This week I've gotten tremendously distracted experimenting with Hydra!
Hydra is a sister program to Strudel (the live coding platform I use for my live shows), designed specifically for video and visual effects. It's integrated into strudel too- so I can theoretically use the same code that runs my songs to control more complex visuals.
I've spent some time this week creating a project in hydra that reads from variables with the same names as those in my custom Strudel synth function. This new function is designed to function similarly to the visual tool I'm building in TouchDesigner that maps to the controls of my StudioLogic Sledge synth, via MIDI. There are lots of specific things I have done in this project that feel important to document/ that might be useful to other people/ projects in the future. The program, essentially, takes each note (1-12 tones) and maps them to a color swatch, then flashes that color on the screen using parameters from the synth's Amplitude or Cutoff envelope. This way, different pitches appear as different colors, and patterns in a melody or arpeggio will appear as a consistent visual pattern of colors, which looks great and feels natural. It also maps the brightness of the color to the synth's cutoff, so as the sound gets more intense, the light also becomes more intense.
A few months ago when I was working on my TouchDesigner project, I noticed that my color palette was behaving weirdly when certain notes triggered. Some colors were significantly brighter and more distracting than others. This happens because there is a natural inherent value differences between certain hues (most colors we perceive as yellow are quite bright, while most colors we perceive as purple are quite dark, etc...). Usually this is not a problem because different colors having different brightnesses is a natural visual phenomenon and it doesn't look strange to us. In my case, however, (where I want to control brightness very intentionally as a separate parameter conveying visual information) I needed a pallette that specifically compensates for these differences.
To do this, I used an LCH color tool like this one, designed specifically to help designers choose colors with consideration for lightness in mind. After a few iterations, I ended up with this palette of 12 swatches, equally distributed across the hue spectrum, and evenly matched on the value spectrum.
Below, each iteration of the pallet, I've converted it to gray-scale, to see how much variety there is in the value spectrum. The first one is just a selection of 12 equally distributed hues, with no value adjustments. The final one is the one with the most aggressive value-neutralization.
This is my final pallette, and it's been working remarkably well for me so far!
I've had no more inconsistent/ unexpected flashes, and the color spectrum is equally distributed for visual distinction. 👍 It may not look like much, but it's very useful for certain applications.
The RGB values for this pallete of colors, in the above order:
247, 144, 178
246, 149, 140
227, 161, 109
195, 175, 96
154, 186, 106
114, 194, 139
99, 197, 181
86, 203, 214
92, 196, 243
124, 172, 254
179, 149, 244
228, 137, 214
- Mar 20
My entry into Ludwig's Stream Music contest made it onto the stream! I'm so proud and excited to see something I worked hard on actually get noticed out of the 600+ entries <3 My video made it to the first round of the bracket of 32, but was not quite the right vibe for the contest- but I'm still very happy with this outcome!
I do wish the song were mixed a bit better... I continue to be humbled by how easy it is to make simple technical errors (I should have done more master compression for sure, the song was a bit quiet compared to everyone else...) I'm frankly a little embarrassed about some aspects of the mix and song- I know I can do much better, but this was a great experience to take on a new project in such a tight timeframe!
This was my first time really attempting to edit a video, too- which was a huge learning experience. I feel much more comfortable in the video editor now, though I recognize there is SO MUCH more to know about that world... I do feel like this experience led me to a possible template for how to present more of my live-set songs going forward (on YouTube, Instagram, etc...) It's no secret that I loathe social media, but I understand it is a necessary evil if you want to be a professional artist today. I feel like I have a much clearer idea of what my social media presence could look like in the future after seeing how well this project was received.
This has also been another valuable lesson in putting my work out there even when I'm not totally confident in it. I think that total confidence in my work will probably always elude me, but so far this year, putting unfinished things out there (in spite of my reservations) has been going really well! I feel like there is a bit more energy around me and my music than ever before! Which is very exciting!
This week I've been dabbling in Hydra (a Studel-like program for live abstract video/ texture rendering). I'm starting to see a lot of potential there- I hope to add it as another layer to the visuals of my live show soon! I still have a lot of work to do, but things are off to a promising start!
I also have a show coming up! April 4th at the Little Rose Tavern- I'm opening for The Village Bicycle! It should be a great time! <3
- Mar 13
This week I submitted a song I wrote for a little contest on Youtube! The streamer Ludwig asked fans to submit music for him to use as background tracks for streaming, so I busted my butt and made something that I thought would be usable in that context.
I feel good about the effort I put forward, and I think the track I worked on has merits for the specific use that it was intended for. I can't say I'm completely in love with the song, but perhaps that's to be expected.
This was one of the few times in the last few years that I actually sat down and wrote something that wasn't for/ about me specifically... Perhaps I never quite realized how much I rely on my own thoughts and feelings as a backboard for creative decision-making. Working on this song, sometimes it felt like there were a million options... and none of them were right... because there was nothing of substance on which the decision should be based?
Perhaps it's a bit dramatic to say nothing of substance... But I do feel that the goals for which decisions were made on this song were quite different, than the goals for which I usually am writing. Songwriting is, for me, a personal process of clarification a
nd discovery of initially vague feelings. The realizations about myself and my thoughts that come from working on the song lead me towards the musical decisions that I feel are interesting and give the song character. They are the things that make the song feel like it makes sense and follows some emotional logic. There is dialog between words and melody, between silence and noise, between energy and resolution... that feels like it has a purpose and says something that would be difficult to put succinctly in words... writing without that personal emotional compass was a real wakeup call!
I hope the song does well in the contest, and I think it would be cool if it wins something and gets noticed on the stream, but I don't have tremendously high hopes. There were a LOT of submissions, and many of them are quite good. It's unclear exactly when or how the judging will take place, but hopefully, sometime this week, there will be some kind of announcement.
This contest entry was also my first time properly editing a video- and I learned a lot from that experience! Challenging myself to put together a submission that was not just audio was definitely a learning experience, and I'm glad I did it. I think it elevates the song quite a bit to see it played live, and with Strudel accompaniment. I think Strudel is still a novel thing for a lot of people, and I feel good about the tools I've built in it that allow me to use it the way I do for live shows.
I've started posting a few more things to my more casual channel on youtube (Tommy Marn 2), and they've actually been getting some attention!
Speaking of Live shows! I have a live show coming up- April 4th! 7:00pm at the Little Rose Tavern in Cleveland OH! I will be opening for The Village Bicycle! I'm looking forward to it 😄 rehearsals have been going well and the live show is only getting smoother with every iteration! <3