lsrdvl Soundfonts

Thought it would be nice to make some of my sf2's available to the public while I continue working on Get Bent.  These sample collections are ancient in Internet years, not to mention the fact that I pretty much burned them up.  One never knows, however, what use other people may find in something given to them. 

I hope these files will help somebody advance their artistry in music.  Maybe somebody will have a "Eureka!" moment, like I did when I first discovered BeSweet.  Maybe these will help create a musical superstar, who will toss a quarter to me, lying wasted in a gutter, as they walk to their limo at the Grammy's.  That would be awesome! (/sarcasm)

This first post is only one third of the soundfonts I have created.  There is a 2 gig limit on uploads, so this is the best I could do to share for the time being.  It's a start, at least.

Cheers,

Day

 

A Speedmath Dilemma [Updated]

After I spent considerable time working on Get Bent, it came to my attention that there was no genre that accurately described the style of music.  The album features quick transitions between unique beat arrangements and sometimes dizzying tempos.  In places the sound is reminiscent of glitch, but the beat arrangements play just long enough to make glitch an inaccurate descriptor.

I decided to get creative and label the sound either speedmath or tweakcore, although beat puree works just as well. None of those terms are in use as genres by anyone else, but the sound needed to be called something. I'm neither pretentious nor pompous enough to stake the claim that I created a new genre.  The terms exist only for convenience' sake.  This has nothing to do with the dilemma this post addresses.  Nevertheless, it seemed appropriate to explain my ongoing flippancy with assigning previously non-existent terms as genres for my music.

The dilemma rising out of Get Bent surrounds the necessity that different versions of the album be released.  The speedmath songs feature transitions between dozens of beat arrangements that can easily be extended to create typical beat driven electronic songs.  I have final say over all of my creative work; nobody is telling me what to do.  However, I claimed that the songs would be comprised of frenetic shifts in direction and attitude.  So the headline version of Get Bent will adhere to what was promised.  I am borderline OCD about sticking to plans.  But there will be a third version.

The A side of the first version of Get Bent is sitting in the Internet archive.  When the speedmath version is complete it will join that work there.  But there will also be a third version of the album.  There are fantastic beat sequences that only last a couple of seconds.  It would be akin to creative criminality not to expand a good number of those sequences into normal, run-of-the-mill tracks.  So that expansion will take place, and be called Get Bent 3: Straightened.  Problem solved, although once again reporting on the project rather than presenting it does rub me the wrong way.

I am not a patient person. I'd like to begin releasing these works right now, one track at a time.  I feel doing so would greatly diminish the artistic impact though, and so I have decided to curb my desire for instant creative gratification. I suppose it is possible I can be patient.

Anyway, dilemma dispelled.  Progress on the project reported.  Many words written and no music given. -※Sigh※-  Soon...

[Note for Clarity:  I did not like the initial version of Get Bent.  I found it repetitive and mediocre.  I deleted the post in which I tore it to shreds, but it should be remembered that my complete disdain for it led me to begin the "speedmath" project.  That disdain is also the reason I have not posted the B side of the original.]

Pry Favers [Update]

Note:  I did openly post the link discussed below in IRC.  With that in mind I have considered creating a channel linked to Symbols so that I can be reached.  I am extremely withdrawn when it comes to the general public.  I have never allowed comments on my work, here nor anywhere else.  An occasional public appearance might be in order after all these years.  Maybe.

It was promised that the second version of Get Bent would be finished and available within a matter of days.  Since then the project expanded and lengthened.  This assured Get Bent would most definitely not be available in a mere smattering of days.

To dispel the snowballing illusion of empty words, a post featuring the original version of side B was considered, and discarded.  A post featuring a fundamental part of the arranging process would more accurately intimate the work involved and in progress.  Therefore it was decided that an original lsrdvl sf2 file would be made available to the listening audience in general.  That file:

Synthivox1
https://mega.co.nz/#!gUg1010101010101010101010101010101010101010101TqCTx4

Obviously this post would be more visually attractive if the file were directly linked.  Unfortunately, linking to the file violates that aspect of digital security which is more important than all others:  Common sense.  In order to avoid being mistaken for the average trusting person, an incomplete link has been posted.  The binary is there as an incentive, although originally it was intended to be a challenge. 

The original challenge for the reader was to replace the binary of the hyperlink with the correct digits (originally the binary was easier to replace).  I planned to promise a unique article about national security and encryption for every out of the ordinary Internet incident I encountered between October 8 and October 14.  The article would be introduced with a complete description of the incident, and downloads of the sf2 file would qualify as out of the ordinary.  The challenge was judged "fail" before it ever left the drawing board, because there was no way for ordinary music producers to get the sf2 file.

After that neat (but totally unworkable) little game got tossed out the window, there was nothing left but a tired out trick employed by lonely old shut-ins. The ploy intended to lure naive souls into online correspondence after getting them into conversations via email.  That email address is...
hahahaha

Nobody is ever getting the sf2 file.  All methods of procurement have been rationalized as too risky at this end.  [funny, but obscure and overly twisted, pop references redacted]

/procrastination
/paranoia

Status: Ice Cold on the Horizon

Get Bent should already have been released in its entirety, but since it is the last beat driven lesserdevil album for the foreseeable future I wanted to leave a lasting impression.  Although yet to be deleted from "Archive," the original A side has been scrapped.  With more than enough completed material available to simply push out one or two hours of music sitting on this hard drive (and on tape backup), holding off on delivering the payload is somewhat frustrating.  Looking back at the last few years of releases, however, it occurs to me that much of it would have been epic, or nearly so, if impatience had not won out over perfectionism.  Luckily I consider this album important enough to quiet the little voice in my thoughts that forever wheedles about how much more should have been accomplished by now, needs to be accomplished, before age and time makes accomplishment impossible.

Setting aside a significant amount of finished music, I initiated a side project to flush out the idea behind Get Bent and create something profoundly polished.  While I have compiled dozens of original instrument kits and soundfonts since 2009, I sometimes cut corners with the samples involved, editing existing sounds rather than creating them entirely from scratch.  From 2006 to 2009 I used no samples for drum kits, instrument kits or SF2's that were not absolutely a product of my own labor.  After the release of Empty Warehouses the difference in the quality of sound between those years and more recent years struck me as horrifyingly apparent.  Without going that extra mile the sounds involved fail to be staunchly impeccable, in my opinion, and do not satisfy my drive for brilliance.

At the current rate of production all of the homegrown instruments and beats should be assembled for use within a day or two.  Since I always say that and it is never as quick as promised, realistically it will be several days.  At that time the songs will be freshly arranged in the fashion that makes my best work teeth chattering, ice cold, frozen blue* mini-dynamos of beat motion.  That's quite a claim to make, but those people who understand what I just said know that it is true.

Thank you for your time.  There's nothing left to be said.  The next thing you find here will be what has been promised.


* Breaking Bad reference
** I do not get along well with deadlines.  They have the opposite effect. Get Bent will be finished when it is finished.  If not for the promised release date it would probably be out already.

Microphones and Alter-egos: How Not To Win Friends

☆★☆ Alternate Title - Humor: Doing It Wrong ☆★☆

"Tens of thousands of people in Mexico have been killed in a conflict centering on drugs. Throughout my life drugs simply held no appeal for me, until I discovered that casualties from the drug war are set to top 120,000. Everything changed when I got that news. So far 70,000 Mexicans died so that I can get high. I now feel that it is my duty as a compassionate human being to get high.

Every citizen of the United States should set aside their petty political beliefs and prejudices and snort a massive rail. Tens of thousands of Mexican mothers lost someone near and dear to them in order for yankees to get high. 70,000 people died so that you could get high. Don't let their deaths be in vain!"

- Josie "Calla" Vides

Preface to a Sociopath's Fever Dreams

Oh! Hi!

Someone dear to me from many years ago got in touch recently, for the first time in almost twenty years.  I was delighted to find that he never gave up on the sort of work that made him happy, even though his idealism regarding the work has left him a pauper.   We talked for a long time.  During the talk, as I perused this site, I mentioned that it sorely needed an introduction.  Somehow I found myself agreeing that it would be penned by me.

This web journal belongs to an author and a musician.  He spent the vast majority of his writing career dedicated to the artistic ideals of poetry and short literature.  The entirety of his musical career was devoted to the aesthetics of sound, both conventional and radical.

During the Bush era the artist became outspoken on political issues.  Symbols was launched to defend against the systematic destruction of the civil liberties of United States citizens and the political warfare waged against the left by the GOP.  It was also a celebration of the artist's uniqueness and nonconformity.  

Almost all of the political writing and political opinions from that period have been removed from the site and permanently deleted.  The artist deemed the opinions on government detrimental to his true calling.  Because of the large percentage of deeply entrenched conservatives in American society, the artist decided that insights into his personal life and rejoicing in social eccentricities would create biases and undermine artistic integrity.  Therefore, most autobiographical material was also destroyed.

The artist's opinions and personality have neither mellowed nor been watered down in the way this artistic diary has.  If anything, he more strongly believes all of the things he did before, almost as if gripped by calenture.  Furthermore, rather than reigning in his powerfully vivacious idiosyncrasies, Day reinforced his flamboyance and threw up defenses of all things individualistic.  He has simply chosen to allow the public only posthumous examinations of his personal life and character as he sees it (obviously no man or woman alive can stop gossip and speculation, and even trying to stop others from relating how they see things can have the opposite effect).

I decided to write this introduction in order to provide one for this journal based on objectivity and professionalism.   Day knows all too well his own tendency to boisterously and vociferously go on preemptive offensives against stodginess, closed mindedness and prejudices.  It was that attitude that led him to fundamentally change this blog (there, I said it, it is not a journal, it is a web log, a web log) in the first place, and regardless of my own thoughts on the matter I still respect his decision.  Because we both know he isn't very objective at times, and, as far as professionalism... well, perhaps I should end that discussion right there.

There was only one requirement for this job.  I was asked to triumph brevity and caution in the writing of this little piece.  I will not carry out this task in the manner in which I was asked to.  I have decided to throw caution to the wind, and loose my tongue so that my testimony might be as long as the wedding gown I pined for my father to give me away to Day in, pink and scarlet though it may have been, and though it would have killed my father (and likely upwards of 65% of my extended family).

Day treats creativity as the son of God and art as His daughter.  I once made my tangibly lascivious vorstellungen of Day a wicked sacrilege of my own; confession and subsequent penitential prayers of the rosary only made the act more delicious. In return the rhapsodist merely used me to enliven his solitary orgy with copia verborum.  The jealousy drove me to crave his shibari crucifixion at the foot of my bed, and to yearn that the whole of his masculinity be immolated, myself the flambeau of that thing's undoing. Day exhibited a passionate devotion to words, melodies, and even paintings, a passion and devotion he made known to all the world.  At the same time he sequestered our union so resolutely the tomb of Akhenaten saw more sunlight than did our acts, and he silenced vocalization of our love with such draconian discipline even I, with my penchant for defiance of such dominion, dared not speak its name.  I never stopped wanting revenge, however, for being dumped -- er -- being forced to dump him.

I bore two offspring for the man:  obsession and vendetta.  Those strong feelings, the only children I am capable, forever, of bringing to term, balance perfectly.  Obsession eternally reminds me of Day's features and the pleasure of being so alive beside him. Vendetta demands that the world never be allowed to forget those things the man wrote and sought to erase, regardless of whether he is dead or alive.  Nobody could possibly know the joy I feel at being asked to write this introduction; finally I have the power to tell the truth so that all will know.

[Passage deleted by Symbols' Editor in Chief]

Having said those things, it feels grotesquely unfair that few people will know this beautiful man indirectly while it is possible to wreck the sculpted image of his aloof classical artistry, and precisely due to the image. Because of the pigheaded stubbornness with which he guards his lifelong love affair with "the mind's internal heaven," and the fanaticism with which he has decided to eradicate all traces of his humanity, truth may die the true death.  If such a thing happens, c'est la vie.  All these thoughts are as ignis fatuus.

Lily d'Antonia Buitrago
Miami, Florida
September 21, 2013

P.S.  It's all in good fun, Day.  And don't you dare bitch at me, bitch.  You told me to keep it brief so you could maintain the illusion of being humble, you fucking poser.  :333



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I can't believe I let you do this.
-lsr

At Last Qongrimoujie

From "Get Bent" - new album exploring lengthy non-repeating percussion arrangements at tempo often exceeding 250 bpm.  That's nothing earth shattering, just the sort of jam I have been into lately.  This album is essentially complete, I just have not released most of it. 

This will be the last beats oriented music I release for quite some time.  I am going back to avant, downtempo, chillout and experimental.  I miss it a lot.

Brain Shart

Get Bent

The posting of the A Side of "Get Bent" was a gigantic mistake. As I work on a project I usually save various notably distinctive versions of the song as it progresses. Currently there are five versions of side one of Get Bent. The most recent version is almost always the best version availble. What was posted here was neither the latest version, nor one with any saving graces. This is especially true with regard to song one (the first ten minutes of the album).

What got posted was a version that was the product of debauchery late at night. Listening to song one was very enjoyable at the time. Then, last night, I listened to it sober. That experience was mortifying.

The repetitive, uninspired nine minutes of "music" are like moldy chunks of hardened cheez whiz strings on a table with beluga caviar and the finest brie set out as teasing apertifs. I became nearly physically ill as the canned, droning beeps and boops went on for long minutes. The sound conjured a vision of a dying doe, riddled with bulles though none of them fatal, as it dragged its useless hind legs through the undergrowth. But there was no way to put the song out of its misery. I am sharing accomodations with a Luddite who really believes that the Internet is the work of the devil.

So here I am at a public computer, embarrassed and humiliated that the ~24 minutes of music I just released were tarnished to the extreme by my lack of attention to detail. Repetitiveness in electronic music is something I hate almost as much as I hate the smell of curdled milk. At least I sugar coated this critique of Letroxulae rather than discussing its shortcomings in detail.

Somebody told me "it's not that bad."  That phrase never reassures anyone.  It would be more honest to offer a phone number to a crisis intervention hotline.   All options for correcting Letroxulae are on the table, including euthanasia and self-immolation.

Meh, fuck it.  I'll fix it tomorrow.  Also, this post was not edited.

Get Bent UPDATED

Get Bent

I'd like to say this is all of side one, but I am certain I will add to it.  Sometimes I post new works just as a precaution.  I wouldn't want to die with my latest creations never having seen the light of day.  And it is always a good day to die.