Welcome back to the newsletter! September is safely in the rearview mirror, and for that we are thankful. Real Life took center stage throughout the month, mostly revolving around our recent automobile purchase. Fun topics that came up: a dead battery; another dead battery; a lost title; a clueless bank. Yeah. Nevertheless, the deed is done, wheels have been swapped, and I get to look forward to being robbed on a monthly basis again. Hurray for capitalism!
The whole car-buying process is pure grist for the anxiety mill that resides in my brain, as I'm sure it is for many others. That anxiety factory steals resources, mainly energy and logic, that would normally go towards my creative endeavours, and it hogs the whole calendar so that, instead of contemplating music and art projects and where/when to do them, it focuses exclusively on THE THING AND OH MY GOD THE THING IT'S COMING IT'S ALMOST HERE AND THERE'S A BAZILLION THINGS THAT CAN/WILL GO COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS... you know, anxiety being anxiety? I have yet to learn a method that squishes those worry-whispers into the insignificant nothings they truly are so I can focus on the things that bring joy into my life, but I do the best I can…
Concerning Bud the Fish...
Even with life being weird, I'm still able to get my shit together long enough to kick out a trio of groovy little tunes, including a stab at real ambient music, thus:
Like I mentioned last newsletter, creating ambient music is actually a lot of fun, and this time I obeyed the conventional wisdom and removed any rhythmic elements from the mix, like percussion or delay slapback. Personally I prefer a little rhythmic component to my music, so future ambient tracks from me will have a little sumthin'-sumthin' added to the recipe to, umm, propel things along…
This second song was a science experiment, a case where I wanted to see just how far gone this old iPad Mini 2 was. It was left behind by my daughter when she moved out a few years ago — she had won it in a school raffle, but since she already had a phone and laptop, the iPad wasn't really needed. It's been sitting in my studio desk for at least three years — when I booted it back up, it was still on iOS 9! — and with only 16 gigabytes of memory, there isn't a whole lot it can do...
...or is there?
The recent update to Koala Sampler made this song possible. Normally, I would use Koala in conjunction with apps like AUM to split out the individual samples into groups or channels, add effects to them, and mix accordingly, but this ancient iPad wasn't going to have any of that. Fortunately, the new Koala update revolved around a 4-channel mixer with new, upgraded effects, so in theory one could create an entire song using only Koala. To put that to the test, I loaded another app called Figure onto the iPad to generate sounds and sequences, save them as WAV files, and import them into Koala for further sequencing, arranging, applying effects, mixing, mastering, and so on.
Personally, I thought the tune turned out pretty good, and the experiment was a success, with caveats. I like the size of the iPad Mini and I think it's the perfect size if you're just dinking around with Koala and Figure, two apps made for the small screen. I like starting Koala projects on my phone using the standalone version; I can do that more efficiently and with less eye strain on the Mini. That said, as much as I like and appreciate the new Koala mixer and effects, I still prefer to use Koala together with AUM, Loopy Pro, and all those fancy-shmancy effects apps I've picked up, to get the most/best use out of it, and to do that means transferring the Koala project over to the main iPad, the M2 Pro. I also have a 2018 Pro that serves as a backup; with multiple iPads at my disposal already, I see no need to buy a new Mini, especially since I will lose the headphone jack and have to migrate over to Dongle City (a loser town if ever there was). So, while it was an interesting experiment, ultimately it leaves me exactly where I was, only with less time using the phone for Koala in the early stages -- and more on the Mini -- and that's a perfectly acceptable outcome...
Finally, there’s this little number called “Lighter Than Air”, a welcome diversion cooked up over a hot stove of Figure, Loopy Pro, and a bunch of Moogerfoogers. No important lessons learned, other than those Moogerfoogers are fuuuuuuuun to mess with…
Concerning Roadkill Puppy...
Another doodle dump! I'm in sections of both sketchbooks where I've got more choices than what's good for me, and some others that, well, need to mature a bit. A couple of pages flat-out STANK, like, real bad! I won't include those, haha.. anyway, here's some cherry-picked goodies for you, starting with Leuchtturm plain-blue 3.
Sorry, but that rabbit kills me... heehee.. ANYWAY, we're off to visit Leuchtturm plain-blue 4, which yielded this collection of oddballs.
The Music Muses have been sucking all the air out of the art studio for months now, and it's made me light-headed and forgetful of how to hold a pencil, but they've chilled ever-so slightly as of late, and I've been getting antsy lately to start stepping out and trying larger art projects. More to come, I hope...
Bits and bobs...
Bought some watercolor painting supplies recently. I know nothing about watercolor, but I've always been curious about it. No, I'm not going to paint a bunch of stupid flowers. Not quite sure where this road leads, and that's kind of the point...
Car-buying sucks. I said as much earlier because it needed to be said, but I feel it needs to be said again and there it is...
Along the same lines, health insurance sucks. Everyone already knows that as well, but I want to say it again and there it is, again...
I've been kinda/sorta uploading doodles onto Notes for the past few weeks. Take a second or two to swing by and let me know what you think. Right now it's a bit like screaming into the proverbial void, but I have hope... provided the ex-Twitter mob doesn't turn the whole thing into a dumpster fire of doom.
That's it for now. If you find these newsletters useful and/or enjoyable, I sure would appreciate a little feedback, so drop me a line and let me know how I'm doing, how YOU'RE doing, and I'll catch ya next month. Peace, my friends...
Dan