“Hey, breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too few groups. Sometimes to the wrong ones.”
–Steve Albini

Just as I don’t really “do” Christmas, I’m not a huge fan of the traditions that usher in a new calendar year. Getting blinding drunk for too much money? No thanks. Thus, not a big fan of the New Year’s resolution.

However, I am a big fan of reflecting on one’s life, taking stock, adjusting one’s life goals. And I’ve been doing that over months leading up to 2009. Specifically, about my music, my life, this blog, my studio. More specifically, this blog in relation to my music, my life and my studio. And this blog in relation to world at large.

Just the other day, the great MusicThing blog closed up shop indefinitely. Like many a gear geek, MusicThing was one of the first music production blogs that I came across – if not the first. And what a delight. It got me more excited about the possibilities of production, the joys of finding and creating sound, than anything outside of actually making music myself. And, yes, it probably pushed me closer to opening my own blog.

But there’s one thing that MusicThing’s open-ended hiatus and possible demise easily illustrates: blogging, while not hard per se, is time consuming. Not just the writing – which it can be, especially for long-winded, discursive fuckers such as myself – but the actual time it takes to digest information. You know, to have something to write about that is of possible interest to people other than you and six of your friends. Setting one up is easy enough; coming up with an idea or an “editorial” mission is even more simple. But keeping it going for any length of time past a year or two can be tiresome, even if you’re not doing your own coding (which I am).

And MusicThing had a clear editorial vision, a keen eye for the interesting, and a strong authorial voice. Someone like me, what exactly am I bringing to the table? Other than I can type well. And I’m reasonably literate. (If overly dependent on adverbs.) Other music tech sites cover releases and how-to and such with far more efficacy than I ever could part-time, esp. on my own dime. So that just leaves me as a feeble editorial voice out here on the edges of CreateDigitalMusic and KvR.

I don’t generate enough traffic to warrant any google revenue or to solicit targeted banners. And at some point I have ask, in a word, why? What I set out to promote – the music I’ve been chiseling away at for pert near a half decade; over 25 years if you count all my years before home recording and digital lofi production – is so lost in the haze of technology and trainspotting as to be almost obscure to me now. I’ve become, more or less, a minor advocate for a small cadre of developers that never really asked for my participation. I’ve had some good conversations with a few of these developers, whom I respect a lot (annoyed a few of the same, I’m sure), I got to review/test drive a couple of awesome products, and hopefully I’ve helped them in some way or another. But the truth is what I need to be concentrating on doesn’t translate into a blog quite so easily as “let me talk about cool music tech”. And even that never turned into quite the conversation I had hoped for.

Beyond this, if you read back a few months, you might divine that my relationship with new music tech is, erm, changing. I’m tired of being a beta tester, of buyer’s remorse (whether for pay or freeware), opening an interface and quickly realizing that despite whatever internet/magazine chatter it’s just another piece of software. In some ways, we’ve hit the point of diminishing returns. So unless I’m just going to comment on a lot of shit I won’t necessarily use, ever, I’m doing what again? It’s not like people are turning to me for advice.

Going into this new year, this new post-birthday, I want to get back to making music. I want to play guitar. I want to write songs. I want to finish CDs. Maybe even play out in some regard.

Already I was leaning toward just using what I have. The tools I want/need for my studio at this point aren’t really impulse purchases. Of course, let’s be honest, I’m sure there will be updates and a few goodies I’ll purchase, mostly from the developers/companies I’ve been championing over the last few years (I’m looking at you, Rough Rider Pro); but, by and large, I’m going to force myself to be way more practical and deliberate in my studio. And, thus, I want the software upkeep to be way more minimal.

So, yeah, this blog. At first I thought I could blog about the process of sifting out the chaff of my plugin folder, reviews of the software/soundware I was keeping. I could to try to revive my Album a Day in a less demanding format. Plus I have a bunch of drafts that I could try to revise into shape. But all of this is time I don’t really want to be putting into something that’s more like a job (keeping up the post count as to not fall of the radar) than something that’s bringing me any joy, or at least bettering my life. I am glad that this has given me an outlet for my writing and helped me rediscover my love of that, albeit in an unexpected form. But I think it’s apparent that even that is better spent elsewhere.

The proverbial ice awaits. In a final act of Me-too-ism, I’m going to follow MusicThing’s lead into the greater unknown. O, I may be over-come by a desire to post something. Maybe I’ll finish off my epic over-view of Poi Dog Pondering’s complete recorded output. Maybe an open plugin standard will finally come to fruition. But once I fall off people’s RSS readers then I truly am writing for myself.

At some point I’ll figure out how this fits into my overall plans, such as they are. With a new mission maybe, or at least new sponsorship that will provide me with the time to type away about my peculiar and narrow obsessions. I’ll be around, and I’m sure I’ll be unable to control my urge to not just shut the fuck up, but this place will most likely be quite for the foreseeable future.

Thanks to those who commented. Thanks to the readers who came here deliberately rather than just following some errant google search. Thanks to the other sites that kept me going even when my ADD (not really) pulled my attention elsewhere. Thanks to the developers who put up with me or encouraged me. And, fuck it, thanks to me for making it this far and knowing when to bow out.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Peace,
C. Puffer

I was thinking that I wasn’t going to do this. It’s not like I have that much to say throughout the year, so “wrapping up” seems a tad redundant. But, really, it’s bitter cold outside, the coffee is strong, and my girlfriend is sleeping off her New Year hangover¹, so why the fuck not?

Top digitallofi.com posts of 2008²:
1. Well, I’m happy to say that a significant portion of my traffic comes through various subscription services, stumbleupon, off my favorite sites, and I have a good number of returning visitors. So, cheers to you all. You’re among probably about a couple hundred other “regular” “readers”.
2. My unintentional backhanded compliment to SynthEdit and some of the better SE authors.
3. A Pre-Sonar8 launch bitch-list of what I thought was the most ripe for updating, and which missed the mark pretty vastly. Really? That had to be one of my weakest posts all year.
4. I’m just going to go ahead and roll up my 2008 Holiday Gift Guide for the Disenfranchised posts into one big pat on the back for myself. Most of this traffic the result of a mention on CreateDigitalMusic.com, which just further illustrates how necessary that blog is. If only on a personal level.
5. Again, thanks to CreateDigitalMusic and the dude who made BeatBurner and released it as donationware.
6. My “review” of SonicCharge’s delightful, “controversial” new musical sound generator. Again, mostly thanks to cdm.com; Peter, if I made any money I would pay royalties or something.
7. SonicCouture’s Gamelan: Believe the hype. Coming in 2009: The Digital LoFi Gamelan EP.³.
8. Found Sound.
9. Part of my misguided, half-hearted but on-going campaign for an open plugin standard.
10. Yeah, even I don’t know what I’m thinking sometimes.

Digital lofi’s top software instruments of 2008:⁴
I don’t know, I guess I’m going to go with the 1-2 punch of GForce’s VSM & MTronPro. And Synplant. And didn’t BFD2 come out in 2008?

digital LoFi’s top DSP plugins of 2008:
Good God this is a tight field. Let’s just give the title to the fuckers at AudioDamage. If they made an EQ there would be little debate their absolute Godhead status among purveyors of DSP. No actually, there would be lots and lots of debate. And let’s give props to Voxengo for continuing to make waves for the rest of us. And the donationware/freeware/perpetual-betaware developers who just keep raising the bar every year.

digitaL LoFi’s top soundware of 2008:
Do I even need to discuss this? Goldbaby, SonicCouture, NineVoltAudio. Independently owned and conceived all. Honorable mention to Homegrown Sounds; I’m looking to see what they have in store. And I look forward to kicking myself for neglecting PureMagnetic for so long.

Puffer’s favorite album of 2008:
Didn’t buy too much new music this year. I want to say Poi Dog Pondering but shamefully I haven’t purchased that yet, only listened to their stream of it. I really was digging the new Slipknot album⁵, but I have a feeling once I really hear the older, harder stuff I won’t find it quite so satisfying. The Eno/Byrne joint really rocks the party. But I haven’t had enough time with it. I’ve probably listened to the General Fuzz catalog more than any other single artist outside my playlist shuffle mode.⁶ And Boards of Canada: Always BoC.

Digital Lofi’s top hardware acquisitions of 2008:
Most definitely my pawn-shop MPC1000. I barely know how to utilize it to its fullest, but I’m determined to learn it and to use it live.

Saddest non-Trend of 2008:
This Was Grindhouse: A site in search of movement and a guiding hand. A movement in search of…

DigitalLoFi’s no-brainer digital audio industry predictions for 2009:
Alas, Project5, we hardly knew ye.

The Digital Lofi Audio Blogosphere 2008:
*CreateDigitalMusic.com: The check’s in the mail.
*AnalogIndustries.com: Jesus, dude, get over yourself.
*MusicThing: Tom, as far as I’m concerned you could post once a year and still be one of the best music blogs out there.
*MatrixSynth: I get tired just thinking of all the posts they’ve put up just while I’ve been writing this. What’s not to love about synthporn? And what could make synthporn even better? Babes!
*http://rekkerd.org/: The only thing that could make ronnie’s site better would be if more people joined in the discussions. And this year I’m going to take part in one of your competitions, I swear.

Most unwelcome Digital Lofi blogging affectation of 2008:
Footnotes.⁷ It didn’t start off as a tribute to David Foster Wallace, more just a ripped-off conceit, but I’m fine with it turning into one. He is a writer I will truly miss.⁸

So, I guess that’s it. It’s approximately my birthday this time of year, so wish me a happy birthday in the comments.

PS – I’ll most likely be updating, correcting and revising this post over the next week or so while I get together my New Year’s Ambitions and Ruminations. Hell, it will take me a week just to sort out the footnotes on this Hindenburg.

^{1I stayed in. For what’s it’s worth. I’m going out on my birthday presently.
2Mostly according to Google Analytics. I really should look more closely at my server reporting. I’m also discounting any older, perennial posts that keep generating traffic. But other than that, these are really the top posts.
3Don’t hold me to that.
4Let’s not be sticklers for release dates, okay? I got ‘em in 2008 and they are all pretty recent.
5Go ahead and mock me. My girlfriend does. As does pretty much everyone else. I don’t know, something about their shtick appeals to the 13 year-old boy in me.
6Honestly, some of it gets a little lite-jazzy in places for my taste. But it is top music, really. And great for coding. Music for coding is important.
7 Really, they’re kinda of a pain in the ass, and roughly double the amount of time to post, no matter how entertaining and useful they are for my long-winded style.
8Though I suppose it could compete with not deciding how I want to type out Digital Lofi/digitallofi/digital lofi/Digital LoFi/Digital Lo-Fi/et al. But I won’t even go into my reasons behind this.}

RE:
Scriptorium Instruments

I must find out if it’s possible to distribute custom scriptorium instruments, and the logistics of getting it into the hands of licensed scriptorium users. Sort of like, “You own this sample library; you own scriptorium. Here’s some instruments.” Or if I was to use my own samples (unlikely).

Sometime last year I wrote about how I had once owned a Moog MG1/Realistic Concertmate. It’s not just that I had no idea what it was or barely used it while I had it, or even that I sold it to some friends for like fifty bucks – it’s that of all the crap I’ve hung onto over the years I had to get rid of that. And every once and a while something comes along to remind me how misguided I was at certain points in my life.

Today this is pointed out via Analog Industries. Alerted to a new freebie sample set from the dedicated geniuses at Goldbaby that utilizes a Moog MG1 run through a bunch of Audio Damage plugins. I’m not on a broadband connection right now so I won’t be able to audition them for a while. But I’m prepared to download and weep.

_{Photo ripped the matrixsynth flicr stream}

Here’s something well worth reading: What Have I Learned, in which our author and blog host, a one James Kirsch (nom de guerre: general fuzz), ruminates on what it means to be an independent musician and self-producer, making music for the shear joy and intellectual satisfaction of it, only to release it to the perceived indifference of the Web.

So, not a prescriptive cataloging of EQ and compression tips as the post title might lead you to believe; no “How to build a super saw patch” here. What we get are some thoughtful excogitation for we project studio jockeys, huddled over our screens of Project5, Logic, Live, et al, filling up our hard drives with sound collections and virtual instruments, inflicting the results on girlfriends, family, newsgroup acquaintances. I’m not full agreement with everything Mr. fuzz is offering but the spirit of it is %100 on the money.

The irony of it is with this one post the general negates a lot of what he was writing about. He has generated a whole lot of feedback, made a lot of people who weren’t previously aware of his music, and collected I’d imagine a bunch of new fans, many of whom would gladly buy his music.

I for one am chuffed to have discovered the collected works of general fuzz. Nice downtempo tunes with a breeze of jazz blowing through the spaces, full of hooks and well-considered instrumental embellishments. Perfect for an early morning work session, such as I’m enjoying as I’m writing this. I’ve paid for albums that weren’t half this good. Click on the album cover above to check out his complete discography.

General, I salute you. (Groan…)

Allow me to present for your consideration one of his fine songs, off his latest release, Cool Aberrations:
general fuzz, “reasonable ability”:

I’ll finish up my series of posts celebrating cross-platform plugins with an elder statesman of the cross-platform plugin world, SonicCharge’s absolutely awesome µTonic (or microTonic).

I bought this back shortly after it was released, or at least when it was reviewed and demo’d in Computer Music. I made the decision like 15 minutes after installing the demo. It is really that fabulous. It is both simple – the presets are by and large brilliant – and really, really deep. To this day I’m constantly surprised by the sonic interest it adds to my music and the sounds I can get out of it – and I use it a lot.

I’m bringing this up for few reasons:

• It fits in perfectly with my cross-OS celebration, natch.
• A few months ago SonicCharge updated all the code for today’s top-o-the-line Macs (and a built a new Vista installer, though the program itself worked fine).
• In conjunction with said update they also released a new folder full of patches.
• To give away a little freebie pack of patches for use with µTonic.
• To make you suffer through a lot of back story.

All of this after the jump.
(more…)

Actually, I’m talking about the Sonar feature. You know the one you probably shut off immediate if you’re not using the demo.

And why shouldn’t you? It’s pretty much just a sequential list of shit you assume you know that gets in your way when you launch. “Ctrl+F will resize the project to show all tracks.” Yeah, yeah, whatever, we say to ourselves, let me at the good stuff.

You’ve probably already deduced that it’s just a simple Windows app that reads a basic .txt file. The text file contains no real styling or intricate formating so it’s easy to read and edit. So if you’ve only been using Sonar for a short while take a moment and dig it out of the program folder and read it. There may be one or two things in there that are new to you. But indeed, you can edit this document to say whatever you want.

A fellow named Hink over on KvR had the rather amusing suggestion of a plugin that nagged you to finish your project. I was thinking you could essentially rig Sonar to perform more-or-less the same thing.

I, myself, have hacked it to “play” me Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies. This is amusing though not demonstratively useful. And I don’t think I’ve “updated” to the 4th edition; it involves a lot of cutting and pasting or search-n-replacing. (And, sorry, not posting it for all the obvious reasons and it’s a good, simple project if you find it even remotely interesting.)

Tip of the Day is hindered in that, as near as I can tell, it reads through the file sequentially. Perhaps there’s someway to “switch” Sonar to cycle through this file randomly; do any Sonar users know the answer to this? Are there other programs that can do more or less the same thing. (And, yeah, I saw at least one VST that played it, and it wasn’t particularly well implemented.)

And, to answer your question, Yes, I do have too much time on my hands. Why do people act like that’s inherently a bad thing?

Let me leave you with one more: Destroy nothing; Destroy the most important thing.

Here’s a deal for you breakbeat junkies:

Dusted William Super Funky Ass Drums – an impressive collection of 24bit REX2/wav loops for download for the introductory price of $10. Act fast, as I have no idea when this price ends; I think soon.

I’ve only just begun exploring the collection but I will attest to its quality. Just great sounding beats that have a lot of character but are dry and free of the over-processing that plague these kinds of collections.

This is not a “construction kit” per se, whereby you can mix and match different loops into a sequence which, at least remotely, plays like a continuous drum track. No, these are Breakbeats. But once you really start chopping up beats – snare pattern from this, kick pattern from that – or want to bung it through the DSP of your choice, you appreciate the usefulness of cleanly recorded but vintage sounding breaks. None of that, “Hey, let’s run the loop through a completely over-cranked filter and call it unique content!” Or “Well, let’s make it sound like it was ripped from vinyl by squashing the hell out of it and adding in noise.” No, when I’m buying breaks I want the groove, a great player playing a great sounding kit, recorded well. Making it sound completely over-processed I can handle myself.

That the collection contains both the REX2 & wave files makes this doubly useful. Lately, I’ve come to appreciate the versatility of REX files, though I still can’t bring myself to shell out for ReCycle. So I’m always happy not to be locked into one or the other format.

So, get in while the getting is good. This is a bargain at twice the price.

The high-end DSP plugin company Waves have been, yes, making waves (groan… I know, it’s too easy) with their newest efforts to crack down on those using cracks (someone stop me!), banpiracy.com. I won’t rehash it all when Peter Kirn over at createdigitalmusic.com has been doing a far better job than I could. But a couple of things to note: a.) as far as anyone can tell banpiracy.com is simply a front for Waves and no other developer/company is copping to being part of this “initiative” – i.e. visiting pro studios under one pretense and checking to see if they’re licenses are up-to-date, then suing them if they’re not. 2.) Waves have a long history of actively and aggressively protecting their wares (…I’ll stop, really, I will…) with OS-hooks, dongles, on-line licenses – the works, all at once. Thirdly, even in the high-end audio software market Waves charge a lot of money. And finally, piracy is a problem, even among pro and semi-pro studios. Don’t even argue otherwise. Anecdotal stories demoing cracks and/or later buying cracked software do not a solid case make. I personally had a very busy, albeit ghetto, urban studio brag to me about how much/many stolen software and sample libraries they had, and if I ever wanted they could hook me up.¹

My views on the quality of Waves actual software are as immaterial as they are uninformed. I’m sure they do what they promise and indeed sprinkle Magic Pixie Dust^TM all over your tracks. I’m sure they make tracks warm, and fat, and, erm, whatever other audio buzz-word you want to use here. They sure do make them louder. I, however, would not know. Well, other than what I’ve read from others who know a lot more about this than I, and it’s hard to argue with a list of users that reads like a (very geeky) who’s who of audio production. As much as it’s a money thing, it’s the whole copy protection issue. Additionally, as pretty and impressive as the Waves plugs may seem, if I was going to drop that kind of coin, there are a lot of other options.

So, let’s look at that proposition.
(more…)

I’m more or less back to square one. Or, rather, 1.5.

I’ll tell you, I was a lot more sternly judicious in what I installed this time. Because my sample storage was intact, I was able to save myself a lot of time re-installing libraries like BFD and SampleTank. Even still, it was fuckin’ tedious. And there were a lot of recent updates that I didn’t have burned to backup so tracking/downloading files and registrations, logging on the various websites, only adds to the chore.

Here are some thoughts/observations on DAW-oriented pre-crash recovery. This is may be real 101 stuff but they’re lessons I’ve learned.

• Know you’re sequencers’ default audio storage location. Even if you immediately change it, or have been working from the same per project directory structure for years, make sure you check it during backups periodically. I know that mine had accumulated a fair degree of crap over the years for various reasons. I corrected it when I came across it but never really addressed the WCS. So I’m not sure how deep the damage, and hopefully it will be mostly on projects long ago abandoned, but nevertheless…
• Futher this: When working with plugins, particularly softsynths, and you’re shutting a project down for the night, it’s a good idea freeze/render/bounce/whatever before closing out. If it’s a complex multi-out instrument you could just bounce to a temp track, just so you have guide. I’ve had this nip at me occasionally just as it is, you load up some synths and it has suddenly detuned itself or reset all its parameters. But when you start changing plugin addresses it’s a really recipe for things breaking.
• Maintaining a simple text file of all your registrations and address information will only get you so if you’re audio rig isn’t connected to the internet. A thumb drive is essential. Nevertheless it’s still cumbersome.
• Some companies need to take a good look at their web-based registration strategies¹. And thank you to those companies who make it easy.²
• Keep your drive image software up to date. Otherwise it’s just useless.
• Do not attempt to “slipstream” your install unless you really know what you’re doing.
• Simplifying is not over-rated.

I also misplaced my Sonar 2 CD case serial number (perhaps temporarily; I might be able to dig it out yet, there’s some boxes in the closet…). So I don’t have the Timeworks EQ and Compressor at the moment. While I certainly have a lot of things that can replace ‘em ably, I used them a lot for many of years.

So, yeah, a lot of this is due to my glacial working pace. And my stubborn refusal to hook my audio computer up to the internet teat.

So, I’m looking at my hard drive crash as my computers way of telling me it was not happy, and I needed to streamline my process. I plan to get a good disc imaging program and make a good clean go of it.

^{1Spectronics comes quickly to mind while I wait to hear back from support on just how to re-authorize StylusRMX. But there a couple others whom I won’t slag off here.}

^{2Anybody who generates their serial number from a unique user name or user account – Melodyne (particularly sophisticated), SonicCharge, AudioDamage – and while NI I believe is machine based they’ve pretty much nailed the engineering of the activation control (YMMV).}

^{Photo courtesy of Jim Hankey. (See comments.)}