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

ugh.

well, i'm going to get another day of compiling in, anyways. i can't really write the essay until i get the papers, and i'm not going to get the papers until tomorrow.

right now, i've been awake far too long and need to sleep. but, the second aleph will be much faster, considering it's only a year's worth of material, is already in easy access mode and is much more self-contained.

part of why i decided to do this is that i won't know what the full period 2 set is going to look like until i get it all in front of me - it could be two or three discs (four is unlikely), and will depend on how 36-52 finish up. i'll have to do some mixing, first, when i get there.

inriℵ0 is completed..

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

working the document down to just the music posts produces 500 printer sized pages - which is about a 1000 page novel.

i've repeatedly been told i should write a book. journal format is maybe not what they meant, but there it is.

just the aleph-0 disc - which is all backposting - is 130 pages, which is a 250 page novel. the period two disc, which includes more recent documentation, is going to be about a 500-600 page novel.

so, that's why this front-end is taking so long. but, hey, look at it the other way - you get one of the aleph-discs and you get a free e-book, in doc and pdf formats.

by the time i get done period four, i'm going to have a hefty 4,000 page four volume autobiography....

that's fine. that's why i'm doing this.

i'm stopping to eat, but i need to be up overnight and i may actually get it done, after all. i just need to set up the last portion of that document in html format, and then run through it a final time with a fine comb.

so, the page is cleaned. it's very incomplete, especially from 2003-2012, but it's cleaned. i'd encourage you to actually scroll downwards to see what the page will look like, moving forwards. there's a lot of posts, but it's now manageable; it shouldn't time out, and it's much more to the point. it's meant as a historical document, now, rather than a journal.

ok

hi.

i'm still working through in my head what went wrong. not in 2005. i understand that, and didn't really have a problem letting you go, then. we agreed it was a mutual breakup due to different life goals. it's what happened in 2010ish that i can't figure out.

i'm realizing that my memory of our communication between about 2005 and 2010 is very poor. i remember you coming over sometimes. i remember walking in the experimental farm with you. i remember eating lunch with your family up at catherine & bank. i remember fixing your computer. but i also have some fuzzier, stranger memories - like not going to see you when you had amnesia. i don't even know if that actually happened, if you ever even had amnesia or what i was thinking if it did. it seems uncharacteristic. i may have been thinking that it's for the best, but it doesn't seem like to me to think that. and it may even be the answer i'm seeking.

i think a part of the reason my memory is so poor over that period is that my diet was terrible. but i dream a lot, both awake and asleep. i live in my own head. and, i'm consequently not sure what really happened and what didn't. combined, that's a problem, because i may remember things that didn't happen, and i might have forgotten things that did. my behaviour and statements may be glaring contradictions, because i have such a difficulty pulling out what happened and what i imagined happened, during or after it happened.

i have to consequently resign myself to not being able to figure it out, unless you explain it to me. which is all i was ever looking for in the first place.

i don't really remember what i typed in all those emails, either.

standing where i am, now, 500 km away and with little chance of ever communicating with you again, i'm just wishing things turned out better. a little self-reflection demonstrates the point that i'm sort of crazy - i'm telling you that i can't discern between history and fantasy, or remember freaking out, or even realize when i'm contradicting myself, and that's maybe a little unsettling. but, people like me need some support structures, too. you need to take us as we are, or not at all. i've just been unable to process your decision, as i didn't think it was in the realm of possibility. and, even now, i'm still thinking this is temporary - even though it clearly isn't.

maybe it's pathetic. i guess i've just had very few friends. actual friends; i don't mean people you hang out with, but actual friends. in fact, i think you might be the one and only friend i ever had, besides my father. so, i'm sorry if you ever thought i was more than pathetic. again, you have to take us as we are or not at all. not with a level of sympathy, or even a level of empathy, but just with acceptance. and i just can't grasp that you aren't - i'm searching for blocks, misunderstandings, misinterpretations....

i've been compiling data on my earliest musical releases in order to put them away permanently: building biographies, gear lists, facebook timelines - things like that. but when i'm done i'm going to dive head first into the music i created when i knew you. that's going to bring back a lot of memories - no doubt both real and imagined.

i'm not writing this to warn you of a further breakdown. if that happens, i'll keep it to myself. if i felt there was a purpose in talking things through in 2010, i don't feel there still is, today - you've made your disinterest clear.

however, i think that you have the right to read my summaries as i put them up, and to suggest corrections if you feel it's worthwhile. so, i feel the responsibility to send you links to these pages when they're published. it's up to you to decide how to respond.

you will be referred to simply as "sarah". nobody that doesn't know me will know who you are, and people that know me will know you who are, anyways.

i think a part of the reason i'm holding to some of this is that i never completed the recordings. working through complex psychological issues is a part of being an artist; needing art to work through complex psychological issues is a common theme in people with mental illnesses. for years, i put it off to avoid it, and then the shit hit the fan as i was - i should add that, in addition to the instability brought on by hormones, i was working out songs about you when i freaked out.

as i work these pieces out to their final conclusions, i will finally be working through what i need to work through to get to some kind of end point. i think so, anyways. i hope.

my future is not what you may have imagined for me at some point. i live alone. i don't work. i immerse myself in the things that are important to me. i've actually been very stable and very content the last few years; where i am right now is that i don't want things to change. i'll probably live this way for as long as i have left to live....

but, i think i'll stop contacting you when i get these songs down. there's a lot of them, and it will take a while. but that closure is on it's way.

i apologize for being incapable of getting to this end point sooner, for not being able to understand what's happening around me and for persistently bothering you, for many years, to help me understand it.

it'll be done with, soon.

i think. i hope...

j

done. i'm just going to hit a run through the activity log tonight, and then i can get to building the rest of the page up.

if you're curious, the document i'm storing this in is now well over 2,000 pages. that's 2000 pages @ 8.5x11, 12 pt font - standard, except my margins are as wide as you can print them. that doesn't include any posts i've made to google, and only includes at most a quarter of the posts to my political/philosophical ranting page. nor does it include the frequent ranting i posted to cbc before 2011, my facebook group posts (mostly occupy related) or any of my posts to newsgroups or mail lists in the 90s (all of which appear to be permanently lost.). even with these substantial restrictions, this document could quite easily exceed 10,000 pages - and that's just ranting since 2010. i also have a significant archive of rants, theories and analysis worked into a web site i've periodically run, and cleaning this up and publishing it will be the focus of the remainder of my life, once i've completed my discography. the document will be available for download as a pdf when it is completed.

the page is cleaned up to the end of 1999 and from 2013-2015. this is the vast majority of what's been posted, so it's almost done. but, because it's almost done, it makes more sense to just finish from 2000-2013. at least then i can feel like something is completed moving into the essay i need to write on wednesday night and mail on thursday morning.

so, the way this page is going to work going forward is that i'm going to wipe it as a part of my monthly cleaning routine. floors. toilets. facebook page.

i will eventually move somewhere else, but the cost-benefit analysis over how much time that would take makes it unappealing, at least until i get my disability situation cleared up. i was hoping this clean up what take a week or two, not a month or two. but, as i keep telling myself, this is really necessary to create something self-contained, and now is the right time to do it to put this material behind me once and for all.

right now, i need to eat. i could conceivably be done most of 2000-2013 by the time i decide to sleep.

i've now finally cleared out 2014 - and although i'm still irked by what i lost, it's minor in the larger scope of things. i just need to run through it a last time and see if there's anything i need to reconstruct.

i'm going to clear out 2015 overnight because there are some period one updates in there, and plan to finish it. i''m going to wait until i get to the period 2 disc to clear out 2000-2012.

after that, i'll have to finish constructing the front-end for the disc, which shouldn't take more than two days.

i'm going to lose a few this week, though, because i need to get my disability package mailed on thursday, and i have some writing to do.

it's not likely that i'll finish this by wednesday, but i should get fairly close.

as i'm doing most of the work now, the next few aleph discs should not take nearly as long to build front-ends to.

it's not exactly what i want to be doing, but i feel it's necessary to comprehensively close the first two periods. when i do get done, there should be several quick uploads over 2003-2004.

on one hand, i have 1700 pages of writing in this document. on the other, that discussion was useful.

what i'm going to do is "hide" the posts for now, rather than delete them - then go back and delete them in the activity log when i'm sure they're safe.

a little more time consuming, but fail safe.

i kept saying "i'll save it when i get to the end of june". i could have. then it crashed. i don't know if i can really blame myself for a power outage, but i could have been more attentive.

i sent an email to facebook data recovery but it's a long shot...

ugh...

i made a lot of progress in working through 2014 today, but then i lost a lot of it. word crashed on me a few hours ago, which cut out a good deal of february. that means the comments to the beginning of "stuck" are lost. then, the power randomly went out a few minutes ago, which cost me a good chunk of june. i haven't checked the damage yet, but i think it's mostly discussions about performing the time machine.

this power surge happens from time to time; i turned the heat on for a few hours over night (it's been too cold to open the window, and yet the air is just punishing - there's not another option, besides shivering.), and i think the idiot upstairs woke up and throttled the entire unit by cranking his air up quickly. keep that up. blow your fuse.

i'm not yet at the point where i'm willing to turn it up to 30, but i'm not far from it. the weather just won't stay warm. every time it seems like it's just about warmed up, we get two or three days with lows around 10 degrees, which mean i have to turn the heat back on. well, i should clarify - if it weren't for the air cranking everything out, i wouldn't have to. i might even enjoy the cool down. but i've had a very hard time getting the heat higher than 22 this year - and keep in mind that 22 with the "air conditioner effect" feels a lot colder, closer to 17 - which means that any cool down outside is running up against a total lack of stored heat.

the ritual this year has been that i take my sweater off when i go out and put it on when i come home. there's been days when it's a beautiful 30 degrees out and i'm stuck wearing a sweater inside :(.

again: i need the space right now, for the gear. but i'm out of here as soon as the work is complete. unless he dies before then. that would be preferable, because i hate moving. but i can't handle the air. it brings back a lot of childhood trauma, because my shit for brains stepmother used to do the same thing. but, she was just conditioned to working in a lab, not dangerously obese, and she was never this extreme...

it would have maybe made more sense to copy files over on this laptop, because it's immune to power losses. but, my frontend is on the other machine.

so, i'm going back to it on that machine. i'm just going to have to adopt the annoying convention of saving between every cut & paste.

for now, i'm both wired and frustrated, and i'm going to try and get a few hours of sleep rather than get angry.

accessing deleted page data

jessica
hi.

i have a have facebook music fan page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-Murray/41134747113) that i've been posting to extensively over the last few years, to the point that it's overloaded with data. when a user tries to scroll down the wall, posts are missing - and eventually the operation sort of times out by producing empty posts. i've come to the conclusion that facebook is not an ideal site for this kind of high volume journal posting, and am in the process of migrating the data into a scriptless html file to host on my own site.

i've been copying posts into a word document for short term keeping, then deleting the posts on facebook. unfortunately, i suffered a power outage between saves and i lost a significant amount of data.

now, everybody knows that data is archived, but you don't offer the ability to download page archives. there must be a way to get the data through request.

it would actually save me a significant amount of time if i could just get the whole thing in one chunk, but i'm specifically looking for posts made between january 1 and july 1, 2014.

facebook
Hi,

Thank you for contacting us to make a data request. You can access your data on Facebook in several ways. First, you can access your personal data from your account (ex: on your timeline or in your activity log). Second, we provide a tool that allows you to download a copy of your account data. This tool is available from the Account Settings page.

For more information, please visit:

https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254

To learn more about your data on Facebook, please read the Data Policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/

This policy describes:

• Categories of data being processed by Facebook
• Personal data that Facebook receives from Facebook members
• Sources of this info, if known
• Reasons for processing this data
• Recipients or categories of recipients to whom Facebook members’ personal data may be disclosed

To access the self-service download tool from your account:

1. Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page
2. Choose Account Settings
3. Click the link at the bottom of the page "Download a copy of your Facebook data"

Note: We have several measures in place to ensure the security of your information, and will require you to confirm your identity to complete the process and access your account information.

Your downloaded file may contain sensitive information. You should keep it secure and take precautions when storing, sending or uploading it to any other services.

You can also access the personal data held in your timeline any time by logging into Facebook.

If you can’t access your account or don’t have an account, please follow the link below to complete a form and request your data:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/166828260073047

You may be required to provide additional information to authenticate your identity. 

jessica
i'm sorry, but i feel you didn't understand my request.

i have a have facebook music fan page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-Murray/41134747113) and am looking to download data from it that i accidentally deleted.

(pause)

hi.

i sent this a few days ago and got a response about downloading profile data that misunderstood the request. not to be rude, but i'd appreciate it if the request was read a little more closely, so i could receive a coherent response.

i have a have facebook music fan page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-Murray/41134747113) that i've been posting to extensively over the last few years, to the point that it's overloaded with data. when a user tries to scroll down the wall, posts are missing - and eventually the operation sort of times out by producing empty posts. i've come to the conclusion that facebook is not an ideal site for this kind of high volume journal posting, and am in the process of migrating the data into a scriptless html file to host on my own site.

i've been copying posts into a word document for short term keeping, then deleting the posts on facebook. unfortunately, i suffered a power outage between saves and i lost a significant amount of data.

now, everybody knows that data is archived, but you don't offer the ability to download page archives. there must be a way to get the data through request. it would actually save me a significant amount of time if i could just get the whole thing in one chunk, but i'm specifically looking for posts made between january 1 and july 1, 2014.

facebook
Hi,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, we don't currently offer support for this type of request through this channel.

You can find answers to many common questions, learn how to report a bug or other issue and get more information about Facebook's products and features directly in the Facebook Help Center:

http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=cr

jessica
is there a channel i can try?

this isn't really considered a musician's tool, it's more designed for playing back midi files, and by that one would have to deduce the intent is specifically for classical music. it's really meant as a finale or sibelius plugin, to get more realistic sound fonts for music teachers or geeks that just like listening to midi music.

however, i spent most of 2014 converting midi compositions i'd written many years before into finished pieces, and this proved to be a very valuable tool to me in converting programmed notes into usable sounds.

i specifically downloaded it for the drums, because i find the idea of mapping drums to be highly anti-musical. the staff isn't arbitrary. drum notation is a real thing. when i notate a snare, i don't mean a turntable scratch. the lack of attention to this reality by drum machine programmers is really upsetting, and i'm not sure why professional drummers haven't pushed back on it. i should be able to put a midi drum file through any plugin and have it hit the relevant sound fonts. i mean, imagine a plugin that triggered the wrong pitches and a culture that says "well, map the pitches then". it's a combination of ignorance and idiocy.

so, the fact that this is a general midi sound card replacement that understands music notation was very key in choosing it as a drum machine. it has some limitations, as everything general midi does, but they can largely be dealt with through production. and, frankly, i tend to produce my drums not just with reverb but with various types of distortion and some pretty heavy equalization. the key thing, for me, was just getting the notes to map correctly out of the box, and it does that quite while.

it turns out that some of the other sound fonts are quite usable, which i just took as a bonus - but beware that some of them are also quite awful.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may06/articles/nibandstand.htm

to create realistic midi renders for the midi files project, i needed a realistic guitar sampler and, after a little research, decided this was really the only option. technology moves so fast that this may no longer be true, a mere year and a half later.

what i found was that the other options either come with baked in effects or were broadly generative in nature. baked in effects are great if you're basically a piano player and want the guitars to conform to a genre style. so, you see these libraries with guitars categorized with terms like "pop", "blues" or "rock". for a lot of people, that's really enough, and that's fine.

but, i needed it to be as basic as possible, so i could shape my own signal path through guitar rig or whatever else. i wanted the cleanest, most bare samples possible - just the most basic DI sound of picking a completely clean guitar. and, for me, that's actually true, broadly.

it has some issues - it can be a little choppy, and it's maybe a little bit *too* realistic in some ways. alternate tunings would be useful, if they don't want to let you pick notes that would otherwise be impossible to play.

keeping in mind that i'm going to play live guitars for virtually everything out of principle (because i'm a guitarist), this is of such limited value to me that it's not really worth my time to find something that fixes these limitations. but, as a specific tool for the specific project i used it for, i was very surprised by how good it could sound through some effects.

http://www.musiclab.com/products/realguitar/info.html
https://www.musiclab.com/products/reallpc/info.html

it's been a year since i've updated my youtube posting schedule. the alter reality has already run from fall, 1996 through to fall, 1997 and is now approaching the beginning of 1998, when i started making synthpop. the next year of posts will take me through the first inri demo and begin to open up into more abstract and professional-sounding recordings. but i need to stress that my adult phase will not begin until 2017. the trolls that listen to forty seconds on the front page written when i was a teenager and think they can measure my entire output by it are in for a bit of a surprise. that's fine; i designed my roll-out that way - to stress the evolution in sound, build an audience up from the start and confuse and distract passive listeners. i'll post another one of these next year...

running through some files on my other page, i've determined the precise point where the strange characters appeared. it was the post right after i indicated i was going to london, ontario. the totality of evidence suggests that i'm probably under suspicion for being a terrorist, because i happen to have a concept of morality, and am consequently critical of american foreign policy. indicating that i was leaving the city probably set something off..

listen, cia, we need to talk...

first, i'm from canada. so, take off, eh?

second, i was going to london for a doctor's appointment. you can check my facebook messages over nov, 2014 to verify that. it's all very transparent. and everybody understands that you're incompetent. but, now that i'm pointing it out, go ahead and look and see.

so, if you can get rid of those annoying characters, now, that'd be nice. i don't even care if you continue surveillance - it's the internet. it's facebook. surveillance is the purpose of the internet. privacy on the internet is impossible. i get it. i'm not utopian on he point. so, if i'm ever going to plan a terrorist attack, i'm going to do it without using the internet. it'd just be nice if you did it silently.

alright?

this is taking forever, and i have a lot to do, still.

so, i'm restricting this to actually cleaning the page, like i did for my main page. creating a new page is going to take another month to set up. that means that i will continue to use this as a journal for the foreseeable future, it will just be cleaned up periodically.

ugh. i'm trying to remember when i bought certain things, and coming up pretty blurry, so i thought access to bank statements would help. now, i actually kept all my statements for years, but they disappeared in storage (they were probably flooded in the shed). so, i went into rbc to ask for statements.

$40/hr. not $40. $40/hr.

i'm not sure what that even means. it's almost like a pricing system from the 70s, back when things were stored physically and people had to go through boxes of data and pull things out and copy them - which may have taken some time. probably not an hour. but some time.

nowadays? it's just a question of access to the database. it should take about three minutes to open the file and press "print". but, no corporation is going to reduce their prices on services - no matter how absurd or out of date it may appear. and, frankly, a lot of people would just pay it.

needless to say, i didn't pay the $40/hr. but, i'm rather convinced that i have the right to access these files, and they can't be charging me for more than paper. as in, putting that kind of price tag on access to my own files is actually illegal. at most, they can charge me for paper.

so, i'm going to have to piss them off until they send it - out of principle.

for now, i'm going to leave approximate spaces in the walk through and fill it in when the statements get here.

i forgot to eat yesterday, though, and need to take care of that first.

well, i got the disc done up to 2000, which is the bulk of the adds. now, i just need to clean the page up a little over the second part of 2013, and the first part of 2014. i wanted to do this anyways - it's actually why i jumped backwards. but, it's going to be another day or two.

i have an appointment tomorrow. it's late enough in the day that i don't have to worry about getting up early, but it's going to cut off most of the day.

right now, i need to eat.