having to youtube-mp3 my own music

 at the beginning of february my macbook turned off for good. i took it to the apple store and was met with the bad news that the laptop would not turn on again unless i sent it in for an expensive repairment, and even that wouldn't guarantee me a permanent fix. something wrong with the circut board-- some dust and junk on it. regardless, if i paid for this, the computer would come back completely wiped, and i hadn't saved anything on my drive. so, a new laptop it was. that first week of february shaped up to be the most expensive week of my life, the purchases of a shiny new macbook and a new (no longer pirated! we made it out mom's house y'all) ableton live authorization adding up to a stressful two thousand dollars. 

at the time, i didn't own an external hard drive. NONE of my music was backed up, apart from whatever i had already sent to myself and saved in my files app. these were mostly demos that i already had publicly uploaded. anything i worked on secretly or for shits and gigs in my four years of producing, regardless of whether or not i saved it into a compressed wav file, was lost. and fyi- data recovery in the bay area can cost up to 7k. screw these tech moguls. do i want five months rent or my 2021 demos back?

the funny thing, though, is that all of my old garageband files were saved to my google drive. having nothing, pockets so empty of digital ableton lore, i revisited these files, some of which dated back to as far as 2018 when i was just a sixteen year old stereolab fan with a ton of free time (classic). this was pre-midi controller, pre-sound card, pre-mic, pre-LAPTOP-- my setup isn't impressive in any way now, but the lack thereof back then was real. garageband iphone app and wired headphones, babe.

curious to hear? yeah, so am i every six months. i recently watched poor things (i promise it's relevant), a film where the protagonist bella baxter begins as physically an adult woman, but mentally a rapidly growing infant. producing for fun, i kinned bella in that my garageband app period was, essentially, my own infancy. i keyboard mashed and slapped in-app effects on youtube-mp3 samples of songs i liked (not too far off from what i do now sometimes, the key distinction being deliberation and routine). 

 

i made this demo when i was seventeen and the concept of a demo didn't really exist to me yet. a secret: there are lyrics to this demo that i still remember perfectly. that's the thing about writing music. it sticks because it's yours. once there are real lyrics attached, it's suddenly tangible until you have the capacity to forget (muscle memory, probably. speech muscle memory. i'm referencing my own lyrics like they're primate calls).

i miss this approach to music. now, when i write a song, i know exactly how i'll structure its demo in ableton. before 2022, NONE of my vocals were doubled. within a single vocal take is probably the margin where an artists' humility exposes itself. and i'm geriatric now. i'm stuck in my ways-- i'll take a short stack of vocal stacks. 

 in reference to this post's title- recently i needed the stems for a song of mine called my bell rings but was reminded they exist on a laptop that has since croaked. so i youtube-mp3'ed my own master, which exists in its mastered state only due to a youtube-mp3 transaction of the song's samples in 2022. you either die a sampler or live long enough to sample the sampler. i guess there's a moral here that i had to be the guinea pig for, that being back up your shit to an external hard drive of course. 

to the demos from 2021-2023 that i lost (you know who you are, files) i miss you. to my releases under different artist projects (warren peace exists solely on bandcamp. imagine i buy my own music back for a quick five) i miss you, less so.

i will leave you with every moniker i've released music under:

die hipster scum -- warren peace --nelly name -- vloggystyle -- operelly

p.s. elliot started a blogger chain and it's like the new ice bucket challenge. my friends are starting blogs left and right! i love it. !!!BLOG CHALLENGE!!! i nominate walker price and erik yoo.

let's map this out guys

(this post is dedicated to my friend lily, in honor of their new blog!)

the transients of a waveform is measured in three chronological parts: its attack phase, steady state, and decay phase. attack measures the amount of time a wave takes to get from zero to its maximum amplitude—steady state stays there— decay measures the amount of time a wave goes from its maximum to zero. 

like this: 

what else can be measured with these three components? 

more recently i've been obsessed with the transients of a back-and-forth. an interaction between two. i'll see people and i'll be thinking 'ok, how am i going to greet them?' alternatively, i've spoken to people and during the interaction i'm thinking 'ok, how the hell am i going to kill this?' 

i know i'm not the only person who's thought about interactions in this way because my mom is a grade-A decay-er. she'll be plotting an out to 99% of her work interactions the moment they begin. social against her will, she calls it. every now and then i can clock someone actively trying to kill a conversation with me. this has me wondering how obvious i am when i do it. one of these days i just want someone to keep it a buck and say 'well, that was that.'

 a transients example (allow me to set this scene for you): you pass a buddy while you're both on the way to a compulsory event. the attack phase is very short, since you're both pleasantly surprised to run into each other. you exchange quick pleasantries in the steady state of your conversation-- where you headed? are you busy this week? the decay is short as well because you both understand that you are expected somewhere else. you say goodbye and you're on your merry way.

the transients of your interaction is similar to that of a note on a piano (when the sustain pedal is untouched)

another example: you think you recognize a celebrity at an event. you get the courage to start a conversation. this celebrity is used to fans, but has nowhere to escape to, so you both continue talking. you are too excited to notice that this celebrity is humoring you all the while trying to find an out in this interaction. after far too long, they excuse themselves. short attack, short steady state, long decay.

the transients of your interaction is similar to that of a bell

another: you and your roommate are cleaning the house. you both exchange an occasional 'excuse me' and 'i'll take care of this'. immediate attack, short steady state, immediate decay. repetition.

the transients of your repeated interactions are similar to that of a square pulse wave

 

let's play a game: can you guess which instrument shares the transients of this interaction? 

your lover has been shot in your kitchen. the attacker has fled. after hearing the gunshot from the bedroom, you race downstairs and call 911. they are bleeding out, and you must distract them so they maintain their consciousness. you remind them of your fondest memories together-- you know their chances of survival are slim, as you live at the top of a mountain. your lover suffers for hours, before passing away. the last thing they hear is the sound of your voice.

a) a kick drum

b) a gong

c) a horn

d) a violin

if you answered b) a gong, you're correct. a gong has the longest decay phase of any (non-manipulated) instrument

i guess transients exists across several mediums-- there are so many things with a beginning, middle, and end, after all. a movie, a record (stereolab released an album titled transient random noise-bursts with announcements. calling song lyrics 'announcements' is too clever), a game, a lifespan (the decay phase starts when your body literally begins decaying. ouch) reminds me of the time kurt vonnegut mapped out the shapes of different stories on a graph. 

more on this as it develops, actually probably not, etc. 

songs to throw up to

yesterday i fantasized about throwing up in the middle of a crowd at a show venue. randoms asked me what’s wrong, provoking me to let them know i was touched to the point of sickness by the beauty of devastating live music. 

and then the second part of my fantasy involved a lack of judgment from my peers for enjoying the remainder of the show seated, since i now had an excuse to sit down. 

CLICK NOW! songs to throw up, or dryheave at the very least, to:

bring me down by twerps

seaweed by mount eerie

invisible by grouper

by your side by teethe

my sound by squarepusher

going home

 my eyes blur

they water on two grounds:

I’m sniffing your mold 

and i’m devastated about it