Helium?

So I downloaded Joanna Newsom's Y's, and you know what, despite everything I've ever read saying that she has a weird voice, it really doesn't sound that strange to me. Sure, it's not something that the mainstream would latch onto, but I mean, I was really expecting something crazy. It's not to say that I don't love the album. I do. I just think she gets a bad rap for her voice.

-ed

Improvement!

So, here's the song that I worked on for my Recording Engineer class, along with Caleb Williams and Garrett Miller.

Rain - The Reed Pittman Band

It's long and a large file, as I encoded it at 320/kbps. I mean, we recorded it at 88.1kHz, I feel like I owe it to the song to encode it that high. I mastered it this morning, and I was so happy to find that it's probably the best sounding thing I've ever been a part of. I also found out that our raw tracks are being used in the Master Mixing class for the song that everyone has to mix. So out of all the people's tracks that were brought in, ours were deemed the best. Amazing. Pretty proud of that fact.

-ed

Archives...

So I was going through my hard drive, looking at all the old crap that I had recorded, and I came across this gem I did when I was a senior in HS:

Again - The Firewheel Project

I'm proud of this song for a few reasons.

1) It's the first song I ever used my banjo on
2) It's the first time I programmed decent sounding drums. Does it matter the pattern stays the same? There's at least one fill. And a crash cymbal.
3) It sorta has a melody
4) I kinda like the electric guitar parts I came up with

And there you have it. Maybe if I feel bored again I'll upload some more winners.

-ed

Edit:

Found this one too:

Yellowrose - The Firewheel Project

Totally wrote this for my girlfriend at the time, I think it was freshman year of college. How lame. But I mean, it's not terrible.

New Modest Mouse!

I've been excited to hear new stuff since they added Johnny Marr, and now video and crappy live mp3's are out there. I've listened to "We've Got Everything," and it seems to pick up on the heals of Good News with that disco type beat and lilting guitar lead. I've heard some "complaining " about their new material having a Smiths type feel to it...but that has to be expected as, you know, Johnny Marr was, you know in the Smiths, and you know, was responsible for that sound and you know, he kinda sounds like he was in the Smiths. Dumb.

Don't think the album has leaked yet. I'll be sure to find out when it does.

-ed

I'm getting really tired...

Of this hot weather. It's nearly November. I want to be cold. Thankfully, I think it will start cooling down this week.

Also, I love Public Enemy.

-ed

FIRST POST IN A LONG TIME

So, I have to write a letter to the Honors Council telling them why I believe their objections to my Thesis Prospectus are basically retarded. Here's what I wrote the first time:

Finally, the last concern deals with “whether your study would have any audience outside of highly trained engineers who care about the issue.” I absolutely fail to see the relevance of this concern. Are you people fucking retarded? Why the fuck does anyone do any study then? You know people who write PHD thesis and papers about fucking black holes and shit? What the fuck does that have to do anyone outside of the fucking physics insiders? Does it make their studies any less relevant because I, as an audio engineer, will never have to deal with a fucking black hole in my life, unless in my lifetime we advance so much that they’re fucking blasting people into space and accidentally there are these black holes that are sucking them into the nether worlds and we have to have some sort of global conference of all the best minds in the world so that they can develop a way to stop people from getting sucked into these fucking black holes. Then, just then, might the research done on black holes have anything to do with anyone besides the highly trained scientists that love them so much. Also, all those English majors who write shit about Beowulf or some other archaic work of literature, are they enlightening anyone besides HIGLY FUCKING TRAINED EXPERTS in their field? Well, maybe some college student WHO IS STUDYING THE DAMNED SUBJECT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Do you think a fucking soccer mom in Idaho is going to give a flying fuck about that? I think she’ll give more of a shit if her Norah Jones CD gives her an earache than she will about motherfucking Grendel and his motherfucking mother. So, to answer your question, people do shit all the time that only applies to those who are interested in the subject. An audience will find the subject if they care about it. If they don’t give a fucking shit about it, then no, there won’t be an audience for it. I don’t even know how to dignify this question without being belligerently profane.

This is what I actually sent:

Finally, the last concern deals with “whether your study would have any audience outside of highly trained engineers who care about the issue.” To give you an absolutely honest response, no, there would be very little audience outside of audio engineers. However, this does not mean that a study should not be done. As I wrote in my prospectus, audio mastering is a small field, but it is something that I enjoy and am passionate about. Because it is a small community, there is much interaction amongst engineers, be it through AES meetings or online discussion forums. Information is exchanged freely, and attempts to help each other through difficult situations are common. I also constantly run into students here at Belmont that are interested in mastering, yet have no real idea what it involves. As someone who was once in their place, I want to make it easier for them to be able to get into mastering, and to care about the fidelity of their recordings. If they are educated now about the issue of dynamic range, they might be able to persuade their clients not to try to win the loudness wars, but to allow their recording to retain dynamics, which ultimately leads to a more enjoyable recording. I am not doing this study for the benefit of just anyone, I am doing it for the people who truly care about how audio sounds, and their audience is the only one that I care about. If in turn they decide to head my suggestions, then my audience indirectly includes anyone who hears their recordings, even though they might no be aware of it.

Durr. I really, really think that these people do not want me to do anything that is beneficial to myself, or that they are so uninformed as to what a thesis is supposed to do that they don't know how to raise legitimate concerns. I know that these are educated people (supposedly), but to them, mastering is some voodoo crap that doesn't mean anything to anyone besides engineers, when in fact it does affect their listening experience. Whatever. I just needed to get that out.

-ed

Where has my life gone?

Why the hell am I senior? It seemed like it took forever to be a senior in HS, and now I'm less than a year away from being done with my higher education. And basically, I feel like I am in no way ready to be a contributing member of society, let alone leave the comforting confines of academia, where I have no real responsibilities and too much free time. I'm sure this thought scares all people who approach graduation, and hopefully I'll be less worried/freaked out about this prospect as the year goes on and all sorts of things fall into place. I mean, shit, it was just yesterday I was drinking beer with Mitch on our cardboard couch in Pembroke, and now I'm wondering how I'll survive once I get a diploma.

Why did I think being an engineer was a good idea again? Someone, refresh my memory.

-ed

Well...

I only have one week left in my internship at Georgetown. It's not exactly how I pictured it would be, but it's not a total waste of time either, as I've learned how a mastering studio operates, a subject of which I was in the complete dark about before this started. And I have learned a few valuable tricks, so it's not all been lost. School kicks back up in a little more than 2 weeks, and when Andrew asked me what classes I was taking, I couldn't name them. Is this a bad thing? I should probably look into it before the 23rd. And I need to buy books. Whatever.

As far as my pilaging of the Georgetown CD collection goes, the best find has been Alejandro Escovedo's Gravity, which is a great "traditional" alt-country record. And by that I mean that it sounds like country should, not like what I've been subjected to on a daily basis while interning.

-ed

Disco, Disco...

So last night's Disco Arts and Crafts Collective show was a huge success, so thanks to everyone who came out to the Love Joy House and got down with us. Sadly, it will probably be our last show for quite a while since Sam is moving to NYC and I'll be staying in Nashville, but at least we got to do it one time before she left. Laura videotaped it for us, so hopefully I'll get my hands on that sometime soon, just to see how ridiculous I looked. Remember kids, tuning is relative.

-ed

F*CK!

So the microwave at work is broken, and I'm stuck here for 8 hours with only a bag of M&M's to eat. Glad I bought those microwavable pasta things to eat for dinner.

-ed

America...

I have just experienced my first nosebleed...ever. I am sitting at work, watching Law and Order (gotta love working for Belmont), and my nose just decided to bleed. I was pretty amazed and excited. I had to look up how to stop it on the internet (pinching the nostril works wonders). Whoo!

-ed

www.pandora.com

God, I'd forgotten how boring it is working at RCA B.

-ed

Did You Know...

That the tops of UPS trucks are not painted brown? In fact, they are white. You would know this too if you worked on a 2nd floor studio and had ample access to a window.

-ed

First Night...

...staffing at the vaunted CMB studios. So far, I figured out how to mount the drive on the RADAR. Funny how this is shit they negelect to teach us in any class, or even when we do our evaluations. But I figured it out, by God.

-ed

Experiment...

This week, I will attempt to spend no more than $25. This does not factor in how much gas I go through, as it's already in my tank. So, I will keep a running tally of how much I have spent, starting today, May 29th, and going through to June 3rd. I think Friday and Saturday will be the deal breaker, but if I can keep it within $10 during the week...I can splurge a bit on the weekend. Whoo!

-ed

Monday, May 29th: $0
Tuesday, May 30th: $12...I didn't factor in getting sick. The unforseen cost of medicine may do me in.
Wednesday, May 31st: $0
Thursday, June 1st: $0
Friday, June 2nd: $6...bought some catfish bait and nightcrawlers for fishing tomorrow.
Saturday, June 3rd: $1...Pringles chips.

GRAND TOTAL: $19....sweet.

Scooby Doo Mac and Cheese and wine...

The dinner of champions. Or a poor intern. You choose.

-ed

Internship, Day 2...

So, after settling in as cleaning boy/message taker, I'm hoping I get some more observation in at the studio. But today, Carolyn DAWN Johnson (as she always introduced herself as), was in, listening to her album w/ Andrew, and her "too old to try to act cool, but still dresses like he wants to be 20" manager was there too. But what I gathered from that thing was this: I don't give a crap about Carolyn Dawn Johnson. I'm sure people would go apeshit over the fact that I got to be in the same space as her for 8 hours, but really, I could have cared less who she was, and I'm not just saying that because it's the nashville cool thing to say. She was nice and all, but she was just a person to me. Now, contrast that with my feelings when Brent said that they might be doing some Death Cab For Cutie tracks. I immediately pictured Ben Gibbard chilling in the lounge, and I got all excited, like a fan of CDJ would have today. So basically, I'm still a fan at heart, especially of bands that changed my musical direction, and as much as I try to minimize that when I do work, it's hard to stay aloof when there is music you get truly excited about.

-ed

Oh No! Oh My!

I'm really loving this song right now...

I Love You All The Time - Oh No! Oh My!

They're playing at Reverb Media on Sunday night around 9pm, and I think Bryan is looking into signing them. I plan on being there, and you, the large audience of this blog, should be there too.

-ed

How...



does a guy who looks like a bald Lil' Kim throw down on the Spurs? This needs to stop.

-ed

Can I get a hell yeah...

For Fiesta in San Antonio?

There's this one incident that will stick with me forever about Fiesta, and King Antonio. It happened when I was probably in 2nd or 3rd grade. We were all sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch, and for those unfamiliar with the SMH cafeteria, it was glass all the way around so that you could see everything that was happening around the campus. Anyways, we were eating, and all of a sudden three police cars, sirens blaring and lights flashing come driving into the campus and out towards the back where the dorms were. Now, having survived 4 years of SMH, there was only one thing that I corellated with police, and that was the arrival of King Antonio.

See, King Antonio visited all the schools around San Antonio during Fiesta. He was usally some rich white guy, and more often than not he was the father or grandfather of some kid at SMH. When he entered a school, he was precceded by SA Police, with their lights flashing etc...like he was some big dignitary. It was sweet because he would give out little plastic coins that had his name on it, and if you were lucky you could score a sweet pin that had some sort of Fiesta symbol on it. It was also cool because we got to waste a lot of time waiting for him to arrive, and then waste more time as he presented the school library with a book. It also meant that we were going to get out of school for the Fiesta parades. All in all, it was a good time.

Anyways, what actually happened that day was some psycho stole a police car and was being chased by actual police and drove it into our campus, which unfortunately for the psycho, did not have any other exits besides the front gate. So the guy gets stuck somewhere in the back and then attempts to flee on foot, only to be captured by the police in what I'm assuming was a pretty epic foot chase. All I'm saying is that I was pretty pissed when I didn't get a King Antonio coin that day.

Like I said, King Antonio is for the rich white guys. For the Mexicans, we have El Rey Feo, or in English, The Ugly King. Here's this years Rey Feo, Ronnie Gabriel:



El Rey Feo was always so much more awesome than King Antonio because they were Mexican and saw the whole fake royalty as what it was; a huge, retarded joke, and had a load of fun with it. Here's to you, El Rey Feo.

-ed