Video Game Binge Weekend

If you work in games, the above flowcharted representation of time management will probably ring a bell for anyone who has ever committed themselves to the consumption of these shiny interactive objects of mystery. In 1999 I implemented a mandatory binge weekend during the Thanksgiving holiday that involved little more than 5 consecutive days of hardcore gaming.  This was my allowance for the year and it was understood that I would be regressing deep into the worlds created by others.

Life would have to continue of course, and you'll see plotted in the flow other things that would be filling up my time off. My priorities were split during the break between my family, house projects, and another pursuit that has dominated my life: rock and roll. This commitment to music was also reflected in that my wife holds down double duty as Bass Guitar and Flute Player in the unified pursuit of noise making. You'll see, deftly slotted, a casual reference to "Band Practice" which ended up represented over on the music side of this site.

I hadn't owned a system since the Sega Genesis and so each year I would rent the console du jour, a current crop of interesting titles, then have at it for an extended visit back to the pixelated days of my youth. Through these brief skinny dips into the modern gaming culture of the day I experienced some great (and not so great games): Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong Country, Parasite Eve, Rez, Final Fantasy X, Myst, Tempest 2000, and countless others that have been lost to the slippery slope of memory.

When it came time to get serious about a career (something that most people do early on in their life) I was already in the throes of fatherhood, a homeowner, and working a 9-5 to make ends meet. Out for a walk one day my wife asked me a deceptively simple question "If you could do anything and get paid for it, what would it be?" My answer was more than a little abstract, and I said "Make weird noises" and her response was "Well aren't there people who do that, and make a living?"

It took months to calculate the simple equation that had been adding up all of my life:

Games + Sound = Game Sound

From there...well, you can read all about it on the home page. It's hard to say exactly how I got from there to here, impossible to retrace the steps, but looking back it all fell into place after that simple question was answered in the most naive way possible. After that was determined, it was all about figuring out what it meant and what needed to be done to make it happen...not exactly a straight line, that's for sure.

For anyone out there following your bliss, the road isn't always easy but it comes with great rewards.
Keep chasing the butterflies!

-lcl

Music Vault - Beautiful Flute

Arguably among my first hands on non-linear audio experiments, Beautiful Flute was the culmination of hours of tiny slices made to an epic improvisational flute piece by my soon to be wife. It was with care and delicacy that I approached the source material in an effort to render the emotional tone into a meditative instrumental poem of tranquility.

Working on a Power Mac 7300 in Cubase 3.5 I set to splicing and dicing into short passages and loops, after which I took isolated tracks and eventually the entire mix through the (now) well documented Reverse Reverb process in order to give it an otherworldly effect. Admittedly a technique cribbed from some of my favorite bands, it helped lend the appropriate fluttering shine that edged the piece further towards realization.

Lost Chocolate Lab - Beautiful Flute 01


Lost Chocolate Lab - Beautiful Flute 02


Lost Chocolate Lab - Beautiful Flute 03


Lost Chocolate Lab - Beautiful Flute 04



At the core of it is the beautiful voice of the flute lilting and looping, supported by the reverse ebbing fluctuations giving things an abstract propulsion.

Things are in a state of imbalance lately and it's moments like those represented in the music of my past that I cling to in order to secure footing. Whether it's music I've had a part in the making of, or sounds made by people I've never met, I often seek the comfort coming out of two speakers when things start to drift. Vibrating air molecules like the wings of a butterfly, resonating deeply and soothing my road weary soul.

Thanks for listening.

Music Vault - The Butterfly's View

In an effort to re-expose some ancient musical recordings i'll be highlighting various musical tracks from the vault. While it seems like forever (1998) since these recordings were made, It could just as easily be yesterday.

Back before this website moniker was just a faceless name rounding up interactive audio curiosities and other such oddities, it was used as a name for a musical project that started after the demise of another band.

Today's track comes off the Lost Chocolate Lab release entitled "The Butterfly's View".

The title track is a chaos of swirling noise, distortion, and cacophony. The Flute performance was played live in the studio by my wife, and manipulated in realtime via the alleged DM-1000. The surrounding pileup was a mess of processing and caterwauling mayhem whose origin cannot be recreated. The whole everloving mess later had prose attached to it's various ebbing and flowing with regards to the title's proposed vantage point, the likes of which can be followed along with here.

Lost Chocolate Lab - The Butterfly's View

Having finally come across Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" recently, I don't think a comparison is fair - despite a similar penchant for squealing and distortion. Ours has way more melody than the afor mentioned...although it may be no less relentless in it's attack.

Thankfully the rest of the tracks are a grab bag of styles reflecting different takes on the whole sound thang. After that kindof treatment, hopefully haven't totally estranged you and you'll drop by again sometime.

Thanks for listening.