Long time no post! I’m not sure exactly why I haven’t shared any updates, but I currently regret not doing so. Here is a recap of the last few months.
Videolab Contest
My last post left me starting to learn Unity for the Videolab Creators contest. At the time, I was not 100% sure that I’d be able to learn a new program and make a product in the timeframe of the contest, but I did! It was a great learning experience and a decent amount of hard work, as you can see by this screenshot of my node system for just part of one of my eight or so patches...
The concept of my submission was to make a visualizer that responded to the different musical tracks of the OP-Z, as well as be controlled/sequenced by the OP-Z’s visual track. My submission did not win, but I received great feedback and learned a lot through the process. It also gave me immense respect for the videopaks people have already created! Here is the demo video of my Videopak "Cube."
Grammys Trip
In January of 2020, I went to my first Grammy Award Show in person, and it was a surreal experience. Not only was it my first time attending anything at the Staples Center, but that very morning, Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and others tragically passed. We showed up to the Staples Center in black tie attire surrounded by thousands of fans in Lakers jerseys paying their respects. The night was emotional, to say the least, and Lizzo kicked it off tributing her performance and the whole show to Kobe. I’m thankful to have experienced the power of music that night and have wanted to return, but due to the global pandemic, we did not attend the last couple of years.
This year was the first year they held the Grammy Award Show back in the now-called Crypto.com arena, so we decided to make the trip. The show honestly did not live up to the first time we went, but how could it? It was still an amazing trip this year, the highlight performance for me was Lizzo again, and it was cool to be in the room when Beyonce broke the record for the most Grammys ever by any individual. The best part of the whole trip was getting to hang out with my wife and friends in the southern California sunshine and eat some really good food.
Videogame Contest
Right after we got back, I decided I wasn’t quite done with Unity yet and entered into the Ludwig Jam 2023, which is a "make a videogame" contest put on by a YouTuber. My game was simple enough in concept, mixing tictactoe with checkers, but I hadn’t done any scripting (or coding) for Unity or even used the C# programming language. I also hadn’t used GitHub much or ever made a video game from scratch that would be hosted online.
Obviously, I did not win this contest either, but to my surprise, I got something submitted and I did not come last! Learning Unity and the amount of work that goes into making a game (even a simple one like this) was an eye-opening process. I was also able to heavily utilize chatGPT for a lot of the coding/scripting, so getting more familiar with AI language model prompted engineering was also valuable. You can check out and play Tacticats here.
Misc. and What’s Next
Apparently, I am really into competitions right now because I even decided to start looking into the NAP contest that The Audio Programmer was putting on. This contest challenged contestants to make a Neural Audio Plug-in to further Machine Learning in the audio field. I utilized the JUCE framework to start making a plug-in, and even got something very basic working, but ultimately decided I didn't have enough time to complete the project.
This competition, however, was not a loss. Throughout the competition, The Audio Programmer was doing live streams around the topic of Neural Audio Plug-ins, and one of the guests, Valerio from The Sound of AI, piqued my interest with an accelerator program he was putting on. You can read more about the program here, but essentially, it is a three-month tech startup accelerator focused on AI in music.
Long story short, I applied, got in, and accepted a position in the program. I'm honored and thrilled to see where it takes me over the next few months and will share what I can along the way. I'll still work on music/apps/everything else, but until the project starts, I don't really know how much of my time and energy will be allotted when and where. I will, though, try to not let another four months go by before writing another update!