I wanted to charge into work, and generally I've got some things done, perhaps even more than I'd hoped for, but I feel strangely unsatisfied.
I started by updating my website, naming the oil galleries by year. Then back to the Painters album beginning with new vocals for Cotan. The sound quality with the low sung vocals was odd, so I wanted to experiment with the breathy vocode sound that I originally envisaged (enauded?) when the song came to me, so I recorded some new vocals via the MicroKorg, and they seem to fit wonderfully. The higher pitched (an octave up) sung vocals are great in the chorus but the transition from 'monstrous' to those was too strong, so I've layered some 'monstrous' vocals over the chorus.
This was the first time I've used the PreSonus Studio 26c to record from an external source. It was relatively painless, and today the device has recalled after each sleep. I had some odd clipping distortion for the first few takes and could not work out why, as the level was 50% of the max, far from a peak. I think it was down to the sound itself, perhaps some distortion was set on the Korg, because other sounds were very clean, and different combinations of source signal volume and recording level didn't improve things, but I'm suspicious because it sounded like intermittent hard clipping, not anything Korg would design.
Oddly, the 'Virtual 1/2' input - supposedly a full-duplex simulation to allow recording of the sound card's output, does not work. It remains silent at all times. I can't get any software to detect any sound from that input while playing back. This is annoying as I could have used this for Spectrum Analysis. Also, the sound has stuttered, tiny amounts, once or twice when recording in SoundForge, and in Prometheus.
It's amazing that this PC, in some ways, is performing worse than my 11-year-old machine. I have 8 times the memory, 50% more hard drive space and 14-times faster CPU power (hah!), yet, in most software it's only 2-3 times as fast, and some aspects are slower even for this virgin Windows installation. I absolutely blame Windows 11 for this. At times this computer 'upgrade' seems to be more of an expensive same-grade... or even downgrade.
After Cotan I recorded some vocals for Rembrandt again. I didn't really need too, each take is very similar, but I wanted to restart after the week of break and the song was not completed. These were fine and subsequently included. I played a simple guitar solo with 'clean' electric guitar for this. This simple and gentle song is mostly finished. While listening to it, I worried that the music is too simple, too gentle, too romantic. I had an image of singing this in a pub and having insults thrown at me for being boring. Of course, the song is valid, and is how I imagined (all of those years ago). Such self-judgements are really useful. I keep wanting more rock-and-roll in the album...
Then I worked more on Tycho Brahe, which is an odd song but I can't say why. Part of it is very conventional, but it seems to be missing something and my change of key in the middle to make it interesting seems to make it ugly and morose (of course, that also makes the ending brighter, just as the horrible noise of She's So Heavy breaks joyously into Here Comes The Sun on the CD version of Abbey Road - the highlight of the entire album, and utterly lost on the vinyl version). It has something of the mood of 'We Will Rock You' but, only the verses, not the rhythm which is the whole point of that song.
I thought recently about van Gogh, that people find him 'inspirational'; that 'inspirational' people are those who we think we can copy but do it better. We like van Gogh because we think we can be like him, but be better, be more successful, perhaps, yes, even paint better. Nobody is inspired to copy van Gogh and be worse, be more mentally ill, be more of a failure, or paint worse. So, is inspiration merely the glimpse of opportunity to improve by copying, by stealing? Often, yes. Beethoven and Bach are inspiring because they can't be copied. This, perhaps, is why Beethoven seemed to lack a great following by composers while alive - he didn't want to copy or be copied. He was too antiosocial and beyond musical conversation with other artists, contemporary trends. I feel like this. Of course everyone is inspired by dead artists, but again because they are easy to beat, are no threat.
I must move to complete the album, need a title and a cover. The album is now 25:21.36 long - too short, but Autumn's Shadow is yet to add, and as I've said I need more 'oomph'. I have a few ideas for other tracks. I can't waste too much time and life on this, but am pleased with its progress, its lessons so far. I must move onwards though. To stand still is to die.
