Things have been a whirlwind around here and I just realized that I never posted my entry to the Angry Robot Remix contest.

You see, Angry Robot Books has a theme song composed by John Anealio and they thought it would be great fun to have people remix it. They posted the original song elements and a contest was born.

The contest closed on April 1st. I’m not sure how many entries there were, but they are now being judged. The winner gets a role in Matt Forbeck’s next novel for Angry Robot – and a very nasty death is guaranteed too!

Below you will find my submission. The original version can be found on John’s bandcamp page.

A little about my mix:

• I decided to stay close to the original with some added elements for flavor. Including a “robot voice” seemed a moral imperative.
• I used all free/open source software for new elements as well as mixing including:
  • Ardour (digital audio workstation)
  • Hydrogen (drum machine)
  • ZynAddSubFX (synthesizer)
  • JAMin (audio mastering)
  • Steve Harris plugins (audio effects)
  • lv2vocoder (audio effect)
  • JACK TimeMachine (buffer recorder)
  • all running on the Ubuntu Linux 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system

I am excited to announce that my short story “The Destruction of Station One” has been released as part of Philippa Ballantine’s Chronicles of the Order. I am very thankful to be included with the collection of awesome authors playing in Pip’s sandbox. The Order of the Eye and Fist series is set in a rich and vibrant land with a deep history and colorful characters.

Philippa’s first book of the Order, Geist, was recently published by Ace and is available now in bookstores everywhere.

Just a quick plug for a web event happening next week called The Boom Effect. The event will start on Saturday, February 27th at 10AM Eastern time via UStream.

This charity drive is a live, online auction to raise money for the trust fund of Tee Morris’ daughter who lost her mother on January 5, 2010. There will be at least 5 hours of entertainment hosted by Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit. We’ll be in the live audience cheering everybody on, and likely on camera on the main feed as well. It’s shaping up to be a really fun time. You’ll be able to bid from the chat room, through e-mail, proxy-bid on the website, and I think via video or audio on Skype or UStream.

And with over 70 items up for auction (so far!!) there is something for everyone to get excited about and bid for! Everything from jewelry, to pictures, paintings by celebrities, custom music, book dedications, food, clothes, signed DVDs and books, knitwear, and even Mozart’s Balls!! Seriously, go check out everything up for auction!

Hope to see you there!

As an early Halloween treat, I’m pleased to bring you The Zombie Connection.

Lyrics: Kim Fortuner and Patrick E. McLean
Vocals: Kim Fortuner
Guitar: Tim Dodge
Orchestra and production: Chooch Schubert

The song was originally written and recorded at Dragon*Con 2009 in about 30 minutes. Tim and Kim agreed to record clean versions of their parts and let me wrap other instruments and sound effects around them.

enjoy!

I’m posting my first song on here. It’s called Slave To Me. I guess I’d classify it as Trip Hop with a bit of an industrial bent. I’m very eager to hear what people think of it.

I’ve got a few other songs in this genre that are getting close to completion and hope to make my first fiction post soon as well.

If anybody is interested I’ll post the individual tracks for remixing. As you see the license below, everything is Creative Commons: Attribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike – so it can be copied freely, remixed, and used elsewhere for free as long as you give me credit (and preferably some link love so I can check your stuff out too).

This is the audio from a panel I spoke on at Balticon 43 over Memorial Day weekend. A special thanks to my fellow panelists: PG Holyfield, Scott Sigler, and MAinPA.

I believe that this was the first panel I was on during the weekend, and was chosen as “moderator” on the spot without having any notes or talking points to go from. Luckily, we all talk a lot, so there wasn’t a lack of content

From the Balticon program:
Upgrading your gear is a serious temptation. In these trying economic times, bargains abound and the desire for some new shiny device in your studio sometimes outweighs the other factors in your life. Our panel of technophiles talk about what’s out there, where to buy it cheap, and when you should buy it. We all love our gear, but we shouldn’t deprive our families of food and shelter for the next new gadget.

This is the audio from a panel I spoke on at Balticon 43 over Memorial Day weekend. A special thanks to my fellow panelists: Thomas ‘Cmdln’ Gideon, Dan the Fan.

The version I am posting is not edited for content, but has been processed to remove noise and (hopefully) make it more listenable.

Cmdln has posted his own recording from this panel at Archive.org in uncompressed FLAC, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis formats.

From the Balticon program:
This session will go beyond the basics of recording a voice with your built in audio program. We will give an overview of the various types of audio recording equipment and techniques of non-linear audio editing. This should help you in creating advanced productions such as multi-voice dramatizations, music recording and mixing, as well as carry over into video production.

Products we discussed during the recording:

• The book that Dan mentions during the discussion is Modern Recording Techniques, Sixth Edition.
• The midi controller I mention is the Korg nanoKontrol. Apparently they changed pricing, or I just got a great deal because they are $60 which is almost twice what I had thought. Still, I think it’s well worth it
• There is some discussion on the Zoom H2 and Zoom H4
• Thomas mentions his use of  a M-Audio MicroTrack II

This is the audio from a panel I spoke on at Balticon 43 over Memorial Day weekend. A special thanks to my fellow panelists: Noblis Reed, Tyler Waldman, and Thomas ‘Cmdln’ Gideon.

The version I am posting is not edited for content, but has been processed to remove noise and (hopefully) make it more listenable.

Cmdln has posted his own recording from this panel at Archive.org in uncompressed FLAC, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis formats.

From the Balticon program:
There are a lot of tutorials, presentations, and classes on how to record a podcast but when it gets to posting and sharing your cast, things seem to get glossed over. There are many components working in concert to make a podcast feed. This session aims to explain what each of those components are and how they function together. Further, we hope to show you how you can save money by picking and choosing what services provide each piece.