Album Finalising, Vocals

More work finalising the album over the past two days, with a little diversion to fix that problem with the MIDI import in Prometheus. Rather that use a 'long long', I decided to upgrade the system to use floating point timing, which increases accuracy due to better rounding.

Then, my regular weekly transfer of more albums to a new distributor, and today my weekly singing practice, plus recording the vocals for 'What You Could Have Won'. The song is somewhat like a Pink Floyd track, almost Wish You Were Here by proxy. For this, the track uses a filtered echo on the lead vocals (one of my favourite effects, as much my signature as John Lennon's tape delay). I usurped the effect in the chorus by adding answering vocals in that register and location.

The first draft of the album is complete! There are lots of listens and little changes to go, plus actual mastering, then breaking up tracks, the technical registration, sheet music... well, a lot more to do. Today I completed the first draft of the album artwork too. Here are some pages:

By amazing luck, all of the album lyrics fit into three pages when written in compressed paragraph form like the page above.

I've practiced playing 'All Controlled by Someone' on guitar for the open mic tomorrow, but Deb will need to rest, so we must miss this beloved event. The song isn't that hard, A-minor, G, A-minor, E-minor for the first part, with A-minor, D, E, for the chorus (all on capo-3, so in actual C-minor). With luck, we can attend the library in the morning. I also practiced 'Annie's Song', which looks hideously complex on guitar, but I'm certain uses 'near-chords' that make it much easier (if not better), and actually great fun to play. In singing, I sang 'In Dreams' several times, now my favourite singing practice, if not favourite song of all time. I seemed to know the words without looking. Annie's Song, In Dreams, Runaway; these are now my mainstay warm-up songs, in that order.

Solstice, Quantise To Group Mean, What You Could Have Won

A lovely morning yesterday at an outdoor gathering with poet friends at the Bridestones. The area is very small, little more than a few boulders in a very wooded area. There's little indication of its historical significance. The day was tainted by the sad absence of Deborah who remains ill.

I returned in the afternoon, but it was too hot work work. The album needs a new track I feel, between 'All Controlled' and 'More'. The latter ends in C-minor, more starts in A-minor. Both a a little too similar in audio mood (not in theme) to tie together, so a slower intermediate track is needed. I started with those chords and played something small on the piano. I then came up with some words that play on the themes of the album generally, and act as a prelude to the satire of 'More'.

What You Could Have Won

Here's what you could have won
Here's what you could have taken home
Here's what you'll never have

Here's what your life could have been like
If you'd done what you're supposed to do

I spent yesterday playing it on piano, the backing is simple.

Today has been a little frustrating. I started with adding (well, enhancing) a useful feature in Prometheus: quantise to group mean time. Most quantisation of notes do so to a fixed rhythm, the main tempo, well, ALL quantisation does this, except mine. The problem with this is that most of the time you don't want a fixed 'perfect' beat in any song ever. The strongest case is in electronic dance music, but perhaps even then the tempo could be slightly changed for dramatic effect.

Anyway, all rhythms since 1984 and the invention of the sequencer have been robotically fixed, compared to all prior music. My feature quantises notes not to the nearest beat but to the average of a bunch of notes. It has the effect of unifying nearby-notes (like chords, like the bass with the drum etc.) but not changing the (human) pace of the music. Here's an extreme example of averaging in action:

The lines are notes. The upper track is unquantised, the bottom one the averaged notes. You can set the width of the effect window. This is an extreme example, but even here it can be useful to simplify a MIDI track for example.

After this I discovered a bug in the MIDI import. At tick 129000 or so, the MIDI import stopped. It was because that multiplied with the wave frequency of 44100 caused an overflow. I needed to multiply it because it's not a normal import, it imports to the exact speed of the sequencer, so backwards calculates the final rendered song in samples, then works out where to place the note! The problem was fixed by using a long long, my first use of a 64-bit variable.

These things have taken all day. I must makde more progress.

How I miss my darling Deborah. One of my happier jobs of the day was going shopping for her on this much cooler day.

Brigid The Corn Dolly

A punishingly hoy day here, 30 degrees and the hottest of the year so far. I started by updating the music pages on my website with some new code, then making small changes to the Violet Night music, small things based on a first full listen yesterday. I may need to add another track, or at least work on the transition. By 12pm it was too hot to work on the computer.

At 1:30pm I started to pack for the solstice event tomorrow. Deb and I, and a few friends will perform a few things outdoors. We'll have no power, so no keyboards, but I'll bring a guitar, a battery powered amplifier, and a backing track for 'Sunchild'. After 2pm, in the blazing sun, I worked on the lawn on the Brigid the Corn Dolly, sponging it with yellow and orange-browns.

The paint dried in seconds. The card had curled due to the paint, so I wetted the back to curl it back, then added some grass, which has already started to dry out.

It's too hot to work much on the computer, still 26 in here. I'd like to work more on the album art, but am forced to pause.

Another Violet Night Cover

An appropriately sleepless and restless night leads to a day working on the cover art for Another Violet Night. I started with some photos, and chose one I liked...

Then started to work on designs based on this... working, changing, adding, subtracting... experimenting with text and placement...

Then I took some summer garden photos for the other booklet pages and the rear. I wanted to clash night and day, so lots of day images to be warped into the nocturnal. One result is a change to the top left when I added some inverted ivy there...

I've got lots of colour and texture combinations to play with already, the greys and oranges, the white/red/blue. This will make it easier to work on the booklet (and digital booklet!) pages. The ivy theme was applied to the CD rear too. I chose orange to contrast with the violet of the album's title, though there isn't much violet in the imagery itself, the purples emerge from the inverted greens.

I've made full CD artwork for all of my albums, often rather beautiful (if I say so myself), but only a tiny minority actually get made, primarily due of lack of sales and money, but also lack of my pushing them. My most popular CD, for example, is probably We Robot because I worked on selling and handing out copies at every opportunity. But I've got through lots of The Spiral Staircase and Cycles & Shadows too.

Another reason for not making many CDs is that since the explosion in my music began in 2020, my albums were temporary experiments. I knew it would be a learning process and that my vocals and production abilities would improve. The albums weren't good enough or ready enough to promote wildly. We Robot was the first I thought was good enough, hence the recent explosion in remasters as I revisit and fix-up my art-pop canon.

I'm not actually sure if the tracks (never mind durations) are finalised yet, but that can all be changed with ease. Onwards I charge.

Another Violet Night, and Remixing Radiation

A strange day. I'm making good progress on the album, very keen to get it complete, not worry about details or quality too much. The key thing is to stick to the original vision, there are no right or wrong songs; no writing is right or wrong, so that must be raced though BUT there can be a right and wrong mix and master, those are skills not arts. Overthinking can sometimes produce good results, but is often less efficient than moving on quickly and simply making something new in future, should a new idea or option present itself.

I must remember to push onwards and avoid being tied by the tar-trap of perfectionism. It something will do, it will do, but there are always exceptions and complexities to this rule! It seems that as I become more skilled, I want better and better results, but 'quality' is so subjective. I find at times that I can get better results by not trying to get better results.

Today I did a little more work on 'Daytime Teevee', paring back the complexity, and deciding to largely stick with what was there with the first version. Then, a similar change to the last track, 'Walls (And How To Hit Them)'; which now includes parentheses! I always imagined a megaphone-like voice speaking here, so today added that and discarded the other harmonies that were there. The album so far, with it's 12 tracks and 38 minutes, is complete, though I may add more if there needs to be more structural unity. This takes listening back - ah! This process, this proofing, is that very tar-trap!

The title will be 'Another Violet Night', which was my original title idea, no need to think more on it. I need to finish and move on quickly.

I also started work on a new EP, though I plan on moving to painting as soon as I can. This was inspired by the recent wars. Step 1 is a new version of the Radioactive theme, 'Radiation'. It sounds like a new mix, but actually it's a total re-creation, moving instrument by instrument, effect by effect to duplicate the Noise Station 1 sequence in Prometheus. It's amazing how the algorithms are theoretically the same, saw waves, filters and other code that is so similar, yet, the result is really different. There's no way I can duplicate the Noise Station original, though, of course, it sounds close. One of the hardest things to match was the high-pitched darting notes that zip up and down the frequency range. It's saw-saw-pulse combination fed though a flange, then peaking filter modulated by a sine wave, but even though the filter should be the same, the way it processes the parameters is very slightly different, so it sounded different.

The biggest problem with the Noise Station version is the overpowering bass, but it's not at all bad, it's one of my best sounding sequences from that era. I've turned the bass down by 25% and will include this version on the album too. The new version isn't intended to be identical, I've limited the bass, and changed that peaking sound a little, used more of a hollow-phaser type effect (with negative feedback on the flange), and added more stereo to the instruments. Overall, it sounds similar but cleaner, particularly with the fizzy high-frequencies which are a bit ear-jangling in their distortion.

I'll also include 'Written On Rice' here. This song is a bit sleepy and boring in pace, so I need to work on it. I can't and won't spend long. Onwards!

New Album Work

A day of work on the new album. It seems that the final tracks and order are complete, the titles now are as follows:

Violet Night
Another Dead Morning
Breakfast Of Delight
The Parents In The Walls
Daytime Teevee
How Lonely
The Tainted Pain
Smashing My House Of Cards
Fear Is Everywhere
All Controlled By Someone
More
Walls And How To Hit Them

Structurally, my plan was that the first 9 tracks form a group, and three groups of three, but this is much less apparent now, and today I added an extra minute-long intro to 'All Controlled By Someone' which plays on the imagery of that song, and some of the primary thema of the album; the music in 'Fear Is Everywhere'. 'More' can thematically link too, as it's about commercialism, and there are lots of classic television clips in here, so the structure spans the entire album, with 'Walls' as a scherzo-like epilogue.

Most of the day was spent balancing tracks (bless my 'relative, tuned spectrum analyser'! This Prometheus feature has transformed my music more than almost any other), adjusting, musing. A lot of work had gone into 'Daytime Teevee', which it proving troublesome to mix and get quite right. The darker and more complex tracks are my favourites, though all are rather short and disparate. At the moment, it's very much an art-pop album, almost in the style of Sparks, but with a unified theme and limited fun or joy; the mood is darker. More work and more musing is required.

All Controlled By Someone Solo

Sigh, another day flies past, tiny fragments of progress made in the art of muisc. Tiny fragments.

First, work on 'All Controlled By Someone', and some backing vocals. I tried up-tuning them to sound 'female' but the results were not very good, so recorded some simpler ones, which were then band-limited in a nice way. Then, some general balancing to the track.

In the afternoon, another regular batch of work on album distribution transfer, then work on the All Controlled solo. I decided to use the MODX, and recorded 3 or 4 solos in MIDI with different organs, all were adequate, but none quite right. Then, I recorded three solos with a flute-glockenspiel instrument, again fine, then some solos with upright piano, this time simple live recordings rather than MIDI. These were more relaxed and jazzy, they seemed to fit better; but none of the 12 or so solos seemed right. I then created a new instrument from a raw 'strings' sample, with instant fade in and out, and high pass filter to create a stark and synthetic sound. This sounded good, so I recorded a MIDI solo with this, then exported it.

The solo was recorded at 120 BPM but at the speed of the song is 140. Some programs complain about importing, I needed to simply change the tempo, not the actual speed of the music. Fortunately, Prometheus can import and ignore the actual recording tempo. I did this, then quantized the result, then recorded it as it played back though the MODX. At this stage it sounded fine, but I thought it might be better to bypass the synth entirely, so I loaded the MIDI notes into the song and recreated the MODX instrument in Prometheus, thus came full circle, and created a sequenced solo which is based on a live play; notably the timing was 'repaired' in the process.

This made me think of the Beethoven, as performer and composer, and the difference between the two. He would improvise lots of possible starts and directions, and notate those improvisations. I could have used my live recording and not cared about the notes, or the 'perfect' timing, but I notated the result like a composer rather than stuck with the recording like a performer. There was, here, limited advantage in expressive quality, as the instrument had no sensitivity to the keys. Still, I feel more a composer than performer at heart; at least in this case. Perhaps, at times, I feel more performer than composer. Today's experiences illustrates the border between the two.

Corn Dolly, Prometheus v3.70, Art

An artistic get together at Linda's; inspiring and delightful in every way. Like the old art group meetings, I felt pressure to bring some artwork to actually do. It's ironic that I didn't particularly feel like doing art, feeling pressure only because it was described as a drawing/painting day, yet in the end I was the only one who prepared or made any art.

Deb and I will be performing something in a casual way on the solstice, so Deb had the idea of making a 'life sized' corn dolly. In the end it was about 1M or 1.5M tall, and made from a cardboard core, with lots of cardboard strips glued to it to emulate hay. Today I painted it crudely, with cheap paint. I was reminded that a lot of art in medieval times was made for special one-off events, religious celebrations or parades, and so the art was primarily cheap rather than high quality. This is certainly the case here, though of course I did my best given the few hours of time and budget of zero. The dolly (christened Brigid) is intended for one day of use.

I aim to film the Solstice event, so the world can see Brigid then.

I managed a few little jobs. The filing of the remastered Finnegans Judgement EP is complete, and today I updated Prometheus again to fix a bug in the Noise Station 1 importer. I had an idea of releasing the Radioactive theme as part of a war-themed EP. I'd much prefer to remake the music in Prometheus than use Noise Station 1. Technically, the results should sound identical, but there have been years of updates and changes in Prometheus, and it has a less harsh, less tinny sound than Noise Station. I don't mind this, but the limiter and spectrum tools are hugely useful for mastering, and those don't exist in Noise Station.

When updating to v3.70, I added the option to view and change sample loops in either seconds or samples. Until now, all units were in samples, and the boxes were primarily for informational reasons, not really for hand editing.

The days are slow. Being around other artists for a rare time was nice, but reminded me that I'm as unknown and obscure in the art world as perhaps I ever have been, that compared to other full-time artists I barely ever sell paintings and can't seem to find anyone who will exhibit my art in any capacity. I must be doubly grateful for my friends and those who encourage me. I've been far less proactive in visual arts since 2020 when music became more of a passion. I am, I feel, better at painting than ever before, and better at music and every other creative discipline. I must remind myself of these things.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock.

Finnegans Judgement Finalised, All Controlled Electro-Jazz-Blues

Most of today was completing the Finnegans Judgement remaster, mostly the many filing and archiving processes. I have found tome to work on 'All Controlled by Someone'. The rhythm is somewhat like a bossa-nova, but I'd like to bend it more towards jazz and blues, and a song like the Zombies' 'Time of the Season'. That was jazz, with its organ and bass-led beat. My song started that way but I experimentally tried an analogue synth bass and organ, and it sounded better, perhaps because it was deliberately alien and unusual.

Finnegans Knots Score

long and eye-strainingly hard afternoon to evening notating 'Finnegans Knots', the 10-minute piano piece which acoompanies the speech on the Finnegans EP. I can't imagine anyone actually playing it, but the first stage of this being possible is a score being made, in at least some basic form.

The music was orignally improvised, played live and recorded via MIDI. It is from that I can piece together the notes, though it's painstaking to neaten and order them all. The 11 pages are just about done, though there is no expression; no tempo, dynamics, but the score so far is at least 50% of the work, and will suffice for now.

Music Catalogue Filing

More album refiling today, as I modify my system a little. Two days ago, an album had a new code unless it had the same tracks with same duration, yesterday I decided tat the duration didn't matter so mcuh, but last night thought that an album should have the same code evne if the tracks change; it's the album itself that matters, whether it is the same title, same artist, and same album.

Plenty of albums are reissued, some with bonus tracks, and these, I reasoned should have the same code as the original with a modifier, a letter in my case. I also thought of fighter aircraft, how the F18 Hornet is updated with letters, rather than given a new F-number.

For me, this change in logic only applies to a few albums, The Spiral Staircase (old version R4A, 2008 version R11A), Synaesthesia (many versions, old R1A, 2002 version R57A, 2015 version R26A, the latest 2020 version R52A), and the new Flatspace Soundtrack. So I updated all of these today.

This is a lot of work, but can be done perfectly. The source records are moved. The websites udpated (the images and database all use album codes). The Cornutopia Music Catalogue updated correctly. Then the main folders renamed. The files for sequences and sheet music needed updating to point to the new folders, and finally the labels for the CD archive copies needed updating. I don't have CD archive copies for all albums, but do for most. I burned three new ones today; one for R1B, R1C, the mid-versions of Synaesthesia, and one for the Fall in Green single 'Who is Afraid/She Floats'. I don't generally burn a duplicate CD for a single unless it has a unique B-side, and this one does.

I re-rendered the source sequence for that. It's quite different due to the high-pass filter in the reverbs which was not present in the original. I can turn it right down, as good as off, but the default is on (a 12dB high pass at about 220hz).

Here's my complete catalouge: AL = Album, SI = Single, GC = Game Content, BK = Audiobook, * = Commercially Replicated CD available, + = hand-printed CD available.

  AL R1A Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2001)
  AL R1B Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2002)
  AL R1C Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2015)
  AL R1D Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2020)
  AL R2A Mark Sheeky, The Arcangel Soundtrack (2001)
  AL R2B Mark Sheeky, The Arcangel Soundtrack (2025)
  AL R3A Mark Sheeky, The Incredible Journey (2002)
  AL R4A Mark Sheeky, The Spiral Staircase (2002)
* AL R4B Mark Sheeky, The Spiral Staircase (2008)
  AL R5A Mark Sheeky, Flatspace (The Official Soundtrack) (2003)
  AL R5B Mark Sheeky, Flatspace (The Official Soundtrack) (2025)
  AL R6A Mark Sheeky, Animalia (2004)
  AL R6B Mark Sheeky, Animalia (2020)
  AL R7A Mark Sheeky, The Four Seasons Of Dance [EP] (2005)
  AL R8A Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, The End And The Beginning (2009)
  AL R8B Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, The End And The Beginning (2025)
  AL R9A Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, Gunstorm [EP] (2007)
  SI R10A Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, Gunstorm (2007)
  GC R11A Flatspace Music Pack 4 (2025)
  AL R12A Mark Sheeky, Stupid Computer Music (2008)
  AL R13A Mark Sheeky, The Twelve Seasons (2008)
  GC R14A Flatspace Music Pack 2 (2008)
  AL R15A Mark Sheeky, The Infinite Forest (2010)
  AL R15B Mark Sheeky, The Infinite Forest (2021)
  AL R16A Mark Sheeky, Pi (2010)
  AL R17A Mark Sheeky, Once Upon A Time (2010)
  AL R18A The Harlequin Kings, Fear Of The Thing Itself (2015)
+ EP R19A Mark Sheeky, The Sky Disc [EP] (2011)
  AL R20A Mark Sheeky, Flatspace II (The Official Soundtrack) (2011)
* AL R21A Mark Sheeky, The Love Symphony (2012)
  GC R22A Flatspace Music Pack 3 (2013)
  AL R23A Mark Sheeky, Bites Of Greatness (2013)
  AL R24A Oldfield 1, Art By Machine (2014)
  GC R25A Flatspace Music Pack 1 (2005)
    R26A Unused (formerly Synaesthesia 2015)
* AL R27A Mark Sheeky, The Anatomy Of Emotions (2016)
  AL R28A Mark Sheeky, Cycles & Shadows (2017)
  AL R28B Mark Sheeky, Cycles & Shadows (2024)
  AL R29A Mark Sheeky, Finnegans Judgement [EP] (2017)
  AL R30A Mark Sheeky, Genesis (c.1996) (2017) [2017 Remaster]
  AL R31A The ArtsLab Collective, I, Leviathan (2017)
  AL R32A Mark Sheeky, The Modern Game (2018)
* AL R33A Fall in Green, Testing The Delicates (2018)
  AL R34A Mark Sheeky, A Walk In The Countryside [EP] (2018)
  AL R34B Mark Sheeky, A Walk In The Countryside [EP] (2020)
  AL R34C Mark Sheeky, A Walk In The Countryside [EP] (2024)
  SI R35A Mark Sheeky, House Of Glass (2018)
  SI R36A Fall in Green, Who Is Afraid/She Floats (2018)
  SI R37A Mark Sheeky, Masculinity Two (2018)
  SI R38A Fall in Green, Time Falling (2018)
  AL R39A Mark Sheeky, Tree Of Keys (2019)
  AL R39B Mark Sheeky, Tree Of Keys (2021)
  GC R40A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 1 (2019)
  GC R41A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 2 (2019)
  GC R42A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 3 (2020)
* AL R43A Mark Sheeky, Music Of Poetic Objects (2019)
  AL R44A Marius Fate, The Modern Game (2019) [BOOK]
  AL R44B Marius Fate, The Modern Game (2022) [BOOK]
  SI R45A Marius Fate, Masculinity Two (2019)
  SI R45B Marius Fate, Masculinity Two (2022)
  GC R46A Future Snooker (2019)
  GC R47A Future Pool (2019)
  AL R48A Mark Sheeky, Burn Of God (2020)
* AL R48B Mark Sheeky, Burn Of God (2022)
* AL R49A Fall in Green, War Is Over [EP] (2020)
* AL R50A Fall in Green, Apocalypse Of Clowns (2021)
    R51A Unused (formerly Animalia 2020)
    R52A Unused (formerly Synaesthesia 2020)
  AL R53A Mark Sheeky, The Dusty Mirror (2020)
  AL R53B Mark Sheeky, The Dusty Mirror (2025)
  SI R54A Fall in Green, Jabberwocky (2021)
  AL R55A Mark Sheeky, The Myth Of Sisyphus (2021)
    R56A Unused (formerly The Infinite Forest 2021)
    R57A Unused (formerly Synaesthesia 2002)
  AL R58A Mark Sheeky, Nightfood (2021)
  AL R59A Fall in Green, Wonderland (2021)
  AL R60A Mark Sheeky, Secret Electric Sorcery (2022)
* AL R62A Fall in Green, Lou Salome Empathy With Daisies
  AL R63A Mark Sheeky, Heart Of Snow [EP] (2022)
  AL R64A Mark Sheeky, Remembrance Service (2022)
  AL R65A Mark Sheeky, The Golden Age (2023)
  GC R66A Flatspace IIk Golden Age Music Pack (2023)
* AL R67A Mark Sheeky, We Robot (2023)
  SI R68A Mark Sheeky, AI And Celebrity (2023)
  GC R69A Flatspace IIk We Robot Music Pack (2023)
  BK R70A The Intangible Man & Other Strange Tales (2023)
  AL R71A The Electric Sprout Foundation, Snow Business (2023)
  SI R73A Mark Sheeky, Cycles III: Perpetual Change (2024)
  AL R74A Mark Sheeky, A Drive Through The Town (2024)
  SI R75A Cat Covid! (2024)
  SI R76A Excessive Consumption has Laxative Effects (2024)
  AL R77A John Lindley & Friends, Crossfire (2024) [MASTERING]
  GC R78A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 4 (2024)
* AL R79A Fall in Green, Letters From A Square Spoon (2025)
  SI R80A Fear Of The Thing Itself (2025)


Finnegan and Filing

Sigh, a slow and tedious day. Have worked on improving the production of my (rather avant-garde) EP Finnegans Judgement. The original mixed the long (10 minute) vocals externally over the track, which was tedious but necessary as Prometheus back then couldn't handle large files. It can now, giving me more control. My motivation here is preparing the album for its future new release, so I thought I'd update it a little and create new canvas videos. The recording quality isn't ideal, the source audio was 16-bit and peaked to distortion at times, which is annoying, but I can improve on the current version at least.

After a few hours of endless tests and listens I've improved the music a little. The audio now uses a 32-bit master (the old album was/is undithered 16-bit), and the volume is 25% louder without any deterioration.

The track lengths have changed a little, as the original started track 2 with the end of track 1. Not much of a problem, but it would sound odd (and sounds odd now) if playing just track 2. This meant a new album code. I code albums with a number and a sub-letter. If the album is the same and has the same tracks and track lengths, I simply upgrade the sub-letter; but here the tracks are the same, differing by only a few seconds. It seemed to make sense to update only the letter, so I changed my catalogue system such that albums with the same artist, title and track names use the same code with a different sub-letter, even if the track lengths differ. This normally occurs for replacements, like a remaster.

A few older albums, specifically Synaesthesia, Animalia, and The Infinite Forest have, in the past, been remade and assigned new album codes because the track lengths were different, so today I recoded those and moved everything in the catalogue. Thus R26A Synaesthesia 2015 is now R57B, R51A Animalia 2020 is now R6B, and R56A The Infinite Forest 2021 is now R15B.

So, a slow filing day.

Land Of Destiny

A perfect day! Sang first, a needed new take for the last two verses of 'Smashing My House Of Cards', then the complete words to 'All Controlled By Someone'.

Then dived into a painting Land (not hand!) of Destiny. Only a small panel, created for the annual Bickerton Village Hall exhibition and sized to fit a spare frame:

Hand aside, for which I used a photograph of my own hand, the other details were 'invented' from the store of images in my memory. I was pleased how quickly I painted the mountains here. I'm more pleased with them that some of the slow and painstakingly painted mountains in older paintings. I painted no colour study for this, so it was more improvisational that usual; this a consequence of the need to paint quickly and cheaply. I could glaze if needed though.

I'm a better singer than ever before and better painter than ever too, though my eyes are starting to fail. My head is now pounding with eye strain, and focusing while painting was difficult at times, and impossible to maintain at all times. Still, this is the second painting day of 2025, and it's nearly mid-summer. I must strive to paint more.

Album Admin, The Dusty Mirror Stream Version, Argus v1.56

Most of today was work transferring albums and singles to a new distributor; Testing The Delicates and The Love Symphony. These will transfer over the course of the next week.

One side effect of all of this was a new look at The Dusty Mirror. If I want to use the new high resolution (higher than CD quality) uploads, I usually need separate Stream and CD versions of an album. CD version tracks can fade and segue, and all in Sony CD Architect which can export in CD quality at most. I need to use Prometheus to export the (higher quality) master files, which I can then convert down to CD quality, thus having both hi-res and CD quality versions.

Separate Stream/CD versions of an album also has other advantages. A CD album benefits from tracks blending into each other, and changes in volume and pacing from track to track for emotional effect. Streamed tracks are usually heard alone, like singles, isolated from the other tracks on the album, so they work best at the same volume level, with a definite start and end. Another advantage is that people who stream or buy a download don't get the same album as those who buy the CD, so fans can buy both. For me, the CD version is always the definitive one, so the stream version acts as promotion for the (better) CD version.

This meant that today I've made new edits of the first two tracks of The Dusty Mirror, as these fade into each other on the CD version. The edits were easy, most of the work was registering their data, and creating new videos with the new waves. It also means a technical re-release of the album; it's a new album now, even if only slightly different. The new version is already live on Bandcamp, but elsewhere it is pencilled in for a July 11th release.

All of this took until 4pm. At that point, I updated Argus a version to fix a small bug regarding the scroll bar when deleting tracks. I improved the time stretch and insert/delete routines too.

Prometheus v3.69, All Controlled By Someone Organs

Sigh, another day has flown, and so little to show for a hard attack at the rock face of art. I updated Prometheus to v3.69, making the new per-track EQ more efficient. I realised that even tracks that were 'off' due to extended silence were being processed, which is why the calculation was so slow, so I fixed that and removed the other 'non-EQ' elements in the calculation; I know I don't need those now. The result is that rendering is now almost the same speed as without the calculation, about double the former speed - yay!

Then, long work on 'All Controlled by Someone' production. I started with sequenced organs, but thought these would be better played on the keyboard, so played some live instead. These were quantised and placed in the sequence. Then, in a third iteration, I re-sequenced everything per-note but based on the live tunes/chords I played. The result sounds rather like the live recordings but with a few advantages; at a fraction of the memory, plus the advantage of being able to change or slur the speed (a live recording would be fixed in tempo), and the notation easily transcribed. So, this organ part has taken all day, and I'm still unsure if I really want to use it.

I listened to the whole album too, and made a few tweaks and little changes, all for the better. Only this one track remains, I think.

Tomorrow, the next stage of moving music to the new distributor, but I really need to get painting this week. I've had only one day of painting this year.

Here are the song lyrics so far:

All Controlled By Someone

Strings from your fingers
lead to my limbs
The stage of the theatre of life
Everyone is here
to delight

We're all controlled by someone
Isn't that so?
Where did all that freedom go?
Down to our minions below

We're all controlled by someone
Isn't that so?
Do you feel you're in control?
Who tells you where to go?

Slave and dictator
Fool in the wild
Teacher, preacher, and child
All must answer
To their master

Here in the theatre
Laughter and sighs
Strings from the limbs shoot to the sky
Those who pull get tangled
then they die

Yet still controlled by someone
Isn't that so?
Where did all that heaven go?
Down to the minions below

We're all controlled by someone
Isn't that so?
Where did all that heaven go?
Pray for a little control

Pray for a little control

Music Work

Guitar recording on 'Tainted Pain' and 'Smashing My House of Cards' yesterday. Today, writing the melody to 'All Controlled by Someone', the last planned track for this album, one of the three 'reflective' tracks at the end, those which are not part of the narrative as such.

The new per-track EQ has already proved useful. This enacts 10 new filters per track, it more than doubles the render speed on the rare occasions I request it. Spectrum analysis really makes mixing easier, and a per-track spectrum analyser helps in a way that no system lacking it can compete with.

Videos Complete, Vocodes

Completed, compiled, and uploaded the Cycles videos today. I've held off on the string quartet one for the moment. After that, some recording of vocoder parts for 'Smashing' and 'Tainted'. I've ordered an old Ultravox CD (well, a newish remaster), Ha! Ha! Ha!, from the pre-Midge Ure era. I like the art-rock punky sound, it seems to have more grit than the electronic era. I still primarily listen to music on CD. All of the Amazon review are in Japanese, which is interesting.

Every day I must battle on. Time is short.

Cycles Videos

A day spent working solidly on videos for the Cycles part of Cycles & Shadows. I've made videos for each of the main Cycles tracks (1,2,4,5,6 - 3 has already been made), plus one for 'The String Quartet At The End Of The Universe' from the Shadows part.

All use Argus and the music data to export the frame numbers when each instrument is triggered. For most of the Prometheus instruments this is easy, but the piano is a little more tricky. It was recorded with MIDI, but the piano on Cycles I and IV was recorded in lots of little sections, and the song tempo changes between these. This makes it a little tricky to match the MIDI sequence with the actual music. I managed it, importing each section bit by bit, but had to hand-tailor the notes to show, so not all of the piano keys are seen in the video. We don't really want that anyway as the piano has lots of bass arpeggios, so only the melody will be visible here.

For the 'raw' piano of Cycles II, I could use the actual MIDI data to good effect, and all of the piano sounds are used (well, near duplicates are not sounded, there is a merging of two sounds which are very close). I also exported the velocities/volumes here, and used that for the size of the object. This looks rather pretty.

All of the videos are pretty, actually. The String Quartet uses lines for each of the quartet instruments, which makes the video look like an animated light-sabre duel, or game of 'Ker-Plunk'.

The camera movements add a lot to these videos. The camera sways a little up and down, but it regularly spins clockwise in a nice way. It's also angled back a little as standard compared to Cycles III, so the shapes seem to fall down as well as away into the distance.

I've noticed that my Tuesday premiere videos get a lot more views than the Friday ones. It will take another day to compile and upload these. It wouldn't be so hard to make a video for every Cycles & Shadows track. How badly mixed Eternal Cycles seems to my ears now! Well, maybe I'll create yet another remaster in a future decade... but, as Telly Savalas famously sang, not today.

Prometheus v3.68, Smashing, Tainted Vocals

Two busy and steady days of work. Prepared two paintings yesterday, listed two new albums in my regular distribution move, and started some changes to Prometheus. I noted that there have been 103 updates since 2020, but only 60 between 2002 and 2020, so this software has changed a lot recently.

This change allows a special track-level spectrum analysis render. Sometimes a song peaks in certain frequencies. It's fairly easy to work out which elements cause the bass to be high, but it's less obvious with other instruments, so I wanted an overview of every track's relative spectrum so that I could see which tracks were doing what in the mix. It's much better to EQ a track by mixing, lowering the volume of some element, or tweaking the timbre of that element, than doing anything to the whole song. Here's an example output, from 'Tainted Pain':

It shows, for example, that 113hz is the peak for the bass drums, and that the flutes are strong in 450-900hz. If the song had too much there, I could lower volume the flutes rather than messing with equalisers. I pretty much never use EQ.

Today, I completed this code and recorded some vocals, for 'Smashing My House Of Cards' and 'Tainted Pain' (which was called 'The Tainted Pain'). These are both fine I think, though the ending of Smashing may need improving, it sort of tails into a joyous flight up that stretches towards a Icarus-like forlorn hope. Both of these tracks need electric guitar work. I've not sung for some time, though I sang one song in Congleton last Wednesday. My voice was surprisingly good today, perhaps a result of other fitness work. I wonder if a heavy and dense vest, like a bullet proof vest, would improve a singing voice? More torso muscle and perhaps general size, I surmise, would grant greater vocal resonance. The evidence is in the build of opera singers.

Backups, Ray Davies, Frame Decoration

Monthly back-up day. Found an old frame in a charity shop yesterday, and a copy of the short fiction anthology Waterloo Sunset by Ray Davies, so I read this while the computer chugged. The writing is so-so. Later, I did some online reading about Ray and The Kinks. The stories are generally character descriptions, and I realised that the same is generally true of his songs. My songs are more visual; like my writing descriptions of scenes or images, which chain to form a narrative. With Ray, the characters and their behaviour drives the story.

After this, work on the frame. It was a lovely find, must be 100-125 years old. The very rusty attachments gave way to a very faded print and some even older holes; this frame was made for more than a print:

It has a beautiful aged patina; those brown stripes are genuine age in the gold, an effect that modern frame makers aspire to emulate. Some parts had a few flaws though, the gold scratched off, and all of the gesso on the corners flaked away. Today, I tried to fix those a little, and filled in the wider gaps in those front corners. It's difficult to preserve the patina, but I did my best, and the frame is certainly better than before. It's hard to find a filler that fills well but is very smooth, with tiny particles. Most filler that fills well is too thick, but that is hard to sand or smooth.

After that, work on the song production for 'Smashing My House Of Cards'. Small steps made today.