I've been wanting to do this for quite some time, but as usual I kept putting it off until now. So last December I was fortunate to have the chance to play for Adibah Noor at a private function in KL. Since I did not have a keyboard of my own then, I ended up borrowing Dana's Motif XS and trying out Mainstage. I had used Mainstage before during the Eagles tribute concert in March but this was my first time using it for a proper (paying) gig.

It was also the first time playing at a really high-paying gig and the level of professionalism left a lasting impression. Daniel the bandleader gave us all a CD of the arrangements, and the sequencing work for each song was very good (now that's why you have MIDI class in the first semester kids). He then gave us individual charts (keyboards, guitar etc) with every single detail notated, right down to the patches we were supposed to be using (flute, synth, high string pads etc). I would say the standard of the arrangements and the performance was comparable to the KLF gig in October 2008, or our college tribute concerts, but without all the crazy practice hours and screaming at lecturers. In fact, if I'm not mistaken we only had three rehearsals at Ee Jeng's studio. Adibah Noor herself only showed up during the soundcheck, but everything ran smoothly. It was definitely worth the amount of money we were paid.

"It's not about the money, it's about the experience" - Mr. F

Well pardon me, but I had a very good experience playing with these very professional musicians, some of them ICOM graduates as well. And if people outside can treat me professionally as a musician and pay accordingly, what about the college?

Alright enough ranting, here are some pictures!



My happening rig - M-Audio Oxygen25 USB into Mac, Mainstage Output 1-2 thru Mbox (DI-ed), Yamaha Motif XS7

Ee Jeng's even more happening rig - Korg Triton & Triton LE, Yamaha S90

Here's a look at my Mainstage setup:


I basically organized the patches into individual sets for each song. Although we only played about 40 mins worth of music, each song was quite different from the other so I was running a lot of patches. Thank goodness for 4GB of RAM to load all those samples. Ee Jeng and I also divided the parts equally so that helped as well. I also ended up with most of the string parts so to make my life easier I played the main string pads on the Motif.

The first song, One Night Only, had quite a lot of orchestral instruments in the arrangement. I was playing the Oboe (Miroslav Philharmonik) and French Horns (Kontakt 3 Orchestral library) from Mainstage.

The next song, Bila Rindu, was simpler as it just needed strings and a synth flute thingy for the intro, for which I used a patch from NI's Pro-53 synth.

The third song was pretty tricky as it had a lot of those 16th-note trance synth patterns going on. I experimented with using delays and tapping tempo but that was unsuccessful so in the end I settled with playing each note individually. I then inserted a pitch shifter and assigned its Mix parameter to one of my MIDI controller's knobs so I could gradually add an 'octave' effect. The first synth is a 'Basic Synth Oct' patch running through the EXS24 sampler, the second was the 'Heavenly Glass' ES2 synth preset layered with a Suitcase EP (EVP88).

The fourth song, Dhoom Machale, was also relatively simpler (in terms of the patches used; the arrangement was a killer!), I used the EXS24 orchestral hit layered with a timpani hit, also from the EXS24. There was also a section which required a psychedelic-sounding sitar, so I used the EXS24 Sitar patch and stuck a whole lot of effects on it.

The fifth song, Bunyi Gitar, was a typical Big Band arrangement so I had lots of horns running. I layered an Alto Sax, Trombone and Trumpet section within Kontakt 3 (Chris Hein Horns library) and created 3 different patches - a short stab sound, a 'fall', and a 'shake'/trill. I think I also edited the key mappings so that each instrument did not play beyond it's normal range; even though the library had very good sounds, hearing a trombone section all playing extreme high notes, or alto sax playing extremely low did not sound good at all.

The sixth song, a 'Juara Lagu' medley, was pretty straightforward with just plenty of string parts. In addition to the string pads I was playing on the Motif, I had tremolo strings and a solo violin (both Miroslav Philharmonik) running on Mainstage.

And finally the last song, Save The Last Dance, was virtually a cover of Michael Buble's arrangement, so more big band stuff there. The horns were mostly playing unison lines so I split the parts with Ee Jeng again - I took the lower octave while he took the higher octave. I did almost the same setup like on Bunyi Gitar: layered alto sax/tenor sax/trombone sections in Kontakt.

All in all I was pretty pleased with the things I managed to do with Mainstage, even though I was slightly handicapped with the 25 key controller, having to keep switching octaves all the time. With a proper, BIGGER controller in the future though, I just might start using Mainstage a little more. I do have a lot of quality sound libraries and synths and it would be nice to use them in a live situation again.

So this is what it's like. Being responsible and having to do what you know is right - it sounds very nice and honorable and heart-warming.

It's not as easy as it sounds. And it just might hurt a little, especially if your heart is trying very hard to tell you something else.

"Just follow your heart," they say. Yeah sure, the short-term gratification looks very nice. But in the long run, it's just going to lead to further complications and inevitably, heartbreak.

I guess my heart and my head have been going on at each other over the whole thing for so long. I know what I should do, but doing it is the hard part. And it's really tempting to just throw caution to the wind and go for it.

But what would I gain from that? Not much. I'm probably better off keeping things as they are now. Why fix what is not broken?

C'mon David you can do this. It's not 2007 anymore.

***

Indeed, there are many fish in the sea, but this time round, I think I'll be leaving the fishing equipment at home.

(Disclaimer: This is not an emo post.)

(Disclaimer 2, 11/03: To that someone who responded so quickly, I'm sorry if this sounded like it had something to do with you, because it has nothing to do with you at all. I do have a life going on outside college you know.)

3 more days.

I can say I actually missed Permata. Even though Darby Park and it's widescreen TVs, 3-room suites, swimming pool etc was very nice, you don't really get the full experience of really being in a camp.

And at Permata, we all eat at the same place, every day. No need to spend half an hour arguing about where to eat at KLCC.

Come.

Almost 5 months after reapplying for the loan, and after an even longer, drawn-out saga involving rejected applications, course accreditation nonsense, pleasant and not-so-pleasant email exchanges with college administration etc etc, someone at PTPTN has finally done something.

About time too. My parents aren't the richest people in the world, and this was supposed to be sorted out like, 3 semesters ago? And the college isn't exactly the cheapest in the world. Or, the most helpful when it comes to loan applications like this. The 5th floor people did not do themselves any favours at all.

Hmm maybe they expect all music students to be from rich families, since the music industry is supposedly so tough, unforgiving and unprofitable (perhaps except for those providing tertiary education in contemporary music).

Which brings us back to that old music joke - Q: How do you make a million dollars playing jazz?
A: Start with 2 million.

Ah, what's the point of being so pessimistic, when you're not in any kind of trouble to start with. I'm not going to hold any grudges from now on (or at least I'll try not to). So what if other people want to make things go wrong. At the end of the day, I am David Ling, and everyone is my friend.

Hopefully this marks the end of the late-night, emo, aimless-ranting posts.

***

Once again, I'm up late doing homework for tomorrow's class, which conveniently is at 9am. And unsurprisingly, I'm wide awake.

I've been seeing a lot of people I know getting into long-distance relationships recently.

They don't work.

Perhaps I'll explain my point of view after all this CNY food digests.



Edit - 3:25am

Does it even matter whether I explain it? It's just my opinion anyway. And maybe it's me being slightly unable to come to terms with my own 'failures'.

***

He was so young and immature then. If only he knew what he had in store for him a few years down the road.

But then again, was it worth risking losing a good friend? It worked with someone else, clearly the whole 'Ladder Theory' thing didn't apply there. And thank goodness some people were level-headed enough to avoid adding fuel to the fire, the fire he didn't start.

He wondered how long he was going to dwell on this. It had been quite a while since the 'incident', and time supposedly heals even the deepest wounds. But even after setting out to avoid getting into trouble, it seemed that trouble had come to him. Trouble that in part, was something coming back to haunt him.

You never really get away from the past, do you. Even though he thought that a few years was more than enough for time to work its healing power, some deep-lying scars remained. It partly was his fault anyway, but going through the blame game all over again wasn't going to help anyone.

"If nobody wants to believe my side of the story, at least understand that I just want to be friends, nothing else," he thought to himself.

Apparently even that was too difficult for some people.

Screw it then. If people thought he had ulterior motives, let them learn to deal with it. He was not going to let all this nonsense ruin his day.

***

3.50am - This is going nowhere. Both in the current and overall scheme of things.

So apparently, when I am really sleepy, I get all emotional and have flashbacks of various memories good and bad (judging by the number of emo posts on this blog, probably more bad than good). And when I am really, really, really sleepy, I think I tend to write my best music.

A bit more of the latter please.

Or maybe I should just try sleeping earlier.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

For the first time ever, I don't really feel the big thrill of receiving all those ang pows anymore. Not to say I'm ungrateful or anything; I do appreciate all the 'free' money. Perhaps I know what it's like to work and get paid and to spend your own hard-earned money. And it's hard to believe that I've only been gigging around regularly from about April or May last year; last Chinese New Year I was looking forward to the monetary windfall just like every New Year.

But then again I better not make too much out of the whole earn-my-own-money thing, or I may have to start giving out ang pows too.