So day five was just our flight home from Mexico. Overall I have to say I was really impressed and had a great time there. The people and the food were fantastic. The country was fun. I would go back in a heartbeat. 

I did however catch the infamous stomach bug so I was knocked off my feet bad with a fever for a couple of days. I ended up having to go to the doctor, but in the end I chalk it all up to part of the experience. 

So day four was our most touristy day of the trip. We spent the day at a place called Xcaret, which I guess I would describe as a sort of amusement park. It is built around an underground river that connects to the ocean. Basically a natural lazy river and you spend a good hour or so floating down this river to the main section of the park. 

Day three in Mexico was gorgeous. The weather was amazing and not too hot. That day was our day to go scuba diving. So we did a demo of scuba diving two days earlier in the hotel pool to get an idea if either of us would "freak out" while under water. We both handled it well so we decided to sign up for the excursion.

That morning we met back at the pool and the dive instructors ran us through about two hours worth of training. We got the basics down. We then chilled at the pool for a couple of hours and then later that afternoon came back for our dive. 

Now our dive group was small, only three people but there was another group that was diving with us. I have to say that I enjoyed the dive, but I didn't quite fall in love with it as I thought I would. I had some problems equalizing the pressure in my right ear so there was quite a bit of discomfort and both Megan and I had some ear issues when we were done diving. The water was also a bit murky due to the storms that had rolled through the area a few days earlier. 

Now when they said they were going to take us diving, they really did take us diving. We dove to ten meters, which is right around thirty feet. I could see how people could possibly freakout down at this level and you do get a bit of reverse vertigo when you look up to the surface and cannot see the top of the water. 

I would highly recommend the experience though for anyone who is wishing to try it out. It was well worth it. 

After diving we then went out and had some afternoon tea on the balcony of the hotel and then went to the spa for a massage. The evening ended with some pasta at the hotel's Italian restaurant. 

Day two of Mexico was our big day visiting Mayan ruins. We visited the ruins of Tulum, which was costal city and the ruins of Coba, which was located about 45 km inland from the coast. 

Tulum was extremely pretty. It was a good sized city with a large wall around it located right on the cliffs of the coast. The site was completely packed with people though and it was extremely hot. Iguanas were everywhere and Megan really felt the need to try and capture them as much as she could. 

After spending a couple of hours at Tulum we then made our way over to Coba, first stopping for lunch at a local restaurant in the town. The food was just 'OK', but it was a very pleasant restaurant and we sat on an open air balcony on the second level .

Next stop was the city of Coba, just up the road. Coba was very different than Tulum. Most notably was that it was extremely spread out over a large area. So much so that it is recommended that you rent a bicycle to get around the ruins. Coba definitely had more of the pyramids that one might expect from a Mayan city. We visited three in total, plus two ball courts that were used for sport. Our guide, Paco, told us a story how one of the courts was essentially built upon a sports center that a wealthy and powerful woman from the time built for her son, who was apparently a good athlete. 

Once at Coba, we had the opportunity to do what we really came there for and that was to climb the 136 steps to the top of one of the pyramids. It was, hot but a lot of fun and the view was great. Getting back down though was a bit hair raising. 

Finally we ended our tour that day by visiting a Cenote, which is sinkhole in limestone filled with rain water. It was refreshing since the heat that day was so hot. The water was extremely cold and there were fish in there. Megan seemed to have a better time swimming in it than I did as I seemed to sink almost immediately. 

We ended our day back at the hotel at the restaurant Ventanas, which was the fanciest restaurant there. It was a gastropub so all of the food was top notch. we were exhausted though and I was literally having trouble trying to stay awake at the dinner table.

A little over a week ago Megan and I went on vacation to Mexico. We wanted to use our passports this year for vacation and we also did not have much time this past spring to really plan out a trip, so an all-inclusive resort seemed like the perfect sort of trip. 

We booked our travel arrangements through Costco Travel and I have to say that I was super impressed. The itinerary that Costco provided was very thorough and they were even quick to assist me with a passport issue a couple days before. If you happen to have a Costco membership I would highly recommend you take a look at the travel options. 

Let me start of this series of blog posts by stating that I had an absolutely wonderful time in Mexico. The people were absolutely wonderful there and it really was an incredibly charming country. I wouldn't hesitate at all in recommending someone go there for a vacation and I would absolutely go back. We were impressed at how friendly not only the employees in the tourist areas were, but how friendly and genuine all of the Mexicans who were also vacationing were. We met a wonderful man named Luis who was vacationing from Mexico City and he just sort of summed up the who feeling we got about Mexico. More about him later though. 

Our flight leaving Chicago from O'Hare was of course delayed. Megan and I were stuck sitting in the airplane at the gate for about forty five minutes while another passenger had to deal with a passport issue. I guess they didn't have Costco Travel. Once we left Chicago our landing was also delayed in Cancun by about another hour due to a major storm in the area. Finally though we were able to land and get into Cancun where we hopped on a shuttle at took an hour ride south to Playa Del Carmin where our hotel was the Royal Hideaway Playacara.

We arrived at our hotel close to 5:30 that evening and it was a long day. I have to say though that the hotel was incredibly impressive, as were most of the hotels we saw. All of the hotels had these incredible, open courtyards. When we checked in we were seated at a desk and met one on one with the staff to get our keys while they gave us lemon towels for hour hands, champagne and chocolate. The concierge then made a reservation for us at the hotel's restaurant while we had our luggage brought to our villa. 

Now the hotel was gorgeous. All of the guest rooms were set in several villas that housed about twelve rooms apiece around the property. The villas had open courtyards in the center of each and they each villa had its own concierge who would help setup dinner reservations, etc. 

Our dinner that evening was at one of the four restaurants at the hotel and it was called Azia. As you can expect it featured Asian inspired cuisine. We order sushi and sake, had a few cocktails and then Megan ordered a Salmon dish and I had roasted duck in a curry sauce. 

Our first full day at the hotel was us just basically hanging out at the beach. The large storm from the day before made for some good waves and we had fun just swimming in the ocean, which was quite a bit warmer than the pool. Breakfast each morning was always fantastic. It was a large buffet with all sorts of Mexican food, a huge assortment of fruits (Chinese pomegranate anyone?) as well as fresh smoothies, omelets, etc. Fresh orange juice was also always served. 

Tennis season is ongoing right now and I am having a terrible spring season. I have basically forgotten or lost the ability to hit a forehand. I am not sure what it is but my shots this spring literally are hitting the back fence. I consider myself to be a pretty decent tennis player. My back hand, volleys and service are doing pretty well, but I just cannot hit a forehand at all. 

The whole mechanic of the swing feels "off" and I am afraid I am actually developing bad muscle memory at this point. A good forehand has this satisfying connection with the ball that you just know feels good when you hit it. The ball has topspin and momentum. Whenever I hit the ball right now though my whole body positioning and contact with the ball feels awful and either end up hitting the ball into the ground or into the back fence. It is quite frankly embarrassing. 

Megan was kind enough to go out to the court and hit with me this past Friday and I thought that I had found my stroke again. I had two matches to play this Saturday due to the weather this past spring. My first matching in the morning was a solid win. Not my best game ever, but I had my confidence back. When I got to my second match in the afternoon though, things fell apart. I quickly devolved from being able to it a solid shot to not being able to hit a forehand at all and I quickly lost the second set 1-6. 

So I think I need to do a radical change on my tennis store before I settle too far into this pit that I am defending into. I feel like my mechanics are already "damaged" with my one handed forehand so I am going to start practicing a two handed forehand. My backhand, even before this ordeal has always been my better groundstroke. The two handed action forces my body into a more proper position. I can't swing as easily with an open body, etc. 

I feel that a two handed forehand will help me shorten my swing, but also force me to swing through my stroke rather than swing "up" on my stroke, which I think is what I am doing right now. It will be an experiment over the next week or two, but I hope it can help me get my game back on track. 

reading the details online it seems that the 2HFH has the opinion of many has having consistency, something which is my most needed item at this moment. 

Over the past fifteen years or so I have made music in all sorts of forms. It is hard to believe that I have been "making" electronic music for fifteen years now and in that time I have seen the stupendous rise of music making software come and go. I have also seen the barrier of entry for new musicians become better and better every year. There truly has never been a better time than now to be a person who wants to make music. The tools are affordable and cheap. 

Perhaps it is the grizzled veteran in me now, but I do find a bit if exhaustion when browsing online communities and reading the posts from people who are just getting started. I am sure to some degree I was just as annoying as some of the people I find online now, but I have this weird sense that the new music makers have a paranoia or perhaps fear of really diving into the music creation process on their own and just figuring it out.  Nothing makes me cringe more than when I read a post that has someone asking "how do I make this sound from XXXX song". Man, just dig in there and figure it out, or make your own sound. 

It made me think about the common discussions I have with people online and I decided I would summarize them into a cheesy buzzfeed style top ten list. So here are my top ten tips for all the new artists out there who are getting started (and those who aren't). 

1. Make your own music. 

The #1 thing I would say to everyone out there is you gotta make your own music. Stop worrying about trying to making a sound in a genre or like another artist who has made it. If you ask yourself what makes the biggest and most well know acts in the world who they are, I think the answer is that they have a definitive sound. One can almost instantaneously recognize a Daft Punk or Chemical Brothers or Orbital song as soon as it begins playing and that is because they have developed their own sound. As an artist you can certainly try to copy a song and then when you fail to do so, make it your own and make it something wholly yours. 

2. Learn on hardware if you can. It isn't more expensive and ditch the PC.

Hardware has never been cheaper and old hardware has never been better. I know this won't be the popular opinion, but go out there and buy a couple of groove boxes and start making music on those first. The entire Volca series can be purchased for under $500. Old electribes can be had for about $100 a piece. Old MC series groove boxes can be bought for under $200 and the mother of groovebox workstations, the EMU Command Stations can readily be had for around $250. 

Hardware is just simply going to make it easier to learn the basics of synthesis in my opinion. Signal paths are clearly laid out and the hands on nature I think just connects with the brain in a much better way. If you move on from hardware or move on up, it has a resale value as well that software just doesn't. Buy some groove boxes and disconnect yourself from the distractions of the PC when writing your music. To this day my favorite synth to work with is my simplest one.

3. Don't be afraid to use old equipment or software.

The newest DAW's that are out on the market are amazing. Some of the features that they have truly are impressive, but with that list of features comes complexity. These workstations have years, sometimes decades of history behind them and in many cases the users have decades of history growing with these workstations. There is nothing to be ashamed of if you choose to use an older piece of software. With luck you can hopefully find a license key that is fairly cheap used on eBay or craigslist or something like that. Chances are that that piece of software, even as far back as ten years or so can make all the music you want it to, especially if you are in the Windows world where backwards comparability seems almost indefinite.  

This also goes for hardware and almost doesn't need to be said based on my #2 post above. The gear still works and it still can create amazing sounds. 

4. Learn that you may not be good at making the music you like to listen to.

I love dance music, especially trance. For years I spent a lot of time and effort trying to make it and it took me years to figure out that I am just not good at making it. Sure, I have had a couple of nice pieces here and there, but my strengths lie in other styles and genres. Take your shot at making your favorite genre, but don't be put off at creating music just because you aren't good at your favorite genre. Hell, you may find you aren't even good at making electronic music in general, but come to embrace what you are good at. It could be something as off the wall as sound design, film scoring, country/folk music, or simply creating patches for synths. You are still creating. 

5. Put in the time.

I am a huge culprit here myself. To get good you have to put in the time. Almost no one sits down and writes music brilliantly right away. If you are younger than 20 then you probably have more time to write than you realize. Making music is just as involved as learning an instrument. You may not realize it, but that three hours a day you are spending on learning Tracktion or that synth is worth it and counts as if you were practicing an instrument. What you put in you will get out, but don't expect to sit down for an hour a week to get it right. Hopefully though those three hours you spend every night after work or school is a lot more enjoyable than learning to play rudiments on a piano or guitar. 

6. Read the manual

I get it. You want to fiddle your way through your gear. I do that too, but manuals are mostly really good these days and for the ones that aren't there is usually someone on a community somewhere that has written a better one. And I am saying here to actually read the manual, not watch a YouTube video. Don't bounce back and forth between the DAW or hardware and the video to noodle around. Just sit-down and read it like a book in a quiet corner. Trust me on this, you will retain a lot more of it. The manual for my Command Station was over 200 pages and I read it cover to cover and I know that instrument better than any of my others. 

7. Compression is like makeup, if you notice it you've used too much.

I love this quote and I can't remember where exactly I heard it. Compression is the the Photoshop to today's modern music. It is an incredibly powerful tool and can do a lot of good. It can though very quickly do a lot of bad and too often I think musicians of all genres of music latch onto compression when writing their music. Sidechain compression is cool and a bit of a trope in modern EDM, but it has it's place, but I would actually go so far to say that you can ignore compression almost entirely when creating your music. It will help you to learn how to to get instruments and sounds to sit better together with each other. I learned this as I transitioned from software to hardware. I don't have compression on each track, but I do have EQ, filters and my sound design capabilities to get sounds to sit together nicely. That takes me right to my next point. 

8. Artists don't have to be mastering engineers.

For some reason electronic artists feel the need to also do audio mastering on their tracks. That is great if you can do it, but no other genre expects that from their artists and to be honest, I would rather have someone spending their time making more tracks than trying to perfectly master an existing track. Mastering is a whole different world and the tools are largely very different than would someone would normally use for mixing and recording. Forget about mastering your track. Mix it and normalize it and be done with it. If you have proper EQ and levels on it, someone can just turn the volume up on their listening device if they need it louder. If you think your track is that good, then pay to have it mastered. It is very cheap these days. If your track gets signed for some reason, congratulations, chances are the labels will want an unmastered copy so they can master it themselves. 

9. Don't be concerned with what is "Professional".

This covers a whole gamut of ideas from the way you physically look to the way your music sounds to the tools you use. Don't choose to use Ableton Live because everyone does and they claim it is more professional. Use the tools you want to use. If they achieve the sounds you want, then the conversation is over. At the end of the day the only thing you really should be concerned with is what gets you to make more music and what works with your workflow. If that happens to be Ableton Live, then great, but if it happens to be a Roland MC-303, then don't let anyone tell you that it sucks. 

10. Ask yourself who you are making the music for. 

There is no right or wrong answer to this one, but I think it is important for all musicians. Everyone has different end goals for this creative process. Some want to make a profession out of it, some want to use it has a hobby. Some may use it as an escape, while others may use it as a release. Whether you put all of your music on on the net for free, or you sell it, or you don't release a single piece of music publicly, don't let anyone tell you there is a wrong or right way to making music. 

One thing I have come to realize over the years is I hate communities who focus on providing critique of other user's music. I understand from a technical perspective how people want advice, and that is valuable, but too often opinions of music boil down to personal preference on what was created. How anyone can critique another creative endeavour boggles my mind. Most people have no idea what the personal story behind a song may be. The fact that someone were to tear it down or make claims that it may not be commercially viable misses the point, unless the song is specifically written for that target. 

Just write your music and get the feedback if you want it, but don't be consumed on getting feedback for your work. Those communities are an echo chamber and it is just musicians listening to other musicians. Don't let it be the end all be all to your music end goals. 

In an effort to expand my music creation palette and also get some more videos online, I am going to be experimenting with Sunvox. Sunvox is an modular tracker environment for music creation. It is a neat little free program that I think people should check out. It has some quirks to it, but ultimately has a cool interface. My first attempt at the video capture was a bit shaky. The stream quality for some reason is low, but I hope to get some better footage here in the future. 

I need to add some commentary in the future recordings to show my learning process with the software. The keyboard shortcuts here are taking quite a bit of getting used to and some of the layout of Sunvox is a bit clunky on OS X since this is a sort of universal program. 

Winter at work is always our slow time and it is a nice opportunity to us to catch up on smaller projects and plan things for the year. Spring is what brings in our busy time of the year and this year it has hit us suddenly like a brick. Things have been crazy busy and stressful. I have really found two outlets over the past couple of weeks to really burn off some steam. 

I have had a really energizing experience broadcasting some of my music in the studio on Twitch. I am now to the point where I am experimenting with two cameras and perhaps will expand to even three cameras. I hope over the coming weeks with this setup to do a couple of "live performance shows" or to do some tutorials for the Command Station and my other gear. 

The past couple of trips that I have taken have been to major metropolitan areas. New Orleans, Sand Diego, New York, etc. I have found that my iPhone has been invaluable in these areas when trying to find my way around the cities and finding things to do. Here is a list of my favorite travel apps (for the city)

Transit

I put this one first because I think it is the least well known of the bunch. Transit is a must if you are in a city where you will be using public transit. Open it up and you can instantly see all of the public transit options around you. What is really nice is that you can set your destination on the map and it will automatically calculate your public transit options for you. It also has real-time updates of routes for those cities that make that data available. 

Foursquare

The split of Foursquare last year was a tough one, but to be honest I have found it to probably be good for the company in the way the apps are used. The new Foursquare is a way to find things around you and is more than just for restaurants, but that is where it excels. I like it over Yelp, because it categorizes restaurants and locations using a crowd sourced tagging system, which I think is very efficient. It is super easy to pop the app open and see what are the best tags at a place for food, etc. 

Swarm

Swarm is the other off shoot app that came from the Foursquare separation. I not longer find it quite as useful, but checking in is still a fun process, especially if you are separated from other people on your trip, it makes for a fun way to keep track of where someone has been throughout the day. I still miss my favorite app of all time, Gowalla so let's hope Swarm can take some of those old Gowalla ideas, like the geocaching aspect and make the game more fun. 

Foodspotting

Foodspotting is a great app that should get more attention. It has a bit of overlap with Foursquare in its purpose, but it's strengths lie in its reliance on photos. Instead of just reading about what is good at a restaurant, instead see what other people have taken pictures of and read how they liked it. It is a sort of app that if you are really into food, then it is a must have. 

Evernote

Not much I can say about this one, that I haven't already said. I store a lot of info in here and for vacation planning it is ideal for throwing all of your receipts, digital tickets, event lists, to dos and other stuff for your vacation in here. I even throw in .PDf files of maps or brochures which I can easily bring up on a moment's notice.