自信もない (Highly Dependent)

I'm a bad-ass mother fucker... A BAMF!

2006-03-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man		80%
Iron Man		80%
Green Lantern		80%
Supergirl		55%
Catwoman		50%
Hulk		50%
The Flash		45%
Robin		35%
Wonder Woman		35%
Batman		35%
Superman		35%

You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

マフラー、スタート！

2005-11-09T00:15:00.000-08:00

My Harry Potter fandom knows no bounds!

I've now taken up knitting (yes, knitting) so that I might possess the ultimate in awesomeness, the jumbo-fuck-yeah Gryffindor scarf, as seen in Prisoner of Azkaban and the upcoming Goblet of Fire (which I get to see early, hooray for working at EA!).

When it's done, this beast is gonna be almost 8 feet long, and will rock with an approximate force measuring over 1.21 Jiga-Mustaines!! You may be wondering, is that safe for the universe? I'm not really sure, but in any event, it should gain me favor with the gods, as I honor them by erecting such a monolith...

Current scarf progress: 7%

Attention

2005-08-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

Attention unnamed developers...

Please do not wrap your excellent technology inside build systems of unmanaged complexity, which even you do not seem to have the ability to maintain properly.

I like your technology. Unfortunately, your build system makes my brain sad.

End Transmission.

The Real Deal Holyfield

2005-07-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

Janelle created a South Park avatar for me that was accurate to about 8 months ago, so I figured I'd create one that looks current!

Notice how much I'm rocking...

Can you feel it?

Deep down in your grundel?

Please bear in mind that it takes many years of intense rock exercises to rock this much. Please don't strain yourself trying to compete (my insurance won't cover the resulting lawsuits).

New Look

2005-07-13T00:59:00.000-07:00

I got bored, so we have a new look... Hooray!

A Blast From The Past...

2005-07-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my superhuman powers of reasoning, I was able to discern that one comment on my blog came from none other than A Guy I Used To Know!

I just hope I'm not wrong, because that would be really embarrassing...

For those of you who don't know (which is all of you except for him), that guy used to be a guy that I knew when I lived and worked in that place that time. Apparently he's leaving the game industry now, so I wish him well on whatever he's heading off to do!

I, on the other hand, remain firmly entrenched in the game industry. I'm doing some really, really interesting work right now on physics and animation for next-generation games.

Quoth Will Smith - "It's the new hotness."

Hours are long, but largely self-imposed. Hopefully gamers will be reaping the benefits of my work sometime in the next few years, and my stock options will jump up accordingly. \(^_^)/

お久しぶり

2005-07-12T00:07:00.000-07:00

Well, since Alex was dumb enough to link my stagnant blog from his blog, I decided I should at least post something... While I'm talking about him, I should probably congratulate him on his upcoming wedding. At the same time, I feel compelled to chastise him and his lovely fiancee Janelle for only registering at Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Weak, dude... Seriously... Weak...

Seriously dude - Figure out something better for me to get you guys than a god damn blender for fuck's sake... Oh well though. It seems like only yesterday we were all driving in my mom's mini-van, which made me super-cool. Wait - that's my gift to you - all the memories!! HAHA!!! Freebie! SCORE!!!!!!

Just kidding. You're getting a pack of tube socks though, unless you finally admit to their being something you guys actually want (rather than need).

Life has been incredibly busy. For those of you who don't know, I work for Electronic Arts as a software engineer. Contrary to what certain media might have you believe, not everybody hates it there. In fact, I generally enjoy it. Yes - the hours can be long. But the work is generally rewarding, and I am always being presented with new and exciting challenges to solve. I grew up playing videogames, and being offered the chance to try to revolutionize them on a regular basic is awesome, to say the least.

...

Also, the money's pretty good. ^_^;

Speaking of which, the car situation from my last (and ancient) post has long since been resolved. Also, I've acquired a new toy. What does this mean?

It means that The Optionals album is back on track baby, and it's being mixed in analog, and the tracks are sounding phat... Contrary to what I've done before though, I'm NOT going to post any mp3 files. While I don't necessarily want to ruin the surprise, former members of the band (and probably a few close friends) can all expect goodies at Alex's wedding...

Now for less life oriented news...

I have discovered PodCasting, and lo, it is good. Plus, you can hit that shit all through iTunes now, which is awesome. Here's a couple PodCasts that I find particularly enjoyable.

Adam Curry's Daily Source Code

Interesting an insightful commentary on PodCasting, technology, music, and various other shit.

The Rock and Roll Geek Show

Do you like indie rock? If so, then listen to this! This guy has cool interviews and some funny segments, but most importantly he plays all sorts of really good unsigned rock!

A Clusterfuck of Epic Proportions

2005-02-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

The universe fucking hates me.

I've suspected this for quite some time, but it's only recently become obvious. One small fender bender involving me and a pole (with no alcohol involved, mind you) and I'm in the financial shitter yet again.

Well, it's not so bad this time. At least I have a job to pay for it over time, and First National Bank of My Dad has agreed to process an interest-free loan for me.

Sufficed to say, no work on the album happened last weekend. Hopefully this weekend will be better. The following weekend will be off-limits, as my good buddy Jesse is coming to visit. For those who don't know what that means, here's the schedule...

Tues. Jesse Arrives
Wed. through Thurs. I go to work and Jesse does as-of-yet-undetermined stuff
Fri. We start drinking heavily
Mon. I wake up, try to remember where I am, and then deliver Jesse to the airport.

As you can see, it's a busy schedule, which will leave little time for precious, precious mixing.

Ebb Junky's New Meaning

2005-02-07T23:42:00.000-08:00

Here's an in-progress (nearly complete) version of "Ebb Junky's New Meaning." I'm not sure that this is quite the way I want it yet, but it's almost there...

Any feedback is always welcome. Click below to download.

Download

The Mindset （考え方）

2005-02-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

So this weekend, I'm planning on knocking out a couple more songs. Also though, time permitting, I'm going to be hitting you over the head with the first article in a series I'm writing about the path I've taken in trying to become a self-recording musician, and what a horrible (yet awesome) prospect I've come to realize that is. It sounds grim from that description, but fear not, the message is positive! I've come a long way with my recording and mixing in the last year or so, and it's in no small part due to a lot of help I've received from people on this gigantic cluster-fuck we call the "Internet", so it's time to start repaying the favor. Hopefully I can help some people at various levels of experience get their head in the right place for this life-long journey we call Recording.

As a (poorly and quickly written) warm-up act to the main event, here's a post I made recently on Studio Central. It's a reply to some guy who apparently has been "producing" (yeah, he's a hip-hop newb) for 5 years, and hasn't improved at all in that time. I'm presenting it in a largely un-edited form for your amusement. Enjoy...

Preface: Don't think this as me being offensive or mean. I'm not. But this is important, and I think you're running around in circles right now.

First of all, just a nitpick, but producing and mixing are separate tasks as far as I'm concerned. Many producers mix, and many mix engineers produce, but they are completely separate disciplines IMO. Those who do both really well (which is rare, in my experience) generally are able to do so because they have developed the abillity to wear different hats, and not allow too much bleed between the tasks.

Anyway... If you've been recording and mixing for 5 years and your sound hasn't evolved, then there are really only two possible explanations as far as I'm concerned.
1) You are fundamentally limited by your equipment. You are getting the absolute most you can out of whatever POS stuff you're using, and there's no way for you to progress as long as that's what you're working on.

2) You are not even getting close to the maximum potential of your gear. You have not made a concerted effort to branch out and try different things in order to really learn your gear and to discover what does and doesn't produce sounds that are pleasing.

My money's on #2.

Time does NOT equal Experience. Unfortunately, it sounds like you have been simply burning time without gaining much useful experience. Think of it like this... If you just tread water constantly, you will not become a better swimmer simply by
virtue of being in the pool. If, however, you make a conscious effort to continuously try different ways of flailing your arms about in order to move forward, eventually you will hit upon something that works, and then you can start trying variations on that, until eventually you are likely a very capable swimmer.

Leaning how to mix is not magic. It is NOT easy. However, it is also NOT about (for example) knowing that a slight boost at 3500 can often make vocals stand out a little bit in the mix, or that one of the first things you can do in a crowded mix is cut almost all the low-mids and below out of vox and distorted guitars in an attempt to gain some headroom back and let the bass and kick breathe like they should, or knowing the formula for calculating delay times from the song tempo. All of that stuff is important, but it's not what's going to make you a good mix engineer.

Phew... What IS important is teaching yourself how to listen critically, and how to think like a mix engineer. Listening is 99% of mixing. The "doing" is easy; you can learn that in a book, or through experimentation. My cat can move a fader (though not on purpose, I don't think). Learning to listen is a life-long pursuit.

Important Note - hearing and listening are two completely different things.

Once you're actually listening well, quality monitoring is essential, as it will allow you to hear more things to listen to. If you are not really listening in the first place though, quality monitors are just speakers that often don't sound quite right to people who aren't mix engineers.

I say this as someone who is practically killing myself with the hours I put in on mixing outside of my regular day-job (which doesn't exactly leave me with a ton of energy at the end of the day). I've been recording and mixing in some form or another for about 8 years now (although the first 5 years were nowhere near as serious as the last 3), and I'm just now starting to feel like I'm really coming into my own. Moreover, I'm still not really "satisfied" with where I'm at. Frankly, I don't think I'll ever be satisfied, and that's the way it should be. There's no point in mixing where you know all the answers. More experience simply lets you make better guesses about where to go (and how to get there) more quickly.

Sorry, that was horrendously long-winded. Hopefully SOMEBODY got something out of it... Good luck.

Brian

Anyway, hope you enjoyed that little rant. More (better written) installments are coming soon. Stay tuned...

Something More

2005-01-23T15:58:00.000-08:00

"See? It's fucking simple... That's one song in the bank. Next song... NEXT!!!"

Jack Black, c/o The D

"Something More" is now officially on the list of completed songs for the Optionals album.

You can download an unmastered version of it here. Once all the songs are completed, the album will be mastered professionally, and will be available for download (complete with printable album art).

数学で音楽？！

2005-01-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

A co-worker sent me a really interesting link earlier today... piMusic!

It's always been interesting to me how much math is in music. While I don't think that pi (or any other irrational numbers, for that matter) will be giving Mozart a run for his money any time soon, this is a really interesting experiment. It's amazing how musical it sounds at times.

It'd be interesting (to me at least) to try making the jump to polyphonic synthesis, where all elements of the composition are at least indirectly based on the original digits of pi. Maybe someday, in the distant future, when I have more of that copious "free time"...

音色の大冒険

2005-01-19T22:35:00.000-08:00

For the Japanese-impaired, tonight I took an adventure through the wide, wide world of tone.

I started mixing "Something More," one of the tracks from the posthumous Optionals album, a few days ago and quickly came to the conclusion that the drum and guitar intro we used to do on the song live just doesn't work on the album. So, something new will have to be created to take its place. Armed with my trusty guitar and my MIDI keyboard controller, along with an army of amp emulations, analog synth emulations, reverbs, delays, and distortion units, I think I'm finally starting to hit on some really interesting ways to generate beautiful noise.

To me, this is one of the most enjoyable parts of mixing a record...

You've tweaked the drums to perfection...
You've got the bass thumping, pumping with the kick...
You've got the guitars sounding appropriately huge, without drowning out the vocalist...
You've got the vox really popping out of the mix, without slapping you across the face with a nasty dose of overdone high-end...

The mix is 99% there! Now you've got to push it up to 110%. That's when (to borrow a phrase from Mixerman) the science experiments start! Playing around, indulging imagination, plugging all your audio toys into each other in ways you haven't tried before, layering and destroying sounds as you go, sometimes starting all over just to see what may be lurking in a different direction, searching for some elusive sound that really makes the record pop - this is the spice of life my friends. It's the kind of fun where you dig into the task at hand, and 5 minutes later you look up and realize that those 5 minutes were actually about 5 hours.

I don't think I've found the perfect sound for "Something More" yet, but I feel like I'm getting close. I know that when I finally DO find it, it will have been well worth it. It has become clearer to me than ever before that while there is a tremendous difference between the processes of writing a song and producing a recording of that song (and I question whether one person can really effectively do both), both have equally vast amounts of talent, heart, and soul poured into them when they're really done right.

When everything clicks together, and the track comes alive... *magic*

ピンクって？！

2005-01-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

After wallowing in normality for far too long now, I finally got bored enough this weekend to wreck my hair yet again in the pursuit of neverending alternatude.

Behold, I give you pink!

ようこそ！

2005-01-17T23:42:00.000-08:00

So, at long last, I've decided it's finally time for me to enter the wide-world of blogging. There's several reasons for this late-night decision...

1) My old bandmates simply must have a better day to day hookup to my progress reports on completing our posthumous album.
2) I've got shit to say, エ・ブ・リ・デー baby!

Umm, yeah. So to start things off with a bang, my hair has officially made its triumphant return to hot pink status. It is both rock AND roll, if I do say so myself. Co-worker response will have to wait until tomorrow...

BTW, in case you couldn't tell, there WILL be Japanese text appearing here frequently, so put your browser in UTF-8 mode and rawk out wit ya cawk out baby, lest you suffer the wrath of corrupted characters!