Taking The Plunge
over 8 years ago – Tue, Apr 03, 2018 at 11:48:23 PM

I finally went and did it. I have resigned my day job as Chief Technology Officer of a software startup, and I'm going to try Living The Dream™. I'm going to try to live off music.

I'm just barely getting to the point where on music royalties, back catalog sales, Patreon tips, subs, and bits, and Kickstarters like these, I can eke out a very rough existence. Yes, it's going to be meager, but in exchange for accepting that low level of income, I'll be my own master, and be doing what I was really put on this earth to do, 24/7.

In the meantime, thank you for everything. The support of all my fans, but ESPECIALLY Patreon patrons and Kickstarter backers like you, is what is pushing me to take this harrowing plunge. It's going to be scary saying goodbye to my Chief Technology Officer salary and going back to eating ramen, but the fact that I have the opportunity to live off music at all is worth everything to me.

Part of why I'm sending this update is that you're going to see me working on a lot of music soon, and it's going to LOOK on the surface like "Why is he working on this instead Pieces". The trick is, of course, that by its nature, Pieces I can't stream myself working on, because every copy is private. I do all my work on Pieces offline with nobody else watching so that no plot points are given away. But I am also going to be VISIBLY working on other things too; that's how I feed my family now, beginning immediately. I wanted to make it clear before anybody sees me streaming "Music Composition" tonight and says "Why is he doing this instead of Pieces?" and the answer is, well, if it was Pieces, I couldn't stream it at all. I'm still doing Pieces just as much as before, though!!

Anyway, progress continues as per usual. Delivery estimates remain around what they were. I'm a little over half done with the whole "exporting 94 copies of 4-track albums where each track is 10+ minutes long" effort and things are continuing at an acceptable pace.

In the meantime, if you'd like to Put Food On My Family™, I do have a Patreon for my ongoing DJ work at patreon.com/spruke, but there's no pressure. As Kickstarter backers, you've already done more than enough.

Hello from the far side of ninety-four "Peaces"
over 8 years ago – Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 05:08:57 PM

Hello! This weekend, I completed ninety-four copies of "Peaces", the fourth track from Pieces.

Since I've also finished ninety-four copies of "Paces", that puts me squarely at the 50% completion mark of the "Music Rendering" for this Kickstarter.

What's still left to go? Ninety-four "Pisces" and ninety-four "Passes".

This brings me to a crossroads. Each of those two tracks is missing one storytelling Piece, and I don't like my odds of getting either back soon. I've learned so far on Pieces, corralling fifty collaborators, that telling a distributed story ninety-four times is a challenge I was prepared for, but project management is the real challenge.

I'm going to rearrange "Pisces" and "Passes" to swap one passage so that one of them is ready to go and I can start rendering it, thus putting the onus of missing two storytelling pieces all into a single track, and buying me one more month to wait for those to come in.

I'll stay in touch as I render ninety-four copies of the next track... next time you hear from me, the unique copies of the albums will be 75% done!

"Paces" complete, 94 copies in the books
over 8 years ago – Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 11:36:15 PM

Woot! I'm writing to you from the far side of recording track 1, "Paces", ninety-four times.

It's ten and a half minutes long, and I have to be at my PC listening as every distinct copy is exported, for QA purposes (sometimes the random storytelling makes bad decisions or the algorithmic music generation creates ugly music, in which case I cancel the render and start over). That's nearly 15 hours already put in listening to this track over and over again.

I've listened to so much Roland Cash Live (the fictitious far-right AM talk radio host, voiced by Kris Straub, that the radio simulator occasionally tunes to the station of) that he's started to feel real to me. I almost called in to his show to complain at one point before I remembered that he's a fictitious character that I created. Distributed storytelling is funny like that, I'm learning. It warps my sense of reality in a way that's really satisfying, validates me that I am doing a decent job of creating an alternate universe.

Anyway, they're backed up off site and waiting to be packaged into 94 complete copies once "Pisces", "Passes", and "Peaces" are completed. Render number #59 will be your canon copy.

Project Management Update

Making my happiest predictions come true, in the week it took me to record ninety-four "Paces", I received another Piece back, this time, the one that was blocking me on "Peaces". I now only have two outstanding Pieces left. I'm going to begin recording ninety-four distinct copies of "Peaces" (the fourth track) while I wait for the last two outstanding Pieces to come in.

Unblocked! Production begins on "Paces"
over 8 years ago – Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 10:26:19 PM

Hey, loyal and patient piecer-togethers of Pieces! This is the update I've been waiting to send. I am down to just three Pieces of the over fifty that go into this album left outstanding, because yesterday I received back the Piece that was blocking me from beginning production on "Paces".

I now have 100% of the material I need to create ninety-three unique copies of the track "Paces".

Upon the conclusion of me generating ninety-three copies, I will be selecting the copy that best combines musical artistry with uh, je ne sais qua, "gives away the least overall story while randomly including the most tantalizing pieces of exhibition", and making that the canon copy.

I am still blocked on completing "Peaces", "Passes", and "Pisces" by one outstanding Piece each, but, that no longer worries me because I have something to occupy me for the next three weeks, and I bet another one of those outstanding Pieces will arrive in that timeframe.

Next time we talk, perhaps I will have a completed canon copy of "Paces" to share!

Project Management Update
over 8 years ago – Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 09:42:12 PM

But first, some art.

Today's post-apocalyptic art Piece comes to us from Mijoro Teddy Razafindrazaha.

 Gorgeous!

The Grind To Get The Last Few "Pieces" In

I've got everything musically set up and ready to go on my end, but the nature of the project is such that I can't start production on each of the four tracks until each has all of its own Storytelling pieces back.

Since my last update, I have received one of the five remaining at-large Pieces. There are only four left I am waiting on. I am in contact with their owners and working to make deadlines. Of those four, one is due to arrive in the next week. That should let me begin production on "Paces". In the event it doesn't arrive, I am considering rearranging the order of storytelling so that I can move all the completed, received Pieces into the same tracks and move all the late-running, unreceived Pieces into the same track. It is important to me to not wait much longer to begin production.

I will be sending further updates as Pieces arrive and definitely once production kicks in.