The 1st of October yesterday meant a usual morning of backups and quarterly administration jobs. Then I discovered a few minor bugs in Prometheus. I realised that I needed to limit floats to -1/+1 on import, and the new interpolated samples had a few little issues with loop points, so I fixed those to bring the program up to v3.44.
Then I put Bytten into standby for deletion. Andrew and I started the site in 2003 and we (a regular team of 6 or so) produced 10 years of weekly game reviews, but the site hasn't changed in 11 years and I can't afford to keep it there, it's not a long term solution anyway. So I've started to take it down in a controlled way, and will gradually phase it away. It would be nice to publish the reviews in a book, as a record. Nobody would ever buy it, but it would be there in the British Library for historians.
Today, I spent some time researching DDP format, which is a collection of files used for audio CD mastering. CD Architect, which I use, can't export it. There is only one freeware program converter, it seems, a command line set of programs called ddptools. I could probably program a converter myself, as the format is broadly a collection of text files plus the final mastered wav file (which CD Architect can export; this program is great for mastering the audio itself, track division etc., it would be a pity indeed if I needed to try something different and worse). For now, I will keep posting physical CD-R discs to my chosen replication service.
After that, I spent time trying to get my unique Wire Compression audio effect sounding like traditional compression. Mine is different for many reasons; firstly, it makes quieter sounds louder as well as louder sounds quieter, and uses the gate to determine which to favour. Secondly, its gates and slopes are all exponential. I failed, so have been musing on how to design a new compressor like the 'Sony ExpressFX Dynamics' I like. I must avoid musing too long with these impractical and worthless dreams.
Tomorrow, I'll photograph a few recently completed paintings, and get moving on music.
