Some Stuff About creating Albums...

Locally, I've found the process simple but some steps require a bit of time and effort... and money. So to give you a better and basic idea, here it is.

1. Make your music. Write it and record it. Have it mixed and mastered.

2. Design your album cover/inlay. What I usually do is design it myself but you can have someone do it for you of course. If you design it yourself, you can do it during downtimes when you're not inspired to write but want to accomplish something and be productive. If you already finished writing, the perfect time is during waiting while it's getting mixed/mastered since you'll have more than a week to work on the design. If you're having someone else design it, you can give everything early on. 

3. Once you have the master disc and design, you can start replication. 2 options... DIY or a "middleman company." 

DIY - you can go and call the replication company directly, accomplish the forms required from the OMB or optical media board (this requires payment unforunately). Some replication companies also can cover for the inlay so that's one less thing to worry about. Otherwise, you should look for a printing company for that. 

Option 2 is to go thru a middle-man company. This is easier. For a minimal fee for labor and everything, you can have everything be attended to by a dedicated company while you prepare and spend your time planning your album launch, or tour.

4. When replication starts, you can download the copyright forms online to submit to the national library (requires payment as well) to secure the legal copyright of your material. 

5. Wait 2 weeks from replication and then you get your CD! It's that simple!

Oh yeah, have a budget of 60k Pesos for 1000 copies :)

Hope this little entry helps and sheds a bit of light.

Cy

Writers Block...

There are tons of articles you can find online about it and how it can be broken or avoided. But for the sake of this entry, I'd like to put down some that works for me and how it does.

As some of you may know, I like writing music and words to music since I love writing songs. I also go to the geek side of not just arranging but mixing the music to the final output. In a way, it can be or IS overwhelming to be honest. But in its own way, I guess it works for me to break that writers block. 

Here's the usual scene.

I write some music and record a draft. Put other instruments along with it and see how it sounds. After that, I decide to write some lyrics... BAM! No inspiration or whatever... sometimes, I just put my focus on mixing the material to make it sound really good. Maybe making it sound really nice will inspire me enough. Sometimes, I can just go on and close the session and write new music for another song.

There are also days that I want to write music to even start with but nothing comes out. So during these times, I usually open up the old songs and just listen. Sometimes, I go back to other songs that don't have lyrics and maybe by this time, I have lyrics but no music for another song. Other times, I just go back and mix and mix and mix because when it comes to the mixing part, it's not completely about the "creative" process but more on the technical aspect of how it all gels and sounds with the frequencies and volume etc. This exercise does help and in a way balances out the sides of the brain used at certain points in the creating process.

If all else fails, I usually sleep or turn on the TV... most of the time. Down the line options are go outside, play with the dogs, watch a movie, or just go to my drum set and pound away. 

Just find that balance that can get you out of the creative process when you have nothing coming out and once you get back, you'll be in the zone... and most importantly (after of course praying for inspiration), be patient. It can take a day or two but it will come. Make sure you have something to document, record or help put ideas down if you're away of your workstation. I usually record melodies or lyric ideas on my crappy mobile phone recorder. It sounds horrible during playback but helps you remember that moment of inspiration!

Enjoy writing!

God bless

Cy

How To Clean Your Sneakers/Shoes >

Being a noob in cleaning sneakers, I did some research and with a little understanding and "diskarte," I present a little tutorial on how to clean your sneakers... Well, this is how I did it at least. 

What you'll need:

Running Water

toothbrush

1 smooth rag for the shoes top portion

1 rag for the sole

soap

pail or basin

Let's start...

1. Get your shoes (duh!) 

2. Pour water onto your shoes... get it soaked!

3. Remove the shoelaces if it has any. Reason I put this after pouring water instead of pouring onto it to give time for the water to seep thru your shoes while you're removing the laces.

4. Rub your sole rag onto soap or pour it onto the rag. Your choice depending if you have liquid, powdered, or a bar.

5. Clean the sides of the sole and then sole itself

6. After that, get the smooth rag for shoes with suede or anything that needs something smooth rather than brushing it. 

7. Once again, apply the soap. What I did on mine was just get pinches of powdered soap and sprinkled it on the areas where I was to use the smooth rag. 

8. Now get your toothbrush. 

9. Apply soap on brush and onto the areas that need brushing. In my case, my rubber shoes had a net-like skin which could take mild brushing. 

10. Rinse well...

11. Pour water inside the shoe. then pour it out. 

12. Apply soap inside the shoe by hand and rub it clean all over the insides of the shoe.

13. Pour water again... and again... and again until soap suds aren't visible anymore to be sure you rinsed it well.

14. Set your shoes aside to dry 

15. Get your shoelaces and apply soap on it or slide it in between a rag with soap. I put this after to give time for the shoes to get excess water off before putting it out for final air drying 

16. Rinse your shoelaces.

17. Pick up your shoes and laces and put it in a ventilated place. I put mine in front of the fan. 

17B -  Some say put paper towels inside to absorb the moisture :) Didn't have any so I just let the fan run on high. 

18. Clean up your wash area. 

19. Go back and look at your shoes and smile at how clean it looks!!!

NOTE: You can rinse the shoes every after step like after the sole or after the smooth parts. It's really up to you!

Enjoy!

Cy

Chores...

Just spent the whole afternoon fixing our garden. More cleaning and fixing. We had a LOT sorted out, Praise God! Good thing I had some workers helping me out the whole afternoon. 

After that, I wanted to do some cleaning inside the house but I felt I needed more time for that and with work lined up, I decided to just do something else... I ended up washing and cleaning 4 pairs of shoes I haven't been wearing for quite a while (some over a yr) because it was stocked and was so dirty. I also washed a pair of sandals I bought more than a yr ago that I also haven't worn more than maybe 4 times. Now I feel like I have 5 pairs of new footwear haha! Nice!!!!

I'm loving my new sleeping schedule. I get to accomplish more and I like it a LOT!!!

Honestly, I seem to enjoy doing chores like cleaning and fixing stuff. If I had a complete set of tools, I would be doing the plumbing already here hehe

I like productive days and this is one of those...

Cy

February Project Album

So far I've got 4 songs arranged already. 5 songs with drums and bass. Vocals
last for all of them.

This rpm challenge is honestly a GREAT exercise. If I don't make it for the rpm
challenge like for the site, on a personal level, this really helped me.

It stretched me to JUST WRITE without any excuses and it really forced me to.

And right now, aside from the challenge of coming up with 10 tunes or 35 mins of
music, I extended the challenge on my end to just do everything in props'
Record.

The line6 rack on it kinda sucks so it's proving to be more of a challenge but
it's one of those challenges that make you work and make do with what you have.

I could use logic and guitar rig which will make it sound awesome. But now it's
about making Record sound decent enough for release coz I plan to release this
album after February. :)

Stay Tuned! I shall make a sample available really soon!

Cy

Just wanted to share a little story I read... Don't just walk on by.

Just read this online...

This one described an experiment organized by the Washington Post in 2007. A man played six Bach pieces on a violin for 45 minutes in the Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning. During the time he played, approximately two thousand people passed through the station. Of those, only six people stopped and listened, and then only for a very short while. The greatest levels of enthusiasm were displayed by young children, several of whom tugged on their parents, asking to stop and listen, but without success.

This concert, enjoyed by virtually none of the two thousand in the station that day, was given by the renowned violinist Joshua Bell, playing some of the most intricate pieces ever written. Two days before his concert in a theater in Boston had sold out with ticket prices averaging $100.

Timed Tweets...

If you're "quite" a sucker for Twitter then you might want to look into Hootsuite. It's been there for quite a long time already and I just didn't bother with it before but wanting to up the twitter experience on my ipod, I bought it. 

Basically it's a twitter client like most but its special feature is its timed tweets. You can prepare tweets in advance and program it in the app to be sent at a certain date. 

Now you may ask, why the need?

For me, promotion is key so a little help in tweeting on schedule will assist in visibility for album or show announcements. For now, I'm using it to preprogram sending of my daily trivia for my followers.

For addicts, you can "lessen" the frequency of flooding by instead setting intervals between tweets. That helps your followers as well.

For the rest, I'm sure you may find some use for it. I've read some people use it to remind themselves of something. 

So feel free to use and enjoy. I believe it's a huge step in your tweeting experience :)

God bless

Cy

Just spreading behind the scenes...

Hello Everyone! Hope everyone's feeling blessed and living blessed! Feel free to join my fanpage if you're a fan/friend or you wanna learn more about my silverfilter project :) http://www.facebook.com/silverfilterofficial and I'd be bold enough to request for you guys to share the link if possible to help. Repost it on your FB, blog, or wherever. A Million thanks in advance. and of course, my mailing list hehe http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/silverfilter/ As usual http://www.twitter.com/silverfilter And in other news... I'm finishing (oddly) an alternative rock album under my silverfilter aka. This should be interesting. Still weighing things if I'll be giving it as a free download. Let's see :) Thanks again for your continued support on Facebook! I do hope to see you soon on my mailing list! :) God bless Cy

Loving The Work That You Do...

Everyone of us, including myself, can get overwhelmed with our work from time to time. Some, however, would literally hate work or the jobs that they hold. I don't blame them. But I'd like to encourage anyone experiencing this to try to at least see the positive side of it. Yes, you may hate everything your work stands for, you may hate your boss, you may hate anything that reminds you of work, but you know one thing? 

YOU HAVE WORK. YOU HAVE A JOB.

For that, you can be thankful for you are one of those in the world who does have something constant. You have something that let's you survive at the very least. You're not out looking for one, or worse, looking for something to eat because you don't have the money for it. 

A few times a week, people drop by the house asking for work. Truth is, there's nothing to be done here. Much more, we don't have much to pay for that extra work but people still try. Why? Because they need food. They need even just a little. One guy often visits asking for anything that can be done to get paid for something to feed for his family. They're looking for ANY job and funnily, sometimes, people have jobs that they studied for or even liked at the start but eventually learned to hate and despise it. 

Be thankful for the little things so that God can trust you with something way better later on. 

Don't forget to smile :)

God bless

Cy

photo by bdgamer

150 million Dreams...

Something light for today...

As some of you may know, the jackpot for Lotto today is 153 million. But for the sake of estimates, let's just put it at 150. 

Last Sunday, it was one of those days where my mind drifts when asked about the "what if you won?" question. Like a lot of you, I'm also one of those who enjoy shutting reality for a while and letting my mind drift away and think of that what if. 

So of course, I asked myself... what if I won 150 Million pesos? What would I do?

Here was my initial set of answers including those I thought of today hehe

- give my tithes to church so that's 15M. 

- Buy 2 houses. One in Ayala Alabang, and another in Tagaytay

- Finish my music studio!

- Buy 4 cars. One for me, another for Berns, A family van for the future, and of course one toy car hehe

- Buy mom and dad a house and a car each as well. Same goes for my sister

- Fund the school my dad's been planning all these years.

- Renovate our original house

- Pay for a satellite church. I wanted to put up a small church under New Life (my home church) in a place where we don't have one yet.

- Donate to a cause

So far that's it. The rest is put in the bank. I haven't really thought of where to invest it yet...

Funny thing is, this was kind of a general idea. If you noticed, I didn't even put what type of car. I really haven't given it much thought at this point. I just want to have a clear idea of the bigger picture :) At least with this list online, I can go back to it once I do win!

So there. That's a glimpse into what my passions are... What's your 150 million list?

Cy