For the last four years I was confused. I wasn’t really sure if I was a producer or a DJ. Now, while there is definitely some overlap and many excellent artists have successfully done both, I felt like I was spending my time with one foot in both areas and not making a ton of progress in either. It was also getting expensive and I felt my workflow was getting more and more unwieldy. All that’s changed now. Interestingly enough, I have the fact that my mass storage disk exploded a while back and an unnecessary, costly purchase to thank for it.

You see, after I lost damn near everything I had to sit down and think about how I would recover. Being the engineer type I considered it an exercise in requirements gathering. What did I lose that was essential? How quickly did I want to have certain capabilities back? What would my new information architecture look like? I actually sketched all this out on a notepad that I kept updating and tweaking over the course of a couple days. (I should note that a home server with a RAID-5 array was part of the solution.)

Also right around the time my disk self-destructed I had my Pacemaker arrive. With serial number five (yep, #0005) you can probably tell I was pretty interested in this thing. And I certainly was. Ironically this post started out before my disk crashed as a post about what a fantastically cool device it was. I mean, sure it was $750 bucks, but still, pretty cool. There was definitely a learning curve involved with this device and it takes a fair bit of skill but I was confident that with some time I’d have it down.

But while I was spec’ing out my “brave new world” of computing something happened. I realized that DJing itself wasn’t really what I liked. What I liked was live performance with sampling. At that moment everything kind of snapped into place and I realized the reason I was constantly fighting with the ideas behind what “DJing” meant to me was I actually wasn’t trying to really DJ in the true sense of it and in fact didn’t want to DJ. I wanted to produce! It might sound funny or odd that it took me this long to realize that simple fact, but there you have it.

I still want to perform live in the future, it would just be a different kind of show. Truth be told, one of the great things about using Ableton Live as your main DAW is that you can perform out in a way that’s strikingly similar to how you produce in the studio. That’s one of the things I love about it and I definitely want to try and keep my workflow as loose and creative as possible to encourage that mindset.

So as I rebuilt my main audio workstation I kept all this in mind and streamlined my processes and even my gear setup. I returned the Pacemaker (somewhat sadly I must admit) and decided that the money I would have spent on it would be better suited to saving up for a new keyboard or possibly a guitar. I have to say now that I’ve done all this I am feeling less burdened and more creative. It’s funny how a change in mindset can affect so much.

I’ll have something cool for people to listen to here by the end of the weekend hopefully!

I’ve discussed my love of rock music in the Spring, and while that still holds true that’s not what I’m taking about now. Unfortunately Spring always seems to be one of the busier seasons as well. Not necessarily at work; work is just always full-tilt so it’s hard to say one season is particularly busier than another. It’s with everything else going on. Weddings, graduations, festivals and such. A good time of the year to be sure, but pretty draining.

That’s a big part of the reason I haven’t posted here lately. It’s been on my mind and in fact I’ve had plenty to say; just not enough time. Between the crazy deadlines at work, serving as a judge for the MSU Engineering Design Day competition again, various social engagements and homeowner responsibilities it’s been tough to scrape together much time for myself.

April has completely evaporated and May looks to be even worse. My sister is graduating and then needs help moving from East Lansing. I have several friends getting married not to mention the various parties that are associated with each. Then there will be my weekend of personal enjoyment, aka DEMF (note the countdown to the right). The lineup looks killer this year and I fully plan on spending all three days down in Hart Plaza.

But despite being so busy things are good. The trees are getting green and birds are chirping. The last few days have been a bit cold for my taste, but honestly this is a great time to be in Michigan. Actually, all the weather in Michigan that isn’t January-March is pretty awesome in my opinion.

I’ll have another post soon about some of the cool stuff I’m working on from a musical perspective.

I know I’ve been bad lately and haven’t posted much. Sorry, I’ll explain that later tonight in a different posting. This one is just to say that this song that I found on Pandora is one of my new favorite tracks. Beautiful vocals and great musical structure to the song itself.

Great stuff huh? Makes me even consider getting voice lessons myself; vocals can go along way to making a good bit of music great. Well, even if I don’t go that route I think I’ll definitely consider putting up an add looking for a female vocalist looking to do some collaboration.

Last night Paul did me a huge favor by coming over and helping me beat SSE. Prior to this playing that mode (for me) was basically like pulling teeth. It wasn’t that it was too hard or anything, I just didn’t think it was that fun. It was long, felt awkward at times and generally didn’t feel that fun.

But co-op changes everything and this is a great example. While a few things were still frustrating Paul and I were able to power through the last 60% of the game and I really enjoyed it. Of course, the joking around and wackiness was the most enjoyable part, but the game itself became much more entertaining as well. It almost felt as if it was designed to be played with two players from the start.

As Paul mentioned we coined the phrase “binch” which basically means “to pinch a bitch” or vice versa. Much binching was had. I don’t even know how that word was invented, but there you go. Put it in the Urban Dictionary or whatever.

I’m mostly just glad we unlocked a bunch of characters.. I feel like all that stress of having to beat SSE is gone and now I can actually play the part of the game I like.

I’ve had a back and forth relationship with coffee, at least in the morning. I’m a big coffee fan, but I can’t say I’ve ever been one of those people who immediately drink coffee when they get up. More often than not I’d have coffee in the evening, either as something of a perk-me-up when I was in college for those late night coding sessions or just after dinner to relax.

These days though you’re more likely to spot me at work with my blue stoneware mug hovering near the kitchen looking, shall we say, sunken eyed.

I can’t say for sure when the change came, but lately I’m definitely interested in having a couple cups (two creams one sugar, thanks) when I get to work in the morning. Not super early (it tends to bother my stomach) but let us say 9:30 and 10:30 could both be considered coffee o’clock.

Doesn’t really seem to wake me up much, it’s just kind of pleasant I guess. Maybe I’m just further satisfying the social roles placed on me, the high-tech office worker.

So far the early part of Spring here in Detroit has been somewhat interesting. It warmed up, and then promptly decided to drop 10 inches of snow a couple days later. Well, the snow is gone now and the sun is even starting to make a few appearances.

And while it’s 50 (a heatwave compared to how it was just a couple weeks ago) I still want more. This little preview of full blown Spring and Summer has got me impatient for long days, shorts and patio furniture. Still even this is great. We’re past those 3-4 months of weather suck and on to the truly great weather that we can have here in Michigan. Sure the summers might be a little sticky, but then again at least it’s not Houston. (Sorry Andy.)

I’m really not a morning person. I’m embracing this fact more and more lately. For a long while when I was traveling so regularly I had to get up often at 5 AM, and sometimes quite a bit earlier. I have no doubt this was a big part of the reason I was so unhappy. That job probably would have been a lot better if I could have worked on my own schedule (which is to say quite late).

Things are lightening up a bit at work thankfully. Actually I should just say that I’m nailing down some deliverables, so it’s all good. I’m glad too, since I ended up working a fair bit this weekend.

On the home front I’m getting my digital life back in order thankfully. I’m not really entirely set back up yet, but it’s getting there. I still need to install all my music software still actually. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow after Aikido.