PhD write-up diary
1 September 2011
CreativePact (6 posts)
With the hand-in of my PhD not far away I have decided to spend this year's CreativePact writing a diary of its completion.
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CreativePact 2011, day 1
Ok, I'll admit right now that I probably won't be doing a full pact this year. Also, my theme is not based on a particular piece of software like it was last year. This is because I hand my PhD in at the end of this month so I'm rather busy with that! But I also thought that my pact this year could basically be about my progress as I complete the PhD off. So here we go...
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iOS programming breakthrough
On my way to finishing my PhD today I started with editing speech for my track 'Futures' – with that completed all editing should be done and I can move on to mixing. In the afternoon I worked a bit on the thesis commentary, finding a couple of dangling references (one regarding the digital radio switchover, the other about neural networks for music). But it has been the evening that has provided the greatest satisfaction, and to explain why I’m going to explain Futures EP a bit more.
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Futures EP in development
Here is a shot of Futures EP running on my iPad. Today I started a new Objective-C class encapsulating an AVPlayer-based playback engine, timed using an instance of AVMutableComposition. In the morning I sorted out both backing tracks, and this evening I tackled the open vocal parts of the first track, 'Tapes'. It has all come together very easily, including the reloading of open parts when the EP is stopped. When running on the device the app actively uses around 1MB of memory.
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Swapping timers for observation/notification
Today I'm going to continue documenting my programming. Before I start on this just to mention I also worked on the mix of 'Futures', the second track of Futures EP. The order of the day was vocals, and I wasn't quite sure what I was going for mix-wise but the results are a good starting point.
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Short day, PhD submission extension
Today I didn't do too much as I arranged with Monty an extension to my PhD submission deadline, necessary as a number of things (which are not topics of this blog) have come together to make the target of the end of this month untenable. I am currently in London hunting for new accommodation.
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CreativePact 2011 epilogue
As predicted, my CreativePact for 2011 was cut short early on (primarily due to circumstances outside of my control). The good news though is that I successfully submitted my PhD in December 2011, following that up with its successful defence just last month. The final thesis commentary is available for download from Huddersfield University ePrints.