It’s taken me about a month of looking (not really that hard, though. Damn, b-movies.) but I finally got that tone and mic placement redisovered from back before I moved. Man, that was a bit of a task.

Always remember: document everything. Even when you think it’s more fun to get another beer and continue to rock out. You just may regret forgetting how you came across a sound or setting you just created.

Play Me!

the great scourge of the information age. I’ve tried many times to express why I feel piracy is so important, and I think I may have hit a nerve:

Piracy, right now, is important because it makes it difficult to make money in media. and that’s important. because by making it harder to cut a living in multimedia, it forcefully weeds out the entities that have no interest the medium as art, but as a source of income.

think of it like a human body in the grips of a fever: it is forcefully making it’s own body uninhabitable so it can drive out malicious agents.

that’s essentially my personal take on priacy and how it should be seen as a natural reaction to the *LACK* of a competitive marketplace since the 1970’s.

and it’s my opinion that this is only really at a start and has a lot farther to go and a lot more damage to do before things even begin to solidify.

Jen and I went out for some quick shopping early in the day and the olympic media personell and visitors to the city are starting to show up. The crowds evidently are starting to get  larger as we discovered, coming back up Granville  St:

I can only imagine how the next coming weeks are going to be like, downtown.

the OiNK admin on trial has finally left as a free man, since his endeavours began back in 2007/2008.

I just think it’s such a shame that this had to take so long and that now that the man has been let free, all of his efforts with OiNK have been largely forgotten.

It had been a while since Jen and I had last gone to see a movie in the theater, so we took this evening off and went to see Avatar in 3D and then hit up the pub for a drink afterwards. It was pretty fun, and was the first chance either of us had to see the city center all done up for 2010. I managed to sneak a few shots in the dark of the Robson area. It was a nice night out.

At least, musically. Contrary to what some would think, I’m still grinding away at a few things. Here’s a bit of what I’m putting together. I aim to have something ready for the spring. (and yes, it’ll most likely be a copyright free MP3 pack that I’m going to give away for free)

Play

Cities In Dust by Dizavin

I had to make a post about this. There’s no two ways about it. The single most jarring thing about moving in with a woman (I mean, a woman I’m dating after spending a few years on my own… not like my sister or my mom, like back in the day when I lived at home) is the bathroom. And it’s not like how it’s layed out or anything like that, I could care less… it’s just the sheer magnitude of potions, lotions, creams, smears, rubs and witches’ brews in contrast to my, like, 5 guy essentials (deodorant, toothpaste, contacts, cologne & shaving cream)
I mean, look at this:

That shit is black on top and then goes WHITE ON THE BOTTOM. and all it says is that it’s a “Youth Activating Concentrate“. I am not kidding. For fucks sake! Jen could be a working as a tertiary agent for Torchwood or somehow owed Hellboy a favor and is keeping this freaking thing in my bathroom. I know it. One day I’m going to be getting ready for work and some squad of scary looking dudes are going to pile in from the windows and throw me up against the wall and scream “where is the concentrate?!?!?” and I’m going to have to go “fuck, duuuude, I dunno! god, look at this apartment! does it look like I do anything other than make music and movies?! fuuuuck!”

That, or it’s just an anti-wrinkle cream that’s really freaky lookin’ and I don’t have anyone here to bounce my ideas off of and I end up with a wacky idea of post-war supernaturalism.

One of the two, I’m sure.

Man, the RIAA are really barking up the wrong tree, it would seem. Yes, mininova has gone legitimate but that doesn’t mean that this will affect download numbers between casual music listeners.
If you want to see CD or iTunes sales pick up, you have to take down P2P networks that the clear majority of music theives use, or at least their widely known clients such as Kazzaa, LimeWire, so on, so forth.
Why do I say that? well.. because bootlegging has become TOO easy, now. And it shouldn’t be. Finding rare, and unknown works from obscure artists should be a task that consumes more than a 10 minute index search and it should have an element of risk in it.
Once single moms and grandparents get on a specific file-sharing bandwagon, you know it’s time to move on to something new.

So I’ve  moved back into the city, this week. It’s been a long, long time since I had a place to live where the high-rises of downtown Vancouver were something I could look out over my balcony and marvel at. In fact, it was the apartment on Haro St with my Dad, would be the last time that happened.

I’ve since had a place in White Rock, and two in Burnaby and…  they never really felt quite, completely right. Granted, my bachelor pad I just moved out of was brilliant but that’s probably because I was truly self-sufficient and on my own for the first real time. No room-mates, no family, just me and myself and however I could make ends meet. I completely recommend just diving out on your own with no extensive plan or experience and just getting a small, cheap apartment and going at it by yourself for a while. Completely. The freedom, is delicious.

BUT, I’m back in the city and it’s about time I got down to work. You can expect to hear some singing from me and a friend of mine in the next few months, and you can expect the drum kit and electric guitar will most likely be left out of the equation. Once I get a new mic stand… since the one I have doesn’t hold the Nova quite right…

In any event, here’s a thing I did the other night, inspired by all of this. Hope you like it:

Untitled Idea  by  Dizavin

So, I’ve been rather absent of late. This is because as of November 29th, I’m moving in closer to the city! I’ll be shacking up with my girlfriend in a larger apartment so her and I can bank more money and have more resources to do more stuff. Like do a little upgrade to the ol’ home studio, in my case. I’ve got a pile of new gear in the shipping room at work that just came in, so once I’m moved in I’ll be rebuilding my workstation to incorporate this new stuff. My existing mic is getting replaced with a Nova that I’m going to mount in this shockmount and pop-filter, and it’s getting piped into a new FastTrack since I’m now only ever recording a single XLR or 1/4″ at a time nowadays.

My controller is still a Kontrol49, and I doubt that will change anytime soon. I’m still very, very, happy with that board and if it ever broke, I would simply buy another one just like it. But, I do intend on setting up a dual tier stand so I can have my MicroKorg back and more involved, as it’s kind of been gathering dust for the past few months.  Hell, I might even build a cool little rack to house my interface, outboard guitar effects board and an XLR & 1/4″ cable patch bay.

Or maybe even buy that damn bass guitar I keep telling myself I’m going to get so I don’t have to bug other musicians I know to borrow theirs. (The last band I was around enough to borrow one from, Fake Shark, I haven’t heard from in ages and are probably off doing who knows what and Oddchild are often far too busy to lend out gear. hrmphf.)

The software is still going to be the same since I’m sticking with the G5 tower for around another year or two and Logic Studio is still going to be the same. the plugins aren’t going to change either, so it’s basically a nice, new set up of recording hardware. This will help out a lot with some of the ideas I have for the next few months, regarding music.

Hopefully not too long after I move The Lab and rebuild my workstation, I can get back to work on a cool electronic idea I would like to have out by the end of the winter.