Summing up 2011

Since it is the end of the year, I thought taking a look in the rear view mirror might be in order. This year has in many ways been my "coming out" year. I started making videos for YouTube. I got a domain name, and set up a web site (which still needs a lot of work). I simply took a leap that I've been wanting to take for some time. Let's have a look:

January: My son Alfred was born. Damn this was cool. Easily the coolest thing I've ever experienced. He has leveled up incredibly fast during his first year.

February - June: During this period I mainly adjusted to being a parent.

July: I put up my first chip tunes on YouTube and got some nice comments. Then I decided to start making tutorials, something I've wanted to try for a long time. The subject was to be MilkyTracker, the program I used to make my chip tunes.

August: A month of mainly songs, and not so much tutorials. This was due to me being away for work.

October: My music production starts to stagnate a bit. This due to a lot of school work. What ever I produce for YouTube is mainly focused on the tutorials.

November: I launch my website, multi8it.com. I make another part of the tutorial series.

December: Dry month.

Now, for the main purpose of this post; what can I learn from this? Well, first of all, this stuff takes time, more time than I have. Maybe I need to review my work flow. I do want to put a lot of time into the video editing, as I think that  gives my tutorials their flavor, but if keeping the current work flow means that nothing gets done, then I need to look things over. At the moment my work flow looks roughly as follows;

1. Script writing.
2. Record audio.
3. Record video.
4. Mix them together and add transitions.
5. Export and upload.

The big time consumers are 2, 3 and 4, but I feel they need the work, or else they won't get that multi8it feeling I'm aiming for. I also want to create more music, partly because that's how I learn what to teach, and also, it's a really nice form of letting your creative steam off.

All in all it's been a great year, especially with all the nice comments I've gotten on my YouTube channels. On of the best things was when I got my first (and so far only) comment on this blog. I've never gotten any blog comments before, and commenting is generally a hassle for the reader, at least that's how I think about it. It feels good that someone actually found the reading engaging enough to give feedback.

For the upcoming year I really hope the multi8it project will continue to grow. Once the MilkyTracker tutorials are done I will be looking for other programs to write tutorials for. I also hope to produce some kind of E-book with the best stuff from the video tutorials.

To all the people that followed me, commented and (hopefully) enjoyed the multi8it project so far; I wish you all the best. Without you, this effort would be pointless.

See ya!

Christmas reading

1: When I first set out to record my MilkyTracker tutorials I had no idea that I would get the feedback that I've gotten. It's awesome! It shows that there really is a need for them. This is the reason why it pains me so to not be able to put the videos up there as often as I'd like. As of writing this article it's roughly one month since the last episode, and that is NOT ok. Life's a bitch sometimes, and lately life has been pretty bitchy.

2: The reason I myself got into MilkyTracker was that I wanted an open source method of composing chiptunes, and MilkyTracker proved to be "it".

3: The reason I wanted an open source alternative is that I'm a Linux (an alternative to Windows and Mac OS) person. The linux movement is in my view a great means of bringing immensely powerful tools to those who can't afford expensive hard/software (such as ProTools/Logic/Cubase and Apple computers, which seem to be music industry standards). Music is a method of expression not a method of expressing who's got the bigger wallet.

Where am I going with this? Well, if this is something you would be interested in, I would strongly recommend you check it out. Linux comes in many flavors (called distributions) geared toward the users needs. Good beginner distros (short for distributions) are in my opinion Ubuntu and Linux Mint. If you decide to go Linux, I strongly suggest you try it out as a Live CD (running directly from a CD/DVD) first, as you might screw up your Windows installation beyond restoration. There is, however, the option to install both Linux and Windows and choose which one you want to use when you start the computer (this is called dual-booting). This is how I moved over to Linux.

But where am I going with this? Well, when you're starting to get comfortable in Linux, you might want to explore the command line a bit. This might seem a daunting task at first, but I highly recommend it! You'll learn the ins and outs of the operating system, perform tedious tasks MUCH quicker, all this while looking awesomly super matrix hacker cool! What more can one ask?

Some time ago, while learning command line stuff, I blogged a bit about it to document my learning. I tried to keep it in a tutorial format, and that's the point of this post. If I can't make any more videos in a while, I can at least share this blog with you in the hopes that you find it useful.

The blog: http://r3dpill.wordpress.com/
Intro to BASH (command line): http://r3dpill.wordpress.com/article-series/
Some Slackware tips (Slackware is another distro, not as beginner friendly as Ubuntu or Linux Mint though): http://r3dpill.wordpress.com/getting-some-slack/

Now for some feedback:
I got my first ever blog comment on my last post. Thanks franko! He (I'm assuming here) came with some tips on hard-annotations on the videos which I will consider. Also, he asked that I make the tutorials so that you can hear the sounds as I make them. This is a problem I've been aware of. MilkyTracker doesn't want to play nice and share the sound device with other programs, therefore I've had troubles recording the sound. I'm looking into it though, as I wholeheartedly agree with him. It would make for better videos.


Enjoy!