GrabaBeat ©

MOVING...

2009-12-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

MOVING MY BLOG... Now I'm going to have only one blog instead of the many that I have had up til now... The new location is http://jeffthomann.wordpress.com/

MOVING....

2009-12-16T19:10:00.000-08:00

MOVING MY BLOG... Now I'm going to have only one blog instead of the many that I have had up til now... The new location is http://jeffthomann.wordpress.com/

Please pray for Jon.

2008-06-27T12:27:00.001-07:00

My cousin Jon Thomann has been in the hospital the last week. He fell down a flight of concrete stairs and did some major damage to his head that required brain surgery. He has not fully become consious yet, but there are indications that he is becoming more active. This has been a trying time and has been hard on all of us.

Please pray for his recovery. If you would like to know more about his current situation, his girlfriend, parents and brother are keeping us all updated with this website/blog:

http://caringbridge.org/visit/jonthomann

If you would like to help out financially, there has been a new Support Fund recently set up. You may send checks to the

Jon Thomann and Family Support Fund
P.O. Box 1262
Columbia MO 65205-1262

For more information on the fund and its purpose, you may contact Cathi Harris at 573-220-6582.

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in.html

2007-11-19T00:27:00.000-08:00

I uploaded a few indecipherable vocal type recordings... You can almost make out some of the words... but not totally. You can hear all of them at the same time here:
http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in.html

Or, probably more preferable, listen to them individually here:

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in1.wav

I think vocal on the next one was something like
"Vroom, vroom, vroom. Hit the cruise cruise control... and head in to bat out of hell mode..."

I record most of these on I-70 either coming to work or heading home from work... partly to deal with frustration of all the dang stupid drivers on the road, partly to deal with frustrations of work... partly just for the heck of it because it's something to do with that otherwise boring time that's way safer than trying to use a digital camera to shoot awesome cloudscapes above the Missouri River while moving in a vehicle at 70 miles per hour.

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in2.wav

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in3.wav

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in4.wav

The next one is another recording of the Bat out of Hell Mode vocal.

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/in5.wav

All of the linked files above are Copyright © Jeff Thomann 2007. If you'd like to reuse these items in your own projects, please contact Jeff Thomann. Recordings were done with a digital voice recorder on or prior to 6/24/2007. (6/24/2007 was the date the recordings were moved to a hard drive off of the vocal recorder)

Thanks.

The html file with all of the sounds embedded and played at once was inspired, in part, to the /soundchaosdebug Easter Egg in Diablo II that randomly plays every vocal in that video game all at the same time. It also was, at least in part, inspired by some of the experimental musical works of John Cage.

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/bom-bom.html

2007-11-18T14:00:00.001-08:00

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/screams.html

2007-11-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

I uploaded a few scream recordings... You can hear all of them at the same time here:
http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/screams.html

Or, probably more preferable, listen to them individually here:

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/scream1.wav

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/scream2.wav

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/scream3.wav

http://mastermesh.quotaless.com/scream4.wav

All of the linked files are Copyright © Jeff Thomann 2007. If you'd like to reuse these items in your own projects, please contact Jeff Thomann. Recordings were done with a digital voice recorder on 6/24/2007.

Thanks.

The html file with all of the sounds embedded and played at once was inspired, in part, to the /soundchaosdebug Easter Egg in Diablo II that randomly plays every vocal in that video game all at the same time. It also was, at least in part, inspired by some of the experimental musical works of John Cage.

Gosh...

2007-11-14T05:24:00.000-08:00

Has it really been over a year since I started this blog. I'm sorry I haven't lived up to my own expectations in here. I'll try to do better in the future. Where does the time go!?!?... I have been recording various little beats in a voice recorder. I should upload them somewhere and put links to those uploads in here. I need to probably stop playing Entropia Universe and Diablo II as often as I do and focus my free time more on music, and art creation.

I still don't play that darn midi keyboard much. I need to start doing it more often. It sits there right next to my computer all hooked up collecting dust (although there's some issues getting sound out of Magix's midi studio due to something I've got messed up in the hardware setup, but after saving all is well and the midi sounds plays ok in other applications...)

Finding time to do creative stuff shouldn't be hard for me... but it is. I'm easily distracted and get on to one thought pattern type of things on occassion. Lately that has been focused on online gaming... before that it was free-to-air satellite and recording of movies off of fta satellite on to dvd that was constantly blowing my time online and giving me lots of thoughts throughout the day, etc. My hobbies just eat so much freaking time, and I'm so diverse that I have many hobbies... There just isn't enough time in the day to do stuff. Lately, I've been getting up at 3 AM to walk our dog, Genesis, til about 4 AM, at which time I get a shower and start getting ready for work...

That's a good thing to do since I've sort of let myself get out of shape... but sometimes in the past, excercise, just like some other hobbies, has eaten at my time and mental and physical resources... I remember in college I would start out doing like 1 mile walks, then 2, 3, on up, and before long I was out jogging or walking 2 to 3 times longer than I was when I first started and was blowing too much time doing that that should have been time spent doing classwork...

in college the same thing happened to me with role playing (I still have a whole library of books on World of Darkness games like Vampire, Werewolf, Wraith etc., and Palladiumbooks games like Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas and Superspies and other similar stuff.)... I've mentioned in some of my other blogs that I am a bit eccentric and think I may have some symptoms of ADD or
asperger's Syndrome...

I've never been diagnosed with either one, but then again, have never been tested, and rarely see my doctor... I think I've been to his office once a year the last 5 years, if that much, and that was just to get allergy prescriptions... Now that clariton aka Loratadine, is over the counter, I don't really even go see him for that. Maybe I should? I don't know... I didn't know that I needed glasses until after I graduated from college, and had gone through many painting, design, and drawing classes doing a lot of squinting til I got headaches, and just thought that that was normal... and did all of that while being color blind, so who knows, maybe I should see a doc. My wife says I also might want to look in to taking a sleep study test since I snore a bit... I'm not too keen on the idea, but may look in to it someday.

conversions...

2007-09-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

To convert Midi to Wav use Winamp's Nullsoft Midi Plugin
http://users.lmi.net/bblackie/music/winamp/midi2wav.html

To convert wav to mp3 use Audacity + Lame...
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3

Nuff said.

2007-06-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't been playing midi keyboard as much as I wanted to when I first started this blog, but plan to change that in the near future. Now I just have got to find a place to store midi files and possibly wav files online that I can link to from here. I not only have a midi keyboard, but I also have a couple of digital voice recorders that I carry around in my digital camera's case so that I can record random sounds or make random sounds and record them at different times... usually on breaks at work, on in the car on the way to or from work since I have a 40 or so minute drive one way to work everyday, and a radio in my car that doesn't work. It's probably a short on one of the fuses, but I actually have found that I like not having radio in the car on occassions sometimes since it gives me time to think, meditate, and be one with the universe and all let the grooviness of life entrhall my synapsis... :p

New to Music - sort of...

2006-10-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

I've had a midi keyboard for several years now. I bought it at a Target one day as it was on sale since it was a display item - no box, just the keyboard, a plug in cord, and a manual with a few lessons in it, but for the most part am no musician.

In grade school, I had a few music classes. We had to sing songs and stuff. I vaguely remember having to also use some little wooden sticks, tapping them together to a beat, and using triangles, and some little wooden round gizmo that looked like a roll of toilet paper with a washerboard outside that you could slide the sticks on to get some interesting sounds... and then there was that big ol piano that Mrs. Ridgeway, our music teacher, bless her soul, would pound on as we sang Home on the Range, and various other folk melodies.

Growing up, and in school, I found a love for musicals, and a variety of music oriented entertainment...

In church, I do sing, although not very well. Loudly, maybe, but not very well...

In college, I had theater appreciation and music appreciation classes. I loved them, and really learned a lot about music theory from them, but not nearly enough to be considered a musician.

Anyways, back to the keyboard. When I first got it, I practiced on it for about a half hour a day now and then and got myself to the point that I could almost play Jingle Bells all the way through without too many problems... a few notes may have been off, but it was that I was learning how to master this thing that was cool. That was about 3-4 years ago, and I've let my music skills fall away since that time. I want to start doing that stuff again and get better at it... I'd like to be able to eventualy mix music that I created myself with 3d animation I did myself, and art and theater lighting ideas that I created myself to make emmersive entertainment projects... but that's all sort of still a big pipe dream now. For now, I'm gonna just try to relearn the keyboard on the weekends for a few hours now and then, and get my skills back up to a descent level.

This blog will sort of be a log that keeps track of my progress. Who knows where this will go. I could be the next Music Man, but will probably just be an average Joe, even if I get that good... most musicians practice and practice daily for hours to get really good. I don't know if I can or want to do all of that... either way, we'll see where this goes.... More posts to come. Stay tuned.