Saturday mostly involved getting that psy track started properly. It seems to have acquired the title Psyonic Woman but still needs proper organisation, some decluttering and some proper production work. Also really need Andy Mason to listen to that sequence cos he'll know if it's something I've heard and ripped off. If he reckons it's original I'll bring it higher in the mix. :)

Having got bored with that Terry Goodkind thing about The Seeker (it started well enough but after the third episode you could see the formula and no way could we endure 28 episodes or however many there were), we turned to the film 7 pound, which turned out to be good.

Colin doing mighty things with MTC.

Progress

Rainy day so didn't walk out very far. Betty across the road fell (again) and this time broke her hip. Pat went with her to hospital and I was on horse duty. Didn't get much review written but did manage to get a decent start made, helped by answers at last from Numark.

Good news then when I got email back from Yooka to say one of my tracks has been accepted. No word on the other two but one success is good enough to start with. It was the last one I submitted too - I personally thought it the second best of the three. If I don't get owt back from DW then I at least have five other good tracks to use. Best work on more. :)

Hoping for quiet night in, once Pat back from hospital. Holding off on my Friday afternoon red wine in case I have to drive and pick her up. Have cooked a lovely bolognese though using up those weird mushrooms Pat did. What possible value recording this will be to me at any point in the future is unknown. If I was gonna keep a diary, this is a very weird time to start...

Kaoss abounds

Kaossilator Pro coming for review - could be fun to have synced motion patterns with my KP3. Should press on with MiniAK really, no reply to my questions so will ring.

Pat and Dawn as bingo tonight so will work on review then. This afternoon I feel I should do something new.

Wednesday today. Upgraded Omnisphere - loads of new patches apparently but no idea which. Ain't heard all the ones it has already.

Did more work on the dance one but then decided to knuckle down to the MiniAK. Trying to contact Akai to ask a few questions. I notice the Micron is still available. Time to google for the reference manual in case Akai don't get back to me (no sign yet). Cycled into the park and along the river, not as tiring as the other day but must keep doing it or become lazy slob. Lazier slob.

Shame I'm not getting the SEM to review, woulda been good to hear it alongside my Two Voice. Must ask John about his mate's Synthi.

Aimless Tuesday

Pottered a little more with the FSOL track using flex to do passably what Ableton does well. Started a fast psy-trance sorta track but I'm sure I've ripped off the main sequence from somewhere. Sounds like a classic chillout riff to me but I can't place it 100%.

Ultimately did very little today. Rang W but he hasn't listened to the stuff, which is better, I guess, than his having listened but not subsequently getting in touch. Damn cold persisting, still snotted up. Must ring Tracy about whatever gig it was they were on about. Why do I keep forgetting?

Sesh

Saturday night's birthday sesh was entertaining enough - saw Robert, no Harvey though. Eventually crawled into a bed around five/six and slept until ten. When home, went up and helped with horses; snowing and quite lovely up there. Evening: studio pottering if I feel up to it but still quite tired. We'll see.

Reckon I'm not up to these all-nighters anymore. Nose and much of my head gradually starting to work again. Sis still going strong when I left... no idea how she does it.

Sussed Logic's flex out (it doesn't have the elegant simplicity of Ableton but then what does?) and got the FSOL-type track into it. Should be able to quickly develop it into something. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Friday = Freedom

Had to reinstate FF, about time! Still nowt back from W. Hey ho. Gonna submit one more track to Y then work on some new stuff.

Went up with Pat to help do Murphy. Spent a nice day working with him in the school.

Later Betty across the road had problems with her alarm (burned her tea) and couldn't get anyone to sort it - company gone home and no emergency number on unit or in docs. Left message but eventually guessed the code to disable it.

Bam coming later, can't be late though cos party tomorrow and that will be full-on. Sigh. Getting old.

Noticed Cirk could be sold (in small quantities) as early as March. Was sure it'd be lots longer than that. Feel bit bad about selling P3s - will look like I knew it was coming.

Pulling finger out

Well, a bit. I realise I could wait weeks for a response re: my chilled exotica tracks so rather than spend my time poking around the corners of Logic/Live/Softsynths, I've joined another library where you can upload stuff yourself and get going. Carl uses it and he's doing great - it also frees me a little to do my own thing. Initially gonna use the tracks not quite up to scratch for the other library but having a place to put things means I now have an impetus to record new things for it.

Should go to bank today and sort business account but feel I should work on this instead. Wrote basic biog and looked at my PRS stuff for getting ISWC number. Think I understand it all.

Started a FSOL-ish track yesterday in Ableton, roughly called Papa's New Guinea Pig. Should probably tone down the silly titles.

Carl has helped a lot - his stuff is brill and in a totally different way to Paul's. It's closer to what I could manage although I have a long way to go to catch up. He ain't bogged down with this copy and paste of sampled performance thing, which appeals to me. So that's how I'll approach this library too - will dare to be more original there.

Cirklon making interesting progress but I guess, even if nobody except me knows about this blog, I shouldn't reveal how much.

Another day passes. Didn't do much other than sort the sidechain problem (routed via a bus) on Logic, get a few Strobe presets installed in the right place, check out those supposedly good patches in Absynth (still nowt special, alas) and go to Eileen's funeral. I almost missed it as I went to the wrong church (and forgot to take any money for the collection or for drinks later). Didn't know any of the hymns and it was strange seeing so many people present for such a lonely old woman's passing. Still, she'd have been pleased. :)

New Cirklon OS delivered and installed.

Meandering Monday

Which is to say, I didn't do much. Briefly experimented with Ableton which is so much better than Logic for putting together loops without caring about the tempo. Alas Apple Loops are in a CAF format it can't see. Wonder why cos mostly they are audio files with some extra info in them, as far as I can tell. The ones I've made myself work fine in Live.

Experimented with Logic's filter and compressors for side-chaining. Not bad results although it seems, hope this ain't true, that I can't use MIDI instruments as side chain inputs, only audio tracks. That would be bloody annoying since they all go through the same mixer so have to read the manual or ask yet another stupid question on the forum. Seems to be all I do.

Exchanged a few whiney messages with some NI guy about Absynth and I sorta ended up telling him that a large proportion of the Absynth database is full of sucky sounds nobody except a twisted armpit fluff sniffer would consider useful. Actually I put it kinder than that but so far all the NI stuff has proved to be a big waste of money. Had I not bought Omnisphere I'd have had almost nothing to go on and would be hard programming patches each night just to get a basic palette of useable stuff together.

Enough whining for one night.

No reply from Mr Library so just tossed it off Monday evening. Started that Dan Brown book Pat got yonks ago. So far it's the same formula as before, same stiff writing style too. But it passes the time. Gonna need reading glasses soon though... :(

Snotty Sunday

Cold still festering. Had a lovely curry (one of the hot and spicy baltis from the posh takeaway) and settled down to a night exploring Absynth, Zebra and Strobe. Zebra my fave of the bunch - only lacks free-running LFOs to be spot on. Downloaded ACE but it uses a lot of CPU. Sounds nice but Zebra will do me. Working through Absynth and understanding some bits - but it's bloody arcane and I don't mean that in a good way.

Jasper almost run over at mum's. My fault - he crossed the road and then was coming back guiltily when a 4x4 almost squished him. He has a sore pad which is bloody lucky. I smacked him out of relief he was OK, which I wish I hadn't. He's not used to it and seemed more hurt by the smack than the large tyre that almost flattened him.

Worked on a sugary and sorta irish track later. Not sure why, just fell into it and started messing with celtic loops through OTT delay effects. It's probably shite. Watched film Adam and Paul which was very good, about two junkies, which doesn't sound promising I admit.

Monday morning, sent in my demo. Fingers crossed!

Saturday

Have a bit of freedom this weekend. Tidy up the EQ of the 5 tracks I'll use, removing a little low end rumble. Write a covering letter. Should really start improving my website too. Sigh. But I've got time to explore a bit, program some Zebra patches and take a look at all those Synth Squad synths. Shame there are so many and the effects are separate, not totally sure where to start. Appears more CPU-hungry than Zebra and not immediately superior either but we'll see how it pans out with some time spent.

Should I use the P3 cash to buy a better mother keyboard? The M-Audio one does stick quite a bit but I'm just reluctant to throw more cash at the Mac unless it's essential. I know it's sounds I'll be needing really. And loads of instrumental loops and stuff. Time for another sigh.

MiniAK should be here next week. Obviously targetted at the Microkorg and should be superior given it's actually a Micron. We'll see though.

Sunny Friday

Think I have six decent demo tracks now - yay. A little polish here and there, intros and outtros to refine but generally not bad work dude! May not have given Mad Professor enough credit as I did find a couple of sections I liked and have used two of his drum patterns.

Last night we went to see the mayor for a free buffet thing for volunteers. Nice. Now, walkies! :)

Tracks tidied and mastered and uploaded. Woo.

Zilchamundo

No good ideas hatched today, seemed to almost have something then realised it was like some twisted version of Radio Gaga with african singers. Ugh, it's as bad as it sounds. I think I even had a yodelling shaman in there too. The stuff you do when working without a pipe (can't use Logic stoned cos it asks loads of dumb questions and generally ain't stoner friendly)... eventually bought some reggae samples - Mad Professor so shoulda been good. But not really much there to inspire and a strange spread of keys and too many slices of complete track that are utterly useless unless you're totally copy and pasting your music. Sigh. Not even a selection of good dubby basslines, one perhaps but in a key that don't work for me right now - and it's short with no variations. I shall sigh a second time. Sigh.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better - review kbd on the way plus I want to review Zebra. Got the computer music version and it's really good, simple and probably even better than the FXpansion stuff purely cos it's lighter on resources. Ain't explored those much yet though so that may be unfair. Maybe try a percussion track for Africa with little or no voices as they're causing me so much grief.

Disk is too slow or system overload

...ah Logic you kill me!

Not had that message for a while. Just playing with the stuff from Rory - Synth Squad. Hope it ain't responsible as the first synth I looked at (Strobe) is sounding OK. Will need to get a few of my standard patches programmed though.

"Japaho" came on. Was about to ditch it but Paul suggested basically snotting the first half and starting from half way in. Worked and a new, mellow middle section magically appeared. Did a quick mix and all it needs now is a proper ending and some last smoothing of transitions.

Akai MiniAK coming for review. Cool. Must press on with music!

Worky

Pat has stinking cold today so I may need to help with horse. Just want to get into studio and work on the weird flutey one.

Studio feels different with no P3s in it - should I have kept one? Looking through sample libraries trying to decide what to buy, feels kinda depressing and wrong to spend real money on virtual instruments.

The Virus appears to be responsible for the nasty noises I've been hearing. Well, not the nasty connection noise that reared its ugly head again. Must spend the time to trace that. Time, hah! Must also look at Barcelona flights to go see John.

Bon Voyage

...to the last P3. Feel weird not to have one but it means we'll have to really work on getting Cirklon up to scratch. Will it ever truly replace a P3? Honestly dunno.

Will see what to spend cash on.

Well, got review to Final 1.0 yesterday - somehow also down to 3,000 words which is annoying as I needn't have done. Will look at what I deleted when I do my final polish this afternoon but if it doesn't need to be there I'll leave it out.

Also did more work on the new Indian one, just sorting a few rough edges and inconsistencies. That one will do nicely. And upgraded Cirklon's OS successfully with P3Tools.

Pat not working tonight so won't get my usual huge chunk of Sunday evening time to play.

Busy Friday

Happy with progress on review. The new indian one is a little odd to say the least but perhaps it has something. Should try it out on someone but should I fix a few things first?

Pat out with girls, gonna chill this evening I think, done a lot today. P3 bite, fingers crossed, cash would be handy.

Care Aware

Went to Care Awareness today, some actors playing the parts and it was OK but a bit superficial really. Came home and finished the Chinese one, finally satisfied with it as I replaced the drum loop with the one I'd used the first time, funnily enough. Trimmed out the bits that annoyed me, sent to Paul and - phew - he said it was good. I do get what he's been saying but it's hard changing bad habits of a lifetime.

Looking at doing another Indian one next. Found a rich seam of samples I had overlooked and fancy doing something synthy along with 'em. Pat and Dawn off to bingo so I could either work on review or do music. Think music may win as Pat going out with pals tomorrow so I'll get time then too. Makes up for losing Sunday night. :)

Logic didn't crash today.

Hmm

Avatar last night was awesome. Only spoiled by Vue's insistence on leaving the lights on. Rather spoiled the 3D with the glare on the glasses. Arseholes.

Quite a productive day today, no crashes and worked a little more on the China one. Still not sure about the drums as I found a new loop, spent a while putting it in then discovered it actually sounds quite a lot like the other. Next I tried layering them which always feels like desperation, and adding extra percussion.

Got draft 1 of the review complete, just a few things I need to validate but think I've tried everything, installed the free software and tried the USB driver. Don't think I missed anything.

It snowed and Pat had a long cold day at the yard. Tomorrow I have a course to attend in Chorley.

More crashes

Logic was its usual crashy self today. Once when just looking at Help and the second time just in normal use. Another Offline bounce produced a screwed MP3 and at one point Logic loaded with just a blank dialogue box with the spinning circle until I forced it to quit.

Started a new oriental one. Hard going to be honest using all these samples and fitting them in. Reminds me of when they used to splice animation and live action, never worked did it? Will look at the drum loop and the tinkly repetitive twangly thing tomorrow, but really should work on review now. Time is getting on.

Feel bog-eyed. Sick of Logic, utterly sick of it.

Another day...

Nothing much achieved today. The old computer thing of getting bogged down in something that doesn't work quite as expected or working too long on something so it becomes hard to ditch. Must go back to old rules "Simplify" and "Delete Ruthlessly" forthwith.

Review tonight, need to get that progressed. Hey ho...