But, for everything that seems to have gone wrong this year, one thing did go very, very right. That was my collaboration with Pumpkinrot on his short film entitled SWAMP FOETUS.

My secretive friend and his wife labored away on this thing for about nine months, building props, sets and characters, shooting (and re-shooting) scenes, editing, and finally sending a rough cut of the film to me for scoring a couple of months ago. I was completely unprepared for the spectacle that unfolded as I watched the early, incomplete edits of the film. I was so blown away, in fact, that it kicked me right into one of those “the music is writing itself” modes and everything fell right into place fairly quickly. Before I knew it I was sending rough tracks back to him and the final editing process began, with ‘Rot sending me updated versions of the film and me sending back tweaked and remixed versions of the score. A few versions later, we had a finished product.

The completed film was unveiled on Pumpkinrot’s site on the morning of Halloween as a nice little gift to his readers (link below). Here’s an MP3 version of the score:

Swamp Foetus Theme by VüFT

If you’d like to watch the film and read a bit more about it, you can see it at Pumpkinrot’s blog.

 
My skull stash…

Six down, nine to go…

This is what I see when I pull into my garage now. Kinda feels like it’s offering to wash my windshield for me.

I think it’s going to be a good Halloween.

Cheers!

I’m feeling a great sense of accomplishment today. Last night I sorted out an aspect of my MIDI/synth adventures that I’d been avoiding: sysex.

Sysex is short for “System Exclusive” and basically refers to the language spoken by a given synthesizer or other MIDI device. It allows communication with that device. In my case, I was trying to take some cool sounds created by other people on the web and import them into my machine–a Korg MS2000R–so I could play around with them.

With relatively little research, some menu diving, and some trial and error, I managed to get my PC talking to the Korg and got the sounds loaded up in about an hour. Not only that, but now I understand how to save sounds that I create on the Korg to an external file so I can hang on to them or share them with other people.

A small but important victory in my quest to master the machines.

I should mention a couple of helpful websites that made figuring this out a lot easier:

The Korg Forum (scroll down to find the MS2000)

This discussion thread on Gearslutz about the MS2000

This page full of apps designed specifically to support the MS2000

If you find this post because you’re searching for help with your Korg MS2000(R/B/etc.) those are good places to get started. Good luck.

God of the Wires by VüFT

I want to share with you an amazing website that I’ve been visiting for a few years now: The Freesound Project. If you’re into audio recording and have some kind of studio at home–be it a laptop with Garage Band loaded or a full-blown ProTools studio–Freesound offers you a huge library of sounds to incorporate into your projects. Anything from bird sounds, mechanical toys, synthesized ambient samples, street sounds, to a variety of sampled instruments.

As the name suggests, the sounds available on the site are free. In fact, the only thing you’re required to give in return is credit where it’s due. The sounds are provided under a Creative Commons license which enables you to use them for any non-commercial purpose as long as you note the name of the sample used and the person who provided it.

Speaking from experience, there is some really good quality stuff on the site. The Freesound community, by and large, takes pride in providing high-quality, low noise recordings. Contributors will often share which equipment was used to capture or create the sound they’ve posted, which can be helpful both from a production standpoint and in terms of learning how to get good recordings yourself. Another interesting thing about that is seeing how some people use really expensive gear to create samples, while others use fairly inexpensive or even improvised gear to yield impressive results.

I’m a member of Freesound myself, so if you happen to visit you can find my humble contributions under the  user name last echo.

Moving fast, having the confidence to keep only your best ideas and the discipline to push them forward. He makes it sound so simple…

Thanks to my pal Krista for letting me know about this article.

i stretched a thin love until it snapped
it sinks like an anchor in black water
trailing a broken chain

.

.

(Note: this is something I posted back on the old blog. Always sort of liked it so I thought I’d go back for it.)

A Moment of Silence Is All We Can Bear by VüFT

Update: I’ve changed the Soundcloud settings so you can download the MP3.

“Heapsong1″ was a successful experiment in crowd-sourced creativity. Imogen provided some basic guidelines and invited contributions to what would become the first song of her newest album. The response was huge and it was a big success. I even contributed a couple of things. None were selected, but that’s beside the point; the important thing, for me, was what I learned from the experience.

Along the way, Imogen held a series of interactive video sessions to give updates on progress, field questions, and offer folks a look at the inner workings of her songwriting process. Among the many things I learned from watching this song unfold was the importance of knowing when to let go of an idea. I’d always known that but seeing someone actually do it really helped give a sense of what it means in practice.

To give you an example, there was a section called the “middle eight” that was originally intended to be an instrumental solo. Fans were asked to contribute eight-measure solos on the instrument of their choice. The results were amazing–just some brilliant stuff. Unfortunately, the entire section was eventually dropped. The reason? Midway through the song, Imogen realized that section just didn’t work. Things had evolved to the point where what was needed was a little breathing room rather than a solo. So, despite all the amazing work of the contributors, all the logistics of collecting, listening, choosing, editing and mixing, despite the potential for hurt feelings, the middle eight solos were cut. Not an easy decision but clearly the right one. The end result speaks for itself.

I think the willingness and ability to make a decision like that is essential. It’s a matter of discipline and, ultimately, of confidence. If you’re hanging on to something longer than you should, it’s as if you’re saying you don’t believe you can do better, isn’t it?

You can listen to it here: Me, Myself, and Muse.

It’s a really interesting idea–the notion that creativity is an external force that can be bargained with, enticed, cajoled, persuaded, and even scolded. Not a new idea, I realize, but one that I hadn’t considered seriously before hearing this show. I have to admit that, since then, I’ve started to experiment with it a bit, and while it feels a little weird there is a glimmer of something there. There hasn’t been a dramatic rush of inspiration (or even a discernable whisper) but something feels natural about it. I could see myself making it a habit.

Could be I’m just nuts.

I’m curious to hear what you have to say on the subject.

Enjoy.