Envelopes still not licked

Playing with some of my virtuals today and only Strobe comes close to proper analogue envelope behaviour in mono mode. They all do this weird restarting thing on long attack/releases where the envelope level never gets chance to accumulate. Sounds very un-analogue. About to buy Predator and have asked for an enhancement already. :)

Clavia never listened so the Nord Wave never got fixed but full marks to Access who did.

Reckon the Synth Squad stuff is my fave overall. If only they had built-in effects rather than that separate bit but I guess I need to learn that.

Didn't do too much today.

Hmmm

Flogged my CS01 so gonna spend the cash on either Blue or the full version of Zebra. Think Blue wins for the number of supplied patches and for its wavetable stuff, more versatile methinks.

Yesterday's three tracks have one good one, one that's OK and one that's just plain strange. Good mileage from a bottle of Californian red.

Hopefully Pat gets out today. Right, best find a box for that CS01.

Op day

Op was supposed to be 13:00 but they keep putting it back.

Doing bits of things in the studio, edits really, easy stuff I don't have to concentrate on massively.

Duller Morning

Held off going out for a walk this morning, thought I'd help with Murphy again so Pat's nice and confident I can do everything. Later I'll see if the two tracks I started last night are going anywhere... :)

Wet Sunday

Well, adding water to the ponds worked its usual magic - it's been raining heavily overnight. Hey ho.

New shortbread still doesn't seem strong - maybe special ingredient ain't so potent. Hey ho.

Lovely bright start to Saturday; off to get practice getting Murphy out of the field this morning.

Went to Top Wok last night, served by a very short gonk-like person and the usual "eccentric" approach including dreadful music... food was good though.

Think I finished the "island" track yesterday but the aus one still ain't right. Should maybe leave it a while and see if better sounds turn up with the MOTU collection, assuming they ever get it right and send all the DVDs.

Finished aus track too, included some rather weird chord stuff but I think it works. Will send three to Mars in next day or so. If OK that's 16!

Other things, put water in pond and chilled with some cider. Felt very good indeed. Oh, made some shortbread.

Lovely day yesterday. Consoled myself for missing Barcelona by taking a day off. Long walk in the woods, glorious. Today I must get into the studio though and do some tracks.

Discovered Rapoon and still enjoying I Monster.

No sign of MOTU Ethno Instrument 2. Approached another library and talking about what sort of album to do for them. I think I told them I was equally good at everything, which is true in a way. :)

Had a bit more lunging practice and had to go up a second time to catch Murph as he didn't want to come in. Naughty horse. :)

Got two tracks in an almost complete state - a polynesian one (about forgetting your parrot, hehe) and an aussie one, with some hakas thrown in cos I was struggling for aus instruments.

Two Voice has gone (sob). Why do things always sound so wonderful just as they're about to take their leave forever? Hey ho. Guy who took it gave me a brilliant CD - not what I expected either. I gave him one of our old ones in return (might even have been the last Excession, doh!) but I wish I'd had something better.

Back to making library tunes for the rest of the day.

Hey ho.

Easyjet seem to say tomorrow's flight is on. No way I'm gonna go with all the uncertainty and with Pat's op on Tuesday. Would be nice not to lose the money. I feel another "hey ho" coming on.

Nothing much happened today. Must get a screen dump of the Kaossilator Pro s/ware for review.

Will I be flying to Barcelona on Wednesday morning? I really don't know but was resigned to not doing. What I can't afford is getting stranded there so even if the flights are on I'm not sure I'll go. Sigh...

Sunday and I could really get used to this lack of aircraft overhead lark. Must work on some SOS writing tonight, including trying out Andy's perfect note trick. I'd prefer to work on doing a track entirely with the Synthi and Microsampler though (edit: tried, got nowhere).

Why am I finding it so hard to get started today??

Wrote a rambling piece that seemed to be one long blob incorporating much of what I was gonna say. Hadn't thought of doing it as a complete narrative but perhaps that's an idea to explore. Will look again tomorrow and see whether it really works or if I need to rethink.

Ash...

Three more tracks accepted, all uploaded - so that's 13 complete.

Looks like my Barcelona trip could be screwed by volcanic ash. Still nice to have plane-free skies.

Another lovely morning, walkies time. :)

Afternoon spent in kinda limbo cos I may have to go do horse later.

In the end didn't but it scuppered plans to chill with Tim. Made the most of it and simplified "turkish delight" even though it meant removing the cool string part in the simplification process. Reckon that's 14 now.

Best pull finger out - 4-part series on making noises with synths to write, have to crack on with those tracks - chase David about Ethno Instrument 2. Barcelona next week too.

Busy, busy. New Cirklon OS finally gets a song mode I can use - still pressing Colin for workflow tweaks but reckon he's nailed it, or almost. Much more to do but finally starting to feel like something I can do entire tracks on. Want to be able to do the kind of super-fast song creation I could do in KCS as it'd make a good demo vid.

Right, walkies!

Idle Monday

It was sunny. So I didn't do owt except read a book and lounge around in the garden. In the evening I worked on another native american one, sanitising the earlier "peace pipe" a bit.

Saw Les and admired his Rome video. Got car through MOT. Just boring life stuff. Must've done something else but dunno what. Pat had lovely ride on her horse. Jeez aren't diaries totally tedious??

Lots of running round today. Went round Knowle Green Bottoms, been some years since I went down there. Noticed that Bridge House is directly downhill from Myers Farm, not sure I'd seen that before.

Then had to go to hospital to pick up Nellie. Betty from across the road not expected to live long, saw her briefly and she did look poorly. One of her brothers was drunk so unable to go, the other in bed ill after a fall. Don't get old!

Then took car for MOT and walked back with Jasper from Leyland. Now it's evening and I've some studio work to do. Have sketched some ideas for series of articles for mag, not sure it's substantial enough though. Could be a real monster but dunno how to play it, especially as I am rather busy and expect other review stuff to come along also. Hopefully the MOTU thing before not too long.

Synthi calling but I must resist and knuckle down. Hey ho.

Later. Confess I am rather enjoying writing music for other people. Too long writing just for yourself is not healthy because, deep down, you know it's pointless - rendered even more ephemeral if it's your only output. Funny old business. Should've done this years ago.

Right, completed all of the underscore/stinger and 30" edits for all 10 tracks submitted. One or two are a little boundary-pushing in that they have partial melodies low in the mix cos otherwise some parts would be just kickless percussion and thus rather dull.

Sunshine!

Wouldn't you know it, the first day I have a few hours to work on tunes it's glorious. I mean, really nice. It would be criminal to spend the afternoon in a moist and shady studio yet I feel I have to. Even if I only do the underscore/30/stinger jobs on the three last tracks I did. Oh and produce the masters of course.

Breached my 10Gb limit last month - BT never sent any warning I was getting close which is a nuisance. I suspect it's uploading not, as they say in their email, downloading. Must ring them sometime and try to see what can be done to improve things.

Also must put down some ideas on what I'd include in a series of synth articles that's been suggested. Sunday night I'll do that.

Today I got blank looks in the pie shop when I pointed to one of their signs and asked if anyone, anyone at all, could tell me the correct spelling of the word pies. Despite all claims to the contrary I can't believe that kids are getting better educations (or should that be education's?) now. Makes me feel very old to think this way so I shall stop.

Snotty Thursday

Seem to have picked up a minor cold. TVS sold and looks like I've bagged a Synthi AKS. Wooo. Lord Mandelson's Internet Snooping Bill gets rushed through parliament along with other deeply-thought out legislation like protection for the Dodo, the making illegal of chocolate, the new speed limit of 24.6 MPH on motorways and, most importantly, the new law that compels everyone in the country to buy at least one daily newspaper, punishment for disobeying this last one to be "at least death".

So we're making great progress out of the dark ages.

Useful days talking Cirklon song mode, got my LEDs dimmed a bit, SH-101 turned out not to have a fault. Lots of my SOS ads seem to be generating sales, fingers crossed they all come in.

Um, today appears to be Monday. So that's good. Not Good Monday though.

Reworked three of the earlier tracks into streamlined versions. OK so this compromises them musically a bit but it ain't about that. Remember?

So will send them off and see if they're OK. If so, could be others to rework.

Colin's tomorrow, just the one night though as Tony needs to be back. Will take SH-101 for fix and Cirklon for LED adjustment.

Gonna sell some stuff, including the TVS.

Plodding through tracks creating underscores, stingers and 30" edits. Not too bad actually although some of those stingers are tough to fit into 8 seconds. Three more to do before I move on to making new tracks.

Curry tonight with Carl and Dan, lovely stuff.

And so it was. Top food and good to see 'em. Dr Who. Well, I'll wait a little. First episode felt almost like a deliberate "Steve pretends he's Russell" kinda exercise. Assistant is fit though. We'll see if the youngster can pull it off. Reckon an elderly professor sort woulda been better though. Like Ming Campbell but with personality. Patrick Troughton, we miss you!