After a bit of experimentation, I've added some fun new features to Spectralizer for v1.2. You can now blend the spectralized image with the original, in various different ways, to produce some pretty cool results. It's live on the App Store now!
On Saturday night, I saw a beautiful sunset during a car journey, and did what I've done many times; I took out my phone, took a picture, and was disappointed with the results. Between the movement of the car, the lack of light, and the reflections on the car window, it was a blurry mess. The colours were very nice, though, which led me to this idea...
Spectralizer takes a horizontal or vertical row of pixels from an image, then stretches them to create a high-resolution image comprising the colour palette of the original image. Suddenly a blurry, disappointing image becomes an interesting, abstract image with the same colour tones as the source. I think they make really nice wallpapers, and just nice images to look at in general. It's fun to see the patterns that come out.
It's free to download, give it a whirl!
I had the pleasure of being asked to be a guest on one of my absolute favourite podcasts recently, Worst Case Scenario. Thanks to the guys for having me, it was lots of fun. I've linked to the episode that I'm on, but I highly recommend subscribing to the show!
051 – All Our Indie Dreams Have Been Crushed – with Stephen Coyle, Worst Case Scenario
Following others' leads, and after a fresh (but far from final, I suspect) batch of news on how shady Facebook is, I've decided to close my account. Being honest, I've generally had a positive-ish experience there; I was a fairly casual user, posting the odd photo in addition to the usual sorts of news people post there. Despite that, though, I've developed a pretty harsh distaste for its effects on other people I know, whether in the form of addiction or anxiety-induction. The recent news has really solidified how pointedly they are actually trying to engender those sorts of feelings, and I'd rather have nothing more to do with it.
I posted my contact details this evening, for anyone who wants to keep in touch and doesn't have them already. In an attempt to get the best of the down-ranking that post is sure to experience, I'm going to re-post it in a week or so, and then I'm out for good.
The fate of my Instagram account hangs in the balance for the moment...
I’m delighted to have been shortlisted for the third Peter Rosser Award for composition, run by the stunningly good Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble. My piece, Taking[Up][In][Off][Away], will be performed at the final, alongside the other two shortlisted works, this coming Tuesday 27th March. There will also be a recording of the event posted online afterwards, so I’ll be sure to post that here as soon as it’s available.
I don’t usually go into massive detail about the subject matter of my music, if it can be avoided, but this piece (unavoidably, really) reflects upon a number of things that have happened in my life recently. There are a few different compositional processes going on throughout the piece, which are what its title refers to.
It’s been great to get shortlisted, and best of luck to my co-finalists on Tuesday!
Some thoughts on a better alternative to YouTube's seek bar, for audio especially.
I released Tapt 2 at the weekend. It's a complete rewrite, sharing pretty much zero code with the original. I'll do a post soon explaining the reasons for that, and going into a few things I did differently this time around. In the meantime please check it out! You can search for it on the App Store, or grab it at the links below.
http://taptgame.com
Direct App Store Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapt-2/id1331530907?ls=1&mt=8