Something Unreal

I tried to remake this thrash metal track originally made by my brother, as a MIDI for the Roland Sound Canvas synth! …Then, I realised that he still hasn’t uploaded it himself yet. Maybe I’ll have to poke him to do that so you can hear what my sucky attempt at recreating the guitar solo was supposed to sound like. It also has screaming vocals, but yeah, that’s not going to happen in a MIDI file.

[Watch in HD]

I got to try something I’ve never done before – a “compressed” effect on the percussion to make it sound more powerful, by turning down the cymbals when the kick and other bassy percussion plays. Because all those curves spam up the view of control changes at the bottom of the screen, I hid those ones at times in this video.

My brother’s music channel is here. He was kind enough to give me access to the individual layers in his track, so I didn’t have to struggle to hear notes hidden underneath other notes, which is what I normally have to struggle with when making MIDIs. He even gave me the original drum MIDI track, but that meant I had to set up my own user drum kit for the SC-88Pro that was compatible with the drums software he uses. The fact that the synth only has 2 discrete overdrive channels means that it sounds a little awkward during the transitions to/from the guitar solo. Plus, solos are always hard to transcribe anyway.

All in all, it was a fun challenge! I ended up only using 8 MIDI channels (3 for percussion), which is the least ever in a MIDI I’ve made for this synth. I usually end up using at least 15 out of 16. As for the video itself, there are several fails because my old laptop died and I’ve clearly not got stuff set up correctly on my new one yet.

(Thanks very much for the project files, bro! I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have even attempted the solo without them.)

I got a new lens for my Lumix G3 camera. Its aperture can open as far as F1.7, so I wanted to try it out in the dark. However, driving was a stupid idea as the lens doesn’t have optical image stabilisation to reduce the shaking thanks to the well-maintained British roads. I tried to reduce shaking a bit in software afterwards, but it’s more distracting than helpful (I should build some kind of stabilising rig). After 02:45, there’s no software shake reduction. I was focussing manually throughout the video, which isn’t easy at F1.7 as the depth of field is so shallow.

[Watch in HD]

Colours are also corrected in editing. At 00:39, I attached a UV filter, which unintentionally added lots of flares from bright lights. I thought they looked nice at the time, but I got annoyed with them after re-watching the video for the 5th time.

My brother was driving, playing some music of his. You can find the music he’s made here. This particular track is “Remember This“.

This is how I am when I want to record a video but don’t know what to record. I decided to take a look at a few random objects in my room. Some day, maybe I’ll record a proper video of this (as if anyone would be interested).

By the way, if you’ve ever wondered why my programs are rubbish, it’s because this is the person who makes them.

[Watch in HD]

Steeeven1 (my brother) is working on a new metal song (as always), and he decided to let me record a bit to show how he does what he does (I suggested a few things too). =D

[Watch in HD]

This was a sort of behind-the-scenes and preview video, because the song was not yet finished. It’s called “Arcadia”, and is up on his channel, here.

My brother has recently made a new YouTube channel where he is uploading vlogs and other random, humorous videos. So from now on, if I find them amusing/interesting, I’ll post them here, too. =) (The first 3 have my nastiness in them, anyway…)

Here are the first few (all so far) – they’re to do with us being on holiday. Yes, I’m on holiday with my family this week, for the first time in years!

(Watch at YouTube)

(Watch at YouTube)

(Watch at YouTube)

(Watch at YouTube)

An attempt at remaking the Alstroemeria Records remix of “Bad Apple!!”, the stage 3 theme from Touhou 04: Lotus Land Story. It took about 8 days in total. I added a lot of improvisation during the main “chorus” part. Major thanks to my brother (Steeeven1 on YouTube) for playing the guitar part, and going from never having heard it before, learning it, and having it recorded in less than 2 hours.

[Watch in HD]

The looping backing part which I played on the keyboard is seriously annoying to play, so I put some lights on to annoy everyone else. …No, not really. I just thought they livened things up a bit. xD

This is a birthday present to someone who finds the original version of “Bad Apple!!” awesome. I hope this can live up to that…

High-quality MP3 is here, and link to the video on Niconico Douga for those who want to leave scrolling comments is here.

TECHNICAL RUBBISH: (more…)

Here’s a preview for a compilation video which my brother is intending to make at the end of this month, containing the best sunsets he’s able to record in time-lapse. I thought it was pretty cool, and deserves more views than it’s getting, so I’m posting it here in the hope that more people will see it.

[Watch in HQ]

My brother and I are one of the many who don’t like the fact that we’re being forced into changing the design of our channels. Instead of (as our way of?) joining in with the futile protests, we opted for making a video. We decided to keep it light-hearted, though.

Hooray for sarcasm overload.

[Watch in HD]

Please try to ignore the several glaring inconsitencies throughout. orz

On another note, I’ve finally switched from the dreadfully slow, unstable and incompatible Premiere for editing my videos, and I think it shows. I was able to spend more time editing and less time waiting for / restarting the program. The name of the program I now use, along with the rest of the credits, is at the end of the video.

I was more than a little nervous uploading this, truth be told, for fear of it being removed and them marking my channel as forever being a “bad” one. But I uploaded it anyway, hoping that a company as big as YouTube wouldn’t sink to those standards, and might even take a hint at what its customers like.

Recorded several months ago, this was the first ever time my brother’s R/C plane went into the air, even though it was only for a short time. Since he has no other recordings of his flights as of yet, I got his permission to just upload this. Complete with some random speech at the end.

I apologise for the cut-outs in the audio – my camcorder is currently not able to read tapes very well because its head needs demagnetising.

The engine is a Thunder Tiger GP42. The plane ‘body’ is a WOT Trainer (I’m not sure of the exact model, or of any other details – I’ll ask him as soon as I can and edit this post).

Since I haven’t posted anything for a while, and since this is appropriate for the time of year, here’s a little something my bro just made after me giving him the MP3 literally only a few hours ago.

Please visit the YouTube page here to comment, instead of commenting here, since it is his video after all.