Archive for the ‘Meta’ Category

General update

High time I wrote an update so here it is in handy numerical point form:

1) Latest visual rejig

I change the look of this site pretty much every 3-4 months so this is the suitably grey Winter edition. Going for stylish here, not drab! I’ll try and find a less scary photo of me for that bit at the top. I can’t remember where I got those glasses from. The layout is unchanged as I’m still pretty happy with that -- dominated by the video player arrangement as it is. The cool neutral tone of the greys really helps make this page seem a bit less full-on tho which should help.

2. Accessibility issues

I’m not sure how many visitors to this site use IE (I’m quite confident that its LESS than 25%) but the video playlist positioning is botched in that browser due to some CSS issues. I’d like to iron these out but it’s not a priority. It’s been tested and approved in Chrome and Firefox but not Safari, Opera or other browsers.

3. End of decade lists

Back in the Summer I decided to put together five different top 100 lists featuring my favourite music from the last 10 years. The five lists are:

- Instrumentals (including tracks with only sampled speech or minimal vocals that are either repeated throughout the track like a mantra or used very sparingly between extended instrumental sections)
- Remixes (including re-edits, alternative and unofficial versions, mash-ups,  and extended sequences of music that change significantly to the extent where they can’t really be considered single tracks in the conventional sense)
- Non-Singles (for tracks that were only available on albums or EPs and were not the A-side)
- Top 40 Singles (for tracks that peaked within the UK Top 40)
- Non-Hit Singles (for tracks released as singles that peaked OUTSIDE the UK Top 40)

These lists will be published online in the form of an exciting minisite I’ve been working on including embedded YouTube links AND very long mixes featuring all the tracks in the lists and a few near-misses. Part of the reason for doing the lists is the presentation aspect as I’m interested in the best ways to display music lists online. There will be more explanation about this, the process and why I’ve divided the lists up in this way on the site itself. Hoping to have it up and running by Monday -- it’s taken a while to get together because of the complicated navigation (tho it won’t actually be at all complicated to actually use -- that’s the point!). With all that going on I don’t think I can write much about the tracks chosen but then there’s plenty of critical analysis going on elsewhere, my thing is more a design/presentation exercise than anything else, the deluge of lovely tunes attached is just a nice bonus heh.

4. Latest videos

I haven’t blogged the most recent additions to the playlist -- the mash-up of Black-Eyed Peas with bag Raiders, the Ultramix 08 extract featuring Hercules & Love Affair and the Aeroplane remix of Friendly Fires and the Ultramix 09 extract featuring Kevin Rudolf & Lil Wayne vs Franz Ferdinand -- two of the three are also on my YouTube page for the record.

I’ve also been adding to YouTube tracks in my top 100 00s Instrumentals list and there’s a playlist under construction for those here -- the final 40 will be revealed by Saturday. I’ll be adding YouTube playlists for the four other lists over the rest of the month leading right up to New Year’s Day or thereabouts.

For the benefit of the Instrumentals list I quickly put together a video for one of the tracks on there -- Deadly Avenger’s Day One’.

I’m going to try and put together a few more vids for some of the tracks that don’t have them and aren’t already on YT but it’s much quicker and easier just to use a single image -- illogical as it may be. Isn’t it about time YouTube had an audio only option so you could just upload audio file formats and not just video? The ubiquity and accessibilty of YT would justify this imo. Or yeah maybe you could just Soundcloud (for the purpose of my 00s faves lists I want a YouTube link for every track tho).

5. Ed Byrne

I’ve designed a basic blog for TV funnyman Ed Byrne. It is here.

6. Ultramix

It’s almost the 5th anniversary of the project! And so much left to do ;_; Look out for a fully remastered version of Ultramix 90 (As well as having extended some sections adding new tracks, I’ve redone some parts from scratch due to some poor bitates and clunky mixing on the original) and hopefully the long-delayed 90 minute version will also appear. Improvements to the other 90s editions also on the way including the completion of 96 (after what, a year? sheesh). The 09 mix should be finished in the New Year too along with the 00 mix. That just leaves…a lot. It’s only a hobby you know…

About this site

base58.com was originally launched in early 2001 and always intended as a portal designed to represent and reflect the interests of the author while additionally providing a showcase for the author’s design work and dabblings in audio and video (including editing, effects and animation). This manifesto has remained constant over time but only with the latest incarnation of the website (published in early August 2008) has the full vision of a (WordPress powered) blog-based portal integrating audio and visual edits, photography and artwork and favourites lists been realised.

From 2007 an emblem was designed as a means of strengthening the identity of the site together with the slogan ‘Vision Creation Solution’ (summarising the process by which problems are dealt with and how work is produced). The latest version of this emblem is a succinct demonstration of the author’s graphic art skills and attempts to encapsulate the thematic ideals and aspirations of the author with it’s usage of motifs such as the eye (representing a centralised vision), golden eagle (freedom through artistry), ocean waves (acknowledgement of origin) and isometric coloured tiles (featuring CMYK and RGB tones indicating the visual ‘components’ of the author’s work).

base58.com was conceived and implemented by Steve Mannion, a Designer born in 1978, from the area formerly known as Middlesex and residing in Hackney, London.

Update

Re-designing. Again. New wordpress based site up in a week or four. Enjoy the weather.