Go Animate!

When I was a young lad, I was fascinated by animation. I used to make little 'flip-book' animations and I was always drawing. I even made a couple of full-length comics (or should I say 'graphic novels' if I want to sound serious about it!).

Anyway, I recently started thinking about trying my hand at come digital animation. I've played with 3D animation software before but never really looked at the 2D side of things. I found some info at http://www.calicomonkey.com/blog/free-cartoon-animation-software.php and downloaded the 3 suggested apps. They each have their pros and cons - perhaps I'll review them at some stage. I also downloaded the free learning edition of Toon Boom Animate. It's great but it watermarks anything you render, and the full version is a couple of hundred bucks. I found a great video tutorial (http://cartoonsmartblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/free-toon-boom-animate-lesson-on-hierarchical-character-rigging/) that demonstrates drawing, rigging and animating a character from scratch. Very interesting and even useful as a backgrounder if you're not going to use Animate.

Finally, after some fairly technical slog, I decided to try a more 'instant gratification' approach and have some fun with the Go!Animate Animation Studio. It's very easy to use and amazingly powerful. My only complaint is that the site seems to get progressively slower when working on a long animation. Still, this is what I produced over the weekend:



I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together. And although Go!Animate isn't a fully-fledged animation app, it certainly exposes the user to several concepts and techniques that are fundamental to the animation process.

Bass appreciation: Come Together - The Beatles

This bass line stands out as one of the most instantly recognisable and song-defining of all time, and is probably my favourite from both a player and a listener's perspective. The song was released in 1969 as the opening track of Abbey Road, with Paul McCartney adding this awesome groove to John Lennon's composition.


Come Together has been covered by many artists including Aerosmith, Soundgarden and Michael Jackson. For something a bit different, check out this version by Bobby McFerrin and Robin Williams (the actor/comedian) produced by Sir George Martin for his Beatles collection, In My Life.

Too many bassists?

While watching Spinal Tap, I was interested to see that one of their (all rather amusing) songs featured the two guitarists on bass, as well as the regular bassist playing an impressive double-neck bass. It emerged that the song is called Big Bottom, which is fitting (although the lyrics have little to do with the lower frequency ranges).

While searching for the video, I found this discussion of bands with many bassists. Co-incidentally, one of the guys I work with recently hooked up with a band he used to play for - he plays upright (double) bass. He was slightly surprised to discover that they now have another guy on electric bass... He's not quite sure how it's going to work out, but he's running with it. For now they each take a turn.

It did get me thinking about how an acoustic and electric bass would go together in the same song. I'm not completely convinced that the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts. I need to think about it a bit more, so I'll save that discussion for another day.

Bass appreciation: Dela - Johnny Clegg

This is one of my favourite Johnny Clegg songs. The original version from the 1990 album Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World featured Solly Letwaba on bass. More recent recordings, including the great live version on A South African Story, were performed by Concord Nkabinde, who can be seen in the video below. I especially like the bass/sax lead break towards the end of the performance.

The bass line in Dela is smooth yet punchy, rhythmic and melodic. Listen as the bass kicks in after the first few bars... The start/stop pattern and cleverly placed accents on top of a solid groove keep this song bubbling along in a happy, if sometimes melancholic, mood.


Notes for the novice: To really appreciate the bass in a song, you need a suitably sized sound system or decent headphones - your little laptop speakers won't cut it.

A simple way to embed audio in your blog

I was thinking of including some music on my blog. I noticed that Blogger had an option to add video but not audio. An easy way around this is to use a video editing application like Windows Movie Maker to create a video from your audio file. Then, once you have added your newly created video to your post, reduce the height of the video viewer so that only the control bar at the bottom of the player is visible.


Audio: Distance by Jim The Bassist (c) 2009

Tips: To create a video using Windows Movie Maker, you need to add at least one image or video clip in addition to the audio track. Adding a single, low resolution image keeps the size of the resultant video file small. When you've added your video to your post, switch to Edit Html and set the height of the embedded object to 27 (the size of the control bar).

Sign of the times

I think it's impossible not to know that the G20 summit took place in London today. And the protests yesterday have also provided plenty of fodder for the news-hungry. It was reported by BBC News that "City workers have been leaning out of windows to wave £10 notes at G20 protesters on the streets below". I found that quite an ironic sign of the times - back in the good ol' days, no self-respecting banker would taunt you with a tenner...


[Image from BBC News.]

I used to work near Liverpool Street and walked this route on my daily commute - past the Bank of England and the RBS branch that was vandalised and looted. It's quite surreal to see it like this. And I would have battled to get home through the crowds, even if I'd donned a hoody.

Jim's DIY projects: Room divider

In the spirit of the three Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle - I recently came up with a handy use for an old Ikea tabletop we had knocking about. We lack a decent broom closet in our kitchen and needed somewhere to put those annoying space hogs like the ironing board, drying rack, mop, etc. As the tabletop has the same finish as the kitchen units, it fits in quite nicely as a vertical screen. All I needed to do was add 4 shelf brackets as feet and the free-standing screen/room divider was complete! Mrs The Bassist added a square of blackboard paint to serve as our household list repository. You'd never guess the evils that we've managed to conceal in our shiny new "closet".

Tips and tricks:

If you don't have a tabletop handy, you can use any old board - paint it a funky colour if it looks a little tired.

Add hooks to the back of the board to maximise storage potential!

Make sure your shelf brackets are suitably sized to support the weight of the board, especially if you plan to hang things off the back of it. I used 200mm brackets for the 1500mm height tabletop.


Make sure the screws securing the front and back brackets don't clash - stagger the brackets if necessary. Also position the brackets where there is something solid to screw into. My tabletop was hollow but had solid blocks across the corners where the table legs would normally be attached. Drill holes for the screws to ensure a neat and accurate job.

If you want to add a blackboard area, sand the surface lightly with fine paper before applying the paint. Repeat between coats to ensure a well covered, durable finish. To get a clean line, block off the area to be painted using masking table.

Disclaimer: Don't try this at home! Obviously do, but don't sue me if you bang a nail into your little finger.

Hairstyles

Even though I've been through a few different hairstyles in my time (see below), I still find going for a haircut a somewhat confusing and slightly stressful experience. As I'm starting a new (day) job next week, I thought I'd better neaten up. Mrs The Bassist found Big Jim's Trims and it turned out to be a great little place (as well as having a cool name). I got a cut for £13 which sounds about right to me.



OK, so maybe one of my hairstyles in the picture above wasn't completely natural...

British Music Experience

I had a great time at the British Music Experience (BME) at the O2 on Monday. They've done a great job presenting the history of British music over the last half-century through a series of highly engaging and entertaining interactive spaces. I thoroughly enjoyed the Gibson Interactive Studio which was jam packed with gear - guitars, drums, keyboards, a mixing desk and a vocal both. Most of these where hooked up to pretty slick interactive tutorial software allowing visitors to learn a basic beat, or jam along to a commercial track with instruction from the artist. You could even save the result of your efforts to the BME website to impress your mates at a later date. The £15 ticket also gets you 3 tracks from iTunes - great. All in all, a lot of fun and very well put together.