A Chopper Duel

Posted on 23rd January 2011 in Something Daily

Listen: King Crimson are awesome. I’m listening to Discipline right now, which is from the early 80′s, meaning that it’s halfway between things like Starless and Bible Black and things like Thrak in terms of how it sounds. There’s a lot of big bass (I’m pretty sure Tony Levin is on Chapman stick) and distorted guitars, along with King Crimson’s tendency to play these twisty, windy melodies in odd time signatures in unison (at this point Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew) and then having one person omit a single note from the pattern while they play. So they’re doing a unison sixteenth note pattern in 9/8, for example, and then one of them drops one of the notes from his pattern, meaning that he’s now playing in 17/16 while the other is still going in 9/8. And they keep going like this until their patterns meet up again, and then the one who dropped the note adds it back and they keep going. They do this in a lot of songs, including “Frame by Frame” and “Discipline”, which are probably the two best examples (and “Three of a Perfect Pair”). This video is a good example of that happening, from an awesome concert DVD that I’ve watched too many times. The whole song is, actually, but that part is especially crazy. I don’t really think I’m right on with those time signatures, but it was just an example anyway. Also, check out King Crimson’s amazing stage presence. Tony Levin in the power stance, Bill Bruford all calm and collected behind his huge kit, Adrian Belew doing some type of shuffly movement, and Robert Fripp being a cyborg. I saw him once at World Cafe Live, and he stood up…and waved at me. I was amazed to see him showing any emotion at all, let alone smiling, let alone standing up – while playing guitar! Pretty impressive for someone who’s half computer.

You Can’t Love ‘em All hasn’t updated in three whole days…what’s up with that? I need to know what’s going on!

I forgot to eat yesterday, and I made it to the end of my day around 12:45 AM, only then realizing that my stomach was growling and I couldn’t go to bed without eating something. Before that point, I’d had my customary bagel, cream cheese and orange juice (plus a strip of mind-blowingly scrumptious bacon) at about 11 AM, and a small L.A. Burdick hot chocolate at 5. And that’s it…for the entire day. I was in good company, which can apparently sometimes lead to forgetting to eat. But I was kind of dying by the end of the evening. So Eric made me some eggs, because he’s a great roommate. I need to get better at this, though – the fact that there’s food around at my ‘home’ home makes it easy to just eat whenever I’m hungry, but so far we’re not at the point here in NYC where we keep the kitchen stocked with anything that’s both healthy and convenient enough to suit my pre-class lethargy. This needs to not happen again. Eating is healthy, and I don’t want to perish in the middle of Concert Recording because I was too lazy to put some eggs and milk in a pan that morning.

For the first time in my college career, I was able to resist the temptation to buy a bunch of shiny new school books before the classes have even started. I realized something while book shopping the other day (with a little help from the above awesome roommate) – I need to be careful about which class textbooks I spend money on, because it’s my money now. I don’t really make that much. I need to save. So I stopped myself from spending hundreds of dollars on these huge music history anthologies, as well as not paying full price for my “Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in Java” book (my awesome roommate has a copy he’s giving me for half price). It’s not necessarily that I won’t get these books, I just need to make sure that they’re good investments first, because I’ve been in more than a few classes with a 150 dollar textbook that I eagerly bought before the first class and then never used. I need to be careful, because I’m only going to get poorer as time goes on. Sweeeeeeeet!

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An Incomplete List of Movies and Music that have Made Me Cry

Posted on 19th January 2011 in Something Daily

I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of listening to Enema of the State. I don’t listen to Blink-182 for the middle-school nostalgia, despite the fact that that would be a great excuse. I actually got into them just before coming to school. Pop-punk is sweet, don’t worry about it. I like how shiny and ‘produced’ Blink sound on that album, like that one Sum 41 album that has “Fat Lip” on it, and Dookie by Green Day. Those have the sound that I love, and the whiny teenage lyrics that I don’t really care about pretending not to love. I mention this because, as i sit here in my parents’ dining room, my laptop, trackball, and external drives spread out around me, typing whatever pops into my head, I am blasting the previously mentioned Blink-182 album in my earbuds and mentally adding a major 3rd harmony to every single vocal line, because even if it’s not ‘there’, it’s still there – and if it’s not, it should be. It’s not like I have any big memories attached to Enema, I guess it’s just the feeling. – I just noticed that at the beginning of “The Party Song”, you can hear Mark saying “here we go, motherfuckers”. As I mentioned, this album will never get old to me.

Also, the Green Day American Idiot broadway show was fairly rad. I don’t know if it’s still running, but I liked it when I saw it back in September. I cried a little bit during the title song.

  • Also at the end of the Peter Jackson King Kong movie, when the planes keep shooting him and his girlfriend is freaking out;
  • also during the Extras finale when Ricky Gervais looks right at the camera and apologizes to Maggie;
  • also at about six different points throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, including “You shall not pass!” and Theoden’s pep talk before the battle of Pelennor Fields where he hits everybody’s spears with his sword;
  • also the first section of “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii;
  • also when Largeman and Sam kiss in the rain to Simon and Garfunkel in Garden State;
  • also at the part in the live version of “And You and I” where the build ends and they go to the “I listened hard but could not see” section;
  • also the second verse of Yes’ “Sound Chaser” from Relayer

That’s enough for now; seriously, I could go on.

I have this bad habit of getting totally obsessed with a project until it’s finished. It happened a few weeks back when I reworked my automatic data backups, and when I thought I was going to get totally into drawing, both to varying degrees. Something similar happened this morning when I got it in my head that today was the day I would finally draw the new header for this website. I worked from about 11 AM to 6 PM without stopping or eating, scanning each section of this new monstrosity separately, eventually creating this…thing right here.

I think it looks wonderfully homebrewed. We’ve got a stegosaurus, a Gameboy, an LED, a capacitor, and a little pink guy all hanging out and playing some classic video games. They’re having fun. I wish I had a sentient Gameboy to chill with. Break would have been significantly more fun, at least. I realize that there’s only one stegosaurus on it, and no moon to be seen. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I hope you like it, but that’s where my involvement with your opinion on the matter ends. If you don’t like it…..GTFO. Or wait a few months for the day when I get bored with it and make a new one.

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Munch Up

Posted on 4th January 2011 in Something Daily

Downingtown, PA – Day 11

My time at home so far has been marked by a surprising lack of downtime compared to previous winter breaks. The family trip to Canada to see family took up a lot of my on and around Christmas day, and our recent day trip to our beach house to do a bit of housework for the coming summer season interrupted what I had anticipated would be a relaxing break. I might mention here that, based on my past experiences with winter breaks in my family, this anticipation was unfounded…but I’m still allowed to dream.

Apart from these family trips (with another to Las Vegas upcoming), I’ve been seeing a lot more of my friends at home than I expected to – so much so that it’s actually taking up most of my time on any given afternoon at home. I bowled, walked dogs, and video gamed/bro chilled with three different people yesterday, and it was a bit draining, to be honest. They were all fun, but I was so tired at the end of the day (at 2 AM, go figure). Speaking of, I did something very much unlike myself this morning: I slept until ELEVEN THIRTY AM. I honestly cannot remember the last time I did that. It feels kind of bad, actually. My whole morning was gone! I mean, I’m well rested now, but my plans for the morning are in shambles.

So that’s why I’m currently eating a bagel, drinking some Florida’s Natural, and listening to My Morning Jacket while blogging at 1:30 PM. It’s the breakfast of champions. Today I may draw (more like start to draw) a new Three Stegosaurus Moon header; at the very least I’ll try to come up with some ideas for one. I’m getting tired of my poorly googled and GIMP-ed travesty, so I’m thinking about some different designs that are interesting but not too hard for me to doodle well. I think that’s a better description of what I do. I hardly consider it “drawing”, at least in the sense that I wouldn’t tell anybody that I “draw” – I feel like doodling is a much better way to describe it.

I installed Skype on my new Ubuntu MacBook Pro this morning, a process that I expected to be a huge hassle like my attempt to do the same on my white MacBook. Of course, I don’t mean the actual installation of the program itself, but the activation of the built in camera and microphone for video calls. On my white computer, this ended up being more trouble than it was worth at the time. I did manage to get both working in Ubuntu, but even after that, the response from both was still choppy and unusable for conversation. I expected the same with my newer computer, but as it turns out, the camera and mic work out of the box! I didn’t have to do any additional setup this time. In case you’re wondering, it’s Ubuntu 10.10 on a MacBook Pro 5,4. I did have to unmute the mic and use alsamixer to unmute the front speakers, but that’s it. No configuration required. Ubuntu is fantastic. I want to find some cool new software. I just got Skype, VLC, and NetBeans this morning, and I’ll do a bit more searching and configuration.

It’s been a while since I recommended music. My Morning Jacket are awesome, specifically their albums Evil Urges and Z. I’m listening to Evil Urges right now, appreciating even more the idea I have that My Morning Jacket is “big room music”, meaning that it sounds awesome when you play it on big speakers in a huge room that adds a lot of reverb to the track. Jim James’ vocal typically has a lot of reverb on it anyway, and putting it in a big space definitely adds something to it. That being said, it’s just good music – it hardly matters where you listen to it. If you ever get the chance, though, play “Mahgeetah” or “I’m Amazed” in a big auditorium. Make sure you’re in a transitional period first, or at least in the right state of mind – it’ll change your life (thanks, Natalie Portman).

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Bob Genghis Khan

Posted on 28th December 2010 in Something Daily

In the last two weeks of this past summer, I spent the time during which most of my friends were back at school going to my high school friend’s house every night and playing through the first two God of War games with him. This happened literally every night for two weeks, and we ended up getting kind of sick of them by the time we left for school. We did manage to finish both in two weeks though. I can’t really decide if the God of War games are good or not. I mean they’re fun to play, and generally epic beyond comprehension, but the story and voice acting are just dumb. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Still, I don’t really think those alone make a bad game. They’re fun, so I’m ok with it. I like the huge enemy battles, despite the fact that the coolest parts of those fights are often just quicktime events. I do agree, though, that it does take a decent amount of thought to come up with a non-quicktime system that would allow for the kind of ridiculous moves that you can pull off in some of those big God of War battles. See what I mean? I’m so undecided about whether they’re actually “good” or not.

The point is that I was able to continue the journey last night for the first time in several months when I got together with Eric again last night and we started his God of War III that he got for christmas. What an awesome opening sequence. Seriously, that water-horse-crab thing is just too much. The third installment is just so much better looking than the first two; I was really hoping there would be a significant jump in graphics with the switch to the new hardware of the PS3, and as of last night, I’m not disappointed. Apart from the game itself, it’s always good to have some nondiluted bro-time when I come home (even though we all forgot our SNES consoles! Most non-triumphant.)

My true Christmas break started today, as I slept in until 10 (what!?) and have spent my morning so far shoveling the driveway and watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I had forgotten how bad that movie actually is – not that I expect any of it to make sense or anything, but some of the time travel stuff they do is just so ridiculous. The whole thing where they decide to leave the keys somewhere where they’ll find them and they’re just there waiting for them? I mean it’s awesome and hilarious, but the part of me that’s into theoretical physics has a problem with that. I know it’s just an 80′s teen movie. I really just watched it for the two lead characters and their vernacular. I think I’m going to start slipping “most excellent” into my conversation and see if anyone calls me out on it. I bet they don’t.

I’m watching Yessongs on DVD right now, and I have to say that it’s likely my favorite concert video that I’ve seen. It’s just the perfect era of Yes where everybody was in the band and they were really good live. I actually like the Yessongs version of “And You And I” way better than the studio one – because it rocks way more, obviously. I remember an old keyboard teacher of mine was watching Yessongs with me once and made the comment that Steve Howe is the reason to watch the show. Now I realize what he was talking about, because Steve Howe is inhuman in that video, but at the time, being the keyboard-playing prog-rock nerd that I was in middle school, I was so offended that my own keyboard teacher would disrespect Rick Wakeman so blatantly. Watching it now, though, I realize that Rick Wakeman, while also playing ridiculously well in the Yessongs performance, was really ugly in the seventies. Not that this detracts from his performance, but it’s just a hilarious realization to me.

EDIT: This just reminded me that there’s a picture of me floating around the internet from way back in the days of Rock School when we did a tour with Jon Anderson, the lead singer from Yes. I had my mom make me this sweet Rick Wakeman cape, and I wore it every night on that tour. It was awesome. Here it is, you can still see it if you google “Emmett Butler”. Sorry about the tiny resolution, it’s the only one I can find. And yes, I actually was this cool at one point in my life.

There’s the beginning of my winter break from school. I can’t tell if it’s going to go by fast or slow, or which of those I prefer. I plan to start not worrying about that (or anything) riiiight…….now.

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What the frak

Posted on 23rd December 2010 in Something Daily

Check it out: I got about five hours of sleep last night. This is fairly unusual for me. I have no idea why, but it seems that I’m pretty much incapable of sleeping in past 8:30. I’ve always been kind of a morning person, but it’s mornings like this that really make me wish I had the ability to sleep late. So it’s about 9 AM right now, I woke up an hour ago, and I didn’t write yesterday, so I feel compelled to update now.

Yesterday was my last day involving responsibility for the fall semester, in which my Recording Tech group and I finally presented the bluegrass cover of “Get Low” that we recorded to the class (so I can finally shut up about it! Sweet!). The teacher was late, then called ten minutes after class was to start to say that he was going to be another hour late. That was definitely a bit lame, as I came down to Steinhardt just for that class. But I had a fun lunch with Mr. Kevin Garrett and my class group. The presentation itself was pretty good, despite the fact that my board recall skills need a bit of work. We didn’t present a bounce; that is, we were required to use our multitrack and recall our mix on the board, making sure every knob is set in the position we used during our mix. This is, of course, a process that you need a few minutes to do accurately, and I didn’t really have a few minutes. As a result, the multitrack mix that we presented was a bit different than the one on Soundcloud, but I tweaked along the way. All in all, great project. Everyone actually had a great project in that class. Way to go, people.

Last night, I had resigned myself to not doing anything, as all of my roommates were, at that point, either at their houses, out studying, or asleep. As it’s the end of break, my motivation to do projects is pretty low right now, so I was looking forward to a night of reading the Tao Te Ching and playing Team Fortress…and then Jen showed up! I furthered my goal of getting her into Battlestar Galactica as we watched another episode – the one where Starbuck is stranded on a desert planet. It’s a good one. I remember seeing that episode my first time through the series – I think it’s the first where Starbuck really shreds, and it was also the first one that really made me think “Alright, this show is rad.” So I had a good night. A late one, but a good one.

Today I leave for home on a 7:30 bus. Before that, I need to pack my bags and say goodbye to some friends, as well as find some place to eat some food and hopefully skate around a bit. I just hope I don’t get hurt; I’ve been feeling kind of bold recently. Maybe not bold enough to hurt myself yet, but who knows. I’ll be careful, don’t worry! And hopefully I get to sleep on the bus, because I’m pretty certain I’ve missed my chance to go back to bed this morning.

Have a good Chirstmas eve eve!

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Here at the end of all things

Posted on 21st December 2010 in Something Daily

I knew since last night that today was going to be a bit rough. I had two finals today, which took a combined total of close to four hours. Having that ahead of me, you’d think that I would study for something. Yeah ok. I did discover some fantastic new music in the form of Siah and Yeshua DapoED (which I have no idea how to pronounce). The beats on their Visualz Anthology are some of the crunchiest I’ve ever heard. Comparatively speaking, the rapping on that album as a whole isn’t the greatest, but it really varies by song. Great album.

The point is, though, that between 8 and 1 last night, I could have been working, but I was instead hanging out with Eric and Jen for a good portion of that time, listening to music and talking about how we “should” be working on stuff. I reviewed a bit this morning, which ended up being quite helpful on my first test this morning, a 2.5 hour Performing Arts in Western Civilization final which comprised ten essays. The only time a test hurt my hand that badly was Audio for Video a few weeks ago, and before that, probably the SAT or something. What I’m really trying to say here is that that test sucked, and I’m happy that it’s over. It was a good class, just not a good test. I also took the Electronics final today, which I was similarly prepared for. Honestly, I’m just glad that my finals are over at last. I’m still in the decompression stage right now, just getting used to the idea that I don’t have to do anything for the next month.

I was checking out my mic last night, a Rode NT1-A, and noticed that the diaphragm was tilted on a slight angle toward the back of the grill. I did a little research and determined that it was pretty safe to carefully remove the casing and gently nudge the capsule back into place. I had never taken a mic apart before, especially not one that cost 300 dollars, so I was exceedingly careful. I was kind of surprised to find, though, that the capsule of that mic is secured to the body by a gummy, silicone-type substance, so when you jostle the mic around, it actually wiggles a little bit. It probably has something to do with the sound, too; maybe the rubber stuff acts as a diffuser. Either way, the capsule wouldn’t go back to the right position with a push, so I decided I’m just going to store it differently and let gravity slowly do my job for me. I tested the mic after putting it back together, and I succeeded in not breaking anything! Great job, Mister Emmett!

In case you haven’t gone on my Soundcloud from the “About” page, here’s the other finished Gameboy song I made a few weeks ago.

Level Three by Raised by Robots

These are fun, I haven’t worked with LSDJ for a little while now.

Apparently the mixing desk in the studio where we were going to present our final Recording Tech project is broken now, so it may turn out that we don’t present at all. That’s actually pretty unlikely, but it could happen. Apart from that (which will be fun, not work), I still have to tech tonight! What a bummer! I think we all know that I’d much rather be sleeping. But I’ll be home soon. And I just know winter break is going to go by very, very fast.

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Let me reiterate that Dinosaurs are sweet

Posted on 20th December 2010 in Something Daily

I hope I get more Dragon Ball Z for christmas! I’ve also learned the perils of being too upfront about my love of dinosaurs when I meet new people, which is a bit of a problem…but not really that big of a deal. I mean my computer background is a picture of two dinosaurs making out,

I have a poster of dinosaurs on my wall,

and a dinosaur comic in my wallet. What’s the big deal, right? Also I have a blog called “Three Stegosaurus Moon”…what does that even mean?

I just finished my paper on Zappa’s Joe’s Garage. I think it went really well. At the very least, I got to listen to album two full times while writing it. I feel like listening as I write a paper like this is actually really helpful, albeit sometimes distracting. It gives me a better perspective on what it is that I’m actually writing about. Beside that, I just love the crap out the album, and I pretty frequently jumped up to play the songs along with the record. I still remember a decent amount of the easier ones from when I did Joe’s Garage with the School of Rock (who have an incredible new website, what the heck?). That was a fun show, though. We did the whole album start to finish, with costumes and the Central Scrutinizer with a megaphone and the whole thing. I ended up playing about half of the songs on the album, but I learned all of them for fun (and just in case the opportunity arose to vampire a song from some other keyboardist). What a great album. Seriously, people, go to Grooveshark and type in “Joe’s Garage Frank Zappa” and then listen to the album. You will certainly not regret it.

And now I’m listening to Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots and writing a blog post, having just finished that paper. I have a test tonight, which I’m only a little bit worried about, mainly due to the fact that I went to bed at 11:30 last night and was still awake at 1. I’ve been having trouble sleeping these last few days, I’m not sure what that’s all about. Hopefully that will chill out after finals (only three more to go, two after this evening). I go home on Thursday evening, after presenting the multitrack of our bluegrass “Get Low” cover, which has been finished but unpresented for a while. I’m bringing my skateboard and SNES home, which together will have to be enough to hold me over until the spring semester.

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Close to the Edge

Posted on 19th December 2010 in Something Daily

I had one of those days today. By that, I mean that I went to bed at 1:30, woke up without an alarm at 7:15, and had nothing too pressing to get done. As a result, I’ve spent the whole day in a state of lethargy and lack of interest in anything. I had an interesting night last night, for sure. Among other things, London, Bryant and I watched Shogun Assassin and ate Insomnia Cookies together. London really liked the movie, which I’m so happy about! I’ve always thought it’s awesome, and for some reason assumed that no one else would. I’ve noticed, actually, that that’s a theme of my life. I have a certain set of interests, which I think are awesome (obviously). I have this perception, though, that by the simple virtue of me thinking something is awesome, other people automatically don’t. I’ve come to learn recently that this isn’t really the case through meeting certain people and being upfront about my interests, but for some reason I have this perception nonetheless. I’m getting over it, it’s just a pretty slow process.

So yesterday I discovered that Stuyvesant town is actually a sweet place to skate, even for someone with skills as limited as my own. There are a lot of nice smooth streets with not many cars or people around. It’s a pretty secluded apartment complex, and I get the impression that it’s expensive. The people that live there seem nice enough. But I went there yesterday and today, and succeeded in not eating pavement on one of those two occasions. Like I said before, I’m getting better, slowly but surely.

I also listened to “Close to the Edge” by Yes for the first time in ages yesterday. I mean I just sat in front of my speakers and listened for all eighteen minutes. It was incredible. The bass tone on that song is unbeatable, the groove on the verses is just nuts, and the organ/synth solo segment still gives me chills. As Jon Anderson said, that song is such a journey. It got me pumped up for the evening, at least.

Today was all about catching up on last-minute homework that I procrastinated on and watching Arrested Development. I’m actually going to go finish world 8 of New Super Mario Bros. Wii right now. But first, by way of an apology for yesterday’s musical travesty, here’s a slightly better-tuned piece that I composed about a month ago with a Gameboy emulator for the video game I’m designing.

Level One by Raised by Robots

I love this piece. It’s probably the most complex composition I’ve ever written, but I don’t write that much, so I see this as a success. Check my soundcloud for another Gameboy song and some beats that I made a while ago. I’m quite, quite tired right now. Goodnight!

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Afternoon Delight recorded in dead of night

Posted on 18th December 2010 in Something Daily

I went out to breakfast with London this morning. I woke up at 7:30 for some reason, and hung out until about 9:30 when we skated to Silver Spurs. It’s a very tasty place to eat breakfast, especially the bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel. They make their bacon just perfectly every single time, and that’s a very important thing for a breakfast diner to do. As we all know, bacon is the most important food group, as it is delicious, nutritious, and turns any meal into something that you can’t wait to eat. Also, during our trip to and from the restaurant, I avoided looking like an idiot on my skateboard, which is kind of rare for me. This can only mean one thing: I must be improving.

I was feeling very lethargic last night, a state that was only amplified by the fact that I was home alone for a number of hours. I was worried that, due to my mindset, I was going to let the evening get away from me without accomplishing anything. Luckily, when I was in the shower, I (for some reason) had the idea to complete my recording of my one-man version of “Afternoon Delight”, the song they sing in that one scene in anchorman:
[funnyordie id=f5ab70baec width=480 height=400]

Anchorman – Afternoon Delight from Ron Burgundy

So I spent about two hours last night tracking this with Jen in the room and noises all around my suite, working off of the clip (I didn’t listen to the original recording of the song). Rode NT1-A, Fast Track Pro, Logic Express. Why? Because I can, and because it’s funny to me.

Afternoon Delight by Raised by Robots

Apparently now this is the kind of thing that I do with my spare time. My singing needs a bit of work…just be glad you’re not hearing the takes I didn’t use. I experimented with tuning in Logic, but it sounded too artificial with the plugin that’s included in Express. So it’s just me with some reverb.

In other news, I practiced my crontab skills last night when I made London’s computer have a spoken conversation with mine at a certain time. I got the idea because Bryant’s computer says the time every hour on the hour, and I thought it would be funny to schedule mine to, about five seconds before the hour, say “Hey Bryant’s computer, what time is it?” So I did that and it was easy, and then got the idea to have my computer talk to London’s. I had them have a silly little conversation, and when London came back and heard it happen for no apparent reason, he was a bit confused and definitely got a kick out of it.

So the point is, I didn’t think I was going to do crap last night and actually ended up accomplishing a few minor things. Today is the day for not doing. Rather, today is the day for Resident Evil 4.

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It is far too cold

Posted on 9th December 2010 in Something Daily

So I’m hanging out on the 8th floor of Steinhardt today, as I did yesterday, because it hurts to go outside. Every day I expect it to be less cold than it was the previous one, and I’m always wrong. I pay for it when I decide “Oh, I don’t need a scarf today,” or to wear a light jacket instead of my coat. My walk to class this morning was quite difficult. But I’m indoors now, and I don’t really even want to go as far as the library. I’m underdressed.

The big news yesterday was the final session on my recording technology final project, the bluegrass parody of “Get Low” by Lil Jon. We’ve been working on the tracking and mixing for several weeks, and that hard work finally culminated last night in a 4-hour mix session that spawned the final product. We learned the importance of avoiding ear fatigue, as after listening to the same track about twenty times, we realized that our mixing was going nowhere and would continue to do so without a break. So we locked up the studio and went to a coffee shop, then came back and rocked out. And we made this thingy:

Get Low final mix by Raised by Robots

As far as we’re concerned, that’s the project. We used compression on a few things, gates on a few others, and a bit of reverb on vocals and fiddle. The whole thing was recorded on a 2″ Otari machine at NYU’s studios, using not much more than an RE20, 414s, and KM184s. I’m pretty proud of the final mix. I sort of made the project into my baby even though it was a group thing – I grabbed a lot of the control of the tracking and mixing. I’m really happy with the way this turned out.

Do I seem busy and preoccupied lately? That would be because I am. I’m trying to keep it rad on this site while simultaneously keeping the rest of my life rad as well. But rest assured that when I do stuff, you’ll hear about it. For the most part.

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