Too Many Moths

In June, the $BAND visited my mountain hideout. I booted up the Mac Pro '09, and recovered some old recordings that we made 12 years ago.

Later, I sorted through my own creations from 2009 onward. My style evolved several times, and there are distinct periods (of atonal flailing and drowning). Here's a short description of each:

2007-08: Painful, abrasive, tuneless, slightly insane. Way too much distortion.

2009-10: This period is interesting! I was intrigued by physical modeling, which is software that simulates physical objects, rendering how they might sound if the objects existed in the real world.

There's a early-internet software package for this, called Tao. The instruments are semi-programmable and scriptable, although the learning curve is steep, and the sounds don't emerge in realtime. You program your simulation, and let it run (usually overnight). In the morning, you have 60 seconds of expensive-sounding audio, which may-or-may-not be useful.

The details are lost to time, but I had a workflow for using Tao, and rapidly iterating ideas. I wrote a micro-framework which let me compose rhythmic 16- and 32-beats; virtual hammers struck the shapes at precise intervals and tempos. I took these riffs, looped them, and they became an essential part of the Too Many Moths sound.

There were other tricks that 2MM used, in fact the whole reason I'm bothering to write this is because the sound design from that period is surprisingly >>>good<<<. None of the tracks were finished or released (they morphed for each live performance, ever-shifting). Listening from 12 years in the future, these have aged well. The overall effect is slow and contemplative, the sound design is lush and spacey, but also you can feel the allusions to solitude and darkened rooms, an inner pain.

2011-12: Trying to make "fast" music again, because I was "influenced" by drum & bass at the time. Also I entered an internet "song pact," and I tried using melody and harmony like a real composer. I was cheating, hunting for shortcuts to make quality tunes, and I had an idea for a generative audio app which could massage any sound into any other sound. But, just because you can twist a gunshot into the vague shape and timbre of a snare drum, that doesn't mean you *should*. (...... Because it grates on one's ears.)

I think I sold my music gear between 2018-20? It took a while to let go of it, emotionally. I've let go of that fantasy now, I wouldn't want a music studio in my life again.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is because I wish the Too Many Moths tracks were finished, and released in some fashion. Not for judgment, or to impress anyone, but because I really like how the tracks sound, and I want to bathe in that aesthetic. There are 6 (maybe 7) strong tracks, which I estimate to be a 50-percent pain-in-my-ass to finish, and a bunch of weaker tracks that I can safely disregard.

Unfortunately, being a high-functioning American adult means my entire day is subdivided into tasks and errands, which fulfill me indirectly, without providing lasting satisfaction or life-affirming

Okay, WE GET IT, drama queen. I'm not saying this will happen, or even CAN happen given current circumstances. But IF it did happen, here's what the process would look like:

• Move the Ableton sessions to a modern computer. Some tracks use so much CPU that the old machine stutters. Also I don't have a DVI monitor big enough to handle the Ableton user interface.

• Find substitutes for plug-ins which don't run on the modern computer. ~or~ Bounce any channels that use essential plug-ins, ... hmm, this is getting complicated already.

• Edit the tracks to be concise, and tell a good story. Remove the voice samples, because I usually don't listen to music with voices anymore, and for serious music I feel that voice samples are a form of cheating. (The views expressed in this post are solely the views of the author, and do not apply to the world at large, no llamas were harmed in the making of this bytestream, update your privacy preferences with this one weird trick, etc.)

• Proper mix & mastering. This is the hard part.

• Choose track names!!! Oooh, the fun part.

• Album name? Album artwork? Hmm.

Do you ever feel like you can't accurately gauge what's truly important in your life, and what gives your existence meaning? I struggle with this a lot. This paragraph is not intended to be humorous, by the way, this is real. I just spent about 12 months noodling with a color e-Paper picture frame for my wall (...more on this train wreck later ...) and I'm surprised that I stuck with it for a whole year, for such a disappointing payoff. This "I'm going to fix Too Many Moths" enthusiasm might fizzle out in a few days, who can say?

I don't know. Goodnight.