Distrokid - less fun than the Bisto Kids

So I thought I'd try this recommended distribution thing, meant to be better than CD Baby. First day was very frustrating though and this morning, there's more woe. Basically this very primitive service sorts out the sending of your albums to 'stores' such as iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc. It's not a real alternative to bandcamp if you like the option to download without compression though. I also missed the little detail that you have to pay them every year or your albums will be taken down!

Anyway, I started uploading Headshock albums first since I'm still letting my new one 'bed in'. First problem was a biggy - if you have any kind of transmission error or interruption, they have one solution: do it all again. So if you have a 20 track album and track 20 fails for some reason, not only do you have to re-upload the lot, you also have to type all the data in again too. Unbelievable! Worse, they will arbitrarily reject titles they think stores won't like. You can't call your song whatever you like, you're advised to 'check spotify and see how others do it'. Seriously! So this morning I notice a whole album has been rejected because some of the titles weren't approved. And you can guess the solution: upload the whole thing again, retype all the titles...

So beware of that. It probably works well if you upload a single track at a time. Just don't dare include the year in your song title because they don't like things like that...

Back to work today. After two days of baby-handling and going to hospital to visit Pat's aunt, it's a relief to actually sit down and think of some review stuff. Kinda looking forward to Sonic Weekend because I can escape the growing tedium of day to day existence. Jasper is losing it too, I think. He wanders around the house staring at me, poor old sod seems forever hungry now and his mind ain't coping well with the stress of the baby yowling and generally doing unpredictable things. I know how he feels there, at least. Right, time for a spot of fish-bending!

Synthfest UK 2016

This site has gone live, the secret's out, or trickling out anyway. So here it is:

http://synthfest.co.uk/

Venue is Sheffield Octagon, where I played many years ago. Should be a combined modular meet, manufacturer show, live music and all sorts of fun people along. Me too, dunno if I count as fun, but I'm helping out since it's a 'SOS in the north' thing. 

Will soon start telling people, sending invites, posting stuff on forums but for now, the dozen or so people who watch this blog apart from me can be in the know first. Gosh.

Today I'm doing that thing people of my age do when they suddenly glimpse either their own mortality or can't fasten their pants. Yes, going to a gym. And yes, I know it won't last. 

I shoulda organised going to Berlin next week but looks like I won't be arsed...

Oh, and there's this!

Liminal Entity

Well, as it was the Ides of March, I decided to publish 'Liminal Entity'. It's here

I didn't do much of a description for it, nor did I think about the cover, just used the sketch idea I had at the start. It's weird but my confidence in it is very low; I still don't think I'll ever top 'Future Art Factory'. But I'll keep trying, definitely learning. I plan to finish 'From Beer' and then write something a bit easier - not try to be so damn clever-pretending-to-be-stupid.

Listened to the gig recording. Actually not bad, apart from the occasional solo I played that was just plain iffy. It's always a sign I'm not comfortable and lack of monitoring and no video did unsettle me. I think I should try and do a few performances direct from home via the net a la Jez.

I did a clicking envelope test with a new review synth. Like many recent synths it has software envelopes but unlike others, its designers really gave envelopes some thought. Hence there's the inevitable 'return to zero' mode with its annoying clicks but there are two analogue modes too, maintaining the envelope level on re-entering the attack phase. Guess what, if you switch to either of these, the clicks go away. Who'd have thought? Well, not the great ocean of internet experts...

My pal Grant wrote a nice document about envelopes I can use in future campaigns, if I ever get the stomach for them again.  I wonder if I can paste it in here? NO, doesn't look like it.

Ah well, here are some of Phil Booth's excellent pix:

I even wore the same shirt as our Minilogue video :)

And finally Friday!

Hello Virtual Diary. You know by now that I love Fridays. Well, today was a great one. I walked on the fells first thing, listened to the new Binar album again, came home and found Pat had done the washing up. Had the pastie she got me yesterday then ascended to the attic to go through the gig track by track. I didn't remember to watch the vid but did at least play everything, set mixer up, get levels pretty much right, decided how I would plumb in the RC-505. . The 505 is used on sends but just from Blofeld. Woulda been nice to loop the 101 but starting to get complicated. Already pleased with that just as a solo synth for a change; the A4 effects per song are helping nicely. RC_505 effect also set up for some fun things, if I remember they're even there. 

I recorded a run through, marked the ones I think are best, tried to predict how long each might last. Not something I normally do but had fun noodling and thinking of solo parts. Aiming for about 10 mins each but there's lots of room to indulge and let any one extend. Could probably play for 2 hours very easily. Actually those were the best gigs, the long ones.

Simple pleasures! Here's my day in pix, starting with the wood and moors at Darwen.

Not even gonna use iPad for ambience - just my Blofeld, DD20, RC-505, SH-101, A4 (also sorting reverb and delay for 101), KS-4 and P3. The Blofeld and CME37 keyboard could (and will) be consolidated into a Blofeld Keys for live and the KS4 is being swapped with Picko for a KS-R so I'm not at optimum yet. But closer than ever. Using only the little Alesis 8 channel mixer.

Frolics, Fractals and Frottage

Fordlandia is excellent stuff, I really should get more of his.

Today as I sat in the sunshine playing with some review gear on earbuds, I caught myself smiling like an idiot. OK, that's the option I have for smiling but still... somehow it became my job to do this thing I love doing anyway! I did another review earlier, a 500-worder that ended up just 47 words too long. Easy to write as very impressed and I always enjoy that final read-thru looking for easy trims. Life eh?

Sometimes you find a grouping of gear that works so well together, a synth and an effects unit, whatever. Current fave is Waldorf Blofeld through a very long delay on the DD20 and this captured into a Roland RC-505 looper. Sounds convoluted but the results are really brill. Might consider a Blofeld Keys. Would miss poly aftertouch but have a simpler rig without those flimsy little connectors.

And hey, Duncan has a BloKeys he is willing to punt, so job done I think.
Swapping KS-4 for KS-R with The Dude on Saturday. He can't stay for gig. Hey ho. Using KS-4 of course so I'll leave it with someone...

Tomorrow will be about organising Blofeld patches to match the approximate order I'll need them, leaving Friday for a run-through with video. I spose there's a chance I'll be quite ambient but hopefully people won't be snoozing. I'll try and wake them up at the end with something.

Hey ho, another day in La La Land... which should be available soon. :)

Fun, fudge and fiddling

Well, here we all are. I've been listening to a lot of music lately - and non-Headshock for a change. The boxed set of Dark Side of the Moog has been entertaining me (I had iffy CDR copies but always meant to buy the proper thing if it became available) and today I'm listening to Nemesis. I first heard these guys when in Finland and Kimmo gave me a CD (he did the artwork). Now I have two more CDs as they kindly boosted my order when they realised it was me. I will, of course, send them some of my stuff in return. Poor bastards.

Back in reviewing mode, a cool synth is en route and a few sample library and iOS apps are on the go. Also some fascinating Minilogue stuff after the Sonic State review, which claimed to have a workaround for the envelope behaviour. I smelled a rat when it was meant to be a menu item related to portamento and when I noticed that Nick avoided replicating our 'release to attack' test, keeping his playing strictly legato.
Even so, I was prepared to admit I'd missed something (however unlikely and awkward that felt) and also prepared, if necessary, to enter a menu to make this 'analog' synth behave like one. However, it turns out to be just more ill-informed bollocks, of the same type I've heard from almost everyone else. I give in and have started quoting the relevant Synth Secrets (envelopes) link and asking people to read, to look at figure 14 (which illustrates the Minilogue behaviour) and think. People need diagrams, apparently. Videos, even really simple ones, are wilfully misunderstood. And still I know there will still be folks determined to talk about single or multi triggering...!

I wake this morning to snow falling, quite heavilty. It's bloody March FFS! And I have a longish drive for a gig next weekend. :(

I've done a lot of moaning lately about the cutting down of our nature reserve and to a council who couldn't give a shit. I'm trying to adopt the same attitude of not giving a shit (the Minilogue video has helped) but I can't see that ending well. If experienced synth people can't get their head round zeroing envelopes, we're pretty much bound to end up with President Trump.

Today I will be mostly in the studio playing with synths whose envelopes work properly. I hope I have the resilience not to reply to any more fucking idiots but after a few Friday afternoon beers, it could get ugly. Pat's right, I'm a shit teacher.


The weird silence in which (you hope) awareness is finally dawning in those merrie multitudes who missed the point. Begorrah, today I made a new tune. NO, two. I was meant to be working out what to play at gig now way too much choice. Oops!