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.....

So, this weekend I had the pleasure of meeting yet another one of Utah's finest bands.  The band's name is "Shallow Sky", and if their music is any indicator, these guys are gonna stick around. To be honest, I expected the 3 sessions (totalling 26-hours) with these guys to be a bit rough, due to only my incredible lack of sleep las...

The site is finished and life is good!  Welcome everyone who has a demo just waiting to be realized.  Advanced Budget Studios is here just waiting to make your life that much better. Come on down and get your demo made just the way you want it to - cheap, quick, and sounding great! Click here to go to the brand-new site!...

I got married like a bit more than 5 years ago, and I'm lovin' it. But, during those five years, I've had some footage gracefully shot and donated to me by my friend Ty Swartzlander on my wedding day.  On that day, Ty told me he was going to put something together and give it to me later, but instead, I told him I'd really, really, real...

So...  Yeah... Holy cow.  I started writing this as a Facebook update, and quickly realized ther was too much to say, so, into the blog it goes! The bottom line is - We are back in business, people! As of right now, the new studio is close to being finished, but the good news is - we can record.  I've got 3 channels wired up, a...

Okay...  This sucks.  I just spent the last 10 minutes typing up a nice novel on how today was spent, and I then proceeded to accidentally delete it.  How unfortunate.  Let's see if I can do it again. ....nope.  Sorry...  I'm tired, and it's late (it's now 12:30am), and I've got to get up tomorrow morning. Suffic...

Here's a little something we did during the day today.  Luci had a bit of a mis-understanding of what the easter bunny really was at first.  She got the hang of it, though.  Video above:...

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...

My marriage, or rather, the marriage I have entered into with my sweetheart for the last 7 years, hasn't really been that bad.  In fact, I'd say we're definitely on the upper-hand of "marital happiness" as far as the national statistics go. There are quite a few reasons for this, I'd say.  One is definitely that I feel I'm giv...

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...

Last Thursday I took the kids to Jumpin Jacks.  It is a huge warehouse with a bunch of bounce houses.  The kids had an absolutely great time! We also had the place to ourselves for the whole hour and half we were there. It was awesome!!   I think they would of stayed all day if I let them. They really loved this really tall slide...

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

Words could not have said it any better. Makes me smile every time I look at it....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

Awhile back, I wrote a journal entry concerning the scientific method and knowing spiritual facts to be true. This talk seems to be hitting the same vein, but in a much wiser and broader sense. "Knowledge of outside temperature can be verified by scientific proof. Knowledge that we love our spouse is personal and subjective. While not capa...