MUSIC+COMIC on what and why I have been doing these.
My original use of my own original heavy instrumental music was as the soundtrack to my illustration sample videos. The first of those got some 50k+ views and the last one, years later before I gave up, had maybe 5 views. Google moved to promoting longer form content “more like TV” so my 3 minute music videos got sidelined. They have since changed multiple times and revised what is “best for them to promote”.
After retiring and moving back to Japan 2019 I did my JUST THINKING comic strip series weekly during COVID and a bit after. Just one of those things I wanted to do. If something strikes me as interesting and better for just a comic, I still do these sometimes.
I had moved from drawing pages like my TerraForm comic, to vector based pages as in my WHERE THE SMOKE COMES OUT and that made the process a whole lot faster. But that is possible as I am not doing emotionally charged stories with complex characters, but mostly a host character talking to camera ala GRAND DESIGNS or TOPGEAR, explaining something.
Four years ago I started doing short videos with comic characters and speech balloons, but 2024 sometime I started on YouTube Short/ X/ Instagram, square under 60 second animations with the current MUSIC+COMIC format. Had used MOHO Pro Ver 12 to do some animated music videos, and rediscovered that real animation was far too time consuming even with computer based tools, and a comic book was more for me. A comic strip with 3 to 4 speech balloons with my original music and very limited animation, that uses a lot of photo images and cartoon characters is the approach I have come too. Something I haven’t seen others doing, but was the way POINT AND CLICK RPG games were done originally.
They are a vehicle for me to make original music and a comic at least once a week. Done for my own entertainment. I sometimes feel the music is all the same, but I also think that of Ola’s SWOLA too 8^).
Ola Englund starts his SWOLA videos with this weeks original minute music piece. Partly to force himself to make music, and partly to demonstrate new guitar models. He also made the drum track available for others to do the same, and he would judge them as a segment on one of his channels. Some of us need goals to motivate us, and it helps me too.
I have received no comment at all on the format of these. I have received comments on the subject of a music + comics though.
I know of a few musicians that regularly post music clips on YouTube and Social Media, such as Jeremy Wentworth and Phillip Jackson. I have to admit I don’t listen to most of their works recently. Once you have heard a dozen or so, they all sound the same. I just know others feel the same about my MUSIC+COMICs, even if the comic part is always different.
The music in this is mostly the F# DORIAN mode. It is here on Bandcamp. It combines CHUG guitar, BOOPIE-BLOOPIE synth sequence, metal drums and synthesizers. Trying to do “my own original style”, which I think comes out being rock.
I do like to CHUG, as Ola says. I have found having a 7 string in a DROP tuning is my go to instrument, and has been for a while. I haven’t found my 8 string gives me any more usable low notes over the 7. It has a few more notes, but the sound of those doesn’t have the same punch. A 6 string with a pitch shifter would work too, but that BOSS fixed pitch shift pedal costs more than I paid for my 7 string guitar.
I think the last 3 of these MUSIC+COMICS have actually been pretty interesting, but I need a change. The format isn’t right, and I’ve only been thinking of finishing them, not working out how they could be better. That shorts are at the mercy of Googles algorithms, and whatever that is this week, as to what gets pushed to the SHORTs stream, and for how long, to people who are just filling in time and don’t care what shows up is not a great place to be either.
I don’t mind the music tracks, and feel that in the 60 seconds they have enough sections and variations that work. The mix is fine too. I think anyway, but no one goes and checks them out on Bandcamp.
That the limits for short videos went from 1 to 3 minutes on X and Youtube has also made the 60 second format I came up with obsolete. This may be more the style going forward:
But we will see. This bigger longer Looking Back MUSIC+COMIC has 9 views on YouTube, and a few of those are probably just me looking at it again. Drawing actual 8 frame comics kind of feels what I want to do, at least for awhile. The music is really important to me, but I don't think anyone seeing them cares, and probably has the sound off.
The last versions of CorelDraw and MOHO Pro I bought were via the HUMBLE BUNDLE websites, around $25 each for perpetual one time license fees. A Bargain.
Other Things
So had my first ever ZOOM meeting to join in the FAIRLIGHT INSTRUMENTS 50th Anniversary event in Sydney Australia, from here in Kyoto Japan:
Strange feelings. So long ago to me and there are still so many people that are fans of the machines and have renovated and using them.
Since doing the cartoon, was sent some pictures of the room:
Looks like maybe no more than 35 people were there in person. Maybe 14 on zoom. Not a whole lot it seems to me. One of the organizers is writing a book on the companies history and the people involved over the years and what they contributed.
Then they promoted their coming Fairlight 50th Anniversary FRESHWATER INSTRUMENTS release of a 19" 3U rack module running "improved" CMI SERIES 1 software on modern hardware.
That doesn't interest me at all, and was this 50th Event thing mostly to promote that? And us ex-staff being there adding validity to that venture??? 🤔
Some of the same people in this new venture were involved with the 30th Anniversary FAIRLIGHT 30A that ended in tears for legal reasons, being shut down after developing and shipping just 14 units.
Some of us ex-staffers that hung around on ZOOM after everyone else left said "how could this new venture end differently than the 30th anniversary one did?". It seemed, legally, the same situation.
TONY FURSE, the guy that started everything that the CMI turned into, had declined to be involved with the 50th Anniversary event. That kind of adds weight to the feeling it was really all about promoting the new product.
Anyway...
Been told there is a WhatsApp group specifically for ex staff, but I don't use WhatsApp and don't think I have anything to contribute to such a group the Facebook Fairlight CMI doesn't already do. My family uses LINE, and already have FB MESSANGER on my phone and don't need any more messaging apps.
It just doesn't seem relevant to me any more. Or maybe I feel my contribution isn't relevant anymore, but that may be as I have been asked technical questions on things I did, such as logic programming source, that has my name and date in 1984 on it, but I just don't remember any details now. I am a different person now.
I feel something like an old retired guy that spends all his time carving little wooden birds in his workshop that no one else cares about. So he just keeps to himself doing what makes him a Happy Camper.
My Video Call Setup
I could have just used the Mic in the Logitech webcam, and listened over my small JBL speakers, but I find using the Lavalier microphone on my collar to give a better sound without room tone, especially when slightly moving about as I do in a chair. I love the sound of my AKG headphones too, so that is what I did. I am in my studio anyway. If I was a YouTuber, I would have a fancy mirrorless digital camera or whatever and a SURE SMB7 on a podcast arm, but I don't and don't care for that stuff at all.
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology KYOTO JAPAN
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