BLEATING The System

Create whatever the fuck you want.

A few days ago I experienced something deeply profound and sacred. A bolt of inspiration that felt like a mirror to some emotions I’ve buried very, very deep.

This is the story of manifesting a creation without consideration for anything except the gift of creativity, how I went about it, and why.

My debut record release.

Before you read the story, have a look at the interview I worked up, because this story is about Alyte, about creating, about music, songwriting, storytelling, and much more.

Also, be kind enough to subscribe to the new music channel (I won’t post often, promise), and GET NOTIFIED when the upcoming album drops!

First, The GenX Angle

I grew up being made fun of. I was teased, bullied, and beat up. Early on I developed a vivid and unrelenting inner world, one that I retreat to when I’m stressed, by pouring myself into creativity.

Sometimes, the world withers and negativity takes over.

What my childhood experiences did to me was awful, honestly. I developed a need to please others. A fear of putting myself out there. I was terrified to be judged. Scared of consequences. Afraid of upsetting anything or anyone.

I’ve re-wired myself since then, but scars certainly remain.

These days? I’m still stressed. Ever since my brother died, anxiety built a trampoline park in my brain, gave out free cocaine and blowtorches at the door, and then let in a bunch of laxative-munching, ADHD-addled chimpanzees that have been waiting in line for three days.

The result? What you’d expect.

My out? Creative freedom.

Inspiration Like A Freight Train

It’s not every day we can say as creatives that we’ve been struck hard by a muse, but it happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It was in a dream, I was half awake, and I realized that something … happened. I didn’t *think* of a character. The character kicked open the door to my head and said, “I’m here. We have shit to do. Now get to work.”

I’ll get cosmic on you.

We are hurtling through time, on a line that is unending, and unrelenting. We are three-dimensional, winding our way down a temporal roller coaster with no idea of what’s next, the only clarity being afforded by hindsight.

The experience I had felt as though I opened a time capsule, but from the future. One where a character and a slightly older version of me packaged up something awesome, left it on the roller coaster track, and watched and waited as I spun my way around corners and loops, only to get my face smashed in by this thing as soon as I hit it.

Honestly, Interstellar would’ve been more entertaining if that’s how he communicated with his daughter, but I digress…

Future-Me and that character gave each other a high-five, knowing exactly what they just did.

It was like another version of me knew exactly where I was going to be on my space-time roller coaster, and what would be in my mind, and left this gift-wrapped little present there waiting for me. The precise thing I needed at the precise moment in space and time that I needed it.

Cyberpunk Dreams, Unknown Territory

I had a dream about a character. At first hazy recollections as I woke up.

Cybernetics.

Vulnerability, but very guarded.

Sass, but as a defense mechanism.

Pain, for too many reasons.

Tragedy, pre-destined.

Awareness of it all, feeding back into the loop.

I immediately took to MidJourney to try and manifest her from my dreams into something visual. One prompt. One generation. And there she was, identical to my dreams.

Her name came to me immediately. “Alyte.”

The thing is, this inspiration didn’t come in the usual mold. This wasn’t a character for a short story, or a character for a book or scene. This was something far more. There was an emotional element tied to those days of heartache and hiding that I experienced in my youth.

Alyte was speaking to me, and it’s only now at the ripe age of 50 that I’m able to listen, and understand what she represents. And to honor this inspiration, I’d have to let go of “author” as part of my identity. She told me to. And she told me music was the medium.

When “Author” Isn’t Enough

I own my use of AI in all the things. I use it for imagery, for video, for inspiration. Never for writing - that’s an act that soothes my brain, and I’d no sooner hand it to something else than I would hire someone to eat chocolate chip cookies for me.

That satisfaction is mine, and mine alone.

But as a creative, AI affords me avenues to creating that I’ve never had before. It allows for better building of the website. Characters and merch. Swag. Book covers. It’s a tool. An instrument. And it’s an instrument that I’ve found myself having a natural knack for.

I took to it quickly at a high level of ability because of the natural skills I have in curiosity, storytelling and technology. I’m used to this sort of thing.

This is why “Author” isn’t enough for me. I’m a creator, and I’m finding that the medium with which I create matters much less than the creation itself, and the act of doing so.

Here Comes The Negativity.

I heard all of the negative voices before I even started.

“IT’S NOT MUSIC, IT’S AI!”

“IT’S NOT ART, IT’S AI!”

“YOU AREN’T CREATING, YOU’RE STEALING!”

“SLOP!”

“SOULLESS!”

So I made a decision. I’m going to throw on that black sheepskin, and embrace it, my way. Onward, with a new attitude.

This is me. Hi.

Friends, I’ve been so fucking tired of being afraid for such a long time that I just don’t give a shit anymore. I’m going to write what I want to write. Create what I want to create. Do what I want to do. You’re either here for it, or you aren’t. Either way, I’m moving forward.

You can’t stop me.

You can’t shame me into stopping.

You can’t beat me down, threaten me, or coerce me into stopping.

You can’t cancel me, because I truly don’t care about you.

The only thing I’m going to give the naysayers, doubters, purists and negative folks is the freedom to walk away before I annihilate them in the many creative ways at my disposal.

I don’t even listen to the people closest to me when I’m creating because - and this may surprise you to hear - I don’t give a shit about what they think either.

That little kid that got beat up, bullied, teased and bloodied when he was 7 years old now has adult me next to him on the playground, and if anyone so much as looks at him sideways and tries that shit again, hands get thrown, wedgies get distributed, and feelings will get hurt.

Turning Hours Of Work Into 6 Minutes Of Art.

With my fresh attitude, and my fresh escape from the “author” box and its associated purist idiots telling me what I can and cannot do, I set to creating. Bringing Alyte to life.

The goal? A concept album, a cyberpunk tragedy in 7 tracks.

Here’s the basic run-down of tools and processes:

STEP 1: Ulysses - My writing app of choice. This is where the first iteration of lyrics get written.

STEP 2: Suno - Where the style gets dialed in, and the generated song communicates the lyrics in the manner I want. I utilize a heavy use of tags and description to zero in on what I want.

STEP 3: Audition - This is where all of the stems of the finalized tracks go. The bulk of the work takes place manually here. Editing the stems, re-arranging the song, managing the levels, applying per-instrument or per-stem effects if needed, and basically shaping the tune into what I want.

STEP 4: Audition (again) - After the track is set, it’s put into a mixdown single file, re-loaded into Audition, and here comes the effects rack for compression, de-essing, and much more, aiming for that LUFS sweet spot. Don’t know what LUFS is? Neither did I. Look it up and you can be an audio engineer too.

Then, dialing in the look.

STEP 5: MidJourney - Started here for the image of Alyte.

STEP 6: VEO3 - Did some basic work to get a few different angles/images of her. This allowed me to snag multiple starting frames for the generated videos to establish consistent shots in that interview.

STEP 7: JSON work - This is the prompting gold-mine when working with VEO3. This is what allowed me to get to three “views” of Alyte - a 50-degree ARC shot, a wide front shot, and a medium close up.

STEP 8: VEO3 - Building the video bank. B-Roll shots where she’s sitting thoughtfully in the different frames, then …

STEP 9: Script Writing - This is where the interview gets written. The back and forth, the Q&A responses, etc. Once that’s done, each answer gets split into pieces that would naturally take about 5-7 seconds to say, due to VEO3 having an 8-second limit, and not wanting her speech to feel rushed in terms of pace.

STEP 10: Video Generation - This is the bulk of the interview where Alyte is speaking and gesturing. Step 7 provides a lot of help here, as it’s easy to just iterate prompts with a few small changes once the cinematography, style, and mannerisms have all been dialed in.

STEP 11: Voice - Via ElevenLabs, I created a voice to match Alyte (and in particular her voice in the very beginning of the 2nd track, Masked. I still tried to generate consistent voice on the VEO3 videos, but it didn’t always come out the same, and consistency in that smoky, husky contralto voice was key to pulling this off.

STEP 12: Adobe Premiere Pro - This is where all of the videos end up, where all of the editing takes place, the graphics, sounds, effects, etc. Many times I started with video here, yanked the audio from it, plugged it into ElevenLabs to clone it in the “set” voice, and stitched it back in, then applying a stack of effects to accentuate the highs on the voice, and add a limited amount of dynamics and large-room reverb to make it sound like she’s speaking into a mic, but it’s getting picked up with some echo as well.

STEP 12A: Drink caffeine and curse a lot because you deleted your fucking save file by accident and lost 5 hours worth of editing work.

STEP 13: My Voice Part - I used Premiere Pro for this, and recorded my voice asking questions and doing the back-and-forth with my own studio mic, then applying a completely DIFFERENT effects rack to make it sound like I was off camera, only getting picked up by her directional mic.

Behind The Curtain

So I used Suno, MidJourney, VEO3, ChatGPT (prompting help!), ElevenLabs, Illustrator and Photoshop (forgot about those for image editing), Premiere Pro, Audition, and all of the other tertiary tools that go with it all. This is including licensing graphics and title effects from Adobe’s library, as well as fonts.

People, you cannot simply “tell AI” to do what I did, and have it spit out a quality project. It does not work that way. I was meticulous about sound, presentation, quality, and the delivery of my storytelling in the exact way I wanted it.

This is copyrightable. This is creation. Every step of the way it is infused with my effort as an artist and creator to wield these tools into something I’d be proud of.

These are just tools, though. Tools that allowed me to honor the inspiration that hit me, and bring something to life in a really epic way. This project was scary, there are eyeballs on it, and I was determined to give it the best chance I could, and I believe I succeeded.

If Alyte were real, she would be proud.

So, What Am I?

“Author” isn’t enough. I’m evolving, and I’m not sure what I’m evolving into, but I’m enjoying myself, having a great time, and experiencing some profoundly glorious moments as a result.

Undone is sacred ground for me. I feel like this inspiration was a true gift, and I’m here to build something bigger, messier, and more alive than only words on a page.

‘Til then …

Bleat the shit outta anyone that says you can’t, and don’t get fleeced in the process!

(If there’s anything else you’d like to see in terms of behind-the-scenes, process, or just more thoughts on creativity and this project, even a lyrical breakdown, leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to get it worked up for you!)