Yesterday was Day 2 of shooting the music video for "Pass The Class".
It felt so good to reunite with the Cannibal Troll crew again! It sucks they're an hour away, but that makes the trip all the more worth it. What I always need are people who I can bounce ideas off of.
A lot of the scenes we did were planned no more than an hour in advance, and I'm pretty sure planning would have ruined it. It's my first music video, so I'm a little nervous, and the second one I have planned out a bit more.
Like I've mentioned before, this blog is akin to a workout log for me,
so I can check my progress and see where I'm at and get feedback. I love
the feeling of "when it all comes together" and music provides a fun
space where I can do all that, and my first music video is a big
milestone, because I found people who care about this thing and it feels
great. The feeling's mutual, because I wouldn't have worked on Dino Hunter MD if I didn't think it would be fun.
I'll be seeing Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger and Suburban Legends this Wednesday, so no Video Of The Week.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
"Hell Yeah" RBN Liveblogging Part 2
8:19 PM- Warming up my vocals, trying to get the "Obsessive Compulsive" Achievement. Got the wifi to work on this laptop, so I don't have to go back and forth.
8:37 PM- 100% on "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver"
9:04 PM- DOWN TO BUSINESS. First transfer. Sound levels: could be better. Drums, in all of my initial tests, were coming in low, here it sounds acceptable. However later in the song, there's a guitar solo, and it comes in really soft, while the BG comes in louder. So I'm probably going to have to do some Audacity Work.
9:40 PM- Did a couple runthroughs of the song, focusing right now on the timing of the vocals before I work on leveling. One thing I need by me whenever I do vocals is like a mini keyboard so I don't have to guess at the melody. Hmm...
9:54 PM- Found guitar, using that. BOOSH!
10:04 PM- Watching "Todd In The Shadows" while the latest version uploads to the Xbox.
10:12 PM- Back to the guitar to figure this damn thing out. So far, it's coming along. FUCK YOU AUTOMATIC VOCAL DETECTION IN REAPER.
10:41 PM- Got the melodies as best I can for now. Fortunately Matt, the backup singer did a pretty good job on this, and was pretty accurate.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
June 20th, 2012 Videos Of The Week
LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Boom (Smash Stuff)" by Akira The Don at XFM
Sampling the song "Connection" by Elastica, here comes "Boom!" EXPLODING OUT OF YOUR SPEAKERS.
GET IT?
No, but seriously, you ever have a jam session and everyone is just so into it and on point that's it's the greatest fucking thing ever? Akira the Don, Why Lout and friends perform "Boom" live on XFM radio, and they're feelin' it, man.
The song, or at least the remix is on ATD's mixtape "Third Hand Wire Riffs". It has a lot of good songs set to 90's alt-rock beats, and I think it's the first ATD thing I ever downloaded.
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Levels" by Avicii
In the same day I was shown "Legs" by ZZ Top, I was shown this video for my master class on "What The Hell Is This: Music Videos 101".
I am now convinced that dance videos are possibly the new forefront of the art of music video. No words to give context, only pure raw id, since the "hey we're at a club" scenario is played out, so the only thing left to publish is insanity set to infectious dance beats in beat to the mix.
Sampling the song "Connection" by Elastica, here comes "Boom!" EXPLODING OUT OF YOUR SPEAKERS.
GET IT?
No, but seriously, you ever have a jam session and everyone is just so into it and on point that's it's the greatest fucking thing ever? Akira the Don, Why Lout and friends perform "Boom" live on XFM radio, and they're feelin' it, man.
The song, or at least the remix is on ATD's mixtape "Third Hand Wire Riffs". It has a lot of good songs set to 90's alt-rock beats, and I think it's the first ATD thing I ever downloaded.
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Levels" by Avicii
In the same day I was shown "Legs" by ZZ Top, I was shown this video for my master class on "What The Hell Is This: Music Videos 101".
I am now convinced that dance videos are possibly the new forefront of the art of music video. No words to give context, only pure raw id, since the "hey we're at a club" scenario is played out, so the only thing left to publish is insanity set to infectious dance beats in beat to the mix.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
"Hell Yeah" RBN Liveblogging Part 1
1:04 PM EST- First build of the day, not so many errors, but knowing Magma, the second I fix this, there'll be 100 other errors left.
N.B. Updates will be kinda sparse as it is Father's Day and I do have some cleaning to do before tomorrow when I let my shit get out of whack because fuck this day job.
1:19 PM EST- Ran into an error with "Quantize" as now all my drum gems are the inappropriate length, so I'm resorting them all by hand. It's not too terrible, since it looks like some gems are only off for one part of the song and fine the rest, a problem due to dragging everything down for the animations.
1:55 PM EST- Doing this shit by hand is really boring, so I'm listening to this retrospective of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
2:05 PM EST- For the record, this song will be considered "Arena Rock". Also, Glee's cover of "Smooth Criminal" is playing in the other room. It only reminds me of AV Undercover's "Institutionalized" cover.
2:38 PM EST- Workin' on Pro Keys and these ranges are off a little bit. I'm going to have to move some of these notes if I want this damn thing to work.
3:33 PM EST- GODDAMN THESE PRO KEYS!!! WHY? HOW CAN ALL THESE NOTES BE TOO LOW FOR THIS RANGE? GRAH!!
7:43 PM EST- Our first build ladies and gentlemen! I don't even want to hear h6ow poor the mix is right now, I just finished it. The error I was having with Pro Keys was because I forgot to name RH and LH Key Animation tracks. A little problem with how Magma compiles the project.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
June 13th, 2012 Videos Of The Week
LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Everyone Says Hi" by David Bowie on Live With Regis and Kelly
On the heels of my last post, I put up the first song I've ever associated with Bowie in its proper form. It's a nice, sweet little song about longing, and missing. However, I think I like the Metro Mix from Amplitude better. The Metro Mix sounds "emptier" and it places the image in my mind that the singer is really on his own, calling out to this big, empty void. Or maybe I got the Amplitude stuck in my head. Xenu, I can't wait for Rock Band Blitz!
It's amazing how much his voice sounds like Dylan. It was never powerful or aggressive, and going into his back catalog, I can see this sort of wanting tone to everything he sings.
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "The Bad Touch" by The Bloodhound Gang
MONKEYS! SEX! SCREW YOU MOM AND DAD!
Yeah, dipping back into the "song I saw on MTV as a kid and loved, but prayed to God Mom and Dad wouldn't catch me watching it on TRL" well on this one.
One reason rap isn't very popular is because I'd like to believe most people are listening to it "wrong". You can't listen to it like a standard pop song where there's a distinct melody or "tune". When a rapper gets into a good flow, the voice becomes another instrument in itself, like a one note guitar solo.
But this song has monkeys and sex in it and to 11 year old me, it's like I discovered GOLD.
On the heels of my last post, I put up the first song I've ever associated with Bowie in its proper form. It's a nice, sweet little song about longing, and missing. However, I think I like the Metro Mix from Amplitude better. The Metro Mix sounds "emptier" and it places the image in my mind that the singer is really on his own, calling out to this big, empty void. Or maybe I got the Amplitude stuck in my head. Xenu, I can't wait for Rock Band Blitz!
It's amazing how much his voice sounds like Dylan. It was never powerful or aggressive, and going into his back catalog, I can see this sort of wanting tone to everything he sings.
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "The Bad Touch" by The Bloodhound Gang
MONKEYS! SEX! SCREW YOU MOM AND DAD!
Yeah, dipping back into the "song I saw on MTV as a kid and loved, but prayed to God Mom and Dad wouldn't catch me watching it on TRL" well on this one.
One reason rap isn't very popular is because I'd like to believe most people are listening to it "wrong". You can't listen to it like a standard pop song where there's a distinct melody or "tune". When a rapper gets into a good flow, the voice becomes another instrument in itself, like a one note guitar solo.
But this song has monkeys and sex in it and to 11 year old me, it's like I discovered GOLD.
Monday, June 11, 2012
JUST READ: David Bowie: Starman
So for the past couple of weeks I've been reading Paul Trynka's biography on David Bowie and I enjoyed it immensely.
The book itself is very front loaded, with a lot of information on his earlier life, especially detailing his failures with his first few bands, the long forgotten "Dream" album, "Space Oddity" and it's fallout, etc. However, once it hits the 80's (completely skipping over the movie "Labyrinth"), the pace quickens up significantly, which in a way makes sense, since as the years went by, he started producing less and less. Still, the past two decades made for interesting reading, as he still managed to keep up with the times doing electronic music, starting up an internet provider, and predicting streaming music. Anything it missed is something relatively minor in the search for a complete summary of the man itself.
Interesting enough though, is that a few people regarded him as kind of a dick. A talented one, but not above a couple petty moments.
Overall, I think what I loved most about the book was the general message Bowie doted on all of us: It's OK to be weird. There's all these little tricks Bowie used to encouraged creativity amongst himself and his bandmates like a "cut-up" technique to form lyrics and assigning each of his bandmates a character like "You're on the third moon on Jupiter and you're the house band" that I don't think you hear often enough. As much as I was thinking of Lady Gaga through some of the book, I couldn't help but think that the weirdness that affected Bowie doesn't run as deep with Gaga.
Still, the man is an inspiration, and I'd recommend it to any curious parties.
Fun fact: The first Bowie song I ever heard? "Everyone Says Hi" from Amplitude. Wednesday will bring the "real" version, but for now, here's the best video I could find on YouTube.
'Nother fun fact: Lego Rock Band makes sense now. Starman details his friendship with Iggy Pop and his work with Freddie Mercury of Queen and how bands such as Blur were influenced by Bowie. I had my little "OOOOOH!" moment last night booting up RB3.
Big news tomorrow!
The book itself is very front loaded, with a lot of information on his earlier life, especially detailing his failures with his first few bands, the long forgotten "Dream" album, "Space Oddity" and it's fallout, etc. However, once it hits the 80's (completely skipping over the movie "Labyrinth"), the pace quickens up significantly, which in a way makes sense, since as the years went by, he started producing less and less. Still, the past two decades made for interesting reading, as he still managed to keep up with the times doing electronic music, starting up an internet provider, and predicting streaming music. Anything it missed is something relatively minor in the search for a complete summary of the man itself.
Interesting enough though, is that a few people regarded him as kind of a dick. A talented one, but not above a couple petty moments.
Overall, I think what I loved most about the book was the general message Bowie doted on all of us: It's OK to be weird. There's all these little tricks Bowie used to encouraged creativity amongst himself and his bandmates like a "cut-up" technique to form lyrics and assigning each of his bandmates a character like "You're on the third moon on Jupiter and you're the house band" that I don't think you hear often enough. As much as I was thinking of Lady Gaga through some of the book, I couldn't help but think that the weirdness that affected Bowie doesn't run as deep with Gaga.
Still, the man is an inspiration, and I'd recommend it to any curious parties.
Fun fact: The first Bowie song I ever heard? "Everyone Says Hi" from Amplitude. Wednesday will bring the "real" version, but for now, here's the best video I could find on YouTube.
'Nother fun fact: Lego Rock Band makes sense now. Starman details his friendship with Iggy Pop and his work with Freddie Mercury of Queen and how bands such as Blur were influenced by Bowie. I had my little "OOOOOH!" moment last night booting up RB3.
Big news tomorrow!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
NEW SONG: "Lazy Swamp Blues"
Or old, if you've heard the latest RagNerdRok.
Originally this was supposed to be a little piece of instrumental for Dino Hunter MD, but got scrapped due to time constraints and whatnot. However, this just so happened to fit the description of what the RNR people wanted, so I reworked it a bit, and BAM! Here it is.
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