Jonathan Denmark has added vocals to the song I wrote in Logic earlier this week.

Check out ”Auto-Reverse” at his website, and expect to hear more about this project soon.

A couple weeks ago I got the new Logic Studio, Apple’s professional-level music writing software.

I upgraded from Logic Express 7, which was almost three years old when I bought it. The polish was definitely lacking, and I got many headaches using it.

Before that I used an even older OEM version of Cubase LE that came with my PreSonus Firebox. The Firebox is an excellent piece of equipment but the old Cubase software is even more atrocious in this day and age. I got some good work done in it but it took a lot of work.

So, long story short, I’ve been training myself with the 73-page Getting Started manual for the last few weeks. After that I might delve into parts of the bundled 1000-page manual for Logic Pro 8 and the 660-page manual for its bundled software instruments and effects!

Today I decided to try my hand at composing something real. I screwed around by layering a Bitcrusher distortion and a stereo Chorus on top of the “Hollow Pad” patch of the included ES E (Ensemble Synth) software instrument.

For drums I took one of the stock loops, Analog Drum Machine 52, and looped it under the stock Compressor with the “Toms Strong Compression” patch and under the SilverVerb reverb unit with the “Room” patch.

Overall, it’s a bit repetitive but it took only about an hour to throw together. Enjoy!

Grant Hutchins - First Logic Song

Recently Austin (the person) and I have been playing Warning Forever, an innovative freeware video game for Windows that had a small wave of interest a few years ago.

Warning Forever is a “Shoot ‘Em Up”, or shmup, which means you basically fly a ship around the screen and shoot at enemies. What makes Warning Forever different is that there are only boss enemies, one at a time.

On top of that, after beating one enemy, the next enemy evolves defenses based on the strategies you use. So if you find it easy to attack the front of the enemy for a quick kill, the next enemy will have a beefed-up front section. Thus you are encouraged to start with strategies that you are not good at in order to build up the enemy’s more useless defenses.

All in all, this game evokes many of the qualities I find important in a game: replayability, challenge, and direct feedback. Perhaps most importantly, the game takes a simple concept and lets it shine without muddying it up with over-designed details.

Give it a shot sometime.

I’m a big fan of Campbell’s Soup.

It’s simple, easy to make, and as American as apple pie. And more importantly, there are more varieties than I can even comprehend.

I like to grab a random soup that I’ve never tried before and take the plunge.

About a year ago I tried Pepper Pot Soup, which apparently is a popular soup style in Jamaica that was traditionally thought to have been invented during the American Revolution when Washington’s army was down to just beef tripe and peppercorns.

Sounds disgusting, eh? It wasn’t so bad, but it did take a bit of an open mind.

Right now I’m trying out Golden Mushroom, which is a savory creamy beef stock soup with lots of mushroom pieces. I think I like this one a bit better.

Anyway, the can of soup is a staple of the bachelor life, and offers better nutrition and selection than something like ramen, so it gets my seal of approval.

In two months I will have been in Austin for a year, and so far I’ve had a blast. From Austin City Limits Festival and SxSW Interactive to tons of local events in-between, I have more than satisfied my hunger for local flavor.

Speaking of flavor, I highly recommend several local food products.

My favorite would have to be Maine Root sarsaparilla soda, which despite its name and its roots in Maine (pun intended), has an Austin branch after one of its founders moved here. Their pungent and powerful ginger brew is also great.

I also suggest El Milagro tortilla chips, made just east of I-35 on Sixth Street. To date they are the only chips that could possibly compare to the fresh chips at Oklahoma City’s Ted's Café Escondido, which despite a year in Austin is still my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant. I will need to conduct further research here in town.

Whenever I’m downtown breakdancing at a club I often satiate myself with the best street food in Austin, the Best Wurst. I like it with everything: onions, sauerkraut, mustard, and their very own special curry ketchup.

For more reviews check out my Yelp profile

While most of you were watching Super Bowl XLI, I went to my first breakdancing class. I’m signed up to weekly classes at Dance Zone through the UT Texas Union Informal Classes program.

The first class started with a brief discussion of the art and a passionate plea by our instructor to understand the history of what it’s all about, which was refreshing since I worried it might turn out to be some lame hip hop dancing sort of class.

Nope, this is the real deal. My instructor has trained with the original B-Boys such as the ones featured in the classic movie Breakin'.

There are about 10 beginners and 6 or 7 more advanced B-Boys and B-Girls in my class. The pace is pretty fast, which I appreciate.

On day one we started with a few basic moves to help us catch the beat, as classic original funk and breakbeat songs blasted on the hi-fi. The instructor then had us try to walk on our hands across the floor. I could do about 3 or 4 steps the few times I didn’t immediately fall over.

After that we learned perhaps the most fundamental move of all, and the basis of “footwork”, the 6-step. Here’s a pretty good YouTube video to show what I mean.

I am still a bit sore from it, two days later, but that is subsiding now. I can’t wait to get back in there!