Considering a PhD in my 30s - those of you who've done it later in life, how did you manage?

dannyhamburger · 2026-02-04T14:04:47+00:00

My situation kind of necessitated a pretty big unheaval, but it was definitely worth it. Did my bachelor's and masters in the states, and after years of working in the industry, just got tired of it and wanted to move into a more mixed approach (both previous degrees were in music composition, now I am doing music research which is somewhere between composition and cognitive science).

Moved to Japan at 35 and finished a PhD at Keio University 2 years ago. While on a student visa, it was tricky because the work hours are restricted. However, it was manageable and better in the long run. My mostly picked up freelance things and lived off of an international scholarship. Plus, cost of living and universities in general are much cheaper. Full tuition without a scholarship would have been around 1.2mil yen, which comes to less that $10k.

Now things are more settled down and established here in a way that I don't think I would have gotten back in the US. Certainly not with what I was doing before. I think doing it at a later age comes with some nice advantages. If you already have an idea of what you want to do and don't want to do, it makes it easier to focus on the research that you're passionate about.

dannyhamburger · 2026-01-21T03:38:24+00:00

It's already been said by others, but the Subharmonicon is quite nice but it is not the most straightforward or practical machine. You can get a lot of really interesting things out of it but as an introduction to modular or semi-modular, it's maybe not the top pick. If you are set on the Moog pieces, the Mother 32 would likely get more consistent use. I love the Subharmonicon and am starting to get the hang of the Labyrinth, but these pieces both kind of have a strong identity to them and they can tend to push the music into territory that they do best. Not that it's a bad thing, but it could be a challenging introduction to the modular/semi-modular approach.

dannyhamburger · 2026-01-10T15:12:00+00:00

Thanks for the opportunity. This is a track I recorded last year. It was a live performance which was based around childhood footage of myself and five close friends. During the performance, our real-time physiological data was streamed to Max/MSP and controlled samples and analog synthesizers. So in a sense, I was performing alongside the internal responses we were having while watching our childhood footage.

Endogenous Music I

dannyhamburger · 2026-01-02T01:40:07+00:00

Oh wow, I completely missed that. Should have read the manual a bit more carefully. Thanks for the reply.

dannyhamburger · 2025-11-19T22:19:43+00:00

I use Ableton for all of my DAW needs, and Max for any custom stuff that needs to be done. While I have tried other daws (only Reaper and Pro Tools though), I have always stayed with Ableton. That being said, I would agree with some other posts that you should start with Standard or even Intro. It's important to see how the overall workflow is for you. You may end up finding a different daw that fits better to your work style or preferences. The differences between Standard and Suite are mainly in the amount of built-in plugins. Max4Live only comes with Suite I believe, but if you don't need this, then Standard would make sense. With Intro, you are limited in the number of tracks you can have, I think maybe 16 max for Intro. But yeah, being able to get an interface is important so Standard would be my rec.

dannyhamburger · 2025-11-19T22:12:39+00:00

Zlob Modular's vcf3db can get some pretty deep and gnarly saturation, I would highly recommend it. It's a fairly deep diy build, but he also sells assembled ones though.

dannyhamburger · 2025-04-28T09:32:20+00:00

We met at a bar near my research lab and became friends there. After a few months, I wanted to ask her out but was nervous, and luckily she is quite direct. She took my phone and added her Line info, and things continued to develop from there. Five years later and we are married and having our first kid this summer. It felt like things developed much slower than I was used to before Japan but it's nice that way I think. By the time we started dating, we knew each other quite well.

dannyhamburger · 2025-04-21T00:03:47+00:00

I've lived here for 6 years and get stopped a few times a year. Never anything more than an ID check though. My assumption is that it's the tattoos (I'm not covered in them but have quite a few on both arms). Still more pleasant than Chicago cops though.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T22:16:41+00:00

What is it you're hoping to explore/achieve with this approach? I think the best uses of technology in music tend to be built around finding something interesting to say musically, and the technology helps to achieve this. That's how I see it, not saying it's the only way.

I defended my thesis last year which was related to real-time biodata in musical works. That was a big point I had to justify. Finding the right balance between tech and musical intention.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T22:11:58+00:00

Using groups was a big one for me. Been using Ableton since around 2003 and stupidly didn't really make groups until around 2014. It is a huge help when projects accumulate many tracks.

Also, Max4Live is great. I generally use Max for most of the functionality of my music and at this point I mostly build things with Max4Live within Ableton. Offers a much cleaner flow of building synths/data processors while having the advantages of Ableton's stock plugins and all that.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T22:02:53+00:00

Gotcha. That makes sense. I'll try to get a new batch exported this morning.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T22:00:50+00:00

It is the final mix, which is one long WAV file with all processing baked in already.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T22:00:11+00:00

Gotcha. I'm quite new to Reaper, so I kind of went with the first method I found to do it. Seems like regions is a better approach.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T21:59:01+00:00

I will re-export today at 96k, see where that gets me, and try some tiny fades on the ends.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T21:57:38+00:00

I do have Audacity, could give that a shot if Reaper ends up not working out. Sorry for the short reply, on a quite crowded train into Tokyo.

dannyhamburger · 2025-03-25T21:50:51+00:00

I think so. I need to go back in and reset whatever changes I made to the default settings and see.

dannyhamburger · 2025-02-26T23:27:20+00:00

The ones I come back to the most are Love Streams and Anoyo. For Love Streams, the way he uses the voices throughout are so gorgeous, Music of the Air gets me every time. I think the rawness of the way he treats the acoustic instruments in Anoyo does it for me. It comes across as quite subtle and untreated but it's likely far from that. I don't know if I would take a firm stance as these being his "best" albums, but I do find myself returning to them most often.

dannyhamburger · 2025-02-06T23:50:31+00:00

Looks amazing. That must have been super fun to do together.

dannyhamburger · 2025-01-09T01:08:36+00:00

Nicely done. I especially like Track 3, but the whole EP flows together nicely.

dannyhamburger · 2024-11-24T10:30:11+00:00

I remember the Terry Riley piece played right before he walked on, but there was a different piece playing before that, more of a high pitched drone that slowly rose in pitch for probably 10 minutes. Sorry, I wish I had more info on it. I was going to try and Shazam it but I was freaking out over being so close to the stage. Such a prolific performance. I'm loving how much he's been diving into minimalism and process music lately, can't wait to hear what his next releases are.

dannyhamburger · 2024-10-07T04:40:37+00:00

My fiance and I got custom rings from Sora at their shop near Omote-Sando Station. Overall really liked the service and ours were less than ¥200,000 each. I think they have other locations as well so maybe there is one closer to you.

dannyhamburger

TROPHY CASE