RokEnRol

Hanging out at the recording studio has been great. My project deals with musical instruments and really microphones can be considered and instrument because they all modify the sound of the instrument being recorded. I also feel that learning about audio recording closes the loop which starts at the construction of the instruments and ends with the cd or ipod we listen to.

Now I have an itch to do live sound because this time I'll actually know what I'm doing when I do the sound for Ricketts Punk Night or some backyard concert in East LA.

It's also good to note that rock bands come from all over south america to Buenos Aires to record because of the experience recording and mixing rock bands (even thought Bogota and Santiago have better equipped studios).

I am not so fashion

Here are two that caught my attention.
1. Sos Tan Fashion by Kevin Johansen

I have to say that Buenos Aires has the most beautiful women per square meter in the world. The downside seems to be that they are also the most difficult to deal with. Maybe its because they are "so fashion" like the song says.
Then I found this
1b.Political Commentary remix of Sos Tan Fashion

which makes fun of Christina, the current president of Arg.

2. Yendo a la Casa de Damian by Cuarteto de Nos
With lyrics
Its just a badass rock song that puts the sex drugs and alcohol back in rock and roll. There's a line that says "I spit on his t-shirt of Bush." When I go to the guitar luthier class I pass by a mural that says-AFUERA YANKEES- which means "Get out Americans." This is not the first sign of resentment due to American corporate domination. Like my fellow watson friend said, "people are somewhat shocked to find out that I'm not a Bush loving capitalist." And in my case people have told me that I'm more south american than they are.

I'll always be Mexican, except now I'll be Mexican-American-Chilean-Argentino...etc. I'm just absorbing my favorite parts of each culture.

Tenia ganas de echar desmadre y lo hice!

Last night I went to see CAFE TACVBA at the Gran Rex theater in Buenos Aires. Wow, amazing. When the band first came onstage and I saw them from my third row seat that I had gotten by getting my ticket a month in advance, I was filled with so much emotion that I stopped breathing and the blood rushed to the surface. Another benefit of being so close was seeing the band's joy that came from a sold out crowd chanting their name in a country far from Mexico City. I rocked out so hard that today my body was sore.
The lead singer and I have the same taste in music and clothes, must be because we're both Chilango. Althought I think my white suit for ASCIT formal was more kickass. He was wearing a shirt with a dog on it that looked like my chihuahua Panchito.
The downside was waiting an hour for the right bus back to my apartment after the show and then having to walk 2km because the right bus didn't show up. I miss my car, but I do feel better about not polluting and just using an established system of transportation.

Now in news relating to my Watson project...I joined an improvisation stringed instrument ensemble. The people who brought guitars thought it meant all kinds of stringed instruments but it was actually supposed to be bowed stringed instruments. Since I don't have my violin in BsAs I took my charango. So there I was, improvising on the charango and playing with three cellos, one violin and six guitars. Next week I'm going to take a violin that I'll borrow from someone.

Copado

Djembe Recording

Yesterday I went to Tecson recording studio to sample the djembe drum I made back in Santiago in November. The two mics on top are a sure 57 and an AKG 414. Under the seat I tested out another AKG 414 and a shure D112 and shure beta98 to pick up the lows from the resonating chamber of my drum. The best combination was the two 414 although the 414 on top and d112 on bottom was good also.

Now I have 44kHz, 24bit recordings of my drum to use as samples when I create beats and loops using Ableton Live. I'm going to start doing this with all my instruments that way I have the sounds on my laptop. I plan on sending my instruments home with a friend and my sister who will be visiting me next month. When I reach Guatemala I want to be traveling light because I don't plan on staying in any particular place for too long.

In other news, restringing my charango was a perrada. My fingers hurt from winding the tremendously hard machine tuners. This makes me appreciate better craftmanship. It also took hours to tune it because of how much the strings strech. But now I'm happy that I have my charango in working order. This time I used cianocrilato, an instant adhesive that's pretty much crazy glue.

Uruguay!!!

Last weekend I went to Uruguay. What an intense trip. I left at 6am on friday from Buenos Aires and hopped on a ferry to Colonia, Uruguay. There a bus took me to Montevideo where I met up with Marlon. His apartment building looked like it was about to be demolished because the stores on the bottom floor were abandoned and the elevator was all the way in the back. The elevator was sweet also cuz you could open the doors from inside the elevator while its moving.

That night we headed to tabladas, which are outdoor stages that have murgas playing. They are really awesome at harmonizing their vocals. The percussion section was less important than I had thought. After only three groups and a choripan it started to pour like we needed an arc. We ended up staying dry in the lady's bathroom. That was the most interest form of meeting people. There was an old guy from Mexico that reminded me of my tio antoño. He was working in low income housing on behalf of the UN. We then hung out with those people till late (when it stopped raining).

Saturday we struggled to wake up and head over to Durazno. Because we couldn't get ahold of the guy that was supposed to host us (cheers to being homeless like last weekend at Gualeguaychu) we headed to the river. You can tell you're in a developed country when there's a lifeguard on a beach at the river.
Then came the llamadas which is hard to describe so I'll just say this...

What's more fun than watching paint dry or counting sheep?

Identifying beats!

In the Pro-Tools class tonight we learned how to manually set the tempo according to the transients of the snare or kick drum. This is usefull for later snapping to the grid any notes from the other musicians that were out of rythm.

So I spent an hour placing markers at each measure, fun stuff.

Dreaming of What Once Was

Sigh, respiro y esperanza.

What about you...I mean Gualeguaychu

Last night I went to Gualeguaychu to watch Carnaval del País. I was supposed to leave at 1pm from Retiro, BsAs, but the next bus available left at 6pm...so I hung out downtown until it was time to go to Gualeguaychu. Its a three hour bus ride ($72) afterwhich I arrived just in time to get my entrance ($30). The first weekend of January I had seen this on TV from BsAs and I thought it was cool to check it out for myself. Unfortunately, like most of my Watson travels, I was traveling by myself.

The first thing I thought about when the music started playing (well, first was a thought about the dancers) was where is the band? Its helpful if I mention that I was in one of the last stands so by the time the first comparsa came around I almost thought the music came from a tape deck because it was so repetitive...but I realized that each comparsa has their own song and they play it all along the corsodromo. The entire band was placed on a float! The console and audio equipment rack was in the back followed by the audio staff who looked out of place (because they were fully clothed).I then wondered the setup for them sending the audio signals to the speakers because it had to be wireless transmission and the speaker towers independent. As one band makes it to the end of the corsodromo the one following starts playing. The audio changed from tower to tower (don't know how to better explain that right now).

It was a bit of a rough trip because I didn't book a hotel room at Gualeguaychu, just hopped on a bus back at 3am. At least I wasn't driving. I also wish that the subte would start sooner on the weekends like it did in Barcelona, but at least I now know what colectivos take me back to my apartment so I can find my way back at 6am.


p.s. The fact that I'm now getting music recommendations from my little sister confirms the fact that I have the musical taste of a 15 year old girl. Oh south Orange County what did you do to me? Hand me my skateboard and guitar cuz I don't want to enter the working world.

Mi Segunda Guitarra...well soon enough

So that's what my guitar looks like right now. This will be the top of my guitar. I chose wood from the alerse tree because its regional to the cordillera. For the back of the guitar I will be using algarrobo, which is also found in Argentina. This combination will ensure that my guitar is unique.

I can tell I'm new at this whole luthier thing because my throat is not used to all the sawdust...fireballs anyone? Also, my wrist hurts from using the tools, an old skateboarding accident is acting up (that makes me feel old).
On a sidenote, I'm excited about applying to jobs. The grad school thing is postponed. I enjoy learning what I want when I want, which is exactly what I'm doing right now with the Watson fellowship. First up will be Dolby Laboratories.

Its not what you think

You know its Carnaval time in South America when you get sprayed with foam. I was waiting for the colectivo (bus) to go downtown when a colectivo passed by and a girl leaned out the window. Next thing I knew my eyes were burning and I smelled like detergent. The spraying usually occurs at night while watching the murgas, but you know...

...crazy kids.

Ozomatli BsAs LA connection

Last night I saw Ozomatli at the Roxy Club (formerly el Teatro), and guess what...it was free!!! I got there about an hour before the show started so I had plenty of stitting by myself to do. Luckily two gringas asked if they could sit down next to me. I asked them where they were from and they said Buenos Aires...jaja. They're actually from Westmont.

The show rocked!!! Of course, cuz its Ozomatli. Everytime they said Los Angeles I went nuts and screamed out "yeah LA!" I got to see a sweet djembe performance by Jiro, the Japanese percussionist. Towards the end they came down to the pit and played in the middle of the crowd. During one of the songs, the guitarist, Raul Pacheco, said he wanted to meet argentinians and establish a connection because part of their tour experience is learning about the people. And true to his word he came out to the crowd after the show with his camera to document his trip to BsAs. He took a picture of me, I wonder where it will end up? After that I took one with him.After the show I headed out with my new found friends. Luckily this was also the first night of the carnaval celebration in BsAs. The celebration is not very big, but there's murgas, street bands composed of fancy dresses, percussion and singing, that compete in february for being the best murga.But the night didn't stop there because it was still early (2am). Thus we headed out to Palermo where we went to:Which is a bar/boliche. There was this one guy dancing by himself that could have definitely been a Tech alum. He was even teaching girls how to do rave moves. That was at the top floor where it was non-stop marcha. On the first floor there was pop and this one guy with a headlight and a chick deafeaning everyone with a whistle.

What does golf have to do with jazz?

That's Roberto, whom I met at Palermo Golf Club a few weeks ago. After the usual explaining my Watson project, he asked what instruments I play, he showed me his drum key. It turns out that he has been playing the drums since he was 15 and now plays in a small jazz group.

Yesterday he invited me to listen to his group play. The guitarist was still on vacation so there was only sax and trombone. It was pretty sweet and I was invited back to learn some jazz beats.

Revelation of the day

Filters not only change a waveform by attenuation, but distort it by individually phase-shifting the harmonics within it.

Duh, I'd done lots of freq/phase response plots in the feedbacks course at Tech, but the moment of enlightenment comes when you take that to the real world. When doing multitrack recordings where one mic is closer to a source than other mics taking that same source there is phase shifting.
Then in mixdown, to compensate we delay the signal from the closer mic until it sounds better (Another way to do so could be to measure all the distances and manually calculate the delay times, but that's not very practical when you have a band waiting to record). Then the equalization begins on the individual tracks using all sorts of filters. Last week when doing this in practice I'd totally forgotten about the phase after setting the time delays....but if I would have remembered the feedback course I would have realized that when adding the equalization, phase shifts are being introduced.

Bottomline: you need to have a good ear to be a recording engineer.