Laid off

I got the news via email (at 3 AM, which is nice) that Fee-Basis are being laid off by Ambulatory Care/C&P for the next 2-3 months or until C&P resumes normal operations. They are suspending any in-person exam requests and our outgoing program analyst (Curray) said he wasn’t sure they would have enough work for the FTEs (full-time equivalent) as well. While I can’t disagree with the logic, it came a bit faster and harsher than expected.

We’d already been game-planning the possibility, so it doesn’t come as a complete shock, but again, it was a bit sudden. Right now I’m trying to decide how I’m going to approach this. I sent out a feeler to Holly Gallegos (fellow Fee Basis and VES examiner) to see if she had an updated point of contact with VES. I have a feeling they are going to be scaling back if not suspending operations as well because I assume conducting exams would open them up to some liability issues. I’m curious if VBA is triggering the change to what they call ACE (acceptable clinical evidence), meaning exams and opinions that can be conducted remotely. That may be the case. This means that there’s probably going to be a huge backlog again in the future when the VA resumes normal operations.

I’m not sure, but it’s possible we can survive on my pension income alone, so we’ll just ride the storm out for as long as needed. We’ll have a better idea in the next couple of months about what’s happening with our cash flow. I’m debating about resuming a full-time schedule with Berklee, but I honestly would rather change my major to dual Guitar/Music Production before taking any more classes. I’ve got to decide on an audition and just submit it. Ironically, I’ve been laying off the guitar for several days with the COVID doldrums, so this may be the spark I need to get my playing back into shape. I hope my elbows are on board for this as well.

This was always the big risk/worst-case scenario when I decided to switch to Fee-Basis three years ago. I can’t really complain because I’ve been able to earn an additional three year’s salary above what I would have earned as an FTE, not to mention I’ve been working three days a week at most. It’s a strange feeling to think I’m not going to be scheduled to work anywhere for the indefinite future. COVID-19 is proving to be this generation’s single greatest cultural, economic, historical, etc. event. The world is already significantly different and I don’t see things ever going back to where they were before.

I’m glad we had paid so much down on the house, although the argument could be made that a bigger emergency fund would have served us better in the short term. We crossed under $100K a few payments ago, so switching to the minimum payment will stretch out our payoff date to six years, down from our plan of one year. We have a decent checking balance at present, so I’ll just watch what happens to our balance over the next few months. Given our normal monthly necessary (emphasis on necessary) expenditures, we may break even or even accrue income.

I’ve started canceling all the non-essential subscriptions, mainly to some music programs like Steven Slate and East-West Composer Cloud. I may leave others as-is for now, just to see what happens with our bank balances. We shouldn’t need to cut off any vital services like phone, internet, television. We should have enough money to cover those as well as groceries. We do have to think about those big financial outlays like the various insurance bills - medical, home/auto. We should be able to cover those, but they are big single time expenditures different than monthly maintenance.

I think there may be some silver linings to these clouds, although difficult to see at present.

Ecstasy

“If I can’t get ecstasy, then I don’t know what I’m doing in the business.”

— George Massenburg

From a tutorial about recording a singer songwriter with Fab Dupont. Says it all.

Time Marches On

It’s been a relatively busy few months, but nothing of singular significance has warranted an update. I made some changes and upgrades to the home studio to include trading in the Apollo Quad 1st generation unit to Vintage King and replaced it with the newest iteration Apollo X 8P unit. This design is somewhat more oriented to patchbay use and so I also got a Switchcraft patchbay and a whole bunch of cabling for the studio. The rearrangement and running of cables took the better part of a few weeks. It’s mostly done now, although I’ve got the odd cable to run here and there.

All of these processes can be sort of slow and iterative based on other demands - work, exercise, etc. I’m still dialed back from full time musician mode because of the elbow, although it’s slowly getting better it still limits the amount of time I can spend playing every day. In the meantime I also traded in my Nikon D5300 to B&H Photo for the newest generation Fuji XT-3 mirrorless camera. I’m still figuring out how to use it, but I can already see the benefits. It’s an amazing camera. Along with this upgrade and the studio changes, I tried to straighten up and organize my various closets and so now I have a camera closet so to speak. I’ve decided to use the extra room with the WinPC as the video room and I’ve got a desk and green screen permanently set up. The closet now houses all my camera gear, and that stash is slowly growing. Every hobby (at least mine) tends have some gear fetishism and acquisition inherent to the process.

I cleaned up the amp closet as well and coiled all the newly extra cables after having changed to mostly snake cables for the patchbay setup. Because of the patchbay I’m now able to split one eight cable snake with four leads going to the vocal closet and four to the amp closet. So, now I have the Royer 122, SM57, and I was able to dust off my Sennheiser e906 dynamic mic and all three are in place for the 65 Amps 112 cab in the closet. I’m still using the default vocal booth setup with the Slate VMS One and SM7. This leaves me two left over leads in the vocal booth and one leftover lead in the amp closet. I also added a 16 channel passthrough to my main desk so I can plug in instrument mics and whatnot as needed. I’ve got one channel dedicated to the DI output from my H&K Grandmeister and I still need to run two outputs to the Matrix GT1000 for output to the Port City OS 212 I have in the main room.

The remainder of the ports are mostly redundant, but it will be nice when I need to mic up instruments or just plug in a vocal mic in the room. The switchbay is essentially ready for use at all times but a couple of the fairly common uses require a patch to be run, for instance the Avantone monitors need a patch cable to be heard. As these are only used to check the occasional mix, that need is fairly uncommon. Tweaks are sure to be necessary as I slowly transition back to a more music heavy mode again. These needs reveal themselves with the use of the gear.

Continuing on with switchbays, I had been holding off for several months as there is a new player in the game with Flock Audio, who are soon to release the first software controlled patchbay. I had wanted to wait until they were released but the release schedule hasn’t been confirmed and they have some fairly draconian return policies. As far as I can tell, you can only return/get a refund if the box is unopened. There doesn’t appear to be an option to return the unit if you decide it’s not what you wanted. For a unit that I think is going to run upwards of $2K, that’s a pretty big leap of faith. I’m going to wait until it’s been out in the wild for several months if not longer and see how the reviews look. It’s a great idea if it stacks up to the hype of Flock Audio. The ability to change routings through software with a few mouse clicks and to have presets saved for various arrangements is quite appealing.

In the meantime I’m glad I decided to go with the typical patchbay setup as it’s really streamlined operations as well as opening up some routing options that weren’t readily available in the past.

WBU is finished, on to the next song...

I posted a lyric video of my recently a̶b̶a̶n̶d̶o̶n̶e̶d̶  completed song, Widow Black Unweeping. I decided to leave it as is, and although the mixing/mastering could probably use another set of ears I'm leaving it for now so I can focus on new music. I'm wondering if I'll eventually revisit some of these tunes in the future and re-record them from scratch. Possible, but not sure I want to go to that much additional work. I need to just keeping churning out new songs because I'm learning the process for all steps, not just the core of songwriting. Considering the end result, this song took entirely too long. I've heard Steven Wilson remark that if he can't finish a song in one day, he loses interest. That's an oversimplification since he's not talking about a completed song ready for release, but I imagine his demos still sound pretty amazing.

I'm going to strive to streamline my process. I decided during the last song that I want to try the writing/recording on Studio One and then send it to Pro Tools for mixing and mastering. Part of this was frustration with the Pro Tools interface and monitor management. Ironically, I've settled into a decent workaround for those issues that doesn't take too much effort so it may not be as critical. I'm still going to give it a go for the next tune and weigh the pros and cons after. I'm a fan of Studio Ones monitor management and that it can be altered for each song. There are still so many DAWs out there I haven't tried. I've wondered if Ableton Live, Cubase and a few of the other major players would offer me something I'm missing. My feeling is no, but the grass is greener, yada, yada, yada. I tried Reaper and it just wasn't working for me. Granted, I didn't put much effort into learning it. I really did like Logic and Final Cut on the mac, and if Apple releases a compelling desktop next year, I'll definitely consider using them again. Luckily PT and Studio One are cross platform so I could continue using those. 

Not quite the end of summer

August is winding down, but we're still stuck in the middle of the sweltering season. Here in the south that typically runs year round with a few months break that we affectionately refer to as "Winter" but can include temps in the 70s and even 80s. At some point in my lifetime, this is probably going to just change to Summer Light as we will have done away with any temperatures remotely resembling winter. 

I got the 65 Amps cabinet and installed it in my now nominal amp iso room (closet). I don't have the setup totally settled just yet. I'm putting an iso pad like I have for my subwoofer in the home theater to minimize the low end. I'm debating whether to place a few of my bass traps in there as well.  I need to engage in some cable management for that room as well as where I have the amp head in my control room. I gave the setup a few run throughs and my basic impression is that it sounds wonderful. I just very basically placed the two microphones and haven't taken the time to adjust their positions to find the best sound. I'm getting a Dynamount system to make this process much easier. 

The Dynamount is a "robot" controlled mounting system for microphones that allows you to move the microphone through 2 or 3 axes depending on the model. You can mount it horizontally or vertically and this gives the choice of horizontal, vertical or proximity as well as rotation. I'm probably going to go with the proximity option (you have to choose between having the robot system flat or vertical and this determines if you'll get the vertical or proximity option).  My 65 Amps cabinet is a 1x12 so I'm pretty sure I'll get more tonal variety out of proximity than vertical. Right now I've just gotten the one system and I plan to use it for the Royer 122. I'll likely add a second system in the future.  

https://dynamount.com/ 

Midsummer(ish) Update

Work continues on the Life On Mars cover video. I actually had a "complete" version of all the music, and was relatively happy with it. But, in one of many learning points during this project, I gave a listen to the original (which I should have been doing more often) and realized my intro was just too fast of a tempo. I had tried various ways to approach the order in which I laid down tracks. I think drums first is still probably the best way, although in this tune they don't come in for the first minute. After learning that I really couldn't keep track of the drums while trying to play with the original, I tried using a midi version of the song with which I could include a click track and that seems the best approach. 

There are multiple ways to approach this sort of incremental song construction. Due to problems with latency, it was important for me to keep the recording setup between the drums and my DAW as simple and uncluttered as possible. Latency is a killer with drums and percussion if you're trying to record in time. I managed to get a version down that was close enough for my satisfaction. I did end up making some minor timing corrections, mainly for the occasional rushed kick drum on the "and" of 4.  

Probably the single biggest challenge of this project is that I'm recording to video.  Making corrections to timing mistakes and the occasional clam note is easy in a DAW, but trying to get that synced up to video becomes exponentially harder. There are ways around this with creative video editing, but it was important to me that the foundation of the video was going to be good performances on all the parts as the baseline. Although I'm mainly doing this for my own entertainment (and internet points, because, internet points), I have felt this might serve as a sort of audition tape that I could use as needed for bands, further academic endeavors, etc. 

My approach has been to keep attempting complete takes until I get one that's close to "perfect" (my version, not Rick Wakeman's). I then stop recording and know that I will use the last takes. In some cases this might be the 10th+ take overall. 

Once I looked at the rough draft of the video performances and had worked on the mix (I was on version 14 or so), I realized I just wasn't going to be satisfied with my version if it didn't have the same vibe as the original. I never desired or expected to make a perfect note for note rendition that would sound exactly like the original, but I felt like my version was too rushed and too produced sounding. It was lacking the dynamics and character of the original, and that's kind of the whole point. 

I resigned myself to have another go at the intro, as that was the biggest problem and I managed to have a "decent" go at the piano part yesterday. Although it was useable, I was suffering my version of a hangover after drinking four beers the previous day, and I wasn't giving myself the best opportunity for a good take. I also realized that my approach to the green screen needed some work. I've learned a small amount about videography, and one thing I've gathered is that your green screen needs to be as flat and "invisible" as possible and it needs to be lit appropriately. 

Looking at my various takes, there was a variety of lighting and screen real estate occupied by my green screen backdrops. I think for my project, the best approach will be one where the green screen completely occupies the background. There may be future projects where I have the green screen as a sort of object in the background that doesn't necessarily fill up the screen. 

All that being said, I need to re-shoot the entire thing so that I can have a consistent lighting and size for my green screen. I am learning to never see an individual performance as too precious. This is a growing process as I learn to accept not every take will be perfect, but become willing to keep trying until I get as close as I'm capable. I know when I've done my best, and that's usually when I'm just practicing or playing without the "red light".  The good thing is that I've learned to get over red light syndrome because you can always make another attempt. Part of the comfort level comes from really knowing the part well and having confidence that you can play it right. 

Tying in to that was finally settling on an arrangement from which I would build the song and giving myself time to practice it. I think I've decided on just playing the intro piano part independently without a rigid timekeeper and then locking in with the drums at the first chorus when they initially come in. I may tweak this as I discovered that the intro was fairly close to 113.5 beats per minute, but then it increases to 128 at the first chorus. It sort of slows down again at the end of the guitar interlude, but returns to that during the rest of the song. My dissatisfaction with the piano performance largely stemmed from timing and feel issues related to trying to play to a metronome/backing track when I had been accustomed to playing it more freely. 

Dealing with this tempo change has been instructive and it gives me some experience for the future as this issue will come up again. I'm definitely convinced that you need to ensure you practice the piece exactly the way you intend to record it. This seems obvious, but in this case I had been playing the piano part for so long that I didn't think this would be much different. And it wasn't really, but it was different enough that my playing become too mechanical and lost the vibe.

As mentioned, I'm also planning on tweaking the camera setup. My plan now is to use my GoPro and iPhone cameras so I have at least two angles of each performance. This just adds another layer of complexity, but I always enjoy performance videos with multiple angles (if done well) more than just the simple straight ahead shots. The GoPro is ideally suited for "neck cam" on the guitar and bass, and I'll also be able to get some alternate overhead shots as well as a shot of kick drum performance (this will be used sparingly, but I like this angle on drum vids).  

The ostensibly biggest obstacle in this project (famous last words) is getting the piano and drum performances down solid. These are the two that I tend to make the most mistakes (albeit few/small) compared to the vocals, guitar and bass. I find repeating takes of those performances is less arduous and time consuming than piano and drums. My plan is to approach it in this order - drums, piano, bass, vocals and guitar. My main reason to redo the bass & guitar is because I want the additional camera angles and I need to fix the way I use the green screen. I also need to help Aeyong install a window blind for our little half moon accent window which is still letting too much natural light in which can illuminate behind the screen and that's a problem.

Another impetus to repeating the entire process is that I've purchased my next equipment upgrade, which is the Slate Virtual Microphone System. This is comprised of a large diaphragm condenser microphone, preamp and a software based modeling system that models microphone, preamp, and compressor (as desired).  This system was announced a few years ago, but it's just now hitting the market. I've heard all positive reviews so far, but I don't know that it's hit enough of a market saturation to be certain.

Based on the microphone alone and considering its price point ($1K), it's a good upgrade from  Blue Baby Bottle (which is still a great mic) and should fill a niche for several years. Philosophically this system is the microphone equivalent of the AxeFx. As the technology has progressed over the years, modeling has narrowed the gap with analog gear, and most listeners don't know the difference. I've always embraced technology and I while I love analog gear, I also love the digital stuff for the flexibility, variety and power it provides. The three microphones it models (at onset, more will be added later) would be way beyond the wallets of all but the most successful (rich) producers. It models the Telefunken 251, Neumann U47 and Sony C800G microphones. Bought on the market (especially for classic versions), this three mic locker would likely run upwards of $50K.  Of the reviews I've seen so far, people are having a difficult time telling the difference between the original and modeled versions. I'm not sure how much I buy that, but for the price and what's a decent sounding (extremely flat) microphone it's more than worth it. It will be interesting to try this new mic out on the vocals for this project. 

There are more aspects to the video project to come, to include filming our dogs in various costumes against the green screen and the subsequent film editing and use of effects. These are all essentially new skill sets I will develop as part of this project. I'm always going to focus on music first, but an occasional video project is fun and a way to keep it interesting for the short modern attention spans (including mine). 

Sniffwhistles and snarkbottoms...

Don't ask, it just seemed appropriate. We're in the latter half of May, so just checking in. Not a lot new to report. I've taken this semester and intend to take next semester off from Berklee. A combination of feeling like I was falling behind on some areas I wanted to explore (in musicianship and writing in general), combined with a feeling that one of the courses I was taking still needed some work (Music Compo & Theory) sparked the decision. I've got enough eligibility remaining in my GI Bill (9 years) that I can afford to slow the pace a bit. I've grown a lot by taking up drums, bass, and vocals but I've made a decision to at least try and dive deeper into guitar and keys, which I consider my most important instruments. I'm trying to work more on fundamentals, theory, and improvisation, especially on the guitar. 

I've also started separating practice and composition, so that I try to focus on each on alternating days. I've also accepted that some days I just don't have the mental and/or physical energy to make any progress. I just give it a pass when those days happen.  I've made some decent progress with this new approach (considering I hadn't really written anything since the compo class). I've got one song that's almost fully written, and several that I've made progress on.  I've been trying to compose structures and rough arrangements when I have time at work, as I can essentially accomplish this on my laptop alone. I'm also slowly learning how to incorporate some of my theoretical knowledge in helping me structure these songs. I tend to get inspiration in a random fashion, sometimes as a melody, sometimes as a rhythm. It doesn't tend to come theoretically intact (although rules are totally made to be broken, they can help), unless it's a really simple tune in C. I'm trying to hone those skills so I can naturally fit something in a major or minor key without having to look it up. I'll learn more about this is future compo classes, but thus far we were writing to film cues and not necessarily in the way I would write a song for myself. 

I also started recording my cover of "Life On Mars" by David Bowie. I've been working on the piano part for years now. Rick Wakeman's playing is often deceptively simple sounding but ends up being a technical challenge when you try to reproduce it close to his version. It reminds me of Tommy Emmanuel's guitar parts in a sense. They both play songs & parts that are ostensibly fairly easy sounding as a listener, but they both have such manual dexterity and facility on their respective instruments so that "easy" sounding chords and fingerings are anything but. The biggest challenge for me was that I had been playing "Life On Mars" as just a solo piano piece without any reference point, and this meant I was playing it too fast for vocals to keep up. I had to start playing it with the song so that I would pause long enough for the vocals to fit. 

And when I say cover, I'm making a video of myself covering all the parts. The most important lesson I've learned in recording a video, is that you really need to ensure you can play the part without significant (noticeable) mistakes, because it's a huge pain in the ass to try and fix mistakes after the fact. This is true for audio, but exponentially worse with video. I performed a couple takes and got one that I was okay with, if not over the moon. I think I'll probably re-record the piano once I've recorded all the other parts. My biggest complaint with my performance is that I was following/reacting to the recording and this makes it sound a bit robotic and flat. "Life On Mars" is a good object lesson in recording a full band cover version because it has a variety of tempos and the various parts don't all come in at once. 

The drum track is pretty simple, especially for any capable recording or touring drummer. That being said, my recently intermittent practice schedule combined with my intermittent within intermittent practicing of the drum part meant my first attempt was pretty awful. It was mainly the kick drum parts, as there is this repeating lead in beat that's on the and of 4 (I think) and it's offset from an open hi-hat to the extent that I feel like I have to rock back and forth. I think I need to get a drum stool that raises higher because there are times when I think my knee angle is a bit too acute (I think it's typically around 100 degrees flexion, and 80-90 would probably be a bit more mechanically advantageous). I have started practicing drums daily since then with an emphasis on that song and it's improved quite a bit. I feel like I might give it another go this weekend. After all that, I think the bass, guitar, and maybe the vocals won't be too difficult. There are a couple of high parts "Sailors, fighting in the dance hall" for one, that I'll probably need to make several passes at. My normal approach would be to record multiple passes of each line, but I'm not sure how well that will work with recording a video. I'm more likely to try singing it straight through several times and picking the best single take.  I'll likely gain some more knowledge on the recording of vocals since this will be one of my first times trying to layer vocals as well as adding harmonies. The other nice aspect is that this will also be an object lesson both in song recording, but especially in combining multiple recordings into one music video. 

On the homefront the biggest events have been a hailstorm in March that will result in us replacing a big portion of the roof and several windows. With a 2% deductible, that means we're going to be out about $10K of our own cash. We were lucky that we inherited that amount from my mother's 401K when she passed. And when it rains it pours (no pun intended), because our previously reliable (not counting bulbs) front projector seems to be dying on us. The picture dimmed considerably and when I replaced the bulb it didn't make any difference. We made the choice just to replace it, and ended up choosing a JVC that can display 4K, although it's not a native 4K to the unit. It basically upscales/doubles the image faster than the eye can see, so it will accept 4K signals and it will make 1080p signals appear to be 4K. True 4K projectors are still prohibitively expensive, so we're hoping to get at least five years out of this one (the previous one almost made it that long), and by then 4K prices should have dropped to more reasonable levels. 

At the end of March we traveled to Toronto to see David Gilmour at Air Canada Center and then to Chicago a few days later where I flew solo for his show at the United Center. He exceeded all my expectations. My only complaint is that the time flew by so fast and the next thing I knew the show was over. I really hope he films a show or two from this tour, perhaps the planned shows from Pompeii this summer. His most recent album is probably his best, and his set list was probably more than half Pink Floyd tunes. He played Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Time, arguably my top two choices to see live so everything else was icing on the cake. 

Busy Busy Busyerington...

It's almost surprising I have found a few minutes to quickly update the blog.  It's been a very busy couple of months since I posted last. Between work, school and trying to practice I've been essentially moving non stop from wake until sleep every day. Ironically, the days I thought I would still get some good practice time (weekend) are often the days I don't find any time to practice. I've been saving my weekly assignments that are project based until the weekend, and these end up eating up big chunks of the day. My best practice days have ended up being Mon-Thu. I haven't been able to maintain my previous 3 hours a day by any stretch. 2.5 hours is a great day because it generally means I got 30 minutes on everything. 

I've had a few weeks where the scope of the work just overwhelmed my practice schedule in general. That combined with a few fix up projects in my studio (mainly installing acoustic treatment) wiped out a few weekends and several weekdays as well. Aeyong has been gone to Korea the last five weeks, so taking care of all the household stuff has really kept me moving at full speed. She comes home tomorrow, and it will be great to have her back. I essentially have 2 weeks left this semester and then the next day we start the spring semester. 

A big development has been the creation of the Music Composition for Film, Television, and Games degree track and I'm orienting towards pursuit of a dual degree with that and production. I will be busier than the proverbial one legged man in an ass kicking contest for the next four years. All that being said, the past two months have been fantastic for my development as a musician. I finally shared my original work with friends and classmates, as well as a brief cover of a Coldplay tune "Amsterdam" that featured me singing and playing all the instruments. 

I couldn't foresee a time when I was going to be ready to do that before, and now I've done it and it was no big deal at all. I've only had a few friends take the time to listen to it, but I've gotten positive feedback from all of them including one who I've respected for years as a musician. It's a small validation, but a really big deal for me. I've known I had something, but I always wondered if it would be enough for others to consider it worthy of the effort. Now I know that it is. Enough laurel resting, I've got work to do. 

2015 arrives

This year and the three to follow promise to be a very challenging but ultimately rewarding period of time in my development as a musician. The week after next I begin my Bachelor of Professional Studies in Music Production through Berklee Online. I have decided to take an optimistically large first bite by enrolling in five classes.

If my personal and professional life are still intact at the end of the semester I will probably continue this policy depending on whether I deplete my GI Bill authorizations or not. The way the VA calculates annual limits is a bit nebulous. Fortunately there doesn't appear to be a semester limit so if I'm running low on funds I can either take fewer classes in the other semesters or just pay the difference.

It's hard to predict what aspects will be the most challenging. Because I've been interested and have read up on many of these topics over the years I don't worry as much about the comprehension of the material so much as the amount of actual coursework. This combined with working full time could mean I'm back in the PA school mode of constant study/homework in my non work waking hours. If it's necessary then that's what I'll do. 

I tried to select a mixture of technical and artistic courses so I'm not too bogged down in one type of thinking. I decided to take the Math for Musicians course and get it out of the way. I missed the testing out by one question, although I would have missed more if it wasn't multiple choice. I haven't had Algebra, Geometry or most of what was on that test since the early 80's. I have my doubts about the applicability of everything in that course, but I know there will be some benefit when it comes to understanding electrical and acoustic theory in later courses. Not to mention that basic sound theory is based on math in large part (frequencies, octaves, etc.). 

Not that I post frequently to begin with, but I wonder if will have enough free time to post much going forward. Although the amount of post worthy material is likely to increase exponentially in this program.

Peeps...

Greetings from the great electronic wasteland to my audience of one. Things continue to progress towards the pending music production degree with Berklee. I've gotten approved and enrolled in five courses for the first semester. I've mixed a couple production courses (Pro Tools 101, Music Production Analysis) in with a few hopefully easier courses (Developing Your Artistry, Guitar Chords), and what is the least appealing, non musical but still mandatory (for me) course, Math for Musicians. I was one answer shy of testing out of the Math requirement, but it was mostly Algebra, Geometry and other math topics I've literally not seen since high school, nearly 30 years ago. Apparently the math is considered integral to courses like Acoustics and others that may actually use math. I'm assuming it can't hurt, and I want to just get it out of the way now. The guitar chords course shouldn't be overwhelming although I'm sure I'll learn something. I managed to score well enough on the theory test to skip ahead to the 200 level courses. 

I got the full version of Pro Tools, and at this point I still prefer Logic, but I'm getting accustomed to how Pro Tools works as well. There are many similarities. Logic is just a better organized, intuitive, simple yet powerful DAW. Given the choice, I'll probably still use Logic, but Pro Tools is so ingrained in the professional community and Berklee has gone all in with AVID, so there's no avoiding it. I also upgraded some of my studio. I got Focal Alpha 80 monitors, a Blue Microphones Baby Bottle, an SE Electronics Vocal Shroud/Acoustic Isolator, and made a big upgrade by getting an analog preamp, the UAD 4-710D which is essentially a four channel mic preamp with dual transistor/tube capability.

I've got the Baby Bottle, my SM58, and the e906 and SM57 in the amp iso box hooked in right now. I haven't been using the iso box because I've just got the Port City OS 212 in my main room (it's a bit too large for the box). Eventually I'm going to get a 1x12 to keep in the iso box permanently and then the e906 and SM57 will get more use. I'll eventually get a Royer 121 to combine with the 57, but that's probably a few years away. The 4-710D is a great piece of kit, which is true for all the UAD stuff I own. I find I like the blend of the transistor/tube more than either one isolated. There are several UAD plugins I still plan on purchasing, but I need to space those out. My next big studio upgrade will be acoustic treatment for the main mixing room and the vocal closet, along with ARC room correction software to get it calibrated. That may be a Christmas present, or I may wait until next year. 

I still have a few textbooks to buy for the first semester, and I know down the road there will probably be some software purchases specifically for certain classes. I think the East West Symphonic VST  is required for something down the line.  I want to upgrade to Komplete 10, but it's not a high priority right now. I've been trying hard to maintain a daily practice schedule which remains (and will remain) a challenge with the five disciplines. I'm sure I will have to scale back quite a bit once school starts. The trade off is I will be learning other valuable music and production related skills and techniques (not looking at you, math). I'm going to find a way to at least maintain my chops if I can't improve them as much. If I have to practice in shorter sessions on alternate days, that's what I'll end up doing. 

Accepted

I got an acceptance email from Berklee the week before last, and the official letter yesterday. I start in January 2015. This is great news, and I anticipate this will be one of my most significant milestones not just in music, but in life itself. Music is one of the great joys of my life, so the opportunity to learn and grow as a musician and producer is a dream fulfilled. Now back to our regularly scheduled gear & sundry related ramblings.

I was going to buy the academic version of Pro Tools, but have decided to go with the full version since the academic is generally not upgradeable. After the most recent round of gear purchases, I will wait until late October early Novemberish before upgrading. My learning and practice plan has remained essentially unchanged. The greatest challenge is effective time management.  With trying to regularly practice 5 separate disciplines (voice, drums, keyboards, bass, guitar), a good day of practice generally runs at a minimum of 3 hours, and a really good day may run 5+hours. I have days where I only practice for 1-2 hours and feel like I'm slacking. My available time for practice will most likely be cut short once I start school since I assume most of my assignments won't be specifically tied to a certain instrument. I'll probably have to adapt to striving for 30 minutes 5 times a week on each instrument. 

I may plateau a bit for the four years of school, but I anticipate I'll grow so much as a musician and producer in general that it will have a lasting positive impact on all of my instruments. 

Bloggery bloggington

Time for another infrequent update. What's happened since last I committed electrons to this dark, forgotten corner of the internet?  Of most significance is that I have applied for the Berklee College of Music (Online) Bachelor of Music Production degree, with an anticipated start date of January 2015. I'm not sure why I didn't previously make the connection between this course and my still valid (but eventually expiring) GI Bill benefits. I had looked at individual courses within Berklee and some other online colleges, but for whatever reason I didn't realize that there was actually a Bachelor's program in a Music related field that I was actually interested in that would be eligible for the GI Bill.

I won't know if I'm accepted until next month, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Firstly, since I have a reliable means of paying for the degree, and secondly, my academic records while not perfect, (I made a couple of Bs in PA school) are pretty competitive (3.8 cumulative GPA with two master's degrees).  What I don't have is any significant professional or academic music experience, but I'm hoping that since there aren't any specific prerequisites in those areas, that I will make up for in my enthusiasm for music. In my personal statement I related my lifelong love of music, my rekindled musicianship of 10+ years, my multi-instrumentalism and love for all things music production related. 

The course curriculum reads like all of my online self learning activities for the past 10 years. Looking through the entire course requirements and syllabi, I was amazed at how every course was something I was either interested in learning, or something I actually had already studied on my own. My dream scenario would be to channel this knowledge into a musical occupation that could pay the bills, but that isn't the only end goal. I know that regardless of whether I continue to need to work full or part time in healthcare, that the knowledge and experience I gain from this course will make me a better musician and I can't put a price on how valuable that is for me. 

My realistic goal is to continue improving my home studio as much as possible (without making structural changes to our current home), and eventually buying a home on a one acre lot and building a music studio from the ground up. I hope that with time and experience I can begin to attract clients and gain work through word of mouth and advertising. This is a path that some full time (and highly regarded) professional studio owners have followed. The other nice thing about owning/running a studio is that age isn't the limiting factor that it may be for musical artists that are just starting out. I will continue to be a musician, and hope that this knowledge and experience with facilitate opening new doors for me in that area as well. I just never get tired or bored with music at large. I may briefly run out of steam when I've been practicing a certain instrument, but that's easily remedied by picking up a different one, or studying an aspect of production, etc. 

It's hard to express how exciting these possibilities are for me. It's also nice to at least consider that it may be possible to earn a living equivalent to our current standard of living. Success as a musical artist can be a much more fickle target. I know plenty of world class artists who have their dedicated fan base but are otherwise ignored by the public at large. Success in music is often not directly correlated to talent and hard work (a small caveat in that the really hard working musicians who understand that they must do more than just write/record songs, often find a way to succeed through touring, videos & other merchandising).  

The true "If I win the lottery" (in a music sense) would be to build up a successful studio/operation as well as create my own music that might actually garner enough interest to release albums and even tour, if only on a small, regional level. Neither one of these is necessary for me to be happy in music, because I'm already there and I'm not making a penny doing it (quite the contrary, I spend quite a few pennies doing it). The greatest satisfaction would be in having the freedom to only need to "work" in music, and to have my own business that I can dictate the schedule, etc. I am confident that if I'm accepted to Berklee that I will be able to eventually build a free standing professional (albeit, not in the league of the Power Station or equivalent) studio and with the knowledge and experience gained in school I'll be able to record my own as well as others music in the best possible format. Maybe it will only be on nights/weekends when I have the time away from my regular job or maybe it will grow to a full time operation. I'm on board for the long haul either way...