temporary full may, 2021 backup archive (not source material - to be permanently deleted when pdf uploads)

saturday, january 1, 2022

sunday, january 2, 2022

monday, january 3, 2022

tuesday, january 4, 2022

wednesday, january 5, 2022

thursday, january 6, 2022

friday, january 7, 2022

saturday, january 8, 2022

sunday, january 9, 2022

monday, january 10, 2022

tuesday, january 11, 2022

wednesday, january 12, 2022

thursday, january 13, 2022

friday, january 14, 2022

saturday, january 15, 2022

sunday, january 16, 2022

monday, january 17, 2022

tuesday, january 18, 2022

wednesday, january 19, 2022

thursday, january 20, 2022

friday, january 21, 2022

saturday, january 22, 2022

sunday, january 23, 2022

monday, january 24, 2022

tuesday, january 25, 2022

wednesday, january 26, 2022

thursday, january 27, 2022

friday, january 28, 2022

saturday, january 29, 2022

sunday, january 30 2022

monday, january 31, 2022

today's post is the single for the last rabit is wolf track, la la la la la, which i had to complete without sean. so, i'm singing here, not sean - but sean actually gets a primary writing credit here. i do not expect that it would sound substantively different had sean actually sung it, which is the irony of somebody with a somewhat idiosyncratic voice insisting on a basic, generic idea. 

the track would be reworked as the first trivial group track by flipping it over backwards and starts my 8th symphony, which is where i left off in 2018. it also now ends my 6th record, finished in 2015, in initial form. so, the effect is that the 6th record ends with the track playing forwards, and the 8th symphony starts with the track playing backwards.

the single itself is consequently a sort of historical footnote. i had this track leftover from the rabit period that was never finished as a rabit song, but was finished as a trivial group track. so, i just went back and finished it as a rabit track myself, and released it as a single. the rabit version should consequently be interpreted as a remix, or even as an outtake.

====

this was meant to be the last rabit is wolf track, but instead morphed into the first trivial group song. this single explores the track from various angles. 

sean wanted a song that just went "lalalala". i think his intent was to try and simplify my thought process, because what i'd been doing sounded more like FTIeikdTY7isdD7E5dk!. he was just kind of like "how about.....lalalala.". 

it got a bit of an eye roll from me, as you could imagine, but i played with it. he wasn't really that excited about what i did, and it just didn't move forward. there were no further sessions, as he became interested in working with a more conventional early 00s "emotional hardcore" (think at the drive in) style guitarist and i got very involved in a relationship. 

despite his initial suggestion, i'd consider the result to clearly be of my own doing. so, i took the core of what i did and warped it into the first track on the reflections symphony. this track has lain dormant since, comfortably completed. 

it's now 2015, and i'm completing my discography. that puts this track in a blurry space: it was completed, but not as initially intended. while there may have been a vocal part recorded, i don't have it any more. yet, the intention is clear enough - and the manipulation would have been thick enough - that i do not consider it to be invasive to complete it on my own. 

i'm releasing it as rabit because it's collaborative in the abstract, despite sean not actually existing in the track. 

this track was written in late 2002 and completed over april and may, 2015. released may 11, 2015. disc finalized on nov 20, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of the track (track 3) also appears on my sixth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj^2 (inri063): 

jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2015, 2017). 

released november 15, 2002 

j - guitar, effects, bass, drum programming, soundscaping, sound design, sampling, vocals, vocoders, digital wave editing 

sean - lyrical concept

so, we're going to get today's post in at the end of the day. 

after a long day of biking on saturday, i was up early on sunday morning (the google myactivity suggests the first search was 5:29) and didn't stop cleaning until around 12:00 on monday. so, you're looking at roughly 30 hours...

in the process, i managed to get all of the plastic down in my bedroom, as well as do most of the sealing in the studio area. i ran out of sealant and had to buy some more, which i can pick up next time i'm out. at $10/can, it's going to cost me $20 to seal the whole space.

i found an ant hill connected to the wall under the window near the studio, so the sealing is justified on that basis, along with the temperature and mold issues. 

i also finally got the shower curtain scrubbed down and even got through a good chunk of stuff in the back room, so i'm the bulk of the way there. 

but, after 30 hours, i had to crash this afternoon and was out for about 11 hours, straight. i'm feeling awake, now. let's hope today is as long or longer. i like these long days....i hate sleeping...

this morning, i need to prepare for the mediation, which is this afternoon.

that's such an underrated record. there's one for his sidekick too - and this is really just about a perfect pop song. no, really. if i were to objectively evaluate the construction of this for some bourgeois competition, it would get a perfect score - and there's only a few out there that can compete with it. as i'm closing the rabit run through, i can only wish that we could have got somewhere close to this, even if sean was nowhere in this headspace at the time.

let us focus more on not repeating the mistakes of the past, and less on apologizing for the actions of our ancestors.

when you say "i'm so sorry", there's of course two interpretations.

the first is that you apologize, and mean it.

and, the second is a self-deprecating statement.

now, how do you put these things together when you repeat the line "i'm so sorry" over and over again?

i've been over this before - what exactly does it mean to apologize for something that somebody else did? is it a statement of condolence? you can't express regret when you're not responsible. and, the state cannot be personified in that manner - it is cold, impersonal bureaucracy.

so, i don't know what those words mean.

and, it's truly a sorry display, isn't it?

so sorry, indeed.

yes, of course.

i was a kid when i first heard this, but it makes a lot of sense to me as an adult. i've been in this situation more than a few times :\.

good tune.

it's a pun, though. careful with mr stipe - he's a sarcastic ass, and most people didn't seem to get it.

so, we're back to monthly cleaning rituals, at least for now, which means losing a few days at the end of the month.

i'm pretty close to be being done, but i still have a busy few days coming up...

i'm turning corners, though. for real.

jessica murray

jessica murray

1 second ago

that said, let's talk about israel and the evangelicals. let's understand this...

jessica murray

jessica murray

1 second ago

what it says in the christian bible - the revelation, which was written in greek, rather than aramaic - is that israel will be destroyed from the east. i always laugh at these christians that think russia means the east; in fact, russia is to the west of israel. rather, everybody living in israel at the time would have known that the east meant the persians, the ancestors of today's iranians.

jessica murray

jessica murray

1 second ago

so, what do the evangelicals actually want? do they want to support israel as a colonial state and have it take over the region and bomb the iranians? i mean, you could naively assign that to the generals (although larry aptly described why that's wrong), but what about the evangelicals, who you couldn't even get to vote at all until reagan?

jessica murray

jessica murray

1 second ago

what the evangelicals actually want is the second coming, the return of jesus, who will separate the worthy from the damned on judgement day. and, in order for that to happen, the temple must be destroyed, by the beast from the east. which is iran.

jessica murray

jessica murray

1 second ago

so, this idea of evangelical support for israel is sort of a double-edged sword, like jesus' wacky tongue, in the psychedelic visions that describe the prophecies - they want to ensure israel exists....so it can be destroyed. and, by who? by iran.

jessica murray

jessica murray

1 second ago

larry set this up fairly well when he talked about the first gulf war. nothing's really changed - if the americans were going to go into iran, they'd bring everybody except israel. pakistan, turkey, the saudis - but not israel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLFX_3TKGJk

i mean, if you're out there railing against trump being a nazi, and you're waving a hamas flag while doing it, how does a reasonable person interact with you?

they'd have to conclude you're a buffoon.

if you want to talk about human rights, i'm going to align with you, at least abstractly - although we might disagree about what that means. for example, i tend to reject the premise that religious belief is a human right, and instead lean strongly towards the idea that humans have a right to be free from the religious values of others, and point heavily towards freedom of association. 

but, if you start talking about human rights and, midway through it, start waving a hamas flag, then you've lost me.

...because there are few political organizations on the planet that care less about human rights than hamas.

and, here's the thing: the contemporary fake left is so ignorant that a lot of them don't even know what they're supporting. they no doubt imagine that hamas is a group of nice, clean cut arabs with broadly secular viewpoints - like the arabs they know in their lives. it's orientalism in reverse. but, they're that clueless - they have no idea. 

i'm not going to attack people for being ignorant.

it's the ones that know better that piss me off.

but, this isn't empty rhetoric, because supporting hamas is just speeding up the process of genocide. the more that the fake left supports hamas, the faster the palestinians die. they have to get past this, or they're done - and if you actually care about their plight, if you're not just looking for a right-wing militia to support to work out your own issues with society, then you'll realize this very quickly. and, sometimes it makes you wonder when you see who is aligning with them, too.

this is an old problem in the midst of empire - barbarians are consistently dumb and they consistently behave in ways that lead to their own demise.

but, if your support for hamas is rooted in upholding human rights, and there's no irony in your position, i can't be bothered with you - because it's a delusional position to take. you need to be supporting the left on the ground, not fueling right-wing nationalism and pretending it's some kind of leftist struggle. 'cause it ain't....

i don't often stand up for cenk uygur, but what started this recent stupidity in the gaza strip?

was it an incursion of israeli settlers into an illegal settlement? a conflict at a checkpoint? even some kind of pyrrhic attack on israeli soldiers by idiots with rocks?

no.

it was a quasi-fascist islamic extremist organization called hamas reacting to israeli crowd management at the al aqsa mosque to end ramadan.

trying to deny that this was about religion is delusional, but it demonstrates the point i've been making for quite a while, now - there are a lot of fake leftists on the surface out there that are, in truth, conservatives or nationalists or both in disguise. and, some of them are sephardic or mizrahi jews. while they may claim it's about human rights, the reality is that they're looking for a right-wing militia to identify with in their struggle against modernity, which they despise. so, they readily and eagerly align with the most backwards elements they can find, in their zeal to tear down the world around them.

there's a lot of things i don't like about the world, too, and i've been clear enough that i think that what israel is doing and has repeatedly done is unjustified and needs to stop. but, i'm not about to align with a palestinian nationalist movement that wants to turn back the clocks, either - and i would challenge those that tell people it's pragmatism to be a little more honest about where their politics really are. i can see through them, even if most people can't.

there is a left on the ground. it is not very powerful, but that will not change if everybody that could prop it up aligns with the nationalist right, instead.

so, i will state again: i stand with the apostates, and call for an end to religion in the region as a precondition for an integrated, multicultural society. and, if that sounds absurd to you, you're not able to see past the status quo.

i haven't been able to sit down since i left to get the fit test yesterday morning. i'll have a lengthy write-up coming soon.

so, the post for today is inri061, which is the 3xep single for the track that started as a rabit is wolf track called "penny shoeman" and ended up as an epic guitar concerto, and the climax of my serious music phase. this is the piece that sean liked enough that he wanted to turn it into an emo rock/pop song with a second guitarist, but i pulled the plug almost instantly and pivoted to industrialized techno, instead. these drums were transcribed into a score writer before they were played back, so that skinny puppy style breakdown in the chorus existed directly in the score, from the start. 

when remixing this, i resisted the cheesiness of sampling something like heavyocity, partly because the drum, & bass tracks were already in place from 2002, and those weren't the parts i was looking to uplift. rather, i spent a huge amount of time with guitar overdubs and orchestral sequencing to really make this thing as ridiculous as is possible.

the guitar concerto is not a form that was been well developed. i think clapton tried to do one, but it predictably sucked. some of what mike oldfield has done could be labeled that way, although i suspect he'd reject it. even zappa never really touched this, although one wonders if he might have later on.

the only actual guitar concerto that i'm aware of that comes close to this is mike keneally's 2004 masterpiece, the universe will provide, which was composed as a jam with an experimental dutch orchestra. as i added the guitars after, i'm not going to claim this is older than the keneally piece (even if the core of it is). but, that's the reference point...

guitar concertos are the kind of thing i imagined myself writing more of as i aged, so if there's any music still to come from me, this is not a bad approximation of what it might sound like.

=====

this is the second of two lengthy singles to come out of tracks that were begun in 2002 and not completed to my liking. the mixes in this single chart this song's rather elaborate development over fifteen years, with the first disc consisting of historical versions and the next two discs consisting of finished mixes. 

it became clear through the course of july, 2002 that rabit is wolf wasn't really going anywhere and i was better off cutting my losses. we jammed a few times, but it wasn't really serious. 

this track was initially written as a folk punk song, but i jumped to the scorewriter with it almost immediately. the expanded guitar demo was written in a scorewriter and then performed, rather than vice versa. it was initially less about explicitly creating a techno song and more about ordering the parts in a way that could be deconstructed more effectively. i wanted a more flexible approach to production that would allow me to take tracks in and out based on sean's input. 

i may have gone over this in this space before, but my mixing process up to that point was considerably unconventional. i would record tracks in one by one using a wave editor and then paste them on top of each other. i worked this way because i just didn't have more advanced tools. while there are benefits to this approach (it's additive synthesis, which blurs the mix for soundscaping), it meant that each additional track was destructive. i could not remove tracks once they were added. this meant sean was unable to provide much input into demos i sent to him. 

i also picked up a copy of cakewalk to help with this, but i quickly learned that my system couldn't really handle it. at around eight tracks, it just became unresponsive. with less than eight tracks, it didn't matter if the mix was destructive because it was easily reconstructed. so, i went back to the wave editor approach until 2007, when i upgraded to a modern pc. 

the taiko drum part was initially just to keep time; it wasn't supposed to be a part of the song. but, as i built it up i began to realize how interesting it sounded as a techno tune and sort of ran with it. once i'd notated it, i had to convert the drums into a soundscape because the midi render just wasn't good enough. this was done using a mix of software drum machines, midi snippets and isolated jimmy chamberlain samples. i then performed the score i had notated, with the exception of a few synths which were sequenced back. unfortunately, the midi file for the synth build up at the beginning of the track has been lost. 

the mix never came out well, partly due to ram issues with cakewalk and partly because i got a little pretentious with some of the parts. i was also extremely distracted over this period. despite this all being done to make sean's input more easily integrated into the material, he had no interest in the direction i took it and basically put his nose up at it again. i attempted a few different things over late 2002 and early 2003 to try and salvage it for my own purposes, but in the end i shelved it as unworkable. 

when i first set up the bandcamp site around 2010, i realized i had a collection of tracks that fit a sort of techno-guitar description and compiled them together under the name "tetris". i uploaded an incomplete mix for that project, but it was never really done and i never really felt good about it. 

it wasn't until late 2014 that i came back to the track, to authoritatively finish my discography. first, a mix was reconstructed from source to include all of the existing sound files. next, three separate sequencer mixes were sculpted out of the score - a jazz fusion mix, an overture mix and an ambient mix. pieces of these sequencer mixes were then isolated and mixed into the reconstructed original mix. finally, a series of extra lead guitar parts were recorded and mixed separately into a final mix and the orchestral mix, creating the end result and an accompanying guitar concerto. the recording process for this was very lengthy, which was ironically partly due to consistent distractions.

this release was revisited in november, 2017 as a part of the process of finalizing period 2 and was expanded from two to three discs through the addition of multiple supplementary mixes. 

i've included the midi file of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own. 

written over the summer of 2002 and initially recorded in the early fall of 2002. additional writing, arranging, recording, production and mixing occurred from dec, 2014 to apr, 2015. released as a two volume set on april 27, 2015. this release was expanded to include a third disc on nov 17, 2017 and filled in with eight new remixes over the next few days. re-released as a slightly rearranged three volume set and finalized on nov 19, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of the track (track 7) also appears on my sixth record, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj^2 (inri063): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2014, 2015, 2017). 

released september 15, 2002 

j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum sampling, drum programming, sequencing, sound design, soundscaping, digital wave editing 

sean - vocals (1) 

the various rendered electronic orchestras include electric bass, synth bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, acoustic guitar, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, harp, koto, french horn, trombone, trumpet, tuba, english horn, flute, oboe, piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, synthesizers, piano, glockenspiel, vibraphone, hammered percussion, music box, tubular bells, bells, agogo, wood blocks, marimba, melodic toms, timpani, taiko drum, backwards cymbals, synth drums, orchestral drum set and choir.

(this post is dated to may 29, 2021 because it describes events over that day. however, it was written on june 10, 2021)

as i got paid that morning, i had to spend the evening doing kind of normal grocery things, but it was a weird month for that kind of thing, so i found myself going on a pretty hefty bike ride, with the hopes of getting everything done.

first, i got some calcium carbonate (for my teeth, as a mouthwash. it’s designed to increase the ph of my mouth directly after eating. i am not swallowing this or using it as a calcium supplement. and, i’m using the hydroxyapatite as a calcium topical, instead – the limestone is just about basic acid/base chemistry, which seems to be the easy way to protect your teeth from acid erosion caused by bacteria.) at the store right beside the lab i dropped the fit test off at.

then, i biked to the far superstore on walker looking for some plant-based omega-3s, as the closer one did not have any, according to the website. while i was there, i got some things at the bulk barn next door. unfortunately, though, they didn’t have any nutritional yeast, so i had to go to the other bulk barn to get it (and it seems that the bulk barn is now carrying the omega-3s, for future reference). and, i stopped at the food basics (as well as the shopper’s, to get my rx) on the way back, as well.

then, i went to the metro to get some soy milk, stopped at the freshco to get a few basic items, headed to the walmart to get the other soy milk and stopped at the superstore for some ice cream.

so, that was a good 40 km (the map is a mild underestimate), in the end – and my nap, when i got back, became a lengthy rest, which was ok. these are days i wish i had more of, and hope to have more of when i can get back to biking in detroit again.

(this post is dated to may 29, 2021 because it describes events over that day. however, it was written on june 10, 2021)

so, after waiting patiently for several weeks, and running through every blood test i could imagine, i finally got some money in my account on the 29th of may and was able to get out to get a fit test to make sure i didn't have cancer – or prove that i did. however, it didn’t quite work out according to plan...

i wanted to take a nap on the friday afternoon, get up in the evening, make a big meal a little after midnight, get the fit test first thing in the morning, take a shit when i got home and then get it back by the end of the day. unfortunately, i ended up knocked out cold instead of having a nap, and it was something like 4:00 am when my body woke me up to pass a giant bowel movement. that’s a shitty turn of events, right?

i made something to eat before i left, and tried to make the best of it. when life gives you shit, you make shitonade - and enjoy it, with a shit-eating grin.

well, i got there and realized i didn’t have to pay for it until i brought it back. so, i could have picked up the test the night before, used my giant 4:00 am bowel movement and brought it in fresh, at 7:00 am. alas....

it was a cold morning, so i had my ski mask on, and i’ll remind people once again that, yes, i bike with a ski mask in the cold weather and, no, it doesn’t have anything to do with covid-19 or with religious observation. these masks are manufactured for use with things like snowmobiles, as it gets incredibly cold up here in canada and people need them to work or play outside when it does; i use them for biking even when it’s up to 10 degrees out, if the wind is pushing in from the north and creating a windchill effect. this was an unusually cold day for late may, but cold it was, and i was actually glad to have the protection as i struggled through the blizzard-like wind chill to get the things i needed done.

i went immediately from the first blood lab (“dynacare”) to my normal blood lab (“medical labs of windsor”), because the doctor had faxed them the requisition. this was a large requisition, and i expected to need to go to the other labs anyways, so i just asked them to take a few vials of things they could test for directly, which turned out to be vitamin k related items, and some issues related to my pancreas, which i wanted to check indirectly for absorption – inr, ptt, fibrinogen, uric acid, lipase & amylase. i then hit the grocery store for a first run of items and went home to try to take a shit and get it back before 14:00...

i’m actually relatively successful at urinating on command, but that could be a function of high coffee consumption. i’m not sure i’ve ever tried to force myself to defecate, and it’s not that i didn’t give it a good try, but after four hours of giving it my best, all i could get out were these hard little blobs. while a chemical analysis would be required to verify my suspicion, it would seem to me that i probably passed the iron i had swallowed right before i went to sleep the night (day) previously. and, you know what iron + carbon is, right? that’s right, it’s steel. so, these little steel nuggets were all i could conjure up, at 13:30 in the afternoon, and i had to act quickly to dip the applicator in and get it back at the very last minute.....

given these nuggets in front of me, should i have waited? well, i didn’t have a lot of experience with guessing the consistency of stool by observing it on wax paper; i had dogs growing up, and picked up after them occasionally, but that was a long time ago and i consequently had a strict deficit of recent experience in physically handling any sort of material passed from the anus of any living creature. so, it didn’t really cross my mind to pass on this one – i was just excited that i finally got something out and moved to quickly capture it, before it was too late.

i quickly broke the seal on the fit applicator – which was the point of no return – and pulled it out to notice that it....i realized the problem right away. i think i was expecting something with a pick at the top, or something vaguely serated, but it turns out that it was this plastic screw that wasn’t going to pick anything up unless it was dipped directly into stool that falls decidedly on the mushy side of the scale.

so, i tried to dip the applicator into my drying steely excretion and got nothing. it was like trying to cut into an acorn with a spoon – it was going nowhere. if i diced it up a little, i could get a piece of it off like i was picking something up with a toothpick, but it didn’t fit into the tiny hole for the applicator (which is a definite design flaw). shit.....

in the end, i tried to ram a little piece in and made like nike on my bicycle to the lab, where i dropped it off at the very last minute, hoping for the best but expecting the worst....

today's post is for the second dvd of high quality mp3s, although i'm considering removing the mp3 downloads. note that an mp3 disc will have more on it than a flac disc. so, this is a huge amount of music.

======

purchasing this release does not come with a download. 

inri033: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in dec, 1999. slightly resequenced in jan, 2014. re-released jan 3, 2014. finalized as lp007 on sept 19, 2017. this is my third official record. 

inri034: written & recorded in the fall of 1999. originally released on inridiculous in december, 1999. split into it's own ep on january 3, 2014. remastered, finalized & re-released on sept 28, 2017 

inri035: initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed between 2013-2015. initially released as part zero of a three volume set on may 21, 2015. split into it's own release on june 14, 2015. finalized as lp008 on sept 29, 2017. 

inri036: written and recorded in late 1999 and early 2000. these versions of these tracks were sequenced without further modification in jan, 2014. released on jan 9, 2014. re-released on physical media and finalized on oct 3, 2017, with the remainder of hummer added as a bonus track. 

inri037: recorded in spring, 2000. released, unmodified, on jan 10, 2014. release finalized on oct 3, 2017. 

inri038: written and recorded, 1999-2001. track 3 was reconstructed out of existing sound in june, 2004. initially sequenced on jan 12, 2014. expanded with remixes from 2014-2017, re-released with a newly remastered lead version and subsequently finalized on oct 5, 2017. 

inri039: this was constructed over a little more than a month: from 7/7-8/20, 2000. it seems to have been recombined into one track around 2006 but has otherwise not been modified since it was completed. first released as an ep on jan 14, 2014. release finalized as symph004 on oct 8, 2017 

inri040: recorded in april, 2000. samples added in oct, 2000. album version reverted to original mix in sept, 2006. released as a single on jan 14, 2014. expanded & finalized on oct 9, 2016. 

inri041: recorded over the space of the year 2000. remixed substantially in 2004, 2006 and 2014. existing version released on jan 14, 2014. finalized as lp009 on oct 9, 2017. this is my fourth official record. 

inri042: this record was recorded over the years 1999 and 2000, but did not take this form until mid september, 2017. the first track list dates to sept 14, 2017. these tracks are technically outtakes, but did not become outtakes until the remastering process removed them from their respective recordings. released & finalized as lp010 on oct 9, 2017. 

inri043: written late 2000 & early 2001. the renders present here are all from after 2013. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may, 2014. released in a single volume on june 7, 2014. four new orchestral mixes were added in late may, 2015. re-released in a single volume on may 26, 2017. this release was split into jazz and orchestral volumes in early oct, 2017. two renders were then added to the jazz volume, while three new mixes were created for the orchestral volume. re-released in two volumes and finalized on oct 12, 2017. a 

inri044: written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. rendered, arranged and performed over june and july, 2014. released on july 21, 2014. six new mixes were added in late may, 2015. re-released on may 28, 2015. four new mixes were added in mid october, 2017. re-released & put on indefinite hold as to status on oct 15, 2017. 

inri045: recorded in the first part of 2001. initially released as a bandcamp upload in august, 2010. re-released on january 18, 2014. finalized on oct 14, 2017. 

inri046: written in the spring of 2001. lent out for a different project in jan, 2004. reconstructed in the first quarter of 2006, especially over march. released as a one track single on april 1, 2006. expanded with alternate mixes and re-released on july 23, 2014. the vst mix was added on jan 10, 2015 and the two guitar mixes were added on may 29, 2015. re-released on may 29, 2015. finalized as symph005 on oct 15, 2017. 

inri047: written one day in june, 1998. re-created on another day in june, 1999. reimagined on yet another day in june, 2001. a failed remaster occurred at the end of 2013. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. released in a single volume on july 25, 2014. re-released in a single volume with a new string orchestra mix on may 30, 2015. this release was split into two cds on oct 15, 2017, with the first disc being composed solely of the process piece. four new tracks were added to the second disc. re-released in two volumes and finalized on oct 16, 2017. 

inri048: written in the summer of 2001. remembered over july, 2014. completed august-september, 2014. released sept 24, 2014. expanded, finalized and re-released on oct 16, 2017 

inri049: written and recorded in the fall of 2001. released on sept 6, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on oct 21, 2017. 

inri050: written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. released oct 3, 2014. the string mix was corrected for clicks on june 1, 2015, but unfortunately left accidentally inverted. this was corrected on oct 21, 2017. the lead track was re-rendered with the clickless string mix on oct 21, 2017. disc finalized on oct 21, 2017. 

inri051: created in the fall of 2001. sequenced and released on sept 7, 2014. disc finalized on oct 22, 2017. 

inri052: tracks 1, 3 and 8 were written in 2001 and reinterpreted and completed in 2014. tracks 2 and 5 were interpreted and completed in 2001. track 4 was written in 2000 and reinterpreted and recorded in 2001. track 6 was written in 2001 and completed in 2006. track 7 was written in 1998, reinterpreted in 2001 and rendered in 2014. tracks 1-7 were sequenced on sept 9, 2014. final completion date is oct 3, 2014. refinalized as lp011 on oct 22, 2017. this is my fifth official record. 

inri053: written late 2001 and early 2002. this file is ripped from a cd-r that was burnt around 2002, as that was the option that would produce the most accurate reproduction of the original composition. published without modification on oct 6, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized as symph006 and lp012 on oct 23, 2017. 

inri054: recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track 6 was constructed in may, 2004 out of files recorded 1999-2001. tracks 1-4 were reconstructed over october, 2014. final mixes were finished on october 18, 2014. released on oct 21, 2014. disc closed on oct 30, 2017. 

inri055: written in early 2002 and recorded and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 15, 2014. expanded, re-released & finalized on nov 1, 2017. 

inri056: written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 19, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on nov 2, 2017. 

inri057: written and recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. initially sequenced in may, 2002. re-sequenced and first released in june, 2002. re-released in slightly different forms from 2002-2014. resequenced to mimic the original sequencing and re-released on november 8, 2014. except to sequence the record, these files have not been altered since 2002. disc finalized as lp013 on nov 3, 2017. 

inri058: written over 2001 and 2002 and rethought repeatedly between 2002-2014, with no clear resolution in a final mix. reconstructed from source in late 2014 and then rendered at multiple stages to create a series of snapshots. final mixes were completed over the last week of november and the first week of december. released as a two-volume set on dec 7, 2014. the concept was rethought on nov 3, 2017, which led to the inclusion of five more mixes and an expansion to four cds. re-released in four volumes & finalized as symph007 on nov 12, 2017. the raw guitar mix was corrected on jan 6, 2018. 

inri059: written and recorded over 2001 and 2002. mildly remixed in november, 2014 to make the tracks more presentable; nothing substantial was altered, and no new sound was recorded. released on november 19, 2014. re-released on physical media and finalized on nov 14, 2017. 

inri060: written in august, 2002. track one was remixed in december, 2014 to turn the rest of the track up relative to the vocals. released on dec 12, 2014. disc finalized on nov 14, 2017. 

originally created from 1999-2002. this compilation is dated to sept 1, 2002. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2013-2017. compilation finalized on nov 14, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

released september 1, 2002 

j - electric piano, drum & other programming, orchestral & other sequencing, vocal & drum manipulations, classical & acoustic & electric guitars, ebow, digital & analog effects & treatments, electric bass, mandolin, organ, synthesizers, sound design, noise generators, granular synthesis, generative synthesis, generative percussion, light-sound synthesis, cool edit synthesis, sampling, vocals, vocoders, windows 95 sound recorder, flute, drum kit, hammerhead (909 emulator), pick scrapes, found sounds, metronome, digital wave editing, loops, films, tapes, coughs, a broken equalizer, equalization, production, composition. 

sean - vocals, lyrics (inri048, inri049, inri053-059), harmonica (inri054, inri057), ring modulator (inri057, inri058) 

greg - drum performance sample source (inri056-inri058) 

jon - guitar performance (inri048, inri049, inri057) 

bob - hammering (inri058) 

the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, electric bass, synth bass, upright bass, distorted electric guitar, clean electric guitar, steel string acoustic guitar, nylon guitar, guitar effects, banjo, harp, sitar, french horn, tuba, trumpet, trombone, brass ensemble, saxophone, soprano saxophone, orchestra hit, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, pizzicato strings, full string section, piano, synthesizers, synth pad, synthesizer effects, mellotron, organ, bamboo flute, clarinet, flute, piccolo, oboe, english horn, bassoon, voice, music box, tubular bells, bells, clavinet, kalimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, ukelele, theremin, gongs, woodblock, vibraphone, marimba, taiko drums, detuned piano, pc card, drum kit, jazz drum kit, hand drums, melodic toms, orchestral drum kit, drum machines, hammered percussion, synthetic percussion and electronic drum kit. they also include choir.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/mp3-dvd-disc-volume-2

so, i made it through all of these videos and will be going back to the harvard videos next...

ken tends to make a lot of kind of basic, amateur errors that you'd expect to hear from "audiophiles" and are generally discarded by real engineering professionals and math or physics nerds, which is a little bit disappointing. one example is his insistence on using balanced cabling in a home studio, which is sort of laughable given that he won't ground his circuits correctly (by connecting half to the grid and half off of it). if you ground your signals, you won't need to balance your cables, ken. and, how much noise is your furnace creating, anyways?

balanced cables are great if you're playing in a hockey arena, but if you're experiencing noise in your home studio then you probably want to address it at the source, rather than waste hundreds or thousands of dollars on cables in order to improve a number that your ears can't actually perceive. i guess there's a theoretical point where you have so many cables that some noise is inevitable, and that is the situation where you either need to buy balanced cables or fucking clean up that goddamned mess, but this is obscure and not really relevant in real life. 

on top of that, balanced cables only go so far in cancelling the noise. i mean, they're not a magical bullet. if you live directly underneath a noisy gas furnace that was installed in the fucking kitchen (which was the situation i found myself in a few years ago...), your puny balanced cables will do nothing.

so, it's a minor solution to a problem you probably don't have - and if you actually do have a serious interference problem, it almost certainly won't be good enough to actually fix it. in both cases, you really want to focus on reducing noise, rather than blocking it. and, if your environment is as bad as mine was, you need to build a faraday cage - or move.

these are the kinds of debates my dad's friends used to have, and he sounds every bit as clueless as they did. so, there's some humanizing of ken marshall going on here - a name i had only previously seen in liner notes, as a contributor to the back-of-the-house sound engineering on a lot of my favourite records (specifically, those by download and skinny puppy).

but, i'm going to keep up with this out of curiosity. while he hasn't said much that has blown my mind yet, this is a sort of an invaluable resource that i wish i knew was there from the start.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjLd6862BxCe7Dd6ukj3zEw/videos

it's a sort of comical reaction.

if i get priced out, i'm simply going to lose internet access and need to upload periodically from the timmy's instead.

https://blogs.teksavvy.com/the-liberal-government-must-fire-crtc-chair-ian-scott

and, hey...

we can always retaliate by decreasing exports right?

that would be even better!

if enbridge will not follow the law in michigan, the state should nationalize the property - without compensation.

i'm working on a giant post...

i called the gastro-enterologist, and he entirely discounted the premise of deductive thought, in context. "but, i checked for everything else and..."

"IRRELEVANT!"

listen - i appreciate the flair, as highly illogical as it may be. i'm italian; i don't mind getting yelled at. in fact, sometimes it's actually more effective.

while he may have been exaggerating slightly (that is, i don't think it's irrelevant), i get the point - these tests i'm asking for are useful as hints to help figure out what to do next, but they don't prove or disprove anything, in the end.

he let me know that the ministry direction is that i should get a full scope immediately, and that opinion is fully noted. however, i think the ministry direction is wrong, and that healthy 40 year-olds shouldn't be getting scoped due to one piece of data, when there's 100 others that suggest otherwise; the ministry direction should be to get me a fit test as quickly as possible, not to try to coerce me into an unnecessary and potentially damaging scope by refusing to pay for it.

that's fine; i don't have anything else to do this month, i can pay out of pocket.

however, i did not get paid today, and will need to wait until monday.

i feel fine...

again: i'm on the side of the americans with this. i don't eat beef, but i know that safety regulations around things like hormones are much stricter in canada and that, as a canadian, i would like to know that my meat is not being imported from the united states, if i were eating it.

and, it's something that american consumers should think about, as well. if i lived in the united states and i did eat meat, i would want to purchase that meat from countries with stronger levels of industry regulations than exist in the united states.

but, as i don't eat beef, i should be clear that i'd also be in support of anything that would reduce the total amount of beef being raised and exported from canada, due to broad climate concerns and general ethical reasons. the cattle industry will find no solidarity from me - shut them down. great...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-america-beef-labelling-1.6036918

and, yes, that's all blixa, in a certain sense.

so, today's post is inri060, which is the first fully post-rabit release (although a few loose ends will trickle through...) and also features my first recorded vocal track in almost two years.

after starting hormones in may, i was going through somewhat of an identity crisis and that's really what the track documents, although i'm being obscure about it for good reason - this is a period of my life i'd rather not fully document. let there be somewhat of a black hole here in the historical record. what i'll say is that i was experimenting with a few things, both chemically and sexually, and in the end took away from it what i needed to take away from it, which is that i made the correct choice to transition into a female identity.

it's one thing to transition as a child, and it's another to transition as a full adult that's lived a life in the gender assigned to their birth sex, and it's another altogether to try to transition as an actual, literal virgin (i'd never even held anybody's hand, or even experienced the rejection of being turned down, because i'd never asked. i was a 100%, complete, total, utter virgin in every conceivable way imaginable.) in your early 20s - that's the period that people spend experimenting with their sexual orientation, and with their identities more broadly, to try to figure it out. 

i don't "believe" that people are assigned gender identities or sexual orientations at birth, in some kind of conceptionist/creationist/religionist process that fixes who we are for the rest of our lives. in fact, the science rejects that hypothesis, despite what you may have heard otherwise (mostly from lawyers). i "believe" that sexual orientation and gender identity are fluid processes that change dramatically over the lifespan of an individual, and are brought on by a culmination of experience and individual choice - which is what the science actually says on the topic. as i am an evangelical atheist, i simply don't care what religious authorities think about this, or have the remotest interest in their enforced concepts of morality around the issue (to the point that i will actively try to convince them that their religion is wrong about this, and they should apostatize and repent over it), which is the actual basis of the existing fake left legal regime around the issue - what i do "believe" is that people ought to be free to make their own choices regarding their orientation and identity, and if the religious authorities or general society doesn't like those choices then they can fuck off, and circle jerk at home. as a queer person, i just don't fucking care. at all.

i don't want to fit in or be normal, anyways.

so, i think people should experiment with who they are and draw conclusions from the experiments they do, rather than base who they are on some theory written in some book, and that is what this is really all about.

this kind of scientific imagery is omnipresent in my work during this period, but this is the only vocal part recorded during the period that really explores the themes i was imagining, and that's something i've largely chosen not to develop fully as i've completed my recordings over this period. 

you can hear a phone call in the end of the third track (developed fully as inri061) that snaps me out of it, at least for a little while. but, these themes of exploring experimentation around sexual orientation and gender identity would continue on for a few years, if perhaps never quite so explicitly.

====

this is two conceptually linked outtakes from mid 2002 that document an event that i'm going to be vague and obscure about. 

written in august, 2002. track one was remixed in december, 2014 to turn the rest of the track up relative to the vocals. released on dec 12, 2014. disc finalized on nov 14, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

the lead track appears without vocals on my seventh record, ftaa (inri079): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2014, 2017).

released august 31, 2002 

j - guitar, effects, bass, drum sampling, drum and other programming, digital wave editing, vocals

in fact, that strat is so heavy that it weighs more than my sg:

like, a lot more.

go back to the previous video, though, and check out gorgeous maple neck. like i say: nobody can figure out where the body came from, although it has a typewritten number on the inside of it, suggesting it's fairly old. like, just the font suggests 60s or 70s. but, it seems like somebody put the coronet neck on it.

one hypothesis is that somebody smashed it and put the coronet neck on to replace it, but that doesn't help us understand where this heavy hh strat came from to begin with.

here's the obese strat:

you could maybe call it an obese strat...

open concept basement bedroom, 1997-1999

- my parents moved across the city in mid-1997, and i lost the soundproof room in the process :(. i lost the drum kit & the tascam in the process, as well. however, i gained a computer with internet access and windows 95 (my previous computer had no internet access, and had windows 3.1. in fact, my first bedroom pc was shipped with ms dos 6.2 and wordperfect, the latter of which was actually reasonable, given that i grew up in ottawa (corel disappeared, but the big adobe building remained a presence in downtown ottawa for years.). i've actually kept up on the old software reasonably well, mostly because i never stopped using most of it: cool edit 96 (https://www.audacityteam.org/), noteworthy composer (https://noteworthycomposer.com/), the windows 95 sound editor, a hacked version of logic that never ran smoothly and a guitar tablature to midi program called "bucket of tab" (https://antisleep.com/bucket) were where i got started on this. but, this pc did not have the resources for even the most basic sound recording.

- i got an ry30 mid summer, to replace the drum kit. my dad was sad; my stepmother wasn't. that ry30 stuck with me until 2003, when i sold it to go to bc. of all the gear that got sold, that's the piece i think i most miss, and i'd love to see a serious attempt to emulate it. i can load samples into battery, but it's missing the point - this was a powerful little drum synth, and i made massive use of it for years, all the way to the end of the rabit is wolf period. that said, the reason i sold it is that i felt i grew out of it, and there kind of wasn't a lot left to do with it. i couldn't justify spending $400 on it given that i can do everything with free plugins nowadays, but i will eventually replace this thing...

if you know where to get an actual vst emulation of the ry30 - not samples of it, but a vsti of the actual machine - let me know.

- a bass reappeared. i don't remember the model. it was green, and played very smoothly, which was necessary because i have freakishly small hands (to this day, i play a mini ibanez bass).

- i actually synced the noteworthy composer sequences with the ry30 parts manually because nobody told me i could sync them automatically. so, it's all very meticulous, but using very simple hardware. i would have had a basic consumer grade soundblaster in this thing, and the initial sequencing is all using general midi. it's for that reason that i went looking for general midi a few years ago and came away with bandstand, by native instruments (a very big company in music creation circles):

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/bandstand-by-native-instruments

bandstand was central to the recordings i did over 2014-2016, because i needed a way to emulate general midi using updated sound fonts. this has been discontinued, and i think it's the last attempt by the industry to save general midi for recording, as it seems that the standard nowadays is to use specific sample libraries rather than a general sound font library (and native instruments suggest the use of kontakt, instead). i think this is unfortunate, myself, as i liked the standardization of being able to take a midi score and plug it into a daw, but the industry doesn't seem to be interested in scored music in much of any abstraction at all anymore and rather more interested in just creating textures out of existing sound. so, the standard nowadays is to sell you this pile of violin scratches, rather than a collection of violins to sequence - and tell you to hire a violinist instead i suppose. but, of course, i still have soundblasters i can track if i need to. i will eventually install kontakt on the 64 bit machine, as the experiments i had with the 32-bit machine were just simply that i needed more ram. but, i actually found that kontakt was unnecessarily inefficient (it loads everything on start-up, even if you're only using a fraction of it) and that the freeware sound libraries actually even sounded better....

i would like to find an update for bandstand, but nobody seems to really want there to be one. this seems to be something people have moved past, and something you're going to need to curate old software for if you want to hang on to.

- the jx-8p & tascam 4-track both show up about this time, with the jx being my only and primary keyboard for years after. this is of course the last version of the roland juno series, and combines analog style juno sounds with more modern digital sounds. the jx has been keyless for years and driven by a dx100, and i've had a midi frontend installed on it for years and never used it, but this is a vsti of it in case i want to sequence it (i could of course sequence it manually, too):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qiW5xn7bXM7gK09uhlZhPjC6QVOY2mYL

i should also look into something called "zenology" when i get my windows 7 machine back up and can start looking for evaluation copies.

but, i suspect i'll keep programming it with the little window, as that's what i'm used to doing.

- later programs included hammerhead (a 909 emulator) (http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/introduction.shtml), sound raider (a noise generator) (https://web.archive.org/web/20060721182502/http://www.andyw.com/zip/raider.zip), goldwave (for extra effects processing) (http://www.goldwave.ca/), granulab (https://www.abc.se/~re/GranuLab/Granny.html), coagula (light-sound synthesis) (https://www.abc.se/~re/Coagula/Coagula.html).

- my aunt sent me back a flute from a trip she took to india that shows up on several tracks

- somewhere along the way, the cassette deck stops working properly, and a song is constructed out of it.

- it was some time in late 1998 that my dad asked me to go to songbird with him to help him pick out a guitar for my sister, who was going through a difficult phase. as mentioned, she had been doing a lot of piano playing since she was very little, and now wanted to play guitar and was threatening to run away from home if she wasn't gifted with an expensive brand name guitar (in fact, i think she was trying to get my dad to buy her boyfriend a guitar, and i don't think that ever clicked). so, my dad got baited into buying her a guitar.....which she didn't accept, because it didn't have a brand name on it. and, it definitely pissed him off, yeah. meanwhile, i continued to play my entry level ibanez, right? it's worth pointing out that my sister was a delusional, spoiled brat at this point, but i really never said anything about it. the guitar i picked out has yet to be properly understood by anybody i've presented it to; it seems to have a coronet "batwing" neck, the dual humbucking pickups seem to have been installed manually and the body, while shaped like a strat and built like a paul, is of unclear origin. so, this is a guitar that somebody seems to have built from parts. the reality is that i picked the guitar out from the store because it played better than any other in the store due to the beautiful neck on it; after my sister rejected it as not sufficient because of the lack of brand name on the headstock, i ran it off to my friend greg's before it could get sent back, where i let it sit until everybody forgot about it. it eventually found it's way back to my studio, and has been my main guitar ever since.

- while i never said anything about it, i get the impression that my dad eventually felt a little bit stupid about asking me to pick out an expensive guitar for my sister (who did not play guitar), while i continued to play a starter ibanez roughly ten years on. i didn't care about the brand name, but that frankenguitar i snagged from songbird had a beautiful neck on it, and i sure appreciated it. nonetheless, he seemed to realize, in hindsight, that it was kind of a shitty deal for me, and went and bought me a red sg, along with an electro-acoustic. the black guitar itself is somewhere in the sg/guild range in terms of weight, in the sense that it's lighter than a paul and heavier than a strat, but i've always treated it like a sort of a fat strat due it's shape and construction. so, in the end, i got three guitars out of my sister's hissy fit and she got zero. all three of the guitars start showing up in recordings over the end of 98 and start of 99.

let's go way back.

1996-1997 basement room

when i was a kid, my dad built a soundproof room in one of the basements of one of the houses he owned. i suppose he intended to use it himself, but he was a 40 year old man with a day job and it just didn't work out that way; i was a 15 year-old kid on summer holidays, so you couldn't pull me out of there. so, my earliest demos were recorded in this little insulated room i was lucky to have. what gear did i have that i could look for?

- i was using an ibanez guitar with a floating bridge. i actually don't regret selling this guitar, as i found the bridge to be annoying and i don't have the attachment to ibanez that a lot of metalheads might.

- i still have my ancient cheri amp

- i still have my zoom 1010 effects pedal, and wouldn't imagine anybody would want to model this. google suggests "no" on first pass. it was a beginner floor guitar effects pedal that...it didn't sound very good, or at least not as a guitar processor. i didn't know any better. it was useful as a noise generating device, even if it wasn't so useful as a guitar pedal. so, there's some great sounding distorted cymbals recorded through it. i would be interested in finding an emulator for the reason that it's so overwhelmingly noisy that it's almost useless in scenarios where it would be great if it wasn't. in later years, i've put the jx-8p through it and that's all i'd ever use it for nowadays. but, all my guitar parts used this thing, for years.

- my dad's friend larry left a broken mxr phase 90 (script logo.) down there that i still have. it still works, if you pay close attention to the pot on the inside, and i used it quite a bit. he just never retrieved it. hey larry, do you want your mxr back? he was a van halen fan; i was a corgan fan, and even at that age i understood the influence and the value of it. this is a classic pedal - it's both in the pod and in guitar rig - but i wonder if there's a standalone....

there's one attempt here:

http://antti.smartelectronix.com/

...but nothing official, i don't think. if i was mxr, i would have this, for sure.

- there was a bass down there to start (i don't remember the model), and then there wasn't, so i bought a boss oc-2 to try to create bass parts out of my guitar, and it didn't work out that well. i ended up using it mostly for keyboard parts, but i sold it without getting too much out of it.

this is an emulation:

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/octaver-oc-d2-by-chris-hooker/downloads

- my sister, who was a serious pianist at a young age, had an electric piano with some organ sounds and stuff. she was strangely propertarian about the item, and repeatedly refused to allow me to record in her space. so, i had to sneak into her room when she wasn't around. i eventually got the jx-8p...and she eventually got a grand piano parked in the living room, that was great to record on when nobody was home. i don't remember the model.

- her metronome is also heard a few times

- there was a peavey bass amp down there that i held on to for years and think my sister ended up with, in the end. i can get all manners of peavey emulation from the pod or from guitar rig, even if i actually prefer the sound of roland or vox amps.

- there was a drum kit down there; don't ask me about the details. again: i never saw him actually play it. in hindsight, maybe that was intentional.

- larry also left his tascam down there, and he did pick that up, along with an acoustic guitar that belonged to him.

- there was a graphic equalizer hooked up to a luxman receiver

- i never mic anything any more, but the mics i was using were dixon md-1178s, and i actually still have both of them. i have some mic emulation software, but this is something i pay very little attention to because i line almost everything in through the pod or the alesis (including the electronic drum kit), and almost all of my music is instrumental. i later picked up a very old altec 683 b, and it's the mic i use when i need one (and the mic sean used to record everything, as well).

- ....and my sennheiser 440-IIs, which i still have, were what i listened to everything through.

i think we'll be installing this, as well:

https://github.com/datajake1999/EAXReverb_VST/releases

if that plugin works well in cubase, it could get a lot of use, especially on the lost symphony, as it would have been fundamental, if i had actually recorded it at the time.

if you're curious, this is how i tend to work - i go looking for what i need when it comes up, i don't tend to just download things and experiment with them when they're brand new.

but, i wonder if i should actually even go out and find all of the old gear that i've lost in plugin form. how possible is that? what is really missing, actually?

this soundcard is actually an older model than i thought it was.

https://ia803403.us.archive.org/6/items/manualzz-id-965080/965080.pdf

it's at least designed for nt, so maybe the software might work, if i get the right peripheral for it.

but, it also has a firewire, so i wonder if i could drive it from the alesis....

right now, i just want to get drivers and script them.

the key shift in approach should be this:

it may be true that 24 bit is technically superior to 16 bit, but, in the end, it's, just, like, your opinion, as to which sounds better.

don't believe me? go ask that kid with a record player.

so, i want to mix towards an output, not just get superior quality for the fuck of it.

but, i need to understand what people are actually listening to, and the answer appears to be the following: spotify is currently upgrading from streaming lossy mp3 to cd-quality audio. and, youtube seems to be pushing downsampling. so, for right now, 16-bit seems like the way to go, still.

my previous build of the 32-bit xp machine had the soundblaster live drivers built into the os install. since putting the live back in the 98 machine (which i'm calling 16-bit but is actually also 32-bit) where it came from, i've put the audiigy that my sister's first husband gave me (he decided to be a douche bag mac user around '05ish, so he didn't want it) in the 32-bit machine to replace it. it also has what was the last line of m-audio delta series pci cards in it, which i got for very cheap at the end of it's lifecycle explicitly because it has an actual rca out on it, and the dac is dealt with right away kind of thing - it's about minimal amounts of conversion, although i later found out that the windows kmixer sort of ruins it and i have to connect via asio to make sense of that. and, i'm connecting an alesis 16-track mixer as a recording interface via firewire, as well as a pod xt via usb for direct guitar ins. old gear - like i said. and, none of this is going anywhere any time soon....

anyways, i didn't need to script up a driver install for the live because the drivers came with the os and the software didn't work on xp anyways, but i'm going to need to script something up for the audigy. i'm currently searching for an install cd, and will probably hold off on anything complicated until i can get one of those interfaces like i have in the other machine. the major reason i'm going to use this device is to make use of the dsp in it, which is intended for gaming and is consequently a little thicker than you'd get out of most normal audio-focused applications. a large percentage of the weird guitar and drum reverb i used from about 1999-2004 was actually using that eax as a pre-amp; i lost it when i upgraded to xp in 2004 and put it aside when i couldn't get it to work when i built the 32-bit machine in 2007.

but, i'm sorting through articles to try to find exactly what i'm looking for, and the obvious question presents itself - is it time to move to 24 bits?

wait. i'm recording at 16 bits? what? well...

see, this is my actual logic, here - the machine i did everything on until my system collapse was built to use 32-bit software, and almost all of the plugin software (like guitar rig) is written for 16-bit audio manipulation. so, what happens when you send 24 bit audio into software written for 16-bit audio? if it's well written software, it should actually stop you from actually doing it and tell you to downsample the audio or buy a new plugin. but, what most plugins are going to actually do is simply truncate the file and then spit it out with a bunch of zeros, meaning you end up downsampling your 24 bit recording to 16 bit by accident as you process it. and, you probably will not be able to tell the difference, as you're doing it.

on top of that, you downsample in the end anyways, right? see, that's the assumption. is it true? for now, let's assume it is. now, some people will tell you that you want the extra space for the calculations, if your software allows for it. ok. but, that's the rare scenario where you probably can tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit - when you've run the project through a thick reverb and filled all that space up with data. and, then what happens when you mix it down?

the answer is that you just delete it - and you've wasted your time getting something to sound great as a 24-bit sound file, only to have it sound entirely different as a 16-bit product. and, are you going to even notice, are you going to listen to a 16-bit file through your shmancy sound system? nooooo. 

oops.

so, i developed a policy of sticking to recording to the output quality. that is, i decided that if people are going to listen to the end result on 16-bit playback devices (or, god forbid, fucking speakerphones) then i'm going to mix them at 16-bits. logical, right?

but, how true is that, still? i mean, nowadays nobody listens to anything on cds - what they actually do is stream it, probably. and, are they therefore able to stream it at 24-bits? i mean, their hardware can probably do it.

the 32-bit machine that i'm reinstalling this morning will remain 32 bits and geared towards 16 bit recording. that's not going to change.

but, as i get around to building that 64-bit machine and wondering how i'll be recording into it, the question i'm actually going to ask isn't about maximizing recording quality so much as it's about trying to understand actual listening habits. i know that i still listen to everything in 16-bit. am i out of touch on this? if i am, and people are listening to 24-bit flacs on their phones, then i should adjust to mixing final outputs in a way that conforms to how they're actually going to listen to them.

if i mix everything in 24-bit and the world listens to it in downsampled 16-bit, i'm just deluding myself through the process - all of that effort exists strictly in a parallel reality that nobody actually inhabits. however, if i mix everything in 16-bit and the world upsamples it to 24-bit to listen to it, i'm missing out on an opportunity to expand the quality of the mix.

all the technicalities and specs are fun to analyze, but it's the user experience that i'm really concerned about.

ok, so that was a wasteful few days due to needing to undo the cops breaking my computer (yet again.), but i have my machine coming back up now. i was in fact able to isolate a crc error on the dvd; the reburn is booting from the dvd, as intended.

but, listen, you fucking idiot thugs...

the chromebook is the only machine i use to post to the internet and, so long as this continues, that is not going to change. the 90s laptop is being used strictly as a phone, right now, but will eventually also be used as a tv. and, the recording machine is kept off the network and used strictly to record and compose music on.

the computer you want to hack for kremlin codes is the chromebook. please leave my recording pc alone.

is that simple enough for you to understand?

yeah, the disc seems to have some problems, for sure. i mean, it reads some of the time, but sometimes it doesn't...

so, i was having difficulty booting the install media from the dvd drive and i had to figure that out because that's how this sits - i just leave the install media in the bottom drive and let it sit there, so i know what the most recent version is, and i have it available in case i need it.

but, as i was doing some troubleshooting, i started to suspect that it's the media itself that's corrupt. thankfully, i do in fact have a backup. of course. so, i'm going to try to reburn that and try again.

to be clear: i could install it from the blu-ray drive, but i don't want to do that, i want to install it from the dvd drive. and, the dvd drive seems to let other media boot, so it kind of has to be the actual disk itself. i think....

today's post is inri059, which is a theoretical demo for the acoustic rabit is wolf tour that the second half of the project was geared around but that never happened, and something i pulled together over late 2014 from existing parts of published tracks (me, myself..., psi, magenta, day) and demos of unpublished ones (penny shoeman,  jumped up and down) from the very last sessions we did. i'm not sure that sean even knows this exists (he stopped returning my emails quite some time ago), but it is a far better representation of what sean wanted to do. around the time we did penny shoeman, he even tried to bring in an emo-style guitarist (i did not know him and do not recall his name) and asked me to recede towards electronics and production, but i didn't have the slightest interest in the style and was happy at that point to sort of him let him go start an emo band if he wanted to do that...and convert the track into a techno piece, without him, instead. which i did - it's inri061.

these opinions may be jarring to people following this space that thought they knew all about me, but all i can say is that they weren't listening to what i said and actually presented and actually posted. while i grew up listening to and self-identify as a punk, and there was a brief period of art-school emo after 2007-ish (that included defeater, touche amore & la dispute, primarily) that i was able to get into starting around 2010-ish, i've been starkly critical of emo for decades and wasn't remotely interested in it at the time, at all. and, i keep posting links to abstract electronic artists like son lux, not to contemporary rock music, if it even still exists at all. if you thought i was some kind of emo rock star, that's your opinion of me forced down upon me, and not something i ever projected or ever embraced. 

and, it's frustrating because i know that this is what jon and sean both thought of me, too - and that they were both apparently disappointed to find out it wasn't true, in the end. i don't take responsibility for that perception, and i don't apologize for their disappointment - it was their own delusion, and they're the ones that ended up missing out. we could have produced interesting art rock, but they didn't want to - they wanted to be boring old, normal-ass, generic-as-fuck rock stars.

that said, insofar as acoustic demos are concerned, i happen to think this is pretty good, my own obvious biases around it's production aside. if there was more emo in the period that was written with this kind of detail and performed with this kind of passion, perhaps i would have been less critical of it. and, my dismissive attitude around it aside, i would have been happy to be a part of this - if it were realistic to perform something like this and maintain the attention span of the audience that gravitates towards it. in truth, a demo like this, and a performance that emulates it, would have been instantly requested to tighten up, and i would have no doubt gotten up and walked off.

nonetheless, as an alternative demo, i can accept this - and i created it for the reason that it is a better historical document, in some sense, of what was being envisioned by the other half of the project. this is being narrated entirely from my perspective, but i have somewhat of a responsibility to get the other person's perspectives across, as well....as best as i can reconstruct them, in as honest a way as i can. if the rabit demo is a unilateral decision that i know sean dissented on, perhaps he'd be more approving of this.

as mentioned previously, sean soon emerges as a sort of generic indie rock loser trying to emulate pretentious nonsense like the animal collective, and in the process ended up copying a lot of the techniques that i developed in these demos and then claiming he invented it himself. i've even heard rumours that he tried to take credit for some of the performances and compositions, particularly when presenting the recordings to females he had an interest in, but i never confronted him about that and do not know the actual truth of it (it would be sort of pathetic, if true). so, i suppose he saw the value in these recordings after all - and decided he could do this without me. my analysis of the the little bit that i've heard of the recording he did without me is that his arrogance was unfortunately rather blinding, and that it's not as good as he seemed to think it was, in fact that it even sounded like what it actually was (a total musical illiterate fucking around with gear he didn't remotely understand), but i haven't heard anything he did after he got over what was an understandably steep learning curve, given that he had absolutely no technical or musical training at all, if he ever even did get over the curve, if he didn't just give up, instead. sean's vocals do not appear on any further recordings.

i actually played bass for jon a second time in a project he joined as a second guitarist, and i'l talk a little about that in my period 3 run through, in time - that part of the story doesn't end here. 

====

something like this would have been the demo brought along on an acoustic tour that never happened. tracks 1-4 would have represented a live set over the summer of 2002, while tracks five and six are otherwise stranded acoustic demos (and may have been played as encores, where possible). the style could be broadly categorized as folk punk, but it also leans heavily towards the emo of the period. 

written and recorded over 2001 and 2002. mildly remixed in november, 2014 to make the tracks more presentable; nothing substantial was altered, and no new sound was recorded. released on november 19, 2014. re-released on physical media and finalized on nov 14, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2014, 2017).

released august 1, 2002 

j - acoustic guitar, voice (3) 

sean - vocals, lyrics

this is actually a useful outcome, as she doesn't have to pander to quebec to win re-election.

i've been highly critical of this person's political positions. she was wrong on her insistence on unnecessary statist interference in assisted suicide, and she was wrong on the normalcy and relevancy of corruption within capitalist institutions. but, she's right this time - the legal process in the constitution must be followed, or it's rendered void, altogether.

and, if the prime minister won't at least stand up for the procedural conventions in the constitution, he should resign immediately, as it renders him unfit to govern.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/singh-says-quebecs-proposed-constitutional-change-important-but-symbolic

and, i will even do a cea test if the fit test comes back free of blood.....

i asked for copper and he ordered ceruloplasmin, and i think i understand why he did that. 

but, given that the ceruloplasmin is high, i'm going to ask for a direct copper test next time, too.

vitamin a - not in yet

copper cerulaplasmin - 26.1 μmol/L, which is considered slightly high, unless you're taking oral estrogen, which i of course am.

that said, elevated copper is also a sign of cancer, and particularly blood cancer, which is one of the more obscure things i'm worried about.

so,

iron - low absorption

zinc - normal absorption

copper - high absorption

together, that continues to suggest celiac is very unlikely and suggests that low copper is not interfering with iron absorption, at the least.

c-reactive protein was indeed tested previously at .8, which is ideal.

i should have a lengthy list of items coming:

- fibrinogen, prothombin time (pt) & partial thromboplastin time  (ptt) for k.

- glutathione, for selenium.

- iodine 

- uric acid, for molybdenum.

- pyruvate, lipase, amylase for manganese.

- ascorbic acid

- asca, for crohn's v colitis (although there's no sign of inflammation, given crp and esr were low)

- oxalic acid

- salicylate

- mercury

- amino acid, fractionation & quantitation

so, i was sleepy when i got in, which isn't that bizarre, as i had been sleeping afternoons for the last few days. i wanted to shower, eat and take a nap, but i had to shower and then nap, instead. so, then i got up to eat and napped some more. i took some iron and napped some more...

i guess i got about ten hours of sleep overall, but i suspect that's two days worth. i actually like naps rather than long sleeps in the summer, and i'd rather sleep in the day if the air conditioning  is on (as opposed to having to suffer through it). i absolutely despise air conditioning and want it off altogether, but it is currently on, despite the fact that i asked him to turn it off when he left. so, when you have the air on, it's actually warmer at night - and it's more enjoyable to sleep during the day, to avoid the a/c. but, now i'm awake, so i'm going to need to run the stove to warm the place up, instead. i'll have to try to cycle that over in the next few days, to get back to sleeping during the air conditioning and being awake when it's off.

as it is, i've been up since around 6:00 and have been trying to shift over to do some cleaning but have been stuck dealing with the recording pc, instead.

i guess the cops upstairs realized i was using the recording pc this week, and decided they therefore had to break it. i have no idea what they're looking for, but they seem to think i'm hiding some kind of data somewhere. whatever they did, they seem to have shorted the ram, and they seem to have broken the boot loader - which is something similar to what they kept doing to my windows 7 machine. the difference is that i've very purposefully kept the recording machine off the network for more or less this exact reason, and i guess it doesn't seem to matter - they'll just break into your house and break it when you\re gone.

so, i cleared the cmos and...i was in the process of reinstalling to the drive anyways, so i'm currently putting a temp install in.

this machine does not have a wireless card in it, and i don't want to connect it to any outside network ever at all. in the lalala world that the cops live in, that means i must be hiding secret codes from the kremlin on it, so they need to hack it and take it down.

i don't know how i got into this surreal, absurd mess, but they don't seem to be operating on evidence, and it seems that my only choice is to try to ignore them. 

so, that's my night (eating and sleeping) and my morning (reinstalling). i need to call the doctor soon, eat again and then get to getting on with it.

this is my seventh symphony, now inri058, which i spent about five months on in mid-2002, at the start of my first stint through hormone therapy, in between multiple moves and at the start of somewhat of a crisis in my academic identity, as i closed down my second year in the pure math program with the conclusion that i wanted out of it. in all of it's incarnations, this is a confusing, dark, demented piece of music, which is of course how i like it, and a reflection of the shift in existence that i was going through at the time.

i think this was a little much for sean to process. his reaction was to decide it should be reworked for my own projects, which it then was. but, i mean....i gave him a ridiculous 25 minute masterpiece and he asked for a three minute radio song, instead. it didn't end quite there, but it was somewhere around this point that i decided i couldn't be fucking bothered anymore.

this track actually has two reworks, in the end - the cynicide version (inri048) that best represents it's initial construction as a cynicide collaboration piece and the ftaa version (inri058), which is how it eventually ends up in the end, after going through rabit is wolf on it's way there.

so, this is the biggest, most developed thing that came out of that period, and forms the template of what i would do for the next several years, moving forwards, as it pulls together all of the various disparate influences and concepts into the format of a sprawling, morphing, roughly half hour epic.

===

there are a few ideas in my discography that i've explored from multiple angles, but nothing else at all like this track, which has been through multiple complete rethinks involving multiple people over the course of sixteen years. as the revisions are so diverse, i think that a comprehensive collection of interpretations is a proper entry within my discography. 

in the end, this emerges as my seventh symphony. 

the collection is to be arranged chronologically in four discs consisting of two 2xcd sets, with the first two discs consisting of mixes that were meant for inclusion in band projects and the third and fourth consisting of mixes that were created after the track was moved into my own various one-person projects. further discussions of the various incarnations of the tracks appear on the track pages. 

written over 2001 and 2002 and rethought repeatedly between 2002-2014, with no clear resolution in a final mix. reconstructed from source in late 2014 and then rendered at multiple stages to create a series of snapshots. final mixes were completed over the last week of november and the first week of december. released as a two-volume set on dec 7, 2014. the concept was rethought on nov 3, 2017, which led to the inclusion of five more mixes and an expansion to four cds. re-released in four volumes & finalized as symph007 on nov 12, 2017. the raw guitar mix was corrected on jan 6, 2018. as always, please use headphones. 

the album version of the track (track 13), reconstructed in 2014, appears on my seventh record, ftaa (inri079): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa 

the 2002 vocal mix appears on the rabit is wolf demo (inri057): 

jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-is-wolf 

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2017). 

released july 4, 2002 

j - guitars (electric, acoustic, classical), bass, synthesizers, drum programming, orchestral sequencing (12), drum manipulation, vocal manipulation, voice (9), live & digital effects processing, digital wave editing, loops, equalizers, soundscaping, sampling, composition, production, cover art 

sean - vocals/lyrics (2,5,7), ring modulator (7-9, 11, 13-14, 16) 

greg - drum performance sample source (4, 6-9, 11, 13) 

bob - hammering (3) 

the rendered electronic orchestra on track 12 includes tuba, saxophone, flute, clarinet, orchestra hit, piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections.