Music, Producer, sometimes Musician

 

A quick thing I played & recorded on a Sunday afternoon

Over the years I came to understand that there is a rather large difference in the thinking between a musician, ( I am a "Guitarist", or I am a "Keyboard Player") and someone interested in producing music, that plays instruments. 

I am very much the later. Making a piece of music, usually with various parts, to play over a stereo is the goal. A recorded, mixed and produced work is the purpose. To play again and again, or put on a video. I started recording and making recorded sound pieces before I had any instruments to learn how to play. 

The only photos I have of me growing up is a very small album with captions my mother put together a few short years ago in 2019. One picture is of me at 3 years old with the caption "I loved this guitar".   I have no memory of ever having a ukulele, but the memory of wanting to play that type of instrument stayed with me. 

Oh, I wanted to learn to play the guitar as a fairly young kid in junior High School, but my mother was "why would anyone want to waste all that time to do that?".   Instead, what they sent me too was soccer, which wasn't what I wanted to spend my weekends doing. 

I took a different path. I fell in love with records and good stereo systems to play them early on. Music, among other things, is a drug for my mood. I had upgraded my stereo system several times before I ever bought a musical instrument. 

Page1 of a multipage comic

First guitar I bought was after I finished High School, and just before starting first year university for a BE Elec Eng. I wanted to design audio electronics. And the guitar I got was a sunburst Strat copy, as that is what Richie Blackmore played.

Musicians on the other hand, are about the craft of playing, and the instruments themselves. The majority seems to be more about performing and "playing live". The ones I know started when they were young with lessons their parents paid for.

I know a few like that. Played for decades, with large instrument collections, and have been in bands. Playing covers a big thing. Playing others songs they love., or one of the parts to them  In very recent times they may have started home recording, even recorded a few songs, but it hasn't been their life long focus. 

I saw a video piece with Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about how he much preferred a CD to a live performance. I am like that.  Have been to live shows, concerts, pubs, but I much prefer the sound quality and "my own pace" for listening to music at home. Hearing it more than once is also so important. I always preferred the studio version CD to a live performance too.  

DEEP PURPLE MADE IN JAPAN is still touted as one of the best live albums, but even there,  I prefer the studio recordings.  The MACHINE HEAD remastered Anniversary 2CD Edition in particular, with alternate takes is extra special.

I tend to think loving "live" is as much to do with being a "I like going out" (most likely an extravert, or tend to extravert) person as much as anything.  If you are introverted, staying more home is preferred.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Great Southern Land: 1982 Original vs 2023 Cassian Remix

 

Recent Iva Davies with his ancient CMI II

The 1982 Great Southern Land has become a classic Australian track.  Iva Davies used a CMI in the making of this, a machine I was involved with myself at the time.  I never met him when I worked at Fairlight though. Just briefly in the Roland Service department before I moved to Japan the first time. 

If you don't know the original, this is it:

A few months ago YouTube decided to show me a recent Sydney Morning TV spot with Iva chatting about the track, his history and the renewed interest since the Cassian remix came out.  

A remix?? Cassian??

Conveniently YouTube has the Cassian remix:

And I must say it sounds great. Thought at the time, "I must see what he is doing with that awesome bass synth sound, drums and production".  Started doing that this morning, while waiting for a customer to get back to me about an illustration and quote.

I made this little 14 seconds that demonstrate that it looks like most of the original tracks have been high pass filtered, so that when the new bass, drum and synth parts come in, the impact is dramatic, shown with the dramatically increased low end spectral information. What a great sound. 

If you compare the original Ice House (Iva Davies band, even if he was mostly solo at the time of making this) track chorus with the remix chorus, you see the original has more low end in it, but nothing like the remix.  

Looking at what else makes the remix "more compelling" also seems to be it is a little faster.  The original track is 120BPM and the remix 124BPM, as far as I can tell using the TAP TEMPO function on my metronome.

All interesting to know.  I still need to work out what that bass sound is, and try using it in a track of my own, so this investigation isn't finished yet. It does look like he uses the Vital - Spectral Warping Wavetable Synth for his bass sounds though.  Listening to his remix on headphones on repeat, shows there are many interesting things going on.  This is another rabbit hole for me to fall into 😀 .

I was curious about REMIXING way before I saw this 2017 issue of Computer Music magazine. So curious in fact that I bought the super expensive EXPRESS DELIVERY issue, rather than wait 3 months for sea freight to deliver the normally expensive overseas magazines to far off Australia.

Till now I have only done one real remixing experiment in 2017 that I blogged about here.  But had previously blogged about the remix in the SPAWN MOVIE Soundtrack.  Specifically the Filter "Can't you trip like I do?", that I took decades to realize was a remix and nothing like the CRYSTAL METHOD original.

Cassian ??

Turns out Cassian is a Sydney DJ/ remixer/ producer, that is now American based. Looks like he knows his EDM stuff to me. 

His main tool is ABLETON LIVE. Live DJing is what he has mostly done. There are a fair few interview Q&As with him on various websites, and he doesn't seem to have any problem sharing his production techniques.  On Spotify, his popular tracks seem to all be remixes. I have more to learn about and from him.   His 2020 debut album, Laps is all Ableton LIVE, a Prophet 6 and Minimoog Model D and I need to have a listen now... On Spotify it is here.

I have a soft spot for 90s style synth based Techno and Cassian hits that spot. Maybe called EDM now, but I just see it as Techno. 

EDIT: 2024/2/9 Have investigated more and found that Cassian's DJ sets includes tracks from other artists, such as Anyma and Pryda and they are basically all in the genre Melodic Techno. There are lots of blog posts and YouTube videos about how to make that genre too.  The standard DJ thing is all a bit repetitive, but have been playing with adding some of the techniques to me own work. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Hi-Fi: NEW RECORD DAY - Open Baffle Speakers

 

I originally came across this Hi-Fi reviewing channel as he used a dummy head and was making proper binaural recordings to demonstrate loudspeakers. He did a really good job of it too.  And not just because of my own interest in Headphones and Binaural audio.

His latest videos are about room treatment, and that alone sets him apart from the majority of the BS Hi-Fi crowd. Room treatment is such a vital part of a studio setup, that it is a complete joke when ignored.  Anyone that doesn't have their listening space treated can not be taken seriously.  

I discovered his channel shortly before COVID hit the world. During the pandemic he vanished for a while, then came back with a video saying how terrible getting covid had been for him and his family, needing hospitalization.  I don't now if that video is still on his channel, but he really looked and sounded terrible, and this was shortly after "recovering".   He lives in TEXAS so I expect the prevailing influence of his church, and the ensuing social pressures meant he and family probably were not vaccinated. "Jesus is my vaccine" seemed to be the popular strategy there. Churches with people all singing was also a really good way to spread the nasty virus.  I am just assuming all that though, from my understanding of Texas (even Jesse James ex-Westcoast Choppers goes to church each Sunday now he lives there), and glad he got over it.  So different from here in Kyoto Japan where "almost everyone" was masked and vaccinated from 2020 till end-ish 2023.

Anyway, he is a fan of open baffle speakers.  Still a pretty rare configuration, don't exist at all in the pro audio world, but tend to think under the right conditions they must have advantages.  I used to watch LINKWITZ LAB before he passed away and he was a fan of them too, and had the technical chops to produce his own. The designs are still available at the website.

I have became a fan of Open Back Headphones for listening to music at home in the last 2 years. Current favorites are AKG K702, as they just give a better sound field ( in a quiet environment). 

The video above has a good demo of prototype open baffle speakers, that is well recorded, in a treated room. The music usually used to demo HiFi is rather sparse and he has done that here too, but that is okay.  

Are they better than high end ATC, GENELEC or PMC from the studio world? I don't know.

Worth a listen.  As a kid, I loved the cartoon AUTOCAT and MOTORMOUSE too, so I like the accent too I guess😀 . 

NEW RECORD DAY? Sounds like his channel originally reviewed records, and I have no idea how the name fits into what he does now, but it is a cool logo. Easy to embryoid patches with too. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Why Don't You Do That Any More?

I have a display case in "the studio". Part of one side is shown above.  Filled with things I have made, bought to use as reference when learning to sculpt with polymer clay, sculpted myself and some just made from kits.

The bottom section with the green arrow are original space vehicles and a stop frame animation robot I made from 1995 ~1998. Made from sheet plastic and various kit parts. My Youtube channel has some musical Shorts with making of pictures. 

A couple of weeks ago, my youngest son, now in his 30s, asked "why don't I make more of those?".  They are the best looking things in the display case.  I hadn't been asked that question before, but had thought about it. Basically the answer is:

I did that once, and don't feel a need to do it again. 

At the time I did them as part of my development of my Desktop Production.  I wanted cool looking original vehicles and puppets and learnt what I needed to make them.  It wasn't the models themselves that were my final goal, but short movies. In 2022 I came back and used these props, sets, vehicles and puppets, in what I call My Sci-Fi Rock Opera. 

I think something I have always done is learn something "good enough" to do what I need. I could say my electronics/ firmware career was similar.  I have no interest in electronics or firmware now in retirement, and don't feel any need to do it again! 

My Guitar playing is also similar. Don't think of myself as "a guitarist", and don't collect guitars, even if I do have 3. I can basically do what I need to do my original material, and if I want to do something I can't at the moment, I learn to.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Trip to SYD MEAD LAB Nara Tsutaya Books 2024/1/11

 

In the last 3 months I have been to quite a few Gallery Art exhibits. Something I intend to continue with.  This week it was the free "one year of his passing"  Syd Mead Lab exhibition at Nara Tsutaya Books 2F Gallery.  What is different about this artist though, is I have been a hard core Syd Mead devotee for decades, and am not just a casual viewer.

They had put on an exhibit at the same place in 2020, that I would have liked to attend, but that was just as Covid-19 was really starting to kick in and I decided not travelling by train was the best thing to do.

So I didn't miss the opportunity this time, to see what was on offer. I was given a personnel tour by the Curator, Hiroshi Matsui that we pre-arranged. On X (twitter) he is @SydMode

I hadn't seen most of what was on display before. Things like working faxes between Syd and Sunrise on the development of the TURN A GUNDAM designs and the original 1965 CELCON ACETAL COPOLYMER book 

and 3 of the actual size original (or prints) that went into the pages in it. Very graphic and stylized design work. 

He very kindly took the book out of the locked display case and showed me the first few pages, next to the original paintings. I took photos for my own reference, but not to publish online in no "FAIR USE" Japan. Now it isn't like I don't have SYD MEADS artworks, my own collection is this:

But my kronovecta book, from the big KRONOLOG boxed set has 10 pages on this CELCON work, but the reproduced pages are very much just thumbnails, and the 23 page images are almost too small to read.

So it was great to see many life sized sketches and paintings, even if some were high quality prints. He had a lovely set of 3 A2 limited edition prints for sale, which I would have liked to have, but I don't have any wall space to frame and display them. 

He also had on display models, toys and kits of Syd Meads designs and made me realize I have a few myself. Such as the SULACO from ALIENS, A TURN Gundam figures,  and my unbuilt models like the YAMATO 2520 &  BLADERUNNER LAZER SPINNER. 

A key thing to me was the original sketch with Syd's words THE FUTURE IS TERRIFIC - I'VE BEEN THERE.  To me, there is such joy and hope in his elaborate future paintings with peoples, animals, vehicles and environments.   Inspiring!

So did a rough 2B pencil sketch the next morning: 

First time for me to take the bit over an hour trip from home in Kyoto to the bookstore. About an hour by 2 trains to Shin-Omiya Station, then a 12 minute walk to the site that is next to the Nara Convention Center.

Tsutaya is a wonderful bookstore/ Starbucks café. 

Hope to keep in touch with and meet up with Hiroshi Matsui again in the near future.  A card he gave me says SYD MEAD LAB will be at Osaka COMICON 2024 May 3~5

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

/The Social Dilemma

 

/The Social Dilemma is a 2020 Netflix documentary I have only just got around to starting.  Except I seem to have read all about what it is about anyway.

Social Media is designed to be addictive, manipulating and keep you "wasting time you could be spending doing something beneficial" in the process of changing your behavior, for the sake of the site Advertisers . The way it manipulates and is addictive also makes you feel pretty terrible much of the time.  The Fear Of Missing Out is part of this too.  A key point is Advertisers may have a product or a political agender, and dis-information is more profitable.  

The ex-senior people from social media companies go into details on how they do that, with re-enactments as demonstrations.

A key thing happens early. A main guy in this documentary, at Google at the time, wrote an article how terrible all this manipulation was and sent it to colleagues in Google. One day he was told the company CEO was told about it 3 times in one day, must have read it too... and absolutely nothing happened about it. 

Four years later,  absolutely nothing happened about it, and it is just as manipulative.  The companies themselves aren't ever going to change direction. 

Except that for me, it seems not checking Social Media is getting far easier, as it now doesn't actually show anything I care about any more.  Facebook stopped showing anything any friend posted years ago, doesn't show anything I post to anyone unless I want to pay(!), so I get so little engagement there is nothing to miss out on there any more.  That Fear Of Missing Out is just gone.

I don't, and have never used any social media apps, except Facebook Messenger.  Only ever use a web browser, never have notifications ON, and that seems to be a significant factor in not being manipulated "as much" (but still to some degree). 

X (was Twitter  after Mulosk screwed around with it), is similarly filled with rubbish in the For You time line, that I don't need to check any more. But to see what Urasawa Naoki is up to, and when the next episodes of Manben Neo will be, I have to directly check his account.  And others I care about too. 

Mastodon social media do not have the manipulation and addiction of the commercial social media sites, but also not a whole lot of incentive to log on and stay active long on the site either.  Just lots of small talk.  Also "seems like" the separate hosts don't share posts between them, so you end up having a very small potential audience there.  

To counter the hell of commercial social media, it has been loudly suggested we go back to using RSS Feeds and an RSS Reader to make your own "social media timeline" , from websites and blogs you like and follow, the way we did before the infinite scrolling timeline and social media existed.  I do like this old school approach, but people like that fore mentioned mangaka, Urasawa Naoki  don't have a blog or website.  The NHK Manben website also doesn't have a RSS Feed, so making your own feed is not always possible. Probable solutions, like a bot to scan the web and make an RSS Feed from places that don't natively make them, seems too much work. Not something interested in paying for either. We will wait and see. 

Think for the majority of Internet uses, RSS Readers and the like are not something they would ever use.  

I have tried a few RSS readers. Raven, Feedly and Inoreader. I have also published our website RSS Feed again, something I stopped many years ago, as I have to generate it manually (with a little help from FeedEdit) when ever I update a page on our website. What that means is I have complete control of what is in the Rss feed, and used it to test the Feed readers.  I have found the free Inoreader and Raven to work fine, but Feedly has an issue not being updated. It could be Feedly or it could be the host blocking Feedly, and if my hosting company does that, then who knows what others do too.  The advantage of an Online feedreader, such as Inoreader. is you can use it in a browser on the desktop AND your phone.  Feedly seems to get all the recommendations, but I guess, like everything on the Internet, you can't believe everything you read.    

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The 6 Weeks Ending 2023

The 6 Weeks Ending 2023 was a really busy time.  Our daughter visited for 4 weeks from Australia, I had my 65th birthday, went to many Art exhibits and events, cafes, restaurants and then the kids and grandson stayed over New Year.

ICONS OF URBAN ART at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art was an opportunity to see BANSKY art in person. Wasn't a huge exhibit, but interesting.  Just one of the things I saw with our daughter. 

So happy, and so tired. Taken a week+ to recover.  It will take longer to consider what I saw and did.

The end of the year is a time I look back, and forward.  Did I get done what I intended to do the last year? Did I go off on really interesting tangents in the process?  Did that matter? What new things appeared that I would never have considered in this journey? What had I prepared years ago, then forgotten about as it was out of sight?

In previous decades had career advancement and own family to put a lot of effort into. Things are different in retirement now.  I have no career to get on with, and our kids are all in their 30s with places of their own. Concerns are now more about our health, my Japanese proficiency and my own creative projects and interests. 

In 2023 I caught up with things like  ROCKY I & II, TITANIC, SPACE TRUCKERS, THE EXORCIST, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER & THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Movies I had just never seen for one reason or the other, and I wonder how that happened, but mostly I was just busy doing other things. Except SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. At the time disco was "the enemy" and we thought most into it were morons, which the movie actually plays up too.  It is a great movie though!  Have now almost finished Star Trek Voyager. I think the first couple of years were shown on Japanese TV then I didn't have the chance to finish it till we got Netflix last year. Same for Star Trek DS9, that I saw the first 2 seasons of then lost the opportunity. Will finish that this year, hopefully.

I also caught up with some music that had passed me by too.  Mostly albums from SMASHING PUMPKINS, MARTY FRIEDMAN, JOHN CARPENTER, PORCUPINE TREE/ STEVE WILSON and PINK FLOYD. 

I did a few caricatures and cartoons again in 2023, but my biggest creative project was an Album of Melodic Ambient Music, Spirograph and a few accompanying videos and animations.  Doing abstract geometric animations for them was also a new thing for me.  That musical journey was started after seeing the great Hans Zimmer Hollywood Rebel documentary. A few of the more interesting pieces used recordings I made using my ZOOM H1 portable recorder,

I bought the H1 many years ago, and every few years have tried using recordings from it in  music projects. This year was the first time I liked the results and released the tracks. So success at last, and Ambient tracks I actually listen to myself. 

Unexpectedly, our cat decided he must spend most of everyday with me now. Usually in a chair next to me. I must say I do like his company. He is with me as I write this blog post. Does mean using bottled ink and Nib pens is out of the question. He can jump on my desk at anytime wanting affection.

The COVID Pandemic is not the panic it was 3 years ago. It is still mutating and lots of people are getting sick, as much as previous years, and LONG COVID still has no cure. All the tourists coming to Japan consider it over though. We remain cautious when out and about. 

We are all on our own journeys. Hope 2024 goes well for us all!

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Mixing on Headphones

 

There is so much misinformation and opinion paraded as fact on Social Media and the Internet in general.   One such thing is that "you can not mix on headphones". 

Thing is, a real expert,  Andrew Scheps does it all the time now out of necessity. Just uses widely available SONY headphones, as that is what he taught himself to use.  As long as you know what you are hearing, and how that translates, you could use anything.

I am no mixing expert.  I have had reasonable results in the last few months using AKG K702 headphones and  DEAR VR MIX, a virtual headphone mixing room. A slow moving SPECTRAL Display (Voxengo SPAN) is also a vital tool for me.  Previous to that I used a few different "mix over headphone" tools with similar results.  

My Mix Comparison Project is also useful for seeing and hearing how other commercial track are setup and mixed and mastered. Very educational. 

My main speakers are small JBL 104s and I am in a tiny room, so mixing on headphones has great advantages for me.  

 

Have been told this Ambient track sounds amazing, so that is all I am after.  

My music is not on Spotify, just Youtube, Soundcloud and Bandcamp,  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology