Mid-week suppressed shriek

 We should have gone walking yesterday by the look of things. Instead I finally got round to fitting the JD-XA replacement mod wheel. 

Interesting that the synth is literally divided into two - the green digital board and red analogue. Now it's all working, I have no excuse not to start programming sounds on it. I dearly wish I'd kept the sounds I made when reviewing it as I did quite a lot of atmospheric paddy stuff, as well as using the analogue section for the usual basses, solos and wibbles. I've programmed just a handful of basic things on it since getting it - I mean to address that because the sounds that are in it truly suck. There are lots of banks online but I think I'll avoid those unless I run out of ideas. 

I bought the entire catalogue of a guy called State Azure - very polished, beautifully-produced and thoroughly crafted music. I sometimes discover people like this and it makes me wish I'd adopted an entirely different work ethic decades ago. This whole 'effectus super absolutionem' thing could easily be seen not as some artistic statement about being in the moment but more like stoner laziness. Oh well, not to worry. ;)
Edit: OK, I've listened to maybe half a dozen of the albums and the perfection is starting to grate. It's becoming almost as hard to sit through as that vampire thing I tried to watch (the Originals), in which every cast member was a perfect example of human beauty. It's not that I crave ugliness or imperfection, but I sure do need the whole range if I'm to feel anything. Sure it will be fine as long as I don't listen to too much in one go. 

Oh good. We removed the seat cover because Jasper wiped his arse on it. Sneaky sod has sat on the coverless chair and wiped his arse on that too. This arse thing is not going to go away. I could have taken a photo but I spared you that. 

Have to say I had fun this afternoon. JD-XA partners with Electribe Sampler perfectly. The two together, the JD as master remembering all the tempii are enough to be a setup by itself. Deliberately not bolting it onto the Octatrack-based rig which is next to it. Sequencer is fine for beaty Berlin; the 8 internal parts cover this adequately. Still a couple of issues - e.g. I sometimes find it confusing muting tracks when you really wanted to mute sequencer output. Maybe Elektron and Sequentix have spoilt me there. You don't get the natural decays which is a pain and when muted you can't then play the part from the keyboard (unless I miss something). Also hard to differentiate visually which parts are muted and which are selected to be played on keyboard due to way colours are handled. The mute seems to trump the green flash of sequencer play. Oh well. 

Um, anyway. I'm getting back into it and the things I like about it. Also, the arpeggiator works properly - doesn't stop when sequencer stops, doesn't need sequencer running for it to work, you can start sequencer to join in with it etc. All the stuff many companies are clueless about. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGm5D3xBMU0/

Today was meant to be an ascent of Pendle but it's raining so we decided to slob. Leaves me another noodly afternoon so time to go shopping for beer, dog food, sushi...

Had a weird extended dream last night in which I had murdered someone (an old colleague from F.Arts days) and, five years later, the car I'd hidden, maybe with the body in it, had come to light. Quite intense and believable; each time I woke up I was asking myself whether I had really done it and, if so, what I'd done with the body. Each time I drifted off, the dream continued from where it had left off. 

Someone pointed me to a Youtube version of an old track - but with a cover I don't recall seeing before. Had forgotten this has an official release actually. 

Whereas this one I do remember... one of my early oil paintings on the cover.