Getting ready for Scotland (or not)

Yeah, I'm not really a 'ready' kinda person. I should check out the car though to make sure it's up to the trip. 

Anyway. I think I consolidated my Arranger knowledge today by sussing locators and the use of Q-Links in that page. Really speeds up getting around and also the copy/paste thing works far better now I have the navigation sorted properly. There seem to be little jumps if I create a loop between markers then activate it but perhaps that's just more practise needed. This does give me an easy way to set up areas of a song I can use and I'm surprised I didn't notice the pad display during Locator setup which really helps in navigation generally. Also discovered some preset keygroup instruments, didn't think there were any. Gives me some new sounds to play with anyway reducing the need to make a load of my own from the connected synths. So all good, really.

Not looking forward to drive to Scotland, you can probably tell. Will look at the tyes, oil etc. beforehand, make some chilli, may miss my Friday sesh. Probably taking the MPC along. Was gonna get a case but may wait and see if better options appear.  Haha, the old P3/camera case fits.

Version 3.7.1 of the MPC firmware dropped today. Sadly it doesn't sort any of my issues although does acknowledge one partly (running status - doesn't mention active sensing). I also noticed some odd pauses using legato mode switching between audio clips today. Will check that next session. Also still struggling with import of long audio chunks and truncation. Lots of faffing about with audio editor and the audio edit button on the main page, both of which have their own end value. I don't really know if I'm going to do much of the long audio streaming given it's a zillion times easier on the Octatrack. And there's something flat about the audio playback of these files too - seems to me the OT sounded better. 

Found a use for my bandcamp paypal payments - plugins for the MPC. Accordingly I just bought Ether, a posher, zanier reverb than any it has. No instruments I want, sadly, as they all sound a bit ordinary, plus I'm waiting to see if they fix the Minimoog as a test of their committment to do good shit. 

Note to self, don't bother buying plugins from Thomann. It's a very long-winded process compared to Pluginboutique. Now almost an hour later and I'm waiting for a second email, this time from "plugivery" whoever that is... eventually came almost 2 hours after expected. It's a good plugin though, phew. 

Went to High Cup today. Incredible landscape.

Almost there

 I think I know most of the MPC now - next thing to sort are snapshots which, I hope, will let me store synth tweaks. The manual is predictably vague, just talks about "automation parameters" so not sure how it'll work in practice. Need also to test out the copying arranger to clip functions and make sure I'm slick with all that to-ing and fro-ing. The only point I can see now of different sequences is to make different arrangements, or perhaps to go back to the old song mode, which doesn't seem to offer a lot now. 

Well, snapshots was exactly what I hoped - surprised it doesn't get more than the briefest mention in the manual as it's a really big deal, especially for making changes to the plugin synths that don't support program changes. It also works for external MIDI gear - and although the screen is somewhat confusing, packed with terms relevant to very few synthesizers, you can edit the labels for each CC - a job for a rainy day. OK, it's raining now but I'm done testing for today. Storing the setup for each row will make a big difference to what I can do, even if a lot of the time it'll be just levels, FX and a few simple synth parameters. At some point I'll stress-test it to see how many changes can be stored in a single row. Doing a new save over the top seems to overwrite, which is how you'd want it. Chuffed. 

OK, update on that. Returned to my song with the snapshots in and, somehow, a full on modwheel had been added to every one ruining the Mini-ish track. I couldn't work out how to wipe just that event, or indeed see which events are stored in a snapshot. So the only option is to clear them all and do again - not that I can remember what was stored in each row. I don't know if it's worth raising a request for this. Update: I did. Right now you just can't use many snapshots unless you write them all down on a piece of paper, just in case they somehow get corrupted, maybe by incoming CCs. 

Tuesday, off to York with Mick and John. My train cancelled so travelled there alone. Still worth it though. They were filming The Piano at the station and part was closed off near the pub for them to film. Good chats, will do again.

Wednesday, finally walking with Tony. Well, that's the plan. And it was lovely!

Thursday now a grey and cold one. The studio beckons. And a couple of hours of grabbing bits and pieces from the KSP/Wavestate. These give me a couple of new projects ready-loaded with a few starting points, which is nice to have and all the donkey work of sampling/recording done. It's a good way to work but I think I'm going to ignore snapshots as much as I can and write (visible) automation to a finished arrangement instead. I do want to veryfy that snapshot info is not written to the arrangement as seemed to be the case last time I tried. That's counter-intuitive to me. 

Tomorrow I will have to move Margaret's old sofa, probably to tip as charities won't take something "sun bleached" as it aparently is. One more to ask though. Then it's regular Friday.

Recorded something a bit chaotic then deleted on Saturday monin. Saturday Tim and I did some jammin. Was good. 

March here, MPC learning continues

 This week seems to have started well. Pat took Broc a nice walk allowing me a bit of time to potter about and listen to music before the day kicks in. The new drive for the MPC arrives tomorrow - so I guess I'll be putting a lot of material on that to draw from, material I could probably have put on the SD card in there, hehe. Oh well. Will keep going, do some more sampling and generally prepare lots of stuff to have to hand. 

I may have a couple of days to myself as Pat going south and maybe taking the pooch. I've already stocked up on beer just in case as a couple of days solid music feels like a treat I deserve. Must take some frog spawn tomorrow as there's a pond full of it. The world appears to be getting even madder outside my little bubble but doing my best to keep my head down and pretend it's all going to turn out fine. 

Came to the conclusion yesterday while editing Liminal Entity that I just wasn't feeling it. The story either needs a completely new angle (which I have thought of but not sure it's good enough yet) or I just leave it as a dead end. It's not like anyone's going to chase me for it. That would also save me the much more difficult task of fixing 'After Life'. 

A very productive Monday. First I sampled some Minimoog (bass notes then made a drum kit of hits) and System 8 - mostly to give myself some unique sounds to work with and process. Then I made a long ambient track based on one of the Kinlochewe recordings with System 8 overdubbed on a couple of tracks. Gave me the opportunity to use the Learn function for assigning track FX to the Q-Links and try importing random field recordings as clips then into arranger. All worked well enough, no glitches with the longer audio and a nice clearly visible display of where everything was. I may do a few different mixes of that in different sequences, trying out recording of fx, volume etc. but no actual need as I know all that works already. Only anomaly was that it records muted tracks into the arranger, which I hadn't expected. Guess it doesn't matter but feels untidy. I need to explore the stock effects more as I keep falling back to that Delay Pro I bought, which has already revealed most of its delights. Some more complex effects needed if it's ever to compete with what Logic offered many moons ago. Still, there's more than enough really, just picking fault due to force of habit. Sampling or recording my synths as part of an arrangement working very smoothly so all good. 

Well, I installed the SATA drive easily enough (a tight fit with the cable supplied). But it needs to be formatted on a PC first - meaning I have to order a fucking cable to do it. Sigh. And even with a cable the thing isn't seen immediately. Googled what to do and Windows 11's Disk Management was the answer. What a faff! Good day recording clips though.

Now I'm watching the Sakamoto DVD Opus, which s wonderful and poignant. Didn't get to the end but will watch again tonight, assuming Pat coming home tomorrow.

Well, it's Saturday morning and Friday went very well. Tried some new Cirklon code that sorts the screen colours rather nicely (and font). Then I played with the MPC all afternoon and worked on yet another of the KSP projects. The skipping between patches and patterns until I find something that works is a great process for making loops in the MPC. I have yet to arrange them all but all the chunks are there and promising indeed. Didn't post yesterday's thing so will have to go find it and listen. 

Good Saturday sesh with Tim. Made a new MPC project and by keep doing that I'm getting faster and more efficient. 

Got Minimoog and V-Synth out of their flightcases...

 It felt like time, although I did almost immediately have loss pangs for the JD-XA. I have a feeling I should sell the Minimoog as it's wrong to hang onto it without really using it much. It did sound great of course but it's the great I've known for so long I don't know what else I can do with it. We'll see how it goes. 

Tried the MPC looper. It works fine, dunno how much use it'll get but I think that just leaves me to try and mod matrix and XY pad in detail and I've had a go at everything. Well, I've barely touched the effects bar the obvious ones so I guess I should do that, plus set up some more Q-Links in my template project. Then I need to make more of my own programs, use a ton of those Easel samples I made for a start, perhaps make some of them velocity-layered. 

Went to this last night but missed the EMOM, which I'd possibly have preferred. But it was nice going out with Pat and getting food and gawping upwards. Took a wrong turn on the way home, which is maybe excusable as it's been decades since I made the regular trip to Blackburn each day and some of the roads looked very different in the dark. It is NOT a sign I'm losing it. Anyway, cost us 10 mins heading towards Clitheroe before I admitted my mistake. 

New phone working well as a camera. 

Really enjoying Jon Hopkins' Music for Psychedelic Therapy (well, apart from the spoken word nonsense). Interestingly, it's a direction of minimalism I've been heading towards and which at least one recent Ideation track strayed into. The other one I got (Ritual) had some good moments but also a relentlessness in places that grated. Will see what I think on a second, more prepared, listen. Today, thursday, we paid for the kitchen and I plan to spent the afternoon doing a little studio pottering, perhaps on the V-Synth. I should maybe work on some MPC tunes/sounds but a day off that also appeals. 

Well, I did more MPC - made a new keygroup but it's tortuous and I must find a faster/slicker way. I then made real progress with my loop/clip problem and decided two tracks will cover it, one for regular drum loops and the other for the vintage drum machines, latin loops and other supporting stuff. As long as I leave gaps here and there I can stop them without going through and setting every one to toggle, which really should be possible as default. Did some basic jamming with my default song and using the KSP to bang in simple stuff and arps. Tried a few backing track songs but feel increasingly like those will be the minority of any live performance. One was truncated and I couldn't immediately see why. Also sorted the power situation so only setup 5 <g> is on with the mixer/speakers and nowt else. May bring in the R24 as recorder or get one of those wee L6 Max jobbies and leave the big mixer entirely off for setup 5. Could not suss the MIDI thru so it would drive the MIDICake Arp. Turned on soft thru on Sys8 so it at least lets me sequence it and the ML-xd if I want. Friday may be a solid jamming day. 

And it was. Getting slicker with the clip mode and recorded a basic song. 

Saturday we took Fred's recommandation desite getting up late. Full english breakfast for me - couldn't actually eat it all (left the hash browns, inevitably). Felt so bloated I didn't have lunch. Later on did a bit of MPC, basically the CV/Gate stuff, autosampling and the XY Pad. Autosampling proved easy once it dawned that you start from the track you're using as base (the field cannot be edited, which isn't clear from manual). Sampled System 8 and Minimoog - Mini was 7 semitones out for some reason so I just transposed it until I suss why. All worked smoothly. Only crash was when using the XY and just selecting presets to try them out. Probably not worth bothering reporting although I will do that bank select one sometime as it annoys me. 

I think there's only the mod matrix I really need to send time on now. And look for the CV adjust page, hopefully there is one as Cirklon could play the Minimoog in tune perfectly so the Mini can't be far out. 

A good day. Started a simple tune based on an old drum loop and using my Mini samples alongside the Mini plugin. Mine sounds more out of tune of course, 

Blimey. It's March. I ordered a 1Tb SATA drive for the MPC even though the L6 Max may have been wiser.