Sigh! A day of battles and despair.
Last night I had some great painting ideas. I wanted to set aside my music concerns and plans for the moment, give it all up and charge into painting. I romanced that fantasy, that ache for escape into the loving arms of oil painting. When I paint, I know I was born to do so, yet I've neglected it for months. My dream fell away to reality. With a sigh, but with determination, I thought I would quickly film the lyric-reading videos for the new album, and take some new photographs. I need a new look for the album, just as the bowler hat and glasses were the We Robot look, I need a new one now. I need a new image for the Cat Covid single - for that is the single I've decided upon.
I decided to change my filming system to make things easier, by using the on-board audio rather than recording externally from the Zoom recorder. The reason is two-fold; that the Zoom audio is always out of sync and I have to time stretch it by 99.96% for some reason. I never worked out why. The problem existed on my old Canon camera too, and at different frame rates. I can't understand how time itself can be a different length on the camera and the Zoom. Secondly, synching audio and video was a time consuming chore too.
This is the reason I've recently started to get mic cables for on-camera audio. The old camera didn't have that option, so I thought it was worth a try. The way to improve is to try, try fearlessly. As I make progress it seems I need to work 100% harder to make 1% progress, and today is such a day.
The filming was improved by my performance of the words, so that part was better, but the audio quality was poor on two fronts. There was a persistent buzz/hum, and it was too loud due to my manual level settings which I could not monitor while performing. The latter was corrected relatively easily.
The old recordings, with the Zoom, hummed too. I suspected mains/interference hum. I did some tests and this confirmed that there is no hum when using batteries. There is less hum when using the Rode mic than the new Saramonic mic. Now, I could just use batteries, but this but negates the advantage (and entire purpose!) of having a mains adapter at all, and batteries don't last long when filming (and take 4 hours to charge). If I am to start a new regular video show, I really could do with a reliable studio, so I've located a 'mains conditioner' for £40, which is designed to stop this sort of hum. It might not work. I've spent lots on mics and cables, and to little avail but the sad experience of things not working correctly, but I have to try. I must aim to make each set of videos and better. I must improve, a little, in all things.
Hours spent, money spent, all to so far achieve little. Do I always pick the hardest path? Well, yes, usually. I prefer to do what is difficult; what is difficult is good, but it's not always the best way. I may become a world expert in something which becomes obsolete or irrelevant - but by the same token I may discover things that nobody else has, I may be able to do things that nobody else can. This is certainly true now, even if only myself and my close friends know this.
Today's readings were performed well, and from memory. It's a great shame that the audio is worse than that in the We Robot videos. For now, I'll stop this for a week, and await that power conditioner. I may re-film everything.
It's month 5 of the year. I'm full of ideas, am better than ever at painting, music, and every skill I've learned, yet feel I've done nothing and seem to work constantly to produce mere trickles. It's so very frustrating, but I must keep trying, keep working, keep doing more than ever and to the best of my ability.
One monthly goal is to update Argus for a Steam release this month, but this year's experiences tell me that is probably not worth the work this would involve. Still, as it would be free it might garner a few users. I'm starting to dread programming again, after a few, highly unusual, months of game work. Dread is good, because it appears that programming is a futile occupation and an unrewarding waste of time. I faced this situation before and it led to art.
I will grab fate by the throat said Beethoven, and I say so too. Said in frustration, perhaps like him.
Onwards.
