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Edible
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So it seems that my bi-weekly posts have inadvertantly become monthly posts. I’m going to try and push myself to write two a month, regardless of how little is going on.
Vietnam has basically returned to normal. I’m back to teaching in my language center and it wasn’t until this month that my company returned to paying its employees in full!
I was ecstatic to see my paycheck back in it’s original form! My desktop can’t come soon enough.
This lift in isolation has also permitted me to return to Hanoi so as to continue feasting on whatever I can get my grubby little paws on.
I stopped at yet another vegan spot a couple of days ago en-route to an Ableton Live mixer meet-up (which was pretty darn awesome)
Rice with fried mushrooms and “pork ribs”. The “bones” are actually made of coconut!
Nothing special unfortunately, but I can at least say I’ve crossed another vegan spot in Hanoi off my list!
Now, onto the Ableton Live Mixer. I showed up [coughlatecough] to a room filled with music producers! The goal - create a piece of music using nothing but the audio samples provided.
The amount of diversity was awe-inspiring. 90s techno, hard techno, trap/hip hop, melodic electronica, and then…
there was me.
Once the composition timelimit had been reached, everyone played their creation and went over their compositional process. I jotted down quite a few notes because there were two other Fruity Loopers present (woop). I plan to go again since they have a meeting each month.
Everyone that was present was pretty darn awesome.
I was the only female that created, though. I hope to see more next time!
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Arrangements
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I feel as thought I mentioned being ‘almost done with GIGABUSTER’s soundtrack’ for the past five months. I’m serious about it, though! I am.
PAST
All the cutscenes for GIGABUSTER have been drafted, mixed (1st pass), and recorded with final recordings!
I had been hired to create a guest track for an ADORABLE game! I got to expand on my tracker chops.
My music system project (I’m gonna call it MS) has slowly started taking shape with the development team. I’ll be contributing two tracks and I created a sketch of one theme. I took a break from developing the system because I was hitting a brick wall.
I finished my casual puzzle project! It was a breath of fresh air.
I worked on heavily drafting out my next personal project which, depending on how things go, may end up being a much bigger endeavor than I originally planned. I’m going to continue to stay silent on this one until I’ve finished wading through proper channels.
PRESENT
GIGABUSTER is rounding the bend. Right now, I’m waiting on the cutscene audio to be implemented so that Waller and I can make final decisions on pacing in-case I need to edit anything.
For MS, I have finally come back to figuring out a system. I have come up with ONE way to implement the music, but I’m not a fan. I don’t have too much time left to devote to figuring it out so I have to make it quick. As in, this month.
I’m finalizing the mixes for my casual puzzle pack soundtrack.
I’ll be finishing up my famitracker guest track this week!
I’ve been working on my next personal project and sending out the necessary emails to ensure this can actually be a thing. I really, really hope it can be a thing.
Nothing is final just yet, but I was contacted to help create pieces for what has the potential to be an EXTREMELY huge composition endeavor for an awesome project. Fingers crossed it goes through. I’ll consider it official when a contract has been signed.
I’ve been getting pieces back from my Journey to the Sun personal project. It’s giving me insight into how I could have made things easier for myself (in terms of creating pieces under a strict time constraint). Biggest lesson - hiring musicians is a must. I didn’t have that option at the time, but I can see how much of an improvement delegating tasks out would have made the quality of certain performances. THAT, or doing less, but many I’m no good at that.
FUTURE
I expect to have GIGABUSTER finished (i.e. ready to stream) by mid July. Once all the cutscenes check out, I’m mixin’, masterin’, and plasterin’. I can’t wait for players to experience GB in its entirety.
My goal is to have my casual pack mixed and ready to go by the end of June since there isn’t too much to be done. Once mixed, I should have it on the Unity asset story by mid-July.
The MS project has a development cycle of three months. My goal is to have an implementable music system by the end of June so that I can spend all of July recording, writing, and mixing stems to be used.
I have a timeline for my 3rd personal project, but I am wondering if it is doable. I think my expectations were a bit out of my ability. I’m going to have to rethink the timeframe. That aside, I hope to have the next piece done by the end of this month and the next piece started!
If things pan out the way I hope, I’ll be working on contributing 5 or 6 pieces to an extremely notable game in development right now. Again, I’m not trying to jinx anything, but the opportunity is there and I am excited about it.
RUMINATIONS
I’m a big fan of the Tony Robbin’s podcast. I recently listened to an interview he gave to Connor McGregor and Connor said something that intrigued me. He mentioned, after reading a book, that he started practicing speaking success into existence. Before long, those proclamations started to manifest in reality.
Nothing big. Just small beliefs that became true. Before long he was finding bigger conquests to vocally conquer as his own.
It sounds absurd, but I figured I’d try it out this year. I kept my desires simple:
This year, I’m going to get at least 2 gigs that are going to pay me my rate.
So far, I’m 1 for 2. If I get this big gig, I’ll be 2 and 2. If I DON’T get this gig for whatever reason, I still have 6 months to achieve this goal.
If I DON’T get a another rate-equalling gig by the end of the year I was STILL able to land a gig for the FIRST TIME at a rate that could make writing music full-time a possibility.
Either way, it’s a win-win and a step forward.
I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing - putting myself out there and creating work for myself where there is none with an added dose of speaking my desires into reality.
I think the biggest change I will make is to focus on creating work that generates revenue because I’m definitely not doing that. I’m currently working on projects that will generate revenue down the line, but not from a short-term goal perspective. I’ll do a better job of taking a page from Steven Mellin’s book.