There was that lovely folk song from Wikiloops member “Arnosolo” which I downloaded a while ago. And first I worked on noise reduction of the track a bit, made a video about that, and messaged Arno. He allowed me to show that video (and contributed another and maybe even better one) – but before I did that I sat down and played on his track a bit, and uploaded that to the ‘loops. So here’s his lovely song, with me noodling (improvising) on it:
Oh, and the videos and the forum article about adaptive noise reduction are here, in case you’re interested.
As always, thanks for reading, and for listening. And if you’re a musician yourself, then please consider joining us at Wikiloops – it’s free, and it’s fun! 🙂
Yesterday I was some kind of productive at work – and during lunch break I even wiped my machine and installed the newly pushed OS which we should use starting January 1st 2020:
Linux@IBM desktop showing some private stuff
Of course I can’t show you any work-related things here, so I’ve made a screenshot of Firefox showing some private stuff on my new desktop which is now based upon RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 7.7. This comes with a Gnome3 desktop by default, so at least it looks almost like my Debian at home (not as pretty of course 😛 ).
All in all, a pleasant experience with lots less woes than I expected. And yes, it should run smoothly because for Linux this is the officially supported environment at work.
Edit: here’s another screenshot, showing a virtualized Win10 (with 16GB RAM and 2 CPUs) and some music I made with friends from Wikiloops:
Windows, Linux, and music – all at the same time 🙂
So let’s see how it will work. For the moment, my concerns are (almost) gone, and I can work. Not missing too much until now.
… a Coldplay cover for charity, and is met by the band. So sweet:
Coldplay surprise Jodie Whittaker as she records Yellow for charity album | BBC Trailers
Here’s the full song. Good that they didn’t use too much autotune on her voice, it’s all done very subtle. Also good that she didn’t lose her accent which we all love (really, we’re watching the originals on ONE (German TV) just because of that):
Yellow by Jodie Whittaker
Go to the ‘tubes, and give her a few thumbs up if you like. It’s all for charity…
As always, thanks for reading, watching, and listening.
This was with the kit zoom at ~26mm and at f/5.6 using a studio strobe. Processed with Olympus Workspace, Silver Efex, and RawTherapee. Heavily cropped from 4:3 to 2:3, then to 1:1, still big enough for screens and for the web (over 2000pixels wide).
One of many photos of our cat, this time taken for my ‘month of the kit zoom’ series, with a focal length of 17mm at f/4. Out of camera jpg with no post processing whatsoever applied. ‘Muted’ camera profile.
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Still my favourite model by far – she doesn’t pose, and nothing is in vain… 🙂
I had uploaded my bass to the track at about the same time as Bothen did with his drums, so I offered to mix them together – and that gave an interesting 3/4 from me, with a 4/4 played over it by him (Arno’s template had this polyrhythm feeling anyway).
I also made a video of this track in my DAW, together with the settings for my bass, so in case you’re interested, it’s here:
Wikiloops Collaboration #153856: I miss you (already)
My own version got some remixes by others as well, so here’s the version from my own album:
As always, thanks for reading, viewing, and/or listening 🙂 And thanks again to Bothen for including me on your wonderful album – I feel very honoured! 🙂
Olympus cameras have a cool feature which is WiFi – so you can not only put photos taken with your camera to your smartphone for fast distribution, you can also use that smartphone as a remote control (and display) for your camera. Which means that you can get shots without seeing through the viewfinder or on the rear display, and without being able to reach the shutter. Cool; this opens all sorts of possibilities (like for wildlife/birds for instance).
I just used that feature a few minutes ago to take a ‘selfie’ 😉
Cropped it to a 3:2 aspect ratio, and adjusted the curves just a bit. It’s not 100% sharp because I was only lit by my monitor, had the camera on f/4 at ISO200, so the resulting exposure time was 2 seconds…
You see me with my bass in front of my computer, and with Puccini’s ‘O mio babbino caro’ on the sheet in front of me. And yes, I’m learning to play that, so it’s no fake.
I have decided that this November should be my month of the kit zoom. Wanted to go a bit more to taking wide-angle photos, and although I have a very nice Panasonic Lumix 14mm/2.5 I’ll opt for the Olympus kit zoom instead which also offers other focal lengths up to 42mm – very convenient.
Of course it has maximum apertures of f/3.5 at the wide and f/5.6 at the long end, and November isn’t the brightest of all months, but I’ll see how I’ll get along. For inside, there’s always flash, right?
Here are some three shots (of my favourite model) using daylight only:
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Tuna the cat, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
Dust, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2019
First and last one are at 14mm (which is like 28mm on film), and the middle one at 42mm (like 84mm on film).
I’ll show you more after I took any. For now and as always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Update, in the evening:
Here are two more photos – or in fact it’s one photo taken with two different focal lengths (of the same kit zoom lens), 14mm and 35mm:
Notice how the cup seems to be kind of ‘flatter’ in the second photo, taken with the longer focal length? And how that flower vase seems to be coming closer to the cup as well? Well, you’ve just discovered the main characteristics of tele vs. wide angle perspectives, that’s the exact reasons for using one vs. the other.
Oh, and these two photos are the jpg files straight from my camera – no post-processing whatsoever.
First of course the original version from 1947, by Doris Day:
Doris Day singing No Moon At All
You like good bass players? Here’s a killer version, and my best guess for the bassist (the album’s Wikipedia page lists three) would be Christian McBride¹. But that piano and Diana Krall’s contralto are very nice as well:
Diana Krall – No Moon At All
Remember Alba Armengou? You probably should. And that band is as fantastic as always:
2018 No moon at all JOAN CHAMORRO PRESENTA ALBA ARMENGOU (feat. JOHN ALLRED)
Lovely song, three killer performances, hm? As always, thanks for reading.
¹Edit, from November 17th: someone who actually has this album corrected my guess about the bass player – it’s not Christian McBride in this one, but John Clayton. Wow. I knew he was great, but still – hats off, sir!
