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So yeah, I've been bicycling to work for the past month or so. It's not a long ride, but it's all uphill (for real) which makes for great exercise and a seriously fun ride home. We've got shower facilities at the office, I bring my business-casual clothes in a bag, it's great. I get daily exercise and feel good about it. A few of us are doing it now, and scoring converts feels good too. It feels like making a small difference, which we should all endeavor to do.
Ask me how weird it feels to give a crap about this kind of thing. Is it a magical feature of nearing 30? Suddenly I'm required to feel the Earth's pain and want to save her? Gah. I'll tell you what, though - I do feel a bit that way. I want to change and to help others change in ways that will help, for what it's worth. I'm pretty lazy when it boils down, though, so I'm mostly only willing to do things that don't impact me in a huge way. I can recycle, I can bicycle instead of drive, I can try to source foods grown more locally, etc., but big changes are tough for me to contemplate. Hell, I'll pay to help if it means I don't have to do to help.
Is this what tree-hugging environmentalists start out as? Should I jump off my balcony to save myself or what?
Ask me how weird it feels to give a crap about this kind of thing. Is it a magical feature of nearing 30? Suddenly I'm required to feel the Earth's pain and want to save her? Gah. I'll tell you what, though - I do feel a bit that way. I want to change and to help others change in ways that will help, for what it's worth. I'm pretty lazy when it boils down, though, so I'm mostly only willing to do things that don't impact me in a huge way. I can recycle, I can bicycle instead of drive, I can try to source foods grown more locally, etc., but big changes are tough for me to contemplate. Hell, I'll pay to help if it means I don't have to do to help.
Is this what tree-hugging environmentalists start out as? Should I jump off my balcony to save myself or what?
Like many of you, I live in a very busy universe. Mine has a day job where I'm a suit, a small business that my wife and I manage, social commitments, physical exercise, downtime, quality time... I find that music time comes in blocks, typically - I'll be super-inspired to pick up the guitar every night for a week of evenings, or to work on a track or three on serial Sundays. Then life encroaches and I find myself noodling every couple of weeks instead of constantly.
What's the trick to finding inspiration when your life is conspiring to leave you without music time? I've noticed that having tools with a low entry barrier has helped - I've dramatically changed my studio in the last three months to help with this - I can get building a beat or designing a sound almost anywhere with my notebook now, but I'm still not in music-making Nirvana.
I know there's a trick, I just haven't found it yet. I strongly suspect it is a very personal thing, but just in case, share your tips for finding the time, no matter what. Preferably without costing me my marriage...
What's the trick to finding inspiration when your life is conspiring to leave you without music time? I've noticed that having tools with a low entry barrier has helped - I've dramatically changed my studio in the last three months to help with this - I can get building a beat or designing a sound almost anywhere with my notebook now, but I'm still not in music-making Nirvana.
I know there's a trick, I just haven't found it yet. I strongly suspect it is a very personal thing, but just in case, share your tips for finding the time, no matter what. Preferably without costing me my marriage...
I just thought I'd post a note here about overzealous use of compression. I'm wandering around the site listening to random music, since I'm new here, and I ran across a track that I otherwise really like from a band with a bunch of other tracks I enjoyed. Unfortunately, it seems like they were in a bit of a hurry to make this specific track's volume match the rest of the stuff on the site. I'm guessing they ran a bounce of the track (or the output bus) through a "mastering" compressor and just set the volume where they liked it.
Please, if you've got big fat kicks in a mix, either compress at low ratio with a viciously short attack and release or compress the drums separately from the rest of the mix! This track in particular had a slow release and very aggressive gain, so the (beautiful) synth/keyboard work sounded like it was being ducked under the kick.
Compressors can be a wonderful and creative sound-shaping tool, and of course you can use them to MAEK IT LOUD KTHX, but use them with care! Settings that worked for one track / stem / song probably won't work for another without adjustment.
Remember: tweak until it sounds right - who care what it looks like? It's music!
-Matt
Please, if you've got big fat kicks in a mix, either compress at low ratio with a viciously short attack and release or compress the drums separately from the rest of the mix! This track in particular had a slow release and very aggressive gain, so the (beautiful) synth/keyboard work sounded like it was being ducked under the kick.
Compressors can be a wonderful and creative sound-shaping tool, and of course you can use them to MAEK IT LOUD KTHX, but use them with care! Settings that worked for one track / stem / song probably won't work for another without adjustment.
Remember: tweak until it sounds right - who care what it looks like? It's music!
-Matt
Well, here's a strange thing: this is my first-ever blog entry. Yes, at this site, but more than that. Ever. I've never had a blog before, anywhere, and I've been using the Internet for a really long time. I guess I'm young enough to have grown up with a computer at my fingertips from just after birth, but old enough to still value my privacy and personal space. When I was younger, I poured out my heart on IRC to a bunch of strangers (and made a bunch of good friends, oddly enough), but I've drawn the line somewhere short of Myspace, Facebook et al. I have personal websites, but I host them myself and carefully filter what ends up on them. Hell, I read and enjoy other people's blogs and a enjoy writing! This should be a natural fit!
To the chase, then: I probably don't know you, whoever you are. When I press "POST" under this textbox, you and the rest of the Internet will be able to read what I'm typing now. The technology and the idea is simple to me, but the psychological hurdle isn't. I'm going to put something up here that has my name on it, and in theory, people will read it. Somehow this has never been a problem for me with music - text seems different, though. More personal? Than music? Hardly. It's like a diary, I suppose, but I'm intentionally leaving it open on a bench in the park? Is it more like a magazine to which I'm contributing articles documenting the minutiae of my existence? Is it just a tool for manipulating the public, wielded by a cynical marketeer? I know I believe everything I read on the Internet.
What I've seen of this site so far is pretty interesting, anyhow. I like the business model at this point, it seems like a relatively active community, nice user interface - and yeah, the remix contest brought me here, I admit it (obligatory VOTE FOR PEDRO - I'm on page two of the remix gallery).
So here's the deal: I'm going to take this seriously, for what it's worth. I'm going to talk the other guys from arrowhead records into setting up on here too. I'm going to try to come up with interesting things to ramble about on this blog, and I'm going to put up more music. For your part, you can tell me what you think of the music, because I dig feedback.
Nice to meet you, whoever you are. See you around.
-Matt
To the chase, then: I probably don't know you, whoever you are. When I press "POST" under this textbox, you and the rest of the Internet will be able to read what I'm typing now. The technology and the idea is simple to me, but the psychological hurdle isn't. I'm going to put something up here that has my name on it, and in theory, people will read it. Somehow this has never been a problem for me with music - text seems different, though. More personal? Than music? Hardly. It's like a diary, I suppose, but I'm intentionally leaving it open on a bench in the park? Is it more like a magazine to which I'm contributing articles documenting the minutiae of my existence? Is it just a tool for manipulating the public, wielded by a cynical marketeer? I know I believe everything I read on the Internet.
What I've seen of this site so far is pretty interesting, anyhow. I like the business model at this point, it seems like a relatively active community, nice user interface - and yeah, the remix contest brought me here, I admit it (obligatory VOTE FOR PEDRO - I'm on page two of the remix gallery).
So here's the deal: I'm going to take this seriously, for what it's worth. I'm going to talk the other guys from arrowhead records into setting up on here too. I'm going to try to come up with interesting things to ramble about on this blog, and I'm going to put up more music. For your part, you can tell me what you think of the music, because I dig feedback.
Nice to meet you, whoever you are. See you around.
-Matt