NewSc2

Things to do this weekend:

Saturday:
- run (6 miles)
- review Prodigy videos
- move the Motif, MPC, rack out of the way
- laundry

Sunday:
- deadlifts
- re-review SA’s trance videos
- move the other table to the right of this desk, hook everything up
- clean
Finish Trance track.
- add some drum fills to keep the interest going.
- drop the various drum parts out, bring in 16/16 HH pattern for another element
- get a big reverb-ed kick drum hit to hit mid-section
- noise swoosh track, with a rising synth underneath
- sidechain pad towards the end
- drop out pads for a section

Monday:
- review Stefan’s feedback (hopefully, if he gives it back to me by then)

Obligatory Monthly Picture (me, Will, Andre — Hi Will!)

I know what you’re thinking. That Cinco de Mayo picture looks like Will failed. (We caught him mid-blink). Unfortunately, well… all 3 of us failed. Miserably. I barely remember taking this picture. It was like, Drink #11. And it wasn’t our last. Easily the worst hangover I’ve had in over a year.

Hm, what else. Surprisingly, I don’t have a lot to say. NewSc2.com is one of my bookmark tabs. I got sick of clicking on it to see a 3-week old blog update, so here I am.

Might as well use this space to list out all the good things I’ve stuck to in 2009 (the shitty things go into my private Gmail diary }=)> )

Reading/Communication:
I’ve been keeping up with a reading schedule, and I’m pretty happy with my finishing rate. There’s maybe a dozen books that I haven’t gotten to yet, and about a dozen more that I started but put aside, but I’ve finished about a dozen in 2009 so far:

- Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
- The Art of Seduction, Robert Greene
- IV, Chuck Klosterman
- Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
- Neatest Little Guide to Personal Finance, Jason Kelly
- Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing, Jason Kelly (re-read)
- On Writing Well, William Zinsser (re-read)

Okay, so maybe that isn’t a dozen, but it’s over a book a month. I have several more that I’ve half-finished, and will get around to (Now I Can Die In Peace, Bill Simmons and The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, among others).

I’d highly recommend the Personal Finance book (out of print, but it’s about $2 used on Amazon.com + $4 shipping) and The Art of Seduction (torrent it). Surprisingly good. Blink, well, isn’t that good. You can read the Wiki.

On top of all the reading, I’ve been listening to a lot of Adam Carolla and Bill Simmons podcasts.

Reading a lot of well-written non-fiction and listening to social/sports commentary has given me a lot more confidence to speak my mind. It’s sort of like writing papers back in the day. In high school, I stuck to a format. In college, I started to branch out and explore my voice. Somewhere in that transition, and to this day, I started to realize that top-notch writing wasn’t some magical, fantasy skill. All the articles I read for fun (ESPN, New Yorker, Slate, Economist, gaming mags) were examples of the written word from top professionals. As long as I wrote in the same voice and style as the stuff I’d been reading, I could come close to good communication.

Same with my voice. If I just fleshed out some of my thoughts and philosophies, put in some interesting anecdotes, and honed succinct storytelling skills, I could probably be an effective verbal communicator. I feel like I’ve matured a little bit in that respect in 2009.

Personal Finance:
Say, @ age 25, you save $13k per year in a 10% account. By 30, you’ll have about $100k. Save $10k every year, and continue to put it into this account. By 40, you’ll have about $400k. By 50, $1.2mil.

By 60 (retirement age), $3.2mil. And that’s all off $365k total saved. The magic of compounding interest.

The DJIA, up until 2006, grew at an average rate of 10.5% over the previous 75 years. Yes, I know there was a crash. I haven’t re-calculated the returns up to 2009, but a 75-year period is a long time, and shouldn’t affect the overall return rate by too much.

Music:
Currently going through a Trance course. I’ve gotta say, my productions have gotten somewhat better over the past several months. I was probably around a 2.5 (out of 10) in 2008, but now I’d put my music production skill/knowledge at about a 3.5. My songs aren’t that much better, but I have more arrangement knowledge. My songs aren’t coming together due to luck and random button pressing — I actually have some experience on how to approach a track.

I need to hammer out a few kinks and tricks over the next couple months, but there isn’t much preventing me from getting that 3.5 to a 5.

Hopefully, the end of the year will see me at 6 (i.e., “that song is actually kinda decent~”). Dunno how I’d get to be a 7 (”hey that’s actually pretty good!”), or 8 (”wow… I might put this on my iPod”). But I’m not thinking that far ahead. (Don’t bother asking where I come up with these subjective grades.)

Fitness:
Still continuing my weekly/twice weekly 4-mile runs, and 3-4 trips to the gym. My fastest 4-mile trail run came in at 32 minutes back in March, but I put in a 33 minute run last week.

I think I’ve been doing crunches wrong for the past 4 years. I guess I was leading in with my head and neck, and a couple people at the gym commented that I was arching my back. So I adjusted my balance to lead in with my chest, and keep my back straighter, and I was sore for like, 4 days.

Weight’s stayed pretty steady at 166 lbs.

Anything Else?
I need a haircut. Photography is coming along pretty well. Thinking about buying a second flash, or at least an off-shoe flash cord.

Oh, and I guess I did have a lot to say.

I wish somebody told these to me 4 years ago. Everybody bashes these rules in music forums, but fuck it, the reason they talk down on it are because they’re easy and they work.

1. Use only 3 or 4 notes. For example, in C minor, use C, Eb, F, G, and maybe B. That’s it. You could easily build a track off just C and G, with another note thrown in somewhere. Fuck the 6th and 7th notes.
2. Rule #1 does not apply to chords. Program a MIDI note generator to play 9th, 11th, or 13th chords, so you can press 1 note to hear a full chord.
3. Intervals are your friend.
4. Compress everything (at least slightly). Compressed sounds sound good. Do your sounds bleed all over the place? Compress! Compression gives you easy control over your sounds.
5. I would say something about a transient designer, but I don’t have access to one.
6. Sidechain everything to your bass drum. It makes a track punchier.
7. EQ everything. Don’t be afraid to boost.
8. Low-cut everything that isn’t a kick or bass.
9. Arpeggiators, reverbs, and delays are your friend. Almost every hot track out there utilizes these tools for movement.
10. Perfecting arrangements is difficult and probably the most important skill and discipline to have. My ratio of unfinished:finished tracks is something like 20:1.
11. Transitions within songs are key to perfecting arrangements. Automation is the key to transitions.
12. Rolling beats. Grooving bass. Sexy leads. Focus on these adjectives.
13. Polished, well-rounded tracks have these elements: Lead, Pad, Percussion, Beats, and Rhythm. Lead = voice, lead sound. Pad = strings, pads to fill out space. Percussion = polyrhythms, everything besides mm-tz-ka-tz. Beats = mm-tz-ka-tz. Rhythm = Arpeggios, rhythm guitar, delays, tonal percussion.
13. Rules are meant to be broken.
14. When I say “everything” I really mean “almost everything.”
15. DJ. You’ll be surprised how fast you’ll end up training your mind to figure out what songs are good and what aren’t with a 10 second listen.
16. Presets are your friend. Tweak them.

I would say more about layering sounds and sampling, but to be honest I don’t know much about that, yet. And I’m not a good producer, so take the rules with a grain of salt.

I’ve seen Radiohead, Kraftwerk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Richie Hawtin, Sasha & Digweed, Chemical Brothers, Tool, Beastie Boys, The Pixies, Common, MIA, Weezer, Iggy Pop, Flogging Molly, Blue Man Group, The Cure, Prince, Carl Cox, Air, Sigur Ros, The Crystal Method, Infusion, Rabbit in the Moon, Jeff Mills, Deadmau5, The White Stripes, and Prodigy live.

Nothing ever came close to Daft Punk (Chemical Brothers, Pixies, and Kraftwerk tried to).

It’s kinda funny how personal these blog posts can become. I’m not really sure how an outsider would gloss over these words, but reading back… my intonations, my sentence structures… they feel like they reveal too much. Maybe I’m looking too deep into things.

I haven’t posted on here in a while; I guess I’ve been retreating into a sort of anti-social shell these days.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time to write a post (even though these blog entries can sometimes take upwards of an hour). It’s not even that I haven’t had enough to say, because my Gmail’s littered with saved daily diary entries.

And it’s not even me not being comfortable with letting others into my deeper thoughts — if you know me well, you’re probably sick of hearing me blab on about myself when we hang out.

Back in high school, I used to be a pretty social guy. Every weekend would see me out, and even most weekdays would find me in a group chatting at Starbucks or over at someone’s house.

One day somebody asked me why I felt the need to be in the company of others — why couldn’t I be satisfied by myself.

I spent most of my childhood moving around from town to town (my family moved 6 times before I turned 13), so I guess I always had to rely on myself for company.

But that comment rekindled some of that independent spirit, and it’s echoed through myself ever since. From time to time, I like to take a couple weeks off, relax, and have pleasant discussions with my inner voice.

No need for company.

Anyway…

As long as I’m here I might as well update this blog with some history. I finished my 4-week techno course; you can hear my final exam track here:

(will upload mp3 later, it’s freakin’ 4am)

I know it isn’t very good, but it’s something to build off of. The course was very demanding and jam-packed with information, so I’ve taken a couple weeks off of music since it finished. I was putting in about 20-30 hours a week for studies, and I needed some R&R.

And, well… other than that… I guess there isn’t much else to say.

No, but after years of cooking, this may be the first time I’ve seen twins. On second thought, I might’ve seen it a couple times before… I ate the pictured, mutated egg with a Chinese onion pancake, but left the yolk kinda runny. (Probably wasn’t paying attention as I ran around with my camera.) It wasn’t that good. The natural order of yolk:white was off.

Bulletin time! What happened today?

- Saw a woman run out of gas at a stoplight in Newport Beach. She panicked, ran across the street to the Shell, and an attendant walked over and filled her car with a gallon of gas. The car was a Bentley Continental GT. Damn woman, yes your husband let you drive his nice car — it guzzles gas like a mofo, keep it filled.

- I was driving alongside an ambulance a couple miles on Brookhurst. A fire truck came blaring over the overpass, slowed down, motioned to the ambulance (as traffic was stopped), and the ambulance followed suit. Thought that was kinda cool.

- Randomly saw several hot chicks at Barnes and Noble and Kean Coffee. Dunno why, but seeing a hot chick almost brightens my day. I’d talk more about it, but it’d probably come off as chauvinistic, or desperate, or.. something…

- Ran 4 miles today, in 40 minutes (total). Paused a couple minutes to take pictures of the Fire Department hosing down portions of Back Bay. (Different fire truck)

- Weighed in at 165.6 lbs. today, after a 20-hour fast. Down from 175 after a huge meal last week.

- Read up on Fantasy Baseball. Draft is tomorrow.

- 4 days and counting of no alcohol! Coffee, however, is a different story…

- Fleshed out 2 new tracks for the music course I’ve been taking. Assignments are due tomorrow. Need to start from scratch for my assignment because the beta software I’ve been testing is not backwards compatible with the course.

I’ve been pretty busy these past couple weeks. Tax time is around the corner, and I’ve been trying to save up as much as possible, which has kept the staying in to a maximum.

I’m also taking an online techno course, and this past week/the next week are the busiest two weeks of the 4-week course. The course is taught by a music school in London called Point Blank, and so far I’m very pleased with the results.

The basics of minimal techno music production get crammed into 4 sets of lessons, and this past lesson covered sound sythesis and rhythmic sampling. Needless to say, sound synthesis (programming basses, leads, sound effects) is a topic that can’t be fully touched upon in 1 week, but the exercises we’ve had to do are pretty deep and rewarding. Of course, this means I’ve been holed up in front of my laptop and computer for 4-5 hours a day, practicing, and it’s left little time for anything else (which is a good thing).

I just spent at least an hour browsing ArtofManliness.com. Mesmerizing. Not that I needed any tips on being manly, of course.

Where’s the balance between caring and being pushy?

Sheepathon: did you have a lovely day?

Hm, let’s see. How did my day go…

12:01am saw me at Silky’s, drinking with Andre, Stan, and Andrew Chang. The economy must be hitting really hard, because the whole bar was dead. There were only a couple others besides us and Ernesto. Chatted with Ernie for a good half hour, and boosted his ego a little bit, calling his drinks “some of the most balanced drinks I’ve ever had (between alcohol strength and taste).” Blame the alcohol =)

2:15am — went home

4:45am — fell asleep (damn you Daylight Savings)

9:45am — woke up (another day, another 5 hrs. of sleep. 3rd day in a row?)

10:20am — let Teddy out to pee, brought him back inside (he’s so cute), drove to work

10:45am-2pm — met with our consultant. Elaine (my cousin) showed up around 1:30pm. I planned out mailers to potential customers, revised POs and invoices, and summarized February’s financial data.

3:30pm — stopped by Kean’s during a quick stop to our storage facility. I ran into Gary Matthews, Jr., and:

1. He was wearing all blue. That confused me for a good couple minutes. I knew he was a baseball player, and I thought he was Gary Matthews, Jr. but the blue made me think of the Dodgers. He had this weird aura about him — I can’t really put my finger on it… Maybe it was just odd seeing a black guy in his late 20’s/early 30’s dressed expensive-casual at a coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon.
2. I didn’t want to ask — Hey, are you Gary Matthews Jr.?! and mistake him for someone else. He got his coffee to go, so I waited until he left, and asked another guy for confirmation.
3. Gary puts at least 1/4 cup of sugar into his coffee. Wth?
4. He doesn’t look that athletic for a professional baseball player. Kind of has a small belly, maybe only a couple inches taller than me, and not that buff. *cough* steroids *cough.
5. He drives a black Bentley with a Texas license plate.
6. Seemed like a nice guy from what I overheard.
7. Kean’s Double Espresso Macchiato = delicious.

6pm — ate mom’s Chinese sticky rice, some steamed broccoli and carrots, and sliced lamb.

7pm — gym. 7 sets of Clean & Press (75lbs. to 95 lbs.), elliptical for 15 minutes.

8pm — home: laundry, food, garbage, and music. I’m currently taking an online techno production course. All the sounds used in this loop were built from the ground up by yours truly: 2009-03-10-PBLesson1b.mp3

12am — snack, Sportscenter

1am — this blog update.

2am — read investing books, sleep early, hopefully get 8 hours. The mock portfolio I created last October is just about back to even. Amazon and Morgan Stanley have been coming through~