Hivemind Times Issue #53

Welcome To The Hivemind Times!

Hello, Good People of the Hivemind Newsletter. Cronk here.

Graydon has decided to leave the country. He said he needed “space,” but then took Tony with him. They went to Wales or something… idk. It’s been a quiet week at the office without Graydon and Tony. I heard rumors that Grant is also kicking back and chilling on a beach somewhere in the United States. 

We did drop Guess the Rapper from the Type Beat with Detroit’s very own Nasaan on the main channel this week. Nasaan is a funny ass dude - I've been waiting awhile for him to come do a video, be sure to check it out. 

Anyway, lots of fun stuff in the letter this week with a special guest article from Internetboy.

Hope you all have a great weekend. Tata and Toodaloo!!

- Riley & Graydon Cronk

ALBUM RECS

Cronk here, I don’t have much prepared for this music segment but a light recommendation.

I gave this Goo Goo Dolls album a run front to back and it’s quite, quite good. Ofc Iris is one of the best songs of all time but this album like actually bangs front to back.

Great singing, great melody’s, beautiful guitar and cool pop drum Grooves that we just don’t hear anymore with acoustic drums.

QUINN’S CHEMISTRY CLASS

Hey people, sorry I haven’t written anything in a few weeks. I just really didn’t feel like it. I’m continuing my mixing elements basics this week. Last week we went over levels, this week will be panning. To everyone that doesn’t give a flying fuck about music production or audio, I’m truly sorry. I’ll go back to talking about war crimes and making drugs in your basement soon.

Panning

Panning refers to which side of the speakers a sound is coming from. In an average 2 speaker system, you can have any element of a mix come 100% from the left, 100% from the right, from only the center (mono), only the left and right (100% wide), or anywhere in between. The combination of every element’s place in this 3-dimensional space is called the stereo image. The stereo image is utilized to give every element its own distinct place in the mix by literally placing them in different spots in the stereo field. 

Your brain is wired to use delicate psycho-acoustic properties as clues to where a sound is coming from in a real environment and panning takes advantage of this to trick your brain into creating a 3D map of any mix that you listen to. There is side-to-side panning, mono-to-stereo “width, and front-to-back “depth”. I won’t really get into depth or width in this (yet) because it requires more than just turning the panning knob on your audio editing software and requires a lot more explanation of how to achieve separation on those axes.

A simple example of using panning to separate elements in a mix is to imagine mixing an average 5 member band with the following instruments: vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums. If you just recorded all of the instruments and left all of them in the middle, any overlapping frequencies will clash and everything will sound completely jumbled while the instruments compete to occupy the same space.

One way to solve this issue would be to imagine the band playing on a stage in front of you. The vocalist would stay in the center, the lead guitar might be slightly to you right, the rhythm guitar slightly to your left, the bass would be to the side in real life but in a mix you almost always leave bass frequencies in mono to avoid phasing issues (just trust me bro on that for right now), then the drums you would pan each individual element of slightly to whatever side they would appear on a drumset (either as if you were playing them or if you were in the audience) while keeping the kick in the center because it is a bass frequency instrument. It is extremely common to mix bands like this. 

Panning is an amazing tool to separate mix elements and give them all their own space in the stereo field, as a general rule, try not to have too many sounds in similar frequency ranges taking up the same stereo space.

You don’t have to use the stereo image as just a tool to give elements their own space, though. It can be used creatively as well. When you get into genres like shoegaze and a lot of edm you start to hear delay pedals and synths that have the delay sweeping back and forth from left to right like they are swirling around you, or notes from one instrument coming from different spots in the stereo image. 

If you listen to stuff like Burial for example, there are so many elements and little percussive hits that are coming from all around you, engulfing you in the track. The possibilities are truly endless. Next time I write an article will be on EQ, so look out for that one.

- Quinn

INTERNETBOY UPDATE

Hey Hivemind fans! 

Internetboy back here again with a drab boring one for you all today, and I am fully prepared for Graydon to call me a downright dirty commie the second he gets back from his beans and whitebread trip.

When Daddy Graygray is gone, Cronk lets me write my propaganda.  

Rent. You pay it, you cry, and you forget about it (not necessarily in that order). This wonderful cycle burns every 31 days, 12 times per year, for about 60 years—until you can save up those sweet sweet vbucks and get a place of your own!  (rank permitting.) Or maybe you luck out and your grandma, who passed on, decided that she loved you the most and wanted to give you her battle pass for next to nothing. Nice. But what if there was a better way to do things?  What if everyone that was broke got vbucks and 3 chug jug so that they can get a battle pass of their own? Or better yet, you’re born with a battle pass.  

Roblox aside, I wanted to talk about how paying rent sucks and a possible solution to get us out of this mess in the future. I’ll refrain from being a doomer here because, as impossible as it may seem to have stability in many of our lives today, I want to offer you an idea; a beacon of light for how one day we might live with one less cloud over our heads so we can focus on the things we love.

The Vienna housing model has its origins after World War I, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and Vienna was left to rebuild many things on its own. The people of Vienna during this time were very poor, jobless, and lived in conditions that we might imagine are akin to Hank and Riley’s current modern day apartment. 

In 1919 (just as Hank may have done if he lived in this time), the people of Vienna voted to elect the SDAPÖ on the platform of dramatic reform. By taxing the wealthiest people in their society, they were able to implement vast changes to medicine, infrastructure, and… housing! Plentiful, beautiful, elegant housing—not only for the poorest of society but also for people who today would be just living life as a kick streamer, people who have a strange looking dog, are in college for a TikTok degree, or are focusing on their next big band camp project that’s about to land a record deal.

Without the burden of profit incentive, the social housing built by Red Vienna was able to prioritize quality without sacrificing cost. It’s kind of like if you got the Switch 2, but it came with 5 games already on it and it was only 250 bucks. The Vienna model isn’t just about building a forgotten apartment complex that hasn’t been updated in 50 years; these are beautiful homes with swimming pools, full kitchens, access to schools, parks, and tram lines, and any amenity you could want. Needing a place to call your own shouldn’t be shameful—it should be a human right and you should have dignity living there.

Often, when we think about social housing in America, images of poverty, misfortune, and downward mobility surround the idea. But these homes aren’t sectioned off by a highway, divided by a road, or pushed into a corner with no grocery stores. They aren’t for profit, an investment portfolio, or something you need to outgrow. It’s a home—and to everyone, that means something a little different. For me, it means I have to have at least 10 shelves with 37 One Piece figures, 25 Pokémon plushies, and every volume of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Even after World War II wreaked havoc on Vienna, over 62% of the housing remains public, while the rest is private. So if you want to build something more unique to you, the option to build your own home is still available for many. I think a mixed model of this nature would be a healthy transition away from how we do things here. As with any system, there’s always plenty to improve upon, and I’m sure people who live in Vienna have their critiques, but I believe that this would be a great baseline to work from—and something that seems like a fantasy to us here.  

Anyways, sorry for the nerdier-than-average write-up from me, but I really think the Vienna housing model is something to consider for the future and a hope for all of us here. Maybe next time I’ll talk about China’s insane railway system, but I guess we’ll see. Feel free to hit my DM's if you have any suggestions!

Later, comrades.

- Internetboy

TRAVEL

Here are some leaked pictures from Graydon and Tony’s “vacation”.

Why tf is Hunter Veers there???

MERCH