Amiga Music Videos Day 2

A full day animating the 40-or-so Amiga music videos. The first half of the day was customising the FFMpeg scripts and YouTube text. I've added quite a lot of interesting facts about each game, information that only I can supply. I could make this text a series of captions on the videos, as this is the sort of information that appears over music videos on pop-music shows.

The animation part consists of a series of variations on a standard scene of spinning cube, the faces textures with an image of the Amiga title screen, bordered by a second 'neon' cube, and various backgrounds. These have taken until 20:00 and could be called complete in a first draft, though I'm bound to want more changes. Many of these tunes were designed to loop, and thus end suddenly. I've decided to fade them out.

Amiga Music Videos Day 1

A full day of work on the music videos for my old Amiga games. First, I added a feature to Prometheus to export the notes (in float format: 0 for the lowest possible note, 1 for the highest), and volumes of each note. This might be useful for future videos.

Then created two new 3D objects, a top-less, bottom-less cube, and a cube with oversized faces which makes it easy to make a neon 'glowing' cube. Then, lots of experiments to get a look for these videos. One had a spinning cube object in the centre and web of hollow neon cubes, each inside the other. These spinning cubes lit up with each note on one of the four Protracker tracks. Alas, pretty though it was, it was also overwhelming and confusing. Many notes are trigged a lot, and some sustained notes are hardly ever triggered, so the images didn't really match the music, as well as being too bright and too flashy.

Simpler was better. I remembered the nice effect from 'Joy From a Machine Code Perspective'. This evoked the look of Protracker, so I re-created the look using an image from the Protracker I remember. I added a spinning cube in the middle with the game title page, and added a neon cage.

I can change the colours per title. The whole thing swirls and moves like a rollercoaster. It is pretty, but I expect it will be largely be the same for each tune. This is perhaps best, as 40 videos will be a huge amount of work if each is customised too finely. I also thought today that it might be better if these videos were on my music channel rather than my Cornutopia Software channel. This is primarily music after all, and perhaps a few people who remember those old games might discover my contemporary music. These are 'official' music videos, and there is no channel for Scorpius Software, so they may be out of place alongside my PC game trailers.

This means, however, that these videos must appear after Nightfood, so in 2027. This gives me more time to tweak and refine these. The raw rendering, conversion, uploading may take more than a day in pure computing terms, such is the effort of creating frame-by-frame Argus videos.

I have a lot of folders to create, a lot of images, a lot of Thumbnails, a lot of YouTube text to format.

My father remains in a distant hospital, still apparently sedated. The house feels eerily quiet. We are awaiting his transfer to our local hospital, which will make a visit much easier.

Prometheus v4.00, Owl Mask

Already a full day. First bought and fitted some insulation to one of the windows, as the winter approaches. Then updated Prometheus (to 4.00, something of a milestone number) to fix a change made in v3.98 which affected the import of sections into Argus. A minor change for such a big number, the 300th update actually, as the first version was 2.00...

Then sent a new Nightfood track to BBC Introducing, and added the album (and a few others) to my website. After that, work on the Barn Owl Mask for Fall in Green. It's now pretty heavy, loaded with Sculptamold, plaster and papier maché:

Ignore the stalk on top and pink object behind, the mask is resting on a plaster pumpkin, I had no other way to gently cradle its convex shape. Then, to town to get some elastic for it, as the original light elastic is clearly not adequate. Once back I attached two pieces, but this, alas, has partly destroyed the edges of the mask on that photo, so I'll need to fix and repair when its dry.

Watched Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure last night, for the first time in decades. Still wonderful. I've only seen it once before. I noted that Beethoven there was introduced as liking Mozart's Requiem, Handel's Messiah, and Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. I agree, although the Messiah is boring, so I only have the requiem and Slippery in my collection!

More Nightfood Work, AI and Automation

A second full day of preparing videos and materials for the epic Nightfood promotion, something I've not done so extensively before. I recorded two videos late last night in the freezing and dark 'studio' room I use for filming. In the end, the sound, as well as the lighting, was too bad to use, so I spent the morning re-recording two similar videos. I was so inspired watching them back that I decided to upload them both!

Then, a slight distraction of fixing a new brake cable to my mother's bicycle. The original cable was an odd sort which exposed the raw wire in the middle, it oddly threaded through a two narrow rings in the metal frame. Modern brake cables are shielded throughout. The two options were to cut the cable sheath, or drill the metal bike frame, so I chose the latter, and re-threaded the cable quite easily.

After that, work on the Nightfood video conversion and preparation of the many materials I'll be posting and sharing about it.

One part of the talk made me think about automation, both AI and other forms, like music sequencing, and which are better or worse for us, for humanity, for art. I realised that automation that creates more for work us, is a new task-master, is a good thing; and that automation which does work for us, assists laziness, is bad. It's true that the laziness may allow us to do things beyond our skills, a power-saw may enable us to cut down a tree that we may not have been able to. In this argument it's not really 'lazy' to use that vs. a handsaw, but it would be lazy to use the power-saw, then rest for the rest of the day such that both saws would take as long. If you work just as hard with both saws you'd cut down far more trees with the power-saw, thus your skills would be genuinely improved; thus the improvement is still measured by the human work.

If a new tool is making you work as hard or harder, it's probably helping you do more and better. If you find you're being lazier, the changes are it's a harmful tool. At the very least, your (lazy!) competitors would be acting as you, giving you no advantage, but perhaps worse, the machine is somehow taking a credit from you. The labour and intelligence really needs to be yours, not the machines. The work-laziness ratio is the measure of ultimate utility.

Nightfood Promotional Videos

A stressful and busy day. At times I felt I was losing my mind. The time spent filming then editing and assembling short form videos for the Nightfood promotion. I continued to make silly mistakes during editing, entering wrong filepaths and overwriting files (I rarely make any such mistakes). Typing in the wrong text files, being unsure of which video I was working on, and other crises.

Still, I managed to complete the core job of 6 new videos, each promoting a different aspect of the album. Learned a few new things. Many videos featured stretched clips of the main music videos. Of course, the quality is a little reduced, but for phones and TikTok etc. this is less important, and these FFMpeg scripts may be useful to call upon in future.

I have a few more to make and the text to prepare and format. I'd like to do some sort of full video talk, a behind-the-scenes glimpse, and more, but today's tasks are complete as planned and hoped-for.

RBSA Collection, November Plans

Today, a trip to Birmingham to collect 'Punishment of the Sun'. We left by the wrong exit from the maze of New Street Station and spent about 30 minutes being lost. At the same time, my mother was visiting my father in hospital. He seems to have recovered well, though is heavily sedated. I'm so pleased we intervened quickly to dial 999. The response from the emergency services was very fast and first class; the speed vital for his condition.

I have a few key jobs this month: To promote Nightfood. To complete the sheet music for Remembrance Service, the only vocal album which now lacks it. To create new videos for my Amiga music, videos better than any out there. To complete a new face mask and cover artwork for the Fall in Green 'From Eye to Hand to Paper' single, and complete the Fall in Green lyrics book.

I'm not doing much new art. The jobs of the month mostly concern consolidation and promotion of older art. Of course, much of it wasn't promoted at the time. Nightfood was always an album of work in progress, a learning step, like all of my vocal albums of the time. Now I'm happy with it, so it's ripe to promote.

What new work did I complete in October? The new music for the Radioactive Soundtrack, although both pieces were variations of older tunes. Perhaps I need to create more new artwork, though it may be tricky to find the time. I may have time. The time to transcribe the Remembrance Service music, and the time to create the Amiga videos (nearly 40 of them), is uncertain. Am I still an artist if I spend so long filing or promoting old work? I can't only create, I must promote too; and perhaps being a success is more about promotion than creation.

Still, I must remain aware of my actual and perceived genius. It's important that I find time to create the best things I can while I can. Life is short. Yes, life is short.

Radioactive Soundtrack Complete, Francis Bacon

Slept long, until 9:30, unusual after two days of waking before 7. My father fell over on his back, outside last night. Bruised, he picked himself up and slowly crept upstairs, as usual, to prepare for bed. This morning he was difficult to rouse and seemed to be semi-conscious and partly paralysed. A stroke of some sort perhaps, we thought. An ambulance was called. He went to the local hospital and then, in something of an emergency, transferred to another regional hospital. A worrisome morning, though I feel he will recover in a week or two and that he is in the best place.

I managed to complete the tedious and exacting setting up of the sale of the Radioactive Soundtrack (or "Radioactive (The Official Soundtrack)" as it's technically correctly called. This was done by 3pm, and I managed to make two pieces of sheet music too, one for the in-game music, and for the main theme of Xenex.

After 15:00, I tried to fix mum's bike, but the brake cable is rusted into its sheath and immobile. After that, work on a mask for Deborah, a planned concept for the cover to our Tunnicliffe Fall in Green single. It would be nice to finish this and prepare it for a Christmas release.

I watched a South Bank Show Documentary about Francis Bacon yesterday. I took away some interesting ideas. He used photo references, but didn't want to represent 'things' as much as an instant mood; as do I. I capture mine in an instant flash, and try to interpret that faithfully. He said that he liked to use the reverse of canvases as the marks were permanent. I have this exact opinion, and joy from, my watercolours, but my oil work is slow and exacting, not spontaneous. I have, however, sometimes painted freely like that, once or twice. I almost always use photo references, but I suddenly thought that I might be better not doing so at all, painting only from imagination. Drawing skill is really useful. Painting from imagination would negate it, so I'd have to be careful not to let this skill fade, but Picasso too changed radically from exacting draughtsman to 'free' painter. There are a few advantages to painting from imagination alone. First, it's uniquely mine, the artists' style and vision. It represents me to the best degree, what is most human. It's painted solely and wholly from 'internal' references, nothing 'real'. What is real, out there, can be seen by anyone, painted by anyone. As we get better at painting we become more like a camera, and therefore more redundant as artists. Did Bacon decide how closely to copy his subjects when painting? How exactly the likeness, which areas of difference were good, which bad? When painting from the mind, it's all good, as it should represent the personal vision wholly, and camera reality not at all.

Of course, many 'abstract' painters feel this. Perhaps this is the very essence of abtract expressionists, yet are they painting from the mind or just using what is random? The latter I fear. The genre may be called 'abstract' but nothing IS abstracted, it's any 'old thing'. Those three words are the danger. What is represented is as vital as ever, as is the display of skill. Skill, that thing absent from abtract expressionists, yet hugely present in Bacon's work despite it not being photographically representational.

Xenex 2026, Radioactive Soundtrack

A long day working on the new version of the Xenex tune. Has taken a long time, and spent over an hour tailoring the bassline and chord stabs to echo the melody, but in the end this didn't sound quite right, as well as making it all quite different from the mod file, so I reverted back to the original bassline and chord pattern.

The structure is broadly the same but I've added a bit more drama here and there, extended the final up-key verse, and added some interplay between the main lead and the pulse-wave beep that appears later on. The drums have had lots of work, playing along to the melody and driving the energy of the track; and we have synth-tom drums.

So, the Radioactive soundtrack is complete. I need to do final mastering and level balancing. The tracks are:

1. Radioactive
The 2026 recording of the original theme, as featured on War And Nuclear Love.

2. Radioactive Funkatronic Rhapsody
New track on the theme of Radioactive.

3. The Abyssal Plain
A track last dated 24 March 1999, originally written using MED (most likely on Amiga I think, I can't recall having a PC MIDI interface, even if 1999 is after I'd bought my PC) and my Yamaha SY-85 synthesizer. These were re-recorded in 2021 just before I sold my SY-85, but the quality due the mixing isn't very good. The full track has been rebalanced here as best as I can.

4. Xenex 2026
Today's new recording of the theme to this Amiga game from October 1994.

5. The Ever Flowing Waves Of War
The title of the in-game music for Radioactive. It's been changed a little to make it loop seamlessly.

6. Radioactive Original Version
A remastered version of the original game theme.