Do you say what I think you do? Are you exposing the more shady sides of your persona at darker places than KVR for us to discover, and enjoy if you're into that sort if things.

No, I don't get much rougher on the web than Twitter (I use a lot of swears there). I'm far less interesting of a software developer than, say, John McAfee.

I'm just saying that if the kids get on the Internet, there are a lot worse places than KVR out there. If I was to list my worries, having my kids get caught up in an argument about whether or not the oversampling in an 1176 model is working correctly is probably very very far down on that list.

Sean Costello

What would you reckon would be the counterpart of the Devil's Interval in DSP programming terms? Any idea?

A waveguide reverb based on a pentagram or the Seal of Solomon. Delay lengths chosen to correspond to EVIL numbers. The entire structure uses THIS type of modulation:

http://soundcloud.com/seancostello/ghostelectrons

"What is this that stands before me?"

Sean Costello

Oh! That's very very very ****'d up. I love it!

...know exactly what you mean... Aether 1.5.1 was a combination of Starbucks venti americanos, green tea, black tea, and/or Yerba Mate!

After a while you start finding you heart is racy and you have a panic-ed feeling, not to mention normal sleep habits are completely thrown out the window. Going to sleep while the mind is "high on ideas" is hard enough. Mix in some caffeine, and it is almost impossible.

Lately coffee is mostly out for me, and Starbucks is completely out. (>400mg of Caffeine in a venti americano for F's sake!!)

Green tea and Yerbe Mate is still in the mix though. But in better moderation. No more 5-tea-bag family-size does!

Protein shakes with raw oatmeal in them are helpful to to stabilize blood sugar which in turn avoids the panic response and helps concentration.

you'd seriously need an antidoping control, all of you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and let's not even mention raw cocoa beans as one can acquire at whole foods etc... those things are down right dangerous!

Theobromine + caffiene = definite heart stress!!

Red wine counteracts this some... but red wine + chocolate is better for music composition/performance than it is for coding... Makes you too emotional/intuitive and less rigidly logical...

If you allow me (more seriously,although a bit off-topic)...



...at a more humble level the general rule i've heard is black coffee for sound engineer and hash/weed for musicians

Make relative sense that, being under cannabinoïd state of mind doesn't much affect negatively all the acquired playing techniques of musicians (...as well as artist-painter)

But at the time you're composing with such complex and dissimilar tools you usually have to handle as home-studist you unavoidably need to have a methodic approach...at this time it doesn't make sense anymore

I, for one, stopped any kind of smoke more than 20 years ago by now, but i won't deny any interest of some of these stuffs as an "emotional amplifier" ...at the time you stay careful and clearly bound their use as such in an creative context

...by comparison with another level, the use of sacred plant by natives (like peyotl) is something strictly ruled inside their related cosmogonies and has absolutely nothing in commom with the recreative use known in our western societies

I was eating some Theo for awhile during the summer & fall (Theo is actually the name of a local chocolate company, that puts out bars that are 72% pure cocoa). I never thought of chocolate as a stimulant, until I started eating the pure stuff. Eventually I figured out that it was causing mood crashes, and wasn't that helpful for coding.



I was able to handle a similar caffeine diet a year ago. I'd go to a local coffee shop (not Starbucks - I can't stand burnt coffee ), get a triple white mocha, and then drink a small pot of homemade drip coffee during the day. I'm lucky that my heart didn't explode.



I had LOTS of 3 am nights with Room and ÜberMod. On the one hand, you feel like you are getting things done (and you are, and you have lots of ideas). On the other hand, getting going in the morning is pretty brutal, and REQUIRES megadosing on caffeine, so the pattern gets further entrenched.



I'll give that a try. I might try some kale smoothies as well. Ideally, I could get a 4+ mile walk in before coding, but the weather and family schedule are currently conspiring against that.

Sean Costello

I hear meth is pretty good.

I meant to say something like that in my recent post. You quickly learn the way each control will dramatically effect the sound by, so I hardly use the couple included presets. It is a reverb you use for effect and texture. It sounds best in foreground of a track. It almost behaves like a dynamically triggered space synth in a way, especially when you start using the pitch shifting. If you want a layer of "the sound of vast space", this is the effect.

I can see if you are working on different DAW/plugin formats for the need of effect specific presets/browser, but there are still lots of plugins that don't have that. Plus it is only $50 for such a great easy to use niche effect, and it doesn't use a dongle. If it cost more and otherwise used a dongle (*cough* Eventide Blackhole), then I would understand the moaning and crying about that feature. But go back to tweaking knobs and going through preset menus in hardware if that workflow is any faster

As I said, I'll look into the preset browser for a future update, and see if it is possible to integrate without screwing up the existing presets. There may be a code conflict, and there may not. I can't commit to adding the preset browser until I look into this, as it is more important to retain backwards compatibility for projects that use the existing ValhallaShimmer presets than it is to add a new feature.

I'll need to do an update in the future anyway for 64-bit OSX VST, and I'm sure that changes by Apple & others will force me to make other updates. I can't commit to any specific timeline as to when such changes would happen, as I need to finish the immediate tasks on hand here at the Halls of Valhalla. Even minor updates take a few weeks to implement, debug, beta test and distribute at this point, so I need to have some dedicated time for the update process.

Sean Costello

On or off the topic of caffeine:
Years ago when I was in school/college I used to be on a high dose of an Adderall/Ritalin type drug, Concerta to be exact. I also worked morning at a local coffee shop, with all the free coffee and espresso shots I could handle. I would get melodies and song ideas going through my head constantly. But as soon as my shift would end, I would get home, sit down and then crash power nap before evening classes, so ideas would not get recorded/composed. I would then get up for class, re-dose my meds and drink another cup of coffee before classes. Then I'd be wired for most of the night trying to study while thinking I could be doing music stuff. ADD at it's best/worst. After school ended, I realized I don't really need the ADD meds and they got expensive after getting cheaper health care. The "doctor" told me everything he could to convince me to stay on them, because his profits from me would be lost. I basically told him he was just a legal drug dealer and full of sh*t.

I'll sometimes get them from people if I need a boost for a long day. There is usually someone who has a script for them just about anywhere you work. I just wish weed was completely legal instead of the legally prescribed crazy stimulant speed. The first week I was on those pills for the first time in my life, I had called the doctor and told him I was basically tripping and having all sorts of side effects, and he said just keep taking them

Well, if you live in WA or CO, your wishes came true on Election Day!

I just wish that this whole discussion about stimulants and work wasn't relevant to me. I'm not sure if I could have done this sort of programming when I was younger without having to worry about the right amount of caffeine to consume - I didn't drink coffee in my 20s, and I didn't program computers either. Creating plugins is fun, but it also strains my brain at times.

I seriously need to look into Andrew Souter's protein shake w/raw oatmeal. I should try the kale smoothies again.

Back on topic: Here's an interesting link someone sent me, with ValhallaShimmer being used to process environmental sounds.

http://vimeo.com/53703830

Sean Costello