The Red painting

I was stressed. I was tired. I was angry. Maybe a little sleep deprived, would be surprised if not. I've been having the desire to paint for a while. This evening the vessel overflowed. At midnight I pulled out my paints, canvas and without planning, just started painting out my emotions.
I really paid a lot of attention to textures and not a lot to the contents, but I love the result either way! These swirls that formed the number of the beast are the most adorable.

I've been playing a lot of Skyrim VR recently, so here anxiety materialized as a warlock, creating crystals??? Or something along these lines. Someone sees a shrimp here. What do you see?

Discovery of Propellerhead Reason 10

I was sick and couldn't sing for 2 weeks.
The illness coincided with a long Thanksgiving weekend.
I started Propellerhead Reason 10 Trial. I loved it so much that bought the next day. Maybe I was sick and rushed, but the deed is done.

Decided that it was time to learn how to write EBM/Industrial tracks. Started experimenting. Oh how I missed this.
No quite there, but I find it interesting to recollect the progression. Too often we see only the end result and not the process. I definitely worry a lot that my music sucks and expect it to magically turn out a hit one day, without being prepared for hard work, dedication and PATIENCE. Not cööl!


Just imagine, 3 tries and I have a neat solid track (composition-wise). Also, it gets easier as things build up on each other. It's the same beat. Yes, I like it very much.
I definitely spent more time searching for the track name than composing its music. And times more time was spent on mixing it. I think I recorded it total in 30-60 minutes, longest making the guitar sound OK and then a week just mixing. Just. Mixing. For a week. It would cost $50, but I legitimately waster 7 evenings of my life on it. Damn, this is an accomplishment I guess. Please, don't blatantly tell me it sounds like crap now, at least prepare me.
Now, relax and let this Tomentous sound embrace you:

Room acoustic treatment for dummies

It is not very difficult to find articles about acoustic treatment for various purposes.
I need to decide, what I want to do with my life music:

1. Vocal recording
2. Demo mixing
3. Soundproofing to stop annoying neighbors and require them to be silent during recording sessions

My current setup pretty much is just a 2 channel listening room, and I am almost convinced to do final recordings at a professional studio.
From http://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm:
1) "You'll get the flattest low frequency response by sitting 38 percent of the way back in the room"

This is why I can walk between my table and the wall now.

2) "The speakers and listening position should be at the points of an equilateral triangle, and loudspeakers should be aimed at the listener's head in the prime seat."

There is noticeable difference in sound, if I just put my hands behind the ears. Sounds much clearer, as reflections are ruled out. So, bass traps are required (read more on ehomerecordingstudio.com). 

I started my investigation by looking at professional products: 2 options - foam or panel traps.
Ideally I'd need to cover 3 corners in my case: 2 wall corners in the front and wall-ceiling corner in the rear
1) Amazon: 1 panel costs $115. So ~$1k
2) Amazon: $439 - for just 2 pieces seriously?
Or a cheaper version: still, $43 for 4 pieces, I'd need 24 (or more?), but not sure how well those would work.

An even better option is rigid fiberglass: $92.00 + $45.19 shipping for pack of 12

Then I realized that I already have something that can fill the space, namely two folding mattresses like that: Portable-High-Density..lalala...
This is what I have currently as my bass traps for mixing demos
:D >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


After researching all these steps I decided to find a professional studio to record vocals and get final mix done :D

Evolution of a song (Part 1: Arrangement)

The infinite possibilities: how to get to the right one?

1. This song came unusually easy to me. It was pouring. Bam, bam, I was on a bus, going to work and I had to open OneNote to write down lyrics. Didn't need to edit or make rhymes, all was in place already.
Bam, bam, I printed out the lyrics, walked to a piano and found harmony for the chorus. It had to be catchy and it was. From there in a few steps I got to the verse harmony and also the interlude. The last part remaining was the connection from chorus back into verse, which I sought for a while and it turned out to be just one extra chord.
With everything written down the song was ready and I can perform it, check out the live piano version featuring me and Chi at 0:00-1:10.

2. But this isn't the style of music that I usually write. Next turn - for the metal part: drums, guitars, bass.
Big support needed for the chorus, moderate for the verse, the interlude is expected to rock! So goes the rhythm. A little faster, but keeps main beats aligned with piano chords. Bam! Ba-da-bam-bam! Push-ta-zysh!
So I was ready to record at this point, so I dropped some random instruments in Ableton in place of real instruments at 1:10-2:27.

3. But this isn't my style and this is too boring, has no development. It is deadly for the number of verses, which I managed to bring down to five. This song needs variation. And this is where I got stuck. this is where the hard work had to be invested in. This is why I need to cooperate with someone: to unload the dirty work :)
At least it sounds more metal at 2:27-3:30.

4. ARRANGEMENT
Faster? Slower? More Melody? Drop an instrument! Silence... A breakdown? My brain's in breakdown.
I need a break...

I added a couple of simpler melodies to support the vocal line and used different combinations of instruments. I really like the new Guitar pro (7th) set of RSE (real sounding) instruments at 3:30-4:50.

5. Now it's only left to pick synth instruments, record vocals, add effects and post-processing and mix. Maybe I'll manage to record live guitar even? Not dreaming of live drums and bass...
Things finally coming together (sounds better with the voice in my head, but that's a story for another post) at 4:52-6:25.

These chunks are just examples. The song is now 7:30 long!
To be continued...

Throwing things in a perfect circle

How difficult do you think it can be to throw things in a circle?
Not as easy as you'd think or I'd like.
It took me 2-3 hours to figure the following tiny chunk of code. AND I have the background. Shit. Maybe I am just bad at what I'm doing, lol. Anyway, it felt like it was worth a short blog post.

var texts = array of things to throw around;

var count = texts.Length;

var circularUIRadius = how far to throw from the central point;

var depthUI = how close to the target object things should be;

//So here it starts - the target object position:
var targetCenter = Vector3.Lerp(this.transform.position, Camera.main.transform.position, depthUI);

//I want to get the direction vector from the target to the camera. What can be easier?

Vector3 facingCamera = (Camera.main.transform.position - targetCenter).normalized;

//Make sure things are happening as I think they are:

Debug.DrawRay(targetCenter, facingCamera, Color.blue, 5.0f, false);

//Here starts the fun - get the second vector to describe the plane, into which the circle of texts goes

//The first axis is Vector3.up, but this can still be improved totilt the plane up or down depending if the camera moves up or down. <TO BE DONE>

var directionPerpendicular = Vector3.Cross(facingCamera, Vector3.up).normalized; -// --> this didn't work! Quaternion.Euler(0, -90, 0) * direction;
Debug.DrawRay(targetCenter, directionPerpendicular, Color.yellow, 5.0f);

for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
  // super advanced spatial geometry math from parametric-equation-of-a-circle-in-3d-space
  //Get the desired angle for the thing, we strive for equality and symmetry

  var angle = Math.PI * i * 2 / count;

  //Calculate the final location for the text
  var target = targetCenter + circularUIRadius * (float)Math.Cos(angle)*Vector3.up + circularUIRadius * (float)Math.Sin(angle)*directionPerpendicular; 

  texts[i].transform.position = target;

  //And the final touch - cherry, so to say...                    

  // rotate to camera - prevent text from being mirrored from lookat-in-opposite-direction
  texts[i].transform.LookAt(2*target - Camera.main.transform.position);

}

Result!

 

30 days 1 coursera course 1 game 5 songs

Conclusion: It is not difficult to find and explore new ideas, especially in a limited time period and the right goals.
Over time my relationship with inspiration was difficult.
The best time for music production was surprisingly, exams at the university. What would I not do to procrastinate and postpone studying questions.
After graduating it got impossible to do anything with music. Traveling, moving around the globe, getting out of bands and into totally new environments. Too distracting. I feel sad realizing that it were 4-5 years without composing and recording. Terrifying! The only activity I could stick to was singing, because it doesn't require equipment (almost).
I tried to get back to music 2 years ago, when I just moved back to Seattle, but there were too many other things: work and new house, so there was no energy for music.

The setup morphed into this:

After I have received the news that I am joining the Hololens team, I got all the energy I needed. Good timing with a gaming hackathon, where I was invited as a musician, so I started with producing an ambient soundtrack for a dark mood. I spent a couple evenings listening to American McGee's Alice and Baldur's Gate soundtrack, then I was done with ours the next evening. I also did all in-game sound effects, and even some voice acting in addition to coding and puzzle design. 

In parallel I took a Coursera course on Ableton, so I could use Ableton Live 9 30day trial most efficiently. It was hard to find time for all activities besides work, but it was exciting and challenging to follow the requirements for the next assignment. Here are the drafts:

My profile on Blend: InflunZa

After both the gaming hackathon and Ableton course deadlines arrived, I suddenly got some free time and with a week of the trial remaining and new knowledge from the course, I decided to remix the ambient track into a completed song. Still demo quality, but this is definitely faster than more than half a year for producing the previous song in free Zunewave Podium (note it was completely composed by the time I started).

How do you strike the balance between time, motivation and laziness? :)

Cheers, ~InflunZa

P.S. The game was published and is worth a separate post, so here's just the link (free)

Alrauni - 2011-2012

Alrauni:
folk-metal music band based in Moscow, Russia (2011-2012) performing in German language with a strong Russian accent.
Project page on MySpace

The name of the band was Feuerwind originally, as it is nowadays again.
But while I was in the project I was determined to make it memorable and unique (and famous also would be nice, but didn't happen unfortunately).
Together with other participants we convinced our leader to rebrand ourselves into Alrauni (from Alraune), which was the best single word, describing the project.
German? - check.
Folklore? - check.
Magical? - we tried.
Boobs and cute girls? - check.
Monsters? - if you stayed long enough to check...

We even created a band logo and printed T-shirts! I still have one:

We did not have sufficient funds to record a proper album, but I knew how to use a DAW, so we recorded 4 demos at home. Considering lack of music production education and experience, I think I did a good job:

The most difficult part was recording the acoustic krezh (a kind of gusli). This photo is from a concert, note where the mic is (yes, we knew about special mics for wooden acoustic instruments and got one eventually):

Finally we got my favorite song properly made at a real studio:


Concert video were never made properly, here are a couple, but are seriously terrible. Seriously, don't watch them. Skip!



Unfortunately, the life was happening at the same time and I was the first to leave the city of Moscow and then Russia in the summer of 2012, other members also quitted.
Now the project is still alive, led by Timo with new participants and instruments.
The project page doesn't have many notable updates: Fraulein Anni was recorded properly, though. Sounds very different now.

I enjoyed my time:

Founder:
Timo (Николай Спиридонов) - music, lyrics, bass, effects
Members:
Ольга Милованова - vocals, guitar
Анна Лемехова - violin
Мария Красненко - recorder
Юлия Мамченко - крезь
Илья Попов - accordeon
Ксения Долгорукова - cello
Сергей Латушкин - drums