Christmas Tails Release Day

Christmas Tails is released today on Bandcamp and will be on sale for a limited time until January 31st. All of these new Christmas songs can now be previewed on Bandcamp, and all profits from sales will go to RSPCA Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre, Nantwich. I (and other of us 'Sprout' artists) will making up a few hand-made CD copies for those who prefer CDs to downloads.

The next events for the Electric Sprouts will be attending the Christmas Fair at Stapeley Grange on Sunday 7th December, and a fund raising performance of the songs in Crewe Library on Tuesday 9th December at 2pm.

After the launch, most of my day has been taken up with working on videos for The Modern Game remaster. I'll probably, at some distant point, make a video for my Christmas song too. Just need a few more hours in the day...

Good Vibrations, The Modern Game 4 Work

A full day yesterday, with an early start for the Good Vibrations event. The Microkorg is a great instrument for this, working well as either an organ or a bass in a sea of guitars. After that, wandering around many shops, seeking and collecting Christmas presents. Money is short. I found a terrible CD collection in a charity shop, saxophone love songs, but their great merit is that this 3 CD set unusually came in CD Single cases, so I used these for the Kate Bush CD single King of the Mountain (which originally came in cardboard) and another CD of waltzes. I printed off more CD art for my classical music. Of my music collection, I have about 200 pop/rock CDs and about 100 classical albums - though maybe 150 CDs; complete symphony cycles can take up many discs!

Today began with printing the last of this art, the track listings and artwork for the two Wagner operas I have, then a tiny update to Prometheus. Then, adding the new vocals to the climax of 'The Trees', and making more tweaks to The Modern Game 4 mix. The changes are fewer with each listen.

Then more work on the videos. 'The Trees', 'House of Glass', and 'Love in a Hopeless World' don't have lyric overlays yet. The 'Masculinity Two' video has some white screens, so I need to mask the letters to make them visible. Making the lyrics is a tedious matter of photoshopping each line of text, making lots of single images. With a mask that's 2 images per line, so 42 images for 'Masculinity Two', for example.

Most of this is done. I've broken up the album as it is into tracks, so I'm now ready to charge into making music videos proper for the entire album.

CD Shelves II Fitted

A sleepless night. Finally drifted off past 7am. One night thought was a plan for 2400mm track for the router to enable me to rout picture framing from plain wood. Not difficult, but I don't have an immediate need for new picture framing, and the storage space and cost of these long twin tracks make them undesirable at the moment.

Woke at 10 and dived into CD Shelves II work. Glued the central support, then after an hour screwed it into place, did a final bit of spray paint touching up, and fitted the shelf to the wall in the afternoon.

The time since has been spent organising my old CDs. I so hate cardboard CD sleeves! These, to me, are an excuse to save money; they can scratch the CDs, and look ugly as well as being impractical. Alas, many CDs ship like this now. I also had CDs with partial (or no) artwork from my CD book, where I've long thrown away the art and retained only the disc, so to solve all of these problems I've designed new templates for the cover and rear tray, and have today printed lots of new track lists, and created new covers. Now, for the first time in years, my copy of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane have jewel cases. The same goes for Ha!Ha!Ha!, and many other discs.

Today I've printed and cut 22 such cases, and, apart from a few classical sets over which I must muse, my CD collection is now all on the wall in one place.

I listen to music almost exclusively on CD, I don't stream, so these shelves are part of my cultural engagement, but also my inspiration and reference library. The disorder of the last month has disrupted me for too long but now I can ignore such things and get back to art. At times I despair at the paralysis of my painting, but I remind myself that this is due primarily because I charged into music in 2020 and have made huge strides there. My plans are huge, and on track.

Onwards we stride through the viscous wind. Tomorrow, a 'Good Vibrations' event.

Prometheus v3.79, Shelves, New Tails Overture

Another full day. Started with a fix and update to Prometheus. It's possible to delay output for a specific time (render hold) then add that time to the end. This is used for look-ahead engines, specifically the Cathedral Limiter, which has an internal delay. I realised that stats were calculated for the whole render including the first delayed bit. A tiny thing, barely a bug, but it's best that the actual output is that which is analysed, so I made the changes for this. Along the way I fixed a few potential division-by-zero errors which was a far more valuable change and something I'd not noticed.

Then, the next step of CD Shelves 2. I unclamped the base, then drilled and screwed it. Then, glued and clamped the top. Then, for the Box Shelves, de-clamped and sanded the new central 'leg' and spray painted that. Spray paint is so much better than my water-based black. Then, fitted this, straightening these shelves at last.

Then wall drilling to fit a new bracket for new CD Shelves above. One of the holes was at a brick edge and impossible to drill correctly, so I filled this and inserted a short (25 or 30mm) screw into the filler, primarily for cosmetic reasons, but it might have some tiny structural benefit.

The bracket was not totally level, which can't be helped; wall drilling is never exact. Only a few fractions off, 1cm at 500mm, so I made a wooden wedge to correct it by sanding a 3mm board; then attached felt which will also mould to the weight and self-level to some extent.

So, all is on track. When the top is dry I'll test it to fit. Then I should be able to fit all shelves in one go, then fit to the wall.

Two other little jobs; clamping and internal staining yesterday's picture frame (the inside edge needed staining), and changing the Christmas Tails overture, making Deb's contribution louder, and adding Scrabble's purr to the end.

Obsessively fun though the shelf project is, I've spent too much time and money on this. I must finish The Modern Game, I expect this will take the rest of the month. My income is pitiful, my beloved Deborah is not well at the moment, and much can feel bleak, yet my skills are as good as ever. I have plans, even if my outlook is stubbornly long term when I could really do with a short term boost. What can we do but our best each day? This I do.

Barring extraordinary feedback from the artists, Christmas Tails is complete. The shelves will be finished very soon, and The Modern Game too. All good.

Onwards we fly.

Shelf Work, New Frame, TMG4 Mixing

A day of technical challenges.

First I clamped and glued the base and sides to the new shelves. The base was placed flat, with a spacer, then the loose top, this made a sandwich wide enough for the band clamp. The sides (after first drilling and countersinking pilot holes for future screws) were then placed vertically and band clamped to the base. The advantage of vertical assembly like this is that the floor is very flat, but the sides needed temporarily holding up before the clamp was tightened. When tight, everything was laid flat and the angles checked, with slight adjustments made to the tops of the verticals to make them exact right angles as it all dried. This may be overkill for mere shelves, but it will be as accurate as any other thing in the house.

Only this joint is glued, the rest will be done, joint by joint, in contrast to the first version of the shelves when everything was glued and clamped at once.

Then, removing the old shelves from the wall. On the floor they didn't sag, so the wood was not bent, but heavy under its own weight alone. My error was using wood which was too thin for the length of shelf; I made my priority a low weight, not strength. For the box shelves below, I've decided on the simplest solution of a leg to the floor. These shelves appear to be bent, rather than merely sagging, so I've applied a wedge to gradually bend back up to flat. I still consider these a first version to be replaced one day.

Then, work on a picture frame which must surround a stretched canvas. A rare job, I don't often use stretched canvas, and have hardly ever made a flush frame like this. The frame is cut, about 1 or 2mm larger than the canvas. I'll pin then staple it in place I think.

In the evening, more mixing on the new Modern Game. These songs were not written with my voice in mind and from the outset this has complicated everything. Still, this iteration will certainly sound better than any of the others.

Prometheus v3.78, CD Shelves v2.00

Started the day with more updates to Prometheus. Fixed the peaking filter, which didn't work when Wet was less than 1, and created a new Peaking Filter II, with separate post-amp. Then I updated my website, adding the Electric Sprout albums there, and putting the new album on the front page.

Back to programming. I thought of making the Cathedral Limiter a track as well as a song engine, which would make Prometheus useful for CD mastering (yet with hi-res audio); but it has a problem in that silence of one second in a track causes it to shut off until a note is played, and the look-ahead delay would create that silence. I can disable or extend it, but remembering to do that is a tad awkward. It took me hours to work out that the failure of this effect was due to this! The program also crashed once, which is worrying. It's not crashed in years. Crashes when experimenting with half-compiled plugins may be due to overlooked mistakes in that code. All I was using at the time was a Saw Wave, Peaking Filter, Cathedral Limiter.

At 13:30 I charged into woodwork on this, the last dry day forecast for weeks. With my mum's help I routed the joints and slots for CD Shelves Iteration 2. The Bosch bit is exactly 12mm, a fraction too small to create slots for 12mm MDF, so I needed to rout each joint twice, the second by about 0.2mm wider. This was enough. Then, masking, and at 15:10, spray painting. Even at 5 degrees, the paint dried quickly, perhaps because I kept the paint can inside at a cosy 18 degrees. By 16:20, the shelves were painted. A record time. Spray paint is much faster than my water-based stain.

It's Friday and I've not done a thing on The Modern Game this week. I may charge to finish the shelves first. My mood is low to despairing, but what can we do but ignore such animals and work at our best. Fate plays its hand and we must accept our cards. All we can do each day is try our best, and try to learn as we go.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock.

Woodwork Postponed, Painting Repair and Restoration

I'd hoped to rout new shelves, but it was too cold and I feared the dampness of my visible breath. Tested the new 12mm bit. The channel was too small for 12mm MDF, I wondered if the cold made the channel smaller, but perhaps not enough to make a difference. I'll aim to do this tomorrow afternoon, a still cold 5 degrees due, but better than a week of rain also forecast.

Then, work on painting restoration. After the first patch, a second yesterday to level it, and today a first application of paint.

This evening, an update to Prometheus to return the amount of pre-start silence at the start of a song; then a migraine on the left side of my head which continues agonisingly. I want to sit in the dark.

Fame at Last

Begun with singing some quick vocal for 'The Trees'. I had only about 20 minutes spare, so made the most of the time.

Then, a full day of admin on Christmas Tails and the new single, Will You Be My Snowflake? Time was when I'd finish an album and move on, now the finishing stage is full of work, which at times seems never ending. I filed Christmas Tails and sent out an email to all of the artists with a vital update. I noticed that today's Crewe & Nantwich Chronicle has a huge story about the album, so I thought this was the best time to list the album.

So, I did this, and added all tracks with lyrics, credits, ISRC and ISWC codes, and other details. This will be invisible to purchasers for now, apart from the first overture track, but it's still vital. Then, sending a preview to all artists.

Then, work on the Will You Be My Snowflake? single. Transcribed the sheet music for the two other tracks, this took a few hours. 'Heaven's Day' had to be entered manually. After that, registration of the music in various places. Musicbrainz should now (or should eventually...) list all of the tracks and artists for both albums. This meant creating the first official listings for many of the contributors, such as The Forrest Dick Band (Mick Dick and Mortimer C. Forrest, both of which are aliases).

I also had time to test the new router bits. They seemed to fit but I didn't give them a spin. I now have an urgent need for new shelves. The old ones are sagging millimetre by millimetre each day. Last night another DVD fell over due to shelf droop. We live and learn. I've removed all of the contents now. I've decided to get 5th wall bracket to ne fitted below and in the centre to reinforce everything. There is something inherently unstable with holding a rack or cabinet by the sides rather than underneath. I'll do both for iteration 2.

This evening I see that the miniature that David Lawton has painted of me is currently on exhibition in The Royal Miniature Society exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London, not far from Tate Modern. I feel famous today. Photo by Tom Mulliner.