Happy New Year!
To all my friends, family, colleagues and fellow musicians and photographers – a very Happy New Year and may 2012 bring another year of health, happiness and prosperity. Thanks so much for listening to my original music and viewing my photographs – much appreciated!
A Christmas Tale
It all started when I won a T-shirt on Twitter …
Social media has provided lots of opportunity to converse with people and companies on a scale previously unavailable. And many companies now host contests in Facebook and Twitter in an effort to promote their products and build online communities. And so I entered a contest hosted by Novation – a prominent UK-based musical instrument hardware/software company. They were giving away a T-shirt, and as I actually own and use many of their products, I thought I’d enter on the off chance I’d win. I won.
Now here’s where the story veers off onto a strange and unexpected path. I’m a tall and muscular North American who can’t fit into Euro-sized clothing, so they gratiously offered me a software license code to one of their products. I had to decline because I already license all of their software, and own some of their hardware too. So they asked what else I would want (within reason).
Candy store!
Ok, not quite. But I couldn’t ask for another hardware item as it’s too expensive and quite far from the original intent of this contest. So I proposed that, in the spirit of Christmas, the following:
- that they provide a license code for one of their software products to a local teenager who couldn’t otherwise afford it, or if not possible;
- provide a license code for one of their software products to a local school with a midi/music program such that the software (a synthesizer) could be used for educational purposes, or if not possible;
- use me as a future beta tester, or if not possible;
- pick another winner
To their credit, Novation was determined to ensure that I, as the winner, got something. And I did – a key code for an amazing piece of software from their affiliated company, Focusrite – a name not unfamiliar in recording studios around the world.
But to my amazement and to their credt, Novation also provided 30 software license codes for V-Station to a local school so that 30 kids could learn about virtual synthesizers and sound synthesis at the same time. Fantastic!
So thanks to Novation and to Focusrite. I didn’t mean to parlay a T-shirt into over $7,000 CDN of product, but you’ve made 1 North American and 30 UK students very happy! Many, many thanks!
Klang Demo
I’ve just completed a demo for Klang – a new sample library from the folks at Supersynths. This library is full of hitting barrels, sticks, cups, bowls (and anything else found around the house) and cinematic hits, strikes and massive gong hits, tiny triangle strikes and a mayriad of metallic hits. Massive dumpsters and trucks were hit with all manner of hammers (and sledgehammers), large and small.. It also includes massive Bass Drums, Tympani and Taiko strikes, Frame Drum attacks and massive percussive hits that shake the ground. There’s all forms of percussion sampled and mangled. They sampled stoves flying through the air and hitting cement, glass flying everywhere and all of it sampled by 10 stereo microphones. They’ve also included pan flute effects, trills and blows.
Now getting started on a demo for a new Kontakt-based synth from WaveAlchemy.
Housewarming Party
It was awesome!! Thanks to the 75 or so family, friends, former and current neighbours and colleagues for joining Shawn and I at our housewarming party. I can’t tell you how great it was to see you again – and for some of you it had been quite a while. And my how your kids have grown! We feel truly blessed and grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives. Thank you!
Another win!
This time I won the sample CD ‘Tension Theory’ from Perimeter Sound Arts. According to the company description, “TENSION THEORY is a study in Strange Soundscapes, DarkFunk Riffs, Tweaked Electronica & Twisted Beats. Nerve endings twitch and hearts pound as the journey winds through moods ranging from suspenseful to frantic.” and is ” stunningly diverse for Trip-Hop, Jungle, Industrial, Dark Ambient, Experimental & Film music.”
This might be a great addition to my sound arsenal! Thank you Perimeter Sound Arts!
A win on Twitter!
I was one of 3 very fortunate winners in a contest held over the social media site Twitter. French company Ohmforce gave away 3 of their virtual instrument/FX plug-ins. My haul included several synthesizers totalling $446! The ones I chose were: Symptohm:Melohman, Minimonsta:Melohman, and the very retro Oddity. A very big thanks to Ohmforce and Gmedia for these fantastic instruments. No doubt they’ll show up in some new tracks very soon.
Shawn Receives Citizen Award from Durham Regional Police Services
My partner Shawn, centre, was one of a handful of citizens to be honoured at the Durham Regional Police Citizen Awards ceremony at Durham Regional Headquarters May 12. Mr. Reid helped an undercover police officer pursue a suspect. At the presentation were, from left, Whitby Mayor Pat Perkins, Regional Chairman Roger Anderson, Staff Sgt. Bob Roche and Durham Regional Police Chief Mike Elwes.
Durham Regional Police handed out Civilian Awards to 12 people for acts of bravery in 2009.
Inspector Paul Martin, emcee of the ceremony held during the Regional council meeting on May 12, said the recipients “should feel very proud of their accomplishments and that they had the courage to step up at a time of need to make a difference in the lives of others.”
Shawn made the cover page of the Ajax weekly, and inside the local Whitby paper as well. Congratulations!
House Sold
Our house sold in 4 days for more than list price! What a great birthday present for the both of us. So in a couple of months it’ll be goodbye Whitby and hello …
The Spotlight Awards
The Spotlight Awards are internal awards handed out every year within the Ontario government to Communications branches who excel in any of the dozen or so award categories. 76 entries were submitted this year and 10 awards were given out. My unit won in the ‘New Media’ category for our Research & Innovation website – cited as being the best example of the use of Web 2.0 and other multimedia technologies on an Ontario government website. In the last year we’ve added RSS Newsfeeds, HD A-roll and B-roll video for use by broadcast media outlets, iTunes enhanced podcasts, iTunes video podcasts, high resolution photos suitable for print media, audio podcasts, in-place Flash photo and video galleries and more. What makes this award particularly satisfying is that the panel of judges is composed of half Ontario government representatives and half people from outside government. We have a very creative team who are passionate about their work. 
