Sunday, January 3, 2016

there will be multiple singles and i will renumber to accommodate them.

i will just take note of this on the merch page.

elevating inrimixed (inri023) from a remix ep to a remix lp

i've also switched inrimixed into an lp. there's a few vocal tracks i'm considering add to it, so it's not final yet.

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

schizoid (total)

this version may be better than the version on the record, but there's a conceptual unity i want to maintain.

-

updated electronic orchestra added to version reconstructed in 2015 from tape. 

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 12, 2015. reprogrammed and reconstructed on dec 31, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics and remixed as alternate on jan 3, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/schizoid-total

schizoid (clean)

there's a complete remix on the inrimixed page.

-

bass blur removed from version reconstructed in 2015 from tape.

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 12, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics and remixed as alternate on jan 3, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/schizoid-clean

publishing inriclaimed (inri024)

when i sat down to complete my discography in the fall of 2013, one of the first problems i came up against was what to do with my first two proper records, inri and inriched. in some sense, these records were complete: they were early works, but they were complete recordings and the records were sequenced with quite a bit of detail. it would not be right to modify them in a structural sense, as they were completed as they were when they were. however, the mixes had been degraded rather substantially through compression and the vocals had a lot of problems. further, i knew the source material was incomplete, but did not actually check the master tapes to see how incomplete they were.

i decided that the best thing to do was to try and remaster them using izotope. the result was noticeably "better", and they were released in that form. i also released a compilation of shorts that focused on instrumental sections as inricycled b. however, i had to make a lot of compromises to get to that point. further, the fact that i couldn't remove the vocals continued to bother me.

i finally got around to digitizing the tapes in december of 2014, as an archival step. i did not expect to be able to do anything with this material, but i wanted it digitized to prevent the tapes from deteriorating further. what i learned through this process was that the masters were far more complete than i thought. samples and continuity were missing, but i seem to have dumped most of the sequencing and a lot of the digital noise generation. this forced me to rethink what i was able to present. i decided that if i was going to go through these tracks and recreate them then i was going to do it comprehensively, which would mean completely recreating a number of the tracks. i decided that this would be a project better left for a later date.

by june of 2015, i had made it through the discography to the end of the second period and began finalizing the aleph sequence of dvd and bd flac/mp3 compilations. i decided that the only cohesive way to present period one is as a single disc, which meant i needed to address reconstructing the tracks immediately in order to close it.

the material was digitized via the exact same tascam four-track it was recorded on to, sent out track by track. however, the material was bounced heavily when it was recorded, which means the digitized tracks generally have multiple parts. the four tracks generally exist as follows:

1) an electronics track. drum machines, synths, sequencers, loops, noises.
2) a guitars track. there are usually several guitar parts in this one track.
3) a bass track, or a synth bass track.
4) a vocal track.

unfortunately, digitizing the tracks one by one left them out of sync at a rate of around a half a second per minute, but there is no clear pattern in how they are out of sync. shifting them back in sync was a time consuming process done in cubase by importing the remastered tracks and trying to find markers in the wave files, then using a sort of "newton's method" to compress or decompress the files until they lined up with the master. this issue was compounded by the fact that the initial masters were sometimes subtly out of time. once they were shifted back in sync, the tracks had to be equalized very carefully to try and isolate the constituent parts. for example, a track with a drum machine and a synth may have been split across a high and low shelf to isolate them in the mix. with the exception of this heavy equalization work (and amp simulation for the bass parts), these songs have not been modified from their original form - except to remove the vocals.

this release has rendered the previous inri009, inricycled b, as superfluous and consequently replaces it in the sequence. it has now been moved to inrijected.

i am very happy to finally be able to present this material in a form that i would find listenable, today, as an adult. this has been a very long process. i hope you feel that the results were worth the effort put into it, periodically, over many years.

initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth bass, drum programming, synthesizers, octavers, noise generators, sequencers, sampling, found sounds, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing, loops, mic noises & vocal relics, production

released january 29, 1999

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

finalizing while i can’t always convince myself that my paranoia is frivolous, i can effectively control how it affects others

this is absolutely final. the record is totally closed.

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 12, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics on jan 3, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/while-i-cant-always-convince-myself-that-my-paranoia-is-frivolous-i-can-effectively-control-how-it-affects-others

Saturday, January 2, 2016

01-01-2016: schizoid crisis

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/while-i-cant-always-convince-myself-that-my-paranoia-is-frivolous-i-can-effectively-control-how-it-affects-others
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-pieces-in-a-primitive-style

(no subject)

mom
Hi J,

Happy New Year!    How have you been?    I permanently deleted my facebook account 3 months ago, so I guess this is the only way to stay in contact now.  I'm still sober, been a bit tough a few times, but didn't cave....Still plugging along.  I thought I would really enjoy having all this free time on my hands, but am realizing that I need to find a part-time job(emphasis on part-time), so will put out resume's starting next month, and hopefully will find something in the spring-time.  Didn't do much of anything for Christmas or New Year's, and you?  Did you do anything exciting!?   your sister is pregnant again, baby due in March.  your step-sister is still living with her father..they moved to Carleton Place... I don't see very much of her...Not for me not trying...Have offered to pick her up many times now...Oh well.   Nana is still healthy as a horse...lol...Will undoubtedly outlive all of us!   My father is not doing so well, but then hasn't been doing so well for a few years now...   It's been such a wonderful mild winter so far...Hope it keeps up this way!   Miss You!  Love You! 

jessica
i've been spending the last few months trying to figure out why my equipment has been malfunctioning, and finally came to an answer about two weeks ago. i figure that my headphone has a short in it, and it's picking up environmental magnetic fields that are charging them and turning them into a radio antenna, thereby distorting the output in the phones. short term solution: tinfoil can block out the radio waves. and it's really seriously been working for the last two weeks. but you can imagine that it took a long time to come to such a conclusion.

so, i've spent the last two weeks finally finishing two records of material that i wrote in the 90s, and wanted to strip the vocals out of. the only versions i had of these songs had some pretty bad teenage vocal writing that was more or less ruining them. the vocals were just really immature; on some level, i was a teen at the time, and it retains entertainment value to a teenage market. but, i felt the songs were strong enough to stand as their own for a broader market. so, it feels good to finish that.

that's the last thing i had to do to finish my first phase of writing, which was 96-99. i can now order that material in a final presentation, and move on to finishing my second period, which was 2000-2004 and is very nearly completed. i hope i can move on to starting my third period by the spring at the very latest.

the two records are here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriclaimed
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-pieces-in-a-primitive-style

that's basically all i've been thinking about over the holidays. i got my yearly extra large pizza at midnight on christmas eve. nothing else exciting, really.
i've had a minor crises all night.

i noticed some clicks in the file, and went to rerender but it didn't null. after much freaking out, i eventually realized that there was a doubled bass part *muted* in the mix, and the mute was contributing this nice glossy blur on the bottom. i had removed the track, because it was muted anyways, and the gloss disappeared.

which means i'm actually taking advantage of the error in cubase this time, and trying to find a way to prevent it from saving correctly.

i think i've almost got it.

but that file will be replaced one more time, and i'll have an alternate mix or two up then, too.

it's clear that i need at least two singles, but less clear how to sequence them.

Friday, January 1, 2016

false completion on schizoid & inriclaimed

yeah, the upload on schizoid has been replaced, and this record is now complete.

i have some loose ends to complete before i can finally close aleph-0. soon.

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

31-12-2015: brand new year, same old misanthropy

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/while-i-cant-always-convince-myself-that-my-paranoia-is-frivolous-i-can-effectively-control-how-it-affects-others

it's the project that's corrupt. it seems to have something to do with working with spliced wave files. i have to conclude this is yet another programming error, but the workaround is to save as soon as you cut and then re-open the project to put effects on it.

so, i have to rebuild some bass parts. but i think that the default setting is probably ideal; i'll find out when i get through the algorithm.
yeah. i can't even render two files the same way right now. either the interference is affecting the gear (for the first time that i've been able to tell - although it might explain why i couldn't reproduce certain renders) or my hard drive is possibly dying. i've been getting weird staticky noises on playback. the only other possibility is that the file is deeply corrupted, in which case i may have to rebuild the track.

i'm going to turn all the signals in the house off first, and then try it with different songs on the same drive. if i get the same effects, i'll try to switch drives.

i'm honestly pointing at the drive right now.

so, that file will be replaced, no doubt.

nearing the completion of inriclaimed (inri024)

this is the second.

i should be able to get around to closing my period 1 disc over the next week or so.

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

Thursday, December 31, 2015

tentative schizoid re-upload

this is tentative. further changes will be very minor.

i've been having difficulty mixing the bass from the start. i can hear now that it's picking up some kind of oscillation that is making it basically impossible to control for in the other room. but, i've heard enough of it to conclude that this is very likely final.

i need to test through other playback sources before i can close it.

but, presuming it's closed, the record is, too.

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 12, 2015. remixed over dec, 2015. this mix is from dec 31, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/while-i-cant-always-convince-myself-that-my-paranoia-is-frivolous-i-can-effectively-control-how-it-affects-others

publishing electronic pieces in a primitive style (inri066)

this record is now finished.

==

when i sat down to complete my discography in 2013, one of the ideas that immediately jumped out was to try and reinterpret some of the inri tracks from the late 1990s as modern pieces. as i believed that my source tapes were unusable at the time (which i eventually realized was not the case - see inri024), the conditions for this being a workable project would need to be the existence of the original drum tracks, along with the existence of some midi files.

i was gifted my ry30 in the summer of 1997 to compensate for the loss of my drum kit and studio space, but i did not have any recording gear again until christmas. so, i spent the fall programming the drum machine and teaching myself the basics of sequencing and sound design, using the primitive tools i had available to me. by the time i got my four track, as well as my jx-8p, the ry30 was full, and re-recording my first songs was just a matter of transferring the completed material from the electronic equipment to tape. so, i initially considered making a companion ep to inrisampled that would document my time spent programming the ry30 along with my time spent learning how to manipulate sound. the difference between the drum tracks at this stage and the initial collage experiments, however, is that the drum tracks were not complete songs. so, this was abandoned due to the product being a little dry. but, i still wanted to make an ep around the ry30, perhaps by orchestrating the existing companion midi tracks.

this idea then quickly merged with what would become thru (inri070) and eventually discarded itself within itself when it was realized that the existing midi files for the 90s material were too sparse to really utilize, especially in comparison to the midi files from the early 00s. thru was deleted and then resuscitated over the course of 2014 and 2015, eventually releasing in mid 2015 as a 2001-2003 project, leaving the 90s material in the dustbin of my own history.

it was in june, 2015 that i realized that the source tapes were usable after all, and cycled back around to the beginning of the reconstruction in order to complete the relevant tracks as instrumental pieces. this idea kind of recreated itself in the nature of the source tapes, as i had bounced all of the electronics together into the same channel as a mixing step, back in the 90s. so, i found myself with these ready-to-publish electronic tracks right off the tape that incorporated a combination of the ry30 tracks, jx-8p parts, soundblaster programs, zoom 1010 noises and cool edit experiments. all they really needed was a little attention on the mastering.

i flipped this over, in the end: what each of these tracks are is their final album mixes, with the guitar and bass parts deleted (unless the bass was done on a synthesizer). so, there was some post-production added over 2015 in the form of updated soundfonts, digital mastering and digital effects processing. but, these are really flourishes on the existing tracks.

it was at the end of dec, 2015 that further similar electronics-only ry30-centric remixes were creating for some later songs, as well, thereby filling out the disc and closing the project.

i sold my ry30 in may, 2003 to raise money to go to british columbia. my logic was that i'd really maximized what i was going to get out of it, and that i'd already discarded it, anyways: by that time, i'd been writing drum parts in the scorewriter for a few years already, and had barely touched the ry30 in a long time. but, i regret that decision, in hindsight. and, i expect to pick up another one, one day.

originally written, programmed and recorded from 1996-2002. reclaimed & remixed from june to december of 2015. initial completion date was december 31, 2015. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - drum & other programming, orchestral & other sequencing, guitar effects, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, synthesizers, loops, vocal noises & relics, sampling, sound design, production

the various rendered electronic orchestras include organ, sitar, bells, synthesizer effects, tuba, saxophone, flute, clarinet, orchestra hit, piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections

released april 22, 2003

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

30-12-2015: yearly amnesty

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/while-i-cant-always-convince-myself-that-my-paranoia-is-frivolous-i-can-effectively-control-how-it-affects-others

rebroadcasting the imminent completion of electronic pieces in a primitive style (inri066)

this is one of two full remix compilations that will be finished in the next several hours. this compilation focuses on the electronic soundscapes underlying some of my late 90s work. the full instrumental remix record will be finished shortly.

i haven't finalized a number for this yet, but it will probably be inri047 - and i'll probably relabel some things after it.

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

idischzo

so, this version got done first.

i think that the track is actually fine, it's just that the static this morning is a little bit strong. we'll see if i'm right and it fades over the day.

initially written in 1996. recreated in feb, 1998. reclaimed july 12, 2015. reprogrammed and reconstructed on dec 31, 2015.

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