Time for another Kenton box

 The little nest of nastiness that is my thru area in Setup 4 was causing me grief over the weekend and I realised it's high time I bought another Thru12 from Kenton to sort all that once and for all. So I ordered one from Juno, using one of their 'generate a discount' online jobbies. Knocked £6 off which is better than nowt. Pat's car battery seemingly buggered, wondering if I put it away and failed to turn off lights - it's a really old battery though so getting it replaced. Also decided to drive to the thing on Wednesday as paying over £100 for a taxi is insane. Pretty sure we could take train but would mean leaving Broc much longer alone. Tim's battery also flat so it's a battery kinda day. Which reminds me, I need some AAAs.

Talked to United Utils today, finally someone who does work, or hopefully will. The council had passed it on then lost interest, the waste water part of UU too, so I basically rang the general engineering part then sent them the report thingummy. Fingers crossed. Guy mentioned having a machine that gnashes through roots then seals up to prevent a repeat incursion. Could mean the hideous leylandii doesn't need to be removed, not that I care about that particularly. So that was my Monday. Should get an hour or two Osmose playing though if lucky.

Did a small reorg - put the 404 with the Synthi/MS20/Euro in place of the 505. The 505 (via Phil's old mixer) now handles the Osmose and Blofeld so I can do proper synced arrangements of the tunes I am trying to play. The RD9 can go live in Setup3 along with other generally groovy things, Cirklon and so on. Thinking of ways that might be rationalised around just the Spirit mixer, leaving the other Behringer to S2. Don't need a BB with that really as I can use the 404 to do similar things. Probably need fewer analogue monosynths for S3 but have ideas about that too. All good. Replaced battery on Pat's car but she still looking permanently glum. Hopefully this Lion King trip tomorrow will help a bit. The Thru12 arrived for S4 and plumbed in.  

Thursday was a good day - finally got round to tweaking setup 3, still using two mixers but rationalised it by moving out the V-Synth and shunting around the analogues to make way for a general work area. It may not be perfect but it feels like an improvement. Time will tell. 

Friday tomorrow, should be a hoot. May go back to my 4-sided dice as I think everything is now groovy for all 4 setups. Oh, did I mention we went to see Lion King yesterday? Well, we did and it was actually rather impressive. Crammed in though, the Palace Theatre was like Ryan Air on a steep cliff or something. 

Haken Editor and Super 6 MPE

 Well, I intend to try the MPE mode anyway, haven't yet. Tried the Haken editor on my old Mac but it's no use unless I update my OSX, which I have no intention of doing. Did get it working a bit better on laptop but I'm going to need to draft in a second monitor if I'm to use it for any length of time. First I need to read a bit of the basics and also the thing about my Osmose firmware (Load Update File 2). Thing is I don't want to spend too long solving computery problems when I can just sit and play. One day I'll make some of my own instruments on it but probably not for a while and won't be as good as experienced designers. Putting my hopes in Howard. 

Sorted out how to do the RD9 prefs at last, wanted to be able to set various values per pattern and the song loop mode. 

Well, the Super 6 MPE works - after a fashion. Feels a bit steppy though, probably due to 7-bit controllers - but the vibrato is nice. However you have to keep re-enabling MPE for every patch, which is a drag and using the mod matrix on the Soup still sucks. OK if I stay in Manual mode I guess but I think I preferred regular Poly AT and the Blofeld as my external synth, so that's how I'll keep it. Actually the results were better when I turned off the dynamics control and not so bad at its half setting - but having the Soup there next to the Osmose still felt wrong somehow, you start becoming aware of the Soup's shitty keyboard and sluggish sliders for a start. Anyway, putting things back as they were today (Friday) so I can get stuck into a Friday sesh. Was gonna go out with Pat and the dog but she didn't leave until after 10:00 and I like to get an early start for my afternoon's music. 

Continuing to worth through Eagan Matrix videos and not finding the difficulties expected. Have seen some people say that it's impossible but it really isn't, especially if you're used to a synth like the Synthi with a pin matrix. The use of formulae instead of pins of different resistances makes sense to me and the idea that all sounds are intimately bound up with the available controllers also seems spot on. Must sort that extra screen.

Friday was a good one. 

I should add that it's Saturday morning and I haven't listened through yet so the usual caveats apply. Went to see Broc do his agility last night - freezing cold and mayhem of dogs, especially silly collies, but good fun and Broc had a ball. Today might get to see Tim's eBay guitar fx box, a Behringer version of the Pod IIRC. 

Hopefully next week we'll be walking again. Got my axe now, which is apparently to stop you when slipping down a hill, so that's something I didn't know. Tony had a long cold and the tops are lovely and frosty, which must be frustrating for him. I've coped by lots of playing. ;) Am out of weed though :(

Continuing the osmosis and gradually learning the RD9

Yeah, playing with different pedals in slot 2 and noting a few odd errors with 5-pin MIDI. Not that they bother me too much but I would like to get the arpeggiator working in tight sync at least. Next thing to try is recording into Cirklon and looking at the data, seeing if it plays back correctly. 

So far with the RD9 I've had good results patching out drums into the Oto Biscuit, high-pass filtering the high hats so they're almost as sweet at the 808's. The note repeat works well, jumping directly to a step in pattern change and the fills process is OK - not sussed the 'intro' part yet and the manual doesn't mention it at all. The knobs are loosening up a bit but the colour still stupid (dark grey with red indicators). All the probability, polyphony and randomness tried out and gonna be handy. Final shame is that I can't use the compressor on some voices, the filter on a different set. 

Weather been awful so no walk this week. Tim and I recorded a rather good track on Monday though.

Started recording a thing today (Thursday) that has potential. P3 sequencing a shed-load of JD-XA and some played Osmose / Cosmos. Recorded some RD9 drums to fit with it, sounding nice, and I have a good basis for something tomorrow. How splendid! The Osmose cover arrived from Ann's Tweed and it's great, just the job. Sussed copying bars in the RD9 but it's more long-winded than it should be. Also lost high hats completely and had to power off, so that's not ideal. Fortunately they returned but will have to keep eye on that. 

The sparrows are back, which is lovely to behold. They can't have gone to Egypt after all but I do wonder where was nicer and why it's now not. Hopefully we'll walk this week, it's looking good, not so rainy, if cold. Worked on the novel a bit last night, still not quite content to call it the end of draft #1. I suppose I'm putting off starting the big haul through again doing the proper tidying up. I read the first Richard Osman novel and he was thanking everyone for their help and assistance, telling him what was wrong in early drafts, making him work a bit harder on it. That's an issue I've always struggled with - never been quite able to get anyone interested in helping out, presumably because the quality really isn't high enough for anyone to bother, or maybe it's my complete lack of involvement in Pointless. I'm reading the second one now, which is much better, or it is so far. Very easy to read, the complication is there but not really hiding and the bits I'm meant to think about, or see coming, are laid out properly. I don't know that I'll ever be able to achieve that, too lazy and self-indulgent I suspect.

Added a track to the end of this. Not perfect but then none of them are and they're free.

Have done some nice music lately, in my humble opinion, and felt inspired to paint again after watching a Sky Arts program about Rothko. Did I write that in my blog already? This week my resolution is to not have quite so many pleasant afternoon whiskies while in the studio. Oh, I think I've learned the RD9 now, although the song mode appears to work differently to how the manual says. Fortunately I'm not interested in that, just wanted to do it for completeness' sake. Is that apostrophe right? It doesn't look like it. Oh, I didn't bother going to see Wolfgang Flur at the Ferret. There aren't many people I would go and see there, the Soapgirls perhaps, or does that just mark me as an old perv? I appear to have written most of that paragraph in the style of Osman's Joyce, which is worrying. Or is it?

Anyway. Did my tax and it hurt. Saying I'm retired now seems stupid as I can't claim for anything, so for next year I'm coming out of retirement, whatever that ultimately means. If only I was Jacob Piss-Fogg and I could just loan myself an income from some dodgy place in Bermuda/Ireland/the Caymans. Still, I'd be a cunt so best not go there. 

On Sunday we had a very pleasant visit from William and Benji as Dawn, Chris and Colin went off to Lytham to do sad family stuff. He was a lot more switched on this time and it makes me hopeful for the future. Broc woke me up at 03:30 but didn't want to go out, not entirely sure what he wanted but I didn't sleep properly afterwards. He repeated the exercise at 8am but I didn't get up this time and Pat found him sleeping in his nest in the library. I guess he was affected by Benji's visit in some doggy way.

2023 and for Osmose, yippee!

 It came!!!!

Back to 2022 briefly and it's Saturday, NYE, fairly cold and wet so I was listening back through recent Headshock recordings. Some absolute belters this year, very productive and diverse whilst retaining our mad, avant garde thrust for exploration and new things. There's so much material it's impossible to know what to do with it other than keep listening through in a kind of dazed wonder. Tim off to Wales for a bit and I'm awaiting the Osmose delivery... Can't seem to get into writing mode and have recorded tons of my own music lately too, should maybe move a few eurorack modules around or other pointless diversions. What I could probably use is another small case with some extra I/O to make it easier to use the few modules I still like using but can I be bothered? If it wasn't a mad idea I'd be tempted to buy a third rc-505. Curry tonight as Pat taking Marg out, yay!

Fast forward to Tuesday and Osmose arrived. Spent the day playing then Wednesday too. Have some thoughts on Facebook so maybe all I'll say here, for now, is that it is everything I'd hoped for and the editor as difficult as expected. Sadly it won't be any good on this laptop because the editor (which runs inside MAX) won't fit my resolution and won't resize. Hope they atttend to this as a matter of urgency as I really want to ditch a large chunk of the presets and bend them to my tastes. Some oddities with sustain pedal and running out of voices, arpeggiator not syncing to MIDI and some other things but it's early days and I'll just save the patches I like into user locations and work from there for now. The keyboard feels fantastic and is a real joy to play. All others will feel limited from this point. Oh, I ordered a Behringer RD9 after getting carried away talking to Dave Bessell. Silly I know, but the talk of filtering and waveshaping somehow caught my imagination. It's due tomorrow so we'll see if I did a dumb thing.

Someone on Twitter was asking for music and I sent her a half a dozen codes for albums, probably way too many and I didn't explain myself or anything. I never learn. I think she might be Radio 3 so I'd have been wise to send her some of the cool stuff done with Rick Curran. I mean, I did, but will she get to the end of a 20 min track to hear it? Seems unlikely. Of course I didn't send the new one with all the short, radio-friendly tracks. ;)

A lot of dead frogs in pond. Turns out there are many more leaves (must snot that magnolia) this year that I failed to clear (I did a lot but not enough) and the gases from decomposition get trapped under ice and turn the water toxic. Frogs napping over winter die, my fault for poor maintenance. In future clear all debris and make sure there are holes in ice for gases to escape. :(

BTW I can't help but notice you can see directly down onto the PCB if you stand above it. Somehow I'd have expected some kind of protection beneath the keys. Something to look out for - you don't want this thing at a festival in the open, for example. Today (Thursday) I moved it into the dark half, swapping with System 8. Thought it'd go nicely with the Cosmos - must swap its firmware back to the old, non-looping one. The looper really isn't long enough for the kind of things I do so will stick to its base functionality. Think I'll place the RD9 nearby so my thumpy kicks don't scare Hugie and Mavis ;) - can sync to the P3/JD-XA setup too.