The Last Day

http://paulnagle.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-day

I'd been meaning to release that, knocked up a cover I liked this morning, almost by accident and suddenly decided to put it out rather than the jicarc I had in mind. I'll sit on it forever otherwise. Not telling a lot of folks though, just let it out quietly and free, peter out ya know...

 Nothing much else to report, had a lazy, sunny day. Rabbits running free now, seem quite happy. Pat made the world's most awesome cake yesterday.

Preston and the Tringe

I'm not sure what a Tringe is but I know we've got one. As this is Preston it's a low-key affair, as evidenced today by the comedy/music show I attended. It's a good job my mate John invited a few friends as we three, later joined by a third friend, were the audience. The two performers and soundman worked well, to the best of their abilities and material anyway, their show having played already at the Edinburgh Fringe, apparently. Did I say "played" when I could have used the phrase "honed to perfection"? Played will do.

So the room was small, upstairs in a cafe. I quite enjoyed it because I set out to. Turns out you can do this kind of thing instead of sitting at home on your chair watching for the status updates on facebook to roll gently past.

The Tringe seems a very odd name for it but I doubt I'll find out why we couldn't have a fringe like anyone else. Or a twinge at least. Or a pringe. Maybe a ginge would be OK. There are more shows but I think I might not worry too much if I miss them.  Many appear to be in this cafe also.

Just watched a short film by Grace, the girl we met the other day at Brockholes. It was really fab and if you want to watch it too, you can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7xcbXVJQQ8

see, I do care for my small band of readers, even if I don't understand what on earth you get from my (usually stoned) ramblings. No it's OK, I don;t need to understand. If I ever understand why I even write this stuff then I might wonder about the rest of the associated gubbins. You know, I think I just like typing and keeping a blog is a very effective form of procrastination. It might look vaguely like work as I sit here, gazing into space, my fingers running away by themselves. What else can I tell you? Had a late night last night, well Tony and I chatted until around two.

Had some ideas on how to progress my novel. I think it's time for a new direction for it as the one I'd planned seems now to need a few added quirks if it's going to fire me up enough to finish it. Just have to try it as whenever I try and do wild and unconventional I often have to wind it back towards sanity afterwards.

Listening to Camel live albums I hadn't heard before and really wincing at some of the tasteless keyboard playing. Remembering how tasteful Peter Bardens was and listening to these nasty sounds pitch-bent to hell...

Well that's it for now. Here's some pix from the last day or so. The  tree is significant to my little life as it's where it almost ended when I was a nipper.

I think Jasper doesn't like this time of year too much as we tramp around fields he's not terribly interested in.

Well

So I appear to be buying stuff after I've reviewed it. Bought a Dark Time sequencer and a Novation Bass Station 2 despite my previous rules about keyboard less than 2.5 octaves and the not-so-set rule about analogue synths and memories.

Spent more time with Minibrute and it really isn't for me. I'm a bit fed up of constantly tweaking the modulation amounts, the cramped controls and so on but I think it really dawned on me today when I wanted to change the MIDI channel. First I had to find some software on Arturia's website, then I almost bricked it somehow, had to reset the damn thing. Eventually I got it set to channel 5 but had gone off it a bit by then. I adjusted the aftertouch response, must tell Tim, and still found no way to use velocity - they should've done something with that by now!

Wonder if my MS20 mini will ever come?

One review complete, the other should be easy enough. Tomorrow I will work on my showreel. How many times have I promised myself that?

Saw baby Jack again tonight, cute little devil. Who'd have thought I'd ever like a baby?? Never saw one so small before...

Heh

Yep, that simple word sums up the day. Pat's got 2 weeks off work so we're going to take some chill-time ad get a few jobs done. Builder guy came round with cost of new ridge tile fitting and plastic edge tiles.

Not been out much. Worked on review that's almost done but just needs a bit of reformatting I think. Not balanced at the moment. Order a BS2, couldn't resist. Also borrowed Tim's Minibrute again. Some very good sounds out of it this evening, finding more of its strengths and weaknesses, usually in terms of the way values are scaled around the knob and the way CV is mixed and directed. May get one instead of MS20 mini.

Recorded some stuff with Tim. New review thing arrived and I crashed it within minutes. I think it's 48k-intolerant.

Talked to Dave today. Quite excited at the prospect of his book coming out. Steve working on his rewrite of FAF, glad he's still into the idea, I wonder how different it will be.

jicarc03

Yep, that's it.

http://jointintelligencecommittee.bandcamp.com/album/jicarc-03-whambam-spamjam

Here's one of the pictures I made for the tracks. It seems like a fun challenge to make some image for each track as it's uploading. Keeps me amused or at least distracted.

It's getting windy. Discovered some old stuff today, pix and videos and so on while looking for backups of JIC tracks. Got some video of Phil that we used for a gig in Leeds and also a recording of the gig we did at the Space Centre. For some reason I don't remember that too good, seem to recall we were a bit naff. Happens. :)

Just listening to one of the new CDs I found and it's brilliant. Mellow but lots of looping guitars and some familiarish tracks but very different versions of them. I need to somehow have an idea how many versions of each track there are .... nah, impossible amount of work! Wonder if I'll ever get all this out, or even the best of it. Today's is a good one though.

Another sunny day

Yes, the keep coming and I keep taking them and basking in them.

This morning I picked some field mushrooms, which I just had in an omelette. There were also this other type:

So the afternoon has been one of those blissful but pointless ones. Have listened to music, read some Wodehouse. Tell you something, the government should probably close libraries if they want to force people to become productive. I could just keep taking out Wodehouse classics and having blissful but pointless days until I was ready for my nappy. Which may be soon!

Have listened through the first CD's worth of last weekend's Ideation tracks. It's wonderful! I faded out one track as I knew we'd be putting the CD on then drifting off to sleep, I may change the running order so that one can fully develop. We'll see what Pete thinks. That drum machine sounds so bloody good though, must figure a way to get one sooner rather than later. No review work done today or anything resembling work. So shoot me. No, my US readers, this is a mere literary device and not a sincere request.

Just put on a JIC CDR that appears to be a two-parter and have something resembling drums in it. Handsonic methinks. Not totally sure who but I think it's Mr Mason as I think I recognise his, er, ding-a-ling. Oo, er, missus etc. etc.

Money Day

Well, two cheques turned up - from SOS and from my US music publisher. So yippee and all that!

Went to Brockholes for tea and cake then a walk around. The car park seemed to want to charge us almost £4 for the privilege so I'm afraid I absconded.

Glorious sunshine hampered my attempts to polish off the two short reviews although one is done, I  think. The other requires a little more time in the studio checking as the notes I've written as illegible. Off to see mum tomorrow to hear about the extent of her copd.

Briefly...

It's funny, given what a windbag I can be, that I like Twitter probably better than all other social media. Facebook simply sucks away your time and life. I seriously believe someone discovered they could get energy that way and our essence is being stored in some monstrous vat for use when the oil runs out. So anyway, Dave, my old pal and totally sweet dude from kernow has not only finished his book but it's published in October. Blown away he finally did it, the story he's always wanted to tell. Can't wait to read it!
Did some music for a play of it many years ago, still really like the poetry and music release we did, I wonder if he'd mind me putting it on bandcamp? Hell that sounds like cashing in! Mercenary git, heh.

This evening I pottered but maybe should've concentrated on doing reviews. Still, should have time to do a fair chunk of both and I wanted to get something lined up for the gig. Perfourmer might have a fault on voice 4's level pot, seemed to jump in volume on me a couple of times. That and the Prodigy keyboard issues slightly returning, some wrong notes when I actually hit right ones.

Splitting up gear across submixers update: think I like the split of weird/seq/percussion but may have to nick that Spirit mixer Tim's using and give him the Alesis. Need more channels. Using Tanzbar entirely as a module is awesome. All patched out to separate mix channels and totally sequenced from Cirklon with all the CCs coded in as track values, wicked! Especially as I took time to define tracks and patterns best suited to each. Going back to P3 for regular sequencing has been bliss though. There's nothing to touch it and I doubt there ever will be again. Simple but a great feature set. Doesn't do everything.

Put Eventide Space on "weird" mixer so there's that and Lexicon now. Better than dedicating to Synthi, it instantly proves.

Top Weekend!

Had a great visit with Pete, always so relaxing and straightforward. Shame he doesn't live closer! Started to get ideas about the gig, the combination of Cirklon and P3 really starting to work for me in ways Cirklon alone didn't. Have moved the Perfourmer to it and if/when the MS20 and BS2 arrive, they'll go to it also.
Solved my MW2 problem, just after someone of FB promised me one. If I'd thought in advance I'd have asked Pete to bring his up with him then I might have got into it for the gig. There's a 2u space waiting for it in the gig rack and if Novation ever do bring out a BS2 rack, hopefully it'll be 1u and will take the place of the MAM.

Have a good split of the submixers but can still make more improvements. Noticed that keyboard parts should really be separate and I'm wondering whether to put the V-Synth and SK20 and possibly Prodigy through the Yamaha desk. Moved a few MIDI routings around for efficiency and also to ensure Cirklon only delivers clock from its first output, which will be useful for live stuff. Biscuit is on that output but it is only rarely a synth so not worth worrying about.

This evening it's reviews again I'm afraid. But I've progressed the two shorter ones and could get one or both almost done if I knuckle down. Temptation is to listen to some of the music we recorded though. :)

Here's photos from the other day.

I Heart Huckabees

I really love that film, get more from it each time. :)

So today I realised that more and more I'm limiting my basic palette and extending my effects and manipulation. Heckaroony! I only just realised that's why the drum machine is calling to me so much. Not so many different sounds but all good.

Did a good bulk of one review today, sketched the other. Think I missed postie with new gear, will get tomorrow.

Played more JIC archives. Found another with Tony, from 2006 and one with Andy Mason. Both good.
Must book curry. Must do more work. Pat gone to bed, started dozing off half-way through Vampire's Assistant or Apprentice or whatever the film was called. Good, seen it before,

(I notice that when I'm stoned these entries become a to do list. Since I rarely look back at them afterwards, this seems rather sad and, at best, futile. Just sayin)