The Remix

56 second MUSIC+COMIC on remixing, using a remix of last SHORT music.  Lots of gratuitous abstract animation here.  Took over 3 hours, which is a lot for one of these. I just kept on coming up with something else to add to keep it more animated than usual.  Our cat in recent years is my constant companion, and he selected me as his full time live in staff.

Kraftwerk the MIX isn’t the only remix that has impressed me though.  

CAN’T YOU TRIP LIKE I DO    from the SPAWN soundtrack had a real impact, and made me realize a metal version was just as valid an approach as the more common DJ HipHop style.  

Another is CASSIAN’s GREAT SOUTHERN LAND  

And to not forget the remix of Freak Kitchen’s EVERYBODY GETS BLOODY  

Or even the Teddy Riley remix of Jane Child’s I Don't Wanna Fall In Love . 

But all those is too much to put in a 56 second music comic. Far too much text.

I have a 2017 issue of COMPUTER MUSIC with a few articles on THE ART OF REMIXING. None of those ideas mentioned in that are used in this track, except for the arrow and line graphics featured. But very educational otherwise, to a different music world.

I only ever bought 5 issues of COMPUTER MUSIC magazine, but am grateful to the creators. It was the right thing, at the right time for me.  It was the COMPUTER MUSIC SPECIAL 07 2007, THE ULTIMATE FREE HOME STUDIO, with the CD-ROM on the cover that introduced me to the world of VSTs. Buying that magazine was a great investment for me. We had dial up INTERNET and we had exceeded our contracts limit much of the time, so having stuff on CD-ROM was awesome.  

Also pretty much made what hardware manufacturers like Roland were doing irrelevant to me. I think the same thing happened to many other music creators too. 

I updated my POD EXPRESS BLACK presets to have a more aggressive LEAD sound in this and the last track.  I don’t use any of the delay, modulation or reverb options on offer.  Would use a pitch shifter if it had one sometimes though, but the new BOSS Poly Shifter costs more than this whole unit. The Reaper project now also has additional guitar tracks for using my NO CAB presets and adding and mixing cabinet IRs in Reaper.  I have yet to find I use more than 3 presets. My ANVIL sound, and my ANVIL lead sound, and the same without the cabinets.  

Something in my head keeps saying "But maybe you should try the Line6 HX STOMP" but I just know I would only use the same 3 presets. Would it sound better though?  Maybe a little, but no one watching this for a few seconds would care at all!  And as the Yen exchange rate is really poor at the moment, the best price I have seen for it is ¥89,100, which is more than double what I paid for my most expensive guitar, which just screams all kind of wrong priorities to me too. 

YouTube showed me some guys HX STOMP’s 5 favorite guitar amps and the settings he used. Cool, but in the context of a piece of music, It would not make any difference to a listener which “rock guitar” sound he used in original music. But what this is about is how it makes the Player feel, and that impacts the performance, and the listener can probably hear that. Same goes for the guitar itself, and all the other stuff “guitarists” fuss about. 

It seems needing all these different guitar tones is possibly about the different styles of music, and covers, they play.  I don’t really do that,  and am after “my sound”. If I do play a sound alike cover, I still want it to sound like me, so all the guitar sounds on the original songs do not interest me.  

Have put this bit of music on Bandcamp in our Assorted Bits 3 Album.

Other Things

Last weekend was a long weekend, with Monday a public holiday. I posted the STUDIO VS LIVE Short to You Tube Sunday morning, and Tuesday morning 11AM has had 325 views, so back to the idea a Sunday post is best. 65% of viewers stay to watch the first half.

Drivers License renewed for 5 years. Only 2 hours door today Wednesday morning.  This is due to only having a 30 minute safe driving video/ lecture this time rather than the 3 hours for a new license. 

GOLDEN - From the K-POP Demon Hunters animated film must surely be some type of Master Course in making a catchy pop song.  

Just caught part of RICK BEATO’s video on what he wants to do on his channel next. Mostly not traveling and doing interviews any more.  More back to what he originally did on his channel, like film scoring and production, music education and song breakdowns, but NOT what makes this song great.  I haven’t watched most of his famous musician interviews, as that doesn’t particularly interest me. Survival Biase is a thing. His producer, recording engineer type things have been more interesting to me, but I also don’t care about mic-ing a drum kit or piano.  If what does helps me do my own thing, and inspires, that would be good.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Studio vs Live Music

 

A music comic thrown together this morning. After doing a rather rocking short thing on 7 string yesterday and wanting to check SUNDAY posting of shorts some more.

I saw Neil's thoughts on his Studio CD preference on Facebook or Twitter  some time ago, and even though I have looked, I haven't been able to find it again. I had agreed with what he said.

I mostly prefer Studio produced CDs too, but this year changed me.  I attended 3 concerts in Japan and the sound and facilities are so much better than what I endured way back when in Sydney. Also I attended 2 smaller concerts with Urasawa Naoki + Band and ASTERISM and they were much more like a personal performance, they were so close.   

I am very much a Studio guy for my own things. Making my music and producing is rather like painting to me.  But I can see that very much depends who you would be performing with if you didn't just use backing tracks, but anxiety is a thing for me about that kind of thing.

The music in this was a very quick 7 string guitar and synth thing. Basically 4 guitar riffs, where 1 is repeated a lot.  I like it though, and the guitar tone from the Line 6 POD EXPRESS BLACK.

Manben Neo #21

Urasawa Naoki's latest Manga Study on Chica Umino was on last night. I always learn something interesting in these. The way she has text doing 3 different things in a panel is interesting, and not just caption, speech and sound effects. Outlining in green pen in color illustrations is something else too. But is it all a reaction to her own school trauma?! 😮

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

The Music Collection Not Streamed

How about that.  X videos are now up to 140 seconds for the free accounts and YouTube Shorts AND Instagram REELs up to 3 minutes. When did that happen? Seems like yesterday I tried to upload a video a tiny bit over 60s and it failed.  But Shorts where changed to allow up to 3 minutes in October 2024, 12 months ago. I just don't keep up with the comings and goings of social media.

Still seems the average viewers attention span is under 18 seconds though... 😂  

So this is a 2 minute MUSIC+COMIC on having a music collection and buying music (CDs, Vinyl and MP3s) to own.  

I started with vinyl records in the '70s, and was in a record club.  I was so happy when CDs came out. No fizz, clicks and pops! Also took up much less space and less of a dance performance to get them out of the sleave and onto a turntable and cue the stylus to actually play it. I sold my turntables and all but 2 of my 136 vinyl albums before moving back to Japan in 2019. 

I think buying the music you listen to makes it mean more to you.  The CDs I bought this year were of artists I saw live and even met. I would call Urasawa Naoki an Independent Artist, as he is actually a famous Comic Creator and musician isn't his fulltime job. I am all for supporting that.

I will sometimes use SPOTIFY or YOUTUBE to check out an artist I have just learnt about, to see if I want to get more familiar with them.  Like I have known about BABYMETAL for ages, but hadn't listened. Listened to a few tracks in the last couple of days and the band is awesome, and that the singers are cute girls is just very Japan.  Very different from ASTERISM, my current band on constant rotation.

When out and about in recent years, I put tracks and a handful of  albums on my SHARP Android Phone and use the PULSAR music player with JBL Earbuds or SHOKZ open units, depending on how noisy the place I am in is and environmentally aware I need to be.  That is so if my wife calls me about something, I will get the call, and missing calls is a problem if I use my X1 MP3 Player.

I don't need my entire music collection instantly available everywhere I go. The same few albums and track collections is all I need for many months at a time, before feeling I need to change anything.  For the last 6 weeks I have been mostly playing ASTERISM albums, and occasionally going back to some of my own ASSORTED MUSICAL BITS.  

Other Things

Found that just releasing a YouTube short just on a Sunday made only a small difference to how many views it got. Not enough for me to not go back and post at random times as is what I have normally done. So here we are, posting on a Wednesday morning! 

Came across  Indie, Over 50 on YouTube asking a question I talk about every so often on this blog. Why keep creating things and putting them out, when "no one but a few friends cares?".  That channels focus is on being An Older Indie Musician/Band trying to connect with an audience, with a dream of maybe making it.  Helps with promoting such musicians with YouTube and Spotify etc. playlists.  I left a comment, even if it isn't exactly my focus, even if I do have a BEST OF ALBUM on Bandcamp of my simplistic music 😀.  

I will be 67 in a couple of weeks!  We decided on where our ashes will go after cremation a week or so ago, and have to organize to pay for that tomorrow.  Not that we have an expiration date or anything, and we are fine.  

Hey! Look at all those Shills! The LINE 6 HELIX STADIUM is released and seems like dozens of YouTubes are gushing all over it today.  LINE 6 didn't send me one for free though, so you will not see a video like that from me.  I paid for my LINE6 POD EXPRESS BLACK.  I also have a BASS FLOOR POD I bought many years ago at a very low price at a local music store. Assumed it was too complicated for any bass players. I use it for 2 sounds and is great for me. 

A new Rick Beato video this morning, Where Have All The Metalheads Gone? Japan has a lot of metal (and every other style) bands, and I think part of that is there are a lot of guitar players here, so do get exposed to everything. I think it was after I started playing the guitar again in 2006 or so that I found metal (Metallica, Megadeth Avenged Seven Fold and the others in the guitar magazines), and that was even cooler than the hard rock I thought I was.  So I agree that playing the guitar is the place to get exposed to all the variations of guitar music. Rick Beato is also in "middle 'merica". In Trump country. Very much evident in his video on his trip to Japan and the music scene there, and much of his older top hits videos, where much of what he went over was SO American centric and not what was big in PUB ROCK Australia of my High School days. Like America had no Slade or Mark Bolan T-REX in the charts, but they were big in Australia and Japan. 

Easily Fooled

Our ears are easily fooled. The MP3 encoder relies on it. Higher level frequencies mask lower level near by frequencies. HI-GAIN guitars in a mix can hide issues in my music too.  Something can sound fine on headphones or full range speakers, yet some notes can have timing or pitch issues when played back on a laptop or phone speaker. 

I got out these tiny PC speakers again and updated them too Bluetooth with a Nobsound NS-01G as another mix checking tool in the last weeks.  Helped with hearing some issues in a couple of 8 bar sections in the music in the extended Short here.  These speakers originally had garbage 3” 4 ohm drivers in them, picked them up during an office junk clean up. I replaced the drivers with JAYCAR 1” 8 ohm units some 8 years ago.  For some reason, just putting a band limiting EQ on the monitor bus in Reaper for my main monitors doesn’t prove as revealing as these do. I have them across the other side of the room. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Our Music Production Setup (Mostly)

Under 60 second MUSIC + COMIC on our current music production system.  I have always DI’ed my guitars and have never mic’ed an amplifier.  The only guitar amplifier I have is a micro Orange practice unit, and rarely use it now. It just makes too much noise, and I rarely practice. Making something is my practice. 

This MUSIC + COMIC has a few extra irrelevant things going on in it to see if it can keep the attention of the general viewer for more than a few seconds on YouTube in the SHORTs feed. 

Have a few Distortion Pedals. Even an old MXR and a Boss DISTORTION & FEEDBACKER, and man, that BOSS thing is terrible. Have bought things like the METAL CORE and Mackie Mixer second hand. Happy enough using the ANVIL Amplifier and large cabinet in the Pod Express Black recently. 

I don’t use any of the Pods effects or stereo, as I add that during the mix with vsts.  I can also use just the Pod amp and turn off the cabinet, and use the IR loaders I have. I just haven’t needed to do that yet.  But it will come a time I will want to change things up a bit. Would love a HX STOMP but expect the HI-GAIN extra amp and cabinet options, especially in mono without effects the way I use it, would go UN-noticed in my finished tracks anyway.

Until moving to the Windows 11 GTUNE MOUSE PC  I was using a Roland Rubix22 and Cakewalk audio interface.  I could still use the Rubix as there is a WIn11 driver, but it isn’t  great. I hate that input level indicator. The control of volume between use in the DAW and standard Video and Animation applications isn’t consistent either, which makes it tedious.  So PC LINE IN, LINE OUT, ASIO4all  and a Mackie mixer are what I am using at at the moment. The mixer has phantom power for condenser microphones (like my audio-technica AT2020), and a real level meter. 

The basic noise floor of the Mackie Mixer -> PC LINE IN with nothing plugged into the mixer.

The noise component when you plug anything in becomes 60Hz mains hum some -68dB down.  Irrelevant for a Hi-Gain Guitar and even my vocals. 

I started my music production career in earnest with a TASCAM PORTAONE, so compared to that, my current system is “perfect”.  For many years I  used a BEHRINGER MC100 into the line in of my PC for guitar and microphone interfacing. 

Use an audio-technica AT-HAZ to drive headphones (love my AKG K702) and that also connects to JBL104 tiny powered monitors. I can power on Just the Headphones or speakers if I want, and most of the time it is just headphones. My studio is so tiny, there isn’t room for any larger monitors, or room treatment. I use headphones A LOT. I use the mastering spectrum analyzer and larger tower speakers in a larger room to check how I am going. Also have room simulator for the headphones and other things. 

This is all very much a lowcost music gear approach. I don’t need an expensive Neve Microphone Preamp,  compressor or EQ. Wouldn’t be any audible difference for what I do.  

In years past, checking music in the car was the best, but I almost don’t drive any more, and it is now a different car I haven’t spent 100s of hours listening to on long commutes to and from work. These days I don’t hear anything above 12kHz at all, and have some big dips in my hearing too, so I don’t hear like I used too and don’t trust my own ears.  ( I also go out of my way to protect what hearing I have and not get Tinnitus, like lots of people I know have. I use Ear Plugs when appropriate ). The SPAN spectrum Analyzer in mastering mode is thus a significant too to check the balance of what I'm doing and how much spectrum individual tracks are using.  

I use the REAPER DAW, with a bunch of effects and VST synthesizers, such as SURGE XT and ZebraHZ with a KORG microKEYS keyboard. Have an old Roland PC-180 too, I bought with a staff discount, but it takes up too much space now and the key touch is terrible. I think BOSS and Roland aren’t competitive for what I am after these last decades, and haven’t been value for a long time (since the TR-606 anyway, which I used in my 4 track days). I also have a KORG MS-20 mini, a real analog synth. Bought second hand.

Most guitarists will have at least 4 tracks of guitars. I have done that in the past, but recently I have one rhythm track and one lead track. Keeping it very simple, more Van Halen style than heavy metal.

The music I put on these music + comics is slapped into a limiter to make it loud and stand out. Very much like a TV advertisement.  A longer track doesn't need to be slammed anywhere near as much as these short things. 

At the present time, only YouTube Shorts get any views so that is why we keep with the 60 second music tracks. They also go on X with my “I am not paying for X!” account.  

When I started my YouTube channel, I used it for slide shows with music of my illustrations, like this:

I still do the same, with the music as support most of the time. So I identify with the pronoun PRODUCER, rather than GUITARIST or MUSICIAN.

This blog post and Short upload to YouTube will be the 3rd week in a row I am waiting till Sunday afternoon Japan time to post. This seems to be what YouTube is encouraging, and I will see if that is contestant with last weeks results or not. Also the 3rd time to write the post in Scriven first, rather than in the Blogger online editor.  For the last years, I have just uploaded stuff when I finished it, which more often than not, was a weekday morning. Many have had very few views.  It also means I get to review the result over a few days before I finally post it, and I think that has probably made the results a little better (or may be just busier) too, with added, interesting details I may be the only one to notice. 

 But in the end, I make these things for my own entertainment and how I fill a few days a week of my remaining time in retirement. I’m not trying to  “grow my channel” as all the tedious YouTubers say. I am not a YouTuber, but having stuff seen is nicer.

Dangerous Advice

On a related note, was shown a YouTube video yesterday about mixing on headphones, and their advice was to play it at a loud 85dB to judge, and that 8 hours at that level was safe. 

My first thought was “what level do I listen at?”. So made a quick foam jig to hold a Sound Level Meter in one ear pad, with the ear pad sealed (even though these are open back headphones ). 

 Played BROWN NOISE and MUSIC and found I listen at a very low level. 60dB is VERY loud, and 85dB is like head crushingly loud! 

The advice is 85dB is “safe for 8 hours” but really, that will result in ear damage if you do that often.  

Random Things

After really enjoying Predator Badlands last week, I realized I had never seen the first Predator (1987) movie. It is on PRIME and watched it during the week and it is quite a thriller. 1987 was the year I first moved to Japan with a young son and wife. A really busy time. 38 years ago and all a bit of a blur now. 

Facebook reminds me I bought EQUINOXE INFINITY CD 7 years ago. Love Jean Michel Jarre's music. In my own stuff I try and do RIFF based heavy guitar with things somewhat inspired by his kind of sequencer and melodic synths.   But not always 😁 .

I see on Facebook some in my year in High School had a 49th get together at a local pub. What was alarming were the reasons some that wanted to go but couldn't travel. Dialysis, Radiotherapy, recovering from a head wound needing 10 stitches and other things. These things happen to everyone, and 8 years ago I had my turn in Hospital, and glad to be fine at the moment.  

Thinking the next one of these MUSIC+COMICs I do could be on the making of the animation in this one, but we will see what else strikes me as interesting in the coming week.  

Update: 2025/1/17. Monday shows many only watch the above Short for 2 seconds, so it seems what I tried to do didn't work at all, and one on making the MUSIC+COMIC is probably NOT a good idea at all.  Whatever it is, already done a very guitar piece of music for it.

And I always find just posting a picture, like this of our guitars, gets far more reaction than anything I make with them, like a MUSIC+COMIC😞.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Where The Smoke comes out: A Collection Of Memories Comic

 

Under 60 second MUSIC + COMIC on our collection of memories. It isn’t an autobiography at all.  I can’t overstate that enough.

In 2001 I originally thought a book on my Oz Music Tech, Japan Music Tech then back to Oz journey as an autobiography might be interesting, but it didn’t take long via my website to discover that no one was interested. 

Some 10 years later I wrote a Kindle book about making car cartoons and put it on Amazon and discovered I wouldn’t go that route again either. The volume needed before you ever saw a payout was far too high for a niche book that wasn’t getting any significant promotion (and the give it away free for the initial promotion meant 1,000s had it anyway). 

A few years later I did the Heavy Metal Garage Car Cartoon webcomic hosted on my own website, all free to read  and discovered that was the direction for me.  

Some 10 years after that a short comic of just history and memories was something I felt like doing. I started it in a small apartment we rented after retiring/ downsizing in preparing to move back to Japan in 2019.  I just hosted it on our website like I did the webcomic using the same basic php comic viewer. All free to read.  That approach meant I didn’t need to write it all at once and can add and change it whenever I feel like it.  It received enough views, but more importantly, positive comments, to keep going. Only a handful, but that was enough.  

I really like this
I really enjoyed your short comic
love your comic
This is really interesting
Fascinating stuff and great fun to read!
Thoroughly enjoyed it
This is fascinating !!!
Awesome!!!!
Great read, thanks for sharing!
It's an incredible insight as to how technology develops

A key feature is it is short. Only 40 pages! 

The CBR format came later. Must say I have no idea if that format of My Collection Of Memories has been read by anyone the way I host it, but do know constant website accesses from China indicates it is being used to train their AIs.  

Not something I am going to fuss about though, as a retired guy just doing music & comics for fun.   

Wife had an old friend stay over the weekend, and I went to the Cinema last Friday. This week I have nothing I have to do, and that feels really good. I can ignore the rest of the world, and do whatever I want in the studio.

An Illustration? Painting? Comic? Music? Music+Comic? or something else?

What I did do is connect the "new" win11 PC (it is 3.5 months old) to the SONY mini combo HIFI with tower speakers in the next room via BT.  I have small JBL104s in my studio, and all I use ( mostly )with my AKG702 headphones in mixing and producing my music tracks.  But sometimes want to hear how it sounds on bigger speakers, not that it matters much now.  

I think very few people now actually listen to music on loudspeakers any more at home, and if they do it is just background music over something like a small Bluetooth speaker. Maybe the only place that people do listen to music via speakers is in their car. That was true for me. Car stereos are also still a thing, unlike the very niche home HiFi.

Studio or Live?

Musical instrument makers and sellers in Japan are all about live performance. Roland always was too. Expect being an introvert is part of the reason that has never interested me. Same reason I had no interest in being in a school play or performance and being on stage.  In the last couple of years, going to music events in Japan, I ask myself again would I want to perform on stage, as I do seem to be at odds with most who desire to be on stage. No, that is just Anxiety-On-A-Stick to me. The stress when hitting "record" on my own is enough! To me, a complete recorded piece of music is the goal , not just a keyboard or guitar part. 

New Manben Neo

The next TV episode of Manben Neo Urasawa Naoki told us was coming November during his concert chat will be on NHKe Nov 22 at 10PM on mangaka Chica Umino. I had not heard of her before this announcement, and I need to check out what she has done.  

Google Tricks

UPDATE: Wednesday 2025/11/12 The short above has gotten more views then anything recently, but this is purely algorithmically driven with google shaking my chain, as  "encouragement" for posting more consistently.

More views, but most only watch for 13seconds and there have been no likes.  

Yet to put this music track on Bandcamp. Seems little point, but expect I will anyway. No one goes to Bandcamp to stream music, let alone download it.  Maybe this video short is the best format for it.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN