The Good, the Bad, and the Inept

PC Provo people. Remember that name. I say that with only your interests in mind (and maybe the tiniest bit because I need to redirect my anger in healthy ways)- if you ever own a PC and need to take it somewhere then please please do not take it there. My gaming computer has been sitting there since mid-may and my studio computer has been there for over a month now. They are awful, can't manage simple update reconciliation or keep promises, and worst of all- they can't do their jobs after having received degrees in their field of study.

Now, moving right along- as you might have guessed that leads to the bad news that my work is on hold until I go back and take my machines like a mildly annoyed mob boss -my cousin will provide the muscle I obviously lack- and hopefully we'll get those things fixed and hop back on track.


Now, good news: there's more pictures of fun concerts I've been doing with the Wild Apples! Perhaps more pertinently for this crowd- I've worked on my music in spite of the absence of the compy and have a total of four different songs I'm toying with. I've modified my approach to songwriting to where I'm going to be writing one per week and at the end of a lengthy composition period I'll keep and refine the good songs and toss away the dross. I imagine there'll be a hundred songs or so before I can find a few specks of gold floating to the top of my sand pile.

Winging it with the Wild Apples, and Other Stories

Hey there,

I've got some good news, bad news and fun news. So let's get to the fun stuff first and distress ourselves at the prospect of facing bad news in any order while trying to enjoy the present reading.

The lead singer of the Wild Apples (who you should follow here on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WildApplesMusic) featured center stage is the creative power behind this group and all their songs, and he generously offered me an ongoing opportunity to travel and perform at various venues in the state. This is a picture of a performance we did at a tight little joint called Kilby Court June 10th. We're due for another more local performance in two and a half weeks at Muse Music. It's been good to delve back into performing again, so I guess this qualifies as both good and fun news. Maybe that'll help offset the bad news that's already causing cramps, headaches, and ulcers in all of us as the inevitable doom draws nearer.

Good news first- I've been working on a goal of writing one song per week, followed by a review of several dozen of these songs and selecting which to keep. So far I have two down for the past two weeks and I'm looking forward to writing many more. I've been expanding my listening material, working on joint projects with other musicians and have been more productive in the creativity department than I've been in years.

And for the bad news- my studio crashed, the computer won't boot and I've discovered a hardware problem that may take some time to be fixed before I can use it again for writing music, which especially a shame when you consider the timing- I had just received Finale 12 in the mail so I could write out pieces and share them with my musicians when the crash occurred and the blue screen of death reared its ugly head. That said, the computer is in the shop being repaired, I still plan to go forward with writing a new song per week regardless, and I'm still performing with the Wild Apples and working with other musicians on new material.

And there's my update for the day, hope you're all doing well!


-Mark

MDH Studios Location

Good thing I don't roll much when I sleep huh?

I wanted to show you where the place lives and how compact it is. The studio centers around the computer there in the middle. The audio interface is the box on the right of the digital clock with all the wires going in and out. Then there's the instruments, and the gloriously cheap sound system which is loud and strong enough for me to hear anywhere in the apartment and cost me less than fifty bucks. My favorite part is this whole set up fits inside a roughly 4x4 foot location which means I can take it anywhere except most public restroom stalls. If I wanted to, I could bring all of this to performances and set it up with relative ease. The computer is built to fit into racks which is the next investment on my shortlist of tools to acquire before concerts start in January. So for those of you in Utah, you can expect to see this with me wherever I go, especially since, realistically, the sound I want to produce in concerts will be limited to the computer's output and filtering.

All the minutiae is packed away, except a number of my music books, which are left of the sub woofer surrounded by reading material. It's a lot of fun working in this little space, and I like that I can just roll out of bed and have this sucker up and running in less than a minute.

Well there you go. This is the place, the new breeding ground for several people's ideas hopefully. We'll see what comes of it.


-Mark

Site Upgrade

I've started giving the place something of a makeover/overhaul. The store is now fully operational. You can buy songs for a dollar on third-party sites or buy it here for a quarter since I can set my own prices. Woot for that.

There's also a functioning audio player in the music section, and there will be for each new release. There's also a malfunctioning audio player at the bottom of your screen in case you hadn't noticed. It seems to stop playing forty seconds into whatever song so that's got some cleaning up to do, but otherwise this is how things are going to look for the next nine months with a few exceptions. 

The Webisodes tab has been removed. I'm guessing you've figured out what's going to replace it. 

If something goes awry, aside from the faulty mp3 player down there, let me know and I'll get to work on it. Enjoy the new digs, and I'll see what I can do about getting a new clip up in the next few months. 

-Mark

Update: Store completed ahead of schedule. It should work perfectly.