Music time lost in a life of normalcy

Some uploaded pictures of the state of the union - the now infamous drumkit (its been somewhat updated since...). Front Left perspective



 

Drummer's perspective

Since my last entry, I've been trying to catch up on a few more home maintenance items - the foyer portion of the living space (just inside the house from the garage/studio) tended to be very cold. So much so, that when the region was hit with very cool/cold temperatures, the foyer was actually colder than the garage! I had noticed that in addition to the foyer, the storage closet in the garage (which is located under the stair leading from the foyer to the living space) was even colder, in some cases maybe 15-20F colder than the garage! Now, the garage has the furnace and water heater there, but those are located immediately beside the storage closet so having this kind of temperature differential was illogical given the close proximity of a heat source.

I did some deeper investigation - the crawlspace entry is in the storage closet as well, but that couldn't be the only place where such cold air could infiltrate. There is a sealed in area at the back of the closet, but it conceals the very bottom 4' of the stair stringer and surely it would be insulated back there...

Opened the area up, and sure enough the insulation was almost non-existent in the outside wall, and much of the insulation on the bottom of the stairs was falling off as well. My wife, the kids and I had all gone to Lowe's (the home improvement place) on Saturday before this little excursion into the claustrophobic places and picked up insulation and other climate control items, so I was able to fully insulate the area and clean up the mess back there. The effort resulted in a 10-15F improvement in temperature in the Foyer, as well as peace of mind as now I can devise maybe using the under-stair area for additional storage, and also proceed with my planned conversion of the closet into a fully isolated vocal/guitar recording booth. With respect to the space being converted - I can definitely see being able to store bits and pieces there such as cables, stands, etc and still have them be convenient to access. I'm also going to still improve the crawlspace situation w.r.t. insulation, and one of the key items would be to affix styrofoam insulation to the access door to not only improve the heat situation, but also to further isolate the booth from outside noise.

Although it's not pictured here yet, and I'll get those pics together shortly, but I got most of the recording/mixing desk together with keyboards set up. Right now I have the MOx6, the Gaia and X-Station set up with USB cabling and stands - still need to run the stereo audio cabling into the FW1814 since I'd like to capture the actual D/A converter for each keyboard, getting the real live sound the keyboard makes. I anticipate some additions to be set up in the next month or two as I've been continuing my horse trading of equipment the last several months. Up for sale right now is the Roland VK-08 organ module, my Epiphone 3 pickup LP Custom Black Beauty, my Alesis DM-5 drum module, along with various small bits and pieces to make room for Nord C1 Combo Organ, & the Roland V-Synth v2.0.

I'm also updating the drum module to the 2Box Drumit 5 - allowing me to upload drum samples of choice to the module & set up multiple kits with those drum sample libraries. From a recording perspective, being able to hear the actual drum sounds you will be mixing with will influence the performances. Then raising the spectre of live shows - I can take the kit out and use the exact same sounds at whatever venue will have us. The Spacemuffins form a very compact kit size-wise, but have all the pieces that could be needed to reproduce a kit of much larger size proportions. Once I have a regular drummer in place and committed, having them get used to the kit means that we can play pretty much any size venue anyplace very conveniently - a small to mid size PA will handle sound no matter what.

Below is another project instrument that is now ready to be used:

Reclaimed from someone's dead zone ($45 Craigslist purchase) almost 2 years ago, and with parts bought from Craigslist and Guitarfetish.com, this formerly crappy and beaten to shit MIM Fender Jazz Bass is now a Bartolini/Badass/Music Man equipped grinder that will be more than capable of filling the bottom end out. I am more than happy to take whatever people are unloading and turn it into workable instruments - of course this one had the assistance of one Darren Ross of RossGuitars.com, who did a full fret dress and setup, as well as provide good karma to the instrument :)

Finally, some other reclamation projects I have coming up - most specifically and importantly is the Roland Guitar Synth module GR-33. It was another Craigslist steal as someone couldn't get it to work (lights on but blank screen - describes more than one person I've encountered in my life) and sold it to recoup the cost of the power supply. A whopping $25 got this for me - now I've been researching the issue and apparently a simply SysEx flash of the OS will remedy this. Once I get this back to life, I will be able to fully reproduce Mesmerize in a live context, not to mention be able to use the guitar to do MIDI programming and transcription of parts to my Cubase workstation.

That's all for now. I've still got to figure out how to inject my affiliate promotion into this site as I'm now affiliated with IK Multimedia products and wholeheartedly endorse them - I use their plug-ins and sample sets happily, as well as softsynths/samplers like Sample Tank, Sonik Synth, T-Racks, etc! I also happily use Sonic Reality sample sets including the Neil Peart Drums sample set for Kontakt.

Cheers all!

The Great Temptation - Endorsements!

Oh for the semi-professional or amateur musician/composer - the word "endorsement" really strikes an enticing vision of free or hugely subsidized instruments that one has been coveting for a very very long time. The Bankses/Wakemans/ Emersons (or rather the Godfreys/Wilsons/Rudesses) must be very well endorsed since they always had the latest greatest to fly around and gig with - their talent obviously emanating from the value of the gear and being shown in the most positive light, lending them additional credibility and further stoking the instrument companies to further pad their caches with yet greater and more feature rich instruments that further enhance their fame and adulation...

I'm not sure in reality this is entirely true - but I mean, it was something that for sure I wanted to partake in for a long long time. Once you got an endorsement - you joined the well respected musicians club and everyone thought you were the shit!!

Back a few years ago, when I was recording "The Sound of Thoughts" - and even though I didnt really know it at the time, but recording production release quality material at home which was also fairly good musically was extremely rare - I pulled in some of my Microsoft clout and contacted companies who created/manufactured both software and hardware instruments asking if they would be interested in me as an endorsee... I was suitably humble and highlighted that this was both a true musical endeavor, but really more likely simply a hobbyist type release that would have potentially zero impact in the real world. But I sent off samples of the material showing the quality of what we were doing, and since it was pretty rare for artists to be recording at home with pro quality gear and using VSTs for both synth and guitar processing - I gained some endorsements!! IK Multimedia sent me their entire catalog at the time - T-Racks, Amplitube and Sample Tank software packages that were very expensive for the home hobbyist; Native Instruments sent a ton of stuff - all VSTs but their lineup was incredibly high quality; PRS cut me a discount deal on their at the time brand new line of CE Singlecuts and I received the first production line Black Cherry SE Singlecut equipped with the USA Dragon II pickups! I'd had a working relationship with Charlie Steinberg at the time - supporting the dev team adapting a new C++ runtime - and after working with him tracking issues for more than 18 months, he so graciously sent me a copy of the then brand new SKU of Cubase SX3.0, signed by the development team with a word of thanks!

I very prominently promoted the products - in the CD liner notes, on my website, etc... Since I wasn't a "name" artist, I didnt get any marketing money from the companies, but hey, wth :) They gave me stuff, and the website and various online reviews did the rest of the promotion for me.

Following up for "a fine line between..." - I tried doing the same thing. By this point, home recording became far more prevalent since the profitability of the product grew very thin and artists needed any economic advantage they could get to turn a profit. Companies were also suffering through the same recession I was, and so I was de-prioritized - no longer an endorsee nor eligible for product at gratis...

Now I come to today, and the ongoing search for the "killer app" that will make a big difference in my efforts. I've been eyeing a company that makes an integrated solution for recording workstation and very powerful software based synthesizer/workstation. Over the weekend I established contact - they are not a large company, in fact they tend to make boutique keyboards that encapsulate the needs of the purchaser. But I can see an opportunity for myself and the company to mutually benefit from an association... my background in both recording and performance allowed me to list several items that would benefit the company from a musician standpoint, plus my technical background working for a very large microprocessor manufacturer allowed me to try to give ideas to lead them into a direction which might be highly interesting to said microprocessor company. I have a great deal of interest in this company both in my day job and my musician life - there is a great potential to create a system here that would have high cross purpose appeal and highlight strongly features that a manufacturer would love to show as being very valuable and appealing to everyone.

I've sent the email off with my ideas - numerous and also a bit disorganized but potentially visionary - now to await the reply and hopefully an ongoing dialog...

"Utopia" - the theme for the last CD entries in the trilogy

Welcome to what is at this time my temporary home - blogger.com hosting my open thoughts and comments here for the time being while I decide if I re-invest in my own domain again and what to do about publishing my material past, present and future. Rest assured I'll keep those interested apprised of my decisions and notify you of changes as they occur...

Speaking of keeping you apprised, it's been a long 3.5 years since I last released anything. And here's some news that I would like to pass along - at least in terms of initiating creative efforts again:

For the last 6-8 months since I really got my studio put back together, I've been trying to really identify the closing theme or title that would inspire the words to close this thing out - so much to date has been mighty introspective and dark that it needed to really be uplifting and reflect my own much more positive outlook and situation. I had also been trying to find the kickstarter for the creative efforts since I've been very family focused now since just after the release of "a fine line between..." - the birth/addition of two more boys to the Svilpa clan and the required focus to make sure they're kept healthy and vital as well as loved has meant pretty much all music efforts were put on a complete stop. It turned out to be fine since the writing and recording process for fine line really emptied my creative bucket of ideas, leaving me to wait on new things to seep into there either thru osmosis or influence.

Not to say I did absolutely nothing for 3.5 years - in the time since AFLB, I did play around with some music but very casually - stemming out and recording cover versions of Rush's Xanadu, The Tea Party's "The Halcyon Days", Marillion's "Alone Again (in the lap of luxury)", and Genesis' "Man of our Times" were begun and are in stages of completion, along with a list of covers that include songs by Kevin Gilbert, Dream Theater, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Max Webster and others - these would both give me some opportunity to stretch out creatively and come up with interesting variations in arrangement/instrumentation, but also spur getting my guitar and keyboard chops back in order, in addition to really picking up my drum chops overall. As I went through the list and started to think about the guitars and keyboards I'd need, the drums I'd like and such - I did a lot of horse trading of equipment and software to get to the state I'm in right now, which is having 95% of what I wanted ready and waiting to be used in the writing/recording process.

While my studio is in a pretty spartan location, it's a very honest representation of how I always felt my projects and bands really were - we were essentially glorified, classically enhanced and intellectualized garage bands playing above our skill sets. This is reflected in where my workspace is located. I'll be doing some stuff to make it more acceptable as a recording space, but the garage is truly where most of what I've ever done has come from, and so this is where we are.

Which now brings me back to the word "Utopia" and its' significance:
- so much of the time between 2002 and 2011 was extremely stressful for myself and my family. In fact, it could be said that it grew increasingly stressful throughout that time with the peak being 2006 thru 2009 (the time of writing and recording "a fine line") - the material written/recorded for AFLB was actually a byproduct of the real life stress, and even though the story was fictional it truly was the container / receptacle for all the personal and professional frustrations and reactions I was experiencing. One reviewer in particular, on hearing the CD, railed against it as a needlessly dark and depressing work - garnering one of the few negative reviews the CD received, but I can understand the reaction against it. While it was my best work to date, it represents a lot of dark times and sadness that people dont necessarily want to immerse themselves into recreationally.

There is so much opportunity to take the word "Utopia" and twist it around to represent the opposite - many would expect that I'd be eager to complete the trilogy by further digging the grave and burying everything in darkness and violence. But I'm very eager to do the opposite and bring it out of the murk - the night is always darkest and coldest just before dawn, and I believe that this is the opportunity to bring sunlight back into the thematic cycle. Thus, after crossing over Donner Pass in the deepest part of winter we get to the warm fertility of the central valley just a few miles downhill - being wise and willing to spend the last of the strength pushing on through rewards those with a warm and willing place to live in. "Utopia" is a good description of where I'm heading to - family life has been very agreeable to me, my professional life is satisfying and rewarding, and things continue to look up with only minor setbacks which dont break positive momentum. Those around us are also experiencing great and happy surprises in their lives, either through new additions to their own families and renewed perspective on the meaning of life, or simply accepting and making the best of what has come their way.

"Utopia" could be the name of the follow up CD (very likely), but it's also the theme for a few side projects including the covers project and also another pet project involving fables, nursery rhymes and children's songs rewritten and put to music. This project actually already had some lyrics roughed in on a Facebook post that were humorous in a twisted and almost macabre fashion which had some participation from the community - it is something I'd like to take further :) I'm also looking to write a full long play instrumental piece that potentially incorporates and wraps up many musical ideas from the three CDs released to date and does stylistic mash ups of the ideas and themes into a pseudo-orchestral thing - this is truly one of the things I would like to do to almost close out my musical efforts before "retirement".

So expect to hear and see more about "Utopia" coming up - I cant promise timeframes or end dates, but I plan to put stuff out there when it's ready so be prepared.

Cheers!