Eric Klug Unboxing
over 8 years ago – Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 12:40:49 PM

Yesterday, I received Eric Klug's Piece in the mail. As the most premium of all the art Pieces, as well as one of the only ones to be done in a physical rather than digital medium, I felt it deserved an unboxing video.

Watch this and marvel along with me as I observe it for the first time.

 I was wrong about the medium in the video; I guessed it was pencil, but it is actually acrylic.

Project Management Update

I have completed writing all the music for all four tracks: "Paces", "Pisces", "Passes", and "Peaces", each roughly 10 minutes long. They are ready to go and are sitting, waiting for the remaining outstanding storytelling Pieces to arrive so that those Pieces can be slotted into the places I have set aside for them and then I can begin exporting renders.

This is the hardest part, is the waiting. It is natural that on a project with over fifty total collaborators that there would be a dozen who are very busy and need more time to get their work back to me. But that's the nature of such a beast; this is the most ambitious thing I've ever done. For the time being, none of them are blocked on me and I've got all my ducks in a row.

In particular, once I receive back the final two Album Within An Album tracks, which are both expected this month, I can begin production on "Paces". "Peaces" should be second up to bat as it's waiting on the next fewest number of outstanding Pieces other than Paces.

New Art & Project Management Update
over 8 years ago – Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 05:02:05 PM

New Art

Today's Piece comes to you from Cosmin Radu.

Recovery From Data Loss

I'm not letting the fact that I lost some work due to corrupt files get me down. (Ron Howard Narration Voice: "He did, in fact, let it get him down somewhat.") In all seriousness, though, I'm simply doing what's necessary and recreating the lost work. I have already completely recreated up through the end of what I lost in Paces and Pisces, and in Pisces, some of it is better than before. All that remains to recreate is Passes, then I can continue moving forward on new composition rather than retreading my steps on recreating the lost work. (On Peaces, I didn't lose anything.)

I will be streaming music composition on and off throughout the weekend because I am feeling creatively robust right now. Be sure to follow me on twitch.tv/spruke and enable go-live notifications if you wish to get a ping whenever I start a stream; I expect to stream multiple times this weekend as I continue composing nondeterministic music.

Project Management Update

Fourteen storytelling Pieces have been received. Five are outstanding, two of which are blocked on me.

Nine Album Within An Album Pieces have been received and only three are outstanding, and expected very soon. None are blocked on me.

Nineteen pieces of art have been received and I don't know how many more are outstanding; I do know that Art Director Jeff Good is on top of it and that we aren't done yet. We may finish at near twenty-five arts. I'm looking forward to the art book; as you've all seen, it will be gorgeous.

Here is what is standing between me and starting to crank on the high-intensity part of the project, which is recording a canon copy and then 91 unique copies. "Paces" is finished and also has, amongst its storytelling Pieces, four out of four RECEIVED Pieces. However, the radio isn't full up yet because the Radio is still waiting on two more "songs", the three remaining album within an album tracks. Once I have the three remaining album within an album tracks, I have everything I need to record 92 copies of "Paces", complete with storytelling and radio, and I can do that while continuing to write music for the other tracks. The latest of these three tracks is expected by February 14th, so in my internal project management calendar, that is the absolute latest I expect to begin production of exported, finished music.

I also have "Passes" fully made out of RECEIVED Pieces, however, it isn't complete musically yet. It stands at about six minutes of music but every track is supposed to be roughly ten minutes long. Once I have written four more minutes of generative music for "Passes", I can record 92 copies of Passes.

"Pisces" is 8.5 minutes done but is waiting on two storytelling Pieces to come back and so needs two more minutes of music written and then for those two Pieces to come back. 

"Peaces" is 5 and a half minutes done and is waiting on three storytelling Pieces that I don't have yet, so that will probably the last track that I get down to recording 92 copies of.

Thanks, everybody, for your time and for supporting Pieces. I hope this has been an informative update and that you all feel you are adequately appraised of the state of the project as well as how hard I am working on it. If anybody has further questions about the status of the project or expected timelines, I am of course available to answer.

New art, SONAR ceasing operations, data loss, & stream tonight
over 8 years ago – Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 10:24:21 AM

New art has arrived! Today's Piece is by László Ede.

Other Pieces Received Recently

Pieces have arrived from Sydette, Brina, Kris, Daniel, and many other collaborators. Great to know that the Project Management side of Pieces is moving along well.

Sonar Ceasing Operations

Here is a heartfelt eulogy in the middle of this update. As I was configuring my new PC, I went to download all my music production software I've bought over the years, to recreate my music building environment, and imagine my shock when I saw on the front page of Sonar's website that Cakewalk Inc. is ceasing operations and ending future development on Sonar.

I honestly took a little while to process it. My father, Geoff, bought me Cakewalk Professional 8 when I was 11 years old to encourage his son's budding interest in music production. Since then, I have purchased 11 different versions of their software through the years: Cakewalk 8, Sonar 1, 2, 5, 6, 6.5, Project5, Sonar X1, X2, X3, and Sonar Platinum, and learned them all inside and out. I feel like a graphic designer who just heard that Photoshop published its last version ever, if that makes sense.

I spoke that software like a language and could play it like its own instrument. People who have watched me effortlessly produce in Sonar tell me that I swim through it like a fish in water, and I have used it for 23 years, so I suddenly feel like I just heard an old friend has terminal illness. The software isn't going anywhere, it's just never going to be improved again and one day it's going to die, so I just wanted to take the opportunity and say thank you for all the music you helped me make over the years, Sonar.

At the time that I transferred my music production library from the old PC to the new this most recent weekend, I had generated over 10,000 tracks in Sonar, for more than 280 gigabytes of music that software helped me make. Thanks for 23 years, Sonar. I'll keep using you for now, but I know now one day I'm going to have to learn a different production software.

Data Loss

I just finished building a new PC with more powerful CPUs that have the firepower to actually export these Renders without multiple stops and restarts, as well as be powerful enough to render music while streaming. Unfortunately, in the process of transferring my work from my old computer to my new, I discovered a few of the Sonar files were corrupt. I went back to the old computer to retrieve them and discovered they were corrupt there as well... as well as on my backup. I'm quite annoyed, as I had a robust offsite backup solution to help prevent scenarios like this, but there's nothing that can be done.

I lost no work on Peaces, thankfully. I lost the hip-hop portion of Paces, most of the infrastructure for Pisces (which I can live with, as I know exactly how to recreate it), and the theremin, guitar, and bass riffs from Passes (which does break my heart, as there's nothing to be done but rerecord them). I can't let this get me down and there is nothing to do but just put in the extra hours recreating the work.

Stream Tonight

The silver lining on this cloud is it provides a few robust opportunities to stream. I suddenly have a PC that handle very complicated music projects while streaming simultaneously, and I have some rote work to do that will be interesting to watch. (No having to watch me troubleshoot! I'll know exactly what I'll be doing, lol.)

Since I lost the hip-hop portion of Paces, the first track, my job for tonight is to recreate the hip hop segment of Paces with Taurus Savant's vocals. This pleases me anyway, since I never had a chance to show it off the first time around that I made it.

Tune in to twitch.tv/spruke beginning at 6pm tonight to watch me recreate the hip-hop segment of Paces, which y'all never got to see how it works and how cool it is.

New Art Piece! Deepak Kumar Singh
over 8 years ago – Fri, Jan 05, 2018 at 05:00:48 PM

Deepak Kumar Singh

A new art piece has arrived on my desk from Art Director Jeff Good.

 Progress Update

Since I last provided updates on the completion percentage of every track:

• "Paces": 100%.
• "Pisces": 80%.
• "Passes": 50%.
• "Peaces": 50%. (A big jump up from the previous 20%)

Progress is slow but deliberate, especially on "Passes", which is proving to be the trickiest nut of them to crack; what I am trying to do with it is difficult, and as the track that is the most focused around nondeterministic rock, it requires a great deal of technical exactness. Meanwhile, progress has been very nice on "Peaces", which is focused around true ambience, drones; those are very straightforward for me to make, in the context of this project, and I am finding that track easy to work on.

I'm still working with several collaborators on working to get their Pieces back, too, but everybody's in good shape, and in a few cases it's me and my writing that is the holdup, not their performances. I feel like the bottleneck in this case, but, that's okay. Day job and DJing are both in manageable shape and it's cold AF outside in Buffalo so I don't have much to be doing besides writing, so there should be progress on those fronts soon.

New art piece has arrived! "Fornal"
over 8 years ago – Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 02:48:39 PM

Imagine my delight when I received a message from Art Director Jeff Good that the pieces are beginning to come back in from the second wave of art orders. (The first wave was paid for ahead of time to create all the assets you've seen so far. As soon as the Kickstarter funded, I set aside several thousand dollars for Jeff to go back to the art mill and order us twice as much.) These new pieces are beginning to trickle in, so let's have a look!

Today's new Piece comes from an artist who simply wishes to be credited as "Fornal".

In other news, progress on the album continues steadily, and I've received some exciting audio Pieces back— particularly Kris Straub's Piece, which is very exciting. Kris plays a conservative talk radio host who goes on a invective tirade against the state of the world, hawks products, and fields callers. On unique copies of Pieces, the radio will occasionally tune away from music to his incredibly well-executed rant. Just like a real AM radio!

More updates to arrive as more art arrives!