Music & Math

Just a quick post this time around about a pretty crazy article on music & math. How some math guys are trying to plot out the relationship between melody & harmony and how they combine to make music. So it pretty much boils down to the shape of music. Kind of geeky, but I thought I'd share the article anyway because I enjoyed it!

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/07/the_shape_of_music.php?page=1

Back 2 Basics

Seems I’m on a staggered schedule here in terms of the blog – apologies as I know everyone has been waiting on edge for my next post – ha! Well, I have a gig this Saturday and wanted to play live, but it’s looking more and more like will not happen and I’ll have to fall back on my tried and true DJ’ing abilities (although it’s been a while since I played out at a club) – looking forward to it though! But I’m going to focus back on biking for this post as I’ve had a great couple of days on the ol’trusty steed!

I started our (somewhat) long weekend by taking my wife up to Niagra Falls to an amazing hotel overlooking the falls. We’ve had a spat of bad news and I figured it would be good to get away and clear our heads – so it was a great start to the weekend for sure as Jaime and I had an unbelievable time over the weekend (we seem to be able to have a great time no matter where we go!). When we got home, Jaime went to go check the mail and came running back in – my article had been published in the Georgian Bay times (based on my 3^rd post on the blog about the trip up to Blue Mountain). So needless to say I was pretty excited ;) Funny thing was, Colin had contacted me and asked if I wanted to hit Blue on Canada Day. Since I had nothing on my plate (although I probably should’ve been working on my live set), and the weatherman saying it was going to be sunny and around 25 degree’s, I said let’s do it! Actually, before I get into our trip back up to Blue, I have to talk about something crazy I saw at the Chicopee Bike Park on the Friday. Colin, Fergie and I were sessioning the jumps at Chicopee when 2 kids show up who we have never seen. They start hitting the big line nice and smooth, and the one kid starts doing 360’s off the various jumps on the big line – this in itself it pretty sick as it’s not everyday you see someone make a 360 look easy and smooth. Then came the best riding I think I have ever seen. They were trying to close down the park and it was myself and this kid at the top of the run in. Not being able to really do any tricks, I thought it prudent to go first and give the kid the last run for the simple fact he was just way better than me. What does the kid do on the first jump…. A friggin backflip!!! Now, you or not supposed to invert on any of the jumps at Chicopee for insurance reasons – the guy running the park at the time could do nothing but stare (I think his jaw hit the floor to be honest, as did everyone else’s)! So everyone was getting him stocked, hi-5’s, yelling and screaming. He goes back up for another run, and the Chicopee guy wanted to see it as well (we all did!). The kid comes down again, backflips the first jump, 360’s the second jump and then does a huge tuck no-hander (this is where the rider ‘tucks’ the handle bars on his knees and throws both his hands out to the side) – just a spectacle to behold, I was just blown away that someone could do those on the local jumps, just incredible. To make it even better, the kid was one of the most humble kids I’ve seen there and did not really make a big deal out of it – just made the feat that much better to be honest, no attitude at all – I love it!

Ok, another quick story before I get to Blue. The BBC. No, not the English channel with the great comedy (yeah, I grew up on BBC stuff and love it!), but the Backyard Booter Crew. This acronym was affectionately invented when our good buddy (and owner of Sattelyte Wakeskates – the BEST WakeSkate company in the world, IMHO) built a snowboard ‘booter’ (or jump) in his backyard. There were many a night where people would be over at Garry’s sessioning the booter. So, Colin has it in his mind that he is going to learn how to 360 on a bike, and seeing that kid on Friday lit a fire under his ass to get it done. Colin negotiated with his wife to let him build a small jump in the backyard so he could learn 360’s. While Jaime and I were enjoying an amazing view of the falls, Colin and Fergie had a dump truck full of dirt delivered to the house and were busy building the summer incarnation of the BBC. I get back from Niagra Falls to see a nice little booter built in Colin’s back yard – The BBC is back. Colin has attempted 2 360’s so far in his backyard playground, but as of yet, has been unsuccessful at landing a 3… He’ll get it though, he is one determined rider!

Ok, back to the trip to Blue this past Canada day. After arriving at Colins a bit late, we headed up to the only lift access downhill in Ontario (I think anyway!). We expected it to be a bit busy, but the thing I was looking forward to the most was hitting some trails which I have not ridden in about a year (they were closed the first few times we went). So we arrived, and after a short delay due to my shifting cable and derailleur being shot, we headed for the lift. There was a nice size crowd there, but you didn’t have to wait more than 5mins to get on the lift, so things were looking good already. Checking the trail maps, Autobahn and Shot Glass were open – 2 of our favourite trails (Autobahn because it is FAST as hell – aptly named! And Shot Glass cuz it’s nice and technical). We got off the lift and headed straight for Autobahn – nothing like mock speed for the first run of the day, and DAMN was it fast! We shredded that trail like nothing, and I was feeling good despite not having riden Down Hill for over a month, and the adrenaline was pumping nicely from all that speed!! We hit that a few times and then headed to Shot Glass which is full of fun little stunts all the way down mixed in with some nice technical sections (steep rooty/rocky sections that test your skill). Man was I happy to be back on the trails, it felt great! After shredding Shot Glass a few more times we decided to hit O-Chute which is a fun, fast, technical trail as well and connects with another trail (R-Shore) half way down. We hit the first section nicely, and were ripping the second section (I was actually pretty lucky not to dummy myself when I hit the second sections rock drop and almost went over the bars!), and halfway down the second section Colin gets a flat. Pretty crappy place to get a flat cuz it was step, and the terrain is not really meant to be walked down because it’s so steep!! Needless to say I kept ripping the rest of the trail and Colin had to maneuver down the hill with his ‘dirt bike without an engine’ of a bike!!!

After fixing his flat, we ripped Shot Glass and Autobahn a couple more times before calling it a day (was about 6:30 and we’d been riding for about 5 hours). My muscles were nice and sore from the day and I was ready to go home. The ride home was fun as the lactic acid was pooling in our legs – you could feel your legs getting stiffer by the minute!! Once we hit home, it was tough to just walk back to the car, a sign of a good day of riding!! What a weekend indeed, hoping to have another one like this before the summer is done, but Whistler is coming up in less than a month and I think Colin and I are going to try and hit Mt Bromont next weekend to get some training in for BC – LOL! Anyways, that’s it for me for now, stay tuned for an update as to how the gig went! Ride hard and enjoy life… until next time…

Time is of the essence....

So, I’ve definitely had a little lay off since my last post. Life for me right now is crazy busy as I have a tonne of things going: sports leagues (bball and soccer), biking, music (trying to finish up tracks for an album), trying to get ready for a gig on July 4^th (I’d like to play live, but am not sure if I have the time to put it together), hanging out with my great wife, and taking care of the yard (cutting grass sucks!) along with keeping Samsquantch going. So between all this, I’m finding it real hard to get anything of value done – I seem to do a bit here and a bit there and it never really feels like I get anything done, so my frustration levels are rising a bit along with the heat here in South Western Ontario.

Remember I was talking about the dreaded loop monster a few posts back (not quite as bad as a Samsquantch, but bad never-the-less), I think I have been having more frequent run-ins with it over my last few sessions in the studio. Albeit, I did get the building blocks done for a track in about 2 hours a couple of weeks ago (the track is affectionately called “Stella” after my favourite type of beer!), but getting the track to a point where it is a track and not a bunch of loops is the tough part. So what do I do, instead of trying to focus and get the track to a point where is it almost complete, I start working on other tracks I have in the works - this doesn’t help my level of frustration, because, as I was telling you before, I feel like I get nothing done. It’s true, I may tweak some existing tracks to a point that I think they sound better, but getting anything of real value done seems like another life time right now (not a fun feeling when you are trying to accomplish a goal). Maybe I have a weird form of music A.D.D where I just can’t focus on one track for too long (no wonder I’ve loved DJ’ing for all these years, you bounce around tracks when playing like it’s nothing – maybe this has carried over to my production?!). To give you an idea of my level of frustration, I’ve been working on this track called “Music Talks To Me” for over 2 YEARS – yes, you read that right, 2 FRIGGIN YEARS. Granted, the overall sound of the track was muddy and needed some work (along with the sounds in the tracks and how they were used), but I mean come one, 2 years?! I’ve really only finished 1 track this year and have about 10-12 tracks in the working stages and about 4 done that I am somewhat happy with (although I’m finding I’m going back to these tracks to make more edits). I’ve been learning a lot about the art of mixing with respect to production, so I’ve been trying to apply what I’ve learned to my older tracks – and it has been helping, but I find myself being very critical of not only the overall sound of the track but the frequencies in which certain sounds sit (and how they play together) – almost to a point of obsession. This is the part of production that is not fun – and I think I need to get back to having fun and just going with my gut instead of constantly criticizing and rebuilding pieces of a track. Although when I think back to the various stages I have went through when learning how to produce, you notice lulls within the learning process where things level off for a while – this is usually followed by a period of inspiration and rapid growth where you can apply what you have learned along with your unique approach to get to a final destination. I’m hoping this stage is going to be following soon so I can follow up my goal of sending out an album to some record labels this year.

Phew. That feels better – LOL! As you can tell, I’m a bit frustrated at the moment and want to get a feeling of accomplishment soon so I can better manage everything that is going on in my life while moving forward with my goals. I told my wife over her 3 years of going back to school that hard work really does pay off (my wife was working full time and going to university full time for a degree) – her hard work paid off big time when she was one of only 75 people (out of 4000 applicants) who was accepted to a prestigious local teachers college!!! She just graduated last week on the Dean’s Honor role, so I’m super proud of her. Point being, sometimes you feel overwhelmed or like things are not going your way, but if you put in the work, you will eventually see the results. I’m using my wife as a motivator right now as it’s hard for me to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but seeing what she has done, and trying to follow my own advice, I should see something come of my countless hours spent in my basement dungeon trying to carve out my brand of music. For now, I have to get that loop monster off my back and get back to having fun in the studio. Wish me luck, and keep your browsers locked in as I’ll be posting some of my music with the next post (if you feel like commenting, PLEASE DO SO – I’m always looking for feedback whether positive or negative)!

Actually, why not post some links to some tracks now! I keep putting it off, but what the hell:

Breathe
Free Speech
Early Days
Exit Wisdom

You'll notice the variation in volume for some of the mixes. Like I was saying earlier, I'm trying to teach myself the art of mixing, and all of these with the exception of Free Speech were made before I had learned a few things (and it shows in the mixes if you ask me - still some work to do there in terms of levels, EQ'ing and compression - stuff I'll get into later). Free Speech is almost there as well, I think it just needs some more EQ'ing to bring make it "pop" if you will. Anyway, this gives you a little insight into the sound I'm going for (these are all aimed at dance floors - I have some down tempo stuff I'll post later, but that is OLD and still needs a lot of work). Wow, seems I'm perpetually working - I'll leave that for now cuz I need to get that monster off my back and start having fun with the music again. Once I have my own approach to mixing, things should start to churn out (at least I keep telling myself that).

Alright, now back to having fun and getting things done….. Steer clear of the dreaded loop monster…..

Cameras Ready, Prepare to Flash

This is just going to be a quick post on biking - just want to post some pics I took last Friday at the Grove. As the title hints at, all these were done with a remote flash. It's our new toy this year, Colin got it over Christmas and we've been trying to get the handle on how to use it properly. I think this is the best pics yet with the flash, although we did it a bit differently this time as instead of using a tripod to put the remote flash on, we had someone walk around with the flash - so it was real easy to direct the angle and direction without much hassle! Hope you enjoy....

See the forest gnome - LOL!

Hitting one of the many log rides

This is a pretty kool shot (that's our friend Dave hitting Low Road)

Colin heading up High Street!!

Hitting the roller (gives you a good idea of the size)...

Different angle - great lighting!

Injury update- Fergie is still down, I think he's cleared for light trail rides and that's about it, so he did get a chance to ride the new bike! Speaking of injuries, Colin used up one of his 9 lives the other day on a nasty crash at the Trussler jumps (he was lucky to walk away!) - this is a great reason why you wear full face shield helmets folks... Check out the video (yeah, we got it on video!!):

Colin walked away from this one pretty much unscathed, although he had to retire his helmet due to 2 cracks (better the helmet than his skull). If he wasn't wearing a full face shield, he most certainly would've lost some chick lits (erm, um, I mean teeth)!! That's it for this post....

Been a while...

Yes it has! I've had kind of a crazy week. 3 days, 6 flights with stops in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlotte (twice) and Williamsburg for work. I was asked to write an article for a news paper on mountain biking (thanks Arthur!), which I managed to complete while laying over at one of the airports on my work trip (Arthur saw the blog and asked me to write about a trip up to Blue Mountain!). I ended up walking in my house at 5:30pm and walked out again at 5:45 to play in a soccer game (I had missed the first 3 games and couldn't miss this one) - ended up getting tackled fairly badly and get my knee and ankle twisted. On Saturday my wife Jaime and I headed to a house warming BBQ for Jaime's cousin Jen and her boyfriend Barry. I also managed to get in the studio a bit and take some pretty nice shots at the Grove! So, now I've finally managed to sit down and get to another post! As keeping with my alternating themes, we head back to the world of production.

I said I was going to get into how I produce. I'll touch a bit on that here. House and Techno are pretty much based around the 4/4 beat (4 beats per measure / 4 measures per bar). What that pretty much means is a kick drum on the 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 with the high hats falling in between (replace the ands with high hats!) and the clap falling on the 2 and 4. It's a very basic rhythm but one which makes you move (this is true universally) - I believe this is also what rock is based around. On a funny note, the church has rules about music, one of them being that certain rhythms were 'of the devil' and not to be used. Hence the old school saying that rock & roll was from the devil, because of the rhythm being used! Are we seeing the ultimate reason as to why our western world (and the greater world for that matter) is falling apart (insert heavy sarcasm here!). Just thought that was a funny little tidbit - no joke though, this pattern of music really does get you moving! Even hip hop and break beats have elements of this pattern, the only real difference being the placement of the kick drum (I really need to link to some examples - soon!). So the basic beat if you will is the palette for a lot of different types of music - if you start to listen you'll be able to hear the similarities pretty clearly. Pretty much all my production is based around this (well all of it actually). The trick is getting something that fits the template, has a nice groove (groove is pretty much the feel of the the combination of elements of a given track - including effects, shuffle, etc). Once you get a basic groove down, it's about (for me anyway) seeing what fits in the empty spaces and plays off the other parts of the track. So I try to place certain elements within certain areas of a track to give a particular feel - once you get this down it becomes your artistic style if you will. I've developed a certain approach to making my tracks that includes the effects I use, how I use them, sample manipulation (I like to resample material I have in a track - more on that in a bit), how I mix the song down, my arrangement style(s) and things of this nature. If you were to listen to my tracks I think you would be able to see that there are certain elements which are repeated in my tracks, but applied differently throughout the various tracks so as not to get boring (I'll post some links soon to my material). When it comes to resampling, I like to record various loops of material while working on a song and apply various effects and sample shaping techniques to twist the sampled material into something completely new - and then this gets added on top of what it was recorded on. I believe this is good because you are taking an existing piece of the song, so used correctly, it should fit in very nicely depending on how it is applied and where. I've found this to be a great technique as it allows for great creativity as well as giving you unexpected results which lead to other pathways for a song to take musically. Speaking of that, it's also one of the dangers - the dreaded loop monster!!! I thought I was the only person to experience this until I read a thread on it on the Ableton Live user forums. The dreaded loop monster refers to times where you end up sitting there tweaking 1 or 2 loops for hours, but never really get anything done at the end of the session (you end up listening to practically the same loop for long periods of time, sometimes with just minor tweaks). With so many pathways which open up when working with sample manipulation, it's also very easy to get off track and stay off for long periods of time - have to focus on the task at hand! Although that's also one of the fun aspects of working with Live, the fun you get as no 2 sessions will be the same (even with a little knowledge) - keeps new sounds floating through your speakers every time you sit down!

Ok, another quick post - hope this one was a little bit informative. Or at least give you a small insight as to how I approach making tracks (albeit a very brief version). I'll be getting into more production stuff soon, I want to get a record of the week section going where I will pull out my old records and give you a glimpse of some the old records I used to play (that will be coming very shortly). Looking forward to the next post with some more great pics from the Grove! Until then...

Broke Back - Injury Update

With that last post, I didn't think I could leave everyone hanging with respect to my man Fergie. Fergie took a nasty bail at the Grove last Monday and is off his steed for a while. He was getting up onto the step-up bridge and when he got up on the platform, his chain skipped and left him with no speed for the step-down. Needless to say he was heading for a meeting with the landing, but he bailed out nicely BUT landed on the edge of a skid (his back took the brunt). He had to go to the hospital with swelling around his spine (Ferg, you need some armor man!!!), but nothing serious. So it was good to see our buddy not too badly hurt. Just to rub some salt into the wound, Fergie picked up his new bike this week as well, so he hasn't been able to ride it yet! He was looking pretty rough on Thursday, but as of Friday was moving a lot better - we're hoping to see him back on the new whip real soon....

Funny thing about this (not really that there is any humor in Fergies injury), but I broke my collar bone in 2 spots last year at the Trussler dirt jumps (yeah, the spot I mention in the below post -that was the last time I was out there!). Right before I broke my collar bone, I had booked a trip to Whistler (mountain bike mecca of the world) AND just ordered a new set of front forks for my new ride at the time. 2 days after I had broken my collar bone, my forks show up - sound familiar! So I had to wait to ride my new forks, and was never able to ride Whistler (can't wait for this years trip) - so therein lies the humor between the 2 incidents....

collar bone snapped in 2 spots, can you see - #@$%$#!

Mount Bromont is coming up soon, that'll make for a good story - LOL! All the best Ferg, we'll see you out again on the trails soon.... I didn't even get to this weeks Blue Mountain trip, I'll talk about that soon (was a FUN trip in terms of shredding some trails!!)...

a section of the new Canada Cup trail @ Mt. Bromont, QC

Back to the music...

First off, apologies for the delay. Been a bit of a hectic week - Fergie gets injured on Monday at the Grove (lucky no Samsquanches were involved), I was stopped at the border on Tuesday when I was driving through for work, and we ended up hitting Trussler (a spot we haven't hit for almost a year)! So I'm glad to be back here posting again - I'll fill you in on the biking details in my next post, but I want to try and stick with going back and forth between music and mountain biking. This post I'm gonna talk about production - a bit general, but mostly focused on myself.

Music production in general has come a long way in last 10-20 years, especially in the area of home music production. Back in the day, in order to get into music production and recording it would take a small fortune due to the amount of hardware you had to buy in order to make this happen (mixing board, effects racks, amp racks, compressors, patch bays, etc). With the advent of computer software that could model physical hardware, it became possible to have a studio in a box if you will (all you needed for music production was contained on a computer). Now full on production houses didn't make the move to all digital studios as a) they probably already invested in outboard gear and b) analogue stuff typical just sounds better - so they went to a hybrid approach since the computer offered a streamline way of getting things accomplished. Needless to say, the amount of home producers sky rocketed with the introduction of software that worked on home computers (especially combined with the power of midi). We sit today with a huge selection of affordable gear aimed specifically at the home market - the selection of equipment within a certain area can sometimes be mind boggling with the amount of choices available. Some argue this trend, along with the ability to promote and sell via the web, has flooded the market with a lot of unspectacular material. Others would argue it's up the ante for producers, because in order to be noticed now, your stuff has to be really good. Personally, my views fall somewhere in between - but with the amount of work going on out there in home studios, I think it's great there's an outlet for a lot of that material (less control by big labels is always a good thing in my opinion). Now I'm hoping I can find the right outlet for my stuff - lol!

As you've probably already guessed, I have a computer based home studio. My setup is great, and has allowed me to learn a lot as well as make some pretty good tracks (if I don't say so myself - ha!). For the geeks out there my studio is running a Roland VM-3100PRO 20 channel mixer (8 in/8 out from the computer), M-Audio Delta RBUS, KRK Rokit 8's, M-Audio Oxygen 8 midi controller, Behringer BCF2000/BCR2000, Roland JX-3P/JX-8P Synths, Lexicon MPX100 Effects unit, and I have 2 turntables (2 Technics 1200's) with an old Numark scratch mixer! I have it tucked away nicely in my basement - great little studio that I tend to spend hours in!

On the production side of things, I use a program called Ableton Live (although I originally started producing with Cubase). I started using it back when it was version 3, and they are currently up to version 7 - they revolutionized how artists play electronic music live and also the approach to production with something called 'session view'. This essentially allowed to you 'jam' very easily with your material to get creative ideas for where you wanted to go. This coupled with it's simplicity quickly made it a force in the electronic music community (don't get me wrong though, outboard, analogue gear is still very prevalent in the community).

I'm going to leave it at that today - it's 21 degree's out, and my BBQ is calling my name! I'll talk more about my actual approach to production in another post - now you know what I use in terms of equipment and production, I'll get more into how I produce and why (not a formally trained musician at all!). Sorry this was kind of a boring post - starts with the potential of some good, interesting stuff and devolved into a pretty boring talk about production!! Time to throw on the pork tenderloin....