Jacob Gorban

  • A look back at my musical projects in 2024

    I released two songs this year: - “You Make Me Smile” (January): Musically, this might be my best work yet. I’m particularly proud of the harmonies and melodies I’ve written for it. Huge thanks to Jon Bakke for his incredible vocal performance that took the song to another level. - “Spares” (July): This song had been in the works for a couple of years as I struggled with the vocals. Luckily, I’ve met Filip Zima, who could do justice to the vocals in a short time. I enjoyed the process of recording a great vocalist in my home studio. It was my first opportunity to work with Filip and, hopefully, not the last. A last-minute bonus was working with my old acquaintance Dave Hamilton on drums, for the first time. My daughter, Liana, drew the cover art for the song, another first, making me a proud dad.

    In February, I participated in FAWM (February Album Writing Month) for the second time, and sketched out several new ideas. Two of them stand out as strong candidates for future production. Truth be told, they slipped my mind while focusing on Spares and the cover band after February.

    On that note, the cover band I play in, Muse On, had two performances in 2024. First at a private event, in August, and our own large event in November, with 3 hours of music and 200 people in attendance. Both events were successful. These take a lot of practice time, though, thus the reduced output on the personal projects in the latter half of the year.

    I’ve also been growing my presence on YouTube, releasing five regular videos (including the two songs) and 12 short videos throughout the year.

    This year, I got a record player for my birthday and it’s a been a lot of fun rediscovering vinyl records and listening to music this way, engaging with the cover art and listening more intently to favourite classics.

    I’m looking forward to a creative 2025. Happy New Year, everyone!

  • If I posted a thread on X about X, did I go Meta?

  • “November Rain” first guitar solo: These solos are like string bending masterclass. I’m trying to get the nuances of the solos and the sound as much as possible. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough.

  • 👨‍🎤 Music Trivia: this is the inner sleeve for a vinyl record. Anybody knows which record this is?

  • So, will I be able to ask the new ChatGPT voice mode to speak with a spam/scam call on my phone and stall them as long as possible? Asking for a friend.

  • Finally iOS 17 support Facebook!? You’re either a year too late or confused.

  • Eter (our internet radio player app for Apple devices) now supports sharing radio stations. A surprise awaits those who come to the share page without Eter installed on their iPhone. Try it: eter.apparentsoft.com/stations/…

  • David Gilmour’s new album is out now.

  • My 🐕 Sparky is addicted to snacks and would sometimes bark to request them. I now call him “addictator”.

  • 🎵🚨Gonna have the premiere of my new song release (that I started writing in late 2020) in 5 mins at www.youtube.com/watch It’s a kind of a singer-songwriter rock.

  • I bought two Kansas vinyl records yesterday, though I don’t know them well. Is an opportunity to get better acquainted. Also, what beautiful sleeve in this one. The other one is their first album.

    If you buy physical media, do you usually buy albums you already know or new stuff to discover?

  • 🎵 Did you know I write a newsletter related to my musical journey? I just posted some “behind the scenes” for an upcoming songs that’s been (too) long in the making. music.gorban.org/posts/spa…

  • I like how in the past bands would often invest in the cover art, sometimes with quite original ideas like here. A bonus short appearance of Sparky 🐶 in the end of the video.

    🎵Which albums’ cover art do you like the most?

  • I went to a mastering studio yesterday, for finalizing my next song release. This was a fun and educational experience. 🎵

  • Apple stock is down 2%. Coming back up “later this year”.

  • This 🎸 solo, played by Larry Carlton for Steely Dan, is such a melodic marvel and a lot of fun to play. 🎵 Kid Charlemagne.

  • Ha, ChatGPT. I caught you!

  • I have to say that in my various, limited testing of llama-3 AI model vs ChatGPT 4 Plus, I often find llama-3 following instructions better and giving more precise results. Quite surprising. These two images are ChatGPT4 and llama-3-7B run locally, which actually gave a better result.

    Result of ChatGPT4Result of llama-3-7b. Here is a poem about programming for iOS in Swift:&10;&10;`let codeFlow = "where logic meets art"&10;print("Creating an app from the heart")&10;var uiView: UIView = UIView()&10;uiView.backgroundColor = .systemBlue&10;print("Designing UI, making it new")&10;func handleTap(_ sender: UITapGestureRecognizer) {&10; print("User tapped!")&10;}&10;print("Adding functionality, step by step")&10;swift.print("iOS dev's delight is in sight")`&10;&10;This poem contains valid Swift code, using the `let`, `var`, and `func` keywords to define a variable, an instance of a class (`UIView`), and a function. The code also uses string interpolation to print out a message.

  • So happy about the new music from David Gilmour, one of my main influences on guitar. The first single’s video is just out, and it’s a better song than I was expecting, given his previous output lately. Good energy. www.youtube.com/watch

  • I came up with this funky part Tuesday evening. It’s really fun to solo over when looped. Could be a basis for a full composition, I think. 🎵🎸

  • I’ve recently connected with a local singer and recorded his vocals for a song that has been waiting for better vocals for a couple of years 🤦🏻‍♂️. I’ve been trying to sing it myself but my vocals are not good enough. It’s a lesson I learned with my last song. Now I’m in the mixing stage.

  • Yesterday, while driving, I heard two songs on the PRM online radio that I liked. With the new history feature in Eter, I later added these albums to my Apple Music library. That’s exactly the use-case that I envisioned this feature for.

    A list of songs in Eter.The new my added album cover art in Apple Music

  • 🚀 Eter 2.0 is now on Product Hunt. If you’re part of the community, check out the launch: www.producthunt.com/posts/ete…

  • We launch Eter 2.0 (an online radio streaming app for Apple devices) on Product Hunt tomorrow. We’ll appreciate it if you follow the launch. You can get notified at www.producthunt.com/products/… Requires Product Hunt account. IYKYK.

  • The now-shut-down Apple car project was actually a cover operation. They were never going to compete with Tesla. Instead, Apple is going to compete with Space X. Also, introducing SpaceshipPlay.

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