Month: January 2024

So I’ve been getting a lot of videos in my Youtube feed of people complaining about working. I never searched for it, it just started appearing and I made the mistake of watching one and now they get regularly recommended to me. Anyway, the recurring theme in this is that a lot of people feel like they are a slave to their job and that they have no free time. I agree with that. It’s very hard to get into anything before or after a normal 8 hour workday, and the weekends fly by so fast they aren’t even worth mentioning as free time. You spend most of your weekend shopping for groceries for the coming week, doing laundry, and trying to straighten up your home a bit.

I am a firm believer in the well known phrase that, “GOD loves a working man”. If GOD didn’t want us to work, I don’t think we would be doing it. Working is very good for human beings. It helps us to feel productive and it keeps our minds from being idle. A lot of the crimes that occur happen from someone having a wicked idea pop into their head when they are idle, just sitting at home doing a whole lot of nothing and they get this bright idea to go rob someone or some place. “The idle mind is the devils workshop” is the common saying and I believe that to be very true. That’s why I’m a huge proponent of having hobbies and things you do that fil your time besides the things you MUST do to keep going forward every day.

The problem in my opinion comes in the way that you can have a person that is not lazy, that is willing to work 40 hours per week, but they can’t afford their own place or have any disposable income to get any enjoyment out of life. An Amazon warehouse worker shouldn’t have to eat beans and cornbread every day when Jeff Bezos is eating steak every day. Sure, maybe that warehouse worker can’t eat good every day like Jeff, but they should be able to enjoy the occasional steak or a trip some place nice with their family from time to time.

The fact that people can’t even afford a decent apartment rental or don’t have enough money to buy “some” nice things is not fair. I would consider myself middle class and it’s a struggle to do things and get things. I buy a lot of DJ and music equipment, and thus I can’t afford to travel nor do I own a lot of nice clothes. There has to be a trade-off somewhere. I work in Information Technology and have been providing computer and tech support for different companies for a few years. There’s no reason with what I do for a living that I shouldn’t earn enough money to do all that and then some. The fact is though, in IT, companies tend to force you to join their team as a temporary employee, with low wages and bad benefits from the recruiter, like expensive health insurance and very little time off compared to what a full time employee would get. Add onto that that I live on the West Coast where the cost of living is high and you start to see the picture.

For myself and even someone working in a job that doesn’t require a particular skillset, if you are willing to get up off your butt and work every day, you should have enough money to enjoy your life to a reasonable extent. I’m not asking to own a yacht or a mansion, but can I be able to travel, buy cool stuff for my hobby, buy decent quality clothes, and eat decent food with my willingness to get up and work every day? It’s not like it’s un-doable either. American Corporations are greedy and all they care about is their profit margin for the most part. They cut costs, overwork people, among other things all in an effort to achieve the best bottom line. There used to be a time in this country where no matter where you worked, you could count on getting a bonus around Christmas time so you could buy your family nice gifts and dinner which lead to an enjoyable holiday. Those days are gone, and most companies don’t even give bonuses anymore.

It’s a sad situation, and until the people revolt against Corporate America, its only going to get worse and worse. Greed is the word of the day and you see it in all avenues of your life. Everyone wants your money and doesn’t want to give you enough to do what you want to do. It sucks and it has to change. The videos I mentioned at the start of this post are evidence that people are getting fed up and are tired of this monotonous struggle they keep enduring. It’s going to hit the fan soon and I will be alive to see it….

So I’ve upgraded from a MPC One to a MPC Live 2. The Live 2 is a lot better to use than the MPC One. It doesn’t have quite as many shortcut keys on the face of it, but the drum pads on it are the same size as the ones on the MPC X. They are the full size Akai MPC pads and I find them much better to use than the smaller pads on the MPC One.

The MPC Live also has more inputs and outputs than the MPC One. I’m able to plug both my MPK Mini PLUS and Roland GAIA 1 into the MPC Live 2 with no issues. Also, it has a RCA phono level input because it has a phono preamp inside the device. Right now I have my turntable plugged directly into the unit with the ground cable attached and it works great. Before I had to use my Tascam Model 12 and have the turntable connected to my DJ mixer, then from the mixer to the Tascam and work with it like that.

The MPC Live 2 can truly be the center of your studio and it has the inputs and outputs to do so. It has 3 stereo or 6 mono outputs onboard the unit which is pretty sick! The screen is the same size as the MPC One, but because it’s to the right of the pads and sits on an elongated device, it gives the optical illusion of being bigger. It also is closer to you than it was on the MPC One when working on the unit. I’m very happy with it and I would recommend to anyone to get this over the MPC One.

The MPC One is a cool unit, but I’m able to put my Live 2 into a carrying case and take it to work to use on my breaks. I’ve worked on songs during lunch and that’s a lot of fun and really gives me a slice of home when I’m at work. The battery inside it lasts a good long while and you’re able to get busy with it with no problem and no need for extra equipment. I have a Decksaver coming for it soon, and I’ll be able to protect it and keep dust off it better.

Lastly, the unit has a slot in the bottom internally where you can put a 2.5inch sata drive to use with the unit. I have a 512GB SSD inside it now and it works out great. I copied all my music and sound data onto the drive from my 512GB SD card and it loads the information a lot faster than it did from the SD Card on the MPC One. The sata drive is secure and has a screwed in cover over it to protect the drive. There’s no chance of it falling open, and it’s just a great way to have your music data with the device.

I got the black version, but I wish I could have gotten the MPC Live 2 Retro. Not a lot of places carry that anymore, so it’s harder to come by. I love the look of the retro unit and the gray topped pads on it. Maybe if I can find it somewhere, I can return this unit to where I bought it and get the Retro joint.

I’m hoping the fact that I love to use this unit so much will help me in creating more music on it. I’ve already made like 3 or 4 basic beats on it that sound good and I feel like I could flesh out when recording them and maybe add some lyrics to go along with them. I need to focus more if I’m going to write lyrics and not spend so much time watching people on Youtube and Twitch. It’s just a distraction and keeps me from doing my own thing and the things I love…

Hopefully, this year I’ll go live on Twitch more often and share my beatmaking process with the followers I have so far and I can start to build a community of people who are like-minded as I am. We can learn from each other and help each other get better with this music thing. A lot of us are only in it for the love of the process and the craft, and we’re not necessarily trying to get rich or famous from it. I wouldn’t want to be famous ever, because there’s a lot of nonsense that comes along with that. I could use some extra money though, so if some of my music garnered me more ends I’d be cool with that.

Have a great rest of the month and I’ll come back with some more posts soon. Peace, love, light, and blessings to you reader!

What’s up readers! So it’s 2024 and a brand new year. I’m looking forward to what the new year will bring. I’m hoping for peace, love, good health, and prosperity for myself and my loved ones. I’m looking forward to paying off some debts and being able to breathe easier financially. I’m looking forward to getting in better shape and using my gym membership on a regular basis. I’m also looking forward to making dope music and getting to know other music lovers, producers, and DJs.

I hope this new year is amazing, but I know that in order for it to be that, I have to make moves myself. Nothing is going to come and knock on your door, so you have to make the effort to make things happen. I am gung-ho and ready to do that, and I’m excited. My job is “ok” for the time being, but I would like to get a job where I can work from home. We want to move to the east coast if we can toward the end of the year, so having a remote job would be a huge benefit in that.

I’m tired of sitting in traffic as well, and working from home was such a huge relief first financially because of the cost of gas, and then also on my stress level. I was able to be home and receive packages incoming, or go to the grocery store and pick up items to help make dinner on my lunch break. I can’t believe in this age, where we have these amazingly powerful computers, always on internet connections, and tech like Zoom and Teams, that a company would still push their employees to come into a building to work. That’s how COVID spread so fast and a lot of people died from it. I want to work for a progressive company with younger people who are not stuck in old ways of doing things.

Today is 1/1/24, and I have a tight beat going on my TE EP-133 KO II. I want to record some lyrics for it and complete it out today. From there I’ll upload it to Distrokid and advertise it in different forums and things like that. The most important thing to me is I don’t want the lyrics to sound corny or lame. I want to speak on a subject that people can relate to and will “feel” . Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to my excellent writing skills I once had, and really come up with something creative and inventive.

Have a great start to the new year, get in shape, find a hobby you enjoy, love your friends and family, and live at peace with the rest of the world. Change is coming and it can’t be stopped. Goodness and righteousness will prevail over the evil in this world as it has been written. Take care of yourself and I’ll check in soon. L8r!!!