Power Days, Nightfood Video

Two intense days working on the 'Nightfood' video, for the title track of the album. Filmed some inserts yesterday. The video will have two independent tracks, as many of my post-Argus videos do; a filmed layer edited in AviSynth+, and an animated part made in Argus which features an alpha layer for the video parts, and an animated overlay. This is a simple but very powerful option. The 'Cat Covid!' video had 4 layers if I recall, but almost everything can be done with these two: mask and addition.

This means darting between segments, creating two videos and working out what will work when. For a 7 minute video, the challenges are considerable.

Today, submitted the music, and I noticed that the PRS Tunecodes for all of the tracks have changed since updating the records with the new ISRC codes a few days ago (noooo!). This is the first time this has happened in over a decade and 50 to 80 albums. It's not serious, but is a big headache regarding my admin work, as now some records (and the sheet music) have incorrect codes. I hope that the old codes are also still valid in some universe... to some extent. This is very annoying.

I've updated Argus a bit today, one key feature making easy to mass-colour tracks, as colouring these one at a time is too time consuming, and this multi-layer technique demands it.

I've decided to rein in the video work generally. YouTube is one of the main ways people listen to music, so that's one reason to make videos, but even the fast speed of a week or two per album is a quite a lot of time. With over 50 albums, that's over a year or my life just making videos, a medium I don't really like. Many are not as artistic or creative as my music or my painting, as well as being heavy in computing power and storage. If I had a year to live, would I keep making music videos for old music? Probably not. I would, I think, keep transcribing the sheet music as a legacy record of my musical art.

'Young Attractive' will feature a relatively simple lyric-video (still hand animated, of course). The first two tracks may use elements of 'Nightfood'. The waspy imagery is quite horrific at times, but it does reflect the dark nature of this music of loss and heartbreak, this romantic true story of those years from a decade ago.

I've heard that 'Punishment of the Sun' is to be exhibited in Ty Pawb over winter. This means finding new work for the biennial Grosvenor Exhibition on Chester. It's somewhat annoying that these two big biennials happen at the same time every two years. This will be the 4th time I've exhibited in the Ty Pawb Open; in every year it's been held apart from the Covid-19 year, which was heavily restricted. I don't think that one was possible for me to enter.

Nightfood Videos, Prometheus v3.98

Two slow days. Made a slight change to the Nightfood audio yesterday, and a final proof listen; it is complete! Also completed the video for 'Theme From Burnout', one of the better 'electric pinball' style of video which date back to my early days of 'Challenger' (and perhaps even 'China Syndrome' before that). My main job is now video work, although I already have two more videos than I had for the first version of the album, and the music is far better too, so even an immediate a new release would perhaps be good enough.

I seem to have hit a wall regarding the videos and am struggling with motivation. As a first step I decided to print out the song structures. I can use this as a mental guide, a skeleton onto which I can sketch. The structure of 'The Dream of Wasps', for example, is (as exported by Prometheus):

Section: Wind Intro, Measure/Beat: 0:0, Frame: 0, Sample: 0
Section: Verse 1 Intro, Measure/Beat: 14:0, Frame: 1400, Sample: 2469568
Section: Verse 1, Measure/Beat: 18:0, Frame: 1800, Sample: 3175168
Section: Verse 2, Measure/Beat: 26:0, Frame: 2603, Sample: 4591744
Section: Listening, Measure/Beat: 30:0, Frame: 3017, Sample: 5323648
Section: Verse 3 Intro, Measure/Beat: 42:0, Frame: 4217, Sample: 7440448
Section: Verse 3, Measure/Beat: 44:0, Frame: 4417, Sample: 7793216
Section: Solo, Measure/Beat: 50:0, Frame: 5015, Sample: 8846784
Section: Verse 4, Measure/Beat: 62:0, Frame: 5979, Sample: 10547264
Section: Makes Me Better, Measure/Beat: 68:0, Frame: 6459, Sample: 11394880
Section: Ending, Measure/Beat: 72:0, Frame: 6779, Sample: 11959360
Section: End, Measure/Beat: 73:0, Frame: 6859, Sample: 12100480


But I thought it would be useful to know the length of each part in seconds... so I updated Prometheus to add this; so I'm on version 3.98 now. In doing this I added a few more optimisations for calculating the end of the song. Some procedures demanded a 'Stop' event, but some sought a last event if a 'Stop' isn't found, so I unified these things. Anyway, after today's update the output is now:

Section: Wind Intro, Measure/Beat: 0:0, Frame: 0, Sample: 0, Time (Seconds): 0.000, Length (Seconds): 55.999
Section: Verse 1 Intro, Measure/Beat: 14:0, Frame: 1400, Sample: 2469568, Time (Seconds): 55.999, Length (Seconds): 16.000
Section: Verse 1, Measure/Beat: 18:0, Frame: 1800, Sample: 3175168, Time (Seconds): 71.999, Length (Seconds): 32.121
Section: Verse 2, Measure/Beat: 26:0, Frame: 2603, Sample: 4591744, Time (Seconds): 104.121, Length (Seconds): 16.596
Section: Listening, Measure/Beat: 30:0, Frame: 3017, Sample: 5323648, Time (Seconds): 120.717, Length (Seconds): 48.000
Section: Verse 3 Intro, Measure/Beat: 42:0, Frame: 4217, Sample: 7440448, Time (Seconds): 168.717, Length (Seconds): 7.999
Section: Verse 3, Measure/Beat: 44:0, Frame: 4417, Sample: 7793216, Time (Seconds): 176.716, Length (Seconds): 23.890
Section: Solo, Measure/Beat: 50:0, Frame: 5015, Sample: 8846784, Time (Seconds): 200.607, Length (Seconds): 38.559
Section: Verse 4, Measure/Beat: 62:0, Frame: 5979, Sample: 10547264, Time (Seconds): 239.166, Length (Seconds): 19.220
Section: Makes Me Better, Measure/Beat: 68:0, Frame: 6459, Sample: 11394880, Time (Seconds): 258.387, Length (Seconds): 12.800
Section: Ending, Measure/Beat: 72:0, Frame: 6779, Sample: 11959360, Time (Seconds): 271.187, Length (Seconds): 3.200
Section: End, Measure/Beat: 73:0, Frame: 6859, Sample: 12100480, Time (Seconds): 274.387, Length (Seconds): 0.000


I've done little else today! But have done some social work, preparation of some presents for the gift season. I really must get motivated and in the frame of mind for video. The job seems huge, and to some extent, pointless and devoid of reward - perhaps this is why I'm unmotivated. Perhaps I'm too relaxed at the victory of my work; the album is already more complete than the first version after 18 days of solid work on it.

Yet, I have some time to work on it, so I can allocate a week. Videos aren't my natural medium, but sometimes, as ArtSwarm showed, I can create interesting and startling new things that I wouldn't otherwise, when pushed. I must aim, as ever, to be artistic. What is artistic? It's a personal showcase of something memorable. Memorable is the key word. Only what is new is memorable, you can't be memorable twice in a row with the same thing. The best art is the most memorable, it's unforgettable. The worst art is quickly forgotten. There is no better definition.

I must work hard at the rock face.

Good Vibes, New Take This Rose Video

A couple of busy days. The Good Vibrations event in the library was followed by a visit to Oil Art Advisory, and delivery of the H. Beam Piper painting.

My big Nightfood job now is video work. The song 'Take This Rose' was written for ArtSwarm: Perfume, so this had a video, but it was too short as the song was extended with another verse for the album, so yesterday I filmed some extra parts and edited these into the 2019 video to extend it to fit the album version of the song; and at the same time made a new ArtSwarm-length edit of the remastered audio, so two new videos for this now exist. Like the 'Plastic Superman' video, these differ in technical quality from my current videos. These older ones are 1280x720 and 30 F.P.S.; my new videos are now 1080p and 25 F.P.S. - so it means these two tracks will be a different from the rest of the album in video terms.

In the evening Deb and I went to Congleton to see John Lindley and the Poachers in the new 'bijou' (tiny) venue of The Barley Hops, the first in a new series of gigs organised by Poachers' bass player, sound engineer, and general all-round musician John Miller. Deb and I as Fall in Green are due to perform there at one of these events next year.

Today, charged into a new video for 'Theme From Burnout', which is an Argus spectacular, using different glowing elements which evoke vector graphics, each of which is tied to an note and instrument in the music. This took a few hours, a few final touches remain. In the afternoon, some computer technical work for a friend.

The Stereo Underground TV programme on the Rewind Channel is showing lots of old music videos, and The Smiths' 'Ask' tonight had an unusual effect of duo-chrome brightly coloured band members overlaying various other footage. This colour effect is used in the Nightfood album art, so I may duplicate the effect.

Nightfood Transcription Complete

Sheet music complete! I always underestimate the time and work this takes. I keep changing my standards, my style guide, which annoys even me and it makes all of the older scores invalid and in need of fixing, but these standards are written for a reason. Anyway, there are now 24 scores for this.

At 7pm, managed to proof the album. Two small changes were needed. Was reminded how much of a potentially huge hit 'Young, Attractive, And Physically Fit' is. I also noted that the CD version (of which only I have a copy, it's never been released) is different and better than the stream version, because the tracks blend into each other. The album is ready to split and file musically; the videos are the next big job.

Two busy days in Congleton beckon.

Nightfood Transcription Draft 1, Prometheus v396

Managed to complete the first draft of all of the Nightfood tracks yesterday. These are some of the biggest tracks I've transcribed; 'Burnout' for example had almost every part, only a few small effects like vast snare drums on the intro and some white noise effects were missing, but it has 14 parts notated including the drums. This took until past 8pm.

Woke early today and have been out with Deborah as it's her annual holiday.

Came back and updated Prometheus with a couple of new features which would have aided transcription. Two main things; first the ability to add kill events after a specific instrument rather than all instruments. Most notes don't need a kill (stop) at the end as they often decay naturally by an envelope, but for MIDI export these kill events are quite important otherwise notes are presumed to sustain forever. The new feature allows me to add a kill only to instruments which decay, and not those which sustain, on a track which has a mix of both.

The second feature concerns merging tracks, also something needed before transcribing. If two notes occupy the same time, merge will delete one and then inform me. This isn't very helpful. Now it will warn that a clash is occurring, point to where, and ask whether to proceed. This makes it easier to make adjustments before the merge.

My next step is to make lots of alternative score versions for each track. This, and the pdf conversion, publication etc., will take a day. The Nightfood remaster is nearly done... in this step, but it's a seemingly never-ending process. Making the videos is the next big job.

Nightfood II Transcription, Creating Art

Two days working on Nightfood II. Recorded a few harmony vocals for 'Plastic Superman' yesterday but ended up discarding 80% of them. Balanced more tracks. 'Theme From Burnout' sounds better than ever.

Today, the start of the sheet music transcription. It's faster and more thorough than ever before, thanks to the tools in Prometheus. The 'Dream of Wasps' has 13 instrument parts, 'Nightfood' 12. This is full transcription of so much of these complex songs; not the drums though, except for accents like tam-tams, cymbals etc. I tend not to score regular drums, perhaps because I'm not a drummer and have never had the need to desire to drum live. It can depend though. In this case, these epic songs are more orchestral in scope. Anyway, it's trivial to export drum tracks from Prometheus to MIDI if ever needed.

I digress. Much of the work today was manually entering the notes for guitar solos, and fixing up the loose piano and harpsichord solos. Both done on these two tracks, which are the most long and complex on the album. I need to add the chord symbols, which I like to do on every score.

I'll aim for two more scores tomorrow, but if I manage those by 3pm I may be able to fit in the remaining three.

After this album... then what?

Most artists create work because they are commissioned, they are asked, or they find a job and obey the client. If there are no clients or patrons, they may create something based on what sells, or what is popular, or what is acclaimed. I rarely have commissions for paintings or music, I love it when it happens, but people very rarely ask me to create anything. I sometimes sell paintings, I've sold a third to a half of everything I've painted, but hardly ever music, the listening stats are still dominated by ancient music like the Flatspace soundtrack, only because the game was and is more popular than the other things I've done. That music is nothing like my music of today (excluding general brilliance). Nothing is really 'acclaimed', I've not had any music reviews since before streaming existed, so my choices or what to create artistically are governed by myself. Hobby artists, those inspired and enthused, do this all of the time but it's perhaps rare for someone who has been creating full-time for many decades.

Still, in many ways this is the way to create the best art. Feedback, good or bad, can be unreliable, and we can't create with the aim of pleasing; this never works. Whether we are popular or obscure, we must be doing new things, and better than before, forward looking and pushing harder, to the maximum of our ability. I'd love to create something popular and acclaimed, a hit, but obviously only a hit I'm pleased with and proud of, like I am of Nightfood for example. Most of hit making is marketing, not connected with the quality of the content, and marketing is a factor of the social which I inherently struggle with.

Chord Code

Completed the complex instrument explosion code for Prometheus, here's a not very informative screenshot!

The top row of purple notes is a flute which actually plays a chord with each stab. The red notes below (3 tracks worth) are those notes, calculated and extracted from the notes above. The note calculation is different for each sound generating engine, there were about 30 which needed attending to, but overall this complex code didn't take as long as I'd expected. This should help hugely with certain types of sheet music transcription.

After that, updated my social media profile images with new ones for the new season of music, then more work mixing and toying with Nightfood II. The mix of the Burnout theme is the most tricky, but it's already far better than the first version.

Smile To Fall Video, Prometheus v3.95 Chord Explosion

A steady day of working on the video for 'Smile to Fall'. The song has a Gothic sort of feeling, and my mind upon hearing it filled with imagery of chessboards and black and white tiles, so I've made the video black and white and little more, not even glows. Black squares and white ones mask the simple film. A chessboard appears for the solo. The video is only of my simplest, yet it matches the initial plan. The highlight is perhaps the sheer smoothness of the movements due to Argus.

The subtitles presented a bit of a problem in that they change very quickly, so I needed to insert a rapid change. I've also updated the Spotify canvases for these songs. Then I updated the artwork for the Flatspace and Flatspace II soundtracks on Steam; the art there was out of date, a lower resolution than Steam uses today. It was also (worse!) not filed correctly with the album. I created the art for the up-and-coming Radioactive Soundtrack too.

Then, started work on a new feature for Prometheus to help with sheet music transcription. Sometimes an instrument plays a chord, it has several engines which each play a different note. This can make composing more efficient; one track for a chord instead of three, and it allows an effect (like distortion) to be applied to all three notes after they combine. This, alas, makes transcription of the music a huge headache though, if an instrument has three saw waves set to pitches of 0, 3, 7, then the note of C4 in the sequencer would play C, E, G, so I have to work that out by hand, note-by-note; and this is a simple case. Some chords use monotone samples, where the note is set not by the note in the sequence, but by the unity note in the sample list (which can vary hugely)... and some chords have 4, 5, or 6 parts! This process took about an hour just to notate the organ chords for 'The Eternal Dogma' in Burn Of God, so I want to program a feature to help with future transcription.

The new feature will seek every note in a track and 'explode' each element of the instrument across several new tracks, so the C, E, G notes as sounded will now appear in three tracks, exactly as they should. This will require specific coding for each engine, as each has different tuning settings, and there are differences between samples, analogue waves, and monotone samples; but this will help hugely for the tracks which use this form of chord.