The One Year Thread Redux

[Rogue15]

uh oh.....u broke it. :cry:

 

ah i decided not to work tomorrow as 6 days=$80 of taxes, i mean....cmon that's like a day and a half worth of work! wtf, uncle sam?!

[edlib]

Death and taxes my friend... the 2 things that you cannot escape, and yet hurt the most.

 

2/12/05

 

Dull day.

The ducks seem to be tiring of the accomodations I provide, or perhaps the view; there were far fewer today than yesterday, and they didn't hang around very long at all.

 

Wen't to the pet store to pick up a couple of cases of cat food. Really good sale, couldn't pass it up... and now I shouldn't have to buy cat food for several months if I'm lucky.

 

Stopped at the used CD shop while I was in town. Picked up several disks that were in the extreme bargan bins:

 

XTC - Skylarking

Jeff Beck and the Big Town Playboys - Crazy Legs

Jeff Beck and the Jan Hammer Group - Live

Ten Years After - Essential

Supertramp - Classics Volume 9

Glenn Frey - The Allnighter

 

A couple of these disks I've been wanting for a while... and the others I grabbed because they looked interesting and were so cheap.

 

I also walked into the local art store on my way back to my car. I haven't bought any art supplies in a long, long time... but I have found myself doodling and sketching a lot more often lately than in the last couple of years, so I went in to check it out. I was pretty overwhelmed with all the choices... so I quickly grabbed an "All-In-One" beginner's pack and got the hell out of there before I went nuts, or ended up buying out the whole store,.. or both.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it... perhaps I should take another drawing class to get back into the swing of things and heat up the inspiration. It's been pretty much since high-school since I've done any formal drawing or painting.

 

Bought a bunch of Chinese food on the way back home. Dropped a bundle on it... but at least I can live on leftovers for the rest of the weekend. Thinking of having some more right now...

 

Getting take-out gave me the oppertunity to clean my stove since I wasn't using it. It was weeks overdue... and I had to take it apart and let some of the parts soak before I could hope to make a dent on some of the built-up, burned-in crud.

[Rogue15]

I went out and bought Jump to Lightspeed expansion pack to Galaxies....it's pretty cool, comes a little close to xwa, but not quite. Should be interesting to get into some big pvp space battles....

 

I'm worried about my future.....it seems as if i'm stuck living w/my parents forever. It's not that i don't like living here...i just feel like i need to get out, but cost of living is so frikken expensive, might as well take a bullet to the head, paying just to be able to live miserably.....and taxy on top of that. agh. maybe i should just get married and join the army full-time, that way i get a house and don't have to pay for it. any girls out there wanna marry me?

 

*silence*

 

 

didn't think so.

 

[edlib]

After High School I was a little directionless too,.. working a lot of dead-end, go-nowhere jobs I really didn't like, living with my mom, with lots of car and money problems just like you. I spent almost as much time collecting unemployment as I actually did working.

 

I started turning it all around the day I sat down and wrote down all the goals I had for myself, no matter how unrealistic they seemed at the time.

 

I wrote down the goals I had for:

 

Today

Tomorrow

The rest of the week

The rest of this month

Next month

The next 6 months

The rest of the year

Next year

The next 5 years

The next decade

And after that

 

Seeing what I really wanted to do down on paper helped me make better choices towards my future, accept sacrifices I needed to make in the short and long term, and just generally gave me a sense of direction.

Most of my goals were towards going to college and earning money in the music business, then having a decent car and owning my own house. Well, I did manage to accomplish all of that. I had a lot of people telling me that I shouldn't go the route of a music career, but choose something boring, but safe and secure. At the time I figured "Hey! The worst thing I can do is to fail at it... in which case I'll be back to exactly to point that I am at RIGHT NOW! So why not give it a shot?"

 

I'm not sure what you'd ultimately like to do with your life. Let's say your dream is to be a game designer.... all the goals on your list should be geared around achieving that aim. Do some research as to what you need to know to get to that point: What education you would need to be able to do that; how to get financial aid to go to the places that teach that sort of thing; what companies that you might want to work for, etc...

 

That way, when you are working a lousy temp job you are not thinking to yourself, "This sucks! Am I going to be doing this for the rest of my life?!??" but rather, "I'm 75% of the way to earning enough to go to school for 2 semesters!"

 

That attitude towards things can make all the difference. If you are striving and working TOWARDS something, you can put up with almost anything without getting depressed.

 

For about 6 months before I started college I worked 2 of the lousiest jobs I ever had, back-to-back at the same time, 16 hours a day. I was sleeping about 4 hours a day, from 9 in the morning until about 1 pm.

 

I had no social life during that time, I was always tired, I never saw the sun, except out the window,... but I earned enough for tuition and books for the first year of school. But being that busy meant that I couldn't spend much money either... so every penny I earned got saved. I often walked to work instead of taking the bus or driving to save even that much more.

 

I exhausted all the financial aid possibilities I could find after that, since once I was in school it was a lot easier finding info on grants, loans, and scholarships and applying for them. I got a student work-study job on campus, and then made as many contacts as I could to find additional work off campus to help support myself while I was there.

 

So my advice is to sit down and figure out what you would really like to do... your ultimate dream job. Then figure out exactly what you would need to do to get there. Write it all down and update the list as you go. Let everyone around you know what your plans are and that you will not be swayed from it, and that they can either help you, or at the very least stay out of your way. My parents and friends were as helpful as they could be once they saw I was determined to get ahead.

[Nitro]

I might have to try that with my filmmaking... Gotta get out of debt first, though.

 

In the meantime, enjoy: http://db.playego.com.br/orafiles/01122005120941567g.swf

[Rogue15]

yeah i did that last year. :\ w/the compy classes/army/pizza hut. i came very close to it all working out too:

 

I wanted to go to an ROTC college and be an officer.

 

 

and i am mad at myself for not passing bct. =\ but then, i go and look on the bright side of it, and i definetely would be in iraq right now, so i guess it's not too bad. maybe i'm just not letting myself think clearly. I'll have to do that next month, since im also in a tiny bit of debt (car repairs=fun)....

 

I'm considering doing a restart, seeing if i can't get back into the reserves again, going to rotc school and becoming an officer like originally planned.......so i am kinda working on my running, since that was the major thing i failed in, as when i was at basic my run went from 2 miles in 17 mins to 2 miles in 2 minutes, that was pretty ****ty. i know i could've done much better without the stupid sinus infections wearing me down.

[edlib]

@ Nitro:

 

Yeeeeeah,... uh... so anyways...

 

 

The plan does seem to work. I still do it all the time with things I know need to get done, but I don't really want to do.

 

I learned to do this from a guy I knew when I was younger. He always seemed pretty sucessful in everything he did. There seems to be something about having everything on paper that helps you formulate your plans in a way that just thinking about them really doesn't. I think, if nothing else writing stuff down feels like working in itself: It feels like the first step. And once you take the very first step towards something, it's all that much eaiser to take the second step. Once you feel like you are doing something towards an end goal it makes the rest of it seem more possible.

 

 

EDIT:

 

2/13/05

 

Spent the day at a co-worker's baby shower. Yeah, you read that right.

She's originally from Hawaii, and all her family and childhood friends are still back there, so the only women she knows around here who could throw her a shower are her husband's family. So her husband e-mailed all of us that work in the department, including all her male co-workers. It was a little weird, a little different... but it was a pretty good time. Her husband is a drum teacher at the college, so I already knew him (and I get along with him pretty well... he's a really cool and funny guy,) so there was that connection... although there were only 3 other people I knew there, everybody else were in his family.

 

Everybody in my department chipped in and we collectively bought her one of the most expensive items in her registry, something that one person probably wouldn't have been able to get just on thier own.

 

Nice house, nice folks, good food. So a pretty good day, even if it did feel a bit strange to be a guy at a baby shower.

 

I just got off the phone with my dad. He turns seventy-five (that's 75!) tomorrow. My mom turns 75 herself in 2 days. Quite the milestone for both of them.

Makes me feel pretty good about the chances of my own longevity. My dad confessed to me that he really never expected to make it this far as most of the men in his family rarely made it much past 60. My grandfather died shortly after he turned 50.

It was a different era, I guess.

 

@ 15:

 

Well as long as you have a concrete plan laid out. Just try not to get too discouraged at setbacks. Just make a few course corrections and keep going.

 

Do you have a specific ROTC college picked out? If you don't then I think you should really nail it down to one specific one (with maybe a backup or 2) that you really want to attend if you can. That way you can get all the information on tutition, possible aid, and do some advanced research. Like getting a course listing, decide what you want (or need) to take, and getting the syllabi from those classes, and perhaps even doing some study in those subjects on your own, or taking classes at an el-cheapo community college for transfer credits.

If it's somewhere you can visit then go there. Perhaps you can talk to some of the teachers and proffessors at that college, explain your situation and goals, and ask for advice on what you could be doing in the meantime. If it's too far then try to contact them by e-mail.

Pick up some used copies of the books that you know that you are going to need for the classes you are going to take and go through them. Or see if any of them have the texts up on the web somewhere.

 

Try to find people at the college (or if it isn't local then in your area) that are going for the same thing you are and do physical training and/or study with them. Or find some former, (or perhaps even current) officers in your area and see if they can offer advice, tips, contacts, etc... you never know when you might run into someone who can offer a strong recommendation in your favor, or even pull a few strings for you.

 

Anything you can do to prepare yourself before you get there will simplify things for you, and show everyone just how serious you really are about it. The more serious you are about something, the more helpful people in the position to give you assistance you need seem to be. Academic people really respond to passion.

[Nitro]

I got Knights of the Old Republic II... Interesting game.

 

And other news, I put my Visa card in an ice cream bucket full or water then stowed it in the freezer. I'm almost $4000 in debt, and all but $700 is on that card, so I decided enough was enough.

 

Finally, despite my looming debt, I'm looking at replacing the pickups in my guitar. We play a lot of Black Sabbath, early Metallica, and other metal, but we do a lot of early punk stuff (old-school Offspring, Ramones, Pennywise), and classic rock (like Hendrix and Cream)... Any suggestions ed?

[edlib]

Seymour Duncan Alnico II's, JB's, or Classic 59's

 

Or Gibson 57 Classics, or one of thier signature models (Tony Iommi or Angus Young... whichever one you want to sound most like )

 

Gibson Pickups: http://www.gibsonstrings.com/pickups.html

Duncan pickups: http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/products/humbuckers.shtml

 

Stay away from EMGs and DiMarzios... they sound pretty ***METAL!!! DUDE!!!!*** and if you're looking for something more flexable and vintage sounding then that's really not the way to go.

 

I have the Gibson 57 classics in one of my Les Pauls and they sound great, but they might be a bit too sweet and low-gain for Sabbath covers. More Allman Brothers than Metallica.

 

I think the Duncan Alnico's are just about the best overall general humbucker out there right now. It's the pickup Slash used on the classic G&R albums.

 

2/14/05

 

Didn't post this last night as I fell asleep early (well... early for me.) I started dozing off watching the news, then made it as far as The Sipsons re-runs. At 8:00 pm I went to do a little reading, and by 9 I was sound asleep.

 

Big mistake.

 

I woke up again around 1am, and had the hardest time getting back to sleep after that. Was wide awake until almost 5, then stsrted to doze off again, although, knowing that I couldn't sleep very long at that point it wasn't a very good sleep.

 

Good thing I'm working late tonight.

 

I got another show with 5 different back-to-back bands. I'm really starting to get tired of this crap, but there's no end in sight. The next couple of shows that I'm working are the same, if not worse.

 

Plus now they are discussing about changing our pay structure... which on the surface sounds like a good deal... until you really think about it.

Right now my salary is calculated on a 35 hour week, Mon-Fri. If a college event gets booked on the weekend, or even a Friday night after 5:00pm, we currently get paid an extra fee. There are never that many weekend or Friday shows, so it's never really a problem.

Now they are talking about bumping me up to a 40-hour, 7-day base salary. This will mean a somewhat substantial increase in my yearly base salary, which isn't a bad thing,.. but I would have to work Friday nights, all day Sat. and Sun. as part of my regular salary.

I'm none to thrilled about that prospect.

If the college managed to keep the amount of these shows down to the current number, then it wouldn't be too bad. It might actually work out to be in my favor. But I very much suspect that this is a precursor to starting to add more shows where there never were any because they know we now wouldn't be able to charge them additional fees for them.

As it is we have new Friday-night shows pretty much for the rest of the semester now. Shows that were never on the calendar in the past.

The big problem is that I'm the only guy who works there on the staff who is unmarried and with no kids. The other guys are going to want thier weekends off to spend with thier families, especially if they aren't going to get an additional fee for showing up now, which was always a big incentive in the past. Which means I'll probably never have another weekend off after this change takes effect. However, adding stuff on the weekends doesn't mean that any of my weekday responsibilites are going away... so I don't know when I'm going to get any time off once we get really busy.

 

I've got a bad feeling about this...

[Rogue15]

lol the damn forums went offline so it's excusable. XD

 

well.my hard work has finally caught up w/me......been opening boxes w/a crowbar every day this week, now i've got a sore neck.....hello mr tylenol!

 

I've my eye on this girl at work, eh i might ask her out, which would be a first for me.....since this is like the 4th girl i've had a crush on, the other 3 i just let slip by.

[edlib]

Am I the only one keeping this thread alive at this point?

(EDIT: Heh heh... you beat me to it 15! @ me!)

 

2/15/05

 

The 5-band show we did last night went OK. The last band was a little snotty... they all seemed to be on a bit of a star-trip, and gave a lot of attitude like they were the headliners and the others were just opening for them (although all the bands were billed equally,) so they should call all the shots about how things were laid-out, and the settings for the monitors. They were also the loudest and hardest to mix. Some people just don't get it, but I wasn't in the mood last night to try to teach them nicely, so I pretty much said "Yeah, whatever,..." ignored most of thier demands and treated them exactly the way I treated the rest of the bands, all of whom were pretty cool about the situation.

[Rogue15]

ah well.just my luck...of course, girl no longer works at the place. now it's either my imagination or i keep catching this other girl staring at me. i'm just gonna ignore it.

 

oh, another thing....my old supervisor is an MP in the army reserves at Gettysburg..and he's gonna get me some info and contacts so i can possibly get in the same unit. that would be cool. (i originally wanted to be an MP, but my damn recruiter said 'oh that mos is frozen for reserves' eh she said something like that.) I was mad at myself when i did get to basic and saw a bunch of mps, and reaquainted myself w/one of my friends that i didn't even KNOW enlisted.

[Nute Gunray]

I tell ya what. Dames, who needs 'em.

[edlib]

I do... send me the ones you don't want.

 

2/16/05

 

More o' the same. Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda...

 

Had meetings all day at work. Joy of joys.

 

Pretty much resolved the issue with our new pay structure...

 

In not so many words: This is the way it is. If we don't like it, there's the door...

 

Hmmm...

 

There were promises made that there wouldn't be a lot of new additional shows getting added on the weekends,.. but I'll believe it when I don't see it.

 

At least I know I'm not the only one facing this,.. we are all in the same boat together.

[Keyan Farlander]

Yesterday I received the Vox Valvetronix amp that I ordered (yes, I decided to buy one). I played with it a little last night. It's very cool. Unfortunately, my main guitar is at the shop getting an adjustment, so I played on an old guitar. Still, it all sounded very nice. My favorite feature is probably the power switch in the back. You can set it to 1W, 15W, 30W, or 60W. That way, you can turn up the volume all the way to get the sound of the tube being driven to the max without having to play at a ridiculous volume. A friend came over and we jammed a little. I haven't tried my treble booster on it yet, so we'll see how that works out. There's a treble booster built in, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. The built in effects are generally very sweet, though. The 16 amps and 21 effects or whatever offer up a huge number of combinations.

 

The only thing I don't really like is that there is no way to set an exact value for the delay. I want to set it to, say, 754 ms. But all you can do is press a button once, then again to set the tempo. They delay effects are cool, but I need to be able to set an exact timing. I pretty much knew I needed to buy a seperate delay pedal anyway, because I really want a to get at least two digital delays, each of which is as strong as the original.

 

I was thinking about a Boss DD-20 Giga Delay. It seems like a very good pedal, but I can't figure out if it will let me get two delays like that. Anyone know?

[edlib]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "two digital delays, each of which is as strong as the original."

 

Do you mean 2 seperate delay lines, each at a seperate delay time, with seperate functions for feedback and regeneration... (This is called "Multi-Tap" it's the same as having multiple delay units connected to the same source.)

 

Or the same delay, where the first 2 echos come back at the same volume as the first. (This is usually a function of feedback... the amount of times the delayed sound returns before it starts to fade away.)

 

I think I know what you are going for... Brian May used to do these lines where the delay comes in after he's played 3 notes (at the 3rd) and starts to harmonize with himself. The second comes in at the 5th...

 

I'm not familiar with the pedal in question. It sounds like you want a fairly sophisticated delay unit though... looking at the specs I think that pedal will probably do it. Looks pretty cool.

 

A dedicated delay rackmount unit might be an option too. If you can find a used TC Electronics unit or a Roland SDE-330 they will give you more than enough power to do what you need.

 

The BEST-SOUNDING delays I have heard in a long time have come out of the Line 6 units I have seen people using. This unit in particular: http://www.line6.com/productDetail.html?model=36

I think there's a stompbox version of the same thing... They sound incredible...

 

A thing to remember though... Brian May was doing most of that (at least in the early days) with ancient tape-recorder loops and Echoplexes... so anything you get today with be a lot more sophisticated than anything he could have ever gotten his hands on back in the day.

 

Glad the amp's working out for you. The switchable wattage to the power-amp stage is a very cool feature.

[Keyan Farlander]

Originally posted by edlib

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "two digital delays, each of which is as strong as the original."

 

I mean I play a note. Then it's played back again in x seconds. Then it's played back again in y seconds. With no volume loss on either repeat.

 

I think I know what you are going for... Brian May used to do these lines where the delay comes in after he's played 3 notes (at the 3rd) and starts to harmonize with himself. The second comes in at the 5th...

 

I was thinking of some fugue-like passages, actually, using some of the more modern delay possibilites, like maybe having the delay lowered or raised by major third. Mabe even more than two delays, though that would be challenging. Also, Brian May also used to have it set up such that his played note would go through the center amp, the first repeat would come through the left amp, and the second repeat would go through the right amp, to keep the sound seperate, and I don't care if I have that capability or not, as I want it all together, like it's coming from one guitar.

 

The BEST-SOUNDING delays I have heard in a long time have come out of the Line 6 units I have seen people using. This unit in particular: http://www.line6.com/productDetail.html?model=36

I think there's a stompbox version of the same thing... They sound incredible...

 

That looks promising. I was briefly tempted by the TGE-05 Echoplex Digital Pro Plus, but I'm not sure it's worth $1000 to me. In fact, I'm sure it isn't. I would rather do the delays with my computer than spend that much. But I thought the Boss pedal might do it for me for about $200, and I think that's worth it.

[edlib]

Yeah... the Boss pedal looks very cool. Like I said, I'm not familiar with it, so there's a good chance it's as nice as the Line 6 stuff.

 

I use a lot of delay myself. I have 3 rack units that do nothing but delay, a Digitech Time Machine 8000, an Ibanez delay (don't know the model off the top of my head) and a Lexicon Vortex. I also have a Lexicon MPX-1 reverb/delay... but I only use that as a reverb.

 

The Digitech is set for a constant short slap with a lot of modulation and feedback, but mixed very, very low against the dry signal, so it doesn't really sound like an effect, but as part of the tone of the guitar, to thicken and fatten it up, and to increase the sustain. If you've ever heard Eric Johnson's "Cliffs Of Dover" that's kinda what I'm going for.

 

The Ibanez is set for a much longer delay, with less regeneration and only a little modulation... more like the setting Jeff Beck uses when he plays melodies using harmonics and the whammy bar. That unit has a tone control after the input, so that the delays can be set darker than the dry signal, and get progressively darker with each repeat... like the old Echoplexes used to do. Sounds great!

 

The Vortex I use either as a Chorus/ Flange... or for special effects as it has a Tap tempo and a dial to set strange subdivisions of delay when using the Tap... like dotted 8th, or dotted 16ths, or various triplet/ sextuplet divisions that would be near impossible to set correctly any other way.

 

Maybe I'll take a photo of my rack and post it when I get a chance...

[Keyan Farlander]

While we're on the subject, how would you go about recording something like a violin?

[edlib]

If the violin was being recorded as an overdub (no other live instruments being recorded at the same time) then I would put the player on closed headphones, place him or her near the middle of a medium-sized, fairly live room (a lot of plaster, tile, glass, or hardwood) then place a good condenser (set in omni, flat curve) or ribbon mic slightly above, and a couple of feet away pointed at the instrument. If you have 2 of the same mics and the tracks to spare then recording in true stereo is also a nice option. You'll get more of the room sound this way, so be sure it's a sound you like.

 

If you are recording with a band, then try to isolate in a booth, and use a mic with a tight pattern (cardioid/ hyper-cardioid) much closer to the instrument and worry about adding ambience later.

[Keyan Farlander]

Thanks Mr. Free Audio Advice Guy...

 

...I mean edlib

[Nute Gunray]

You posted at 5:50 PM and its only 5:32 right now. I will have none of this tampering with the timeline!

[edlib]

My posting times are always off to my local time.

 

Right now the forum's time is showing over a half-hour off (early) from Boston time.

 

I have 8:05 pm and it's showing 7:30 pm.

[Keyan Farlander]

When this forum hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious ****.

 

*Dances to Huey Lewis and the News*

[edlib]

Originally posted by Keyan Farlander

Thanks Mr. Free Audio Advice Guy...

Eh?... Who ever said anything about free?!?? I've been keeping a tab for you!

 

 

No problem.

 

2/17/05

 

My mom's birthday. She turned 75 as well.

 

It's always been an odd feeling having parents that are so much older than most of my friend's parents (I was born when they were both 40.) It has definate disadvantages, but a lot of advantages as well.

I'm going on 35 now, so if I ever do get around to having kids of my own (which my mom really wishes would be sooner than later... she keeps lobbying for grandkids...) my kids are pretty much going to be in the same boat as I was. Hmmm...

 

I had to work last night, so I'll celebrate with my mom this weekend. I'll take her out to dinner, and let her pick out a gift for herself, since I'm REALLY terrible at buying gifts for people. She said something about needing a new CD/ clock-radio for her cubicle at work,.. but that it has to small since she has almost no shelf space left.

 

The show last night was pretty hectic. It was put on by the college's Black Student Union, and was meant to be an overview of the history of black music in America... which is a huge subject to try and cover in a 90-minute show. There were about 12 different acts, with a lot of big stage changes in between. Almost a little too ambitious to pull off really successfully without at least a week's rehersal on the stage. But we got through it somehow,.. although the whole thing felt a whole lot looser than I like, and the sound was nowhere near as good as I can achieve under more controlled circumstances.

I think they started to realize that they bit off more than they could chew about halfway through soundcheck.

 

Still, they were happy with the results when it was over. And for an entirely student-run production that was as big as this one wanted to be in the time alloted, I guess I would have to call it a success.