Friday, May 8, 2015

yeah. i cut my nightly back up partition from 50 gb to 10 - i'll just have to be more focused about it - and shifted the 40 to the discography partition. that let me shift the aleph isos over to the discography partition, which gave me 20 gb back on my iso backup partition. now, i've got enough for about 10 more isos there, and plenty of extra space in the discography for alephs and wave files. by the time i get that done, my pile of work to get through should fall down to about 50 gb, which will let me swap my work partition [a full 250 gb drive] for the iso partition [a 135 gb partition]. if there's only 50 left, the 135 will be plenty of space to work with - and it will put the other drive aside for eventual storage as iso backups. that won't be until probably the end of the summer, but i need to be thinking about it. and i think this configuration will probably last me until christmas, if i'm still alive by then. maybe ssds will go down by then or hit a sale point...

if you're wondering how i'm using 750 gb, of course i'm not. it's just a question of partitioning things and being sure i don't hit a brick wall. the way things are set up gives me two drives to work with; the plan was three, and that's what i'm musing about fixing.

first drive:
system: 50 gb. just program files.
part 2: 50 gb. installation files. there's a script; i could shrink it, but there's not a lot of space, and it wouldn't be useful, due to where it is, physically.
part 3: 50 gb. virtual machines. i'm actually a heavy vm user, because my image is so minimal. and, there's backups and shit hidden in there. linux. i'm a half credit short of a computer science degree, you know, so it's useful for programming. cracks. suspected spyware. having it in it's own partition (and scripted) makes it easier to not lose in a reinstall.
part 4: 100 gb. temp. it's about half full, of install files and other shit. having sufficient temp space is incredibly useful.

drive one has been pretty much static for ten years and is unlikely to change. pretty much ever.

second drive:
music partition: 250 gb. currently, there's about 100 gb of unfinished files and 30 gb of samples for vst instruments. previously, there was almost 200 gb of unfinished files. so, the need for this much space decreases as i get through the work. this particular drive will get shelved in time, but i like the idea of a dedicated drive for music work. i certainly don't want it on my system drive...

third drive:
part1: 10gb. backup. just whatever i'm working on.
part2: 95 gb. discography. mp3s, flacs, waves & isos for compilations of them. it's for easy access, but it's necessary. this will probably eventually need it's own drive, but i can't see it ever getting over 250 so that drive is probably this one.
part3: 145 gb. iso backups. this is the completed work - all source material, mixes, programs, etc.

so, there's lots of space there, it's just not really usable. like i say: i built this for four drives. and i guess it means i'm eventually buying two, not one. just not right now...
well, i got the cymbals/bowl notated, anyways. needed a break there to clear my head of the syncopation, and come back fresh. next up needs to be the pens/toms. i'm thinking about adding snares. and there's a few guitar parts to get in there, too. i'm going to need to eat first, though.

i'm running out of hard drive space. on the one hand, that was never supposed to happen. i built this thing ten years ago with 4x250 gb drives, giving me a tb of storage. on the other hand, i lost a drive last year [it was a traumatic experience; i lost months and ended up having to get a bus pirate to parallel in to flash the bios...], which has me down 250 gb, to 750 gb.

nowadays, i'll never find a 250 gb drive that isn't refurbished. which seems nuts. but t approaches infinity whether we like it or not. and, while i might be able to get a deal on something, buying used hard drives is like buying used underwear - even if it seems alright, you never really know what's in there. rootkits. who knows. so, it seems like i'm looking at adding another at least 500 gb. but i didn't budget for this (although i should have - and i almost bought a drive instead of the blu-ray burner). i'm tempted, but it's going to hurt my finances.

i should be able to move things around for the night. in the long run, i'm going to actually take one of these out completely, for data redundancy. they're all almost ten years old. i take good care of my shit, but with hard drives it's not if, but when. i figure 250 gb should be sufficient to hold all the source files of everything from 1996-2015. so, i'll just take it out and put it in the box. i'll then swap it out for a newer drive...

i've got my pile of work down low enough that i should be able to get it into one of the smaller partitions, now. i can then drop all those isos on to the disc i wanted to put away. that should hold me, but not for very long.

i've been holding out for an ssd, but they're still kind of pricey, and a lot smaller. even a 250 gb drive is pushing $200. tb hdds are around $60. and, in 20 years, i've only ever had one die. it's just that i know i'm eventually going to land an ssd, probably several, so it doesn't seem like the wisest purchase.

on top of that, it's really just a convenience issue. i could wipe the isos. i've got them backed up several places.

but, i'm thinking about it. i'll do some shopping at some point over the weekend. and carefully look at the budget.

it shouldn't slow me down, though - not really, at least.
i've been holding off on this because i was hoping to fit period 2 on to one dvd, but this isn't going to be possible. i'd have had to have truncated to do it in the best scenario; instead, i'm going to be inclusive over three discs. what i had previously posted as the rabit is wolf disc will be filled out and converted to disc two, and the third will be ftaa, comps and the first trivial group eps (up to may, 2004, which is the ftaa completion date and the completion of the last period 2 material).

it's a combination of the box sets for deny everything & jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj, minus the wave which fits better on 2.2.

when period 2 is done [within a few weeks...], i'll have this up as a 3xdvd and 1xbd.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/period-21-deny-everything-jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
note to self: writing syncopated cymbal parts in 48/32 is challenging. it's almost like i'm going to need a math degree or something to do this.

the backbeat is in patterns of sixteen but is a dotted sixteenth note, which means i need to be thinking of ways to weave the offbeats in at a 64th note quantize level due to the factorization, but also that everything is staggered with ties and dots. if one sixteenth of the bar is measured in terms of a dotted sixteenth (that is three 32nds), then a 32nd of the bar is half that, which is three 64ths. i may find myself looking for 128ths (this program stops at 64ths).

this is probably the reason i played the percussion in the original recording - using bowls, pens, tables and other objects i had around. it's not that i need the quick succession, it's getting the space between the notes right. and i'm currently not sure i'm going to be able to divide the various subsets (or bars) into small enough pieces to get the syncopation my brain is giving me.

in some sense, what 48/32 really indicates is a tempo change (represented by the dot), and i suppose i could sit down and work that out, then rewrite it in a more "normal" time. that would convert my dotted sixteenth notes into quarter notes and give me my "128th" and also "256th" back. but, it would mean shifting the math to the already written sections. i'm only going to do that if i really can't get small enough notes...