well, i've now managed a little over two days of cold turkey. i've got to know the new son lux record a little better. i've worked my "watch later" list up over 2500 videos, which takes me until the end of 2014 and may very well last me until the end of 2016. if i last, myself, until the end of 2016...

that's now pretty comprehensively dealt with and it's time to get back to work.

i haven't left the house since friday morning. that's how it is when i'm not smoking. and, the machine has indeed been off for a little over 50 hours.

it's now time to take a deep breath and see what happens. i can have no patience. i must immediately begin the reinstall if anything is amiss.

stirring...awake...

i don't think i'll last long. long enough to eat. it's probably good to keep the machine off for a few days, anyways.

there's still that remote chance that it was overheating.

at the end of june, i sat down to quickly remix a number of old tracks into a record of instrumental industrial music. i ran into two problems. the first was that i was going to need to carefully time shift the individual parts into place. this was time consuming, but overcome. second is that my gear is randomly changing tonal qualities on me. i haven't really figured this out yet and do not know if it's resolvable.

i've decided i'm best off avoiding the entire thing for several days, and going back to it. i'll be catching up on my news feed over the next few days and re-approaching this on monday at the earliest.

in the meantime, this is the sum total of what i've been trying to put together over the last few weeks. the first seven tracks are likely perfect mixes. the rest of them are a little unstable, due to inconsistencies in the gear they were created on that have yet to be isolated, resolved and corrected.

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

8 days wasted on figuring out why i can't get consistency out of the gear.

those 8 days - and the ten before it - were supposed to be spent on quickly mixing an old project. that requires focus. and, focus is correlated with nicotine. i kept telling myself i'd be done tomorrow. and, it's now near the end of a month i wanted to be cold turkey over.

i have no confidence in the gear at this point whatsoever. i'm going to reinstall, but i'm almost certain that it's broken and the reinstall won't help.

so, i'm going to let myself de-nic now. which means the project is on hold for several weeks. i'm probably going to sleep for most of the weekend.

the fact is that this is very depressing, and the combination is that i'm going to be angry and grouchy.

except that when i sat down to do it, the device had lost all the bass it was demonstrating all morning and sounded like i was listening to it through a tin can telephone.

i'm going to eat. and then i'm going to prepare to reinstall. i feel i have no other option. i feel at this point that even if it were to be functional when i finished eating it wouldn't last long enough to be useful.

i'll figure out the amp issue after i reinstall. i need a consistent signal, first.

fuck it. i'm mixing schizoid. i'll compensate later.

and, now the device is inconsistent again. ugh. i may actually have multiple inconsistencies. or i may be driving myself insane.

the nad is actually really not very flat. it has a very compressed sound that i recognize as a vacuum tube because i'm a guitarist and guitarists have this romantic notion of vacuum tubes. i can see why this would be perceived as a good thing in a variety of situations. and i could even see using it as a mastering device. but that's a very bad quality to work into mixing into a digital environment, as it's going to smooth over the rough parts. it's immediately obvious.

i remain left with very few useful conclusions. the cord *seemed* to make a difference, until the device got weird. it's hot in here, i should let it cool off...

i'm just going through so many possible combinations that i'm unable to rule out the possibility that i'm playing tricks on myself.

if you've been following this page, this isn't the first time i've gone through these gear crises, and they seem to resolve themselves randomly. i rarely figure out what the cause actually is before it dissipates.

are there psychological factors? temperature? air pressure? neither has been stable here this month; we're going through extreme swings in temperature and humidity, jumping from what seems like october and back into july. existential loss? finishing these tracks as instrumentals is something i've been putting off for 15 years. &etc.

even if i conclude it's psychological - and that's a hard thing to even consider when you're sure you're hearing dramatic differences - i'm still stuck until i can be certain of consistency.

but i know that, previously, when i've realized it might be psychological, it tends to evaporate.

one thing that i will say is that i've heard enough of these tracks in what seems like their proper state that i can conclude that i will not be remixing the first seven tracks.

i just wish i could understand why they don't sound the same way every time i listen to them. it's really something that shouldn't happen. ever. a recording should always sound the same on the same gear. this isn't quantum physics. there are wavefunctions. they're causal. it's repeatably demonstrable. i should have consistency.

dammit...

i should chill out and eat.

yup. it's the cord.

or at least interference. which explains the randomness, and why it seems to work better at night.

excuse me while i line the walls with aluminum foil...

it wasn't happening before, so i probably just knocked in a weird position or something.

i should be able to get it right by playing around with it.

hopefully.

if not, the other cable seems to work better. which is a little counter-intuitive. i was connecting with quasi-fancy gold plated rca cords. the ones that seem to work better are a step down. the thing's just gotta conduct, and it's not like i'm putting it under any pressure, so i can't imagine how it could have gotten damaged.

naw. that didn't do it either. but i am pretty convinced it's something to do with the amp - either the circuitry or the jack.

i happen to actually have a better amp :)

i've been using an old jvc, which is pretty consumer grade. it's just what that system has had connected to it since...2007? about that.

i mean, all i was looking for was a flat signal. the quality of the amp was only important in so much as it didn't interfere with the signal. and, it generally didn't. at least until now.

around 2009 or so, my dad gave me a much higher quality NAD receiver. it was out of request for a very flat receiver to act as a amplification system for my pod, because i'd learned that the pod tended to sound bad through guitar amps, because i was sending an amp sim through an amp and it was just getting all mucked up. he knew audio gear better than i did, so i let him figure that out and the nad is what i got. it's been sitting in a corner for years, waiting for me to use it in a live situation. i can state at this point that that's not likely to happen.

but, an extremely flat receiver sounds just about perfect right now.

if this doesn't work, it pretty much has to be the audio cable. i've worked in tech support. you're supposed to swap out the cables first. nobody does. i'm going to laugh for the next twenty years if it's a cable.

how's this for a novel cause? always the last thing you check. and, i can construct a chain of logic, too.

a few weeks ago, i noticed my mp3 headphones were shorting a little and i wasn't sure if it was the phones or the player so i checked them through the amp in the studio. the amp is a standard 1/4 jack. both my studio phones and my mp3 phones are 1/8. so, i need an 1.8th-->1/4 converter that sits in the amp. they're those big plugs, you've seen one around. i had to take the studio phones out of the converter to check.

as i was checking to make sure it's not the amp before i reinstalled by swapping the phones direct from the mixer, i noticed it was a little dirty.

cleaned it off, and it *finally* sounds crystal clear.

hopefully that holds. but, dammit. who'd have guessed that?

 (it was the player that was shorting, not the walking phones. it's an old sansa. and it's ultimately probably just dirty, too, but i'm going to need some kind of cleaner to get in there.)

ok.

i'm being very cautious with this, but i do believe that i've established enough consistency in sound that i can start remixing some of the tracks that i uploaded last week, and that ended up with warped mixes. i don't know what the solution was, but it seems to be ok. for now, anyways.

i'm going to have to be very slow with this, and i'm kind of paranoid, so i'll have to be constantly checking on the laptop, which i believe is at least a neutral system [even if the hardware is kind of crappy]. hopefully, i should get a mix or two up today.

but, i'm at my last straw. if i have any evidence of warped tone levels whatsoever, i'm going to immediately pull the plug and reinstall.

further confusion.

i just got through the whole record over asio out the m-audio and it's remaining consistent. finally. i don't really get it. but i'm happy. now, i need to check that it's holding for the mixer.

now, i'm just confused...

the m-audio windows out started off ok, but got very thin by the end of the record. but, the whole crux of the problem is that i can't isolate what the mix actually sounds like. so, i cycled the amp and it righted itself. sort of. it was better, anyways. is it just the bloody amp? it can get dusty in here, i guess.

well, one way to be sure of that would be to recreate the problem through asio and then fix it, and i'm having difficulty doing that. now, it sounds great through asio. consistently.

if it turns out that i just need to dust the amp...well..at least it's an easy fix. but, ugh. and, if somebody decided to leave me alone? well, thank you very much.

it's time to sleep again. another wasted day with really no progress on isolating the problem. annoying...

unfortunately, at this point, what i've been able to confirm is inconsistency across both cards over asio. it's the same type of error - the bass moves from clean and crisp (which is what i want) to muddy and undefined, the high mids cut in a way that makes the guitars sound flat and a few other things. it's at least repeatable, if random. there seems to be about five different settings that come in and out without warning. i can get it to go back to "normal" by cycling, but it doesn't stay there.

i don't think this is repeatable with the m-audio card using the windows mixer, but i need to test it a little more strenuously. if i can't repeat it, i have to conclude it's a broken asio. this at least suggests the hardware is not broken, which is positive.

you normally fix this by reinstalling drivers. but, it's starting to seem as though the codec install broke something a little deeper that repeated driver reinstalls aren't fixing and that a full os reinstall is necessary to address. i mean, i'm pretty good in the registry, but it's a labyrinth that one cannot really navigate.

i can't mix on the m-audio card through the windows mixer - even if i'm able to determine consistency. it's just a lower quality signal path that just doesn't sound as good. i can't finish this and then reinstall, i have to reinstall first.

an os reinstall will cost me about a week because i have some scripts to update. but my hands are tied. i still have to determine consistency over the m-audio card via windows, but it's pretty clear at this point that the codecs fucked the registry and that's what i'm going to have to do to fix it.

i guess if i installed windows streaming stuff, it might have prioritized itself over asio and then not removed itself fully. best guess, anyways. if that's right then i should in theory be able to find all the right values in the registry and reverse them by hand. but, that would likely take longer to figure out than a reinstall will take.

the way it's cutting in and out is like it's being mapped wrong somewhere.

the cool edit experiment didn't have a large effect, but i did a second reinstall and played with some of the buffer settings in foobar and am getting closer to establishing a correct level of consistency. it's a time-based thing, so we'll have to see.

i've got the sequence lined up in cubase over asio to test it against. worst case scenario, i'll have to mix it from there. it's actually a relatively good strategy, because i can just fix the eq on a track by track basis, then import it into the original file.

this is annoying, but it's a necessity. slowly. surely.

actually, i need to backtrack on the previous statement. i'm able to get the correct tone and dynamics out of every single one of these tracks through the soundcard in the laptop, indicating that i really haven't created any kind of consistency and am really no closer to figuring out what the hell is going on. i'm also able to get the right tone and dynamics from the playback card in the pc, indicating that the files do in fact sound the way i mixed them - i just can't get the mixer i mixed them on to play them back with the dynamic and tone i mixed them with, on that mixer. bizarre.

it's time to sleep a little. but, the only other aspect of this i can pin anything on is foobar. so, i'm going to want to bypass foobar when i wake up and see what it sounds like streaming through the mixer from cool edit. if i can establish consistency through that process, i'll have to conclude it's a problem with foobar.

that doesn't make sense to me, though. it's random. the issue is i can't get consistency - the same song sounds different when i listen to it twice in a row. how could the software not provide consistency? but, i've been through this before - i know foobar is not exact reproduction. and, if i can get exact reproduction from cool edit through the same hardware chain then i'm left with no other conclusion.

cool edit is entirely self-contained. it doesn't rely on windows like foobar does. if i end up blaming foobar, i'm still blaming windows. and it reduces to something i'll probably require a full reinstall to actually fix.
for right now, knowing that i can mix it through asio and have it sound right through cool edit is good enough.

summary:

1) they sound good through the mixer, from cubase.
2) they sound good through the other card in that same pc.
3) they sound good through the laptop (with headphones).
4) but, they sound bad through the mixer, from foobar.
5) tbd: do they sound good through the mixer, from cool edit? if so, it must be foobar.

but.

i'm using foobar for the m-audio playback, too. so, it wouldn't be merely foobar, but foobar's ability to stream wdm. and there might be a setting.

but i have to verify the claim, first.

so, i'm now pretty much convinced that i've fixed the problem and established consistency in what the device is producing. but, the results of that aren't always positive. in some cases, it's pretty bad. i knew the gear wasn't really behaving, but i can only deal with what i can actually hear. the first three tracks are spot-on perfect. after that, it gets pretty messy.

the general problem is that the mixes are treble-heavy and sort of tinny. this is actually backwards; they're meant to be very bass-heavy. i guess the device was sort of exaggerating the bass, so i cranked the treble in response. then, when i was playing it back, it seemed like the bass was cutting in and out. but i can tell now that what was happening was that it was distorting and coming back, and i was mixing it in the distorted position, then getting pissed off when it righted itself.

so, i need to apologize for the bulk of the mixes i've uploaded over the last few weeks. they are not good. but, the gear was fucked.

that means i have more work to do than i thought. but i get the impression that these are fixes i can do at the master eq level; it's going to be mostly be an across the board cut around 10,000 Hz - and in most cases, it's going to be undoing what was actually a boost at that frequency.

moral of the story: don't mix on a broken mixer.

10 kHz was the frequency of the treble knob on the tascam that i mixed it on originally. i boosted at that frequency in an attempt to emulate what i know i did all those years ago. it seems high, but it's not arbitrary.

right now, i think i had the right idea but it could be a few different causes.

i uninstalled the drivers, uninstalled cubase, reinstalled both and then ran my fancy registry wipe that just decimates everything in windows. media player. explorer. almost all the services. it's just ripped down to the kernel. in the process,  i realized that the user mode driver framework got reinstalled somewhere along the way, and i don't really know how or where that got involved. it's actually something that i wipe out in the registry sweep. it's gone now. it might have been something that was interfering with the drivers, too.

but on top of all the windows media garbage that got installed was some real audio drivers. i don't know how that got on there. nobody has used real audio for anything in, like, *decades*.

whatever it was, i'm back to the sweet spot i was looking for. i think that it should hold. that means i might have to redo a few of the later mixes. but, that's just fine with me - what i needed was a clean sound to get the mixes down in the first place, and i think it's finally there.

the registry sweep also perked the pc up a little. i guess it had picked up some crap over the last two years. i actually don't think i've ever gone this long between reinstalls, but it's a function of the fact that it's set up to be stable....

regarding this fucker at the mixing desk theory, it's obviously rather ridiculous to think somebody is remixing my material from a distance. but something that's maybe a little less ridiculous is the idea that i'm under audio surveillance due to my political rants. realaudio is low quality for music, but it would be useful for sending small file sizes out. and, if they're under contract, they're going to keep using it. if they're picking up a signal in here from somewhere and routing it through the out on the pc, the ambience is going to affect the sound quality. and, while i wouldn't expect the driver reinstall to address that, i *would* expect the registry wipe to. it's pretty dramatic.

at the end of the day, i don't really care if the cops have a mic in here. i mean, i'd rather they didn't, for obvious privacy reasons. but, they're going to do what they're going to do, and it's not really that big a deal to me. i fantasize about myself as a historical figure; that's raw data of some historical interest, as i often talk to myself. but, where it gets bothersome is when it's invasive. it's the same deal as with these annoying characters that show up on my facebook that seem to be some kind of executable. read and log my facebook. whatever. don't inject executables into the text, it's fucking annoying.

and, so i need to put the request out: if you're going to have me under audio surveillance, and i can't prevent, at least please have the courtesy to not do it in such a way that affects my ability to create. i have three computers in here that you can route the signal through, if you have to. the laptop i'm typing this on is a vanilla 7 with a webcam and will provide you with far greater abilities to get data. just leave my recording pc alone, please.

i think i've got all the files out. the next step is seeing what's left in the registry to wipe out. then, i'll have to reinstall the drivers. this shouldn't be an epic process; i should be able to tell if it's making a difference in about an hour.

but, i'm thinking that the issue is that the windows media network shit was interfering with the alesis drivers. it's all consistent and makes sense. hopefully i'm right.

i think i've isolated the problem.

what i'm noticing is that if i cycle the mixer, it sounds good for about a second before it clicks into some weird tone. and i've noticed that disconnecting from the internet seems to make a difference. the mixer connects via firewire, so it's possibly a bandwidth thing.

a few weeks ago, when i was trying to get html5 to read flac natively through an ogg container [i was a little confused about how that works], i installed some codecs. i then uninstalled the codecs. but, they left some windows media files sitting on my hard drive - including some drm files and some network files.

i set this pc up to completely wipe out windows media. in hindsight, that codec install was actually somewhat foolish, as it undid something i spent months doing back in 2007. i could always reinstall - the wipe process is worked into the install - but i'm hoping i can do this manually.

i've ruled out the instrumentals, meaning i've got tentative mixes done for everything except "schizoid", which is now going to be my focus. but it means the issues with the devices absolutely have to resolve themselves, because getting that specific bass tone is a delicate thing. which means i'm going to have to resort to driver reinstalls if it doesn't fix itself by the time i get back to it.

with the heat, i don't sleep much - and i like that. but it's time for two or three hours, anyways.

this bass cutting out is just..

it almost sounds like an mp3. that muddy, cut-out bass. it's driving me bonkers.

i think i finished the first part of the inriched suite this afternoon, but i again have to wait for the bass to come back before i can declare the mix complete.

and, ultimately? it's depressing to spend a long time on something, then be unable to hear it correctly. then, i get tired. i'm going to sleep on it...

schizoid is almost done, it's just the bass that needs to be mixed. that's last. the second part of the inriched suite will be faster, as the guitars require less attention. i'm toying with the idea of ding a mix of "stupid". and, that's it - i can close this and move to the next aleph-disc.

omm

initially written in 1994. first full recording in 1996. recreated in mar, 1998. reclaimed & remixed on july 18, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/omm

i've also uploaded the first five mixes of the expanded side of inrimixed. i'll have to remind myself to post these to the correct dates on the time line later.

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

i'm sure your mom is probably a very nice person

initially written in 1994. first full recording in 1996. recreated in mar, 1998. reclaimed on july 18, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/im-sure-your-mom-is-probably-a-very-nice-person

that was a frustrating day. i wanted to get more done. i still haven't isolated a problem with the tone controls, but i'm largely ignoring it for now by using the other sound card, which isn't exact reproduction but is at least controlled. i'm starting to think it might actually be foobar. i've noticed before that some files sound differently through foobar than they do through cool edit, out the same card. i let it sit for a few more hours and uploaded a few new mixes to youtube as front-ends for inriclaimed. and, now i'm wide awake due to the weather, which is going to prolong the day until probably at least noon. there is indeed very hot air coming in, which tends to keep me wide awake. 36 hour days awake. i'll no doubt be back at it shortly.

it's about two weeks before i transition into period 1.2 on youtube, btw. that's a big change and should generate a different type of reaction when it rolls out, as the earliest demos wil be taken off the front page and replaced by the electronic versions. i kind of can't believe i had the discipline to leave them up there for a year and a half, actually.

confused (instrumental)

initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-instrumental

confused (vocal mix)

initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. vocals and electronics added on july 16, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-3

cnusodef

initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. deconstructed on on july 16, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/cnusodef

the tone controls on the gear just won't stay put, and it's driving me slightly mad.

it's been a problem for a while. i've noticed disconnecting from the internet has somewhat of an effect; i think it's because i'm connecting over firewire, and it's a bandwidth thing. but, even if i control for that, i still can't get it to stay put. which has led me to theories about a fucker at a mixing desk that just won't fuck off.

what happens is that the bass randomly gives out. but then it randomly comes back.

rational explanations would have to be related to a driver issue, but the problem with that is that there doesn't seem to be a pattern, except that it kicks in for certain songs, which isn't the kind of pattern that makes sense. the drivers would not know this. a fucker at a mixing desk would know this.

i just need to state it again: there's no way to interfere here that can come out well. it's just a waste of my time. right now, specifically, i have a strong control in the bass for "fuck the dead". i'm not going to be modifying anything until the control is clear.

i want to get a mix up - i think it's done. but, uncertainty on the tone controls is forcing me to hang on to it a little.

when i think the tone controls are where they should be, it sounds just about perfect. but, then i notice there's a touch too much treble. and when i check the control, the bass has given out. so, i'm leaning towards that extra treble being related to the bass giving out, rather than being in the mix and needing to come down. if it would just stay put, i could fix it or upload. until i'm sure it's staying put, i'm stuck repeatedly checking to see if it's staying put. which is ultimately just an annoying waste of time.

what i'm noticing is that if i turn it off and on, the bass is there to start, and then slowly fades - i can hear the filter on the high end coming into focus (because it's more audible than the low end falling out). i'm going to turn it off for a few hours, eat and try again.

this is a hard block. i can't do anything until it stabilizes. the next step will be reinstalling drivers.

but, i...i just don't think it's actually a driver problem.

so, i actually got a lot done tonight, which is nice to re-establish after the last ten days of calculating intersection points.

the electronics only disc is happening, but i'm starting to seriously think it's best appended to the existing remix disc, which is currently very glitchy and strange. i'd have to do it in a side a / side b format. if i end up renumbering, i might not. i finished five tracks for this overnight and ruled several out.

inrinterpreted was meant to be redone versions of the tracks, but it looks like only two are going to get this treatment, and the additions to both will be minor. i've completed a new version of confused over night, with added synth bass and piano. i'm going to have to listen carefully tomorrow to see if i'm sure everything else is complete. if it is, there are a handful of tracks i'd like to release remixed and with vocals and this will become an inrinterpreted ep. i finished four tracks for this.

the condition i want to set for there being a single for any of these songs is that they have to exist in compilable form across all possibilities. i've decided i'm not doing chiptune versions of any of it. so there has to be a 96/97 demo, a 98/99 demo and a modified remix to act as a lead track. should i hold to this, the confused single is complete - but i'm not uploading it until i figure out how i'm labelling it.

i believe i've worked out all possibilities for the first 11 tracks. that means i'm about half done.

right now, the headache is going to knock me out a little early...

weather is shifting; i feel it in my head and stomach. it's been cold. i think it's actually warming up.

open

originally created in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 4, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/open

why (vocal mix)

initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 12, 2015. vocals added july 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/why-4

ogyanemob

initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/ogyanemob

dohgye

initially programmed in 1997. digitally modified in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/dohgye

werso smidits

originally written in 1996. recorded in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 28, 2015. remixed july 15, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/werso-smidits

ants followup

hi.

i haven't really looked into it much, but i don't think i can prove that it's the plants - just because ants and plants are both everywhere. even if the plants did attract them, i have little faith that removing them will take them away. and, honestly, that wasn't really what i was thinking. if it was roaches, i'd be a bit more concerned about the plants, but not ants...

my hypothesis is that it's related to the weather. it's been an unusually cold and wet summer. ants like it warm and dry. so, the cold and wet soil has led them to migrate, and they ended up in the house. it's less a pull hypothesis and more a push hypothesis - it's less that something is attracting them to the house and more that the weather is forcing them to explore, and they happened to stumble upon the house.

that said, something else that's recently changed is the barbeque in the front. and, i don't think i need an article to prove that ants are going to want to be around where there's a barbeque, as anything that gets dropped will become food. further, you can clean a barbeque, but you can't *really* clean a barbeque. maybe you could ask if they've seen ants around it and keep an eye on it.

but, again, i don't think that's the reason. i think it's the weather.

there's a study here, but there's lots of more info on the topic out there:
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/01/ants45.html

i think the only option is barricading them out. and hoping it warms up soon...

j

it's not done yet, but i've replaced a few mixes and it's roughly in it's final form. the first 11 tracks and inricycled sequence are final.

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

ok, i think the files are lined up, which means the process is reduced to mixing. the bass in schizoid is still troublesome, but i think you can expect a number of uploads relatively soon. and, i'll have to make some final decisions on the scope of this revisiting of this old material.

i was almost finished, and the program fucked up on me...ugh...at least i have the algorithm...

so, i'm not posting any more etas on this.

i did got through the first dozen tracks yesterday, and did produce a few cleaner mixes that are now final, although they haven't been uploaded yet. i then spent all day playing with the bass in schizoid, without really getting anywhere but a broad understanding of what i can't do and a better grasp of what i want to do. it's split into 4 tracks, based on (open strings low register), (open strings high register), (finger), (pick). they'll need to be modeled, compressed and equalized differently. but i'm just not getting the first part to click; i wish i had a parametric eq with more points, so i can create a more complex curve. i may have to look into finding one. i could also maybe graphic it first. it just doesn't want to find the sweet spot, and i'm thinking i might need to use a different tool.

so, it's going to be at least tomorrow. but i do think that it will speed up once this is figured out.

no longer confused

initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/no-longer-confused

i still don't fully understand this.

initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-still-dont-fully-understand-this

my gear or my ears or my coffee level or something wasn't co-operating last night, so i jumped to reconstructing "mom" - which i knew was going to be time consuming because the album version has multiple cuts. it took a few unconventional approaches to line it up, but it got done a few hours ago. that was longer than i intended, but i've now got everything lined up except "viewless" and will be back to mixing this evening. unless i fall asleep, i should have everything up except the inriched suite before the sun comes up - and be finished some time tomorrow.

fyi: ants

hi.

hope you're well.

i think i have a responsibility to let you know that i'm noticing some significant ant infiltration in that side area, with the door and the windows (under the steps). now, i want to be clear. i'm not talking about loose ants. i've seen a few here and there - nothing alarming. what i'm talking about are actual ant hills along the window sill. they seem to be burrowing through the wood, as evidenced by these mounds of what look like shaved wood chips. all i've ever seen are a few patrolling the entrance, but it suggests that they want to move right in.

i noticed this a while back, but i thought it was just loose dirt. i cleaned the room up at the beginning of july. tonight, the wood mounds are back. this time, i sprayed them.

there seems to be a large network of them in the front yard. i've seen swarms of hundreds out around the sewer grate, where i smoke. they seem to have two entrances, there. what that suggests to me is significant tunnelling under the front yard.

i don't have any suggestions. i've sprayed the area. but i don't go in there very often. i guess what i'd be more concerned about is the question of whether what they're doing is structurally damaging. as mentioned - they seem to be eating right through the windows. that can't be good...

j

i didn't post an update yesterday. i ended up taking myself to the hospital; i'm not going to explain it, other than to say that the doctor concluded i'd imagined the situation. i don't think that's true, but i was describing something unknown to science, so there's no resolution to it. i'll post if i'm able to prove my claims.

i managed to get the second part of the inriched suite lined up yesterday, which was lengthy because i ended up doing it twice. a second revision when i get back to the first part is going to be to split the right channel off, because there's a lengthy delay in the master. i'm not sure what caused that. it's not audible in the track, but it makes it difficult as a reference file. splitting the right off converts it to mono, which allows me to sync it by splitting channels.

i did a full relisten last night and am going to have to turn the treble up a little on "confused". besides that, i think i'm happy with the mixes that are up.

when i got back from the hospital, i forced myself to get a decent amount of sleep, because i've been in the up phase of the manic cycle over the last week. i think i got ten hours of sleep last week, total. well, i'm focused and eager. that's what happens. with anything my head is in. i get lost, and don't sleep.

i lost most of the day on a grocery run. the damned store still didn't have soy milk. i had to go to the furthest one today, because the major brand in the second furthest one is kind of low on fortified nutrients, and that's the point of drinking the soy milk. it had no b6 and half the d. useless. i need my d. i get dark in the summer because i'm part italian, but at the end of the day i'm mostly scandinavian. but i'm not a pirate anymore, so i don't live on fish. the mercury scares me, actually; i avoid it.

by the end of the night, i hope to have confused and schizoid mixed and uploaded, and to mostly have 'mom' lined up for mixing tomorrow. i have every intention of being done in 48 hours and moving on to the mixes.

i'm shying away from the idea of these singles, because i think i'm going to be doing several mixes of other songs. i kind of prefer the idea of a broad remix record. and, in fact, i already have one in the sequence that could be extended by 45 minutes. that's what i'm working around, anyways. if i end up with a surplus of mixes, i'll think about it. but, not renumbering has benefits.

gah...

17 years is a long time to remember things.

it's coming back to me. i didn't like the bass part for about a twenty second portion near the beginning. it's two basically identical ten second parts in sequence. so, i deleted one of them and looped it. you can actually hear the splice if you listen closely.

what that means is that the reference file is useless. we're only talking about fractions of a second in the splice, but that's what i'm correcting for. it's not lining up because it can't line-up.

however.

it's a short part. what i ended up doing for the guitars and the bass was setting two points (on both sides of the part in question) and shifting the files so they line-up. that should create perfect time, so i couldn't understand why it wasn't. but of course it isn't - it can't be due to the splice. but, they are in time with the original master, except over that point. and they are consequently in time with each other, which is what is important. if i do the same thing with the drums, it will also line-up in the imaginary position and solve the problem.

i'm glad i at least understand. i've studied a lot of math, and had no question what i was doing was theoretically correct. i thought i was dealing with some kind of floating point error. and, this should speed me up...

actually, i think that i should start this from scratch, now that i have an understanding of what's happening. but, i'm going to skip this for now and focus on the second half of it.

yeah. it took me 21 hours of straight file manipulation to get these tracks lined up. that's a lot of newton's method, and a lot of failing before it got synced right. if you want to hear why this was such a time consuming thing, check out the album version and listen to the guitar/bass interplay carefully, especially in the bridge. there's a lot of notes being thrown around off the beat, so it had to be done extra carefully to ensure it didn't end up a mess.

this won't be a lengthy mixing process, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

for those just tuning in, i have four separate outs from an old 4-track recording that i'm remixing, mostly to take the vocals out. the way digitization works is that it doesn't preserve time perfectly. so, these four tracks came off the cassette out of time with each other. so, they need to be carefully time-shifted before they can be mixed down, and there's not really a way to do it besides trial and error.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/16-viewless

i put schizoid down, thinking that the inriched suite would be faster, but the bass part (again) is causing me grief - it's a question of lining it up, and i can't get a reference in the file so i'm stuck doing it by ear. well, there's a reference in the middle, but that's a much more involved process than setting something at the start. the syncopation in the track is very in depth, so a small shift will put the whole thing off. i'm close, but i may have to wait until tomorrow to finish this (i thought it would be done around friday).

lol. i guess google wants me to pay for ads. i lost around 60,000 views a few months ago, and have yet to figure it out. now, it's consistently getting close to 250K, then falling back to 240K. i guess that's the limit, before you have to pay up (or, perhaps, allow advertising).

i've been mixing "schizoid" all day. the bass just won't work itself out. it's partly a function of how i recorded it all those years ago; part of it is with a finger, part of it is with a pick, there's staccato and open string - and it's all in the same file. so, i keep hitting sweet points that work for a few seconds, and then losing them when i adjust to the nxt part. if i were to do this nowadays, i'd split all these into different parts and mix them separately. it's looking like that's what i'm going to have to somehow do with this.

this isn't the one i thought would be lengthy; that's "mom". the other two i have left to do are the songs in the inriched suite.

i wanted this done before "lunch", and to at least get three tracks done today, but my ears are starting to get funny so it's "stop listening and come back fresh in a few hours" time.

at the least, this will be done before i sleep. it's just the bass. but the bass is key. hopefully, i should at least get a start on the inriched suite, too.

the last few have been lengthy because the guitar channel of the four track has had upwards of ten parts in it. so, it meant cutting the file up, running it through separate eqs...

there's four left for inriclaimed. three should be relatively easy. one is likely to be a headache.

i've moved the shorts from inricycled b over; this release will replace that one, and will be the new inri009. i don't want to destroy the shorts, but the release is now superfluous. depending on how many more mixes i generate, it may be a double - or they may end up scattered.

so, i'm stepping back from the three singles. if i can work this material in without renumbering, that's preferable.

yup. i still fuck the dead.

recorded in jan, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/yup-i-still-fuck-the-dead

i still don't fully understand this. (initial upload)

initially written in 1996. recreated in april, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-still-dont-fully-understand-this

that last one took a while. there's only a few more left with this one; i do hope to be done before the next sleep.

no longer confused (initial upload)

initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 5, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/no-longer-confused

just say no to mood altering prescription drugs

recorded in april, 1998. reclaimed july 4, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/just-say-no-to-mood-altering-prescription-drugs

i'm getting caught up on a few tracks that need to be perfectly synched. it's just a matter of time.

the instrumental compilation will be called "inriclaimed". further interpretations will be on "inrinterpreted".

most of my bass parts are fairly loose, so they have space. there's just a few that are really tight with the drums and need a lot of careful synching.

sample used without permission (initial upload)

initially written in 1996. recreated in jan, 1998. reclaimed july 2, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/sample-used-without-permission

i didn't want to be running around tomorrow, at least, so i walked to the second furthest store and got some soy milk. laundry will need to wait until tomorrow, and that will slow me down a little, but at least i'm locked here in the cabin for about ten days.

i was planning on ramping down today and hermiting for the next two weeks, but everything's been pushed back a day due to the fact that i can't find any soy milk. that means i'll be doing laundry tomorrow, instead, and could conceivably have something up by the end of the night. on the other hand, if there's no soy milk at the grocery store tomorrow then i'm in for a long day looking for it. it's the central part of my diet. i get almost everything i need from my daily smoothie (1 banana, 5 strawberries, two scoops of cherry ice cream and roughly 300 ml of vanilla soy milk). they had the plain soy milk, but it was for a higher price than i'd normally pay for the vanilla and, like....the vanilla is essential to the smoothie. i may crack tomorrow and get it, but i'm not going to be happy about it. i also can't get the light stuff, because it's my primary source of fat.

note to world: fat from milk is good. if you want to lose weight, eat less big macs, don't cut the healthy fat out.

i'm done all of the tracks that i specifically wanted to *remove* the vocals from. there's still a few that i'm not sure about yet; i'll have to mix them with vocals, and then decide what i want to use. i'm leaning heavily towards a full instrumental, and just dropping the vocal remixes on to the aleph disc. i've already decided that i'm not swapping anything into the main records, largely because these aren't exact replicas - pretty much everything is missing a fill or an overdub that i added at the productions stage and have no way to recreate. that needs to stand as it is.

half of me would like to work it into the second inricycled, which is now becoming superfluous. the idea was to put together some ideas that stripped the vocals out. now, i'm stripping the vocals out altogether. i may decided to retain it as a shorter mix tape (the mix tape portion is only about 30 minutes) and strip the full tracks out. i'll figure this out when i get it all in front of me. but, if i decide to backtrack on the singles, after all, it could get me through this without renumbering.

in some neighbourhoods, the boogeyman is slightly more than an imaginary monster

initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. reclaimed on july 2, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/in-some-neighbourhoods-the-boogeyman-is-slightly-more-than-an-imaginary-monster

use value is somewhat difficult to define in the human propensity towards artistic expression

recorded in jan, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015. remixed july 2, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/use-value-is-somewhat-difficult-to-define-in-the-human-propensity-towards-artistic-expression-2

skaters (electronics only mix) (initial upload)

initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. reclaimed july 1, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/takers

thug culture is enforced by the media from the top down

initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. reclaimed july 1, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/thug-culture-is-enforced-by-the-media-from-the-top-down

newton’s method

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method

use value is somewhat difficult to define in the human propensity towards artistic expression (initial upload)

recorded in jan, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/use-value-is-somewhat-difficult-to-define-in-the-human-propensity-towards-artistic-expression

reaction to canada day

parade outside my door. not this kind of parade. wish it was...

hey god (electronics only mix) (initial upload)

initially programmed in 1997. digitally modified in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/hey-god-electronics-only

an interview with cornel west

he's consistently so great to listen to. that part at the end made my day.

rap news 33

the papacy nowadays is a kind of a supreme court of the church, rather than an executive or legislative branch. what it does is codify perspectives that are already in practice. he's saying this now because followers of the catholic faith - and let's not forget that catholicism is a minority religion in the heart of the empire, which is based on protestant values - have already come to this conclusion. it's leading from behind. preaching to the choir...

likewise, if he ever comes out in favour of restricting oppression to homosexuality, it will be because it's already established.

infallibility? decrees of god's will? hardly. it's just a reaction to the grassroots. you could even call it a type of crude democracy.

the effect will be minimal.

i mean, the moonseed perspective is exaggerated here, but the broad view amongst american christians remains that the pope is an agent of satan. that's hardcoded into virtually all of the protestant denominations. american christianity is and always has been a violent reaction to catholicism. the more the pope speaks like this, the more the dominant narrative is upheld, about climate change being a globalist/satanist plot - because the pope is their guy.

conversely, insofar as this is relevant in latin america and africa, what the church provides is a place for organizing movements, rather than any guiding principle. and, if it starts meddling too much into something that is happening independent of it's control, it's more likely to act as a co-opting and dispersive force.

in order to be effective, this movement needs to be secular. that doesn't mean rejecting religious people. it just means keeping religion out of it.

it maybe exposes a cynical truth, though: perhaps all we have left is prayer. perhaps we're at that base level of hopelessness.

ZYX
+deathtokoalas It is a good set of Commandments to live by for humanity. For those of either secular & religious persuasion. I salute Pope Francis for reminding us

I am an atheist , but believe we should take heed these words, regardless of the source. The Pope has over a billion followers. We cannot divest them of their religious beliefs, nor why we would want to.This message is so clearly a universal force for good, not dependant on religious persuasion.

deathtokoalas
+ZYX well, i think there's a lot of reasons to want to, but it's not the point. the church is approaching this from a "bait and capture" approach. you want to think of it as a type of "green capitalism".

so, i need to leave around 7:00 to do a compost drop-off, which is a little later in terms of compost drop-offs; i need to swing by staples after and get some ink. hopefully, they have the right type. i still haven't fixed my bike, so getting to best buy requires a bus ride...i need to prioritize that, but it won't be until after i figure out my odsp situation....

i'll need to get some groceries on the way back, and then do some beginning of the month cleaning stuff. that may actually take two days, but then i'm clear for weeks and weeks.

i've got the first five of these songs mixed. they're all instrumentals. i'm only going to remaster vocals for about five of these (there's 22).

i've decided on the output:

1) inrinterpreted will be the final and mostly instrumental versions. i'm going to have to cut a couple for the final, as it's going to be around 100 minutes (i'll have them up for download). i'll probably cut the instrumentals and the covers.
2) there will be an electronic soundscape disc composed of just the ry30, jx-8p and digital additions. i'm enforcing a strict "no guitars or bass" policy. this will be an ep. it exists somewhere between tangerine dream and very early autechre.
3) i've pulled out three songs that i consider to be of extra importance - confused, schizoid and "mom". they will each get singles with multiple remixes. i'll be working on these last.

i'm not going to be focusing on the "continuity" tracks for this, because they've already been split out - between inrisampled, warning and the 0th ambient works, they are all available somewhere else.

there is one song - "too cold" - that i do not have source material for. that tape would have also had "exit" on it. i simply don't know where it is; chances of finding it are essentially zero. as i stated somewhere else, it's actually remarkable how much of this stuff i DO have...

so, the mixing should be no more than a week. i'm going to assume each single will be around a week. so, this should be up around the end of july or the beginning of august. i'm going to wait to upload this, it's just the nature of it...

so, that means i'm renumbering...

there is definitely something wrong with ironic hipster homophobia

initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/there-is-definitely-something-wrong-with-ironic-hipster-homophobia

if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and should be destroyed

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/if-god-somehow-does-exist-it-is-sadistic-and-should-be-destroyed

hey god (absolutely backwards mix)

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/hey-god-absolutely-backwards-mix

hey god (straight forwards mix)

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/hey-god-straight-forwards

aliens are more likely than god (initial upload)

initially written in 1996. recreated in march, 1998. reclaimed june 29, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/aliens-are-more-likely-than-god

the algorithm can't work because it's based on a percentage, and it's just not how cubase time shifts (that would work if i was doing this in cool edit). but i'm looking at roughly 7.5% of a second per minute - it's small, but starkly noticeable after about two minutes.

i have a few done, but i'm going to wait to upload it together. right now, i'm building two collections - a collection of just flat out instrumental mixes and a collection of remastered electronic soundscapes. that should take me through about 70% of it, and it's just process of straight mixing (and time shifting). it could be done by tomorrow.

i need to do things tomorrow, but then i could have as much as two whole months ahead of me of nothing but focus. the odsp is mailed. the tax returns appear to be dealt with. as far as i can tell, july is dead in detroit. and the only thing i really want to check out in august is noise legend alexander hacke, of einsturzende neubauten, but it depends on what he's doing.

by the end of august, i should get at least back up to where i was before i backtracked - which was finishing some end of period 2 comps, sequencing record number seven and starting on the lost symphony.

werso smidits (initial upload)

originally written in 1996. recorded in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 28, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/werso-smidits

the threat of terrorism is used to restrict civil liberties (initial upload)

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed june 28, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-threat-of-terrorism-is-used-to-restrict-civil-liberties

i think i found the pattern.

1/3 and 2/4 are in sync with each other, as they're on the same bus. and it seems like the difference is constant. if i can pinpoint it directly, i should be able to create an algorithm.

change of tactic...

i'm going to build the tracks i'm pretty sure i'm not going to reinterpret further, first. depending on how it comes out, this may be faster. and it will allow me to pinpoint things and rule things out.

so, i spent the last 36 hours trying to line a bass part up with a drum part, only to realize i'd just warped all the character out of the bass by the time it was done. i was able to fix it by reimporting the file and setting it to the markers i'd found, and it seems to be lined up well enough. but, because of this unexpected complexity in mixing, i'm not going to be replacing any of the tracks on inri004 or inri006 - they're not going to be interchangeable, and i need to maintain those records as documents of the period, even when the vocals are stupid. a better idea is to create a standalone with instrumental remixes - the inrinterpreted record i was contemplating.

the only two singles i'm relatively certain of right now are "schizoid" and "confused", but this is going to be the third or fourth mix of a lot of these tracks, meaning i could end up with many more than that. "mom" makes sense as a single, if i can build the score up enough.

i'm seeing little option but to renumber, unless i can keep the additions to exactly two, in which case i'll take the two demos to negative territory.

what this means is that i'm not going to upload any of this until it's all done. it's going to be quiet here for what will likely be a few weeks.

it's not clear to me if any patterns are going to arise in terms of the tracks being out of sync. if this becomes a consistent nightmare, i may even cut it short.

another option i could try is to resend the files in by splitting them over stereo; i could put the electronics and guitars on one channel and the bass on the other. it's really the bass that needs attention, more than the rest. but some of the guitar tracks have multiple overdubs that need some eq work, so it can't be a general solution. that would sync them correctly. but it's not my first option....

4-track recording is of course always mono, unless you use two tracks, which i never did.

the other thing is that these tapes are 16 or 17 years old. the sync issues may be due to slight warps, and they may not exist in all tracks.

so, this is going to be very time consuming. i'm getting similar timing issues with lining up the individual tracks, but it's much more subtle - over the course of this five minute song, it seems to be off by about 20-30% of a second, in total. you can't tell for short parts, but it adds up. there's two ways to deal with that - either by stretching the whole thing (trial and error) or by cutting it up into multiple parts and staggering them manually. that is, presuming that i'm right in thinking it's a problem with the whole file, rather than an issue of random errors in sampling.

the other way around it is to take it in from tape as one file, but the whole point is being able to manipulate the separate tracks.

this is more resolvable than trying to line up identical parts because there's an acceptable level of error. but, it's still going to be a while...

i've largely decided to create two singles, for sure, but i'm not sure how to catalog them yet. i may have the first half of the confused single up by tonight but, considering that i'm going to have to build the entire midi file from almost scratch, this is going to take roughly a week to complete.

when i initially created this, i overprogrammed the drums in a way that conflicted with the incoming synths, partly because i didn't have a synth when i programmed it. once i got the synth, it just created a stew of dissonance. so, i sent the file out through mono, which toned it down a bit. before i sold the ry30 (which i deeply regret), i saved all my tracks from the ry30 (in stereo) direct into the soundcard. so, the original recordings are all in mono, but i have a stereo version that i'd like to mix in.

unfortunately, the two versions are out of sync. i understand why and can try to explain it a little. it has to do with the difference in how analog and digital waves store data, and is reproducible in general. you can try it yourself if you have the right gear. all you'd need to do is take a vinyl or cassette version of something and send it in to your soundcard, then take a digital cd-rip of the same song. obviously, it has to be the same master and everything. then, compare the tracks. you'll notice that they may differ in length by as much as about 0.5 second per minute. another way you can verify this is by looking up old songs on youtube - look for beatles songs or something. you'll notice the time varies by a few seconds, depending on the source of the upload.

i'm experiencing this because i sent the digital signal to tape and back to digital when i created it, and just sent it straight from digital when i saved the drum parts.

now, you're not going to hear a significant difference in this if you do an a/b. it's a microtone of a microtone in shift; indiscernible to human ears. but, it creates a problem when it comes to mixing the source.

i'm going to try and line it up, but this is an almost impossible task that i will no doubt have to concede defeat on. what that means is that the electronic version i wanted to do is going to have to be built from scratch. and what that means is that i'm almost certainly going to be doing a "confused" single, which will compile versions from the 96 demo, the 98 demo and the new (instrumental) construction i'm about to make.

the process requires trying to time-shift (in this case compress) the drum machine part to the exact length on the tape, which can only be done throgh trial and error. the difference over 5 minutes is about two seconds. if i'm off by the slightest fraction of a second, it will become noticeable by the end of the song. and, you get weird phasing issues when you do this kind of thing, too.

on top of that, there's no baseline - and the drum machine part from tape also includes multiple synths. like, if i knew they came from the same file, i could pinpoint it by finding markers. that's not an option here, because they even came in through different soundcards...

given that i know that this is virtually impossible, i'm not going to focus too much time on it.

i'm going to line everything up and mix, whether i use it or not. it's useful.

i've decided that i'm going to finish scores for a few of these and put them on thru, which is what i was thinking of doing with them, but backed away from due to time constraints; but, i removed some things from thru, which opens up space after all. so, that works out well. as before, the rule with thru is that it has to be midi music. i'm thinking two of these will end up there.

for some of them, i'm happy with the inricycled edits in terms of saving them. these tracks don't have overly interesting song structures, and i'm not really gaining much by stripping the vocals out.

others, i'm thinking i may just insert into the relevant records as replacements. some of the vocals work well enough as satire that i don't really want to move way from them. others are just flat out bad, even by teenager standards.

lastly, there may be a separate release for instrumental works, depending on how much i play with the records. i'll have to figure that out when it happens. it may end up on the end of inricycled,depending on track lengths.

so, i'm going to start by looking at "confused", which i'm thinking about making a midi version for.

package sent. now, i wait.

i should be able to get enough of a start on this project tonight to be able to get a feel as to how it's going to work itself out.

Sure There’s a Catch…

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. 

This is an interesting issue for me to approach, because the reality is somewhat circular. I’ve presented myself to several professionals looking for a longer term diagnosis (which is truly what I was seeking as I embarked on this path; please see the attached document, with my first write-up), and they’ve been unable to determine any symptoms. I’m left with no option but to agree that I am not demonstrating symptoms. However, there’s a catch – I am not demonstrating symptoms because ODSP has left me stable and happy, by allowing me to immerse myself in my art. If I’m not demonstrating symptoms, I should not qualify for ODSP; but if I lose the ODSP, I will again begin to demonstrate symptoms, and need to go back on ODSP.

See, the truth is that I truly am unstable – a glance at my unwritten biography would demonstrate that clearly. I have been without an address several times, and am prone to absurd behaviour when placed under stress. I’ve been fired repeatedly, and unable to find a job for many years. I really should be grounded. Yet, my concern for my safety appears rational to the professional observer. Hence, requests for diagnosis are misunderstood as evidence of stability.

Rather than try and obfuscate, I believe I should be honest: I am not just currently stable and happy. I am actually currently more stable and happier than I’ve ever been in my life. My prerogative to argue for stasis is consequently not merely a desire to prevent the inevitable collapse I will face should I be denied ODSP, but to actively argue for it as the best case scenario for me. It’s almost an appeal for benevolence.

I think that, when discussing an individual’s qualification for disability, there are three perspectives to analyze. The first is whether the applicant is able to work. The second is whether the applicant is able to find work. The third is whether the applicant desires work. I believe that these issues are not disconnected, but are very interrelated and that the causal forces acting between them can be very complex.

One way to see that this is true is to look at the results of my cra application in 2008. I wrote several tests for this application and did very well on the ones that were “competency” related. My GCT2 mark was actually exceedingly high; I earned a mark of 80/90 on this test, in a competition where the minimum pass was 51/90. When I went in to the interview, they told me it was the highest mark they’ve ever seen on that test. This would appear to indicate not just competence but possible excellence. Yet, my grade on the situational judgement test (a workplace behaviour test) was so poor that I was removed from the competition. I failed that test twice more over the next few years. Together, that indicates that I would have likely been capable of performing the task asked of me, and perhaps even of excelling at it, but that I would not have been able to adjust to the workplace environment – and consequently could not be hired. In fact, I actually agree with the combined results, as it fits my experience of frequent firings and infrequent attendance at school, even while my performance was strong and my grades were high. While other employers may be less rigorous in their hiring, they seem to be able to intuitively understand this about me and avoid me as a result of it. It does then follow that my anxiety is a block; when I’ve been forced to try and get around it because I have no other choice but to get around it in order to pay rent and bills it nonetheless continues to flag me as a problem and either make me an unviable candidate or a swiftly terminated employee. I consequently can’t work because I can’t find work because of the condition.

The gender dysphoria is not insignificant in piecing this together, as it is one of the dominant causes of the anxiety. This works on two levels – both on the level of unrealistic expectations and on the level of a self-consciousness that manifests itself as a lack of confidence, which is devastating in context. Even when I was living as a male, it was something that was easily “figured out”, which created some pretty bad attitudes and behind-the-back murmurings. I don’t feel there’s an answer to this. My gender/body combination remains at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

I claim I am happy and stable on ODSP, but did I ever seek labour? I have teenager memories of being excited about saving money up to get certain things. My first major purchase was a cd burner in 1998, back when such things were still novel. I worked two or three jobs at a time over the summers of 2002 and 2003, and while it was hectic I was happy to contribute to my education. I worked for Microsoft over 2006 and legitimately enjoyed it; I was able to take that money to get my own apartment and buy some recording gear. Employment provided me with financial independence and control over my means of production. So, the answer is an unambiguous yes: I have actively sought and enjoyed labour in the past.

However, in time, prejudicial attitudes began to sink in – and it’s a contribution to the anxiety. My interests have converged to things that are outside any kind of concept of wage labour. For many years, I’ve looked at employment very cynically, with the understanding that I’m wasting my time somewhere doing something I don’t care about with people that don’t respect me. Over 2007 and 2008 (the last time I was employed), I called in sick repeatedly – often because I just couldn’t get up to go in due to anxiety and depression. I would also leave work early due to depression, which tended to manifest itself in powerful headaches and short tempers. I have not experienced any of these problems over the last two years; I have been stable and happy. Alas, that catch-22…

Yet, do I not want to work, to contribute? Well, let’s reverse the question around. I think there are two reasons why people might want to work. The first is for the benefit of society - altruism. The second is for personal gain - individualism. But what is personal gain? A stock broker may argue that it is about capital accumulation, whereas an athlete may argue it’s about being the best. As an artist, I find these things actually overlap more than they contradict – the art is made both for me and for everybody else. Expression for the sake of expression is the most valuable form of personal gain, and asking challenging questions is the thing I’m most suited to do in society. If the goal is to maximize personal gain through contributing to society, I don’t think that work is the way to do that; I think that art is the way to do that.

Yet, how did I get there? How did I decide that expression is personal gain? Why not competition, or accumulation, or material wealth? Well, in all of these cases the root cause is the same: its sexual dominance. The use value of a car is hardly worth its price; nowadays I walk most places, but I’ve never had a need for such a thing, between bicycles and city busses.  If anything, it puts the car owner into an impossible loop: they need to go to work to pay for a car that they only use to go to work. It’s running on a treadmill; except, it isn’t, because a car is a status symbol, and that status symbol is a tool to compete with peers for the sexual interests of others. Competition, accumulation and materialism are often blamed for the violence we experience in our society, but they are merely masking the sexual motives underlying their fetishization. As an individual who has undergone voluntary chemical castration, these motives are not valid to me. Rather, my motives for personal gain are largely intellectual – and no labour, at any salary, can appeal to me on this level. Nor can I hide this reality from interviewers – it is a part of the visible anxiety that sets in. So, I cannot work because I can’t find work because I don’t want to work because of the condition.

I believe that humans are malleable creatures and that I could no doubt be conditioned out of this, but to what end? Is it worth the state’s time and energy to put a hopelessly apathetic personality type through therapy so that it can flip burgers for minimum wage? Excuse me for being jaded by the prospect…

So, what happens if I get this renewed? Well, I have a lot of art to work on, and would continue to apply myself to it over thirty hour work days of happy, strenuous and productive labour. Its value is perhaps unclear, but I think I can make a bigger difference to society through my opinions than I ever can through wage labour, and I’m certain I’ll be happier and more stable that way. What happens if this is denied? It is exceedingly unlikely that I will be able to find employment, and if I do I will no doubt be very unhappy. I will likely become very depressed and completely unstable; a suicide attempt is not unlikely, which will generate further documents which will get me back on odsp - until I’m stable again, no doubt.

Rather than forcing me to continue to rebuild these sandcastles on the beach after every tide, I propose that you allow me to rebuild further from shore by granting me the longest disability term that you can. For me, this is really the only workable solution to my problems, and removing the solution will accomplish nothing but bring them all back again.

and, i think the argument of comparing my general competency test score (which is off the charts, just unheard of, nobody gets 90% on these tests) to my inability to pass the workplace behaviour test is compelling. apparently, i'm a genius. but i'm also apparently incapable of behaving in a work environment.

i can write an essay in an hour (see: this thread), but i need to get going on this. i bought a pack of smokes to keep me up all night, it would be stupid for me to waste that. i need to eat first, though. and i need to read over some old posts, first.

i've been toying in my mind the idea of being systematic about it by looking at the following three options: inability to work, inability to find work and unwillingness to work. i kind of want to explore the intersectionalities of these three ideas. but i need to look at the precise essay question a little more closely and make sure i'm actually answering the right question.

again: let's just see what i can come up with, and go from there.

i actually think i should be able to reconstruct most of the first one. the bigger question is whether it's going to be interesting as an instrumental work - and i think it mostly will be. it's the second one that's a little more up in the air, partly because it was constructed largely from the outtakes from the first one. but i'm going to just go through each of the files in the order they were recorded (not the order they're sequenced), finish them in every possible way i can think of and then figure out what i want to do with them.

see, the thing is that each of the first three tracks already have three or four versions, so they're already naturally "singles". and if i end up with ten singles, i have nowhere to put them.

i might explore the idea of putting them in as inri04a, inri04b, etc. that's kind of crappy.

or, i might crack and renumber. i've sold three discs so far, and they're all to the same person. it's not the most profound problem if those discs end up renumbered. i don't like this idea, but it's more important that the discography has it's proper shape.

so, i could end up with anywhere from 10 to 60 more tracks out of this. *shrug*.

i mean, my analysis of this period is that it's actually interesting music. i just don't like the vocals. at the same time, i want the period documented properly. again: i wish i had checked the tapes, because i would have realized the tracks are not at all "lost" and i would have completed it in sequence. i kind of thought i only had two or three tracks to work with (the ones i kept sequences for), not 22 of them.

but i may add things, if i think it's an answer.

i was putting this off because other things were more important. but i'm actually done the phase i really wanted done, and pretty much everything left is some kind of big project or another. it's as good a time as any...

of course, one of the things i'll have to try and figure out is just how much of it actually stands up as instrumental music. a lot of it was written as verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus, which can sometimes work, but sometimes doesn't. the vocals are mostly lame. but there's no point in replacing lame with lame. and i'm not rewriting 20 year old vocal parts...

i can't predict how long this will take, or how long it will be until i'm back to where i was. a month, maybe. it depends on how much i do. but whatever i do is the end of it.

there's 22 tracks from the tapes; the rest of the tracks from this period (98-99; inri and inriched) are purely digital. these 22 tracks are digitized across each channel on the four-track. for starters, i'm going to want to strip the vocals out of almost all of them (excluding the ones that are already instruumental). then i'm going to want to see how closely i can reconstruct the records, as they were. if i can do this reasonably well, i'll probably just turn inri and inriched into double records, with the original vocal versions on the flip side. that will take care of the bulk of it. then i'm going to need to chew on whether i want to replace the remasters i did in 2013 with the original mixes.

some of them, i'm going to want to compile together into electronic soundscapes that just include the drum machine, some synths and maybe some added vst synths. i'll no doubt crack on some guitars. this may require some rewriting; i'm letting myself go in reinterpreting them. this is what i was planning on being it's own release, sequenced some time in 2016. but it needs to be on this aleph-release, so i need to do this now. i'd have to sequence this to about march, 1999, which means i may turn inricycled B into a double or just replace it. anything else, i don't know. further remixes could conceivably end up on inrimixed.

see, i was thinking of doing this in singles, though. if it turns out that that makes sense, i may have to drop the two demos into negative territory. in truth, i don't actually consider either of them real releases, so i'm ok with doing that, although i obviously don't really want to...

i could convert some of them into doubles. or i may just leave it specific to the dvd. but it has to be dealt with now.

so, inriℵ0 is not complete, after all.

i won't have this problem with the other alephs.

ugh.

basically, when i looked at rehabilitating the inri material as the process of completing the discography almost two years ago, i fucked up. i just let what existed exist as it was. since then, i've taken a more comprehensive look at what i was doing, creating all these singles. that wasn't the initial plan...

i wanted to put a few of the tracks aside for a "chiptune" disc. that became the thru record, composed of material written from 2001-2003. however, it was initially supposed to also include material written over 1997-1998. after some mental gymnastics, i decided to put it off to a future release.

but, now the chronology is all screwed up. what i should have done was finish these files in 2013, and create singles for them.

i also didn't realize that the tapes were in such good condition. i should have checked that...

now that i'm closing the first period...i want everything contained.

i have a few options - i could append them to inrisampled, inrimixed, inrijected or the second inricycled. but none of it's really sitting as well.

i'm going to have to think this through carefully. but whatever i end up doing has to end up on this aleph-0 disc. otherwise, it's sitting open for who knows how long, when the whole point is to permanently close it.

i have to write my odsp essay first, though. but when i come back to this tomorrow, it's going to be with the aim of looking at each of these old song and figuring out exactly what i want to do with each of them. and that's probably going to mean just doing it, in sequence, and then figuring out how to present the material afterwards.

i've been playing with these aleph discs for a few months and turning various ideas over in my head. a rough concept of period discs for $100 and album box sets for $50 has stabilized, but the contents have fluctuated quite a bit.

as i'm currently finalizing the end of my second compositional period, these aleph discs need to be permanently finalized and put away.

after experimenting with various ideas, i've decided that there is no way out of a comprehensive period one disc. these pieces are too integrated to split at any rational point without splitting ideas across the set. nor does it make sense to put it in a 2xdvd due to the html front-end. rather, it must exist on a dual-layered dvd.

this is literally everything i recorded in the 90s, and the compilation is comprehensive - both mastered & unmastered mixes of everything i can find, unsequenced mixes, outtakes, discarded remixes, used remixes and anything and everything else from the period. it also comes with detailed liner notes - both distributed across the front end and in standalone 130 page documents, in word and pdf formats.

this was a lengthy process because it required cleaning off hundreds of pages of writing on my facebook wall and converting the necessary parts into a front-end. the next couple of these discs will happen much more quickly, as they really mostly just needs to be formatted. it appears, however, that it will take a few more weeks to completely finish this period.

for now, this is inriℵ0 - finally, permanently and irreversibly finished. so, i'm finally permanently moving on...

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/period-1-2