Started something last night, might have too many changes for a library piece and quite a lot of strange tonality, backwards pianos and suchlike. Amusingly, I started watching CSI and soon noticed backwards pianos appear to be ubiquitous. I must either remember it somehow or my instincts are sharpening.

Recorded the last part of Alien. Not seen Sigourney's little pants for a while, feel I need a refresher.

Stupid hour back clock thing. At least it gives me more time to walk the dog before seeing mum. Will work on Cirklon and forensic stuff tonight, think I could combine them.

Good Friday. Had email from M asking me to have a go at some investigative/forensic type music. In the afternoon did a track (Sicko), which he liked. Lots of ideas for the kind of stuff to do, plus gonna watch some of those US shows that I usually avoid. For research. M said some encouraging things, pepped me up.

Cold still not really gone so reluctantly decided not to go to Kulu. Sorta pissed off but can't really risk setting myself back- or bringing back a cold. This one has laid Pat and me down for days and we can't afford another bout. Shame, lots of people going I wanna see. Must book those castle tickets.

Ordered Departure From Northern Wasteland and Exile on Mainstreet from Amazon. Can't find my original Departure and want to hear it again after meeting Michael.

Put a showreel online linked from my main site. Even added Sicko to it since it's very different to the rest. Will keep the best 20 tracks up there, uses the same played the JIC used but it seems OK.

Cirklon beta chat now three-way. :)

Cirklon makes good progress today - new editor looks very good, graphic slope thing is ace and solo now enabled.

Working on showreel stuff, putting together best or most varied tracks to represent what I can do. Then I have to make a webpage for it...

OK, getting the tracks together is done but doing the website - and doing it so it doesn't look shit - is proving trickier. I especially want to disable the right-click "save as" so it's just a player. Must try to work out that one we used on the JIC site, that might do although I didn't like the format very much... it's a start though.

Full of a cold so went back to bed. A lovely day, frustratingly enough but no energy.

Taking out my crotchety misery on emportal, continuing to prove the "empty vessels" theory. I know I shouldn't but what the heck...

Baffled and frustrated why I can't render my latest video. The output from one of my cameras just comes out black every time, even though on the preview it looks great. WTF? If Sony Movie Studio actually came with a decent manual I might have learned the damn thing but as it is, I've no idea where to start. Feck!

A cold is setting in, nowhere near as bad as Pat has it. Walked into Preston yesterday afternoon and wondered why I bothered. The place is like a twitching corpse, minimally animated by brightly-coloured, short-lived maggots. I can't see any point in ever returning there again. And to think I could, at least, occupy my dinner hour each day with wandering about; now I can see nothing about it of value - even the library seems run down and lacking in anything worthwhile and Waterstones appears to be full of celebrity "autobiographies" for the lovers of X-Factor and Wayne Rooney. The computer section has shrunk to be a collection of tips for people who have stolen Photoshop and want to know how to use it. There were no books at all on Sony Vegas/Movie Studio for those who have bought it and want to know how to use it... Amazon, here I come. Again.

Later, trimmed the girls. Stalks were stiff but not sure they actually dry enough. The old impatience eh? New Cirklon OS with a few tweaks such as copy/paste and an embryonic sculpt of lengths.

At least I decided the selection of tracks to draw from for my showreel. Didn't do much else though.

Pat working until midnight tonight so I have time to work on something. I think I should do some decent arrangements of the songs in Cirklon, no point waiting for Colin to add all the arrangement tweaks I need, he has other priorities methinks.

Phil suggested he's an ideal man for construction to relieve the load so I passed that on. Sure it could be a good arrangement. Anyway, studio is waiting and if I don't go up now I'll end up wasting another night in front of the telly like a total lemon.

Devil's Backbone on Film 4. At last!

Friday

And it's a nice enough one. Still bimbling around aimlessly though, which isn't good. May wander into town but dunno what for. Seem to be treading water this week, can't seem to get started. Perhaps it's cos Berlin's over now and I don't really have anything significant on the calendar. Well, Kulu next week and potentially the castle tickets to get. Will go see Phil tomorrow, must try to get my Moogerfoogers back too. Not using a whole load of stuff - should I flog some more of it? Maybe the Microsampler to Tim as I ain't doing owt with it. And how many synths do I need to sequence with for goodness sake? Do I need those Creamware jobbies?

Enthusiasm, wherefore art thou?

At least Pat's all-clear was good to receive yesterday. Obviously meant a lot to her (and me) even if delivered by the least patient-friendly doctor we've encountered for a while. Still, onwards and upwards. Might take Jasper out again. He always appreciates that.

Lethargy

Started the day with good intentions, registered some works with PRS and agreed to do review some fun new pieces of kit. Then lethargy set in. Going to see the doc with Pat this afternoon, hopefully for the sign-off.

Colin busy soldering so I'm holding back on the flood of ideas still pouring forth. The TBI list is pretty large already and I should let him decide the priorities more now the gig's done and I have no real hurry. Already talking about a few more live outings next year than this, although not sure I am gonna want to keep playing gigs unless they really interest me. Would be more fun to get together with Cosmic Smokers for a weekend of recording and drinking beer. Picko talking about an Amsterdam trip, which could be a nice place to have a good old chat and decide if we want to gig again.

I need to get my showreel online and impressive then chase a few library companies. Would also like to tidy the noodly part of the studio and slicken it up, but can I give that much priority?

See how I can write plenty of shite when I ain't doing anything interesting?

Setup gear again today, installed new OS (all peachy), Colin busy soldering so I won't pester for more updates.

Harvested the girls today. Was asked to play Bearded Theory, considering. Dropped line to Picko about maybe doing Electric Circus although not sure I really want to go to the hassle. Mind you not sure I wanna do another festival either...

Phew - back from Berlin after an awesome few days of music, beer, food and friends. Cirklon behaved well, everyone played a blinder, Vic's a genius and I met one of my heroes, Michael Hoenig. Funny how the best experiences get the shortest blog updates eh?

Berlin bound

Probably the last Cirklon update pre-Berlin. A few hairy moments while I got my data all happy with it. Card load and restore working too now and back to 32 tracks. Some slight tweaks too such as the scene page toggle so I'm optimistic.

Will have a quick spin through all songs to make sure they sound as they should (some don't but seems to be superficial changes in some tracks' mute status). Then it's backup the Proteus and take its sysex along with a Fantom XR backup card and start to pack up. Aim to be at airport by 06:00 or just after.

Looks like the gear I'm packing into my suitcase weighs 13.5kg without leads etc. Cirklon will go in hand luggage *but* only diagonally. Here's where my memories of that special small P3 come flooding back.

Glorious Sunday

A clear blue sky, mum's back feeling a bit better, all is good. This evening I shall work on the set, made great progress yesterday - Cirklon shaping up really well actually and just starting to hint at the vast potential it has. Colin's a fecking genius but I don't want to get him too used to that idea until he's done even more genius things. But I can see where it's going... :)

Edit: a good evening's (drunken) work. I now have 6 songs that I've rated good or excellent with a further 8 in various stages of assembly, all with some highlights, a couple capable of full-auto-playback. Should be more than enough. A few are even in Cm and I've left off the keys most folks seem not to like. Today I'll program a few patches on the Fantom for general playing, do backups of the Fantom card and generally have a last run through, make sure I have good names for patterns/scenes/songs to help me out. Rating scenes and patterns also a good idea. I might knock up a generic "jam patch" with 32 different sequencer patches/effect combinations on the two main synths ready to go so I can demo doing something from scratch. Berlin here I come! Might be worth starting the set with just a Cirklon solo piece...

Life is good. Production Cirklon (now 64 tracks) looks fantastic, very nice and especially beautiful under UV. Some tasty little OS additions including visibility of pattern length (including bar repeats) against global bar. So a good couple of days. Colin way better than me at knocking up simple, groovy stuff, I notice.

Right, walkies! Then this afternoon I'll start working on my tunes for next week.

Hmmm good day. Went from 16 to 32 tracks. Went through my existing songs and defined a bunch of new sounds for the extra channels. Now all I have to do is arrange them properly so they're playable.

Also, humbled by the many messages (58 so far) of happy birthday on fb. I am resolved to take more notice of such things in future. It gave me a kick so I guess it does for others too. Blimey.

Colin and Tony here tomorrow. With my production Cirklon. Sweet.

Lovely blue skies today, Pat's last herceptin. Thank heavens!

Cirklon OS due later so I'm getting as many chores out of the way so I can concentrate on it. Could be the day to get my lawn done for the last time this year.

Did three tracks last night with Wally in mind, the first probably the closest in tone, the second the most interesting track (catchy) and the third seems to be a variation on "Grandfather's clock" which I have thus far refused to name "Grandfather's Cock". See, restraint setting in.

In a kind of limbo awaiting Cirklon track upgrade OS. Don't wanna push Colin as I've done rather a lot of that (and still more to do) so having a go at the Wally theme/tune. Not happy with it though, haven't quite got the feel I want - the tune seems to be veering towards the oriental which isn't what I intended.

Got a load of shrooms today. Hopefully they'll dry properly this time, have been more careful.

Over a week until Berlin but I guess I'm cutting it short for Cirklon in several respects - must work on tunes. Can't keep holding off for more tracks after today, will use scene overrides to achieve what I want where possible. There's a sorta frenzy about ex-TD members attending that has totally erased any interest in the actual performers (us) it seems to me. A bit surreal but then that's what these things are like. I'm imagining the jams perhaps not so great this time because everyone's gonna be thinking about their gig spots and saving the best stuff for that. We're gonna do the whole mellotron thing before the two acts that follow us use all the same sounds etc. Naughty eh? Really not sure how this one will go.