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My Thoughts On Self-Publishing

My thoughts on self-publishing

Some of you out there in Internetlandia® enjoy reading books, and a few of you have even gone so far as to say “Hey, since I love books so much, and writing one doesn’t look too hard (I mean, look at romance novels, right?) I should self-publish one!”

Well, far be it for me to proclaim myself an expert in self-publishing books, but I have done it, so I figured I’d share my thoughts surrounding the process, instead of talking about the mechanics of the process itself. If you’re looking for helpful advice in formatting and/or figuring out the publishing process, there’s already plenty of information on that.

We’re going to focus for a minute on the why of self-publishing, which is something not many people think about. If you’re serious about writing, this is going to be a litmus test. Either a) you’re going to get upset, or b) you’re going to recognize what you need to be doing. Hopefully I don’t upset anybody.

These are the questions you need to be asking yourself if you’re seriously considering self-publishing: Continue reading “My Thoughts On Self-Publishing”

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New Music Project

For the last few months, I’ve been working on a new music project with my good friend Luke McNeely. It’s mostly 8-bit “chiptune” music, made using old-school video game sounds and instruments. Don’t laugh, it’s a lot harder than it looks! But between the two of us, we’ve spent thousands of hours listening to really amazing music written by greats like Takashi Tateishi, played through Nintendo and Atari game consoles.

We decided to call our group “Not Entirely Unlike Chiptune” as an homage to Douglas Adams. So, if you like old video game music, were a child of the 80’s and 90’s, or just want to hear something different, check us out on Twitter and Soundcloud.

Our first official project is an 8-bit tribute album of one of our favorite bands, Five Iron Frenzy. We’re releasing the songs as we go, rather than holding out till we’re finished. Feel free to check it out!

https://soundcloud.com/notentirelyunlikechiptune/

8-Bit Frenzy

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MIDI Controllers: Not Just For Keyboards

I’ve been working on my new guitar pedalboard, with the idea to have a 1U rack space and two rows of pedals. This should give me more possibilities in less space than a monster controller pedal, using stuff I already have. However, with a rack effect unit (and even some pedals now), you need some way to control it.

(This picture is a bit different than it will look when finished, but you can see the 1U rack unit. The MIDI pedal will go where the Roland interface is in this pic)

Pedalboard

Next to go on the board is some sort of MIDI pedal that is capable of sending Program Change signals to the rack unit. Ultimately, I’d like one that does Program Change, Continuous Controller, and a tap-tempo MIDI clock. As far as I know (and I’ve researched it endlessly) I can get two of those features in a pedal, but not all three. It just doesn’t exist as far as I know, outside of custom $1000 setups.

Well, if I had to choose between two of those features, one would have to be Program Change. And as far as MIDI clock tap-tempo, I only know of a few pedals that can do that. The cheapest and most flexible would probably be the Molten Voltage “Tempode” pedal. I also discovered that Molten Voltage offers a pedal with the same functionality, plus simple up/down program changes called the Master Control. For the price of a Rocktron MIDI Xchange, I can get the same functionality with tap-tempo MIDI clock and start/stop.

So, how exactly does this MIDI stuff work, and what do PC, CC, and MIDI Clock messages do, exactly? And why do you need them? It depends on what you have on your board, and how you want to control it. Lots of new effect pedals can use MIDI too, including ones from Boss, Strymon, TC Electronics, Line6, Eventide, and so on. Continue reading “MIDI Controllers: Not Just For Keyboards”

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Living The Good Life

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”

-Bill Watterson

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Site Security

Anybody who’s, like, run a website for any length of time knows that getting hacked is the second worst thing that could happen (losing everything to a server crash is the first!) I’ve had both happen to me in the past, not looking to repeat either one. Uncool.

Did some security improvements around here, cause you know, Jeff is gettin’ kinda lazy, dig it? Also ran a backup. Cause I hadn’t done that in a while.

If you wanna know more, let me google that for you!

Be a hoopy frood and get me a towel, would you?

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Reflections On Wisdom

I was recently shocked to discover that someone had been reading my blog, and actually used it as motivation to accomplish something great. I immediately panicked. Why? Because I don’t view myself as a particularly wise person. Intelligent? Yes, under certain circumstances I’d call myself “smart” but that doesn’t have anything to do with Wisdom. I know lots of devastatingly intelligent people who don’t have the wisdom to keep from wrecking their lives. One of my favorite writers, in fact, continually flaunts his MENSA qualifications and IQ score, and yet he’s lambasted as a bigot (and several other nasty monikers) because he’s hot-headed, stubborn, and generally unwise. His skill in writing is second to none (in my opinion) but as a person, I wouldn’t really like him.

So what’s the difference, really? You might think Wisdom is just the application of being Smart, but that’s not the case. But if Wisdom isn’t the same as intelligence, what is it?

Wisdom – the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience

I especially like the phrase “application of experience.” So, by definition, can you be wise without experience? No, you can’t. But so often we try to bypass the whole time requirement of wisdom, and substitute Brains instead. Because, if we’re smart, gosh darn it, we should be able to make the right decision every time, right? If I think about it enough, the answer will come to me.

Oh, how I wish that were the case.

Continue reading “Reflections On Wisdom”

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Linux For Guitarists Episode 2

If you managed to make it through the first step of getting Linux installed on a computer, then we’re ready to go to the next step, which is finding a decent audio interface to use for live guitar performance. This is Linux for Guitarists, Episode 2.

If you want to play guitar through your computer, you’re going to need some way to plug it in. The best way to do it is with an audio interface. Specifically, you want to look for one that has a “Hi-Z” input. This makes the input jack have the correct impedance for your guitar to sound right. If you want a better explanation of why this is, check out this video on Impedance by Nick Jaffe.

I’ll give you fair warning: most manufacturers are going to cheaper platforms, and putting most of their interface’s features in software. I mean, they only have to write the driver software once, and it costs them nothing to duplicate it. Hardware costs money! So what that means for us is that a lot of these will only work in the most basic ways in Linux. If you know this going into it, you won’t get as frustrated, but I’ll tell you now, there’s only a handful of interfaces that work 100%. One of them is what I have, a Roland UA-25EX. It has hardware switches for settings and a hardware compressor, hardware everything, and it’s USB class-compliant, so it just works.

You may not be able to find one of these, so what you want to look for is something that specifically says “USB Class-Compliant.” That means if you plug it into anything, it will at least work to get audio in and out. The advanced features probably won’t work, but that’s generally not a problem. If you want to see what interfaces are known to work, you can go to the Alsa home page and look through the list. Also, most Firewire interfaces will work, but again, you’re gonna want to check and make sure. I have heard reports that the Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 works perfectly in Linux, but I don’t have one to test yet. It’s still in production, so if you can’t find a Roland UA-25EX give the Focusrite a try.

To install an interface in Linux, you just plug it in. The audio drivers are already built into the kernel, so if it works at all, it should just work. You can plug your guitar into the Hi-Z port, and see if you can get it to record something. If you can get it to work at all, you’re set! It’s all playing with software from here.

I’ll also add, you’ll probably want to find an interface that has MIDI in and out too, but if you can’t, you can always get a simple USB to MIDI cable. They sell them on Amazon for like $19, and they’ll work fine for what we’re going to be doing with it.

Okay, that’s about it! Next episode, we’re going to talk about the two main software packages, Guitarix and Rakarrak. We’ll be talking about how to get a decent guitar tone to start with, and then we’ll get into effects later on.

Again, thanks for reading, and keep on rocking!

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Ain’t What I Used To Be

So finally, after years of fighting it, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that… oh geez, I don’t even know if I can say it…

I can’t physically do the things I used to do. My body is breaking down. What used to be a simple job now takes me twice as long, and I have to recover for a few days afterwards. My back muscles are shot, my joints are failing, my neck crunches like Rice Krispies when I move it in any direction, my hair is falling out, and I could go on. I’ll be 40 in a couple of weeks. I’m starting to get old, and I can feel it.

However, I’m holding on to the one last thing I still can keep from failing: my overall health. I’m eating better now than I ever have before. I’m exercising again (after a terrible accident which kept me off the bike for almost 3 years). I’m sleeping more, I’m listening to my body, and you know what? It’s making a difference.

There are some things I know I just won’t be able to do any more. But I’m going to fight to keep what I have left. And when it’s all said and done, I’ll still be able to do more than if I’d had just let myself go.

I refuse to go down quietly and without a fight.

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Don’t Give Up

Don’t give up.

How many times have you heard those words? I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard or said them, but I know it’s plenty. Usually people won’t say when you’re just trying to tie your shoes “Hey, don’t give up!” unless you really struggle with tying your shoes. So most of the time when you hear it, it’s because you’re trying to do something you don’t think you can do. If it were easy, there’d be no need to say it.

In contrast, the times we say “Don’t give up” are when we see someone going through something we’re pretty sure they can do, it’s just they don’t see it. Or believe it. Sometimes they’re not even trying to succeed, they’re just going through the motions in hopes that some day they will be able to just stop.

It really hurts me when I see people struggling, and I know what they’re going through. It hurts even more if they’re struggling with something I’ve already been through and conquered. Why must they struggle when really, the path they need to go is plain and simple, and will get them where they need to go if they stick with it long enough. Sometimes all it takes is someone telling them “Don’t give up, you’ll get there, you’re heading in the right direction.”

If you’ve heard me say this recently, please don’t see it as patronizing. You couldn’t imagine the pain and hardships I’ve gone through, and yet I’m not dismissing what you’re going through. I know it’s hard. I know it’s not the end of the world, and I know there are much harder things we could be dealing with.

It’s hard, yes. But it is finite. There is an end to it, if only you’ll look up and place one foot in front of the other. Don’t look back; keep moving forward.

And above all, don’t give up.