I knocked some more slop out of pg 2. I’m not totally happy. I got the A.I. to preserve my art style better on pg 2 than 1, but it didn’t smooth my pencils out as well, or fix bad anatomy. Which I didn’t prompt for, but it was improving the anatomy anyway. I could do a better job with my pencils, but then I wouldn’t have time to do things like “go to work.” I probably need to keep doing that.
The traffic boost on the 21st turned out to be a one-time-only deal, not a result of a change to Toocheke or WordPress. The traffic spike is weird and I can’t explain it, unless I have a thousand Jewish fans with nothing better to do on Yom Kippur. I doubt that’s the explanation, but “Shalom” if it is. Because of that one-day boost, this month’s traffic will be significantly better than last month’s – otherwise it would be about the same.
I’ll advertise on TWC again around pg 6 or 8, when this story arc wraps up. It’d be nice to have some new story posted for anyone who read the comic when it originally ran.
Have you ever found yourself wondering why Afrobeats – the joyful soundtrack to the "Africa Rising" era from the late 2000s through the early 2010s – seems to have lost much of its energy and lustre of recent? Does it seem to you… pic.twitter.com/uYs3YJUXDG
I’m going to see what I can do with this one. It’s not the most popular overall, judging by bandwidth – “Boom Boom Out the Speaker” is – but La-La is only 2/3’s the file size and hasn’t been posted for as long, and it’s been leading lately. The vocal sounds like Stuka. Doesn’t it seem like Stuka could be singing it here?
Here are the lyrics the A.I. came up with –
Lyrics
[Intro]
Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm oh-oh
[Verse 1]
No ni-no ni-no
Ya ba-la ta-ka
Ride the wave then flip it back
She say brr-brr-la
[Pre-Chorus]
Ri-da-di-da
Coming through the static
Ri-da-di-da
Bright and loud and dramatic
[Chorus]
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra
Don’t you catch me now
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra
Sass is all I know
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra-ra
[Verse 2]
Te-na ta-na to
Wanna try my luck
Overdrive a melody
Break it then pick it up
[Pre-Chorus]
Ri-da-di-da
Echo off the ceiling
Ri-da-di-da
Every bolt I’m stealing
[Chorus]
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra
Don’t you catch me now
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra
Sass is all I know
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra-ra
[Bridge]
La-la hoo-di-di
Nobody can slow my glide
La-la hoo-di-di
Sunshine on my side
[Chorus]
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra
Don’t you catch me now
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra
Sass is all I know
Sko-ba sko-ba-ra-ra
Some of this is useable as-is. Much of the weird text is just a variation of “La La La” in the song, so that’s o.k. The entire first verse will need to be reworked. “Ride the wave and flip it back,” mmm, I need to leave “flip” alone because the A.I. will probably lose the flourish on it if I change it, and that’s worth keeping.
The pre-chorus is good as-is.
In the chorus, “Sko-ba sko-ba-ra-ra” needs to be changed for sure. “Don’t you catch me now” is intriguing, but for the final chorus I’ll try to change it to “Did you catch me now?”
“Sass is all I know” has to be changed.
Verse 2 needs work. Given the limitations of A.I., it’s best if I change as little as possible. Te-na ta-na to will have to change, and “overdrive a melody,” but I should be able to work around the other two lines.
In the next pre-chorus, “Echo off the ceiling” needs work. “Every bolt I’m stealing” can become “Every look I’m stealing.”
The bridge has some flourishes that should be kept. “Sunshine on my side” would make more sense as “Sunshine’s on my side,” and it sounds like that’s what she’s singing anyway, so I’ll just change the written lyrics to reflect that. It’s not a bad lyric if there’s some support for it elsewhere.
“Nobody can slow my glide -” Ideally, I’d only replace “glide” to make the bridge work.
Well, let’s see what I can do. I’ll generate an end for it, download the stems and see about changing the words I have replacements for. I’ve done it in the past, but who knows about the current state of the model? It was bad last week.
Now you can see how A.I. music making quickly dives into “real musician” territory. Even if you aren’t writing out every individual note, you have to have a feel for what works. You’ve got to be able to tell the A.I. about the cowbell. This isn’t too far from what it’s like –
Another Kpop sounding track. Strange that these keep popping up when there are no tags for Kpop or Jpop on Treblo. It sounds like Treblo’s LLM trained on Kpop/Jpop, but Treblo won’t let you specifically request those genres.
The more I listen to these, the more I like them – if only I could change the lyrics. I suppose all the Kpop/Jpop sounding songs would be Yaoi Hokkaido songs. I’m not feeling this sound for the other girls, but who knows? There could be a way that works.
For those who are curious, this is what you guys have been listening to this month –
Not huge numbers, and for all I know they are some form of data scraping – but if the numbers represent real people, it’s a huge improvement over the amount of traffic I got on platforms. Which was typically zero.
Why does the voice sound so bad? For $7000 you get the cheapest speaker they could find? It’s strange that these all sound terrible, when A.I. can do vocals well. The vocals should be one of the selling points.
Another light rock/alternative sounding track. Once again, the A.I. decided to ignore the “female vocalist” tag and do male vocals instead. It’s a common problem.
If lyrics were easy to change, this wouldn’t be a bad way to work. I could count off syllables and write lyrics that would fit. How much input do lyricists normally get over the music? Not as much as they can get out of A.I., I’d guess.
It’s not perfect, but it will have to do. Pyro Tits looks like she has light skin and white hair, but she’s suppose to have darker skin and red hair. Put it on a brain cell, because the A.I. can’t.
I spent too much time trying to fix the A.I.’s sloppy flatting tonight, and I’m not going to make the update. Sorry. I said this would be tough. I’ll think the problem over and try a different approach.
And it’s not really done, but I will try to post the colored version I wanted on Thursday, and that’s how we’ll roll. Unless that doesn’t work either. I don’t have time to be doing this, but I’m not going to give up my comic entirely for things I don’t want to do as much. We’ll just have to settle for less again, as usual.
BTW, props to whomever knows what character Pyro Tits is a reference too. That name is going to sound really stupid to anyone who doesn’t get the reference.
M.4R and M.3R