Happy Pico Day y'all! :)
It's that special NG occasion on which we celebrate all the greatness and creation that one site has given us over the years.
If you want to read up on the history behind this event you can do so here.
I collabed on a track for it this year with @Aalasteir. Aw yeah(r)!
...and what a weekend it's been! Been out in the wild with good buddy Andreas for a couple days, and just minutes before he arrived we were troubleshooting a new payment module at work, two days + one early morning overtime and... it's not done yet. TBC tomorrow morning. But I jumped off just in time to go greet my good friend and go walk like crazy in a new windy winter wonterland that just melted away. Lasted his stay.
Oddly enough I think I managed to properly disconnect from work for this one weekend though, despite inconclusive end, we had some fun times.
Not like old times, but new times aren't bad either!
On the blog I've tweaked up the smiley set a bit. Switched up the order and added in a couple new ones for variety - may change further further on.
There is a bundle that you don't get in that comment bar though! If you ever feel like using some of the alternative ones you may be able to guess the shortcodes by the icon names...
That's roughly 30% of 'em. Maybe you'll stumble upon some others in time. ;) Been a while since the last change here so it seems a good time.
Some have multiple alternative shortcodes for ease of use too.
I totally messed up the emoticon selection script when I was working with this and kept getting a critical error when trying to fix it though. Eventually I went back to the source and remade it from scratch, and realized that if you try to change the version number on a plugin directly via a plugin file... maybe that causes an error?
Maybe some built-in firewall causes some error then? Maybe WP has built-in plugin-tampering prevention protection these days? Not sure why it kept causing the critical error but whatever the reason it seems to have been the version number for the plugin.
Moral of the story: Don't change version numbers if you don't need to.
I've also adjusted search results to just show posts - for now - since some pages clog up results. Might find a better solution for this later on.
And since I'm going with daily reviews this year I've taken those off the main blog to keep down clutter, you'll find the link on the menu above.
Posted some new duplicate reviews too, and here's a remix on one of my acapellas courtesy of CmD! Check him out here.
That's all y'all. See you in a bit. Östersund Sunday coming up next...
I've got a new mixtape out y'all! (Hope I'm not abusing the CAPS there ^.)
True to tradition it's mastered by Nick AKA @Jabun of Jabun Audio, is a recalibration and mastering of all my Inktober work of 2020, is available for free both here, and on YT NG and shortly - in limited dosage - on SC.
I only upload a limited selection there since they have a cap on your upload time with free accounts, and I don't want to exhaust mine yet. Hopefully there are still a few more of these tapes waiting down the road to save room for, not least the last year material one...
It's a bit belated this one. I was hoping to have this out before the New Year, but with work schedules and covid and all intervening - and when I was finally better Nick was sick - it so came to be it came out this year instead. Hopefully we'll get started on the next one earlier.
But for now rejoice! Feast your ears here on this here veneered share.
In total time of cleaning, mixing, mastering, revising and in other ways managing these files there's probably at least a solid thousand hours of prep time in the pipeline on this one. So you know, I'm pretty proud. :)
I've no idea how much time goes into the average album but I imagine it's less. I imagine professional musicians make less of a mess with their recordings. I imagine they don't mix and publish and then remix and master in two individual sessions - a year apart - or spend quite as much time double-checking ISRC codes, or composing copious amount of off-looking cover mock-up's before they settle on a better one, but that's something for another post - gotta showcase some of those too.
What matters now is this is OUT, and I am joyous, and happy, and I thank you @Jabun for all the hard work you put into making this the wholesome, beautiful, audial Inktober adventure it has thus now finally become.
You can download it for free here too. Share away if you like!
And compare the grand finale track I posted at the end of last year's Inktober post (commemorating both the last mixtape release and another month of Inktober done well - the month that's now being released in full and more flawless form here above) with the brand new here below:
Old and new, in that order. Can you hear the difference, can you? ;)
Have a great day y'all! It's a grand new FULL INKTOBER MIXTAPE for me and the masses, and with that I bid you adieu. Whoop!
Ciao soon.
Hold up! Before I delve into a long-winded and long overdue recollection and ramble on the potential crops of labor this my second year of audial Inktober may have produced, let me first give you this.
It may not be all instrumental, it may not be all metal (maybe not at all metal?), but for me at least it is somewhat monumental! And maybe momentarily a little mental - but I meant all that I sent y'all.
INK 19 is all of last year's daily material in mixtape form, with thorough additional mixing and mastering by the one and only @Jabun! Starring @S3C, @HOTSTUFFDX, @Father-of-Death, @JamesHeart, @Jabun here too, @littlbox and WyteNoiz on occasional instrumentals/beats/boxes, and a few exclusive leftover bits from way back when. Everything's fully revisited; balanced; hopefully as good as recording quality allows it to be.
You can listen to the full thing here on NG, on my site, or download the full pack with individual tracks right here.
Share if you like! Enjoy, and go check out @Jabun's solo material too if you haven't already - or his showreel if you need a master master!
Now over to that long overdue; by now old and fruity Inktober rant:
Inktober turned out awesome this year. Wasn't sure it'd match up to last, but how wrong was I? It all comes back to you, and then some.
I started with a lot of resistance, but as Steven Pressfield says you just gotta learn to overcome that systemically to stay creative; keep pushing yourself and make new things. The War of Art. Thanks @BenTibbetts for that great random (to me at the time - very thought-out otherwise) reading recommendation a few years back!
I ended up collabing with NG peeps on more than half of the daily recordings this year, of which at least 3-4 were pretty elaborate. @ninjamuffin99 and @killerRATband handled the mixes on theirs for appreciatively different flavors, but everything else is yours truly. For now. Potential reinterpretations and improvements on a few of the better ones may be on route, like this just recently. And this a while earlier - that one's been a looong time coming now!
Hope to do even more next year. Collabs I mean. Collabs every day? Is that possible? Without planning ahead too much and thus entirely bypassing the very essence of what Inktober is meant to be?
I felt like I burnt myself out enough with what I did this year, but then again I felt the same way last year and that amounted to just half as much, and nothing after, with shorter acapellas too on most days with no collabs. It feels like you realize when you push yourself that you're capable of so much more than you think.
It's an inspiring feeling; something only this particular challenge has truly brought forth in me for the past two years now. So maybe I need to push myself even further to truly greet that greatness I desire to aspire?
You learn to handle stress better too. You grow efficient by necessity. You effectivize your workflow in ways you never knew you needed to until you just don't have the time to do things the hard way, like how I just recently learned how much more efficient the envelope tool in Audacity might be at consistently adjusting the flow of the sound instead of manually amplifying individual bits up and down (thanks for that one @Jabun). And compression. I need to use that. Probably. And panning. Production game be stepping. Up!
So I'm definitely getting back to this 2021! No matter how much resistance I might feel for it at that particular point in time. And hopefully I won't have that familiar phase before then where I drop these creative pursuits entirely; need to warm up to the idea of it all over again. It's all too easy to get into a rut. To get comfortable. To let that spark diminish. Don't let it!
Lemme know if y'all want to collab again next year! Or whenever. I'm down now. Life's looking up. Days are busy but awesome. And here you go again, don't miss that mixtape! Revised somewhat by me with additional mixing and mastering by the one and only y'allreadyknow @Jabun!
We've been going back and forth on this the past month now, and though the original recordings are far from best source quality (I'll blame those daily deadlines and frequent lack of time overall but should probably be blaming my recording/production ethics) I'm really happy with how this turned out! Going to be playing it on every drive to work for a while now; rap along with myself. Good practice; efficient jam sessions; suitable methods of keeping you awake and stimulated whilst on those dark and wet wintery roads that just started getting brighter again! This time's the time it all turns.
This really turned into a rant, or maybe more so a causerie of observations and experiences regarding this particular yearly event. Also read up on the controversy surrounding the Inktober name back when I wrote the above. It's trademarked. Though with non-profit things it should be no problem, so I guess I'll keep using it anyway since I've done so thus far! Until a better name comes along.
TLDR (but do read anyway cause you do get better at longer reading the longer you read long writing): I had a blast this year and I think I might've improved a little since last! I'll let this play in conclusion:
Was going to list some favorites but I can't just choose a few now. Here's a playlist for this year and last and again last year all properly mixed and mastered and possibly with a little more material than the original and this link's local but go check out the NG version above too.
Thanks again @Jabun on that mastering magic on the mix! :) Happy this came to fruition, and happy with this year too! All in time to have a listen as we unwind and greet the new.
Toodles.