Tweets from Track Day
- Not sure what
#MusicTrackDay was? Here’s an overview:jstasiuk.wordpress.com/music-track-da… - 0024: 18 hours later.
@djfractal and I are done. And done. Drinks have been consumed. Time to sleep for sleepy sleep.#MusicTrackDay success - 2001: 14 hours in. We have to stop.
@uvicmusic is having a tuba concert. That’s a wrap on#MusicTrackDay #2012 “It sounds like a warm hug!” - 12 hours at
#MusicTrackDay, and almost done. Big ups to Duncan for 6 straight hours of mixing. - 1936: Final stage of overdubbing with Amy Wood. Almost done! It’s been a hugely successful
#MusicTrackDay - thanks all!pic.twitter.com/zxpgVBFp - 1554: Tracking with Amy Wood and our in house session drummer
@phillipsrob - Ben parker is overdubbing, Bucan Bucan mixing.#MusicTrackDay - 1338: 5 hours into
#MusicTrackDay - One band in tracking, one in overdubs and one in mixing. One energy drink consumed.#thisisthelife #MusicTrackDay Quotes: Brett Reid “Reverb is like the mayonaise of recording. A little bit is okay – but too much just ruins it.”- Jazz and
@paddyjoeboyle are done and onto mixing. Bucan Bucan onto overdubs and Ben Parker is in!#musictrackdaypic.twitter.com/DRwTPsng #MusicTrackDay Quotes:@djfractal ”We’re recording ALL the takes!!”- 1058: Bucan Bucan is tracking vox, Jazz is groovin,
@theeclectrix is liking@paddyjoeboyle#musictrackday@uvicmusicpic.twitter.com/QPtAVU4j - 0950: One hour in. Both bands are here and all mics are set up. Sound check is done on Jazz Band. Checking Bucan Bucan now.
#MusicTrackDay - 0820: Two problems: Snake doesn’t reach – daisy chained two together. And coffee maker is locked away. What do we do?!
#MusicTrackDay @SilenceAsSound Strictly speaking, here goes everything.#MusicTrackDay- And so it begins. Here goes nothing “
@djfractal: Up at 0600 for#Uvic#MusicTrackDay - recording four bands in 12 hours.” - Up at 0600 for
#Uvic#MusicTrackDay - recording four bands in 12 hours. - Emails just went out for the
@uvicmusic#MusicTrackDay for this Saturday. Only 3 more days til it kicks off.@djfractal@theEclectrix - Holy shit
#UVic#MusicTrackDay is actually coming together. It’s starting to get a little bit exciting. And nerve wracking.
The End (of Summer) is Here!
So I guess it’s about time I stopped whining about writing this and actually got down to writing this.
It’s here. In the last waking hours of the last day of my summer, here I am, on my computer writing this blog in between games of Modern Warfare 2 on PS3, which is something I bought this summer. After playing it lots in my second year, and then finally getting a PS3 for Christmas last year, I’ve actually been able to play again! Still working on my first nuke on my own. I’ve only done it once before and come close multiple times, but no dice as of yet. For those of you who don’t know what MW2 or nukes are, don’t worry this whole blog won’t be about that.
Aside from that, I’ve stayed in Victoria most of the summer, with one short jaunt to Calgary for my Dad’s birthday. I surprised my Mom at her doorstep, and then my Dad downtown for lunch later. My mom cried twice that one day. Thanks to all my friends who made that one happen.
I also applied and didn’t get on a TV show this summer. It was called “Operation Unplugged” and it was basically taking techno-addicted people away from their addiction and seeing how they fared in the wilderness. I had the most viewed video on YouTube (for the audition videos) for a rap I wrote but didn’t get on the show. In the process of trying to show that I was techno-addicted, I started using Twitter a lot more. I went from about 30 followers of mostly friends and random spams to 90+ as of right now. I’m slowly learning how useful it is for networking, especially in my industry. Most producers and a lot of studios are on Twitter. I’ve met one guy who would be willing to give me an internship when I finish my degree and everything. So that’s really cool.
Operation Unplugged Video
I spent all the summer working. With my side job at the Gap and then doing all the recordings that came in through the school. I was basically the go-to guy for recordings this summer. Which led to my promotion as the Interim Audio Manager at the school right now, replacing my current boss for the semester as he takes his parental leave. This summer I worked on; ESL audio tapes, the soundtrack for a play, a guitar quartet, my own covers, and this audition tape. I also did live sound for 2 separate Indian concerts and recorded piano and sax, a piano feature and dual pianos. All in all it was a great summer for me and furthering my experience as a recording engineer.
With that being said, I designed and established http://jstasiuk.wordpress.com which is my website featuring all my work and my portfolio. It links directly with http://jstasiuk.bandcamp.com which is strictly my music portfolio. Both sites are currently under construction as I work to improve them and make it one seamless site – hopefully.
So I’m working hard to get my “brand” out there and promote myself. I’ve contacted a few other recording people and through volunteering at festivals like Rifflandia this fall, I hope to network myself more into this industry.
As most of all of you know, Harry Potter came out this summer! As most of you who actually read my blog probably know, I don’t actually like Harry Potter. I never got into the books and thus I was not interested in the movies. Well Girlfriend enjoyed the series and thus we commenced the HP movie marathon of the ages. We eventually watched all of them in preparation for the final installment. I think I enjoyed maybe 2 or 3 of them out of the entire 8. To me, it’ll never match up to Star Wars in terms of an epic saga. I guess it’s up there, but it’s definitely behind LOTR and Star Wars for me. HP7.2 was a satisfactory end to the series and I didn’t care enough to complain or dislike it.
Also in this summer, I bought myself a new computer! It had kind of been a long time coming as my laptop was slowly but surely living out it’s last legs. I bought myself a new 21.5″ iMac and now have quite the Apple collection. I still use my laptop for mobile recordings and Photoshop, but other than that, I’m officially a desktop guy. I think the set-up is pretty sweet. It definitely makes editing a lot easier with my two screens. 
Girlfriend went away for the entire month of May, so I didn’t do a whole lot except bum around and work. I actually just went through my facebook page to see if there was anything else worth mentioning.
Some highlights:
- Shotgunning a beer on the 16th hole of a private golf course
- The Oak Bay Tea Party with Girlfriend and Kath
- The Hunger Hush show in Calgary
- Naniamo with Jordo and Girlfriend
- Freaks and Geeks Cover –
I think that’s all for now. Not much else that really comes to mind. School starts tomorrow. First day of fourth year. I have the potential to finish this year, it’ll take me 11 classes. 5 first semester, and then 6 the second. And I’ll be taking a Ukrainian elective which will be pretty cool. Got rep’ for my heritage.
Hope you enjoyed this quick wrap up of the summer! Looking forward to much of the same in the fall!
If this gets 3 likes on any social media platforms I will write a post by the end of this week of my top 5 albums/songs/artists of the summer and what I’m looking forward to in the fall in terms of music!
- J
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I am such a Star Wars Nerd…
So for those of you who follow me on Twitter. You’ll know I just bought a new computer! It’s a super sexy 21.5″ iMac and I love it. I was asking on Twitter what I should name my computer. Since “Harddrive” or whatever is pretty boring if you ask me. I carried this on with my portable hard drives and other devices as well. I used to go with the Clue theme, with my computer being Miss Scarlett, my phone being Mrs. Peacock and my hard drive being Colonel Mustard. But that quickly ran it’s course.
So I’ve changed to Star Wars names. My laptop is Echo Base, and I use the Rebel Alliance logo (first from left). My new iMac is called Coruscant, which is a planet in Star Wars that’s one giant city, I figured that was fitting since it’ll be my main computing hub and centre for all activity. I used the Imperial Logo for that since it turns into a city run by the Empire. My two small portable hard drives are Gold Leader (middle) and Red 5 (second from right). I know Gold Leader should actually be a Y-Wing, but I can’t find a Y-Wing icon that looks decent. And then with the new computer I got a chunky 1TB hard drive, and since it’s so phat, and connected to Coruscant all the time, I’ve given it the title of Star Destroyer (far right).
And if you don’t understand ANY of what I just said, go do yourself a favour and watch Star Wars.
Does this make me a huge nerd? Yes. Does this make my computing collection super awesome? Hells yeah!
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My Internet Life
Well hello there, how are you doing today? Good? Then good.
Hopefully you have seen my video for Operation Unplugged and enjoyed my song. If you’re super duper interested – it can be bought off my bandcamp for $1 CDN. I’m not looking to make a lot of money but I think that’d be cool if SOMEONE out there bought it. Anyways, it’s that video that brings me to writing this blog. Maybe it was that video that brought you here – doubtful, but it’s a possibility. If you want to download the track and help me out – you can go here!
Image via Wikipedia
Image via CrunchBase
Looking back on that video – I wish I had made two versions, one with the intro and end bits, and one without. The one without would have just been my rap and that was that. I could show this video to my family and coworkers and stuff that I don’t really want involved in my online presence. Now that I’ve sent out that video to my parents, they’ve sent it to all my family, who are undoubtedly going to stumble upon this. I try quite hard to keep myself anonymous on the internet. I try not to connect my name to any of my accounts – twitter, this blog, etc. I have quite high privacy settings on my Facebook, I am unsearchable to anyone who isn’t a friend. All in all, I just don’t like having my name out there.
But now with this video, I can’t do that anymore. My parents know now I have this blog and a Twitter amongst other things, and not that that’s a bad thing, but these are places I go to write about without having to censor myself or what have you. I try to censor myself on Facebook and Twitter as is – just for professional reasons – you never know who might stumble across that. But this blog in particular is something I like to leave for ranting and raving about my life and what’s going on and what not. Where am I going to go to complain about stuff if I know the people I’m complaining about can read it? Isn’t that defeating the purpose? Do I have to set up another blog or something where I can go to post stuff and neglect this one (more so than I already do)?
In short, no. I am not going to set up anything else to have to censor myself here. Parents, if you’re reading this and don’t like what you read? Tough – don’t come to me about it, if I didn’t bring it up with you to deal with it, then I don’t want to deal with it. That’s that. So I’m going to try and keep this as a safe-haven for me. Seeing as not that many people come here anyways – it shouldn’t be a big deal.
I’m actually really starting to come around to using Twitter a lot more. Since I’ve upped my usage lately, I’ve been in contact with people all over that you wouldn’t normally come in contact with. I asked Matt Good a question one morning, I got a shout out from the host of Operation Unplugged about my video, I’ve contacted two studios in Vancouver, one would give me an internship once I’m done my degree, and the other would give me a tour of their space if I was ever in town. So that’s been really cool.
Anywho, in other news, Girlfriend got home from Europe on Saturday. It’s been quite nice having her around again. Living alone is definitely not something I enjoy too much. Her schedule is still really wonky – this is the first day she hasn’t slept for about 14 hours – so we’re still kind of adjusting. She went to bed at 8 tonight and I’ve been up playing video games and watching YouTube videos and writing this blog. We did have a long day out and about today just hanging out – so that was really nice. I’m gonna be cracking the whip on her a little harder too now that she’s home. Things need to be cleaned and put away in a more timely fashion and I’m just not going to let as much stuff slide as I usually do when she’s got school and stress and what have you. No more Mr.NiceGuy.
I suppose I need to take a photo of myself with my new glasses for here – since I still haven’t done that. I’m actually getting a new new pair sometime this week since the guy who cut my lenses did a terrible job, and the technician at the glasses store said they’d just re-do them entirely for me. So that’s really great, it just takes a while because I have such shitty eyes. I’d like to try my old ones on for a day and actually see if the new ones make a huge difference. Sometimes I wonder if they actually did anything or not. Except my new ones are cut in such a way that switching really gives me a bad headache.
Album art for Little Hell
I was streaming the new City and Colour album Little Hell today from some stream they sent out on a tweet, and I was actually really impressed with what D
allas has put out. I’ve kind of drifted away from C&C since I met him at the AOF meet and greet, but this new album is quite good. I’ve actually pre-ordered it twice – once in a hard-copy and once digitally (with 4 extra tracks) - I would have preferred just to do the digital, but I ordered the hard copy first. Oh well. I also just started listening to the new Matthew Good album – the few tracks I’ve heard so far are really good! The new Moby has yet to grow on me though…
So with June 1st starting as of right now – the day literally just turned over as I write this – I am going to be starting a 30 day challenge. I got this idea from Phillip Defranco – one of the most famous YouTubers, who I’m subscribed to. The idea is that you set a goal and focus on it for one month. At the end of that month you assess and move on from there. My Project30 is going to be packing a lunch for work. And I know it’s not a big goal or whatever, but I’m really starting to notice a dip in my spending money from buying stuff from the food court every time I go in to work. It’s at least $10 maybe $15 a day. I usually justify it by saying “it’s only one more hour of work” – but really, that’s $50 a week (at least) that I could be saving. I’m going to be trying some new recipe ideas and keep it more interesting than just ham and cheese sandwiches all day. I somehow managed to survive on that everyday in junior/high school, so I think I can do it again. At the beginning of each week – or whenever I have a day off, I’m going to make a whole bunch of sandwiches and have them in the freezer so I can just pull one or two out and bring them to work. I think I might do pasta’s and salads that I can microwave or keep cold too. I’m going to try and keep my progress updated here and do my best to stick to it!
I think that’s enough for one night, if you stuck through til the end of this, here’s that photo I promised! Hurray.
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The Facebook Dilemma
So – I haven’t written on here for a while, but fret not! All is not lost. I have just been busy. But kind of not really. I’m back working at the Gap and doing all the recordings during the summer so that’s keeping me partially busy. You’ll see below two versions of a recording I did with Chris Ho recently. It was a good time, and I think that the recording turned out well. Thoughts? Do you like version one or the remixed version two?
I did well in school. Passed all my classes. One D – in my super tough electrical engineering course (Thank GOD – no more elec), 2 B+’s and 2 A’s. This has definitely been one of my
more successful years even though I did get two D’s. So – I’m glad to be done that, and enjoying summer.
Image via Wikipedia
So the main thing I wanted to rant about today was my Facebook Dilemma. It’s about choosing who to add and who not to add. There are lots of people who I see on a semi-regular basis and have classes with and talk with in those classes occasionally. I would not consider these people my friends but they are people I could talk to at a party or in a social setting. Being kind of an outsider in the School of Music – that means there’s a lot of people who don’t really know me and vice versa, even though we’ve had classes together for 3 years now.
Should I be adding these people to my Facebook who aren’t really friends but decent enough acquaintances to justify a friend request? I know lots of people treat Facebook differently and think that “You should only add your true friends and people you actually know.” And then there’s the flip side of people who add just about everyone and anyone to their friends list. It’s all about how open and how social you are. I feel that I’m somewhere in the middle and will add people even though I’m not necessarily friends with them. I figure I might as well – there’s really no harm since I keep my Facebook pretty secure in what I share.
My general rule of thumb is if I would say hi to them on the street or nodded in passing (in terms of guys) then I can add them as a friend. To me this means that we know who each other are and share some kind of acknowledgement or whatever you want to call it. This also works pretty easy for deleting people – if I see them in public and make direct eye contact and they don’t say hi – I’ll delete them from my account.
Oh the tough life of a suburban university student. Who to add on Facebook such a huge dilemma.
What are your thoughts? Who do you add? Do you have filters for different groups of people?
- J
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End of a Spark
Image via Wikipedia
So the other day, I was riding the bus home from somewhere or other, and I sat down on one of the back sideways seats. Here in Victoria there’s 5 seats that are parallel to the bus at the back, I was in the middle of the five, and the Older Gentleman was in seat one of five.
I had noticed the Older Gentleman when I sat down, he gave me that look like I was one of those “up-to-no-good-kids” so I tried my best to avoid contact with him as much as possible.
Unfortunately for me … in between us lay a newspaper, it had been written on in a big blue marker. This implied that it was from a hotel and probably free to read. So, naturally I picked out the Arts/Life section and opened up the paper to read.
I glanced up and saw the girl across from me. She looked back at me with a little concerned. It occured to me after that she had probably seen the Older Gentleman give me an even meanier scowl after I had taken the newspaper.
As I skimmed the CD reviews and up coming movies, I catch from the corner of my eye the Older Gentleman hovering his hand over the newspaper and moving it closer to his body. It was then that it hit me that it was his newspaper. Sheepishly, I finished up the section and folded it nicely and placed it back on top of the pile as I left the bus.
Now I’m sure the Older Gentleman was pissed because I took his paper without asking. Or that I didn’t even say thank you after I had returned it, but really he should be pleased by my actions. I, as an “up-to-no-good-youth” actually enjoying reading the newspaper. The older generations preach about the newspaper and how fantastic it is and how we should all take the time out of our day to read the paper instead of all this technology stuff. I should be applauded for my interest in the world, albeit the entertainment world, not scolded or frowned upon for the desire to be part of a greater society.
So, Older Gentleman, I’d like to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your paper. Even if you hated me for doing so.
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Calvin and Hobbes Backgrounds
So I’ve found some Calvin and Hobbes backgrounds on the internet, but they’re not that great and don’t fit a 1240 x 1080 screen, so I did a little bit of editing and fixing up so now that they look awesome on your big laptop screen! Enjoy!
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New Music List
Image by doug88888 via Flickr
So it’s been over a year since I’ve had this blog – (Holy Cow! I’ve had this blog for over a year – weird.) – and that means it’s been over a year since I’ve updated my Music List.
Thus! I have kind of perused by Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/golistento) @GoListenTo and picked some of my favourites out of there and compiled a new music list! So that you don’t have to pick and choose from my twitter. It’s all in one brand-spanking-new spot! Enjoy!
http://silenceassound.wordpress.com/music-list/music-list-2-0/
Twitter Shows It’s True Colours
Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day inferred from Twitter.
A study recently at Northeastern University in Boston created a mood map according to different tweets in the United States. The researchers there analyzed the 140-character long messages, deciphering mood and ranging it between least happy to most happy. There is a psychological word-rating system that is used to look at the 300+ million tweets and determine if they are happy or sad.
They found that people were most happy first thing in the morning (odd – I guess Tweethards are also morning people) and later in the evening. On a weekly trend, Sundays are the happiest, followed closely by Saturdays (no surprise there) and Thursday evenings found people the least happy.
“Even though individual tweets are pointless to anyone besides your followers, in aggregate there is a lot of meaningful information that can be an instrument to see how people feel about things, whether it’s public reaction to a politicians speech or a consumers attitudes about a brand.” said Sue Lehmann, one of the researchers.
This makes me wonder how much the government can use this information to judge it’s populous and determine where they have to campaign more. Say after a great Obama speech, the western coast is tweeting all red, then the government can learn to campaign better in that area and have to tailor it’s message better to those people. For me personally, I’d like to see the MoodMap for specific days, like when Lebron James announced he was going to play in Miami. (Maybe this explains Ohio’s grumpyness – See below).
There’s a time lapse video included here, and just so you’re not confused; The map is skewed because of the large population mass found in each region. You will see California bulge and shrink as more users in that area Tweet. See more in the picture below.
A cartogram is a map in which the mapping variable (in this case, the number of tweets) is substituted for the true land area. Thus, the geometry of the actual map is altered so that the shape of each region is maintained as much as possible, but the area is scaled in order to be proportional to the number of tweets that originate in that region. The result is a density-equalizing map. The cartograms in this work were generated using the cart software by Mark E. J. Newman, available at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/cart.
I found it particularly interesting that during the time lapse, you can see that the states of New Mexico (on the top left corner of Texas) and Ohio (in the middle of the map, with the little hook on the right side) seem to stay red for the entire course of the day. Now, I don’t know if this has to do with the lack of tweets coming from that area, thus making the small sample size skew the results, or if people in those two states are really just grumpy all day long. Note to self: Do not go to Ohio/New Mexico on Vacation.
Choose Your Own Adventure?!
Via Twitter?! What!?
http://twitter.com/peretti/status/10731140604
Start here! If you dare!
CD Review – Sunday Buckets – In Case You Hear This
Victoria has already heard a lot of Sunday Buckets. They were the October Band of The Month for the Zone 91.3 radio station, and they played on Boxing Day down at Sugar. These six guys have jumped on the scene trying to get their name out. You can find them on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. “In Case You Hear This” is their first album that was dropped in early July of this year.
The first track, “Aftermathematics” is a catchy pop-like tune that immediately draws your mind to Death Cab for Cutie. Sunday Buckets has a unique make-up as five out of the six members contribute vocally. In the bridge section of Aftermathematics there seems to be a small spoken word/rap vocal line, which provides a good contrast to the rest of the song.
Most of the songs on “In Case You Hear This” are very mellow and easy to listen to. The third track, “Garfunkel” incorporates the classic Mr.Rogers phrase “It’s a wonderful day in the neighbourhood/Won’t you be my neighbour?” With unique elements like that, each song gives you something new to listen to and enjoy in its own right.
Sunday Buckets does the mellow relaxing song very well, almost too well. “In Case You Hear This” needs something heavier. “Kenny the Kid” is close with a great buildup into the first chorus, but as soon as it hits, the song falls flat and all that energy is gone. I’m left here groaning wanting that huge heavy chorus!
Overall the CD sounds great and is produced very well. Sunday Buckets has definitely found their niche in the soundscape of today and are definitely a band to keep an eye on. Pick up this CD or see them live to experience one of Victoria’s newest indie hits featuring a lot of local talent.
*P.S. My roommate just showed me this, but when you plug this CD into iTunes, it incorrectly labels the title of the album, “In Case You Here This”.
Blog-bug
Blah, I feel like I’m in one of those moods where I have to blog everything.
In case you haven’t seen it, my twitter on the side “Things She Says” has been going for a while, and it’s all the random things that my girlfriend asks/says to me. So check it out if you’re bored! It’s a good way for us to remember the things we talk about. But she’s getting kinda annoyed with it I think. I tend to whip out my cell phone pretty frequently when we’re together. http://www.twitter.com/thingsshesays
Also, my reviews are doing well in the paper here. I had a meeting with the Arts editor and he said if there’s shows or bands I’d like to interview then I just have to let him know, and he’ll try to make it happen. Which is pretty cool. Maybe I’ll finally get to go to all these shows like I’ve always wanted to! I think it’s kinda weird and kinda cool being in a paper like this one. I walk by people reading it and kinda giggle to myself and think that they could be reading my articles and stuff. It’s cool to know that there are people out there, who you walk by everyday, maybe even sit next to in class that do that kinda thing. Maybe even on a more grandious scale.
Things are going well at home. Our one roommate who cooks went to Calgary for thanksgiving. So we’ve been kinda managing on our own. My one roommate K made us a good dinner on Friday night, but unfortunately it wasn’t until 8 pm. He did a great job of making everything, but it just didn’t come together at the right times, we were sitting around waiting for food for a couple hours and it really sucked. I’m still undecided on the cable. I don’t think we need this many channels. I thought it was going to be good and we’d watch the news sometimes and what have you. But not really, we only really watch about 6 or 7 channels: Discovery, CBC, TSN, Sportsnet, Spike, and a few other channels here and there. I dunno, still seems kinda like a waste to me.
Okay, I have to go shower now. More homework to do today.
Later days,
- J
