Dirty Rooster

It's funny how different our prespectives are on the same things.
Maybe not. I'm so sleep deprived right now that I have no idea what I'm doing.

The doctors told us that we would have the baby last Wednesday. I've been on high alert for 6 days. Everytime I lay down to sleep my adrenaline pumps and my mind races. I stare at the ceiling for hours. M can't sleep because of her contractions.
guh...

Our daughter had her last day of daycare. The kids all did a little Christmas musical. Now she sings this song to herself all the time, but gets the words wrong. Yesterday I heard her say, "Baby Jesus in the manger, see him sleeping on the hay. Mary hugs a dirty rooster, see the baby run away."
That was cute. Since I've been reprogramed as a social worker every thing that I see is colored with a sort of welfare/human services tint. When I think about Christmas all I see is a teen pregnancy, the mom and dad in trouble with the authorites, and a kid being born in a cold dump surrounded by horse shit. I guess it is a little more profound than the crap on the Limetime channel. Do you think that those regal wise men really knelt down in manure next to a bunch of blue collar sheep herders? Damn I'm tired. Actually I really like my grunge revision of the nativity scene, it's much more punk rock, but not as marketable.
I do have one question about the angels that were seranading. Are these the same angels that make your face melt if you look at them? Cause, wouldn't that be really terrifying?
Christopher Walken was a pretty cool angel in that movie Prophecy. Eric Stoltz, not as much.

It's starting to look more and more like me and M are going to have a Christmas baby. So... yeah, Christmas.

Software Synthesizers

never mind all of this.

The only soft synths worth my attention are the Omnisphere and Alchemy.

(actually I own Absynth and it rules)

The fourier re-synthesizing of Alchemy blows my mind.

And the 'Steam Engine' of Omnisphere picks up my scrammbled brains and shoves them back into my skull.

I know there are a lot of quality virtual analogs out there, 

but I'm just feeling pretty played-out on that whole va sound.

There just needs to be new ideas in synth architecture!

Actually the Arturia Origin seems pretty friggin cool as far as originality goes.

hmm...origin-ality. 

If they could make additive, granular, and wavetable oscillator modules I would be all over them.  

I also wouldn't mind some good Oberheim and Prophet filter emulations... 

maybe even a formant filter... hell, an FS1R model while I'm at it.

Could you imagine Frankenstiening all those modules together?!?!?!?

It'll never happen though, Arturia is all about analog emulations.

I should make my own synth. It would totally be a keytar!!!

Additive, granular, and wavetable (true wavetable) is the way to go.

Actually the FM synthesis of the FS1R is still pretty friggin cool in my book, 

8 freq operators and 8 formant operators?!?!? Can you even believe it!

I'm in love

okay... I'm trying to catch my breath here.

My heart is pounding in my chest.

My family is asleep and I need to share my excitement with someone.

So here I am pouring myself out to the cold faceless interweb.

I was playing my Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer and I came across a ram patch called

"Choir Bells"

I held a simple C chord...

It was a nice angelic pad.

As the LFO swept through the wavetables I could hear droplets of rain like they were resonating wine goblets in a random and yet divine unearthly unity.

I just sat there holding that chord for about ten minutes.

It was ten minutes of bliss... pure untainted beauty just for me.

Presence Process session 6 & 7

Uhg, what can I say about these sessions?

It was brutal.

This description is going to sound cheesy and new age.

Just bear with me, I have an open mind, but I'm not Shirley McClain or Tom Cruise. 

Session 6 focused on ... finally resolving past issues.

Session 7 focused on feeling secure while dealing with really insecure things.

Sometimes I would remember a mistake I made or something embarrassing that I said or did and I would beat myself up about it.  My reaction was to do what ever I could to sedate the feeling, distract myself, whatever, anything but deal with it.

The session seven tries to trigger even the most deeply buried junk from our emotional history.

This is important because the unresolved issues in our past are the basis for our reflex/reactions in the present.  

The training involves a change of perspective towards yourself.  If a good buddy came to you bummed about something stupid they did in the past would you punch him in the gut and call him names?  I wouldn't, I would try to be a good friend and console the poor dude.  But, why don't I treat myself with the same compassion when I recall a past upset?

Don't judge your pain, 

just listen to it, 

feel it, 

and deal with it.

So here's where it gets weird.  

Each day I would sit in a tub of warm water for 20 minutes.  

My ears were submerged  and everything sounded funny.  

I closed my eyes and remained as still as possible.  

The idea is that in our hyper-culture we are constantly bombarded with sensory stimulus.  

It is hard to experience the peace required to listen.  

So this is a little like sensory deprivation/womb simulation... that's the weird part.  

The difficult part is that what is triggered is not cognitive memory information, but pure emotional memory without any personal historical context.  

It is like taking an emotional shit, a very dull agony.  

But this is what it takes to remove the metaphorical splinter, a deep and infectious splinter that makes your flinch and get angry when people bumped it or tried to address it.

End of metaphor. 

Custom Keytar Midi Controller

Who ever wants to build this for me, I will pay handsomely.

It needs to have velocity and aftertouch on the lower keyboard.

The neck keyboard should be very flat, like buttons, but more than just a printed plastic film. The neck wouldn't have velocity, but still needs to have aftertouch. The pitchbend bar is raised for the option to put a thumb under it or palm down. It should be pretty stiff.

Any extra standard midi controller functions that I forgot can go on the back of the body.

I was thinking that there could be either different styles or just a removable blank matte cover plate that you could customize.

Kinda like some cell phones.

My style ideas are:

Euro-Future, Rusted Cyber-Blood

Gloom Sexy. London Garage

57 Cherry, Mahogany Pearl

Rhyme & Bass, Blue Soul

Black Tie, Video Killed the Radio Star

There should be a contest for who can come up with the coolest designs based on these names.

Presence Process Week 4 and 5

THE SYNTHESIS OF OLD AND NEW

Okay, I've been pretty preoccupied with the acquisition of new synth gear so I haven't posted in a while.

btw, the difference between reacting and responding is important in these sessions.

Reaction is an unconscious reflex and responding is a calculated choice.

Week 4 was about being one with your pain and discomfort.

The idea is that pain and discomfort are not inherently bad, but we react with judgement towards our pain and discomfort.

Our P&D are merely messengers.

Our reaction is to sedate and control our P&D.

If we shoot the messenger we might be spared of unpleasant news but it is probably news that we need to hear.

If we have a physical injury, getting mad at it might have some negative affects on your recovery.  I haven't done any research on the impact of stress on the human body but my doctor tells me that it's bad.

Week 4 focused more in terms of physical discomfort and week 5 was more about emotional discomfort; shame, disappointment, impatience, etc.

Week 5 was about changing our reaction to P&D to responding to it the way we would respond to some one else that was hurting.  

I don't know about you but when some one I care about is hurting I try to be compassionate, but when it is myself I tend to beat myself up about it.

So this week a lot of things from my past popped up.  Things that I was embarrassed about.  When I would recall these things I would usually get upset and try to think about something else.  

The problem is that past traumas effect our present life, decisions we make and how we react to people.

So this time I received these resurgent memories and talked myself down as if I were talking to a friend that was dealing with their own issue.

In this case I was counseling my younger self.  Yes, that's weird, but people are weird.  

As a result I was finally able to put some old ghosts to rest and they won't have any influence on my present relationships or my self image.

The whole thing is very weird, it's like re-experiencing something familiar in a strange foreign way. 

Jam the Vote