HNY

Further "evidence" of my guru status. It's what I did tonight.

http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/everything

Have a good one, let's make the next always better, xx, buy the novel, go on, hmm, new year's resolutions, disperse inertia, get fitter, find a way to get the novel noticed without committing major crime. BTW the photo I used for "the secret of everything" is the tree where I almost died as a kid. Dunno if I got more or less deep after a monster whack on the head. You'd have to follow another reality strand and see if it made a difference, whether that one, well, let's not give away the plot of the third novel too soon. Heh. :)

Did three new tracks, including this

http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/underside

Fun evening of beer and smokes. Same again tomorrow possibly.

Excellent curry, Dan had a great magic trick in which he handed me the deck and didn't touch it and yet still my card came up. He's getting really good.

Did two more urban tracks today to add to the two I did yesterday. Music by numbers and I feel numb doing it. If this approach makes me money I'll come to hate it. Maybe I already do.

Blimey another Headshock afternoon of recording and hanging out. Could be we got more quality material, hard to imagine. Two effects units failed - that Eventide I got which has been iffy from the start. Hard to imagine no signs at all until it passed to me. The Roland delay also went, bloody hell! Spoilt my trautonium playing.

Had a strange email exchange with some guy from analogue heaven, probably an American, seemed very immature anyway but he was sounding like he wanted to kill me for giving away some free music but taking the name of christmas in vain. Or something. Hey ho. :)

And now, a lovely quiet night with Pat. Bliss!

Philosophy is great for letting you off, just like religion.

Yep, on the Tullamore Dew whilst tweaking latest Headshock recordings. Potentially "The Jar is The Star", another 40+ mins of very addictive material, very organic, really direct and with a few tweaks, sounding very releasable. Just done CD, gonna do Tim an MP3 of my changes.

Worked a little on new novel but laid off the chemicals for today. Had fun, looking forward to making more music - violin plus trautonium!

Changa

A freebie track from me which is essentially two Synthi improvs laid on top of each other and mixed with a tiny amount of arrangement.

http://paulnagle.bandcamp.com/track/changa

Recorded some more cool Headshock stuff today.

Another freebie, limited time on this one, a Headshock track

http://soundcloud.com/timchik/headshock-2012-christmas

ho ho ho

Octatrack love/hate day

Well it was love right until the moment I accidentally cleared the current part. What the hell is the use of that function anyway? Still not sure what button combination I did - all I was trying to do was name the part and Func + Clear usually clears the part name so you can enter a new one. I must have hit some other combination though because it wiped all my samples, machines, the base parameters for everything and with no sign of an undo. It asks for confirmation when you're about to change the trigs for a pattern in the loop slice menu, which is one confirmation too many, but doesn't ask for confirmation when it's going to wipe two hours of fucking work.

You can tell I'm pissed off, right?

More of a rant than a blog but this machine really does drive me crazy some days. It could be so much better and friendlier, even with its many, many key combinations. But almost everything it does it backwards - to my thinking anyway.

Shutting up now. Hopefully the save I did earlier will still have most of the machine settings and I can recover some of the later patterns and add them manually somehow. Can't be arsed thinking about it now though, still angry which ain't the time to fix anything.

Upside-down faces

Just saw this newsreader on BBC1 who had the most amazing teeth. I mean they were white, lots of them, brilliant, but the fun thing was this: they were predominantly lower teeth, a few not so impressive ones on the top but a bottom row like those of a gleaming god. Or goddess, as it would be here.

Pat and I had the same idea at the same time, she looked like an upside-down face. But Pat's mind, faster than mine by a shade, suggested she'd be the ultimate upside-down face cos it would really do your head in.

And she's right, bless.

Saturday night and I have a cold sore.

Watched The Avengers, excellent!

Recorded a 15 min Synthi piece today and did some Trautonium sampling, much of it almost dry although I realised later I could've recorded the delay on inputs 3/4 as I could another person. Idiot, wasn't thinking and I do like playing with delay, makes it better. Some nice phrases captured though, a bit old-movie waily, slidey but I love that stuff. Almost like I can play violin! Will get into Octatrack and see what I can do with them. Has potential I think. The Synthi stuff, individual tracks, can go in too. Lots of ambient backgroundy things to mess with. May slice them into smaller chunks so I can trigger from single pattern (32 bars),

I REALLY wish that when you've set up a Trig and put lots of p-locks on it, that when you switch the trig off and on again, it remembered the stuff you'd just sent. It would only go back to the original raw part value trig if you fully cleared the trig first. May ask, you never know. :)

OK, I really should learn to enter proper links...
Bogus Focus

One day I'll slow down a bit and start to do it properly.

Got an improved quote from Guy, very kind, "Nagle's writing has a hardboiled humour to it that brings to mind Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books, coupled with the warped worldview of Michael Marshall Smith – both of which are very good things in my view!"

Now to read up on self-publicity, self-promotion and self-branding, all interesting self-oriented activities now tied in to this novel about, hmmm, the self.

Sent in two new library pieces for consideration, no idea if they're what's wanted. That's the trouble, I have no idea.

Should finish the trautonium review really, have been dragging my feet. New app review to do but it's another dull one, but as that's all I have I should throw myself into it. Later though.

New novel: Bogus Focus

It's finally here kids, please buy so I feel justified working on the second one in the series! :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bogus-Focus-ebook/dp/B00APJX82I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355780933&sr=8-1

Productive Monday

Surprisingly. Continued faffing with novel until I solved the formatting errors. Well, for Kindle Fire but it only looks good on that, not the ordinary Kindle or iPad. Doh! I took out all the tabs, learned a lot about formatting generally. It's published now but I haven't publicised because I decided I didn't like the introduction text. Uploaded a tweak but was a bit stoned so hope I didn't cock it up. Can't read until it's published.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bogus-Focus-ebook/dp/B00APJX82I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355780933&sr=8-1

Good sesh with L this morning, tweaking video and positive vibes.

This evening, I listened to last night's track and was less impressed. Started a new one and I think it'll work out OK. I think I completed traut review too.

So a good day all in all.

Masched

Did a new track from scratch today using Maschine. Added some trautonium which seems to work very well. Arranged Maschine scenes in Logic.

http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/urbsurbis

Saw a film I very much enjoyed: The Invention of Lying clever idea well executed. I think another actor might have made even more of it but Gervais pulls it off.

Hehe have used my old trick on Tim of showing him an amateur version of the cover to see if a better one will magically appear.

Creativity

This is great
http://vimeo.com/18913413
And it also kinda explains my Sunday evenings and the 'good chunk of time' thing. And playing. :)

So anyway, instead of knuckling down and working, did some stuff with Tim, listened to some old stuff including some music we'd recorded with the trautonium from the other week. Very happy.

Lucy comes home

Tony's done wonders, again! Not only did he reverse engineer the screwy LFO waveform I like, he designed and installed a waveshaper to turn my square wave into the new waveform. He also fitted switches for LFO speed and destination, especially useful with the VCO cross mod I have already, and a button to disengage the envelopes. This works just as I'd hoped, allowing extra articulation where I want it. I like the feel of the button so much that a second one, possibly for the Glide on/off or the preset envelope I was thinking about for LFO speed mod and an extra VCA kick, isn't ruled out. :) Envelope times lengthened nicely.

A good drive up, sadly couldn't stay for lunch as Pat working at four. Now back to review work even though I want to play!

Cheque from the US. Better than a kick in the teeth, must read through and see what plays I got and in which programs. Maybe I should've done more for those guys, a damn sight easier to work for than the lot in London, which reminds me I still didn't reply to that last email of theirs... still biting my tongue!

Chuffed

Despite my shitty PRS payout I've been chuffed over the last few days about bandcamp sales. Bandcamp tell me they've given me an upgrade due to sales and some people are buying everything in one fell swoop. Doesn't take much to cheer me up eh?

Another reader finished the novel, very positive this time but I'll quiz him more as he's the best so far. Sent him the intro version. BTW anyone who reads this blog (oddly I see some do!) and wants to be a reader, drop me a line. Unless you don't want to see any deeper into my mind

Worked on traut review, got my main text and now just tidying.

Off to get Prodigy tomorrow. Tony finished, reasonable too - hope he didn;t undercharge me, will ask. Can't wait, wanna see if my mods do what I hope they will. Think all these performance tweaks started with me getting the theremin, even if I can't play the thing yet it's had a good influence!

Pissed again but it seems to help the writing...

I am a bad person

I wasn't planning on buying owt from Amazon and then I did. Shallow, etc. etc. I know. Started listening to Paul Hindemith on Youtube, always fatal when stoned. Next thing, bang, done it. Not blaming being stoned BTW, I am a weasel. :)

Made some review progress but have less words than I'd hoped. PRS payments nowt to get excited about.

Watched Prometheus last night, not very impressed.

Finally got remastered Excession released

http://jointintelligencecommittee.bandcamp.com/

Cold comforts

A nothing day, hence the blog post. Faffed around in the studio, sorted a few little jobs, pottered with a few half-ideas that fizzled out, started something maybe interesting on the Octatrack but to be honest, I could've achieved almost as much by remaining in bed. :)

Skype seemed not to load properly and as I never noticed, failed to communicate with Tim who might've got me out of my rut to do some music. Tomorrow, always tomorrow. Orbital tomorrow too. Must check when they're playing as 7pm on the door seems bloody early!

I uploaded this tune to Soundcloud from the other day, starting to compile a few of these odd little tracks that don't really fit with anything else.

http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/gadzooks

This evening I'm gonna sit around and  veg out.

Glorious morning, lovely walk with Jasper, this afternoon it's knuckling down to work even though I'd rather play.

Worked a little more on the experimental novel intro last night. Against my better judgement but it needs something, clearly, and a rewrite would change what I have in mind for the rest.

Listening to Haydn and looking through the morning's photos while last night's chinese goes down. Poor guy would never have written his greatest symphonies these days, would be accused of keep doing the same thing for too long and hounded to do something different. A much overlooked composer I reckon. Same for Schubert, perhaps the greatest potential of all but of course he croaked at just 31. If there's a better fragment of music than his Unfinished Symphony, I've yet to hear it. There, that's my intellectual outpourings done for the day. :)

Now here's a photo of a dog:

Had a good idea tonight about the three novel idea and sketched more of the second, started a couple of chapters and two more addenda for book1, may only need one of them.