In February, a colleague and I were talking about ways to save money, and she introduced me to a really intriguing concept which truly works:  Even though I have a washer/dryer in my apartment, she suggested that each time I do a load of laundry, I set aside $3 (about what it costs to do a load of laundry in a laundromat).  I have been doing that ever since – sometimes rounding up, such as when I have three loads and setting aside $10 instead – and it truly has added up:  I currently have $155 set aside in three months, simply from having been doing the laundry.

So now, the decision:  I had intended to use that money for a virtual instrument, but which one?  Right now, I am considering:

• Garritan Jazz & Big Band 3
• Ultra Analog VA-1 from Applied Acoustics Systems
• Linplug’s Saxlab2
• Sonic Charge’s Synplant

Ultra Analog VA-1 is $199, so I need to save a little more, but I could easily buy any of the others right now.  I have also been eying Vocaloid Sonika, which I could buy right now (especially since she is now on sale!), although it could be somewhat difficult to use her voice overall compared with Vocaloid Miriam (the only Vocaloid voice I have used thus far).

Decisions…

Admittedly, it has been far too long since I last posted here.  I blame real life (i.e., working).

That said, @Finale_Music posted a link to a short but intriguing article (“are we in a post-authentic music world?”) speculating on the end of genres in music.  That resonated with me instantly for the simple reason that some of the music I create does not particularly fit well into any one genre – “Dark Glory” would be a good example of that.

And now, back to real life…

I have had some surprises lately in terms of how others have reacted to my music:

• An observation that my (electronica) music sounds like it was influenced by Kraftwerk – extremely unexpected feedback, but one which certainly made me happy!
• Feedback stating that it was good that I was willing to take risks with my music.   Odd to me since it does not really feel like I am taking risks, but also a comment which made my day!
• A comment today on “Friday 5PM” that my piano performance was “mastery…” when the “performance” is actually 100% virtual.  That certainly provided me with a much-needed boost in the middle of a long and arduous day at the office

Found on Tumblr:

Early in my MIDI music exploration, I wanted to rescore “The Highest Step” using Garritan Personal Orchestra 4, but quickly discovered that due to having originally scored it entirely in General MIDI, many notes were out of range of GPO4 instrumentation.  I am now considering pursuing the rescoring again, but likely focusing largely, if not exclusively, on the SoundFonts from www.soundsforbeats.com.  In addition, the original version of “The Highest Step” was a direct exporting from PrintMusic without any mixing – I now have a rather good knowledge (I think!) of mixing and can certainly make any rescoring sound superior to the original version.

Since “The Highest Step” was effectively conceived with the 2010 Winter Olympics in mind, if I do pursue this rescoring/mixing project, my goal is to have it completed and released around the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics.