stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (vst mix) (final)

those alternate tunings were more of a problem than i realized, as they cut out one of the guitar sections. i thought the guitar seemed quiet, but thought it was just a function of the technology.

the sampler i'm using to convert midi notes to guitar sounds will simply not allow shapes that can't be played on a guitar in standard tuning. it will allow you to lower the bottom string down to c, which opened up enough space in my case to get the chords out, but that won't allow for really impossible chord combinations. strangely, lowering the range fixed it because it also seems to try and automatically invert chords so they fit on the fretboard.....! i suppose that might be useful to a keyboard player that doesn't know guitars so well, but it's actually horrific for a guitarist that fully realizes what they're doing when they're typing up the notes.

so, i got the inversions to stop and all the notes to come out, so that will update via rss. well, hopefully that's the last version.

the one thing i can't get is this chord in the transition from the bass solo to the post-jazz section. i'm talking about this pesky A#. i could always create a new track and resequence it. yeah. i should do that, actually. good thing i didn't upload yet. but the chord is F-A#-C, from low to high. this is impossible to play on a guitar in standard tuning. the solution is to tune the D string down to a C, making an easy chord to fret. simple. but, the computer is instead just dropping the A# altogether...

that's good to know for future reference.

written late 2000 & early 2001. initially rendered mar 7, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on april 29, 2014. re-rendered again on may 3, 2014 to allow for audible acoustic guitars, after a rewrite to allow the computer to play in an alternate tuning.

it was vindication, if unfortunate, walking to the front entrance today and getting a rush of hot air from upstairs. you know when you come in from outside and can feel the heat rushing at you? it was like that. except i was walking from a basement to a main floor, and feeling the heat coming from behind a closed door and *down* a flight of stairs. and it's 13, not -20. and it's electric radiator heat, too. indicating that it was just right cranked. no doubt to fight the air conditioning on the main floor. i've mostly avoided raising it past 21, which has mostly kept it off. i'm not likely to crank it more than 22 more than a few hours at a time. so, somebody else is more irritated than i am by this unseasonable air conditioning...

i slept through most of the afternoon; a hot shower warmed me up nicely and then knocked me out cold. but it does seem as though it was on again a little after 4:00. i'm still feeling it a bit...

that's another possible answer, for the short term, that i can accommodate better than my neighbours. if he's going to turn the air up in the afternoon and leave it off overnight, i can sleep in the afternoon and stay awake overnight.

there's a bunch of reasons i don't really want to crank it. the rent is low here. i'd rather wear a sweater than see a rent increase, but it's within reason - what's a piss off is how unreasonable setting the air to below 20 is. which i think is the real reason i'm concerned, rather than the actual temperature. that, i can deal with. but if we get into this a/c v radiator fight, it's going to fuck the landlord and that's going to fuck us. electric heating is also quite dry. and the truth is that i like it a little cool. it's one of the reasons i like basements.

we might finally get a real warm up next week, but it looks sketchy.

i'd normally go talk to the guy, but it's not a situation where we're legal under the law. tenant law is badly skewed towards family members. if it's intended to intimidate non-family members, it's worked. i have to be careful to not get into conflict with them and more or less resign myself to his right to have the air as he wants it.

see, the flip side is i have the right to get the heat up. and the lease is the lease, regarding rent costs. there was a verbal agreement to keep the rent static. i think that endows me with a responsibility to try to minimize heating costs. the day i get a rent increase, that's out the window. but, for now i'd like to try and stick to it.

it's just...it all revolves around being reasonable. and the actual owner is reasonable. but i don't feel like i'm getting that from his brother upstairs.

i mean, it's hard to compute the idea that he doesn't realize turning the air on in an unseasonably cold early may and late april is unreasonable. this has to be "i don't fucking care". and it can't really be something that an explanation can resolve.

wonder how successful a claim that current tenant law is unconstitutional would be. it's clearly discriminatory; not clearly enumerated, but perhaps analogous. see, it pits s. 15 rights directly against "property rights", which are in quotes because there is actually no legal recognition of property rights in canada, despite the idea being thrown around by various types of liberals. i mean, there's contract law. sure. but it's not at all the same thing. i would *hope* that s. 15 would trump these imaginary "property rights". but that's up to the judge...

i'd be skeptical. but it would be an interesting case that would bring to light a lot of interesting questions. or, at least it would if i was orchestrating it.

this is the east-european superstate (centered in warsaw) that is in the process of being reformed for the purposes of swallowing up western/european russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Lithuanian_Commonwealth

"in soviet russia, poland invade you"

seriously, though. this is what's coming.

i think this is worth watching for a more subtle analysis from some wiser people. it always makes me laugh when i see some 30-something associate prof think he can use his greater understanding of the modern world to overturn decades of experience. it's the wide-eyed naivete that the older folks have grown beyond; you can call them cynical, but realize it's largely synonymous with being wise when the topic is geopolitics. matlock's statement that (maaaaaaatlooooooock. ok. sorry.) he's talking about reality, not human rights, was really refreshing. so, just shut up and listen...

al jazeera has it's own biases, but i'm finding the analysis (if not the actual coverage) to be coming from enough of a spectator position to only be mildly pro-western. it's more ideological than hierarchical. that objectivity is not universal on the channel, but it's nice in this conflict. while it lasts, anyways.

but even the greater wisdom in understanding here isn't really getting to the mindfuck that we're entering the end stages of this conflict, notwithstanding the russians unveiling some secret weapon or coming clean on their alliance with the intergalactic space empire (i still claim they would have contacted the communists and not the capitalists) or something. the section on russia joining europe is sort of getting it, but only accidentally.

if anything has changed, it's that the go-for-the-jugular strategy of the current administration is just too outlandishly aggressive for them to really get their heads around. they get the context better, but they're having trouble moving from this idea of balancing alliances that was dominant from bismarck to kissinger (the space of their entire professional lives) and getting into the new neo-con reality that clinton bombed into existence...

they don't just want nato bases in kiev. they want nato bases in moscow, too.