Fifth Chord Studios

11/06/2024

If you even remotely like Trump or have no opinion, get off my feed.

I have zero respect for you. Nothing.

Actually, my feeling about people like that is deeper than "no respect". Those people are disgusting garbage with no redeemable qualities.

Disgusting, harmful, racist, sexist, garbage.

11/03/2024

If they could talk, what would the conversation be?

10/05/2024

New Westminster is certainly not the place i moved to 12 years ago. Was on Columbia St. and so many families, shoppers, and people at the cafés and restaurants! Same thing Uptown. The Belmont Plaza was filled with people talking and eating. All of Uptown was busy.

And it's just getting better and better!

09/22/2024

Yup.

09/16/2024

I have designed two prisons and have toured the men's and the women's Alouette Correctional Centres, the Aaqqigiarvik Correctional Healing Facility in Iqaluit, and the Surrey Pre-trial Holding Centre. I have been in every RCMP detachment in Nova Scotia to review and modify their holding cells. I have designed protected offices for judges.

That work and being inside these places was one of the worst things I have ever done. The tours still haunt me. The guilt for being involved in the creation of one still weighs heavy.

When designing these places there is a hierarchy of importance.

No. 1 - Make sure prisoners can't get out.
No. 2 - Make sure prisoners can be controlled quickly should no.1 fail.
No. 3 - Make sure prisoners can be seen at all times.
No. 4 - Make sure Correctional Officers have more than one way to safety.
No. 5 - Make sure prisoners can't dismantle and use something as a weapon.
No. 6 - Make sure prisoners can not be helped from outside.
No. 7 - Make sure they can't help each other.
No. 8 - Make sure surfaces can be hose washed.

All the while we have to be careful to not infringe on the bare minimum of human rights. The bare minimum.

One person high up in the Department of Corrections explained that designing a prison is mostly about trying to stay ahead of the prisoners in terms of figuring out how to hurt others, hurt themselves, and damage the property. They said "these people have all day and night to plan how to start trouble."

These are NOT places of hope.
These are NOT places of healing.
These are NOT places where people get better.

These are places where we put people to store them and treat them like horrible creatures, rabid dogs, or venomous snakes.

And today the BC NDP and David Eby announce that they are going to put people, who's only crime is having been let down by us, into those places. People who fell into homelessness due to our society's need to "level up" by putting people down. People who fell into drug addiction because it was the only way they were going to feel anything good. People who are constantly living in fear that at any time they are going to be attacked and what few possessions they have will be take from them.

They want to put these people in those places so that they can be hidden from the sight of the nice people of North America's Fifth most livable city.

09/13/2024

Well, that background is a choice.

Facebook Marketplace ad for a movable arm mount...

09/12/2024

I'm just going to say that if there is even a molecule of you sitting on the fence wondering if it might be better to vote for Trump, please unfriend me or block me or whatever you it is you can do with what is left of your cognitive abilities.

If you hadn't made up your mind that Trump should never be in a position of authority, let alone a President, after the 2016 election campaign, then you are not fit to be around reasonably intelligent people.

09/09/2024

Sometimes your home studio has a day job...

08/17/2024

Ok, SOCAN Music , explain how I'm supposed to provide the info you're asking for?

08/14/2024

I, as I am sure many other do, find myself reading the instructions on using something on the computer and it's always cheerful, and and simple with words like "plug and play" and "off you go making...."

I have the luck that it NEVER works that way.

Tonight I am once again learning how to use some new digital tool and have come across the most honest and helpful thing I have ever read while learing how to use anything:

"You will run into problems when you try recording for the first time. This happens to all of us. Just be patient, Google your issue with a focused search and you will likely find someone with the same issue."

Thank you so much Music Gateway and Ashcom for your article on .

04/13/2024

A poor person dreams of owning a home. A white, middle class person thinks it's owed to them.

04/12/2024

Sometimes the experience with a call centre can feel a bit off when the translation isn't the best.

Just got off with a Telus call centre and was greated very formally with "... and I will be your servant."

Then at the end when they needed to find someone else to help me they said "I will sacrifice myself and have..."

It was a sobering and rightfully guilty reminder of how whiteness and racism impacts our language and levels of deference. .

04/10/2024

What's really messed up is that we all know the system is rigged yet we keep buying tickets for the ride.

04/07/2024

Just saw my royalties for my releases for the last period. $732 US.

May not sound like much, but when I get an average of $0.003 per stream, that's not bad.

Still waiting for SOCAN Music to cough something up....

03/20/2024

This a very interesting study, by Cyan D'Anjou , of appropriation of Black culture by white rappers.

Out of Line: On Hip Hop and Cultural Appropriation https://medium.com//out-of-line-on-hip-hop-and-cultural-appropriation-1c060e6801e9

In 2015, UCLA fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon and sorority Alpha Phi hosted a Kanye West-themed party inspiring its majority-white student…

03/15/2024

03/09/2024

Major signal rearranging today.

We now have:
Channels 9, 10, 11, 12 on Audient ASP4816 ->
channels 1, 2, 3, 4 through 4 lines of Focusrite Pro ISA428 MKII mic preamp ->
Each line though an analog Rockville REQ231s ->
Each through dbx 166 xs compressors ->
Back to Audient ASP4816 ->

Channels 13, 14, 15, & 16 do the same but skip the Focusrite

Channels 1-8 are for drums, room, or other mics. Well eq those on the board. Then run them through compressors in the mix. Then bounce them down to stereo tape track on the Taec A-2300s.

Constructive criticism appreciated.