thisismitch
Joined 12 years ago
Karma
44
Submissions
8
Member since
Jun 2
Mitchell Anicas
Engineering Manager at DigitalOcean
New York, New York
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Comment · 4 years ago
I've had a similar approach to music except, instead of field recordings, I started with MIDI keyboards in the mid-90s instead. For me, it's been a fun hobby to keep my toes in music while I play software engineer most of the week. I can confirm all six of the tips in the article are correct.
> Anyway, I eventually discovered a life changing life-hack which I have now used for years to force myself to finish and release music. It’s called ‘Christmas Music’.
Funnily enough, my life-hack was 'Birthday Songs'. I would write 30-60 second songs, most not very good and some parodies, for my friends' birthdays just to keep busy musically. Eventually I wrote a full-length birthday song for my friend's dad's 70th birthday. I also wrote a Christmas song and a Thanksgiving song.
> 6: Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human
Now I have a fancy audio interface, Universal Audio Apollo x4, and a small collection of high quality microphones and instruments. And I'm still happy recording pointless, joke songs.
Example songs
First birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/easy-29
Korn parody birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/happy-birthda...
Full-length birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ferrell-dise
Thanksgiving song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ooh-its-thank...
Comment · 8 years ago
Not exactly—I actually got a CS degree back in 2005 but got into sysadmin work. I started at DigitalOcean as a technical writer (tutorials) in 2014 then, after 18 months of writing, brushed up on my skills by working on side projects and pairing weekly with one of DO’s engineering managers.
Comment · 8 years ago
Prior to my career as a software engineer, I attended RubyConf (2015, San Antonio) and watched a presentation about making music with Sonic Pi. That night, I made this rendition of "Corridors of Time" from Chrono Trigger: https://gist.github.com/thisismitch/be9287c80903cad151fe
It took me way longer than I'd like to admit! Enjoy!
Edit: Here's an MP3 export of it https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/corridors-of-... for easier listening.
Comment · 11 years ago
If you haven't had trouble with Linux, I'd say you could manage in FreeBSD.
We've prepared tutorials that can help you get started with the basics: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/freebsd
Comment · 12 years ago
Great use of OAuth, API, and user data!
Comment · 12 years ago
In AMS2 and SFO1, the metadata service is available to new droplets. A snapshot/restore would enable it in your case.