I haven’t posted in longer than I would have liked again, so it seems like there’d be lots to update about. Things are still improving and the situation is positively better. I’m definitively getting work done on being organized, even if overall there much cleaning up to get done. Keeping up a steady schedule is happening, and holding up for longer periods of time. Despite this important personal progress in learning harder and working smarter, the past few months haven’t been all that productive per say.
There’s a few spots to touch up then a semi-glossy finish coat or two. If I find more of these boxes I might do some more. No clue as of yet what I’m going to stuff in there, but if you want to send me some amount more money than what it’ll cost to ship it to you, I’ll stick some bubblewrap in it and send it out. Leave a message through the site’s contact page with at least some vague description of your whereabouts to start the conversation.
Right, so over two years now. Reliably executing this track correctly, with all the right parts in the right places, it’s not a thing. I’ve tolerated the bumps and blocks as my kick leg and overall independence improved. Seems like I could, still was rough and needed polish, but the snares felt soggy and boring so I rewrote them. Almost what, 1 year now since I dropped back down to training wheel speed 60bpm grinds. Staying there (excluding the occasional 90bpm full tryouts or section looping) to flattened out all the curves and wrinkles instead of progressively increasing by 1-2bpm each time as I improved, even while overall other exercises and tracks have gotten better and faster. I’d like to get a good enough recording done by now and move on. Move the fuck on already. Anyway, but which part to leave un-good-enoughed?
Dividing it down into 4 main sections, an intro, two halves each further split into 4 parts, and an outro, it’s difficult enough to play a take exactly like I wrote and learned, at 60bpm, not to mention its intended bpm of 90, wanting to have it hold some dynamics and groove without falling of the click just makes it a nightmare.
In this one: forgetting the 2nd section snare/hi-hat pass that throws back to the outro and doing a double instead, playing the b version of the kick pattern instead of the regular one in the mid-section of the 6th part. Otherwise feels kinda okay really, sounds like it should. The triplets on the hi-hat bang on, as in off-beat.
First, the new tracks. I’ll start with the fairly recent one, which adds up to a couple of snare and ride cymbal practice patterns glued together with some toms at 120bpm.
Here’s the latest of the tracks I’ve been working on these past few months. It’s fairly simple I think. I’m posting the mp3 from the standard midi kit along with a video of me playing it a few days back.
A track I’ve been working on these past few weeks. This mp3 of the midi version is pretty much its final form and an accurate transcript of what I’ll be recording in the coming days. I have some ideas for bass, chords and whatnot, but unlike Molten Dry Bips which sounded perhaps a bit too dry without the extras, drums only seems fine this time so not going to risk another disaster and shelve that thought. They’ll end up on my bandcamp page at some point. Feedback is welcomed, so are any tips and support sent.
The cymbals are close but not quite like the same as what I have setup on my drum kit. The hi-hat is mainly played half-closed or so most of the time, but here I don’t delve into the editor enough to give it more variety in sounds. There’s some more snare and floor tom rimshots and assorted accents here and there too that’ll come out once I get around to recording. 80bpm is my overall maximum currently, but it’s not quite the same at that speed. Although I think it sounds best around 72bpm, it’s where I’m at in practicing my triplets on it, it holds up okay at 60bpm too, like a similar feel despite a somewhat different personality to it. Haven’t decided for sure yet, though I’m leaning towards recording it at 60bpm.
So it’s been over a year now since I started to learn to play drums and I wanted to revisit Traffic Jam, a track that basically got it’s start when I was hitting various objects laid about in my living room. With some relative success I managed to transcribed the beat, melody, or whatever it is, into a midi file to use as a trainer for the drum kit I had by then already decided I was going to be getting. Never did learn it on the actual drums though, beyond the basic groove and trying out bars a couple at a time.
Listened to it repeatedly these past weeks. At some point I was thinking of fixing it up, rearranging parts here and there, but one year later I’m still stumped. This’ll remain its final form I guess: the same track, basically identical but for a few details here and there, repeated five times at different tempos pasted together starting fast and slowing down to the middle section (the part with crickets and such in the background, the speed at which bar by bar I was trying it out on the drums) before then speeding back up again and fading out. Traffic Jam, the full commute.
Apart from rudiment practice, exercises, basic motions and licks, fills and whatnot, most of my time spent playing on the drums has been dedicated to Liquid Volts and, to a lesser extent, Ride Muffins. The mid section of Ride Muffins is a tad (cough cough) out of my reach right now, to say the least, so I’m not putting that much effort into it. I do very much enjoy its feel though, and playing around looping its variations much fun.
Liquid Volts Pie (or Liquid Volts π) has in 3/4 a target tempo of 90bpm – actually I initially wrote it in 120bpm, using triplets and the odd shuffle on the bass. So far, I’m quite consistent and very comfortable with it at 72bpm, reading off the 3/4 notations, and getting better at 80bpm although that pretty much seems to be where I’m capped out for now. Warmed up and in good shape I can manage up to 83bpm, slowly bumping up the ticker as I repeat it over and over. I still have much ways to go for a tight and smooth take at 90bpm. Not so much in the first half which is very much in my reach, but particularly in the second half where… eh…. yeah. Getting better and better however, every time I feel up to the challenge.
This is the best record I got for so far, not bothering with the slower tries. Beside the obvious timing issues, my by problem is with loudness and hit detection on the cymbals, which is why I’m peaking at around 80bpm where I’m currently having a hard time keeping their hits consistent and even, with appropriate accentuation while also keeping the snare crunchy. I’ve tried tweaking the kit’s sensitivity since I seem to find myself often riding the mid point between soft and hard hits (seeing as they are an electronic drum’s virtual cymbals), but it’s mostly just a question of practice.
Speeding up the video by about 15% would produce the result I’m looking for here, as in a 3 minute 14 second playtime. Getting there, 1 bpm at a time :)
Once you’ve … I mean, eh… when they say it might and will charge you… uh… I, mm, think, perhaps, errh, is how maybe to say this, is that once you’ve seen a gold-pooping erotomaniac unicorn not only have you seen most, if not all, of them, hopefully, but you’ve probably seen enough to not believe in much of anything anymore and can’t wait, basically, long nor want for nothing less more or other than this hell to be over with so you can finally be dead.”
-actual quote from a totally not fictional satisfied Capicorn* customer.
Looking back at the younger years, the usual was having to think real hard about things to say at confession. Now, having unapologetically rejected the afterlife, in firm disbelief of deities and supernatural follies, I wouldn’t need long to recall, for example, the many harms I have wished upon seekers and havers of power, upon those who can afford greed, abusers and the hungry tools who idolize their authority. The things I would condone, the fates laughed at contemptuously, the so many other ways or directions in which I eh … might look… And I suppose I could confess some of those if recounting them would not fill me with such delightful and intense joy as to fervently want them seen reenacted or accomplished.
Not to mention no will to refrain from pursuing or engaging in them any further. No recognition of guilt or acknowledgement of it as being reprehensible behaviour of some kind or another: they’re just thoughts. I’m being honest about what I want here. You know how it goes about people and the things they want, right? Oh dear, curses so sweet to behold, as succulent as any dish, more satisfying than any pleasure the flesh could covet, of the taste to extinguish any and all other desires. And these aren’t even the things I’d do to them myself if ever given half the chance… but, let us not get into that for now.
Anyway, sometimes it’s just up to the timing, line things up correctly, at just the right price… and…
Bah, after all, what do I know I’m just an old fool, a poor old fool who hasn’t even managed to sell one single damn money shitting magic unicorn in almost a decade. Nothing to see here.
This one has been ready for a couple of weeks already, but I’ve been wanting to post two of them at once again. The last details of the next one however are proving quite tedious, so I’ve gone back to paper drawings and earlier drafts of different eh… specimens. After the initial digital phase things tend to get to be more of a grind, my next bout of motivation for that kind of thing should end me up with several more entries to the gallery.
In the meantime, I might roll back the next one I was intending to post here to a previous, simpler variation on the drawing, but more likely that I won’t though. Rather, I’ll just move its number down the list. #41 was going to have more colours, I had altered it to be balanced around 3 colours, but waiting and staring at it a lot I went for the lighter design instead. Read more details on that below the thumbnail, which you can click on for the full image, which is also up on the gallery page.
bleedleaf 