Mixers, Tigers, and Text-posts oh my!

Gentlewomen and Gentlemen of the Vox Chaotica Council! I have failed you. Or me. Or maybe everyone. My last two posts... *dry sobs* My–my last two posts *sobs* OH GOD WHYYYY? Why did this happen to me?! *ugly crying* What monster have I become...? Have I really sent out two fully text posts...back to back?! Oh Bragi, what have I done to incur your most astonishing wrath?

Melodramatics aside, I apologise for my stunning lack of foresight and general design failures. This one's on me. If you see me in the street or in class, please hand me this–I will immediately drop whatever I am doing and comply with the outlined apology.

Now that unfortunate business is out of the way, let's get down to the actual blog, shall we?

Except I lied and I have one administrative thing to say before we got on topic for real deals: Thank you to the like three people who suggested artists. Mr N, Ms D and good ol' Mum nominated some people who I will get in touch with soon. For everyone else, I have just started a points system, and the three mentioned are already at 300 points. The goal is to reach 10 Awesome points (1 Awesome point = 12 Super points, 1 Super point = 1200 points), and whoever does gets a surprise prize–which is definitely not the Pulit Surprise. [Note: Cutter recognises this joke is hard to understand unless you say it out loud, so he encourages you to go to the must public place you can and yell this out to everyone around you and then laugh manically at it and see who joins in–you might want to stay away from those people, or make them your best friends. That's a judgement call I leave completely up to you, dear reader.]

Alright. As I said in an older post, I am currently working on my Honors Thesis/Creative Project–this is my setup for making my concept album based of Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. That was actually a rather smooth recap, yeah? What, you say it was super contrived and pretty bluntly stated? Well touché to you, sir and/or madam. I thought I could slip it past you, but you are bright as 12 LEDs to the eye and sharp as the sting of unrequited love. That got dark fast.

Anyway, I'm going to section off the bits of the picture to explain what all I'm doing with all this weird junk on my table.

First, notice the laptop. It shines with a definite luster, except for a small sticker that fits rather inconveniently under my right wrist. That sticker is for The Darling Sounds, who are amazing and if you don't yet know who they are, you make me sad. My laptop is hooked to the other monitor, giving me two screens to work with: the laptop keeps my Word document with my setlist and liner notes about each song (a work in progress and being edited in real time as I work on my songs); the monitor is where MainStage lives, and I can edit my setup and all my effects there in real time (while I am looping audio I just recorded, which is like the most AMAZING thing EVER). For now, the below picture will suffice, but I can explain this more fully for you fellow music enthusiasts, just contact me or leave a comment.

Also connected to my laptop are two USB peripherals (can you tell I've been waiting for days to say that, now I know what to actually call them?), the first is my Alesis Multimix 4 USB Mixer and the second is an M-Audio USB MIDISport. I love my little Alesis. My only complaint is that I bought the 4-channel and not a 12-channel, but isn't that what all recording musicians complain about–not enough sound input?

Those of you with keen perception (at least a 6 on a Vit-o-matic Vigor Tester) may have already noticed that the MIDISport is connected to the FCB1010 foot controller I have at the bottom left of frame. That directly corresponds to the 00 and 01 sections in the above picture, so when I press one of the buttons on my controller, MainStage deciphers the MIDI signal and performs a specific action, such as toggling effects on my channel strip. Oh lordy do I love the FCB1010. It's sooooooo cooooooool now I know how MIDI works and have a program to utilise the foot controller's potential.

The speakers right next to the monitor? Purely aesthetic. Honestly I haven't turned them on to listen to music in at least a month.

Now the little orange blob may have caught your attention, and that's good because he's one of my dearest treasures. That is a TY beanie baby mini I got when I was like four from an Arby's kiddie meal. His name is Timber the Tiger, and he has gone basically everywhere with me. I took him to England, Australia and New Zealand when I went there back in high school, he's been to every single recording session I've ever done, and I did a brief (and ADORABLE, though I'm not sure anyone else thought so) series of pictures detailing his and my adventures through Colorado last summer (you can check my instagram for that). He's my equivalent to Woody, Buzz and the gang from Toy Story, but not as animated.

At the top of frame is my open journal, probably about the time I decided to hand tab all the parts I had written so far–sometimes, my Intelligence would not be a 6. And the two books stacked next to the journal (they're red and black) are research tools helping me learn more about Borges' other works, like Dreamtigers, which I am super excited to read once I have more than five minutes of time to myself per week.

Just to the right of the journal is my Dishonored Tarot deck. I flirt with divination and clairvoyance (as I say so often, that's a tale for another post), and this is my favourite way to divine the future! [Note: I really wanted that last phrase to be in wavy type, but I don't think Wordpress supports ghost fonts...] If you ever want me to give you a reading, I know the Celtic Cross spread and heavily rely upon the internet to tell me what the cards are actually saying... or even mean...

And finally, there's a black mug there with a saying you probably can't read: A Trusted Friend in Science. The first person to guess where that's from gets a cool 600 points. I usually start my day with a nice hot cup of Twining's Peppermint Tea, with a drizzle of honey and about half a capful of lemon juice for enhanced flavour. So good. Sooooo gooood!

Thus the king of the overly-long post finishes his long-winded post about personal stuff. But YAY PICTURES!

PS - Remember, my point system works basically like the Who's Line Is It Anyway point system.

tl;dr Cutter sets up an arbitrary point system for an actual prize, apologises for a social faux pas, talks about his thesis, and has a stuffed animal friend called Timber the Tiger