Wednesday, November 5, 2014

i got the snares in the second section done today. not completely mixed, but played and sequenced. that was the hard part for that section. i need some toms and kicks and crashes but it's less skittery and should be relatively quick to get in.

so, no temp mix tonight. maybe one tomorrow.

there's four sections. hopefully, two is done tomorrow.

did the package arrive?

jessica
hi..

just wondering if the package arrived?

i just want to comment on shipping, too, because it's been bothering me. the actual cost to ship from where i am in canada to the uk is $9 to ship one disc and $12 to ship two, so i did make a few dollars on shipping. i was considering sending you a bonus disc to make up for it, but i couldn't fit three discs in one package, so it would have cost me an extra $9 in shipping to get the third disc out. see, because the shipping gets me a deal on multiples of two it works out non-linearly to:

$9 - one   (flat 10)
$12 - two  (flat 20)
$21 - three  (flat 30)
$24 - four   (flat 40)
$33 - five   (it's flat 50, but this is where i think it gets unfair)

..and of course it's going to decrease further as more units move in the same order.

fairness is very important to me. i'm actually sort of neurotic about it, to the point that it's harmed my own interests at points. so, i've changed my shipping policy. it's flat for under five discs, meaning i will make a few dollars on shipping small orders but i think that's ok. five or more discs and i'll contact the seller about adding free items.

just thought you should know that, as i had increased shipping between the orders. you had paid more than the list price initially, and i'm glad you did because i would have otherwise lost money on shipping the first item (i had just guessed $5, which was an underestimate...).

but let me know if you got the package... 

primatemaster
Arrived yesterday, thanks.

Wasn't sure about emailing to let you know - in the end I decided that was a bigger deal for the first delivery and not so much after the efficiency of our respective postal systems has been established. Re-thinking, if I were in your position, I'd prefer to know that the package was delivered safely so apologies for any concerned pondering/ sleepless nights. I'll send notifications after any future deliveries, provided that I'm not sending them to a corpse. :)

Don't worry about the delivery cost (insert your own joke about the low value of Canadian currency here), s'not unreasonable given the size of the ocean. And it is more important that you don't lose out in the transaction. I'll confess to a degree of hesitation when the total cost appeared, but that's down to my inner cheapskate having a mental block where $[shipping] > $[stuff I want]. I grew as a person when I clicked the button to pay. Larger orders run the risk of being stung for the double tax of import duty and Royal Mail 'service' charge, so that must be avoided on principle. 

jessica 
don't worry about emailing me, i was just double checking...
ok, i'm going to try and mix a little more before bed. i had to turn the mixer off for an hour or so because it was getting glitchy on me. i think it's more to do with the operating system than the device, but it has a sweet spot.
cover art pretension fail?

maybe, but it works. i'll make sure this is good....

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


actually, maybe i should make a general comment about the cover art...

with few exceptions, most of it is lifted. i'd hesitate to say i have little visual art talent - i've actually been told there is talent, to my honest surprise, underlying the little bit of work that i've done - but it's not something i like to spend a lot of time with. i just don't get the kind of creative burst out of it that visual artists need to get out of it to keep doing it. i think it's no secret that paintings can fetch absurd prices, too - my insistence on focusing on the art form may act as a mental block in diving into it. that is to say that i'm not driven by the kind of profit motive that tries to pass off a picture of a soup can as a work of art.

to me, music is a purely abstract creative form, whereas i tend to interpret the visual side of something as trying to capture an idea or an expression. that is, i see the visual as something much more concrete. further, i'd never doubt it's power in doing that. visual images can be quite striking in that context. so, if i had unlimited resources, i'd generally rather make use of a good photographer than an actual visual artist. when i do fall back to actual paintings, it's usually going to be with the same kind of mindset. it's maybe a bit backwards to look for something concrete in the surreal or in impressionism, but it's how i'm going to approach it for album cover art.

so, i went with the dali for this because it's a concrete representation of the abstraction of the track; however absurd or surreal the painting may be, it's the concrete connection between a picture of a clock melting and the sound of time caving in that is the point, here.

there are a few things i tossed together in paint, often constructed from existing images - like a sample art project. they're pretty obviously discernible. and the dali there is one of a few paintings that i feel have that concrete connection. generally, though, i'm going to focus on trying to find a photographic representation of the album's content - something i feel encapsulates the sound on the disc.

none of it's credited. i'm not selling a lot of records, so it's not a problem for me right now. i come out of a plunderphonics background, and don't see a lot of problem with borrowing the images, so long as i'm not exploiting the creators. and, the truth is that i'm currently not.

i've long committed myself to tracking down the original artists if a time comes where there's serious pressings and serious sales. this will happen, if or when that happens.

for now, i'm just lifting, and i'm thinking of it in terms of sample art.
obligatory influential on the track of the day post...

the drum machine? well, yeah. i'd never really used one before, and it became a pretty important creative tool.

(relevant tracks: confused)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZzh0heyPtI


i was dumb enough to sell it. i use an electronic kit now, and i do prefer the flexibility of a pair of sticks. but if i ever happen to stumble on one again....
ah, this record...

this is an "obligatory influential on" post.

i couldn't get this version up here in canada, so i instead bought both sides of the digipack. i had 'em dubbed onto a tape for walkman use, and hours of total headfuck on the bus.

the song is kind of....not reznor's best work. it's taken on this weird fake underground ebm club cultural context. it's clear, on the disc, that it's a depraved statement from somebody that's losing it. but, i guess nobody asked the dj at the strip club for any type of analysis, and there consequently never really was much.

the density of the track gave the remixers so much room to play with, and (as he was doing regularly at the time) he really got the a list out on it...

i can't overstate the influence of this disc. fixed, also. even today, all these years later, it's still the alpha document that informs the way i structure sound.

(relevant tracks: everything)