Welcome to another edition of The Sunday Soundtrack. “It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…” (a little hip hop lyric reference there). It’s great to be back with another edition, albeit overdue, of the podcast. It’s about 12:37 am here in studio, but it’s done. I hope to stay on a regular (to be determined) schedule. Starting with pre-production on Monday for the following Sunday helps, doing a little everyday helps even more. The plan is to finish Saturday evening 🙂
For my new listeners, The Sunday Soundtrack podcast is geared towards giving you an alternative listening experience to the standard Sunday afternoon commercial smooth jazz formatted programs and expose you to independent artists with tunes that provide that same smoothness, but in such genres as electronica, nu jazz, downtempo, experimental, chillout, instrumental jazzy hip hop, and the like. Please feel free to take a listen and leave comments, if u like. You can also reach The Sunday Soundtrack at (301) 458-0499
Without further delay, let’s get to the playlist.
1. Moon Beat – LTJ X-Perience/Moon Beat
2. Consequences (Late Night Mix) – Blank & Jones/Relax 4
3. Gutenmirgenduft (Morning Scent) – dZihan & Kamien/Gran Riserva
4. Subsolitude – Hypoetical/Pendulum
5. Try Me – J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science f/Goapele & Capitol A/J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science – OM Records 2003
6. Square Purity – The Jazzment/Beats – Old Stuff
7. Sunbeams – Uko/Cafe Del Mar – Vol. 7
Some special shout outs:
My entire podcast massive: Fave, Big La (Todd Kelley), DarrenKeith, Anji Bee, Nikki, BSOTS, DJ Diva, EJ Flavors (The Sensei), and T. Grundy (Mr Brilliant). All excellent podcasters whose episodes range from smooth jazz to soul to hip hop to R&B to chillout to funk. My hats off to all of you, thanks for the encouragement
All the podcast drops done by the crew above AND listeners – thank you!
Ray Garraud – The Garraud Files Podcast, a versatile tech enthusiast, author, blogger, podcaster, public speaker, and good friend with whom I’ve had several great conversations with on his own thoughts of mobile podcasting and the evolving tech out which allows it. Thanks for the push, Ray!
Calandra and Madeline for the re-encouragement
@DVSJr, @Upright for the re-tweets/favorites about the return!
In our last episode :), I was working on rearranging and audio file our keyboardist recorded into a basic arrangement for the band to start rehearsing. The only thing in the audio file I wanted to delete was the scratch drum track he included, but since it was on contiguous file and not a set of stems, that couldn’t be done. Here’s in lies the magic of using the MIDI file he exported from his Reason 5 project. I finally got it late last night and was able to import it into Logic for greater editing. What’s great about using a MIDI file in a DAW is that your choose from a library of software instrumentsto make an entirely different sounding song. What can be bad about that flexibility is belaboring over WHICH grand piano, bass synth, string ensemble sounds best! In any event, I finally settled on some instruments that sound smooth, and was able to bounce the MIDI files to an mp3 file with no drums that the drummer can now rehearse to.
11:46 am on a Thursday and I’m breaking for lunch a little early, but eating at my desk (have a task I’m working on with a colleague and just got the ok from our supervisor on format – of cousse the task is due early this afternoon).
Those of you keeping up with my last few posts have followed the work I’m doing on getting this track completed for an upcoming (and long overdue) CD project. This has been after (I hate to admit) a long hiatus from working on the project, steadily that is. This brings me to the subject of M&Ms (no, not the world renowned candy): Motivations and Momentums. When it comes to reaching goals, I’m a task-driven guy that needs a plan to execute in order to even think about successfully reaching the goal(s). One of my favorite quotes is “Failing to plan means planning to fail, so plan the work, then work the plan.”. That’s all well and fine, but without the motivation and momentum behind that, it amounts to just a pretty phrase. M&Ms apply to many interests I have – achieving good financial health, achieving good physical fitness (exercise), achieving, most importantly, the proper spiritual walk with Jesus. What I’ve learned is that none of each of those can or will occur without staying motivated and keeping the momentum going – actions truly speak louder than words. Planning is great and truly a necessary foundation, but execution is key.
So, back to the music, right now the M&Ms are there and I’m finally realizing that movements, even though they are small, are better continuously, than no movement at all. Simple concept, yeah, but it really wasnt sinking in for a longgggggggg time. Last night’s was a continuation of working on the drum track. The entire drum track arrangement is complete with final editing of the kick drum track, now it’s time to EQ the individual drum tracks to satisfaction, then play back in the mix for proper levels, before bussing them out to the submix.
In parallel to that, I’ve just about finished editing the orchestral arrangement and have decided to substitute the legato clarinet with a full string ensemble track. I think the legato flutes will stay though. I think so more editing may have to take place to eliminate any overlapped notes, or gaps that will allow the entire orchestral arrangement to sound more realistic than it does at the moment.
Anyway, M&M’s and music (M-cubed?). I think I may get some for the studio….(candy that is….)
It’s about 8:34 pm, beat from a long day at work. It wasn’t busy, but I was up late last night working out a tune strictly from an audio file. I’m sitting in the studio tonite, about to chart out an arrangement of a song I wrote for the band I play in, Divine Intervention. We’re a contemporary gospel instrumental jazz group in the DC area that’s been together for a little over two years. Over the last year or so, we’ve talked about putting out a CD (as many always ask about that on FB or at gigs of ours). A few months ago a tune popped in my head which I immediately recorded a rough rhythm guitar track into my iPhone as I rushed out of the door for work one day.
After introducing it at a rehearsal, we’ve toyed with a few different ideas for arrangements, and sorta settled on one. One of the keyboardists took the hook and bridge, recorded a rough track into Reason 5 and brought to rehearsal. Nice percussive drum track, really nice bouncy synth bass, all under a string ensemble/pad voice that worked out the progressions. It’s from that mp3 that I’ve chopped up and rearranged into the main song, using Audacity, a really nice, very capable open source audio editor – a swiss army knife of sorts, if you will.
I hope to get the MIDI file the keyboardist exported from Reason, so I can import it into Logic for great editing and recording flexibility. Next I’ll chart it, old school, on some sheet music paper, send the rearranged mp3 out to the band, and give it a go at our next rehearsal. We’re hopeful that this is one of many original tracks for the CD. Stay tuned…
Greetings. It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted from my blog. With all the social networking sites in full bloom, it seems that blogging is passe now (at least the behemoths like Facebook around). In any event, I’d like to take that realization and start to blog again, especially about the musically creative journeys I take. I’m going to attempt to regularly status what I’m doing along those journeys as way of keeping the motivation going, as well as maintaining some accountability by those who occasionally ask “When is such and such going to be released?”, “What’s going on with that track you were working on?, etc (plus I miss blogging – it’s that self publication thing I guess).
This series will be entitled Chronicles of a Mix. Tonight, or I should say this morning, I’ve listening back to a track that my partner, Dan, and I recorded for an upcoming CD project we’ve been working on. Though the track is not mixed, I’m thoroughly happy with the arrangement, but not with the overall sound of the track, so I’ve decided to deconstruct it, starting with each element of the drum track, to make sure the drums submix is on point. There’s a certain type of signature sound I’ve always wanted for my drums, but first that comes by learning how to process your drums (EQ, compression techniques are two major aspects of that). Listening to mixes of songs you like is another common way of achieving that. I’ve been listening to a specific song on Mint Condition’s latest CD, Music At The Speed Of Life that has drum track sounding like how I’d like mine to sound overall. Onward with the learning/listening.
Greeting ‘Cog fans. I’ve had the extreme pleasure of talking with Bluey about the current release Surreal, the tour so far, and especially about the band Incognito. It was truly a blast to interview the leader of my favorite band since they hit the scene. I caught up with Bluey at his home late one Thursday night and he was gracious enough to grant the interview at the time. I’d like to extend my sincere thanks for talking with me, brotha, as well as extending thanks to Donna Mercer of Elements Of Jazz for recommending that I do the interview, his beautiful wife Takami for setting it up, and Incognito’s publicist, Rob, for providing me with pre-interview material.
Greetings all. I hope this post finds you well. I haven’t posted about a concert since my last one, Jeff Lorber Fusion at The Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis in March 2011. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen Incognito live. As a matter of fact, it was 10 years ago (I think) during the No Time Like The Future Tour at this same venue.
I purchased my ticket in Dec 2011 and good seats were already going fast so I’m very glad I got seats five rows back from the stage. The crowd, always mature, is filling the theater and the time is 8:02pm. The Robert Glasper Experiment is the opening act, whose current CD. “Black Radio” is blowin’ up the jazz and R&B charts. The Robert Glasper Experiment, for this event, is Robert Glasper, keys; Mark McCollough, drums; Derek Hosge, bass; and Casey Benjamin. vocoder and sax. There’s an excellent cover story article on The Robert Glasper Trio in the April 2012 edition of Downbeat Magazine. Being a musician I’m surveying the stage equiopment…baby grand, Motif 8, and the guitarist’s dream amp, the legendary Roland JC-120, some of which may be for Incognito’s use. Robert played both the grand piano and Motif 8, utilizing its stellar Fender Rhodes patch.
They did an excellent set from their latest CD. Every member of the group is EXTREMELY talented. Mark McCoilough substituted for Chris Dave, the drummer on the CD (some of you may remember him from Mint Condition). Derrick played a chorded and quite elegant, but soulful bass solo of the Stevie Wonder tune “Overjoyed” (I believe). Robert’s engaging of the crowd went over very well, as evidenced from the feedback from the ladies. They closed the set with their sonically awesome version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” I am now an official Robert Glasper Experiment fan.
I regret not going up during the intermission to get that RGE CD purchased and signed, but I stayed put and watched the stage crew get it ready for Incognito. I was five rows back front and center, as a result of purchasing these tickets four months in advance. The interesting thing is I just happened to go on Incognito’s website one night and saw announcements about the tour. They’ve been to the Capitol Jazz Fest since I last saw them in 2002, but as popular as the CJF is, I’m not really a fan of seeing music on the lawn or picnic area because I prefer the comfort of a theater type setting (you know I view the performance from more than an entertainment aspect :-)) Deborah Bond, DC area vocalist (and a very good one at that) was the emcee for the event. She really engaged well with the audience and I would encourage you to check out not just her latest CD but the ones prior.
The stage crew continued getting things ready for the main act. I spied Matt Cooper’s keyboard rig, two red Nord Stages and a Roland JP 8000. I noted Bluey’s guitar rig included what looked like a white Strat (just iile mine…ha) and I knew he’d would be playing his Atelier Z (a version of Fender’s famous Telecaster) which he says is… ““Simply the best guitar I have ever played!” . I can’t speak to the drum and percussion gear, nor the horns that the excellent brass section used, but it was very nice to see that Francis Hylton held down the bass duties, using that classic blue Fender Jazz 5 string bass he’s often seen with.
‘Cog played The Ram’s Head Tavern, in Annapolis MD, the night before. The Ram’s Head is an intimate jazz club that serves dinner and is obviously a much smaller venue. The audience, for all intents and purposes, is up close to the artist, but the sound system is excellent from ever seat in the house. Seeing many concerts at The Warner in the past assured me that the sound would be on point for tonight’s concert. As the stage crew appeared to be thinning and people started to return to their seats, Deborah Bond assumed her emcee duties and the excitement began to mount.
Incognito came to the stage and the electricity surely got kicked up a few notches. They wasted no time in getting musically busy! Interestingly enough after the second tune, they DID experience minor sound issues with the Mo Brandis’ vocal monitor and Matt’s keys…to the point where Bluey litterally made an announcement to that effect. Fortunately, from my vantage point anyway, those issues really weren’t noticeable That being said, here is the set list:
1. Roots f/Vanessa Haynes
2. As (Steve Wonder) f/Mo Brandis
3. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head f/Natalie Sullivan
4. Step into my life f/Maysa
5. Change f/Maysa
6. Colibri f/Maysa
7. Goodbye to Yesterday f/Mo Brandis
8. Above The Night f/Natalie Sullivan
9. Ain’t It Time f/Vanessa Haynes
10. The Leds You Know f/Maysa
11. Still a Friend of Mine f/Maysa and Mo
12. Blueys Story
13. Expresso Maduwria f/the band
14. Percussion explosion f/Francisco and Joao
15. Everyday f/Vanessa
16. Deep Waters f/Maysa (with Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” interlude)
Every track above was on fire, even in the smoothest sense. Two of the highlights of the concert was a percussion and drum breakdown which brought the crowd to it’s feet. The other was one of Bluey’s famous stories on how he got into music at the early age of five, knowing then he wanted to form a band and tour the world…a dream he is constantly living.
Cog closed the concert with one of their flagship songs, Deep Waters featuring the diva Maysa. She paid tribute to Whitney Houston by inserting a very nice rendition of “I Will Always Love You”, intricately woven into Deep Waters….excellent.
After introducing the band, with members ranging from Ireland to Trinidad to Swaziland to Jamaica to England to Brazil, I’ve dubbed Incognito as “The International Groove Alliance”. Bluey always articulates and leaves the audience with messages of pure positivity, global positivity that is much needed in this day and age. This concert was well worth the wait.
Hope all is well with you. I’m home sick with a 24 hour bug that somehow morphed into 48 hours, so I have a bit of free time to post a blog. Some of you might have seen some Twitter or FB posts about my son and I taking up the hobby of model rocketry. Since I started my career as a system engineer on a Navy Space program, I’ve had the privilege and joy of viewing real satellite launches from Kennedy Space Center. Needless to say, this is and will be a lot of fun. The excitement has been heightened not only by viewing model rocket launches on YouTube but finding out how old this hobby is, as well as knowing that my son can earn some Scout badges in the process.
We purchased our first set of pre-built rockets from the local hobby store a few weeks ago. They’re made by Estes, a long time manufacturer of model rockets. As beginners, I opted for the pre-built kind to get us started quicker, though the salesman at the hobby shop was well versed in the ready made versus need-to-assemble kits. We opted on the Rascal and HiJinks rockets:
As said above, these are low power rockets so there’s no special permission needed by the local authorities to launch them. The general rule is to find a wide open space not near any roads and to launch on a day when the wind is as minimal as possible. That being said, even before building, we’ve been keeping an eye on the launch conditions.
This past weekend, we set out around 8:30am to survey some launch sites around the area. Even before setting out, my son already had a good choice in mind, so we drove out to inspect it. Sure enough, it was right next to the basketball courts we frequent. This seems like a good spot, but I’m taking into consideration the altitude as well. How it will affect the performance of the launch, I’m not entirely sure, but I thought I read something about that somewhere. Here’s the Google Earth satellite view (we are, of course, standing where the blue dot is): . We definitely want to have great deal of room to compensate for wind drift after the parachute deploys. Getting the rocket stuck in a tall tree would not be a good way to end the launch, LOL. I’ve seen videos of that happening as well as rockets hitting nearby cars, etc. We plan on filming the entire launch (launch prep, ignition, ascent, trajectory, parachute deployment, and touchdown). How we’ll do that will be explained in a future post (I just order something off eBay that will make this pretty simple to do).
We took off to the second area I thought might work, but we found out that it wasn’t as big as I anticipated. Here’s a little video footage of us exiting that site:
I remembered another site (actually my wife reminded of) to check out, so off we went. This one will work equally as well, so we pulled up and got another satellite view, showing us the altitude and geolocation (lat/long) of this site:
Looks like both sites will work equally well, so the next thing to do is set aside a Saturday to get these rockets built. Stay tuned for the next post.
What’s up everyone. Hope all is well. It’s Wednesday evening about 7:02pm and I’m just wrapping up work for today. Had to jet out for 90 mins to pick up my car from the auto body shop and get the rental returned, hence the late hours here. I was just thinkinig how well my runs and workouts (bodybuilding/strength building) have been consistently going. I ran my fastest mile last Friday and detailed my strength training workout program…but that’s just it. It was my last day in the gym.
This is a common thing that happens to many of us, no matter what we’re involved in. One day off can turn into two, two into…well, you get the picture. Add to that other projects and interests and you can see how conflicts can make themselves apparent. While it’s easy to let discouragement set in (as it has in the past), I’m looking for ways to maintain the motivation….and will find them. Maybe I’ll post the list when I compile it (for all those interested, raise your right hand 🙂 )
Interestingly enough, I was looking for a graphic for the intro to this post (the one above) and ironically, a great article was attached to it 10 Excuses for Not Exercising, and Why They Won’t Fly. While all don’t personally apply to me, the first one I can be guilty of. If you’re trying to stay on your program, I hope this article is useful. If you’re about to start, hope it is equally as useful.
I hope this blogpost finds you well. For many of you following me on Facebook and Twitter, you’ve seen my various status updates and tweets about my health and fitness training, especially in the areas of running and weight workouts. You also know, being the techie that I am, the ability to use technology to track my performance metrics against goals, is of great interest to me, and frankly makes exercising that much more fun. You also probably know that I am a fan of the Nike+ fitness tracking system. Well, this post is not about waving the Nike+ banner, but more about my experiences and knowledge gained about the whole fitness tracking phenomenon and how I see it with respect to exercising/training the old fashioned way – basically paper and pen at best!
I’ll start by conveying my experience with the Nike+ system, my likes about it, and convey a little about the dislikes of others about it (in comparison to the competition). I discovered Nike+, not via one of the many YouTube videos or a TV commercial, but by reading an article in Wired Magazine entitled “Living By Numbers”. While the article featured the work of Apple and Nike in developing the Nike+ system, it was also comprised of other articles and examples of websites and apps regarding performance metrics tracking. You can read the article here.
I’ve pretty much worked out -prettttttttttty- regularly since late HS, through college, etc (though I won’t state how many times I fell off the horse and got back on – thank goodness for muscle memory). Finding out about idea of using tech to track my performance was immediately golden to me and obviously, as said above, appealed to my tech side. What I liked (and still do) about the sports and fitness giant we know as Nike, is their entire approach – marketing, advertising, etc to sports and fitness. The appeal to THIS consumer and fan is great. Another company that does the same for me is Apple (as I type away on this sleek black Macbook).
So, Nike has developed this whole system called Nike Plus, or more overall Nike Active. The whole premise (if you didn’t read the article above) is the combination of an iPod nano or iPhone, coupled with a sensor that goes in specialized Nike running shoes, and a sensor receiver that goes into your iPod (which is how it was originally designed). It was first geared towards tracking your run stats. Since then, the iPod nano 6G (v1.2 software update) and iPhone 4/4S with iOS 5.0 do away with the need for the iPod sensor receiver that comes with the Nike+ Sports Kit. Here’s a video (not the newest, but my favorite) about the basics of Nike+
Since 2006, various Nike+ products have come into existence – the sports band, the Nike+ GPS watch. Here’s a comparison chart
For me, the best product is the iPod nano. I’m not at a point where I want to track my routes, nor do I need the instantaneity of posting to the Nike+ site via GPS. I also own an iPhone 4 that I make reference to later in this post.
Nike has upped the bar and added yet another fitness tracking item: The Nike Fuel Band
A really interesting, yet pricey, fitness tracking device that is designed to motivate you to stay active. I like everything about it (sans the price), except it isn’t waterproof and if you like working out to music, you’re out of luck. It’s slated to hit the US market on Feb 22nd. Here’s a good article on it.
Nike+ is great to me, however there are some definite naysayers and disatisfied users of the system. If you are on FB and search on the keywords “Nike Plus”, you’ll find their page. 98% of the comments currently there (they revamped the page over the last two years) center around the following areas”
Inability to connect to the website
Run data not posting to the site via iTunes or GPS
Run data not crossposting to Facebook
It appears to me that a good deal of the problem points to the fact that it’s a Flash based site, when many, if not all of the other ones are not. Frankly I like the site, and in the almost two years of running and using it, I’ve never suffered the myriad of problems these people are griping about. Nike did admit, and posted a formal letter, to the issues the site was having. I think that was admirable of them. Not having experienced the issues others have, it’s hard for me to share a sympathetic ear, but I hope that the site issues become minimal.
One of the major capabilities in fitness tracking tech is the use of GPS, especially in running. As widely known, you can track your routes and via GPS upload them to your favorite fitness track website via the accompanying smartphone app. Garmin, of course, is in the game and many fitness sites, along with Nike, like Map My Fitness, GainFitness, Dailyburn, Dailymile, and so on. As you can see from iPhone screenshot, I’ve downloaded a number of fitness tracking apps that, aside from Nike+, have tried yet. Since I workout with weights as well, I’m looking for one that will allow me to success track performance there as well. There are eight so far that need investigation. Assessing each will be a project in itself. Currently, in addition to the Nike+ sites, I am using the online site, Dailymile. It was recommended by a friend of mine who’s done a thorough assessment of the site and what I’ve seen so far, I like. It not only allows me to track my runs, but other types of fitness workouts as well. It crossposts to Twitter nicely, allows for the upload of pics and video, has the ability to import my run data from Nike+. From what I understand, it has great capability for analytics as well. Many of these sites allow for import of data from Nike+ and other sites as well.
Many of the sites mirror the same capabilities so, as said above, the best thing to do is compare and maybe use multiple sites, if necessary, to meet the needs you have for tracking your metrics. This leads me to an obvious aspect of performance tracking – accuracy. Just how accurate is all of this? To quote a friend. “If it’s tracking faulty stats it’s futile”. True indeed. One can, depending on what they want to get out of tracking performance, get VERY hung up on how accurate one device is against another in an apples-to-apples comparison. Then there are those like a weightlifter, whose comment I saw in a forum that was attached to an article about this aspect. He basically said he didn’t care much about tight accuracy because he’s just a weightlifter, but wanted to have SOMETHING to gauge his run performance, something simple he could use as a tool to track improvements. The article by Daily Burn CEO Andy Smith is entitled “DailyBurn CEO: Fitness-Tracking Devices Aren’t Gimmicks, but They’re Close”. The article can be read here. Personally, I think one, especially someone who is highly data driven, can get too caught in the phenomena, losing sight to why they started the fitness journey to begin with.
In summary, I look forward to continuing in the leverage of fitness tech to allow me the added enjoyment of keeping fit. I’m settled and happy with the physical tools (iPod nano and Nike Sports Kit) that I have…I can see a bluetooth transmitter for the nano and an accompanying lightweight set of bluetooth headphones, but other than that, I’m good. As for the apps and websites, research and trial awaits. I’m looking forward to that as well, but in the mean time…it’s all about breaking that 10 min mile and training for my first 5K this year. Hopefully I can find an interesting app to aid in my bodybuilding, or should I say weight workouts. Time will tell. In closing, for all the excitement there is in gaining and maintaining good fitness, I try to keep this thought first and foremost.
Here are a number of popular online fitness tracking sites:
Greetings all. I hope this post finds you well. I haven’t posted about a concert since my last one, Jeff Lorber Fusion at The Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis in March 2011. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen Incognito live. As a matter of fact, it was 10 years ago (I think) during the No Time Like The Future Tour at this same venue. 
I was five rows back front and center, as a result of purchasing these tickets four months in advance. The interesting thing is I just happened to go on Incognito’s website one night and saw announcements about the tour. They’ve been to the Capitol Jazz Fest since I last saw them in 2002, but as popular as the CJF is, I’m not really a fan of seeing music on the lawn or picnic area because I prefer the comfort of a theater type setting (you know I view the performance from more than an entertainment aspect :-)) Deborah Bond, DC area vocalist (and a very good one at that) was the emcee for the event. She really engaged well with the audience and I would encourage you to check out not just her latest CD but the ones prior. 
. I can’t speak to the drum and percussion gear, nor the horns that the excellent brass section used, but it was very nice to see that Francis Hylton held down the bass duties, using that classic blue Fender Jazz 5 string bass he’s often seen with.
. We definitely want to have great deal of room to compensate for wind drift after the parachute deploys. Getting the rocket stuck in a tall tree would not be a good way to end the launch, LOL. I’ve seen videos of that happening as well as rockets hitting nearby cars, etc. We plan on filming the entire launch (launch prep, ignition, ascent, trajectory, parachute deployment, and touchdown). How we’ll do that will be explained in a future post (I just order something off eBay that will make this pretty simple to do).
