Next weeks' plans

So here's the skinny;

• Need to finish and publish fourth album.
• Need to make at least one video clip and upload (two or three is better)
• Need to get going on lyrics and songs.

I think I may be going about this the wrong way. I've been so busy wrapping myself into circles that I've lost sight of the bigger picture. What I need to do is get cracking on production rates. I already know I can't do quality, so I have to go for quantity.

Still need to set myself up properly in order to get busy with music creation. Software that needs to be obtained / upgraded:

• Go Vista to Win7 for music box
• Get better editing software (Adobe Premiere Elements 8?)
• Get better music making software

So much to do, so little time to do it. No matter, so long as I am doing something, then I can only improve, Also, will probably want a book showing how to use said editing program as I want to take advantage of the features (such as transitions, effects and titles).

Songwriting for dummies - don't bother

In my feeble attempts at becoming a musician, I decided to start with the lowest easily accessible book, Songwriting for Dummies.

For those who are interested in getting this book, here's a summary of the information contained within this tome: write what you feel and make it good.

It's a pretty impressive effort on the part of the authors to pad out that short concept to over 300 pages and they manged to get my thirty dollars, so props to them. Still quite disappointed with that purchase though. This one page at SongLyricist.com provided more useful information.

Oh well, live and learn.

On other matters, I've now watched the dvd of Let the blood run free which I picked up off eBay (it's no longer available). It turns out that it's not the show that I thought it was but I still found it amusing. The humour is dated and it's very much hit-and-miss but it does have moments that made me laugh like a manic.

Not highly re-watchable but worth the $20 I dropped on it. Would I recommend it? You really have to be in the right frame of mind for it to be worth watching. It was made to look really low budget (a car chase scene is done with little toy cars on a scalectrix set) and a lot of it was improvised (it originated as a cabaret stage show) but not in the same way as Who's line is it anyway.

Oh yeah...

What I'd been posting about before...

I need to get my game face on. It's Friday already and so far I have not written or recorded any lyrics, now video recorded and composed no new music. I really need to lift my game and get busy.

On the plus side I have worked out two options:

1. Get a Mac - this would be around $1,500 for a basic, entry level model but would come with iLife and Garageband which would make things easier. 
2. Get Windows 7 ($130), Adobe Premiere Elements ($100) for editing, Fruity Loops ($160) for making music and a video camera ($300) and I can use my existing computer for around $700 and as a plus, still be able to use all my old software.

Not much of a choice really.

Now really frustrated

Gah!

I just had a long post all written up and ready to post and I went and deleted it! Noooo!

So far, ScribeFire has been like totally awesome. I've now done more updates on this blog in the last fortnight than I have in the entire rest of the year combined. But having a "undo" button would be reeaallly nice when one accidentally deletes a long post in progress. Or an auto-save.

Multi-flash setup?

Well, I've now got several flashes for the 300D (three actually). They're Yongnuo Speedlite YN460 flashes - basically a cheap knock-off of the Canon Speedlites (which cost several hundred dollars - each).

The idea is to be able to get light flashes onto the subject from different sides at the same time.

Obviously they are not going to be anywhere near as good as the proper Canon flashes, but I'll have to have a play with them to see if I can get some satisfactory results out of them. I tried it once with one of the flashes mounted on the hotshoe on the camera and the result wasn't very good.

In other news, the copy of "Let the blood run free" mentioned a few posts ago has come through which is quite nifty - very fast delivery and it wasn't even express - just regular mail. I'll pop it into the machine tomorrow and have a watch and see if it was worth the expense...

Also, I temporarily have the Kogan hi-def camera again for a few weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to produce another video clip or two in the next fortnight.

Watch this space!

Preparing for increased output

Well, I have been looking at different options that are available in order to increase my music and music video output.

Increasing video output is relatively easy. I had been comsidering the old "get a Mac" solution that everyone else has been suggesting. Since I don't have a Mac I figured I'd look into it (since that would mean that I'd have all systems - Windows, Linux and Mac).

But computers aren't like Pokemon.

The cheapest option would be a Mac Mini (which is just a box) and use the old keyboard, monitor, etc. However, even this "cheap" option is still $1,500.

On the other hand, I already have a reasonably powerful computer that is getting under-used. I could get Windows 7 (currently running Vista - yuk!), Adobe Premiere Elements 8 for video editing, Acid Pro for music and keep using a slab of software that I already have and have enough change left over to buy an entry level high-def camera.

Looks like Apple is going to lose out on this one. I've used Final Cut Pro on a G tower and it is indeed awesome, but I can buy a car for the same price.

However, the point is moot if I don't step up my music production. So I should probably get on top of that first!

New video Up!

Well, slowly getting things done.

My song Svelte now has a video on YouTube! That makes my second video clip, this time from my second album, Jump.

This one is more of an experiment than the first one was. For this one I was trying out a video camera that I picked up off eBay. It's one of those low-profile "sports" type cameras that you mount on the side of your helmet or motorbike or skateboard or w/ever to catch all your "extreme" sports moments.

The camera itself isn't too bad for a $30 camera - but the annoying thing is that it comes with a time/date stamp feature. The really annoying part is that not only was this feature not advertised, you can't turn it off either! Dang!!!

Oh well, guess if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. :(

It'll still come in useful for some specific shots, but I doubt I'll be using it much.