NewSc2

It’s… March. Wow. My Daylight Savings post is only like 3 down. Damn you Tony-of-6-months-ago! Here’s your fricken hour back.

Short and sweet—this blog has apparently turned into a biographical tome, something to jot down a frame of mind. A frame of mind that never really changes… only the circumstances around me differ. I’m still stoner Tony from college, gamer Tony from high school, lame Tony from junior high, clueless Tony from elementary, and what-the-hell-is-going-on Tony from 4 years old.

Major things: music has been coming along, stylistically. I finished my whole year’s worth of studying production, to finally figure out how to produce (see earlier posts). I needed to figure out what to produce, what “good” music was. Now I’m there. And now I just need to take those ideas into songs. It’s not so much different from fleshing out a thesis into an essay, or a news bit into an article. I have good ideas, I know how to write, I know how to polish stuff up. And much like my blog posts, my songs meander, with no real direction. But at least my songs are “talking” about something good, in a cool-sounding way.

Beyond that, I’m going to be moving out soon, which I’m hoping will give me a much-needed refresh. A $650/month refresh, but a refresh nonetheless. I’ve started studying for my GMATs again, and have gone through a little maturation period.

Growing up isn’t really about learning new things… it’s confirming to yourself what you thought was right, was right all along. Vegetables taste better as you get older. Not because they taste any different—I’d still take a Happy Meal over a salad, based on taste alone. But they taste better because it’s the right thing to eat, and it makes you feel better after you eat them. Deferred rewards.

As I’m growing older, saving money becomes easier to do. It wasn’t because I once thought saving money was the wrong thing to do, it’s because the feeling behind it changed.

Working hard and studying, toning down on going out, feels better (okay, I hear you guys laughing, but seriously, I do get in a lot of personal time =P). Working out feels better. Okay maybe not, working out actually doesn’t feel as good as reading for 3 hours, but my point’s been made.

And that’s basically been my mindset over the past few weeks. Don’t see it changing anytime soon.

P.S. (Addendum post—Business School, Here I Come!) I used to think going to business school would doom me into life as another cog in the wheel, but I’m looking at it in a different light now. Sure, there’s a chance I could end up in middle management, with a dead-end job, but that’s if I don’t put in the work. If I’m lazy, I don’t get the prime positions in life. Guess I should try to see what I can achieve, and bitch or downgrade from it when I’m there. Pretty confident I’ll always make do with what I have.

1. Lose 15 pounds (I’m in shape now, but I want to slim down/easier to run)
2. Save $5000
3. Continue growing in music:
• 1500 hours. (4 hrs. a day/28 hours a week)
• By the end of 2010, my music should be very close to release-quality.
• Consider doing amateur-professional work (web/TV/radio/game stuff).
• Get music lessons—in jazz, audio engineering, or production.
4. Do something academic-related (take GMATs, or apply to complete a second bachelors degree in Econ).
5. Drink less, or at least continue the lowered consumption levels of the 2nd half of 2009.

EDIT: 6. Go to bed around 1am every night… no later than 2am.

2010, here I come!

Has it already been a year? Did I really graduate college 3.5 years ago? Have I really been working for TACCIA for 6 years?

It’s always odd doing these retrospectives, but I guess the end of a decade is as good of a time as any to look back.

My years usually find themselves defined by a singular theme—relationships, friends, failures, or achievements. 2009 was no different. With all of the turbulence 2008 brought, 2009 was a much-needed emotional change.

The first half of 2009 brought along a different social tangent. I went out a lot more, met a lot of new friends, and got to know old friends better. The second half was a little counteraction to all the partying; around July I holed back in and hit the books.

Music in 2009 also saw two halves. I started taking online courses in March (eventually notching 3 courses total, with lots of material in between). When I started the courses, I was doing things “by the book”, whatever that means. I wasn’t intimately familiar with my music programs, and couldn’t “feel” the music—my attempts were basically a rehash of my homework assignments and exercises. It was a step up from 2008, when I felt like I was blindly stumbling onto music pieces—at least now I had control over the music—but the music quality arguably suffered and became more methodical and planned.

After I took the last class in August, and tortured myself through laying out a few songs, something “clicked”, and the computer became an instrument again. My music workflow became natural again, and now I had the synthesis, mixing, and theory knowledge to tweak sounds and shape them. I mean, I’m still not an expert, but earlier this year I wouldn’t know where to start to create a specific synth tone or sound effect. Now I can break a sound down in my head, get to a starting point on a synth, and know where to go. I still struggle with perfecting the sound, but at least I have a clue. I can read audio books and at least understand the advanced techniques.

Good music (like most things in life) is created from a person with confidence and experience. Just listen to an amateur guitarist vs. an experienced one—they can both play the same guitar solo, with the same notes, but the experienced guitarist plays with more “oomph” and style. I’ve been trying to figure out what defines this “je ne sais quoi”, and over time it feels like it comes from practice (confidence) and knowledge (experience). If you’ve played 100 different melodies, and labored over them to prove to yourself that yes, #37 has “it” and is the best one… that stuff comes through to the listener’s ears.

So, to sum it up, in 2009 I:
• Took Point Blank Minimal Ableton course
• Took (both) Point Blank Trance courses
• Went over ~20 courses on Sonic Academy (good arrangement tips/exercises)
• Reviewed another 2-3 courses on MacProVideo.com (workflow enhancements)
• Took Point Blank Deep House course (finally made music production “click”)
• Studied DMP Synthesis DVD (great for synthesis/ear training theory)
• Studied DMP Trance DVD (made me realize it takes an awful lot of time to polish songs up, and sometimes, polish is all that makes or breaks a song)
• 12-15 Future Music DVD’s (good insight into professional producer mentality—use whatever you can—samples, presets, etc., as long as it sounds good)
• Countless hours on KVR Forum and Gearslutz ($$ lost, but sometimes the tools really do make the carpenter)
• Read Mixing Audio by Roey Izhaki (awesome book, taught me tons about EQ and mixing tricks and techniques)
• Read Composition for Computer Musicians (one of the better books out there, but I can’t seem to remember anything specific I learned from it, other than to use Latin percussion the same way you’d program an acoustic/rock drum beat)
• Read Mixing With Your Mind (Michael Stavrou) and The Manual (by KLF). (great pop/philosophical books. Catchy music is all about the hook and the groove, never forget a good “hit” or “emotional” song puts people on notice and has them humming your hook.)
• And produced a ton more, read another ton and a half of stuff online, and random Sound on Sound articles, production videos, manuals.

Wow, that is a lot of time. I mean, in instruction alone, that’s at least 500 hours. Probably another 500 hours in production too.

2010 goals/resolutions to follow…

(P.S. Forgot to go over the year’s themes. 2007—Silky’s & Brewbakers, 2008—The Breakup & DJing, 2009—Understanding Music Production. 2010? Applying Music Production :D)

Yay, it’s the “got an hour back” day. Autumn’s Daylight Savings used to mean “yay! I get an extra hour of sleep!” but in the past decade or so it’s morphed into “yay! I get to stay awake an extra hour!” Think I went to bed around 5am (new time) yesterday.

To be honest, nothing really new to report since August. Work has been busy (which is good). And a few more skills are coming forward in music. It’s all a bunch of little things that are coming together—when to EQ, when not to EQ, when to compress, how to approach a blank template, how to start arrangements, advanced synthesis techniques, envelope modulators, LFO shapes, etc. A lot of practical workflow stuff. I made a good default template, with decent starter sounds and drums, which has helped speed up my initial inspiration.

This is all quite vague, I know, but the whole process isn’t really clear in my mind (yet). All I know is the little daily exercise/song bits I write are sounding more unique and better.

I’ve dabbled in a few different genres—hip-hop, trance, house, and techno. Techno was probably the most difficult out of the 4, next to House and Hip-Hop, but after a few epiphanies it’s come together. It’s pretty weird coming from a classical music background and trying to use a computer creatively. After putting together a solid base of synthesis and mixing techniques, I’ve begun to just let my creative juices “flow”, and not worry about what tones are going on.

It’s a kind of odd process… you have to have listened to a bunch of good music, to know what works and what doesn’t… and then develop your skill to emulate that… but the last step is a quantum leap of honing down and trusting your instinct.

Anyway, after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (great book), I’ve re-dedicated myself to start taking my studies seriously. Which also means I’ve been a shut-in for the past few months. I’ve been spending about 8-10 hours a week at the HB Library, another 8-10 hours/week at Kean’s Coffee, about 10 hours/week in front of my desktop (see picture), and another 5ish hours just reading manuals and guides in my spare time at work or elsewhere. I’ve been downloading new music like crazy, too, and probably go through about 10-12 hours of new stuff a week (on top of the 10ish hours of old stuff I still listen to). It’s a bit taxing, but in a way pretty rewarding.

And with that, I’m off to Kean’s and Barnes & Noble. Gonna try my hand at some more Berghain-style techno, and read up on arranging.

On a Mac, keyboard shortcuts:

Option + R = ®
Option + 2 = ™
Option + 3 = £
Option + 4 = ¢
Option + 5 = ∞
Option + 8 = •
Option + Shift + “-” = —
Option + Y = ¥
Option + “=” = ≠
Option + Shift + 8 = °
Option + Shift + K = 
Option + Shift + 2 = €

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).

Good read. [link]

Quote: “3. Put the hours in. Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina.“

I was listening to NPR today and the commentator was talking about American Idol. He didn’t watch the show to hear the beautiful voices — instead, he watched the show to see Simon Cowell’s scathing reviews. To him, the mediocre people who tried out for the show, thinking they were the best because their church or their family told them so, needed a harsh dose of reality.

Not everybody can be a Super Bowl MVP, and not everyone can reach their goals just because they say they can.

To the NPR host, artists and athletes always attributed their success to a fairy tale “I believed in myself — look at me now” story. But they were the minority — a gifted few who gave others false hope.

His main point was correct — only be a handful of kids today will become quarterbacks in the NFL. But if a kid doesn’t try (within reason) to pursue his dreams, the chance for him to become a professional football player is zero.

The cartoonist I linked to above would probably disagree with the radio host.

The cartoonist makes some really interesting, motivating, and sobering points. He cautions people to not give up their day job, and to not expect, or even desire, commercial success. But when it comes to judging art, I disagree with him. I mean, I’m not a successful artist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I feel like he’s a little bit too me-me-me.

Like the cartoonist, I do believe it’s necessary for each person to find their own unique creative path. But even if we all have our inner artist, we also have our inner psycho. Pandering to the public gives us some foundation to distinguish one from the other. Good taste is important, and we rely on our society and culture for many things. I think a little feedback is important to keep yourself grounded and motivated.

There’s a balance between what pleases ourselves and what pleases others. It’s up to the artist to find their own personal harmony. But then again, I guess that’s what separates the Warhols out there from the Kinkades.

Well, another year came and went, and I’m finally 25 years of age.

I heard from a good friend once that a good friend of theirs (yeah, 3 degrees apart) said that every year of their 20’s was completely different, and each year represented a different phase. 24 definitely was one of those years for me (as was 23, 22, 21, and 20).

Because my birthday falls so close to New Years, I think I’ve always looked at this time of the year with even more impetus to turn a page in my life. A sort of uber set of New Years resolutions.

I don’t really remember what my resolutions for 2008 were, but I feel like I hit a few goals. I handled money a lot better (well… sort of), I slimmed down about 12 pounds, and I started running. This was the year that I actually sat down, studied, and learned music production, instead of just buying expensive machines for decoration. And even though I’m nowhere close to making music I’d consider “good”, I’ve seen a lot of progress =). My company’s sales grew, too. It was difficult, and sometimes I have no idea how everything fell into place, but things did, and hopefully 2009 is even better.

I’m not exactly sure what resolutions I want to set for 2009, but I know it’s going to involve music and work.

I consider myself a pretty well-rounded person, but over these past few years “well-rounded” has started to become more of a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none”, and that’s something I want to shake loose. Being well-rounded has given me a better perspective on things, and sometimes I can use what I’ve learned in one area and apply it to something totally different, but I really need to buckle down and find my niche.

So I guess that’ll be one of my resolutions. Hopefully, at the end of 2009, I can look back on this post and feel that I’m closer figuring out whatever my niche is. I guess 2010 will be dedicated to perfecting whatever it was that I decided on in 2009.

8-core 2.8ghz Mac Pro

Herman Miller Aeron chair

Over the past couple months, I’ve been spending several hours a night in front of the computer, studying and producing music.

I just wrote out my music studies curriculum for the next several months — which books to read, what to learn, and what to have accomplished after certain dates… so I thought I’d give myself an extra incentive to keep me going with some new toys — a more comfortable chair and a less annoying computer to work with (my Macbook Pro’s fast… but it’s not drive-a-30″-monitor+process-3GB-piano-samples fast).

How am I paying for all this? Let’s just say spending Friday and Saturday nights in front of the computer isn’t just educational — it’s a wallet-saver! I haven’t spent more than… $60-80 in a week since I started this whole gigue (not counting Danny Howells).

I have 11 years of experience in an industry. And I’m only 24.

I work for a fine pen company, and I’ve been working for one since I was 13.

I guess I began as sort of a technical writer (you’d never guess after reading my last post).

The first company I worked for was Taiwanese, so they started me off by proofreading important e-mails and company literature, because my English was better than everybody else’s (I’m a native speaker). I eventually got assimilated into attending trade shows, running the business, and designing pens.

But all this time I haven’t really been into pens. I liked them, but fine writing wasn’t anywhere close to being a hobby. I rarely carried pens, and at work, I’d use a disposable rollerball.

Through it all, I’ve really wanted to truly appreciate fountain pens. Work becomes more enjoyable and easier to take on when you understand and learn to look for the fine details your customers are looking for too.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago we received some new prototype nibs from our supplier. Our old nibs had been having a small amount of ink flow issues, and it was such a relief to finally see something new.

I had to thoroughly test these new nibs before approval, so I took one of our newest fountain pens (a Momenta, pictured above), put the upgraded nib on, and kept it with me everywhere I went. I filled it with a bottle of Diamine Claret ink — a pink ink that dries almost raspberry.

A nice pen and a pretty ink deserves good paper, so I went out and purchased a pad of Rhodia paper. It’s not cheap — around $5 for a medium-sized pad, but it made a huge difference. Fountain pen ink is bright and water-based, so a smooth, thick, and dense paper (like the kind your checks come printed on) feels almost… sexual… underneath a nib. Once you write with good paper, you can’t go back to using regular notebooks — the ink feathers, and writing on both sides of a sheet renders it almost unreadable (bleed-through).

Needless to say — I’ve been kind of getting hooked, so I went out and bought some bottles of Waterman ink. Wow! Again, an amazing difference — some of the colors (especially Florida Blue) make my pen feel like a brand new one. The ink consistency is perfect. It dries fast, and it flows just right — not too watery, and not too thick.

And filling a pen with a new color makes me feel like a little kid again. I can’t help but smile like I’m in preschool, mixing colors and blowing on paint, or dipping a brush in water and “painting” on those pre-stained books. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.

So I’ve been taking a lot more notes with all this new stationery. I always learned best by re-writing my notes and summarizing my textbooks before a final. Now I have a good excuse to go through all of the books and tutorials I’ve queued up — I’m just testing my nibs.

There’s just something about hand-writing a thought to really commit it to memory.