John Lagomarsino
Video · Photography · Music · Motion Graphics

Well, well, well. If you’re reading this on johnlago.com, you’ve probably noticed the new look around here. I chose to upgrade because the old theme was really just a blog, where this site should really be more about, well, me. This design puts emphasis on the static information, and moves the blog to the periphery, where it should be. What do you think? Does it do the job? Is it as attractive as I think it is?

In other news, I’m now involved in the exciting production of Jon Fuller’s new album. I’m playing producer/engineer, and it’s quite the undertaking. So far we’ve got piano and bass, with a drum session tomorrow. Check out his site for more up-to-date blogging about the project.

Just FYI, this site may be going a little crazy for an hour or so. I’m rolling out an entirely new theme (yay!), and I’ll need to do some tweaking on the live site to make it look right. Sorry for any inconvenience!

Well, maybe not, but this is still pretty cool news.  I just set up a new music section, and it’s actually hosted entirely by Bandcamp.  If you haven’t heard of them, they’re a startup that streams, hosts, and sells (kind-of) music for independent artists.

The way my Bandcamp site is set up, you can download the Ditties, and the other random songs I’ve posted here, under the “album” called “Unfinished Business.”  You can stream and download individual tracks, as well as entire albums there.  And more interestingly for me, if you feel compelled to pay for any of the content there, you can.  That’s right – download all my music for free, or name your own price if you wanna help out.  Also, for you audiophiles, the music is available in a ridiculously varied collection of codecs and bitrates, all the way up to completely lossless.

So go poke around, and let me know if there’s any way you think I can improve the offerings over there (or even if you think I should scrap it altogether).

For those of you who may recently have been met with an obscene (and terribly-designed) spam page, or a static “under contruction” page here, my apologies.  This site was hacked over the weekend, and it took some time to get it back in order.  I can’t yet say for certain it won’t come back to bite me again, but I have taken measures to prevent it from ocurring again.

A big thank you to Bluehost, whose tech support seems to get even better every time I call up.  I’m never on hold very long, and every tech I’ve ever spoken to there has been helpful, knowledgeable, and generally intelligent.  And thank God they keep backups, because I would’ve been in real trouble without them.

In that vein, just a quick PSA.  If you’re running a WordPress-powered site, make sure to a) always keep a backup of both your WordPress directory and database, and b) always upgrade quickly to the newest version of the software.  Apparently, a vulnerability in my outdated WordPress install was probably the root of my woes, and don’t I look stupid now for not having prevented it.  So, please, do better than I did, and keep on top of it.

I’m pretty sure this is the coolest, most mind-blowing thing I’ve ever seen.  I’ve never used Melodyne, but evidently the public beta of the newest version is now available to existent users.  The idea behind the new Direct Note Access is that Melodyne listens to polyphonic audio sources, picks apart the individual notes, and then lets you edit the whole thing in a fashion much like that of a MIDI piano roll.

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This is just so cool.  It also means that you can use sampled loop libraries in an entirely different way now.  For instance, I don’t play the guitar, but I’ve got lots of strumming acoustic loops that I can use.  However, these are loops tend to be stock chords/voicing/progressions.  But apparently, you can change all that now, and use the timbre and feel of a sample and mold the pitch independently.  It also means that spot-on guitar track you recorded without noticing the E string was flat is now usable again.  This is blowing my mind.

Here’s a ditty that is at once two firsts (confusing, no?).  It’s the very first cover ditty, so sorry if you were expecting originality. This is the theme to the best children’s show to ever air.

Also, this ditty is recorded and mixed entirely on nothing but an iPhone attached to a Blue Mikey, using the FourTrack app. Kinda cool that you can now use your phone to track and mix a decent-sounding 8-layer song. I’ve got some nifty video of the recording, which I’ll post later.

The reason there was no ditty yesterday can probably be described by what you see below; it’s not even done yet.  Get ready for something loud later this week!

Just made it by the skin of my teeth today! Anyway, on this day in 1888, a press conference in London featured the first phonograph recording to be heard in England: “The Lost Chord,” by Arthur Sullivan, recorded by Thomas Edison. This is that recording, gone all 21st-century. They didn’t use click tracks back then…