Monday, July 31, 2017
And yet more novel artwork
This is the second draft of the art for the cover of the novel Earthkiller. (No relationship to the movie.)
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Earthkiller Novel Cover WIP 1
I probably mentioned at some point that I'd finished the novel that I'd started several years ago but then went whole hog on for 2016's NaNoWriMo. Completely unrelated to the movie, the novel is called Earthkiller.
So I set about trying to get art for the cover. First I made this mockup:
It uses a model from Blendswap by Albin.
Chance suggested I check out DeviantArt for artists and see if I could license some art.
Here's an attempt at that, with the actual book-design from Chance.
The following art is by Duster132 and Chance tried two different ways to set it as a cover. Thing is, this work was already licensed so we couldn't use it.
So we're going with Jeff Brown Graphics. Here is the first sketch he sent.
More works-in-progress coming.
So I set about trying to get art for the cover. First I made this mockup:
It uses a model from Blendswap by Albin.
Chance suggested I check out DeviantArt for artists and see if I could license some art.
Here's an attempt at that, with the actual book-design from Chance.
The following art is by Duster132 and Chance tried two different ways to set it as a cover. Thing is, this work was already licensed so we couldn't use it.
More works-in-progress coming.
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Borneo Function
Borneo Function is named after what I think is actually a "fictional song" in Peep Show. I don't think we ever hear the song in the show.
I'm being amused by the electric piano Vita instrument in Samplitude. The bass line is a thing I woke up with one morning.
I'm being amused by the electric piano Vita instrument in Samplitude. The bass line is a thing I woke up with one morning.
Ghost Lover of Station 13
I've been on a tear doing some new music. Most of it is clearly under the umbrella of Pleasure for the Empire.
I've been enjoying my Allen Woody bass (with TI flatwound strings) a great deal. And it's been amusing me to play flute, er, badly. Sometimes I get it in tune, other times not so much (and the Melodyne pitch-correction built into Samplitude comes in super handy in that case.)
It's a bit odd to me that I seem to be doing this record all alone. I'd kind of stopped doing that over the last several years.
I'm doing a number of things. My go-to limiter is an emulation of an LA-2A by Waves. There's never any compression as I'm recording because, er, I have no outboard compressors. But the Advanced Dynamics in Samplitude has some magical properties.
On the master 2-buss I have Advanced Dynamics just to give the lower level stuff a bit of a "lift." Then I go into an LA-2A just lightly. Then into the Waves emulation of a Fairchild 670. But here's the trick -- I throw it into Lat/Vert mode which is a weird way to say "Mid-Side" mode and I compress the center a bit more than the outsides and this seems to really tighten up bass and kick drums. Then I do one last bit of compression with another Advanced Dynamics -- mostly just to prevent overloads.
The drums. Actually the drums are all internal instruments to Samplitude. I'm really surprised at how often I reach for those sounds before, say, Native Instruments sounds.
All the acoustic instruments are being recorded with the AKG C12A microphone into a Lindell preamp. I... I like the Lindells more (now) than I do the Neve 1272's. I find that (especially considering the price difference) er, disturbing.
I've been enjoying my Allen Woody bass (with TI flatwound strings) a great deal. And it's been amusing me to play flute, er, badly. Sometimes I get it in tune, other times not so much (and the Melodyne pitch-correction built into Samplitude comes in super handy in that case.)
It's a bit odd to me that I seem to be doing this record all alone. I'd kind of stopped doing that over the last several years.
I'm doing a number of things. My go-to limiter is an emulation of an LA-2A by Waves. There's never any compression as I'm recording because, er, I have no outboard compressors. But the Advanced Dynamics in Samplitude has some magical properties.
On the master 2-buss I have Advanced Dynamics just to give the lower level stuff a bit of a "lift." Then I go into an LA-2A just lightly. Then into the Waves emulation of a Fairchild 670. But here's the trick -- I throw it into Lat/Vert mode which is a weird way to say "Mid-Side" mode and I compress the center a bit more than the outsides and this seems to really tighten up bass and kick drums. Then I do one last bit of compression with another Advanced Dynamics -- mostly just to prevent overloads.
The drums. Actually the drums are all internal instruments to Samplitude. I'm really surprised at how often I reach for those sounds before, say, Native Instruments sounds.
All the acoustic instruments are being recorded with the AKG C12A microphone into a Lindell preamp. I... I like the Lindells more (now) than I do the Neve 1272's. I find that (especially considering the price difference) er, disturbing.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Hard Drives
Relevant to my interests, the costs of hard drives. The takeaways are that 4TB drives are the cost/gigabyte leader (which, now that I look at my computer, explains why I have all 4TB drives), and the downward price of hard drives is flattening.
Monday, July 17, 2017
The Barbarian Queen
The Barbarian Queen started with that bass-line and then I just kept adding stuff to it. The bass is my custom "fish" bass, going through the profile of my custom Deluxe-front-end/Champ-back-end amp on my Kemper but with a lot of compression. And then through Lindell preamp. And then more compression. And then more compression. I'm amused by my flute part on it. 
Monday, July 10, 2017
Phoebe's Pillow
This song was recorded with Squire J-bass and flatwound TI's going into the Kemper and then hitting Lindell preamp Bellacaster baritone, same signal path (but different sound) Flute and vocals with the AKG C12A into a Lindell (I'm really digging the Lindell's these days) I thought this was more of a Night Gods song than a Pleasure for the Empire song. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But it amuses me nonetheless. 
Monday, July 03, 2017
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