Night Cafe
Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioIt's 20 minutes after midnight, so only technically Thursday, August 3rd right now, but I've got some stuff to write about before I get to bed.
I've been talking a lot about financial matters, because it's the start of the month, but as you may know, right before July ended, I was working on... essentially re-releasing my four old albums on SoundCloud.
And you may also know that in the process of working on that, I'd discovered that... there's still a lot I never properly understood about how Soundcloud works!
The reason I'm, "grand re-opening" my four old albums is because I now have a functional studio again, and have released a brand new track that's gotten more plays than anything before it.
I thus, plan to produce a whole new album in the coming year, and want it to appear in the context of the previous four... for those who like the music... because they may like the old stuff too.
--<>--
Okay so, that new song, Closer to You is currently in the spotlight, and I just went to look at it and... suddenly it says it only has seven plays!
What???
I know it was just over 100 plays last week, so what gives?
Long story short, what I learned is that SoundCloud is not consistent with the way it displays plays for a track.
In the case of CTY, it is showing only the August plays on the profile page right now.
And the only way for me to see, all time plays, is to go to insights and select the, all time, range for the specific song, or for all songs.
It's... kind of annoying.
But it does clear up some stuff for me about all the other stuff that's been uploaded to that account over the years.
--<>--
If I call up the list of all time top tracks... which just ranks each track I've ever uploaded by it's all time plays... Closer To You does top the chart at 225 plays.
The next two are both songs of Brians; Under The Moon at 132 plays, and Why at 116 plays.
But Brian listened to them himself... and unlike with me, Soundcloud would've counted his plays, because it's not his account.
So those numbers are skewed.
Everything below that is 50 or less plays... with the exception of one of my songs, Here Comes My Love, which has 115.
Not sure exactly why that one was an outlier, but... fluctuations happen once in a blue moon.
--<>--
Ignoring that, it's been 10 to 50 plays consistently... until Closer to You, which has so far gotten 225.
Now, is that because, Closer to You is just that much better of a song than anything else I've ever recorded?
Or is it because it's the first one I ever properly promoted a little bit?
I think it's the latter!
I mean, yes, we're still talking nickels and dimes here... 225 is NOT a lot of plays.
But it's like 405% MORE plays than anything before it... because I used SoundCloud's system correctly... and also embeded it somewhere else on the internet... that wasn't Facebook!
--<>--
So, because the Coffeehouse Boyfriend album is all done with it's facelift... with it's lyrics, hashtags, artwork, and proper listing as an album, rather than a playlist... I decided to go ahead and spotlight three songs and the album link.
Closer to You is still in the spotlight too, in the number one spot... so I'm hoping that what's left of it's waning freshness will give CB a little boost here.
--<>--
But to keep that boost going, I need to produce and release new material.
And I can't do that until I'm done giving the other three old albums their graphical face lifts.
And the reason I'm writing this, this morning, is that I'm starting to realize I just don't have the time to be painstakingly crafting realism-style art for these three other albums!
I can't let the existing graphics stand, because they're low resolution, in many cases, pirated garbage.
But I need a faster solution than superimposing poser models into photo backgrounds, like I just did for, Rendezvous... which took me three days.
--<>--
I am seriously wondering if AI generated art based on text prompts might not be in order for this!
I kinda hate to go that route though, because it's not me making it.
But maybe if I had AI generated images, I could tweak them?
I dunno... I feel like it's either that... or I just do it myself, but go full abstract.
--<>--
Either way, I can't have these four old albums holding me up in the modern day from getting back into Dad's room and working on the new album.
And I have other shit to do in the real world as well.
So...
Okay, that's where we are.
Talk to you on the other side of sunrise.
------------{=0=}------------
11:55AM
Okay, so I did find an AI text prompt art generator, but of courese they're very fickle and don't really follow instructions.
Above is for the song, Shelley and I wanted one man in a flat cap looking sad, one in a baseball cap trying to cheer him up, and a third in the background with a fedora, eavesdropping... but this is what I got.
I tried again, specifying hair color... blonde for the sad man, brown for the friend, black for the eavesdropper, and...
So, it just kinda does what it wants, and the less specific you are, the weirder the art gets...
This was, "woman with a strange cube," for the song, Shame Cube
So... it's still gonna take some doing, but I will be using this tech to generate the bulk of the new art for these old albums.
They're going to "scream" AI, especially after a few years, when this type of stuff is everywhere. But at least it'll be original content, rather than swiped off the web.
And there are some parameters I can play with... different art styles, and soforth.
This generator is called NightCafe.Studio, and I paid $40.00 for 5,000 points. Each image is one point, but if you want it to be a useable size, it's two points.
And since there's a lot of trial and error with each attempt, I imagine I will use up most of those points on this project.
--<>--
It's not a perfect solution, but it's by far the most practical, given what I'm up against... needing to generate some 30+ images over the next week or two.
As I said, I want these four old albums repackaged, and re-released yesterday, so that I can get back to recording new stuff... as well as taking care of the house and the yard.
And once I'm back to working eight hour days, free time's gonna go back to being very scarce and precious.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
I've been talking a lot about financial matters, because it's the start of the month, but as you may know, right before July ended, I was working on... essentially re-releasing my four old albums on SoundCloud.
And you may also know that in the process of working on that, I'd discovered that... there's still a lot I never properly understood about how Soundcloud works!
The reason I'm, "grand re-opening" my four old albums is because I now have a functional studio again, and have released a brand new track that's gotten more plays than anything before it.
I thus, plan to produce a whole new album in the coming year, and want it to appear in the context of the previous four... for those who like the music... because they may like the old stuff too.
Okay so, that new song, Closer to You is currently in the spotlight, and I just went to look at it and... suddenly it says it only has seven plays!
What???
I know it was just over 100 plays last week, so what gives?
Long story short, what I learned is that SoundCloud is not consistent with the way it displays plays for a track.
In the case of CTY, it is showing only the August plays on the profile page right now.
And the only way for me to see, all time plays, is to go to insights and select the, all time, range for the specific song, or for all songs.
It's... kind of annoying.
But it does clear up some stuff for me about all the other stuff that's been uploaded to that account over the years.
If I call up the list of all time top tracks... which just ranks each track I've ever uploaded by it's all time plays... Closer To You does top the chart at 225 plays.
The next two are both songs of Brians; Under The Moon at 132 plays, and Why at 116 plays.
But Brian listened to them himself... and unlike with me, Soundcloud would've counted his plays, because it's not his account.
So those numbers are skewed.
Everything below that is 50 or less plays... with the exception of one of my songs, Here Comes My Love, which has 115.
Not sure exactly why that one was an outlier, but... fluctuations happen once in a blue moon.
Ignoring that, it's been 10 to 50 plays consistently... until Closer to You, which has so far gotten 225.
Now, is that because, Closer to You is just that much better of a song than anything else I've ever recorded?
Or is it because it's the first one I ever properly promoted a little bit?
I think it's the latter!
I mean, yes, we're still talking nickels and dimes here... 225 is NOT a lot of plays.
But it's like 405% MORE plays than anything before it... because I used SoundCloud's system correctly... and also embeded it somewhere else on the internet... that wasn't Facebook!
So, because the Coffeehouse Boyfriend album is all done with it's facelift... with it's lyrics, hashtags, artwork, and proper listing as an album, rather than a playlist... I decided to go ahead and spotlight three songs and the album link.
Closer to You is still in the spotlight too, in the number one spot... so I'm hoping that what's left of it's waning freshness will give CB a little boost here.
But to keep that boost going, I need to produce and release new material.
And I can't do that until I'm done giving the other three old albums their graphical face lifts.
And the reason I'm writing this, this morning, is that I'm starting to realize I just don't have the time to be painstakingly crafting realism-style art for these three other albums!
I can't let the existing graphics stand, because they're low resolution, in many cases, pirated garbage.
But I need a faster solution than superimposing poser models into photo backgrounds, like I just did for, Rendezvous... which took me three days.
I am seriously wondering if AI generated art based on text prompts might not be in order for this!
I kinda hate to go that route though, because it's not me making it.
But maybe if I had AI generated images, I could tweak them?
I dunno... I feel like it's either that... or I just do it myself, but go full abstract.
Either way, I can't have these four old albums holding me up in the modern day from getting back into Dad's room and working on the new album.
And I have other shit to do in the real world as well.
So...
Okay, that's where we are.
Talk to you on the other side of sunrise.
Okay, so I did find an AI text prompt art generator, but of courese they're very fickle and don't really follow instructions.
Above is for the song, Shelley and I wanted one man in a flat cap looking sad, one in a baseball cap trying to cheer him up, and a third in the background with a fedora, eavesdropping... but this is what I got.
I tried again, specifying hair color... blonde for the sad man, brown for the friend, black for the eavesdropper, and...
So, it just kinda does what it wants, and the less specific you are, the weirder the art gets...
This was, "woman with a strange cube," for the song, Shame Cube
So... it's still gonna take some doing, but I will be using this tech to generate the bulk of the new art for these old albums.
They're going to "scream" AI, especially after a few years, when this type of stuff is everywhere. But at least it'll be original content, rather than swiped off the web.
And there are some parameters I can play with... different art styles, and soforth.
This generator is called NightCafe.Studio, and I paid $40.00 for 5,000 points. Each image is one point, but if you want it to be a useable size, it's two points.
And since there's a lot of trial and error with each attempt, I imagine I will use up most of those points on this project.
It's not a perfect solution, but it's by far the most practical, given what I'm up against... needing to generate some 30+ images over the next week or two.
As I said, I want these four old albums repackaged, and re-released yesterday, so that I can get back to recording new stuff... as well as taking care of the house and the yard.
And once I'm back to working eight hour days, free time's gonna go back to being very scarce and precious.
°¦}
