Do you trust your instincts?
I trust but verify.
Archive for the ‘My Tunes’ Category
5
My sister Theresa died yesterday. She had been in intensive care in the hospital for about a week. About 3 years ago when COVID-19 was first being detected in the United States, my sister developed an autoimmune viral infection that sent her to the hospital. It was not COVID but they did not know what it was. After normal treatments didn’t work, they loaded her up with all the antibiotics they could find. This kept her alive but unfortunately it caused her kidneys to fail. Since then she had been on home dialysis.
Things started getting worse from there. All of her systems started cascading one against the other and even overwhelming amounts of medication could not stabilize her physical condition.
About a year ago a team of doctors decided to do cataract surgery for her eyes. All 15 doctors had to have their input, they all decided it was a good thing to do. After the surgery her eyes improved for a little bit until she developed an infection in her eyes. This was caused by something we all have in our eyes already but we can fight it off. She could not, so for weeks after weeks after weeks she would have to go in and have them inject medicine into her eye and drain the fluid caused by the infection. Her eyesight kept diminishing.
After a stroke and some seizures about a month ago she had difficulty recovering. In mental decline now she could not remember a lot of day to day details.
Her lungs were always the weak link even with all of this, and she developed pneumonia last week. Along with her other lung disease problems and progressive infections, we sent her to the emergency room. In ICU, when the doctor came into tell us that she did not have long to live and recommended discontinuing dialysis treatments, unfortunately the hospital doctor decided to put in a port in her chest for dialysis. This was completely unnecessary surgery and they took her into surgery the next day to remove it! The next day they moved her to hospice care where she died in the afternoon.
I have been lucky to know a lot of strong women in my life. My mother and my sister may be top among them. My sister was way stronger than I am and I am glad that the struggle is over.
A favorite subject in school
Posted: November 10, 2023 in My TunesTags: dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2115
What was your favorite subject in school?
Unfortunately for me, I changed schools often. So that depended on how good the teacher was in that particular subject.
Visitors at the Pond
Posted: November 10, 2023 in My TunesTags: #coyote, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #personal, #photographer, #photography, #video, #videographer, #whitetaileddeer, #wildlife
In earlier posts I mentioned I have a small pond in my back yard. There are a few plants in there and the few goldfish that survived a visit from a blue heron earlier this year! Over the years a bunch of wildlife visit the pond from time to time. Locally there has been an increase in the number of coyote over the last few years. No natural predator to threaten them, they are attracted to the white tailed deer, also in abundance (probably because I feed them lol).
Last week I managed to see a few coyote crossing my back yard. I grabbed my phone and shot this short video of the visitors. Soon after, I shot another video of a single coyote passing through. We hear a pack of them howling at night all the time. They follow the deer paths as you see them leave using the same bushes the deer use.
Below is a video of two bucks visiting recently. One stopped by for a drink and you can see the other use the path behind my house.
All this, and I am literally in the middle of the city!
MIDIMike
Mixing in Dolby Atmos
Posted: October 27, 2023 in My TunesTags: #Atmos, #dolby, #DolbyAtmos, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #mixingboard, #music, #musician, #Presonus, #recordingstudio, #Soundengineer, #StudioOne+
Data for spatial panning for each track
Thank you for the response to my mix of “The Dream” using Dolby Atmos. Not to geek out on you again, but this is something cool that you have probably already experienced and can relate to. Many of you are familiar with the amazing sound system upgrades in theaters and home audio during the last few years. Dolby has always been a big name in noise reduction and surround sound for movies and the like, but they have upped their game to take advantage of new tech and to deliver needed changes for next-gen venues or virtual reality applications going forward.
To make the explanation simple, we are all used to stereo sound with two speakers on opposite walls or using ear buds and headphones. A few decades ago the industry tried a quad system for the first try at a surround sound playback. Novel, but it went nowhere for a long time.
Your home surround sound or home theater system has been using multiple speakers for a while and added a sub woofer for the very low sounds – (sounds might not be the right word here. You feel the sub frequencies more than you hear it. This gives you the earthquake-like vibrations for sound effects).
Movies and other applications are using Dolby’s Atmos to reach the next experience level. Dolby Atmos provides programming to create a realistic 360 Atmosphere – as in SPHERE. Instead of two or four speakers and a subwoofer, there are countless individual out-puts for a large number of floor speakers that surround the listener(s) in a precise configuration. Then you add the sub-woofer as before but now we bring in speakers mounted in the ceiling (if room allows) or on stands close to the celing. Now, if they want to make it sound like some one is talking behind you, they play that sound through specific speakers in the back of the ‘listening room’. If there is a helicopter flying over head you are sure to look up expecting to see it there.
I have been using Presonus Studio One+ as my DAW or software recording system for a while. In their most recent update they included a version of Dolby Atmos. I don’t make action movie soundtracks, but the ability to use this tecnology to mix songs and bands gives us a whole new level of mixing.
Instead of placing the performer somewhere between the left and the right speaker as our only option, we can now make the sound feel like you are sitting ON the stage. You will be able to hear the drummer sitting on a riser ABOVE you in front, the guitar player on one side, the brass section on the other. As the singer walks around the ‘room’ they can literally walk behind you.
Now, if you are like me and don’t have a bunch of powered speakers and unlimited out-put ability …… you can get a lot of the effect using good headphones. The serious number crunching of the Atmos program gives you the illusion of three dimensional space in the headphones and for virtual reality sets.
The above is a screen shot from a simple song I have written. It shows the different tracks below, and above panel shows the Spatial Panning data used on each track to give placement info to the speakers.
I will also post one of my songs below now, so you can hear a bit of what Atmos has to offer. Please keep in mind that using headphones is obviously a bit limited when it is compared to the massive speaker system in a theater, but, you will hear a difference. For music mixes, you may not hear a lot of movement. Try closing your eyes while listening through good headphones and with the speakers OFF. You will soon be able to point at where the performer or instrument is coming from – not just left or right – but literally point to it, up – down – left -right – in front and inside your head if desired lol.
….this screen gives you an idea of the ‘room interface’ you work in. Each dot represents a sound or instrument and can be sonicly ‘placed’ anywhere by moving the dot as needed.
Below is my Atmos mix of a new song I wrote and recorded, called “Still Your Choice”. I hope you get to hear the effects Atmos has to offer in this mix. While it may not be your type of music as I claim not to be commercial to begin with, the song shows how ‘open’ or deep a two track recording can be!
MIDIMike
“The Dream” Dolby Atmos Mix
Posted: October 22, 2023 in #poetry, music technology, My Tunes, technologyTags: #audio, #dolby, #DolbyAtmos, #lyrics, #Martinguitars, #michaelskennedy, #midicontroller, #mididrums, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #poetry, #Presonus, #recordingstudio, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #spatialpanning, #Studio1+, #studioOne, #StudioOne+, #thedream, #vocalist
Again using Dolby Atmos for the spatial audio mix, I have another song for you to listen to. Using headphones will give you the best dimensional effect, though the speakers will also reflect some clarity and each instrument or vocalist will be heard a bit easier and clearer – more distinct.
I imagine this to be similar to being in a small crowded room with lots of people talking. It is hard to make out any of the conversations going on around you. Now, Imagine the room much bigger and everyone spaced further away from each other and you. Now you can hear conversations and know who is laughing or singing. Something like that. Instead of mixing so all the instruments are ‘sitting on top of each other’ in the stereo field, the listener can be part of – or completely removed from the sound scape. We can now give the listener the illusion of sound coming from anywhere in the ‘room’ we create.
Here is another song I wrote and recorded recently called “The Dream”. The spatial effects in Atmos do indeed, give a new dreamy sound to the mix.
MIDIMike
Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?
I’ve been retired for 3 years now. I’ll let you know when I see a lazy day lol.
What principles define how you live?
I just tried to be a decent human being. Everything else flows after that.
What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.
I don’t know. I’ve never done anything based on whether I would fail or not.
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
I was raised as a Catholic and studied to become a priest. I thought that that was the perfect path through life. Unfortunately my life experiences proved to me that there is no God. And men have turned your faith against us all.
Priests and politicians have used established religions to hijack your beliefs and turn them into profit making machines designed to suppress anyone who is not of that particular faith.
MidiMike 