Little Jobs

The day still disrupted by workmen, but managed relative productivity. Started by updating my album filing such that older 16-bit mastered albums now store the final files in CDMaster folders, and some clearer separation for the albums (all future ones I suspect) that have separate CD and Stream versions.

I then updated two tracks on Cycles & Shadows, to burn a new CD master for future replication. Gosh! The remaster is only 2 years old yet is sounds outdated and poor compared to my modern standards; but I'm being harsh. It is a huge amount better than the first version, and most of it is as good as ever. Since 2023 I've added a few crucially useful things to Prometheus; the Cathedral Limiter which perfectly (mathematically perfectly that is, the best it can be) limits audio, allowing them to get much louder with ease. Secondly, the Spectrum EQ features, which though present for this remaster were relatively new. I wasn't used to using them. I've also since added a (hardly ever used) 10-band graphic equaliser, and now the new per-track Spectrum, which is perhaps more useful in spotting where the mix is sticking out. For this album EQ was post applied, informed by the Spectrum. I don't do this now, but balance before the final output.

Now I tend to set CD volume at about -10 or -11 LUFS (when I started, I did this too, but gradually changed philosophy, only since about 2020 and my pop-ra have I reversed this). This isn't important on this album as it is more like classical music which is not limited like pop music.

My main critique of this remaster are vocals, which are rather quiet and a little muffly, these were pretty much unchanged since the first version. Today I've adjusted these for two tracks, so the forthcoming CD version will be a little different than the stream version. For me, that's always good. I still listen primarily on CD, and want the CD version (which is, after all more expensive) to be the best version. Mastering of any sort is a long term thing, it's good that I do so only after many years. In 5 years I'm sure to be that much better at everything than today.

In the afternoon, I scanned, framed, and photographed in frame the new small painting for Bickerton, Land Of Destiny:

After that, two more albums moved, 24 yet to go. I may finish before the end of the year. I have one small vocal part I'd like to do to complete the new album, then I can move into painting until winter. Next on my re-recording/remastering target is The Myth Of Sisyphus.

July Backups

A long and tiresome day. Quarterly backup day, this took a few hours. I had a short time, the all to brief time alone to sing. How perfect In Dreams is as a warm-up, then Runaway. I then recorded a new take of 'Smashing My House of Cards'. I may need some new 'aah' vocals for 'Breakfast Of Delight'.

The gas man arrived at 14:30 or so, and the noise and disruption hampered any progress elsewhere. I need to finalise this album, but it's very nearly done. Then, I feel I must paint something, so must find motivation to do this. Today's life has been somewhat lustless; lack lustre.

In June I started daily exercise and now do 52 sit-ups every other day, and am moving to the same number of other exercises. As one gets older, muscle mass tends to fade away, and stiffness beckons. It's important to stem this tide now.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock. Heave at it we must. Creak forwards on the dry desert floor it must. The gods will thank us for our efforts.

Violet Transcription Complete

Completed the sheet music transcription for Another Violet Night today, so another step of the admin work on a new album complete. Each of the 13 songs has a 'full', or close to full version with many parts, plus simpler versions. The Piano Version has a backing piano, plus lead vocal stave, and a Piano Melody version has the melody on piano (typically at an octave higher than sung) with other elements. From these complex scores it's easy to maker simpler ones. All have the chords marked for possible live playing.

I fondly remember my childhood playing of Beatles songs on my little Yamaha PSS-790 keyboard, the simple sheet music from my How To Play books. I had memories of this as I worked on my scores today.

Also today, two more albums moved to the new distributor, about half have been moved so far. A good day overall. Temperatures across Britain and Europe are high, but we're spared here with a mere 25 degrees or so.

Backup day tomorrow, and perhaps new and better vocals for two tracks.

Another Violet Night Transcription

A full day of work, 9am to 9pm, transcribing the scores for the songs from Another Violet Night. Most of the scores, when free on my itch channel, have had zero downloads, and the work is physically and mentally hard, punishingly meticulous, yet for me, one of the jobs or life is accurate storage and preservation of information. Weeks, months, perhaps a full time year or more of my life has been (or will be) spent meticulously transcribing my music, for no reward or thanks from any soul, yet this is part of the job of music publishing. I can't call myself a self-publisher (song writer, recording artist, piano player, guitar player, singer, music producer, engineer, audio software developer, graphic designer) without this.

People neglect this job today. More music than ever is being made, but how much of it is transcribed or published as sheet music?

This takes me a few days per album, as does the artwork, yet this is part of the job of art. Perhaps my labour is as unrewarded as the work on the engraving plates made by William Blake in his day, perhaps as the work by a now forgotten print maker; but for the work to be remembered at all, it must exist.

A month is nearly at an end, and the album nearly complete. I must push that much harder to paint in July, August, September.

More transcription work tomorrow.

Beatles Dream, Prometheus v3.74, Pianos

Last night I dreamed of meeting The Beatles. I went back in time, and the c. 1970s group, were playing themselves in a documentary film about their entire future lives. Someone played the start of 'Imagine' on a piano and John Lennon like it, saying he could almost imagine how the song continues. I brashly, perhaps even braggingly, said that that happens to me too. I suddenly felt slightly ashamed at the boast, not least because I made John lost his train of thought with Imagine. I feared that I'd porlocked him, changing the future and stopping the song from ever being written. Oops.

In a second dream, I dreamt that Andy Stubbs was offered a record contract to record a single by a Dutch record company owner, after playing live. One song was one of his, the B-Side due to be a cover, I thought 'Runaway' at first, but it was actually a Sam Cooke soul song (I can't quite remember which). I tried to warn Andy about retaining ownership of any songs that he wrote, but he wasn't interested in publishing or owning the right to his songs at all; his focus was on the record deal and getting it sounding right.

Dreams led to a long long day of programming, trying to crawl forwards a tiny step while working on 'Another Dead Morning'. The piano wasn't quite right, so I wanted to adjust the MIDI velocities. One easy way is to set these at random between two values. I really needed two actual floating point value settings for this. Argus has this exact option and uses three generic values (FX, FY, FZ) for use in many editing features, so I thought I'd add it to Prometheus today.

Another upside is that these utility numbers can be used elsewhere, such as when scaling all events to a specific timing, such as when moving from say, 120 BPM to 109. Until today, fractional scaling (like 120 to 108.5) was not possible.

So, this was added, plus a host of other minor features connected with MIDI velocities. At 16:00, work on the new piano for the song began. The old, sequenced, piano sounded like an ape-robot hammering the keys like a monster. It did have a somewhat nice, and very bright timbre. I read somewhere that when mixing, pianos should retain their bass (most mixing desks have a high-pass filter switch) - complete nonsense! Pianos in most records are bass-cut, sometimes to the extent of sounding very little like actual pianos. Today, even piano-centred artists like Elton John use synthesized pianos, and those are often bass-cut and treble enhanced. The reason for these EQ changes is that the piano and the human voice span about the same frequency range.

I tend to not do much at all with pianos, except cut the bass a bit, but here I've added a bit of a notch at 450hz as the song has a lot of mid-range sounds.

Notation Day 1

Listened to the first draft of the mastered album late last night and made a few notes. The piano in 'Another Dead Morning' needed redoing. I was sequenced, but the 'real' (digital!) piano in 'What You Could Have Won' was much better. There was a problem though, the tempo modulated gently, and with everything else set in the song (like the vocals), I'd have little hope of playing the piano exactly to time, I'd normally start with the piano, as it's the fundamental core of the song.

So, I used the sequenced piano, which naturally varies in time, then fed this to the keyboard. It sounded much better than the original piano. Then, a few other changes to the other tracks, little things.

Most of this increasingly hot day has been spent notating the music for the album, something I now routinely do. The music isn't finalised, but the composition and words are.

Good Vibrations, Another Violet Night Mastering, Pariah Teabags

Yesterday, the 4-weekly music playing in the library, a delight. Somewhat hellish at home with work in the house, and my brother filling a room, a brief visit before my aunt's lonely funeral today. Deb is just recovered from her short illness.

I've spent today mastering Another Violet Night, awaiting a proof, then basic working out the tracks and lengths, and the design of the lyrics book and the iTunes Digital Booklet. I'm tired of the music now, eager to move on. I wrote a poem about our pariah tea; herbal, gifted at Christmas, untouched.

Pariah Teabags

Exotic herbal teas
gifted and received each
Christmas, and forever
languishing in the cupboard's
vault, in hope and despair

If hell is to be unwanted
hell is there

Oh to steep
as we were promised
when green-tipped, plucked
dried with comrades
to await, and wait

If hell is to be unwanted
hell is our fate

Fennel, rose, mint julep
chamomile, hemp's must;
sage, lavender,
forgotten mugwort, burdock
bitter bitter green

Unwanted horrors
Untried, unseen

Steep for 3 minutes: no
Add sugar to taste: never
Swamp smells, no taste
Good for you: no
Sartre? No

Our life is Camus
Sans brew

Album Finalising, Vocals

More work finalising the album over the past two days, with a little diversion to fix that problem with the MIDI import in Prometheus. Rather that use a 'long long', I decided to upgrade the system to use floating point timing, which increases accuracy due to better rounding.

Then, my regular weekly transfer of more albums to a new distributor, and today my weekly singing practice, plus recording the vocals for 'What You Could Have Won'. The song is somewhat like a Pink Floyd track, almost Wish You Were Here by proxy. For this, the track uses a filtered echo on the lead vocals (one of my favourite effects, as much my signature as John Lennon's tape delay). I usurped the effect in the chorus by adding answering vocals in that register and location.

The first draft of the album is complete! There are lots of listens and little changes to go, plus actual mastering, then breaking up tracks, the technical registration, sheet music... well, a lot more to do. Today I completed the first draft of the album artwork too. Here are some pages:

By amazing luck, all of the album lyrics fit into three pages when written in compressed paragraph form like the page above.

I've practiced playing 'All Controlled by Someone' on guitar for the open mic tomorrow, but Deb will need to rest, so we must miss this beloved event. The song isn't that hard, A-minor, G, A-minor, E-minor for the first part, with A-minor, D, E, for the chorus (all on capo-3, so in actual C-minor). With luck, we can attend the library in the morning. I also practiced 'Annie's Song', which looks hideously complex on guitar, but I'm certain uses 'near-chords' that make it much easier (if not better), and actually great fun to play. In singing, I sang 'In Dreams' several times, now my favourite singing practice, if not favourite song of all time. I seemed to know the words without looking. Annie's Song, In Dreams, Runaway; these are now my mainstay warm-up songs, in that order.