Return of the AFOL

Posted on February 1, 2025 by Fresh

Greetings all,

I hope this post finds you in good spirit. Here we are, the first day of the second month of 2025, also known as the kickoff of Black History Month, and maybe some other celebratory months I saw listed on social media somewhere. In any event, I don’t think anyone in these United States (or globally for that matter) can say that the last 11 days haven’t been “interesting” (define that word as you see fit).

In any event, over the last few weeks, I’ve returned to a enjoyable pastime that I essentially got away from over the last 10 years or so – building with LEGO. I played with LEGO as a child but that didn’t really hold my interest like other toys did, so by middle school, that interest pretty much dropped off. Fast forward to my adult life, and I mean in the 201os, is when I took a renewed interest in LEGO, particularly in the Space and Technic vehicles theme. What renewed the interest wasn’t so much the sets themselves, but the talented, everyday people, that were building these amazing space themed creations from their own imaginations, coupled with the immense knowledge of building techniques. Not even being a huge science fiction fan, I wanted that creative knowledge also. Beyond that, I began to see real life LEGO replicas of everyday things being built which, to this day, I find amazing.

Aside from the combination of building technique knowledge and creative imagination, there is an entire engineering aspect, especially in Technic themes, that comes into play. This aspect directly lends itself to the LEGO Mindstorms and Spike Robot Developer products, which are HIGHLY up my alley, and also includes their Power Functions and Powered Up lines of products. Furthermore, there is the intersection of LEGO robotics and coding languages such as Python/Micropython, and microcontroller platforms such as the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, that bring together an entirely different aspect in building with LEGO. If you take a look at my blog roll, you’ll see a fair amount of websites dedicated to LEGO. All in all, the term AFOL (Adult Fan Of LEGO) has always be an very real thing, and from the products they have been creating for the adult market over the years, it’s quite apparent.

Personally, I find building therapeutic, not just in following the build instructions that come with each set, but setting out to create something in my imagination and seeing the final result before my eyes. This result is called a MOC (my own creation). It involves levels of building techniques that you have to learn along the way by doing. The more constraints you have to deal with (mostly a smaller inventory of bricks, let along enough amounts of the colors you need), the more you have to become ingenious during the build process. These constraints are what I am dealing with currently because I just don’t have the room or the display space to build larger kits (or I should say I haven’t made the space). Never the less, where I am right now in the building process is good, and what I’m seeing other builders sharing online is VERY inspiring and motivating, so that makes the learning process (and there is a lot to learn) exciting. I definitely aspire to get to the level of many I see online, not only with space themed builds, but the robotics and powered builds, both employing the engineering aspects I mentioned above. The whole concept of LEGO (‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”), has always appealed to me, and still lives within me and in many of their products still.

In any event, I’ve been posting my latest builds to Bluesky (primarily to another account purely for that) as well as my Flickr account, and look forward to building these sets (along with any alternative build plans to the original instructions that people share on the net – oftentimes I find those MOCs even more interesting than the originals!

Thanks for the read….”Play well” and be well.

Fresh!

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Day 1: 2025

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Fresh

11:25pm EST – Greetings readers, I hope your entry into 2025 was grand, safe, happy, and all that is positive. Mine was, as I spent a quiet night at home watching 2024 come to a close. I’m grateful to have been blessed with a chance to enter into the new year. Today has been quiet and *mostly* productive, and what’s even better is I have the rest of the week off.

This post is nothing but basically a brain dump and reads like a journal entry, I know, I know. Got my first workout the year in, finally got around to getting an extra filing cabinet and some storage boxes to do a LOT of paperwork filing. Cruised around Bluesky off and all day, and continued to reflect on the changes I’ve started and hopt to continue throughout the year. Oh, I did a small Lego build today (it’s been awhile) – the Mars Rover Perseverance, it’s a small Technic polybag build – I like those because they are quick. Afterwards I ended up connecting with a Bluesky user who is in Lego Star Wars, but is alos a fantastic MOC builder (MOC – My Own Creation). I’ve been into Lego as a hobby for a LONG time as an adult, which sprang from my memories as a child playing with them. I have Lego models at work, and as I type this, there are a few space themed (my favorite theme) to the left of me, on a bookshelf, and two Speed Champion models, a Porsche 911 and Ferrari F40 behind me on another bookshelf. Lego Racing, Lego Technic, Lego System, Lego Space (Classic and Neo) Mindstorms themes have been my favorite for a long time. Building is always therapeutic and I really want to get back to doing more of that. The flip side is it can become a rabbit hole of interest, such that I had to pull back from it. There are immensely talented creators in the world of Lego, I mean IMMENSE, which is why it’s continually enjoyable to partake in.

I just finished Round 4 of #100DaysOfCode yesterday, so that was a good way of closing out the year. I’m continuing my Python studies as well as updating (revision 2) of my low power model rocket maximum altitude/peak velocity at engine burnout simulation code. I’m getting the hang (I think) of object oriented programming in Python, but not enough where I am really comfortable in moving on BUT I’ve already began to update my code to reflect what I’ve learned so far, so that’s a good thing.

Anyway, technically, this satisfies my “at least once a month” goal of blogging. I was up until 2:30am this morning and pretty much only got six hours of sleeping. I feel it catching up to me now, so this is good time to end this. Tomorrow is getting a bit more productive, gotta redeem the time before heading back to work on Monday.

Happy 2o05…oceans of rhythm…

Fresh!

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That was then, this is now.

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Fresh

Now playing: postburialism #5 | deep dark future garage mix | tracklist

Greetings readers, happy holidays. I hope all is well as you are reading this. Here we are, coming to a close of another year with 2025 right around the corner. Whatever 2024 was to you, I hope the following year will be better.

Last week, I received a letter that was mistakenly placed in my mailbox. I recognized the envelope being from my credit union and pretty much knew the type of contents inside. Upon looking again, I saw that it was for my neighbor a few doors down. Easily recognizing the house number was one thing but what I didn’t realize the name. I don’t know how long the residents have been living there but I’m sure it’s been for a good number of years, because I’ve been living at my address since 2001. It’s rare that I get another’s mail but, when it happens, I’ve always known the neighbor. The difference here is that I’ve seen them come and go, but only by car.

In this particular case, it made me think about how very different things are now versus when I grew up as a child in my neighborhood. During those days, I lived in a neighborhood that saw four age groups of kids growing up over time, all nuclear families and every neighbor knew one one another to the point where all the parents looked out for one another’s children in the neighborhood. It wasn’t, as you probably have heard or know, uncommon that if you got in trouble for something, it very well may be that it first happened under the watch of your friend’s parents before they reported it to yours! Stevie Wonder’s lyrics to “I Wish Those Days” are kinda swimming around in my head, as a sentiment to what I’m getting at here, but I won’t digress, LOL

In any event, it just got me to thinking that, because of our street we live on (which has been VERY quiet, opposed to the street I grew up on where us kids were always playing outside in it), we’ve acknowledged the neighbors only on the houses that flanked yours. Sure, driving down the street after so many years, there would be waves exchanged, but knowing each other’s names, let along further engagement, is not anything usual anymore. This, of course, is attributed to many things that have changed over the decades, a fair amount (I believe) are related to, but not only about, technological advances, but I wont digress and wax philosophically about that either, nor will I say this applies to every neighborhood in 2024, as there are too many variables to consider.

In any event, that letter is still downstairs on the counter (I know, bad) and I should walked down and placed in their mailbox, which I will do tomorrow. I’m going to do it around the time the postal carrier delivers the mail on our street, I hopes of maybe catching my neighbors when they come out to check their box. We’ll see.

Take care and, again, Happy 2025 to you and years.

Oceans of rhythm,

Fresh.

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While the “sky” is Blue(r), X users are fewer.

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Fresh

Greetings all, I hope this post finds you well. ICYMI, in social media news, over the last few weeks, Bluesky has gained a massive amount of users migrating (or as I like to call it “skygrating”) from X (nee Twitter) as a result of Elon Musk’s November 15 2024 new terms of service. I personally find the skygration reasons legitimate, and that’s to mention many other reasons regarding what the platform has became since Elon took over. Before I continue, I’ll give you some chronological back history of my existence on social media platforms similar to both Bluesky and X

  • 2001: Joined BlackPlanet
  • 2004: Joined MySpace
  • 2006: Joined Twitter (user #14023, Nov 21, 11:52pm)
  • 2014: Instagram
  • 2017: App Developers Network (adn.net, Mar 14, 1:24 pm (now pnut.io))
  • 2017: Mastodon
  • 2023: Bluesky (user #25950, Apr 19)

Mastodon was my first taste of using a decentralized network, but I really didn’t use it that long because it didn’t interest me and felt like it was just another social network to keep track of, along with the fact that I wasn’t very familiar with the benefits of using a decentralized network.. I won’t go into detail reasons on why I continued to use the above platforms other than MySpace, at that time, was THE place for sharing music on many levels, BlackPlanet was my OG simply because of why and for who it was created to attract, Instagram was to socially share photos in a way you couldn’t on Flickr, for example. ADN was more a tech atmosphere and, finally, Bluesky, the so-called Twitter replacement.

While this post is not about why I like Bluesky and why I am deactivating my main X account after 18 years, but more about my observations about the massive skygration from X users to Bluesky. As of I type this, Bluesky shows me that I have 2000 followers and following 1500. In my 18 years on X, I’ve never achieved numbers that, on both sides, just because how I’ve continued to use the platform. I was, and still am, of the mindset: quality over quantity, when it comes to social media engagement. I’ve always been more of a consumer of information that interests me vs a social butterfly, so that information I tend to bookmark, archive, whatever such that I can make future use of it accordingly. I’ve also always provide enough in my social media bio to let people generally know what kind of person I am in terms of my interests followed by the general content I post. The combination of the two, I figure (just like everyone else) helps one make a decision as to if they want to follow me or not, as those are the first two things I look at when making my decision.

What I’m finding interesting on Bluesky is the amount of people that follow me (presumably as a result of the skygration) but seem to have nothing in common with me, coupled with the fact that some have followed well over 1000 users, but zero posts, and very little following them back. A general rule of thumb for me I never guarantee a follow back when you follow me (back to the quality over quantity thing). Secondly, having zero posts means I first need to see what you are posting about until I even follow you. Bluesky has instituted a somewhat recent feature called “starter packs”. A starter pack is essentially a group of people who share the same interests, this group (list) is made up by a user and present to the “skyline” for other users to peruse and decide who they want to follow in the group. I suspect that many go through starter packs, sometimes following the whole group, sight unseen, or cherry picking whot they follow, even if a said user has zero posts and/or being followed by other users they have have seen before. I suspect that is how my followers numbers grew to 2000 quickly since 15 November. I’m starting to see the crypto accounts and scammer/AI bot accounts make it over slowly as well – two out of four which I engaged with personally and have now disappeared, the other three I have blocked without engagement. I’m sure more will come.

I’m seeing an influx of content and users from X that share my interests and its very slowly resembling my experience on X, without all the mess that X is now carrying. As of today, Bluesky has exceeded 2 million members. Apparently I have “elder” status there (and if X defines it the same, on there as well). We’ll have to see, as time goes by, how things unfold, based on this article, Bluesky Says It Won’t Screw Things Up. I’m liking Blueskly and glad I got the invite when I did. In the meantime, I’m maintaining an account on X which has the sole purpose of being used to document my #100DaysOfCode journey and interact/receive information on space startup/Python coding/various other tech interest content from users that have yet to make it over to Bluesky. X’s November 15 ToS states that all public tweets will train it’s Grok AI entity….good, mine will train it on Python….something far more useful than much of the GARBAGE it is and will continue to be trained on. As for my main account, as soon as can follow desired accounts from my new account, I will deactivate my main account.

That’s it fornow. Be well, be safe.

Oceans of rhythm…

Fresh.

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Travels Unravels

Posted on November 2, 2024 by Fresh

Photo credit: D.Ramsay (shot on iPhone 12)

Greetings all.

7:59am – I’m getting an early start on the monthly blog post habit and thought this would be a good time to post as I finish this green tea. This recipe, one I call Newtonium Tea, originated from a Tim Ferriss episode about morning ritual. If you’re so inclined, you can see the recipe here.

Over the last few years, I’ve been doing a fair (in my mind) amount of business travel, more than what I have between the years of 2008 and 2018, to California and Florida (Jet Propulsion Lab and Kennedy Space Center). Prior to those years, I traveled as far as Guam and Japan on business, and prior to that, mostly the Los Angeles area. (with one-offs in New Mexico, Boston, and Houston). I like that photo I took above, it was taken when I was on a moving walkway on the way to baggage claim at DCA. It came out great for me moving while shooting, kinda looks like a photo you’d see for a travel ad.

I’ve come to realize that if I never had to travel on business again, I’d be totally fine with that but getting the job done requires it. It’s not that I don’t like everything involved with travel. I’ve stayed in range of hotels, not one that was totally bad. In fact, I fancy the simple Holiday Inn Express hotels I’ve stayed in for these reasons:

  • Ample USB ports in the room
  • Early complimentary breakfast
  • Workout room
  • Daily housekeeping
  • Easily adjustable room temperature controls
  • No concern with validated parking
  • Clean

If I can check the boxes for all seven above, I’m good to go. My lack of desire to travel mainly boils down to the fact that I’ve become a self-admitted homebody at this point. It is what it is. Right now I have no pending trips coming until early 2025 so, until then, I’ll bask in the current localities.

That’s for now… thanks for the read. Be well.

Fresh!

Posted in Daily Musings, Travel | Tagged | 1 Comment

Autonomous Autos

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Fresh

Greetings,

9:20pm – I hope all is well for you as you read this post. This week I visited Huntsville, AL for a site visit of the NASA’s X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) At Marshall Space Flight Center. This facility will be used to conduct thermal vacuum testing of a NASA interplanetary mission I’m currently working on. A few minutes ago, I realized that there are only two more days left in October and I had not posted a blog, so here I am.

A few months ago, I finished reading a book called Neuromined: Triumphing over Technological Tyranny. In essence, “In Neuromined, data sovereignty advocate Robert Edward Grant and prolific tech author Michael Ashley team up to explore our crisis. Each chapter imagines a near-future dystopia via a riveting fictional tale (show) with a companion analysis (tell), connecting the story to our present reality.” It’s written in the same vain of another book I started reading but didn’t finished (yet), AI 2041 Ten Visions for Our Future. It would be interesting to see if the fictional stories in both books actually play out in the future.

In any event, if I recall correctly, chapter 7 spells out a story about how autonomous driving has become the law and the opposite will be met with legal action taken against anyone who is manually driving a vehicle. The way the story is told (I won’t provide a spoiler) turned out to be quite interesting as it closed out, but reminded me of where we are with autonomous driving to day, especially of the passenger type vs the industrial approaches taken by autonomous electric freight companies like Einride (who, incidentally sports a very impressive and aesthetically beautiful website).

I, for one, am still not interested in being driven around by an autonomous vehicle (though I have no qualms about the many commercial airline jets that fly me from point A to point B on autopilot, as least part of the way). It’s probably due to the fact that there is nothing to hit at 35,000 feet in the air versus on the ground. Waymo, for one, has made tremendous strides in autonomous driving, despite the recent (comical) scenarios, this past August, of the vehicles auto-congregating amongst themselves and honking at each other all hours of the night, as they return back to their assigned parking lot spaces. You can read one of the many stories about that here.

Autonomous driving has been touted as being safer than passsenger driving in many different instances. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a recent post of a Bluesky user who described his dad’s enjoyment of his first autonomous trip in a Waymo vehicle. Shout out to Jazz and his dad, cool story. Tesla, Waymo, Cruise, Nuro, etc..this kid is not ready yet.

How about you?

Be well,

Fresh!

Posted in Automotive Technology, Daily Musings, Technology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

UMMG Interview with Mazarati – 27 May 17

Posted on September 21, 2024 by Fresh

Greetings all, I hope you are well. I’m diggin’ in the crates this evening and bringing to you an interview I had the pleasure of doing with one of my favorite groups out of Prince’s Paisley Park world, Mazarati. I was able to contact one of the later members, keyboardist Brice Myles and he was nice enough to pull together two of the original members, Marr Starr (later known as One Gunn) and original vocalist and guitarist, Tony Christian. I first posted this interview to the Uptown Minneapolis Music Group (UMMG) on Facebook. I hope you enjoy it.

UMMG: Marv (One Gunn, OG), Tony (TC), and Brice Myles (BM), first of all, on behalf of UMMG, thanks for allowing us to conduct this interview AND thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me. I know you’re in Phoenix working with Paula Abdul right now. 

OG: Thanks for having us, yeah we’re here at my place in right now with a beautiful view from my balcony (laughs). 

1. UMMG: Sounds good to me! That said, let’s jump right into it. The story behind Mint Conditon is that Jellybean Johnson found them in a club as he was looking for artists for Jam and Lewis’ Perspective Records. How did Brown Mark discover you and where did the name Mazarati come from?

TC: One Gunn and I are from Milwaukee originally. Sir Casey Terry, Screamer, and Romeo were already in a band in Minneapolis when we got to know them after visiting, During one visit that One Gunn and I, we snuck in to see a performance Casey Terry was in with his band.. It was at point, we decided it was time to move to Minneapolis and become part of the scene. Afterwards, we were already pretty in a band and were doing shows in the area for about three years prior to Mark discovering us.  As for the name Mazarati, that was my doing. 🙂

2. UMMG: Word was out that Prince was looking for an artist to sign to the Paisley Park label. Were you intended to be a Prince produced group, or were you always gonna be with Mark?”

OG: As Tony said , we were a band long before Prince signed us. When he first heard and seen us perform, he was blown away. Later on, he was so impressed that, he used to come on stage and jam with prior to the Paisley Park deal. At the time, Mark was working with us but “in hiding” or we called it “Shadow Mode”, ‘cause we started calling him The Shadow, He was with Prince and The Revolution and there was a rule that he was not to be working with any other group. One time, when we were in N. Dakota, we received the call from Prince and got signed to Paisley Park.

3. UMMG: How did everyone in the group get their “nicknames”?”

OG  – That was all Tony Christian’s doing (laughs). 

TC: Screamer is pretty much clear, that guitar playing! As for Sir Casey Terry, he just had that way with women. He’d be the kind of guy that would kiss a woman’s hand, and we’d all have to turn our backs because you don’t know WHAT was gonna happen next! (laughs). Jerome…Romeo, was just a smooth lady’s man, so that was a given (more laughs). 

UMMG: Well, Marv, I always remember you as “Marr Starr” – definitely a Minneapolis tag for sure!

4. UMMG: The debut recording as I understand it was actually done all by Prince and Mark. Who wrote the songs – we know Prince wrote 100 MPH at least.? Was it a group effort? Was it Mark?”

TC: Well (laughs), it went down like this. Stroke was written by Mazarati. Strawberry Lover is actually Brown Mark’s music, but Prince’s lyrics. 100 MPH, definitely all Prince. We really liked the demo he gave to us, and we took it from there. The other tracks were written by Sir Casey Terry, myself, Mark, and Screamer wrote the rest of the material. As for Prince and Mark doing the studio recording, yes, but Tony Christian was doing a lot of background vocals on the tracks as well. (See the video feature with Brice and TC)

5. UMMG: I remember first seeing the cassette for the debut release, the cover IMMEDIATELY caught my eye , then I saw the Paisley Park insignia bought without evening listening or doing any sorta research, ‘cause I KNEW it was gonna be hot!! Was there any promotion for the release when it dropped? How was touring at that time?

OG: Well, we became known as “The Bad Boys of Paisley Park” It was around that time the Prince was into the whole androgynous movement, but it wasn’t him that suggested we present like that…again, that was Tony Christian (laughs). Promotion-wise there really wasn’t any, we were doing shows way before signing to Paisley Park and after, things didn’t change,

6. UMMG: Brice…you, Dwayne, and Bryan were later members of the group known as Mazarati/The Secret. How did you guys become a part of the group and were did the name The Secret come from? I recall it being associated with Jam and Lewis. I remember seeing the soundcheck rehearsal version of Stroke that you guys put on YouTube back in 2011 time frame…I’m still crankin’ THAT version along with the studio version of it…..fire!!

MAZARATI/THE SECRET, 2011/12 Stroke

TC: Mazarati/The Secret was a combination of the original members and the new one’s that came on board – Brice, Bryan Rankin, and Dwayne Cotton. It was actually Dwayne that came up with The Secret, not even knowing that Jimmy and Terry had that name for a project of theirs that never happened. 

BM: We were all musicians playing in the Minneapolis area at that point and knew everyone for a good while back then. When personnel changed from the original group, it just all came together, Bryan came on board easily, he’s actually Screamer’s brother, and husband to Sheila Rankin, from Andre Cymone’s group “The Girls”. Dwayne  myself, and Jesse Johnson are from Rock Island/The Quad Cities, originally.

8. UMMG: Tony, you had a release in 2015. Tell us a little about it. I’d also like you to share with our list info audience how the track “It’s On” came bout I remember Screamer in the building on this on…the Vimeo footage is sick! Afterwards, Marv, go head and plug your new release.

TC: You mean, “We The People”. Yes, I wrote that song from my heart …it was a song of deep message that got released much later than I wrote it. It was written but sort of predestined all the stuff that was going on during the days Bush was in office, etc. It’s a deep track. I’m of the mind that there should be a one-party system, less problems that way.

UMMG: Yes, so many bi-partisan issues, in the least, not to mention multiple parties here in The States alone. It’s sad.

OG:  I actually wrote “It’s On” as a track for Mazarati, kind of using the same approach we did back in the day but making it contemporary. It started with synth bass but I wanted to bring electric bass on top, kinda layering it, to give a certain sound to it. It was written at the same time I stared working on my new CD, Over & Under the Wire CD. The CD release went really well. 

UMMG: Yes. I remember seeing post that you and a couple of other members shared in the UMMG group, Congrats on that. I really like the video footage you guys did for It’s On, the whole band effect thing to me is always great in a video. 

9. UMMG: Tell us the stories about the two demos Prince gave you originally, that later became big hits – Kiss and Jerk Out.

OG: Well, on Jerk Out,  Tony is singing all the background vocals. the rest of us on vocals. On Kiss, Prince handed us this very stripped down version and we had to figure out what we were going to do with it. Some of the members didn’t want to work on it because it sounded kinda country. We were in studio working with David Z (David Rivkin) at the time and were adding a lot of arpeggiated synth parts that were more difficult to do then than it is to do today,  We changed the background vocals over time, I sang lead on it at at point. One day we got to Paisley Park early one morning to work on some tracks and we heard the song playing, but it wasn’t our recording. We stood around saying, “Man, can you believe someone jacked our song ALREADY??” Immediately in walks Prince behind us saying…”How do you like it” (everyone laughs). In the end it was really good to know that he liked what we did, even though it got released later. 

TC: We really never looked at each other as stars even after being signed to Paisley Park. Prince used to hang out with us a lot…we used to play ball (yes all the basketball stories about him are true) and had some good times. It was a rollercoaster type of situation….the good and the bad, but we were very fortunate the respect and confidence Prince had in us. 

10. UMMG: Tony and Marv, tell us about MC Skat Kat/The Wild Pair and your work with Paul Abdul

OG: After Mazarati was formed and signed, Prince gave us a good deal of latitude. After Mazarati, Tony and I were working in the same studio. We had a bunch of songs written and recorded already but all from a male vocal standpoint, We then got to work with this young LA cheerleader and dancer choreographer named Paula Abdul. Oliver Leiber was at the helm and was instrumental in causing us to turn those songs around to show her amazing talent. We ended up selling 9 million copies of her material that we produced.

11. UMMG: Back to the original members. What’s going on with Sir Casey Terry, Aaron Paul Keith, Romeo, and Kevin Patricks

TC: We’re all still in touch with each other, kind of like brothers. Life changes, responsibilities change, but everyone is cool with each other still, and doing well. 

12. UMMG: Back to Mazarati now. Will there be a Mazarati III and is Brown Mark involved? Are there any last final words you’d like to leave with our readers?

OG: Let’s just say this…there’s a reason we’re doing all this rehearsing … (everyone laughs). We’d definitely like to give a big shout out to all the Minneapolis groups paying tribute Prince –  The Revolution, NPG, Andre Cymone, everyone… we’ve done our share from our hearts. We’d also like to give a special shout out to Jerome Benton as well!.

UMMG: I’ll definitely make sure this gets into the interview when posted. Once again, Marv, Tony, and Brice. Thanks for taking time out for busy schedule. I know you guys are in Phoenix and have to get to rehearsal with Paula this afternoon….Brice, I saw the photo you posted  in the UMMG of you guys with her.

Mazarati: We thank you, and UMMG for all you guys are doing to represent Mazarati, you asked some really good questions (laughs).

UMMG: And thank you for granting us this interview. Big thanks to you, Brice for making this happen!

Players Ball – Mazarati

-END-

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The Trick Is Not To Give Yourself Too Many Options

Posted on August 30, 2024 by Fresh

Greetings, I hope this post finds you well. Here we at the end of August and approaching the last quarter of 2024. I don’t know about you, but (as we often say) “Where did the year go?” As we approach September, I often think about what I need to accomplish in the last quarter of the year. One of those areas is music production tasks to “move the needle forward”. This post also serves with keeping the consistency of posting at least one blog entry per month. 🙂

My recording studio is built around a hybrid approach, that meaning I use hardware (drum machines and synths (rack mount and otherwise) along software digital audio workstation (DAW) software to compose music. With the apparent options given by taking this approach, prioritization, in regards to trying to stay familiar with the different features and functionalities of both sides, can become a challenge. One simple way to attack that is to touch as much as you can, as regularly as you can, but therein lies the same type of challenge.

I was reading a post in a music production subreddit I frequent and the OP was asking if he should purchase a hardware synth to use along side of Logic Pro X (a very popular music production DAW that I’ve been using since 2007). Many of the answers came back that were of a similar ilk – Logic Pro X has all that you need to continue your production journey, unless you just want a hardware synth to add a different composition workflow to what you’re already doing in Logic – otherwise, adding a hardware synth simply will not add anything significant in that respect.

The above paragraph led to where I am tonight in respect to using hardware syntthesis and sampling tools to produce tracks vs doing all “in the box” (i.e. composing music solely via the use of software). Tonight’s continual journey involves that of using the Polyend Tracker.

The short story is I purchased this unit in August 2021, after selling some recording equipment I was no longer using. Essentially, this is a hardware version that represents the software trackers, mod trackers, of the early 90s, but is on steroids regarding the advancements of employing audio sample recording and editing, wavetable technology and much more. A very nice, comprehensive video entitled Trackers: The Sound Of 16-Bit is available on YouTube, should you want to delve into the history.

The Polyend Tracker, while I remember toying with the mod trackers of the 90’s briefly, has a lot of appeal to me – everything from its aesthetics to its nod to a futuristic feeling/visual of composing via a black box (as do other hardware items today can embrace depending on your taste). I mention “futuristic” in the case because the default screen UI of sequencing partterns across tracks is vertical and somewhat reminds of the famous green screen scene from The Matrix.

That said, I was chatting with a good friend of mine, a fellow artist and music producer this evening who does everything in the box, with the exception of keeping a Nectar controller in his arsenal. He asked me (knowing of my hybrid setup), “Why the Tracker, do you plan to use it for certain projects?” The short answer I gave was not for certain projects, per se, but to specifically use for composing certain genres music which it’s design, workflow, and aesthetics draw me to doing, not to say that I can’t compose said genres on other hardware devices or even solely in software, but it’s more for the experience, journey, and experience this particular composition tool and approach brings.

So, I’ll continue over the next two days delving deeper and find away after August to carve out some consistent time to increase familiarity with it, amongst attempting to “move the needle” regarding other production projects currently in the works.

Yes, the options that can (or better yet drive) drive the challenges fo prioritization.

If you’ve made it this far, enjoy your time ahead.

Oceans of rhythm,

Fresh.

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A Self-prescribed Three Day Weekend

Posted on July 27, 2024 by Fresh

Greetings all…

7:35am, Saturday morning. We’re in the throes of summer here in the US. The first part of the July allowed us to experience some unusually hot weather on the east coast – fortunately most of that has subsided. This post is pretty much a mind dump and a reason to fulfill/stick to my at least once a month habit of blog posting. This block is 17 years old, created way before the onsite of Medium or other ‘made-popular” blogging platforms of today, and I’m glad to say I’ve kept it alive for this long. It’s, in one way, been an online diary of “me” though that was never the intent, but 17 years of posts, well…that would be unavoidable either way. Either way, it’s therapeutic to post occasionally, I don’t care if the audience is large or wee.

As the post title says, I decided, late yesterday afternoon at work, to take a three-day weekend. Work has been busy and productive (note those are not always one in the same). People are taking vacation (normal) and being out of the office for other reasons. Since I have a business travel break until probably September, I decided to take a day off. That day off (like this and tomorrow) can EASILY be filled with things to do, but I’m going to try to make at least one of them a mental day off, a day to do something unusual or different, so I’ll see how that works out. There are a lot of activities (free as usual) happening around town today, some of which I planned earlier to check out, but since I haven’t mad today’s to-do list yet, I’ll need to see if those activities make the cut. As I’m typing this, I’m streaming music from SomaFM’s Def Con Radio channel and having my morning tea, a recipe I adopted from productivity mogul Tim Ferriss. My recipe is below, should you want to try it:

  • 1 bag green tea (rich concentration of ECGC catechins)
  • dash of tumeric
  • 1/2 tbsp. of ginger powder
  • 1 squirt of bottled lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp brown cane sugar
  1. Steep sugar, tea, tumeric, lemon juice, and ginger in a cup of boiling water for 3 min.
  2. Stir, enjoy.

July has been a pretty good month for beginning to maintain certain habits, some new, some not. Two, in particular, have been daily journaling and more core workouts. The latter has allowed me, again, to track my Nike Fuel points as I have in the past. The former seems work well when I choose to do it early in the morning, though my monthly posts show entries timestamped at different parts of the day. Speaking of time stamping, one thing I’m really trying to subscribe to is time blocking tasks. The concept is a no-brainer: lists the tasks to be done and assign a time in which work on them. I admit, I’m still trying to strengthen this habit by attempting to apply Pareto’s Principle and stay disconnected from the net – the work goes on.

In any event, I’ve yet to start the to-do list for the weekend and should get to it, especially based on what I just typed above, so I’ll keep this post short or else the brain dump will continue and make it way longer than it should be. I know they’ll be a fair amount of continuing the music production journey, as I’m definitely trying to solidify and execute some long time plans and goal reaching. For one, I’m releasing a track this weekend, under my artist alias. You’ll hear about it, so stay tuned.

What ever you’re doing as you read this, I hope things are well.

Until next time, take care.

oceans of rhythm,

Fresh.

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The start of the 2nd half…

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Fresh

Greetings readers,

Here we are, July 1, 2024, the start of the second half of 2024. I missed my goal of posting a web blog at least once during the month. so June is a bust, hence starting early this month.

Last month was productive and busy at the same time, although busy doesn’t necessarily mean things are getting done (critical things that should be, anyway). Nonetheless, with each waking day, we move forward.

Last month, I finally got around to get through, I guess you could say “finish”, a book I asked for as a gift a few Christamases ago. That book is Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss. I learned of the book via listening to a few of Tim’s podcasts and wanted two check it out based on what I could possible learn from these giants and icons. As I began to get into the book, I felt as if it was a huge book of “productivity hooey” from well know icons such as Peter Diamandis, Arnold Schrwarzeneggar, Jamie Foxx, etc, so I put it down. It wasn’t until I had to take a week long business trip that I decided, after about three years, to crack it open again, this time with a different mindset. I read certain parts of it, skipping over other parts (as the book instructs) and decided to take from it what can apply to my daily life versus what works for the individuals portrayed in this book.

I began to find stories, and especially quotes, that align with natural achievements I’d like to realize. While quotes are fine and often times motivational, they mean nothing without execution. That said, the one that resonates me is this, by Tony Robbins (yeah, I know…):

“Mastery doesn’t come from an infographic. What you know doesn’t mean s***. What do you do consistently?”

One thing that I’ve many discussions about are two things: discipline and consistency. Consistency is born out of discipline and both require execution, not motivation, as motivation is emotionally based on the external and can become fleeting. Execution is the only thing that matters for growth to occur. What, I believe, aids consistency is to build systems that continue to move you forward, despite any failures along the way.

We’re in the second half. Let’s execute.

Thanks for the read, oceans of rhythm…

Fresh.

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