Cherish U Suck

I'm better when I have direction. I tried teaching myself sound synthesis by looking up youtube videos and my problem was there was sooooo much information out there, I didn't know in which direction to go. I had no clue where to start and where I should end up. It was then I realized I needed some sort of direction in my learning. In the past I had subscribed to Sonic Academy tutorials and did nothing with them except make one song (Suck). At the end I felt I ended up with an OK song. I eventually gave up on it at the end. I didn't know what else I could do to make the song better. Like the knowledge I needed to have, I didn't. So I gave up and decided to throw it up on Soundcloud. I want to start outputting songs I can be proud of. My next three songs will be what I'm gonna call my debut (831), mainly because these will be the first 3 songs I completely do on my own, without following a tutorial. I want to learn but can't afford to go to a super fancy music production school and I can't teach myself through youtube videos because I get distracted so I've come up with my 3rd option. Something I'm calling Cherish University (Cherish U). I've decided to use Groove 3

and Sonic Academy

as a learning tool. I liked all the information Sonic Academy had and Groove 3 seems to have a lot of the same. I'm starting with Groove 3 just to do something different. I've created a course outline after looking at all the videos Groove 3 had to offer. They're all hopefully in an order that makes sense. I'm testing it out on myself. The first run I will go at my own pace, I wont move onto a new section until I think I've digested everything there is mostly to learn. Then I will do the exact same thing with Sonic Academy. I'll get the benefit of refreshing my mind with everything I just learned but taught maybe a little differently. Maybe I'll even learn some new things. From there I can make a more advanced level outline for both websites, learning new things the 2nd time around and then repeat the whole process from the beginning and rinse and repeat until I think I no longer need the videos because I know everything I think I need to know. Once I've accomplished that, I can focus 100% of my free time on making music while I go to school and work. It's gonna be a busy next few years but well worth it. Here's what the course outline looks like. Sun - Music Theory/Piano Mon - 8 Tues- Groove 3 Wed - 3 Thurs - Music Theory/Piano Fri - 1 Sat - Groove 3 On Sundays and Thursdays I teach myself a little piano and music theory with these books, going from top to bottom. 3 books to learn should be enough.

On Tuesdays and Saturdays I take a Groove 3 course going by the outline I made for myself.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday are my fun days where I get to be creative and work on my first 3 songs 831. I'm actually really excited about this.

Moved back to the Bay...

So I put myself in a situation where I couldn't afford to live in LA anymore and instead of staying and fighting to stay and really trying to make it work down south, I took the easy route where I had two jobs lined up for me the second I moved back to the Bay. I didn't want to go back to being broke. Since moving back I haven't even opened up Ableton. I've pretty much spent all this time trying to get all my shit together which I finally did for a brief time, life was going great, the future looked amazing, I had a game plan to take over the world and then it all came crashing down. When it rains it pours and I got a hurricane coming after me. I officially hit my new low when my car wouldn't start after paying $700 to get it out of storage, which in turn will probably set a few other things in motion guaranteeing I wont be a free man in a little over a week. It's getting harder and harder stay positive and keep a smile on my face and not want to go into raven mode.

Later that night, after my car not working we went to see Ummet Ozcan. I really needed a night out in the city and I've finally found friends who actually enjoy the nightlife as much as I do and it was one of my co-workers friends Maya's Bday, so perfect situation to go out. About halfway during the set I think I hit bottom for the second time in my life. The reality of my living situation kinda sank in. Awkwardly in front of my co-worker Kimmie, who's recently turned blonde and looks stunning. I remember just sitting there watching the show and feeling the lowest I've felt since the first time my world came crashing down a few years ago in LA and hearing live music is my ultimate upper. The glimmer of light was after the show I felt inspired, it was like a reminder of what I needed to do in life. And then Pedro and I ran into Ummet!

Next day I woke up a little hungover from the night before but in an amazing mood. Ready to take on life again. The highest number on the scale I ever remember seeing on the scale was 244 and that morning I weighed in at 212.

I was making progress in life. I am making progress. I'm gonna keep on trucking and fighting everyday to make my life better than it was the day before. Come July/August, once I hopefully have everything in the past, look out world. No more wasting time. Today I am going to open up Ableton. Back to Plan A cause Plan B sucks.

WASAF a "State of Jamie Cherish Address" 2014

I finally started working on music daily and it feels amazing. I really wish I had started doing this over 2 years ago when I first decided I wanted to make dance music. What stalled me for 2+years was this idea that I didn't know everything I needed to know in Ableton. I had to learn everything first before I would even play in Ableton.

I just WATCHED and WROTE notes on every good tutorial series I could find. What I didn't do was open Ableton and play with what I learned. After I finished watching all the tutorials, I decided to watch them a second time but this time following along in Ableton. What happened next was I really didn't enjoy the songs I was working on. It made it really difficult to want to work on a song you kinda really didn't like. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. I did however love the learning part of it. I'd stall forever to start the next step, but I once I opened Ableton, I wouldn't be able to stop. I'd be stuck following along for the next few hours or until something forced me out of it, like friends. My social life was almost too good for my own good.

Finishing my first tutorial song took me a while to finish and what I ended up with was my track WE.



I like the track because I finished it. I got to 80% and stalled forever.

Last year I signed up for an Intro to Midi Class, Music Business, and Music Of The World classes and I loved it, and I think my grades showed it!



It really reminded me how much I want to do music for a living. It kinda sucked a lot when I'd meet people in class and I'd say that I was a music producer and I didn't have any music to share.

Our final project for our Intro to Midi Class was completing a song showing everything we had learned that semester .



Technically the first song I ever finished was that song named "Project 5".



After that I was really motivated to finally finish WE.



It was such a relief to finally finish it and finally move on to a NEW project. I learned a lot that tutorial. Probably one of the most informative so far, just cause Tom Cosm really breaks everything down, which is probably why it took me so long to finish. The whole series is 10 hours long and I watched it twice!

The 2nd song "ALL" I wasn't completely in love with either but I finished it in about a month so I was happy that I finished it so quick.




That song got a few hey that sounded somewhat good compliments, haha. I'm currently working on Suck. I stalled a little bit because my computer can't handle everything Ableton needs to do and it started getting clicky and it got sooooo annoying. It hurts my ears to listen to it. When I export it though, of course all the clicks are gone and then and I can hear what the song really sounds like. Aside from that, it's not bad, I kinda like it.

I wasn't happy at all with the pace I was going at. If I really wanted to do this, I'd be a lot further than 2 songs in 2 years, and not even originals. I really wasn't happy. I needed to change something, get some sort of schedule to get the ball rolling. I think the reasons I wasn't falling in love with producing was because I wasn't allowed to be completely be creative on my own. I had fun doing the tutorials but these weren't my tracks. I followed the tutorials mostly to a T, except for when I thought it was ok to change things a bit, like melodies and automation, this way I still had some input in the track and at the same time I could show someone and say this is the result I got with this tutorial. I was more in a learning state of a mind than a creative state of mind.

This past month I had a lot of personal things going on and this was the main thing that weighed heaviest on my heart. 2 weeks ago I decided that needed to change. Between watching Renman's Music Business videos and reading The Success Principles it really HIT ME that I'm an amazing dreamer but not an amazing doer. To get what I really wanted out of life, I'd need to start taking ACTION, and a lot of it. Instead of needing to know everything, I needed to just JUMP IN and learn from EXPERIENCE as I go.

If I'm on the clock at work, I put 110% into my job. I'm the guy who takes his job too seriously. I need to take that work ethic and invest it in ME. 2 weeks ago, I planned out my next few years. I made goals for every aspect of my life. BIG goals with small attainable goals along the way. I'm actually really excited about the next two years. Its gonna be a helluva ride. I'm ready to put in the same dedication I had towards drums and my old band and put it towards music production.

There's currently 4 more tutorials I want to finish before I'm completely on my own....  that was my original thinking and look how well that's been working.

I need to start getting creative and work on my own completely original music. I know enough of Ableton to get around to wherever I need to go pretty easy but when it comes to actual sound synthesis I need a lot more practice. For now, I'm gonna say screw it and not gonna care and just use presets and play with knobs til I feel comfortable enough to start making my own sounds. I think that was another thing that stalled me for a while. There's this huge debate on whether its OK or not to use presets on VST's and it's mostly frowned upon but I'm not an engineer. I have a lot to learn before I can get to getting my own sounds.  I'm gonna consider presets my training wheels, so I can at least start working on my own songs. YES, I will be using presets, but of course I will also play with the knobs and add and combine and do things and experiment to try to get new sounds. And at the end of the day, who f'n cares. I really could care less if someone used all presets to make an amazing song. I see that as someone used the instruments they were given and made something amazing with it. I don't listen to a band and think, oh well that sucked because they used instruments that were already built, they didn't build their own guitars and pedals.

So my new schedule is to have one song assigned to each day. 3 days of tutorial songs, 3 days of my own songs and Sunday is whatever I feel like working day. It looks something like this.

Monday - "Suck" Sonic Academy Tutorial
Tuesday - "8" My first completely original song. Mostly housey.
Wednesday - "At" Tom Cosms Dubstep Tutorial
Thursday - "3" My second completely original song. Mostly Mostly housey.
Friday - "First" Originally was gonna be a Trap tutorial but it was just a tutorial on building a trap drum rack. So I have the drums ready, just need to do everything else, haha. This will mostly be an original.
Saturday - "1" My third completely original song. Mostly funky
Sunday - Whatever I'm most excited about.

That was my schedule for the last two weeks and.... its working! I feel like my excitement for making music has been renewed. I haven't had this much fun since I learned to play drums. I used to spend an hour a day practicing drums and that was usually my favorite hour of the day. I couldn't play longer because... well I got the cops called on me a lot, so I struck a deal with the neighbors. It helps knowing that if I don't work on this one song today, I'm gonna have to wait another week to work on it and I don't want to wait because I'm genuinely excited about the songs I'm working on, even the one with all the clicks. It keeps me on track to be working on 6 songs continually. I'll always have something fresh to work on, so I wont get burned out on one idea. I'm also playing with different genres til I develop my own "Jamie Cherish" sound cause I love it all.

Once I'm finished with Suck, At, First, and the bonus Mostly, I'm gonna have to revise my schedule.
Part 2 of the schedule will look the same except M,W,F will be replaced by my own new original songs. Every day, I'll watch one YouTube Video or Article and learn something new or keep myself refreshed with new technique. I'm gonna make a playlist of every good tutorial I can find and watch one a day and apply what I learned in the video that same day. After that, I'll work on whatever the song of the day is.

The goal this year is to finish W.A.S.A.F...M by June and release 831 on my birthday, which yes, is August 31st.

This ended up A LOT LONGER than I had originally planned but I'm glad I wrote it all out.
In a way this was my "State of Jamie Cherish Address" 2014.

Decided to give in.

For the longest time I had trouble accepting that iPods we're taking over physical CD's. I remember I used to have two CD binders that held 256 CD's each and those were such a huuuuuge pain in the ass to carry anywhere.

I had them alphabetized by genre so I knew where to find anything. Behind the CD I'd put the CD insert just in case I ever wanted to look at it again. My biggest fear, was losing my CD collection. If someone were to ever rob the house or break into my car or if everything went up in flames; it would suck to lose a lot of things but the thing I'd be the most upset about were those CD binders. 

The main reason I got an iPod, which was a 4th Gen "Classic", was so I could take it with me instead of the CD case, that way if my car was ever broken into all they'd take was my iPod (which did happen once in SF).

Then I got used to the iPod and slowly fell madly in love with it. I could have ALL my music in one place. I loved it! I've always had an iPod after that. The new thing the kids are loving to do these day is stream music, whether it be YouTube or Spotify or some other music streaming service. I purchased a Spotify Premium account two months ago and am slowly falling in love with new technology all over again. With the offline feature, when I want I can put music on my computer so I don't have to stream and I can also download songs on my phone! I've been wanting to get a new laptop for the last month or two. It's gonna have to come after I get buy my 2nd studio monitor to complete my set.

I'm getting tons of clips and pops when making my track in Ableton because I don't have enough memory. Its making it extremely difficult to listen to and almost makes me not want to make music. I thought in the meantime what I'll do is upload everything I want to keep to a cloud, like drop box and since all my music is on iTunes Match, I don't really need it on my computer. After doing that I could completely reformat my computer and just install the bare minimum things I need to produce until I can buy a new laptop. I went to my iTunes folder to delete the music and had it all highlighted and than it hit me that I've finally accepted the cloud for music. I didn't really need the actual files downloaded to my computer at all times. I can almost always access it either through iTunes Match or Spotify and download whenever.

Bam, just like that, I'm accepting the future. And that's just the iTunes folder, SoulSeek is another 60 gigs of where I kept all my downloaded music. Don't get me wrong, I will probably buy a hard drive and re-download everything there and keep 1 hard drive specifically for music files and I'm OK with using both as main sources and backups of my music libraries. As far as the music I'll need for my DJ Sets. I'll have 1 folder with all the songs I'll need that I'm sure isn't going to take up 100 gb worth of memory, at least I hope.