Ethereality News & Weblog

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The bass guitar has been on my “list of instruments to learn” for years now, and I’ve finally gone and done it. After some research, I got a used Warwick Corvette $$ Double Buck 5 string with Nirvana Black finish from ebay:

It did not arrive in very good condition–a broken 3-way switch, some rust on screws, saddle, and with belt scratches on the back. I’ll take care of the rust with rust remover gel, and I’ve gone and replaced the 3-switch this afternoon (I hate soldering!). I dropped by Guitar Center in San Francisco to pick up a new 3-way switch, and they tried to make it sound like you had to be an electrician to replace the electronics in your instrument–basically to scare you into spending $100 or more to let them do it for you. Yeah right. Anyone who can solder and is not a complete moron with horrible eye-hand coordination can do simple electronics repairs. Whether you want to spend the time doing it is another matter I guess. I personally enjoy the occasional repair work and have opened up more than my share of home electronics and fixed them–all jut relying on educated guess and common sense.

while at GC, I tried out the Line 6 Lowdown Studio 110 combo amp, and it performed surprisingly well for such a tiny little thing (10″ driver running on 75 watts). The low B-string on the Warwick Corvette $$ 5 string is particularly punishing when you turn the active preamp up, and 110 handled it just fine–as long as you crank it to volumes beyond its intended use (practice and small gigs).

While there, I couldn’t resist the temptation of trying out the legendary Music Man Stingray 5 and the Bongo, and I really wish I didn’t because now I want one of each. The Stringray 5 played like a dream–extremely smooth action, and with that famous metallic punch–begging to be slapped hard and fast. Even without plugging it into an amp, a single thump on it and I can already hear that unmistakable Stringray sound. Plugged in and with the active electronics turned up–Oh. My. God. It’s like I just gained a another year of skills in slapping automatically. Absolutely mind-blowing. The Bongo was also very nice–probably tonally more versatile than the Stringray, since it’s easier to dial in a more mellow sound with the Bongo. Some people think the Bongo is ugly as sin, but I think it’s actually quite a cute looking piece of wood–kinda like a round bubble.

I hate to say it, but the way the Stringray and the Bongo played really took away the joy I felt for the Warwick. Don’t get me wrong, the Warwick is a solid piece of wood, and has its own uniqueness, but it certainly isn’t as smooth or exciting as the Music Man basses. (Edit: I need to retract this sentence here, since after I posted this blog entry, I put a different set of strings on the Warwick and it made a huge difference. The new strings the previous owner had just put on it prior to selling it were flat wound Ernie Ball Slinkys, and gave the bass a really mellow tone, which is good for certain styles, but terrible for punchy slap tone. I replaced the strings with a set of DR Hi Beams, and it made all the difference in the world. I still wish the Warwick had a mid-tone knob for the active EQ though, since I loved the low-mid and high-mid knobs on the Bongo.)

I just won a Line 6 Variax 700 Acoustic too, but it probably won’t arrive for at least a few more days. I had contemplated other Variaxes like the electric and the bass, but the acoustic seems to be the one that gets better reviews, and based on the sound examples on Line 6’s site, I like the models in the acoustic much better than the acoustic ones in the electric. I almost went for a 705 bass, but it’s already discontinued and I don’t want to deal with non-existent customer support down the line. The bass models actually sound quite good, but most reviews seems to agree that the action is not very good.

I used to feel that tonal versatility is where it’s at, and I can live with not-so-great playability if the tonal versatility is excellent, but now I think that first and foremost you need to really love playing the instrument, because you will play better, have a better time, and your emotional bond with the instrument will be much stronger than something that merely “does its job.” I’ve always wanted a Parker Fly guitar, which is not cheap, and it’s because I played one once almost ten years ago and it blew me away with how smooth the action was. I have not been able to get it out of my mind ever since. One day I will own a Parker Fly. I’ll most likely end up with a Stingray or a Bongo too.

If you’re not a musician, it’ll be hard to understand gear lust. Although photographers share similar weaknesses for gear lust, it’s not quite the same, as musical instruments span a very wide range (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, microphones, mixers, monitors, softwares…etc) and different models can have very unique personalities of its own and can contribute to your music in very different ways–even changing the way you play or compose. With photography gear, different models and brands do pretty much the same thing, and the differences between them are not nearly as drastic as with music gear.

NEWS:
A few of my paintings are featured in a new fantasy art collection titled Fantasy Art Now, written by Martin McKenna, with a foreward by Boris Vallejo.

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Enchanted was a comic book series I created/wrote/illustrated for a few years in the mid-late 90’s. After all these years, I still get the odd email here and there asking me whether I’ll ever continue the series, and what happens to the characters. I just got an email about Enchanted the other day, and every time I do, I always wonder if I should revisit the Enchanted universe at some point.

Truth is, I stopped enjoying doing comics towards the end of my comic book career. I didn’t enjoy having to draw and paint the same things over and over, or all the stuff that I didn’t have an interest in but must anyway because the script called for it. For example, I enjoy depicting characters the most, but if I write a scene that involved the characters walking around in a busy city, then I’d have to illustrate all those damn buildings, hundreds of windows, various types of cars, traffic lights/signs, storefronts…etc over and over and over throughout the scene. You get the picture? Also at some point I figured out that art for me was a means to an end–the real passion for me lies in storytelling. As soon as I figured that out I no longer enjoyed doing comics, because I could just write and tell the stories I wanted to tell, instead spending all that time illustrating the imagery. Not that I don’t enjoy drawing and painting, just that I’d prefer to pick and choose what I wanted to draw and paint, not simply because the script demanded it.

Will I ever continue the Enchanted saga? I really have no idea.

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Portal is one of the best games I’ve played in a very long time. Initially, I thought of Portal as a nifty little extra in the Orange Box lineup, but after playing it, Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2, I have to say that Portal was the one that stole my heart, and it alone was worth the price of admission. I thought it was going to be a challenging brain twister and that’s it, but Portal ended up being one of the funniest, creepiest, and cutest games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, not to mention one of the best ending credit songs ever. This game is a testament to the sheer brilliance of Valve’s storytelling. Portal could’ve been just an exercise in clever game mechanics (Valve hired the students who designed the original game, which was a student project), but Valve gave it a soul when they weaved their special brand of storytelling magic into the game. In my book, Portal is an instant classic and a masterpiece.

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I was very disappointed by Auralex MoPADs. Based on all the recommendations that recording/musician-related magazines constantly give to their readers regarding the MoPADs, you’d think the damn things were the cat’s meow. Not so. Not by a long shot. If you’re interested in the details, read this thread that I started at recording.org.

So be warned–MoPADs will not necessarily do what Auralex claims. Do some math first before you waste your money like I did.

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Some recent films I’ve watched:

Grindhouse - If you’re the type that can enjoy mindless fun every once a while, you’ll probably have a good time watching Grindhouse. I have to say, Rodriguez’s Planet of Terror was a lot more entertaining than Tarantino’s Death Proof, but in general I’ve always felt that Tarantino was by far the more talented one.

Knocked Up - Fun, but overrated IMO. Felt like they sometimes chose to put more jokes on the screen at the expense of more in-depth character development.

Transformers - It’s not really worth writing about, except to bash Michael Bay as a director, and that just gets old. If he had grown more as a storyteller/director, then maybe there’s something to write about, but it’s the same old jackhammering of all your senses during every moment, bombarding you with overly dramatic music even in irrelevant scenes, so that the audience can be lead through every scene by Bay’s iron claws at the nape of the neck. The best way to sum up Michael Bay’s directing is that he’s directing for people who are severely lacking in emotional intelligence, so he cranks everything up to 11–be it unnecessary use of slow-motion, unnecessary emphasis on shots that play no importance whatsoever to the story development or even the scene at hand with close-ups, inappropriately dramatic music, and pointless dramatic lighting.

In the end, it’s all mindless fun anyway I guess–hot chick, robots kicking each other’s ass–maybe we should all stop expecting Michael Bay to one day become a filmmaker with depth and maturity. The man likes to make disposable entertainment, so maybe that’s all we should ever expect from him.

Surf’s Up - When I did work for Surf’s Up, I thought Chicken Joe was the ugliest thing ever. But now that I’ve finally watched it, I think he’s actually my favorite character in the story. My buddy Chris is a lot like Chicken Joe, so it was hard not to like Joe. Overall I enjoyed the film a lot, as it was not the typical pop-culture joke laden fare with talking animals that we’ve all become impatient with by now. The humor felt a lot more genuine, and the pseudo documentary approach was very refreshing. The surfing scenes were just stunningly gorgeous–Sony’s animation department kicked ass on the CG work.

Spiderman 3 - I was never a fan of this franchise, but I watch films like this simply to keep up-to-date with the current CG quality bar. Not much to say except films like this are more or less disposable entertainment (although at a level that’s less insulting to the audience’s emotional intelligence than Michael Bay films).

Ocean’s Thirteen - I didn’t like this one as much as the previous two. It just wasn’t as clever, thrilling, or humorous as the previous films.

A couple of TV shows worthy mentioning:
How I Met Your Mother - My brother Dennis recommended this show to me, and it’s one of my favorite shows now. Really good sitcom writing is hard to find–most sitcoms may get one chuckle out of me in an entire episode–if even that. How I Met Your Mother is far funnier than most sitcoms in rotation currently, and are obviously written by writers that are young, hip, and with the kind of wicked sense of humor I identify with.

Kid Nation - I have a basic dislike for reality shows in general, but I admit that they can be compelling during moments when the people involved forget the camera crew is there, and display something genuinely profound in the way they interact with another human being. I knew this show would have that “Lord of the Flies” appeal in some aspects, so I gave it a shot. Now it’s one of my favorite shows because I find that children are just less pretentious than adults due to lesser control over their emotions, and they are less likely to do what is “expected of them” on camera (even if it’s simply because they don’t really understand what people will expect of them). When children get worked up, they’re a lot less likely to care about the presence of a camera crew, and you really see their true colors come through. The show may be a bit too controlled to be truly interesting, but it’s understandable that the producers couldn’t possibly have allowed a “Lord of the Flies” scenario–that would’ve been too disturbing and too uncontrolled.

And of course, I never miss an episode of The Office. Jim and Pam forever!

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I read W. Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge recently. It started out a bit disappointing, but became more compelling as you start to care about Larry’s spiritual journey. The excessive description of high-class society and its parties got a bit tiresome, as the novel could’ve maintained its full impact without all those descriptions of inconsequential characters that are mentioned only as scene dressing, and then never mentioned again. It’s as if Maugham was afraid that the readers will forget what a society snob Elliot was, and has to keep reminding us at every opportunity. In the end, the book’s insight into religion and spirituality was fairly basic, and as a human drama, lacked poignancy to have left a strong impression. I’ve always wanted to read something by Maugham, and now I have. Can’t say it has compelled me to want to read any more of his works though.

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Many years ago, I had written about Mary Kay Letourneau’s case in the editorial section of one of the issues of Enchanted, and it caused Enchanted to be banned in one of the states (can’t remember which one, but I think it’s one of the southern states). Essentially, I had expressed sympathy for the couple, as I felt it was not a typical case of child rape, as the circumstances were very different from what we usually think of as child rape criminal cases. I’m not going to discuss the details of the case since you can easily find all the details online. Anyway, I have not kept up with the case for a couple of years, and I’m very happy to find out that after Mary Kay finished her sentence (seven years later), the two were still very much in love and are now married.

I was going to write a lengthy vent on how one-size-fits-all law systems will always cause injustices as there will always be exceptions that defy categorization and generalization, but I think this is something either you agree or don’t agree with, depending on your personal dispositions.

When I try to rationalize all the reasons why I was/am on May Kay and Vili’s side, I can see obvious mirroring in my own life that makes me sympathetic to their case. My first serious girlfriend was nine years older than me, and I was a minor at the time (I was seventeen). At no time during our relationship did the factor of age ever come up, except when early on I asked her if she cared that I was so much younger. Her reply was, “No, I think of you as someone my age–in fact you seem older than me in many ways.” It was a relationship as normal as any other, and the idea that she could’ve gone to jail based on a technicality just doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve also had friends who were certainly precocious and displayed far more maturity and wisdom than some of the adults I knew, and they were treated badly by adults that were inferior human beings in every way. I was a precocious kid myself, and I certainly knew what the hell I wanted and had far more conviction in my life’s goals than most adults around me, so I can understand very well why Mary Kay did not see Vili as a typical thirteen-year old (the fact he was artistically talented resonated with me as well). There was also a point in my life where I was in love with a teacher, and we were very close and shared a deep bond (I was sixteen, and she was thirty-five). I was asked to go live with her and her family in Japan, and I really wanted to, except it didn’t feel right to intrude as she had two daughters and was in an unhappy marriage. Instinctively I knew if I had accepted her offer, it would’ve lead to a lot of drama, and I just couldn’t disrupt her life like that. But other than my own life experiences making me predisposed to taking Mary Kay and Vili’s side, is probably the fact that deep down inside, I’ve always been an idealist and romantic, and I’ve always felt that the legal system for the most part is flawed (thought I understand the need for the law to treat everyone the same, even when we are so different from one another). Whether Mary Kay and Vili’s marriage is a successful one that lasts a lifetime remains to be seen, but at this point, it’s no longer important because how many people’s “normal” marriages are successful anyway? The fact that after all the tears and hardship they still remained together and got married is enough, and for me, the curtain is drawn here, and it’s a happy ending in my book.

NEWS:
It’s been fun and frustrating upgrading the studio–one of those things where you just can’t rush any of it–from research, comparison shopping, placing orders, receiving shipments, checking for defects, returns/exchanges, hooking up each new piece, to experimenting with better placement within the studio. Anyway, I took some photos today–not the typical “here’s my studio layout” kind, but more of the “lavishing love and attention with my camera” kind:

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When I started my search for a killer pair of studio monitors years ago, I had no idea that it would eventually lead me to my current favorite piece of gear in the studio–the Klein + Hummel O 300D. Yep, I’ve gone and done it, and no, it did not cost me almost $7k (I was incredibly lucky to find a pair on ebay). It was listed for $3,000, and as I watched and watched, not a single person bid on it, so I went for it. Thank God it did not have a sensible reserve price, because anyone who knows anything about high-end gear knows that the 300D’s are a steal at $3,000. This past couple of years in general has been rough for me, and the 300D’s sure soothed the pain a bit. Just look at those soft curves on the waveguides:

Here they are, sitting pretty in my studio (need to add some Auralex Mopads to cushion their bottoms):

Here’s a Sound On Sound review that reads like a love letter. I generally prefer Hugh Robjohns’ reviews to Paul white’s , as Paul tends to be more cautious with negative remarks (for the sake of not pissing off the advertisers?).

You can find out more about the sexy Germans from Klein + Hummel’s website.

I’m not sure if I can add anything to Hugh’s review–he’s certainly heard a lot more high-end monitors in his career, so he’s bound to know a lot more. If he says the 300D’s are amazingly good, then who am I to argue? My own experience with them (after having had them for a few days) is that they are certainly very revealing, accurate, with an open soundstage, non-fatiguing, and have the cute little K+H red lights in the front that blinks if you overload the internal limiter–which I’ve yet done (I’m pretty sensible when it comes to monitoring levels–I try not to exceed 90db, and usually keep it at around 80db~87db). For such a small size, they definitely do deliver unbelievable big sound, yet remaining accurate and not hyped in any frequency range. I’ve thrown just about all kinds of recordings at it–classical, industrial, metal, electronic, jazz, vocals, rock, pop, film/game scores…etc and they have performed beautifully. They do reveal bad recordings for what they are though, whereas lesser monitors mask the shortcomings. I’ve listened to some of my own recent cues, and I’m hearing things that have changed my mind about how I should mix them. I don’t think I’ll be using the digital inputs, since I’ve read from other 300D owners that they aren’t really all that better than the analog inputs.

All in all, I’m just thrilled to have the 300D’s in my setup, and I’m also ecstatic over the killer price I got them for. I doubt I’d want to add the O 800 sub to them, since the 300D’s go pretty low already (definitely lower than the listed 40Hz, since it’s a closed enclosure and 40Hz is what’s rated as within the flat response range). Maybe if one day when I need a larger studio, I’d add the sub.

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I want to give a shout out to Jeremy at Guitar Center’s San Jose branch. He was a very cool guy who helped me demo a bunch of monitors and allowed me to move them around (which the stores typically don’t allow) to get more accurate listening positions for A/B’ing different pairs.

I might have ended up with a pair of JBL LSR6328P’s if I didn’t see the 300D’s on ebay, since I was quite impressed with those during my last listening test there. The 6328’s blew the 4328’s out of the water (I had a good impression of the 4328’s until I heard the 6328’s), as they made the 4328’s sound almost timid and limp. The 6328’s had much nicer soundstage, and overall a lot more articulate and dynamic (not in a hyped way).

I got to test the new Mackie HR824 mkII’s while there too, and I was quite disappointed. The treble was rolled off and sounded like there was an invisible blanket over the high frequencies (maybe Mackie chose less fatigue over accuracy?). It’s still got that fat bottom end like the previous version, which may or may not be accurate, but for the bass heads, they’ll buy them just for that.

I got to hear one of the Blue Sky 2.1 systems (finally!), and they were definitely nice, but sounded like there was a hole missing in the frequency range (lower mid’s). It must be due to the crossover issues in the 2.1 setup.

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The 300D’s weren’t my only recent ebay winning bids–I also nabbed a Kurzweil PC2X master controller keyboard:

You can find more info at Kurzweil’s site.

I almost went for a CME UF-80, since I finally got to try one out at Leo’s Pro Audio (in Oakland) recently, and the action is not nearly as bad as some have claimed on the internet. In fact, it felt remarkably like the Kurzweil and Fatar’s piano action. I was going to get it because I wanted to connect a Yamaha BC3 (breath controller) to it, and it comes with the connection ready (otherwise you’d need to spend a couple hundred more just for a converter). But when I saw the PC2X on ebay, I had to go for it, since I could connect a ribbon controller to it, AND it’s got the breath controller port too, not to mention it comes with some pretty good sounds. My logic is that if I’m paying the same price, why not get something that actually makes a sound–I might find some presets I really like. I don’t need all the knobs and sliders on the UF-80 anyway, since I already have a Novation ReMOTE 25 SL. I ended up getting the PC2X for $711. Not too shabby at all.

I nabbed a few other items off ebay as well–a M-Audio 4×4 MIDI USB interface (my Midiman 1×1 is not going to cut it now that I’m adding more gear, since I don’t want to do too much chaining), and a Behringer Xenyx 1622FX mixer (please don’t groan. Not all Behringer products are crap. Plenty of Behringer’s products have gotten great reviews. Besides, if I hear any unwanted coloring/noise from the Xenyx, I’ll immediately get rid of it and get something more “respectable”).

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All that remains is pretty much acoustic treatment. I’m willing to spend up to a couple of grand to treat my studio, but any more than that, I might have to consider the DIY solution. I’m currently looking at both Realtraps and Auralex solutions. I’m a lot more impressed with Realtraps so far, since their customer service is a lot more in-depth, and they are the one company that gets name-dropped constantly at high-end audio forums by reputable mastering engineers.

I’ll need a good all-around mic too, since I don’t have a decent one in the studio right now (just a couple of el cheapo’s). I haven’t had the need to record vocals or acoustic instruments for a long time now, but that’s going to change real soon. Maybe something like a Studio Projects C1, Shure Beta 87C, or RØDE NT1-A.

NEWS:
ImagineFX have collected a bunch of artwork, tutorials, interviews, articles…etc from past issues into one volume called Fantasy Art Exhibition Vol.1, and it contains the interview they did with me (along with the tutorial I did). You can now also read the interview directly from their site as well.

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Been a long time since I updated Kitty Cat Diary. Not that I’ve stopped taking photos of Elena–just that I’ve been too busy to sort through them. For it looks like I’m all caught up though. Latest entries:

Shot a quickie session around our apartment’s pool/entrance too:

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I finally got the Bioshock demo to work on my machine. It seems like it was only months ago that I had upgraded my video card, and now I’m behind the times already. I had to run the demo at much lower resolution than I had hoped to (I have a 24″ widescreen monitor), and the audio was stuttering the entire time. At least the surround sound was working though (I have a 7.1 system), unlike with the Valve games running on the Source engine. I always have problems getting the surround sound to work with the Source games, and often even typing “snd_digital suround 1″ in the command console doesn’t work.

I have been looking forward to Bioshock ever since it was announced years ago. Being a huge fan of System Shock 2, there was no questions as to whether I would play this “spiritual sequel.” I could see why all there’s all this hype about the game (some of the reviews read like love letters), and I did enjoy the demo quite a bit, but I have say it didn’t quite grab a hold of me in the same way that System Shock 2 or any of the Half-Life games did. Perhaps after playing through the entire game I will feel differently. For now I’ll hold back any final thoughts until after I’ve played the whole game.

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I have wanted an IEM (In Ear Monitor–the kind that goes into your ear canal, like an earplug) for a long time now, but never could justify the purchase (the good ones will cost you around $200), but now that I’m on the train everyday, I had enough reasons to go ahead and get one. It was down to between the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro and the Shure E4c, and I ended up getting the Shure. Boy do I regret it. Not that the E4c’s are bad headphones, just that the bass is really anemic and the highs too shrill for my personal taste. I wish I had gotten it from a different online store too, because the one I got it from does not allow refunds on headphones. I had read all kinds of reviews and debates between audiophiles online beforehand, and my instinct told me to go with the one with the flatter frequency response. The Super.fi 5 Pro is supposed to have more hyped bass, which seemed like a bad thing for accuracy, but now I think when used with a portable mp3 player, it probably would even things out, as the portable mp3 players are always short on bass anyway. Now with the E4c, I have to jack up the bass in my Nomad 3 Jukebox, and turn down the highs as well for a more pleasant sound. See, I’m not even a bass head–in fact I can’t stand hyped up bass, so that tells you just how anemic the bass is on the E4c. Now I’ve gotten the right EQ setting going on the Nomad 3, the E4c’s are starting to grow on me, but I just wish I didn’t have to compensate so much with the EQ to get it there though.

On a side note, my Nomad 3 is starting to feel a bit ancient. Compared to the current generation, it’s quite bulky (about double the size of an iPod), and 20 GB just isn’t enough anymore. I have close to 200 GB of music on my machine at home, so naturally I’d want to get as much of it into a portable player as possible. Maybe I’ll upgrade to the next generation of the Creative Vision? I won’t be going the iPod route again just like last time, since I’ve tried my brother Dennis’s video iPod and I think the ergonomics isn’t quite as good as the Creative products (can’t jump between different hierarchy of directories quickly). It doesn’t even have a customizable multi-band EQ setting, which is a deal breaker for me.

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It’s been a few years since I last did a clean reinstall of the OS (WinXP Pro), and with all the crap I install on my system, it always becomes boggled down eventually (even if I clean the registry and optimize settings regularly). This weekend I did a repair install, and I thought it had fixed the problem, as I was able to have Sonar 6 running a lot smoother than before, and actually got some composing done over the weekend. But as soon as I had to reboot for something, I found out all the old problems are still there (Explorer would freeze up, mouse detection would not work, random reboots…etc). Looks like I’m going to have to do a clean reinstall anyway. That’s always a PITA, but at least the machine will run smoothly for at least another year or so (I hope) before it starts to go weird again.

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I’m thinking about selling my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens, as it sometimes misses the mark when focusing–especially in portrait orientation using one of the non-cross hair sensors. That lens is already considered a very good one, and from here on the only way up is the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L, which costs about $1,250 brand new. A bit too rich for my blood, but I might give it a shot on ebay and see if I find a good used one.

Speaking of selling, I’m tempted to sell my Novation ReMOTE SL 25 too, since I have never gotten it to work with Sonar (it did, for about a day with Sonar 5, but not with Sonar 6). I tried the Generic Control Surface approach and the ACT approach with Sonar, but neither could get the transport buttons to work, and it’s also an one-way communication in terms of feedback–the LCD on the ReMOTE SL would not update (and that’s one of the best things about the ReMOTE SL). To tell the truth though, I wouldn’t know what to replace it with. Maybe an Edirol PCR50?