Driving north

yep, that's what I did today.

Good to see Tony, get Tim's stuff back, the CS30 is now properly calibrated, has a UK power supply, trigger input, switch to deactivate the CV/Gate inputs and so on. I have to recalibrate Cirklon's CV output though cos something changed.

Played a Godwin string synth and really liked it. Also liked the PE2000, looked fabulous, sounded good. Maybe the wrong way round I guess. Was tempted by an Alpha Juno 2, that's how easy I am.

Didn't do much else today but tomorrow is a working day.

Excellent

It has been an excellent couple of days. Could've gone to see Dreadzone this evening in Clitheroe but Tim and I had a great sesh, named "Scrimption", yes, quite. Will go with Watteau, notteau_watteau and battle for CD space for time.

No Tony but we just sorta got on with something. I must check lawn whether the new fence stops frogs getting through.

Some PRS queries about US tracks, now probably sorted. Mars wants more and I should do some for him really, so much stuff to do which is way better than poking around for stuff to do. Busy is good. Looking forward to hols though.

CR8000 sounding ace.
CS30 ready, will go in week and get.

More rain

Well, not going far today. Dawn's house-warming and that's about it. We didn't even do our romantic meal after all last night, Pat didn't feel like going out so we did the takeaway,wine thing and watched a rather good film "Priest". Happily not about predatory jesuits but about kick-ass dudes battling vampires (who looked like grey naked mole rats).

Yesterday was the big reveal and I admit to being so anal I checked the many reviews of others to compare notes. So far pretty happy with my words, not seen anything that made me think "damn, I missed that!"

My cold appears to be developing somewhat.

Endlessly Distracted

Well, I'm still awaiting pickup of the "top secret" stuff that should have gone off on Tuesday. Today I spent a while extracting a load material from the China recordings plus sections from recent Headshock, mostly ambient sections. I decided to work on a new CF card in the Octatrack and once again I have the lengthy and tedious process of setting it up how I like. Why on earth has nobody made a software front-end for that thing?
I'm not using parts anymore, just a separate bank for each new thing. Knocked up a few quick patterns and corresponding Cirklon scenes named and with the tempo set so I can find them later and they sound right. As tempo is so vital to the way samples play it's drives me mad there's no simple way to do it in Octatrack but the arranger is a level of complication too far. Hell, parts are too!

I should be knuckling down but my early burst of work Monday/Tuesday seems to have taken the wind from my sails. What I really want to do is polish the novel. It's almost ready for a few readers maybe but I should tidy a few things first. And should I keep the "deleted scenes" or not? I took them out from FAF and BF but dunno this time...

Right, have to do some review work now or the day's been another meandering pootle.

Interesting

People are starting to read Future Art Factory. I'm not entirely sure why the sudden interest but so far very positive feedback. It makes me a bit frustrated that I haven't had time to work on the new one but review work has to come first, then music writing.

Sent off two reviews today, early as the deadline was Monday. Hoping to get ahead of the game but I think I should have polished the second one. I said what I wanted but not sure it was in the most simple and readable way. Was bog-eyed later so had an hour just sat listening to music and watching Bob.

Here he is:

So what else happened today? The courier didn't come. The guy who came by mistake yesterday failed to return as he said, who'd have guessed? I'll chase them tomorrow.

Now I'm hoping the people who read my novel won't read the second and be disappointed. Duh!

Mr Efficiency

Yeah, beneath it all I can turn on the hard work when it counts. With a week to spare I have draft versions of the two main reviews I'm doing. It gives me lots of polishing time if needed but more importantly, time to start on something else. No time for novel, none for music either. I do want to act on the idea of using a synth I'd not normally use, the TR-Rack. I'm even going to try and concentrate on the multis Phil left, tie it to the P3, move the Freebass out for a while. Although I can't see myself programming it via that UI, there must be sounds I can make tunes with.

Having beer now. Good, productive day. Saw Andy and he took the mixer and sampler.

Odd Day

Odd in that I feel a little deflated by the day. I went over to pick up Phil's stuff and ended up bringing most of it back. Forgot a controller keyboard and left the guitar stuff, a large flightcase and so on. Couldn't find my SE50 or wireless monitor but no matter, just carrying it all back and looking at it made me feel strange. Pick of the pile is a nice mixer, claimed by Andy, plus Repeater, which Tony expressed interest in once upon a time. Nothing I really want but may hang onto Poly800, at least for a while.

I should start to compile a list of my stuff and roughly its value, just in case owt ever happens to me. Pat would have a nightmare going through it all. It brought it home to me just how much mess we leave behind us. I did get Phil's little Micro BR which he used to record us in Spain that time. A quick listen reveals some guitar on it so maybe I can do something with that. Would like to.

Made small tweaks to reviews and heard of another coming, so tomorrow needs to be a big work day, no more of this moping. Thus ends today's pointless entry.

Worky

Worked well today. Wrote almost 3,000 words in one sitting this evening. That's how to do it. Spoke to Nick about Finland, good ideas about travel and the week before. None of us need to practise. :)

Must organise going up to see Ken in Edinburgh once some space in schedule. Am I doing Frankfurt? Probably not if doing Finland.

Damn was going to write something, which I think was the point of me starting this, but have forgotten. Dope!

Copied my current OT bank to all other banks ready to start fleshing out a project. General purpose, using mastertrack and some standardised scenes (last fades everything into big mush). Have set all LFO destinations, MIDI channels of MIDI tracks, CCs of the first, the RLEN params for the recorders and part 4, pattern 16 in each bank to be used for recording so set up for it. Also set the pattern switch mode to 16 steps as PLEN doesn't work with the great INF bodge. One day I'll have a consistent workflow that I don't change two months later. Nah!

I got a new app.

Looky, it's February

Yep, I took my eye off the ball and January escaped.

So today's Sunday and it's been a busy week, even busier last few days. Have spent time with some classic analogue gear and have sent off the CS30 and Tanzbar to get some essential work done. For now getting switch to deactivate CV/Gate connections, input to sequencer so I can clock from Cirklon, UK power supply. Apparently the step down transformer I was using was wrong - US rather than Japanese - oops. I guess that's one of the disadvantages of getting stuff without the right power supply. Anyway, Tony will sort. He'll also take a look and see it's possible to make the Tanzbar claves sound good.
Some of Tim's stuff gone for work too. I'll go up and get the lot when ready.

Lots of review work to do, it'll push the new music writing back but the reviews are fun. Hoping to get a few other choice items along too. Considering getting an Analog4 to take to gig in Finland. Oh yes, agreed to that when online in the early hours. Then realised it's the same weekend as Synth DIY. Which is a shame, I'd planned to go this time. It's a week after Cosmic Smokers. May look at using Octatrack and Radias instead of getting Analog4 since I am actually skint!

Right, should start jotting down some notes of latest review as I appear to have scrawled a LOT so should make sense of them now if I can.

Not much time for novel although I've picked at it enough to say it's a workable first draft. Now edit, polish, ruthlessly refine but not for a while.

Throat sore. Pat on settee last night cos I stunk apparently. Had a less lively curry too, or at least only madras strength korai which doesn't normally do so much harm.