Alvaro M. Rocha - Official Site

Beyond Beyond Piano

2008-02-29T10:15:00.005Z

Alvaro M. Rocha speaks about a conceptual acoustic album - "The Beyond Piano Project" - which he produced, and lately has steared the Internet as everyone wonders how such hard classical piano pieces were done and by whom.

Curious about "The Beyond Piano Project" credits?
We give you, without further ado, the "secret", revealed:

AMR notes about "The Beyond Piano Project"
Colocado por alvaromrocha

"The Beyond Piano Project" can be found here.
Video background music is Alvaro M. Rocha's "The Shire", part of the Aequo Animo Remaneo album.

Aequo Animo Trinitas

2008-01-10T17:55:00.002Z

The first part of "Aequo Animo", Alvaro M. Rocha's debut album, the "Primordium" part of the Trinity, has been slightly delayed for logistical reasons and is expected to be released before end of January (is was originally scheduled for the Christmas New Year season).

We apologize for any inconvenience and hope you enjoy the album.

Seduce any woman

2007-12-17T15:34:00.002Z

Pick them all up

I've been planning to write a series of articles going on about how to seduce any women, anywhere, at any time - in fact, I've started doing so in my native language, Portuguese (as you may observe on the top right, there's a Portuguese version of this site).

So, why not do it in English too? I'll try to adapt it to a more universal cultural environment, although what I'm about to write about works any time, anywhere, with any woman.

I'll start with the three golden rules to get any female totally in love, or in lack of a better word, filled with a thrilling overwhelming passion, and along this series of articles I'll go into detail. I'll also work on the self-confidence aspect, since it's needed to further work on the following gold rules.

So here goes everything, and, as you might expect, it has more to do with the woman herself, than with you, but we'll get into that later.

The three rules to get any women to fall in love

1 - Appeal to her physical self
2 - Appeal to her social self
3 - Appeal to her idealized self

I'll give you some time to breath and go over the bollocks reaction.

Actually that is all, no more, no less.
No one said it is or has to be complicated, people only make it so.

Many of my customers (in this and other areas) sometimes find my over-simple (but not simplistic) approach a tad bit hard to believe. "Things" really are that much so simple, once you get to know them, and believing has nothing to do with it, at least, not for now.

If you thought "romance", "money", "looks", "chemicals", "hypnotic techniques" and even a big... er... whatever? Then you're probably going from A to B backwards through the whole alphabet and, even more probably, getting stuck.

I'm glad to tell you that that's the bollocks part - no rich man is ugly and size matters and so on - and show you trough a whole new faster, cleaner and more satisfying direction from A to B - simple, but an adventure, and an healthy one at that - leaving you free to enjoy the rest of the alphabet, if you get my metaphor.

Every show on TV, like Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives gives you a very wrong idea of what women want, although it is the right idea: they don't know what they want, but they know that they will know once they see it.

Confused?

More to come for I think (make that "am sure") that I, *hold on*, know.

Many women who may read this are probably already laughing in contempt thinking I'm a pompous idiot instead of a know it all charming hunky playboy, and that's the fun part, I don't need to be, those can get in line.

Please mind that even in the informal approach I'll use to explain all of this, this works so well you create a violent sweeping fast hot fire passion in one or more women and it's important that you don't toy around with peoples feelings, not only for ethical and moral reasons, but for others I'll go through later on.

Meditate on the three rules for now, and prepare yourself for a "funtastic" ride through the most mysterious subject in the Universe: Women, and the hidden secrets of the world's most famous (or not) womanizers.

Hang on tough! (no Freudian jokes please)

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved.

Bargainly Expensive

2007-11-06T21:51:00.001Z

I've read everything you can think of about motivation, self-insurance, positivism and all that.

Mind you it's quite a therapy to get you a "buzz" for a few days, with a great life giving smile.

But it's fake, it's crap, it's to much effort trying to force yourself to a false state.

After many many years of practice (well, at this point, a maximum of 32), and practicing martial arts and psychological sciences along the way, I've reached quite a few conclusions I'll be posting here and there as I feel.

So you can really become totally motivated without any effort, without the "hangover" when negativity sets in again and... without the crap.

So, today's rule (I think I'll keep it to one rule per post) is:

Feel good about yourself.

It's a stupid rule right? Not so.

I've just been rumbling around about how difficult it is to keep a positive state of mind forcing it on an on and now I just take off a "Feel good about yourself" from the hat.

But it's true, and it only takes work one time and some tiny discipline you'll do because you like, not because you have too. But the rule has branches, so here goes, using me as example:

1) Bath

Every morning, full bath, no excuses.
Enjoy it. Keep clean, and keep the nails impeccable (not dirty, that is).

2) Clothes / Shoes

Choose simple but nice.

My trick is 4-to-8 full blazer+pants sets, designed by either Angelo Litrico, Hugo Boss or Giorgio Armani , in my case - some expensive, some more affordable, but in reality there are some equally very nice and quite quite affordable (C&A "CANDA" clothes spring to mind, also cool and even cheaper, they - C&A - also sell very nice Angelo Litrico's more informal but classy urban stuff).

Just one black belt is enough, classic buckle, in absolute genuine leather, with simple but classy design. This is enough, sticking to black color dominance to keep budget controlled and visual looks at top notch.

Add to that a set of 8-to-12, again anything from Angelo Litrico "minimal" T-Shirts up to Gianni Versace ones (not really that important), in several one tone color, which I wear with the above suits. Then I just "go trough" the sets combining 8 suits with 11 T-Shirts, so it always looks different.

At the moment I have all black suits, some anthracite grayish black, most with vertical stripes (well, one is gray, and one is blue, and I also have a really expensive classic tuxedo for special occasions - I don't like to rent).

The T-Shirts are one color only, faded, some have difficult to see "prints", for style (like "Versace" or "Wild Life Care Taker". I'll add some photos when I can, if I remember.

Make sure nothing is fake, this is important, it's best to wear something affordable by CANDA or ZARA than to wear a fake "Hugo Boss" that is even cheaper - people will notice it's fake, specially those with genuine ones, and those you really have to impress.

For a great look, Angelo Litrico is the best bet, for value for money.

They look sophisticated, cool, and yet not flamboyant.
Enough to impress as it should at the office, as "formal" yet "innovative" - and you'll look young and feel great. And it's only three pieces of clothes.

9 pairs of full black socks, and 9 pairs of comfortable lower (only) underwear, branded if you want to impress your soul mate or whatever, but nothing to fancy... keep it simple and nice.

Two to seven pairs of black shoes (depends on how much you walk and so forth), with nice but discrete design (I wear Italian and Portuguese, fabulous), in full black real leather, but with rubber (black) soils. I use those with a "holes" technology underneath that let's the feet breath but no water gets in. Every time I take them off I spray them with a disinfectant designed for it (shoes), as I do spray/cream the feet when out of the bath with an anti-germs and anti-fungus lotion, but that's not at all necessary, just something I do (being a high-end sports dude in the past I took this habit).

Maintaining the black palette makes you save, and black goes with everything, as does white, but white gets dirty too fast (please read: during the time you are wearing it, very early).

Always shine the shoes before leaving, I use an "auto" brush that makes them so in a 3 seconds scrub.

So now you're all good and shiny for office, looking sophisticated, smelling great and allow, if you can afford the time, with no shame, the occasional 5 morning minutes of sport, dressed with the above, for it allows for sport too.

3) Hair

Washed and looking treated.
Paint it if gray makes you uncomfortable.
My advice now is to indeed paint the hair if it's gray at only a few spots, unless they are so well place it makes you look like a "glow" instead of an "aging" human.

Then do something with it before leaving: comb, gel it, whatever.
I use a cream (Loreal Elvive Liss-Perfect usually, I'm not very picky here) to treat it that takes some time to dry, and it's great to work effects on the hair, makes you look cared immediately and in 5 seconds you score 50 points in self-esteem.

3) Teeth / Lips

Well, more like "breath", and this is important: it's better to disguise it with a gum than making others endure it, but treat it as soon as you can if you have a problem. Trust me, it's just one to three appointments at the dentist that WILL change your life.

Then all you have to do is wash them at least once a day (night), though I recommend two and some thing to refresh the mouth (I use something by Colgate), try to not make them look too yellow... white makes a difference.

I use something with "Q10" enzyme creamy thing on the lips, which is not bright (that would not be very "manly") but makes them homogeneous and look "tasty" young and uniform. And it feels great too.

4) Skin

Let's not be alarmist here.
All it takes is a little to result in a lot.

I usually use "Clearasil" wipes to rub the face (talk about cheap) and neck, and then a "Loreal" revitalift for the eye's and a "double-effect revitalift" for the face, which makes you look gloomy and younger in just a few seconds... but you can go for more sophisticated labs stuff like Vichy, Lâncome or so (sometimes I do) if you want to make some sort of specific treatment... I'm just polishing enough to please a lot, here - no need to go hunting diamonds to look fresh and luminescent.

More than all that, you'll look so clean and cool, you'll be in control even if you don't want to be - instant respect. Look at that posture automatically improving! Hands cream is also a must, which I tend to moisture with the same thing I use on my face (the revita lift thing, remember, I keep it simple, I'm a (metro-sexual?) man).

During summer or outdoor days, I also use a sun screen moisture, usually also Loreal's triple action hydrant, I like the scent and feel - as I do the products from these labs for everyday use and good results.

5) Weight

This is a false problem.
It is only a problem if you look like a slob. I know many fat people that look delightful and charming, because they follow all the rules above.

Still, the easier way to make your weight work for you is pretending to try and keep it under control, at some point, you'll want to - although it's not important for you image if all above is followed. Too much is as bad as too little.

6) Scent

I rather should say: fragrances.

Only use if bathed or it will smell bad!
Be sure to use deodorants under armpits too, with no scent preferably or a weak one, not to mix with the colognes. Same for the aftershave (if you use), I use Gillette's new one "Fusion" (which smells like good cigars and leather, but discrete) after the 6 blade Power Fusion close shave.

Then go for the last touch of class... My usual sent is Jean Paul Gautier's "Le Male", discrete but very appealing. Although he has a new white one I love - inspires intimacy and independence - sex and tropicals - as the former one, but more mature and peaceful, not as restless and energetic, time to change perhaps.

Givenchy's "Very Irresistible" is a tad to obvious -a bit youngish for me - but works wonders for immediate attention IF and only IF you follow the rules above, or you'll look ridiculous.

Hugo Boss's Bottled is great for Office use, and Giorgio Armani's "Acqua di Gio" for the outside.

Still, I prefer Gautier's to every occasion, and so it's the only I use nowadays.
And follow the rule of thumb: just a little, I spray a bit on the neck and on both my wrists and that's it, I can barely feel the fragrance, others can. If you can feel it a lot you over did it and that will work against you.

It's you that needs to smell good, it's not the smell that has to announce you're somewhere near, bathing and clean clothes do 99% of the job, the fragrance (make sure it's expensive, it will last months) is a simple tiny "diamond" enough to make a huge difference.

7) One and one only prestigious accessory

Mine is a watch, an Emporio Armani Red AR series digital clock, which is... Red, and looks awesome with the black suits. And it was not expensive either, although it looks really expensive. I bought it because I really like it, I would have had payed more for it.

Do make positive sure it's genuine.

Don't ever use fake stuff - it will bounce back at you as a negative thing, and you want to feel good, right? Positive.

There you go, instant positivity...
You may now go out, go out with a big (white nice smelling beautiful) smile, and this all only took around 3 to 10 minutes depending on how fast you are.

Hang the suits and shirts as soon as you get them off, use shirts/socks/underwear only once, then wash before reusing - try to make the suits look impeccable (folded right), the shirts not that much, but don't sit on them either, before dressing, if you know what I mean.

And pronto!
Without this, it's (almost) fair to say you can forget about going further on, you need a jump start, and the above is it. Before the prestige comes rolling in, you have to make it see you, most of the times anyway.

Work on just that above for now, adjusting it to your own personal taste.
At night, moisturize the skin again, or even shave (I do, twice a day) then moisturize, you'll wake up looking like a million.

Get the ritual and pieces as perfect as it/they can be, and then will move on to more complicated stuff, like making money, getting babes and looking real hot... getting more money, more expensive stuff, but keeping the "simple" philosophy.

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved.

Die Hard 3 - Puzzle

2007-11-01T22:23:00.003Z

In the Hollywod blockbuster "Die Hard 3 - With a Vengeance", Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson characters are faced with a challenge, a water puzzle, in order to diffuse a bomb: In a fountain of water there's a bomb with a weight meter, which only gets deactivated if it detects the weight of a vase with four gallons of water.

In the pond there are two empty vases, one with five gallons capacity, another with three gallons of capacity. Our Hollywood heroes can only use these to achieve the four gallons of liquid weight filling them with water from the fountain.

There's only a few minutes to place exactly four gallons (one once to much or too less and it's boom) of water weight on top of a bomb's (de)activating weight-meter.What's the solution?

It's not very clear in the movie, but there is indeed one:

Fill the 5 gallons vase to top, then drop it to fill the 3 gallons. The 5 gallons vase will now have two remaining gallons of water, and the 3 gallon vase will be filled.

Now empty the 3 gallons vase.
After emptying it, pour the two gallons that are still in the 5 gallon vase into the, now empty, 3 gallons vase.

The 3 gallon vase now has two gallons of water, and the 5 gallons vase is empty.
Fill the 5 gallons vase to top.

Since the 3 gallons vase still has two gallons of water, from our previous operation, it will only allow for 1 gallon more.

Pour the 5 five gallons vase into the 3 gallons one.
Notice that you'll only be able to pour up to one gallon, to fill the 3 gallons vase, and once you're done, the 5 gallons vase will have exactly the needed... Four gallons of water.

Place the vase in the weight meter, bomb is off and you can go on to Live Free or Die Hard.

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved.

Also featured at shvoong.

Don't drive! Do drive.

2007-10-30T00:06:00.001Z

The Do's and the Dont's

Before going into driving itself, I better start with what makes you eligible for skilled driving, if you don't fit what is described below, you better keep to never breaking the law, pray your car is in perfect order and wish you are lucky enough to never encounter wheel stressed up too much dudes that think they can drive safe.

Defense is the BEST offense

Driving safe secret number one: It's not what you do, it's what you DON'T do that counts.

Always, and I do mean always, ALWAYS drive defensively.
Never assume anything on the road, and when in doubt, memorize these magic super-pilot words: when in doubt, DON'T.

Do this: DON'T.

If you see a pedestrian that may or may not cross the road, assume the worst, DON'T assume you can go on because he will stay put, there's a doubt, then DON'T.

If you see a car entering your way very shy, DON'T assume he will wait for you - you are uncertain? The answer is DON'T.

If you are entering a lane and think you have time when you see a car at distance DON'T assume he comes in slow or will not accelerate...

Is he coming slow? I think he is... you think? That's not a certainty... so DON'T.

So.. er... DON'T?

When in doubt DON'T ever perform what puts you at risk, NEVER. It's not about speed, state of body and mind, tracks, or car, is but about it all together in one decision that separates the good from the flawless, the DON'T factor - live by this rule, and you'll live.

DON'T drive if you feel uncomfortable, not sober, too stressed, whatever.
DON'T risk that extra mile per hour if you don't know what you are doing.
DON'T pass other cars with 0 visibility because you feel lucky.
DON'T go for the cellphone, the radio buttons or the cigar just because you think you can...

If you are not absolutely certain, if it involves doubt... DON'T.
In one word... DON'T.

DO what then?

Ok, here's another magic potion..

DO only what you really know how to, otherwise... you guessed right... DON'T because you'll place yourself and others at risk,

So what is the first thing to do?
The DON'T one.

Fasten your seat belt I'll get on driving skill tips later, for now, meditate on the DON'T, that's what will make you, if not a good, at least a safe pilot ready to learn how to really drive quick and safe, responsible and legal, in other words, quick and safe for the real.

Because the meaning of "fast and furious" is indeed this: "about to kill someone, which includes you".

I'll also get into extreme high-speed techniques too - in fact, much higher speed techniques than any self-called pilot inexperienced over-confident so called "pilot" will ever endure for more than one curve... alive.

Good news is anyone may stop being a risk using the most important power tool know to man - knowledge.

I hope I help by teaching, and also by learning from those who feel they may add or correct to my words - however, high speed skills are to use in the track, altough knowing them wil help a lot on the street.

Happy miles/kilometers.

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved

Driving is heavy

2007-10-27T10:43:00.001+01:00

Many call themselves "skilled" drivers but, sadly, the only thing they rely on is their BAD so called "experience" and a whole lot of luck.

The real weight of your car

How much does your car weighs? 1 ton? 2 tons? What if I say your car can weigh as much as 15 tons and as little as 100 grams?

People mistake mass for weight.
The weight is but the multiplication of a mass by a force, a momentum of that force to be more precise. Gravity is a force that pulls you towards the center of the Earth, inertia is another force that makes you offer resistance to trajectory shifts and so on.

On Earth, gravity momentum provides all objects a constant vertical force, which multiplied by our mass, results in our weight. In space, you have the same mass, but your weight is zero.

But we are not in space

Correct, we are in Earth's atmosphere and subject to Earth gravity. As I said before, the mass never changes which means our weight is always the same... well, not exactly.

If you remember right, I said weight implies an acceleration (or momentum) so, our weight would remain the same if and only if the only force (gravity acceleration) would be the Earth's gravity, but it's not.

Weight... Shifts!

Indeed it shifts.
Cutting the chase lets go down to driving.

When you hit the gas the weight of your car "shifts" to the back, the back tires, the back chassis, the car "squats". If the acceleration is amazingly violent, the front will be so light the front tires may be unable to steer from being almost up in the air,

When you hit the brakes the weight shifts forward - on a extremely rough breaking maneuver, your rear gets so light that in that moment a little kid could turn your car over by raising it's tail effortlessly.

That's not all...

The seat belt

The weight not only "shifts" but also increases in the movement direction, you may weigh 77 kilograms in the vertical but you will also weigh in the horizontal...

If you are accompanied by a woman on your side with a seat belt, but that same women is holding a 5 kilogram baby in the arms, in a crash, at the crash momentum, the baby can weigh up to 5000 kilograms or more, now, can any women hold on to 5 tons?

The same goes for heavy sharp objects in your car. An Innocent hydraulic lifter in the trunk may turn into a 50000 kg per inch pressure bullet trespassing all the car in a crash.

So, do you still think you drive well? Ok, that might be, but that's not all. "G's" are not just up in the curves and on them, you have weight shift in multiple directions... on we go.

Braking

Modern electronics have made it easy to brake nicely by stopping tire locking and shifting the brakes balance on all four wheels, so I'm going to assume your car is geared with ABS and some sort of EDB (braking stability control).

I''d say most cars are quite safe to drive beyond limits unthinkable 20 years ago, but braking still needs some issues approach.

While turning, the weight also shifts to the tires in the turn opposite direction, as does suspension, the car "lays down" towards the opposite direction you are turning to, the car's side on the inside of the turn will be amazingly light... a little wind is all it may take to turn it over, and if you have people on the "lay ed" side of the car, their weight increases also, as does the stress on their side.

If you brake while turning hard, the weight will go forward and towards the opposite side of the turn direction, that means most of the "stress" will be on one tire alone, the front one opposite to the side you are turning too, what does this mean?

Control

By knowing where the weight is you can act/react correctly. If your tail starts to shift when you break hard in a turn (curve), all you need is more weight in the back, hence, throttle press or brake release BUT there are more variables to consider...

Power issues

You have certainly seen "burnouts" with rear-traction vehicles where the drive gives way to much power to the rear wheels and the ground surface resistance is not enough for the wheels to grip - once they grip, the squat is so hard the front of the car ceases to exist and you have uncontrollable slides all the way.

I'm only talking weight here, so we are not going yet into traction matters - I'll go into front and rear drives under/overstear/counter-breaking issues later - which only add more forces to the equation.

If you brake very hard, remember that your tail will be light as a feather and if it "slips" you need to get weight into it to control it, hence, hit the gas or release the brakes.

Then again, if you hit the gas pedal hard - specially with a lot of horse power - remember the front will be lighter and you may loose turning grip, so all it takes is pressing the brakes gently or relieving the gas pedal slightly for the weight to return to the front tires and you get traction back so you can turn.

If you are turning remember the stress goes to the side of the car opposite to the turn direction, if it threats to "turn over" all you need is to counter the massive weight shift by re balancing the car (ending the turn or turn the opposite way - which means turn into the direction the car's weight is shifting to - this in extreme situations) so that the weight gets back on all tires.

Many professional drivers "cut" the turns with the wheel, thus means they slightly turn/straight/turn/straight the wheel in a "zig-zag'ish" way during the turn to avoid the super-stress on one side of the car and lack of weight on the other, this in very extreme "G"-force conditions.

Also remember that having one more person in the car adds mass to it, not well balanced nor fixed mass, and when accelerating and breaking, the harder you do it, the more that same mass weighs and unbalances the full car weight set leading to strange weight shifts - four people in your car mean a lot more stress on your brakes at violent stops, same goes for violent turns and so on.

This all results in the second most important thing you must achieve when driving (the first is the "Don't" I wrote about in another post): being as smooth as humanly possible, no matter how fast you go, be smooth - the most risk inducing factor is lack of smoothness, be smooth, gen til, a harder maneuver may result in fatal weight shifts, even at low speeds, enough for you to loose control.

With a good traction stability control system - most don't have this yet - your car usually does all this for you when you go nearly over it's dynamic limits.

I think we've grasped the subject, but there's a whole lot more to be said about it. Stay tuned, drive safe.

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved.

Music biz delusions

2007-10-26T21:25:00.001+01:00

Less is more, but all new musicians on the block bet on the more is most.

The scenario

If I could get a nickel for every "first ever surround album" created or "first ever dolby digital" or whatever you want to call it hype, I'd be filfy rich. And yes, Jean Michel Jarre comes to mind.

It's not that I dont like surround, I'm an afficcionado of it, and I've been doing it since the early nineties from my electronic classes: implementing basic matricial encoding hardware in the nostalgic ProLogic days.

Memories of simplicity

I remember the "wow" factor in my friends facial expression, when I had a stereo TV, and just added the extra surround channel by playing with wiring and an extra speaker. It was all so natural and easy to me.

I never had this "urge" to shout out "hey look, surround". My dad is also a "quadraphonic" age (sadly a concept that failed in the 60's) curious audiophile, so it was natural to me to do it, audio "surrounding", without to much of a hype, except the experience one.

The near bursting bubble disguised whatever

What's with this recent hype among young musicians that want to be audio engineers than want to be masterers that want to be marketeers, performers, managers, that want their works everywhere as if top notch mega-garbage of bits at mega-infinity of Hertz with google amount of audio channels?

They forget two things... business and people.If these youngsters want to do art, then they should stick to art without being ridiculuous, otherwise,a management MBA is in order, and also polishing up those socializing skills!

The real deal

Hang on to your pants, or something, for here is a lesson in life I've learned the hard way which I'll try to keep it simplistic:The internet is a global village of increasingly lonely people locked at home... Paradox? No, it reveals fears, which stops mankind from moving on and, most important in this post context:

If people ever hire you (yes, you know who you are - plural) to play somewhere - now grab on harder to your seat belt - they DON'T care AT ALL for how good you are, they could not care LESS of how good of a musician you might be and more even, they are as much excited about surround as they are about getting old! Shocked?

The secret, or perhaps not

The naked truth, the only thing these "kids" should know is this: THESE INDUSTRY PEOPLE ONLY CARE IF YOU FILL THE ROOM (sugestion: drag your poor friends along).

It does not matter AT ALL if they think your sound is awfull or if you destroy guitars on stage, or sing as well as a door-bell out of order.

If you fill the room (in figure of speech, I could also say "If you please a lot of people" - ergo - improve business), record will companies go after you, and bar owners, and the likes, because they smell money, not talent (I hope you get where I'm getting at: the business beyond the art - the show-BUSINESS), for its not,absolutely not, the other way around.

Now upsize this mathematicaly to bigger commercial scenario "guerrilla warfare" marketing theaters, and you get an ideia on how HARD easy can be.

This world is upside down. Internet is power being misused by most, and many, with talent. It's not what you can do that counts, but what you do that can help others DO too.

Nostalgy and hard sweat

I've had so many trips to the library when I was a kid, hungry for knowledge, I feel nostalgic about smells and textures.Kids these days, with neraly all at their finger tips, are increasingly lazy...

The work does is not done unless someone does it, and that seems forgotten.

With an "abacadabra" or scripts you find on the net and easy music making programs you may be mislead to think you can turn into an Elton John overnight, but that ain't so. Work is, as it always was, hard, and it never, ever, appears complete as if fallen of the sky. Sweat is a non-negotiable condition for success.

Sad, or not, but true.

You must work, and worst, you have to be the best at it, because "good" simply won't cut it.
The fantasy never land of the far far away kingdom

In this "lonely" fantasy kind of way of existance, an internet provided virtua-megalomanicac one, musicians want to make money - real money - on their own. Sadly, they'll stick to the "want" to much time, not the "do", leaving all not finished waiting for some A&R to find their talent and throw loads of cash to them. That will never happen.

Or if "doing", as in, one music and wait, these musicians will still stick to the "broke" status because they're not doing what it takes: it takes doing, done, done it again and keep on doing it!

The longer it takes them to figure that out - that's it's wasted "effort" and time on a virtual thing that does not exist - apparent success - the longer they will dream about how rich they will be, enduring the temporary never ending dire straits (what happened to them, by the way?), which, by the way, will probably never end indeed.

And that's all for now, wishing best of luck to all... and that all talents surface and get rewarded.

Mind you that, if I talk like I do, it's because I've done the talk, walk, much of it I'm not proud of, but I should be, for it lead me here, where I am, with a lot more knowledge, real one, and much more inspiration and speed at debuting quality, quality, quality work, lots of it - work that does not appear done.

I've been there, done that and got the T-Shirt.

As I said, that got me here, got me better, got things moving faster... got me a lot more, which keeps making me go back to the start of this phrase, exponencialy!Hopefully, it will get you and others to get going too.

5.1 music sells?

2007-10-26T03:21:00.001+01:00

Surrounded

The hype of 5.1 and huger surround seems more active than ever... except in sales.
Back in the early days of Dolby Digital and DTS I stood up for releasing music in multi-channel formats. I still do.

The thing is just that I do not uphold the "Dolby Digital" or "DTS" 5.1, or 6.1 or whatever approach, it makes little sense to me, speaking in commercial terms, because of the comfort sacrifices it forces you to, when listening to it. Remember you may leave the music playing in the room and listen from the kitchen.

So, I think most people just won't go trough the trouble of buying a music "DVD" just by imagining sitting in the couch while it plays, exploring all the 5.1 surround activity. I speak for myself, having countless high-definition audio surround titles, I *only* listen to these in the former mentioned scenario, thus, rarely.

What do I think should be the way then?
Stereo still rules

No matter how much DVD players get lower in price, or compression algorithms get multichannel, the thing is that... The main thing is still the music, the thing you whistle too, tip the toes at with or get the goosebumps from.

Truth of the matter is that now matter how good people's Home-Cinema systems get, as far as music use is concerned, they will probably just stuff in a quite common normal audio CD in there, or SDCards or whatever.

The immersive surround makes more sense watching a movie or playing a game, not quite so listening to music which, some even just "display" for the neighbors, leaving the room due to very high volume, or dance away from the speakers, and I do mean away - not good for feeling immersive effects the producer wanted his 5.1 music to give you, which means, for that, you should stand in the geometrical center of all 5 or 6, or even 7 (for now) speakers...

... Ah, and have I mentioned that in many cases the speakers are incorrectly placed?

Encoding

So, to me, the solution, as far as investing in music audio production, still lies with the stereo approach as root, and... to add some value, if need be, the surround. Although there are a lot of ways you can do this, I use two (please mind that for HighDefinition content I use MLP and WMA lossless):

- Windows Media Audio Multichannel encoder (or similars)

- Dolby Prologic or similars

Sticking to the examples, Windows Media Audio allows you to encode several channels of audio but downmixes to stereo transparently if you are listening in stereo. Dolby Prologic, if version II, encodes a 5(.1) matrix into a stereo file, if IIx, goes up to 7.1, and altough the listener may enjoy it in stereo (with the hyped iPod, for example, and headphones) he can also, if in the mood, stuff the source into the Hi-Fi, turning on the suitable ProLogic decoder and getting the full 5(.1) channels from the stereo file or more.

There's some loss of quality doing phase encoding in a stereo file to get the extra surround channels, but, for the reasons stated above, some of which related to the kitchen/room scenario, that difference won't make that much of a difference.

Please notice the ".1" in all the stated cases, which is the sub-bass channel, is handled automatically, hence, removing bass from all channels, it's not a dedicated channel in ProLogic, but may be with Windows Media Audio.

Speaking of 5 channels surround, the problem with Windows Media Surround Encoder (and similars) is that, since they encode the whole channels, the file size is around, lets say, for sake of argument, bigger than a simple stereo would be (prologic is encoded in stereo) - not good for bandwidth (specially in high-quality, high bitrate versions).

On the other hand, if you had a stereo encoded Prologic II file, the size would be the simple stereo normal size, hence, around a few times less if you count off compression tricks, with all the channels there. Good for bandwidth, best for high bit rate encoding with no worries for size, and you can listen in an iPod or at home with your pride and joy home-cinema system in full 5.1, having downloaded a simple, small, ingenious simple stereo file.

Thus means, ProLogic is also good to burn straight on to a normal stereo CD...

My vote

So, you may have guessed it by now, my vote goes for plain stereo with encoded ProLogic information and that is probably my future orientation, if I don't stick with plain stereo - which would be option zero, the original vote, but I like to add value, and multi-channel does just that.

On the other hand, I uphold and defend HD multichannel (24bit/96khz) should be 5.1 in heart, engineered to be so with the highest of qualities, but only to be sold along side the standard material, for true apreciation - I'm not a suporter of compressed high-definition multichannel downloads, I want it all, linear, or, at most, 75% of it (WMA Q75 mode, similar to MiniDisc quality). :-)

The future

I believe the future may very well render effortless many hours of sweat some insist on going through to have a good 5.1 mix (many sound really lousy). The thing is that DSP (digital signal processing) will have such a huge amount of processing power that it will take any audio signal and do whatever it wants with it.

So, from a crappy mono feed, you may end up with a glorious 12.2 surround artificial but realistic environment, and move trough it in realtime, as with most games nowadays. So my moto is to focus on music, balance, production, emotion, and stereo, with optional spreading to a well mixed 5.1 (actually it's the reverse, but who cares) for marketing and personal pleasure reasons for, under all this reasoning, monophonic would be enough.

© Álvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved

Aequo Animo 15

2007-10-25T04:10:00.000+01:00

Aequo Animo 15 - Venice Aqua
© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved.

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Hydrogen - clean?

2007-10-24T21:10:00.001+01:00

There's much hype over the Hydrogen Fuel Cells clean energy, wasting water vapor and finally getting most of the cities rid of most the pollution.

But there's a catch.
A fuel cell will be used, for example, to propel a car, instead of using petrol. Great. No more car smoke irritating your throat and making your garage dirty. But I digress...

The car (and I'll stick to cars for the example) needs energy to run, to be turned into "moving". This energy is now provided by the petrol explosion inside the engine, and in the future, the fuel cell will enable the car to be propelled too, releasing water: since the Hydrogen (H) is combined with Oxygen (O) in the "explosion", into Water (H2O).

Marvelous, but if so, why am I "ranting" about a catch?

Easy.
Hydrogen exists in Natural mostly combined with another element, and you've guessed it, Oxygen, into a very well know element, Water. To separate Hydrogen from Oxygen, in the water, trough a electric process which results in a chemical reaction, you need... water and... *power*, electrical in this case, and loads of it.

So, in order for you to have your car propelled by a fuel cell, it implies that those fuel cell need to be manufactured. To manufacture a cell that will provide your car with equivalent energy from an oil source will imply using that same oil to produce the same amount of energy to produce the fuel cell.

Some will argue you don't have to use oil, just electricity, but electricity needs to be produced, either with clean sources, nuclear or oil - and unfortunately, major is still, and is going to continue to be... OIL.

Following me? I'm confused too, so I'll make it simpler.
The fact is that you are not reducing fuel consuming, you are just transferring the "where" the fuel is used (from cars to fuel cell manufacturers power providers).

In the end, you are still burning more or less the same amount of fuel you did earlier, and I confess I can't yet see where that will be cheaper... or cleaner.

Well, actually less since you can produce electricity to make those fuel cells without petrol or burning of fossil fuel, but the sad reality is that most power is produced using fossil fuel and consequent dangerous emanations to the atmosphere, as I said before... and as oil prices rise, economic damage is also done, wether or not you use fuel cells, for the oil is still present in the process, at least, for now.

So conclusion is, use your head and think, don't be fooled by the industry marketing cosmetics.

The fuel dependence, and I insist, will continue, disguised, generating even more money - perhaps a reason for it's price to sky rocket enduring parallel industries such as a suposed to be "green" one?

Power will be more expensive, hence, all that depends on it, including those cells until someone starts doing them using clean, cheap, non oil dependent energy - will go up or stay up too.

Unless people and government totally focus on full clean energy production from start, the problem will remain disguised.

Good news: hydrogen may be produced using sea (or river) weeds, I heard, or whatever they are called - all it takes is sunlight and water - and residue being Oxygen, it's hard to get any better - this is what should be done, inform the people from start to finish, not just disguising the apparent result and keeping the results all the same on the long run.

Having said that, I'm all for un-polluted cities and less, much less, noise.
However, I'll miss the roar of high-end sports gasoline engines (not the diesels though), and I own quite a few... as someone very arrogant once said, a true gentleman never drives anything with less than twelve cilinders.

© Alvaro M. Rocha - All rights reserved.