INTERNET-ING: After the OBON Summer Holiday

 

Web traffic from autonomous AI agents and bots has surpassed human-generated traffic, reaching a milestone far sooner than analysts expected.

So Bots are creating content AND consuming it with no need for any pesky humans in the loop!

G flat 138BPM Guitar Synth 138BPM.  Lots of synth noises, heavy guitar, dubstep snare/ kick and synth string sound through a slow flanger.  Probably way too much like the last 6 things I have done. Maybe I need a bit of a break.

Our Internet-ing on Bandcamp   .

No one cares about your music, or you. 

My own hobby music means much to me, and really is about ME of the week I did it, just like a diary entry, as much as this blog is. I am not on Spotify as that is a pay to play scam to me, remembering I am just a hobbyist retired grandfather music maker, and "making it in music" is not a goal of mine.  

So that others couldn't care to hear it when I put a post on X or Facebook about a new track on Bandcamp, is to be expected.  I know I rarely listen to other hobbyist tracks when they do the same.   Anything new usually sounds very much like the last 12 things I heard from them, and that is true of my own stuff too. Posts on new music have to be from some bigger artist to get me to give it a listen.  

Rather complicated animation done in MOHO Pro12. Took 40 minutes to render.

The Internet has become a vital part of everything, at the same time it gets worse and impossible to find anything.  

I think of my recent shorts as kind of like newspaper political cartoons. Not pop, metal or rock songs at all, and me just doing my own original thing. 

Anyone know of others doing something similar or related?

Other Things

Still cooking and helping my wife with her recovery. Things take time. Going out for short walks twice a day is showing progress. She could barely walk  a few weeks ago but can get around again. Lots of long chats just sitting in the living room too.  The important details in life... This week even watched DVDs after lunch for like the first time ever. Our own matinee.

Wife found a couple of movies she wanted to watch. They were available for rental on PRIME, but It seemed better to me to get discounted new Japanese release DVDs instead for the same cost.

Hidden Figures is one I had wanted to watch myself for awhile. NASA's hidden human computers. This is awesome. I had tears of joy in my eyes watching this more than anything else I have seen in many years. The kind of history the Frumpistan  administration says didn't happen and the Smithsonian is lies. 😡

Blackmore back with Deep Purple for one song got way more news than it was worth to me.

I saw Deep Purple live in Sydney with Ritchie twice and Rainbow at the end of 1976. I was a fan.

Ritchie, I only discovered in the last 7 years, didn't treat many he worked with very well at all though. I have an LD of a performance, where he comes out really late into a song and throws a drink at someone at the back of the stage.  There are interview with all the band members except Richie and they all go on how difficult he has been.

Blackmore isn't in good health, and maybe wants to make amends before his end. A great guitarist that really inspired me and why I started on a Strat, but not a great person. Shy, but nasty. It all seemed forced with Ian Gillian to me.  That isn't the way most others have taken it though.

ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard passes away at 77 after being in hospice for awhile.  I have no idea what his lifestyle was like but that is on the young side, but maybe not by the current lower American standards.

So much gear grifting on Social Media and YouTube. All those channels pushing the latest whatever from their sponsors. Despite what they say about their video being their own uncensored thoughts. Yeah, sure. You will not hear a difference between a linear 24bit vs 32bit audio interface, but no one says that.  Preamps and EQs "character" is due to distortion which a mild form is called "saturation"  generated in transformers and tubes and some circuit configurations.   

I still think the JBL-104 sound fine, and iLOUDs aren't much different, with just a tiny bit more low end, that the room modes impact greatly. The iLOUDs are significantly smaller though. 

Have a tiny 5' 7" square art/music studio, that has terrible room modes, and is too small for acoustic treatment, especially bass traps. Does open to a bigger room with tower speakers that doesn't have that issue, so all is not lost. 

You wouldn't get that from Social Media though. It gets tiring to me. So much noise, but so little worthwhile, but all so addictive for the random small worthwhile bits.

My interest in small monitors is about my own music mixes.    

I can't hear anything above 12kHz at all, and just don't trust my ears. Using REFERENCE TRACKS is important and to help me with this I am now trying ADPTR MetricAB. May be the trick I need to get better consistently.  The real thing with this is that it does automatic level matching, so you start on a solid foundation with reference tracks. It has a bunch of meters and a big AB button.

Now I don't think MetrixAB gives me anything I didn't already have as separate things, but the all in one with autogain makes it all much more likely for me to use it, especially as it sits a the the end of the MASTER BUS.

Using reference tracks then makes mix decisions relative to the reference track, rather than relying on the accuracy of your monitor speakers in your room and headphones. 

But I will see. An interesting TODD RUNDGREN comment heard recently was that record makers fuss about REVERB level and all that stuff, but listeners don't care at all. Whatever the mix(e.g. too much reverb, too little bass, too bright mids ), is the way the song is *supposed* to be to them.  

Can't say I have ever been a big fan of Neil Young. Know probably 3 of his songs, but those are really significant. KEEP ON ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD in particular. Some comments on what he thinks is important.

I mostly agree with this.  He was a guest speaker at the 1998 TEC AWARDS I attended many years ago, talking about his home studio from analog tape to digital and that the sound got worse as time went on.

I hadn't realized till then how up with studio gear he was, and I had considered him, incorrectly to be a folk singer!

I read INIO ASANO's SOLANIN manga a few years ago and yesterday ordered PUNK'N HEADS which seems could be similar 20 somethings, music and finding their way.  All that stuff is way behind me as someone rapidly approaching 68.

I am still looking to do my next small comic book.  Just haven't got any idea what it should be about or on. I do know that doing it in 8 page chapters is the way I have to do it. Maybe retirement, commitment to your kids and spouse and getting old?  Maybe in such a way that isn't an immediate turn off for everyone! Like set in an alien world in another dimension with cute aliens... 

The last 13 tracks I released ( 8 track EP and 5 singles) in the last months have gotten a couple of listens total by someone NOT me! 

Still don't think of myself as a musician though. Especially not as a guitar or keyboard player. More a  PRODUCER who can play instruments and use the studio itself, to mix and master parts to make music. 

Sunday August 23rd at INTEX OSAKA is GOOD COMIC CITY 32 OSAKA an amateur self published comic market. SYDMEADLAB will have a booth there too.

I went to a Sydney Comicon once and bought a few self published books, and was seriously considering going to this equivalent event. Some 9 minutes walk from COSMO SQUARE station all they way out near Osaka Bay.  But knee was playing up yesterday and I had to use a walking stick, so will give it a miss in this heat.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN