Author: Starthief

I picked up Moonbreaker on Steam over the weekend. The game digitizes the tabletop miniatures wargaming experience — of the sort with big unique “character” units rather than generic groups of spearmen, cavalry etc. — including the painting. It adds voice acting, an audio drama (and other lore) written by Brandon Sanderson, some simple but clever animation of pieces (they’re not articulated but the way they bounce, slide, rock, spin etc. is unique per character and surprisingly expressive) and some nice particle effects.

The combat took a bit of getting used to. Positioning is super important, and there are lots of ways to disrupt positioning. If you’re a simple melee grunt, be prepared for a frustrating chase as you keep getting pushed, pulled, blocked, thrown, slowed, immobilized, or generally outrun.

Of the three available Captains so far, by far my favorite is Zax Ja’kar. Besides his flamboyant dead-guy-hologram style, he has an okay ranged attack, can summon explosive mines which arm one turn later, and a Gravity Disc which is one of those position-disrupting abilities. Strategy guides are calling him the weakest of the three, but I disagree — those mines are terribly good at distracting the AI away from attacking your captain and crew. I find his abilities less situational than those of their favorite, child prodigy Astra.

The painting part of the game is super chill. It has things like washes, dry-brushing, a palette for mixing paint colors, etc. but also:

• Undo!
• No mess, no worrying about whether the paint is wet, no brushes to clean
• No need to awkwardly hold the miniature
• Zoom in close to see details, and get the brush into places that’d be super awkward to reach. Change the size of your brush easily while keeping the same color.
• Opacity slider!
• Automatic masking of sections
• The ability to save and copy a scheme to make variations
• Undo!

There’s still skill involved. Probably planning, note taking, making good use of the palette, and doing things in a smart order would help with replicating the cool effect you got in one spot elsewhere on the model. But I get much better results than I ever did painting real miniatures; where I used to dread painting faces, now I’m adding rust streaks for tiny bolts that are far too small to see during gameplay. It’s just satisfying.

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This weekend’s recording session didn’t go according to plan, but was a success anyway. I was going to attempt to drone on the bass while playing a synth part over it. What I wound up with was several different takes of interesting stuff from the bass: plucks and scrapes and EBow, and the results of the effects (including a wobbly slow spring reverb plugin and a feedback chain), with the synth taking a backseat.

So I cut together pieces of the takes to create the main line, then recorded another synth pad in one take to go with that. Then I started pasting in snippets from previous tracks, as I have been, as well as recording a tiny bit of additional material to bolster it. There’s an element of collage or maybe quilting to it, but that one-take pad to go with it helps tie it to my usual practice as well.

Yesterday Sugar Bytes announced a cool granular effect called Graindad, which seems to have several tricks up its sleeve that the likes of Clouds or Beads or Melotus Versio don’t. Some of it is an overcooked modulation system, but still the rest of it seems like it’s full of potential, with buffers that can be automatically separated by transients. I’d planned on checking it out today, but something else dropped that stole my attention.

Bitwig announced their first add-on, Spectral Suite. It’s a set of Bitwig devices — kind of like plugins but specific to Bitwig — which split audio into multiple chains (which can host other effects, be rerouted elsewhere, or simply be used to adjust level or panning) and merge them back together. There’s:

• Transient split: separates audio into transients (e.g. initial attack, sudden changes in level) and tonal sounds.
• Freq split: subdivides frequency bins into some number of groups (1 to 1024) and then round-robin distributes them among 4 chains. This can sound great when panning each chain a little differently, or putting delays of different lengths on them, and you can rotate/change the grouping to get cool phaser-like sounds.
• Loud split: categorizes each frequency bin as loud, medium or quiet depending on some settings, and then separates them into their categories. This is an incredible tool; I’ve experimented with much less sophisticated versions before (including writing my own slow, lo-fi mess). This would pretty much be worth the price of admission on its own.
• Harmonic split: analyzes the sound to identify the harmonics, then separates them into fundamental/other/inharmonic, odd/even/inharmonic, or Nth/other/inharmonic. Incredibly cool for distortion or reverb or just all kinds of things.

These are all great effects, blowing away all competitors and at a price lower than many of them. But people are soooo angry!

Bitwig’s upgrade plan is weird and controversial. It works like this:

• When you buy the software, you get 1 year of free updates.
• When that year runs out, you can still use the software but can’t download new versions (except point release bug fixes).
• At any time, you can buy a license to get another year of updates. You can do that while it’s on sale and then not activate it until later, if you want. A lot of people wait until there’s a major update with features they want before they activate those licenses.

From a user perspective, it’s obviously not as good as “free updates forever” like with FL Studio. It’s better than a regular subscription where you can’t use the software until you pay more. But… it’s kind of like gambling. When you activate the update license you don’t know what you’re going to get in the next 12 months. Maybe two days after it expires a big exciting update will drop. So people don’t like it, and Bitwig might be better off charging for every version update as some companies do.

I think their system does have advantages. They roll out cool new features in point releases pretty frequently and things get improved steadily by user feedback. If they went to a system where they charged for major point releases, I kind of think the pace of development would be slowed some.

The release of Spectral Suite complicates things by not being included as an “update”, but considered an “add-on.” A lot of people are (dramatically of course) saying they feel betrayed, that this is fraud, that Bitwig are greedy, that they’re going to go look for some other DAW even though they think Bitwig is the best, and so on.

If this suite had been released by literally any other company, those angry people would be celebrating how awesome it is and how the price is more than fair. Maybe Bitwig should have created a fake new brand, give them credit for developing the tools, and then “partner” with Brand X to sell it on the Bitwig website. That’s literally being dishonest and yet people might have accepted it better.

Personally, I’m not mad — I’m very happy with the huge boatload of new potential that just sailed in to port. But I’m tired of arguing with people about it online.

Maybe another day I’ll check out Graindad. It seems pretty good too 🙂

I say it every time, but: every album has its own style that emerges on its own. It can become a matter of conscious choice — but first I have to notice it already happening.

This one has a bunch of loops and drones and noises sampled separately and then incorporated either into the improvisation while recording, or mixed in during the editing phase — and I am keeping them and reusing them in subsequent tracks. I’ve also been overlaying unwanted noise with more desirable, cooler noises. Overall it lends a certain kind of continuity. There’s also a continuity in tempo, because the length of one loop determined the LFO time to drive it in Bitwig Grid, from which I derived triggers to clock 0-Ctrl, and then captured a loop from that and used it to drive an envelope follower to filter some noise, which became another loop… so without the explicit “everything is X BPM” rule I followed for Pulse Code I still have a steady rhythm. My plan for the next track is to simply have a drone that I solo over and keep it simple — but I may use that same tempo as either an inaudible guide, or the basis of some modulation, just to keep it going.

Aside from set of related beats from 0-Ctrl modulating Synchrodyne, there was a brief improv in OPS7 which became a sort of shifting chordal drone, a sustained note on the bass with an EBow, Strega feeding back through Peradam, and some bits sampled out of finished takes and then pitch shifted. It’s not like any of this is completely new to me, but the way I’ve been approaching it, and saving the pieces for later re-use, has sort of become a “thing.”

I just wrote up a page of Noise Engineering Plugin Tips if those interest you. And if they don’t, well, I wrote it up anyway.

It’s some stuff I’ve found with their various offerings from the Freequel Bundle, Bundle 1 and Bundle 2, particularly with Ruina but there’s a bit there for everything.

Why? Because someone happened to post about it on TalkBass, and it got me trying things and learning a few things, as well as recalling stuff I’d discovered before that this time, I wanted to make sure I remembered. And writing a big post about it was the best way to do that.

I am a horrible singer. But otherwise, instruments whose pitch is unquantized are fine by me — I was quite good at violin (for a student), fairly comfortable with fretless bass. I was no worse than anyone else without thousands of hours of practice on a theremin. My kazoo playing is… fine I guess. I use unquantized sequencers more than quantized ones in my electronic music.

But Trombone Champ? That’s humbling. It’s like QWOP meets Guitar Hero.

Thankfully the primary emotion that results is not frustration, but joyful hilarity. I’ve played it enough over the weekend to have some of the songs stuck in my head now — original ones like “Trombone Skyze” and “Baboons!” as well as songs like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (which I dislike pretty strongly actually, along with the sport itself) and “O Canada” (which is fine).

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I’ve been trying to keep up semi-consistent bass practice, but I find if I play for long enough — which happens more often when I’m recording and want to keep going until it’s done — it leaves me with a pretty sore index finger. Something about the angle I’m playing the Miezo or the strings (round-wound) is doing a number on that one particular spot, instead of building up calluses. And once it’s in that state, I really don’t want to play on it until it heals.

Possibly playing other stringed instruments in between would help. But another option is, surprisingly, a glove. Intuitively this seems like it’d interfere, but apparently, with the right kind of glove it can make playing smoother and easier. There are a few professional players with nerve issues, excessive sweating etc. who wear them regularly. Nickel allergies are another reason… and oh hey, I do have a mild nickel allergy, which is why we have titanium wedding rings now instead of white gold like the first set. I wonder if that’s contributing to the issue?

Musicians’ Practice Gloves are the most common brand and people seem to like them, so I’ll give them a try.

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After multiple shipping delays, the USB power cable for my Pod60 arrived. That makes it a handy portable, and more importantly, stowable overflow case. Right now Inertia and Afterneath are in there — I may still wind up selling them after a while, but I appreciate having access to all the modules I own, at least.

I have a Cosmotronic Peradam on the way. It’s a fairly complex distortion module, which phase-shifts its input and uses that to amplitude modulate itself, then goes through a two-band drive stage with an offset, then it feeds back. I like what I hear in demos, and it seems like there’s a lot of potential to inject and combine signals in interesting ways.

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My current read is Adam Roberts’ The This. Not counting the introduction, it seems to be set in two time periods: a near-future gig economy dystopia with a suspicious new social media service, and a farther future in which said cult (oops, did I say cult?) is a hive mind breaking away from the “individuals” to terraform Venus. The writing style is certainly unusual, occasionally gimmicky but clever enough to get away with it. For instance, one of the chapters splits columns between the actual story and a Twitter-like social media feed, filled with clues, puns, and spam. Reading both feels distracting, just like trying to check one’s phone while reading a novel.

Before (the) that, I read Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, thanks to many recommendations on the Lines forum and a very cheap sale price. It was kind of fascinating but also really not my thing. I generally feel like magical realism is a cop-out — trying to write magic without the stigma of being a dreaded genre writer, and managing to omit the actual fun of tales of other worlds, gods and spirits and magic, leaving only a drug-like weirdness. Just not my thing.

Several years ago, I went through a couple of months with arthritis in my left wrist. Part pain, part a feeling of wrongness/weakness, like it just wasn’t going to work properly.

There was a round of painkillers, but the problem went away on its own and the wrist has given me very little trouble since.

Last night it came back, and was partially responsible for waking me up early. (That, plus some sinus congestion and the cat getting his usual pre-dawn energy burst.)

It was annoying enough before, particularly with typing or driving. It would definitely get in the way of bass playing, even with the Miezo. So that got me worried (which also contributed to getting me out of bed early).

Thankfully, after Tylenol it’s at least 95% better, which tells me it’s not like that first time at all, and is probably going to continue being okay even after the Tylenol wears off.

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I’m pretty annoyed at Biden casually saying “the pandemic is officially over.” Community transmission is still high in a lot of the US. Deaths are way down but not zero. Catching it once does not grant immunity, getting vaccinated improves your chances but doesn’t grant perfect immunity (especially if you don’t get boosters) and vaccination rates are still lower than they should be. There have been several horror stories online recently about Long Covid and how it affects cognitive function, and frankly that scares me the most.

I know this president is much less awful than the previous one where it comes to off-the-cuff foolish statements, but he really should have paid attention to the words of the philosopher Benjamin Franklin Parker: with great power there must also come great responsibility.

You know how music fans are sometimes disappointed in a favorite band’s new album because it’s a creative departure from their previous ones? Sometimes you never really get over that, and sometimes you come to appreciate their newer stuff almost as if they’re a different group. But either way you should at least respect that musicians don’t necessarily want to — and in fact, probably can’t — keep doing the same thing forever.

It’s like that with books to. It is very much like that with Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series.

Spoilers ahead….

Gideon the Ninth had a snarky protagonist who was easy to like, or at least to laugh with, some great dynamics with other characters, a dark and intriguing setting where you could feel the weight and dust of history, and both magical mysteries and murder mysteries to unravel. Not everyone loved it, but it sold a ton and won piles of awards and will be on my top ten list forever.

The sequel, Harrow the Ninth, barely included Gideon, instead focusing on her partner/frenemy Harrowhark, who is not so charismatic. Her memory has been tinkered with (mainly to erase Gideon!), she’s not entirely sane, she’s being kept in the dark about a lot of things, there’s an imminent threat that’s way out of her league, and there are conspiracies afoot. It’s confusing as hell — it’s probably more confusing in some ways to people who have read the first book. The people around her are mostly awful and manipulative or outright murderous. But it’s still intriguing, a very different read from the first book but enjoyable in its own way.

The new third book, Nona the Ninth, is different again — though it also features a protagonist with memory/identity issues who’s being kept in the dark about almost everything, there’s an imminent threat way out of her league, and conspiracies afoot. Where Harrow carried guilt and responsibility though, Nona is an innocent, and the people around her are fascinating. It’s hard for either her or the reader to tell who might be a villain, or against “the good guys” even if not villainous — but she loves and/or admires almost everyone anyway — pretty much right through the entire book. I read a review that said it’s a book where we’re waiting for things to happen, but… believe me, things do happen. I think I like this one more than the second book, but I can’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read the others because you will be hopelessly lost.

Nona came as a surprise (apparently to the author’s agent and editor as well as fans) because the third book was originally going to be Alecto the Ninth. Instead, we got an extended story of the freeing of Alecto, more about the Blood of Eden group, and the flashback story of how The Emperor Undying got his start. And you know, I think there are plenty of stories in this universe, we don’t have to go back and revisit the first episode. Sure I loved the first book, but that story has been told — if I want more of it I can read it again. Let’s not get too Star Wars with sequels and prequels rehashing the same plot points, shall we?

We did get a bit of Gideon snark in the second and third books — in a series about necromancy, you shouldn’t be surprised when dead people show up and insult everyone — and I’m okay with that. Nona was a neat character and I enjoyed reading her story. So there.

Last night’s music making attempt did not end with a recording that I want to share with anyone, but I realized afterward, it wasn’t fruitless either.

In real-time strategy games, build order especially during the early game can be extremely important. You need the right balance of resource gathering, exploration, research, defense, strike capability, and expansion. Your units have to be able to counter enemy attacks and support each other, so you need to have the right units. The wrong bad build order might mean getting crushed quickly, or it might mean holding on for a long while but never being able to win.

I think build order might be vital to my music-making process too. I noticed this when I first got the 0-Ctrl and was smitten with it. And of course, now I have the new bass. Yesterday’s session started with a sound that I like, essentially a single drone with a rhythmic element, and immediately I wanted to add a bass part to it. And I wanted to keep it a clean sound to show the tone of the bass, rather than looking for the next sound that fit. For five hours, I kept trying to add elements, change them up, piece something together — another drone, a more chordal sound I could vary with the BeetTweek, a stronger rhythmic pulse. I tried playing low parts on the bass, I tried higher “solo-ish” parts doubled with Aalto, I tried middle parts. I tried adding reverb and delay while still trying to preserve the clean sound, and fiddled with the EQ. I never found something to play on it that fit. I recorded 11 takes and deleted them all.

Yes, it was frustrating, and I would have liked to have created something nice. But I got some bass practice in, I built up the calluses, and I had this realization about build order. That makes it still time well spent. Finding out what doesn’t work is seriously valuable.

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So that stuff I said about hypophantasia, and how it’s not absolute, how bits of mental images sometimes get through? During part of that session yesterday I had this half-formed visual that I’m not sure I can put into words. It was extremely synthwave, with an orange-brown sun baking a landscape that was simultaneously black flat planes (but glowing and saturated with that received heat), and a sort of a beachside road scene. It doesn’t make any particular sense. I had saved my project as “Sun Something” hoping I could find a better title after finishing it. Deleted files don’t need names, but maybe the image will inspire something else.

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Last night I also had a realization about my relationship to the TalkBass forum: I’m proud to be weird. The membership trends toward conservative (in a general sense, not necessarily politically) rather than experimental in a way that itself is very unusual for the music forums that I normally frequent. So I guess I want people on the forum to realize there are more possibilities than playing the root on 1 and 3 in a dad band on an “FSO with tort” (Fender-Shaped Object with a tortoiseshell pickguard). That all those great players they like to name-drop got famous because they developed their own style and sound rather than imitating everybody else. But also, I just like being weird, and maybe I have been posting at times just to establish myself as the weird one in their midst.

There was a recent thread, “What’s the weirdest music you listen to?” This is a dangerous question to put before me in any case, but of course, most of the membership’s answers were just not weird enough for my standards. I legitimately tried to answer, but found myself drifting more toward “I’m weirder than you” instead. I backed off a bit. But I still wound up listing an eclectic bunch of about 40 albums. Maybe I should have just posted a couple of my own tracks. Or… just not.

It’s not like I’m scoring points — I want to make sure I’m not being obnoxious about this.

About three different conversations on different forums were talking about the Soma Labs Enner last night, and the one that said it was about halfway between a Strega and a Lyra-8 got my attention. I really don’t need another instrument, and after watching videos, I can skip it. It seems more of an instrument to play/explore on its own rather than with other synth gear, a bass, etc.

But that inspired me to fire up the Strega in some of the free time I had this morning before needing to log in to work. Between Strega, Afterneath, and 0-Ctrl I have quite a nice patch going, just a sort of droning loop that I can add subtle variations to with touchplates or small knob movements on one of the 0-Ctrl rows. I’m curious to try that with some bass improvisation, and find out how the Miezo’s pickup reacts to touchplate stuff. I’m looking forward to that as soon as I’m done with work!

I’m planning to submit a couple of tracks for the next Ambient Online this time. It seems like a good time to do it since I’m between albums and exploring the new bass, and some of the vibe I was getting while playing with it and the MIDI Bass plugin and Aalto really lends itself more toward “regular ambient” than my spookier stuff.

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Trevor of SubMatrix Audio was kind enough to send me the flipped front panel for BeetTweek — I’m not sure why, but I appreciate it! Let’s call in a beta test, since in the process I found an error in the manual (the nuts around the encoder are 3/16, not 3mm). I do think the knob is better positioned this way, though some people might be offended that flipped mode doesn’t rearrange the jack order, so they’re now DCBA, WZYX instead of ABCD, XYZW 😉

I don’t think I’m cut out for this thing where I have more good Eurorack modules than active rack space for them. So I bought a MyVolts Ripcord to power my 4ms Pod60 via USB. I can put a couple modules in there and run them off a battery, moving the little case out of the way when not needed.

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Having finished the four extant books of the Stormlight Archive, I found myself wanting to reread more Cosmere stuff. I chose Warbreaker and then Elantris, since:

• These are standalone books. Nona the Ninth is going to be released in a few days (whoooo!) and I don’t want to be deep in a series when that hits 🙂
• I’ve only read those once each.
• The scenes with certain characters (Zahel, Azure, Nightblood) in Stormlight made me more curious about them. Ditto for the Seon in Stormlight (possibly the only Elantris reference in that series).
• Hoid. In the books written so far, everyone’s favorite worldhopper is far more active and more fun on Roshar than elsewhere, and I couldn’t remember much about his other appearances. But I haven’t encountered him in Elantris yet, and it’s possible he’s not in it at all given that the Cognitive Realm around Sel is supposed to be super messed up.