Hardly surprising with all the pesticides and gobbling up of land I suppose. Pat's started volunteering at Hedgehog Rescue and they're inundated with poorly or injured or just starving hogs. Saw a squashed one on the road on the way to the garage (MOTs due and my brakes need doing).
It's a rainy Monday, July 1st and I'm still on Broc walking duties until further notice. This afternoon I spent some time refreshing myself on the MPC - using specifically as a backup to the Octatrack playing drums, loops, a couple of synths and also some external MIDI. I'd never done a lot with MIDI except when I first tried it and now I have it connected to the Proteus 2000, which seems a good pairing so far. Oddly enough you define a MIDI program but it doesn't associate the program change/bank select number with it, nor does it remember the channel you give the track - so not exactly sophisticated compared to, say, Cirklon. It does have lots of pre-rolled MIDI CC pages though so you can set stuff up very easily and record any automation into a pattern, all as you'd hope. Will tinker with it this week and see if it's gonna be useful. One thing I will have to learn is how to tell it to listen to just a single MIDI input track as currently it seems to record from any. I'd rather wanted to keep the Octatrack's MIDI tracks for quick sequencing of the Microfreak rather than adding that to the MpC - somethings are better on the OT, for example the ease of having your track any length and changing on the fly. Oh well, manual not a lot of immediate help so I'll read in more depth later and see what I missed. I reckon one MPC project will suffice for the whole gig as I can put in lots of stuff to fire off and interact with as I fancy. May see if I can do some instrumental and vocal loops too, more to test it out than anything else and become familiar with it. Sorta weird that each sequence can have its tracks running different instruments - potentially confusing that but will get into habit of copying. Yet to find a quick erase all after a Seq copy -seems you have to do it track by track. Will look into that as I think there is a way. Erase all except tracks nn would also be useful.
Youtube seems to have lots of waffle and chat but I think I'm going with my old long-winded way of working it out painfully by myself. Or at least that's the view now, maybe I'll change my mind after a few days knocking my head against the wall. Optimistic though after today's pottering. Was able to remember a fair amount from previously. If I get the MIDI routing sorted then that's a biggie. I see that the latest update offers better ways of handling that and using a USB hub with lots of MIDI gear, which may be worth investigating. Still fancy the MPC37 but if it doesn't come with much in the way of plugins, the Live II could be more fun - I do like the idea of its speaker and battery.
MIDI routing was easy enough - been looking at how to do it as default so when I make a new MIDI track it defaults to MPC out rather than the rather useless 'nothing'. Anyway, will look at the USB thing at some point. Moved Octatrack around a bit and brought the HX-1 pedal back through for the Super 6. I note some users also pointed out that, although the velocity of the soup is much better scaled, it still leaves somethings to be desired. Very much as I said in my last report. I don't think I'm going to buy the keyboard update. Four hundred quid is a lot - and I'd rather put it into an MPC. Maybe even Tim's as he does want to sell and I've been using it a bit lately. It's smaller than the 37 key one I guess, just lacks some of the 'thru' features I'd find useful.
Asked how long my set should be and it seems like time will be tight - two extra bands added to the bill by the promoter so an hour should suffice for me. Dunno if Tim will be into doing it, assuming we get slick enough between now and then. Anyway, Friday tomorrow and I plan to have the usual good time - Tim not around Saturday so I may do a livestream of the Octa/MPC thing.
Friday was good - started playing with the Q-Link encoders but haven't settled on a way I like best yet. Had a few odd instances where I had an effect going on a drum program but just could not find the fecker - just need to keep working at it. It seems to limit me to 8 plugins, which I guess is a way of protecting itself from doing too much. Still some aspects of that I need to slick up on but the integration of MIDI programs is really extending what it can do. I've now put the P2K through the OT's AB inputs so I can treat it along with the Microfreak and RD8. So three tracks are used to process audio now, one to play a static file leaving four for general fun and mayhem. Quite a good setup I think.
Well now, Saturday was an extra studio day as Tim was off working. I did the usual - got stunk and droned - then I went online, totally forgetting to check the audio connections, trusting they'd work (of course they were shite). Later, having spent quite a while updating my MPC tunes and sequences, I switched off, having totally forgot the discipline required to save first and turn off properly. What an eejit! Will see what the state was last time I saved and hope I didn't lose too much. Gonna make myself a little message to put next to the power switch!!
Still tempted by the MPC37 - hope it will ease the thru problems and record what I play more accurately from its own keyboard. Seems the stock plugins are available to all - Solina, Mellotron, Hype, Tubesynth and Ody. There's a voucher for another (Juno or Minimoog I guess) if you buy the 37 too and it reckons projects create on a One will be compatible. I wonder if they'll announce one that isn't in hideous red though? I mean, purple or green I would have quite liked as an alternative to black but the red looks cheap and nasty. Oh well.
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