dudes on YouTube with great info, MPV has some great tutorials. I especially loved their series on Ableton’s Push.

And now that I’m getting in to Creative Cloud, the tutorials should come in handy, Â rather than spending a couple of hours trying to find good YouTube videos. It should be a nice complement to Pencil Kings. (The Photoshop tuts there were great, as are a few of the drawing tuts I’ve been working on.)

Snowmageddon Round Two? (Random Stuff Post)

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Jan 282014

Well, we’re all waiting for the snow to start. We’re supposed to get anything from 2 to 6 inches of snow today through tonight, and as I’ve said many times, we don’t do snow well here. I’m staying off the roads today and tonight, so that means no piano class.

Bummer.

If I Can’t Go to the Music School, Bring the Music School to Me!

I’m going to catch up on my Coursera classes: the Write Like Mozart class, and Pat Pattison’s Songwriting class, which I signed up for again last night.

I signed up for his Songwriting class last year, but I didn’t have time to finish it. What I saw, I really liked. He gives a really good insight into how pro songwriters write songs, and how to improve my own songwriting. (Hint: it involves lots of practice, just like anything else.)

I might also watch some Max 4 Live tutorials. That also looks really interesting.

Bitwig Studio

Bitwig Studio is coming out in late March for $399. The part that’s really interesting to me is the ability to run it in Linux. I think that’s a brilliant idea. But from what I’ve heard, there’s no ReWire compatibility yet, so that’s a big minus for me. This is a good preview of Bitwig, and you can find more videos on their channel.

I wouldn’t mind demoing it to see what it’s like, but $400 is a bit steep for me after G.A.S. ate a lot of my money over the holidays.

I probably shouldn’t buy another new instrument until I’ve gotten good at using the ones I already have.

Rewire and Vocaloid Editor

Speaking of ReWire, I finally found a VST that will let me ReWire the Yamaha Vocaloid 3.0 Editor into Live or Cubase. Cool! You can find it here (the site is all in Japanese). Look for this text “V3Sync ReWire Synchronizer Version 1.3.0 ã‚’ãƒ€ã‚¦ãƒ³ãƒãƒ¼ãƒ‰” in the middle of the page, click the link, and install like any other VST. Point the Vocaloid 3 editor to the VST, and it should work.

I know you used to be able to ReWire directly from most Vocaloid 2.0 editors. What happened with 3.0? I have no idea.

Piapro Studio is a good alternative now that it’s at version 1.2. Now you can use sound banks from other companies, too, if you register your non-Crypton sound banks at Crypton’s Sonicwire.com website. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will soon.

Monitor Stand Update

The monitor stand is working really well. I installed it about a week ago, after letting it off-gas for a few days. It adds about 4.25 inches to the height of my monitors, so it took a few days to get used to, but I’m used to it now.

Naturally, just as I say that, I noticed a crack in the wood filler on the right side, near my heater vent. That’s what touch-up paints are for.

Slide Duplicating Project

This is a project I’ve been wanting to get back to for a while. I’m waiting on a Leica Screw Mount to Sony E Mount adapter, and then I may be able to make some good progress on it. I’m going to try what someone did here and remove the FD mount from my Canon FL Bellows, then attach it to my NEX with a LSM to E Mount adapter. That should give me enough focal length to get the duplicate slides in full view.

I hope.

Or I can just throw the whole mess on the copy stand. But I’d rather use a slide copier, because I can aim that at Mr. Sun, and get natural daylight for copying the slides. Artificial light always has weird spectra, even light bulbs that say they are “daylight balanced,” only do so in a way that fools your eye. It does not fool the sensor or the software.

Snowmageddon? Not Quite.

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Jan 222014

As I was going to piano class last night, it was snowing like crazy. The local weather forecast wasn’t good. It looked like we were going to get smacked with a lot of snow. So when enough of us had gathered for piano class, we agreed to cancel it for safety’s sake. NC isn’t good at dealing with winter weather.

Of course, by the time I got home, the snow was tapering off, and even though a few stray flakes were falling through midnight, nothing ever accumulated. Oh, well. Better safe than sorry.

More Coursera Fun

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Jan 202014

Prof. Donald Hornstein is a fun lecturer to listen to. I highly recommend his new Coursera class on Environmental Law. If you have any interest at all in the environment or in law, take it. (Even for you lawyers out there– it’s a fun refresher.)

I take my CLE every year at the UNC Festival of Legal Learning, and every year, I look forward to Don Hornstein’s lectures. They’re not just entertaining, they’re also fascinating. He takes a subject that at times can be really dry and breathes life into it.

I also signed up for a class called “Write Like Mozart.” It started a few weeks ago, so I’m already behind. I’m going to have to hustle to catch up, but there’s some really interesting stuff going on there. I’d like to learn more about 18th century voice leading!

Is Paddy the Coolest Thing Ever???

I was sitting here, surrounded by my MIDI gear, when I had a thought that other people have already had. “What if I could use this stuff to edit my photos in Lightroom? Wouldn’t it be a heck of a lot faster?”

The answer is yes, so long as Lightroom doesn’t break the plugin you’re using.

Paddy is a program developed as donation-ware, that lets you use just about any MIDI controller to control the sliders in Lightroom to develop photos. If you’ve used Lightroom for any appreciable length of time, you know that fiddling with the mouse to change levels for all of Lightroom’s sliders is finicky business. Sometimes the sliders misbehave, sometimes the mouse misbehaves, either way, it’s tedious.

What Paddy does is take that tedious, repetitive mouse clicking, and if you have an old MIDI mixer with some motorized faders, you can zoom through editing photos in a snap. The faders will automatically go to the positions of the current photo in Lightroom, and you can just mess around with them as you please. I love the idea of this kind of tactile feedback, as well as the idea of mixing MIDI and photo developing.

This is one of those things I need to put on the “Come back to this in a few months” pile and see how the software is progressing.

All-in Ableton, Reaktor, New Graphics Tablet

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Jan 152014

After spending some time getting used to Live, I had a tough decision to make: Standard or Suite? The 20% off sale was going to end soon, and as much as I like the Intro version of Live, it’s not enough for what I want to do. The difference between upgrades wasn’t much. Max 4 Live is part of what pushed me over into getting the Suite. There are other reasons, too.

Downloading everything took 5 hours or so. My Internet connection isn’t the greatest in the world.

Reaktor

A lot of what I was doing while I was downloading/installing Live was learning how to program in Reaktor. There are a lot of really good tutorials out there on building synthesizers in Reaktor. It’s pretty fascinating stuff. I found a really good five part tutorial here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.

Once I’m done getting comfortable in Live, I’ll start learning Max, too. That also looks really interesting.

My Poor Dead Graphics Tablet

After 12 years of faithful service, my ancient Wacom Intuos 2 graphics tablet has bit the dust. I replaced it with an Intuos Pro, the medium sized one. I was tempted to get the large, but the medium is about the same size as my old one.

I love the wireless connectivity. That’s really cool. But I read a lot of horror stories about the wonky USB solder connection, so I took out $3 of insurance on eBay, and bought a short USB connector cable that will connect to the troublesome port. I can just tape the cable down to the side of the tablet, and connect the charging cable to the short cable. That way, I won’t put too much stress on that port by plugging/unplugging the USB cable to recharge it.

You can get the small connecting cable here.

I also like the buttons, especially the way you can lock the tablet down to one monitor or another, which is handy for keeping perspectives right. (The tablet to monitor ratio thing. It can get too weird otherwise if you’re using two monitors.) My favorite button is the one that lets me use the control wheel to change brush sizes on the fly. That’s invaluable.

I’m not so fond of the feel of the surface of the Intuos. It feels… weird. I prefer the feel of my old Intuos 2 better. I’ll get used to it.

Monitor Stand is Done!

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Jan 142014

It only took a month to finish it, but the monitor stand is done. It’s five feet long by one foot wide, with a couple of one by fours supporting it in the middle, and two screwed-together one by fours on each end. It’s sturdy as heck.

Painting it is what held everything up.

It’s been so ridiculously cold here that it’s been too cold to paint. I’ve been using spray paints, too, and they’re even fussier about having temperatures well above freezing.

I started with a simple grey primer, then added two coats of black satin, but it just didn’t do anything for me. It looked very “meh.”

Then I remembered an old woodfinishing project from years gone by. I finished a small 3-legged table with a nice black top, and faux stone legs. The faux stone effect came right out of a spray can.

So I went looking for more of that stuff. It’s been at least ten years, but I figured I could find it somewhere. I did. It was at the last place I checked. It’s a muted Black/White/Grey faux granite look that’s kind of muted. It also needs to have a clearcoat sprayed over it, so it will hold up better with time.

It took me two days to apply the paint, and one more to apply the clearcoat. Now it’s sitting in the garage, off-gassing. I’ll leave it alone for a few days, because I don’t want the house to stink, and I like my brain too much to melt it with the various chemicals in the finishes.

But it looks smashing! The faux-stone spray hides anything I may have screwed up well.

And it’s not made out of cheap MDF that will sag in a year. It’s made out of good old southern pine.

Would it have been cheaper to just buy the stand on Amazon? Well, yeah. It would have been faster, too. But my stand looks really cool, is a custom fit to my desk, and won’t sag. The finish has a rough bumpy stone feel, even. No regrets!

Piano class has also started up again. I’m still terrible at piano. When I get the stand in place, I should be able to practice more.

Also, Push is still fun, although I’ve been using it so much, my fingers are starting to hurt from thwacking the pads so much.

Push or “What Happened to Today?”

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Jan 102014

I went with Ableton Push. I saw countless videos, read a lot of stuff on all kinds of forums, read all the marketing info, and in the end, I decided on Push over Maschine, mainly because 64 > 16. Well, not just that, but the scale mode in Push really excites me.

Maschine looks like something I may get down the road, especially because it’s really good at tweaking Native Instruments’ Komplete programs, and it has a really nice patch browser.

My Push showed up today, so I installed Live, started messing with Push and Live, and subsequently lost track of several hours just messing around with the scale mode in Push using a plain piano patch.

Oh, about Ableton Live: that’s a nice piece of software there. I had a lot of fun messing with it, too. I like how the tutorials are merged in with the software from the get-go. It made me feel like I could make music right from the start, or just perform with it. Everything feels easy.

I’m still trying to decipher everything about Live and Push, and that’s going to take a while, because I have a ton of other things to do, but I’m excited.

Also, my music composition class starts up again tomorrow. I need to start getting back into composer mode, and get rid of the holiday-induced G.A.S.

The monitor stand is progressing, too. I went and touched up some of the areas with wood filler in them, and sanded them down. I’ll start spray painting the whole thing black this weekend. Primer first, then black.

Reason Book and Other Stuff

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Jan 052014

I’m starting to finally feel better. Well, except for the coughing that comes out of nowhere. I’ve heard that this cold takes a while to get over. Yay.

My Reason book showed up today. It’s huge! The type is kind of small, but the way it’s laid out, if it was published traditionally, this would easily go over 1000 pages. As it is, it comes in at around 356 pages or so. Lulu did a great job binding it, and color really makes a big difference– there are a lot of illustrations, and each one is sharp.

I haven’t had time to read the whole book yet (I just got it!), but I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with it.

Push or Maschine? Argh!

I’m still looking a lot at Push and Maschine as well. I’m leaning heavily towards getting one of them to speed things up. Since I’m not only using Reason, but also VSTs, I’m looking for something that will improve my workflow. I’m also looking for something that will help me come up with wild and crazy ideas.

Maschine has some nice features. It integrates really well with Komplete, and has an awesome preview method. But it looks like it’s geared more towards sampling, and I’m not really into that. I’m more into straight composition and using instruments, in which case Push looks much more attractive.

Push supports Live and Live Suite instruments natively, but Komplete and other third party VSTs don’t have that kind of deep support. I understand why. There’s also a third party solution that lets Push owners tweak the heck out of it so it’ll work better with third party VSTs and other DAWs as well.

I’m very glad that Ableton didn’t turn Push into a black box you can’t tinker with. I think it’s good that they welcome third party software. If anything, it should help sales.

I’d say the only bit I’m not looking forward to is configuring everything. Whoa. I sound like I’ve bought it already. I’m still thinking. It’s a lot of money.

Push Off to Asheville

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Dec 192013

I’m heading to Asheville to help the folks out for Christmas, so I’m gone for a while. I may or may not update, depending on whether anything interesting happens or not.

The monitor stand isn’t done yet. I’ll finish it when I get back. It needs more wood filler in a couple of places, and I need the weather to cooperate so I can lay down a finish.

Ableton Push

Ableton has a big sale on all of its software going on. I’m really interested in Push, though. I’ve been watching a lot of videos to see how it works, and how well it works, and it looks damn sexy. Of course, Maschine also looks sexy, but Push looks like it’s more up my alley, because it does scales. Lots and lots of scales.

I’ll need to do more research, though. Getting into Push is another $600, and if I decide to move to Ableton as a DAW, that’d be more money out for upgrading to Standard or Suite. We’ll see.

You Komplete Me

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Dec 052013

Komplete Ultimate showed up today. It comes on a shiny little hard drive, and the install takes about an hour or two. I installed the full version of Kontakt first, then registered it, then installed the Komplete Ultimate cross-grade, and everything went just fine. I’m excited to get more into it. All of it. There’s a lot of it!

I’ve been looking at some of the other deals out there. One VST I picked up was SynthMaster, because it sounds great, and it was on sale for $49. I really like the sounds it makes. If you pay more, you can get more patches. In the case of SynthMaster, some great sound designers have made some really amazing patches, so I picked up a few to go with it.

I also picked up Chromaphone by AAS, because I’ve been looking for a good percussion modeling VST. I realize that Chromaphone does more than that, and, in fact, it does a lot of really wild and interesting things, too.

The last thing I picked up was a second monitor, because photo editing with just one monitor drives me nuts. Also, working in Reason with only one monitor also drives me nuts. I like having the sequencer/mixer in one window, and the rack in another. I found a Dell monitor on sale at Amazon, but it showed up with a bunch of dead pixels, so I sent it back. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get another one, so I had to spend a little more to get an Asus monitor.

Now that I have two monitors, though, I realize that I need to do something about my desk.

It’s always something, huh?

Oh, my new dryer showed up yesterday. It dries clothes beautifully, and it was cheap. Did mention it was cheap?

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, N1 Coming

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Nov 292013

Thanksgiving was nice. We had our usual fried chicken, because turkey is boring, and takes too long to make. I made some killer fried chicken this year.

We did NOT go to any stores. It’s Thanksgiving– it’s not a day to shop. That’s what Friday is for.

Deals!

I’m also looking out for good deals. Ever since the Propellerhead User Forum got shut down, I’ve been relying on Rekkerd’s Deals page a lot for info as to what’s going to be on sale this weekend and beyond.

The coolest thing I found was Native Instruments‘ massive software sale. Full versions of some of their software is half-off, everything except Komplete.

But it’s not what you think.

If you get a cross-grade from the full version of an NI product, you can get a big discount on Komplete, and Komplete Ultimate. The way it worked for me was that I bought Kontakt for half off ($199), then got the Komplete Ultimate cross-grade for only $374. Considering it retails for $1099, and usually goes for around $999, that’s a great deal.

I’m looking forward to playing with that. A lot.

I also scored a great deal on a new dryer. My dryer has been making scary noises and giving off weird smells, so rather than have the house burn down, I bought a cheap dryer. Really, all I need in a dryer is a low setting and a timer.

So long as it fits, dries my clothes, and doesn’t burn the house down, I’m happy.

N1 Coming

Tomorrow I leave for Washington to take the JLPT N1 again. I’m studying as much as I can.

Study-wise, I put a couple of N1 grammar books into Anki. It’s not enough, but it’s all I had time to do given the time I had. Studying for the A+ (and getting it) took up a lot of time.

Music Composition // Bargain Hunting

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Nov 232013

My music composition class is going pretty well. I finished one piece, and just finished another. They’re just little musical doodles, but I like them. I’ve been using MuseScore a lot to do the writing, then I’ll output it as a MIDI, then import the MIDI file into Reason.

MuseScore’s playback is a fine, but the sound quality isn’t as good as I can get in Reason. Then again, MuseScore is free.

MuseScore is pretty solid, and it’s free. I like free.

I tried using the composition software in Cubase 7.0, but it wasn’t as flexible or easy to use as MuseScore. I might try again later on, because it would be pretty cool to have composition and production software all in one.

Bargain Hunting

I’m starting to check out what’s going to be on sale next weekend. Black Friday and on is a good time of the year to get deals on all kinds of music-related software and hardware. My big hope is that Native Instruments’ Komplete Ultimate is on some kind of sale, because I’m eager to branch out into some new sounds. I’m also really interested in Kontakt as a sampler.

Also, Nine Volt Audio is going out of business, so they’re selling all of their software in one big bundle for $199. (Except their Taiko v.2. Dang.) The bundle has some really good sounds in it. The sale ends in early January, and then that’s it. No more.

I picked up the bundle and downloaded it. Getting the downloader to run was a little troublesome, because my anti-virus kept wanting to call it a virus. (It wasn’t.) But after that, it was simply a matter of entering codes and downloading. Some of the libraries are Kontakt-only, so if I can get Kontakt, I’ll have some nice third-party sounds to play with.

Glass in Durham

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Oct 052013

Google brought its Glass wearable device to Durham today, and it was a madhouse. A controlled madhouse, but the lines were huuuuge.

Kudos to the Google staff, who managed the hordes of people who showed up. I only had to wait in line for about 30 minutes, and I came a little late. (Like at 11 am.)

Everyone was excited. We got little booklets that explained how to use Glass before we even went in. And they had waiters bringing us water so nobody got dehydrated.

Once I got in, I had to sign a release, then we went off into our little orientation groups. Then we got to try it on for about 10 minutes.

It’s a really neat device. My unit didn’t connect to WiFi, though, so it didn’t do much. But I can see how having it could be really useful for anyone who shoots video. I’m not as sold on the serious photography aspect, but I’m a camera snob. If the lens is too small, I have problems taking it seriously.

But I bet you could make some really interesting videos with this.

The heads-up display isn’t really a HUD. It’s more like a little TV that hovers just off and to the right. It’s not quite as earth-shattering as I was hoping for.

In my vision of a vision enhancing technology, it would be a real HUD that would give you an overlay layer on reality, like drawing big fat arrows on the pavement as you’re driving along to tell you where to turn, instead of making you look at a little monitor and look away from the road. It would kind of be like a world where your computer is a really good, really fast graffiti artist.

But I think that kind of tech is about 4-5 years away at least.

After we played with it, we could go upstairs and get food and beverages for free, and a poster. I skipped the food, grabbed a poster, and left. I had music composition later on, and I needed to get ready for it.

That’s been a fun class so far. Lots to learn, but a nice environment. I’ve already written one piece, too. It’s not great, but it’s a start.

I’m also cramming A+ material into my brain as fast as I can. I have my first A+ test on the 11th. Gotta study.

Miku In The House // New Computer // Glass Coming to the RTP

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Oct 022013

So the Vocaloid software showed up yesterday from Tenso. It came in great shape. The install went smoothly, and everything runs fine.

Today I upgraded to Cubase 7.0 full version to get more flexibility with making music. Artist is fine, but the upgrade was cheap.

New Computer Up and Running!

Oh yeah, the software was all installed on my new desktop, which gets a 7.8/7.9 on the Windows performance index. That makes me happy, but also wishing I could get that last 0.1 out of it.

The SSD makes booting a dream. I go from BIOS screen to login in about 10 seconds. Maybe 15.

I tried to create a custom install for Win 7 using a streamlined set of drivers, apps, etc., but I found I was spending more time on getting a perfect slipstream than it would have taken me to just install everything.

I headed to the Black Viper’s website for info on de-cluttering my registry and services, and I also followed the advice in this post about getting the most out of my SSD in Win 7.

The only major pain in the butt was deregistering a lot of my software and uninstalling it from the old system. I wish there was an easier way to handle licensing. The Cubase USB dongle is useful, but if you lose it, you’re kind of screwed. I like what Adobe does with Lightroom: they trust the users not to abuse the number of licenses. Besides, it’s not like you can run more than one instance at a time, anyway.

I really like the new Vocaloid de-authorizing tool from Yamaha. That worked out really well. Uninstalling/reinstalling was a snap.

Glass!

There’s going to be a Google Glass event in Durham this Saturday, too. I RSVP’ed ASAP. I want to see Glass, and see if it’s going to be a game-changer or not. It’ll probably be a zoo there.

Getting Stuff Done Music

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Sep 272013

Who hasn’t seen the Lifehacker article about coffee shop background noise being good for productivity yet? Just about everyone has, or so it seems, anyway.

In that vein, I have been looking for some background noise to have going so that I would stay awake and productive without having to drink 8 cups of coffee.

I found a website called SoundDrown where you can listen to a recorded coffee shop loop over and over. It was okay, but not quite interesting enough for me.

I’m still looking for something suitably interesting. For now, I’m going to stick with Music For Programming, but I’ve listened to their mixes so many times I’ve lost count. They are awesome “Getting Stuff Done” mixes, though.

If I fire up International Departures, I’ll just stop working all together.

Miku’s Coming…

I got notified by Tenso yesterday that my Vocaloid 3 bundle has shown up at their offices. Great.

I had to provide proof of my US address, and that turned out to be a slight pain in the neck, because I forgot that my passport doesn’t have my address on it. That’s what I get for doing this stuff at 6 a.m. with no coffee in me yet.

I heard back from them at around midnight telling me that I needed to send something better, and I sent them a scan of my driver’s license. I just heard back this morning that everything is A-OK, so I’m looking forward to getting my stuff from them sometime next week.

The fees from Tenso are surprisingly low. The total cost of everything is 1990 yen, and that’s pretty cheap for getting something express mailed from Japan. That includes about 980 yen in handling fees, but to be fair, if I asked a friend to send stuff on for me, I would buy that friend a beer, anyway, and I doubt that that friend could get such a good deal on shipping.

If the package arrives in good shape, I’ll probably start using them more often, because Amazon is crazy expensive for shipping. Also, I can buy used books if I have them shipped inside Japan and save more money that way.

Building a New Computer

Finally, my old computer is dying a horrible, slow death from overheating too much. I keep getting BSODs due to overheating, and I have finally reached the “Screw it” point where I picked out some parts for a new rig. This time I’m going for an SSD main hard drive to run Win7 and all of my programs from, an Intel i7-4770 CPU, 16GB of RAM (for now), and a nice white Corsair case. For the mobo, I’m going with one of the ASUS TUF motherboards, to see how it does with dust, and an Arctic CPU cooler.

My old case was a ThermalTake LanParty, and as a mATX form factor case, it was great for small gaming rigs that could be really portable. But as a small form factor case, taking it apart and putting it back together was murder on my fingers. Also, graphics cards, HDDs, and PSUs all had to fit together like a puzzle, and the cabling would always get in the way.

And of course having all the parts on top of each other killed the airflow and heat dissipation. I’m kind of surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I’ll have to put it all together this weekend and get it up and running.

Miku 3.0 Bundle

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Sep 192013

Crypton Future Media, who makes the popular Vocaloid Hatsune Miku, announced an English version earlier this year, and also announced a bundle of the English version with new versions of the older voice banks for an upgrade price for those who own previous versions.

Since I own the older voice banks, I was intrigued. I haven’t given up on my grammar music project yet, even if it is on the shelf for now.

The deal is that if you owned and registered both previous editions, you could get the bundle for ~$150 US.

The bundle comes with a special edition of PreSonus’ Studio One DAW, so it gets a new user in the door of using a DAW. It also comes with Crypton’s new VST, Piapro Studio, that will handle its Vocaloid voice banks inside of any DAW that can use VSTs.

The only downside to Piapro Studio is that for now it only handles Crypton’s voice banks, and that’s minor. You could always create a track with Miku or any other Crypton voice bank, then output it in VSQX format to the Yamaha editor, then change the voice to the voice bank you need to use, and export it out as a stem.

I wanted to get the Yamaha Vocaloid VST plugin for Cubase, but this makes things easier, and saves me another $100 or so. It also comes with some extra VST plugins.

All in all, it’s a great deal, and for beginners, it’s great starter package.

Getting It…

There’s a catch of sorts. You have to have a Japanese address to get the upgrade bundle at this price.

To be fair, they have a US distributor, and that’s where a this restriction comes from. But the US distributor isn’t selling the bundle at this time. I don’t know when they’re going to sell it. Right now, the cost of the English bank from the US company is as much as the cost of the whole bundle from Crypton.

After some talking with customer support, I got myself a Japanese address at Tenso, who will gladly ship it for me. I set up an account with them, and voila! I have an address in Japan now.

There is another caveat: I won’t get support from the US distributor. I’ll have to get support from Japan. I am totally okay with that, because the Japanese customer support has been great.

Now I just have to wait for the software to be released on the 26th or so, and I’ll get it a few days later. Can’t wait.

Anki Assault / Piano Practice

Education, Japanese Language, Music, Technology Comments Off

Sep 102013

In order to get ready for both the N1 and the A+ exams, I’m going all out on Anki for the next few weeks. I’ve just finished setting up a bunch of workbook practice sheets for Anki, thanks to e.Typist. It lets me OCR stuff and get it into Anki relatively painlessly.

For A+ material, if the book I bought is in PDF format, it’s easy to just copy/paste the text into Anki. But if it’s a Kindle book, then I have to use something like Greenshot, which take a photo of the page, OCRs it, and adds it to the clipboard. Then I just have to paste it into Anki.

Really, it would be a lot easier if these publishers just gave us text files. I paid for the book. It’s not like I’m going to give away the contents. I just want to turn it into flashcards I can use.

Also, I finally upgraded to Anki 2.0. I’ve been putting that off forever, but it’s finally time to bite the bullet. The transition took a couple of days to get ironed out completely, but now I don’t even notice the differences. The differences are there, and the workflow is pretty different, but things I used to complain about don’t seem like such a big deal to me anymore. As long as it’s fast, that’s all I care about.

Oh, Piano Class started tonight. That was a lot of fun. The Piano Lit class afterwards was interesting, too. I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to piano music. My background is in marching bands, concert bands, and jazz bands. So I don’t know much about classical piano music. But it’s interesting.

Music School

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Sep 032013

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is starting something new this fall, a Community Music School for people like me who live nearby and want to polish our musical skills in a relaxed setting. It sounds really interesting to me, because as I’ve said before, I need to work on my music composition skills. I also need to work on my piano/keyboarding skills, because that’s the fastest way to enter music into my DAW of choice, Reason.

I spoke with the teachers at an event on Sunday, August 25th, and they both seemed like really nice people who were not only passionate about what they do, but highly experienced. So signing up was a no-brainer for me.

Composition starts this Saturday, Group Piano starts next Tuesday. I’m looking forward to it.

Also, I’m starting to go into full gear mode for the N1, which is coming up in less than three months. (OMG!) I’m also looking at getting my A+ certification, because it’s an easy way to show people I know what I’m doing when it comes to computers. I may get Network+ and Security+ later on, but for now A+ will be plenty.

The only thing I’m worried about is cramming for A+ will mess up my N1 prep. But I want to have the A+ certification before I go to Boston again. (Yeah, I’m going again.)

This fall is going to be crazy.

Progress Report

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Jul 252013

So I start a lot of projects on this blog, and some get finished, some don’t. I use David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” approach to constantly examine what I want to do vs. what I can do. GTD is a lifesaver in that regard. It helps keep me focused when sometimes it feels like I’m being torn apart by ducks.

So here are some short updates on projects I’ve been wanting to work on/finish.

The Grammar Songs

I discovered that in order to make it work, I need to improve both my Japanese and my music production skills. I studied music from 4th grade all the way through college, so I know a lot about performing music, but I don’t know as much as I should about composing and producing it, which are two entirely different skill sets.

I’ve been using Coursera to work on the production side, and now I need to work more on the composition side. And when it comes to writing lyrics, that’s the result of daily writing exercises.

My Japanese is pretty good, but it’s not quite at that level yet, so I’m working on it. Same goes for melodies. I’m looking for a way to get more music theory under my belt.

Japanese Studies

Those are going pretty well. JOI makes it easy to load up on classes for grammar, conversation, and vocabulary when I need to, and they meet my level, which is a godsend. Being an advanced student in a room full of beginners can be helpful sometimes, but it’s hard to make progress that way. So I’m glad JOI has classes that meet my needs. That’s going well so far.

Also, because of work, I work with Japanese people on a pretty regular basis. The only downside is that since we’re in the US, we mostly speak English and follow US business customs. Not all the time, but a lot of it. Those times when I need to slip into Japanese Mode it comes in really handy.

3D and 2D Art

Well… that had to get put on the “I’ll do it after the JLPT” pile. There’s just too much going on right now, and too many projects require my attention, so I find it’s best to whittle it down to what I can handle. I still want to get into it, but I need to find the right time/place to do it.

I sketch whenever I can. I’m not very good at it, but it’s relaxing, and it’s fun. It also helps me with my photography, and my eye for how I want to compose photos.

Where ARE the Photos?

That’s another thing that’s being put on the shelf for now. I have a giant pile of photos to edit, and just no time to do it. Editing requires big chunks of time for me, and unless I’m getting paid to do it, I just do it when I can. I’m going through the older stuff and gradually adding it, though. I don’t know of a good way to bump old posts up to the top of the site just because they have new material. Maybe I’ll create a new tag?

Calligraphy/Shodo

Well, ever since my class in Raleigh ended, I’ve been going to my usual calligraphy classes. Before the classes in Raleigh ended, though, I spent some time studying Edo-moji, and that was a lot of fun. Now I’m trying to decide what to do next in calligraphy/shodo.

Other Site Stuff

I recently moved the site over to Suffusion, and I like it as far as CMS/frameworks go. I can’t really call it a template, because it’s more like a framework you have to set up and tweak yourself to get it to really sing. My current design is a little Spartan, but I’m from the Jakob Nielsen school of web design. It needs to be easy to read, and accessible first above everything.

Done with Intro to Music Production

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Apr 272013

That was fun.

I just finished up the Berklee Intro to Music Production class on Coursera. I learned a lot, and had a lot of fun doing it. I would love to be able to point you to my insanely popular tracks that are burning up all of the interwebs, but I’m still a scrub in that respect. The only way to get good at most things in life is to practice.

My only problem is that I keep coming across new and interesting things to do. Ahh! I need another 10 hours in the day. Someone get on that for me.

Digital Sound Design Class

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Feb 272013

Well, the intro to digital sound design class on Coursera is over. That was an interesting class, and I learned a lot. I’m looking forward to the next class I’m going to take on Coursera, Intro to Music Production, taught by one of the faculty at Berklee. It will be interesting to see what’s the same, and what’s different. I wonder if they will cover anything related to Reason, my DAW of choice. I don’t really use Cubase as much as I should, but it’s because I’m not invested in VSTs.

FM Synthesis

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Feb 172013

When Propellerhead Software released their new PX7 FM synthesizer for Reason last fall, I bought it on sale because I fell in love with the sounds of my childhood. It comes with over 100,000 patches that are translated from the Yamaha DX7, and that’s great.

But there’s one small problem: I don’t know anything about programming an FM synthesizer. I understand the basic theory behind FM synthesis and how it works, but I don’t know how to turn that into PX7 patches that sound musical and not like train horns. Yes, I could just use the 100k I got from the Props, but I’d also like to make my own.

Someone on the Propellerhead User Forum suggested this book: “FM Theory and Applications by Musicians for Musicians,” by Dr. John Chowning and David Bristow, Yamaha, 1986. I went to my local library and requested a copy, and they got it through an interlibrary loan. It just came in today. Looking forward to reading it, and maybe untangling those FM mysteries.

Also, I’m really enjoying the sound design class on Coursera so far. It’s all pretty easy to understand and relatively straightforward. Some of it I already know, some I don’t.

Coursera-sera // Nektar Panorama P4

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Feb 092013

I signed up for Coursera today, mainly because I was interested in an Intro to Sound Design class taught by Steve Everett of Emory University. I’m coming in a little late, but I’ll still have time to finish it and get my certificate, if that’s what I want. What I really want is to learn how to do sound design.

I’ve been trying to get more and more into music production, but it’s always a question of time. I don’t seem to have enough of it to figure this all out on my own, so I’m hoping I can pick up some knowledge here and skip ahead a few steps.

I like the offerings in Coursera, but I wish they had more of a Udacity model that lets me pick up and finish a class whenever I feel like it, kind of like Khan Academy, only with certificates if I want one.

All three sites are pretty amazing in their own way, but it’s still a matter of making the time to get the work done.

Nektar Panorama P4

I keep forgetting to mention this. A few weeks ago my patched-together Edirol MIDI controller was dying again, and this time, no amount of pencil work could bring the dead keys back.

So I started looking at new MIDI controllers. I first went to the local Large Music Supply chain store, and tried a bunch of keyboards out, and just wasn’t impressed with any of them. Some were too mushy, some were too hard, none were what I was looking for.

I could have spent $300 now, and wound up buying another new keyboard in six months when I got sick of it.

So I kept looking, this time online. I decided to give the Nektar Panorama P4 a try. Amazon is good about taking returns, so why not?

The P4 has really tight integration with Reason, and the keys feel great. There’s some weight, but not full weight. The display and rotary knobs/sliders mean that I don’t have to fiddle with the computer as much.

Nektar also says that they’ll be doing frequent updates to keep up with the growing number of Rack Extensions in Reason. If a RE isn’t mapped, you can’t do anything with it from the P4. That’s kind of annoying, but it only affects the latest REs.

I like this growing trend of creating instruments that feel like instruments, and pull me away from the monitor.

Jamming With Meg

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Sep 082012

One of my weirder ideas to improve my Japanese is to pick up a Japanese Vocaloid and write some grammar songs. I grew up on Grammar Rock, and I remember “Conjunction Junction” to this very day.

My idea is that by creating something that tunecrimes me into remembering grammar, I’ll jump ahead a few spaces on the board.

The problem is that buying the Vocaloid software is convoluted. Buying direct from Japan requires using a shipping agent, which adds fees to the already-expensive shipping. Going through a seller on Amazon means that the price is significantly higher, and that’s not figuring in shipping from Japan. (Again.)

So I went back to Vector, my online software store of choice, and found Megpoid Native for 9,000 yen in a download version. I also got Vocaloid 3 editing software from Bplats’ Vocaloid Store, also a download version. So for ~ 18,000 yen, I got a solid voice bank and the editor I need. It’s still kind of pricey, though.

Meg (or GUMI as she’s commonly called in Japan) had a good voice and solid range. I wish the software was more open, in the sense of working with ReWire and Reason. And I wish I could run it like I run Reason– use a USB key or a login and let me use it on more than 1 machine (like a laptop and a desktop.) Unfortunately, the license is one computer only, which sucks for when I travel. If I want to use a laptop, I have to shell out another 18,000 yen for more software.

Another annoying thing: the Japanese Vocaloid store is run by a different company than the English version. So the products they carry are different. And if you want to get job plugins for Vocaloid 3 software, the English store has a paltry 18, while the Japanese store has over 100.

I wish Yamaha and the other companies behind Vocaloid would work harder to reach out to the global users. It’s not easy to just “pick it up,” and it should be. The easier, the better for their bottom line, and my blood pressure.

Penciling Some Notes

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Sep 072012

I dug out my old Edirol keyboard yesterday, and surprise, surprise, a large number of keys didn’t work.

Apparently over time, the contacts will lose the graphite they need to make the keys work properly, and according to this video, you can just fix it with a mechanical pencil and a 2H (not 2B) lead. Draw on the black parts of the contacts. If you screw up, you’ll have to erase and restart on the problem contact. I cleaned the more stubborn contacts with rubbing alcohol. Also, there’s a little black pad in the rubber cover, and sometimes that needs just a touch of graphite as well.

The main problem with doing this is taking the keyboard apart, and keeping track of not only the keys, but the springs that hold them in place. The best tool for removing the springs was a good pair of needlenose pliers. There are also a ridiculous amount of screws on this keyboard as well.

It took me a while to get some of the notes to work properly, but after a lot of fiddling in Reason, I got all of the keys to work again.

Now I can go back to messing with the new version of Reason, which I am digging, by the way. The last version of Reason I had was 2.5, and it’s up to 6.5 now. I love the new instruments, but I really love the new SSL mixer. That thing is a beast.