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.

ok, it's put back together now in a way that i can tweak. final touches when i wake up...

i realize my discography has become difficult to navigate through, so i've labelled the releases as lps, eps, singles, etc.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/

yeah. i got this out. the three important things to get out were the two classicals and the acoustic, because the excitation on the high end of the guitars is just super tinny - it's the primary reason i'm doing this in the first place. when i did a similar transform a few years ago, i just wasn't paying attention and it fucked up the song. i was able to cleanly remove all three. they're completely inaudible in the output.

i wanted to get the bass out to compress it separately, and i was able to at least floor it. i'll have to play with this. i had multiple paste overs in the track, which has left it as a ghost; i'm doubling it in the remix, as well. i suspect this may actually work out ok. but i may have to squeeze it out using a multiband compressor. that's not something i want to do though, we'll see how it sounds...

there was a really raunchy guitar part that i didn't think i'd be able to get out well, but managed to. i'm surprised by this as i thought i had overlayed it, but i guess i didn't. that will let me put it through a separate amp sim and really raunch the fuck out of it. it's already completely decimated, though, so i'm not sure how much more catastrophic i can get it.

there were three synth parts on top of that. i was unable to line up two of them, but i got about half of one out. i could have probably got it completely out, but i decided not to because i want to double it through the reverb anyways and it's at about the right volume. that's why i'm not concerning myself with those two synth parts, either.

that's what was in the file to disassemble. disassembly complete. now, to reassemble it...

i've been far more successful in getting the tracks separated today. i got the first classical out clean, the bass to -15db and the distorted build down to static. what's left may even add a bit of definition to the mix if it's put through the reverb. the last thing i need to pull out for this approach to be feasible is the ending classical part, and even that is just a small section of it.

separating the tracks means i can reverberate them separately.

if i'm not able to get the last classical out, i think i've got it worked down to the point where i may be able to rebuild the time shift, and then reconstruct from there.

either way, i'm no longer stuck with this end part as one file. i *will* be able to mix it...