Reflection on 2024

 

At year end we reflect on how the year was, and here I have two short <59sec  music+comics on my year. 

I went to more events and was out more than I have ever before, EVER. 

So in that regard it was a really good year for me. The other music comic is about the art aspect of my year. I made a far bit of stuff, including a BEST OF ALBUM  so there was a sense of accomplishment.

Bought an 8 string guitar this year and coming to grips with it has been interesting. I made quite a bit of my silly music and put it on Bandcamp. Even Melodic Techno this year! My being out and about also made me realize I needed Name Cards again, even though I am retired now. An interesting exercise using Stickerjapan.com 

There was health and sickness. There were visits to the cinema and regular sitting in a café listening to music on earphones while sipping coffee. Freak Kitchen released a new album, and discovered the likes of Cassian, Devin Townsend and Irving Force.  

I also did grandfathering, but I keep all that personnel stuff private. I just don't see any reason to share that with people I most likely don't actually know.  

It was a good year, and I hope 2025 is too! 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Harley Benton R-458MN WH MultiScale: My Setup and Modifications

 

We bought this inexpensive, 8 string guitar 6 months ago. USD$243 is around ¥39,000 ( including small import tax paid on delivery) which is more than I paid for my best guitar, the Ibanez RG350ZB with locking nut and tremolo 2 years ago (but today that RG is ¥70,000!). So it isn't actually a cheap guitar with the Japanese exchange rate for me. It is a half to a third of any other 8 string guitar around these parts, but I found no one actually had any 8 string guitars in stock around here at all. 

So I played it for a while to get used to an 8string, see how I wanted to tune it and work out what issues it really had. I will cover the issues and my fixes here, but basically the 2 issues were difficulty in tuning because of a very sticky plastic nut and intonation.

I currently like my guitars down tuned a half step, so high to low, the strings are:

 D#, A#,F#,C#,G#,D#,A#,F.  

The initial issue found that the strings on it needed immediately changing, and that the 8th string, F, couldn't have the saddle moved back far enough, without the screw hitting the string, let alone the spring allowing the saddle to move all the way back. The 7th string had the screw hit the string issue too.

The solution to that was replace the 7th and 8th bridge bolts with cut and filled versions. Black M3 bolts just bought from a local hardware store here. To replace the bolts, you have to remove the rear screw holding the bridge body onto the guitar.

The 8th String also needed the spring removed, to allow it to move all the way back.

So the resulting bridge, for the down tuning, is now this, red arrows showing shorteded bolts:

The next problem to be tacked was the sticky nut.  I ended up getting a Nut file set from Luthier of Japan, but probably could have just used 600 and 800 wet and dry sandpaper. Will do some Nut refinement of this 8 string, and the Ibanez 7 string to justify the files.

The Nut from the factory results in all the strings having two bends in them. No wonder the strings get stuck. Without fixing this first, there was no need to replace the whole nut with a "better" material one.

So the best nut slots are cut so they fan out going to the machine heads, and slope away from the string, as shown here from a STEWMAC video on cutting nut slots.

I didn't touch the fret side of the nut, other than run the correct nut file throw the slot to check it was in fact the correct width. I also only bought 6 files, but made due with the wide files for the lower two strings. It doesn't take much to tune each nut slot, adding the fanout and drop away, so the strings have a more direct path to the tuners. It is a bit subtle. As here:

Refining the slots isn't something the strings have to come off for. Just loosen a string, move it out of the slot, do a little dance with a file, polish with wet&dry, and ready to go in no time at all.

My 6 and 7 string guitars are in DROP tuning, but found that makes the 8th string here too floppy, and it is best the way it is as an F.  

It now lives in a GATOR GWE Series Stratocaster case I bought locally. Japan is a country of earthquakes, so shut away in a sold case is the best option. No sitting on a guitar stand on display for me.

I don't have any issue with the standard active pickups. I am playing into the Reaper DAW, with a distortion pedal, Cabinet IRs and have fancy EQ  (ReEQ) to do what ever is needed. I am also not trying to sound like someone else, which seems to be a significant factor in people wanting to change things around. 

The thing about an 8 string is string muting becomes more of a challenge, but not much different for the stuff I play. I still need my DROP tuned 7 string though, as the one finger power chords isn't what this 8 string is about.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Headphones Aren't Stereo

 

I use headphones all the time now. Rarely use speakers. 

My tiny music studio isn't acoustically treated as it is just too small. The same size as the walk in closet next to it. I mostly mix on headphones working their too, using SPAN set to mastering, and check on speakers a little. I almost don't drive now, so don't have a car I know well to check a mix in either.

I use headphones to listen to music all the time. Have a small stereo, with some Yamaha tower speakers, but it just makes too big a sound for general listening. So headphones it is. AKG-702 in the studio, and JBL earbuds or SHOKZ OpenFit out and about.

So am very aware that headphones aren't stereo. I also have a long time interest in binaural sound and how that sounds so much more interesting that standard stereo on headphones. Have a few VSTs to use headphones for monitoring in the studio. JB ISONE PRO and dearVR MIX among them.  

The piece of music here is just something I came up with after doing some refinement to the NUT slots on my 7 string Ibanez guitar. A sticky nut makes tuning really tedious, and this was done during the, is it easier to tune now? testing.  

Then did the binaural mix, and came back and did the crosstalk version to make this demo on headphones. There is also a SHORT version on YouTube.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Knowing Yourself

I retired 6 years ago now (December 2024 as I write this), but I still do the freelance illustration as it comes in from our website I set up in 2008, that I found a market for from 2000.  

Drawing and cartooning was an interest from a small child. By "interest" I mean I loved it and did it all the time. I cover some of this in our WHERE THE SMOKE COMES OUT comic. Audio and music later became an interest that lead to a Degree in Electrical Engineering, then working R&D in electronics design and firmware development.

Had to do all kinds of things in my working life, and one was get an understanding of why people are the way they are to deal with and manage them, as well as my internal self.  

But the point I am getting to is, I enjoy working alone and not dealing with people. I am an Introvert, that had to work in teams, and later be a manager. I am glad I don't have to do that anymore. I also like making things , be they illustrations, cartoons, comics, animated comics, paintings, models, sculpting or music made in a studio. Things I can do all by myself in my studio.

I spend a lot of time in my studio now. It is what I want to do. 

But I don't always be productive. It doesn't matter if I make something brilliant for myself or not sometimes. 

I go out with my wife or by myself to restaurants and cafes, and go out of the crowded times. Except of course when our adult kids and grandson visit. 

I did electronics "for my career", and when we downsized in 2019, got rid of all the technical books and magazine, tools and materials I had collected for my career, and to be "up to date".  I was pretty good at what I did, but it wasn't easy, and all rather stressful. I just don't care anymore.  Soldering to repair or make audio cables or changing a Kindle Battery is as much electronics as I care for now.

Knowing what you want to spend the rest of your life doing is important in retirement.  Seems there are many that don't.

Knowing yourself is important for your own future. 

After doing the music+comic, I extended the background music to over 3 minutes. It is on Bandcamp here. 

I then made a video on YouTube of the track:

Not that it will get seen by anyone, other than myself, but I like making things.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

HiFi is Dead, Long Live HiFi

HiFi was injured by the Walkman, then killed off by Home Theatre and the iPod. 

No one sits in front of 2 big speakers, just listening to music anymore, unless a TV screen is there too. It is more likely to be background music while doing something else, possibly playing on a small Bluetooth speaker from a phone. 

BUT "high-end" luxury Audio gear with prices suited to the Lamborghini, Veyron and Rolex watch buyers is alive!

HiFi to play my albums became an interest in Junior High School, that lead to an interest in electronics and making my first stereo. It was a different world back in the 70s, where building an amplifier and speakers yourself was an option and cheaper than buying one.   

I only have a CD/FM radio/BT mini-compo stereo now and don't use it very often.  Just to check how my own original music sounds. I can't use the sound volume to make it an experience. It is annoying to others. 

I now mostly use SHOKZ OpenFit earbuds playing 320kps mp3s from my phone around the house and out for a walk. Bluetooth connected headphones do add an extra level of data compression, but not something a granddad like myself can hear.  Like having stereo BGM  while moving around, and it doesn't block out the cat or family members if not played loud. 

But checking out the world of HiFi has a nostalgic hit for me.  It came as a shock to pick up the latest Stereo Sound above and see how heavy and full of advertising it is.  Reminded me of the heyday of BYTE MAGAZINE in the late 80s when the personnel computer market was booming. Or the Japanese TRANSISTOR GIJUTSU electronics magazine that was even bigger and heavier in the 90s, and now a considerably smaller publication.

The shock continued at the prices in advertisements and gear being reviewed.  Like the 4,400,000yen per speaker for the JBL DD67000:

Or the 2,500,000yen for this Ultimate Headphone Audio System:

This is Luxury Good Pricing.  

Value-based pricing is a strategy that focuses on the perceived value of your product to your target customers, rather than the cost of production or the market competition. This means that you can charge a higher price that reflects the benefits, features, and attributes that make your product unique and desirable.

This is not how things used to be. HiFi was a mass market item, with various brands having a range of items from not expensive to expensive. But those Brands have disappeared or do not make such equipment anymore.  Music doesn't have the same place in people lives any more. There is YouTube, Facebook, computer games etc. for that. The Internet and Mobile Phones changed everything for everybody from the 1990s.

My own adult kids don't have any kind of Stereo. No wonder the brands disappeared. The closest thing anyone has is a Home Theater Speaker System, that rarely/never plays just music. 

HiFi, but it isn't called that any more, is now an extreme niche high priced luxury, status symbol, market. Many of the claims made for the gear are absurd, and there are so many snake oil salesmen.  Great sound doesn't cost anywhere near what these "top end" systems cost.   

HiFi is Dead, but gear for wealthy Audiophiles (Audiophools is appropriate occasionally too) lives on.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Music: Listen & Feel Better, 聞​た​ら​と​元​気​に​な​る​し

 

The track Listen & Feel Better (​聞​た​ら​と​元​気​に​な​る​し​) on Bandcamp, another pay whatever. Just take it.

Another very similar to the last few being a C Lydian thing, all very automatic and familiar, where the guitar is actually down-tuned a half step, but played as if it wasn't. Take into account they are down tuned doing the synth parts. 

The instrumental thing was mostly done, then there was more news about how terrible and evil SPOTIFY is, again. Then I remembered recording a few of their advertisements and thought of repurposing the speech for this.  

She: 聞たらと元気になるし（Kiitara to genki ni naru shi, Listen & Feel Better )
He: 凄い                                 (Sugoi , Amazing/ Wow)
She: 広告無し楽しめる         (Kokkuku nashi tanoshimeru, Ad-free fun )
He: 凄い                                 (Sugoi , Amazing/ Wow)

What it means to me is ​

​音楽聞た​ら​と​元​気​に​な​る​し - Ongaku kiitara to genki ni naru shi, Listen to Music & Feel Better.

Music really helps my mood. Couldn't live without it. I don't even need it playing to hear it.

Before I added the speech and vinyl record noises, the Reaper project looked like this:

Not double or triple tracking the 6 string rhythm guitar, but the jazz bass plays the same parts.

I don't mind it all, as it means something to me. Few others will hear it. 

Unless you know me, see this blog, you wouldn't even know about it, and it would be completely unfindable. There are 1000s of tracks uploaded daily, fighting to get noticed on the major streaming platforms, and I am not even on a major platform. The subscription costs to get on the platforms just makes no sense to a retired grandfather hobbyist, not even trying to make it as a recording artist, such as myself.  

My BlueSky feed has become a mix of music creators, music mixing/mastering, cartoonists and comic creators. And of the over 140 following me at the moment, it is only the same one or two people I know that acknowledge a few of the things, music, cartoons, comics and music animations, I have posted there. 

I assume this is because many new to me followers are on the platform  at the "grow their followers" stage, where they follow a lot, hoping to get followed back, and later unfollow.  Many that have followed me have no relevant bio or posts at all, and I assume  have no interest in the things I do.

When I was at school, I thought it would be cool to have friends with actually some of the same interests, as it seemed no one did. Much later when I was working for a living, I discovered, that even when we did, such as studied electronics/ computers and music at university, others reasons and interests were completely different from my own. Usually complete opposites. Same thing for many of the Westerners living in Japan, the how and why they are here. A few famous people like PENN & TELLER (the magicians) or ADAM & JAMIE  (The Mythbusters) worked well together, but have completely separate private lives and just annoy each other.  Proof having some of the same interests doesn't make for good friends.

So little hope for Social Media of any platform to change any of that. BlueSky is proving to be far more interesting than X/Twitter ever was for me though. At the moment. Just by being a simple social media platform and not an advertising engagement scam.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Japanese Listening Bars: Golden Age HiFi

 

My first interest in electronics way back when was HiFi and audio to play music. When I started, you could actually learn something from Audio Magazines, with technical analysis of amplifier topologies and loudspeaker designs. The wonder of the CURRENT DUMPING QUAD405. The glory of the Great America Sound's AMPZILLA.  I had a '70s British HiFi Magazine with an article I stared at for years on the first PHASE LINEAR 700B into the country: 

Then HiFi morphed into the grifting "golden ears" and "magic thinking" of oxygen free power cables and such rubbish with sky high prices, that never entered into the world of Studio Sound I had move into. 

I still occasionally look at the world of HiFi, and the latest stereo magazine in Japan here has an article on the Listening Bar JAZZ HOUSE ON LAVA in Yamanashi Prefecture at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

There are quite a few of these Bars/Cafes in Japan. Never heard of something similar in different countries. They are owned and run by avid 12" vinyl album collectors with Golden Age HiFi gear and, generally, top of the range old studio monitors. The owner selects and plays the music at live band levels. You sit and listen.  They all started as record collectors and HiFi fans, and took the step to turn that into a paying job as a café.

Speakers like the JBL4350 were built into the walls of top end studios and used as the far field monitors back in the day. Not what you find in a studio these days, which is more likely to be high end GENELEC powered DSP corrected monitors. It seems most of these old monitors ended up in Japan, where they were renovated and became prized possessions of many a  HiFi fan, along with similar huge monitors from the likes of ALTEC and TANNOY.

Live sound levels are not a problem with these kinds of speakers, with the huge power amplifiers they get teamed with. It is what they were designed for.

These bars mostly use 12" vinyl and top end turntables, related to their owners peak collecting years, before the CD.  Expect more than a few 78rpm Jazz Classics as well in their collections.  

I had some 120 12" vinyl albums at the time I sold them all, and my turntables around 2018. I never replaced all of them with CDs. There were many albums I had that had a good song, than the rest was filler.  That is the way the record business was. 

The only 2 12" Albums I still kept:

Kept for the album sleeves, not the records inside. These both meant a lot to me. Never a fan of "the sound of vinyl". It was only great until the CD was invented.

I extended the LOVE OF VINYL? after making the above MUSIC+COMIC. Features vinyl record noise from the few albums I recorded into Reaper (the needle drop and sound before a song starts and at the end where the arm automatically lifted and returned to the rest position. ) before selling them. Strategically arranged noises from Synthesizer and Guitar are featured too.😀 

The Reaper Project:

Now on Bandcamp, embedded here

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology