UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

Anyone who follows this blog and/or my musical (mis)adventures (and bothers to remember any of it all) may recall that back in January I recorded a 21-minute prog rock suite called 66. If you don’t remember, it’s available in its entirety, both as 10 individual tracks and the complete suite, on my music site.

As usual, I’ve spent a ton of time listening to 66 since I recorded it. If my iTunes play count is to be believed, it’s somewhere in the range of 130 times, but I suspect it’s actually much higher than that, with different versions (the 24-bit version, the 16-bit CD version, the MP3 version), some of which I no longer keep on my computer, plus listening in the car and elsewhere that may not have been logged. The point is, I’ve literally spent days listening to this thing since I recorded it 6 months ago. And, not surprisingly, I eventually started to notice things I was unhappy with.

The most significant issue I had was with the drum sound. I don’t really play drums. (Well, OK, I do play drums, but I don’t really play drums.) The drum tracks are MIDI software instruments, part of GarageBand. I played the drum parts on my keyboard, looped them, tinkered with them endlessly in the track editor, and eventually arrived at an end result. But there were two problems: 1) they were too repetitive, and 2) they sounded plastic. The issues went beyond the drums, but they were my main source of frustration with what I had created.

I’ve been considering putting together a 3-track prog rock album this year called 3, in the format of the Yes albums Close to the Edge and Relayer. That would be one “side-long” track, followed by two “half-side” tracks. In other words, the first track should be around 20 minutes long, and the other two should be about 8-12 minutes each. I already have tracks 1 and 2: track 1 is the 66 suite, of course, retitled for these purposes as “66 (The Mother Road).” Track 2 is the final track of my improvised RPM Challenge album from February, 222, known originally as “All Together Now” but to be retitled “222 (All Together Now).” The final track hasn’t been written yet, and I don’t know what it will be like, other than that it will be about 10 minutes long and its title will be in the form of “Number (Three Parenthetical Words).” A hackneyed concept, I suppose, but that’s how I roll.

Anyway, since I’m repackaging two existing tracks for this album, it also gives me an opportunity to remix them (and, to some extent, to reworking them even more deeply, in that nether region between remixing and re-recording, which I am not doing).

First up was a remix of 66, which I undertook over the past couple of days. I changed the drum sound I was using from “Pop Kit” to “Rock Kit,” did some serious EQ, tinkered a ton with the reverb to make them sound more “live,” and also rearranged some of the notes in the editor to make the parts a bit more varied and interesting. I also reworked the EQ on the electric bass, as it sounded thin and plastic before, too. And while I was at it I made adjustments to the reverb settings on the guitar and Mellotron parts, and I also removed an 8-measure section of the final part, to eliminate some unnecessary repetition.

The end result then went through my new mastering process, which I think does a better job of beefing up the sound without completely squashing the dynamic range. And now, I present it to you. Enjoy!

[audio:http://blog.room34.com/wp-content/uploads/underdog/room34_66_the_mother_road_remix.mp3|titles=Room 34: 66 (The Mother Road) (July 2010 remix)]

Dieter Rams, legendary industrial designer from Braun in the 1950s and ’60s, pretty much invented my design aesthetic. I can’t imagine what the world of technology would look like without his pioneering work. Brilliant.

I especially like his design principle #10: “Good design is as little design as possible.”

I probably didn’t hear of Dieter Rams until about ten years ago, but I’ve seen the world through his eyes since I was a kid. Most of these Braun products were not readily available in the U.S. in those days (the late ’70s and early ’80s), but their designs were so influential that just about everything you could get here still looked like them, or pale imitations thereof.

Jason Kottke also tidily sums up Rams’ influence on modern industrial design:

And hey, I didn’t know that a book had been published on Rams’ work. I bet Jony Ive has at least three copies.

I’ll take one of everything, please.

Source: Monoscope via kottke.org

As I’ve mentioned before, my CMS, cms34, is built on the CakePHP framework. I love CakePHP, but it’s not perfect.

A client contacted me last week, reporting that customers using her website — specifically, a complex form that might take 30 or more minutes to complete — were having their sessions timeout during that process. Now, yes, you may point out (and you would be right) that this is an excellent scenario for using AJAX to save a draft of the users’ form data, or at least ping their session to keep it alive. And you would be correct. But there are two reasons I did not take this path in response to the problem: 1) I’m trying to remember to follow the web standards principle that JavaScript should be used only to enhance functionality, but the site should still work even with it turned off (though in practice I often forget to honor this principle), and 2) the site is in its peak of activity this week, and it would be daft to implement a major functionality change in the form right now — not enough time for adequate testing.

So, the task at hand was simply to increase the session timeout period, so users could stay on the form for a longer time without losing their sessions.

Seems easy enough. The CakePHP config.php file has some settings that play directly into this: Session.timeout and Security.level.

Session.timeout is an integer representing the number of seconds in the session. Well, not exactly. It’s a multiplier value, and the actual session timeout duration is determined by multiplying Session.timeout by the value associated with Security.level, which itself has three possible values: high, medium and low, corresponding respectively to ×10, ×100 and ×300.

I already had Security.level set to low and Session.timeout set to 1800, so really, the sessions should have stayed alive for over six days of inactivity. And yet, sessions were timing out after about 20 minutes. What gives?

What gives is another value in the config.php file: Session.save.

CakePHP offers a number of ways to store session data, but the default value is php, which means it uses the built-in session functionality in PHP. The problem is, PHP has its own session timeout setting (in the php.ini file), and frankly my dear, PHP doesn’t give a damn what CakePHP’s session timeout setting is. And so, with Session.save left at its default php value, my sessions were timing out after 20 minutes (the PHP default) no matter what I changed in config.php.

So, an experiment: I decided to change Session.save to cake, which tells it to use CakePHP’s own session cache, located inside your CakePHP application under app/tmp/sessions. (Be sure that path is fully writable by Apache!)

Success! I left a browser window open on my test site overnight, and the session was still active the next morning. But along the way in my troubleshooting, I had changed my Session.timeout value to 14400, which when combined with the Security.level setting of low (that is, when multiplied by 300), had my sessions enduring for a ridiculously long 50 days! Some quick work with a calculator (although, in retrospect, I ought to have been able to divide 14400 by 50 in my head) told me to set Session.timeout to 288 if I wanted my sessions to last for 24 hours.

I’m a big fan of the blog Brand New. I like seeing the “before and after” of various brand identities.

Lately I’ve been contemplating a brand refresh of my own. I’ve been mostly satisfied with the current Room 34 Creative Services logo. I really like the “rings” design element, the color palette, and, even though it’s overused, the Avenir font:

But there are some things I don’t like about the logo. I’ve been getting a little tired of the colors (even though I like them); I’m increasingly regretting including the “.com” (even though I like the fact that my logo is my web address); and I don’t like the redundant “Room 34.” Plus, Avenir is overused.

So, today I took a first stab at a new identity. It has a new color palette, using one of my favorite colors, reddish-orange (or vermillion if you prefer a more poetic name for it), it eliminates the redundant text, and it switches to another of my favorite, but much less common, fonts: Proxima Nova:

I’m not 100% committed to this change yet; rebranding is a big undertaking, even for a business as small as mine. Switching to this new logo will require redesigning my website, my letterhead and my business cards. But I like the direction. I especially like the letterforms (or, I guess, numeralforms) of the “3” and “4” in Proxima Nova Black. So nice. The new logo is also more compact and scales down better than the old.

Update: Based on JW’s excellent recommendations (and a few observations of my own) I’ve made a few adjustments: 1) improved spacing between the “o’s” in “room”; 2) resized the rings slightly for better lockup with the text — the top of the “4” ring group is now aligned with the top of the letters in “room”; 3) slight change to the color in “CREATIVE SERVICES” so it is more readable on either a light or dark background.

Here’s the new version, on both white and black:

As my regular reader(s) know(s), I like to close out every year with a list of my top 5 albums. And usually every year around July I start thinking about how the year has crossed the halfway mark and I start looking at the albums I’ve amassed thus far in the year. I don’t always write about it, but I do always think about it.

In the spirit of openness (or, more accurately, in the spirit of assuming you care), here’s a list of the new music I’ve acquired thus far in 2010, possible candidates for the top 5 list I’ll eventually write in December or so.

Absinthe and the Dirty Floors: Side 1
Since this is an EP, it’s not really in contention for the top 5 albums, but it’s such a fun, energetic EP that it is at least worth mentioning. It’s also a nod to the multi-talented Joshua Wentz, who’s been known to show up in the comments here from time to time. (Learn more at the band’s website.)

The Bird and the Bee: Interpreting the Masters, Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates
This is a strange album. I love The Bird and the Bee, almost as much as I love Hall and Oates. I grew up with these songs. And yet, I’m strangely dissatisfied with this album; the “interpretations” are neither terribly original nor terribly strong compared to the originals. And yet (again), even though I’m strangely dissatisfied with the album, I’m also strangely compelled by it. In a year of strong releases from a number of creative artists, this disappointing, halfhearted effort from one of my favorites is still enjoyable and has been on heavy rotation on my computer, my iPhone, and in my car.

Broken Bells: Broken Bells
Take one member of The Shins and one of Gnarls Barkley — two bands I generally dislike — and put them together, and strangely, you get a band I really do like. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like the other members of these bands, but it’s probably just that these guys are trying something new. Whatever the case, it’s worth checking out.

Coheed and Cambria: Year of the Black Rainbow
I was really enthralled with Coheed and Cambria when I first discovered them in 2005, but with each subsequent album their schtick has seemed more contrived and pointless. This album, while on par with their previous work, is mostly an unenjoyable slog. Still, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch the band live this summer on a double bill with Porcupine Tree… but mainly for Porcupine Tree. (Unfortunately, I’ll have to pass up the opportunity, since the closest they’re coming to here is… Grand Rapids, Michigan?! What?!?!)

Field Music: Field Music (Measure)
The members of the band don’t see it themselves, but I’ve always thought Field Music sounds more than a little bit like Gentle Giant, and that definitely continues with this latest album. Like Gentle Giant, this music is probably an… erm… acquired taste, but it’s worth giving a chance.

Gorillaz: Plastic Beach
Much has been made of this “band” since they first appeared on the scene a few years ago. It’s a weird concept, and in the past I didn’t really enjoy it much, but this album really grabbed my attention. It kind of drifts off course in the middle (around the time Lou Reed appears), but overall it’s highly original, frequently weird, and generally satisfying.

MGMT: Congratulations
Here’s another band that’s been popular for a few years but that I’ve never been able to get into before now. I’m still not enjoying this album as much as I feel like I should (or, want to), but it’s cool. I hate the cover art though.

Pat Metheny: Orchestrion
If you don’t know anything about Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion project, stop reading this and watch this video right now!

Porcupine Tree: Anesthetize and Atlanta
I’ve been a huge PT fan for over a decade now, and they have yet to let me down. These stellar live performances from 2008 are absolutely worth seeking out. Anesthetize is the big release: a DVD/CD combo featuring a performance of their 2007 studio album Fear of a Blank Planet in its entirety. Atlanta is available as a download on their website, and was originally planned as a live album, but was eventually considered superfluous when the opportunity to film Anesthetize in the Netherlands presented itself.

Room 34: 66 and 222
Yes, a little self-promotion never hurt anyone. I recorded 66 in January and 222 in February. 66 is a 21-minute prog rock suite depicting a voyage along historic US Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, and is probably my most cohesive and well-executed project to date. 222 is an 8-1/2 minute experimental free-form improv on 6 instruments, with the 6 instrumental tracks organized into different permutations, resulting in 8 different “pieces” on the album all constructed from the same performances. I am contemplating producing a third prog-ish piece in the 8- to 10-minute range, and releasing the 66 suite, “All Together Now” (the final track from 222 that includes all 6 instrument parts), and this third piece, as a full-length album structured like the Yes classics Close to the Edge and Relayer, entitled 3. We’ll see if that happens. In the meantime, you can download both 66 and 222 for free at my music website.

Rush: Caravan/BU2B
The resurgence of Rush in the last few years is exciting for any long-time fans (like myself). Snakes and Arrows was arguably the band’s best album in over 20 years, and based on the strength of these two tracks, next year’s Clockwork Angels promises to carry on in the same vein.

The Seven Fields of Aphelion: Periphery
I’m not even entirely sure how I discovered this album, but it’s great mellow/ambient music for background listening.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: I Learned the Hard Way
No, this album was not recorded in 1967, but you’d never know from how it sounds. The Daptone label specializes in recording with vintage equipment to capture a classic ’60s R&B sound that simply cannot be duplicated with modern equipment. Forget digital, even solid state analog equipment loses the warmth, the soul, that is the essence of this music. Highly recommended.

Sleepy Sun: Fever
Here’s another album where I can’t really remember how I discovered it, but I really like it. This music, too, is dripping with a ’60s essence, but this time it’s the trippy, acid-fueled explorations of the San Francisco Bay Area. At times dreamy and ethereal, at times raw and harsh, always eerily engaging.

Spoon: Transference
If I remember correctly, this was the first new album I purchased in 2010, and it was a good start to the year. Spoon, like Fujiya & Miyagi or The Mooney Suzuki, is at least nominally influenced by the legendary ’70s German band Can. While I have yet to hear a Can-influenced band that can touch the mind-blowingly original, minimalist rock sound of Can, Spoon’s music manages to evoke a similar spirit, despite its more accessible, straightforward approach.