"Christmas Time Is Here..."
Happy Holidays, y'all!
They sure did creep up fast this year, while I was busy doing various things. Scott and I ran up north today to do a bit of Christmas shopping. Getting out and seeing all the lights and decorations and people out wandering the snowy streets looking for gifts does help get you "in the mode," so to speak. We had a nice dinner with Scott's parents and then it was off to "Wally World." Scott was eager to make the shift to Hi-Def, so we did some browsing through the Blu-Ray movie racks and found a number of older films like Stargate and Terminator 2 on sale for $10 each. New releases on Blu-Ray are rather expensive, so that was a good way to start off the collection for cheap. It makes me glad that we had never really built up a very big DVD collection...right about the time you do, they have to come out with some new format!
I'm looking forward to maybe actually getting to enjoy the holidays a little more this year. Last year at this time, I was buried in work and had to be putting in long days right before and after Christmas. This year, the workload is a bit lighter and the pressure isn't so great, which is fine by me!
"Discovering New Tools and Rediscovering Not-New Ones..."
Meanwhile, on the music front, things are pushing forward. After going back to playing real bass on the last track, I seem to have gone all-electronic again on the one that's coming together now. It's not that I don't still enjoy playing bass guitar - I definitely do - but for some reason, I've just been on a major synthesizer kick for the last year. I love having such an infinite palette of sounds at my fingertips with synths, and being able to completely change the bass sound after the part has been recorded if I want to (something you can't really do with acoustic instruments).
A really intriguing and unusual item that just found its way into the "toolbox" is u-he Filterscape (from the same developer who created Zebra, one of my favorite synths). It's a piece of effects software that, as the name suggests, filters what you put through it to sculpt the sound and provide various kinds of sonic movement. It applies morphing EQ curves and synth-style filtering that shifts over time and makes sounds more dynamic. I've barely begun to explore it, but it promises to offer all kinds of sonic spice to the mix.
In the "Not-New" category, I've been rediscovering a software synthesizer I picked up this past summer and hadn't really taken much advantage of. I got Lennar Digital Sylenth and used it here and there on "Compass" (which was previewed on my Myspace page a few months back), and then kind of forgot about it. A few days ago, I decided I really needed to wheel it back out and start exploring it more, and I really like this synth. It doesn't have the sound design depth and flexibility of Zebra, but it has a core sound that is markedly different from Zebra's and it sounds very, very good. Whereas Zebra tends to sound more liquidy smooth and streamlined, Sylenth has more high frequency content (i.e. it sounds a little more bright and airy) and in some ways, it puts me more in mind of an old analog synthesizer. It's a great tool for getting a different kind of sound...another color for the canvas. Finding a "hidden diamond" that had already been installed on my computer for months that I'd never really taken the time to appreciate before is definitely a nice thing. Or, as the Joker put it in the 1989 Batman flick, "Where can I get these fine new items? Well, that's the gag - chances are, you bought 'em already!"
You'll be hearing both on the new track, which finally bucks the recent trend and is going to be a more uptempo, high-energy song that you could actually dance to (if so inclined!).
Time to sign off...I'll probably be back with you one more time before Christmas, but just in case you don't hear from me again before then, I hope yours is a wonderful one.
Talk to you soon!
DV
