videography – Microcosmologist

58 minutes of pure Houston funk and soul

Microcosmologist — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 05:11:31 +0000

I’m tremendously proud of this video, which I think speaks for itself:

My YouTube channel and favorite recent video

Microcosmologist — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 06:19:34 +0000

As reminder, check out my YouTube channel for lots more quality Electric Trumpet content! Here’s the jam of 2017 so far that’s had the most replay value for me personally, a stretched out version of the Herb Alpert classic “Rise” which has great pacing and grooves:

My musical 2016 in retrospect (and pedals chronology)

Microcosmologist — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 23:09:48 +0000

Well 2016 is drawing to a close at last and I think I can speak for many people in saying it was a downright lousy year, to put it nicely. There’s a lot I could complain about but I’m trying to stay focused on the positive. I’ve been playing a bunch of music and that’s been one of the best things going on in my life this year. For my own clarity/later reference I compiled a list of the effects pedals I’ve been renting from Pedal Genie and I figured why not post it here. The list is organized by the date of the shipment of the rental pedals, and includes the list of recording sessions I held during the time I was using those pedals. I had 21 multi-track recording sessions in 2016 with the last 4 of those recorded in 24bit/96kHz which is something I’ve always wanted to do, recently enabled by a PC upgrade to the recording rig. We also had 1 live show and 1 video shoot with a live cameraman. From that video shoot came my personal favorite cornet performance of the year (in terms of expressiveness and execution), on “I Thought It Was You” by Herbie Hancock. Check it out:

List of effects pedals on rental and associated recording sessions:

2/23/17 sessions: Breakfast 34 (Denver), 3/19 (Heterodyne) || Acropolis 4/23 (Rise), 6/11 ||
Strymon Möbius Modulation Multieffects
Dr. Scientist BitQuest (low-fi multieffect)
TC Electronic Mimiq Doubletracker

10/28/16 sessions: Acropolis 11/13 (Hang Up/96k), 1/15 (Ribbons, K.Cake) || Super Risky Clique 11/27 || Fistbump III 12/11 || George R. Brown
Strymon BigSky Reverberator
Catalinbread Heliotrope
Empress Phaser

7/7/16 sessions: Acropolis 7/17 (Instant Ice) || Stretch Coast 8/13 (Disco Fred) || POACB 8/14 (Fiddy) || Fistbump II 10/23
DOD Gonkulator Ring Mod
Source Audio SA241 Lunar Phaser
Keeley Super Mod Workstation

5/2/16 sessions: YVJ trio 5/14 || JJP trio 5/21 || Scalding 6/11 || Breakfast 6/25 (Brain) || Fistbump 7/2 (America)
Moog Minifooger MF Flange
Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phaser
Dr Scientist The Tremoloessence

3/2/16 sessions: Extraterrestrial 3/13 || Acropolis 4/9 (scrapped) || Breakfast 4/10 (Seahorse Carol)
Boss TE-2 Tera Echo
Moog MF Ring Mod
Keeley 6 Stage Phaser

12/4/15 sessions: Acropolis 12/6 (Fallbrook), 1/24, 1/31 (P-996) || Bok 1/17 || Breakfast 1/30 (Monsieur) || Phosphene 2/21
TC Electronics HOF Reverb
Source Audio SA126 Bass Envelope

9/28/15 sessions: Antidote 11/15
Walrus Audio Janus Tremolo Fuzz
Electro Harmonix Bad Stone Phaser+
Mad Professor Snow White Bass Autowah

7/3/15 sessions: Acropolis 7/24, 8/9, 8/23 (Telemetry), 9/27 (dub)
Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl
Infanem Small Echo Array
Red Panda Particle Delay

5/11/15 sessions: 100% Juice 5/15, 5/22 (Beatles), 6/27-28 || Acropolis 5/14, 6/11
Electro Harmonix Super Pulsar Tremolo
SolidGoldFX Funkzilla Envelope+

4/3/15 sessions: 100% Juice 4/3 (RC), 4/25 (Hollywood) || Acropolis 4/23, 5/7 || Fresh Squeezed 4/18
SolidGoldFX Apollo Phaser+
Voodoo Lab Wahzoo

3/2/15 sessions: 100% Juice 3/14 (Sunset Drink)
TC Electronics Flashback x2 Delay
Caroline Icarus Boost
Fulltone Clyde Delux Wah

Photos from the 2015 MRHA convention

Microcosmologist — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 06:26:11 +0000

Here’s a collection of photos I took at the 2015 Milwaukee Road Historical Association conference in Yakima Washington. These pictures have been up on Flickr for quite some time now although it occurred to me that I never linked to them on here. This is a 120+ shot slideshow of cool railroad stuff I saw along the way, so, you know, only railroad buffs are allowed past this point…

Click on the image below to see the slideshow, then click on any image twice to see it full-size:

I’ve also got this 35 minutes of video footage I shot along the Milwaukee Road right-of-way between Easton and Cedar Falls Washington, also known as the Iron Horse/John Wayne trail which I rode on a rental bike during that visit. It sure is pretty scenery out there!

2001: A Space Funk Odyssey

Microcosmologist — Mon, 02 May 2016 06:07:34 +0000

Triumphant AF. Officially endorsed viewing here:

Liquid Light Show visuals: unlocked

Microcosmologist — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 04:52:40 +0000

Ever since seeing it live on a gig in college at this tiny bar in La Crosse Wisconsin called the MouseTrap, I’ve always been interested in learning how to create Liquid Light Shows. These are the psychedelic oil and water mixing of colors which often accompanied music for videos in the 60s and 70s for many rock and roll acts. So with a bit of internet searching and the aid of this incredibly helpful tutorial video I saw on youtube, I’ve created my first attempt at visual art in this medium. It’s nothing masterful but it’s a first step and sometimes that’s the hardest part. I hope to do a lot more of this. It’s pretty fun. The music that goes along with it is a recording from my most recent recording session as of this writing and has some excellent moments with improv, ring mod, Jungle Boogie, and the Mission Impossible Theme. Enjoy:

The first of many new videos

Microcosmologist — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 00:50:00 +0000

So I’m very pleased to say that on January 31st, my band The Acropolis of Soul got together along with a friend Scott Birch and shot a whole ton of videos. I have been working on the multitrack audio with an unparalleled amount of perfectionism and my guitarist comrade Vincent has been editing the videos. Here is the 1st tune from that session, an improvised jam that I named “P-996 Lazer” after the fighter jet in GTA. I feel like improvising or maybe playing music in general is, to me, all about trying to get up and do something spectacular, something bigger than your normal everyday stuff. Hopefully it’s exciting and electrifying, hopefully you take risks and in the end do something sweet. Which also sort of describes trying to steal the fighter jet and blow up some unsuspecting fools back in LA from GTA! Anyway, check out this jam and Vince’s great video editing and effects work. There’s soon to be a lot more and I’ll post them here in a playlist.

First Infrared Timelapse Video

Microcosmologist — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 04:11:14 +0000

So I actually made this a long time ago but am just now getting around to posting it. It’s a short video of 4 timelapses that I shot on my infrared-converted Canon XTi. One really important trick which allowed me to do this easily was told to me by the guy who did the conversion for me: take a photo of green leaves or grass, preferrably blurred out. Then use that image as the source for a custom white balance. Now if you take a photo using that custom white balance, it looks exactly as you see in the video! No processing required, no color shifting. Now that is a convenient tip!

First IR Timelapse from Microcosmologist on Vimeo.

There’s also a color night sky timelapse from the T3i in there, shot on the night I proposed to my wife. Obviously pretty special to me! The sky looks really awesome in that IR landscape shot. I want to do some more timelapses like this with moving clouds since the sky shows up so contrasty and dark in IR.

Soulive: Let’s cut right to a supa funkay keybode so low.

Microcosmologist — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:31:21 +0000

More Soulive from Bear Creek 2011! Break out your pens and papers kids, and take notes; this is what you call a groovin’ keyboard solo. Fer serious.

Note, this video has been configured to start playing at 5:34 when Neal’s solo begins. Jog back to the beginning if you wanna watch the whole glorious endeavour.

Soulive in Star Filtery Glory

Microcosmologist — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:34:12 +0000

Ok, I lied, there are more awesome videos from Bear Creek. In the clip below, I set the player to start at 7 minutes in (you can do this by adding &start= and then the number of seconds to the embed code), so it jumps straight to the awesome part with the wicked star filter action. Feel free to rewind if you dig these styles! Man! Just look at that guitar! It’s magically delicious!