i'm still working on that catch up post. i've got the idea in place, but i'm going to finish it.

i'll have to get back to the alter-reality this week, and i'd expect a flurry of posts when i do - it's going to be one text per week (in the alter-reality), so if i end up doing 20 texts, it'll take four weeks.

i expect to be bed ridden for at least a week, and if it means i really catch up on it then great.

ok.

so, the august cleaning is done (slowed down by the fridge, but done), everything's pretty much organized and i'm sitting down with a cup of coffee to do some work for the first time in a while.

i stopped some time in early july and started focusing on finding cheap gear for the period 3 rebuild. i do remember clearly that i was doing an alter-reality rebuild on the blogger timeline and entered the ms-2 as an entry. that got me wondering about other miniamps, and it went off from there.

and, i think the thing i was doing was filing the pc, and i even think i was almost done.

but, i'm going to do a quick throwback to earlier in the year and just read through the blog and go from there. i'll take notes. and, i should be back into the schedule i devised very soon.

obviously, because i'm going toronto for surgery this week, i won't start back up again on monday. but, i think i can plan to start back up again for next monday.

the surgery is going to make it difficult to walk for a few weeks, but i don't expect to be on any sort of serious painkillers (i expect they may give me something like t3s, and i expect i probably won't take them....i don't do much heavier than aspirin for pain meds....and i rarely take aspirin, even if i'm in pan...) and it's not clear how much that's going to mess with me.

it may be a chance to catch up on the asimov for the alter-reality.

so, i was working on that replacement process so long that i forgot what i was doing before.

i've spent most of what i won. so, i need to make sure i get the operation done first - that was the point, after all.

i need to finalize the plan with the shuttle service, first.

so, this is what i'm looking at, in total:

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp (like the vox kb50)

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- akai mini-like controller for pads

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- orchestral string midi controller hack ideas*

third basement:

- metal case dan electro fabtone, if found cheap enough

- $50 (max) mini modelling amp

- pignose amp

- mini tube guitar amp?

- mini trumpet

- mini sax

- piano (long term project that will probably never happen; i don't have the space, and i can't move it, even if i bite on one of those $100 pianos on kijiji)

- 21 fret classical with piezo*

- megatrancer vst effect

- update koan

- any basic ring mod box

- theremin

- ukelele*

- electric mandolin*

- bontempi b4 reed organ

fourth basement:

- 12-string acoustic

- a guitar with goldfoil pickups

* - check midi controller for these items, as well as things like sitar, banjo...tunings notwithstanding (that is, one four string guitar-like instrument may be sufficient for all)

extra guitar items:

- midi guitar <----polyphonic guitar parts

- i'm looking for a basic paul shape, to put p90s in it. must be a super cheap pawn shop purchase. <----amplified rhythm parts

- a jazzmaster or jaguar shaped guitar with jazzmaster pickups. idea probably put aside for now. <---effects work

- a couple of cheap electrics for weird tunings, etc.

i think this should be anything and everything.

so, one thing at a time. slowly...

just a few more...

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp (like the vox kb50)

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- akai mini-like controller for pads

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- orchestral string midi controller hack ideas

third basement:

- metal case dan electro fabtone, if found cheap enough

- $50 (max) mini modelling amp

- pignose amp

- mini trumpet

- mini sax

- piano (long term project that will probably never happen; i don't have the space, and i can't move it, even if i bite on one of those $100 pianos on kijiji)

- 21 fret classical with piezo

- megatrancer vst effect

- update koan

- any basic ring mod box

- theremin

- ukelele

- electric mandolin

- bontempi b4 reed organ

fourth basement:

- 12-string acoustic

- a guitar with goldfoil pickups

fifth basement:

- the altec 683b & harmonica are both still in my possession. so, nothing.

sixth basement:

- from previous post:

still hoping to get that demented foot pedal guitar sound, i swapped the morley for a digitech xp100 and still didn't really get what i wanted. the harmonizers are exceedingly synthetic sounding, probably because they're ultimately doubling the sound from a sampler, which is kind of lame. it was used in the next two basements, but was sold in 2003. the pod actually does what this did a lot better than it does.

so, nothing.

seventh basement:

- the digital piano was nice (the quality of font is noticeably upgraded in reflections and flying), but it doesn't require a replacement.

- a version of cakewalk was actually purchased, but it didn't run correctly and disappeared some time when i was gone in bc. i've used cubase sx 3.0 as my main daw for years, since i upgraded pcs in 2006, which is still my main recording pc. i will update this when i move to 64 bit, eventually. but, this was my first attempt at multitrack digital recording and i didn't try again for years.

- i don't have setup files for orion anymore, and don't really remember what it was. iirc, that sequence part was done in the only time i ever really looked at it. there's lots of ways to make sequencer parts...

- i still have files for drumstation, but i don't install it. it might not work well on xp; i don't recall. it's a roland style emulator, and i have lots of options, even if i'd rather score it, generally. but, it's still around.

so, nothing....

and still going...

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp (like the vox kb50)

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- akai mini-like controller for pads

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- orchestral string midi controller hack ideas

third basement:

- metal case dan electro fabtone, if found cheap enough

- $50 (max) mini modelling amp

- pignose amp

- mini trumpet

- mini sax

- piano (long term project that will probably never happen; i don't have the space, and i can't move it, even if i bite on one of those $100 pianos on kijiji)

- 21 fret classical with piezo

- megatrancer vst effect

- update koan

- any basic ring mod box

- theremin

- ukelele

- electric mandolin

- bontempi b4 reed organ

fourth basement:

- that ancient 12-string was in my possession until 2011 and then disappeared, and i wish i knew what happened to it. it was either an ovation or a harmony, but i think it was a harmony. the guitar had been left beside a furnace for i don't know how long and was so locked it up (due to dryness) that it couldn't actually be played. when i recorded "strung out" the next fall, the concept was to play every guitar in the house, and that one did not get played, so it's a measure of just how bad it was. i also remember writing the guitar part for clarity on the epiphone, hoping to play it on the 12-string....but i didn't, in the end. see, when a guitar is dry like that, you have to slowly humidify it, and i was paranoid that i was going to moisten it up too fast and snap it in half. my best guess is that my sister stole it and sold it for some unknown amount, but you'll never get a straight answer from her regarding much of anything at all. i would like a 12-string to replace it, but i do not think i ever recorded anything with it, either. the lost symphony would probably sound very good on a 12-string...

- the 6-string saturn does appear on strung out, and i think that's the only place it appears. it was a cheap guitar that was nice to have around, but doesn't have any particular purpose; i don't need multiple acoustic guitars. i don't know when this one disappeared, but i don't remember seeing it after 2003. i guess the takeharu could potentially take it's place as a substantive upgrade in japanese made instruments.

- the age of the capo is a good hint as to the ago of these guitars - mid 60s. there was also a partridge family trading card that i had for years and have since lost. the guitar capo is still in my possession, even as the guitars it came with are not.

- the dx100 was a christmas present and garage sale pickup. i still have it.

- i found an old beat up tele with what i called "weird pickups" at a garage sale that summer. i think they were gold foil, in hindsight. i kept it for alternate tunings, and recorded a few tracks with it as a noise generating device, but i never fixed the broken pickups. it disappeared in 2011. i'd need to replace it with a functioning gold foil device.

- jon's guitar and amp were left in my basement for a few months and only used to record his own parts. it's a measure of how often he actually played the instrument that he felt comfortable leaving it at my place for months at a time (they were his only guitar and his only amp).

- my dad sold his bass with his drums, and i spent a while without a bass. the material that spring was done mostly with synth basses (or organs), when it wasn't just written out as a score.  but, i picked up that washburn that summer for the purposes of playing bass for jon & sean. i sold it in 2003, and replaced it with the ibanez a few years later. i found the neck far too big for me...

- a mini classical appears around this time, that eventually had to be replaced because the top fell off. i think it was a yamaha, purchased for $2 at a garage sale. i always called it "the $2 guitar". it would be replaced with the hohner, eventually. i actually used this little guitar more frequently than the aria, due to the small hands.

moving to the next basement...

first basement:

- mid-sized keyboard amp

- e609 mic to upgrade the altec, maybe.

second basement:

- if i find an affordable ry30 somewhere, i must get it. not a priority.

- but, in the short run, something like an akai mini would give me access to velocity sensitive pads, if i can find one for very cheap. not a clear priority, for now.

- plastic recorder (or wind controller?)

- i've added a picture for fake strings to sept 6, 1997 because that's the oldest attempt i have at creating a string section that's designed to sound like strings (rather than a synthesizer), probably actually due to an influence from a canadian band called the tea party, and which is something i've struggled with for years and years. i'm going to be seeking generally approaches towards creating different sounds as i try to plug in production holes that i know i can't do well with sampling. i have an electric violin with a bow that i got for $50, but i've never set it up because it hasn't really ever made sense to do so. it's kind of a toy. that would be the obvious answer for high strings, but it's actually the low strings i generally want to reach for. i've used e-bows in the past (something that shows up in the next basement) and still have one. but, i've recently purchased an audio-to-midi converter that will let me track guitar parts directly to midi. with the aid of a sample library, an ebow and an actual bow, i wonder how close that will get me to what i need. but, it's an open question, and something i approach on a track-by-track basis.

third basement:

- the dan electro fab tone i used on liquify and the day inri messed the world up was not mine, it was borrowed from a friend. i have many distortion pedals, but i would grab one in the metal case (not one of those plastic ones...) if i saw it cheap enough. that said, i'm going to claim that the rocktron metal planet that i have is an effective substitute/upgrade for this (they're both based on boss metal pedals, but the rocktron has a less compressed sound than either of the other two, which is useful because it lets you control the amount of compression....), but you can never have too many distortion pedals:

i used that pedal as an extra gain boost on some of the parts for proverbs, along with a guyatone sd-2 and a marshall jackhammer.

i'm not a metal guitarist, though, and i don't generally use high gain tones like that, except as niche effects. i prefer a dirty overdriven sound to a high gain metal sound. 

but, like i say - you can never have too many distortion sounds. you never know what you'll need to get the sound you're imagining, and i've found that just having as many combinations as is possible is the best approach.

- i still install cool edit pro.

- by dad bought himself a nicer drum kit around this time, that was meant for communal use but ended up banished to my bedroom by my stepmother. this was the kit used for deny everything material. my solution for kit replacements is my dm pro kit:

that was the last of i think three kits that he bought, and i never saw him play any of them.

- there was a marshall amp in the living room for a while that was purportedly given to me as a gift, but it never functioned properly. i don't know where he got it from exactly, but he did a lot of garage sale shopping, and i'm guessing he picked it up from somebody's garage for almost nothing. i'm guessing he thought it was worth a lot more than it was actually worth. again - i'm not convinced i would have ever picked a marshall practice guitar amp over a fender bass amp, when the two are sitting side by side like they were; broken speaker or not, i don't think i ever recorded anything at all with it, and am not sure i plugged into it for more than a few minutes. yeah, i know - i've got a marshall amp on a table in my bedroom, and i don't even plug it in. i'm sorry. i had a di on the soundcard, and a bass amp for recording pedals...together, they were far more useful to me than this cheesy scooped marshall with a midrange speaker. my dad didn't get it, either.

i traded this marshall for a half broken vintage 50s electric mandolin that i fixed up and used on several recordings before it disappeared in 2011:

do i need to replace this, then? well, i never used it! and, i swapped it for a mandolin. i definitely need to replace the mandolin...

if i need to record guitar parts, the mini amps are more useful to me. i could never make any functional use of a 75 watt amp, in this space - or any space i'm likely to inhabit in the near future. and, really, the thing that replaces this is the pod:

so, i'm comfortable with leaving that as it is - although i've decided that i'll get a cheap modelling amp, if i find one, too.

the pod through a flat keyboard amp is a better idea than a cheap marshall, though, if it comes down to it.

- i've been saying this is 120 watts. it's actually 160 watts. it showed up around this time, and was meant as a bass amp. i still have it...and i may try to use it as a cab for the mini orange and/or vox...

i have used this periodically for recording heavily effected guitar parts through complex effects chains, specifically when i want a low frequency response. but, it's just so damned loud...

i mean, that was the point - it was parked beside a drum kit. it had be loud, and was purchased for the volume. but, that's not real life for me, and hasn't been since i was 20.

- i still have the creamy dreamer, and still use it

- from previous post dated to june 8th:

i picked up a morley pro series wah around this time for pretty cheap but i found the effect to be a little more subtle than what i wanted. i mean, i was hardly interested in doing 80s hair metal whammy dives, but, after playing with direct x filters in cool edit, i wanted a much more dynamic instrument that i could warp like a dj or sound engineer warps filters with their hands, but in real-time with my feet, and found this was really designed to be the opposite of that. there was no doubt a mental disconnect between the world this was made for (southern rock guitarists) and the kind of sounds i was imagining (warped sound effects from contemporary experimental techno, like download). i mean, i knew better, but i guess i didn't. that said, i made some sufficiently demented use of it in the climax to "entropy", as well as in the intro solo to  "ignorance is bliss" before i swapped it for a digitech xp-100 a few basements later. the pod has a couple of wah sounds in it; it wouldn't make sense to try to model this in a daw, unless you have the right kind of controller. so, you need hardware here, one way or another.

so, i'm happy with the pod as a replacement for this, and also for the digitech.

- i can still install the aipl spin cycle plugin as a direct x effect, but i've mostly put it aside. there are leslie-like effects in guitar rig. likewise, the hyperprism and north pole effects are there, but i never reach for them anymore.

- i still have the 90s pc and pretty much every important piece of hardware in it still works flawlessly.

- pi warp is a weird effect and i absolutely still use it.

- sounder does not work right in xp, but i'm hoping to get it running on the 90s pc (in windows 98)

- i've dropped acid. the program, i mean. discarded it. i was actually hoping to use it for samples (listen to entropy to hear my intended use), but i just keep going back to basic midi. the old scorewriter is just the most useful way for me to write, always has been. so, my replacement for acid is noteworthy composer, but there's nothing you can do in an old version of acid that you can't do in a slightly less old version of cubase:

- i posted the imaginary trumpet and imaginary sax because i'm looking at getting pocket versions for use with the midi controller i just bought. you can get mini saxophones for cheap and i'm on the brink - as soon as i finalize the operation transactions.

- there was a baby grand outside my door, which....i can use a vst effect. that's fine. if i find a million dollars, yes, there will be a real piano. but, it's not even on the radar...

- i now have two mini classical guitars, and they're really both functional replacements for the aria, in any meaningful way for how i used it, which was never intended to be as a performing guitarist at a church or something.  i want to keep one of them. but, i need to get a 21-fret classical guitar with a pickup in it relatively soon.

- i still install audiomulch. 

- granulab doesn't work will in xp. it seems that there's a vst version. but, the granulator i used most often is in the hyperprism suite (see xenophanes for a good example)

- i still have the rubber ducky setup files, but i don't recall the last time i ever used it.

- i still install leaf drums, but i couldn't imagine myself writing that way anymore. it's actually a useful program, and i'd recommend it as a basic drum machine for noise music.

- i stil have the mxr flanger & distortion II boxes, as well as the ibanez eq.

- i cannot find a downloadable version of megatrancer

- koan does not work in xp. but i can try to update it and should.

- from june 8th:

i picked up a mooger fooger mf-102 ring modulator that spring, hoping to drive it with the morley and get that dramatic foot driven techno-oscillation filter, but it didn't actually work; it just didn't convert to an expression like i hoped. i never got another expression for it. guitarists kind of have their hands busy, so this became an expensive trick item. that said, it is used extensively as a bass (acidosis) and vocal (trepanation nation) processor over the next few years, before i cashed it in as having done it's purpose. it's also become very expensive ($600?), but isn't any more useful than a freeware vst plugin - it's expensive because it says "moog" on it, and likely of little actual functional value to you, unless you're doing very modular synth work. just about any old ring modulator with a carrier signal should be just as good.

i wish i could find a demo with the expression pedal plugged in like i wanted to set up, but what this demo (not posted) does is really demonstrate how kind of useless the thing really is.

the pod has a collection of synth and ring mod effects that are quite frankly more usable than the moogerfooger, which i really was quite disappointed in - but it had a lot to do with the fact that i just didn't have a foot controller for it. i'm going to pencil in a generic ring mod, but the pod is really probably more than good enough.

- i've long wanted to get or make a theremin and never have, so i'm going to pencil this in as a project.

- a ukelele would be a useful utility sound generator, but it's hardly at the top of the list of priorities.

- i don't know exactly what happened to my old electric mandolin, but i definitely need to replace it. the electrical was a little funny, but i would have hardly discarded it over that. it's in a small list of items that just kind of disappeared. i don't imagine the item was worth much, and i'd probably benefit from upgrading it to something newer. but, i got it for almost nothing and am sad it disappeared.

- likewise, i've decided to replace my bontempi with a bontempi. they do show up on ebay, but i don't really want to pay shipping. i was looking at melodicas as a replacement and it's probably going to be roughly the same price. but, i still may decided to go down that route. we'll see.

- i still have the e-bow.

ok, let's get to the next basement, then.

 i would have preferred william gibson to sweet valley high, but i didn't know he existed, at the time.

shouldn't i have been reading contemporary kids' books from the 80s and 90s, though?

well, i did eventually - and went with the king.

but, i just finished grade two, here, and i'm consequently somewhat at the mercy of the adults around me. i was frequently gifted books, and i read most of them. nobody reads every book their grandmother gives them...

but, i'm just googling "tween books from the 80s", and it's predictably a bunch of pornographic smut. i wouldn't have gone anywhere near that stuff.

the one thing i remember trying out briefly was rl stine, but i decided pretty quickly that i was well beyond it. there was a tv show with goosebumps adaptations, but it didn't have the character depth of a king novel, which was a big part of what i liked about reading king. the attempt to get into the head of a rabid dog, or a kid that can't stop themselves from lighting things on fire...that's what kept me coming back, rather than the plotlines, exactly. and, again - i expect to realize the criticisms of king, but there was still a giant gulf between these king texts, which were written for less educated adults, and these stine texts, which were fully intended to be kids' books.

i never really liked being a kid...

so, i mean, that's my answer - i quickly deduced that all of the texts being marketed to me as "young adult" were just empty, pornographic trash. and, i'd hold to that view now, too. i wanted something more substantive than that...

and, let me say it clearly enough.

was asimov a great writer? 

he wasn't, no. that doesn't matter.

what i actually liked about asimov was the (often times naive) exploration of various scientific hypotheses. but, i was, like, ten years old. i found the gaia hypothesis to be fascinating, for example. could the earth be a living thing? well, if you're tripping out into that as an adult, you need to take some basic science, but it's an intriguing question for a kid to try to work out.

as it was with king, it didn't matter to me that he didn't excel at the specific literary devices that an academic analysis will key on. i mean, i get the criticism - and i expect to roll my eyes.

these are good kids books, though, whether they were intended that way, or not.

but, yeah - i know i'm going to cringe, and i'm ready for it. but, expect the reviews to largely gloss over it...

So, when I was eleven, it occurred to me that if I wrote my own books, I could then reread them at my leisure. I never really wrote a complete book, of course. I would start one and keep rambling on with it till I outgrew it and then I would start another. All these early writings are forever gone, though I remember some of the details quite clearly.

i'm not sure how many people realized it at the time, but the man was a damned troll.

so, i'm going to start with this on pdf, if i can't find it at the goodwill shop.

actually - and i had decided this once before - i should read it in this order, then fill in the gaps:

this is based on the ordering suggested by asimov, except i'm strategically adding in short stories collections to fill it out.

i am ignoring asimov's later forays outside of science fiction, altogether.

(i did not read any of the lucky starr series as a kid, and i'm skipping them in this reconstruction. but, they would plug in first)

the early asimov (short stories) <----added

the complete robot (short stories) (1982) + robot dreams + robot visions

the complete stories, volume 1 (short stories) <----added

buy jupiter and other stories (short stories) >----added

the martian way and other stories (short stories) <----added

the bicentennial man and other stories (short stories) <----added

caves of steel (1954) 

the naked sun (1957) 

the robots of dawn (1983) 

robots and empire (1985) 

the currents of space (1952) 

the stars, like dust (1951) 

pebble in the sky (1950) 

prelude to foundation (1988)

forward the foundation (1993)

foundation (1951) 

foundation and empire (1952) 

second foundation (1953) 

foundation's edge (1982) 

foundation and earth (1986)

==========

asimov's mysteries (short stories) <----added

the winds of change and other stories (short stories) <---added

the end of eternity <-----added

the gods themselves <--------added

honey, i shrunk the fantastic voyage II: destination brain <-----added

nemesis <----added

there are some asimov texts published after 1990, but not many. i'll have to skip them, altogether.

or maybe not.

1992 silverberg additions:

- positronic man

- ugly little boy

- nightfall

should i start by talking about asimov's role in the perpetual, cosmic war between religion and science? asimov is known for aggressively promoting rationalism, liberalism, secularism and atheism in and outside of his literature. should kids really be reading this stuff, or was he just out there corrupting the youth? 

the reality, for me, is that my parents were not just both atheists but that they conscientiously raised me as an atheist, so asimov didn't undo anything because there wasn't anything to undo. i want to get the point across on that: they didn't raise me to dislike this or that religion, or to have a disdain for the faithful (that came naturally...), but rather purposefully raised me without an active belief in any sort of god, and, when it came up, simply expressed skepticism as a matter-of-fact in any situation that my subconscious considers important enough to still remember. basically, my parents were of the view that a child shouldn't be pushed into a belief system; that's not a deduction, i specifically recall hearing both of them say, independently of one another, that it ought to be up to me to figure out, and not up to them to direct, although i'll admit that it may have been driven by laziness, on both of their respective behalves. belief in god isn't embedded in our genome and doesn't come instinctively, without instruction; if you don't foster it, it doesn't develop, and that's really the actual truth with me: nobody ever told me i ought to believe in god with any conviction or persistence and, as a result of that lack of persuasion, i just never did. the result is that, unlike most adult atheists, there really never was a time in my youth when i was naive enough to believe in any sort of god. there was no break with faith, no rejection of the church - i've just always been an atheist, by default. so, i was an atheist child reading books by an atheist author; in that sense, asimov was appropriate, for me, in the same way that a christian child reading christian authors is appropriate, for them. asimov shares my extended family's belief system; he's a representative and a member of my tribe. conversely, it would have been weird for my atheist parents and grandmother to give me religious books, given that they were not religious, themselves.

so, i mean, maybe asimov wouldn't be right for some kids, but that concern wasn't an issue, for me.

but, what that means is that i just didn't have a perspective on this conflict because science was really the only thing that i actually knew. i actually had to learn about religion from the other kids, and that conflict had to develop in my mind over time, as i aged and became more cognizant of it. at the age that i'm starting this with, there just wouldn't be much of a conflict to resolve - all i knew was science, and all i knew was atheism (in the sense of it being the absence of religion). i didn't really know the traditional christian stories or narratives, so i wasn't aware that they contradicted the science, and i didn't know there was any reason to push back on them. it's hard to imagine an alternate history of yourself at such a formative age, but i'd like to think i'd have pushed back against the religion, if only i knew that there was a reason to. instead, i naively allowed both ideas to exist side by side, oblivious of the intellectual inconsistency in doing so, although the only thing i ever spent any actual time actually thinking about was the science.

so, i'm not going to be pushing this point much in this journal, because i wasn't really aware of it at the time. rather, i'm going to try to present my own perspective, as best as i can remember it, which means that religion wasn't much of a factor, because i didn't really know very much about it. i liked science, as best as i could understand it; i wasn't even cognizant of what religion was or was about, in any meaningful sense.

that said, my stepfather was religious, and that's something i'll need to talk about.

my mother was uncomfortable with his religiosity, and it ultimately ended the marriage. he "found god" shortly after they got married, and she went along with it thinking it was a phase, but ultimately rejected him over it, although there was a point where he got violent with me over nothing, and that was the actual cause of the break-up. she wouldn't have identified as one, but her religious views were roughly comparable to that of a laveyan satanist. i think she would have identified as some kind of vague deist, but her concept of god was...it's an old testament god. it's a mean, vengeful, retributive god. but, it doesn't follow the rules in the old testament. it's really a pagan concept of god.

my father's religion was hockey. he didn't take it seriously. i don't think he'd have identified as anything, and if you brought it up, he'd have changed the topic. i guess that qualifies as agnostic, but it was a kind of a "i don't have time for this" agnosticism. if there was some vague notion of deism, he never really articulated it. and, he was a libertarian in his concept of religion; so long as they didn't bother him, he didn't have a problem with them. years later, when my stepmother started going to church, he would drop her off and go for breakfast with me, instead - and then make it home in time to watch the nfl game. but, it was just disinterest more than anything else. he was a big zappa fan...

so, it was strictly because of my stepfather that i spent some time in a methodist church around the time that the journal starts, before being banned from sunday school for asking too many awkward questions. if you think catholics are fucked up on specious guilt, you should spend some time with methodists - they make catholics seem moderate, in comparison. it was around that time that i picked the bible up and read it all the way through, so that should probably be one of the book reviews. but, i've pointed out before that all it took for me to do away with christianity was to read the bible. it was just obviously just a bunch of nonsense. and, i remember being baffled at the premise that there were adults in the world that were dumb enough to take it seriously.

also, i did attend a catholic school until the end of grade 13, but my mom only enrolled me in the catholic school system because it started at four-year old kindergarten, and the public system started at five-year old kindergarten. so, i was going to have to skip a year, otherwise (i had been in pre-school starting at age 2); it was really just a pragmatic decision to avoid having me skip a year. i was subsequently baptized at the age of four strictly to facilitate it. i distinctly recall my mother being mortified that the priest would molest me, and ordered me not to go anywhere near the church to prevent it. the cynicism underlying the process is truthfully actually another demonstration of the strictly non-religious environment i was raised in.

these minimal and temporary influences aside, the reality is that religion was really not a part of my upbringing, that i was always strictly interested in science, and i'll consequently be approaching the issue from the perspective of a strictly atheist childhood. but, i want to double down on what that means: if it's not pointed out by adults, it's just not obvious to a child that there's any sort of a contradiction between science and religion, and so a child wouldn't reflexively choose a side in the debate. when they send you to sunday school, they don't bring up theological discourses surrounding the big bang, or at least they don't do it on day one. it takes time for the inconsistencies to unfold and for the need to pick a side to become apparent. eventually, after so many trips, the contradictions start to pile up, and there was never any question in my little mind as to which set of ideas had primacy. the moment i became cognizant of the conflict was the moment i picked a side and the moment i intellectually turned against religion.

so, i won't admit naivete, but i'll admit some ignorance. i think some ignorance at the age of eight or nine is forgivable. for me, the ignorance was of the conflict between science and religion - i was not aware of one, at first, or of the necessity in choosing one over the other. and, i realize that many religious people will argue that there isn't a contradiction, but i reject that, as an adult - and did, eventually, as a ten year-old, as well. 

so, i'm going to actually approach the asimov as a blank slate, regarding the conflict between science and religion. i was simply not old enough to be aware of the struggle, and simply had little awareness of religion. however, my biases throughout are going to be towards science, and that position will be dominant when conflicts arise and will win outright, in the end.

just a note on the asimov reviews, before i start on them...

i'm going to be more or less comprehensive. of course, i hadn't read every asimov text by the time i was ten, but i'd read a good deal of them. that's not important. this is a mechanism - it reflects reality. you want to take the idea seriously, and allow for tremendous artistic license in the details, although i am going to try to be as specific as my memory can allow for. the details are admittedly a little blurry, more than thirty years later.

so, no - i didn't read every asimov text in order.

but, i am going to review them that way.

as i want to speed this up, i'm going to try to get four of these texts done over next weekend, but i don't know if that's feasible. these are 200 page books in large fonts that are written for teenagers; i don't know if i can do two or three per day, but i should be able to do more than one.

but, i have to finish cleaning, first.

i updated the theme link and put it at the bottom of the template:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10tPlsE_lBPc9t_Bq8-m5J0K-35m5usws/

that is probably final. updates are related to the colour of the text, which is now a pencil grey.

again - the theme works exceedingly well in terms of actually lining the paper up, but some care is going to be required in ensuring that the size of the posts is not too large. it looks like a floating point error issue to me that's baked into the html rendering, and you're never going to fix that. but, i've forced it to recalculate frequently, and that's the best answer that i think is available.

so, we've got post #2 up at the alter-reality.

i'm going to try very hard to actually stick to this. and, i should start some reviews for next week, time permitting.

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/1989/07/maybe-ill-keep-doing-this.html

so, i got my mini tele in today and it plays very well. all the electronics work, as well.

unfortunately, the eye holes ("ferrules") on the back need a regluing (somebody tried to tape them back on...), one of the springs on the bridge needs to be replaced and somebody put some stupidly tense strings on it and otherwise set it up rather poorly, as well. this is either coming from an adult that tried to turn it into a grown up guitar in a silly way, or a dad that didn't know what he was doing.

that's fine - these are minor repairs, and i can fix that fairly easily.

it's otherwise a pretty nice little tele.

so, i thought my melodica was $4.00, but it was just the mouthpiece and i had to cancel it.

xylophone sticks are still coming.

i spent the last few days building the gear part of the releases blog for the basement on hilliard, and will have a "replacement" post coming soon.

i had to catch up on sleep today. it happens, when you don't sleep.

but, bleach run #3 on the fridge seems to have worked, so i should be able to get things back in order, starting tonight.

i was able to confirm the orchiectomy for this month, but i don't have an answer regarding who can pick me up. they can't legally release me alone until i'm no longer on drugs (like i'm not used to stumbling around on drugs, right?), and they can't keep me in the hospital due to covid. i don't know anybody in toronto at all. so, i'm kind of fucked.

they suggested hiring a nurse...to drive me to the bus station. it's absurd, but it's the rules, and i get it.

so, i'm going to look at the bus schedule. if the unavoidable fact is that i'm out of the surgery in the afternoon, and the train doesn't leave until 19:00, i really have a choice between sitting at the hospital and sitting at the train station. i mean, that's reality - i could hire a nurse to drive me to a train station or i could sit in the hospital for a few hours. there's no other option. let's pick.

so, that's what i'm doing tonight.

first, i want to try to open up some space on the floor to vacuum some of the dust off.

you know, i even think he may have recorded me playing.

i completely forgot about that...

i found a number; i have no idea how useful it might be.

it sort of just clicked. why didn't i think of that before?

i'm guessing he'd be around 70 or so. it's a long shot, but there's a chance...

actually, you know what?

i think he photocopied some of my crazy scrawled over pieces.

can i contact this guy?

i had a hard time finding information about the guy that briefly taught me classical guitar, so i'm going to post this here.

it's from a glebe newspaper article from 1993. and, that is indeed his wife, cathy. i took lessons from early 2000 to about mid 2001.

a different rollins band than you were expecting, perhaps.

i spent forever trying to figure out how to clear the demos to reuse the memory, and you have to take it apart...

this is a good demo.

i used the pitch banks quite a bit, because i wanted a good harpsichord sound.

what he doesn't point out is that the layering on the drum triggers, while polyphonic, is limited by a number of things, including available memory. so, the demo songs sound great, but two or three tracks like that, and you've run out of memory.

i need to keep going with the gear replacement before i move on to the next thing. we'll split these into by-basement posts.

the thing i'm still missing from basement #1 is a medium sized bass amp that i can use for bass, keyboard or amp simulation. although, i do still have a 120 watt fender combo amp/cab that can be used for that purpose, so it's not much of a missing item. the problem is it's too loud, so i'm not going to get an "amped" sound from it unless i piss off the neighbours. it has an exaggerated bottom end, as well - it's a bass amp. a smaller keyboard amp would be far more useful to me, for recording - which is why i bought all these little amps. i'm pretty sure it was a kb60, but i'd actually rather take it down to 30ish. i'm very seriously looking at that little vox amp for this, although i wish they made it in lower wattage options than 50. 50 watts is pretty loud, and the point is to crank it most of the way.

i was also looking at a sennheiser e609 as a potential mic upgrade, but stopped short because the altec is probably pretty similar.

so, this is basement #2...

- the ry30 is an irreplacable item, in any reasonable sense, except with itself. there's really no hardware drum machine that does quite what it does, at much of any price point. but, when i had sold it, the truth is that i'd grown out of it because i started writing longer, more complicated sequences in an actual score writer...or found it easier to do repetitive, simple loops in basic software.

so, this is my ry30 record, which is an example (not comprehensive) of what i was able to do with the ry30:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-pieces-in-a-primitive-style

in order to write in that kind of detail, i had to slow the tempo down to the lowest possible speed and fill everything in in quadruple or higher time. this had the effect of limiting the complexity of the compositions that could be built on the device, as well. this is a deficit of the device's lack of memory, as an early 90s computer. you could buy expansion slots, but they weren't cheap, and it didn't really solve the problem. so, you could only do so much with the device, as a sequencer, due to the limitations of the technology.

that said, it was also one of the most advanced machines of the period, and the entire concept of a standalone drum machine disappeared with the move to computers for recording. so, while i may have outgrown it's limitations, it was also just about top of the line for a device of it's sort - there isn't really an upgrade path, besides moving to cubase.

the technical thing i used to replace the ry30 was a program called noteworthy composer which is a scorewriter, like sibelius or finale. i like the interface a lot better, as it's keyboard driven rather than mouse driven:

https://noteworthycomposer.com

while the ry30 had a primitive synthesizer built in, i no longer found it useful once i had access to a jx along with cool edit, and while no tool is ever truly obsolete, it wouldn't be my go to for sound generation,  if i had one, today. there's a million other ways to generate noise and hook it up to a sequencer, and there was nothing particularly unique about the device for that purpose - even if it was exceedingly useful to have the thing in house, so long as you had enough memory.

on the other hand, what you could do with noteworthy composer is anything you can do with written music. there are no limitations regarding bar lengths, time signatures, numbers of patterns, "polyphony" in drum types, song complexity or anything else - you're just writing into a score editor. in theory, you should be able to interface those midi parts with any kind of sampler, but in practice you end up limited to general midi, meaning you'll need another approach to integrate sound effects and sampling. to me, that's fine, as i found myself more drawn to wave editors (like audacity, although i still use an old version of cool edit) for that kind of sound generation.

this is an example of something i created in noteworthy composer (and using a soundcard emulator for playback) that i could have never created using the ry30 due to the intricacies in time signatures and the sheer number of "patterns":

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/electronic-drum-kit-mix

further, this is my noteworthy composer record, as ported to more contemporary vst software:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/thru

of course, i also have an electronic kit, and that's actually going to be what i'm focusing on using for most of what's left of period 3, at least, as these tracks were actually intended to be recorded with sarah on the drums. sarah used to play drums for her dad, and found it upsetting to have me dictating instructions to her, which is the only way i knew how to work, musically. i may be a little less controlling nowadays. but, she couldn't deal with me yelling at her to stay in fucking time...and i had to play my drum parts, myself.

but, a good way to look at the ry30 is as a device of medium complexity; it's not detailed enough for very carefully written parts (because it is ultimately a drum machine, meaning you have to build up patterns in blocks, however much detail it allows for), but it's far too developed a device for simple, repetitive loops. as such, i really did grow out of it, as i couldn't do with it what i needed from a device of it's sort, and it was just a lot easier to use a 909 emulator if i just wanted some simple beats.

so, the replacement for the ry30 is as follows:

- hammerhead + leaf + whatever other simple 808-style emulator is around for loops and simple beats and weird sounds, in a strictly sequenced manner

- fully written-out sections in noteworthy composer for actual drum parts  <---this is the real replacement/upgrade, namely moving to scored parts in midi rather than drum machine sequences in beats/bars/patterns

- i can use a scorewriter for midi sequencing (some of the earlier sequencer parts that sound like synths were actually created on a ry30)

- cool edit + various synthesizers for sampling and whatever other noise generation

while it's not exactly the same - and i'd jump at an emulator if i found one - i'm not really missing anything in no longer having the device, except the idiosyncrasies of the device itself, which can only be replaced by the device. i know of no other drum machine that can really replace the ry30, in the sense that i used it - which was in quite a lot more depth than your average user. but, i still outgrew it. that's ok - it was my first programming device, and we all outgrow our first devices, right?

that said, the one thing i don't have that the ry30 had is those velocity-sensitive pads, and i'm looking at a way to remedy that, even if i'm less convinced about the importance of it. i have velocity sensitive keyboards and velocity sensitive electronic drum heads, is there really any use in having velocity sensitive drum pads, especially for period 3? i can't say it's worth much to me, no. but, if i can get one of those mini akais for $20 or something, i'll do it.

as it is, the scorewriter is an upgrade to the sequencer in the ry30 by a long shot, and i've got a million software synths to generate sound with, and a million other ways to sequence it. i miss my ry30, for sure. but, i realize i have more important things to expend scare resources on.

you see those akai pads come up on kijiji relatively often and they don't sell, so i'll get one when i can get somebody to cut the price enough, just give me time.

so, here's the ry30:

and here's the upgrade to it, in any meaningful sense (although i am using a program called noteworthy composer, not finale):

you can then take the sequences once they're written, export them to midi and line them up in a daw (i use cubase) to make it easy to layer in sequenced sound effects, samples, etc.

- i also started using noteworthy composer as a sequencer around this time, and i still use it to write midi parts (and then export them to use with different playback engines)

- i don't use the windows 95 sound recorder anymore, but i still use cool edit as a wave editor

- i still have the portastudio 414 and do still use it from time to time as a buffer for things like bass parts. but, the replacement mixer is the alesis:

- i still have the jx-8p, but the keys haven't worked in a long time. i picked up a 61 key controller the other day, which will put it back in normal working order, in any functional sense. i've been using a 49 key dx100 for years, when i need to.

(post from july 19th inserted here:
 

so, i spent the day running around (technically, walking and biking around) and now have the following in my possession:

- the two purple and pink tanktops came in the mail

- i picked up the behringer umx61 this morning. mine is grey, with some mild yellow staining, presumably from being near to an ashtray for an extended period. i had to play through some pops (indicating it hadn't been used in a while), but the keys all work, and, if anything, they're a little hyper-sensitive. that's fine.

it cost me $95 cdn, used.

this device has two major purposes for me:

- it replaces the keys on the jx-8p, which were stuck. it's a common problem with 80s rolands, and i just never fixed it. but, my 49 key dx100 is just a little lacking. i guess i never counted it - i though the jx had 88 keys. it turns out it has 61, too. so, if anything, i'm getting two extra octaves with the behringer...

- it will finally give me access to a control surface, if a minor one. i'm probably not going to go all knob-twiddly, but it is useful for tactical use to be able to physically turn a sweep, and i've really never been able to do that. the jx has a control surface, but i didn't get it in the package, second hand. it's just something i've never had in front of me...and something i've long intended to rectify...)

- i still install goldwave regularly, although i haven't used it in years. it was more useful as a noise generator than cool edit, and it had a different selection of effects that i found were more pronounced. it's still there if i want it.

- i could never get sound raider to work in nt (xp on), but it's one of the things i'll want to try to install on the 90s pc. it's a unique program that has no direct parallel. but, i'm probably past it, as well.

- i recently replaced the wood flute my aunt gave me in 1998. i actually still have the old one, but it's splintered at the top. i may also get a plastic recorder. this is less about the sound and more about the breathing, which you can't really get out of midi, unless you have a breath controller, which is a lot more than a plastic recorder. if i ever find a million dollars on the ground, i'll definitely get a breath controller. for now, i'm happy with my line to midi interface, which is coming.

- hammerhead is a basic 909 emulator that still works in nt. it's one of the types of programs i found myself going to for simpler drum patterns when i needed something quick.

- i still have the three epiphones & the ms-2, too.

- coagula did still work the last time i tried it. i still install it, but i haven't used it for years. i always wanted to do more direct sampling with it, but it never really happened.

i'm dating this to around the point where i'll start the alter-reality:

i think this was from the first part of 1989. my dad didn't understand my existential ennui about the meaninglessness of winterlude and insisted i play in the snow, to little response from myself besides boredom. this is feigned reaction to a request for a smile. i remember that, and wish it wasn't from outside the bounds of the story. maybe i'll do a flashback.

this is a picture of me on a bicycle from the summer of 1989.

i had a number of stuffed animals and other doll-type toys that i personified for quite a few years. judging from my hair, i believe it's the same period as the other shots.

i'm surprised i don't have more shots like this, actually:

i'm dating this to the later months of 1989, before it got too cold.

so, i'm looking at some old pictures...

i knew that old black ibanez was the second electric guitar, but i couldn't remember what the first one was, other than that it was a hondo. it turns out it was a hondo telecaster copy - clearly, from the pictures. i was very young, but i think i always assumed it was some kind of strat. nope - most obvious telecaster, ever. 

so, when the hannah montana washburn mini telecaster arrives, it can be the replacement for the first tele, which was traded in for the ibanez.

there was also an unbranded acoustic guitar, which would have been traded for the tele, and would have ultimately been replaced by the epiphone, which i still have. it looks like it was probably 3/4 size, but i couldn't tell you that at the time.

so, that's two more guitars that needed replacements, and it's all already dealt with.

i can't think of anything else to take note of that young, except that i learned to play recorder at school in the 5th grade

i'm working on the next batch of replacements.

this is the best document for me to use to try to triangulate the things i was influenced by at that age, as the radio & television set were by far the biggest influences on me:

http://hitsofalldecades.com/chart_hits/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=2498

it's not the most exciting update, but it's a start. 

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/

....and, we've got the font updated, too:

so, here's the theme, if you want just the notepad without the goofy shit:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10tPlsE_lBPc9t_Bq8-m5J0K-35m5usws/view?usp=sharing

this should line up well, just keep in mind the following:

- you need to title every post. if you post something without a title, it will misalign.

- it will eventually go out of alignment if your post is too long - well over 100 lines.

- new posts will realign, so long as those posts have titles.

- you want to use normal breaklines and not the weird ones it defaults to nowadays. i use the following as a template:

<div style="text-align: left;"></div>

that simple line will default everything to normal line breaks, and let the formatting work correctly.

it's entirely functional, but it has some limitations that are probably hardcoded into the html, and may even reduce to floating point errors within the processor. computers aren't as good at math as people think...

so, i'm ready to get going, now.

ok, so that took far longer than intended, but i've got my template down:

https://thejournalofj.blogspot.com/

the mechanism is that i'm writing in a little book, and i find it somewhere and scan it. hence, the lines - and the trouble i'm taking to line the writing up.

here's the trick - i used a 12 line image because that's when it starts to overlap, but even that will only take me so far before i need to reset. it's like a calendar - you need a leap year every four years to make up for the measurement error. but, i posted many test posts to make sure that the cycle resets on a new post, so long as i post it with a title.

i'll have to keep an eye on it and make adjustment if necessary but i think this is sufficient.

i just want to finish the template, and then i'll upload it for anybody, as i think this is useful and am happy to share it.

this will run from 1989-1996, and is intended as a preface - these are childhood year notes, from before i did any recording. the alter-reality will run from 1996-2013 and occupies the actual writing phase. and, current reality runs from 2013-death and is the cleanup and finish phase.