[ Thursday, July 31, 2003 ]
A face-disfigurating post
Watching at javier's, alejo's and gabriel's "calligraphical egomania", traduced in trying to write their names so that they look exactly the same flipped vertically, has made me remember the scary "we love you all" repeating phrase in Boards of Canada's song "A is to B as B is to C", from their album "Geogaddi" (more scary oddities can be found here). The sound was adjusted so that when played both forward and in reverse it sounds the same, making it a musical palindrome. I said "adjusted" because "we love you all" backwards would sound like "lo-uyvol-you", but:
- Repeat the phrase over and over, slowly pronounced.
- You'll notice you can use "all" as the "lo" part in "love".
- "we" backwards can be understood as "you".
- Pronouncing "you" as the french "i" (a normal "ee" sound but with your mouth making the shape of an "oo" sound), you'll get something like "we love oo all" (backwards: lo-oo-vol-you). this will help the "you" word fade into the word "love", now pronounced something like "lo-oo-v".
- Now, the problem is trying to turn the "lo" part in the word "love" into "you all" backwards! It can be done by slowly saying "love" as something like "lo-eev", trying to make the "ee" sound as soft as possible.
So the final result is: "lo+eev+oo-ol+we", backwards-ly "we+lo-oo+vee+all". A little tricky, but it works, just like the examples by javier, alejo and gabriel.
It sounds scary, Boards of Canada's version. An MP3 file can be downloaded HERE (by the way, the people who made that page are nuts!).
Scare you later.
Hernan [12:52 AM] -
[ Thursday, July 24, 2003 ]
Es que mi Dios si le da pan al que no tiene dientesNadie está conforme con lo que tiene, y después de casi 25 años de parir piñas por aquí y por allá todavía no sé si eso es bueno o malo. Todo depende supongo, si tuviera una de absolut encima me quedaría horas aquí echando razones. En serio. Cuando uno quiere algo desesperadamente JAMÁS va a suceder. Cuando uno ya lo olvidó y, simple y llanamente ya no interesa más, ahí si, cuando ya no, cuando ya para qué. "No. Ya no."
No me malinterprete, por mi parte hago uso apropiado de lo que tengo. Creo. Por aquí no hay mucho desperdiciándose, a pesar de que tampoco estoy haciendo cosas gigantes con eso. Pero eso si, cuando no tenga un culo, cuando lo haya perdido todo, ahí si van a aparecer las oportunidades para invertir todo lo perdido en algo grande. Así es la vida o no? Es como cuando uno está en los primeros semestres de universidad: Totalmente desperdiciados. Y cuando llega el fin de la carrera y uno por fin se ha encarretado con las vainas, le toca irse. Como pasa con la vida, cuando ya por fin se ha entendido como funcionan realmente las cosas es cuando ya para qué. Casi todos los ganadores de loteria son ancianos, imagínese. Y vuelve el viejo deseo de "... si tan solo pudiera devolver el tiempo..." ...
El pyngwi me invitó a los ensayos de su nueva banda, Kraken, con miras al tortazo que van a cerrar el 6 de Septiembre y al concierto con la filarmónica de Bogotá, el 8 de Noviembre, del cual saldrá el primer DVD de la banda. Y es una de esas ocasiones donde uno esta viendo un concierto de Pink Floyd en DVD y entre la gente de primera fila nota uno a un pedazo de hijueputa bostezando, o dormido. O como la vieja que es novia del baterista y entra a todos lados porque si, no porque le guste o se lo merezca. Lo digo, la única banda que me ha gustado de Colombia en la historia es Panorama, un electrónico chillout como para Lounge (la habrá escuchado en el Oma de la T, bajando del andino, sin mucha publicidad...) Bueh, por lo menos todavía me gusta "Vestido de Cristal" y al parecer la van a arreglar con la filarmónica.
Pan pal que no tiene dientes. Otra forma de Murphy.
Hernan [11:47 PM] -
[ Monday, July 21, 2003 ]
...Poco a poco he ido volviendo a mis raíces, aquellos que conocen la verdadera escencia de mi música (como Luz Angela Cardona) entenderán perfectamente. Nada que hacer, poco a poco arrastrado hacia el viejo hoyo negro del que huía, muy a pesar de que ya no compongo para ser aceptado por mí mismo, es más, he perdido las ganas de componer desde hace algún tiempo. A pesar que de si mañana estoy completamente solo (por no mencionar tragedias) seré capaz de seguir viviendo. Fresco además, haciendo muchos cambios en la rutina, ya los he pensado por las noches. Pero las raíces llaman, y lo tengo todo en cierta medida excepto lo más importante. Y no importaba, de verdad. Había logrado cierto balance. Y aqui estoy solo escuchando el doloroso October Rust (que de repente ya no suena sexy).
Están los amigos, ya detrás de celulares y largas distancias, los que trascienden. Y del resto los hay de todos los colores, actitudes y planes. Los que no toman y los que si, los que fuman y los que no, los que meten y los que parecen no tener futuro. Los pasados de sanos y los pasados de pasados. Y también los que gozan jodiéndolo a uno. Y los chicaneros de novias y planes y opciones y cosas. Estan mis 4 guitarras más la de Alexis mientras vuelve, está mi teclado y el computador y un talento que me ha permitido llegar a una banda como la que tengo, con músicos impensables para mí hace un tiempo, que apoyan mi música y me piden consejos. Hay trabajo como un HP, y no es toda la plata del mundo pero a mi me sobra, que cosas. Y de una u otra forma me dignifica. Está el Yugi que ya me mama, porque la magia se ha ido perdiendo y poco a poco los amigos de ese plan vuelven a ser los mismos. Están los miércoles y domingos de dar papluco en squash. Está la familia, completamente rota, parece que nos hubiéramos graduado hace algunos años, ya ni los veo casi. Pero ahí están. Y también puedo abrazar a mi gata, cuando a ella le da la gana.
Está lo pasado, lo trasnochado, lo torcido, lo sucio, lo voyeur, lo experimentado, y lo que me hace pensar en haber vivido. Está toda la música, las películas, los programas para lo que sea a un par de clics de distancia. Y están posts grandes para mí como "Apology to a true friend" (Enero/03) y "Friends again" (Marzo/03). Pero ya casi no puedo más. Las apariencias engañan le dije hoy a Cesar. Bueh ya me falla la memoria y la vista, como para variar. El odio de hoy me lo como yo solo.
Tanta marica máscara en el cerebelo. Déjenme escoger qué máscara me pongo mañana y tendrán su hijueputa post pintado.
Hernan [12:44 AM] -
[ Friday, July 18, 2003 ]
** DISCLAIMER **1. Tomorrow friday July 18th some gomelos with too much money, influences and egos, are trying to pull a Love Parade just like the ones in Berlin (well, this is the 3rd try). I'd like to go, to watch as usual, I'm a voyeur, but there's no point going alone, besides, this days I've been in a luck for gays hitting on me.. Face it. The Parade wants to be gay. And lesbical and moist and uninhibited and fag, just like Berlin's. And yes, I, once and for all, declare myself OUT OF THE CLOSET: I'M HOMOPHOBIC, I HATE GAYS. Sorry, if I may hurt any feelings. (Well, not at all.)
2. You may find out some stupid jokes in this issue of "Electronica: what is it good for?". There's 2 reasons for that: a) Read this post's title. Notice the "for Dummies" Suffix. Havent you ever read any book with that suffix? Well, it's not worth it, it isnt good for shit. It's just a bunch of stupid jokes. b) I find myself joking to try to hide my present frustrations.
Ready to read something extensive?
Electronica for Dummies #4 - Digital Sampling - Wavetables and wavetable Synthesis. (And some farting.)
I. Synthesized sounds vs. Sampled sounds.
Last rant I wrote about subtractive synthesis, a method to generate waves (among others like Additive, Granular, Amplitud Modulation, Frequency Modulation, Ring Modulation, Wavetable and Physical Modeling Synthesis - You can buy and read this, written by Eduardo Miranda- not AgentPong) that will mostly be used as musical instruments. For years, synthesizer manufacturers used this technique to create sounds that could emulate those in nature, like those produced by a piano, clavi, bass, guitar, strings, claps, birds, drums, etc. because it was inexpensive in terms of memory, you only need the right "Oscillator->Filter->Amplifier" combination, and 100 (or 128 as in the MIDI standard) different configurations of parameters to simulate each sound in the synthesizer.
This kind of synthesis was widely used by sound cards for console games and personal computers like Amiga, Atari, Mac and (later, of course) PC. But, in order for those synthesized sounds to sound more natural, you have to add to them effects like reverb and modulation (vibrato), and effects had been sold by even higher prices than synthesizers. Another limitation of some cheap keyboards was that, for the immitation of a single sound over the whole 5-7 scales, they used just one configuration transposed to fit all pitches. That means that they may have synthesized an almost perfect immitation of a Piano C3 note. But when that sound got synthesized a little more to change its pitch to produce a C2, C1, C0 or C4, C5, C6, etc (that is, C notes on different scales) the sounds began to sound funny. Unnatural. So a better keyboard would use a configuration for a specific range of notes, and so on. BUT! still sometimes you can perceive the difference when you played 2 contiguous notes from different ranges...
So one solution to these limitations was to capture or record the immitated sounds (with even naturally achieved effects) and store them in something called a wavetable. Obviously, this became a viable solution when storage capacity became not an issue, so keyboards and sound cards manufacturers like Ensoniq began using this technique offering sounds much more close to those of nature. BUT there are various factors:
- The quality of the waves. The higher the sampling frequency (hopefully 44100 Hz) and bit rate (16 bits) the better the sound and the higher the memory requirement.
- Better keyboards mapped more different samples of a sound to more note ranges, to avoid the unnatural sounds when transposing the samples to reach other pitches.
So, just like the keys of a computer keyboard have a graph associated to the respective character, a key in the synthesizer would have a sound mapped to it. NOTE: You already know "fonts" (.ttf's for instance) which are combinations of characters mapped to a computer keyboard, but there are also "sound fonts" (.sf2) or combinations of sounds to be mapped to a keyboard. (as you may have imagined, there's also companies that sell sound fonts.)
II. Digital Samplers
Dont get me wrong. Subtractive synthesis was analog first, like in Moog Synthesizers, used since the late 60's. But the lack of all things analog radicates in control. When these techniques were taken to the Digital realm, the possibilities were multiplied and everything was easier, why is that? maybe because of the new possibilities in control mechanisms. Let's start by saying the "word" MIDI. It provides programming for note and controller (effects) events, synchronization of equipment (other keyboards, digital effects processors, lights and video equipment, to name a few), ease of edition, slow processing, memory and data transmission requirements, etc.
So what a digital sampler tries to do, is to make as easy and controllable the process of working with sampled sounds. Digitalized waves in the end. They provide:
1. Mapping of sounds over ranges of notes (Key zones. All the key zones conform the "key map")
2. Transposing of samples to simmulate other pitches in their "key zones"
3. Change of tempo over a sample (later)
4. Other effects like subtractive synthesis, pitch wheel, modulation, LFOs over the samples.
It's obvious that these samplers can not only be used to store and play samples of musical instruments or drums. Electronic musicians store in them any sound they would like to play through a song, like some catchy phrase("da funk back to the punk come on", "Back with another one of those block rockin' beats"), some industrial sound (listen to Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin, ... nowadays PC game music), and any sound their "sampling ear" (mentioned in part one of this shitty guide) catches in the air (like a fart, I dunno). Then, the digital sampler is revealed as a triggerer of sounds, sounds that can be modified using transposition, change of tempo and synthesis. Imagine the possibilities! Now, if you listened to electronica, realize you've heard them! Just LISTEN to the chemical brothers (a suggestion? the album "Come with us"). Look for them, they're everywhere.
III. The process of working with samples:
Imagine that you have some bass line, some guitar and/or piano, and some electronic drums (The Next update). Notice the "some" adjective (either you have a really good one, or a crappy one that needs production ;) ). Now, if you want to add some sampled sounds to it, for example, some speech, evil robot, piece of another song, plane taking off, bird, dog, typing sound, machine working, your grandma talking, your girl moaning, some toilet flushing, a fart, whatever:
1. You dont have a good sound to sample if you dont know where you're going with it. Some farting can be JUST the sound you need. REALLY! Just hear Aphex Twin, the future classical music.
2. Once you know what sound you need, try to get it with as much sound quality as you can. What we dont want is overdose of effects over one sound. It wont sound natural! (Or perhaps that's what you want?) Subtle effects work better. Unless you wanna make noise.
3. Once you have the digital wave (a WAV file or whatever): If it is basic sound (a single hit/beat/attack) you're done. Note that if you plan to simulate a musical instrument, you should have a sounds for different "key zone", so the instrument sounds natural. But if it contains multiple hits (like a drum loop, a speech with multiple words, or a 4/4 bar of some song) that you may want to use as a looping background sound, it's a must to break the wave so you have a multiple waves, one for each hit. Complex?? through wavelab, sound forge or coolEdit yes. OR, you could use "Recycle" which detects attacks in a wave and saves the broken pieces in some file (.rex format). You can also input the number of bars and the signature of the loop to find its tempo. (so you can input a one or two 4/4 bars, and it will tell its tempo). When a loop is broken down to beats it can be played easily and mostly natural at different tempos than the original. This can be done through a loop player, another kind of sampler, oriented to looping sounds obviously.
4. Now, with single waves for each sound, you must map each sound to a key or range of keys of the digital sampler.
5. So far, we have a digital sampler device with a lot of mapped sounds. Now we need to play those sounds through some MIDI controller (assuming a MIDI-compatible and stand-alone digital sampler, but now most keyboards come with sampling functions). One way of perfectly programming those sounds is through a MIDI sequence, which allows to program WHEN to play any sound, how long it will play, and if it will be affected by transposing, filtering, modulation, chorus, reverb, etc. This assuming the digital sampler supports those effects.
6. Mix them with the rest of the song. Done.
IV. Samplers: "What are they good for?".
- Samplers are mostly used for triggering sounds in the middle of songs. When the sound is triggered, it lasts as long as the player keeps pressing the key. So, if you press rapidly one key that has the sound of the word "fuck" mapped to it, it would sound like the typical "fu-fu-fu-fu-fu-fu-fuck!" heard all over colombian cheap radio stations that claim to sound young (because of sounds like that).
- Wavetables are another use, extensively exploited in sound cards for the PC and keyboards, like the famous Yamaha clavinova series, that store high quality sounds for each key and instrument.
- Electronic music is where samplers are a must. Multiple artists work hard to process their sounds through synthesis, or through synthesis over waves captured from nature, and, in order to reproduce them live, they use digital samplers in which they previously stored them.
- Loop players are a must in trance, house and even some techno music. Basically what musicians do is to store some rhythm in a loop player, and they apply filters to it over the whole song or mix. Over the applied filter, they play with cutout and resonance parameters. This rhythm is combined with the drum machine patterns for the song/mix, which results in a richer and groovier rhythm.
That's it, for now. I really recommend that you "try and buy" reason by downloading it from Kazaa. It's not as hard as it may look:
Here is the NN-XT Digital Sampler device from Reason 2.0. You can see here:
- The global (upper) zone, parameters that affect the whole device. There are some controllers (pitch wheel, and 2 other wheels for other effects like modulation), the actual patch (configuration indicator), a general subtractive synthesis option: cutout/resonance + some envelope parameters (Attack, Decay, Release), and the general output level or volume.
- The "remote editor panel" (lower) zone, which is where individual sounds are loaded, mapped into key zones and modified by subtractive synthesis, LFOs, mod & amp envelopes, etc. Notice the big LCD screen, it is called the "Key Map Display", this is where you map sounds to ranges of notes. In the left upper region, info about the selected sound is shown (sampling frequency, bit rate). At the bottom are the "sample parameters" a lot of other parameters that can be modified for each sound, like its pitch.
Hate bye. (And watch out for gays disguising as normal people)
Hernan [12:49 AM] -
[ Monday, July 14, 2003 ]
Feedback of HateWell, now you all are able to leave your opinions on the crap I write here. Use the "Comment" link at the end of each post.
Bueno, ahora todos están en capacidad de dejar sus opiniones sobre la basura que escribo aquí. Usen el enlace "Comment" al final de cada post.
I hate for the fun of it.
Hernan [9:21 AM] -
[ Saturday, July 12, 2003 ]
Sobredosis de Emode o Defensa de HernanSi, muy lindo (Cara chimba de ponque/Black Hole Sun). Y? La vida es ironica, no? No hay egos en este post, todo lo contrario, y a pesar de que todo sale perfecto:
> Hernan, your sexual personality is Phi-ELDN-9
Your sexual personality is determined by your sexual persona (Phi), 4 sexual scales ("E"motional/Physical, "L"ook/Touch, "D"aring/Modest, Verbal/"N"on-verbal), and your libido score (9).
As a Phi, you have a good sense of yourself and your sexuality. You know how to turn on the sex appeal when it suits your needs, and have a fair amount of confidence when it comes to your sexual performance.
> Hernan, your unconscious mind is driven most by Peace
You are driven by a higher purpose than most people. You have a deeply-rooted desire to facilitate peacefulness in the world. Whether through subtle interactions with loved ones, or through getting involved in social causes, it is important to you to influence the world.
You are driven by a desire to encourage others to think about the positive side of things instead of focusing on the negative. The reason your unconscious is consumed by this might stem from an innate fear of war and turmoil. Thus, to avoid that uncomfortable place for you, your unconscious seeks out the peace in your environment.
Usually, the thing that underlies this unconscious drive is a deep respect for humankind. You care about the future of the world, even beyond your own involvement in it. As a result, your personal integrity acts as a surrogate for your deeper drive toward peace and guides you in daily life towards decisions that are respectful toward yourself and others.
> Hernan, your secret to success is to be Proactive
You are a born leader with a take-charge attitude. Unlike many people who believe problems will simply go away if you give them enough time, you're one to tackle the obstacles in your path head-on.
Part of being proactive means you can aggressively anticipate the future and work to shape it according to your desires. You don't wait for things to happen; you make things happen, which is why you also tend to find yourself in a position of responsibility.
Also, because of your quick mind and ability to strategize, you can keep yourself two steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to executing plans or anticipating future actions. These characteristics help you rise to positions of authority where others can more fully appreciate your drive and direction.
> Hernan, your most positive energy is flowing from your Sixth Chakra
This chakra is located in the center of your forehead and is often called the third eye. The sixth chakra represents your ability to see and really know truth. In your case, this chakra appears to be clear and unblocked so that positive energy can flow from it freely. Radiating positive energy from your sixth chakra indicates that you've cultivated higher wisdom concerning the important life lessons associated with this energy center. You're apt to be accepting of the people and events in your life rather than pass judgment on them. You're also likely to have developed a higher level of intuition than most people have.
Whether they're allowing positive energy to flow or preventing it from doing so, all seven of your body's chakras contribute to how you are feeling on a day-to-day basis. When they're balanced, you feel energized and at the top of your game. When they're unbalanced, you may feel tired or 'off'.
> Congratulations, Hernan! Your IQ score is 133
(...)according to the sorts of questions you got correct, we can tell your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician.
This means you are gifted at spotting patterns — both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction — especially in the workplace.
> Hernan, you're a Millionaire!
Your personality is actually determined by two personality sub-types - your primary, or dominant sub-type, and your secondary sub-type. You are a Millionaire which means you are a Success / Thinker. Your primary sub-type is defined by "Success" characteristics and your secondary sub-type is defined by "Thinker" characteristics.
That means you're very ambitious and personable, and you've got a great sense of humor. Chances are you care a lot about how you look. You're bursting with self-confidence, and people admire you for your achievements and determination.
> Hernan, your true talent is spatial ability
This ability to visualize objects in three-dimensional space can give you a unique view of the world. You appear to understand how figures can be manipulated and take on new forms. Because of this talent, you can probably imagine new designs easily, including anything from floor plans to page layouts — and even 3D product prototypes.
> Hernan, your emotions are triggered by your underlying belief in Loyalty
In other words, your uncompromisingly loyal nature directly affects how, and how often, you experience certain feelings.
For example, your test results indicate that you're most fulfilled when you can connect on a meaningful level with friends, family, and others in your community. That factor is directly related to your fundamental belief in loyalty and the range of emotions it triggers.
> Hernan, your true color is Black!
Your color is black. The color of night. Serene and mysterious, black conjures up images of elegant evening gowns, dashing tuxedos, and gleaming limousines. Traditionally a symbol of success, black also represents power and an uncompromising demand for perfection.
> Hernan, you're single because you don't want to slow down
Whether you're working all hours, busy with school, or planning a cross-country move, it sounds like you just don't have time for anyone else in your life...right now, that is. Your timing may be off in other aspects, too. Chances are, you've met that perfect person who just so happens to be married or planning their own cross-country move. So take a step back for a moment. Is there something underlying this? Could it be you're afraid to get involved for some reason or another, and are therefore attracted to people who are simply unavailable?
Repito, La vida es ironica, no?
P.D. No debería creer en esto. Solo quieren mejorar mi estado de animo para venderme sus resultados. Pero no lo van a lograr. Van a ver.
Hernan [10:55 PM] -
[ Friday, July 11, 2003 ]
Lilja 4-Never | I've felt a little nostalgic lately for the gothic feel of the mid 90s, when we all were cool by being lonely and dark, and dressed in black. Fashion based on the calm beauty of the undead. Some icons I remember from those times are Type O Negative, the "The Crow" movies, Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People" and "Sweet Dreams" videos, Cradle of Filth. All imagery. But there was no feeling more gothic than the feeling after coming out of a low-budget european movie. What we call(ed) "Cine Arte" (art films). I was completely desolate after watching "Los amantes del circulo polar" (Lovers of the polar circle), remember it? I wanted to die, really. Well, I downloaded Lilja 4-ever, another one of those hopeless stories that you know it's only gonna get worse, and you still hope, but in the end you're proved wrong. I should have seen it in some dark place at Bogota's gothic downtown, like derSteppen this days, but I totally screwed it by downloading it from kazaa. Besides, it had swedish subtitles. |
It's sad. If you like the feeling of movies like "Requiem for a Dream", or the iguazo "Rodrigo D. no futuro" you'll like this no-way-out alley. "As sad as beautiful".
*sigh*
Hernan [12:24 AM] -
[ Tuesday, July 08, 2003 ]
Double Dragon II Hate Song Crap MixerAs I wait for approval for some flash interface design, this is what I do with the spare time: I give you some crappy flash for you to play with. Beware, I dunno how much CPU it does require.. it may give you a BSOD! HAHAH!
Hope you recognized the song. :) It's but a lesson on diminished scales. Bass & Drums made the MIDI way.
H8-U-later... faggots.
Hernan [11:57 AM] -
