Category: Technology

Back to livestreaming and youtube

Posted on by BogusRed

I’ve just published a new video where I cover 10 steps pro artists use in their art process to create professional art.

10 steps pro artists use to create amazing art

This is a condensed version of a Livestream I hosted a few weeks back.

After nearly a year of no streaming or videos I decided to come back to livestreaming.

I originally stopped for a few reasons. I found the process of creating YouTube videos quite time consuming to make them at the quality I really wanted them to be.

Livestreaming was a bit of a mixed bag. When I did “chill streams” where I just hung out and did art, I felt it didn’t really provide value to the PaperDemon community so I ended up not promoting the streams, this getting very poor engagement. I also found it was not so great for my anxiety because I was needing to be social, rather than having planned content to talk about.

When I did educational Livestream I felt more comfortable because I planned the content ahead of time and was confident that the content was valuable educational art content. But doing these streams regularly was also time consuming due to the planning involved.

Interestingly I found that even though I hadn’t posted to YouTube for a long time, we were still getting new signups to paperdemon and the discord from these videos compared to our other social media marketing efforts.

I think this is because the content is more valuable and more evergreen. On twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, posts typically only get seen for a day or two, then are forgotten about. But content on YouTube is continually searched and discovered even years later.

Because of this I decided to come back to livestreaming and YouTube videos in an effort to market PaperDemon.

But to be more realistic I’m only planning on one Livestream per month with quality educational material and demos along with an occasional extra video here and there. This is a pace that feels reasonable to me.

I’m also experimenting with YouTube shorts to share shorter advice stuff.

I may have to take another break when the baby comes but we’ll see. I may be itching to do videos. Livestreaming might be hard to coordinate around feeding and nap time.

I decided to stream on YouTube going forward instead of twitch because I’ve heard so much from the experts in this space that twitch has poor “discoverability” compared to YouTube. Plus it makes things so much easier. If people subscribe to my stream, they’re also subbed to my videos and vice versa.

My next stream will be this Saturday 11am pst and I’ll be talking about composition, a topic requested by a member of the PaperDemon community.

Victim of Vundo

Posted on by BogusRed

Unfortunately, my laptop got infected with one of the nastiest trojans to surface on the interwebs… the Vundo Trojan.

My boyfriend, Mike, managed to clean off the virus finally but it left windows a little bit messed up. So he thought he’d try doing a “reload” of windows. This is where you install Windows on top of itself rather than reformating the drive and doing a clean install of windows.

Why I hate Microsoft and Fujitsu right now…

My laptop runs Windows XP Tablet edition and Fujitsu gave me a “recovery disc” instead of a real version of Windows. These recovery discs cannot do repair installs of WIndows. They can only format the drive and do a clean install. So I called Fujitsu and asked them if they could send me a Windows XP Tablet edition cd and they said they can’t send that to me and they don’t manufacture it. I contacted Microsoft and they just told me to contact Fujitsu. You can’t just go into a store and buy XP Tablet OEM. And even if you could, I don’t want to buy a copy with a product key. I just want the disc! I have a fully paid registered version of Windows! But I don’t have the software disc!

Speaking as a consumer, I’m very frustrated that Microsoft and these computer manufacturers are no longer providing us with a full version of Windows. My computer is clean from viruses but windows is just a bit funky. And Fujitsu’s answer is to do wipe my drive and start over?!

If it was regular Windows XP, I could just borrow an OEM Windows disc from someone else to do the repair install. But since its Tablet edition, I’m at Fujitsu’s mercy. STOOPID!

And Fujitsu tells me that they can do a clean install and recover all of my data. Yeah but my applications won’t be there. Have you ever had to deal with Adobe’s freakin’ DRM?! Even if you change a part in your computer it goes crazy and you have to call Adobe to reactivate your copy of their software. You waste a lot of time setting up a new machine, whether or not your “data” is recovered. Not to mention the stupid crap I’d have to deal with for authorizing iTunes to play my purchased music!

At this point, Mike was able to fix windows with WinsockXPFix and LSPFix. I wont know if my computer is “well” yet until I start using it again. Here’s hoping I don’t need that disc afterall!

 

I bought new music software!

Posted on by BogusRed

Ok so I finally have the money to support my projects and one of the first things I bought was this midi music program called Reason. I heard about it from some members over at OC Remix.

It’s definitely a step up from my shitty Cakewalk program. Reason is so amazingly powerful. I can’t believe the quality of the songs that I’ve heard come out of this program.

But with power, comes complexity…

When I first got it and installed it I tried doing some simple stuff with it like taking some of my piano midis and putting a nicer piano sample on it but I was having trouble doing something as simple as that. o.O I found out about a Reason beginner’s workshop in San Fransisco and I signed up. The workshop was 6 hours long and was only $165 bucks. And it was worth every penny!

If any of you are thinking of trying out this workshop, I highly recommend it. It’s very reasonably priced and you will learn a ton. :thumbsup:

The sequencer part of Reason was pretty easy to figure out because my other MIDI programs, Cakewalk and MIDI Orchestrator Plus have sequencers that look and function almost exactly the same as the one in Reason. But the part that was tripping me up was all the hardware racks and wiring. I have absolutely no experience with audio engineering. A lot of the terms are based on the actual physical hardware that is used when audio engineers create music. All these terms I really didn’t know. :question: The workshop really gave me enough information to really get started working with the program.

As a result I have a new piano piece available in the Music section! :bounce: It’s a piano rendition of the main theme from Surviving Together. It is an original composition. The midi was recorded with Cakewalk a few months ago but the piano sound is from a Reason piano patch.

Reason just came out with a Piano’s Refill pack. I’ve tried multiple times to order it from their online store but for some reason it isn’t going through 🙁

But when I finally do get it, I will use it on some of my existing piano songs in the music section and submit them to OC Remix. I’ll also record some new songs.

 

Day 1 @ Google

Posted on by BogusRed
Rule number one about Fight Club, don’t talk about Fight Club!

That’s pretty much how it is at Google. I can’t tell you anything about what’s going on there. That’s just how it is.

I’m very tired. I didn’t really do any work today but it was hectic running all over the place to do orientations, setting up stuff, etc.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go shower and collapse on my bed

 

I’m Working at Google this Summer!

Posted on by BogusRed

On Tuesday I start my new internship at Google. I’m really excited about it. I can’t wait to meet the other interns and learn what life is like as a Googler.

I am really proud to be working at Google. My manager is the guy who does all of the Google holiday logos! Can you believe that?! That is AWESOME. I’m looking forward to working with him and learning the secrets of the Google doodles. Every time I think about the fact that I’ll be working at Google I pinch myself just to make sure I’m not dreaming.

Another Google intern sent me a link to this cool site called Gintern.net that displays all the Google intern blogs.

Anyway, the art section of my blog site is FINALLY done.

There are a lot of things I’m looking forward to learning this summer. I’m told I’ll be making a lot of icons and such. I don’t see myself as a really great icon designer so I’ll get a lot of practice and learn all the tricks. I’m hoping to take what I learn at Google and apply it to PaperDemon.com to make it easier for members to post their artwork and such. I’m also looking forward to trying out the hardware. I hear they use Tablet PCs for drawing and I’ve never drawn on one before. If I like it, I may buy one for myself. It will be nice to have a little computer to use as my sketchbook. I will be able to do watercolor without carrying around a paint set! I like painting digitally better than painting traditionally anyway.

Another thing I think I will buy is that Reason software for making digital music. The music programs I have now are so crappy. That is part of the reason why I haven’t posted any new music in the music section of my site for a long time. I’m waiting to get some better software with a better piano sound font.

Google gives free meals every day for employees and I’m hoping I don’t gain any weight.

 

It’s my birthday and I’m 22 years young.

Posted on by BogusRed

It’s about 1:30 am on the morning of my birthday and I’m up late working on Vis Dev homework. I tried out that new Google Talk today and got a kick out of the voice chat. I was surprised at how good it sounds compared to Ventrillo and Yahoo voice chat. The quality is pretty good.

I finished up the Music Page today and realized that I hadn’t really posted any new music since like the end of last year. So when I get the chance this weekend I’ll record a new song and post it. I’m thinking of doing Ahead On Our Way from FFV and/or a Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger Prologue medley. I actually recorded a version of that called Turn the Page but then removed it from the music section because i felt it was too underdeveloped. The file is still stored on the site if you want to give it a listen in MP3 or MIDI format.

If you have a song in mind that you’d like me to record or learn, feel free to send me your requests in an email.