Venus Photobombed: Home Studio Vocals

 

How quick the American Artemis II fly around the moon with a brilliant diverse crew of 4 is old news, and this is a very different take on it!

A variation of a previous track with the drums and rhythm guitar taken out and made more ambient I did about 4 weeks ago that I hadn't posted.

Started a new track, and used an earlier version in the music+comic on my JBASS with Wilde pickups

I then went back and am extending the track with lyrics. Up to version 5 now and still not happy with the lyrics and how it fits together.  

My Process:

I write some lyric. 

Sing it. 

Come back and sing it with more feeling. 

Listen to it on repeat for awhile, then decide I don't like some things in it. 

I change a part. 

Keep a line or 2 of the lyrics  and write some other lyric. 

Repeat until I am really sick of the track.  

All rather trial and error for me in this case, as I don't want it to be too much of a downer.  Making something more uplifting, but with criticism is hard.  The first few versions had "THE Moral Constipation", but removing THE makes it simpler and easier to follow what is being said. 

Been asking GEMINI AI for variations of lyric phrases I have written. I have used a word or 2 it suggests, but it generally goes in a different direction than I am after.  Is nice to have an assistant and someone to bounce stuff off, even if it makes me ignore its suggestions as it makes me come up with something more appropriate my self. 

I am just using the first microphone I ever bought now. An SM58 clone in a kit with a mic stand. A dynamic with a built in pop filter  that doesn't pick up any room tone in my tiny, 2 tatami mat, un-acoustically treated studio/ office. It doesn't pick up any sound that isn't directly in front of it. It is plugged into a Mackie 402VLZ4 mixer.

I triple tracked the vocals with COMPRESSOR -> EQ -> DE-ESSER chain plugins.  

EQ can make a significant difference in the sound.

Having the right mix of the backing tracks, at the right volumes is so important for being able to sing and get the pitch right and expression when recording. The vocal recording mix is NOTHING like the track mix!

I do have a "better" Audio Technica AT-2020 condenser microphone in a shock mount with pop filter and back absorption,  but I don't use it any more.  I found it ringy and resonant between 1~2 Khz with my voice, and it just picks up the room tone and noises, even if "brighter, open and airy" . 

So a "better" microphone doesn't always mean "better" under all situations.

The current, version 7.

Could the mix be better? No doubt.

The signing could have more emotion and have harmonies too, but for all of the 5 people that will hear it once, non of that matters. I just have to be happy enough with it myself.

Moral Constipation: AI, Environmental Issues. Politics. Racism. Fascism. Vaccines. Energy. The odd war or two. A long list of things filled with disinformation...

But, society and diplomacy needs "white" lies to function. The universal answer to the question:

 "Does my butt look big in this?" is "No! Darling you look wonderful".

It is now the state of the world that the majority of charities are now FOR PROFIT, where  maybe 10%  of donations end up with those needing it.  Most just ends up in the organizations executives pockets.

I had a manager that retired and his wife did too. She was skilled at administration/ accounting and thought she should help the world at a charity, so she contacted the most well known organizations. They all told her "we only need people out door knocking and getting donations", and when she discovered what was really going on...

Learnt of Chuffed dot org this morning, with a comment on a music post of mine about donate to save the children. Chuffed itself isn't even classified as a charity, but is involved in raising money. So same as Spotify?  I wonder how close their business model is to Spotify with their approach to paying musicians?  These places talk about $XX Millions paid out, but on what income, and on what %of income is that?  If there isn't any transparency, it may as well be a scam, and go find a place that is transparent and not mostly doing it for themselves.  

Other Things

Golden Week is over for many so I can start going out again. The crowding will be back to normal. The views of the short posted 8:30AM Saturday were really poor though, only a single digit.

Resident Alien came to Netflix May 1 and I am onto season 2 already. Alan makes the show.

Volume 19 of Five Star Stories will be released tomorrow, May 10. It has been going for 40 years. I am sure he must be sick of it by now. I know I would be.

Sound Messe Osaka is next weekend and I need to prebuy my ticket as it is all SMARTPHONE digital ticket entry this time. That is how the FREAK KITCHEN and ASTERSIM concerts were last year so I have been through the process.

Mattias IA Eklundh will not be here this year though, so I don't have a clinic to spend the day in. Not sure how long I can spend looking at guitar gear I don't need. The best thing about last year was the people I met, and that is the reason to go this year and hope I bump into them, and meet new folks (that maybe OI follow up on social media with).

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

COVERS MY WAY | GOLDEN WEEK Holidays

 

Golden Week is one of the long Japanese Holidays, that means I stay home to avoid the crowds. Make music + comics and consider doing something in one of our other hobbies.

Did this COVERS MY WAY  MUSIC+COMIC, reusing a music cover I used previously, this morning.  I don't do many covers, and consider the time better spent making something original, that I own and can do whatever I want with. 

But when I do "do" a cover, I don't try and copy the original very closely. A sound alike in my style is what I am after.  Metal guitar tones, power chords and monophonic lines is what I will do.

Not all think the way I do though.

I was reading something about customers playing popular riffs in a music shop and shop staff demanding it be played exactly like the original or not at all.  I guess with a lack of imagination like that, working in a music store is all they maybe able to manage  and may not move on to doing something striking themselves. 

I don't consider myself much of a musician though, and all I do is rather simple. Musical Cartoonist is apt. I do want to do original stuff though, and consider this STORY SHAPED BEATS to be one I like most recently.  

It has an unusual word salad approach to lyrics as well as the song structure itself and the arrangement of synths and heavy guitars.  I like it! 

I was watching a video The Problem with Music | The Aspiration Expectation.  

That video is a love letter to doing what you like to do and not worrying about what anyone else thinks, or even being good at it!  

I agree with everything he goes on about.  What is it about making music that many think, unlike for example building a spaceship model, you need to try and be making a living from it and your doing something wrong if you haven't joined all the composers organizations, created a record label, pay all the fees to register all the music you make and release it professionally?

Making this ALIENS: SULACO spaceship model here is also one of my other hobbies.   

It has been made with the proper tools, and painted with an Airbrush, and so looks pretty good. Still just a hobby though, even if done to an almost "professional level".

I even did this more pro original design for my own multi media productions. 

So, my own original music is probably some of the least professional stuff I do!

 

Expect the Bluray of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! to arrive at the end of the week.  It is an award winning "kids" anime, and was interested to see Elis Costello write this in THE GUARDIAN about it after watching it with his son:

A Japanese series about three girls negotiating petty school bureaucracy to protect their anime club. Each girl balances a skill with a social burden: 

the first, painfully shy but brilliantly imaginative; 

the second, easy in her fame as teenage lifestyle-model; 

the third, a cynical and almost sinister presence, is the business brain and necessary politician. 

Each episode uses different layers of animation as the girls’ creations leap from the page into their life. The series in total is a tutorial about every component of film production, from storyboard to sound design. It also has a very cool theme song.

Elis Costello went on to collaborate with the duo in the Theme Song:

As used in Anime:

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Musical Instrument Innovation

Music+Comic on Musical Instrument Innovations that haven’t really gone anywhere. This is just 3, but there are many others. Roger Linn’s LinnInstrument touch sensitive grid keyboard and  Lumatones isomorphic keyboard too. I am sure they have some ardent fans really into them, but a very niche product.

I was involved in the development of the A-50/80, the first Roland Polyphonic after-touch midi keyboard controllers. I learnt from that how conservative musicians are.  Polyphonic after-touch isn’t something that any body used then.  Roland didn’t bother with Polyphonic after-touch since.  It isn’t something pianists can use, and it is they that loved the A-80s heavy piano keyboard. 

The A-50 with the semi weighted keyboard, I think, was more appropriate to take advantage of a synthesizer that supported  Polyphonic after-touch, but few did.  

The JANKO Keyboard layout, even though invented around 1887, is new to me. It just addresses the issues of different keys need different finger arrangements for chords and scales. It is just a modification of the existing 12 keys in an octave key layout, which I see as an advantage. But if you already play the piano, it is irrelevant. I find the idea really interesting though.  But I also realize I only write in 2 different keys, and my stuff is mostly multiple monophonic lines and 2 note power chords. It was interesting to watch the Hans Zimmer documentary and hear him talk about that is what he does too. 

The keyboard keys can be arranged in different ways, but they just look different. Like this hex arrangement with 2 connected pads per note. This project has the cad and production files available.

Would such a keyboard inspire new things? I think it might…

Way back in 1984/1985 the firmware guy developing the SynthAxe firmware from the UK was in the Fairlight Instruments offices in Sydney for a week or so and I got to try the SynthAxe for all of 10 minutes. In that time, I couldn’t play it as it was just all too different from the technique I knew.  

If I had one that would probably have changed, but at 10,000 British pounds in 1985, that wasn’t going to happen, and they stopped manufacturing in 1988. Some 200 produced. I was never interested in any Roland guitar synthesizer.  

Other things

It is the GOLDEN WEEK holidays here. Being retired, that just means stay home more to avoid the crowds, but as the forecast is also mostly rain, I would be doing that anyway. 

I have yet to get to the Nakanoshima Art Museum, as I wasn’t up to it last Tuesday before Golden Week started. Just didn’t sleep at all the night before I was to go. So will get to it after the holidays are over now.

I have a few music playlists and DJ mixes I made that I listen to when out and about, and the one I play more than anything else is of my own music. Things from the Assorted Bits albums. I think it is because they have that mix of Sequencers/ Synths and Heavy Guitar I love. More so than John Carpenter Albums.  

Band MISEX guitarist Kevin Stanton and keyboardist Murray Burns did the Beyond 2000 music in the 1980s. I always loved that and this must still be a significant influence on me still:

That makes me realize how rewarding making those bits of music have been. Make the music you want to hear. Make the Art you want to see. Make the comics you want to read. Write the articles you want to read. I can hear my music on repeat a lot and not get sick of it. I don’t go back and look at my other art often at all though. 

All just a grandfather entertaining myself with his hobbies. No professional musician, and consider what I do compositionally very unsophisticated, but I like that. I like many of my MUSIC+COMICS too when they actually say something.  

But how many more similar to what I have already done do I want to do?  I ask my self that often recently.

In the last 6+ years since coming back to Japan as a retired old guy, I have spent each year or so doing “a project” pretty constantly, while doing background tasks like Japanese study, studying/reading manga and recording my own music.  Been so busy I don’t know how I ever had time for a fulltime job.

Been thinking I should do another multi-page comic project. I am most interested in NON-FICTION stories. A mix of TOPGEAR and AMERICAN SPLENDOR isn’t far off.  It has to be a subject that means something to me. I can reuse existing characters, as I know how they talk and think already, and maybe add some new ones too? 

But on what theme?

It hasn’t come to me yet. Really don’t need to rush, and something will eventually.

It is May 1st as I write this. 2026 will be half over in no time. Wife and I are in our late 60s now. Just chatting earlier about how we spent 19 years in Australia, and that time went past in the blink of an eye. We may have about the same years left, maybe more, maybe less  ourselves and that will go in a flash too.  That makes you think...

The thing have to be so careful about now is the energy I have each day. Conserving that each day to get the most out of a day isn't something I considered when younger.

Really heavy rain so far today, so putting this up now rather than tomorrow. I want to go out for a walk to clear my head and think and will do that early tomorrow instead of posting this.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Looking Out The Window

 

Short version of this track and comic, as that seems to be what the algorithm demands and at 49 seconds is still way more than the 18 seconds "best duration".  Just hate all that short attention span is king stuff.

Just wanted to make the vocal sound a significant part in this. Even if the lyrics don't say as much as they could, I wanted to not make it negative. An uplifting vocal sound helps, I think. I should have done more than one take on the melodic guitar, as it is just the default thing I seem to do without thinking at the moment, and it could have been a bit different, even though I love the sound and ending on a high note.

So much happening out in the world that I have no control over. Natural and man made disasters, but also the beauty of Cherry Blossoms.  Not all bad, but it is way too easy to be all negative and be taken down by the News Media that thrives on it.  Hate that current US Administration actions have such a big impact on the us in the rest of the world with their PROJECT 2025 in full swing. The Christian Nationals/ Evangelicals behind that, reject Jesus's teachings on helping the poor and down trodden, calling all that stuff WOKE and BAD, seem to be actually some type of OLD TESTIMENT Jewish Authoritarian cult focused on Israel.  

Project Hail Mary was such a breath of fresh air for not being a downer. 

And YouTube Analytics for the first 37 minutes shows the SHORT's tap being algorithmically turned off after 30 minutes. To never be exposed to the world again...

Other Things

Finished Lucifer. Loved the jokes and musical numbers in this series. Not impressed with how a main character was treated in the final episode, and wonder why writers would do that to a beloved character, but loved the whole series.  Never saw SMALLVILLE and so didn’t get the jokes in Lucifer related to that main actor having a significant part in Lucifer.

QUEENS GAMBIT is fascinating. It is a fictional story about a chess prodigy, based on a 1983 American novel by Walter Tevis, but Netflix did get sued by a lady chess champion. 

Truth stranger then fiction probably, and the cost of a gift.  THE NEW YORKER said "the most satisfying show on television".  One of them, I would say.

Interesting to me the Chica Umino MARCH COMES IN LIKE A LION manga since 2007, has a young orphaned boy Shogi prodigy with problems and also has much on masters Shogi games as well. 

Nakanoshima Art Museum has an event starting today I will probably visit next Tuesday (as it is closed Monday unless a public holiday), and should be a fine day.  The works of 3 modern artists,

Yanobe Kenji and his SPACE CATS being the one I became interested in a couple of years ago after seeing his SPACE CAT guardian out front of the Museum.

I go to such exhibitions to be inspired for my own art creation in some way. 

SOUND MESSE in Osaka will be different this year without Mattias IA Eklundh there, but know other attending there now anyway.  I will be going on the Saturday May 16th, which has a chance of being less crowded than a Sunday here.  Will take ear protection this time. The electric guitar room was so loud in the afternoon with all booths trying to be heard over all the others. 

Heard there will be some event organized by Kogalashi Sound Magic for the Saturday night, probably downtown Osaka, but yet to hear what it will be. Not sure I care to go to a  M響 (M HIBIKI,  M ECHO,  that is a group jam), which is what Tokyo Metal City (東京メタルシティ) seems to regularly do.    Will see. 

Tokyo Metal City  made a joke post on X about the difference between ROCK and METAL where "metal doesn't have a vibe trying to be popular, and has dragons".  So I added a comment:

Recently found out about  映像研には手を出すな  ( Eizōken ni wa Te o Dasu na! Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! )  and ordered the Bluray. Three school girls wanting to make an animated film as a school activity club.  Reminds me a bit of the look of Chibi Maruko Chan, but it is said to be a master class in all aspects of animation production.  

I have no interest in doing real animation though, far too time consuming even using MOHO, but maybe help inspire me in the direction to go with another multipage COMIC, or something. 

After doing my Heavy Metal Garage and In The Next Dimension I have had no drive or idea on another comic. Will this change I wonder?

And in the good news department, it seems that I am finally recovered from all the small medical procedures I started in January.  😊  So I don't have to worry about the WAITING ROOM BLITZ of getting an online reservation number at EXACTLY 8:30AM and rushing off to Shijo Station Kyoto any time soon again, OR the almost 2,000yen return train costs OR the discomfort of the procedures.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

So Much Common Advice is Inappropriate…

 

60 second MUSIC+COMIC on the 2 versions of O What A Waste I did.  HARD ROCK and SynthPOP Remix interwoven for 60 seconds.  Japanese & English lyrics. Replaced Guitars and Drums with Synth/Techno instruments in the remix, based on the original Reaper Project.

Our original HARD ROCK VERSION and SynthPOP remix done 2 years later:

I like the result. Maybe I should do a single song combing those different sounds.

I also think even shorter tracks do better with the algorithms.  Read anything longer than 18 seconds is too long on TikTok.  Things like the Openings to TV shows like BONES and NCIS are 30seconds, and the theme music is written, so there is an ending at 30seconds, but the track actually continues. I did try that many years ago, but that was before shorts existed. Maybe have an ending at 18seconds, but continue.

I have thought back about all kinds of things since retiring, and yes, so much common advice I now see as inappropriate. Much is just wrong for me. What schools are focused on, the emphasis of being outgoing, eager to debate, pushing some types of activities over others. 

When I was in school in the 70s, having a dark tan "was cool". I just burnt so was always pale, so uncool.  But many of those cool kids have Melanoma of some kind now. Melanoma and skin like a crocodile isn't cool.  

Then yesterday YouTube showed me a recent Miranda Hart video that goes on about some of the same things she has written a book on.   Miranda Hart on being an introvert, medical gaslighting, body image 

Miranda Hart thinks part of her problems stemmed from that common wrong advice. Being an introvert and being told you must be outgoing has an impact on your health and well being. 

There is a spectrum between Extroverts and Introverts.  And much of the advice comes from the Extroverts that is just completely wrong for others.  I’m not talking about the Myers-Briggs Personality Type rubbish.  That is the worst pseudoscience with the validity of Astrology & Tarot Cards.  

The same type of thing came up with much MEDIA angst during COVID shutdowns around the world how that was just so bad for everyone's mental health.  What those stories should have been is the shutdowns were bad for the mental health of Office Space Landlords and Extroverts (who relay on the energy of others). The rest of us didn’t have a problem at all. 

I didn't have a problem at all. Japan didn't have real shut downs, but I didn't mind staying home at all.

I look back and see a school subject I did, Commerce as just being propaganda.  It didn't teach Financial Literacy or the way the financial system actually worked at all.  Much of school seems it was just a child minding service.. 

I am sure I would have had a better, more productive time at School without all the bad advice thrown around. 

Other Things

Of to Central Kyoto today to visit the 400 Years of Western Art Exhibit with an ex Roland colleague, then lunch (I expect). 

I use so few of the tools in the applications I have. Why CorelDraw v12 is still perfectly fine for me. I think I take pride in just using the simplest tools.

I have used the Reaper DAW to make my music for many years too, and don’t use many of it’s  features either. But I have thought more than a few times I wish it had MIX snapshots, so that when I went to do an overdub, it would disables all the effects and tracks not needed to improve latency and give me the track mix I need, then go back to a snapshot with the normal mix setup after finishing. Doing it manually gets tedious. 

Found out this week it can do that, but it is in the SWS/S&M EXTENSION plug in. So I have gotten that and while I was at it, I also installed the ReaPack: Package manager as well. I had been using ReEQ from that for ages, but getting the latest version and other useful things couldn’t hurt.

I don’t have to use all the tools in these extensions. But I see SWS/S&M EXTENSION has a GROOVE QUANTIZE and that is something I loved back using the MIDI Sequencer MicroLOGIC. 

Only in the last year or so am I now okay with the way my mixes sound on a Smartphone speaker in mono.  I have changed my guitar tone and main synth sounds, but I think is is partly to do with the way 

masterdesk changes the stereo width and mix. Along with that I have changed the PAN law in Reaper away from the default 0dB, which didn't help with mono compatibility either.

In investigating the disappearance of an 11 year old boy in a remote Kyoto mountain village over the last 3 weeks, the police used the step fathers phone location tracking data and found the boys back pack, a few days later his shoes, and a few days later again, his body, over a few kilometers of the mountain around his remote home & school. 

No one saw the boy at school the day he was reported he went missing. The step father's initial story, that he dropped the boy off at school by car rather than him taking the bus like he always did, didn't fool the police. It was only after the body had been found left face up on the ground, and identified that he confessed, it seems.  

That is a good use of the tracking data, rather than just targeted advertising, but I am sure it was an un-intentional side effect, and not planned by Apple or Google that way! 

On Android this is the Timeline feature, and you can see where you have been in Google maps with the correct settings. I have just seen that I have all that tracking and storing stuff turned off on my own phone.   

The Banality In Social Media has no limits. Saw this post and see it has 10K likes and been retweeted 332 times. The top buns are intentionally set a little to one side.

So designed to catching the OCD flipping out about buns not being straight in a marketing photograph?   

And not even mentioning anything the Orange Felon did this week (edged on by his lunatic supporters  ) that is now dramatically impacting all of us in the rest of the world. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN