Early Riser

Up today, still ain't got the temperature right on the bed (too hot again) but gonna get an hour or two review work done. At least I realised the record loop mode is there, just oddly not the default. Makes recording drum loops a bit easier but still shite cos you have to stop playback to go into record. Mustn't get hung up on the sequencer of course. Need to register that Cubase version and see if it really is a demo (and if it features a VSTi editor).

Walkies this morning, John's leaving do this evening. Must get a Barcelona trip scheduled sooner rather than later then another with Pat later in the year.

Slow Oriental Afternoon

Made progress but not as much as I'd like. Tried to get away with keyboardy versions of ethnic stuff but Paul ain't buying it. Real audio stuff needed boy, if you're gonna compete. Found another download I should get, which I will on Monday (new month, new download limit). Hey ho.

Tomorrow I should try to do my review but it's John's leaving do at Greyfriars. 20:00.

Pat's birthday

So have offered to go horse-walking with her. Bright, sunny day. I know I should be working on review/music but will have to wait until tomorrow. May grab an hour or so this afternoon...

p.m.

I believe some people find peeing in public places impossible. Personally I find composing when not alone in the house very difficult. So didn't get much done this afternoon. Off for a meal tonight which should be nice...

Knackered

Cirklon fully connected to everything. Will do some testing this evening but should really get on with review so I can get back to library music lark.

Very tired; two late nights, curries, KFCs, beer and smokes. Not exactly a health kick eh?

Think my Freqbox has a fault. Seems to no longer sync properly over the full range, like the bottom range of it has gone. Will try again tomorrow and check when I bought it. Also the weird kick volume variation thing needs understanding/sorting. Will experiment more tomorrow.

Cirklon's gonna be fun!

Cirklon arrives

My prototype is here. Lots of lights. Working on in for the next few days, throwing ideas around and seeing how fast Colin can code them. Scarily fast in some cases...

We're almost out of weed already. :(

Crash, bang, wossup? (Logic on its arse again)

Last night's Logic crashes were related to Bouncing, an area that seems perpetually weak. My seven minute version of the India track would only bounce in realtime mode otherwise it fell on its arse every time.

Tonight's crashes were with the 32 Bit Bridge, which I wouldn't personally want to drive across. I wasn't doing anything complex either, merely auditioning patches on Omnisphere. The little floating bridge window is a bit naff too cos it blocks the ability to save a screenset with the Omnisphere window already open on the second screen.

Have reverted to 32 bit mode. I really couldn't see any benefits anyway and the crashes seemed more often even than usual. Paul's trying the public beta of Omnisphere 64 bit but until all my apps go over is it really worth it? He says he can get just two more instances of Omnisphere in 64 bit than he could on Logic 8. So much for 12 Gb RAM!

As time goes by I really wonder how Apple got their great reputation. My experience has been constant flakiness, numerous updates and all the stability of a jellyfish on a trampoline.

Started an oriental tune but after the last crash just sorta lost interest in the battle. I must be fecking crazy to put myself through this. Hell, it reminds me of Cubase 1.0 on Windows it's so iffy!

Grumble, grumble, moan, moan. Shall I bother to moan on the Logic forum or shall I not?

Colin and Tony here tomorrow for sequencer brainstorming, curry and smokes. Won't get much work done on review or tunes for a bit, but the break will be nice. Review started (3,000 words of notes hammered out) so a good idea of final wordcount required. Need deadline.

Busy busy

Star Trek very good, JJ Abrams done wel.

May miss mum today as I've promised to do some horse-walking with Pat. Then I should press on with review I guess although today is my scheduled first CD of "Tales from the Logic/Sanity Border" which will include everything I've done so far in order (best first). This to be repeated fortnightly now to keep me working and producing. I have four tracks of value (I think) with three applicable to the Global Chillage idea. The jolly Bhangra sketch I started using Apple Loops could work too with not much more effort.

I really should create a slick, professional website for my new Composer/Writer persona. Will use softroom.co.uk and keep smokyfrog for the, well, smokier side of things. Should retire others (JIC/Bogus) and save money. Could've sold JIC one too. Ah well.

Visited Centre today, some upset that I'd left. More had died too including another favourite. Promised to return sometime. Best keep to that. Gave my car its first wash. We both survived the shock.

Started review proper, made a decent stab anyway. Was helpful to see Tony in action with it last night.

Have upgraded Logic to 9.1. We'll see what that brings. Still have an urge to record and to refine what I already have. Brian Eno on BBC4 thought-provoking as usual. Brown plasticene idea has resonances with overworking ideas. But I do need to shave off rough edges for library music, if no other. :) Noticed that Eno has same b&w pic on his desktop as I do. The man has good taste. :)

Star Trek and wine tonight. May miss mum tomorrow as Pat wants help walking Murphy.

Indie Done

Completed the Indian one, bar a bit of possible tweaking. So much better when the drum loop is a green apple loop cos you can make tweaks to it that you couldn't with audio loops. Happy with it too, will see what Paul thinks. Always worry my melodies are a bit twee.

Had nice lunch with John, he's off to Barcelona a week on Monday! Seriously considering flogging my Two Voice so I can afford that Synthi-A. Madness?

This laptop making more noise than usual. Should back it up...

Right, done for the day, gonna chill.

Chaos Reigns

Learning some important lessons - slowly cos I'm thick. Eventually tweaked the 6 min track to about 3 and hopefully kept all the good stuff. More Enya than Kenya could be the title but it's Ambient Africa 2 as of now. In the end it's easier to re-record stuff than move it around and make it fit. Linear sequencers are a bit frustrating for rearranging stuff but that's probably me. Logic's end point seems to keep moving without me telling it. Also had red cpu and disk lights today when not doing so much - seems it struggles the longer it's active. Should I try the 9.1 upgrade or wait a bit longer? Still feels too flaky to trust entirely.

Started an indian one, well threw out most of one I'd started already and used some Omnisphere sounds to get me inspired. Could do with some indian chick noises or maybe even something wacky like howling chinese opera. Sure that would mix with sitars and tibetan singing bowls... erm.

Need to get faster. And the results are still not polished enough. Didn't work on review today or visit old people, just sat at computer and laboured.

That was Monday

Replaced the Virus whiney part with a JV2080 Enya-like part. If I'm to use it I must trim to 3 focused minutes, tidy up the loose playing and vary the drum parts a bit more. Those african girls are a bit dry though so I'll need to wet them.

The Yamaha drum pads arrived. Will concentrate on them this evening when Pat at work. No comments here of course.

Heh

Good day. Did a track. It's almost 6 mins long and uses the african chick again. Plus some cheesy Virus I'll probably have to replace. But it's... interesting. The best 3 mins could be really quite good. Good old shortbread and absynthe. Not the software. :)

Omnipotent

Still enjoying Omnisphere even though I crashed Logic just auditioning the various filter types. Have programmed a few patches with it now I've assigned the main parameters to the controllers on the master keyboard. Can cope with all the kind of sequencer stuff I may need.

Also connected the Virus via MIDI. Way better than USB in terms of response and latency and no need to have a track delay to make it play in time. So much for Total Integration.

Started a weird track that I don't know where it's going. But that's the good thing of working this way and being able to try lots of sketches and get back exactly to them.

Right, time for a curry....

Work harder you slacker

Seems like anything left out of Logic has been left out for my own good. In my efforts to explain why transpose to scale is so useful I was advised to learn all the scales and arpeggios that exist. That way I can, instead of randomly applying transposes to an existing loop replay the loop in an infinite number of scales myself and see which I like best.

Makes me wonder why Logic included any kind of quantise since all you need to do is learn to play in perfect robotic time. Sigh...

Today I shall work harder and harder in order to satisfy folks I don't know and who don't know me but are nevertheless content to dispense advice.

Will enter request for enhancement to Logic and see how it goes.

Added Virus Polar to my system but was disappointed by the latency. Gonna use it via MIDI instead of its Total Integration. MIDI doesn't seem to need the same delay settings for each track that the Virus does. It can work like the JV on my system.

Right, better write that enhancement request properly...

A few steps

Made a little progress today. Got the african one into some kind of shape despite weird tuning. Going to have another go at the more dancy, cheery variant later.

Still happy with the sounds from Omnisphere and explored Logic's drum machine and hyperedit a bit. I think I can cope with them and not thinking about Cubase's drum editor. Much.

No sign of the Yamaha drum pads, hopefully tomorrow.

Will attempt to keep up the early starts as the extra two hours before lunchtime worked very well. Not installing Logic 9.1 - Paul has and it doesn't sound like a thumbs up so far.

At least I worked out how to get my editors/mixers onto the second screen now. Well, I didn't work it out, someone on the forum told me. They're being very patient considering how generally frustrated and fed up I've been since the start. I do like Logic's Transform menu. Shame David's book just skims over it. It's a good basic book but I really need a print of the full manual...

Logic 64 bit appears

Will it solve my resource problems? I'm not going to leap to upgrade just yet. Been caught with that sort of thing before.

Hopefully it means the other apps I use will follow suit and we'll start to catch up with Windows. Hey, I said "we"!

Will have another crack at the african chick today. Must go to see Les and pick up that VGA lead from Tony. Omnisphere due to arrive according to despatch email. It's all go! My "retirement" sure ain't boring. In fact my head is spinning. Must post that DVD to Paul. Jeez this log's becoming a to do list. Which is silly cos I don't read the damn thing myself!

OK, got my second monitor working and have just installed Omnisphere. Took a while so I haven't touched the african chick today. She'll probably be relieved to be free of my inexperienced fumblings. Yamaha drum pad arriving tomorrow so will be concentrating on that for a while. Can see this demo taking longer than I'd like. Also, the possibility of writing about Ableton rears its head. Potentially a 2-page column each month which I really should take seriously. Would make me learn Live in a lot more detail than I have already. Time, where does it go?? Gonzo journalist at last!

Oh, and apparently Logic can't transpose into different scales/modes. It just can't, end of story. What is it with this fecking program? Gonna look into possibility of Cubase using Apple Loops and EXS samples cos if there's a way of doing that, I'm gonna jump ship. And yes, I know I used to get it for free and yes, I stupidly put it aside when miffed about the VST to SX transformation. Sigh...

Bye bye to more cash...

Decided to bite the bullet and go with Paul's recommendation on the voices download. It's £70 and 1.6Gb of some chick going "ooh" in an authentic ethic way. She even breathes. Have I totally lost it?

I'm also gonna buy Omnisphere as I really need at least one synth that's full of decent sounds. My fear is it may be as resource-hungry as Massive but we'll see. Gonna see if my new pal at DV will give me some kind of discount. Using some of the cash gained from selling hardware which is a bit perverse I guess.

Have sketched out ideas for tracks for my demo. Reckon the JV-2080 will get used again - I can get decent stuff out of that no probs and much faster than I can find stuff in my Mac. Weird how I turn to it for the sounds I had hoped to get from Kontakt. At least I put together something with a reasonable number of tracks yesterday, still have to be quite minimal but for me that must be a good thing. I can so easily overindulge otherwise. Still not quite into the idea of using someone else'e bass grooves, especially when I can't modify them for the variations I want.

Last Day at the Centre

And I was very touched. They made me a cake and made me squirm. A far cry from my departure from BT after 21 years when they simply revoked all my access a day early including locking me out of my PC and email.

So, a life in the studio beckons, at least for the time being.

Did a little more tweaking of the track I was working on the other day, found the legato mono violins Paul was on about. Performance of system still stinks even though I increased buffer to 256. Bloody weird, wonder what is responsible? Also the old one channel crackle is back, something to do with the move around I guess.

Watched "How to lose friends and alienate people" which was very good. Simon Pegg has come a long way from Spaced.

Pat's watching Casualty now. Jeez but I hate that program more than just about any other on telly, ever. Not sure why. Perhaps because it's so damn depressing, or cos everyone is so one dimensional, or cos it always covers the same ground; it always makes me wish it would end and never be recommissioned.

Ah, feel better for that. Good old blogging.

Last day at work tomorrow. Got a very touching message from one of my colleagues and some people today asking me not to leave. Feel quite bad. Maybe if Stumpy moves on I'd come back for a few days mid-week. :)

Heh

Quiet and pleasant day at work, just six clients. We lost another one - Charles - yesterday. Gonna miss lots of people. Must keep in touch.

Took Jasper a lovely walk as the sun went down - a glorious clear sky in amazingly subtle colours. Let's hope I sleep tonight. Not sure I got much last night. Shoulder aching and brain running stupid tunes through my head. Brainworms.

Some ideas for more electronica-oriented chillout after listening to Mindfux. Gonna program a load of my typical sounds in that Reaktor synth that I like, beginning with J, the really simple one. Let's hope I can use several of 'em at once without it crapping out. Oh for a virtual Radias!

Juggling and conflicts

Bought and downloaded Late Night Logic* from Time and Space. Not initially blown away by the number of samples or variety although the quality is OK. Learned yet another annoyance of dealing with both software instruments and samples cos the small buffer needed to make software instruments playable generates problems for audio playback when you have a few tracks. Not that many either. In the end I used Logic's function to split into a sample instrument and trigger via MIDI, which is something I suspect I'll be doing a lot. I think perhaps computers need two or at least dual soundcards for these conflicting requirements. Why aren't more people screaming and complaining about this???? I have a decent spec Mac so others must be suffering at least as much...

Working version of a track, Paul recommends better strings and buffer 256. There goes my (still not great) responsiveness...

*Learned I shoulda downloaded the (cheaper) Apple loop version. Doh!

More Snow

Presently waiting to find out if transport running. If not, probably won't go into work. Which would be a shame as it'd be my last Tuesday and some people I won't get chance to see again. Ah well, just means I'll have to go in again after all. :)

The snow looks like sticking and if I'm home I'll be taking Jasper out in it when Pat gets back from feeding. A bit disgusted her pal Chris, who lives 5 mins walk from the yard, has asked Pat to go up today and do it. It was Pat's herceptin day yesterday so she ain't 100%.

Got to get a box for the Nova and get it off to Duncan. Would it be more foolish to buy another, better, virtual synth or spend it all on drugs? I suspect the latter would make me smile more...

---

OK, Nova sent off. No work so lovely snow walk with Pat and Jasper, although Pat's hips suffering later, probably exacerbated by herceptin. More work on tracks, Paul pointed out I should try the multiband compressor on my bounces. I don't half miss Waves! Started a track of ambience and ice; starting to realise I can make this stuff work after all as long as I don't pack too much stuff in and just do obvious stuff with patches that appeal rather than agonising over programming stuff. Tony got me a 6 foot VGA cable for the 2nd monitor; adapter arrived.

Seems unlikely I'll be working tomorrow as weather not changing as far as I can tell.

Enigmatic

M-Audio's Enigma seems to work better on Mac than PC. At least I got it to do what I expected for the first time. Shame the NI synths don't have a common way of defining which controllers work for all. Did a little more exploring but not a great deal. Had a vague potter with the Mac's audio/midi setup to try and define the JV that way but it doesn't seem to handle the various banks either so I gave up. Will probably put the JV on Cirklon when it comes.

Smoke and mirrors

Interestingly, I discover that it's impossible to design a complete JV2080 environment for Logic due to its built-in limitation of 15 banks per multi instrument. As the JV has more than 128 patches in many of its expansion banks, both MSB and LSB are used to access the banks (hence about 30 Logic banks required). Makes me wonder how many folks have actually done this as nobody volunteered the info "oh BTW this doesn't work, you'll need to define at least two environments actually". Another area where Cubase wees all over Logic. Ultimately, I guess I bought Logic solely for its exs sampler, those samples I got from Paul, and Apple Loops.

Have decided to make a CD every fortnight of all tracks in progress sorted best to worst. When I start to run out of room, drop the crap stuff from the end. That way I'll simulate working to a deadline and force a rate of progress. Sunday evening could be one of polishing what I have and trying to make something out of it - good practice, methinks.

Tried reading the manuals for NI stuff but most are very thin thanks to multi-language print. There are "real" manuals but, of course, as acrobat files. It is just a Mac thing to skimp on manuals and leave you goggling at the bloody screen all the time?

Bright, cold day for walkies.

Wow, turns out I like Reaktor! The synths Carbon, Green Matrix and Junatik all sound great as do the weird sample transformers and drone makers. A bank of Howard's sounds in Green Matrix - nice. Not easy to automate in Logic due to the vast number of parameters, some of which, on page B, I couldn't immediately identify on the long list.

Tonight Logic mostly behaved as I began a bit of a track. More Apple Loops. The message "disk too slow or system overload" appeared so I closed down and started up again and it didn't reappear. Perhaps due to extensive playing of Reaktor stand-alone prior to starting Logic.

On Mac file menu, how do I see last modified date? Or, indeed, any useful data.

Logic: doesn't always snap position correctly for some reason.

Why does it deactivate follow when I zoom in?

How to insert rest in step time? Best search manual I guess....

Another evening ends. Must slick up my command of Logic, could dearly appreciate someone who knows it well so I could ask my many questions. Ordered book from Amazon by that bloke off the forum. Good thing he's on thanks to Apple not printing manuals any more... will hassle him even more if my questions not answered.

Aaaargh!!

All I wanted to do was bounce a track as an mp3. How hard should that have been?

Anyway, posted another whining "why so many crashes?" on the Logic Forum. Sure they'll be pleased.

I can't think of any program, even a beta, that has crashed on me so consistently. Seriously unimpressed. On the plus side the track I started could fit nicely into the library mindset.

Apparently it's the Novation softsynth again. Sigh. Can't recall when my P3 ever crashed due to a bug in one of my hardware synths!! Gonna ditch the thing anyway, just hope I can find another simple softsynth with an interface I understand that makes the noises I'm looking for. Which kinda rules out Absynth so far.

2010 arrives

The owl tree has split wide open, probably the frost. Met a chap who fancies breeding from our Jasper, which might be cool for the little hairy one...

Quite good sesh last night at party. Won best wig award for our improvised A4/sellotape effort. Dunno where my long blonde wig is. Had long chat with a guy who seemed to know everything about preparing your own hash or oil. His green was very nice indeed.