Made a vid today. Lo-fi rendered for Youtube, should do better quality sometime.

http://youtu.be/bOfBHeGh6Q4

Not bad day, new review keyboard sussed out I think, a little bug-chasing in Cirklon and discussion about screen layouts. Managed to generate a MIDI overflow recording the output of the review synth, perhaps its a few bugs of its own as I managed to crash it.

Played with Octatrack, new project, seems my simple process of grabbing classical music and giving it a hard time with plocks is going to continue yielding great material.

A great night playing with Cirklon beta. Should be available soon and I think the last main feature will prove well worth the wait. Even as it is now it's a wickedly good addition and I'm finding lots and lots of ways it'll be handy, not just the obvious. Bring it on Fill!

Hah, Bad Sugar, at last a new sitcom I like the look of!

Oh and....

...it seems the arctic ice is disappearing faster than ever and lots of companies are going to profit from it big style. Sometimes I think I live in a broken and warped version of reality.

Shamania was a great party and the gig went well.

Cirklon behaved wonderfully, I still seem to be having to work too hard to make Octatrack slot in easily. Actually missing the Korg ESX for its simplicity and tweakability where all the Octatrack can do is play back long, complete tracks. Can't emphasise enough how important it is being able to name tracks, scenes and so on: I can tell what Cirklon is going to do at any point but Octatrack, hardly ever.

People with laptops have it sooooo easy. And it's so much less backache!

Here's my post to Elektron users about the continuing musing about "should I stick with the Octatrack or sell it". I have to be honest, if there were something else that let me do the synced static tracks then I'd be seriously into swapping. Why do I keep fighting the laptop route? Seems so self-destructive sometimes. I am still sticking with Octatrack though, but I have yet to find a role it fills neatly and comfortably with no awkward bits sticking out and poking me in the eye.

I'm an old dog can't deny. Having had my Octatrack for a long time I finally did my first gig with it at the weekend. There's good and bad stuff still, for me, the good being that you can prepare entire tracks ready to kick off in sync with loops, live sequences, MIDI-synced arpeggios etc. That worked nicely, all the long tracks triggered from Cirklon, starting scenes and tempo also. The bad is always its inscrutability, little multi-function buttons and lack of easily-accessed info. For example, I had 20+ songs ready to go, each with about 12-16 scenes. Although I try to be fairly consistent in the usage of tracks and scenes, in the heat of a gig I have no idea what any scene is really going to do until I select it. Sometimes the result isn't what I would have wanted at that point. 
The lack of any kind of naming/visibility means, for me, I have to restrict what I do, try to make it consistent and never deviate from whatever formula I decide on. The trouble is I constantly change my mind about how to use it, what goes on each track, what the scene progression should be because each track is different and has different needs. 

I guess in giving us an instrument with great power, we also get the great responsibility to bend it to our will. Sometimes that's just too much for me. So Octatrack is occasionally brilliant and wonderful but to be honest I think I found it more pleasurable and natural using my old combination of sequencer/korg electribe, even though I could not do the structured/prepared/mixed tracks that way. We're all different though and it could be what I want to do isn't what Elektron had in mind.

Today's task: open flightcase, copy new Cirkos to card ready to do an OS upgrade just before Saturday night's gig. Yes, that seems a sensible approach. Not sure I'd dare do it with any other piece of gear. Ah, brings back memories of the old days and updating P3 moments before gig at Arcosanti!

OK, despite a few small buglets I'm gonna stick with the latest beta for Shamania. Played through a number of songs today and they appear to work fine. Realised I could reorder my set by manually editing the Songs JSON file but, well, life's too short. Am all packed up and ready to head off, probably tomorrow afternoon.

One Sea is doing very well, shows that all I need to do is tell a few people. Oh and have something worth listening to. It encourages me to get the other good stuff finished off and carved into decent-sized chunks. I don't want people to think we're milking it but at the same time, the quality is too good not to release. There's still the gig recording too!

Pete reminded me of the Ideation blog, which has now got more in it.

http://ideationmusic.blogspot.co.uk/

Nice, new Cirklon beta to test as soon as window guy comes and does his measuring. Two features I've been waiting for so what the heck if it's almost time to go out and play?

I went through the live stuff in Octatrack last night and rearranged all the drum parts to be more suitable for "old-style chillout". So they're less thumpy now. Well, mostly. Will I still incur the wrath of the Noise Police? Taking Virus not Prodigy as it has built-in delay so less time required to set it up, plus if a disaster with rain etc. I'd rather the virus got wet, it's more easily replaced.

Glow in the dark knobs finally arrived. No slider yet though but the knobs are nice and green and will try them under UV later.

Very groovy trick on the Octatrack: have an entire song set to loop in ping pong mode. Freaks you out after 7 mins when it suddenly goes into reverse. Until you remember doing it, that is. Doesn't seem possible to do it and have it stay in perfect time in reverse but the slight slip is "interesting".

Sweet, deviated from app review for a couple of hours and a new track appeared. Well a new section for one of the tracks that was a bit dull. It has quite a simple but nice groove and bassline. Well, I'll listen again in the cold light of day. Recorded video of recording it in case I like it as much as last week's track.

Right back to work :)

Worked on a track using the (knackered) tape delay and SH101, Moogerfoogers, Synthi and so on. It may well be the final track of "And Darkness Falls", will see how it holds up to repeated listenings.

Spent the day fasting again, not hard at all. 24 hours I can do. My body can prepare for curry assault on Saturday.

Paul doing some groovy music with his modular and spring reverb etc. Would like to think I've inspired him a bit and turned him onto Conrad Schnitzler. Good things can only come from it and sweet things for me to hear, done by a proper composer. :)

Ordered OT glow in the dark knobs. Will have a go with that copicat later and pay Nick. A few reviews lining up so that's good. No replies from any library companies, gonna do a bandcamp page for Ideation with "One Sea" as its first entry. Waiting for Pete's OK, have mixed the track and done a very small amount of boost via The Glue. One day I may invest in some mastering s/ware but not really necessary at the mo.

I may work on another track tonight, seem to have a rare focus right now that I should use before it fades away. However, I also have bought more beer...

Phil came, good visit, then recorded this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/WilyEPeyote?feature=discovery

Basically I remade a track tonight from scratch with Shamania in mind. It had been a disembodied library track but never quite worked 100% even though the Cirklon sequences around it did. Now the whole thing is a good 139BPM gig finish. Result!

I drank some beer too. That was the evening for me. Octatrack can play back the whole thing but I have lots of prepared scenes with decorations and drastic changes, plus Ck patterns to bring in and out as I feel like. Peachy!

A bit of Vaughan Williams now while we wait for the rain.

Extended the track "Hashtag" to gig length for Shamania, starting to listen through things to see what needs to be done. Considering moving stuff into the slim flightcase which is so much smaller than "the box".

Another day loafing, booked hol in January. Seen the Shamania poster, seems I'm definitely playing so will have a think about how. And if I can take the smaller flightcase rather than the big sequencer box. Two hours, should be do-able and in between Dave and Pascal, which is nice.

a photo from this morning's walk

Well, I deleted all yesterday's string parts, added new ones I'm still not 100% happy with. Decided to leave off the bass, leave it light and airy. Only added a very simple occasional low drum and some cymbals that I may still remove.
I routed all the strings through the Xone VF-1 filter which is always worth trying. I think it came off in this case. See if you agree.

http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/where-once-was

My main library company didn't like the strings though so I guess this piece will have to remain "one for me". I may still do more though.

Started new track today, not totally sure what it's for but I like it. Piano and strings, I may have over-syruped the strings it's possible but it's a simple, self-enclosed track. OK, had to use some smoke and beer but I'm missing my sunday nights... more plans for it include a bass, tried a dubby one but I think a double bass is going to be the thing.

Today I had a wee smoke. As I've been abstaining lately it had a great effect. Wrote most of a chapter, getting towards a critical point and it's lining up nicely. Just the hard chapter and the fun chapter to do and some tidying up work I'm still undecided on. Didn't do any music but listened to VCMG and Man With No Name.

For no very good reason here's picture of me twiddling the old cutoff.

Another day of not much work. Paid Dave for the Analog Laboratory then sat and started to put it through its paces. Wrong order. :) I have to say after Diva it sounds lifeless and plastic and the SEM emulation is unconvincing, the filter really doesn't sound like a SEM and the envelopes are wrong. Yep, they did the stupid start at zero rookie mistake! Unless the beta version of AL has a bodged version of SEM for some reason. I reported it as a bug anyway so maybe it'll get fixed. Some reasonable sounds in the four thousand though and the minimal editing is probably going to be acceptable for library tunes.

Jessica Ennis just said "I'm literally speechless". Still, she's gorgeous.

Spent a few minutes with that free Minimoog. Seems to me they cocked up VCO3, hmm, did I point this out before? Getting old and repeating myself.

Had a lovely walk today up to the atom. It's a panopticon and looks like this:

Some twat had broken the central mirrorball that's meant to reflect all the different windows.
Those are my thoughts for today.

Blimey, looks like the new Mophox4 could have been made for me. Have been pondering getting a Mopho keyboard anyway but the size of this thing is perfect for my needs, even has a space for one of my Eventides.  Fingers crossed I can get one for review and really put it through its paces.
Awaiting possible news of a Prophet 600 too. Hoped I had first refusal on it but there's a possible swap deal lined up first. It'll need some work from Tony and maybe get Colin to rewrite the OS and  improve the envelopes (confident huh?) but it's a decent little budget poly.
Yesterday recorded a strange piece for "And Darkness Falls" using Synthi, Biscuit, Digisound, 101 and Perfourmer. Oh and theremin and Octatrack. Using Logic as a basic multitracker works quite well and a bit of compression and automation of volumes (to smooth over some of the stranger notes I tried) seems to be all it needs. I bet it sounds shit today though. Stuff I improvise unstoned often does.
New Cirklon OS went live yesterday, no comments yet. Swing working well I think but does still need track-level opt-out. Hopefully other stuff can progress now.
Wrote an app review last night, feeling at a loose end. No replies from library company I wrote to, must try harder to find work. But hey, today is sunny!

Read some great Gore Vidal quotes today, my fave being: "Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn." I shall continue to dress in identical chequed shirts and spout rubbish. :)


There's also "A writer must always tell the truth, unless he is a journalist." so I very much hope to remain a writer...

I'm so vein...


http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/hashtag