Planet Olin

A couple weeks ago I got the new Logic Studio, Apple’s professional-level music writing software.

I upgraded from Logic Express 7, which was almost three years old when I bought it. The polish was definitely lacking, and I got many headaches using it.

Before that I used an even older OEM version of Cubase LE that came with my PreSonus Firebox. The Firebox is an excellent piece of equipment but the old Cubase software is even more atrocious in this day and age. I got some good work done in it but it took a lot of work.

So, long story short, I’ve been training myself with the 73-page Getting Started manual for the last few weeks. After that I might delve into parts of the bundled 1000-page manual for Logic Pro 8 and the 660-page manual for its bundled software instruments and effects!

Today I decided to try my hand at composing something real. I screwed around by layering a Bitcrusher distortion and a stereo Chorus on top of the “Hollow Pad” patch of the included ES E (Ensemble Synth) software instrument.

For drums I took one of the stock loops, Analog Drum Machine 52, and looped it under the stock Compressor with the “Toms Strong Compression” patch and under the SilverVerb reverb unit with the “Room” patch.

Overall, it’s a bit repetitive but it took only about an hour to throw together. Enjoy!

Grant Hutchins - First Logic Song

Tomorrow I get on a plane to fly back to New York - it will be so strange to be back in the States after being in China for so long. I suppose that I should be used to it by now, having traveled so much this summer, but I will miss lots of things. Strangely enough, I don't really miss many American things - except chocolate and ice cream (which Hong Kong has, but China does not). :)

I'm actually in Hong Kong now, which is why I can actually blog - I swear, I fully intended to during my trip! But the Chinese government had other ideas, and blocks all blogging websites. China is so different from Hong Kong - as a special administrative region of China, many laws (such as the One Child Law, which is now something like the One Child Unless You Have Lots of Money Law) don't apply here, and there are laws that do (like all official signs have to be in both English and Chinese). People here are rich; people in China are poor. Cars here don't hardcore try to run you over and actually obey traffic lawes. There aren't large numbers of severely overloaded bicycles, scooters, or motorcycles in the streets fighting with cars (think three or four people on a scooter and two on a bicycle, one sitting on the back). People here have iPods; people in China live and eat where they work as cheap labor, saving money for their family or for themselves so that they can start their lives. The sky is usually blue in HK; in Chinese cities it is rarely blue and always smoggy. The differences are incredible.

That being said, I love Hong Kong, enjoyed visiting China a lot but could not see myself living there, and will post photos on Facebook of the amazing things in China (from old favorites like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, me playing with pandas!, the beautiful mountains along the river in the southern city of Guilin, visiting my dad's village, and tastytasty food...). Hope to see everyone soon :)

Are we talking to communicate, or are we talking to express ourselves?

Things have been pretty busy for me, which seems to be a good thing. Work is going well, no actually, great! I am in the process of revising my first application note that may actually help someone understand and use one of TI's parts! Someone might actually use something that I created, instead of a professor skimming over it once and no one ever reading it again. My work has purpose and, hopefully, the effort I put into it will be appreciated. I know it is small, but it feels good to have a real purpose.

The flip side of that is I am definitely putting in more than a 40 hour work week. This is not a "put in your 8 hours then go home and forget about work until the next day" kind of job. I'm working some good hours and I still feel like I should be doing more. I have so much to learn and only the rest of my career to learn it! The good thing is: It can NEVER be worse than it was at Olin.

Besides work I am doing Capoeira, studying Korean with a study group, and playing with a community orchestra. I think I found the only almost completely gay and lesbian orchestra in all of Texas, which makes me so happy. There is some hope for finding liberal people in Texas. I was starting to lose hope. :P I am keeping myself busy, but I miss all my friends a lot. Don't be afraid to leave me a message or call me (not that we really call each other in this day and age, but seriously, I would LOVE to hear from you). <3

Previously posted on YellowLightsMovie.com:

I have just gotten word that Yellow Light’s screening date for the Indie Fest USA 2007 festival will be on Monday, October 29th at 7:00 PM in Theater 9 at the AMC Downtown Disney 12 in Anaheim, Caliifornia. If you or any of your friends are in the area, we’d love to have you at our festival premiere.

It looks like tickets will run $8.50 each (based on other information on the festival’s web site) and there will be audience choice and best of fest awards given so we could definitely use all the support we can get!

Hoping to see you all in Anaheim in a month!
[tags] Yellow Lights, Indie, Film Festival, Anaheim, AMC, movie [/tags]

Recently Austin (the person) and I have been playing Warning Forever, an innovative freeware video game for Windows that had a small wave of interest a few years ago.

Warning Forever is a “Shoot ‘Em Up”, or shmup, which means you basically fly a ship around the screen and shoot at enemies. What makes Warning Forever different is that there are only boss enemies, one at a time.

On top of that, after beating one enemy, the next enemy evolves defenses based on the strategies you use. So if you find it easy to attack the front of the enemy for a quick kill, the next enemy will have a beefed-up front section. Thus you are encouraged to start with strategies that you are not good at in order to build up the enemy’s more useless defenses.

All in all, this game evokes many of the qualities I find important in a game: replayability, challenge, and direct feedback. Perhaps most importantly, the game takes a simple concept and lets it shine without muddying it up with over-designed details.

Give it a shot sometime.

I’m a big fan of Campbell’s Soup.

It’s simple, easy to make, and as American as apple pie. And more importantly, there are more varieties than I can even comprehend.

I like to grab a random soup that I’ve never tried before and take the plunge.

About a year ago I tried Pepper Pot Soup, which apparently is a popular soup style in Jamaica that was traditionally thought to have been invented during the American Revolution when Washington’s army was down to just beef tripe and peppercorns.

Sounds disgusting, eh? It wasn’t so bad, but it did take a bit of an open mind.

Right now I’m trying out Golden Mushroom, which is a savory creamy beef stock soup with lots of mushroom pieces. I think I like this one a bit better.

Anyway, the can of soup is a staple of the bachelor life, and offers better nutrition and selection than something like ramen, so it gets my seal of approval.

Maybe the day really wasn't going that well.. but at some point in time you realize that.. it'll pass, sooner or later. Some things.. unfortunately don't come back.

I am in my second month at TI and so far it is going really well. I feel really comfortable in my new group which does Low Power DC-DC application stuff. The group designs engineering evaluation modules (EVMs), answers in-depth questions, and writes application notes for a wide variety of power chips. I am starting off by writing an application note for a specific line of buck converter chips (converts DC input voltage to a lower DC output voltage). Ok, so it is not extremely exciting, but I like having a real project. :)

One of our crazy brilliant senior power engineers, who taught me a lot in my first month, has decided to move on to a management position at a different company. Our group is really sad, but business is all about turnover and change. So, for his going away party today, I decided to make something really nerdy. This Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories post about circuitry snacks inspired me to make a slightly less complicated and probably tastier snack. It turned out looking like this:

As you can see from my beautifully crafted circuit diagram, this is a basic Buck Converter (on a fudge brownie)! Get it?? Good Luck, Good Buck!! Sometimes I am just too much for myself. Heh. So really, things haven't changed all that much. I'm still a huge nerd. =D

Before dinner purchase...



A super cute fish purse!! My mom and sister don't like it, but I think it's adorable! And then....



It has a little fish inside! Sortof like a coin purse....the lady wouldn't bargain me for it, though :( But I liked it so much that I bought it anyways...

...dinner before I ordered it...



these are live 'lan yue ha' (sp?) ... 'pissing shrimp' (also called mantis shrimp) they're called that, i believe, because they piss on themselves when you cook them :X don't worry though, cantonese people are smart and they spear them (torture them) before cooking to make them pee before cooking...

here's the super tasty big shrimp after cooking!



and we also got tastytasty crab...that were SO super spicy! there was an incredible mound of chiles and red peppers served with the crabs...yummy crabs! we ate at this street establishment where they have toilet paper rolls on the tables for napkins (most restaurants actually don't give you napkins at all). There are plates, buckets, and crates of fresh seafood that you can choose from...while they have this sort of thing in NY, the seafood are usually in nice aquariums as opposed to just on a table. I guess they have such a high turnover that it doesn't matter.

Anyways, here's the crab both before and after eating...look at how much SPICY is left!