Last month I decided to give myself a little bit of a musical challenge: enter a remix contest. I’ve dabbled a little in remixing in the past but never actually committed to anything, so I saw this as a chance to see what I was really capable of. I went in search of a remix contest I found interesting and found a whole remixing community called FiXT Remix Online Community. The FiXT Remix Community is actually a division of FiXT which includes a record label, online store, and a Film/TV/Video Game Licensing arm. It was created by Scott Albert (better known as “Klayton”) who is the man behind Celldweller, an electronic rock project based out of Detroit, Michigan. FiXTRemix.com offers people the opportunity to remix songs not only by Celldweller but a plethora of other electronic/rock acts as well.

Neat!

I entered the “So Long Sentiment” contest in which you could remix the song “So Long Sentiment” by Celldweller. Having found out about this contest less than a month from the entry deadline allowed me to check out my competition right away. I concluded I was basically screwed… but I went for it anyways!

As it turns out, my remix made it to the Top 20! People can now vote for their top 3 picks which I encourage you to do right now! From what I understand, it’s an open vote so there’s no need to sign up to anything to vote. Check out my remix below and let me know what you think.

While thinking about how to represent Phonemic, I went back to the meaning of the word itself to get some ideas flowing. First thing I decided on what the use of forward slashes before and after the P and H in the word. These slashes¹ are used to indicate phonetic sounds, such as /f/ and /r/. Instead of changing the PH to F to properly represent the phoneme, though, I elected to keep it spelt as /ph/onemic as opposed to /f/onemic simply because it looks less ridiculous.

I did feel that the initial text looked rather plain, so I tried distorting the letters P and H to add a little extra emphasis and make it more interesting. I also decided to try out a different colour scheme.

As I often do, I quickly grew tired of that font and those colours. I wanted to create something more compelling, so I tried out some more modern text in contrast to a somewhat aged look, colour-wise. I also felt the need to switch the forward slashes in favour of vertical bars² simply because the slashes felt very awkward with the new font.

I wanted to expand more on the colour palette and also explore some actual logo possibilities. I ended up just isolating the |PH| because, really, how the heck does one illustrate a phoneme or something phonemic?

I like the sort of “cut out” look of the last image, but I thought I’d try to go for something that would work better at different sizes and I figured I may as well try expanding that colour palette even more. I really like this style as it creates some interesting depth and gives it more power. This is important as the lack of an actual logo/shape with the text kind of empties it of the stock it needs to stand out.

The text design is sure to change as time goes on, but I’m actually quite satisfied with what I have at this point in time. I’ve still got to get some kind of symbol or logo of some kind together as well, so expect follow-up on that in the near future.

I’m still very much a novice in the way of design, so I’m always learning new techniques and methods to recreate the images in my head. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please feel free to let me know!

1. virgules
2. pipes

After all this talk about starting a new project and getting an album created, I’ve made little progress in doing so. Most of my time spent on this has been simply listening to a pool of songs — songs I think are most interesting out of my hundreds of unfinished ideas and noodlings — in an effort to find a unifying sound. In the past, my albums have consisted of many different genres all crammed together, which certainly keeps things interesting but muddles my overall sound. Out of the 10 years or so I’ve been writing music, I’ve yet to latch on to a particular genre or sound. Sometimes I like the softer, more delicate sound of a lone acoustic piano while the very next hour, I may feel like hearing some crunchy drum n’ bass. This disparity has been a struggle to overcome everytime I begin work on a new album.

I’ve been told by many people who have listened to my music over the years that it’s clear I love writing drum n’ bass; those tracks seem to stand out to people. I haven’t taken those comments lightly. On top of that, I’ve recently been looking over stats on my oft forgotten page on ArtistServer.com that have really surprised me. I haven’t updated the damn page in over 2 years and during those 2 years I’ve unknowingly built some pretty sweet stats.

Welcome Stranger
Either streamed or downloaded 750 times in 2009 and 1,740 times in 2008.

Lexicon
Either streamed or downloaded 1,182 times in 2009 and 3,044 times in 2008.

I don’t know where the heck all those listeners came from, but I won’t complain. Regardless, the important bit of information for me to take from all of this is the type of songs these are. Genres kind of bother me, especially when it comes to classifying my own music — I can never really tell what I should categorize as — but it’s safe to say that these 3 songs share a certain sound; for lack of a better term, I think “drum n’ bass” should suffice.

This little discovery has definitely influenced my decision to explore my drum n’ bass leanings more this time ’round. The sound I wish to achieve could probably be best described as dirty and raw. I really enjoy trying to produce filthy, more “natural” sounding creations that have more character and bite than my previous efforts. I get annoyed when my music sounds too sanitized and emotionless. To counteract this, I’ve steadily increased my usage of “humanizing” tools and techniques such as velocity variation, looser note/beat placement, more interesting and rare time signatures, and — of course — simulated guitar amps! In the coming weeks, I even plan to capture loads of “real world” sounds to tinker with, perhaps creating some nifty beats or strange aural backdrops.

With all that said, however, it’s going to be difficult letting go of some of my cleaner, more developed, non-drum-n’-bass tracks that I’ve grown to adore. This is what I see happening: these dance/electro/trance songs will likely get an obscene, face-melting makeover. I can imagine very little more fun than absolutely mauling an old song of mine and trying to put it back together again. I’m incredibly curious as to how this might turn out.

To end things off, I’ll leave you with one of my more recent (wonderfully unfinished) songs called “Sprites”. I’d really like to see some version of this track appear on the album, but it’s quite possible it’ll only happen if it gets the “dirty” treatment. We’ll just have to wait and see… Enjoy!

Sprites ]]> http://www.tylerhauser.com/2009/12/10/phonemic-finding-a-unifying-sound/feed/ 0 http://www.tylerhauser.com/2009/11/27/a-little-gloomy/ http://www.tylerhauser.com/2009/11/27/a-little-gloomy/#comments Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:28:22 +0000 Tyler Hauser http://www.tylerhauser.com/?p=314 My each day seems set on making me see and understand this. I lament the time when I could get up at noon and plan for nothing but riding my bicycle or building a fort all day; doing the things that made me happy, not working for some faceless corporation carrying out its every bidding for 9 to 11 hours of my day.

It seems I’ve something left to learn from this torture as I can never seem to pull out of it… Though I’m sure it’s for lack of trying. As I’ve said and demonstrated many times before, I am a lazy person. I have no problem calling it an affliction; I am a slave to its temperament. I have my days when I can manage to break free from its grasp and pour myself into the things I love rather than mindlessly sucking comfort and fulfilment from the things around me. But those feel few and far between.

Most days, I elect to sit dispassionately in front of my television, clumsily including myself in the business of false familiars; laughing when they laugh, crying when they cry, hurting when they hurt. It’s autopilot for the terminally distracted and indifferent. This is just one of many ways I keep myself trudging through the days, blindly hoping for better things.

However, to be fair — not only to myself, but to those around me — this isn’t a permanent state of mind. I experience joy and silliness on a day to day basis. There are simply those times when gloominess is the most comfortable blanket in the house. We get bored. We get dreary. We are an ocean, slave to the ebb and flow of flimsy sentiment.

But it seems there’s always a balance of sorts, existing outside our perception, that we need to remind ourselves of in order to keep our sanity in check; this balance of human emotion that allows us to actually leave the house and participate in the world.

I am fond of this balance.

Digital Enigma perfectly described me as a musician; I created music in a digital realm and I couldn’t decide what the heck kind of music I wanted to create. I thought it was clever. But, at this juncture in my life, just saying that name aloud makes me cringe. It’s childish and simplistic and I don’t think it fairly represents me or my music.

This is where the challenge lies: How do I come up with a name that fits with the style of music I create and the type of image I wish to convey?

Tough stuff it is.

So, over the past couple months, I’ve kept this on the back of my mind as I’ve gone about my daily business. As I’m sure you know or can imagine, trying to stand out and/or be unique in the musical world is a monumental task only few are truly capable of taking on, yet so many try to do it. This just further complicates the task that much more. I finally came to terms with that fact and decided to look at my music as a whole and try to describe it with as few words as possible. This lead me to the study of linguistics and terms associated with it. (It’s a logical conclusion, no?)

Research introduced me to the idea of phonemes and their function in language. What interested me most about the concept was the simple description of what a phoneme is: “the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances”. Even reading it now, I’m fascinated with the musical implications. And what’s more, the idea itself is an oft-disputed one. To some, it’s a very language-specific notion: “any of the abstract units of the phonetic system of a language that correspond to a set of similar speech sounds (as the velar \k\ of cool and the palatal \k\ of keel) which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language”. To others, not so much: “a phoneme is a difference in sound that makes a difference in meaning”. This gives me a delightful little grey area in which I can prance about.

I feel I can now accurately describe my music with one word: phonemic. However, here comes the big “BUT”… The damned domain name is taken!

This has me a little upset, only because URLs like phonemicmusic.com and thephonemic.com kinda piss me off.

So, with that, I’ll end this post with two things:

1. A short, unfinished song that may end up being the intro to the new album.
2. A question.

What would you recommend as a good URL for my website?

I recently decided I needed to take a break from Two Word Heap¹ and this really gave me the opportunity to think about what it is I want to spend time doing.

Like a lot of people, I still have no idea what it is I want to be when I grow up². I’m currently entertaining the idea of going back to school — not sure for what just yet — but I have some time to kill before I can apply for anything. So, instead of spending my precious time running over pedestrians in GTA IV all day, I figured I needed a project of sorts to keep me entertained AND feeling somewhat useful.

It occurred to me that I haven’t released an album in over 3 years³. My first two albums were independently released by yours truly with little fanfare and in VERY limited quantities, earning incredibly small profits. If I’m going to do this, I might as well try for something a little larger scale. So I started thinking about how I might go about releasing a new album to a larger audience.

There’s a neat little site out there called KickStarter.com, “a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers…”. This site might make it possible for me to successfully produce a professionally manufactured physical album and provide some seriously exclusive bonuses for those nice enough to donate to my cause. One of the big extras I can offer people is a “Making of…” experience. I haven’t really considered all the crazy possibilities provided by a website such as KickStarter.com, but I know that documenting the entire album-making process is a no-brainer.

In an effort to build some buzz around this project, I figured I should keep a blog of sorts about the whole thing. What better place to do that than on TylerHauser.com! But oh how it has fallen into a state of ruin… As it turns out, this is the perfect opportunity for me to redesign my homepage. As I’m writing this, I have NOTHING on my site; any page you go to, you’ll just see white. I’m going to use this as my “first post”⁴ and build my site around it. So please don’t be alarmed if you try to view my site and absolutely nothing appears. For now, it’s supposed to be that way. But over the next couple days, I’ll build myself a spiffy little site and start blogging as soon as I can. I even plan to start posting videos updates as well as I get more into writing my album.

So please stayed tuned!

1. Two Word Heap was getting to a point where I felt it was taking more from me than it was giving back and I began to resent it. That’s right, I was beginning to resent a website. Sounds dumb now that I write it down…
2. i.e. Now
3. For those of you that don’t know, I produce electronic music under the name Digital Enigma and I have 2 albums out as of this writing, Catharsis and Concepts.
4. There are actually a total of 35 posts at the time of this writing, but I’ve decided to hide them indefinitely as to sort of create a blank slate.