Video

John Boswell is on a laudable mission I can relate to: making science more fun through music with his Symphony of Science musical project. Within all the recent uses of Auto-Tune I've heard, his are among the most beautiful. As I hope for more Michio Kaku and N.D. Tyson appearances, I remastered the music from the first video he did, "A Glorious Dawn".

Compare this to the original:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

DOWNLOAD LINK

… and you'll hear I've enhanced the bass (mmm luv how it walks and dances @ 2:09), clarity, and overall punch. 'Twas delighted to hear from John and that he enjoyed it too! If only there were a way to sync new audio tracks with YouTube videos without lossy degradation.

Check out more fan remixes of "A Glorious Dawn" (including Cherimoya Ihn's earlier remaster that inspired me) and let John know what you think!

{ 0 comments }

The path to referencing Far East philosophy is riddled with comfort. I could quote any one of a number of verses speaking about transience in this world. Just as staying with a particular job for your whole life becomes increasingly odder, so be our longterm connections to people, places, things across our whole lives. We have our memories, but most of us don't feverishly document what happens to us each day — I highly recommend it, and it's easier than ever. Every day should have highlights and memorable moments. You may not always live up to what you hoped to achieve, but this isn't a binary switch: half the way is substantial, none is not. Social networking for that sake may seem self-indulgent, but it's a deception fraught by lowminds and insecurity. There is no more meaningful activity than understanding yourself. Knowing thyself opens up understanding others. Persist; in the long run, it shall teach you more about yourself than you thought you needed to know. But oh, trust me, you need to know.

In Videodrome, Brian O'Blivion fills a room with videotapes of himself. Now, a single 3.5" hard drive can contain an even more tremendous amount of personal footage. Being able to store, coupled with being able to retrieve, gives us a connection to who we were, as our are-ness crests into each rising sun.

I, you, we are always learning. A beginner electronic musician asks, "What gear do you use?" without further context. An intermediate knows to inquire "How do you use it?" An advanced student fathoms both the end product and the constituent "sound atoms", and may craft from scratch.

And after hearing everyone through, I'm most interested in learning — intimately — from the ones who are in it for the long haul. Who are patient to endure necessary hardships, yet resourceful to avoid what can and often must be bypassed to progress. Autotelic, creation for its own purpose. Not a passing fad, altho growth gets reevaluated and reshaped. Out of everything you've experienced, with that accumulation of decisions, perception of time becomes increasingly precious. And you must pool the finest while redefining what that is for you.

Repeatedly raising this level of quality frees you of the inefficient friction which tethers you to lesser things. And it within that where you can explore, unhindered, awakened to who you really are, because you acknowledge the creative spirit you're meant to be.

{ 0 comments }

I'm used to seeing Rip Torn as over-the-top angry, so it was a pleasant surprise to become acquainted with his beardless, suave demeanor in Defending Your Life, an underrated film I recommend to you which I've put up on my mental shelf alongside Being There and other existential classics.

I heard of it from Oliver Chesler, who brought up the central theme of fear. Not just a particular, lone instance, but the fear that travels alongside us in our life's journey, and stunts us short of our potential. As Oliver aptly summed:

The basic moral of the movie is that you only live once so stop worrying what other people think of you. I’m such a tightly wound person I think of think of this stuff a lot. I’m always trying to remember that most people are just concerned with their own lives, no one really cares what the hell you are doing so enjoy your time without shame.

This is something which is healthy to hear repeatedly; I think there was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer quote from years ago which I'm paraphrasing:

Why are my problems so much bigger than everyone else's? Because they're my problems.

(I can't find that quote, so if you know what it actually is, let me know.)

I thought about musicians who feel creatively impassioned to change their style and grow. It's in their heart, but they don't travel far because they're afraid to upset "fans". This is a most dreadful — paralyzing — fear because when you lump "fans" in the abstract, you stop seeing them as individuals who appreciate different things about your music and image. Like a Venn diagram, some overlap, some don't. Also, while it's beloved to please the crowd with a familiar hit, remember this: all good friends were strangers once, and since music is so often tied with memories of other senses, it makes more sense to make new memories: adventure forth, instead of establishing a foundation then trapping yourself there. You can't always count on commercial success since life isn't a controlled experiment — and if you're obligated to a record company or other obligations, external pressure realistically exerts control over what you can do — which is why I'm in the happy position of making tunes for my musical Dream Journal simply because I enjoy it. It may not always be this way and some collaborations are more beloved than others (iPhone games with a tight team?), but I'm here now.

To extend that branch, being afraid to do something bold because "some people" will criticize you is self-defeating. There'll always be "some people". But there also "more people" who haven't discovered you yet, who are a better likeminded fit, who are more apt to grow with you throughout time. After all, with fans of bands, there are those who proclaim love but it's surface-deep because they have a fixed perception of you which doesn't evolve. Yet there are others who are curious in your backstory and where you're going, even if it's somewhere they may initially be awkward or uncomfortable with. It's fine, your music helps them through.

What I'm writing about music can be applied more broadly in work and play. I mention music as I'm intimately familiar with its ins & outs. In my youth, I became part of very close-knit composer communities. I liked having their "protection", yet at the same time, didn't like all their rules. So I ventured out on my own once, and was predictably threatened with being ostracized. It was hard, because I lost my support network there. But out on the open road and continuing to today, I make new allies who are more flexible, more willing to speak out about, well, what doesn't usually get brought up in polite conversation. Like any successful relationship, it needs to flow in both directions.

However, I continue to be profoundly perplexed by how much artificial culture has both liberated and crippled music because of how we perceive genres. A recurring theme: on one hand, convenience calls, and on the other, stupid shit spews out. Like, I was watching YouTube videos and ran into arguments over "what genre" Major Lazer's "Hold The Line" belongs to. Does it matter? Yes, if you're going to use that genre to advance a greater end, like using terms to market music to new fans. But words that go nowhere are slop. And yet, to revolve back to our central theme here, there's so much fear that revolves around it.

I enjoy learning from fellow electronic musicians, but one thing I caution about — from prior experience, naturally — is not to focus (deliberately or unconsciously) on having other "same scene" musicians as your listeners. There's too much criticism which isn't necessary. Too many producers want to ask what gear you use without the patience to partner with you for the long haul. There are parasites and leeches which serve no good; infact, some people feel pressured to criticize (but won't openly admit it) due to a volatile mix of not sounding smart enough, jealousy, and sundry other insecurities. It becomes like a Ponzi Scheme, perhaps not of Madoff-like proportions, but one wherein there's too much idea interbreeding after awhile, because the most ardent devotees to a particular philosophy have become set in their ways and are unlikely to crawl out of their holes to hear what else is happening. Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, they're damn rare. YES, TREASURE THEM. This is why it's been tough for me to find people who consume both Top 40 pop and experimental ambient, but I love that sort of outlook — some call it progressive, I believe it transcends words — that can keep shining, even in the face of a mess which doesn't fit into boxes. Remember: without regular injections of diversity, your inner systems will grow stale.

If that doesn't make sense to you, you'll need your own firsthand experiences. It's akin to the difference between, well, observing any group of people versus actually living as one of them. A shift in lifestyle which entails greater philosophical questions, but for me, ultimately, not to end there. Intellectual discussion is something I find appealing only if it serves to further something practical and beneficial; a common theme with me.

When we can evolve, and become increasingly HIGHMINDED, then lesser concerns aren't of consequence to us. But until then, like in Defending Your Life, even enroute to greater things (family? Career? Heaven?), we become trapped in our own mindjails. Go around in circles, become fearfully addicted to making the same mistakes repetitively. Instead of a compelling loop that pushes us forth to dance, it becomes a cycle of self-harm. The aspect of HIGHMINDEDNESS isn't a function of any organized religion but is an empirical, logical aspect of each and every one of us. In DYL, Albert Brooks falls — or shall we, say, rises? — in love while at Judgment City, awaiting whether he'll be returned to a mortal shell or "go forward". It's not just the love he feels, but the external expression of it — visible to the lady he loves (portrayed by Meryl Streep) and others watching him — that matters.

{ 0 comments }

It's a scolding everyone who enters electronic music hears as their travels deepen:

"Don't use presets! Presets are lazy! Presets suck! Initialize and start from scratch."

Often delivered without context, this frictative fear is utterly unhelpful.

A preset, after all, is just a sound someone else made —

either a creator of the synthesizer or a sound designer called upon to do the job. While it's true historically, presets were often used for "Wow the crowd!" purposes in music store showrooms, today's world concerns itself evermore with downloadable demos via software synthesis. (And that is the bulk of my expertise, so we shall focus on this, although the concepts apply to physical "boards" like Roland's Fantom.)

Some stigma around presets revolves around their overuse. This was more common when synths weren't as plentiful as they are today, so the chances of a fellow muso in town having the same sounds as you were much higher. However, today, there's a paralysis of choice, not unlike how the web has plentified pornography. With so many options to choose from, musicians turn to forums asking "How do I get THAT sound?" which may already be, conveniently enough, a preset in an existing synth. Predictably, someone tends to fall prey to The Unhelpful Predator and blurts out,

"Don't rip their style! Do your own thing!"

which completely MISSES the point of why someone asked in the first place: just like we as babies imitate our parents and other grown-ups, if we can copy others and understand what makes them tick, then we have a foundation to indeed "do our own thing". While it's true there'll always be cheap knockoffs whether it's in music, handbags, or graffiti, we must concern ourselves with the greater cultural good for our geeky communities: encouraging new electronic musicians to explore existing knowledge so that long-term, they have a solid foundation, and are empowered to make a lasting and unique contribution to our field.

My favorite preset collections do two things:

1. Show off a synth's special personality and
2. Reference what's come before

To #2 ('cuz I'm inverse that way), it's pretentious and impractical to think that a sound can be utterly disconnected from all that has come before. Indeed, such a thing would conceivably be unrelatable to. Something quirky-yet-familiar carries far more power. For specific example, Sonic Charge Synplant has a distinctive way of shaping sounds via a type of DNA. Altho there are numerous presets which possess a keen edge that is freshly Synplant, they honor our pioneers. For instance, I was pleased to discover several sounds which were very Vangelis-like. While the Synplant isn't a Yamaha CS-80 emulator, it was the fluidity of using the mod wheel to travel from a more ethereal to a bombastic mode — two of Vangelis' contrasting tonal strengths — which appealed to me. I felt it was a homage, never a blatant cliché.

For comparison's sake, we can learn from other media. Some TV writers have a distinct voice yet are constantly making "pop culture references" to strengthen their shows. Two of my adored are Joss Whedon and Javier Grillo-Marxuach. Another show I've been watching is NCIS, where Tony DiNozzo compares an event or even a crime scene to a movie he's seen. Hanging lampshade aside, what's the benefit of including these references in synth sounds?

For one, it's cultural preservation of audio memes, which I've applied upon reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's The Evolving Self. We can't advance if we don't know what already happened. While this can most blatantly be observed in synths that strive to be authentic emulations of original hardware, it's even more true where the synth doesn't have limitations of an earlier forbearer, such as Arturia's Analog Classics, allowing one to effectively travel beyond a referenced sound — which produces both the comfortable stability of history and a sense of sonic adventure.

While I've written before on presets as useful starting points for the Janus of entertainment (including marketing) + education (a tool's learning curve), I'm expanding upon my earlier thoughts; now let's venture to #1.

What is a synth's special personality?

Synths to their aficionados, like cars to theirs, have character. To make this less abstract: while basic building blocks such as envelopes, LFOs, and filters are generic concepts, their specific implementations differ greatly. For instance, Moog filters carry a reputation for being "fat".

Another historical example: adding additional effects (reverb, chorus, and soforth) to a sound used to be a tougher proposition, since a synth only had so much processing power. Multitimbral synths in performance mode would often have weak-sounding presets since insert effects blocks were limited to a small number; hence, out of all possible parts, only a few sounded as they did in solo mode. This has become moot with today's ever-increasing computing power and flexibility, where in every major Digital Audio Workstation, you can drop a loooong chain of effects on a track. Consume too much CPU? "Freeze" the track. This is "normal" and expected today.

And yet, I remember less civilized times where "all effects, all the time" like on Novation's Supernova was such a paradigm shift. Some argued (and always will) that effects abundance made us less resourceful because it removed reliance upon crafting a strong core sound before any effects, but I'll argue that a skilled sound designer always takes that into consideration regardless, and effects often are essential parts of their sounds. One great example of this is Native Instruments' B4 II, which I purchased before it was discontinued. No respectful Hammond B3 vibe is complete without a Leslie speaker recreation, and thus, it was included. So's a wonderfully dirty spring reverb, which I've used on many other types of sounds. You can hear it applied to the repeated opening riff in "Watermelon Patch" from my musical Dream Journal:

Consider it one of my mini-signatures, and a nod to something else I consider key: combining two or more existing presets with desired changes to come up with something fresh and vibrant. One need not reinvent the wheel when the solution can be so elegant. For more on that, I recommend reading Matthew E. May's In Pursuit of Elegance.

Anyhoo, even with effects onboard, it's still vital to understand that many "big sounds" can't all in a mix. Incidentally, this lesson, phrased one way or another, is stated in Computer Music magazine every month. So while many potent presets are showy and mix-filling, they must nevertheless work in harmony (in the conceptual, in addition to chromatic, sense). That lends itself to customization, which in turn enables further tinkering where you feel good about making more radical changes.

But not to stray too far from our main topic — presets — aside from enthusiasts, most people will never own a modular analogue or other lumbering beast which begat the instruments we play today. However, just as how the Internet has made it far easier to broadcast your "voice" in the written sense, the educational ramifications of useful presets are enormous. Most students won't be tempted to buy racks of old Roland stuff, but on even a decently-powered computer, they can run Hobnox Audiotool and understand concepts like audio routing. (Predictably, someone always says "It's not the same" to this; my response is that it is far better than nothing at all, and that is what makes the practical differences in our lifelong learning.)

When I acquire a new synth, I often play through all the presets.

This gives me — if the presets are up to stuff — an understanding of what the synth is capable of, performance-wise. I get ideas for how I might use them for real, as opposed to noodling theory. I've documented some of these preset plays in PROJECT PRESET (which I'll eventually playlist for your ease) providing my first-hear observations as well as hopefully informing you of how playable they may be in your own productions. No slick demos, just raw playfulness. Here's a recent example, spurred on because I'm so often saddened when writing about music isn't accompanied by the sounds themselves:

Quality presets can be tweaked and reverse-engineered, providing a great wealth of "How this was done" before one ever starts on a naked canvas.

I believe a choice preset should tap into as many playable modes of expression as possible,

including informing the user of those abilities. A lingering objection to electronic music is that it sounds "cold" and "lifeless". While this is intentional in some cases and an uninformed word in other situations, my observable agreements with this assessment often has to do with the sound not changing, growing, evolving. Thus, more relevant for the performer's actions than the preset's assigned parameters; again I refer to Vangelis, who for decades has understood making the most of the ribbon controller, which sadly hasn't become more popular.

But there is a ribbon and a breath controller on the Eigenharps.

However, mod wheels are commonplace, and I like to hear them deployed for more than a simple vibrato. I enjoy extreme pitch bend ranges to warp one's notion of tonal placement or provide fluid scalability.

Furthermore, I lament that aftertouch/channel pressure doesn't get the gold it should, so I'm always giddy to see a preset with "AT" in the name, incurring me to hold the keys down after they've been pressed.

Keyswitching also excites me greatly: a group of keys that don't play the current sound, but change between articulations. Obviously useful for emulating acoustic instruments with many fine nuances such as in the East West Quantum Leap Play series, but as the free Ohm Force Symptohm:Melohman Performer Edition shows, it can be put to good use "mutating" existing presets. Another of my faves is Plogue Chipsounds, whose keyswitching greatly increases the range of bleeps and bloops you can get out of a "main" sound.

Expressivity to enhance presets doesn't end there! Another wonder I've come to favor is the morphing featured in Camel Audio Alchemy, Native Instruments Kore 2, and beyond. You get multiple sound variations (in Alchemy and Kore's case, 8), each of which is a "macro" tied to a set of parameters. Thus, instead of moving all the underlying knobs/sliders one-a-a-time, you simply save a variation and drag the mouse or a controller such as an XY pad to jaunt through the variations. Two of my favorites to demonstrate this are Jeremiah Savage's Kore soundpacks, Acoustic Refractions and Sonic Fiction (my video coming soon). Morphing is not only convenient for subtle transitions, it substantially increases the spectrum of expressiveness and character you can inject into an existing preset. The man-machine fusion Kraftwerk implored.

I could go on and on…

and on some of the finer points above, I will in good time. Overall in recent memory, it's refreshing to see more attention paid to usability with "easy" edit modes and vivid UIs, as well as boosting what's worked so well in the past while freeing ourselves from creativity-blocking traditions which make little or no sense.

This is why, if you're a new or insecure (it happens to all of us) electronic musician, be skeptical of dubious "advice" you're handed. If you've reasonably explored possibilities and earnestly believe a sound fits in your mix, it does. Presets also save time, a considerable factor for composers with tight deadlines, and playing presets passionately honors the work of those who did do considerable work to make a synth's character shine. Perhaps one day, you too will design your own sounds from scratch.

After all, there's beautiful temporal coexistence between what exists and what doesn't… yet.

I impart the following to your care.

Scrutinize them and through experience, judge if they work well for you as they have for me:

• Many presets today will never be heard on real recordings shared with others, and most listeners don't care. Like there's more porn than any one person could possibly self-gratify themselves to, the same, to an admitted lesser extent, is true for copious amount of sounds, a veritable cornucopia, we have available.
• No one calls a classic grand piano sound overused, yet why are TB-303 acid squelches or Amen break judged as such? It has more to do with mental and peer limitations than actual sounds. This is precisely why I envision alternate realities.
• Ultimately, most criticism doesn't matter, and you can't overuse what earnestly pleases you.
• Didn't get it right? Make another song.
• Learn to tweak as-needed, such as subtractive EQ to remove slop, but don't buckle to unworkable pressure.
• Flirt with clichés, play with your presets, and keep dancing!

{ 2 comments }