Apr
4/14/13
It’s been awfully busy these last few months, and I couldn’t be happier.
- I’m on track for another Dean’s List-worthy semester at Texas State,
- I am now a production director at KTSW 89.9FM,
- I’ve gotten into the habit of eating healthier,
- and I’m exercising regularly.
Most importantly though (musically),
- I’m also releasing a new song within the month,
- also releasing a mix as well.
The next song I’m releasing will be featuring vocals from Kimberly Whithaus. She has an amazing voice, and is a whole lot of fun to be around. We also have plans of working together some more in the future that I am extremely excited about!
I have been wrestling with visual concepts for my music lately, as well. As you can painfully notice, this blog is the only news source of my music. I don’t have a Facebook or twitter, and I rarely update this blog as it is. That being said, I’m far from an “active” musician.
Becoming that “active” musician is sort of like building a house for a house party, and your fans are like your guests. I know, I know, terrible analogy, but bare with me for a second.
You see, They are there main parts to the house-
- The Structure
- The Utilities,
- The Decor.
1. Structure
This is obviously the most important aspect of a house, because the house on the foundation and structure of the building.This to be solid and permanent, like the equivalent of having a solid presence online like a website or Facebook. The more active you are online, the bigger and more solid this structure is.
2. Utilities
This is like the food, electricity, and plumbing for your house. For the most part, I treat this as to how often you release material and maintain your house. Your house will eventually fall apart and decay, if you do not maintain it often and keep your guests happy.
3. Decor
Lastly, there is the decor/image of the house. Depending on how good you sound, and depends on how attractive your house is, is how often you retain fans, or how many people enjoy coming over to your house. Somebody that is very active and releases a lot of material will have a lot of fans coming over to be entertained (aka listening to your music, and actually liking it consistently).
An example of a successful and active musician is somebody like Daniela Andrede. She may not be well-known, but she is active and professional. She has her own website, beautifully-illustrated releases, Youtube videos, Facebook, etc.
If her musical presence were judged by my metaphor, she’d be living in a house like this—
She already has her foundation and decor fantastically placed, the exterior is gleaming, and I would definitely love to visit this house (aka listen to her music).
My musical house, is more like this—
As you can see, THERE IS NOTHING FUCKING THERE.
In order to lay down a foundation, and start decorating my musical presence, I need to perfect my musical craft. As of right now, my most-played song on Soundcloud is my remix of Linkin Park’s Lost in the Echoes, which has over 700 plays right now. I’m very proud of this feat, but I do realize that I need to get better musically. I also need to start playing live shows to garner more exposure, which is why I will be releasing a mix at the end of this month in order to show what I can do as DJ. I recently acquired a Traktor S4, and I am learning the craft of DJing, since almost every electronic musician has to learn how to do this if they ever want to play in a venue.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more music! I appreciate you sticking with me for so long already, and would love to have you on board as I continue this musical journey.
Mar
I wish more Texas State students made music
Specifically, electronic music. Talking about plugins, EQ and digital audio workstations online gets boring after while.
Anybody DJ, make EDM, or know people that do? Here’s my music if you’re interested.
Mar
Beautiful New Homes
This was my first song with a house/trance and made with Logic Pro. I decided to make a simplistic album art for it.
Dec
Discrepancies Update: 12/3/12
I have finished writing the rough draft of the main plot of my next upcoming album- Discrepancies.
What? You’re working on a new album Josue?
Yes, and it’s going to be massive.
How the fuck does an album have a plot?
Very carefully, and you’ll know what I’m talking about soon enough.
When is this shit going to be released?
Beats me dude. Whenever I feel like it’s ready. But I’ll say a rough estimate of sometime in 2013.
Dec
This is my first remix. Originally song by one of my childhood-favorite bands - Linkin Park.
When creating this remix in Logic Pro, I was overwhelmed with bugs and glitches. Such bugs were-
- One of my software instrument’s pitches have been lowered by (almost) a whole step. Which means I have to reposition all of the MIDI notes accordingly to keep the entire file from sounding retarded. And even so, the sound is still slightly off.
- The tempo counter has reset to 120 bpm, however the project is actually 132 bpm. Changing the clock to 132 will actually cause the project to be 144 bpm. So I’m just going to have to ignore it.
- Trying to press C3 on my MIDI controller emits NO sound for whatever sound module I’m using. The same keynote works when I move an octave higher or lower, but for some some apparent reason refuses to work with that single note. No way to correct this. Just have to press the key when recording and pretend it’s playing a note.
- Sends don’t work at all on select software instrument channels. Corrected by using inserts for everything.
- Volume for select software instruments are sporadic. (-20 dB synth sounds loud. Later, sounds quiet as hell. Then sounds loud again.) Corrected by freezing the track, or converting the sound into an audio file.
- When automating and looping the sound, Logic Pro has a delayed latency to the programmed trajectory, meaning the sound I currently hear, with NOT be the sound of the final product. Corrected by converting the sound into an audio file.
- Automated an insert bypass for the first insert. Logic Pro instead bypassed the software instrument on the I/O panel. Corrected by figuring out by programming the automation to bypass the 2nd insert (which doesn’t exist), the program will instead bypass the 1st.
- Using an Autofilter gradually depletes the software instrument sound. Corrected by only using the first 1-2 seconds of each Autofilter.
Needless to say, correcting and diverting all of these glitches took a toll on the time completing this remix. I also feel as if I was held back from letting the track reach it’s full potential. As a result, I will not be using Logic Pro anymore (or at least until they release an update patching all of the glitches), and now making the switch to Ableton Live. I fear that since I am not as adept at using this DAW, that for a time the quality and complexity of my new upcoming tunes will suffer. However, I am optimistic that this will only be a temporary setback, and sooner or later my talent will exceed past current conditions.
Anyways, thank you for listening and have an awesome day. :)
Josue Plaza
Music Player
