Heading north

Well, the Fixie Wixie Pixie has worked his magic, heading up tomorrow to get my stuff (and take the SH-101 for a new switch). Seems the Microwave 2 doesn't have a battery for its globals either so I'll check whether I'm simply being an idiot or there's some weirder reason it always defaults to channel 1 on power up. Confess I
had forgotten about the power off button as it's actually a stand-by I never use it. Still, if the encoders are better now that's excellent.

The encoder on my ESX-1 has gone wrong already - that's the replacement one Tony fit for me last year. Bloody things, I really don't like encoders much. Used to but too many issues with them.
I'm also a bit disappointed the Perfourmer mk2 has a failing power supply after only 2 years.

Micron should be fine for a while now, new encoder and sounds like almost all the switches replaced. Not quite the bargain it was but what the hell.

Was stoned yesterday (waiting for new Volca, still not arrived) and therefore agreed to do another Binar gig. Hope I don't regret it as sometimes it's best to leave them wanting more. We did some great stuff but is there any more in the tank? I wonder if the gig I saw recently made me think we should show them it's possible to play really live? I've asked myself a few questions today but have precious few answers. Still, the man can play like a god so what the hell!

So anyway I thought I'd work out the sequence for 'The Haunted Doobie'. Took me a few goes actually, especially as I'd remembered it in the wrong key. It's hard to get very close to the sound (and immediacy) on the Analog Four and once again I'm wondering if I'll spend years on this thing only to ditch it in frustration. I may just have grown too close to Colin's sequencers and Korg's drum machines to ever be satisfied with anything else. If the new electribes impress me, perhaps I'll jump ship one more time. I can't honestly see Elektron listening to the ideas I've sent for improving the speed for live performance. Colin will though.

I released another JIC archive the other day. Will let those rest for a while. Contemplated getting some of my older stuff out but whenever I listen to it I don't think it's up to scratch. Could be that my best recent release (And Darkness Falls) would have been a good one to bow out with. More and more I want to make stuff that's wonky and imperfect.

Visited by a genius and the master of the universe...

Well, if Aphex Twin's latest (pulled) interview is to be believed anyway. I try to encourage Colin to greater things not by praise but by challenges. Either way I hope for a new development phase soon to get a few things tidied up and generally improved.

An excellent curry, went to see a gig on the Saturday, enjoyable but more a DJ set than a fully live thing, which is increasingly the case I suppose. People don't even set their own patches any more and flounder when the computer doesn't do it how they planned. Jeez I'm an old moaner, but only privately. Well, if a blog counts as private (I think this one does).

So Tony took away the Micron with its flakey power supply and failing switches and he took away the Microwave with its dead battery and almost-dead encoders. All deals I hadn't planned on costing me anything but synths I intend to keep. Surprisingly the Perfourmer 2 failed to power up on Saturday night after we returned from the gig. Hope it's just some stoner, rookie mistake but we couldn't immediately suss on Sunday morning. He took Tim's ailing CR8000 too and we discussed my Minimoog's mod wheel. Tony going to consider the best solution for that as at the moment I do most of my modulation over the first few mm, which is mad.

The new leads work great with the Dark Energy, proper TRS to 3.5mm connections, the DE going through the A4 input to make it almost integral. Thinking a sampling Volca might be perfect through the other for my smallest-scaled setup yet. The DE is a great addition to the A4 universe, partly due to the interface, partly due to the rip-roaring sound.

Now back to work. Well, after hearing the new Pink Floyd album which I'm liking a lot more than I expected so far in spite of the kazoo. If it's mostly outtakes, these outtakes are better than most current bands' highest quality.

I think we're all agreed that the Streichfett is great value for money but its phaser is horrible and the lack of top end a shame. It layers beautifully with the Micron though.

Prime numbers, noodles and easy vs hard

So I spent a couple of days making this weird looping string quartet thing on the Analog Four. By weird coincidence I'm talking with someone about doing some other looping material and I was wondering whether doing it in hardware might be good.

The Analog Four is a fine thing but it's still slow to use and at the moment subject to those random level fluctuations that I suspect is a bug in the voice-sharing there since day 1. Annoyingly I had a situation where I could turn on two tracks and cause a dramatic change in another but instead of saving the kit and sending in the pattern to be looked at, I kept tinkering until the issue became less obvious.

I can see myself working with this for a few years then dumping it in frustration. I'm just used to working faster. As an exercise, I replicated the prime number loop thing with Cirklon and the Korg Radias. It took me about 10 mins, and that includes the Radias patch programming too. Of course with Cirklon I can do a lot more but so far have just added random gate masking. Will add random note transposition too if I feel it necessary but as I now have the two looping, it's mayhem!

The numbers I chose were 47, 53, 59 and 61 as they're the longest primes I can put into a single A4 pattern. Cirklon isn't quite so restricted.

I got a new rack laptop stand) allowing me to stack the A4 above the Blofeld. Room for the Dark Energy which I'm gonna drive from the CV/Gate once Tony makes me some nice leads. Had a lot of fun with the ESX-1 the other day, the new electribes are gonna need to be very impressive to make me turn away from that.

I really do prefer an easy and fast user interface. I may have complaints about Cirklon but it's still light years better than any Elektron sequencer. Darn.

Aphex Twin waxing lyrical about Cirklon recently. Colin's head will be expanding. :) People occasionally ask me if I feel my contribution is not recognised enough. All I ever reply is: enough?

Right, should do some work. Heh been saying that all week. Colin/Tony coming so need to tidy up at least.

Back to work..

After several days of sheer Headshock indulgence. It's possible we recorded too much - my fault for a change, perhaps guided by the ghost of Phil. Simply: I wanted to hear the most recent gear recorded as I've hardly recorded the Minimoog much yet, let alone the Juno, the Streichfett.

Interestingly, the Juno6 has proved the most interesting addition, who'd have thought? Just that and a Kaoss Pad3 and I can pretty much play all day. Groovy! The Streichfett is good too - there's that lack of top end shine and occasional clipping but as a quick 'go to' instrument it fits our philosophy perfectly. I'm gradually tweaking all the pads in the Micron, some drastically, others just so I have somewhere to start. Will take a while but eventually it'll be full of things I need.

We got four recording sessions, two of approximately an hour, the other two of 10 and 20 mins respectively IIRC. Some seemed very good to me but we'll need to check out the kindness of repeated listens. Some parts could have been developed more at the time but hey.

Today, back to work...