Nicholas Toone

Well, shit. It’s been three whole months. So much for trying to keep up on this here blog on a regular basis.

Remember this? Well, let’s see how it going.

(Note, I’m not going to comment on each specific topic in that NY post, just some of them with added colour commentary.)

Exercise

“I plan to start moving again. I’m going to get myself a bike and start using it for all the errands that I currently drive for – like going to the store that’s literally less than 5 Km away”

I bought a bike. A nice, basic fitness/city bike. While I’ve never been the worlds biggest Cannondale fan, this bike checked all the boxes for me:

• • Light
  • Rigid fork
  • Single chain ring on the front.
  • Disc brakes
  • Interior cable routing.

The test ride in the store parking lot sold me. This bike is limber and, so far, it does what I ask. I haven’t really pushed it yet due to weather and springtime chores but as we move into May, I will be going farther and farther. I haven’t realy biked anywhere in well over 5 years, so I’m going to ease back into it.

Food and Drink

Uh-huh. This is not going as well as planned. While I have shed a little weight, I’ve spent more time eating useless, carby, packaged food (and take out!) than I should be. Also, have been drinking a little more than I should be.

Music

I haven’t worked on anything since early March. Musically, the new tune I have is done but only has half its lyrics. I need to get back on this in a big way.

Writing (Non Blog)

I’ve picked back up on this. FocusWriter is my app of choice (I did try a few other, Open Source writing apps and found them overly complicated) and I set a daily goal of 500 words. I kept this up for about two weeks, then tapered off a bit. Now I try and find some time in the wee hours of the morning. Or I spend time pecking away at this rather than doomscrolling through the news.

Tech

This is an edited version of what I originally had here. I felt like i jumped the gun on a few things and was very, very reactionary about the computer bit which is stupid because it’s just computer shit. I’m trying to not be whiny about things like technology. I want to take deep breaths, look at my options and move forward. I don’t want to hit a snag and just stamp my feet and yell.

So I’ll put a little tech/computer update here and shitcan the incessant whining.

• • • For various reasons, I needed to use Windows, and right around this time Linux started acting up (after a system update).
    • I flattened the computer to Windows swearing to never touch Linux again.
    • I found that I really missed Linux so I tried Ubuntu Studio which I didn’t like.
    • I got Fedora back up and running. I’m on version 38 and things are smooth.
    • I’m still dual booting Windows for when I need it.

And that, as they say, is that.

Since 2015 or so, I’d been trying to get synths working, mostly for live performances, and found myself frustrated with Kontakt, Ableton, and the like. I’m not knocking either of these programs. I know they’re tried, tested, and true. I know a ton of pros live and breath by them. For me, I just couldn’t get them to click. I found the learning curve steep and the cost high. I never made it past the trial stage.

I turned to Apple’s MainStage which made everything easy. Thanks to this app and my trusty 12-Step, I was able to not only record synth parts for Opium Winter, but also play them live.

However, as anyone who happens to read this blog knows, my MacBook Air is on its last legs and I’ve mostly moved away from Apple. I had to start looking at alternatives.

When I started moving back to Windows, I gave a few apps an honest try. Gig Performer and Cantabile and Camelot Pro and, again, none of them clicked with me. So while recording on Windows, I’d just fire up my old Mac and run all my synths and keys through MainStage, which was becoming less fun as the computer was showing its age.

Now that I’m pretty entrenched in Linux, I decided to finally take a bit of time and figure out synths outside of MainStage. As it turns out the answer was staring me in the face all this time: Just use a DAW.

While learning recording techniques, I spent so much time dealing with microphone setups and direct inputs that I’d completely overlooked the fact that you can easily setup midi inputs in Reaper and Mixbus ¹ , create a track, attach a hardware midi controller to it, load up whatever synth plugin you want, and just go for it. All it took was for me to stop searching for “MainStage alternatives” and start searching for “setting up synths in (insert DAW here)”. I quickly got my answer in an eight minute video from an account I already subscribe to. Needless to say this made me feel not so smart.

Anyway, it is what it is. I tried the steps in the video and it worked as advertised ². Easy peasy, but how about the synths themselves? Well, if there is one thing open source musicians love it’s synths.

Just check out the list at Linux Music Rocks. Pages and pages and pages of synths. Some are paid, most are free. The hardest part of this experiment is wading through and testing all the various plugins. Some are good (SATURN by Unlimited Records is fun) some are not so good (most anything from Uhhyou plugins crashes both Reaper and Mixbus hard) and others are somewhere in between.

Yet there is one major standout: SURGE XT. This plugin is, for me at this particular moment, the holy grail I’ve been searching for.

There is so much to work with in this plugin that I’ve only made it through maybe half of the presets, which I like to start with just to see what a plugin is capable of. And so far I’m impressed.

I’m still playing around with SURGE XT as well as testing out other instrument plugins and it’s good to have found a native way to get the sounds I want. Admittedly, this is why there were no keys or synths in my last two songs; I wanted to see what I could do with only Linux. And now here. The new track I’m working on has synths created sans MainStage.

I don’t know when I’ll ever get the opportunity to try this out this setup in a live environment, but for recording it’s perfect.

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^1: TBH, any DAW out there worth its salt can handle midi.

^2: No surprise there. Kenny Gioia’s REAPER Mania account is solid gold for anything Reaper. If it can be done, he’s got a tutorial for you.

The other day I shared Benn Jordan’s latest video regarding Spotify and mentioned that I’d post some thoughts. When I started to write this, I went back and re-read two pieces that I keep on hand:

• • • The Problem With Music by Steve Albini, December 1993.
    • Courtney Love Does The Math, June 2000.

Both of those articles opened a can of worms, especially when you think of them as older companion pieces to the video.

While a lot of people thought (and still think) the music industry was/is evil, no one was really prepared for Big Tech.

Continue reading “Music, Labels, The Internet, And Streaming Services”

I’ll add some thoughts in the coming days. For now, this is an important watch/listen.

To start 2023, I decided to move everything back to where it began. I registered nicholastoone.com well over a decade ago, so that’s where everything is going to be. The Low Budget Lifer domain will not be renewed and will fall by they wayside sometime in late April. No more clever URL’s. No more content creating on whatever the big platform of the day is. No more playing with SEO or whatnot. Just me in my little corner of the Internet.

I was going to post a big, blathering piece about 2022 but I couldn’t find the right tone. Everything I wrote sounded overly bitchy, or overly elitist, or overly preachy. In the end, I’ve settled on a short list of what could be called resolutions.

Continue reading “2023 – Here We Go”

I read more in 2022 than I have in recent years. I was a voracious reader in my teens and early twenties but tech got its hooks into me over the years and reading books just fell by the wayside. I’ve been working on changing this and for 2023, I plan to read even more.

I’m not what you’d call a fast reader. My rate is a little more than a book a month; a “book” being +/- 400 pages. I have a habit where I will re-read sentences or paragraphs that I find particularly excellent. I also spent too much time on my damn phone and not enough time with my nose buried in books.

So without further ado…

Continue reading “2022: Books”

I’ve never really liked the term “cheat” when it comes to learning and doing things. When I was young, the expectation was to memorize everything, be tested on it and the more you remembered, the better grade you received and, I guess, the better person you were.

We were taught that using any kind of aid was cheating, and cheating was wrong. It was an automatic fail if you got caught finding a way to complete the questions you couldn’t remember the answer for.

At my first “real job”, I remember frantically trying to remember some piece of SQL code I had learned when a Dev said to me:  “Jesus, dude, just look it up”. I seemed to have forgotten that when I was building websites on my own, I constantly referred to my HTML and CCS books. By myself, this was ok. Being an actual employee made me believe I had to know everything. They hired me because I was smart or something so how dare I cheat?

Turns out that in the real world it’s called using a reference. It took me a long, long time to shake the mindset that not using reference material was the only way to go. There is simply too much to know at any given moment to be expected.

This is true with anything, including music. Whether you’re just starting out, or have been at it for most of your life, there is so much to know and remember.

Those people out there who seem to know their craft by heart? They’ve been doing it for a long, long time and they will always refer to resource materials as there is always more to learn.

It’s not cheating. It’s experience.

The Experts Guitar and Bass Cheat Sheet. This is a good one. It gives you the basics on what to cut, boost, or roll off for guitar and bass while also giving the simple reasons why. For example, on guitar cut a little  around 250 Hz to reduce overlap with the bass.

No-Name Music EQ Cheat Sheet. Graphical page showing the main frequencies between 50 Hz to 15 kHz and what a cut or boost on each will do for guitar, bass, and drums.

Drum EQ Cheat Sheet. I love this one. It’s a perfect starting point for mixing drums. I’ve used this cheat sheet to setup personal presets in my EQ plugins and always start with them tweaking (usually a lot) as I go.

EQ Cheat Sheet for Over 20+ Instruments. Need something a little more comprehensive? This one is for you. It covers general EQing as well as all manner of instruments; not just guitar/bass/drums.

The Frequency Spectrum… I use this one when I have keys of any kind in the mix. A good, quick glance cheat sheet.

As with anything, these are not magic and will not turn you into a professional mixer overnight. What they will do is help you get started and are great as a resource while you work. Bookmark them. Print them. Make use of them.

Remember to listen as you make changes to EQ. Don’t just boost and cut exactly where the cheat sheets tell you to and call it a day. Pay attention to what is happening to the sound as you work.