ok, i got the things done i wanted done this morning, meaning i now have a straight week with nothing else on my mind. i just need to get something to eat....

i need to point out that this page is going to change soon. i'm going to be moving the "journal" component off, restricting this to a strict musical timeline that is basically going to be little more than the rss feed from bandcamp...

i think it's probably beneficial. i mean, i'm keeping a journal because *i* want to keep a journal. you may be more interested in just knowing when the music comes up. which is what the rss feed is for. but it's also what a lot of people do with their facebook pages, and what i'm defaulting to.

that being said, i will post the link to the journal when i set it up.

it'll either be at tumblr or blogspot, depending on which gives me more of the options i want to integrate into my appspot site, which is where everything is moving.

there's just a lot of things about facebook i don't like. the spying is kind of a minor inconvenience. i'm more irritated by the lack of control.

it'll be a while, because i'm transferring my main profile first, but it's coming.

actually, i'm feeling a little tired right now from a lot of walking and just want to kind of curl up. i'll be back at this when i wake up.

it would be nice to just download all your facebook posts, but you can't actually do that....

rather than sit and copy and paste for a week or longer, i'm going to do a little when i wake up and a little when i go to sleep. i started this process yesterday. i figure it'll be about a month before it's done. maybe longer, though. there's a lot...

when i get that done, i'm going to want to move to a service that i can integrate more cleanly into the appspot site. i don't know what that's going to be, i'll have to play with it. tumblr. blogspot. i want something where i can control the presentation better. i'll post that when i figure it out.

so, i'll still be posting here for a while, until i figure that out. but i've set the process in motion.

a few years ago, i was arguing that rss was dead because facebook had rendered it obsolete. and, for a while, that may have been true. but, the changes facebook has made have managed to take it from being on the cusp of dominance to virtual irrelevance.

it's now a paid advertising service. they cut out posts. the end user has very little control over what appears in the feed. that's not a replacement for rss, it's a replacement for television.

if whatever replaces facebook learns the lesson, it may kill rss. but facebook has managed to shoot themselves in the foot with it. and i'm going back to the old.

if what you want is a customizable feed that gives you what you want to get, you can't get it through facebook....

rather, you get what facebook has taken payment to promote.

i'm not the first out. but as more and more people leave, it will drive more and more people out until it's a ghost town.

the future of this platform is ad servers talking to each other over a barren landscape...

in the end, it's a case study as to what not to do.

in the end, this isn't going to be empty, but i want to ensure that anybody can just scroll through and not miss posts. that's going to restrict it, basically, to record release dates and posts to essays/papers. and i *will* keep updating that here...

but it's going to look more like a c.v. than a blog. the blog is moving out...

62 of 81 dumped and i think maybe one of them is close to what i really want....

i'll just get these dumped today and start comparing them when i wake up.

so, there are three parameters to modify in the four simultaneously playing guitar tracks.

3^4 = 81 different possibilities.

i've played the thing back far more than 81 times. if i don't do this systematically, i'll never finish it. i need to ensure that i've heard all possibilities and am picking the best one before i mod it further.

so, i'm dumping all 81 possibilities to wave file...

i'll then have to put together a sort of round robin tournament, where i hold parameters constant and check for the differences in one parameter. the "winner" will move on to the next round. eventually, there will be one file left and that's what i'll go with,

hey, i studied math for quite a while. i can't abolish my nature. it just means it'll take another day...

ugh.

i've been through this before, but i keep doing it. i know the reality: trying to recreate a patch you thought was "perfect" from scratch is basically chasing a utopian fantasy. it's not real. it can never be real...

...because, what is "perfect"? it's no doubt better than what actually existed. and, so, for all i know i could have dialed right past what i had in the first place and not realized it, all the while afraid to make too many changes because i might lose the imaginary ideal that i'm projecting, the sound that never existed in the first place.

so, i just need to dial it to something close and then be a little less paranoid about modifying it. it's starting to seem like i'm going to want to add a fifth part on the high end...

yeah. i'm mad at myself. i've got this kind of thurston moore meets allan holdsworth guitar part quadrupled, and it was just what i wanted to hear, but i fucked up the modelling by freezing and unfreezing the tracks. now, i can't get it right...

it's four parts running simultaneously, so it's not tweaking one thing. it's tweaking four things that combine to create one thing.

i may have to sleep on it.

so, i got my extension pretty easily. i didn't even have to ask for it. suggesting somebody's reading this....

hey, it's alright. it's evidence in my favour, right?

so, i have until april, now. camh is on the 12th of january. that gives me plenty of time to work something out in a less dramatic fashion and pushes possible appeals forward until july. that's actually enough time that i might get the discography done, at which point plans begin to shift.

i'm hoping i can get at least two more years on odsp, which should hopefully give me enough time to (1) complete the discography and (2) get a good chunk of the reading i want to do before i go back to school done. if i can get five years, it should transition me just about perfectly into a master's program somewhere. possibly in kitchener or london. there's reasons i moved to windsor, but the local place of higher education is not one of them. i stayed at carleton for a really long time because i was tied to the city and it was really a better option than ottawa for the things i was studying (and also because i liked the campus). but i think that going to a lower ranked school actually stifled me a little in terms of dealing with less than brilliant profs and slightly tedious curricula. if i'm going back to school, i'm going to go to a good one.

the flip side of that is that i really, really like where i'm staying. i wouldn't move unless i was pretty serious about it. and i'm projecting that forwards, but it's hard to predict where my head is going to be in 5 years.

and, if i can get permanent, i can basically just work out my ideas without the necessity of having to deal with the education system at all. i think there's something to be said for being the eccentric oddball that escapes peer review by publishing papers to appspot.

but, one thing at a time: i got my extension. so i can relax for the holidays and start scheming in january.

i've been playing with levels all night. and there's a nasty memory leak in my drum plugin causing me to stop and start. it's probably the last time i'm using it.

i've got a phone call to make at 8:30 and i think this should be done by then. and i think the final mix should be done by the time i leave for camh tomorrow, if i have to leave for camh tomorrow.

i was thinking i'd probably move some of the vst stuff over, but it's not going to be much, if it's anything at all.

i think i got it. or at least i think i'm happy with it. but the undo function isn't really good enough. i want total rewind. maybe that's a use for those glasses google is trying to sell, and nobody seems to want. because, really, what the fuck are they besides a surveillance device?

i'm seriously considering installing a camera on my screen to keep track of what i'm doing, so i can rewind the thing in case i haphazardly change something and forget what i did.

i mean, telling myself doesn't seem to work. and it's not even feasible, when you really think about it.

i bet the cia'd love that, huh?

untitled (pretentious mix)

this is the version that i modified from the cakewalk output, but i ended up rejecting it because i added some guitar and synth parts that don't really work well with the track. i do a lot of improvisational noise, and wanted to integrate that aesthetic, but, instead, it just comes off sounding a little pretentious.

it wasn't long before i realized my error, but i hadn't saved a version i could go back to so i was sort out of luck. what i ended up doing was cutting the middle part out of the track when i used it for the reflections ep, then just dropped it from the symphony altogether.

nor can this be effectively reconstructed from the source, due to it having multiple paste overs after the cakewalk mixdown that are impossible to locate in the file. the result is something like a little reverb/delay on the track. it's consequently a unique, discarded mix that must simply be left as is.

dated to sept 10, 2002. uploaded, unmodified, on dec 14, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-pretentious-mix

so, i'm skipping the rejected mix. it was rejected for good reasons. there were only four extra parts to it, and they're going to end up fixed up n the final mix, so it would just be superfluous.

that means i'm already stating the vst mix after i eat.

it also means i'll have room to put an early version of the first movement of the fifth symphony on the end of this single, which is good because it's really the right place for it.

parts of the rejected mix will reappear on the seven track version of the reflections single release, because i was distributing it the way. i cut the middle out when i did this. i ended up taking the song out of my fifth symphony, so it won't be on the two track 5/6 disc. rather, the final mix will be on j^2.

but, then you're not getting everything on the single, which is the point.

gah.

ok, i need to get this up, after all. i can't modify it because i put it through a mild delay. but at least it was never compressed.

uploading already completed mixes of untitled to inri061 & inri070

1) this track was initially written as a folk punk song, but i jumped to the scorewriter with it almost immediately. the expanded guitar demo was written in a scorewriter and then performed, rather than vice versa. it was initially less about explicitly creating a techno song and more about ordering the parts in a way that could be deconstructed more effectively.

the taiko drum part was initially just to keep time; it wasn't supposed to be a part of the song. but, as i built it up i began to realize how interesting it sounded as a techno tune and sort of ran with it.

written over the summer of 2002. this render is from dec 13, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled


2) i programmed this over late july and early august, 2002. render from december 13, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/soundblaster-mix-7


3) when i initially recorded the track in cakewalk (as an experiment with the program) on a windows 98 machine, i ran out of ram after eight tracks and had to go back to my normal wave editor collage-build mixing process to finish it. unfortunately, i didn't really like the edits i made and ended up defaulting to this version for many years. however, it was only saved in mp3...

on aug 11, 2010, i converted the track to 32-bit directly from the mp3 (which i verified in dec, 2014 via phase inversion) and uploaded it to bandcamp, as a part of the never really finished and with now unclear future tetris project ( jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/tetris ). while i don't feel that the sound quality of the track is sufficient to act as a base for a final version, the process of compressing, decompressing and then converting to 32-bit produced something special on the bottom end that i feel is worth keeping for it's own sake.

dated to sept 1, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-out-of-ram-mix

just a note that things are converging towards an early 2015 shut down date for my facebook presence, which i've been planning for quite a while. i'm making that call on monday morning; if i have to stand outside for four hours, it's ok because it will be nice out. if things work out, i will have time to migrate out of facebook when i get to the shift in my discography (i'm calling it the shift from period 2 to period 3) that happened at the beginning of 2003. it's a natural point to stop and review what i've done over the last year. i'm currently in september, 2002. as an aside, my movement through will likely speed up from 2003-2005 because i don't have the pile of unfinished tracks over this period that i had from 2001-2002. 2005-2011, however, has even more unfinished stuff that will require even more work. i mean, the 2001-2002 stuff was mostly written out in scores or in my head, it just had to get it finished. i'd guess that only about half of the 2005-2011 stuff is fully written; the rest of it exists in sort of vague descriptions. for example, i have a concept record tying ideas of simultaneous "crash" (oil crash, economic collapse, aliens crash landing...there's a narrative....) together that is penciled in for 2006 but only consists of a 9 minute opening noise collage and the first few minutes of a score...considering that this may be a double, that's almost a full construction required.

i've been putting migrating off this site off because it's a two week long project and i've been prioritizing getting as much as i can done before i come up against this possibility of losing my income source. if it doesn't work out, i don't want a website to be what i have to show for my last few months. but if i'm confident i have more time, it will become a priority to get off this.

facebook just isn't the right way to get this documented. basically, i actually like the timeline. that's what i'm using, here. but even the timeline is stupid - it cuts out posts when you're floating through. what's the point of that? my life history isn't something to be upvoted or downvoted.

so, i'm going to basically convert the timeline out of this hideous server side php thing to a hardcoded html file and put it up at my appspot site. i'm going to want to find a way to get an rss feed out of it, and dump it to the music site. i'm then going to delete all of the content here and stop posting.

in the mean time, i'm still updating. but that will stop soon one way or another.

i'm realizing i'm kind of giving into the google monopoly of the internet.

but, based on what i actually want, they're simply doing everything right...and these other sites just aren't...

i'm leaving the account open because it's still the best way to find concerts. otherwise, i don't really have any use for this anymore.

as far as public commentary is concerned, i'm using google+ to rant. if you're enjoying my ranting, that's where i'm doing it. part of it is that all these privacy concerns on facebook are rather counterproductive for me; i like the idea of twitter's hashtags, but i find the character limits make the site useless. i mean, it's the internet. the internet ought to be public. if you want privacy, i'd argue you should just not post on the internet. but, for me, because i'm constantly trying to draw attention to myself, it doesn't make sense to have things housed in this space. when i post a rant to google, it gets cross-listed to a video on youtube that the whole world can access. and that's what i actually want, not this friend-zone exclusive area.

ok, so i've got this broken down into a flow of ideas, even if i can't date it well. i think most of it had to be after august because i remember doing it in the house i moved to in august. anyways...

i've got two incomplete mixes from 2002. neither can be a final mix.

the first one was made in cakewalk. i seem to have then modified the output on it and saved over it, which wouldn't have been an error - it's how i worked. so, i only have that version in mp3. this has been the version i've been uploading to places since 2010, because i wasn't happy with the final one and didn't want to sit down and fix it. i'm going to reconstruct it in cubase - that won't be difficult, as i have all the source files. it's just a question of lining them up and setting the levels. i'll upload a remaster of this because it's the only version anybody's ever heard.

the second mix was supposed to be the completed one and was done in the old cool edit way of pasting files on top of the collage. i didn't have a fast enough computer to keep going in cakewalk. i stayed with this process for years, until i upgraded the old pc in 2007. the problem with this mix is that i put really goofy prog rock guitar and synth parts into it that kind of broke it. i'm going to reconstruct this and upload it, but with the volume on those parts down a little.

before i do these things, i need to check the score. the score as it is is going to come up in soundblaster-rendered midi song form. depending on how much i add, i may do that a second time. a final score version will also go through a vst render process.

when that's all done, i'll need to combine everything together for a final mix.

that sounds like a lot of work but it's really not. christmas at the latest.

uploading guitar demos to inri061

1) this song was first demoed as a rabit is wolf song, but the changes i made to it were not well received. this is as far as the track got in that context. recorded july 14, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/penny-shoeman-initial-demo


2) this is a second guitar demo, expanded to be a little more elaborate in the guitar playing. notating this formed the basis of the electronic version. recorded july 21, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-expanded-guitar-demo

publishing atom’s / taught to twist the affected so low (inri060)

this is two conceptually linked outtakes from mid 2002 that document an event that i'm going to be vague and obscure about.

written in august, 2002. track one was mildly remixed on dec 12, 2014; two and three were uploaded unmodified. final completion date is dec 12, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, drum sampling, drum and other programming, digital wave editing, vocals

released august 31, 2002

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/atoms-taught-to-twist-the-affected-so-low



1) i've been very apprehensive about publishing this, but i want to be complete and it was a long time ago.

the summer of 2002 is pretty messy for me. i was very isolated, going through hormone therapy and on the brink of psychological collapse. so, my memory over those months is quite blurry.

for this reason - and others - i'm going to withhold the back story to this track. part of what i'm doing here is writing a biography, and the purpose of that is obviously for readers at some point in the future. that's inevitably going to lead to me framing certain things in a specific and subjective way. as far as this track and these months are concerned, something happened that i'd rather is just simply forgotten. i'd prefer to leave it at that, and for readers and listeners in the future to simply respect that.

to be blunt, it would be difficult to make much sense out of the situation by interpreting these lyrics, anyway. they in no way reflect anything close to an accurate analysis of the situation. it is better to interpret them as rambling lunacy triggered by a schizophrenic episode than to try and make any actual sense out of them as a reaction to something that happened in real life. i was simply not living in the condition of sanity at the time.

i do want to point out that i'm taking some poetic license in the lyrics - you can't really make literal scientific sense of it, so don't try. i was actually more reflecting on my feeling that this science/math education thing wasn't really getting me where i wanted to get to in life. there's a few layers in there, but it's the last line that's the key one.

this was completed in a messy state over a few days in august, 2002. i mildly remixed it to turn the rest of the track up relative to the vocals on dec 12, 2014.

spinning alone
through an empty shell
a sole electron
moves out of it's orbit

the number is zero
this is the covalence
a bond is impossible
while surrounded by neutrons

yet a sole positron floats
in and out of the sphere
the attraction is strong
but it never comes near

the laws now collapse
as the electron moves out
the positron senses
and runs in fear

electrostatics
multiplicity
inverse attraction
the smaller repelled by the larger

physical laws only mean so much
even an electron seeks a positron's touch
the purpose of living is to lose what you crave
bohr, bohr, bohr, BORE spins alone in his grave

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


2) the effected solo. i thought it was clever at the time.

this was recorded in one take while i was doing guitar parts for the untitled techno tune. my head was blurry and i needed to just stop and jam. i then took the part (which was isolated from a much longer improvisation) and ran it through a series of effects to create this soundscape. dated to august 25, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/taught-to-twist-the-affected-so-low


3) i was doing bass parts on the untitled techno tune when i received the wake-up call...

dated to aug 31, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/wake-up-call

yeah, the remasters have to stand as they are. and they do generally sound punchier, and have better separation on the instruments. further, the higher mix is absolutely closer to the source.

there's a few tracks that do have one aspect or another in the originals that i like better, but dumping them in will pose continuity problems - because the tracks run into each other. it's kind of like the whole thing has to be done one way or another...

i know i'm going to revisit this again. as i stated before: it's probably impossible to get it perfect. but i'll wait until i do the reconstructions before i touch it further.

i'm going to end up trying to rebuild both of these from scratch. i fully realize that. but that's not a quick project, and i can't be doing it right now.

so, back to inri041...this shouldn't take too long to get up, maybe by the end of the night, even.

when i do the reconstructions, i'm going to be focusing on a handful of song suites rather than individual tracks. both the discs are split into 19 tracks. but i'll be interpreting it in runs of 5 or 6. so, it will be easy enough to sort of dump a mix out that i can shape back into an uplifted version of the source. but whether this is feasible or not is going to depend on how much i can phase shift out. i'm using different sound cards to take it in, they've been compressed...i keep saying i can't do this, but i sort of don't want to believe it, even though i know it's true. bah. out of mind. forwards!

....and my headphone braces just finally snapped back apart. it's been a little unstable since i fixed it with epoxy, it was a matter of time. this isn't something that affects the sound. and they'll stay in place when i put them on my head, they just fall apart immediately afterwards.

i'll try and stick it back in place before i go to sleep tonight. presuming i can get enough goop out of the tube and don't need to buy more...

i don't think i can find the right kind of braces anywhere. these headphones are almost as old as i am.

actually, i think they're standard sized. i'm probably better off getting new braces. although...actually...

yeah. i just took the braces from the other pair that i lost a few years ago and can't fix due to them being soldered on. it's a little snug, but it'll do until i get a new set of braces.

so, non-issue.

so, my initial logic with this stands...

i only had four tracks at the time to work with, so i generally bounced all the electronic things to a single track - drum machines, sequenced sound card playback, live synths, digital noise. i then put all the guitars on one track, the bass on the third and the vocals on the fourth.

the isolated "digital track" is often interesting it's own kind of way, some of it sounds like early autechre, but it creates something anachronistic if i'm trying to create an ep of stuff from late '97, because a lot of the stuff didn't come in until 1998.

in order to rebuild this little ep, i'd need to redo the drums and sequencers completely. and there's nothing stopping me from doing that. except that there's really only one song that i think it's worthwhile to do it for.

i'm going to wait until i completely reinterpret each of the songs, and then put a series of singles up.

so, there's no lost release. and i'm probably not going to touch the remasters, although i am going to spend the evening listening.

the digitization was useful, but i don't think this little lost ep is worth fucking the discography up over.

well, i'm not particularly convinced that collusion is not taking place, but i got the refill....

when i got there, he told me it wasn't in yet. so i yelled and screamed for a few minutes, providing the ultimatum to provide me a refund or get on the phone and call around to get it in right away. the owner just coincidentally happened to be in the back, and she took care of it - the refill was there in about twenty minutes. that's how you have to deal with shit like that...

the excuse they gave me was they thought they gave me seven days (but i take them twice daily, so they gave me 3.5). it's a bad excuse, either way, because they told me it would be in by monday....

so, i dunno. all the information to conclude incompetence is there, but it's not really sitting right with me. for the immediate moment, it's sort of irrelevant.

i'm going to drive myself nuts with this unless i just accept it's all fucked and move on. all i can do is kick myself in the ass.

it's the same basic problem with the drum parts. i have them dumped to chrome tape or i have them in 128 kbps mp3. the tape versions are missing depth and definition, as you'd expect. the mp3 versions are a little sharper, but distort at the edges of the spectrum, as you'd expect. i sold the ry30 about 2003 to go backpacking in bc, which is probably the single dumbest thing i've ever done.

i could maybe mix them together, but i'm going to get funny phasing issues.

...and i might when i do the reconstructions....

...but for now i need to just get what i can off the tapes and move on. i'm the only person in the world that knows that drum snare is supposed to have 33% more reverb on the right channel.

i'm starting to think there's a conspiracy amongst the medical establishment in this town.

i went on saturday to fill my last refill on the emergency estrace prescription. they had 7 pills they could give me, and told me to come back on monday. i gave them a few extra days to make sure it was in. they didn't order it at all and told me to come back tomorrow...

i have a high expectation for incompetence in general, and am more than willing to assign it to the pharmacy at shopper's drug mart. but, there's a general pattern, here. did i upset somebody by going out of town for a rx? awww.

now, i have a new prescription and i haven't brought it in yet. if it's not there tomorrow, i'm going to have to take that prescription to a different pharmacy.

but i'm left wondering about collusion occurring. it's a small town....

then again, i know i get schizophrenic under stress. which is why i need to avoid stress. you dumb system, you.

we'll find out tomorrow...

i mean, they owe me 53 pills. i paid for them. i need to get them, eventually. but i need the refill by friday morning, too.

again: i think i might be dealing with a religious issue, which is the same problem i had with the local clinic. the main guy back there refuses to refer to me as jessica...

it seems to be a specifically muslim thing. i mean, i don't think one religion is more intolerant than the other with this. but it seems to be that some muslims in the community are having a hard time reconciling their religious value system with our dominant secular value system, and may be a little confused about what our law prioritizes when there's a conflict in place.

i don't have a lot of opposition to diversity. i don't think increasing immigration in a contracting economy is smart, but that has nothing to do with where people are coming from, it just has to do with the gross number of people in. given that we have little reason to think we can expect anything other than near zero to negative growth for the foreseeable future, i think restricting our immigration policy, overall, would be the preferable economic choice at this point in time. but that's an economic calculation, rather than a perspective on diversity.

however, i don't like this idea of religious people enforcing their value systems - regardless of the religion they're enforcing. and, i feel that may be a developing problem.

it's something that needs to be dealt with by the courts, who need to strongly enforce access to health care as a priority over religious objections to providing it. that law needs to be laid down, with extreme force.

i'd argue that it should be an offense that should necessitate a loss of license.

but we'll see what happens tomorrow.

i see that this is actually a current issue...

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2014/08/doctors-do-not-have-right-to-discriminate-and-deny-basic-health-care

ok. it turns out that this is under review, and a set of stricter guidelines is likely to come into force in 2015.

so, that's good news. i'd expect some court cases out of it...

the court isn't going to think in terms of balancing one right against another - it's repeatedly rejected that kind of thinking. but there is a contradiction.

the way i see it is that people make a choice to be a doctor, and in doing so they waive their right to religious objections. doctors work in the service industry. they're required to provide the services they're requested. and if they can't carry out those requests, they should find a different job that doesn't conflict with their religious views.

what that means is that i think being licensed to practice medicine in canada should be attached to upholding a secular value system. you'd have to rephrase that in terms of upholding science to make it legal, but it's the essential idea.

another way you could look at it is that, in canada, doctors are quasi-employees of the government. they're not technically. they run private businesses and cash in insurance hours. but it's being paid for by tax money.

as such, they really *ought* to be under the same legal purview as any other government body (and i don't know if they legally are). but, if they are, as they should be, the argument turns around the other way: conscientious objection becomes something that infringes on the patient's freedom of religion. which is kind of what i'm *feeling* about it...

when a doctor refuses treatment based on a religious view, they're enforcing their views on the patient as much as they're upholding their own. which is really what the actual problem is and really what needs to be addressed.

i mean, consider the issue applied to any other government service. could you imagine welfare refusing to hand out checks to single mothers because it feels their behaviour is sinful? city hall refusing to hand out drivers licenses to women because it believes women should stay at home? that's not the analogy people want to use because we have all these wonky class ideas. but, in canada, it's closer to the right one - whether it conforms to the legal technicality or not.

it was too cold to stand at a pay phone for an hour this morning....

and will be tomorrow, too. and probably also friday. it'll be nice on monday.

i still have over a month. and once i set this in motion there's not going to be any option but to work it out quickly. i mean, i'm not going to wait between attempts. i'm going to go back to camh and do it again the immediate moment i'm released, and i'm going to do it until they fill out the forms. they can't let that happen more than a few times...

i don't have any problems ruining everybody else's christmas, either. i mean, if you're still celebrating the birth of fictional characters, who can be bothered with your opinion? burn the tree already. yeesh.

bonus: if we were to collectively stop celebrating christmas, our entire economic system would collapse.

it's the wind rather than the temperature. it's actually been pleasant, temperature wise, all fall. it's hovering around 0 this week, which is fine. but the winds are coming in from the north at gale gusts and dropping the temperature to around -10. it's not fun to stand in...

it'll be nice when this pattern shifts.

i'm thinking the longer i leave it, the more likely i am to get an extension, as well. because they can tell me i still have a month. if i get an extension, it pushes the whole process forwards in time...that's what i really want...as far as i can push it...

so...

1) upload the two inrijected files. done.
2) ry30 ep.
3) compile a list of things added to the final mixes that are not in the cassette mixes.
4) decide how realistic reconstructing it is.

here's a random example: i recorded the sound of a printer sometime in 1998 and used it in the bridge of a song. there's no algorithm for that. the only way i could get the printer sound back to reintegrate into a new mix is by phase cancelling the drums, guitars and synths in the song. there's probably literally at least 100 further examples of this.

the other thing is that there's a lot of continuity between the tracks. so, they need to maintain a certain amount of flow in the process, which means while i may be able to reconstruct one song it's not useful unless i can reconstruct all six of the songs that flow in and out of it..

again: i don't think this is going to be realistic, and i'm going to have to live with either the compressed cd-r burn or the constructions i put together last year using eqs and mastering software. but i have to prove that to myself...

at least i'll have that ry30 ep, so you can hear what they sounded like, raw. yeah. yeah. yeah. that covers both options.

and, to capture that raw state, it's probably best if i mix them on the tascam. ok. i've got a plan...

hearing the original ‘convoy’ for the first time

i thought i had lost it, but i've recently found the cover of this that i did in high school. i had no idea at the time that it was an actual song, i thought homer was just making it up as he went.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rTTC3M6lh4

updating inrijected (inri022)

so, i've added four more silly minutes to this silly release of silly rejected outtakes from the late 90s...

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

convoy

originally constructed in april, 1998 on some kind of forgotten dare. reconstructed from source on dec 10, 2014.

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

i will say i was right to roll the highs on the remaster, as they're higher on the tape, but it's more than just that. there's clipping in the original files from digitizing it in the red. the extra treble is closer, but it brings in that sort of tinny compressed sound on the guitars that you get from running too much digital compression. &etc.

agh.

fuck it. i did this already. i need to do the listening test, but with the intent on minimal replacements.

i also think it would help if i compiled a list of missing digital additions *before* i start mixing anything, so i know what i can do and what i can't.

again: this is why i wanted the reinterpretation, because i knew i wanted to remix it from the source but knew i couldn't recreate the original mixes. so, there's every reason to go to town, but then the old mixes need to be maintained....

i made the right choice in the first place. no use in second guessing.

but this record-keeping is useful, anyways. so i should do it.

perfectionists don't like situations without perfect answers :\

it torments us. we keep coming back to them.

i really wish i hadn't compressed the source when i was 17, but i did, and i can't undo and have to live with it.

first off, i actually need to compile my little ry30 ep and see what i can do with it. that will actually help...

i'm going to have to try the phase reversal, though. even if there's relics...well, it might be instructive, actually. but a lot of these effects are relatively short. if i can get them mostly out, it might be better than what i have...

when i compare the three sources (cd rip from mp3s, "remaster", original tape) it's no comparison - the tape demolishes the other two. plus, now that it's digitized i can play with the source...

further, i'm realizing i dumped far more to tape than i thought i did.

i feel i don't really have a choice but to go through it all very carefully and update what i can update.

but i'm not going to be able to tempt myself from fucking with it, and i want to not do that.....yet.....

no, i can't phase cancel the vocals out because i compressed the files before i burned them.

i guess the thing is that i'm 40 some releases in now and these two releases (inri005, inri007) are the only things that aren't available anywhere in their original forms - or with extremely minor edits. i know i'm going to redo them. so, why not just put them up as they were? and the reason is that they didn't sound very good as they were. but i need to reconvince myself of this.

if i'm doing anything further to them, though, this is the time.

there were a few files i had to accept compromises on. maybe if i could overlay a guitar part or two...

i'll see.

no....there's too many things i can't do. it's not an option.

but do i like the treblier mix, or do i want to just re-upload the original files? i suspect i'll convince myself of the remixes. i mean, there were reasons for it...

i'd kind of like to just upload the original cd-r as one half of a double and a fully instrumental version as the other half. i could maybe do that by phase cancelling the vocals.

reality: this is never going to stop bugging me. but maybe it's a good time to listen to everything one more time...

i'm going to set it up in a playlist, with original-remaster all the way through and see how i respond afterwards.

uch-o...

i'm listening to the "remasters" of the stuff i did last year and not liking what i did to them anymore. it all sounds tinny. now that i've got everything digitized..grargh...i didn't want to do this...

one track at a time, i think, is the way to go about this.

ok, that gets me through the first 6 tapes (that's 24 channels) from 1998, which were labelled. now i have another dozen that aren't. i think most of them are half empty, but there's a period in early 1999 that i'm hoping is in there somewhere. i think i should be done digitizing by the time the sun comes up.

listening through a few snippets, i seem to have bounced the drums together with sequencers and effects, meaning i have little space to play with what comes off the tapes. to me, the value in isolating the songs at this stage is to draw attention to the drum machine, which tended to sometimes get lost in the mix. but there's only a couple of tracks where this is really meaningful.

the more i think about it, the more i have to place it in proper sequence between inri004 and inri005 and there isn't anything that i want to really take out. so, how? well, on the one hand, i realize it would be useful for a consumer to get these appended to the end of inri004, which is otherwise only 11 minutes. it's about the same time frame, too. but i separated inri004 out for it's conceptual value, and this is necessarily a different concept as well. so, i might, instead, create a consolidated cd release with two separate downloads - inri004a and inri004b. inri004, then, is the fall of 2007, which is what it is right now - i'd just be looking at it two different ways. that's my leading mental concept right now, anyways. but i'm not likely to do this at all unless i'm convinced that the results are going to be substantially different than the reconstructed versions i'll do next year. if i think i'm just going to take the bases of these files and add stuff on top, i'll wait and maybe do a few singles when i get there, just adding the material on as bsides. i'll also want to take that approach if i only pull out two or three songs.

it's almost done; i'll make these decisions over night.

i'm used to driving myself pretty hard to stay awake for long periods to accomplish things. coffee & nicotine are tools for this, and i'm admittedly not smoking right now. regardless, when i pass out early two nights in a row after mere 15 hour days, the truth is i'm subconsciously trying to avoid something...

i can't let that happen a third time. this call will be made tomorrow morning.

for today, i guess i can go back to digitizing files and do some laundry.

subconscious drivers and no nicotine aside, digitizing requires a lot of sitting around and waiting. and, when you sleep seldomly, your body learns to take advantage of down times, as well. if i can get the digitizing done quickly, chances of nodding off while i'm waiting for the channel to finish are minimized...

rap news 30

as for the vid, it's a long debate that goes around in circles. i don't think anybody that can think clearly about it really denies our own role (although maybe a vid like this helps in holding that mirror up), but trying to address it becomes recursive very quickly, breaking down into the obvious statement that we have to change ourselves but without a clear approach on how to actually do it.

there's this whole gramscian view that we uphold the system because we're taught to. from this perspective, it's impossible to do this "the revolution starts inside" bit until we're able to abolish the institutions that put the bit of the oppressor inside of us. but, we'd need to transcend the condition in the first place. and around in circles we go, tracing out an infinite series....

the only way to break this is to acknowledge a vanguard or what could be called an anti-vanguard. i think vanguard politics are discredited, myself. the anti-vanguard takes us into post-leftist thinking. temporary autonomous zones. but this assumes real revolution is impossible. that sounds defeatist, but is it merely realism?

the expanded pyramid you put up is worth dwelling upon. i think that, existing in the middle of the pyramid, we lack the ability to really change anything - largely because we can't adjust to a system that we neither have the right to tear down nor the right to reconstruct. the best we can really do is stand in solidarity with the people at the bottom of the pyramid, in helping them reassert their autonomy, the meaning of which changes from situation to situation. it's only once we can start talking about labour rights in china or land-use rights in brazil that we can understand how we can adjust to a fairer globe.

in the mean time, it probably means that post-leftism is realism rather than defeatism. that's a level of humility that inhabitants of the heart of the empire are going to find difficult to adjust to. perhaps that humility is in truth the real necessary first step.

i mean, i think the expanded pyramid sort of obscures the controlling aspect. you see a pyramid like that and you think that each level is dominant over the next, but is it really so? there's little doubt that "debt slaves" in the advanced industrial world are heavily reliant on production outside of it, but it's worth pointing out that that's a situation that keeps them in place rather than one that empowers them. we're increasingly seeing a situation of structural high unemployment in the developed world that's a reaction to unionization and is directly caused by outsourcing the labour that would alleviate the unemployment; while the unemployed may end up consuming foreign products with what amounts to debt, that doesn't put them in a less dependent position, or in any kind of a position of control. the pyramid presentation is consequently somewhat inaccurate. but, it's inaccurate at the higher levels, as well - this absolutely ordered hierarchy is a gloss any way you look at it. we used to think of this the other way around - we used to think of colonial areas as places to dump goods, in order to enrich the colonizing powers. switching the relationship doesn't construct a power relationship so much as it exposes the underlying economic mechanism. that is, it's more accurate to think in terms of two ends of a market. in order to make money, you need to be able to produce goods cheaply and have a place to sell them. if you take either end point out, the whole thing collapses. it's not entirely fair to suggest that the consuming side of this is as well off as the producing side of it. but it is perhaps instructive to point out that the entire purpose of the new world order (if it's defined as advancing neo-liberalism in the post-soviet era) is to slowly place them on an equal footing. i'm going to agree that if you ask the factory worker in china what the nwo is, they'll tell you it's the consumer base in america. but, if you ask the mass of unemployed workers in spain, they'll tell you it's the absence of economic opportunity created by the globalization of labour. and, maybe they're both right. that takes away a lot of our own agency. and, again, i think that's even more frightening. but i think it's very true.

cat’s apocalypse (reclaimed instrumental and final mix)

this was a song about doing mean things to cats, with the intent of being aggravating, but who wants to listen to that? so, i've taken the vocals out, here.

the drum collage was created digitally out of samples and then dumped to a four-track where the guitar and bass were added. when i compiled my first record, i decided the guitars weren't worth the tape hiss and loss of definition that came with converting to analog and back to digital.

originally created in 1997. reconstructed from source on dec 8, 2014.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/cats-apocalypse

i'm also going to put together parts of a sort of a chiptune compilation from 1997 that i kind of let get away from me...

i don't have a number for it, and i've shipped, so i need to be careful about relabeling. i might delete inri010. the first inricycled is necessary, but the second is increasingly feeling superfluous. i haven't made a decision yet, though. i'll want to get something sequenced first. it might make sense to just add it on to inri004.

i spent the second half of 1997 with my head in an ry30, which i had sequenced to a computer running as a sequencer. i'd play the two things as backup to my guitar parts. this formed the basis of the tracks i recorded over 1998.

i was going to move these ideas into the chiptune disc, but the reality is there's no room for them on it. hence, inrinterpreted - which is a better idea, anyways.

but i still kind of want to capture some of this as it existed at the time - which is the combination of ry30, sequencer and guitar. the culmination of several changes of approach have left this idea stranded, and without an obvious entry point.

i'll have to put some tracks aside and see how much of it is really worth it. but i think something or other is coming up...

as i'm digitizing this, i'm realizing there's a few things i thought were lost that i can drop directly into inrijected. these are cassettes from the 90s that house raw 4-track recordings of songs before they were digitally manipulated. i'm taking them in through the 4-track, channel by channel. i didn't do this before because, with few exceptions, they would have been unusable to recreate any of the inri releases with. i simply don't have the raw digital noises that i used to build the tracks up, so i couldn't recreate them as they were. further, it's not that i wanted to destroy the existing mixes as they were, i just wanted to balance them out a little...

the compromise i came to was to pencil in an "inrinterpreted" release for late 2015 or early 2016 (if i live that long). that way the initial releases could stand as they do, and i could do fresh mixes for the stuff i feel deserves it. there's just a handful of tracks that i'd like to take the vocals out of and maybe sauce up a little - some of them rather radically. as such, i'm going to consider these new constructions, and i want to wait until i get done the chronology that already exists.

but this is a good time to digitize this because i have a bunch of other inri related stuff i'd like to burn off the drive.

that being said, i would have taken a few of these off last year if i realized they were there. i thought i had everything i had digitized; i figured that what i couldn't find was lost. that's not the case. so, these two or three songs will be up in the next few days as well.

prematurely publishing atom's / taught to twist the affected so low

on second thought, i need to squeeze an ep in to august, 2002. i believe the first track is done, but i need to spend some time with the second.

before i left for a backpacking cross-canada trip in mid 2003, i burned a handful of cds and formatted my pc. i didn't want anybody snooping around when i was gone. unfortunately, the burns picked up a weird setting that dated everything to the date of the burn. this issue affects almost everything that was left unfinished between 2001 and 2003, which is a lot of stuff. i was able to date the rabit stuff better because the discs had been burnt previously to this...

the summer of 2002 is pretty messy for me. i was very isolated, going through hormone therapy and on the brink of psychological collapse. so, my memory over those months is quite blurry.

but i've convinced myself that this ep belongs before the untitled piece in the chronology. the truth is it's not in exact order. i specifically remember that the second track was a kind of an excursion in the middle of recording the untitled piece, which i spent most of august and september doing. i put it aside for later completion, which never happened. and a process of deduction suggests to me that the first track must have been in august.

these tracks are both messy, conceptually. i've resisted publishing them up until this point. i'll have to write explanations over the next few days.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/atoms-taught-to-twist-the-affected-so-low

now, as for what i'm doing next....

this is an incomplete mix of the track. it's the last (or second last) track in the midi-oriented style that dominated my output over 2001. it's also very explicitly techno-oriented. so, i'm going to complete it in the same way that i completed the previous midi oriented tracks. the difference is that this track already has a lot of guitars recorded. it's actually quite angular from that perspective.

what i'm going to have to do is:

(1) properly notate it. most of it is written into the score. what's left to write into it is fairly minimal.
(2) a chiptune version will find it's way to thru. it's either the last or the second last component of the chiptune disc, depending on how this ostrich thing works itself out.
(3) i'll need to do a full vst version.
(4) i'll then need to combine that vst version with a proper mix of the existing version.
(5) there's also four existing mixes that need to be cleaned up, including a raw guitar version.

so i'm looking at quite a few versions of this. it's probably not going to take forever, though.

the first step needs to be actually listening to what i have and that's going to need to wait until probably thursday at the earliest.

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

i think the best way to understand my situation is to look at the results of the two tests i took when i applied for a cra job around 07 or 08 or something. it's a concise argument...

the first test they had me do was the general competency level test. there were actually two tests, but let's consider the second. this is basically an iq test. i had a score of 80/90. nobody scores that high. the stats i saw put that in the 95th percentile, but that was the highest percentile published, so it means it's at least the 95th percentile. that means i scored higher on this test than at least 95% of the people that take it. the minimum pass mark is 51/90. now, this is something that's consistent for me - i've repeatedly scored at elite levels on every iq-type test i've ever taken.

the second test they had me do was the situational judgement test, which tests workplace behaviour. i've actually failed this test three times. this is also consistent with my history of anti-social behaviour.

now, the government's perspective was that they couldn't hire me because i don't understand workplace behaviour. maybe that's actually a correct analysis. further, maybe these things are related. maybe i can't pass the behavioural test because my intelligence is too high. maybe the smart-person approach is inherently contradictory to a hierarchical organizing principle. maybe i'm just an anarchist. or maybe there's an underlying condition.

but, for employment purposes, it's the results of the second test that are more important. the challenge i have, now, is getting a health professional to put two and two together.

line is busy. i'll try again tomorrow at 8:30 sharp. i should clean and stuff today...

ok. time to make some phone calls. let's see what happens...

commenting on an effects pedal video

deathtokoalas
that's a cool sound and all (i created something similar in guitar rig about 2007 and use it in the "first movement" track at my channel), but the problem with something like this is that as soon as you package it it instantly becomes a cliche. with all the versatile tools out there nowadays, it's hard to see why anybody would want to go for this...

keep the boxes for distortion, kids. you can make your own effects, nowadays.

ShadicoTheHedgehog
maybe somebody just wants to buy an effect and use it and not go through the trouble of creating one

deathtokoalas
maybe. but, then i'm going to slam their record when i hear it for using stale cliches. i think guitarists operating in this space have a real civic responsibility at this point to try and do something different, because the form has gotten repetitive and it's going to be lost, otherwise. you could claim it's been commodified by the effects industry, even, who have standardized these sounds that were previously just experiments. getting around that means taking full advantage of what you have in front of you.

the way this process ought to work is that you have the sound in your head and you're using the tools to create it, not that the tools give you a sound. this wasn't previously possible for musicians without an electronics background. but, it is now with the electronics that are available.

you can only listen to a combination of chorus/reverb effects for so many decades before it's time to move on. 

MrSpreadem
i agree with you. For the $200 price point you might as well buy a multi effect for a bit more and get some weird sounds like this and way more. By the same token, I personally find it hard to get enough time to play so id prefer something simple that has "classic" tones.

But ya everyone who is serious about making a living in music, you really do need to innovate and you can't do that with sounds from the 60s/70s

i have some loose ends things to do today, but i'm probably going to lose at least a few days this week. my next project is digitizing a number of cassette tapes, in order to clear some things off my drive. i'm just recording, but it's time consuming. so, i'm thinking it will be at least a week before i start on the next track.

publishing trepanation nation (inri058)

there are a few ideas in my discography that i've explored from multiple angles, but nothing else at all like this track, which has been through multiple complete rethinks involving multiple people over the course of thirteen years. as the revisions are so diverse, i think that a comprehensive collection of interpretations is a proper entry within my discography.

in the end, this emerges as my fourth symphony.

the collection is to be arranged chronologically in two discs, with the first disc consisting of mixes that were meant for inclusion in band projects* and the second consisting of mixes that were created after the track was moved into my own various one-person projects. i've placed the second disc at the front of the sequence to stress the july, 2002 release date.

further discussions of the various incarnations of the tracks appear on the track pages, or are linked out from the track pages. please click through.

written over 2001 and rethought repeatedly over 2002, again in 2007, a third time in 2009 and one last time in late 2014. final mixes were completed over the last week of november and the first week of december, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

*the classical guitar version and quiet isolation mix are available for download only due to space limitations on the physical media

credits:
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, classical), bass, synthesizers, drum programming, orchestral sequencing (10), drum manipulation, vocal manipulation, voice (8), live & digital effects processing, digital wave editing, loops, equalizers, soundscaping, sampling, composition, production, cover art

sean - vocals/lyrics (2,4,6), ring modulator (6,7,8)
greg - drum performance sample source (5,6,7,8)

the rendered electronic orchestra on track 10 includes tuba, saxophone, flute, clarinet, orchestra hit, piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections.

numbers refer to the physical tracklisting, rather than the bandcamp ordering.

released july 4, 2002

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/trepanation-nation



1) it was around 2006 that i first decided to clear my discography of what had become irrelevant sample work - not irrelevant in the sense of the messaging being obsolete, but irrelevant in terms of listening value. i feel that listeners should be given the opportunity to choose. i've tried to keep instrumental mixes of conceptual tracks since that point.

however, i wasn't able to find the instrumental rabit is wolf copy that i knew existed so i tried to build the mix from scratch. i wasn't able to recreate large sections, or get the volume correct, so i put it aside until the the last few days of july, 2007 when i tried again. at this time, i was able to find an early instrumental remix from roughly april, 2002. this mix was only about half done. i added some of the remaining parts, but was still working in cool edit at the time and consequently had some difficulty syncing them well. i also added some extra production effects. however, i still wasn't really happy with the result and just put it aside.

i went back to school in the fall of 2008 with the aim of putting the music aside permanently. this didn't happen, and the truth is i never really thought it would. however, i wanted to compile a disc of symphonic shorts (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/symphonic-shorts) as a last release. some further modifications were made at this time, but it still didn't really feel right.

it wasn't until april 24, 2009 that i got a mix together that i felt ok about. while it doesn't include every piece of the track, it includes everything i could integrate well. that version has been in the symphony's final resting place (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa) ever since.

unfortunately, some of the sequencing on the 2009 mix is suspect, and i ran it through a transform at some point that made the mix sound tinny at points, while introducing some digital noise. this mix has now been discarded.

in line with my decision to comprehensively complete my discography, i've completely deconstructed and reconstructed the track in cubase by carefully lining up the files using clues provided by the waveform. i've also deconstructed parts of it using the technique of digital phase reversal. this has allowed me to remaster it properly and also to ensure that it's completely in sync. this process included liberal use of digital effects to make it finally sound how i always wanted it to sound.

this is the final and definitive version of the track. the song was completed in this form on july 1, 2002 but the manipulations in the mix also date to (1) july, 2007, (2) august, 2008, (3) april, 2009 and (4) nov/dec, 2014. final mix completed on dec 7, 2014. no new sound was recorded after july 1, 2002.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/07-trepanation-nation

and, now, for whatever reason, it sounds right again - through multiple buffer rates.

i think maybe i was going through a sense of existential loss at the final completion of this track, which i am confident will not require another revision. i've been working on this off and on for thirteen years. but this is final. and maybe that schized me out.

i'm back to finishing final touches. if there's an issue with a final render, i think i'm better off trying to find a way to manipulate the render rather than continue to fuck with it in cubase.

that ethernet cable is remaining unplugged until i'm done, though.

i don't think disconnecting it helped.

following the logic i was working with, i changed the buffer size on the maudio card and got the effect i wanted...

i can't upload this with a note to change the buffer size to 1024. not for the least reason that i don't understand *why*. but it's consistent across two cards. i don't get the right warble at other buffer sizes.

i'm slowly coming to the conclusion that i must be taking advantage of something unusual. i mean, i thought i was just driving the bass a little into the red. it seems to be something more complex than that underlying the effect. it may be out of phase or something.

i need to do a little research. i can't let this into the wild until i'm sure it's going to be audible at more than one buffer size.

i think the reboot helped, but i swear i could hear the mix changing as i played it.

so, that machine is now unplugged from the internet. i'm going to eat, and come back to it.

i just shut the thing down. i'm going to turn it back on and see if it helped...

i'm not able to make sense of this. it sounded "right" this morning through the mixer as a soundcard, now it's gone wonky on me...

i noticed that changing the buffer size when using the mixer as a sound card is modifying the bottom end, which doesn't make any sense to me. it's almost proof that i'm running through an external server, and it's put a limiting effect on everything i'm playing. that's about the only thing that explains this.

what the buffer size does is tell your operating system how often to look for the next piece of the stream. this is primarily going to make a difference when recording, because it introduces a delay. however, it can also make a difference in the way that plugins calculate the sound, which is why i can hear the difference when i'm monitoring the mix.

it really, really shouldn't make any difference at all when i'm simply streaming a song. nothing's being calculated. whether it takes 256 or 512 or 1048576 samples at a time, it's taking exactly the same thing one way or another.

the fact that it *is* making a difference indicates that something *is* being calculated. and, while i may be uncovering some hidden algorithm in foobar or a stealth effect on the unit, i don't think either of these things are true.

again: it sounds like a limiting effect. and it's fucking up the bottom end. and i don't really know what to do about it....

i'm considering just disconnecting that computer from the internet altogether.

there's no wireless card in it. i made sure of that.

waveforms on the bottom end are longer. so, if you're calculating something on the bottom end, you could conceivably erase it if you take chunks that are too small. conversely, a distortion effect on the low end could conceivably smooth itself out if you take chunks that are too big. so, it seems like i'm running into a contradiction: i want a smooth bass part and a jagged guitar part.

but none of that should happen when i'm playing an already calculated part.

ok, no. this is a sound card issue. when i play the rendered file through the mixer as a sound card, it sounds "right".

no two sound cards are going to sound identical. the fact that i can tell the difference here is just a function of my meticulousness.

but, it's a general point that is accurate. if you want to hear it exactly the way i'm making it, you need to use exactly the same equipment. that's true of everybody that makes music.

it's an alesis 16-track multimix that connects via firewire. i use an m-audio "audiophile" card that's designed to connect to old fashioned stereo systems for general playback. normally, the difference in the render is minimal, but because the effects here are so subtle it makes the difference in that bit of bass distortion....

i guess that means that some people aren't going to hear the mix properly. i already knew that. but i guess the upside is that the distortion is more likely to disappear than overpower, which is probably preferable.

i still need to do things, and it's still going to need to wait until i come back, but i'm not going to have to take anything apart....

everything sounds good except that last acoustic...

yeah. it's nulling across latency levels, so if the output is different on the monitor (and i think it is), it isn't on the render. that's psychological.

and the bottom end simply does not appear to be there. unfortunately.

i think they overlap about 736, but i need to be playing back about 4096 with the current array of plugins..

i have to go the drugstore and get groceries. i'm going to wait until i come back before i play with anything.

but if somebody is doing this purposefully, they're really just wasting my time.

i mean, latency shouldn't matter when you're just playing back wave files. but it does seem to have an effect on the monitor out in real time when effects are being calculated, which is of course what i want recreated in the render. if i have to monitor the plugins at 4096 to prevent crackling, i'm going to get a different output. it's the kind of thing that 95% of musicians won't notice. but what i do is very intimately tied into the sound production. it's not the two note power chord riff that's of value here, it's the eight guitars i've got playing it through different effects paths.

the key thing is monitoring it at the same level it renders at, so i get what i'm hearing. i mean, there was one song a few years ago that i actually recorded out with analog instead of rendering because of the mismatch.

yeah, it's....

it's supposed to break up on the bottom end.

1) it's hard for me to know if the plugin disappearing thing is actually making it sound different, or is causing me to think it sounds different. so i need to be careful in not overreacting, and really listen closely.
2) i can't listen to it in the daw without taking out tracks. it's consequently hard to know if i'm missing that bottom end in the daw, too, or if it's a mild render issue.

i'm going to try rendering at a few latency points and checking different volume levels to be sure. if i can't convince myself that it hasn't changed, i'm going to have to start taking tracks out, isolating all the tracks with effects, rendering them individually and putting them back in.

i know i have issues. but i can't shake the idea that this is being done on purpose. and i'm not allowing for another opportunity to fuck with it.

see, now i've maxed it out to being unable to mix it at the right latency, which may be all i'm noticing. so, i'm rendering it at the right latency....

if it's wrong, i'm going to have to start rendering some of the effects down to files so they can't be corrupted. i'm not doing this again.

again, i wake up and everything's corrupted. and, again, a reinstall seems to look like it fixes it. but, again, it doesn't quite sound right.

i keep setting the distortion levels to be very "grunge" and "shoegaze" sounding, and they keep being reset to be very "metal" sounding, which i emphatically don't want. if i didn't know i'm schizophrenic, i might start thinking there's a fucker at a mixing desk that is a fan of judas fucking priest or something....

*sigh*. i may have to spend the day retweaking. again: i have no understanding of what's doing this. it seems file related, at least. that is, other projects aren't having the same problem. but it's very odd to me that it only happens when i wake up.

i think the fucker at the mixing desk is comic book guy, basically - somebody with absolutely no concept of taste that is just completely convinced he knows what's right for everybody else. or, a typical 80s metal fan...

ok, last tweaks. i have things i have to do today, so i have until noon. or i'll have to wait until tonight...

it's done. i must eat. i'll probably sleep on it and upload it tomorrow.

this is my fourth symphony, and the last piece in what is now a three hour "double ep". the track has a long journey attached to it. the release is three hours and has a lot of overlap in order to present the path it took...

it's been through every rethink you can imagine. but it has to be done, now. there's nothing left to do, except maybe turn it into an opera.

(there's no chance i'm going to turn it into an opera)

fast forward three years, to when i turn it into an opera....

no, seriously. it exists in every form possible. it's DONE.

now, sure. i'm sort of apprehensive about putting a three hour release up that consists of a single song. but it's such a long journey, and goes over so much ground, that i'm sort of bewildered by it, myself. as crazy as it sounds, it's the proper way to present the thing.

like i say....i'll put it up tomorrow....and if you have three hours to spare, it's a fun journey.

i mean, i grew up listening to remix discs. something like the closer single by nine inch nails may seem self-indugent to some, but i loved the way it pulled the song apart every which way for an hour, and warped it all over the place.

what am i doing if not making something i'd want to listen to? it may be a niche thing, but i'd have been ecstatic to stumble upon something like this in late adolescence, and many years after as well.

a 25 minute track may not be the best track to pick to go about exploring in 11 different ways, but it's what happened, and it's what i have to share.

when i did this years ago, i ran up against a problem with a guitar part and a keyboard part. they were occupying the same space in the spectrum. it would be most correct to say that they were melodically interweaving with each other, but they were both so heavily distorted that i essentially had to choose one or the other. otherwise, i'd just get a distorted mess.

at the time, i picked the synth part and every version since has had the synth part. but the guitar part is worth bringing back in.

so, i'm going to try and take the synth part up and down a few octaves. playing with it.

this is the last major thing i have to do with this. after that, i'm just setting levels for the last few parts.

i may also try and compress the distortion out of the synth part so i can get that interweaving effect. the problem is that they're both at disaster-zone levels of distortion. i play with harmonic overlays fairly regularly, but you simply can't do close harmonies through such a damaged sound spectrum....you get one or the other. must choose.

yeah. here's the thing. as far as existing capitalism is concerned, academics are a step down the ladder of uselessness from artists. at least artists make a product. academics are basically just collecting bloated welfare checks from the government.

so, you ivory tower types might want to be careful about those arguments. when it comes down to it, you're ahead of me in line for the market guillotine.

there's actually even been talk of the student loan bubble bursting....

it's really a matter of time before the lending institutions clue into the reality that they're giving out loans to people that can't pay them back. and, when that happens, and they pull the plug, the whole sector is going down.

the reality is that education isn't a way to anywhere, it's just a state sector economy. and it's not profitable. that's not sustainable in the economic system we live in.

so, let's be careful about what kind of ideas you're throwing around, alright?

no. no. stop. logic...

if people can't pay their loans back, it means there's not enough jobs. and, if there's not enough jobs, there's not a value in sending people to school. it becomes an unprofitable investment.

so, the logic of student loan forgiveness or reduced tuition does not exist. the logic that does exist is one of pushing people into service sector jobs, and returning higher education back to the upper classes.

with that, comes massive layoffs in the education sector.

trepanation nation (quiet isolation mix) (initial upload)

this is a bonus mix for the digital download that draws closer attention to some of the quieter aspects of the mix by removing the rhythmic components, leaving an ambient soundscape. track constructed on dec 5, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/11-trepanation-nation-quiet-isolation-mix

i got the school board to double check the files, and they sent me a document claiming i was angry about being adopted when i was in the second grade.

the problem is i wasn't adopted...

i guess it's predictable. it's a bureaucracy. my files are no doubt in there somewhere, filed under the wrong name or date of birth or something. finding them is probably not going to happen...

..and more than half of the files that do exist in my file seem to be for the wrong person.

hey, if my PERMANENT RECORD is fucked, yours very well may be, too. i just hope nobody's basing any decisions on this...

yeah. i'm not going to hear anything back from that psychiatrist. i've been working on a mix that has taken longer than i expected; when it's done, i'm going to have to make some calls.

i may have to fast forward my reaction a little, depending on what i hear when i call to ask for an extension.

i've been sort of contemplating just giving up and getting a job. see, the problem is that my perspective on labour is going to be very disappointing to people. it may be suggested that it's defeatist, but anybody reacting that way is missing the point. see, as i'd be working because i'm forced to, my desire would be to minimize the amount of effort i have to put into it, rather than maximize what i can get out of it. i already know that i can't get anything at all out of it - or at least nothing that i want. i can't make enough money fast enough to retire in a reasonable time frame, so what's the point? that's not a defeatist perspective, it's simply the reality of it. it doesn't really matter what the nature of the job is or how big the pay check is, it's all the same waste of time to me.

this isn't something new. i figured this out around 2006-2008ish. i had a few jobs over the period that required a larger amount of responsibility, which meant i had to spend more time on them. that meant i had less time to do the things i was actually interested in, which meant i was very unhappy. i ended up quitting these jobs to take lower paying jobs that were closer to where i lived. it might seem strange to quit a full time job at microsoft to take a survey job at half the pay, but it meant i had twice the time. i was much happier with less responsibility, and the lower pay check didn't affect me.

the crux is that you can't just put pressure on an anarchist to act like a capitalist and expect it to happen. this is actually a key point worked into the system. they call it "incentives", but.....they're not universal in their effectiveness, at least. i'm simply not driven by profit motives. i'm not interested in climbing a hierarchy. helping people doesn't excite me. when i say that i think labour in this society is a waste of time, i'm not just saying that. i really believe that, and my actions are going to reflect it.

so, i'd rather work a job with the lowest amount of responsibilities possible. i'm not going to apply for the kinds of jobs that my education prepared me for because i don't want the responsibilities attached to them; if i'm going to be forced to work, my preference would be to work part time in the service industry. i can pay my bills with about 20 hours a week at minimum wage, and i consequently wouldn't want to work more than that. of course, if i can work at a higher wage rate, it means i'd have to work less...

what that means is i'm taking hours away from somebody that has a family to feed or wants to build a resume to get somewhere. it's certainly not beneficial to me. it's not really beneficial to society, either.

my worker keeps telling me that she doesn't understand why i don't want to live up to my potential. but, i *do* want to live up to my potential. i just don't see any goals that i can accomplish in the workforce. and i work very hard on what i do.

the reality is that i haven't had a job since 2008. it's going to be a culture shock if it comes down to it, and i'm going to have to be very careful that i don't take a job with too much structure - because i won't last. if i don't quit, i'll get fired. because i don't want to be there.

as mentioned, i may have to fast forward the reaction. i'm going to do everything humanly possible to stay on odsp. it may get messy. i'll keep this space updated.

when i compare a job at statscan v. a job at mcdonalds, i don't look at the pay rate, i look at the responsibility level required.

if i'm working at mcdonalds, i can just go home at the end of the day and not worry about it - meaning what i've lost is the amount of time working, and that only.

but, working at statscan means i have assignments i need to take home, staff parties and all kinds of other things - meaning i'm going to lose far more time working there.

i'd consequently rather work at mcdonalds. and, there's plenty of logic in the decision. it just puts value on minimizing time lost working, rather than maximizing time converted into money.

again, the most rational thing to do is just to let me off the hook on this. we have a surplus of labour. and i'm producing a product with real value, even if the market isn't reacting to it. if it requires three or four suicide attempts, so be it.

i think i've mentioned this before...

i was hoping to see a psychiatrist over december, and either have the forms filled out by the person or take the information to have them filled out by camh at the beginning of january. i was going to determine if i needed an extension or not over the course of december.

but, the psychiatrist is not calling back.

so, i now need to call and ask for an extension. when i'm done this mix and can shower and stuff...

one of two things will happen.

1) if i get the extension,  i will wait until january before i react.

2) if i do not get the extension, i will need to have the forms filled out before january and will have to take extraordinary steps to have that happen. my plan is to go immediately to camh and demand to see a doctor. i will give them one hour to accommodate this. should they choose to not allow me to see a doctor, i will start popping aspirin in the foyer. i will make the condition known. hopefully, that will be enough to get the diagnosis. if it is not, i will repeat the same thing over and over again (go to camh, give them an hour, start popping aspirin) until i am able to get the forms filled out.

this is a recurrence problem, in terms of diagnosis, and i'm aware of it. i just need to be careful that i don't give them an excuse to put me in jail rather than fill out the forms.

it's not a question of if i belong on odsp. i do. anybody that knows me knows this. it's a question of demonstrating the fact.

the first time, they're probably going to tell me that i'm trying to get a reaction and am behaving rationally, and i'm going to agree with them - and suggest it's pathological behaviour. if they agree, that's the end of it. if they don't, then repeated occurrences have no end point but eventual diagnosis with some sort of personality disorder.

after the third or fourth time, they're going to have no option. i have no intention of hiding the fact that i'm being aggressive about this; to the contrary, i think it's the key point in the diagnosis.

could anybody do this? in theory, sure. but i think you'd by definition need to be crazy in order to actually go through with it.

in the end, this can be done the easy way or the hard way. and i have every intention of making the hard way very, very, very hard for camh....

in the end, i may end up in jail. on purpose. my concept of freedom aligns fairly well with free meals and infinite library access; certainly, it's closer to my idea of freedom than being forced to find a job. but, i'm not done my discography yet...

my plan after i finish my unfinished works is to lose myself in the books. and, when it comes down to it, jail might be the preferable option to do that.

i don't want to hurt anybody though. i'll have to study the legal code. i might pretend to rob a bank or something...

yeah, i'd want to be separated from the general population, i think. but the general condition doesn't really frighten me. if i decide to go to jail, i'll do the research in figuring out how to get to the condition i want to be in. that's not going to be for a few years.....

an open letter to the fucker at the mixing desk...

listen. people have been mixing things differently for different equipment for years. there's a substantial amount of 70s aor that's mixed for fm radio, and sometimes even specifically for cars. what that means is that if you're listening to your favourite zeppelin disk on a turntable then you're doing it wrong - pop it in your car, and you'll hear the drums and bass come out better through your trunk, if you still have that kind of system in your car (and you probably don't). in the late 70s, people started mixing things for clubs, and it's still something that defines essentially all dance music. when mtv hit, people started producing different video mixes for tv. you'll notice that if you track down old videos on youtube they're often mixed differently than the versions on the records, to compensate for crappy tv speakers. there was an industry built around "digital remasters", which was a reaction to the jump to compact discs. a lot of early idm is mixed specifically for headphones, and doesn't sound nearly as good when played through a set of actual speakers. more recently, some producers have started mixing tracks specifically for mp3, which means laying off the compression at the mastering stage because it's understood that the source is going to be compressed. i stumbled upon this myself in the late 90s, when i started realizing some of my songs sounded better through mp3. i didn't understand the role of compression in mastering at the time, and was essentially stumbling upon a crude form of mastering.

my music is eclectic, but it's broadly in a progressive rock tradition. what that means is that i'm mixing for reproduction. but i'm specifically mixing for reproduction over headphones. i make this very, very clear in my repeated requests for people to listen over headphones. but, you also need to be listening to it from a decent source - a stereo system, preferably.

it's not a question of one approach being better than another, it's just a question of how the music is meant to be listened to.

so, yes, i'm going to mix the bass in ways that may cause somebody's phone to explode. when i listen to my stuff on my laptop speakers, i often can't even hear the bottom end at all. but i don't fucking care about people that want to listen to music through shitty equipment. sorry.

i know that a lot of people want to be pragmatic about this, but i don't. it's going to be a function of any music that uses the spectrum in a complicated way - it's going to sound bad on cheap equipment. that's why it's cheap equipment...

as stupid as this is, you gotta understand it sounds better out of a car with a subwoofer in the trunk. it's easy to understand when you hear it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC-T0rC6m7I

and if you're trying to listen to this without phones, you're missing half the mix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUREWB_sJw

and, why is facebook double spacing all of a sudden, like it's defaulted to an html form? is everybody seeing this or am i being intercepted by the nsa?

i can tell you what i was thinking when i first noticed it though: fucker at the mixing desk, again. if i ever get a hold of that guy....

actually, i think i'm safe. i just checked the modified dates on the project files, and it indicated they hadn't been modified, so the information had to still be there. so i reinstalled the plugin and the information seems to have reappeared...

thankfully.

yeah. i think it's ok. it looks ok. i may have fucked the bass part up myself in reaction, but i wasn't done mixing it yet, anyways. but now i'm paranoid about it. the key thing was those nasty guitars and they seem to be back to what they should be. a little extra quality control in a final run through isn't a really bad thing.

i just wish i knew what caused it. it wasn't that the settings were changed or anything, it was that the plugin on the track was just gone. deleted. caput.

just a reminder to save your settings. i did have them archived, but i wasn't sure they were updated....

it's izotope, fwiw. and it's not the first time it's gone wacky, but it is the first time this has happened. i guess i at least know now...

anyways, back to work. i plan to be done this today.

omg....ALL the mastering settings are destroyed....i think i'm going to cry....

i don't understand how this could happen. it was fine last night when i went to sleep. now, i wake up and it's all ruined? wtf is going on?

i'm going to need a few minutes to order myself. but there's not anything else to do but sit down and recreate it the best i can.

no. old files are gone. FUCK.

it was great, i tell you. it broke up dramatically on the bottom, made the whole phones shake. well, what else can i say, back to the drawing board...

wow.

my plugins magically changed. i don't understand how this is possible, but it could set me back a few days. i spent a lot of time getting the guitars to have that raunchy, boris-style sound and they seem to have defaulted to some bullshit corporate 80s rock garbage. ugh...

i may have them saved in an old file. otherwise, i have to redo what i spent the last week doing. and i'm not happy about it.