New Music: DT5

Uploaded a short ep of music that I’ve worked on to the point of annoyance. That usually means that it’s time to move on. This is four tune that took a long time to work out. It’s my first real attempt at emulating non-electronic music and the most sample heavy music I’ve ever done.

It was mostly composed in Reason, with a lot of production performed in the logic. For most of the tunes I took a rough sketch from Reason and added more instruments and production in Logic.

It was fun trying to make something with a groove.

February 1, 2010 | Filed Under music | Leave a Comment 

W15D1

This is supposed to a be complete week off from lifting. After taking the weekend off, I had to get in a do something. I’m going to focus on getting in some cardio and doing more ab work and recovery work on my shoulders.

I spent nearly 30 hrs over the extended weekend working on music. I finally got around to reading and watching a bunch of tutorials for the Native Instruments software and have a better handle on things like Kore2 and Reaktor. I need to but more time aside to crafting sounds, but lately I’ve been far more interested in creating new music rather than sounds.

I did finish one tune and worked another one from start to finish. I’m hoping to get another EP finished by the end of January. It’ll be more soul & funk influenced. Since I never got to play in a funk/soul band, I’m taking the time to create my own virtual one. Figuring out horn lines and bass riffs has been a lot of fun.

I have a few other electronic/ambient tunes hanging around the hard drive. I need to pull those together and will probably have another CDs worth of material by spring.

December 7, 2009 | Filed Under lifting, music | Leave a Comment 

day off

Took the day off from the gym after staying up too late watching the Obama documentary on HBO. Felt good to get some rest, should be ready to go in the morning .. unless the World Series game goes too late.

Got myself involved in some sort of 100 pushup challenge at work. As a test run I dropped and did 30, I could probably push it to 35-40. Should be a fun little challenge and may help my bench along the way.

I gave in and bought myself a new audio toy, a Novation Launchpad. As much as I hated using Max/MSP in school the integration with Abelton Live looks interesting. The upgrade comes out in a few weeks, but I may be able to get in on the beta. I’ve been thinking about music again and nothing is more inspiring than trying out a new toy.

November 4, 2009 | Filed Under lifting, music, personal | Leave a Comment 

dt4

New music (dt4) available at mjladd.com/music. 30 min of ambient/experimental electronic music.

June 8, 2009 | Filed Under music | Leave a Comment 

dt4 progress

Finished a track last night, ‘Passing’, three left to go. Hopefully I’ll finish them this weekend and take the next week to mix and hopefully master next weekend. I’m listening to some of the tracks that I finished months ago and I’m reasonably happy with them. I’m trying some new ideas and they have a different sound than the last project.

I like getting up early to get work done but sometimes at night when I’m on a roll I start to get some anxiety about getting enough sleep to hit the gym in the morning. The workouts are the priority, they keep me sane and I guess health benefits are worthwhile.

Starting to plan the next workout phase post vacation. It’ll be good to have a week away from the gym and recover. It will also give me a chance to really beat myself up for the ten days or so prior to leaving. Workout facilities at hotels are usually pretty sparse but we usually end up doing a ton of walking.

First softball game tonight, should be fun. I haven’t done much interacting in a non-work environment for the last 5-7 years so it’s bit of a challenge to try and remember names and how normal people interact. My lousy jokes and non-sequetor references seem to get little-to-no response. I have to remind myself that not everyone has memorized every line from Arrested Development.

May 21, 2009 | Filed Under music, personal | Leave a Comment 

gpp-w4-ssc-1, mathematica, music

Day off from the gym, but Jen and I walked this morning. It was good to get up early and have a couple of hours to make some progress on a few projects before heading to work. I have a list on my desktop asking why am I not work on … mathmatica, music, ruby.

There has been a long, bitter and angry history with mathematics in my past but the first time I saw mathematica in college I thought it was fantastic. When the home edition became available this year I snagged it, but haven’t put much time into it. I’ve starting working through some of the tutorials. I really like the idea of using to plot some work issues such as capacity growth and bandwidth usage. I like the idea of forcing myself to break down the numbers and understand what we really need.

I also started getting some music projects happening. I have about half a CD finished and four more tracks in their alpha state. I have a pretty clear path on two of them and the other two are still amorphous. I want to finish the project in the next month and then take some time to focus on ‘big music idea’. Not that it’s very big, but I want to work on a piece with new sound design rather then just getting something up with stock sounds. In college I focused far more on sound design and miss that part of music.

May 19, 2009 | Filed Under geek, lifting, music | Leave a Comment 

MMJ – Chicago Theatre 12/28/08

Finally caught My Morning Jacket live. Great performance and fantastic set.

mmj_122808

At Dawn
It Beats
Evil Urges
I’m Amazed
Gideon
Wonderful Man
Golden
I Will Sing
Lowdown
Sooner   <- really nice live
Thank You Too
Anytime
Remnants
Lay Low
Highly Suspicious
Off the Record
Hell
Smokin From Shootin
Touch Me Pt 2
Run Thru

Encore:
Look at You (Acoustic)
Nashville to Kentucky
Steam Engine
Cobra
One Big Holiday

January 2, 2009 | Filed Under music, personal | Leave a Comment 

music: dt3

New music living on www.mjladd.com/music. It’s a collection of semi-ambient pieces composed in Reason with a little post-processing in Logic Audio. There is one single sample not included in Reason and the only editing involved fade-in/out on the intros/outros to eliminate clicks.

November 19, 2008 | Filed Under music | Leave a Comment 

30min

Checking my iTunes playlist of new music, I just passed the 30 minute mark of new stuff that I’ve written.  Eight tunes so far, between two and six minutes. I think they feel as part of one project.  I think a couple more song-ish tunes and I’ll dump the lot of them online.

It’s a good feeling to know my way around the set of tools to compose, not fighting with the software or the interface and just creating. I couldn’t imagine having this technology in school.

October 27, 2008 | Filed Under digital life, music | Leave a Comment 

post-weekend reason

This weekend went far too quickly. Spend most of it parked in front of the computer digging into Reason. I my former musical life I used it mostly for synthesis, but I’m trying to really dig into all the features and eliminate the need for many further purchases. Like a lot of deep software, I find myself looking at other products if they do one aspect slightly easier, but I’m trying to squeeze everything possible out of Reason. The newest version has been ordered and should arrive this week.

I’ve done very little sequencing, mostly editing big fat audio files rather than deal with midi. As a project for the day, I took a NIN tune and recreated all the drum/bass/keyboard parts, took a good chunk of the day, but I’m pretty close on a bar-by-bar level, but the synthesis is really weak.

reason desktop

reason desktop

August 10, 2008 | Filed Under digital life, music, personal | Leave a Comment 

Next Page →