MASSIVE: a YouTube Short

 

UK artist John Harris does large paintings with rough brush strokes of MASSIVE structures and space craft. He has a new book out: The Art of John Harris: Into the Blue

I remember a story in OMNI MAGAZINE when it first came out. It was called MASSIVE and was illustrated with Harris's work.  Thinking about that, and a particular painting of his, was the inspiration for this scene.  

A large starship finding a MASSIVE ship in deep space.  Is it abandoned? Is it just passing through?  Clarke, of course, did that in Rendezvous with RAMA.  He also didn't answer any questions he put forward.  

This is a rather small model built from a couple of model stands and mostly sheet styrene. It is just the rear part, to be shot from the rear. 

I put some extra details on the photo I took with my phone camera in Photoshop. Made some shadowy details more in the black too.

Been listening to a lot of Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene and Equinoxe in the last weeks and the music uses those kinds of sounds.  Maybe why Youtube took 9 minutes to check copyright on this 55second video. The mix is panned with dear VR MUSIC for headphone listening.  Sounds okay on speakers, but headphones give a better experience, and something I will probably do more of.

This YouTube SHORT is just one scene that will go into a future episode of our ROCK Opera, IN THE ASTEROID BELT.   Consider the 4 parts so far to be all of  Season1.

Of course I am making these for myself. The Soundtrack Album is also available for free download on Bandcamp. 

It is a challenge to come up with something combining things I am interested in, can actually do single handily, and finish in a day to a week or so.  I have used a few stop motion animated scenes in these, but it is all put together as 2D animation in Moho Pro 12.  Doing something all stop motion would just take forever, and isn't something I care to undertake. 

I write this in the last few days of 2022 and look back at the year and feel a sense of accomplishment.  Spending time in My Studio is what I have done most in the last 3 years since coming back to Japan, helped of course by COVID-19 and semi-retirement.  

I wonder what new paths in 2023 I will take, as I would never have guessed at the end of 2022 what would happen, other than combining the things I like to do. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

At The Horsehead Nebula Short

 

We have been playing around with the Korg MS-20 Mini for the last week and I think it is a wonderfully versatile instrument.  This 40 second short has the lead part using this delayed vibrato patch.

The MS-20 can also make all the weird random noises and things like Thunder and Rain make it perfect for  my uses.  Many years ago I had a Sequential Pro-One when they first came out, but found it very limited. Made nice synth keyboard sounds, nothing outside that. What Roland makes now has the same limitations.  

Another thing about this short is it uses a rhythm pattern from the Korg MINIPOPS7. A vst version of one, anyway. This is the rhythm machine used on Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene and Equinoxe albums.　That stuff is timeless to me.    　

My music is recorded and produced in Reaper. Does what I need, and I only use a tiny fraction of the features it has.  It is mixed for headphone use by applying the dear VR Music binaural panner to each part to position them around the head,  The whooshing white noise is panned with a LFO to move back and forth behind the head.  The lead sound moves between left front and slightly right rear.

The background ships in this were made and rendered in Hash Animation Master '99. I designed and modelled the ships around 23years ago, but making this was the first time to render them at 1280 x 720.  Modern PCs don't have an issue doing that now. 462 frames rendered to .TGA numbered files in 25minutes.  When I designed them, making a tiny movie took many hours. 

Those files where then brought into Moho Pro12 and the space pets, music and text added.  Only rendering stuff at 600x600 as that still fits into the Youtube Short format,  works on Instagram, and doesn't take long to render.

The little creature is sculpted from translucent blue and white FIMO polymer clay. This material isn't as nice to work with as Super Sculpey, but we managed. Only a single image is used. Bones have been added the image and animated using a particle system in Moho Pro 12.

See many youtubers doing talking head videos at 4K, and being pushed to do so, but that is not something I am interested in at the present time.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

KORG USB Driver Win10 with MS-20 and Microkeys37 Fix

 

This was a great help today December 2022!

Even with latest Korg driver, had to follow this video, add alias midi1 and midi3 for my MS-20 mini and microKEY37 keyboard, and KORGUM64.DRV  in the midi1 and midi3 fields under Driver32 after installing the Korg driver today.

The microKEY32 was working before installing driver. Installed it to connect to MS-20mini. Computers are powerful, but so much trouble.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Twitter-plosion, Korg MS-20 and Binaural Mixing.

So, EMusk wanting to buy twitter looked like a really dumb thing to do. He then went and did extra dumb things after doing the dumb thing buying it. I had spent much of my career in software and product development, and for a new owner to come in and just sack all the developers first day was a A GRADE moron thing to do.  EM is no genius. 

But I really don't care what happens to twitter. I met a few people I will keep in touch with, but the other 99.9% of it is garbage.  I can be found on the other sites if you look, including Mastodon (@megacurve@mstdn.jp), but my own website, Youtube channel and Bandcamp are the main places to find me.  Even this BLOG.

Staying away from Twitter is far better for me. Far more productive and happy.

We finished our PART 4 , end of SEASON1, of In The Asteroid Belt shortly after getting a WONDERFUL KORG MS-20 Mini off Mercari here in Japan.  

The KORG MS-20 Mini is a 86% sized version of the classic semi modular MS-20. It has all the cool toys like SAMPLE&HOLD, PINK & WHITE NOISE sources so can be patched to not only make a nice synth lead, or pad, but also rain and thunder.  What a synthesizer is really for. It is wonderful to play.

We have had a long term interest in surround sound, as our still popular SQ Surround Post testifies, but to me that also includes Binaural Headphones mixes.  We may be doing more of this after getting the dear VR Music 3D panner VST.  It is wonderful so far.

A YouTube Short animation with a Headphone mix:

Headphones and phones is the major way people consume music now. No one (statistically speaking) sits listening to whole sides of albums anymore the way I did as a teenager.  This Rick Beato - Steve Wilson Interview says a lot of things I agree with.  And I'm older than both of these guys at 64.

As we come to the end of 2022. we look back and see a lot happened. Big Family things and my own completed projects.  2023 will see more music, animation, illustration and comic projects, and can see myself having a lot of fun and sleepless nights doing them.  

Sleepless as I wake up and think, "I could do this, or that, or how about if this happens" and getting up in the morning to work on them is a wonderful thing. Even if maybe a little sleepy. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology