the best kind of dilemma

So, I hate to write two posts in a month's time on the subject of music gear, but I'm tackling a serious conundrum at the moment. As Tracy Morgan said on 30 Rock, "You've put me in quandary, Jack Donaghy... a quandary!" With great sadness, I learned that SE Electronics, the beneficiary of Communism's hatred toward patents and copyrights, discontinued their wonderful M1C Mini, the knockoff of the Neumann TLM103. I had tried the two of them side by side and had been surprised to discover that on my particular voice, the Mini actually sounded better. Considering that the TLM103 cost $1,100 and the Mini cost $169, it skyrocketed to the top of my google wish list.

Adding insult to injury, I found out that my Mom had ordered the Mini for me, only to discover after the fact that every site that sold it online was out of stock. Bollocks. The upside is that as a result of this misfortune, I get to select something(s) of relatively the same value to take its place. *Kid in a candy shop!*

My first window-shopping stop was FabFilter. I've been eyeballing their plugins for a long time, now and let's just say that there isn't one of their products that I wouldn't mind owning. They're gorgeous sounding and have a fantastic GUI. They have this amazing drag-and-drop modulation interface on most of their products that is cooler than all get out. In talking to my friend and mentor Aaron, I was made to realize that there are none of their products of which I don't already have at least a decent (and in many cases, stellar) equivalent. So, with one last saliva-swallowing look, I moved on.

What my rig has been missing, is a good channel-strip plugin. Yeah, I have Live's Saturator device, and I have some good compressors, not to mention a heavy-duty mastering plugin (Izotope Ozone), but I don't have a nice, all-in-one, warm channel strip. My first thought was of PSP Audio's Vintage Warmer. An exquisitely-crafted analog modeling compressor/limiter, that really is the king of analog/tube emulation. This has come highly recommended to me by friends and teachers. I've used a trial version of it before and love the fatness it added to drums and the overall thickness and warmth it added to mixes. One drawback however is that it's kind of niche plugin and would have very specified uses, perhaps limiting its frequency of use. Considering that I love vintage (I mean 1970s-style vintage) mix sounds, especially on drums, this would be an excellent addition to my rig.

The next contestant is Wave Arts' Track Plug. This has also come highly recommended to me, and on top of all of the praise I've heard heaped upon it, the thing that catches my eye most is its widely-celebrated CPU efficiency. It's system footprint so small, in fact, that it can be used on every track in a mix without much effort on the part of your computer. Now that is an important feature in a channel-strip plugin. Professional reviews have had minimal and insignifcant things to list in the "Cons" column, and heaps to say in the "Pros." Two compressors, a gate, EQ, "clean" and "warm" settings, sidechaining on all of the dynamics sections, and much, much more. Definitely a contender.

Then I got to thinking about my hardware. I had originally wanted that damn SE Mini, so I looked on eBay and found it there. Expecting to find it at some sort of terrible average between its original price and the price of the Neumann, I was pleasantly surprised to find it for $150. By this point, my head is swimming.

You know, I thought to myself, I am not a huge fan of the digital preamps built into my audio interface, and its phantom power is an enormous pain in the ass, so what about some kind of tube pre? I immediately began scouring the internet for tube pre's in my pricepoint. A well acclaimed audio hardware manufacturer, ART Electronics, makes a couple inexpensive ones. I found myself quite taken with their Tube MP Studio V3, and its two-channel equivalent. Having some nice, analog gear in the signal path between your performance and your mix is always a good thing. Especially considering that these both have output protection limiting and, of course, natural tube saturation. The only drawback for this is that I don't record audio as often as I mix, sequence and play with sound. It's just that when I do record, I'm always unsatisfied with the sound of my preamps. (I love my microphones. They are not the bottleneck here.)

So there you have my quandary.

Do I go with the Vintage Warmer, Track Plug, an ART tube preamp, or the microphone I originally asked for?

With this post, I introduce a new label: "your input please?" Anytime you see this, I'm requesting your advice, opinion and expertise. So.... give it to me.

calling all computer nerds!

So, I'm picking out the parts for the Studyo's* next computer. I'm getting really excited. [NOTE: If you are not interested in computers and the like, please stop reading, as you might realize just how apt the name of my blog is.] As is my custom, I'm getting as many people to weigh in on the tech side of things before I make my purchase.

I'm trying to buy as few parts as possible, but buy the most powerful ones I can afford (my minimalist philosophy on software is spilling over into my hardware). I've been really pleased with my old computer, and it has lasted a long time as a machine which can compete well with anything prefabbed. However, I've learned quite a few things since building my last one, and want to avoid a couple mistakes I made.

The biggest lesson I've learned is this: Never, ever underestimate the ability of Windows to waste space. Whatever they tell you is the recommended system requirements, double it. Since I don't trust Vista, I'm going to buy it and then downgrade to XP, but in case I ever develop dementia and decide to switch to Vista, I'm planning for its system requirements. They say that Vista needs to be put on a 40GB hard drive with 15GB of free space. I'm installing XP on an 80GB partition of a 160GB hard drive. I'm probably tempting fate by making this taunt, but, "Try and fill up all of THAT space with invisible crap, Windows!"

Secondly, I've learned that it's never a good idea to scrimp on RAM. Since I plan on running XP still, I'm going to use the max possible, at 4GB. It's going to be dual-channel (2X2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM, which come equipped with their own aluminum heat-sinks. And since it's DDR3, it's both faster and uses less voltage than DDR2.

Since I've already started doing it, let me get to the part all you computer nerds want. The parts list as it now stands. On each bullet point is a link to its stats on the website from which I'm buying the parts:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz 65W Dual-Core Processor
• RAM: 4GB of Corsair XMS3 240-pin DDR3 1600
• Motherboard: ASUS Striker II ATX Intel Motherboard with a NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI Northbridge
• Video Card: MSI GeForce 9500 PCI Express Video Gard with 512MB of on-board RAM
• Hard Drives: For my OS and for my software, I'm going to go pretty standard, but for my audio and samples, I'm going to use a Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB SATA 3.0Gb/s drive running at 10,000RPM. Ahhh, yeeeeah.
• Other stuff: I'm going to scavenge the case, power supply, wireless card, audio/MIDI card, and my 40GB SATA 1.5GB/s hard drive from my old computer.

Your thoughts? I'm excited to build this monster. It should be going down within the next 2 months. Wheeee! Yay for being a nerd! [I will update this post as changes occur.]

* My home studio is also my study, thus the amalgam, The Studyo.

[SAME-DAY-AS-POST UPDATE!]
Ok, so after many comments, I've changed my tune. I've made the following changes:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Core 2.4Ghz (which I will overclock up to 3GHz)
• Motherboard: An Intel motherboard that is compatible with everything else I've selected. It has an Intel X48 chipset. Is that better (Justin and Bart)?
• Hard Drives: I will stream samples off of a 150GB 10,000RPM 3.0Gb/s drive, and run the audio for my projects on a 300GB drive of the same specifications. The OS and the programs will be on two separate, equally-sized partitions of a 160GB 7200RPM 3.0Gb/s drive.
• Other Stuff: Like the CPU and Motherboard, my buddy Justin Aiken helped me find this nice, sporty little CPU cooling unit. He either has this one or something similar. It's supposedly super quiet. With that and the fanless video card I've selected, this should be one silent little beast.

Alrighty, my geeky brain trust, how's THAT?

artistic honesty and the human condition

While I've always been a fairly introspective guy, I was never really able to put my temperament into words until I was introduced to my now favorite philosopher, William James. In his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, James describes how different religions appeal in different ways to people of differing temperaments, and sets forth two general kinds of temeraments. He calls them the Healthy-Minded and The Sick Soul. These are admittedly general categories, as James is always the first one to admit that "individuality outruns all classification," but they are good general categories.

The Sick Soul

I've found that I fall into the latter of the the two. The Sick Soul is characterized by the view that "the evil* aspects of our life are of its very essence, and that the world's meaning most comes home to us when we lay them most to heart" (Varieties, 124). For the Sick Soul, the recognition and admission that evil is an elemental part of both our existence and our interpretation of the universe, is key to achieving any kind of peace or solace.

This is me to the letter. Yes, I'm a generally happy guy, but my thoughts and feelings are all underpinned by a general melancholia. My thoughts tend to center around what James claims to be the general observation of religion, which is that things are not as they ought to be. My optimism stems from what James says is the the general response of religion, which is that things can be made at least better than they are by unification with or reconciliation to something greater than us. For me, this is meliorism, the idea that "that the world tends to become better or may be made better by human effort."

But, despite all this purported optimism, the melancholy remains. No, I'm not saying that I'm clinically depressed or anything of that magnitude (in fact, I took a free screening on campus and they gave me clean bill of mental health!), but I'm saying that for me there is a certain amount of general melancholy that comes with being mortal, living in a mortal world. Despite my belief that the world can (and ultimately will) become a better place, I am ultimately aware that I suffer real pains, real mistakes and real losses.

Because there are different temperaments, there are different kinds of art and more specifically, different approaches to creating art. Among many of my musician peers, and many of those whose place it is to instruct me in the same, there is a popular ideology which says that for music to be "uplifting" its lyrics have to be "happy" and have to avoid negative topics. While I believe that art should uplift, I don't think this method is a particularly effective or honest approach to achieving that end. I unable to speak for other people, but I personally can't get to the point where a piece of art can edify me or provide me with solace if it casts a blind eye to the things that are causing my turmoil to begin with. For me, there is no catharsis until after the conflict. That's the way it is in my life, and art doesn't make sense to me if it isn't in some way a mirror of that. Even an idealistic piece can tip its hat to the fact that things are not as they are being portrayed.

Voicing the Voiceless

This is the paradox of tragedy. Aristotle wrote about it, Plato and pals argued about it. Why is it that we find joy in seeing a tragic film or play, or in hearing a sad song about the broken heart of a fornlorn lover. To make the paradox clearer: How is it that we somehow find joy in being sad? I think that sad songs speak to us because in order to be healed or to find peace, we must first find a voice for the grief we're up against. I'm convinced that we're incapable, by ourselves, of saying everything that we need to say in this life, and thus need others to help us say the rest. This, to me, is the role of tragic art. It is the voice we give to pain so that the pain can be understood and handled.

I watched the film "The Deer Hunter" this week. It was a Viet Nam Era piece starring Robert Deniro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep (to name a few), and was heartwrenching for me to watch. The majority of the time, I had a lump in my throat and was blinking back tears. The film depicted death, grief and the depletion of human will... yet I came out of it feeling profoundly uplifted. It did not have a happy ending by any obvious means, but I came away from it filled with an enriched view of the nature of loyalty and love, and with a hightened sense of . . . gratitude? Yes, it was gratitude, and this is a perfect example of "voicing the voiceless."

When I was in first grade, my father was shipped off to Saudia Arabia to fight in Operation Desert Storm. I missed him terribly, but for the most part, I handled it quite well. When you're that young, your mind has a pretty big buffer so that emotionally devastating things don't hurt your development as much. I remember being well aware that the news had just stated that the city my dad was in was being bombed and seeing the fear in my mother's eyes and sometimes hearing her crying softly in her bedroom, but my little six-year-old brain would never allow me to process any of it. So as a result, my heart and mind were aware that I should devastated, but filed the information away for later processing. Fast-forward to this week. Seeing the horrible depictions of war, and grief and worried families and loyalty to one's country depicted in The Deer Hunter, suddenly fills me with an incredibly heartwrenching sense of gratitude for my father's willingness to serve his country and his eventual safe return. For the first time in 19 years, the pain I felt had been given a voice. It was finally in a form that was comprehensible, and consequently healable.

The music that means the most to me and has the deepest emotional impact on me is the music that doesn't shy away from the sad things of the world. I am perpetually impressed by the lyrics of Sufjan Stevens who finds the beauty in those who we would ignore and the wisdom that can distil in times of sadness. Let me end with a line from one of his songs, called "For the Widows in Paradise," which stuck in my mind the first time I heard it and has stayed with me ever since:

"Even if I come back, even if I die
Is there some idea to replace my life? "

I hope that as a musician, there is at least one idea I can get across which will remain to take my place when I'm gone.





*To be clear, I use the term "evil" in the general philosophical sense, meaning anything that causes pain or sadness, which includes - but is not limited to - moral evil.