Dead Man'z Kassette

What I'm learning from podcasting

2012-02-06T10:27:00.002-06:00

Well the second edition of Invasive Species Radio has been shoved up the intertubes to Mixcloud this weekend, along with it a new track of mine entitled "Another Goddamn Waiting Room".

Any one who knows what my wife went through last year knows what this song is about. Sitting in a waiting room at various doctor's offices, not knowing what to expect. If there is going to be a smile or tears on her face when she comes through that door. I'm just glad it's over, and happy I can get some of this medical related PTSD off my chest in musical form.

What else does the podcast have to do with this project? Well for one thing I'm learning to work quicker and on a schedule. I gave myself a schedule of busting out an hour or so every two weeks. Not exactly the most rushed schedule, but with going back to school, work, and family life, organizing time for music seems to be essential. I used to just wander into the studio to meander around with some ideas, but now with focusing on the podcast, I find I'm focusing on writing DMK material too. Some of these tracks are a direct result of the podcast. I've started composing some musical sound beds and beats to talk over between songs, and something in these have caught my ear and are going to be worked into full tracks of their own. Expect some more stuff in about a month.

That's it for now. Gotta couple more tracks I'm working on as well as work on the next couple of podcasts. Oh and there's a day job and a final paper I need to work on somewhere.

Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes

2012-01-28T11:10:00.000-06:00

Well some things went and got them themselves different. First were the changes in Short to Ground. Tony, our keyboardist, left due to more demands from his day job, (with more power becomes more responsibility...or some shit like that), as well as a desire to spend more time with his family, and finally to devote more time to his own music project, Noise Theorem. While the band was getting smaller, our vocalist Brian's family was getting larger as he and his wife had a set of twins! Sean on the other hand dove into camera work editing and scoring an independent film.

Short to Ground will still carry on with working on a second original release and have some shows lined up for spring, but right now we are on a bit of a hiatus. So you'd think this would be the perfect time to work on DMK material. So what do I do? I go and start a podcast.

Other than that I have one new track done, and have another I'm finishing up for hopefully a summer-ish release. I'm actually going to use the podcast to promote DMK material as well as pimp the musical works of of my friends. The new track, Another Goddamn Waiting Room, will be premiered on the podcast's next post on or around Groundhog Day. (Any Bill Murray references will be met with lethal force.)

So that's what's been going on. More to come when I pry more of my head outta my ass.

Gotta new toy!!!

2011-10-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

OK I'm gonna do something differenttoday: I'm gonna do a gear review. I just purchased the GrooveMachine from Image-Line software (the Fruity Loops guys) and I justused in on a remix, and I've been trying to integrate it into myregular (OK irregular) work flow. So without further babbling, on tomore babbling!

The Groove Machine's layout should beinstantly familiar to anyone who's ever used any of the Rolandgrooveboxes or Korg's Electribe series. It gives you eightdrum/sample parts and five synth parts to play with. Each of theseparts can be routed to individual tracks in your DAW when used as aVSTi, or routed to different hardware outs depending on your audiointerface. There's actually a parameter in the setup page in standalone mode for an audio input, but after posting about this onImage-Line's forum, I received a reply that it's just the same setupcode they used for their Deckadance DJ software and they have noplans to run live audio through the Groove Machine...yet.

It comes with a great set of drumsamples, but it's easy to load your own. Each sample part can layerfour individual samples, and each sample has it's own set ofparameters. Levels, panning, pitch, a basic envelope and evenfiltering are available for each sample in the part. Even timingdelay, inverting & reversing the sound. Another handy feature isoffsetting the start of the sample, clipping off the sample from thetop for a mellower sound. (Non-destructively I might add.)

The synth parts are just as easy toedit. Layering up to three waves, each transposable +/- threeoctaves, as well as a noise generator and some sync, FM and ringmod effects. The software comes with a handful of decent waveforms thatdefinately lean to the synthetic. Don't go looking for a lush pianosound, it ain't here.The phase offset of the second oscillator istweakable, along with the amount of unison voices and stereo spreadand detune of the voices. And of course it can switch from poly tomono.

Each part has its own set of knobs andsliders for the tweak-happy. You get a resonant filter switchablebetween lowpass, bandpass and highpass, two envelope generators andtwo LFO's The envelopes and LFO's can be assigned to the filter,modulation, frequency, or level. Topping this off is a standard ADSRenvelope for levels and a master knob for overall level.

If the sample and synth parametersweren't enough, then you have the effects. Ten different ones foreach part. Let me make this clear: TEN EFFECTS FOR EACH PART. Allfive synths and all eight sample parts have their own effects bank.Apparently they don't like to share. Each effect has two parametersthat can either be adjusted by knobs, or by dragging the mouse in thex/y grid similar to a kaoss pad.

The sequencer can be used a couple ofways. You can play live via midi into it, you can use the the buttonsat the bottom like you would step edit a regular groovebox, or youcan take the easy way out and right-click your mouse on the buttons,which pulls up either a piano roll screen or a drum grid, dependingon which part you have selected. Note length is determined by ahorizontal slider on the front panel, I'm sure this was done to helpsequence steps groove box style from the front. But it's kind of apain when you want to use the piano roll.

Now one nifty bit of the piano roll ordrum grid editing is that if you right-click on most of any of theknobs or sliders on the main screen, it swicthes to the piano rollscreen with a level at the top editing field to adjust the level ofthat control. Filters, effects, LFO rates, envelope depths,sync-modulation, pretty much everything is fair game. Wait a minutelemme go check something....

...OK I just solved my note lengthproblem. By right-clicking on the note length slider, You can drawthe note length per step. And you can keep doing this for eachparameter over and over. I've adjusted note length, a filterenvelopes attack and decay and echo level for a single part.

Each “groove” as they call it canconsist of eight pattens, which can be up to eight parts each. Byhitting the “Edit Mode” button, (which you also have to hit inorder to start step editing groovebox style,) you can copy patternsby selecting the one you want to copy, hitting the copy button,selecting the pattern you want to copy to and hitting the pastebutton. This also works copying a part from one bar to another.Alternatively you can copy a busy pattern and then selecting parts tocut out by using the clear button.

A fun little gimmick is the Stutterbuttons. That loops a section of a pattern for a quarter-beat,three-eighths, a half, three-quarters or a whole beat. Also by usinga midi controller you can hold down the quarter-beat button and holdone of the others, you can get reverse patterns, or in the case ofthe three-eighths button a one-eighth note loop! One thing I'venoticed in practice is that the pattern doesn't return to the spotyou left off when you started looping. It continues playing silentlyunder the loop and falls back in place when you let go. So if youhold down a whole beat button for a count of four, when you let upit'll be in the next bar. This is a great way for improving fills.

I mentioned using a midi controller,because lets face it half the fun of a groovebox was hammering at thebuttons like the lab monkey trying to earn a treat. Sadly this iswhere I think the Groove Machine falls short. Mapping a controller iseasy enough. Press the key/button, or move the knob/slider you wantto map, then click on the parameter you want to control. Up at thetop right of the main screen it should display the midi control andthe parameter. Click on the arrow leading from MIDI to CTRL and theirlinked. Seems easy enough. The only problem I have with this is thiscontrol works only with whatever part you have selected. Want to usea bank of faders to use as a volume mixer? Can't do it. Want to havea single button to act as a mute for each part? Can't do it. The onlyway to control a parameter directly without having to select the partis via the a bank of five knobs at the top of the Groove Machine'sdisplay. Move one of the five knobs, hit the big LINK button, thenmove a knob or slider you want to control. Link the knob at the topto a midi control like any other parameter, and it's done. Problem isfive knobs aren't enough.

Another thing is you can't have onemidi command control two parameters. So using a single knob tocontrol multiple effect parameters isn't possible. Also remember thestutter buttons? Having to hold down one while holding another to geta reverse effect? Mapping both to one control seems like ano-brainer, but it's not possible. Oh and mapping a note to the playbutton on the sequencer? You have to keep holding it in order for itto play. If your using the VSTi version this isn't an issue as itstarts and stops with the host. But trying to use this as a standalone instrument is pretty annoying. I can't even find a parameter tomake it recognize midi channels! I'm switching patterns with myMidiFighter on channel 3, I go to play on my Midi keyboard to recorda synth part with midi channel 1, and the pattern changes!

Image-Line have done their homeworkand made this an incredible software version of a hardware groovebox.As a VSTi I loved working with it. It was easy to get drums going,program synths and lay out a pattern structure. But in terms ofmodern software flexibility it's TOO much like a hardware groovebox.The midi implementation has a looooooooooooooooong way to go in orderto be useful as a live instrument by itself. I got a few othergripes, the tap tempo button in standalone mode is not midi mappable,and though you can save your grooves with the drum samples, itdoesn't save the standalone tempo!

So as it stands right now, its VSTiversion yes, Standalone no. Maybe I'm being a little greedy andwanting too much from a ver 1.0.1 program, but I had high hopes ofjust using this to bang out demos without having to crack my DAWopen. Oh well. There's always 2.0.

Things are in the works...

2011-07-29T23:32:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you can't wait for someone to build it, and you gotta D.I.Y. More details soon...

Ok. I think I got it now...

2011-06-29T04:48:00.002-05:00

Things are in the works for later this year, (but just because they’re in the works doesn’t mean they’ll...ya know...actually work.) I’ve come up with a few decisions, a few ideas and a way of possibly doing a live show. (Cue nervous shaking now.)

STG is still moving ahead after performing at the WTII festival earlier this month, gained a few fans, made a few friends, and had a good time. All of us now are dug in at our home studios throwing demos at each other over the internet and piecing together our next original release. Some of ‘em I’m proud to say started in my own noggin. Previously when I joined most of the tracks were already written and I just added some scratches or sampled bits on top & tweaked effects live. Now I’m uploading rough demos for the guys to work with. The hard part is holding back simply because you got three other guys who have to add their noisy and wordy bits to the stew and bang it into shape.

But now to the DMK stuff, this being the DMK blog after all. I’ve upgraded my DJ software to Traktor Pro 2. This probably means nothing to most of you, but It’s a huge shift in the way I can perform and write music, doing both really at the same time which is what I’ve always dreamed of. I can still beat juggle and scratch, but now I can also grab, loop and effect snippets of keyboard riffs, bass guitar, vocals and even loop the scratching back into itself to build up layers.

I’ll still have to use some other DAW (that’s Digital Audio Workstation for those of my friends that aren’t electronic music geeks) for some sound design and beat programming, but the bulk of composition will be in realtime.

Because the nature of the music won’t really lend itself to a traditional album/track format, I’ve decided that I’ll try to release 15 to 30 minute improvisations as monthly podcasts, posted on Soundcloud for streaming. If anyone really wants to download a copy for their mp3 player or whatever, I’ll post them for cheap on Bandcamp. Hopefully I’ll have the first of the new stuff up by late July. Seeing as this is all going to be composed/performed/recorded at the same time, it’s not much of a stretch that I’ll try to do something similar in front of a group of people who would enjoy such a thing and hopefully not throw glass beverage containers at me. If you got a place where you think this kinda nonsense would be welcomed, e-mail me at deadmanzkassette@gmail.com. There are some bugs to work out yet but I hope to be ready by fall.

Now back to the job I actually get a paycheck for...

Grrrrr....Arrrghhh....

2011-04-26T21:15:00.003-05:00

You may notice that not much has been going on here lately. Believe me I wish it were otherwise. The momentum for my band Short to Ground seems to be building, although sadly that has to do with the hard work (and financing) of the other three members and not my raggedy-ass self. Remember my move in November? The one where I was so happy about getting a house to set up a small studio in? Yeah I moved all right, but the previous tenants have yet to move entirely out of the goddamn place, including Shamus, a big chocolate wrecking ball of a Lab who just doesn’t give a fuck what you’re trying to do. Every week the mother-in-law’s slob, packrat boyfriend comes back down from spending the weekend with her in Michigan because he can’t find a job up there, bringing the aforementioned four-legged agent of Satan with him, along with another dog, thus fucking up any chance we have of keeping the place habitable, much less getting a proper workspace set up.

On another acre of my own private hell, the boss of my day job thought it’d be a good idea to cut my hours in half, saying that we should get someone with more technical expertise, then winds up hiring her pot-smoking cousin, who claims she got the job down cold, then proceeds to let a client go without swiping their card for a $400+ bill, and as of today somehow managed to delete the document scanning software. Meanwhile my wife has to work there full time during her chemotherapy in order to keep her health insurance, which has her jumping through hoops to get anything done thanks to the shitheaded lazy punk-ass cunts at the HMO. Me? Oh I’m not worried about my insurance. Now that I’m going to part time, I don’t have it anymore. Having your wife bust her ass to afford the poison that’s puts everything good in her life on hold is bad enough, but adding the burden of paying full price for your own insulin just adds insult to injury.

I have no refuge, no sanctuary. Home life sucks. Work sucks. I can’t go to band practice as often as I like because of my wife’s chemo schedule, never mind the rising cost of gas to get there. I can’t work on DMK material, because every 5 to 10 minutes there’s something else going wrong, the dogs are eating the cable box, the cats are vomting on dinner, the mother-in-law is on the phone threatening to move back here and screaming that everyone else ruined life for her irresponsible ass, obviously not giving two shits about the physical and mental stress her daughter is already under fighting cancer. My wife has enough on her plate, yet she keeps telling me I can vent to her, and she continually apologizes for holding things up. MY GOD WOMAN YOU HAVE CANCER!!! YOU’RE NOT HOLDING ANYTHING UP! IT’S ALL THESE OTHER SHITHEADS!!! I’ve told her before, she needs less “I’m sorry” coming out of her mouth and more “FUCK YOU”.

In spite of all this I was able to bang together a couple remixes for an EP STG is releasing soon:

Darwin's Mistake (Evolutionary Dead End Mix) 90 sec sample by Short to Ground

Slow Asphyxiation (Creeper Comedown Mix) 90 sec sample by Short to Ground

As for my own material & live show? I have no fucking clue. Right now I just want to go to the nearest shopping mall and euthanize random teenagers with the claw end of a hammer.

Used for all the wrong reasons

2010-10-19T21:06:00.001-05:00

I recently bought the latest Massive Attack album Heligoland. And was bumming around YouTube the other day looking for any videos, making of documentaries, live footage, (They were recently in Chicago and I missed them) and I found this:

Which led to zerodb.org

I will never cease to be amazed at the ingenuity and creativity of human beings when it comes to tearing each other apart, physically, mentally & spiritually. Being a musician I can only imagine how sick I would feel if my music was used to try and shatter someone's will for whatever reason, country, religion, or flag. I'm signing up with this cause & I hope all my noise making friends do the same.

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

2010-09-08T08:25:00.000-05:00

Ok. I 'm currently writing this on a rainy day at a farm in White Cloud, Michigan, on a well deserved furlough from life in the Chicago area. I'm sad/relieved to say that the next EP is gonna be delayed until next spring. Probably around my birthday again. (Oh come on. You knew this was coming....) The reasons for this are threefold:

STG is starting to take off. We finally got our self-titled EP out there, with a decent website (Good Bye MySpace!!!), and are working on getting distribution for it. (iTunes, Amazon, ect...) A group with a good sized following in Europe found our tracks online and has offered to do a remix for us, along with other acts that we've made noise with over the years. (I might actually do a DMK mix for one of the tracks.) Along with writing another EP, and the remixes. A promoter friend of ours is looking into doing an electronic music fest in Chicago around well...March. We're hoping to have the new EP and the remixes available by then.
I'm gonna be moving again. My fiancee and I will hopefully move into her Mom's house come November, after she moves out here to the Michigan farm. A yard for the dogs and a space for my studio where I can shut the door on the marauding horde of cats sounds wonderful. But it means a bunch of work to make it the way we want it. And carrying all the crap down three flights of stairs ain't gonna make it easy either.
The songs are taking more time. When I did 6 Feet Under The Radar, I was more or less experimenting with different things. My focus on this is a little clearer in what I want to do so I want to take more time on it then slapping together a bunch of loops, and making a DJ mix. Also I've brought more ideas to the table this time, and I'm finding my self mumbling and humming along with the playback while working, so I'm guessing some of the tracks got something to say. Which is why I'd like to record them when we move to the house. Trying to record vocals in a third floor Chicago apartment with a hospital down the street calls for a sound proofing budget that I ain't got.

So it's gonna be a little while. But with the work on STG's next EP, the remixes, and the next DMK release in March, I'm actually looking forward to my 40^th. Most don't get that lucky. They just get old.

Taking a different way to work

2010-08-07T20:15:00.000-05:00

Well in between recording sessions for Short to Ground (which are sounding kick-ass BTW) and my day job (we hired more staff finally...Hooray for regular scheduling!), work has begun in earnest for the next release to be titled: Someday Your Playground Will Lie In Ruins. The rough sketches are sounding different, and I've changed my methods a bit. While the 6FUTR tracks were primarily sample based creations, this time around I've started using a handfull of software plugins. Nothing from any of the majors, more boutique stuff, and I'm really looking for different ways for developing sounds besides the old OSC-FILTER-AMP model. Case in point is Synplant. Instead of the traditional knobs and sliders, you get seeds, branches, and for deep tweaking a DNA double helix!

Sampling is still going to be my main production method, but sometimes you need to change up a bit .For example, a lot of the drums are being done in a virtual analog drum machine (Although I must admit, half the time I'm bouncing down the audio and chopping 'em up into samples anyway). I haven't touched the bass guitar yet in the writing stage of this, and I'm not sure I'm going to be using it this time. Also the turntables are taking a backseat right now, though I'll probably try mixing down with them like last time, and I plan on using them as a key part in a live performance if it ever gets that far.

The point is change may not necessarily be good or bad, but it keeps things interesting. And if I can't be interested in my own music, no one else will be either.

Here we go again...

2010-06-23T21:20:00.001-05:00

You may have noticed a different logo taking up space at the top of the blog. That was done by the guy behind Deadsilent Productions. My lovely and hyper-intelligent fiancee (finally learned how to spell that word) introduced me to him. He does some great atmospheric shots as well as portraits. We hung out for a bit and I've got him working on some photo/design ideas.

"But wait," you ask."Photos and designs for what?"

Well, in a fit of masochism, I've given myself a deadline for another EP by Halloween. (Don't ever expect a full LP from me. I don't have the attention span.) So in between working on an album with STG, 10+ hour days at my job, DJing a friends wedding in August, AND finishing up the final versions of 6 Feet Under The Radar, I took it upon myself to try and release more stuff in the months to come.

Forget the PayPal link. Send me medication.

Where you been lad?

2010-05-19T10:58:00.004-05:00

Ok, It's been a bit since I posted and a lot has happened. Sadly damn little of it has to do with DMK. I've been working longer hours, had a laptop meltdown (leading to the new one I'm currently typing on), and definitely not sadly, I've gotten engaged. Again. (this ones totally worth it though. :) )

As far as music, my band Short To Ground, has taken priority recently. Replacing parts that were used in the live show at the beginning, with new, original sound design, which means not only that we don't have to worry about copyright infringement for the album, but that I also had to re-learn new parts. I had to do this in a hurry because tonight we're recording a short set and interview that will air next week on WLUW 88.7 FM in Chicago So dust off your radios and attach your foil or wire hanger to the antenna and grab an earfull. If you can't get the show where you are here's a sampling of tracks on SoundCloud:

I haven't abandoned work on finishing up the final versions of the 6F.U.T.R. material, and I'm coming up with sketches for new material, but life gets in the way sometimes and is slows down the work. But I (and my brilliant fiancee) came up with an idea. We're planning to go on a Diabetes walk in October, and instead of selling the handmade cover discs on Etsy, I'm gonna give them as a thank you to the people who pledge money to sponsor us. (Not to mention this gives me a decent excuse to expand my deadline. It's a wonderful thing when you can disguise slack as a moral/ethical action. :) )

A Peek Behind The Curtain

2010-04-07T11:56:00.002-05:00

I've been busy lately but I managed to bust out a solo bit of Diggin' Out, the second track on the 6ft Under the Radar Mix. I thought it might be a good idea to shoot video of this so you guys can see how these tracks are put together.

The track is available now:

Thank you guys....

2010-03-13T17:30:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to stop and say thanks to all my friends out there pimping my work to others who might be interested. I never could get this mess outta my head without your love & support. I've seen the fans on Facebook and the listens on Soundcloud grow this week, and though it may seem like a small number of people it means the world to me. Thanks guys.

And now that people are actually listening, I gotta start working again. Currently I'm working on the cover graphics for the upcoming CD design, I should get the individual track mixes up this week, and of course, more random sound bits are cooking up on the hard drive.

I'm also toying with a FAQ for this page, but no-one's asked me anything frequently, or at all! Anything you people wanna know?

Whoops....

2010-03-04T09:15:00.003-06:00

Sorry. Had some file issues which have come to my attention. Like I uploaded an OGG version and not the MP3! I've rerendered the file as an MP3 and will uploadit later today. I'm also going to create single files for the individual tracks for those of you who don't want to scroll thru ten minutes of audio to get to your favorite bit. (Not to mention leave out some of my sloppy cuts/fades!) They should be up in a few days. Thanx for muddling thru with me and my solo album growing pains.

UPDATE: Here's the MP3 version.

6ft Under The Radar

2010-03-02T15:26:00.011-06:00

Well... I've gone and done it now. It's uploading on Soundcloud for the world to hear. It's amateur, sloppy, and a hell of a lot more interesting to me than anything on the radio right now. It's purely instrumental right now beacause: 1. I haven't got anything interesting to sing about right now, and 2. I mixed the album as a DJ set live into a stereo file, and was struggling enough with the turntables & mixer, that adding vocals would have been a total trainwreck!

But hey, it's done. I think this EP was more of a test run for future endeavors. (Not to mention a reminder to practice my DJ skills more often!) The result of a year's worth of throwing crap at a wall and seeing what sticks. Now that I've found a way to work I'm comfortable with, I can just work on the music and stop trying different tools and techniques. (Is this going to stop me from lusting after more music gear? Probably not. :) )

Other plans for the future? Well a live debut is in the works with some other artists, and I hinted at making the music available on some custom made packaging, which looks like it's going to happen in a limited amount. But that all depends on having the time & money to do it. Oh yeah...About that money bit?

The music is free.

It's covered under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Which means basically, you can use it in podcasts, your own mixes, as the background to your YouTube vids, as long as you do three things: 1. Tell where you got the music from. 2. Allow others to use the creative work you've done the same way you used the music. 3. Only available for non-profit use. Click the link on the left side for a better legal description.

Also on the left side is a Paypal donation link. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) So if you people are sick enough to actually enjoy this noise and want me to keep doing it, you can support me financially. (As well as morally, or immorally depending on who I'm talking to.)

More than anything else though, I'd like to hear what you think. You can comment here, on my Facebook page, or my email at: deadmanzkassette@gmail.com

Now if only the uploading wasn't so pokey. My file is LARGE. ;)

UPDATE: HERE IT IS!!!

It's the Final Countdown...

2010-02-25T13:02:00.014-06:00

So my deadline looms in less than a week, and I've spent more time figuring how I'm gonna work on this than actually working on it! I have numerous bits and pieces in separate files, just waiting for me to stitch the Frankenmix together. It may not be the full album I hoped for, but about a half hour for an EP isn't bad for a constantly distracted attention deficit bastard like myself.

The working title is: Six Feet Under the Radar, and I've pretty much decided to give it away. It'll be covered under a Creative Commons license, and if anyone likes it enought to pay for it, I gotta PayPal link for donations. I'm also toying with burning some CD copies and doing some hand made cover art to sell on Etsy for all the luddites who want a physical product.

Now to construct the beast. See ya next week...

What's that big black spinning circle on the horizon?

2009-12-17T22:56:00.002-06:00

Bless me readers for I have sinned. It's been about two months since I've posted anything, and my self imposed March deadline looms on the horizon like one of H.G. Wells' Martian Tripods ready to zap me with the death-ray of slack. Things have been interesting lately. New job, new apartment, new girlfriend/co-worker/roommate, new pets, the band I'm fortunate enough to be in finally getting shows in the city of Chicago, (Bars with bondage scenes on the TVs seem a far away destination from the high school auditorium of our first gig!) And switching internet providers because AT&T is full of fail, leading naturally to blog neglect.

However also a fundamental change in tactics is under way as well, prompting me to keep silent until I was sure of what I wanted to do. And I have come to one conclusion:

I will never finish another track again.

Before you people freak out and think I'm abandoning music all together read that last statement carefully:

I will never FINISH another track again.

My writing and mixing style has always been based on improvisation, which seems to be my best strength musically. I've always had problems structuring a track returning to the multitrack loops in the computer, changing levels, tweaking effects, muting and unmuting tracks as the mood strikes me. It finally dawned on me, I'm never gonna finish these tracks, they're gonna be in a constant state of flux and I'm fine with that.

So I made a bunch of various patterns: Bass solo, Bass & Hi-Hats, Full rhythm Section, Solo Piano... Strung them together into one file and dropped them into my DJ software so I could experiment with my turntables. Extending the intro while sweeping the bass with the eq knobs. Scratching the solo piano parts over the drum breaks, and basically sculpting the tune however I felt with my hands, using the oldskool beat juggling techniques of old.

It was the most damn musical fun I've had in years.

The focus now is on getting a bunch of parts & loops that work together well and spinning them together into a tune using the DJ equipment. I think that's what I was missing since my days as a vocalist in a band, that degree of physicality, hitting a button once to trigger a loop is easy, bouncing between two turntables to turn a two bar section into an eight bar section is a lot more difficult & to me is a lot more rewarding.

So what does this mean for the album deadline? Simple. It ain't gonna be a traditional album. It'll wind up being more like a mixtape. I'm half tempted to do two 30 minute continuous mixes and call them Side A & Side B. (A variation of the word cassette is in the name after all.) So expect the virtual tape to drop around March.

And one more thing...There's a good chance my live debut will be in March as well with some music minded friends....More details as they become available...

Soundcloud hosting.

2009-10-01T20:19:00.005-05:00

Just an FYI to all 4 of you reading this, I'm going to start hosting my tracks on Soundcloud. Seems to be like Twitter for audio....

Life's just odd...

2009-09-26T11:28:00.003-05:00

I was finally getting it together. Tweaking the studio a bit. Exploring options to help streamline things and improve my sound. Even got a bass guitar to play and grab some loops from. Was getting my finances in order after a disasterous marriage/forclosure/divorce. Even got a raise for my two year anniversary.

Then on Friday, September 18th. I was shitcanned from my day job.

At first panic ensued. Then I did a DJ gig for a bandmates Mom, funneled that to pay off September's rent. This Friday I got my paycheck for last week, as well as checks covering unused vacation & sick days, as well as vacation time I built up for NEXT year. So I paid October's rent in advance & cleaned up some long standing utilites crap resulting from the foreclosure, thus completing that nightmare. Yesterday I logged in to cash out the 401k from this job (only two years worth), after I pay off a hellishly inflated credit card debt with it, I'll STILL have over a thousand left. And I still have severance pay coming equivalent to 4 weeks paid out over October, as well as filing for unemployment.

The irony in all this? Getting fired allowed me to become debt free.

Guess the bigger the cloud the bigger the silver lining...

Progess Report (or what's taking so damn long)

2009-07-18T21:48:00.002-05:00

Damn. July already, and only one (almost) finished song on Facebook. You'd think this wouldn't take so long but it does. Especially with the half-assed way I write.

Most of the tracks come together thru sampling, hip-hop style. But rather than sample others, I play around on my keyboard, design sounds on either it or my laptop, record improvisations, take the best bits of those chop 'em up, sequence them, save 'em & come back later.

Problem is sometimes I don't get back to them. Either they weren't that great, or I've hit a road block and don't know where to go next. Sometimes if I'm lucky, a tune will stay in my head and demand to be finished. 'Snowfall and Subways' was like that and the track I'm ignoring to type this right now didn't exist as more as a patch I had programmed on my synthesizer a week ago.

So what do these things sound like you ask? Well tempo wise I'm either at a downtempo/hip-hop 80-100 bpm, or double time that to about 160-180 bpm for a more atmospheric drum -n- bass sound. One commonality among all of them is some sort of piano sound. Back in Carbon Haze, and now in Short to Ground, synthetic textures seem to rule. DMK seems to be using more organic sounding instruments, pianos, guitar sounds, very round deep basses, strings and even the occasional brass. There's still a synth element but overall the feel seems very natural sounding to me. Even to the point of sampling the silent end of a record in order to layer the hiss & crackle to make something sound more "authentic". Even with all that, a lot of delays, reverbs, and chorus effects are being used to add a lot of space to it.

Unlike the industrial stuff of old, instead of bludgeoning the listener with a wall of sound, this is going for a more introspective, moody & haunting sound.

Well. Now you know about as much as I do. Wait until I have to write lyrics. You think I'm procrastinating now...

Mixed Moods on a Monday, Mindfully Mapping out a Method to the Musical Madness...

2009-03-02T15:21:00.004-06:00

As of about quarter after four PM, I'll be 38 years of age. I know this is an arbitrary number based on the rotation and orbit of the mudball we're currently stuck on, but the higher that number is, the more pressure seems to be on you to have something substantial done. So here it is: I'm planning on having an album done of at least a dozen songs, by this time next year, hopefully sooner. I'll post versions of tracks from time to time on Facebook and in a yet-to-be set up MySpace page.

I'm still trying to sort out all the options. Do I aim for a physical CD release or go all digital download? Do I make special editions of some stuff (i.e. instrumental versions, breakdown to the individual tracks for others to remix, maybe a limited 45 single release) or just a basic album? Should I go with a Creative Commons copyright, allowing sharing of my work? A lot of questions have to be pondered.

But for right now, writing the tunes is the most important thing. I got one definitely in the can as an instrumental version, (lyrics are written, they just have to be recorded) and there are plenty of beats & pieces in the primordial ooze of the hard drive, waiting to come together, stand erect & use tools. So yeah this is totally doable. But make no mistake about this, I may be promising a finished piece of art in a year or less, but this promise is more for me than you guys. Now that I've posted this publicly, the heat is on to get it done. Left to my own devices I kinda suck at getting things moving, but hopefully you people will be on my ass about it, not letting me slack.

So by this time next year, you guys will get to hear a full album stitched together from the bits of sonic driftwood from my brain. And that's a birthday present I can't wait to give myself at 39.

Facebook Page

2009-02-28T22:20:00.003-06:00

Dead Man'z Kassette on Facebook

If you're on the FB drop by and grab an earfull of what I'm doing. And while you're there check out my band Short to Ground...

Short to Ground on Facebook

So what the hell's a Dead Man'z Kassette anyway?

2009-02-28T19:41:00.003-06:00

D.M.K. Was a moniker I came up with to use for my own musical works, artwork and writing among other things. I actually had some story ideas to go along with it. One was set in the 80's about a guy who had the power to alter the electromagnetic spectrum with his mind, causing tapes to be rewritten, and the government trying to get him to alter some damning evidence. Another idea was a short story/audio play about a guy bitten during a zombie uprising, recording his last moments into a tape recorder, which would ultimately end in losing his grip on sanity & giving in to undead madness. However, neither of these felt quite right. Trying to force some industrial/horror mode on my creativity may have worked in years gone by, but my heart's not there anymore. Don't get me wrong. I still love industrial (my involvement in Short to Ground is evidence enough of that.) And I still love a good horror novel, ghost story or zombie film. But I feel there are other things to say, observations about what's going on today. places (physical, mental and emotional) I've been, and most of all the things I care about. I guess the focus started to change after I reconnected with friends on Facebook. Revisiting with my past and seeing what everyone else was up to. Houses had been bought. Degrees and careers were achieved. Children were born. I was talking with one of these friends I reconnected with about movies (I watch a lot of 'em), and which ones were our favorites. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I adore Blade Runner. My friend told me her favorite was The Crow. And then the conversation drifted to other topics. A few days later I was bored and looking through my movie collection to kill some time. Among all the DVD's I have on the shelf there are still some old videotapes. One of which was my friend's favorite film, The Crow, the film Brandon Lee died making, and it occurred to me what I was holding in my hands.

A dead man's cassette.

He left behind a movie loved by my friend and countless others. All my friends are older now and have children. Some are doing work which is meaning full to them, to make the world a better place. Me? I'm getting damn near 40, with no real prospects, no kids, a bankruptcy, a foreclosure, a divorce, and no real marks left on the world. So what the hell am I leaving behind? D.M.K. suddenly took on a different focus.

No more bullshit fiction. No more posturing. Writing songs and words that mean something to me. About what I truly think and feel. Something worth leaving behind. I stopped trying to force the music to be something else and just let it be mine. Imagine my surprise when the first track I finished, turned out to be in 3/4 time about when I first met my current girlfriend face to face. (Well, not entirely finished. I still have to record the vocals I've written.) I gave her the instrumental for Valentine's day and she seems to like it, so I guess it's officially my first track. I don't really think I'm changing who I am by changing my writing style. I'm just becoming capable of expressing more than I thought I could. I think as we get older, we become more ourselves, or we allow ourselves to be more ourselves if that makes any sense. Anyway, I'm hoping that by doing this, some day, after I'm gone, someone (hopefully one of you) will download one of these tracks I'm working on and it'll entertain them, make them feel, think, or at least smile.

Just like the dead man's cassette on my shelf.