Tomorrows Whirled

Yeah, that post header looks like a failed album title. My week has been one of hospital visits and far less work than I planned. And by that, read basically none. I did a fair chunk of the Morpheus filter review but that's pretty easy to sit and write. Have yet to finish it though. Sequencer review has to be parked for a bit as a new top secret, quick turnaround synth gets top billing. It arrived today and I've been learning it by programming as many patches as possible. No spoilers here, obviously.

So what with visiting my mum, I have not worked on either the FAF print run edited version nor have I touched the new one (except to note down a few of the ideas I have for it in much simplified form). All the characters are shaping up in my head, I have most of a plot, a few sub-plots too. Alas one of my names turns out to be nicked from Dr Who, thought I'd heard it before but thought it was just one of those 'periods' like the Jurassic, Cambrian, Permian etc. Oh well, I'll think of another.

Aim for next week - to go to the gym more than once! Might chase guy about my Elektron stands, had vertigo today from leaning over a lot yesterday. A chasing week - pension guy, you are in my sights. Again!

Monday now and the world keeps on being bizarre. The lead story on the news, going on for ages, is that some film got announced as winning an award, then the mistake was corrected. To me this is the biggest non-event ever but to the BBC it's an excuse for endless speculation, wibble and rambling nonsense. Stop the planet, I want to get off!!

Oh and I have a track on this rather fun podcast. Some great stuff on it, mine perhaps overcooked - an Octatrack improv based on my China recordings.

Another post about the Octatrack

Did I go on about this already? I was experiencing lots of 'mem full' problems with the Octatrack and downgraded to 1.25E. Now I get less - but not none. The trouble with the OT, apart from the massive time suck it always performs on me, is that it is clearly obtuse enough for enough of its users so that proper bug reports have never been filed. If they have and there's reproducible errors, why the fuck is it 2017 and this thing isn't rock solid?

Today I think I will trim a lot of my samples to try and get more for the live project. I can't record long static samples straight to card and am filling the flex memory far too easily by just trying to act like I would with Logic. Ultimately I'm not going to be able to do without the RC-505.

In other news, there's a cool poster for the gig

Pleased that Basil Brooks asked if he could join me, bring his Synthi and make some noises. That should be great fun  - I'm sure it'll work out better than the last time someone guested on Synthi!

I'm adopting a new rule too when working with the Elektron stuff - going back the following day as my first action and verifying everything plays as it should. Yesterday I got a brief time (before a visitor stole my afternoon) to listen to Saturday's thing - and one track of the A4 was wrong. Turns out that in all but 1 of my patterns in bank G, this track was doing nothing useful - so I replaced it with a synthesized kick. Of course pattern G01 did use it properly and thus my intro was screwed. 

Had to recreate patch, store it in my sound pool and call it as a sound lock in that first pattern. This kind of thing is going to keep happening. I still wonder what kind of mentality is behind such nonsense!

Anyway, this was part of my noodlings...https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/bankg

It has the right warbly whoosh at the start :)

More drunken Youtubing

There ought to be a law against it.

See what you think

Also this https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/atom-shells

Using some of the same material (went back to my China recordings)

Right, best get on.

The Lone Arranger

Yes, I decided to try yet again to master the Arranger, that tiny corner of screen that does so much, so cryptically. Like you have to remember that to reach looping you must first pass 'Halt' (but don't collect £200). My idea is to use the Arranger to store the tempo of the first pattern in each bank. That way, as long as I remember to go into the arranger to change banks the tempo should be fine. Once changed it stays at the tempo last set.

My problem so far is that after a bit of noodling and playing with patterns on the OT and A4, I slip into the Arranger and of course it immediately flips to an earlier pattern with a different tempo before I can select the row I want. Must be a workaround but leaving it for now. Might work, sledgehammer to crack a nut scenario but making myself graft. Goodness knows why, maybe to prove I still can?

Someone on Elektron list says it shouldn't work that way so I'll verify tomorrow.

Check the MIDI sequencer to see if it's possible to send a MIDI Program Change in the first pattern to the A4. Should be, hopefully, that way I can consider setting it up too.
Verified - it can! With (partial) bank select if needed. Successfully changed patches on A4 and it does it intelligently - doesn't resend the same one.

However, I think I was wrong the other day about default settings being more sensible. Pretty sure I created a new project today and all the LFOs pointed at pitch.

Harvested samples from Olympus recorder, some good, some not good enough. Sadly the Lanzarote birds fall into the latter category - spoilt by wind noise and distance. If I'm going to do the latest Electronic Music Philosophy challenge I'll have to go back to some earlier field recordings. Maybe even the Chinese ones - never did record better than with that little Sony setup. Wonder where that mic went?

Anyway, taking the Lyra-8 to see Tony and have it sorted. Then the review can be finished off and submitted again. I'll also get to hear what it's like without the OTT filtering of the delay noise.

Later...
The Lyra-8 is modified - it's less sensitive now but no more random drones (I'll miss them sometimes) and best of all the long decaying envelopes finally work. I also got the delay's filtering changed to allow most of the noise through. Didn't do the other mods as we got sidetracked thinking the LFO had stopped working - forgot the bloody switch on the back which must've been touched during the update. Chased it for ages before I remembered the CV input. Idiot I am!
Anyway, it'll fit into my live rig perfectly, will try different FX with it and possibly a noise gate for the 'organismic' side. Probably stick with the distortion pedal I'm using.
Contemplating swapping the KS4 for my SH-101 in that setup too, for simplicity but also the directness and sweetness of tone would be a nice contrast to the Lyra. Will try it out and see how it fits in.

Another shock today - an old friend died. Martin RIP dude. He stayed here once and I visited him in Denmark, must have been 2000-2001 maybe. Strong memories of that visit. Facebook delivers non-stop misery these days.

The Return of the Octatrack

Yes, laugh all you want. I've been turning the air blue all afternoon as my foggy brain struggles to recall all the key combinations, the arcane magic of sampling, the bizarre situations when some tracks and samples simply refuse to play any more having done so happily all afternoon. I can never tell if I've missed something or it's just some stupid bug. Like, how annoying that you are still forced to reserve tracks for recording but if you want to reserve, say, 4, it must be tracks 1-4. You can't pick 5-8.

OK, I'm not going off on one. Some things work well, or did until they mysteriously stopped. My old projects load fine, my little mini setup with the A4 and a drum machine (review one but will be the ES2 eventually) worked. Baffled that recording seems to keep forgetting the desired inputs. Or maybe it cannot remember the inputs you choose on a per-track basis, meaning I'm bound to cock up. Having a rest from today. I feel ugly having sworn and cursed for so long and the back of my neck aches.

Someone should write a decent manual for that thing. It won't be me though. I ain't gonna learn or try to learn any more than the stuff I want, which is to play long tracks and do basic loop and sample triggering with parameter locks to make 'em interesting and scenes to tweak them. Using the master track this time, never really did before. Since the main volume control only works for the headphone socket, track 8's level can be my main volume.

I need a drink!

The Analog Four seems so much easier and more fun in comparison. And even that could be made so much better.

It's Saturday afternoon now and I've forced myself to stick at the Ocatrack, get back to where I was at least. The way I've used it today finally feels like a valid way to work. I formerly thought I'd fill the CF with content then use it because sampling was such a PITA. I bought another hoping to do long backing tracks but still allow live improv over the top.  The way it's starting to make sense is not that way at all. It's not a lot different to how I've been using the P3/RC-505 etc. - recording the synth parts you play at the time, like you would in Logic. Accept they can't be too long rather than get into the whole flex/static thing where it can't write directly to card etc. Record bursts of up to 64 steps (why the fuck is this still the last number before MAX? I thought they agreed 128 was worth adding!) and make the best of it. Using that audio, slicing it, triggering it in mad new patterns, making lots of related one with related A4 sequences, sticking to bank = key, accepting there's no fucking tempo changes....

In the end, the Octatrack is good not when you have all your samples accessible as they would in your computer but when you have a limited set but add to it constantly from other stuff in the studio that fits.

SO there we go. minimal rig = KS4, A4, OT, drum machine (currently TT-606) and Microgranny 2. Maybe Lyra-8 and long delay added too for shits and giggles.

Bogus Realities

Enough of the real world, I'm opting out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK7Qhtuw-8Y&feature=youtu.be

That's me playing the Lyra-8. a Russian instrument I just reviewed and part of the reason I still get a kick out of writing reviews. How on Earth would I get hold of something like it otherwise?

Odd week, mum rushed to hospital, still there but a lot better than she was. So it's meant a tough week for getting anything done.
New week, mum home but will take a while to be back to how she was. Relieved though.

I bought another Octatrack. I know, I know. I realised I'd never get an MPC Live in time to master it and fill it before the May gig in Somerset. And I really don't want to take loads of gear, struggle, be juggling plates. I want to enjoy it. I therefore plan to have the OT and A4 doing my entire backing synced to live looping from the RC-505. Occurs to me I might use the Cue output to feed the looper but we'll see how all that hangs together. I'm bound to struggle at first deciding how to use it and curse about saving, getting around, tempo storage (or lack of). Actually, the RC-505 might be cool as the master...

A track Tim and I did the other day
https://soundcloud.com/headshocklab/qiameth

It's gonna be an insane year. Expect the music to reflect that!