Submitted by Glass Door on Sat, 12/03/2011 - 6:01pm
If you were to catch someone in the most raw, primal, base level of their soul, you'll find a naked, unadorned fear of being alone. We're all afraid of going through our lives siloed, channeled, and shuttled away from others, afraid of not being understood, afraid of dying alone. This song is an admission of that fear. Read more about Best Laid Plans
Submitted by Glass Door on Sun, 10/09/2011 - 10:48pm
I'm tracking vocals for a song tentatively titled "Less Than", one of my few songs with vocals. Can't wait to be done so I can share it with you; it's a major departure from my usual ambient, laid-back experimentation. More aggressive and industrial thanks to the analog sizzle of the JX-3P I picked up last year. I've been screwing around with the song for over a year, and this glacial pace bothers me. Hopefully things will speed up now that my music gear has been moved from the bedroom to the living room -- since I see it, it's in my mind instead of being an afterthought before bed. Read more about Reconfiguration and Less Than Vox
Spent a bit of time looking at ways to fix the music playback that got broken with the latest software update. I'm pleased to announce that you can now press play and get at that good, good music. Thanks for your awesome patience.
I've also set up a page that gives you an alphabetical list of songs so you can play them one by one. You can find this page by clicking the "Songs" tab near the header. Sweet!
Also, I'm investigating adding a podcast stream so you can grab songs with your favorite podcast player. Anything for you, my dear. Read more about Press Play On Site
Hey you crazy kids. It's come to my attention that the recent site software update has broken the song download links. I assure you, the files are here on the server, but the software refuses to make the connect. I'm working on it. Until then, world peace will have to wait. Stay tuned!Read more about Fixin' and Traxin'
Submitted by Glass Door on Fri, 04/29/2011 - 12:39am
The most aggravating part of mastering a song can be summed up thusly:
"Which sounds better? Mix A or (tweak tweak) Mix B? Mix A? Or Mix B?"
I find a final, mastered mix that I like, and almost settle on it, but in fixing one final thing I notice that something, technically, is incorrect. So I start fixing that, and in doing so the mix deteriorates into something that, although technically correct with no overloading or clipping, sounds crappy.
Tonight was one of those nights. All I needed to do was pull down the vocals, raise the bassline and call it done. But I noticed my final EQ plugin was getting overloaded on its input, and although I can't hear any clipping or buzzing, it's the knowledge that somewhere there's something incorrect. My solution was to add a limiter before the EQ, and that made it all worse. Booooo. Read more about Best Mixed Plans
Submitted by Glass Door on Sat, 04/16/2011 - 3:02am
Currently reworking a track I wrote in 2002 called "Best Laid Plans". It's a song I absolutely adore in its lush nakedness. Like "Solace", it was written completely on the fly with no attention paid to meter or metronome. At the time I recorded it, I was using a borrowed MIDI controller and a software synth, the Yamaha S-YXG50 (free with my sound card), to make sound, and some freeware sequencer to capture the MIDI data as I played. The problem with the S-YXG50, a problem which still exists to this day even on fast machines, is the unbelievably high 500ms latency between MIDI note-on events and actual sound output. This makes playing fast melodies practically impossible -- but it's OK for long chords. Read more about Re-Laid Plans
