So this is just another quick update, really. I spent a little bit of time updating the rest of this site, so the RePulse track pages are more up to date. I may still add more to them but I think they’re pretty consistent now and it should be easy enough for y’all to find tracks if you want to stream or purchase them. I’ve added pages for my upcoming holiday EP featuring vocals by Vocaloid Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ). There isn’t really anything on them at the moment, but the placeholders are there, so as I start rolling out tracks and/or promos, info, etc., they will have a home.
Quick Shameless Plug
At least for the foreseeable future, my plan is to keep certain ‘add-ons’ exclusive to Bandcamp. If you want the full RePulse experience, including full resolution download options (like FLAC or ALAC), the video version of the full album (including all of the YouTube promo videos plus three otherwise unreleased videos) and the 24-page uncensored digital booklet featuring art, lyrics, etc. to accompany the album, you’ll need to purchase it from Bandcamp. Furthermore, there is a second version of the album ‘RePulse: Stripped‘ which features the tracks without samples (i.e. instrumental versions), and it comes with a 36-page exclusive ‘archive’ digital booklet with even more uncensored art and design work, behind the scenes notes and unused materials, etc., for the true die hard fans. You know who you are.
So, About Luka
I’m a little over halfway done crafting tracks for the upcoming holiday EP featuring Luka, and I am so happy with her performance so far. She has managed to learn the original Ukrainian words to a popular Christmas song, the original French version of O Holy Night, “Cantique de Noël”, and several fairly complex jazz-style vocal arrangements, without blinking an eye. She has a huge range, never misses a beat, never sings off pitch, and is perfectly content to spend hours experimenting with weird ideas for harmonies and styles. Of course, she also never really has any ideas of her own. I have to literally teach her every note, every inflection, every word in every language I want her to sing. So I guess she’s far from perfect. But does that make her less, or more human? Probably less. I’m going to go with less. Anyway, I love her. Not in a creepy ‘gotta buy a body pillow of her and cuddle with it at night’ sort of way (glares at friends who have suggested such things…) but in the same way I love my Moog synthesizer and my Mac Pro*. They are amazing tools that let me express myself musically in ways I never thought I could. Luka may be the best of them yet, and she is just the start. I will definitely be delving deeper into this, possibly moving on to Cyber Diva and/or Cyber Songman next, since they are apparently based on American voices and therefore perform with less of an accent. (Secretly I kinda like Luka’s accent though, it makes her feel more like she has a real personality than if she had, for example, a broadcaster-style American accent.)
So that’s it for now. I’m going to be super busy the next couple of weeks but then hopefully I’ll get back to updating things more regularly. Let me know what you think about Luka and the upcoming Holiday EP project, check out RePulse because it’s amazing, and generally keep in touch because I like hearing from y’all!
*Okay, fine… I ‘might’ have occasionally thought about cuddling with my Moog and my Mac Pro…
