So, I've been thinking about what the first post in 2012 should be, and I've been drawing a blank.   I could talk about all the cool gear I've upgraded, and the success we had in 2011, but I've talked a lot about that stuff already  (although the new RME Madi interface, ADI-8 QS converters, and Focusrite 828 preamps are pretty stink...

Herod the Fink is a Christmas collaboration project between Jesse Crowley and Jason Jones which has been going on now for 3 glorious years at Advanced Budget Studios.  This year's offering is a 4-song EP. The music this year ranges from a bluegrass crossing punk style of "Joy To The World" to an introspective look in to each of our...

So I haven't written in a while, and that's both a great thing, and a not-so-great thing.  It's great because since September, the studio has been busier than I thought possible.  Honestly...  It's been a whirlwind, and I'm not quite sure what caused it - but I'm so grateful for it.  It's a not-so-great thing because I can't kee...

I've gotta say, October was crazy.  It was the busiest month the studio has ever seen.  That said, it has allowed us to upgrade some microphones! Might you join with me in welcoming our two newest microphones to the pack: The Joly Edition - "Gomez" Cascade ribbon mic! In our initial tests, I found the Gomez to be anothe...

Today I started my entry titled Lost In The Past for Nano month. This is where writers try to write 50,000 words in one month. Mine is a young adult novel. Here is the synopsis for it. Lost in the Past Synopsis   Her millionaire father thought it would be great to raise her without the problems of today, so he builds a house free of elec...

 My apologies for not writing lately.  I assure you, it's because I've been too busy recording! So...  Updates:  As some of you know, for now, 100% of the money which comes into this studio, stays in the studio, which means all the proceeds from your recordings go directly back into ways to make your recordings even better. &...

 ...and so we've come to the last chapter, and the closing of the book I opened almost 4 years ago.  The goal was to read and write about each and every chapter in the Book of Mormon, no matter how long it took me.  Tonight, I'm gonna complete that goal.   Wow.  That just feels good. Let's charge on to Moroni 10, shall w...

 What a horrible, yet extremely personal and hopeful chapter.   The nature of it reminds me of the psalm of Nephi (2 nephi  4:15-end).  What horrible, horrible things were going on at the end, but it just amazes me, the strength of Mormon, and his constant prayers for Moroni - and his pleading to God for his soul to be brought b...

So... I just checked, and throughout all canonized scripture, know how many times the phrase "solemn mockery" is used?   Yup - you guessed it.  Once.  And it happens to refer to the baptizing of children.  For some reason, I think God dislikes this act a bit. Verse 14 seems kind of harsh, but if a person has nei...

Today is a good day!  So...  Beginning in verse 12, the main theme I'm getting here is the complete polarization between God and Satan.  Within the rules God has set (such as, "Satan can't kill people", and "Man has free agency", and "God won't save someone just because they're His offspring", and such.....

The first six verses of this chapter talk about performing your "alms" without fanfare.  I'm caught wondering why this is important.  What's the concept behind the action? Well, I think that's the very essense of it. - "Why are you giving?"  "Why are you charitable?"  Is it so you can appear to be...

Last weekend I went to Arizona to see my brother Greg, my sister Andi, and my friend Natalie compete in the Ironman Event. I put together a video which pretty much sums it all up.  I hope you like it....

"What is a motorcycle doing in *this*?", I thought as I continued upward through the winding Spanish Fork canyon.   It wasn't so much that a motorcycle was in this particular canyon, but rather in the canyon during one of the 3 most torrential downpours I've seen during my lifetime. I was coming home from work today when about ...

I just finished putting my 5-year-old and my 3-year-old to bed. Earlier today, they both went to the dentist to have a check-up, and for Luci, it was a semi-traumatic experience.  She did really good, but at one point, she was seriously distraught about this gun-looking thing which sprayed water everywhere, and the vacuum they were going to ...

When I originally mixed a tune from Sugar Stone, I didn't have enough time to really nail it.  I did a good enough job for the time allotted, but when the product was delivered, I thought there could be a lot of improvements made. So, I decided to spend a few hours today seeing what I could do about it.  Before I go any further, here's...

So the other night my ward had the first temple trip of the year. I was unable to hide the fact that I so badly wanted to go! I needed the peaceful easy feeling that only the temple can give, but I was also very worried at teh same time. Because the last temple trip my ward went on the youth did not behave themselves like they should've and they go...

*sigh* As programming techniques become more and more complex, and the programmers continue to be just as, or more, diversified, companies who insist on being the industry standard while tossing away organizations such as the W3C, make life as a web developer increasingly difficult. If that didn't make much sense, let me rephrase:  Micro...

Approximately 4 years ago, sometime during the summer, from time to time I would go outside our back door and lay out on the concrete slab and look up at the stars.  We had been in our home about 7 years and had no intention of moving, or changing, or doing anything but doing what we were doing.  I was in love with my wife, trying my best...

Tomorrow before lunch I'm leaving school to go to a camp with my twin best friends. They suggested that me, my mom, and them could go to a camp and we were ECSTATIC!!!! There's gonna be a zip line, and cabins, and games and a lakeand its gonna be so fun! Becaus of this, I won't be able to write for the next  few days. See you!...

 So...  Today was... beyond words, really. It was a day that just brimmed with spiritual opulence.  I woke up at 7:00, to warm up my voice (after having a pretty intense drumming session which lasted until midnight yesterday), and then went to practice the musical number at 8:00am, to sing it for the congregation at around 9:45. ...

Linux + gentoo + jack-audio-connection-kit + dbus use flag enabled = doesn't work any more. Okay... Just a personal note to remember. DO NOT COMPILE jack-audio-connection-kit WITH THE dbus FLAG ENABLED!  IT REMOVES jackd WHICH IS WHAT  qjackctl USES TO START THE JACK SERVER. So... Unless I'm missing something, this is pretty much th...

As many of you know, I recently upgraded the exhaust on my 2007 Mustang GT. Well... Tonight, I had to take it out to see what I could do.  So, I went the usual route and didn't find much more than a crappy 90's Eclipse that wanted to play.  After almost an hour of dragging back and forth, lady luck just didn't have it in for me tonight...

Okay...  So lately the studio has been getting some serious upgrades, thanks to all of you who have been supporting me, and creating awesome music. About a month ago, I was chatting it up with a good friend, Jesse Crowley, about how in the world we were going to sell our fabulous new Herod the Fink album this season.  You see, there ar...

This morning I decided I'd start the traditional blogging of each general conference talk from the last general conference in October. As President Monson began this talk, a familiar spirit filtered in to my office at work and inevitably, my heart was opened to the inspired words of our wonderful prophet. I'm so grateful for our church.  I...

I just spent the last three hours trying to figure out why my OpenFire 3.5.2 instance was installing just fine, saying that it was running just fine, but in reality was not running at all. Neither port 9090, nor 9091 was open, both ports 9090, and 9091 were closed. ps -A | grep openfire returned nothing - at all. Yet, /etc/init.d/openfire sta...

This is an audio recording of tonight.  FHE is included. That's about it....

When will I ever learn to trust my wife, my brother, and my instinct?  Probably never. You see, Ryan, my brother, noted how bald the tires are on my Mustang GT about a month ago.  My wife also noted the same thing, as well as a pretty big storm coming this weekend.  Anyway...  I'll get on with the story. Sarah and I celebra...

We've been contemplating how to best improve the studio with all the business we've been getting lately, and the votes are in! Please welcome our newest addition to the studio, a nice shiny new red GOLDEN AGE PRE 73 PRE-AMP!  We spent a good deal of time looking into the best preamps for the money, and it came down to two main contenders. ...

Alright..  I'm just typing this entry for mostly the purpose of trying out my new keyboard I got at work.  For the past employments I've had, probably for the past 2 years, I've used the Microsoft Natural 4000 keyboard, and to be honest, it took a long time to get used to.  The buttons were too far apart, and it just felt a bit more ...

 So, I've been asked about headphones recently by a lot of friends.  So much so, that I thought I'd write down a few words, more regarding what you should not buy, rather than what you should.  This is simply due to the enormous amount of generally good, and wildly varying headphones out there. As most of you know, I'm an audio eng...