Miniature Airlines

New Location

2010-02-21T18:38:00.001-08:00

So I've updated my main website (www.miniatureairlines.com), and will no longer be posting updates at this location. Please bookmark that main URL, and update your RSS subscriptions to this address: http://www.miniatureairlines.com/feed/. See you all at the new digs!

XOXO

Video from the Battle

2010-01-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

I just realized I never posted a follow-up to the Laptop Battle. End result: Vincent Parker (Van) won the evening, after a tie-breaking round with Graintable (PDX). I was elminated in the last battle of the first round, by the soon-to-be-champion vincent Parker. A good time was had by all.

I'll be playing again on Feb. 12th, at Re-Bar, with a great lineup (Relcad, Skoi Sirius, Potatofinger, and DJ Travis Baron). More info soon!

XOXO

Battle time!

2009-12-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

So, the 6th Annual Seattle Laptop Battle is officially a week away, and I'm both excited and intimidated. Excited, because it's going to be a big show, with an engaged audience, and a hell of a good time. Intimidated, because the competition is stiff, I still need to do a lot of work on my battle tracks, and because I have a lot of little odds and ends to finish up before next Friday.

The biggest odd and/or end is the promo CD I'll be bringing with me. I'll have a limited amount of free CD-R promo CDs to hand out at the event, so if you're interested, ask me about them at the show. It'll be a 3-track EP showcasing some songs from the new album. Rough versions of these songs have been around for a while, but the versions on the CD will be closer to their final form.

Hope to see you all out at Chop Suey next Friday! Here's some extra informtion to help you all remember:

The Facebook eventhttp://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189040024399

The Nwtekno thread, show it some love!http://www.nwtekno.org/showthread.php?t=141752

Myspace: http://myspace.com/laptopbattles

Interweb: http://www.laptopbattle.com/

XOXO!

Brawl!

2009-11-18T16:09:00.000-08:00

That's right, I'll be fighting it out with 15 other laptoppers in this years Seattle Laptop Battle. If you want to see me go mano a mano with the likes of Naturebot, xBen, Potatofinger, Dash EXP, KFO, and more, come on out to ChopSuey on December 18th. It's a single elimination tournament of beats and bass, and audience response helps determine the victor. So please, come out and and cheer me on!

To Wake...

2009-09-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

A new rough mix, posted over at Soundcloud. Very much in progress. Feedback encouraged. This is the most recently "completed" track from the forthcoming album. Possibly the opening track? I haven't decided yet. Tell me what you think...

The Chart

2009-08-23T21:37:00.001-07:00

See this chart? This chart shows the amount of stuff I need to do to be finished with my current album project(s). Each one of these boxes needs to be checked off. There are 14 tracks that I consider to be contenders for the album, and 6 steps to completing each track. That makes 84 boxes to check off. I've currently got 15 checked off. That may not sound like much, but the first column (composing) is the hardest part, and most of that column is done. Bouncing, mixing, choosing a track order, and mastering are all challenging as well, but less so. The last step, encoding and tagging, is a formality. I guess I could add a check box for artwork as well, since I'll be handling that, as usual.

Anyways, this is a progress report. Expect updates.

XOXO

And Will You Leave Me Thus?

2009-07-19T10:39:00.001-07:00

My good friend and label-mate Hjalti has released his new album, And Will You Leave Me Thus? Say No. Say No. Say No. It's a deep, dark record with influences ranging from IDM, industrial, black metal, glitch, and beyond. I can't even imagine what genre it would fit under. Oh, and I also provided a remix for the album. Please do go check it out!

XOXO

Soaring through the Soundcloud

2009-07-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

In the absence of other concrete information, I've decided to post a recording. My last live set, from Feb. 20th at the Lo Fi Lounge, is now up on Soundcloud. It's a mix of new and old material, some so new it's not even titled yet. Hopefully that will tide you over while I'm working on my new project. Speaking of which, I'm thinking about posting some of my works in progress soon. I'm still wrestling with format ideas, but I've got a solid batch of songs lined up, and I'm about ready to start taking the scalpel to them, and really working away at the details.

Meanwhile, I'll be working with Hjalti this week, on the final mixdown and artwork for his album, And Will You Leave Me Thus? Say No. Say No, Say No...We spent last night cutting his logo into a plastic block, inking it up and printing it on assorted papers, with assorted distressing techniques. it's nice to get your hands dirty with this type of artwork, rather then doing everything with pixels and cursors. The album should be out soon, with remixes by me and the Naturebot! I'll let you know, of course...

XOXO

Rendering Slender Wrists

2009-04-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I'm officially commencing serious work on my new record. Still don't know what shape it's going to take, or what it will be called, but I'm at least coralling all my unreleased tracks, and preparing them for all the final editing, fixing, tweaking, mixing, and re-working that they'll need before they're ready for potential release.

I started this weekend, with an old track called "Slender Wrists". This is one of my favorite tracks I've ever written, and it's seriously old. It predates Pushpin Revolution, and possibly Apparel as well. It's at least 5 years old at this point. In fact, it's so old that a VST plugin I used in the track has disappeared from my archive of software installers. Which made it difficult to open the original source file.

I ended up opening the file and swapping that plugin out for a generic electric piano. Then I went out and found the newer version of this VST. The problem is, the demo version won't load old presets, so I had no way of getting the original sound back. I ended up having to recreate it from scratch, then bounce the track to a .WAV file without closing Buzz. That was an all day project, but it worked out and I've now got the individual pieces of this track ready to mix.

There are about a dozen other songs that I'll be playing around with int he next little while, but I don't know how many of them will be part of this next release. And hopefully, I'll end up writing a few more in the process of putting this thing together. I'm toying with the idea of posting some snippets, screenshots, etc. while I work, but we'll see how good I am about keeping up with that.

XOXO

Minitweet

2009-02-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Oh, in case you haven't heard. I've been twittering for a while now. I've been a Twitter user for ages, but I just recently started a dedicated account for Miniature Airlines-related posting. So you can follow that account if you want to know what I'm doing with my plugins, but not what I had for breakfast.

Cheers!

Aftermath

2009-02-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

Friday night was pretty insane. I'd never been to the Lo-Fi Lounge before, but I see myself coming back soon. It's a great setup, with two rooms; one large performance space in the back, and one swank lounge in the front. Hjalti and I were set up in the DJ booth in the front lounge, which was a lot of fun. Andrew Luck opened the show, with some guest spots by a live MC, then Hjalti played. His set was unfortunately cut short by some technical difficulties (seemingly caused by excessive heat and an old laptop). What he did play sounded fantastic, especially the heavier elements he's been incorporating lately. The material he played is part of a new album in-progress, so hopefully we'll be hearing some of it soon.

I played afterwards, and I was pretty thrilled with how the set went. It was about a 45 minute set, and I got a decent recording of it, which I'm planning on releasing as a Live EP after I have a chance to clean it up a little. Two nights before, I started writing a last minute addition to my set, using a glockenspiel sample kit I'd picked up. It came out so well, that I'll probably expand it and turn it into an official song on my next release. I ended with the loud, feedback-drenched ending of "Survive To See Tomorrow", which sounded great over a decent sized PA. I pushed my laptop a little harder than I normally would at the end, at one point dragging it into stutter land by using 120% of my available CPU power for effects processing. Also, just to give any Buzz users out there a panic attack, I was playing with Burst Protection turned off. I live dangerously, what can I say.

Erictronic from Team Bonkers picked up where I left off, and got the little lounge moving, and then Travis Baron closed out the night by playing a few records for all the kids who stayed out late. It was completely drunk and debaucherous by that point, and we dragged our gear up Denny Hill to crash for the evening.

Many thanks to Timm, Travis, Grindle, Donna, both Andrews (Luck and Droomstyyg), Erictronic, and everyone else who made this night worth coming out for. Hope to see you again soon!

Miniair on the Air

2009-02-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

Quick note, to let you all know that I'll be a live on-air gues of KBCS 91.3 FM tonight, from 11pm until 12pm. Hjalti will be with me, debuting a new track, and we'll be chatting it up, playing some tunes, and promoting the show at the Lofi next Friday. Tune in, loyal followers. See you at the show!

Live ta the LoFi

2009-01-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

Quick update: I'll be playing live here in Seattle on Februray 20th, at the LoFi Gallery on Eastlake. It's a two room show: the main room lineup is Restiform Bodies, n1nth Cloud, and Egadz, and the side room will be me, Hjalti, xBen, and a DJ set by Travis Baron and M'Chateau. Should be a good night with a lot of variety, so please do come out. I'm going to be playing a fast-ish, breakbeat-y set, if all goes as planned. I'll post some more details soon.

XOXO

First Snows & Last Leaves

2008-11-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

So this single thing took on a life of it's own, and became a 6 track mini EP of sorts. Two original tracks plus four remixes rounding it out to a nice, comfortable 27-ish minutes. I guess I have a thing for 6 track releases. I wonder if I'll keep it up for the next one, or break the mold a little. Time will tell.

The A-side of this single, First Snows of Summer, was originally released as a very rough work in progress at Em411 almost exactly two years ago. It's come a long way since then, as I think you'll hear if you compare the two versions. Last Leaves of Spring is much newer, and sprang almost full formed from my brain one day while testing some new plugins. I think it actually took about 3 days overall, but the bulk of it was created right off the bat.

As for the remixes, they're all stupendous, in completely different ways. I love hearing remixes of my own work, because they always surprise me, digging unheard possibilities out of things I've already created. So extra special thanks to: Hjalti (as always); The Quarry Stone; The Celibacy Club (who we should be hearing more from); and Utofbu (whose new Realise EP on Sofarock is quite fantastic indeed).

Cover photography is by the supremely talented Serene Careaga, who is kind enough to let me use her gorgeous imagery. I knew this shot was an album cover the second I saw it. I'm glad it could be mine.

So please! Download and enjoy. There's more coming, I promise.

On the Ones and Twos

2008-11-24T19:11:00.001-08:00

Two pieces of Miniature Airlines news.

First! I'm featured on the Submersible Hamster podcast this week, along with Trash80, Ernesto Aeroflot, Disasterradio, and others. Props to the Hamster Alliance for the inclusion! Go have a listen, and subscribe for a regular dose of great tunes.

Second! First Snows & Last Leaves is in its final stages. Release date? I'm thinking Monday, December 1st. Putting the finishing touches on the two original tracks and three remixes, plus hoping for one last mix to show up. There's some good shit on here, and I can only take credit for roughly a third of it!

That's all for now...

30:51

2008-11-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

The set went well. It was early in the evening, and it was a pretty thin crowd, but still good. I breezed through a few sections of the set to keep it short, and ended up playing for 30 minutes and 51 seconds. Again, I have to apologize for a lack of documentary evidence. No recording, maybe a couple photos taken by others. We'll see. I need to do better about that. Maybe I should just play through my set at home and post it as a "live album". We'll see.

Anyways...One more show under my belt. I'll probably play this set, or slight variations of it, for my next shows, whenever they happen to be. There's some talk of something early next year, but it would be nice to have something lined up beforehand as well. And of course, I"m still eyeing the other big West Coast locations...Portland? Vancouver? San Francisco? I'm looking your way...

Next project: well under way. I'm thinking the new single will be out by the end of the month, and I'm going to try to get a remix or two lined up for it, making it more of a short EP. No promises on that front though. But it will be at least two tracks. I'll be finalizing them and beginning the mixdowns this weekend, as well as getting artwork sorted. If you're interested in remixing, e-mail me. dylan@miniatureairlines.com. I'm down to trade remix work, too...

Election Night

2008-11-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

Nectar & The Divison List Present our Official

Election Night Headquarters
...(slash) Dance Party!
featuring live music from:

Jeans Team

with DJs Travis Baron, Kadeejah Streets, Grindle, Ctrl_Alt_Dlt., Miniature Airlines, Righteous Trash & Jest One
plus Election Results & Coverage throughout the night on our huge 12'x12' screen and 3 additional TVs!

5 PM - 2AM / 21+
FREE!!

*Celebrate or Drown your Sorrows w/ Happy Hour Drink Specials ALL NIGHT LONG w/ proof that you voted!!

*Take out your aggressions w/ our Obama & McCain Dartboard Tournament of Champions!!

As a Canadian citizen with no voting rights, I find it amusing to be playing an election night show. But I am just as excited as the rest of you to see the end of the Bush Era, and (hopefully) the dawning of the Obama Era. I'm Miniature Airlines, and I approve this message.

In Girlish Curiosity

2008-10-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling pretty inspired by what I'm working on lately, and I'm starting to think ambitious thoughts about putting out a new release. Things always take longer than I think they will though, so we'll see how that shapes up. New single soon! Promise! "First Snows of Summer" has changed a lot since it debuted as a work in progress ages ago, and I'm excited about letting that shit drop.

New track up at em411: "In Girlsh Curiosity". Continuing the proud tradition of song titles stolen from Pynchon.

Possibly also another show coming up. I don't have time to make a new set from scratch, but I think I'll be playing a modified, rearranged, and updated version of my Baltic Room set, featuring alternate versions of "Survive to See Tomorrow" and "Horses Never Know The Odds", as well as a bunch of exclusive pieces of music that don't have proper studio versions. I will also possibly be using an exciting new piece of hardware/software that I've recently "invested" in. If I can get it work the way I want. More news about this as it become official.

Sorting it Out

2008-09-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

I've been compiling my in progress tracks over the last couple days, as part of my mental preparations for shaping a new release (or new releases). I actually have a lot more than I thought. Roughly 12-14 tracks that are written and just need some fixing, editing, mixing, and so on (a few of these have been released in some for over at Em411.com). Another 3-4 tracks that are well on their way but need some additional composition, plus the same finishing work needed by the other tracks. And another handful of fragments (4-8 bar loops mostly) that have potential, or the seed of an idea, but haven't found a direction yet. I'm thinking I should polish off a few of these and sort the wheat form the chaff, at which point I'm well on my way to having a significant release together.

I'm also thinking of taking a new approach to writing more material. Take my exisitng tracks, strip out the sequencing, and work with the existing sounds to create new songs. i've done this before (it was the genesis of my Pushpin Revolution EP, as well as a handful of tracks that were salvaged from failed songs along the way). That would give me a few more songs beyond what I already have in progress, plus it would give me the luxury of having a bigger pool of material from which to extract the cream of the crop. Also, increased sonic coherency. Right now, these tracks are pretty much all over the map in terms of instruments used, amount of reverb, overall sonic signature, etc.

I've still got a long way to go, but I'm farther along than I thought.

Groundwork

2008-09-06T11:58:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to finish off a single right now, because it's been way too long since I released anything. I guess that's not entirely true, since Perestroika was somewhat recent. But I don't feel like I've had a real "project" to focus on in my music. All ideas, no follow through. So I'm trying to bring a pair of songs to completion in the near future, for D.iscontent.

I've got one song that I think of as the B-side, that came together really quickly and I'm really happy with. The mix is jiving, it's got mood, it's a really fun track that's about 90% there. The track I've been thinking of as the A-side though...it's been kicking around for ages, and returning to it, I've found that I'm needing to drastically rethink it. The melodies are solid, some of the sounds are good, but it doesn't mesh. Everything is competing, arrangement and mix -wise.

I did some work on it last week, stripping everything away and reconfiguring the sounds. Replacing a synth with a piano, reigning in the super-compressed distorted drum track...then forgot to save and crashed my music software. So I left it alone for a while, but I think I'll go back and try to recreate what I was doing. It's tedious work, but it was yielding results. And if it means I can get some new music online again, it'll all be worth it.

This is all jsut a ramp up to my next real project though. Still ahven't nailed down the details, though I figure I've got about half the material written that I'll need. It's either going to be a full length album, or a pair of EPs. At least that's the idea at this point in time. We'll see what happens as it shapes up.

Perestroika

2008-08-17T17:29:00.001-07:00

There is a new Miniature Airlines release over at the D.iscontent site. It's a split EP with Hjalti, with one new track and one remix each. It's fun. We originally released this to a limited audience at Static Glide Part 2 back in May, but it's now available to the whole wide world. Go get the Perestroika EP now!

Hjalti's debut album has just dropped as well. It's called Winter Asks What We Did in the Summer, and it's fantastic. You should hear it. On headphones.

Ideas

2008-08-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Great idea for a pair of songs (A-side B-side?). "Everything's Going To Be Alright Alright Alright" and "Keep Telling Yourself And It Might Come True".

I've always loved the idea of paired songs. I have two semi-finished tracks right now called "First Snows of Summer" and "Last Leaves of Spring" that I plan on releasing as a digital single at some point. I've also always had an urge to write a companion track to "A Counter Productive Luxury" titled "A Luxurious Counterpart". Stuff like that.

Maybe I should just write two EPs, where the title of each track on the first EP corresponds to the title of each track on the second EP? Like they're responses to each other or something. Hmm. This could be an idea worth pursuing, if I can ever find the motivation to finish a track again.

Survive To See Tomorrow

2008-06-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hey there, kiddos. There a new MiniAir track floating around these internets. It's called Survive To See Tomorrow. It's still a work in progress, but you'll get the idea. The first half was part of my live set back at Static Glide last month, but I added a long, psychedlic ending with a lot of delay plugin abuse that hasn't been heard before. This is going to be part of my nest project...which is so far untitled, of undetermined length, and has no set release date. I'm hoping this year, but we'll see.

Better News

2008-05-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

That pesky CPU bug I mentioned earlier? Fixed. My set is running smoothly again. For the record, it was a delay plugin that couldn't deal with silence and sent errors upstream to the mixer plugin. Odd stuff, but it works now. Just swapped out one very utilitarian stereo delay for another, better coded one.

Also, Scobot has just been added to the Static Glide lineup, providing live visuals! Yet another reason to enjoy the middle of your three day weekend at the Baltic Room.

The Good News, The Bad News

2008-05-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

The good news: My live set is about 97% finished, give or take a little bit of time spent cleaning up the sounds and adding some extra effects to play around with. The actual composition is basically done, except for about 8-16 bars to take me to an ending point. I know how it's going to end, I just need to actually write it. I'm in the home stretch, barely 7 days away from the show.

The bad news: The software mixer plugin that I'm using has decided to start using an ungodly amount of processor power at a handful of specific points in my set, and I can't figure out why. there are 5-6 transitions that cause the mixer to use 60% (or more) of the CPU power of my Core 2 Duo Macbook. For reference, the normal range of CPU use for that plugin should be closer to 3%, maybe peaking around 10% if I'm moving a lot of faders at once.

So, now I need to spend some time hunting down the cause of this spike, and eliminating it. Because performing live and having your music slow to a crawl and get choppy is pretty wack. For obvious reasons.

The Skillz

2008-05-17T18:21:00.001-07:00

I didn't realize this until Thursday night, when Hjalti and I were doing our dry run of our live sets, but I've been working on this set for so long, and setting it up so logically, that I can play it without looking at the screen. I would be sitting there, hunched over my MIDI controller rocking some plugin or other, and I'd look up and see that my screen had gone into screen saver mode. Once I hit F5 (the Buzz shortcut for play), it's all hands on knob action. No mouse clicking and staring at the screen for me! I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment, even though I didn't plan things that way.

If you're reading this blog and I haven't sent you a friend request for D.iscontent on Myspace yet, I recommend you get on over there and yourself to our list of virtual friends. for my own selfish reasons of course. But it will also be informative and useful, as the D.iscontent cadre ramps up their activities over this summer.

Pwnage

2008-05-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

Not to be completely insular, but I'm listening to Hjalti run through his live set right now, at Casa D.iscontent. It's fucking killer. This shit is going to own your ass at the Baltic Room next Sunday. It's glitchy, minimalist, industrial, melodic, and dark. It's a fucking riot. I am not joking. I can't wait to hear some of these bass drops on a nice, big PA.

Business Time

2008-05-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's ~~panic~~ business time. I have a show in less than two weeks. I've given myself a self-imposed deadline of this Sunday to have my live set basically finished. I'm somewhere around the 30-minute mark of a 45-minute set, give or take some flexibilty for fucking around with on-the-fly breakdowns and rearrangements. Every night this week will be spent hammering out transitions, tweaking filters, rearranging breakbeats, and seriously compressing that son of a bitch. that gives me one last week before the show, and in that time I need to practice, finish a remix for Hjalti as part of our secret split release (only availble at the show for now!), mixdown my half of the split, and throw up some cover art and a download page.

No rest for the wicked.

It's good times though. After this hard work is done, we'll both be focusing on expanding the mindshare of the brand that is D.iscontent. Look for us annoying the hell out of you and your friends on the social network of your choice this summer. We might even get around to putting out some more music. The possibilities are endless.

Everybody D.isco!

2008-05-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

D.iscontent.com has launched. What is it? It's the label like thing that Hjalti and I have founded and unleashed upon the world. You should go there and listen to music of mine (which you've probably already heard) and new music by Hjalti. There will be more music released in short order, a show on the 25th, and some new artists joining the fold soon. We're taking over. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Viva Cascadia!

For Reals This Time

2008-04-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 25th, 2008. At the Baltic Room at 1207 Pine Street in Seattle. For the miniscule sum of $10 (or free before 9pm).

That is when the long-awaited live debut of the Miniature Airlines all-singing, all-dancing, three-ring dog and pony show will take place. Mark your calendars, take the next day off of work (Oh! It's Memorial Day! How convenient!), and notify your next of kin, because it's going to motherfucking SLAY.

I've re-started my live set from scratch, scrapping 35 minutes of decent material in favor of 15 minutes (and counting) of sock rocking, break splicing IDM madness. There will also be some exclusive merch and music available to attendees for a small sum. Hjalti will be playing a set that will either strike terror into your heart or lull you into a blissful daydream, and Travis Baron and Levitation Device will be rocking the 12s.

Be there or I will burn your hometown to the ground. For serious, son.

Slates, Blank and Otherwise

2008-04-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

Remember that show I keep threatening? The one that keeps getting a new date? It's got a new date. I'm not telling anyone else what the date is this time, until the promoter announces it or I see it on the venue calendar. Just so I don't jinx it. It's great though. Good date, good venue. Can't wait!

But now I've got time to rethink my approach to my set. And I'm considering starting over.

I kind of like what I have so far. But I also don't want to play music I "kind of" like for my big ol' live debut. I want to play the best music I can put forth. And now that I've got all this extra time, and some new ideas for how to make things easier on myself while performing, I might just start from scratch. Also, the night I was originally going to play was a minimal night, so I sort of catered to that with my material, and now that it's more of a general electronic show, I'm thinking of going in a heavier, darker direction. More breaks, for sure.

Time to get cracking! I also have two websites to launch before the show! More about that later though.

Updating

2008-02-24T12:36:00.001-08:00

I made some slight updates to my beleaguered website this morning. It now has somewhat recent and relevant news (pulled from this blog's RSS feed), and a Flash player so you can listen to both of the Miniature Airlines EPs in their entirety without the delay of downloading. Of course, downloading is still encouraged...

I also posted a handful of remixes I've done or that others have done for me over the last couple of years.

Yay fresh content!

Show news soon. New release news soon also. Stay tuned.

Sigh...

2008-01-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I spoke too soon. The Capitol Club show isn't happening...at least not at the Capitol Club, which now appears to be "Closed for Maintenance" until further notice. The Miniature Airlines/Hjalti debuts might end up happening elsewhere that week, but I'm still waiting on confirmation for that. If not, we'll be trying to set something up later in January. We're not scrambling to finish these live sets for nothing, that's for sure!

Keep an eye on this page, or the Miniature Airlines Myspace. I'll post details once I know them.

Discontented/Live Debut

2008-01-04T20:57:00.000-08:00

d.iscontent

Wait, what? No further comment for the moment. Keep an eye on that URL this year...

But yes, details for the debut show. I'd love to see you there, while I fumble with my MIDI controller and pray that Buzz doesn't decide to unleash one of it's characteristic bursts of 0dbfs white noise. Hjalti is making his live debut as well. This is history in the making, kids!

Now pardon me, I need to go write more of my live set.

Inaugural Flight

2007-12-11T23:08:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned, repeatedly, that I'm preparing to play live? I'm sure I have, probably every post for the last year.

Well I have a show booked. I'll be playing probably about 90% new material. I'll tell you all the details soon. Don't want to spill the beans right away.

I spent most of tonight working on my live performance setup, which basically consists of a Behringer BCR-2000 rotary controller and an M-Audio Oxygen-8 controlling a massive Buzz setup. I'm trying to work it out so that all my material uses the same 8 basic machines: A kick drum synth, a sampler, an 808 emulator, a complex synth for basslines, another complex synth for pads, a 303 emulator, an FM synth, and a hot-swappable VST wrapper for additional instruments. MY idea is to have a consistent controller setup throughout my whole live set, so I don't have to worry as much about transition between songs, repatching MIDI controls, etc. Coming from a rock/pop background, I end up writing songs that are very song-like. They have verses and choruses and pop structures, rather than the techno-like structure of adding and removing layers. So I'm working on new material that takes the song structure and puts it into a techno-structured environment. Does any of this make sense to anyone? Maybe. Hopefully the music will come across better than I can explain it.

Rolling up my sleeves and getting to work for the next few weeks. Wish me luck. Check back soon for actual, confirmed show date and lineup!

Staying Alive

2007-10-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Been a while since I've posted, but I've been a busy bee. Finished a remix for my former labelmate Chimp Logic, which will be out....eventually. I'll let you know when I do. Also working on a whole bunch of new tracks. I'd originally planned to have at least one new release out by the end of the year, but that may not happen at this point. We'll see. I've got a lot of finished or almost-finished tracks, it's just a matter of finishing a few more of them, and grouping them together in some sensible manner. Then doing all the fun render/mixdown/edit work to get them polished up and releaseable.

This afternoon my roommate and I will be setting up our new studio space. It'll be nice to have all the MIDI gear and interfaces and instruments set up and ready to use at any time, rather than having them scattered around the desk, with a pile of cords tangled on the floor.
Hopefully that will boost the productivity around here.

I keep talking about the live set that never solidifies. So maybe I'll just shut up about it for the moment, and only mention it when I have actual tangible news. Probably a good policy in general.

Stay tuned. Studio pics soon? Perhaps...

Car Crashers

2007-06-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

I posted a new(ish) work in progress track over at EM411, titled Car Crashers. Check it out. If my release plans go the way I'm expecting them to, this won't be on the next release, but the one after it. Probably. It's all up in the air still.

I added some old news posts from my main site into the archive here, and it screwed up the RSS feed somewhat. Probably not a big deal, but if you're reading this in a newsreader and everything's out of order, that's why.

Live stuff is coming along nicely. Still no firm date. Working on it...

Knob Twiddling

2007-05-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

I'm actually buckling down and making some real progress on my live material now, rather the fits and starts I had before. I have a clear plan this time, and I'm already putting it into action. I'm even fixing little bits along the way, mostly little things about old songs that have bothered me in the past ("Shirt" being a prime offender).

Why the sudden activity? Well, I think I may be playing my debut show sometime soon. Nothing firm, but possibilities have been tossed around. As soon as there's a definite date, I'll let you all know, but until then you can live in anticipation.

New material progressing as well. I think my future release plans are coalescing into something solid and attainable. For the moment, I'm thinking of my current material in progress as three separate "groups" of various sizes. I'm not saying for sure yet, but I'm thinking single, EP, and...LP? Too soon to tell. Expect at least one of the above this year.

PS...some great electronic music blogging happening in various places these days. Check out Sea of Hands for the Pacific Northwest scene, a great write-up on live show prep from Create Digital Music, another starter's guide from Live PA, and a new blog for other gluttons for tracker punishment like me, Buzz Update. Lots of good info out there these days...

Promises, promises.

2007-04-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

I know I've been keeping things sort of on the downlow lately, but I am still kicking around. Mostly working on a lot of new material (about 6-8 pretty promising songs that are at least 2/3 done, and a lot of fragments, and a couple of follow-up songs in the Pushpin Revolution style), slowly figuring out the live performance situation, and biting off more than I can chew in general. Belladonna Records went on indefinite hiatus recently, so my website (www.miniatureairlines.com) is the only place to get my two previous EPs at the moment. Once I figure out what I'm doing with all these new tracks, I'll be on the look out for a new netlabel (or real label!) to help me spread them around, though if necessary, I'll take the DIY route again. I have some pretty ambitious ideas that will rely on a lot of factors falling into place in the next little while, so I don't want to get too talkative. Once things start to look a little more firm, I'll dish details.

Jazz Hands

2007-01-27T20:08:00.000-08:00

More new music, a work in progress tentatively titled "Jazz Hands." I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the new tracks that are slowly accumulating right now. Should I release another EP, or work my way up to a real full length? Or....maybe something else. I have ambitious ideas, but not sure how they'll pan out. We'll see I guess.

Performance progress.

2006-12-07T16:35:00.000-08:00

Work progresses on getting some live material set up. Unlike every other time I've talked about this, I now feel like I'm getting somewhere. I have the basic structure of what a "live" piece of mine is going to look like, how it's going to work, and a lot of the technical issues figured out. What I need to work on now is the details, and the mundane task of actually going in to all of my song files and structuring them to work this way.

Basically, I'm taking my studio tracks in Buzz, and adding looping regions using the BTDsys LiveJumpHACK plugin, then assigning a MIDI note that will break out of the loops when played. So basically, each section of the song will loop until I hit a key. I might set some songs up to jump back and forth to certain sections as well, we'll see. Then I'm using PeerState and Mooter to toggle effects on and off with MIDI knobs and key presses. I'm itching for more MIDI knobs, so that I can manipulate more parameters on the fly, rather than just relying on a handful of presets in PeerState to do the work for me, and I'm thinking of using the BCR-2ooo controller for that, if and when I get one.

I'd love to find a multi-effect VST that doesn't suck, so I can load that on the master output, and do some full-track destruction. I'm using InstaJungle for that right now, which is fun, but a little limiting. I certainly don't want that to be my only trick on all my songs.

Work, work work. At least I'm getting somewhere this time, rather than running in circles.

New Tunes

2006-11-19T17:44:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of new, rough Miniature Airlines tunes over on EM411 right now, for those of you who actually read this blog. "Our Hope is Limitless" and "First Snows of Summer" were both completed recently, and might be included in some future release. I'm not sure exactly what that release might be, or what form it may take, or when it'll be anywhere near completion, but at least there's a start to it. Hopefully more new music soon...but no promises.

Redundancy

2006-06-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

Right after I made the decision to launch this blog, EM411 went and did a big ol' relaunch with mroe emphasis on blogs and networking and community. Which might just render this page obsolete, or at least redundant. In fact, I've already posted a lengthy piece about future plans over at my user page there. So, we'll see. I like the built-in community of EM411, but it's nice to have a page outside off that world too, especially since user content has disappeared during periods of upheaval there. I may or may not continue to post here, and in fact, I may just duplicate posts here from there. We'll see.

The History of the Pushpin Revolution

2006-06-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Pushpin Revolution EP began with the song of the same name. I'm not sure at this point which came first, the actual song, or just the name, but I'll tell you about both, starting with the song.

I woke up at my then-girlfriend's house one day, and she was sick. I seem to remember it being a pretty shitty day outside, and being lazy and unmotivated, we proceeded to waste the entire day in her living room. She played Kingdom Hearts for PS2 while I killed time writing music on my laptop. Luckily, there was no internet connection to distract me. I somehow managed to write the song, from start to finish in one long sitting, on her living room floor, while she was glued to her video games.

The song kicked around my hard drive for a little while before I released it on EM411, an electronic music community site I had recently bought a paid account on. I'd been hanging around the forums for a while, and when they started offering a paid account with limited hosting and release privileges, I went for it. The first song I put online, in June of 2003, was Pushpin Revolution.

The name was coined by my neighbor at the time, who fancied himself an anarchist. He'd stopped by to borrow some pins and tape or something, and somehow in the course of conversation, the phrase "Pushpin Revolution" came up (perhaps he was telling me he was liberating my pins? I don't remember exactly), and I filed it away in the back of my head for use as a title.

Anyways, fast forward to mid-2005. I had released my Apparel EP earlier in the year, and was trying to decide what my next project would be. I had a few ideas, and one of them was to release a re-mastered version of Pushpin Revolution with a B-side, sort of an online digital single kind of idea. I was at the local laundromat with my laptop one day (again, no internet connection available, thankfully) and started to actually work on this idea. I took the original file for Pushpin Revolution, stripped out all the sequencing information, leaving just the instrument and effect settings in place, and resaved it. This essentially left me with a template to use the same sounds to build new songs. And instead of starting one new song that afternoon, I wrote the first little bit of three separate songs. This was when the idea to make an EP hit me, instead of just a single. Oddly enough, two of the songs I started that day didn't get finished, and didn't make the EP, although I am considering finishing one of them, as an online bonus track of sorts. Which doesn't make a lot of sense for an online-only album anyways, but what the hell, right?

I kept plugging away at the new tracks, eventually coming up with several more fragments along the way. Of the first three tracks I began at the laundromat, one became "Papercut Diplomacy." The melodic intro at the beginning was the first part I wrote, and it took quite a while to write the final bass-driven section. "Pincushion Empire" and "Thumbtack Ambassador" were started sometime later, the former mostly written (about two and a half minutes worth, at least) in one long burst of productivity one day.

At the end of 2005, I moved from Santa Rosa, CA to Seattle, WA, and for a little while during that time, I struggled to finish some of the songs I had in progress. In particular, two of the tracks that had begun at the laundromat were going nowhere fast, and I was trying to figure out how to flesh this suite of songs out to EP length. For some reason, when I started bringing my laptop to Bauhaus Cafe with me, I managed to make myself even more productive. The change of atmosphere somehow helped me focus a little more, even though there were technically more people around to distract me. Whatever happened, I managed to finish "Pincushion Empire," "Thumbtack Ambassador," and "Papercut Diplomacy" in a pretty short span of time. "Safetypin Tyranny," the newest song (started while on Christmas vacation in Southern California), was easy to complete as well, since I knew from the start that it would be a shorter, introductory piece, and wouldn't need as many sections and transitions.

6 songs has always felt like a good EP length to me, but for some reason, I was stuck on the last track I was planning on using for the EP, a track I was calling "fuzz" for the time being. I had a good start to it, but couldn't really bring it together. Also, it was very similar in tempo to 2 of the other tracks I had finished, and in a fit of frustration one night, I wrote the beat that would become "Razorblade Tribunal." Breaking from the synthpop influences that I was relying on for the rest of the tracks, I was trying to imitate a faster, drum n' bass style beat using the basic, lo-fi drum samples on the rest of the EP. While the beat I eventually came up with bears little resemblance to that style, it has a different, driving quality that inspired me again, and I soon brought the last track to a close.

I've mentioned the songs by name this whole time, but the actual names weren't finalized almost until the end of the composition process, and "Razorblade Tribunal" actually had a last minute name change (from "Paperclip Tribunal") just before mastering. But I had known from early on the general idea for the naming convention I would use for this EP. After the Apparel EP, which was sort of an exercise in fitting the music into a pre-defined concept (more about this in a later post), I wanted to stick with the idea of using a naming convention to give some sort of implied meaning to a collection of otherwise abstract, instrumental music. I even had a list in my notebook, with a column of office/stationery words and a column of political/revolutionary words, which I planned to mix and match to create titles.

The next stage was to export raw wave files of each separate part from each song in Buzz, the program that I use as my main composition tool. Each song had about 7-8 tracks (drum machine, blippy lead synth, warbly FM synth, bass, granular percussion, kick, and a handful of effects tracks). Once I had those exported, I brought them into Cubase, a multitrack audio application, for final mixdowns. At this point, I made some decisions to keep the placement and relative levels of the individual sounds consistent across the EP, and formulated a track order. A lot of the mixing was done on another family vacation, to Kamloops, British Columbia. At nights at the hotel, after visiting with family, I would put on my headphones, fire up Cubase on my laptop, and tweak my mixes for a while before bed.

I finished the last of my mixing once I was back in Seattle, and brought the EP in for mastering at panicStudios, run by John McCaig, an excellent musician and mastering engineer who I'd met through Em411.com. The process was quick and painless, taking about 3-4 hours altogether, and the results of his hard work and great instincts for dynamics and frequency balance were the last bit of polish and shine that the tracks needed.

And now it's out, at the official Miniature Airlines website, and, as of June 13th, at Belladonna Records, a Madison, Wisconsin based netlabel (and home of several other great artists). So go download it, if you haven't already. It's freely available, and licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing you to remix and reinterpret the tracks (as long as you release any derivations with attribution to the original, and under the same license). Enjoy.

Hallo.

2006-06-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

Nothing much here to see yet. This will be a dedicated music blog for Miniature Airlines, separate from and a little more casual than the official website. And hopefully updated more often. The first real post will be a look at the making of the new Pushpin Revolution EP, followed by the same for the debut EP, Apparel. I'll continue posting about works-in-progress and upcoming releases, too. Should be fun. We'll see...

Pushpin Revolution Released

2006-05-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

The second EP from Miniature Airlines is officially available: Pushpin Revolution, 6 tracks of electronic music, encompassing influences from new wave, synthpop, glitch, IDM, and club music in a tight, 22 minute package, is free to download in the releases section to your right.

Also, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I do have a MySpace page (of course!). I'd love to have you in my fake virtual friend collection, so we can exchange recipes and cross-stich patterns. Or, uh, bulletins, event invites, snarky comments, and risque photos.

Happy listening! -Your pal, Miniature Airlines

Introducing Miniature Airlines

2006-05-17T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's official: the artist formerly known as Airliner has become Miniature Airlines! After a slight patch of difficulty involving my old name (see previous post), i've settled on a new identity with which to ~~fight crime~~ release music. This site's official URL is now www.miniatureairlines.com, although the original address will still redirect to here for a while. You may need to update any existing links or bookmarks, though.

There's a lot happening here other than name changes though. Here's a rundown: I'm the very final stages of the artwork for my new, completed and mastered 6-track EP, which I've posted about here quite a few times. It'll be out soon here, and on Belladonna Records. I also have a remix of the band From Monument To Masses appearing on the Bindlestiff Studios compilation, a benefit for a Filipino arts collective in San Francisco's Mission District. Plus, Apparel will be re-released shortly after the new EP, with updated artwork reflecting my new name. In the meantime, for anybody who already downloaded the EP, I'd be thrilled if you renamed/retagged the files, especially if you're a Last.FM/audioscrobbler user.

Keep in touch! New EP SOON! Promise!

xoxo, Miniature Airlines.

New Home, New Name, New Year

2005-12-31T21:38:00.000-08:00

So the good news is I'm settling into my new home in Seattle, WA. The bad news is, it has come to my attention that the name ~~Airliner~~ is taken, by a very nice Swedish fellow named Kristian who has been very polite and understanding about the whole situation. So This site will soon be slightly reworked for my as-yet-unchosen new moniker. The URL will redirect to the new site, so don't worry about losing bookmarks or anything.

Also, new music aplenty on it's way next year: the Pushpin Revolution EP is behind schedule, but chugging along. The Hand Stitched Heart compilation 3 is out, with my new track "A Counter-Productive Luxury," and other projects are percolating as we speak. Keep in Touch!

xoxo Formerly Airliner

Netlabel Release For Apparel EP

2005-09-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

The Apparel EP has been re-released by the lovely Kendra-Unique netlabel. (The tracks will still be available on this site as well). Keep an eye on them...there's several good releases there already, and it looks like there's more fun stuff lined up. There may be future Airliner material released through them as well.

Pushpin Revolution EP coming along slowly but surely. Also look for a new Airliner track on the upcoming Hand Stitched Heart compilation in November.

Best Wishes, Your Pal, ~~Airliner~~ xoxoxox

Upcoming...

2005-06-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

Currently working on 2 projects: A 5-song EP including one old song, and 3 new tracks, and a second project of indeterminate length. The first project should be out later this year, with the second most likely following in 2006. Also, remixes are trickling in for the Apparel remix project. Those will be released in the coming months as well. Stay tuned.

Call For Remixes

2005-03-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

I have remix kits prepared and ready to mail out. If anyone else is still interested in getting one, please let me know via e-mail or through the contact form below, and I'll get one sent out to you. There's some great artists lined up already, and there's always room for more. And, I'm always up for trading remixes...

Site Launch/EP Release

2005-03-14T21:41:00.000-08:00

www.iheartairliner.com, and the Apparel EP are officially live and available to the public. Welcome to the site, simple as it is. And please check out the free EP, which is available for download now. The remixes section is currently empty, but the official call for remix work will be going out soon.If you want in on the action, use the contact form or e-mail address below.