darkstr1746@... wrote:
> no shit!!  be sure to check out the "Chinese Restaurant" ride. You'll
> lose your lunch.  LMAO!!!!
Mike was right,  You'll NEVER let him forget!  ;-)

Cheers,

Bill

Giles Reaves wrote:
> Hope all went well with your show - sorry about the snow. As I recall,
> I was followed home by an interstate-closing snow storm after
> Mind1Spiral, so we only missed that one by a day or two. How 'bout a
> Summer Concert Series?
That pretty much depends upon the Fiske if I correctly recall a comment
Mike made.  The Spring break seems to be their preferred slot for mS.
Perhaps there's a summer break that they'd consider?

Cheers,

Bill

Paul Vnuk Jr wrote:
> For Bill and John...and all of the other Mindspiral Vets...
> "A week at Mike Metlay's house is like a vacation at
> Disneyland...excpet that you can die on the rides!"
LMAO!  I had the comfy bed ride - just my speed.  I only needed to turn
down the heater thermostat twice before I achieved the optimal setting.
I haven't been on a roller coaster since I went to Disneyland in 1980!
However, like looking at a train wreck in progress, I couldn't look away
from the Metlay family chaos that they call normal.  Remember, that's
the view from bachelorhood.  I wouldn't blink an eye if I were married
and had a couple of kids.

Cheers,

Bill

P.S.  The Mozilla spell checker saw Paul's last name and suggested a
correction: Hanuka!!!!!!  I kid you not.

[crossposted to mindspiral for those who are there and not on DS]

Next year we're doing it during the summer. Finally, after three years in a
row of one disaster or another (this year it was the weather, last year and
the year before it was a catastrophic failure in promotion/advertising), I
have managed to convince the Fiske staff that we gain NOTHING by scheduling a
concert at a time when more students can attend. We have now proven
conclusively that our draw is almost entirely from the community, NOT the
campus. Our best bet is to do it when the weather's nice and schedules are a
bit less crazy, i.e. summer vacation. People are more interested in late night
shows on weekends, and the students are summer-schoolers looking for something
different to do because the usual venues are taking it easy while school's
out. So: if there's a show in 2008, it'll probably be in June.

(It's too late to do one this summer, the planetarium's schedule has already
been locked in. Although, if they get the fantastic new sound system they're
talking about for the lobby, I may do a small show there accompanied by
Science On A Sphere, a brand-new exhibit that launched officially yesterday
but was running for visitors on the night of the show and is VERY
cool...hopefully I'll be able to put some photos on the website.)

Recordings: I have sent the original CDRs to John 3 for listening; I am not
sure if anything is recoverable from them due to technical issues we're still
sorting out. (Every session there's always at least one critical omission;
this year it seems to have been confidence-monitoring of the CD recorder.)
However, Bill may have saved the metaphorical day with his M-Audio MicroTrack,
which he had hooked up to the spare outs on the mixer so he could have his own
24-bit copies of the proceedings. Thanks to that recorder, we have
acceptable-to-good quality recordings of the entire live show and also,
apparently, of some of the rehearsals: Bill, that clevver open source guy,
just sent me an Ogg file of one of the tracks I wasn't able to recover
satisfactorily from the live set, and I'll give it a spin as soon as I've
figured out how to listen to Ogg content on Mac OS X (if iTunes can't read Ogg
files, I'm sure something else can).

As of now, we have four songs that are of at least web-releasable quality,
totalling roughly 49 minutes. They're the freeform/ambient pieces from the
show, and would work together as a nice, if short, CDR album. Of the four
other songs, I have yet to determine which are releasable, but in number of
minutes they total less than what we already have, and don't mesh thematically
with the other material well enough so that an album release would suffer if
they were omitted and made available elsewhere (possibly as free downloads on
my website).

The whole question of whether any of this stuff is worthy of physical-media
release, and if so in what format, remains to be settled. I'm a much harsher
critic of my work than pretty much anyone else on the planet, and my internal
jury is still out on the subject. I expect Bill and John 3 to weigh in, and
will consider their opinions before making a final decision.

Darrell: time for some mutual back scratching. If you would be kind enough to
contact Bill about providing server space where he can upload non-Ogg versions
of all the remaining tracks, and where John 3 and I can download them, I would
be happy to provide Blue Water Drift Dive with an exclusive copy of one or
more of the live tracks that I've already approved as being of at least
webcast-quality, as a special release for this Saturday's show. Interested?
Contact me offlist.

mike


Darrell Burgan wrote:
> Sounds like next year you'll need to sacrifice something to the
> Weather Gods prior to the show ......   ;-)
>
> Did you capture a recording?
>
> Darrell
>
> --- In differentskies@yahoogroups.com, Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City
> <metlay@...> wrote:
>>
>> ...was nearly cancelled due to one of those spring snowstorms Boulder
>> suffers occasionally. It was threatening but dry when we arrived for
>> load-in; when we came out after setup and soundcheck two hours later,
>> there was half an inch of snow on the ground, whiteout conditions in
>> the sky, ice on all the highways, and the lobby was basically empty.

--
"Mike Metlay's house is kinda like Disneyland...
  only you can DIE on the rides."        (p. vnuk)
> < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < >
metlay / www.atomiccity.com / www.mindspiral.com / www.differentskies.com

[kindly excuse the crossposting]

If anyone wants to know the one shining achievement of that amazingly
dumbed-down, brain-dead program known as iWeb, it is this: it's so
stupid-easy to use that even *I* can keep a site updated.

Please direct your browsers and your attention to
http://www.mindspiral.com if you have a moment. Among the new
delights you'll find there:

- short audio excerpts from ALL tracks in the live mind3Spiral show
from last Saturday night
- photos from the show, including a sneak peek at one of the coolest
new scientific exhibits anywhere, courtesy of the computer-modeling
geniuses at NOAA and NCAR
- a set of photos from last year's mind2Spiral show, including
performance shots in the dome
- a couple of not terribly well hidden easter eggs

Tomorrow night on StillStream.com's Blue Water Drift Dive show, there
will be an exclusive premiere of one or more full-length tracks from
the show, that Bill, John 3 and I are discussing releasing on an
album. I'll be hanging out on the chat room for the station to answer
questions, too.

Thanks for your attention,

mike

--
Spell check only works when you can find the button.           (john 3 rossi)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Some new information has been posted to the mindSpiral web page at
http://www.mindspiral.com

We have information on CD releases for two live shows, an
announcement of a brand new project that will air on Internet Radio
during the Blue Moon in June, and some initial hints at a mysterious
new collaboration that's starting to bear fruit. There's also new
music samples, new photos, and a statement about the new royalty
situation with respect to Internet Radio.

Thanks for listening.

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

I just saw a McDonald's commercial that uses the same song as was used
to make the Mellotron tapes that we used for the basis of
Mellotrons Bit My Ass.  Including the ending!

Cheers,

Bill

... on making decisions for m2S and m3S. I've been getting other
stuff done at work for a bit.

I still have to spin the m2S trial CD myself before copying it for
Paul, Greg, and Nick, and then letting Paul get to work on cleanup; I
hope to do that today. The CD as I'm sending it out has orderings and
approximate fade times and types on it but no level adjustments, eq,
or other treatment. It also includes the encore, which will not be on
the CD release but will be released as a free online download on the
website.

As for m3S: John 3 managed to rescue part of one song from our
rehearsal recordings, which I think I'll be giving away as a free
download on the website; it doesn't fit thematically with the more
ambient live stuff that will make up the CD release. John and I have
to talk about what he wants to do with the existing recordings in
order to turn them into a CD release.

I also need to do some research on a CD replicator that Greg turned
me on to, whose name eludes me at the moment. I want to see samples
of their printing work; if it's good, it'll represent a big savings
over Mixonic's already very reasonable rates.

My hope is that well before Different Skies in October, I'll have
*both* of these CDs ready for sale and distribution. They'll form a
trilogy of sorts, and then I'll be on to non-CD mindSpiral projects
for a bit...

mind4Spiral is going to take a while, not surprisingly.

mind5Spiral will go live on Internet radio on June 30. Lots to do before then.

Stay in touch, folks!

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

I also need to do some research on a CD replicator that Greg turned
me on to, whose name eludes me at the moment. I want to see samples
of their printing work; if it's good, it'll represent a big savings
over Mixonic's already very reasonable rates.

Most folks have seen photos of my basement studio, usually in sexy closeups
that hide the fact that it's a musty, concrete-walled charnel pit that kills
creativity just by walking in and sitting down. Those of you who've been to my
home in recent years would know that it's been little more than a glorified
showroom for disconnected and dustcovered synths for years now, and I just
haul pieces out of it to do live shows, which I rehearse in the big basement
room outside the studio, which doubles as a dining room and a place to put
Giles and Paul N on cots when they visit.

I was getting sick of this situation, and while I still haven't gotten around
to drywalling the ceiling so the insulation doesn't show, or painting the
walls a more cheerful color, I did determine that most of the mental problems
I was having with the studio that WERE fixable stemmed from its being way too
crowded and cramped in a physical sense, and full of too much unused clutter
in a headspace sense. I therefore sold a bunch of my gear (thanks, Duke! :)
and yanked out a bunch more in preparation for sale or auction, and got my
studio down to a small but still powerful rig that was much easier on the eyes
and brain. StillStream.com (thanks, Darrell! :) provided a good reason to get
things up and running again in a hurry, and after an 8-hour spasm of fiendish
effort and ignored wailings of neglected family last Saturday, the studio is
now functional... according to my log book, this may be the first time it's
been this usable since late 2004, and I actually suspect that the real number
is more like 2001.

The only casualty found so far after the long downtime is Hiroshima, my
ancient OS 9 Wall Street Powerbook G3, which I kept as a front end for the
Studio 5LX, which works happily but can no longer be programmed.

I've kludged in my Yamaha MJC8 as a dumb router and am pretty much
operational, although I really do miss the filtering, firewalling, and
controller remapping that the 5LX does to make my synths play more nicely
together. (The old programs are saved on the now-dead Wall Street and
hopefully backed up on CDROM somewhere, and the 5LX currently just has the
programs I use for routing sync at DS on board.)

I now have enough control to be able to do solo shows on StillStream and so
forth, but need to decide what to do next. Joe has very graciously offered to
send me his old Wall Street to replace mine, and I will probably take him up
on it, but the first things I have to investigate are (a) seeing if I can get
Hiroshima up again and (b) whether I can recreate what the 5LX did in a
sensible manner in software on OS X without a creativity-killing technical
lag.

Right now I have a FireWire-enabled analog mixer that can route audio to my
Mac. The current rock-bottom-simple plan is to mix the audio in the analog
realm as if I were working in the old-school manner, pipe the stereo mix to
the Mac and into Nicecast, and transmit it to StillStream.com or Second Life
or wherever I'm supposed to be playing, while also using the mixer to tap off
a feed to my CD recorder and/or DAT machine. Badabing.

If I later decide to get more into the integration of computer audio with the
studio, the mixer's a flexible enough I/O system that I can move the synths'
outputs here and there, record them for looping, etc., in Ableton Live, and
maybe even do straight-ahead multitracking. I have a 4 x 4 USB MIDI interface
that would let me get most of my synths' I/O working nicely; I'd have to use a
Thru chain to distribute sync to the few items that don't really need full
I/O, or hunt up an 8 x 8 USB MIDI interface if I can find one that's
Mac-friendly and cheap....

But for now I'm very pleased with just being able to do the old-skool banging
around and potential live webcasts from the studio. The studio feels more
"right" and usable than it has in forever, and is now fodder for some great
train wrecks and more.

Now I just have to figure out how to break it to Darwin that I don't want to
disassemble anything and drag it to the office for the June 30 webcast show.
:)

mike

--
"Mike Metlay's house is kinda like Disneyland...
  only you can DIE on the rides."        (p. vnuk)
> < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < >
metlay / www.atomiccity.com / www.mindspiral.com / www.differentskies.com

Um, Mike - your inner monologue is audible again.  You might want to
think about this stuff while eating a bagel.

[ddg]
Darwin "You Could Always Play A Kalimba" Grosse

On Jun 12, 2007, at 9:35 AM, Mike Metlay wrote:
>
> Now I just have to figure out how to break it to Darwin that I
> don't want to
> disassemble anything and drag it to the office for the June 30
> webcast show.
> :)
>

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Mike Metlay" <metlay@...>

Most folks have seen photos of my basement studio, usually in sexy closeups
that hide the fact that it's a musty, concrete-walled charnel pit that kills
creativity just by walking in and sitting down. Those of you who've been to my
home in recent years would know that it's been little more than a glorified
showroom for disconnected and dustcovered synths for years now, and I just
haul pieces out of it to do live shows, which I rehearse in the big basement
room outside the studio, which doubles as a dining room and a place to put
Giles and Paul N on cots when they visit.

I was getting sick of this situation, and while I still haven't gotten around
to drywalling the ceiling so the insulation doesn't show, or painting the
walls a more cheerful color, I did determine that most of the mental problems
I was having with the studio that WERE fixable stemmed from its being way too
crowded and cramped in a physical sense, and full of too much un used clutter
in a headspace sense. I therefore sold a bunch of my gear (thanks, Duke! :)
and yanked out a bunch more in preparation for sale or auction, and got my
studio down to a small but still powerful rig that was much easier on the eyes
and brain. StillStream.com (thanks, Darrell! :) provided a good reason to get
things up and running again in a hurry, and after an 8-hour spasm of fiendish
effort and ignored wailings of neglected family last Saturday, the studio is
now functional... according to my log book, this may be the first time it's
been this usable since late 2004, and I actually suspect that the real number
is more like 2001.

The only casualty found so far after the long downtime is Hiroshima, my
ancient OS 9 Wall Street Powerbook G3, which I kept as a front end for the
Studio 5LX, which works happily but can no longer be programmed.

I've kludged in my Yamaha MJC8 as a dumb router and am pretty much
operatio nal, although I really do miss the filtering, firewalling, and
controller remapping that the 5LX does to make my synths play more nicely
together. (The old programs are saved on the now-dead Wall Street and
hopefully backed up on CDROM somewhere, and the 5LX currently just has the
programs I use for routing sync at DS on board.)

I now have enough control to be able to do solo shows on StillStream and so
forth, but need to decide what to do next. Joe has very graciously offered to
send me his old Wall Street to replace mine, and I will probably take him up
on it, but the first things I have to investigate are (a) seeing if I can get
Hiroshima up again and (b) whether I can recreate what the 5LX did in a
sensible manner in software on OS X without a creativity-killing technical
lag.

Right now I have a FireWire-enabled analog mixer that can route audio to my
Mac. The current rock-bottom-simple plan is to mix the audio in the analogrealm as if I were working in the old-school manner, pipe the stereo mix to
the Mac and into Nicecast, and transmit it to StillStream.com or Second Life
or wherever I'm supposed to be playing, while also using the mixer to tap off
a feed to my CD recorder and/or DAT machine. Badabing.

If I later decide to get more into the integration of computer audio with the
studio, the mixer's a flexible enough I/O system that I can move the synths'
outputs here and there, record them for looping, etc., in Ableton Live, and
maybe even do straight-ahead multitracking. I have a 4 x 4 USB MIDI interface
that would let me get most of my synths' I/O working nicely; I'd have to use a
Thru chain to distribute sync to the few items that don't really need full
I/O, or hunt up an 8 x 8 USB MIDI interface if I can find one that's
Mac-friendly and cheap....

But for now I'm very pleased with just being able to do the old-skool banging
around and potentia l live webcasts from the studio. The studio feels more
"right" and usable than it has in forever, and is now fodder for some great
train wrecks and more.

Now I just have to figure out how to break it to Darwin that I don't want to
disassemble anything and drag it to the office for the June 30 webcast show.
:)

mike

--
"Mike Metlay's house is kinda like Disneyland...
only you can DIE on the rides." (p. vnuk)
> < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < > < >
metlay / www.atomiccity.com / www.mindspiral.com / www.differentskies.com

-------------- Original message --------------
From: Darwin Grosse <ddg@...>

Um, Mike - your inner monologue is audible again. You might want to
think about this stuff while eating a bagel.

[ddg]
Darwin "You Could Always Play A Kalimba" Grosse

On Jun 12, 2007, at 9:35 AM, Mike Metlay wrote:
>
> Now I just have to figure out how to break it to Darwin that I
> don't want to
> disassemble anything and drag it to the office for the June 30
> webcast show.
> :)
>

Oh, shoot. There I go again. :)

Anyway, problem solved in the interim... and without any rig teardown
*or* reliance on untested computer rigs. I was doing a review at work
yesterday and needed a variety of sound sources as test material. I
wired up Betty along with a hardware synth I'd been using for that
purpose at work, and threw in an older laptop computer with a
previously installed and gig-tested set of softsynths; I started
thinking about the show while working on the review, and before I
knew it I'd programmed about fifty new sounds specifically for the
set. The review isn't as finished as it could be (sigh), but I now
have a really nice rig already set up for June 30 and ready to go.

Now where'd I put those bagels? And we're out of lox, so I'll have to
crack open the lutefisk...

mike

ps. Paul Vnuk has a solid-body electric kalimba. He brings it to
Different Skies every year and AFAIK he's never actually used it on
anything. Sure is kewl looking, tho.



>Um, Mike - your inner monologue is audible again.  You might want to
>think about this stuff while eating a bagel.
>
>[ddg]
>Darwin "You Could Always Play A Kalimba" Grosse
>
>On Jun 12, 2007, at 9:35 AM, Mike Metlay wrote:
>>
>>  Now I just have to figure out how to break it to Darwin that I
>>  don't want to
>>  disassemble anything and drag it to the office for the June 30
>>  webcast show.
>  > :)

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Less than 15 minutes after this email is sent, I'll be doing a live
Ambient Train Wreck with Darrell Burgan (Palancar). Tune into
Stillstream.com to hear the carnage!

What do we call it? mind6Spiral? SpiraLancar? Metlancar? Or, in
classic house music fashion, Metlay! vs. Palancar? :)

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

On Jun 19, 2007, at 7:40 PM, Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City wrote:

> Less than 15 minutes after this email is sent, I'll be doing a live
> Ambient Train Wreck with Darrell Burgan (Palancar). Tune into
> Stillstream.com to hear the carnage!

damnit, I have to check my mail more often.

   --- Joe M.

Please excuse the crossposting (though I'd appreciate it if certain
folks [coughcoughBillFoxcough] could see their way clear to sending
it to lists I'm not a member of, like spacemusic etc.) I hope to get
this announcement up on my website tonight as well.

***

Darrell Burgan, whose Blue Water Drift Dive show graces the internet
airwaves every Saturday night on http://www.stillstream.com ,
recently sent out this very nice note to folks, which I'd like to
pass on a bit farther:

>Hello friends,
>
>Just a quick note to make sure you're aware of a big live event coming
>up this Saturday, June 30, on StillStream.com. MindSpiral, a fantastic
>electronic space music project led by Mike Metlay, will be performing
>live sometime during the Blue Water Drift Dive program that evening,
>in mindSpiral's debut net concert!
>
>If you're not familiar with mindSpiral, you can learn more here:
>
>http://www.mindspiral.com/
>
>This promises to be a fantastic live event, and one well worth setting
>aside some time to listen.  For Blue Water Drift Dive show times in
>your time zone, simply visit our Schedule page and select the location
>nearest you:
>
>http://www.stillstream.com/schedule.php
>
>Hope to see you there!!
>
>Cheers,
>Darrell


I'd like to add that the instrumentation for the show is looking very
interesting. I may be using one keyboard for the occasional note
sequence, but mostly I'll be playing ambient strings (my baritone
5-string Schecter A-5X in its custom tuning) with nonlooped
electronics and KAOSS Pad, while Darwin will be using a very unusual
new performance control system based around, of all things, the
Nintendo Wii! You can read about Darwin's design philosophy at

http://www.cycling74.com/story/2007/6/25/14393/2389

In rehearsals, I was blown away by how wonderfully the Wii system
worked; I actually scrapped most of my plans for the show and started
over from scratch to accommodate the sort of tuneage that emerged
from the system, and the results are beautiful, while completely
different from anything mindSpiral has done before (again!). In
keeping with StillStream's ambient aims, this is a much more drifty
and meditative soundstructure than the occasionally beat-heavy and
melodic or noisy/raucous stuff that has characterized the planetarium
shows of the first three incarnations of mindSpiral; it's been fun
and worthwhile, and I'm really hoping our audiences will enjoy it as
much as we will.

We hope to see you on the StillStream chatroom for the show, and that
you enjoy the music. We're not precisely sure when we'll go on, but
the show starts at 2300 EDT/2200 CDT/2100 MDT/2000 PDT on Saturday
night, and you'll get to hear music by a lot of great and relatively
little-known electronic artists when we're not playing.

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Mike:

OK, so how'd it go on Saturday?

Phil

>Mike:
>
>Forgive the cross posting. So how'd the gig go on Saturday?
>
>Phil

It didn't suck at all.

There were a lot of dropouts in the stream to the users, and we had
to go offline briefly in the first few minutes and tweak things,
which helped a bit but wasn't perfect. I had a hard disk recorder
capturing the stream before it went out, so there does exist a
high-quality copy of the full show, which was about an hour without
interruptions. I plan to make it available on the Web in some form;
certainly a 96kbps MP3 for StillStream.com to replay and have in its
archives, and maybe something higher-rez for people who'd be
interested in parting with a few dollars for a direct download or
even a CDR.

The music itself was a delight. Darwin's little Wii controlled
sequencer was fantastic, and he was very tolerant of my skipping from
aebea to keyboard to KAOSS Pad and back again to find textures that
worked well in and around what he was doing. We both had a lot of
fun, and I think we can and should do it again. Perhaps the best part
for me was having a concentrated shot of music with Darwin, which
despite his proximity doesn't happen near often enough in my life.
He's a great friend and an awesomely inspiring musician, and I always
love working with him.

I did do a 20-minute solo 'ambient train wreck' at around midnight,
after Darwin went home. I had some ideas I was itching to get out
there, that didn't work with the Wii, so I threw them out on their
own. As a train wreck they weren't that good, but as seed material
for perhaps a solo release on Earth Mantra they were stellar. (Note
to Darwin: I did NOT end up playing any Nirvana, Yes, Deep Purple, or
Black Sabbath on the air, at Darrell's request that I not get him hit
with royalty bills.)

Almost as importantly, I figured out by sheer accident how to tweak
Nicecast's settings so the dropouts stopped, which will make my
subsequent concerts a much nicer experience for all concerned. I'm
just sorry that we didn't tumble to the fix before Darwin and I
started playing, as it was a bit distracting to be worrying about the
stream while we played. Oh well, live and learn.

I am now a bit burned out on wrecking for a little while, and must
catch up on family and work. But I think by mid-July I'll be looking
for partners in crime again. Stay tuned to http://www.mindspiral.com
to learn more... and keep listening to http://www.stillstream.com the
rest of the time, because the music there is fantastic, wall to wall
ambient that you won't hear almost anywhere else.

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Short form:

I'll be trying out a live show inworld in Second Life tonight for the
first time, just to see how it flies. 7 PM SLT (Pacific) in Luskwood.
IM me (Spiral Sands) for details, I should be online an hour before
showtime.

For those of you who have no idea what I just said:

Second Life (www.secondlife.com) is a massively distributed online
interaction game, a virtual world where people create characters,
talk with one another, create 3D graphical art and architecture to
populate this online world, and share music and video with one
another in online versions of live film and music concert situations.

I got involved in Second Life a few months ago, partly at the heavy
insistence of Tony Gerber (SPACECRAFT, Space For Music Records, and
many other places... known inworld as Cypress Rosewood) and Dennis
Moser (usr/sbin, known inworld as AldoManutio Abruzzo).  Tony and
Dennis have both found the online concent environment of SL to be a
very fruitful place to work, and have been strongly encouraging me,
and many others, to give it a go.

My experiences in SL so far have been a mixed bag. On the one hand,
the client software is enormously processor-hungry and finicky (it
wants a seriously steroidal graphics card to give you anything like a
decent frame rate), the rendering is primitive by truly modern
standards, the network of computers that support the grid are
frequently overworked and crash more often than they should, and the
vast majority of the online population are exactly what you'd expect
from a social interaction game with no real restrictions on
membership. On the other hand, some of the online art and
architecture are truly beautiful, there are a fair number of
intelligent and committed folks who are using this system to network
and build some pretty remarkable collaborations, and I've had a
chance to hear some pretty good music, of which there's a whole lot
in SL... a live concert of some sort or another almost every hour of
every day, considering that the membership is worldwide so the world
never really sleeps, music popping up in different timezones for
Europe, America, Australia...

The SL concert experience involves going to a venue and tapping into
the audio stream there (every parcel of land in SL can have its own
audio and video feeds) and chatting with others in attendance. It's
like listening to a StillStream.com concert, only instead of a
text-based chat window during the show, you have a graphical
rendition of a roomful of attendees, who range from perfectly coiffed
3D graphic women in sexy clothing (most of whom are being run by pale
fat men) to cartoon characters, elves, walking abstract sculptures
and the occasional dragon (most of whom are being run by pale fat
men).

Concerts themselves aren't always much to watch (as opposed to
listen). The music isn't tied to movements of the virtual characters;
they mime playing instruments using simple looped animations as the
music is piped in. (We have a ways to go before they get that synched
up.)

For this first concert, I've mainly concentrated on the music, and
kept the stage show pretty simple. I have a cartoon-character costume
that I'll probably wear for the show (Luskwood is a cartoon-character
realm for the most part), and Tony was kind enough to help me find a
Rhodes piano model with a stool that has a built-in keyboard player
animation, and to give me one of his virtual synth models, a large
Buchla modular that I'll be playing for the show (again, not a real
one, just eye candy).

I hope Tony doesn't have an aneurysm when he sees my rig... I kinda
modified his synth. A lot. One of the genuinely fun things about
objects in Second Life is that they don't have to obey the laws of
physics, so you can build objects that are completely impossible in
real life, including buildings that float in midair and musical
instruments that could only exist as 3D models... I won't say any
more right now so as not to spoil the surprise, but will try to post
a photo after the show so you can see what I mean.

The initial prep for such a show, including designing a virtual tip
jar to collect virtual money (which has an exchange rate for real
dollars, btw), is a bit of a pain, especially for a novice, but once
it's done you pretty much show up, set up your stage rig, and start
playing, a process that takes only a minute or two. It's a lot like
busking on subway platforms but you can't get arrested, have your
gear stolen or broken, or get mugged. And you can do it from your
basement while wearing sweats. :)

After it's over, I may hop over to Blue Water Drift Dive on
http://www.stillstream.com and ask Darrell if he's interested in my
doing some more playing for the StillStream audience. BWDD starts at
8 PM Pacific (11 PM Eastern) on StillStream; maybe I'll see some of
you there in the chat room, since that's a much easier thing to set
up than a Second Life account.

mike
(inworld: Spiral Sands)

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City wrote:
> My experiences in SL so far have been a mixed bag. On the one hand,
> ... and the
> vast majority of the online population are exactly what you'd expect
> from a social interaction game with no real restrictions on
> membership.
I have no expectations or experience with such a thing.  Please relate
what one may expect... beyond pale fat men masquerading as sexy girls.

Cheers,

Bill

P.S.  Last weekend, my PC's power supply blew.  After driving on
expensive gas across town to the nearest Best Buy and realizing that
their power supplies are way over priced, I drove home on expensive gas,
waited until a neighbor turned on their wireless network, got onto
newegg.com and ordered a power supply Sunday night.  The ps arrived on
Tuesday, I installed it, and am back on the air.  I think that my Win98
machine is on its Fourth Life!  ;-)   (or fifth...)  I doubt that a 1998
graphics card will work very well in SL and, if the process is such a
power hog, then my PII/450MHz/128M PC will surely choke.

> P.S.  Last weekend, my PC's power supply blew.  After driving on
> expensive gas across town to the nearest Best Buy and realizing that
> their power supplies are way over priced,

Expensive gas? Ha.

Re: SL: I'd love to explore it (especially since I now have a laptop
which would let me experience it at a framerate higher than I get by
browsing Flickr), but am terrified that it would immediately consume
my every waking hour, and there are enough things which are
constantly threatening to do that already.

	 -- N.


Nick Rothwell / Cassiel.com Limited
www.cassiel.com
www.myspace.com/cassieldotcom
www.loadbang.net

Nick Rothwell wrote:
>> P.S.  Last weekend, my PC's power supply blew.  After driving on
>> expensive gas across town to the nearest Best Buy and realizing that
>> their power supplies are way over priced,
>>
> Expensive gas? Ha.
>
Compared to what you pay, point taken.  Compared to what we payed only
two years ago, it's an outrage.  If it were taxes, I might not complain
so much.  But it seems to be greed that has tripled gas prices in less
than three years.  It used to take DECADES to DOUBLE gas prices.
> Re: SL: I'd love to explore it (especially since I now have a laptop
> which would let me experience it at a framerate higher than I get by
> browsing Flickr), but am terrified that it would immediately consume
> my every waking hour, and there are enough things which are
> constantly threatening to do that already.
Also my concern.  But if it gets me to do some solo work (I've always
performed in groups), it might be worth it.  How Darrell does such
interesting and varied music without anyone to else to fall back on is
far beyond my understanding.  Simple looping doesn't explain it at all.
I can't even figure out how to do this off-line in a studio all by
myself.  There's nothing to respond to.  I seldom start anything on my own.

Cheers,

Bill

>Re: SL: I'd love to explore it (especially since I now have a laptop
>which would let me experience it at a framerate higher than I get by
>browsing Flickr), but am terrified that it would immediately consume
>my every waking hour, and there are enough things which are
>constantly threatening to do that already.

I probably shouldn't tell you that there's a virtual Callahan's, then...

mike

ps. Don't get your hopes up: like most really worthwhile spots in SL,
it's usually empty of people.

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

>Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City wrote:
>>  My experiences in SL so far have been a mixed bag. On the one hand,
>>  ... and the
>>  vast majority of the online population are exactly what you'd expect
>>  from a social interaction game with no real restrictions on
>>  membership.
>I have no expectations or experience with such a thing.  Please relate
>what one may expect... beyond pale fat men masquerading as sexy girls.

The vast majority of people on Second Life, taking sheer numbers into
account, are the same sort of people one finds in online chat rooms:
underage, sneaking on with fake ID, and incapable of carrying on a
coherent conversation. You see an elegant, attractive woman at a
concert looking at you, you say hello politely and introduce
yourself, and the vision of loveliness replies: OMG UR So HAWT LOL YA
RLY!".

There goes a dream with a dull THUD.

>P.S.  Last weekend, my PC's power supply blew.  After driving on
>expensive gas across town to the nearest Best Buy and realizing that
>their power supplies are way over priced, I drove home on expensive gas,
>waited until a neighbor turned on their wireless network, got onto
>newegg.com and ordered a power supply Sunday night.  The ps arrived on
>Tuesday, I installed it, and am back on the air.  I think that my Win98
>machine is on its Fourth Life!  ;-)   (or fifth...)  I doubt that a 1998
>graphics card will work very well in SL and, if the process is such a
>power hog, then my PII/450MHz/128M PC will surely choke.

No it won't because it won't even LAUNCH the SL client software. You
need a Pentium 4, MINIMUM, with a huge graphics card and tons of
VRAM. Just as a point of perspective, Bill, you can't get decent
performance on SL unless your computer has a graphics card that has
as much RAM built *right onto the card for graphics use only* as your
whole computer currently has.

I need to get John 3 to help me build a cheap and cheerful SL
machine. The most expensive part will be the operating system, unless
I go with Linux and try to run the Linux SL client that's still in
alpha...

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Thanks to everyone who showed up on Second Life for my concert; it
was a blast and I got a lot of fans, a lot of cred, and...
surprisingly!... a decent chunk of change for my efforts. In terms of
my share of actual profit after expenses from a live show, it may be
the best gig I've ever played. (Which is a pretty pathetic statement
about EM in general and my ability to draw paying crowds in
particular, but what the heck.)

The next one and the ones after that will be far easier and less
worrisome, I think, and I do plan to do them again. I've met some
cool people and hope to meet more. It doesn't substitute for real
live shows like mindSpiral's planetarium gigs or Different Skies, but
it's a great way for me to woodshed and keep my chops going between
gigs with a minimum risk of gear damage and gasoline expenditure.

And thanks, also, to the folks on StillStream who complimented me
after I showed up there, fresh from the SL concert, and played
another set right then and there. You're a great source of support
and I value you all.

mike

--
My MIDI 'interfaces' are such dinosaurs, they transmit in pencil. (r. foster)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mike metlay * atomic city * po 17083 boulder co 80308 * metlay@...
check out our expanding collection of music! http://cdbaby.com/all/atomiccity

Deuter's album D is on Alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1970s

New to me.

Mark