I don't want to count my chickens before they've hatched or anything, but I have the distinct impression that I scooped both CDM and Matrixsynth on this item, unless my memory (which, I'll grant, is getting a bit sketchy in my advanced years) is totally out of whack. This is the Shruti-1 by Mutable Instruments, a DIY kit that isn't for sale yet, but soon will be, according to the website. The digital oscillators, envelopes, MIDI I/O, and front panel are controlled by an AVR chip of the sort you'd find in an Arduino, and the filter and VCAs are honest-to-god analog in the form of a CEM3379. The page is a bit sparse at the moment, but there are three sound samples up. Two of them in particular intrigue me to no end, as this little thing definitely seems to have an unique personality that appeals to me. I really like that FM, and there are several different oscillator modes to choose from. This kit seems to be eminently hackable, and I predict, should he be able to bring it to market, it will do exceedingly well. That's a big "if" though, and as we all know, it's vapor until we have it in our sweaty hands. (Note that Adam found this; I missed it entirely, which is entirely unlike me.)

Believe it or not, I was able to get that CP80B in to my office. Had to take out a lot of shit, but it was shit I obviously needed in here less than a CP80B. For the morbidly curious, I've tuned the center three octaves so far. The entire piano, aside from being fairly out of tune with itself, was a half step flat, so it's a pretty tedious process. I'm going to end up doing it twice, because being so flat, tuning up the outside is going to drag the middle down pretty drastically, and I don't know enough about piano tuning to actually preempt this event. Luckily, there are only two strings per note where a "real" piano would have three, so that's a bit of a time saver. It also makes it really easy to adjust the richness of the individual notes. Once all is said and done, I'm tuning one of the strings about two beats per second flat against the first, which should give a nice meaty chorusing. Probably. Anyhow, this bad boy didn't come with a power supply, so I had to whittle one; luckily, they can run off a simple wall wart, so it's not that hard a chore. It sounds fantastical good, though, and I'm pretty pleased to have it.

Last night my friend Mike Fisher and I went to an auction. The actual brick-and-mortar kind, with an auctioneer and guys yelling and rows of chairs. Most of the shit auctioned was exactly that (at one point the auctioneer called one lot a "rummage sale starter kit" which should give you an idea...) but one item, which I had to wait a couple hours for, was what brought me out to the ass end of nowhere, otherwise known as Apache Junction, Arizona. For some reason, this auction house that trafficked mainly in broken tools and headless dolls had a Yamaha CP80B electric grand piano. I know, right? The case (which, in this instance also comprises the body of the piano) was pretty beat up. Tolex ripped in a couple spots, and very dirty, like it sat in someone's barn for a decade or so. However, inside, it was brand new. If you've never gone, a real auction works just like an eBay one, except it happens much faster, and the people you're bidding against are standing right there next to you, which (if you're used to the Intardwebs) is a little odd. Anyhow, after a seemingly endless parade of beer signs and cans of nails, our lot came up. He started the bidding at a thousand bucks. No bids. Dropped it to a hundred. No bids. Dropped it to $50. I bid. And that was that. So, 10 minutes later, we were on the way back to Phoenix with a CP80B in the back of my SUV, $50 lighter in the wallet. I've now got it set up in my garage, and other than a couple little issues as a result of sitting idle for so long, this thing is perfect. I'll put up a ton of pictures and samples once I get out of traction. (Mike helped me get it in the SUV, but I got it out and set it up on my own.)

This is from some old "Synths Are Frakkin' Awesome" video of the sort that crop up now and again. Dude's name is Don Muro, and he's got a Korg DS-8 and something I can't quite make out under it, and the whole rig is set up like a dual manual organ with foot pedals. He obviously puts the rig to the test with one of the harder fugues in the Bach cannon (see what I did there? Double pun!), The Gigue Fugue. I'm a passable keyboard player, but seeing this sort of thing makes me feel like I just started to toddle about. (To preempt the obvious comments that are about to be typed, yeah, it's 80s-tastic. Yeah, we all looked like tards back then. Yeah, the synth sounds are weak. Deal with it.) EDIT: Interestingly, the video was removed due to the fact that it said "Played in the style of Wendy Carlos" in the description. Serendip, LLC, which is the company that controls Carlos' copyrights, is extremely aggressive in sending out takedown notices to YouTube, eBay, et al, as a simple Google search of their name will show. As I mentioned in the comments, while I certainly understand aggressively protecting your copyright, as that's your prerogative as a creator, this company (although I think "company" may be a loose term, as it appears to be either Carlos alone, or one dude that works for her) is completely ludicrous in some of its actions. It seems that any mention in the description of a video of her name is grounds for a takedown notice, which is simply silly at best, and at worst a complete and total misunderstanding of what copyright actually means. In any event, that's why the video is gone, as far as I can tell. They never contacted me, and honestly, I'd just ignore them if they did, as I'm not the sort that is going to go running to the hills from a stupid nastygram that has no legal basis, but I'm just curious as to what end this serves. It seems to defy logic, as far as I can tell.

This is the UI for Discord3, showing the granular engine. Click for the full size. Note that it's not 100% done yet. I'm still messing with the Chaos control drawing, but it's nearly there. With the feedback, cross-feedback, and Chaos all amped, you can get some truly bizarre shit happening with this. With Chaos at its lowest setting, the granular pitch shifter functions like the other two shifters that you already know and love from the existing Discord2. Other than the addition of that engine and the entirely new UI (which will be carried over to some of our other products as we rev the whole line) the operation should be exactly the same. We changed the filter model a bit to better fit the context, so some settings you're used to in Discord2 might sound a bit different, but otherwise, it's all there. Anyhow, we're in the home stretch now. Just tying everything together at this point; I'll put up a video when everything is working so you can see (and hear) the granular engine doing its thing.

Adam and I have been having an ongoing... well, "argument" is too strong a word. "Discussion" would be better, although it does get heated at times. The subject is eye candy in plug-ins, specifically things that are there just to make something look cool, but serve no purpose whatsoever with respect to the operation of the plug-in. Being me, you can guess what side of the argument I'm on. As long as there isn't an unnecessary use of CPU cycles, I'm all for it. The current windmill I'm tilting away at is a real-time animated waveform display for Discord 3. As you all know, Discord is a pitch-shifter, so there's no earthly reason to have a waveform display in the UI. It would impart no information whatsoever that has anything to do with the plug-in. Now, that fact in and of itself doesn't bother me, as I've frequently been known to make UI design decisions based upon aesthetics alone. (The 3/4 view of the original Dubstation would be a good example of such.) I'm of the considered opinion that if something looks interesting, it has a direct effect on the creativity pathways of the brain, and thus is a Good Thing. Adam, being Adam, disagrees. Normally, I can just do what I want and he'll eventually come around, but this is an interesting case. Making an animated waveform display is a fairly complex process, and we'd have to devote a week or more of dev time to adding it. The main thing to consider is that once we've hacked the underlying framework in to shape, we'll have the waveform display for other plug-ins that might actually make use of such a thing, so it's not wasted development time really. It's just wasted on this particular plug-in that has no need for such a thing. So, I put it to you, dear friends. Is a quixotic pursuit like this worth the dev time, overall? Do you find that you're more likely to go to a plug-in that has bells and whistles in the UI? Or do you just want the fucking thing to do its job and not do the Macarana every time you open its editor?

Been an exceedingly busy week here. As anyone that doesn't still live in their mom's basement knows, even a small unproblematic cross-city move entails many minor details. A large move, one involving a couple businesses and cats, over a couple thousand miles, exponentially increases the number of trips to the hardware store, grocery store, various home furnishing stores, etc. We also picked up a couple rooms we didn't have previously (dining room, guest bedroom) so we needed to get shit to put in them to make them fulfill their designated functions. Anyhow, we're mostly almost entirely somewhat back to normal now, and Progress is being made on various Projects. Adam just purchased the 64-bit dev box that he needed, and Discord 3 has a UI, although it's still missing some key ingredients that would allow me to show it to you (mainly a big bit in the middle, but everything around the edges is done.) Phoenix, aside from what appears to be a rather dismal local music scene, seems to be a pretty slick city, too. I don't want to say that the old saw "if you're bored, you're boring" applies, but I'm finding plenty of cool little shops and restaurants. They're a bit hard to see because they're always behind a Chili's or a Circle K, but they're here. I will say the following: if you like pawn shops or yard sales (and I very much do) then this city is made of pure motherfucking win. I have a feeling I'm going to be sending a lot of records up to PDX for Jeremy's shop. (Brief commercial interlude: Jeremy, the other half of RT60, a band you've never heard but know a lot about, has a record store now. Go shop there. Facebook page or Google maps link. Needless to say, it is in PDX, so fat lot of good it'll do you elsewhere.) Anyhow, that's where we're at. I'll have a D3 UI to show off by the end of the weekend, but otherwise, science marches on.

If, for some reason, you own both a gigantic modular synthesizer and a Frontier Design Tango (20-bit version), Adam has taken the time to document how to modify the Tango so you can use Expert Sleepers Silent Way or MOTU's Volta to drive the afore-mentioned gigantic modular synthesizer. You can enjoy a video demonstration of the result here, and the complete write-up is here. Just for the record, this is the sort of thing Adam does for fun and relaxation, which should give you a general idea of the AD working environment. It's a good thing we don't share an office, else he'd push that modular over on me the 3,000th time I played Killing Joke's "Extremities..." album. And crush me.

I've got a lot more room here in the new joint than I did in our apartment in PDX, so I was able to drag some old boxes from storage back in to the light of day. Since they're all just marked "Studio (Fragile)" and obviously it's shit I didn't actually need at any point, I have no idea whatsoever what's in them, and opening them is like a combination of a somewhat dusty Christmas and a trip down an equally dusty memory lane. The contents of one box are shown above. There are two rolls of exposed but undeveloped film, four mysteriously labeled DAT tapes, five cassette tapes, two of which are labeled with old SMG board roughs, four 5.25" floppies, three of which have Syntauri-related software on them, an original Gameboy, two Lomo cameras, boxed copies of the first AD product (Mayhem), iSynth, Pluggo, and Mode, a Windows XP full install, a copy of Cubasis AV, a battered SM58, and a Swiss Army watch. And I have the temerity to call Adam a pack-rat. God only knows what's in these other boxes. Time to find out.

Or house progression, as the case may be. Our house now has Internets, which makes it virtually livable, in my opinion. I've set up some of my office/studio, or enough to annoy the neighbors anyhow. Once the living room/dining room/family room (I believe they call it an "Arizona room" in these parts, and a "great room" elsewhere; it is in Arizona, but is a long, long fucking way from "great") has a floor, we can live there and things can return to normal. Or what passes for such. This should happen bright and early on Monday, so the end is in sight. All that aside, things have actually been moving along, despite my intermittent attention to this particular publishing medium, and the various hectic things going on elsewhere in my life. Discord 3 now has a granular shifting engine that Adam spent the last couple weeks building. Once we decide on the final UI, I'll unveil it here. Discord 3 will be a paid upgrade to Discord owners, and will be, I'm sorry to say, Intel-only for Mac users. Depending on how things go with something we don't fully understand at this point, it'll also be 64-bit, and will provide the base model for how the rest of the line is upgraded during the course of the year. Also, too, the RT60 album is nearing completion. We have one last song to finish, and some incidental material, and we'll have ourselves a record. We haven't decided exactly how to proceed with that, but this thing is an analog-lover's wet dream (as frequent readers will no doubt know). Musically, well, you'll be able to be the judge of that sooner rather than later. Otherwise, same as it ever was. I hope to report on Tuesday evening that I have finally moved in to our new house in entirety, and everything is back to normal. Thanks for your patience, if you're an AD customer or rabid AI reader. I did, in fact, manage to get my Computer Music column done in time for the deadline, so there won't be any pause in my missives on that front.

Well, this is going well. Please note: heavy sarcasm. We rolled in to Phoenix, went to the new place, and immediately proceeded to scream "FML" at the top of our collective lungs. I was hoodwinked but good on the rental, which is doublePlusBad because I usually have a good bullshit detector for that kind of nonsense. Long story short, we can't live in that joint, and the repairs to make it habitable would far outstrip its value. So, move along. Nothing to see here. (Sorry you unloaded the truck, Jeremy! I just loaded it again.) In any event, we've found a couple new options that we're trying to expedite so we aren't, like, homeless and stuff. My wife is trying her hardest not to murder me (and mostly succeeding). In short, it's a cluster-fuck of pretty epic proportions, but the end is in sight. The crux of all this is that I'm still Out Of The Office, or even worse, as I don't yet have an Office to be Out Of. We're getting it sorted, though, and will hopefully be back to normal by the weekend.

We're now in Phoenix. It'll take a few days to get back to normal, but the worst part (packing and driving) is over. More this evening.

As you have no doubt guessed by this juncture, there is a direct correlation between my lack of posting and the fact that we are moving on Saturday. Point of order: while we joke about "let's just throw everything out and start fresh" when we're in the midst of a move, once you get of a certain age, and acquire a corresponding amount of shit, that's actually a fairly attractive option, and I half considered it for a minute. Anyhow, long story short, don't expect anything from me for the next week. I may post intermittently, but it's unlikely, and I'm just warning you now. When I'm doing something like this, I don't really care what new blinkenlites were released, or whether Taylor Swift could conceivably be more banal if she really applied herself. (For the record, I believe there are unplumbed depths to her banality which we've only begun to explore.) Anyhow, this is an open thread. The subject, at least at the start until we digress in an appropriately Salinger-esque fashion, is thus: what distracts you from making music, and why don't you beat whatever it is with a 9-iron?

This Canadian fellow, DJ Vespers, has quite a few tutorial videos on YouTube that are fairly instructive. One of them in particular interests me. The above is part 3 of a four-part series, where he makes a pretty interesting delay chain using Dubstation, Replicant, Ricochet, and a couple built-in effects in Live. Note that we didn't have anything whatsoever to do with this; I just came across it in my normal daily travels of YouTube. The one on YouTube's site is in 720P, so I recommend going there if you want to be able to see what he's doing. The first two videos are instructive if you want to learn about non-destructive editing of audio files in Live, and the fourth one is about mastering. He's also got a few others in his channel that follow the same format.

We have many, many things to deal with in the upcoming months with respect to Audio Damage. We have to touch our entire product line, and in the process we're going to be updating some products significantly, combining others in to single entities, and leave yet others pretty much alone except for the necessary 64-bit jank. One of the things we've been discussing as we build a roadmap for this process is whether it makes business sense to continue to build PPC versions of our products. Obviously, there are no more PPC computers being made, so that's a point in favor of deprecation. There will never be a 64-bit version of OS X for PPC computers, and Apple, with the current version of Logic 9, has basically said they're done with PPC, at least as far as pro music users are concerned. There are technical reasons for preferring to build Intel only; it's kind of tricky to make Universal Binary plugs, but obviously we do it, so it's not that tricky. But we can't really use the specialized instructions available for the x86 family of processors either. Obviously, the main technical hurdle to overcome is the fact that we'll be adding two new builds to the four we already have for Macs, versus adding one to the one we have on the PC side of things. Obviously, I'm not bitching. If it was easy, everyone would do it, and I'd have to pay my rent by blanching fries or selling Meow Meow or something. I'm just looking at it from a resource allocation viewpoint. If we don't have to make and support PPC, we can concentrate on getting the Intel side of things really tight, and utilize the special instruction sets that are available for the Intel processors to improve CPU usage and do Fancy Things. (And the number of times I have to see "FUCKING APPLE!" in my Adium window on days Adam is building Mac shit will go down by at least half, theoretically.) Many hosts are Intel only now, and obviously this is only going to be moreso in the future, as the current power of Intel machines diverges further from the final power of PPC machines. (This double-core MacBook Pro I'm writing this on absolutely smokes the most powerful G5s that were made, and it's only 3 years later. Obviously those G5s have a lot more I/O possibilities, but their days are numbered.) Anyhow, if someone here can make a convincing argument for continuing to make PPC versions of our products, I'm interested to hear it, and we'll take it in to consideration, but for now we're strongly leaning towards killing PPC support (and anything prior to 10.5) as we move forward.

It's funny how grey and pasty all the Riot Nrrrds are today. They're all tired from a day of ranting at the Man. How could Steve Jobs, a dude who was always in their corner, possibly take the low road? What they wanted: a MacBook Pro with no keyboard for $799. What they got: a big fucking iPod Touch for $499. OMGWTFBQQ!!!!1111!! HOW COULD HE DO THAT TO US? OUR BELOVED STEVE!??! Now, anyone who could possibly mistake me for an Apple apologist obviously doesn't know me or read anything I've written in the last... oh... 5 years. There is absolutely no way I will defend that company, in any way, shape, or form. But that said, I think that the iPad is exactly what it is advertised to be: a big fucking iPod touch. In that context, if you need a big fucking iPod touch, you're in good shape, because there is one now. If you don't, believe it or not, you don't have to buy one. There's no law that says you do. For what I do, which is make music, and make software to make music, the iPad is pretty fucking cool, bordering on heaven-sent. I can easily think of about 20 ways this will be handy for me, and if you gave me a little time to think about it, I could come up with dozens more. For the times I'm not making music or making software to make music, I'm either sitting outside or sitting on my couch, staring at the tiny screen of my iPhone as I play games. This will be a nice replacement for that. I'm not going to try to read anything else in to it. It's just a big fucking iPod. Peter Kirn would have you believe that the Sky Is Falling, but he obviously doesn't recall the original Mac, which was as closed as a computer can be, yet beget a fairly robust line of products. Besides, we've heard that story before. How different would the stories be today if they had just called it the iPod Pro?

As one of the business's worst-kept secrets, virtually everyone knows that Apple will announce a tablet computer tomorrow. Virtually everyone also knows that there won't be too many surprises. It's going to be, for all intents and purposes, an iPod Touch with a 10.1" screen, despite all the wishing for Amazing Things. (And, for the record, I'm fully prepared to redact this post the minute the announcement is made, and monkeys ride unicorns right over the rainbow that is shooting out of Steve Jobs' ass.) Why am I posting this? Well, in addition to Apple, virtually every major computer manufacturer is releasing a tablet in the next two quarters. Acer, Dell, HP, Asus, and a slew of OEMs all have keyboard-less tablets of some form planned, ranging in size from 7" to 12". This form factor is going to be the Next Big Thing for the next year or so. I, for one, am fairly pleased with this event as I believe it is a useful form factor, both for music and real life. We don't get to witness many major sea changes in the computer business (which is, for all intents and purposes, the music business these days). The original Mac, Windows XP, OSX 10.3, the iPhone, and that's about it. All else are variations on a theme. (One could make the argument that this tablet is just a variation on the iPhone theme, and thus a continuation of that theme.) When these things occur, they change the way we think about computing, and thus the way we think about making music. Of course, a guitar and an amp and a fair amount of time alone in your bedroom to practice will still get you the furthest in this business, but we all know that. Anyhow, we're going to see some exciting shit in the next year, as all the tech companies take advantage of this new form factor. I predict that Jazz Mutant needs to port their shit promptly or they're gonna go out of business. I also predict that we'll see the mid-size music software companies taking the most advantage of this new form factor. But what I hope to see are some really intriguing new ways to make music on what is, for all intents and purposes, a new instrument that nobody knows how to play yet. I'm no Apple Fanboi. I generally like their computers and dislike their software. But in this one instance, I'm going to make an exception, because their ability to push the entire industry in a certain direction is going to lead to some exciting new shit for us as musicians. EDIT: Matrix has an interesting bit about this very same subject on his site. There are polls and stuff. You can go there, then click to get back here, and thus enter a circular world of gear wankery.

The coming couple of weeks will be fairly hectic, so don't expect me to put any lengthy missives up here unless the mood seriously strikes. We're moving from PDX to PHX on Valentine's day, and as any of you that have moved even a small home rig know, moving a set-in-place studio isn't an easy task, never mind all the other shit one accumulates in normal existence. Luckily, I never truly un-packed from the last move, which was only a year ago. Plus, out of long habit and necessity, I have a fairly portable rig, so while it isn't quite as simple as slapping the covers on the racks and throwing them in the truck, it isn't that much more complex. Our home in Phoenix is a rental as well, where we'll be staying while we look at homes to purchase, so another temporary setup is in my immediate future. Anyhow, a couple things are getting pitched, so if you want them and you're in the area, you're welcome to come and get them. The first is a Roland RD-250s digital piano. This is a fairly hefty beast, and would make a pretty good controller for someone (besides me.) Don't need it, don't want it, free to a good home, you carry it. It works fine. Also headed out the door is a CME UF6 MIDI controller. This works fine but it is pretty beat up from use. Also, I don't have the wall wart any more, so you'll have to come up with one of those. (It uses a reverse-polarity 9V, so you can just do some surgery on any BOSS pedal adapter by cutting the wire and reversing the leads and you'll be good to go.) Anyhow, both of those are free to the first person that can get over here and get 'em. I won't ship 'em so don't bother asking.

We have updated both the Windows and OS X versions of Tattoo. In this update: 1. Flamming when changing patterns, fixed. 2. The reset note for MIDI Note Sync mode wasn't working correctly, now fixed. 3. Digital distortion from the cymbal sound for some Logic users, fixed. 4. General stability and CPU usage issues addressed. This update is now available for download from your Audio Damage account, and is recommended for all Tattoo users.

NOTE: I wrote this bit for my column in Computer Music, but I just couldn't make my point in the space they allot me, and I didn't want to toss it, so I decided to put it up here for discussion instead. I was trying like hell to come up with a better lead-in for this column than the incredibly prosaic "you kids today, you just don't know how easy you have it" but nothing's working, so I'll just out with it. The "easy" I'm referring to is the re-mix, and its retarded foster child, the mash-up. Prior to the advent of the modern DAW, doing a remix was a big, big deal. A step-by-step process of a typical remix: 1. Book time in a studio that has two 24-track machines so you can make a copy of your 2" tape. Keep in mind that a roll of tape cost around a hundred dollars. If the song was recorded on an SSL board, you also needed to make copies of the 8" floppies for the recall and automation. Make a photocopy of the track sheet and throw that in there. Wrap the whole thing in several layers of tin foil and Fed-Ex it to the remixer. 2. The remixer then needs to book time in a studio. The first hour or so is spent biasing the deck to the tape. The next couple hours are spent making a facsimile of the original mix, and figuring out what the hell is on each track. (Since you only had 23 tracks to work with, it wasn't uncommon to have a couple different parts on any given track. The main instruments would have their own, but all the extra stuff would be somewhat jumbled.) 3. Now the real fun begins. Chances are just about 100% that whatever sequencer you're using isn't going to chase the SMPTE on the tape, because SMPTE and the chasing thereof was a very fickle thing. There were numerous tricks and tools to deal with this one particular aspect, and all of them would be applied. Eventually, usually, you'd get it working, and your sequencer (which was almost always either an Atari ST or a hardware unit) would be chasing the SMPTE and more or less in time. (At this point you've burned at a bare minimum four hours of studio time, for a few hundred dollars.) 4. We'll leave out the middle part where the remixer does Things to make it a remix. Usually, it would be just that, a re-mix. If it was a "dance" mix, the drums would probably be replaced with other drums, but generally the main parts of the song would be left alone. Maybe some various other things would be added, but generally, you worked with what was already on the tape, and maybe just added a couple little things here and there. 5. You'll notice I didn't say anything about tempo or pitch. On a tape, the two are immutably tied. You couldn't change one without changing the other. Time stretching, when it came around, was such an incredibly tedious process that it wasn't often used except to get a loop to sit in with a song. 6. So, the remixer, in the interests of saving money (the more he spent on the studio time, the less he got to take home) would come in to the process with a fairly good idea of what he was going to do. If this involved lengthening the song, or changing the arrangement in any way, the process got truly silly. The method here would be to run the individual sections on to a master 1/2" (or 1/4" occasionally) tape, and get out the splicing block and razor blade. The word "edit" is not ill applied here. 7. Once all these pieces were assembled, if it was post-91 or so, the 1/2" master would then be run to a DAT and sent to the label. The label would then play it for the original artist, who (usually) got to approve or disapprove it. If the latter, it was generally shelved, as there was too much money involved to actually do all that over. And my point in all of this? It's thus: you kids today. You just don't know how easy you have it. The only thing better about the pre-DAW era is that mash-ups were completely impossible to make, so we never had to find out what the vocals of "Closer" sounded like over the music of "In Da Club." The world was a better place.

[Insert Pithy Apology About Not Posting] I find it interesting that I feel obligated to post on a more-or-less daily basis, as if Analog Industries was a real job or something. When three days skate by without a post, especially during the Blog-gasm known as NAMM, people start to think something's up. Let me be the first to state that nothing could be further from the truth. First up, Tattoo fixes. We got the two violent offenders out of the way fairly quickly, but there are still lots of little issues that were discovered in the first days that need to be addressed. We're going to have an all-platforms update in a couple days that will address the couple of small problems with the sequencer. We're also still working on the dumb-ass Logic cymbal problem. (This one is tough because we can't replicate it here.) I don't know if I've mentioned this lately, but fucking Logic. We hates it, Precious. I'll also take this opportunity to apologize for putting out a product that had such bad bugs in it. Normally, we'd expect one or two, and it's a pleasant surprise when it doesn't happen (which has occurred with a couple of products, but unfortunately not the majority) but Tattoo is so complex that no matter how much we tested, we obviously missed more than usual. We're getting them tamped down, though, and we'd like to thank all the early adopters for their patience. Once we've got Tattoo running at high idle, we're going to do a round of updates on the whole product line (which should be a hoot, all twenty of 'em) and then on to other things. So, that's the foreseeable future for AD. Speaking strictly for myself, my wife and I will be moving the second week in February. We just signed the lease on our new house (with pool, natch) in Phoenix, and the Big Move begins the 12th and continues until it is done. Expect to hear a lot about that. As for NAMM, nothing really blew my socks off, just like last year. I think perhaps I've lost the ability to be easily impressed. Anything you see that blew you away?

Just some quick off-the-cuff remarks about shit I've picked up recently. (Today, in fact.) Novation Launchpad: I've only had this for a half an hour, so I can't really say "OMGWTF?" or anything like that. I will say that setup was easy as can be, and it Just Works. Having buttons to record and fire clips and scenes in Live makes a world of difference in the writing process. I imagine it'd be handy live, too, but obviously I haven't played any shows in the last hour, so I couldn't say. Native Instruments Massive Threat: Picked this up this morning and went through all the patches. Despite the name, there are some surprisingly delicate sounds in this 200+ patch collection. I don't get why he put BPMs in the names of some of them; they're all host synced, so it's kind of silly. The wobble basses are quite wobbly. The first audio demo on the NI site is fucking hilarious, too. It's almost a parody of dubstep, it's so wobbly. I recommend a listen even if you're not in to that sort of thing. (I'm not.) Silly sounds that can instantly date your music aside, this is a very good sound set. The ones straight from NI are usually no joke, and this is definitely up to par. Strong "buy" recommendation at this point. Native Instruments The Finger: This is a Reaktor patch they've made to work with Kore and Kore Player. If you don't have Reaktor (I don't) you can't actually edit the patches, which is kind of silly. If you never paid attention when it came out, it's essentially a set of FX patches for Kore/Kore Player that enable MIDI keyboard control of certain tempo effects. Kind of a slick idea, but I think it would benefit from being an actual VST/AU rather than a Kore patch. I'm not complaining, though. It's cool, and has given me some ideas for an AD product, which in and of itself is worth the price of admission. The Usual Official "Caveat Emptor": I got The Finger and Massive Threat in an NFR trade. I'm the only blogger that seems to tell you guys this information, despite the fact that it is a law now, at least here in the US, but you always know where I stand, and I guess that's worth something. And finally... Eos won an Editor's Pick award from AudioNewsRoom. Thanks to ANR for the props!

Okay, the two biggest problems have now been stomped. We've revved the OSX side of Tattoo to 1.0.1 to match the Windows side. This fix is primarily meant for users of PPC (G4 and G5) Macs, and it fixes a problem those users were having with the AU not validating, and the VST causing crashes. If you're an Intel Mac user and you aren't experiencing any issues, there is no need to install this update. In related news, it appears that all our products work fine in Logic 9.1 via the 32-bit bridge. We therefore officially add this host to our supported hosts. We will port the Mac side of things to 64-bit at the same time we do the Windows side. We have no timeline for that, except to say that it is In The Not-Too-Distant Future. We will almost certainly cease support for PPC Macs when we rev the products, and only offer 32- and 64-bit Intel versions, but we need to have further discussions before we commit to that course of action. I will say that while the better G5 machines can certainly hang with the lowest Intel machines, and are still viable platforms for music creation, we are a small company, and thus we have to triage, and it is increasingly obvious that 64-bit plug-ins are more important to the consumer base than PPC-based plug-ins.

(The subject line of this post will be a complete mystery to non-Americans, I imagine. Or to those born in the politically correct era.) Okay, we've got an OSX update on the way that will fix the crashing problems that PPC users have been experiencing. It should be along in short order, and I'll update this post and blather on in the usual places about it. The Cymbal Issue, where Logic 9.0.2 users were experiencing a rezzed-out cymbalThing that was fucking up the whole output buss, is a Logic 9.0.2 bug, and is fixed by downloading and installing Logic 9.1. Go figure. Apple actually did us a solid for a change. Strike that. Keep on keepin' on, otherwise. Hopefully, at some point Real Soon Now, we can return to our regularly scheduled programming. But for now, I have nothing to talk about but Tattoo-related injuries.

Okay, we have a fix for one of the issues. The Windows version of Tattoo has been updated to 1.0.1.0, and a new installer is available in your account in the AD store. This version fixes a drawing problem that many Windows XP users were experiencing in multiple hosts that was causing any number of issues, from weird lines and such to pausing the host to sluggish screen updates. So, hit your account in the AD store, grab that bitch and give 'er a spin. Let us know if it doesn't fix your various problems. We're going to begin the OSX Whack-A-Mole Fiesta now. EDIT: We've figured out the commonality among the people having install problems on OSX, and the cause. Searching for a possible solution; this will be the next rev, and should come before PM Tuesday.

I think the subject line says it all. Go here.

Adium Chat Transcript, July 7th, 2009: 8:25:38 PM Chris Randall: What do you think about "Tattoo" for a name? 8:25:46 PM Adam Schabtach: Oh, that's not bad. 8:25:56 PM Chris Randall: You know how I like my double entendré. 8:26:20 PM Adam Schabtach: Just as long as you don't put any photos of your own hide in the About box. Little did we know that six months (!) later, we'd never want to hear a drum sound again for the rest of our days. But lo, and hark, Tattoo is done. Finished. Tested and working in all hosts. We just need a bit of time to get our shit together viz. the installers and manual and such, but it won't be long.

Here's a tutorial about how to use all the various randomization features in both the sequencer and the voices of Tattoo.

This video (hit YouTube to watch in HD) shows how to utilize the MIDI Only mode, hook up the MIDI output to a Drum Rack in Live, and briefly touches on the randomization features in Tattoo. I'll do one more video before launch that goes in to some detail about the various randomization features. (Note that this video is only for the VST users; the AU doesn't have a MIDI output for obvious reasons.)

Man, it is satisfying to post this: Tattoo is more or less finished. The presets are done, and the various platforms are thoroughly tested. All that remains is to roll the presets in to the plug-ins themselves, make the installer, and finish the manual. Jesus, what a ride. I can see now why companies that release sophisticated instruments generally have more than two people working on them. It is a lot of work to make one of these bitches, and no mistake. Anyhow, the rest of the day will be spent rolling installers, writing the manual, and the like. If you're on the Testing Crewe, expect a final build in the not-too distant future. If you're a member of the hoi poloi, expect a for-sale version in a future slightly more distant than that, but still not that distant. If you're me, expect to never want to hear another drum sound for the rest of your time on this mortal coil.

I, for one, am fairly glad we don't have flying cars, because that'd be just one more way that people yacking on their cell phones could fuck my life up. And the way folks in the Pacific Northwest drive, it's probably better for everyone if all four wheels are firmly planted on the ground. Jet packs, on the other hand, now there's a concept I can get behind. Anyhow, in 2009, AI got just over half a million hits, and double that in page views. I haven't counted how many posts I put up in 2009, but I'm certain at least half of them were about how Tattoo was coming out soon. Like Matrixsynth, I didn't get a single visitor from North Korea, and that's really sad when you think about it. They're missing out on both an extensive lesson in middle-aged vitriol and a nearly endless list of YouTube solo performances of 80s synth pop without vocals, and I think that country is the lesser for it. Anyhow, 2009 was a fairly good year by all accounts. Despite the shattered ruins and broken dreams that made up the world economy in '09, Audio Damage did slightly better in '09 than in '08. It would have been a whole lot better if we got Tattoo out before Christmas, but you win some, you lose some (and you're saying "there he goes again.") I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you personally, but since I don't have a flying car or a jet pack, I'll just have to do it here. So thanks, for the support of Audio Damage, for the interesting conversations here, and for continuing to do what you do.

Here's a quick little screencast I did to show how to access the extra outputs in Live, group the tracks together, and apply some individual effects. I figure users of Cubase and Logic, the which are much more multi-output-savvy, shouldn't have any trouble, but it isn't so obvious in Live. The AU and VST work exactly alike in this regard.

Well, it took several days (!!!) but we finally found and fixed the memory leak problem that was plaguing the OS X side of things in Tattoo. Today, we're adjusting the Windows VST to match the changes and fixes we made on the OS X side of things, then I'm going to go off in to my Testing Cave and try to break it, and in the process, write some presets. So, I know I might have said that it wouldn't be long now not more than maybe two dozen times, but this time I'm actually not lying through my teeth. If all goes according to plan (and when has it not?) we'll have a release candidate by Monday. Theoretically. In other news, there is no other news, as Tattoo has consumed my entire existence.

I'm going to try out a new recurring column here, where I jack in all the shit I've found cool from the month that didn't necessarily warrant an individual post. I would think it is fairly self-explanatory, so without further ado, and in no particular order... 1. Camel Audio's Biolabs Massive Retaliations sound pack for Massive. I got Alchemy, and I have the distinct impression that it's gonna take a little while to get my head around it, but at the same time I got this set of sounds for Massive, a synth I got my head around some time ago, and while I don't normally go in for sound-sets made by others (I vastly prefer to just program my own sounds) this set is both very well-made, and eminently usable for the sort of music I'm doing right now. The atmospheres in particular are quite good. Two thumbs up. (In accordance with my own fear of karmic blog retribution, let me mention that this was part of a trade for AD products, and I didn't actually pay actual money for it; with that said, I feel it is well worth the price they're charging, even if only as a teaching experience to show that Massive is capable of something besides dubstep bass.) 2. Nude Photo Music, a new EDM label here in PDX started by my good friend, and obvious glutton for punishment, Gustavo Lanzas. I distinctly recall telling him between bottles of Newcastle's (the one and only!) that having a record label was a recipe for bleeding ulcers, but he obviously paid my advice no heed whatsoever, and Portland is the better for it. Gustavo will be busting out some of the upcoming Nude Photography at Operation Condor on 01.08.10. I'll be there, with bells on. 3. The Kurzweil PC3K. This is essentially a PC3X with the ability to load K2000/2500/2600 sounds. How that is a bad thing is utterly beyond me. In stripping my studio of unnecessary gear and kicking my minimalist tip for the next couple years, this will have pride of place as my next Real Gear purchase. Clearing off room on the credit card now. Apologies to Roland, Korg, and Yamaha, but this is how you make an 88-key synth. 4. U-he's ACE synth. I just got done slobbering all over the demo of this bad boy, and Urs did a hell of a job on this one. It's in the queue for imminent acquisition. A little heavy on the CPU, but sound-wise, it's up there with the DCAM stuff in terms of "analog" sounding synth plug-ins.

Christmas Eve is upon us, and while I can't get behind the whole religious aspect, there's nothing wrong with Peace On Earth and Goodwill Towards Men, even from my humanist standpoint. (Besides, if it wasn't for this God fellow everyone is going on about, we wouldn't have "A Love Supreme," and the world would be lesser for it.) Have a fine one with your family and/or friends.

Here's a short tutorial about making a quick glitchtastic beat with Tattoo and Automaton (and Strobe and Massive, too). The main point of this was to test my shiny new workflow with ScreenFlow, which seems to be the path of least resistance to doing these things. The nice thing is that it actually took longer to upload and wait for the conversion on this than it did to make it, which means you'll be seeing a lot more in the coming months. Also, too, Sean Costello, the dude that wrote the Eos algorithms, has put up a little tutorial about making the PCM70 Tiled Room preset in Eos, the which you can read right here.

I just made a little screencast that shows how to use multiple outs on Tattoo in Live. This will come in quite handy since none of you, like, have it and stuff, but there you go. (As an aside, I'll just mention that Screenflow almost makes it so I don't want to put a gun in my mouth and end it all every time I do one of these things, so they'll be more frequent from now on.) Also, Sean Costello just put up a nice little tut on how to make Eos emulate the PCM70 Tiled Room preset, the which you can find right about here.

Over the weekend, Adam was able to get the multi-out portion of the AudioUnit port working, after we explored a couple blind alleys in detail. There is no documentation whatsoever about how to pull this off, and obviously we've never done this before. With a VST, it's really just a matter (and this is an extreme simplification) of saying "moar pleez." With AudioUnits, Apple made an extremely Logic-centric format that is ironically utterly devoid of logic. And did I mention they neglected to document the vast majority of the format? I remember when AU was first announced, every developer was all excited about all these extra things you could do. "ZOMG IT'S LIKE THE FUTURE AND SHIT!" Unfortunately, if you also sell VSTs (and why wouldn't you?) you can't use any of those extra features. Since almost all commercial developers do both (and RTAS as well), all that extra shit is utterly pointless. The built-in plugs in Logic don't use 'em, because they're not AudioUnits, but rather part of Logic itself. So the entire enterprise is an exercise in needless complication. VST is a fairly simple format by comparison, and despite all its problems seems pretty sexy/sleek when you put it up against the haywire mess that is AU. Anyhow, the usual ranting aside, we've only got one major hurdle remaining, and that's the presets in the AU. These presets are quite large, having several thousand parameters to keep track of, so they're not the easiest thing in the world to deal with, but this is well-worn ground for us, so it shouldn't be a huge stumbling block. I imagine we'll be in full multi-platform beta in the next couple days. (With the caveat that the VST is already well-tested, especially on the Windows side of things, and is pretty much done.)

While I'm all for the latest and greatest, there are certain aspects of upgrading a music computer that might merit some consideration. I've recently received several letters that, when put in a blender to make a nice smoothie, look something like this: ZOMG! I upgraded to 64-bit Windows 7 and all my word processor shit works fine, but your plug-ins don't work in Sonar 64! PLEASE FIX THIS AS I HAVE A SESSION THIS AFTERNOON!!11111! Sincerely, UpgradeDude I've said it before and I'll say it again: when you use a computer for music-making, you need to approach any major operating system upgrade with extreme trepidation. Since that won't sit with the people that are having this problem, here's something that will: if DAWs were girlfriends, think of 64-bit DAWs as vegetarian girlfriends, and 32-bit plug-ins as meat. Sure, they can eat it. They might even do it just because they love you. But they're not gonna be fucking happy about it, and they'll resent the hell out of you for it, and probably puke. Seriously. Check your shit before you upgrade. Hardly anything in the plug-in world is "64-bit ready."

Because, quite frankly, it would be a damn shame if you were, at any point, to run out of drum samples. Beatserv: My most excellent friends Wade and Dean are having a 20% off Every Damn Thing sale in the Beatserv store. Also, too, they've just released a very cool sample pack called "Bombs & Bits" that, once you figure in the sale, is only like US$7.75 or something. That's as close to a no-brainer as you're gonna come across in this day and age. To Beatserv. Goldbaby: Hugo just released the third and final MPC series of samples, MPC60 Volume 3. I've downloaded it, but I haven't tried it out yet. I have no reason to expect it is anything but eminently usable, given the Goldbaby track record on such things. US$24 and available here. Sonic Couture: The SC boys are having a Christmas sale as well, essentially one free product of your choice with every order. Just fill your cart with downloadables, and at checkout enter the code SCXMAS09 and whatever item is cheapest will be free. Go forth.

The image above may look like all the other little tiny screenshots I've put up over the last month or two, but it is special, as it is the AU. We still have some issues, but it sequences, and it plays drum sounds, so the hard part is definitely over, and the end is most assuredly in sight. Like Ernst & Julio Gallo, we will sell no wine before its time, but we're getting there. EDIT: Here's that mathy math track I was talking about a couple posts ago. Tattoo multi-out plus various soft-synths. There's a ton of plugs on the Tattoo channels. Tattoo Full Demo 1 by Chris Randall

We've got friends visiting from Phoenix, so I've been out Seeing the Sights around PDX all weekend. Today is the last day of same. Back to our normal schedule on the 'morrow, but for today this is an open thread. The subject? Do you feel that the expectations for live performance have been lowered since the advent of the laptop and the loss of so much tour support money? I was watching a Lady Ga Ga live performance on YouTube the other day and I was like "this weak-ass shit is the hottest ticket going?" It isn't even in the same ballpark as Justin Timberlake, let alone the monster stage shows of the 80s and 90s as put on by Prince, Madonna, the Jacksons, et al. I feel that it is generally indicative of the industry as a whole, where it is perfectly acceptable to get up in front of a crowd, change some scenes in Live and maybe tweak a filter freq or delay send, and call it a show.

The kind and wonderful folks at the Apple App Store Review Dungeon have finally approved the DroneStation 1.1.0 update. UPDATES: 1. Tilt controls filter cutoff, in user-selectable amount. 2. New user interface. (Now with 100% more blobs.) 3. Help screen added. 4. Note name/frequency bug fixed. 5. Now (should) work fine with iPhone OS 2.2.1 or greater. This means that (theoretically) people that had the "you can't use this on your Touch because you don't have a mic" bug should be able to buy and use the app now. If one of those people would grab it and let me know if that's actually the case, I'd be much appreciative. 6. Added a 1/8th inch-wide dead space between the left-hand controls and the right-hand control, to lessen accidental triggering. Anyhow, 'tis here if you don't already own it. The upgrade is free and available in the usual manner (via in-device upgrade or iTunes upgrade) if you do already have it. Still $1.99.

Various things going on here. The AU port of Tattoo is going relatively painlessly. It's only time-consuming because of all the sequencer functions in this plug-in, each one of which has to be written for the AU expressly, rather than copied from the VST. (Thirty-something in all.) I imagine Adam will have a working AU to show off tonight or tomorrow, then it's on to final beta-testing and clean-up. The DroneStation update is "In Review" in the app store. If the last go-round is anything to judge by, it should be available this afternoon or tomorrow morning. (Or rejected in a similar time frame.) This is, of course, a free update to people who already bought it. Those out of the way, I was working on a Tattoo demo in a complete song last night (which I'll put up today or tomorrow), and it occurred to me that I hadn't recorded a single sound, or used a single sample, in the creation of this song. It is 100% math, using FM8, Massive, and Tattoo, along with the usual selection of AD plug-ins. No particular reason to note this, except to say that it is interesting from an academic standpoint that CPU power has progressed so far so fast, and it can be readily seen in situations like this. 10 years ago, there's no fucking way I could run five softsynths the size of Massive or FM8, a sophisticated drum synth like Tattoo, and three or four plug-ins on each of 20 channels, and only be cracking like 30% of my computer's available horsepower. And this computer isn't anything special, either. State of the art for 2-3 years ago, but nothing like an 8- or 16-core i7 that would be state-of-the-art right now. Maybe the future isn't so bad after all.

Finish your Tuesday right with a nice chunk of Sonata XIV. I love to read the comments on John Cage videos on YouTube. The dude is still nearly inciting riots and he's been dead for 17 years. We should all be so lucky, as musicians, to make such a lasting impression. All kidding aside, the above is my favorite of the Sonatas & Preludes, and a truly excellent (and ludicrously expensive) performance from Gerard Fremy. (And yes, I know. Like good Scotch, John Cage is an acquired taste. But like good Scotch, it's a taste worth acquiring.)

My wife and I were having a discussion last night about the Eno/Branca thing (that we talked about in the comments of this post,) and she brought up an interesting point. She said the way to combat the pervasiveness of microtaste in the past was mixtapes. You made a tape for your prospective significant other, or your friend, or whatever, and that tape was a good indication of the fundamental nature of You. Now, the person you gave it to might not like every song, but since they were theoretically compatible with you in some way, they'd like most of them, and in the process of liking most of them, you'd turn them on to something new, perhaps. But then there would be a demonstrable collection of two people that liked the same group of songs, which makes a microtaste (which is inherently singular in nature) in to a macrotaste, and a movement is born. Anyhow, Elle was postulating that it would be interesting to have a scenario wherein you created a mixtape of some sort, sent it in some fashion to a central clearing house, and got one in return. Being older, we were dwelling on the concept of sending in a CD-R and getting one in return, as the transient nature of the internet doesn't lend itself to this sort of thing, in our opinion. Anyhow, you'd make a CD-R full of the songs that described you, and sent it off, and a couple weeks later, from some other utterly random person, you'd get a completely unrelated CD-R, full of songs that described them. In this fashion, you could get out of your normal self-created shell that the current state of the music industry creates. This Global Mixtape is just the meme of an idea, and if there's a service or something already existing that does this sort of thing, I'd love to hear about it. Obviously, just doing it as the idea stands now is impossible. There would be massive costs associated with the disparity in postage rates alone, never mind the time associated with actually physically doing the swap. However, I'd love to flesh this idea out in to something that could actually occur, so if anyone has any thoughts on the subject, lay 'em out.

I've just submitted Dronestation 1.1 to Apple for approval. I don't know how long updates take to be approved, but I imagine they're the same as initial submissions, so figure a couple weeks at worst, and a week at best. Anyhow, as you can see, the UI is quite a bit different. I replaced the janky 80s-tastic aliased triangle drawing with some cool metaball shit. (I'm starting to get the hang of OpenGL | ES.) I also added a tilt sensor, which controls filter frequency in the amount you so desire. (An added control in the settings screen allows you to set how much tilt goes to freq, from none to like 3kHz or so.) The little arrowhead in the right-side bracket shows tilt position. There is also a dead space between the notes and the LFO control, to make it easier to avoid hitting one when you're trying to do the other. And I fixed the frequency bug, which was causing the notes to be offset by 5 semitones. Finally, I added a help overlay on the main screen that shows nubs how to play it. There is some internal moving about in order to more easily allow future updates, and in the following rev I'll add several of the things that were talked about in the last DroneStation thread, including 8 presets, a non-Southpaw mode that flips the controls, and probably a simple delay to make it more droney. Anyhow, I expect this to be approved as there aren't any changes Apple would object to, so it's all up to them as to how long it will take.

Well, that only took me all day which, given the content, turns to be a big fat waste of time on everybody's part. I did learn some things, though, and they are, in no particular order: 1. Hardly anyone knows what the fuck they're talking about on the Internet. I know, right? The four people that do know what they're talking about don't know anything about NLE rendering, so they're no help. 2. Apple, who had got out of the doghouse for a while, are back to being on my Big List Of Shit. Why Final Cut Express, the which is based entirely on Quicktime, can't load a Quicktime Screen Recording... well... I don't even have the words. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on, but this will start to sound petty and childish, and frankly, I'm in a pretty good mood this morning, and I don't want to ruin it. So there you go, an actual HD video of Tattoo drumming away. If you go to the YouTube site directly, you can watch it in HD, and almost read the knob labels.

The screengrab above is exactly what you think it is. Tattoo VST for OS X. The port to the OSX side of things has begun, and is (in output, at least) halfway done. We'll start the AU today, and frankly, this is the Great Unknown of this whole project, and is the last remaining hurdle. I'll keep you posted, but it won't be long, unless Very Bad Things happen. In other news, I'm nearly finished with the first update to DroneStation. I gave it a much nicer UI (visually, at least), fixed a bug where the note names don't correspond to what's actually getting shit out the sound-hole, and gave it tilt-to-frequency. I've got to spruce up the logo and what-not a little bit, then I'll submit it to Apple. Once Tattoo is out and I can devote some actual time to the project, I'll add the non-Southpaw mode and presets, and probably a gesture recording/playback feature.

Here is an interesting blog post from Too Much Joy, an "alternative" (read: college rock) band from the late 80s and early 90s that you might or might not be familiar with. They were on Warner Bros. for four of their albums, and he just got an interesting royalty statement. It's worth a read, as it gives a good insight in to how this whole business works. I'm in a not-dissimilar position, with the caveat that TVT went out of business not too long ago. I'm unrecouped to the tune of around $400,000 or so, which is probably more than the Orchard paid in total for the entire Wax Trax! catalog. Now I owe (where "owe" equals something different than it does in normal English) the Orchard $400,000. Occasionally I get a royalty statement from them, where they cheerfully inform me of the comical sales figures they manage to gin up. This is doubly humorous because those four albums they own each individually sold more than all the albums I've made since, and were supported with multi-hundred-date tours, massive ad buys, placements on major studio motion picture soundtracks, and reviews in every music magazine worth a shit, and plenty that aren't. Yet somehow they earn between 1/100th and 1/1000th of what our self-released SMG albums earn. On the other hand, though, I own all my own publishing, so the Orchard has to actually pay me actual money twice a year, unlike many bands who make the ultimate stupid decision to sign their publishing to the label. The checks are so small that I sometimes forget to cash them, I'm embarrassed to admit, but they do come, which is something, I guess. There's no real point to this post other than to perhaps provide an object lesson. I got to ride around in a bus for 6 years and play music every night, which fucking rules, so I'm not bitching in the slightest. I'm just pointing out how odd this business can be.