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Archive for April, 2005

Meatballs, tasty

Sunday, April 17th, 2005

This one’s for Chris: “Ikea” by Jonathan Coulton (mp3 lyrics).

Bonus track (also for Chris): (name withheld to improve song impact).

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Bow Before The Hand

Saturday, April 16th, 2005

[6:45] <dsandler> Surely someone with a higher degree in mixology can do better, but I was amazed at how readily The Hand That Feeds matches Head Like A Hole.  They’re even in compatible keys.

[6:46] <dsandler> GarageBand doesn’t give me the stretching tools I need to really get the job done, and also, I suck anyway.  But I was able to keep the synch up for about 50 seconds, which is enough for a poetic point-counterpoint: http://dsandler.org/outgoing/thtf-hlah-clip.mp3

[6:46] <dsandler> (The nice thing about “industrial”: it doesn’t matter that I don’t have a vocals-only track for HLAH.  The conflicting lead guitars just add to the noise.  More noise: good!)

[6:48] <dsandler> [you can hear that HLAH loses about 1/32 every 8 or 10 bars, and then I double a 32nd in the middle to catch it back up, which puts it about 1/64 ahead, and then it drags until the end ... sounds kind of drunk. :( ]

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On And On (And On).

Saturday, April 16th, 2005


nin-dsandler-holding-on.mp3

Here you go, my first (and probably only* remix of “The Hand That Feeds”, in the honorable tradition of Baron’s Just The Way You Are: Holding On And On (alternate link). If you listen to the original, and then look closely at the vocal track, I think you’ll agree this is how it was meant to sound. *wink*

* OK, I admit it: I made another one. It’s just as … questionable.

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Will You Remix The Hand That Feeds?

Saturday, April 16th, 2005

Oh, hell, it’s even on Slashdot now. (Boing Boing has a better set of links and a longer excerpt from the README.)

I can confirm that it plays fine in GarageBand 1.1 (if you’re willing to click through a string of inscrutable error dialogs, one for every sample). As I told Dave, I’m having a lot of fun looking through Trent’s source code, as it were—picking out and playing the background loops that give the song depth and texture when mixed in with the rest. But I wonder what a real electronic musician or mashup artist could create.

Update: this comment on the Slashdot story points out that, by default, new tracks in GB start with echo and reverb effects turned on but set at 0 (so they consume CPU cycles during playback without changing the audio). They can therefore be safely turned off (press command-I to open the info panel, twist open the “Details” region, click each instrument in turn, and disable the superfluous effects in the Details).

Update 2: Here you go. This is a very serious remix with very serious musical qualities. [serious stare]

Update 3: Actual fan remixes are starting to pop up (some more in this noisy thread).

Update 4: Oups, je l’ai fait encore.

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Catching up.

Friday, April 15th, 2005

Random notes from this (very busy) week:

We’ve rented a place up in town. It’s sort of Midtown South, or Museam District East, depending on how you look at it. If you drive past a nice old building with the word “GRANDA” on the front in tile, that’s us.

The apartment’s not big enough for all our stuff, of course (especially since we kept having to acquire more stuff to fill the house up enough to be attractive enough to sell). We’re starting to sell off our old furniture on Houston Craigslist (which is a lot more active than it was last year around this time). If you’re in H-town and want bookshelves or a beautiful drafting table, get in touch.

No more kitchen table.

The first casualty: Our kitchen table and chairs, which we bought in Boston for our first apartment, in 1999 California for our second apartment, in 2000. [Update 4/22: E reminds me that in Boston we had a built-in banquette outside the kitchen, so we had no need for a table; when we got to California we had to break down and get one.] We sold it to a couple of nice Rice kids who appreciated the deep satisfaction I got from Tetris-ing the entire set into their Mazda 6.

E is up in Dallas this weekend visiting K, who is due some time next month. That means I have the weekend to catch up on Battlestar Galactica. (Which means I already blew through the remaining episodes of the season tonight. Good fracking stuff.)

So, there you go. Just so you know I didn’t fall in a hole, or something.

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Failing to defend themselves against the 70s

Wednesday, April 13th, 2005

Amar: “If I had to pick one word to describe our transformation to rollerskating couple, it would be ‘unlikely.’”

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Strong storms.

Monday, April 11th, 2005

Here comes some weather.

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