This is darkest time in Helsinki. Days are getting shortest they will be and we don't have show yet. It rains at least little almost all the time. This is time when everyone like to stay inside because it is dark, cold and wet outside. Good time to take photos if you like the look you get. You just have to endure the cold. You don't have stay up late to get night photos. These were taken between 17:30 and 18:30.
Here I talk about my weight loss at the half way of weight loss journey. Where I am going and what I have done so far.
I am one month into future in this video. I speak like it was at the end of the year. I realized that when I was editing and it was too late to fix it by then. So it didn't take two years to get to halfway point. Only year and eleven months.
I tried vlogging style where I walk and talk to camera. I probably need to do something for shaky camera before I do this next time.
This wasn't the month I started to save money. On hindsight I probably shouldn't have ordered Dreadbox Nyx at this time. I didn't remember there was this thing called Black Friday and all the sales it gave. Too many instrument and effects I have wanted for months or years had too huge discounts to pass. I managed not to buy anything I haven't planned for sometime. It was close I bought something I just learned about but when I checked how much I would have actually saved I passed it this time.
When I planned what kind of music I make for tomorrow's video I saw video which had simple piano with heavy reverb on background. I got inspiration to do something similar. Then I added choir from sample library. It sounded too epic for the video I made it for. But it was really inspiring to make. I didn't like sample libraries too much. I have some but I tend to select hardware or software instruments over sample libraries. Like Pianoteq over sampled pianos as you see in picture above. I have some sampled piano libraries but I use Pianoteq when I need piano.
Choir library was just so inspiring it made me remember why I bought those few sample libraries I have. I have some sampled synths and drum machines. Those won't interest me anymore since I have real analog drum machine and enough hardware and software synths. What still interests me are human voices and real instruments. Except pianos since Pianoteq gives all piano sounds I need. As fan of soundtracks I am like orchestral sounds. But not the epic symphonic sound. I am more into intimate sounds. My orchestral libraries didn't suit that too well.
It was Black Friday, Black Weekend and Black November and so on. I checked what was available. This is where I almost bought one library I learned only last weekend. Addition to it there was one string library upgrade from regular to pro. Then I remembered there was Spitfire Audio's Albion series. I already had Albion One and have wanted Albion II: Loegria since it was released. Loegria is more intimate version of orchestral library. It is what I wanted but it is pretty expensive. Probably not if you do orchestral music. For someone looking for orchestral flavor instead of orchestral music it is quite expensive.
It was on sale thanks to Spitfire Audio's Black Weekend but it was still expensive. I started to watch videos if it was worth the price. Albion libraries have additional content along orchestral instruments. I always thought that was for making library expensive. Something clicked during watching videos showing additional content. There was lot of what I could use on my videos and music generally. It started to feel better choice than other two libraries even when it was more expensive than both combined. It had more than just strings which makes the higher price reasonable. You can expect to Loegria in my future videos. Albion V: Tundra would be nice too but it has to wait for next sale or even longer.
Loegria isn't only thing I got from Black Friday sales. There were other too good offers to pass. Some of which I had to pass to wait for next sales which should come within few months. I just don't have enough money to get everything I want.
Restaurant Day is day when everyone can sell food outdoors. Normally we have tight control on food safety and taxes. I am not sure how this thing got past control but I am glad it did. We have had few of these by now and this event is global now. This is one of those event making Helsinki great place to be.
This is first video I shot 4K. I can't say I never came back to FullHD because I have shot some videos FullHD since. Higher frame rate and better stabilization have been reasons why I have shot something FullHD after this video. But most of the videos have been shot 4K since this.
Dreadbox synth have become quite popular for small boutique synth manufacturer. I spent my tax returns on Dreadbox Nyx. It having dual filter and individual glide for each oscillator made it interesting enough to buy. Dual filter can be two low pass filters, two high pass filters, one low pass filter and one high pass filter or one low pass or high pass filter. You can send oscillators into different filters if you want. This made Nyx more interesting than Erebus which is more popular of two.
I am not sure if Nyx is ingenious or weird for weirdness' sake. And I am not sure if my Nyx is broken or not. Pulse width control works weirdly. If I take it above half way point oscillator goes silent. This feels like it is broken. When I add modulation to pulse width this gives me control of how fast and when oscillator come audible. I am not sure if this was intended functionality or I was lucky broken unit works like this. I didn't see mentions of this in manual. I am not returning the unit. This could give interesting sound when I figure the instrument.
One weird choice was to have unison/paraphony switch inside the unit. Erebus had in on top of the unit. You have to take the bottom off to get to the switch. By default it was on paraphony mode. I think unison works better than paraphony. I will keep it on unison mode. Easier access to paraphony mode would have been nice. You have to take the bottom off to get midi channel settings. That is not as big deal since you set channel to which suits your setup and it is done. You can select midi channels between two and seven or omni. Might cause problems if you have lot of midi gear with similar restrictions.
Nyx takes some time to learn. I don't pretend to know what it is capable of yet. I will show it in next week's video. At least what I have learned by then. Bigger thing than instrument itself was it made me reconsider my synth shopping list. It is analog synth without digital control. It made me remember how hard to play those could be. That is part of the fun but I also like to have oscillators in tune without constant tuning. Maybe I don't need that huge eurorack system or many expensive completely analog synths. This doesn't mean Dreadbox Nyx is bad synth. It is weird boutique synth which might or might not be ingenious.
These were my initial thoughts after playing with it for the first time. I may think differently after I have learned it. At the moment I am not as excited as I expected to be. It is probably because I haven't figured it out yet.
Some of us live here and we have to endure this time of the year. Yes, the title was stolen from Slush welcome poster. It has been so fitting for couple of weeks. It has been cold, dark and wet. Not cold enough for snow to stay on ground. Just cold enough for snow turn into slush. That is where the event got its name. I would be ok with darkness if it was warmer. I don't like almost freezing point temperatures.
This time I had my camera with me. You can expect some street photography when I don't have interesting topics to talk about. I am not sure if I will create gallery for photos in future. At the moment I will add them to blog. I am still trying to figure out what to do with this page.
