music &mdash; sknob’s fediblog https://noblogo.org/sknob/tag:music Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:17:07 +0000 🎵 New bonk: the bonk way, by C.Circo & sknob https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-bonk-the-bonk-way-by-c-circo-and-sknob <![CDATA[#song #music #musique the bonk way is my collaborative contribution to The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves 3 Sample Challenge I didn’t know what to do with this edition’s sample pack. I lack the required chops (I am sample-challenged), and I said as much on Mastodon... !--more-- That’s when C.Circo (@CCirco@ravenation.club) came to the rescue by suggesting we collaborate on a track, and this is the result. The lyrics are an ode to the ethos of #bonkwave, and an expression of my gratitude towards C.Circo, who embodies that ethos. It was mastered by Ordos Mk.0 (@ordosmarkzero@ravenation.club) You can hear it alongside a ton of other great #bonkwave sample-challenge tracks on The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves 3 You can also find it on my Faircamp site, which has an exhaustive collection of bonkwave-related materiel. Finally, the bonk way is available on my shiny new hand-crafted music site. a href="https://sknob.fr/music/?thebonkway"img loading="lazy" src="https://sknob.fr/music/gfx/pix_s/thebonkway.jpg" alt="Album cover of The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave - Autumn Waves. Black stylized leaves on a distressed red cover, reminiscent of old jazz album covers."/a]]> #song #music #musique

the bonk way is my collaborative contribution to The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves 3 Sample Challenge

I didn’t know what to do with this edition’s sample pack. I lack the required chops (I am sample-challenged), and I said as much on Mastodon... That’s when C.Circo (@CCirco@ravenation.club) came to the rescue by suggesting we collaborate on a track, and this is the result. The lyrics are an ode to the ethos of #bonkwave, and an expression of my gratitude towards C.Circo, who embodies that ethos.

It was mastered by Ordos Mk.0 (@ordosmarkzero@ravenation.club)

You can hear it alongside a ton of other great #bonkwave sample-challenge tracks on The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves 3

You can also find it on my Faircamp site, which has an exhaustive collection of bonkwave-related materiel.

Finally, the bonk way is available on my shiny new hand-crafted music site.

Album cover of The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave - Autumn Waves. Black stylized leaves on a distressed red cover, reminiscent of old jazz album covers.

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-bonk-the-bonk-way-by-c-circo-and-sknob Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:35:20 +0000 offbeat: The NHAM Interview https://noblogo.org/sknob/offbeat-the-nham-interview <![CDATA[#music #musique #album I was interviewed by Sam (@ethicalrevolution@climatejustice.social) about my new album offbeat over on #NHAM. Read the interview &rarr;]]> #music #musique #album

I was interviewed by Sam (@ethicalrevolution@climatejustice.social) about my new album offbeat over on #NHAM.

Read the interview →

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/offbeat-the-nham-interview Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:53:35 +0000 🎵 New Album: offbeat https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-album-offbeat <![CDATA[#music #musique #album As I wrote on Mastodon in what turned out to be an interminable chronicle of the making of offbeat : I’ve never released an album. I write and publish individual songs that progressively outline and become part of albums, sometimes jumping around from one album to the next. But collaborating on projects on the fedi has taught me something I usually lack : patience. Weeks or months often go by between the moment I finish a song and its release. Which has probably put me in the necessary headspace to think of a whole album before I’ve actually finished any of the songs. !--more-- The idea for the album came from the song I wrote for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves album back in October 2025. I usually write silly songs, or topical songs about ideas or issues, political or otherwise, and have released rather few personal, inward-looking songs in all my decades of making music. But Downfall was my first, serious, earnest #bonkwave track, which is what got the ball rolling, and so after some hesitation and prodding from early listeners, I included (a remastered version of) Downfall on offbeat. I’m definitely stepping out of my comfort zone with this album, as all the songs are about me, or say a lot about me in a less roundabout way than usual, and not always in a very flattering light. But hopefully, they will still appeal and speak to people who don’t have my particular brand of oddballness (I just realized I could have called the album oddball instead of offbeat, but I’ll stick to the more musical option...). And hopefully, it will be an interesting ride for regular folks too. Musically, the album is quite varied (no two songs are in the same key, and meters vary from three to four to five to six or maybe even 12), even though the songs always somehow end up sounding like my slightly oddball, offbeat pop songs. Probably because I never worry about making them sound like proper pop songs that follow proper pop song conventions. I let the words dictate the melodies, which dictate the harmonic and song structures, and the arrangements are then dictated by a mixture of personal taste, available tools and instruments, degree of (im)patience, number of spoons, musical chops and lack thereof and of course, serendipity. The result is what it is, for better or for worse, although hopefully the former. In other words, I hope you enjoy the album, which you can listen to and/or download in the usual places: My shiny new hand-crafted music site. My Faircamp site Mirlo Bandwagon.fm Oh, and as an experiment, I also created a dedicated javascript-free page for the album. I would like to thank Emma and Sam (@ethicalrevolution@climatejustice.social) and a lot of lovely people on the fediverse for their encouragement and support. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Ordos Mk.0 (@ordosmarkzero@ravenation.club) for expertly and enthusiastically mastering the album. a href="https://sknob.fr/music/?offbeatalbum"img loading="lazy" src="https://sknob.fr/music/gfx/pixs/offbeatalbum.jpg" alt="The word sknob written vertically with the the word off starting horizontally off of the letter o of sknob and the word beat starting horizontally off of the letter b of sknob. The letters are white veering off to light pink, with a few lines shooting out of them towards the viewer, on a blurry blue background which fades to sunset colors and to black at the bottom of the image."/a ]]> #music #musique #album

As I wrote on Mastodon in what turned out to be an interminable chronicle of the making of offbeat :

I’ve never released an album. I write and publish individual songs that progressively outline and become part of albums, sometimes jumping around from one album to the next.

But collaborating on projects on the fedi has taught me something I usually lack : patience. Weeks or months often go by between the moment I finish a song and its release.

Which has probably put me in the necessary headspace to think of a whole album before I’ve actually finished any of the songs.

The idea for the album came from the song I wrote for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves album back in October 2025. I usually write silly songs, or topical songs about ideas or issues, political or otherwise, and have released rather few personal, inward-looking songs in all my decades of making music. But Downfall was my first, serious, earnest #bonkwave track, which is what got the ball rolling, and so after some hesitation and prodding from early listeners, I included (a remastered version of) Downfall on offbeat.

I’m definitely stepping out of my comfort zone with this album, as all the songs are about me, or say a lot about me in a less roundabout way than usual, and not always in a very flattering light. But hopefully, they will still appeal and speak to people who don’t have my particular brand of oddballness (I just realized I could have called the album oddball instead of offbeat, but I’ll stick to the more musical option...).

And hopefully, it will be an interesting ride for regular folks too.

Musically, the album is quite varied (no two songs are in the same key, and meters vary from three to four to five to six or maybe even 12), even though the songs always somehow end up sounding like my slightly oddball, offbeat pop songs. Probably because I never worry about making them sound like proper pop songs that follow proper pop song conventions. I let the words dictate the melodies, which dictate the harmonic and song structures, and the arrangements are then dictated by a mixture of personal taste, available tools and instruments, degree of (im)patience, number of spoons, musical chops and lack thereof and of course, serendipity. The result is what it is, for better or for worse, although hopefully the former.

In other words, I hope you enjoy the album, which you can listen to and/or download in the usual places:

I would like to thank Emma and Sam (@ethicalrevolution@climatejustice.social) and a lot of lovely people on the fediverse for their encouragement and support.

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Ordos Mk.0 (@ordosmarkzero@ravenation.club) for expertly and enthusiastically mastering the album.

The word sknob written vertically with the the word off starting horizontally off of the letter o of sknob and the word beat starting horizontally off of the letter b of sknob. The letters are white veering off to light pink, with a few lines shooting out of them towards the viewer, on a blurry blue background which fades to sunset colors and to black at the bottom of the image.

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-album-offbeat Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:00:00 +0000 🎵 New bonk: Downfall https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-bonk-downfall <![CDATA[#song #music #musique Downfall was written back in October for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave fall album, which was appropriately released in spring (if you’re in the northern hemisphere like me :) Downfall also sparked and opens my upcoming album, offbeat. !--more-- For now, you can hear it alongside a ton of other great #bonkwave tracks on The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves 2 (Autumn Waves is actually a triple album!) You can also find it on my Faircamp site, which has an exhaustive collection of bonkwave-related materiel. Finally, Downfall is available on my shiny new hand-crafted music site. And thank you to @ordosmarkzero@ravenation.club for mastering the track! If you’ll pardon a little music geekery, all these months after having written and recorded the song, I’m still kind of amazed by how moving from D minor to D minor 7 (pretending is phony...) changes the feel of the song. And it’s not just the arrangement or the harmonies. I get the same effect when I’m just strumming an acoustic guitar. Also, don’t ask me why, but I remember that when I sat down to write the music, my initial idea was to make a song with a lot of silence in it. I mostly failed, but still. a href="https://sknob.fr/music/?downfall"img loading="lazy" src="https://sknob.fr/music/gfx/pix_s/downfall.jpg" alt="Album cover of The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave - Autumn Waves. Black stylized leaves on a distressed red cover, reminiscent of old jazz album covers."/a]]> #song #music #musique

Downfall was written back in October for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave fall album, which was appropriately released in spring (if you’re in the northern hemisphere like me :)

Downfall also sparked and opens my upcoming album, offbeat. For now, you can hear it alongside a ton of other great #bonkwave tracks on The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: Autumn Waves 2 (Autumn Waves is actually a triple album!)

You can also find it on my Faircamp site, which has an exhaustive collection of bonkwave-related materiel.

Finally, Downfall is available on my shiny new hand-crafted music site.

And thank you to @ordosmarkzero@ravenation.club for mastering the track!

If you’ll pardon a little music geekery, all these months after having written and recorded the song, I’m still kind of amazed by how moving from D minor to D minor 7 (pretending is phony...) changes the feel of the song. And it’s not just the arrangement or the harmonies. I get the same effect when I’m just strumming an acoustic guitar.

Also, don’t ask me why, but I remember that when I sat down to write the music, my initial idea was to make a song with a lot of silence in it. I mostly failed, but still.

Album cover of The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave - Autumn Waves. Black stylized leaves on a distressed red cover, reminiscent of old jazz album covers.

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-bonk-downfall Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000 sknob/music v5.4.0 Release Notes, Fetch Edition! https://noblogo.org/sknob/sknob-music-v5-4-0-release-notes-fetch-edition <![CDATA[#blogpost #music #coding In the first post in this series, I explained why I used PHP to generate the playlist of my new hand-crafted music site from a large-ish XML file, instead of doing it locally like I used to (damn you Chrome and Firefox for dropping XSLT support!) Thing is, depending on the speed of your device and your internet connection, it takes a few short seconds for PHP to do it’s thing on the server, before sending the result in one go to your browser. And this slight delay has been nagging at me since day one. !--more-- So I’ve been thinking of ways to load the very lightweight page skeleton, and then retrieve the rendered playlist from the server. And I finally took the time to figure out how to do it, using the javascript Fetch API to fetch the PHP code in a separate file once the skeleton loads. Which meant rethinking a bit of code for everything to keep working like before (basically making sure the data is loaded before calling anything critical). After ironing out the kinks, I’m pretty sure I have a version that works! The question now is, do I actually like it better? It does have the following advantages: The site loads instantly, even on a slow device. There’s a fun little loading animation. I went with an austere design after years of visual excess, so the animation reintroduces a touch of whimsy. When you click on a link to an album or a song from somewhere else like here (or your Mastodon feed), you get a bit of visual context before the page scrolls down to the target album or song. I did a quick poll on Mastodon, which came out in favor of NOT going this route. Still, if you’re reading this, it probably means I decided to roll it out anyway. It’ll be easy enough to roll back if I change my mind or if it proves to be troublesome or unpopular.]]> #blogpost #music #coding

In the first post in this series, I explained why I used PHP to generate the playlist of my new hand-crafted music site from a large-ish XML file, instead of doing it locally like I used to (damn you Chrome and Firefox for dropping XSLT support!)

Thing is, depending on the speed of your device and your internet connection, it takes a few short seconds for PHP to do it’s thing on the server, before sending the result in one go to your browser.

And this slight delay has been nagging at me since day one. So I’ve been thinking of ways to load the very lightweight page skeleton, and then retrieve the rendered playlist from the server.

And I finally took the time to figure out how to do it, using the javascript Fetch API to fetch the PHP code in a separate file once the skeleton loads. Which meant rethinking a bit of code for everything to keep working like before (basically making sure the data is loaded before calling anything critical).

After ironing out the kinks, I’m pretty sure I have a version that works!

The question now is, do I actually like it better? It does have the following advantages:

  • The site loads instantly, even on a slow device.
  • There’s a fun little loading animation. I went with an austere design after years of visual excess, so the animation reintroduces a touch of whimsy.
  • When you click on a link to an album or a song from somewhere else like here (or your Mastodon feed), you get a bit of visual context before the page scrolls down to the target album or song.

I did a quick poll on Mastodon, which came out in favor of NOT going this route. Still, if you’re reading this, it probably means I decided to roll it out anyway.

It’ll be easy enough to roll back if I change my mind or if it proves to be troublesome or unpopular.

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/sknob-music-v5-4-0-release-notes-fetch-edition Sun, 22 Mar 2026 10:13:58 +0000 sknob/music v5.3.1 Release Notes, mediaSession Edition! https://noblogo.org/sknob/sknob-music-v5-3-1-release-notes-mediasession-edition <![CDATA[#blogpost #music #coding So, thanks to @limebar@mastodon.social and @scy@chaos.social who implemented this feature for TIBR and TIBtv, I discovered how to send metadata to the system media player when you play my music on my site (using the Media Session API). What this means is that you can now see the title, artist and artwork in your system player when you play a song on sknob.fr/music. It could have ended there, but that’s when things got out of hand... !--more-- In the following image, you’ll notice you can’t skip to the previous or next track. Screen capture of the full-screen music player on an old version of iOS which shows the song title, artist and cover image currently playing (in this case, Ukulele Bonk) But it turns out you can handle these actions with the mediaSession API, provided you have your own functions to do the actual work. This revealed a different paradigm between what I had implemented on the site, and how a system media player works. On my site, you could keep skipping tracks, including the last track of an album. Whereas the mediaSession API sensibly assumes you have "go to the previous/next track" buttons, and if you are on the first or the last track of a playlist, well you can’t go back or forward, respectively. Which means that in the end, I had to: Rethink my "skip" function as a "next track" function Write a "previous track" function Add a "previous track" button to my weird UI (and to my keyboard shortcuts (available in "about") Grey out and deactivate the previous and next buttons in my weird UI when there is no previous or next track (which is what took me the longest to figure out; funny how it’s often the simple things that trip you up) Add the appropriate calls in the mediaSession function to go to the previous/next track, including code to grey out the previous/next buttons in the system player when there is no previous or next track This all seemed to work everywhere it was supposed to, until I noticed that the play/pause button was disabled in the media player on my old iPhone 7! So I had to add the appropriate calls in the mediaSession function to call my play/pause function. Phew... I told you things got out of hand! All this probably deserves more than a 0.0.1 version bump... Hopefully, it’s all sorted out now. But before you complain, according to the spec, this is supported pretty much everywhere except in the Android WebView! Media player on the Mac: Mosaic of the Mac system player, showing the 4 tracks of my Cities EP with previous & next buttons, which are grayed out for the first and last track.) Greyed-out buttons in my UI and in the iPhone 7 media player: Mosaic of the same album in my UI, with the grayed out previous and next buttons, successively, plus a capture of the system media player on my old iPhone 7 showing the last track of the album, with a greyed out next button.]]> #blogpost #music #coding

So, thanks to @limebar@mastodon.social and @scy@chaos.social who implemented this feature for TIBR and TIBtv, I discovered how to send metadata to the system media player when you play my music on my site (using the Media Session API).

What this means is that you can now see the title, artist and artwork in your system player when you play a song on sknob.fr/music.

It could have ended there, but that’s when things got out of hand... In the following image, you’ll notice you can’t skip to the previous or next track.

Screen capture of the full-screen music player on an old version of iOS which shows the song title, artist and cover image currently playing (in this case, Ukulele Bonk)

But it turns out you can handle these actions with the mediaSession API, provided you have your own functions to do the actual work.

This revealed a different paradigm between what I had implemented on the site, and how a system media player works.

  • On my site, you could keep skipping tracks, including the last track of an album.
  • Whereas the mediaSession API sensibly assumes you have “go to the previous/next track” buttons, and if you are on the first or the last track of a playlist, well you can’t go back or forward, respectively.

Which means that in the end, I had to:

  • Rethink my “skip” function as a “next track” function
  • Write a “previous track” function
  • Add a “previous track” button to my weird UI (and to my keyboard shortcuts (available in “about”)
  • Grey out and deactivate the previous and next buttons in my weird UI when there is no previous or next track (which is what took me the longest to figure out; funny how it’s often the simple things that trip you up)
  • Add the appropriate calls in the mediaSession function to go to the previous/next track, including code to grey out the previous/next buttons in the system player when there is no previous or next track
  • This all seemed to work everywhere it was supposed to, until I noticed that the play/pause button was disabled in the media player on my old iPhone 7! So I had to add the appropriate calls in the mediaSession function to call my play/pause function.

Phew... I told you things got out of hand! All this probably deserves more than a 0.0.1 version bump...

Hopefully, it’s all sorted out now. But before you complain, according to the spec, this is supported pretty much everywhere except in the Android WebView!

Media player on the Mac: Mosaic of the Mac system player, showing the 4 tracks of my Cities EP with previous & next buttons, which are grayed out for the first and last track.)

Greyed-out buttons in my UI and in the iPhone 7 media player:

Mosaic of the same album in my UI, with the grayed out previous and next buttons, successively, plus a capture of the system media player on my old iPhone 7 showing the last track of the album, with a greyed out next button.

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/sknob-music-v5-3-1-release-notes-mediasession-edition Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:05:53 +0000 🎵 Driven By Desire: The Video https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-video-driven-by-desire <![CDATA[#music #musique #video Hot on the heels of my smash hit Ukulele Bonk video (and my sleeper hit Bercée d’illusions video), I am pleased and proud to present a new, hand-animated video for my 2024 track Driven By Desire about making art in the age of slop machines. !--more-- iframe title="Driven By Desire" width="560" height="315" src="https://makertube.net/videos/embed/xweXdM8DsjC8h13wKFYQYt" style="border: 0px;" allow="fullscreen" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-forms"/iframe If you’re curious (and since some people asked), here’s how it was made. CW: probably TMI! Animation Since the launch of The Indie Beat Television, I thought it would be fun and appropriate to make a crude, hand-animated video for this track about the slopapocalypse. Then version 2.0 of Procreate Dreams, an animation program for iPad based on the acclaimed Procreate drawing app, came out, and I figured I would try that. I started creating short animations in Procreate Dreams on my iPad mini, usually while sipping coffee in bed in the mornings. As the days rolled by, I settled more or less consciously on a few arbitrary rules for the video: I selected a single, silly photo of myself and decided I wouldn’t use any others All the drawing animations would be done by hand, one image at a time, the old-fashioned way I would only draw using thick, rough, dirty brushes Keyframe animations would only be used to animate the photo and the backgrounds (and to cycle through colors) The cool thing about Procreate Dreams, is that you can layer and group and mix flipbook animations and keyframe animations. And each flipbook animation can have multiple tracks, plus use drawing layers. I only scratched the surface of what this program can do! It also has a lot of export options, so that simplified things a lot. Once I had a fairly decent bunch of snippets, I started thinking about how to assemble them. Final Assembly Then, as luck would have it, a new version of Final Cut Pro was released, which added beat detection to audio files (in order to be able to snap video clips to the beat), a huge potential time server! But I first had to upgrade my macOS to install the new version, and it turned out the beat detection feature has a nasty crash bug which I had to figure out how to circumvent. details summarySecret paragraph. Click at your own risk./summaryI’m not supposed to say, but a long time ago, I worked quite a bit for Aqqle as a freelance translator. There weren’t a lot of perks, but I got access to their creative apps which are pretty good and which I got to know pretty well, and since Aqqle surprisingly never charges for application upgrades, I’ve been using them ever since. Sorry Linux people. I do want to join your ranks someday. /details Another unforeseen complication was that the song tempo is 162 bpm, and I couldn’t set a frame rate in Procreate Dreams that was a practical multiple of that. So I ended up: importing audio snippets back into some Procreate Dreams animations, and adjusting the animations to match the tempo as best as I could having to tediously stretch or shorten certain clips a little in FCP to snap them more or less to the bars and beats I tried to use FCP as little as possible to animate things, even though it has a keyframing system. I ended up doing cut animations when I zoom in or out of a clip, and animating the 2 small flying heads that float up behind the big flying head. I also used a couple of FCP plugins to shake certain clips (the second part of the Love me 2 clip for example). One thing I did use though, was green-screen keying. I modified certain animations in Procreate Dreams to add a green screen background so I could composite them into the video (the bouncing sound wave in part 2 for example). Finally, to answer another question I got in the chat when the video premiered on The Indie Beat Television, the assembly phase in FCP (and going back and forth into Procreate Dreams to tweak things) took a couple of days. I ended up making more animations than I actually used (see the one below), and had to make a few hard choices, but it is precisely the accumulation of countless choices, big and small, conscious and unconscious, logical or arbitrary and driven by desire that is missing in slop, which is one of the many reasons it is so utterly soulless. Thank… an unused animation based on the word U, and the letter U outlines the head and mouth and eyes of a moving person in the clip. Screen capture of a frame by frame animation of a hand in Procrate Dreams.   ]]> #music #musique #video

Hot on the heels of my smash hit Ukulele Bonk video (and my sleeper hit Bercée d’illusions video), I am pleased and proud to present a new, hand-animated video for my 2024 track Driven By Desire about making art in the age of slop machines.

If you’re curious (and since some people asked), here’s how it was made. CW: probably TMI!

Animation

Since the launch of The Indie Beat Television, I thought it would be fun and appropriate to make a crude, hand-animated video for this track about the slopapocalypse. Then version 2.0 of Procreate Dreams, an animation program for iPad based on the acclaimed Procreate drawing app, came out, and I figured I would try that.

I started creating short animations in Procreate Dreams on my iPad mini, usually while sipping coffee in bed in the mornings. As the days rolled by, I settled more or less consciously on a few arbitrary rules for the video:

  • I selected a single, silly photo of myself and decided I wouldn’t use any others
  • All the drawing animations would be done by hand, one image at a time, the old-fashioned way
  • I would only draw using thick, rough, dirty brushes
  • Keyframe animations would only be used to animate the photo and the backgrounds (and to cycle through colors)

The cool thing about Procreate Dreams, is that you can layer and group and mix flipbook animations and keyframe animations. And each flipbook animation can have multiple tracks, plus use drawing layers. I only scratched the surface of what this program can do!

It also has a lot of export options, so that simplified things a lot.

Once I had a fairly decent bunch of snippets, I started thinking about how to assemble them.

Final Assembly

Then, as luck would have it, a new version of Final Cut Pro was released, which added beat detection to audio files (in order to be able to snap video clips to the beat), a huge potential time server! But I first had to upgrade my macOS to install the new version, and it turned out the beat detection feature has a nasty crash bug which I had to figure out how to circumvent.

Secret paragraph. Click at your own risk.I’m not supposed to say, but a long time ago, I worked quite a bit for Aqqle as a freelance translator. There weren’t a lot of perks, but I got access to their creative apps which are pretty good and which I got to know pretty well, and since Aqqle surprisingly never charges for application upgrades, I’ve been using them ever since. Sorry Linux people. I do want to join your ranks someday.
Another unforeseen complication was that the song tempo is 162 bpm, and I couldn’t set a frame rate in Procreate Dreams that was a practical multiple of that. So I ended up:

  • importing audio snippets back into some Procreate Dreams animations, and adjusting the animations to match the tempo as best as I could
  • having to tediously stretch or shorten certain clips a little in FCP to snap them more or less to the bars and beats

I tried to use FCP as little as possible to animate things, even though it has a keyframing system. I ended up doing cut animations when I zoom in or out of a clip, and animating the 2 small flying heads that float up behind the big flying head. I also used a couple of FCP plugins to shake certain clips (the second part of the Love me 2 clip for example).

One thing I did use though, was green-screen keying. I modified certain animations in Procreate Dreams to add a green screen background so I could composite them into the video (the bouncing sound wave in part 2 for example).

Finally, to answer another question I got in the chat when the video premiered on The Indie Beat Television, the assembly phase in FCP (and going back and forth into Procreate Dreams to tweak things) took a couple of days.

I ended up making more animations than I actually used (see the one below), and had to make a few hard choices, but it is precisely the accumulation of countless choices, big and small, conscious and unconscious, logical or arbitrary and driven by desire that is missing in slop, which is one of the many reasons it is so utterly soulless.

Thank… an unused animation based on the word U, and the letter U outlines the head and mouth and eyes of a moving person in the clip.

Screen capture of a frame by frame animation of a hand in Procrate Dreams.  

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/new-video-driven-by-desire Tue, 03 Mar 2026 07:20:30 +0000 🎵 Bercée d’illusions: The Video https://noblogo.org/sknob/bercee-dillusions-the-video <![CDATA[#music #musique #video Hot on the heels of my Ukulele Bonk video, which went kind of viral for a few days among my followers on Mastodon, comes a simpler, more subdued video for Bercée d’illusions, a song from my last EP that I’m particularly fond of. !--more-- Like the previous video, it premiered on The Indie Beat Television, during the new Friday Fresh hour, and the lovely people in the chat seemed to like it. All shots in the video are 100% real and in real-time, which seems worth mentioning in a world choking on slop. iframe title="Bercée d’illusions" width="560" height="315" src="https://makertube.net/videos/embed/fniVxD7kRhdhkHYy8xpbMs" style="border: 0px;" allow="fullscreen" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-forms"/iframe]]> #music #musique #video

Hot on the heels of my Ukulele Bonk video, which went kind of viral for a few days among my followers on Mastodon, comes a simpler, more subdued video for Bercée d’illusions, a song from my last EP that I’m particularly fond of. Like the previous video, it premiered on The Indie Beat Television, during the new Friday Fresh hour, and the lovely people in the chat seemed to like it.

All shots in the video are 100% real and in real-time, which seems worth mentioning in a world choking on slop.

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/bercee-dillusions-the-video Tue, 27 Jan 2026 14:32:03 +0000 🎵 Ukulele Bonk: The Video https://noblogo.org/sknob/ukulele-bonk-the-video <![CDATA[#music #musique #video Well that escalated quickly. I made a video for Ukulele Bonk, my contribution to The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: A Midsummer Bonk’s Dream 1, in a single cold winter day, and barely a week after the launch of The Indie Beat Television. !--more-- iframe title="Ukulele Bonk" width="560" height="315" src="https://makertube.net/videos/embed/nQRzvpGdRjkbo1Wu4aPFk5" style="border: 0px;" allow="fullscreen" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-forms"/iframe This is actually the first real video that I’ve made since... 2018! As a seasoned person, I was alive when MTV launched, and part of me has always lamented the indisputable fact that video killed the radio star. In my experience, many people confuse watching and listening to music, and have lost the ability to separate the two and actually develop a decent ear for what is happening in the music alone. Nevertheless... I was part of the small group of musicians corralled by @limebar@mastodon.social to prepare the launch of #TIBtv, and seeing the excitement before, during, and after the launch was, well, an eye-opener. And contagious. Not only that, but the variety and quality and originality and ingenuity of the videos blew my mind. (I also contributed some old videos to the channel and the associated songs found a new public, which was a nice bonus.) Anyway, stimulated by such an amazing display of unbridled creativity, my brain started racing with ideas for new videos, and this is the first one to see the light of day. Others may or may not follow, time will tell, but be that as it may: Creativity x Community = Inspiration! Long live #TIBtv!]]> #music #musique #video

Well that escalated quickly.

I made a video for Ukulele Bonk, my contribution to The Four Seasons of Bonk Wave: A Midsummer Bonk’s Dream 1, in a single cold winter day, and barely a week after the launch of The Indie Beat Television.

This is actually the first real video that I’ve made since... 2018!

As a seasoned person, I was alive when MTV launched, and part of me has always lamented the indisputable fact that video killed the radio star. In my experience, many people confuse watching and listening to music, and have lost the ability to separate the two and actually develop a decent ear for what is happening in the music alone.

Nevertheless...

I was part of the small group of musicians corralled by @limebar@mastodon.social to prepare the launch of #TIBtv, and seeing the excitement before, during, and after the launch was, well, an eye-opener. And contagious. Not only that, but the variety and quality and originality and ingenuity of the videos blew my mind.

(I also contributed some old videos to the channel and the associated songs found a new public, which was a nice bonus.)

Anyway, stimulated by such an amazing display of unbridled creativity, my brain started racing with ideas for new videos, and this is the first one to see the light of day. Others may or may not follow, time will tell, but be that as it may:

Creativity x Community = Inspiration!

Long live #TIBtv!

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/ukulele-bonk-the-video Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:44:13 +0000 My Bonkers 2025 Fedi Music Year in Review https://noblogo.org/sknob/my-bonkers-2025-fedi-music-year-in-review <![CDATA[#music #design #collaboration #blogpost Another banner year, spread across multiple projects, ranging from #bonkwave to #RFFF25 to #NHAM to #TIBtv, to a little solo stuff. I don’t know how long any of this will last, but I’m relishing it while I can. !--more-- Skip to Design | Community span id="music"/spanMusic In more or less chronological order, I think: I co-wrote You Are Not Alone with @CCirco@ravenation.club for the Comfy Collaborations #RadioFreeFedi tribute album organized by @futzle@old.mermaid.town I released a couple of extra tracks based on You Are Not Alone. I released a new song, Cities I wrote jingles for NHAM Mixtape Radio and Not What I Call Radio Bonk Wave 2 of my bonkwave songs were delightfully remixed I released The Rite of Bonk for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave-Bonks of Spring 1 album I collaborated on Hi It’s Spring (production) with Sam (@ethicalrevolution@climatejustice.social) for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave Spring album I gave a few related songs a common home by releasing the Cities EP (which got a lovely review on NHAM by @babumenos@sunny.garden) I performed the sknob bonks cities live livestream for Radio Free Fedi Fest 2025 #RFFF25 (and covered other fedi musicians) I contributed some vocals to Happy Bonk Day 2025 as part of a great lineup of BonkWave Allstars herded by @axwax@chaos.social I released Ukulele Bonk on the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave-A Midsummer Bonk’s Dream 1 album I released Wannawadda on the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave-A Midsummer Bonk’s Dream 2 album, part of the first ever Bonk Wave Sample Challenge I produced (and played on) Better Than That by Sam, which was also released on the Bonk Wave summer album (and I also make a guest appearance on the fantastic video Sam made for the track) I wrote and recorded a song I’m quite proud of for the upcoming Four Seasons of Bonk Wave fall album (which should come out this winter or next spring, in typical #bonkwave fashion) I released a new song, Choo-Choo Train I wrote 4 new songs for an upcoming concept album or EP, and have been chronicling my progress on Mastodon. We’ll see how far it goes and how long I can resist the urge to release them... Collage of album covers. span id="design"/spanDesign I used to do quite a bit of UI and web design back in the day, experience which I put to good use this year: I designed album covers for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave album series, with real-time feedback from the bonkwave community, and essential contributions from @Traiken@mastodon.social I designed web and fedi assets (and the NHAM RFFF25 LiveStream graphics) for NHAM And I did the version 1.0 redesign of the NHAM website (CSS mockup, Sam had to actually implement it) Which gave me the impetus to finally recode and redesign my antiquated music site from scratch, which I’d been meaning to do for about a decade ; check out the new sknob/music, and read all about the redesign in a series of posts right here I made a bunch of hand-drawn NHAM animations for the NHAM program slots on The Indie Beat Television (#TIBtv) I made a bunch of more general NHAM promo videos for #TIBtv span id="community"/spanCommunity On top of the musical collaborations with @CCirco@ravenation.club, the bonkwave community and Sam mentioned above, I participated in the following initiatives to promote music and musicians on the #fediverse: I did some virtual leg work vetting artists and asking for their consent to be listed in the Indie Art Support Community (IASC) directory which is built on the shoulders of @radiofreefedi@musician.social (and you can apply by pinging @hello@fedi.indieart.support on fedi) I was involved in prepping the launch of the NHAM fedi music discovery site, and I’m also an admin of the site (for which I wrote a few posts too, like The Best Spotify Alternative and Imposter Syndrome) I handled the technical plumbing for and co-hosted a NHAM Mixtape livestream for Radio Free Fedi Fest 25 #RFFF25 Last but certainly not least, I was part of the group of fedi musicians corralled by @limebar@mastodon.social to prep the launch of The Indie Beat Television, a 24x7 “Fedi MTV” (brainstorming, transcoding and tagging a ton of videos, pixel-pushing, and contributing a few musical snippets to station IDs and such). Don’t forget to follow @TIBtv@tv.theindiebeat.fm on the fediverse! As I said in a mid-year progress report: I can’t believe how lucky I am to be part of the incredible fedi music community and to have met and collaborated with so many delightful, open-minded, super-creative people, who have opened my eyes and ears in so many ways. All in all a fine way to keep my head above water in these troubled times, and a constant and much-needed reminder that there is plenty of good, and good people in the world, and that we have agency. Thank you everyone span class="emoji"❤️/span]]> #music #design #collaboration #blogpost

Another banner year, spread across multiple projects, ranging from #bonkwave to #RFFF25 to #NHAM to #TIBtv, to a little solo stuff. I don’t know how long any of this will last, but I’m relishing it while I can. Skip to Design | Community

Music

In more or less chronological order, I think:

Collage of album covers.

Design

I used to do quite a bit of UI and web design back in the day, experience which I put to good use this year:

  • I designed album covers for the Four Seasons of Bonk Wave album series, with real-time feedback from the bonkwave community, and essential contributions from @Traiken@mastodon.social
  • I designed web and fedi assets (and the NHAM RFFF25 LiveStream graphics) for NHAM
  • And I did the version 1.0 redesign of the NHAM website (CSS mockup, Sam had to actually implement it)
  • Which gave me the impetus to finally recode and redesign my antiquated music site from scratch, which I’d been meaning to do for about a decade ; check out the new sknob/music, and read all about the redesign in a series of posts right here
  • I made a bunch of hand-drawn NHAM animations for the NHAM program slots on The Indie Beat Television (#TIBtv)
  • I made a bunch of more general NHAM promo videos for #TIBtv

Community

On top of the musical collaborations with @CCirco@ravenation.club, the bonkwave community and Sam mentioned above, I participated in the following initiatives to promote music and musicians on the #fediverse:

As I said in a mid-year progress report:

I can’t believe how lucky I am to be part of the incredible fedi music community and to have met and collaborated with so many delightful, open-minded, super-creative people, who have opened my eyes and ears in so many ways.

All in all a fine way to keep my head above water in these troubled times, and a constant and much-needed reminder that there is plenty of good, and good people in the world, and that we have agency.

Thank you everyone ❤️

]]> https://noblogo.org/sknob/my-bonkers-2025-fedi-music-year-in-review Wed, 31 Dec 2025 05:17:16 +0000