INT. J ROLAND KELLY - NIGHT

A.K.A… New Year Prediction: Conspiracy Theory Post #1

What am I basing this on? Nothing, but intuition really.

I hear reports from my old hometown that the place is now full of organic uppers and downers… that being the kind that you can’t grow in the National Forest (like normal god fearing people).

It used to be a really nice booze and weed town.

How is this possible with all the new Homeland B.S. (Border Security)?

Someone with special ability has to be working on the side.

In the past there has always been a direct correlation between military activity abroad and the flow of illicit drugs into the United States… Air America (CIA) importing heroin during Vietnam or the CIA flooding African-American communities with coke/crack during Iran-Contra… both of which are no longer conspiracy theories.

I don’t hear people talking about this, but I suspect it’s no different now, so my prediction (trying to be unique) this year is that there will be a large scandal in the next five years in which the military, an independent military contractor, or someone more clandestine will be caught having thrown an illegal fund raiser during the war.

Blogging is fun.

That, and I have it on reliable sources that bad aliens are in control of this planet this year.

Good luck to us all.

- J Roland Kelly

I’ve written a lot about the future role of MIDI in popular music. Two weeks ago I wrote about a software plug-in that I wanted created that would convert audio to MIDI in real time, and then play the MIDI as if it were coming from a real MIDI controller thereby allowing you to control a synthesizer with an organic instrument such as a guitar.

It already exists.

In my wanderings on the Internet it wasn’t like I didn’t find it right away, but it did take a while for me to understand what I was looking at… hey, is that a hole in the ground?

It took longer to write the blog posts than it did to download, install, and implement the conversion software. I feel a little strange about that, but the one consolation is that I predicted EXACTLY how the software would work.

Plus, it’s something I really wanted, and so now I have it. That’s a win.

First the lesson on audio plug-ins:

1. Steinberg created the Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plug-in system for Cubase. It had complicated and expensive licensing, it only became popular after third-party developers started to disregard the licensing rules. VST is now the standard plug-in format for most DAWs in the windows environment, including Adobe Audition 3.

2. Apple went their own way and created a new system for plug-ins on the Mac, which they call Audio Units (AU).

These plug-ins work at the operating system level and should work with whatever sound recording software you have installed at the time (that use plug-ins).

So, now the plug-in (this is really cool and I recommend that you try it even if you are not a musician)…

Widisoft makes an Audio to MIDI conversion audio plug-in to be used directly in the sound recording suite (DAW) that you are using. They have VST and AU versions of the plug-in.

I am going to focus on the Mac, if you need this for windows (or VST) you can find instructions on the Widisoft website.

You can try the plug-in for free. It will last 20 days, but will only work for 15 seconds before cutting out for 15 seconds, working then not working etc. It costs $80 dollars to purchase, which I recommend, it works well and I’ve not seen anything like it.

The whole thing should only take a few minutes.

1. Download the audio to MIDI conversion plug-in here.

2. Install it with the instructions (a few seconds).

3. Follow these instructions to get it to work with GarageBand.

That’s it. Now you can control a MIDI Synthesizer with an organic instrument in GarageBand.

Plus… Audio Unit Plug-ins breathe new life into GarageBand eliminating many of the things that make it suck. True.

-J Roland Kelly

I had an awesome thrill recently; I found out two young filmmakers that I don’t even know (yet?) included a song (The World’s Warm Womb) from my first album in their short film entitled Cool.

It was a surprise to me, I found the video on youtube after searching for my name.

The film was created by F. Chiaverini and stars Matthew Branham.

And, I must say they nailed it. They knew what the song was about and independently created an image for the song that elevated it to newer and higher levels of “cool.”

F. Chiaverini´s ability to astutely pick out emotion from a series of shots is not something that just anyone can do, and having Matthew Branham with the expressive face of a great actor complemented that in the film.

They entire thing works well together.

F. Chiaverini and Matthew Branham both seem like nice young artists, won’t you help them out when you can. You can start by leaving feedback for their super short film Cool on youtube.

-J Roland Kelly

And as always my two albums: J Roland Kelly, Stop Your Nursing Unless You’re Rendering Fun and J Roland Kelly Taunts the Process …into Attacking are available at ITunes and Amazon.com, as well as where ever else fine music is downloaded.