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 1st and 7th strings 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. Note 1st string also needs a shorter 15mm bolt to not foul with the string, the same as the 7th. 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 shortened 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.

Also had a look inside the rear cover, and removed the protective plastic film from the cover that made it look much worse than it was.

Simple and the routed body cavity does have a conductive coating, that could be thicker but is okay, for shielding. I use this guitar for high gain metal tones and have no hum or noise issues with the passive humbuckers and this wiring.

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.

This is related to the topic of hifi being dead now, as far as the mass market is concerned.  From sales figures you would have to say earbuds are the predominant listening device now.  It is what I use all the time. I know my kids don't have any kind of stereo now, unless a game system plugged into a TV with stereo speakers in it.

The supermarket and cafes have wall and ceiling mounted speakers, and that is probably the main place to hear music over speakers outside the car.

Until retiring,  the daily car commute  was the main place I heard music. Being stuck in traffic for about an hour morning and evening was a lot of hours.  Now I don't have any commute and rarely drive. The longest I drive now wouldn't be more than 15minutes, and more often all of 5 minutes. It isn't long enough bother to cue up music to play.

Such a change from when I started in the 1970s. But I have changed a lot too.

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

Creativity Gurus: Books & Notes

The Rick Rubens - Rick Beato Interview was the first time I really noticed what Rubens had been involved with and what he actually did.

I am a few years older than both Ricks, and was really into music, was working at Fairlight Instruments at the time designing electronics, and reading some of the music and much of the keyboard and synthesizer press back when Rubens started out. 

Rubens was a punk guitar player and played guitar and programmed the DMX drum machine on the 1986 Beastie Boys - No sleep till Brooklyn. That he understood that RAP was music at that time shows why he become the producer guru he now is.  I remember reading the USA Magazine KEYBOARD in the 1980s and the cover proclaiming something like RAP ISN'T MUSIC.  At the time I was so far away from that world, but still realized that wasn't a truth in anyway.

Rick Rubens, in his recent book, and in the Beato interview, seems to have always been a calm guru type, with a very wide perspective on music. 

An interesting read for the most part, but don't think he covers anything I hadn't thought about and considered in my own creative endeavors.  

The Fairlight CMI was a significant mile stone in instrument and music development. The sampling and composition tools made a one man band, that people like HANS ZIMMER ran with and made their career in film scoring with. Page R in particular. But it was all very expensive.

I look back now and think Rodger Linn's Akai MPC, had a much bigger cultural contribution, thru its use in RAP /HIP HOP. Not that the designer considered that at the time. It was a user sampling Drum Machine, but by sampling others music and raping over it generated a new world of music and copyright problems!  Rodger's original digital drum machine programming was also an inspiration to the PAGE R I mentioned about.  His matrix Linn Instrument is also interesting, but a real niche thing.

I wonder if Rodger is about to come out with his own book on Being Creative?...

Creativity. It isn't just paintings or songs. Designing instruments requires it was much as any creative endeavor. The form of it is just different from a book author with his characters, plot points and story.

Brian Eno has his own status as a Music and ART Producer Guru. His OBLIQUE STRATEGIES cards with ambiguous statements, is rather like Rick Rubens advice or suggestions. Very Guru Like.

There are between 100 and 128 cards depending on version with statements expected to trigger the stuck creative mind, like:

• Use an old idea.
• State the problem in words as clearly as possible.
• Only one element of each kind.
• What would your closest friend do?

I made up a version of this with a numbered 0 to 99 statements and D100 dice. An interesting exercise, but I have never really used it.  Here the dice rolled 59, which is Do the washing up

Latest version of OBLIQUE STRATEGIES cards on Eno store is 50+pp.

Brian Eno's MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS was on constant repeat in my studio around 15 years ago.  Like Tangerine Dreams Ziet, it changes the atmosphere in a room without taking it over. Both of these were firsts in Ambient Music, and bursts of creative genius.

Yesterday I was informed of  Brian's new book, ‘What Art Does’. 

The initial version is limited to 777, signed, with individual watercolor slipcase books for some ¥33,000, which seems outrageous to me. There will be a non limited version from January, but no word on that price.  It says the money is being donated to a charity, but is that one of those now, very rare,  NOT FOR PROFIT charities?  Asking the poster what the January price would be resulted in me getting blocked by the guy promoting it on Bluesky.  So is he part of that charity, do you think, and did so before I could ask if  it was non profit? 😏

"Eno and Adriaanse’s book looks at why people create art, how it helps people, and the role it plays in keeping communities together".

I am interested in seeing this new Eno book, but it is not about Creativity as such.  As I put on Bluesky, I know why I create art:   "... for people like myself, we have to regularly create something to be "Happy Campers".  Not everything is some great work of art, and it need not be, but we had to do it, at that time, in that place.  Where place is a mental state as much as anything else."

But to get back to Creativity, a video clip post I saw by the JHS PEDAL guy, repeats something I have found myself.  "You can't design a completely new original guitar pedal, by staring at a guitar. The inspiration or strategy has to come from outside, in a different field." 

The mind and where ideas come from may never be understood.  I am amazed that having time and no distractions is so significant to the process to me. Do something else, go for a walk, and you will see something out of the corner of your minds eye, that leads you to a new solution or the direction you need to go in.   Ambiguous statements and guru advice serve the same function to "look sideways".

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The Dark "Truth" About Bots

 Two years ago I did this love song to social media:

And yes, it isn't really a love song, but a criticism of Social Media.  I have a low profile on Social Media. Few followers, and mostly just post the music and cartoons I have just completed, which only two or three acquaintances will bother to look at, or listen too. See it mostly as something to look at when you don't have anything at all worthwhile to do instead.  

The bots on Twitter were terrible 2 years ago. Mulusk then bought it, made it X and made the bot problem a billion times worse.  All on purpose by the look of it. 

Benn says in his video here, anything about Social Media bots ends up looking like a conspiracy theory itself, confusing what is "Truth" itself.  Watch this for yourself:

It all seems consistent.  Is it "a war on truth"?  

Myself, as a non American, not living in America, it seems unbelievable that Americans could make a Stupid, Rapist, Racist, Lying Crook, their president. But if Americans, like Russia before it, cannot see "Truth" any more, then that is an explanation as to how it happened.   

This time line of X giving AI Bots access and making truth difficult to discern is particularly interesting with relation to the recent US Election date.

And that in January the prompts driving the bot accounts violated OpenAI's T&Cs, causing them to on mass apologize. Funny if not so terrifying. 

The very brief look up I did on Vladislav Surkov did not show the paper Benn shows in his video. Maybe something for some other time. I really don't care at the moment.

I haven't deleted my X account, mainly as that is the place to get news on what Urasawa Naoki is up too, and on Japanese Art Exhibitions. I am on BlueSky, finding it much nicer, but what I do isn't what the masses follow anyway, and I am not going to change that.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Old Man Shouting At Clouds - What Genre Is That?

 

Posted this on Social Media this morning after recording that 57 second music clip using 7 string drop tuned guitar. A bit on that here:

It carries on from a previous post on OUR STRANGE MUSIC.  That is an expression Mattias IA Eklhund uses about his very odd (by Western Standards, but not by 5,000 year old Southern Indian standards) time signature and his harmonic lead wiggley wiggley he does. 

But this post was brought on by this RANT - OLD MAN YELLS AT METAL video: 

I agree with him that some young guys saying what he is doing "isn't metal" is rubbish. Metal has evolved into a zillion branches, and some young guys may only be familiar with some of the most recent.

This is probably mostly wrong but an attempt at such a family tree:

HP42 goes and plays a bunch of clips of recent metal, and I must say, most don't interest me at all.  Metal has changed from memorable riffs of LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT, PARANOID or even ENTER SANDMAN, to be more about a rhythm played on a downtuned guitar playing against the kick drum.

Recent stuff seems more extreme version of what LAMB OF GOD did. 

In my music+comic at the top of this page, I think you could describe what I am doing as simple ROCK&ROLL, with a metal, downtuned guitar tone and double pedal kick drum. But then the synth stuff probably makes it go to Industrial something something.  I guess that is one of my styles that doesn't sound like someone else, and that is fine by me!

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Social Media Lost It's Shine?

Seems that way to me, on this November 11 2024.  

For years the shine has been coming off social media, as algorithm changes meant you don't actually get to see posts of friends any more and the pushing of advertisements and disinfo increased.

Seen others on X saying they lost many 100s of followers after the US election, as the disinfo bots got turned off.   I don't have as many followers as they lost, but did loose a handful, but that makes no difference to me at all.  

I am still on Mastodon, BlueSky, X, Instagram and Facebook, but there came a point some time ago where posting anything just became a waste of effort. Seemed, may, be 2 people would see anything I posted on X or Facebook, but more often 0, as the post vanished into the timeline before anyone even noticed it.  BlueSky, Mastodon and Instagram have always been a why did I bother at all, and Mastodon doesn't have anything but the most trivial posts of others 99% of the time.  Posts I have no interest in engaging with. 

BlueSky seemed to originally be populated with old Twitter "thought leaders/head geeks" with a following of some kind.  They are now pushing starter packs with themselves as the must follow people.  Have to say though, I have yet to learn anything worthwhile uniquely on BlueSky. 

There is a lot of Over Sharing, and tend to see that as an American thing, like being loud, but most isn't interesting in the least. We all have our own "small happiness" , like a nice cup of coffee or warm raison toast with just the right amount of cinnamon, but if that is the only thing you have to post, I don't want to see it!  

Instagram  is now solely for seeing posts from our daughter or on our grandson. 

Twitter was once a more interesting place. For many of the early years I would write a post, then delete it without sending most of the time. Has been a way to connect with similar minded people. Or find out about events I am interested in. 

The paid blue tick scam has impacted X a lot, but as long as people and businesses, remain X only and post about events they are producing, it will remain useful.  

X has never a place to get any interaction with an offsite link to my art or a music post.  A post with such a link may have gotten a like, 💗, but no one ever left their time line to check something out, unless it was that one acquaintance.

Will probably still post about my art and music, but it is the making of it that remains my focus, not the promotion. 

One thing being on Social Media showed was which Americans supported the Felon Rapist, even if they didn't directly say it and just poo pooed Climate Change or some such issue over time betraying their RWNJ leaning, while even saying they don't want to discuss politics. Useful to keep in mind to avoid... 

I few years ago I thought Blogging was completely dead. but the changes to Social Media have revived it to a degree, even if I am the one that comes back and reads these posts.

Have to include the Vloggers too. There are so many 30 minute videos that should have been a half page blog post now.  YouTube is all about how long views watch, so the padding, drink cup off coffee now, to extend that makes for a poor experience a growing amount of the time. And the AI generated drivel is even worse. Many reviews are all just Astroturfing what ever the product is. 

Some want to be "real people" talking about what ever it is, but I don't find they add anything. 

UPDATE: Nov 15 2024

Musk had new T&C for X come into effect Nov 15, and that seemed to force a mass Exodus from X to BlueSky, and things have definitely picked up on BlueSky. But the whole "time line" thing speeding past is still so much worse than a forum with topics.  The whole character limit means posts are by design, just short passing comments. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Our Strange Music

 

Our Strange Music was expanded from a 58 second thing did a couple of days ago for a short animation. No Singing. No Speech either.  Starts with a synth swoop up, has a weird guitar riff in the middle and ends with a sweep down. No Bass and no guitar solo. 

Isn't a standard song structure at all.  Has a few repeating melodic phrases, and variations. Actually doesn't have any place to put words or singing. But that is okay this time.

Guitar is all 8 String, and one riff is in the bass guitar region. Did consider putting some synth bass thing in it, but didn't come up with anything worthwhile.  Playing with low 8 string riffs and coming up with something interesting is a recent endeavor. 

When I have a memorable melodic phrase, something I want to hum to myself, it needs to be repeated, BUT NOT TOO MUCH!  So instead of the same phrase have similar phrases, and use those as well.

The way this is now, there isn't any room for singing, and to make way, would replace some of the melodic lines with vocals sing the same melodies. Probably not coming back to do that here though.  

Is it interesting?  I think it is interesting enough. 

And the next day we came back and turned it into this, Looks Like It's Ganna Be a Good Day with a few lyrics:

Looks like a great day

Looks like a great day

I hope its ganna be a good day.

Looks like a great day

Looks like a great day

I hope its ganna be a good day.

  Trying to have a positive feel about it. Much better for my mental health.

So is it a song? Not really, Has some vocals, but more a spice to that part of the track. Maybe makes it more uplifting, as the words indicate that too.

But is it really just a different version of one of the previous 4 tracks we did? In a way it is, as they are all this same Lydian/ tempo project I have been working with.  They all don't sound like the same song though, but do have a very consistent style and approach.

Have put this, and two other recent tracks in an EP here: Three in Lydian @ 143BPM on Bandcamp so you can make up your own mind.  As an artist, you want to find your own style/ voice, and I think this is mine at the moment. It doesn't sound like someone else.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The Wrong People

 

The Wrong People on Bandcamp, the track above, is the now the forth version, with a few changes.  The only comment I got about another track on this Album, is it ”sounded like a slow jam”.  That comment would be based on his musical taste, their frame of reference, and have no idea if that is Meshuggah or Garth Brooks. But all these tracks are derived from jammed improvisations I do. 　　

Found inspiration in the Sabine Hossenfelder video on Election Systems this morning for a new Spoken Words album track. I didn’t pronounce Machiavellian correctly, if Dictionary is correct, but is a word I have never used before, and don't remember it ever coming up in conversation, unlike Narcissist. 

 

We are in long shirt weather in this part of Kyoto now. 

I will now listen to this 1,000s of times for things I think I need to change. Do those edits and remix, possibly record new parts, and then listen to that another 1000 times. As it is now:

I repeat that a few times, then abandon it.  So I expect the track will be different tomorrow, or in a few days time. 

The Wrong Type of People become Politicians. Well, maybe 99% of them anyway. They have the same characteristics as the typical CEO. And the words in this are just about that, and not elections, impending or not. 

Sabine's video covers research that randomly selected citizens, like jurors in the legal system,  have very good outcomes under some test cases. Also that approach is hated by everyone asked.😄

The episode of  THE ORVILLE  - Majority Rule, on a democratic governing system rather like likes/ dislikes in Social Media. The society has no actual authorities or politicians, just a system of voting by the general public on everyone's behavior in real-time. As you can imagine that is also terrifying!

I expect in another 1000 years, the earth, countries and the governing system may not be recognizable to someone from our time...

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Coffee & Rock is Joyous

 

The track is also part of the Bandcamp Spoken Words Album. 

This maybe the first time I put my real self in a video and thumbnail, rather than a cartooned version. I probably will not do it again.

It was a really wet Saturday afternoon yesterday (2024/11/2), and I pulled up my current Reaper template project and recorded the first version of this track with my Ibanez RG 6 string. Took all of 5 minutes for the playing. Editing the much long improvised rhythm guitar and melodic takes into a track took much longer. Take 8 & 16 bar sections and copy and paste it together. Usually have to cut out lead bits to give space to even hear the rhythm guitar. But this one is all about the CHUG of rhythm guitar part, as in the opening 8 bars. Love the Guitar Pinch Harmonics too.  

Came back on this sunny Sunday morning and added the 16 bar melodic synth part to the center section to add a little more interest in something that is really quite repetitive even if has that rock aggression I love. Used it unquantized as I played it. There is a fine line between "feel" and "sloppy" but think this is "good enough". Doing this for myself anyway.

I visit a local café alone about once a week and put in my JBL ENDURANCE RUN 2 headphones, have breakfast, sip coffee and listen to music from my phone or mp3 player.   It is a joyous thing for me. Unlimited refills with a comfortable table and not too crowded.

I don't use SPOTIFY, but take my music with me. I rip all my CDs to hires mp3s using dBpoweramp, and have done for many years. SPOTIFY is a pox on the music industry and I do not use it.

I only recently discovered Devin Townsend and listened to these albums in detail recently at a café. 

But if I have just made my own new track, I could have it on continuous repeat listening for things in it "that annoy me or start to feel wrong".  Part of my track release process. After I have uploaded a track to Bandcamp, I may revise and upload it 4 or 5 times before I give up and just abandon it.  I never try and make anything Perfect though, that is a complete waste of time, and end up with it is what it is.  

it is what it is being a product of who I was at that time with that amount of enthusiasm and skill for doing whatever it was.. 

My most frequented café is GUSTO here in Kyoto Japan. Will sometimes go to a Starbucks for a new Frappuccino thing or seasonal cake, but otherwise find that place nowhere near as comfortable. Starbucks coffee is just burnt, bitter and way over priced. I just don't get why so many want to sit in a Starbucks working or reading. I assume it is to be seen, or have a personality type that to be surrounded by bad coffee and noisy people makes them comfortable.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Spoken Words Album

 

The Spoken Words Album on Bandcamp has recent spoken word, ambient 8 string and heavy guitar tracks. The tracks started out as under 60 second bits of music for animations on recent thoughts.

What motivates people? What are their goals? Are some of the questions I ask myself, and when I look on social media, I see many of the worst type of people mixed with many just getting on with their uncomplicated lives. 

See so many people on social media that look to me as if their sole goal is to be "famous". Which mostly comes down to lots of followers on social media and sites like YouTube, with usually the lowest common denominator material. Hate and Rage, but extreme trivia too.

But The Dunning-Kruger effect rings so true. The loudest and most confident ones have the least ability or knowledge. Mr.Beast must be a very lucky imbecile..

I never set out to cure cancer, but I did contribute to the development of music production systems and instruments. In many ways I see music and art as one of the things that "saves lives". Gives many the strength to cope with things in their lives.  

But imagine if there were MORE people with the motivation and ability to fix the big problems the world has?

The previous post here was on the video Motivation, and the scam much of the Wellness Industry is.

Everybody needs Motivation, and maintaining it isn't easy for anybody. Even if you are doing something everyday you love, you get tired of doing it and need a break sometime. When you have to cope with the difficult things life throws at you it is even more an issue. What do you do to charge you motivation battery?

These tracks aren't conventionally structured songs at all.  Part of the attraction to me I guess. Goals Project in Reaper looks like this:

This started with the central clean guitar parts and the spoken word. Using lots of ValhallaDSP Delay and SuperMassive to make it more "ambient" and to contrast with the heavier start and end sections. Those are metal sounds, but don't see them as metal,  maybe punk is closer. Loud brash and very unsophisticated. 

Yet I find the section at end of the ambient-ish bit almost beautiful.

Revised Goals Short:

This again, just used the Lapel microphone I have on the desk for FB Messenger and Zoom calls.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Motivation: Not a Life Coach Scam

 

Was playing around with a clean 8 string sound with the SUPERMASSIVE reverb after watching a Devin Townsend Ambient guitar piece. What I did struck me as being "Life Coaching" video like. Relaxing, so added the strange spoken words. I refrained myself from adding "discount coupons", as it would give the game away too quickly.  

As I didn't want it to be LIFE COACHING at all, added the ROCK & ROLL, and the up tempo distorted guitars.  That feeds into the animation were the serene screens lead to the MEGACURVE LOGO. I wonder if it is still too subtle that it is a joke playing with the genre?

The "Wellness Industry" contains many scammers.  LIFE COACHING was started by a financial planner in the 1980s in the USA, who found his clients didn't need therapy, but he he found could sell them something else they didn't need! 😂   

Supplements, tablets with no medically proven effectiveness, are the same deal.  But did you hear about the Benikoji supplement by Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. that killed a 76 people and destroyed the kidneys of others in Japan in 2024?  It isn't all a joke.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Synthesizers Are Just Cool, And So Is Distorted Guitar

 

Synthesizers Are Just Cool, And So Is Distorted Guitar. The track we put on our Bandcamp this morning.  

We also made a YouTube video using an idea I stole from Benn Jordan on X.  2 old music lovers  listening using just 2 frames to make the animation, rather than just the album cover. Will see if it gets pulled, and will do just a record cover version then.

Been listening a lot to the 3 tracks already released from Devin Townsend's POWERNERD album. My track here isn't like that, far more musically unsophisticated, power chords and single note melodies, but I LOVE the sounds!

I started with the JBASS parts and just expanded it from there.  I normally start with rhythm guitar or a bass sequencer. The spoken words are inspired by Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells track, where instruments are introduced, by John Cleese in the last version.  I am not doing that here, but that is where the idea came from.

I have been putting the SAMPLE&HOLD preset in the Surge XT VST on everything recently, and here too. Just love the sound. 

The track is 3 minutes, but it isn't a song. More of a soundtrack clip of a feeling about the title. 

As you can see it is made from 8 bar sections. I always start by laying out a really long drum track, then adlib parts with that on different instruments, and copy and past my track together from that. I may , or may not then re-record better parts after listening to that 10,000 times.  

This animation was made in MOHO Pro 12, like most of my stuff. Done at 1280x720 12fps.

Uses 2 Ricks interview frames. Grabbed a short section of the YouTube interview with OBS, then saved a few frames from VLC. Selected frames with most extreme head movement, but didn't spend any time on it. Moving the front most frame off screen gives the head bobbing effect. The frames are also slowly zoomed in and out. I just eye balled the beat, and copied and pasted sections, so it goes out of time sometimes, but few will watch the video far to notice anyway, if things go the way they normally do.  

Just listening to a Devin Townsend Vpodcast about his Synesthesia and creative motivations.  Expressing how he feels at that point in his life though music.

Here I am just making something related to how I feel at the moment, with the skills and techniques I have at this point in my life. It Makes Me a Happy Camper.  Because I need to make something on a regular basis to not feel down. So it is for my own state of mind.  

I don't have any kind of audience for this music stuff, and it isn't my motivation.  A couple of curious friends, or new followers on a social media platform.  If people want to listen to music, it will be big artists they already know. Very different from my Car Illustration stuff... 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology