this is a slight change of pace for my musical output, in that it is a guitar recording without any post work done on computer. it's a very early experiment with my looper, an electro harmonix 16 second delay reissue. i also used my deluxe memory man, which sadly is broken at the moment. if i can actually remember how i recorded this, there's three tracks of guitar, one playing in reverse, and everything is drenched in what the 16 second delay calls "sweep" which is basically its built in flangey modulation effect. in conclusion, a pretty nice little bit of shoegazey guitar, another snippet to one day try to work into a song

also: i'm still struggling a bit with a good way to host mp3s, but i'm pretty sure they are all working now

well, i have not really posted much for a long time, but i actually have been doing the odd bit and piece. i've upgraded to ableton suite 8, and i've learnt a lot about how to use it, moreso than i've been trying to actually make music to listen to. this is my most recent effort, and i used a couple of new tricks and ideas that i've picked up since my last post.



this version is a "live" rough-cut. basically i laid out all the elements for the track one by one, then once i had the pieces in place i hit record and brought things in and out of the mix, tweaked effects and triggered different clips. i haven't done any post work on it, and i have a half page of bulletin points of things that i need to fix, but i still think there's some pretty good sounds in there. i don't have any sort of control surfaces at the moment, so this was all done with QWERTY and touchpad, which explains why some of it is pretty rough.

the various elements are some field recordings, synthesised birdsong and insect noises, a hohner pianet emulation, a sampled bowed double bass, and some 808 samples for the drums. there's also a buffer/stutter effect thing and an emulated software analog delay in there too. man, when you look back on that list there's not a lot of "real" instruments, i'll have to try to replace as many of them as possible with recordings of the real versions.



this is another, much smaller and less complete clip. it's only got the drums and mellotron, so it needs a few more tracks of sound, and obviously it only goes for 30 seconds, so there's a need for a few more variations too.

finally i have recorded something vaguely musical, which is supposed to be what this blog is basically all about. this is the result of about an hour of noodling in ableton live, plus then several more hours refining the basic idea. i'd say this is about 75% of a song, waiting on some sort of melody, more percussion, maybe some lyrics and a bridge or something. i don't think a proper musician would admit to being quite so aimless in their approach, but i could never lie to you, gentle reader.

it's a very simple bit, the drums are a loop sampled from an optigan disc (rock'n rhythm to be exact), and then a resonator is added to pitch the various drum hits. the chord change type thing is the root note of the resonator shifting up an octave. i've got the resonator for C2 on one effect send, and the resonator for C3 on the other, and then the output of each effects send is sent to opposite ends of the crossfader, so i can pan between the two different notes really easily. i've automated all the changes necessary to get the song to play as it is recorded here, so i can sit back and ableton adjusts the knobs automatically while i think about what to add. there's no guitar involved at all, even though it kind of sounds to me like there is. apart from the four bar drum intro, the chord progression is intended to just loop for however long the rest of the song ends up running for, which is how i have it set up in ableton, but this mp3 only repeats the progression once for the sake of size and the boredom factor

my plan for this little fragment is to blog about the changes it goes through on the way to hopefully becoming a finished song, and see what changes and additions find their way into the process, so stay tuned.

Rock Strum by old hollywood

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well i have "finished" my short story, in the sense that i have submitted it. knowing me i could keep changing things basically forever, but i think this version has everything i wanted to say in it. i also hit on the bright idea of splitting it into three chapters, because this makes it clear that it is deliberately split into vignettes, and that it is not just disjointed because i am a bad writer.

Carson was lost. He'd tried turning back to follow his own tracks, but based on the way his shadow moved and the distant mesas, he had a pretty good idea that he wasn't getting anywhere. He wasn't really sure how his tracks could endlessly circle in on themselves. He had to have gotten out here somehow, and so the tracks should lead him back to wherever that was, eventually. He liked this theory, but the argument was over when he found what looked an awful lot like a set of his tracks following another, older set of his tracks. He was going in circles alright, or a figure eight anyway, since he eventually found a point where four sets of his tracks seemed to cross each other. He'd heard the shape called an analemma once, by someone he'd met in a cantina, talking about navigating by the sun or the stars or something like that. Apparently it was the shape the sun traced as it moved around the sky over the course of a year, and there he was copying it, while the sun glared down at him jealously. If the rays beating down on him were any indication, his tribute was not appreciated. The way the heat haze shimmered around him and the horizon curved around in every direction made him feel like he was trapped in a giant snow globe, sans the snow, with the sun staring in at him with all the intensity of a blowtorch. Then, from time to time, everything seemed to shrink in until the sun was hovering just inches behind him, blasting him with waves of heat and making him feel a touch claustrophobic, even in such an open space. He was at the bottom of an ocean of hot air, pressing down on his shoulders, wandering in circles, and no wonder he couldn't get anywhere when someone kept shaking every damn thing up.

---

He'd shot his horse. This was not an easy decision to make. No horse meant he wasn't going to be getting anywhere quick, but without anything left for the horse to eat, and a very limited supply of water, it became a choice between watching the horse starve or dying of thirst together. Now he'd given up on riding into town, any town, but at least without having to share the water he could still hope someone would find him before he died of exposure anyway. Even on foot, he kept on walking. He'd come around to the idea that it might be nice to find a patch of shadow bigger than the one cast by his hat, so he put the sun to his back, and hoped his shadow would keep him pointed in a straight line. There was a mesa more or less in that direction, and that should cast plenty of shadow for him to stretch out on and lay down, and more besides. He'd build a house there, dig out a well and never have to leave the shade again.

For a while he'd been spacing sips from his water with swigs from his hipflask, but this was just making his feet less steady beneath him and his plans more grandiose. The house had grown from a roof over a dirt floor to a mansion, and the well was now a bubbling spring that emptied into a swimming hole. The ideas got bigger and bigger, and for a while this created the illusion that they were getting closer, but desperation set in, the whiskey ran out and the ideas shrank back down, disappearing right back out towards the horizon, leaving Carson more sober than he'd ever been. Now all he wanted was a full waterskin, but this was about as close to his grasp as a solid gold governor's mansion.


---

The whisky was gone, the waterskin was practically empty, and as a final insult his hat had blown away too. Since he could no longer stand, let alone walk, it was time to get practical. Carson had picked out a spot where a quirk of the dunes seemed to almost cast a shadow and that came with a cactus that would do as a headstone. As the sun finally set he started dragging himself over, which took him the whole night. As the sun rose again, he found that spot he'd chosen did not disappoint. Maybe it was the lack of any other landmarks but he be darned if this wasn't the most fascinating cactus he'd ever seen. Some bees had made their hive in the hollow part where an arm had fallen off, and as he watched, a wasp flew in. The bees just clustered around it, beating their wings wildly as the press and the heat of their bodies smothered the outsider to death. Carson couldn't help but see this as an analogy for his own situation, so he tore his gaze away from the only new thing he'd had to look at for as long as he could remember. He'd never really paid much attention to sand before, but now it was his whole world. He watched as the ants crawled around moving grains. Up this close each grain was like a jewel and their anthill was a fabulous palace.

Briefly forgetting himself, he reached for his waterskin for a drink, and was as surprised as he ever had been when a drop of water collected at the nozzle. He was filled with terror that it would fall as it dangled there, but surface tension held it in place. Light passed through the drop and it shone like the brightest, most beautiful pearl he'd ever seen, reflecting the whole world back at him. He'd heard how drowning swimmers saw their life flash before their eyes, and Carson saw himself and his life reflected in the drop as he brought it his lips and drank the tiny trickle of water. He'd never tasted anything so sweet, he'd didn't think he would ever feel so refreshed ever again.

The story I chose to rewrite was a pretty obscure one, and one thing that came up in the peer assessments was that people would like to know what I was re-writing. I don't know the name, author or even where I first read it, but this is a version I managed to find on the internet:

“A Buddhist monk, being hotly pursued by a vicious tiger, fell off a cliff. By good fortune, he landed on a ledge. He could see the tiger waiting hungrily above him, but even if the tiger departed, he knew that the slope was too steep for him to climb. Since there was no escape from above and a sheer drop below, he realized his fate was sealed. No sooner did he have this thought, then the ledge that was supporting him began to develop cracks in it, and it was apparent that it would shortly fall away and hurtle him to his death. As he looked about, he spied a strawberry plant growing out of a crevice in the rock. He plucked a berry from it, ate it very slowly to savor its taste, and thought, "How delicious!"...”

i have a short story that i'm writing (for class). i've tried to avoid anything actually happening, to bring it in to just the tiny, internal moments in the scene. other than that there isn't really much to say, so here is the first draft.

Carson was lost. He'd tried turning back to follow his own tracks, but based on the way his shadow and the distant mesas, his only means of reckoning direction moved, he had a pretty good idea that he was just moving in a figure eight across the sand. He wasn't really sure how his tracks could endless circle in on themselves. He had to have gotten out here somehow, and so the tracks should lead him back to wherever that was, eventually. He was rooting for that theory, but the argument was over when he found what looked an awful lot like a set of his tracks following another, older set of his tracks. He was going in circles alright, or a figure eight anyway. An analemma, he'd heard the shape called once, by a guide he'd met in a cantina who'd been talking about navigating by the sun or the stars. Apparently it was the shape the sun traced as it moved around the sky over the course of a year. Must be some wind had blown over a section of the tracks that actually lead somewhere, leaving him there tracing out little analemmas in the sand while the sun paced its own through the sky.

If the rays beating down on him was any indication, his tribute was not appreciated. Sometimes it felt like the sun was right over his shoulder, but other times the way the heat haze shimmered around him and the horizon curved around in every direction made him feel like he was trapped in a snow globe, sans the snow. He was at the bottom of an ocean of hot air pressing down on his shoulders, wandering in circles inside a sphere, and no wonder he couldn't get anywhere when someone kept shaking every damn thing up.

He'd shot his horse. This was not an easy decision to make. No horse meant he wasn't going to be getting anywhere quick, but without anything left for the horse to eat, and a very limited supply of water, it became a choice between watching the horse starve or dying of thirst together. Now he'd given up on riding into town, any town, and without having to share the water he could still hope someone would find him before he died of exposure anyway. Even on foot, he kept on walking. He'd come around to the idea that it might be nice to find a patch of shadow bigger than the one cast by his hat, so he put the sun to his back, hoping his shadow would keep him pointed in a straight line. There was a mesa more or less in that direction, and that should cast plenty of shadow for him to stretch out on and lay down, and more besides. He'd build a house there, dig out a well and never have to leave the shade again.

These plans sustained him for long enough that the house had grown from a roof over a dirt floor to a building the governor himself would have been proud to call home, and the well was a full-blown spring, filling a swimming hole. While the ideas got bigger and bigger, they never seemed to get any closer, just like any desert mirage, but when desperation set in and the ideas shrank back down, they sure did seem to be moving further and further out towards the horizon. Now all Carson wanted was a nice full waterskin, but this was about as close to his grasp as a solid gold governor's mansion.

He'd had to rip up his shirt to cover up his head after a surprise gust of wind gave him a sandy slap in the face and stole his hat. Maybe it was the same gust of wind that wiped up his tracks, but why any gust of wind had it in for him, he couldn't guess. The snow globe theory, which had started as a fancy at how the sky seemed to curve around him in a giant dome was seeming more and more likely, although by now he'd been out in the sun for a pretty long time. His waterskin was basically empty now, and for the last few days he'd been stretching it out by spacing sips from it with nips from his hip-flask, trying not to get too drunk to keep what remained of his sunbaked wits around him.

The whisky was gone, probably the same place as his ability to stand. Carson had dragged himself to a quirk of the dunes that almost cast a shadow and picked that as a place to die, since it didn't seem likely he had much choice in the matter at this stage. He'd never really paid much attention to sand before, but now it was his whole world. Briefly forgetting himself, he reached for his waterskin for a drink, and was as surprised as he ever had been when a drop of water collected at it's nozzle. He was filled with terror as it dangled there, but surface tension held it in place. Light passed through the drop, and it shone like the brightest, most beautiful pearl and reflected the whole world back at him. He'd heard how drowning swimmers saw their lives flash before their eyes in the water, and Carson saw his life reflected in the water, as he brought it his lips and drank the tiny trickle of water. He'd never tasted water so sweet, he'd never been so refreshed.

by deciding to not post here until i complete the layout, for which i have typically grand ambitions, i've given myself the perfect excuse to not actually make a start on doing anything. however, by agreeing to edit one last edition of my beloved pelican (i.e. the magazine that ate my life), i have a perfect way to synergise my efforts and thus leverage an expedited solution to both these problems.

essentially, i've decided to give myself a visual arts project in the form of designing the cover for this edition. i've always loved drawing without really being very good at it, but over the last year i've been experimenting with drawing little cartoony kind of characters with marker pens, and then scanning these basic images and using photoshop to finish them off. the image i'm going to be trying to create is a bunch of spooky ghosts emerging from an antique vcr (chris suggested a gramophone, but i'm going with vcr) which ties into both the theme of edition 1 (unfinished business) and what this blog is all about (see post one)


1. this is the scan of my first sketch, in permanent marker. besides not being very good, the marker was a fine point, which i find tend to stick to the page, making it very hard to draw smooth, even lines. this becomes a problem when the image is viewed at hi-res


2. this is a scan of one of my second lot of sketches. i got much nicer lines by switching to whiteboard marker on art paper, but unfortunately it didn't occur to me that the art paper i was using was bigger than my scanner. nothing i can't fix in photoshop though. i also realised that instead of drawing a bunch of ghosts, it was easier to draw them separately and composite them digitally later. ultimately the plan is to use photoshop to achieve some things i couldn't have drawn by hand due to prohibitive complexity, but we'll see how things go.


3. this is a colour mock-up of the first version of the cover. i found some watercolour brushes that i really like, but didn't really experiment with them so much as just click on the page where i wanted them. i like the boldness of the colours, the crayon colouring effect and the title font, but i don't much care for the overall composition, probably because i basically just slapped things in anywhere. in the next version i'm planning to heavily rework the brush effects, make the black texturing more subtle and work in a shadow effect for the ghosts that will (hopefully) be a very translucent watercolour style wash


4. the other new thing i figured out in process is that it would be good to have lots of smaller ghosts, which i have now have about a million of. current plan is to have the main ones flying out of a pelican's mouth and smaller ones flying out of things like a gramophone (yay!), an old boot, etc.

pretty adequate stuff for someone with average artistic ability! hopefully the finished product will help make this seem like a procedural for genius and less like whatever it is right now

now for a short word on where exactly i am coming from with the name itself. the root of it all is sony's betamax system, which was an ill-fated rival of VHS. the beta part of the name came from the way the tape spooled in the cassette, which looked like the greek letter beta. betamax tanked because it couldn't compete with VHS for recording time, even though it arguably produced a better quality picture.

the iota bit comes from me choosing a different letter from the greek alphabet. in english iota means "a very small amount", and this meaning arose from the Council of Nicaea, where a bunch of catholic types banged their heads together over various elements of the bible, most controversially whether the holy trinity literally meant that jesus was part of god. there was two conflicting greek translations of scripture, one with the word 'homoousios' would mean that jesus was of the same substance, while the other 'homoiousios', would mean that Jesus was of similar substance. this whole theological debate, which eventually lead to the backers of similar being excommunicated and branded as heretics all came back to one iota of difference.

so, for me the name is supposed to evoke dead technology and tiny but significant differences