A new looper (for review) and a rainy week ahead...

 The RC-505 mk2 is meant to arrive today. Unlike Gaz I decided to read the manual before it came, so I shouldn't be surprised by anything I discover in there. I expect I will be though ;) I think I'll slot it into my system 4 (OT) in place of the old one. Finally the OT won't need to have its inputs hogged and cause all that confusion with me forgetting to Cue stuff I'm capturing. 

Of course one of the things you forget about the old reviewing lark is the hanging around, putting aside a day (or days) in which to await a delivery that, as the day progresses, seems increasingly theoretical. TNT updated their green airplane icon to an orange triangle with an exclamation mark. Further 'explanation' states:

Shipment delayed in transit Recovery actions underway

TNT is working to resolve this and will contact you shortly if needed.

OK, a few days late but it arrived, it works, I sent in my first question to the 'product champion'. Also dropped Mike a line to see if my Roland text was OK or not since I ain't heard a sausage. 

Last night went to see this guy - quite brilliant and got me looking forward to playing my own gig next month. https://exeasterislandhead.bandcamp.com/ - the spot is 30-40 mins so I'm going to go really minimal and take the pipe/cosmos plus synth and GR-1 through DD-20. That should do it and be easy enough to fit on the little tables. 

Last night's earworm was a weird merging of 'Going On' from Tree & Leaf with a Talk Talk track (Tomorrow Started) that has a similar groove. As the Talk Talk was released about 3 years after my album, I can only conclude he heard it first and was desperate to copy me. Yeah, right. I looked for the VOD CD of T&L this morning with a view to putting the track up somewhere but, of course, couldn't find it. 

Saturday morning and we have snow - some of the biggest flakes I've ever seen. Yesterday's recordings both sound great, the use of Pipe through Cosmos yielding all kinds of fun stuff - and from algorithms I barely touch ordinarily. The GR-1 was put through the old RC-505 and doing sterling work, leaving just the controlling keyboard, the Reface, soupified through the DD-20. 

It's Monday and we're grandparenting. Dawn and Chris in good form and William happy to be here and full of beans, as always. Of course at 4am Tuesday poor Pat got summoned but I guess he's always going to be excited in a different place. Pizza later.

Have still heard nothing from Roland's champion so will leave it a few more days then try the guy's boss, not something I like doing. I've tested everything now except remote control so should be able to start writing soon. Feeling guilty for not writing Cosmos review so may do that afterwards - it is definitely starting to show its value as I prepare for the gig. I had a good idea for another tweak, will see what Vlad thinks.

Speaking of Vlad, another one is dominating the news today. I shall try and stay away from it and work on my review. No doubt the stockmarket in freefall again. Got news of gas/electricity rises - fucking hell.

I tried all the remote stuff, MIDI and pedal, good you can tweak all the FX parms that way if you want. Also got word back from the Roland guy - I was in his Spam folder and it's hard to argue I don't belong there. Anyway, got a workaround for my issue and he says he'll pass on my thoughts/hopes for improvement in that area. The old workaround, which involves wasting a track, still pertinent too.

Having a mini-Friday today with a view to walking tomorrow instead. Need to sort out bunion, cooker and leaky conservatory, probably not in that order.

Saturday and working on review. Brock (the puppy, not my name) arrived yesterday and seems very chilled. Still tiny and sleeping a lot but a happy chappy when awake. A few aches and pains from the walk but a superb day with brilliant views - quite a long trek too. 

You can almost see the start and end of our horseshoe walk in this one. 

Credit where credit's due - the new TD album (Raum) is sounding very good on first listen. Regardless of who's in the band or what they choose to call themselves, this is quality stuff. 

Creative Block?

 Someone was asking about this in Twitter but I didn't reply as the question wasn't to me. I've been lucky over the years in that I can usually sit down and tinker with something and get results that please me. I do have two tried and tested techniques that always help clear the creative palette though: drones and minimal techno. 

Seriously, you can't beat a good drone. The only rules are that there should be are no sudden movements, development, rhythm or even sense of tempo. It sounds easy - because it is - and that's the secret to relaxing into it and enjoying it. While it's always better to drone in an ensemble, doing it solo is very calming, gives you time to slowly appreciate the wonder of a long, sustained, unhurried bath of sound. Once your brain is comfortable in that space, you can once again tune in to subtlety and nuance. 

As for minimal techno, again the rules are simple; the trick is not to start adding layers or additional elements beyond a basic pulse and the absolute minimum 'extras' of unchanging or slowly-shifting ornamentation or ambience. That's how I do it anyway. As with the drones, there is a chance that something will emerge from it directly, but that isn't the point - it's to remove the inclination to add the unnecessary. Strip down and become comfortable with that. Sit back or groove along or whatever, then you're probably already starting to fill up with ideas.  

Your mileage, of course, may vary. As I said, my four mini systems are set up so I can power one of them on, touch an instrument, and immediately head off somewhere.

Sold another module, at least I think I have. Dude was a bit odd going on about USD in paypal and wanting me to cover the fees. He was the one who was asking for a Morphagene after all! He ended up wanting a video of it working, which I did quickly on the phone. Then he wanted an email stating terms... jeez, how suspicious! Will see if he turns out OK or not. Agreed I'd cover P&P if he ensured he'd pay what we'd agreed since the fees were due to his dollar thing and nowt to do with me. He's young (25) which probably explains it. Will leave my samples on the card as I can't be arsed wiping it. Found the original box anyway. Update: all went well.

Tried the Microfreak in place of the 101 but, while it has some positives, I think it might be too faffy for live, plus it doesn't send clock until it sees a MIDI start command. Colin's little blue box is better in that respect. I did enjoy the simple transfer of arpeggio pattern to sequence A/B though, it will come in useful because it neatly switches into sequencer mode and becomes live when you do it. If only I could see the fecking buttons! If only you could seamlessly switch back to Arp mode. Oh well.  I think once I make a few patches on it it'll be handy, have started doing a few. Put the GR-1 through the Cosmos and got some good results. 

Buggerations, a module I sold a while back has turned out to be faulty. It's the Peaks thing I got in a swap but, once I found it was infested with Parasites, never used. So I've no idea whether it was broken when I got it or not (suspect so based on a few previous iffy swaps with same guy). Arseburgers! I did, of course, reimburse. Told the guy to chuck it.

Had idea to replace SH-101 with smaller lighter Reface CS. Need one of the Refaces for use with Digitone so if I choose the CS, I can put it through 101 module case for looping. Loses sequencer, gains polyphony. Can do different stuff and the 101 does lead me in familiar directions. Best idea of late is to put Pipe through Cosmos - will be main gig performance thing, with BB throwing in ambient passages when I want something to lock onto. Sorted. Sounds like  this https://wilyepeyote.bandcamp.com/album/abstractions

I expect I'll delete that soon - it came out fairly well as three improvs, only one has an annoying bit I was too stoned to fix at the time. 

Anyway, no sign of creative block from me. Oh, another great plan is to get so stoned you wouldn't recognise a creative block if it was jammed in your U-bend. Tim and I had another excellent Saturday and incorporated some MPC in our day's thing (Galboola). So much brilliant material now, hard to know what to do with it. Back to novel tomorrow as I've been letting that slide (although thinking through some parts of it). Got to take mum for her 4th jab too.

Ah, insomnia

 No idea why it keeps coming back or why a New Order song runs round my head on a loop. No pain, no stress, none of the usual reasons for not sleeping, just having a spate of it that has lingered over a week now. Fucking annoying. 

Friday morning, slept last night (OK the pipe at 1 am helped) and I feel good today. Managed to talk to someone at Virgin and got a better deal, so have cancelled BT. If that doesn't get my productive juices flowing, I don't know what will!

Yesterday's walk was probably a mistake, my forecast proving all too accurate. The twats at the Ingleborough trail wanted £8 each to walk past their waterfalls so we told them to bugger off. Then we wandered on the claggy hills until it became apparent we were better off at home. 

Sober Saturday, deleted the thing I uploaded yesterday. Not that it's bad, particularly, just a bit random. I must have been quite stoned because I totally cocked up a recording done for Paul E, using his sequence part and overdubbing. Like an idiot I forgot to put the OT through its Cue output and therefore ended up with lots of Paul's stuff in every take I did on the RC-505. The mark 2 really can't come quite enough - so I don't have to use the OT to mix the things I want to capture. Shame as I don't think any of it's going to be salvageable. Using longer pieces of external audio like that is quite a chore for my little hardware setup and it occurred to me I'd be better putting it all on two channels of the Zoom first, then not worrying so much about the sync. Oh well. Might have another crack today, Paul probably thinks I'm an idiot. At least Pat and I both slept well last night, no pipe needed. Pat went a little early and was asleep by the time I'd watched Toast and finished the Bailey's. Feel so much better after sleeping, amazing really!

Monday and I spent a jolly afternoon pottering with the Soup and the Microfreak. I really must read the Microfreak manual as I was struggling with the sequencer, only to find it's possible to dump the contents of the arpeggiator into it, which is going to make things easier. I like the arpeggiator a lot but the sequencer always starts running, without me being able to record into it first. Maybe the manual has help there too... Hmmm, I guess if I put it into Mono and hold a key, the sequence will pause. I could then go into step record maybe, will try next time. I really wish those buttons along the front were visible - the dark brown text on fucking black background drives me crazy. 

Shame the Soup's sequencer is a so long-winded. Surely they must have seen an SH-101? For putting in ties and rests, there must be a better way than the current one. 

A drizzly Tuesday morning. Awaiting Roland's response as the RC was meant to be on the way on Jan 18th. Played with the Cosmos yesterday but it's a bit frustrating having to lock to its lengths and although some cool stuff does emerge, it's so much easier to get what I want from my existing loopers. Might try the rhythmic firmware again. Funnily enough, the loops I've been getting out of the Dual Looping Delay module are still the most interesting. Might be worth putting the Microfreak through that and seeing if it's a viable alternative to the SH-101 for gig - smaller for a start, but I remember the issues trying to see the Minilogue xd in the dark and then whizzing around my patches looking for inspiration. I suppose serious performers keep notes or something. Gonna make the gig a really simple dronefest, at least that's my 5 minute old plan. 

Birthday and a bit of time away.

 Decided we should do something for this one so it's a spa weekend in the Lakes. Should be a very pleasant change, hope we get decent weather but even if we don't, should find stuff to do. 

No word on RC-505 II yet but I sold a module the other day and Pete says he wants the MakeNoise case and a couple of modules, which should pay for it. Well, I guess writing the review will help in that respect too. Might see f I can get anyone to swap some of the modular stuff for a second small Roland case as I really like those. They hold enough modules for me to use without getting swamped with options.

Happy birthday Mozart. Today I didn't do a lot but I did solve a problem with the novel that had been bugging me. It sorts out quite a few whys, as well as setting the direction perfectly towards the end. Rather chuffed. I do wonder sometimes if my writing style puts off people from wondering about the whys but those are the puzzles that keep me interested throughout any book. I can't deny that sometimes things happen that I can't immediately explain. 

I should maybe summarise our weekend away. The hotel didn't really have a spa/swimming pool after all - its advert still gives no inkling this is the case (we've gone back and looked). The owner quickly got that out of the way in his intro, and I must admit after that it was all honey and roses. Not literally, thank goodness. Our room was great, the breakfasts legendary, the location pretty darn sweet - well, apart from that 45 min walk to the spa, that is We ate well - in descending order of quality. First night was Jackson's Bistro, truly excellent food and brilliant service. Then there was Base, a delicious pizza. Finally, it was raining really hard so we cut short our walk down the hill into Bowness, stopping at a pub with a friendly enough chap ushering us in. Lovely rich soup to start raised my hopes, followed by the driest, dullest chilli known to man. I wish I'd kept the soup to pour over it. Oh well. We managed to fit in some walking, pottering, shopping and general chilling, returning home to feel pretty good. If the beds had been soft I might even have slept.  

Tuesday now and I'm still going back through my Mahler symphonies, having failed to recognise one on a     quiz show the other day. I think I worked out my issue with these recordings too - the recording itself. The all have a ridiculous dynamic range, large chunks of almost-silence followed by riotous explosions of sound. It appears that I'm hearing an orchestra in a theater somewhere across town. Even my favourite, the first symphony, is a crap version compared to the old cassette I still have somewhere, should probably find out the orchestra and conductor. Oh well. 

I think my writing style might have been temporarily updated as I'm reading Peter Kaye's autobigraphy, or one of them. Nobody writes just one now, do they? Anyway, time to go up and make a few noises.

Cancelling Virgin and going with BT. Hope that's a wise move. It should let me have the BT phone wire connected to the front of the house where it's needed, which will be handy if I later move to another provider. Virgin got too greedy so they can bugger off.

Here we are, having a good time. I've trimmed that beard now. It was getting bigger than my face. Now back to my old chinless wonder look. 

A cold Thursday waiting for whisky

 Must be a sign of getting old but I've taken out a subscription on my favourite whisky, the blended malt in sherry cask one, and am awaiting my first delivery. Pat's headed out to Chorley, still not quite sure what to do with her freedom; I recall a similar experience after we lost Jasper. No walk this week as Tony is waiting in for the carpet man today and I already have plans for tomorrow; at least the Weed Fairy is coming, which will make the weekend altogether more pleasant and hopefully productive.

I found a bank of my Virus sounds - on my own website! Amazing that there are still things on that. Might not necessarily load them though, again could be healthy to start with the synth as it is as I hardly ever do that. Blimey, the Microfreak doesn't respond to MIDI volume (CC7). 

Blissed-out Friday, recorded things of this type 
https://wilyepeyote.bandcamp.com/album/freakiness
with Pat away, gettin' drunk and watching shit things I've recorded. 

On Saturday, Tim and I were on stonking form. Weaving an MPC delight into our spontaneous madness worked a treat. Feel a bit rough again this morning but off to see mum...

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm going to do some writing if I can summon the mood. Drank quite a lot of the new whisky already and definitely abstaining today. 

Update, I mostly abstained - one G&T while writing hardly counts, right? Went through parts of the novel trying to see what its eventual shape will be. I appear to be approximately half-way through and can tell the parts that need fixing, writing, replacing, whatever. Realised the end of the Expanse was on Prime and that I'd simply forgotten it - shame it's all so rushed and many strands left unexplored. I mean, they brought a kid back to life on an alien planet then... nothing. Very frustrating considering how well it started and that they cancelled series 7 so that's it. Getting a wee bit fed up of these streaming services that only follow through on populist crap.

Monday morning, Pat coming back today. I have eaten a lot of curry and probably stink. Will be glad to see her though. Listening to the thing Tim and I did and it's yet another brilliant day's recording, much enhanced by prepared stuff on the MPC. I promised a different version of the one from Friday for Paul to work on, will remove the drums and leave him lots of space to play in. 

Updates and some gloom

 The gloomy part is that Caspian is no longer safe to ride or even walk - Pat hurt her back yesterday when he slipped on the yard. Poor thing's co-ordination is gone and I think the vet's coming on Monday to put him down. Will be a major change in lifestyle for Pat and pretty heartbreaking all round. I went to say goodbye to him this morning. 

It being Friday I am going to start thinking about my ambient set - moved the SH-101 into setup 1 and drafted in Plaits as an extra oscillator. Seemed worth doing as I was already using the little modular case to provide delay - the DLD module - and of course Steppy is in there to split up clock signals. Other things to be bolted on as necessary - Touche is a nice tactile control to tweak delay times and some Plaits parameters, for example. 

Some updates to do today - alternate Plaits firmware removes that stupid coarse tuning and gives quantized octaves, glad to see that exists without me asking for it. It makes the module far, far more useful and safe to gig with and the SH-101 provides CV input to drive it. Then I need to try the new GR-1 firmware, which doesn't immediately seem to have things I need but I haven't read all the details yet - may try using the Digitone as audio  interface for it as that seems potentially very useful, especially given I have the 101/Plaits/looper signals going through it. If I get time I'll put on the new 0.30 firmware for the Super 6, although this seems primarily there to fix issues with the desktop. I was amazed to see it released with no mention of its existence on the beta list, unless there's a higher level to it that I'm not privy to. 

Next week I'm off to see Dave Sherwood and swap a few things I'm not using for a few things he isn't. The JX-03 and Microsampler are going and the Virus B and Microfreak are incoming - the latter most interesting due to its wacky oscillators (some of which are sourced in Plaits). It's small and giggable and even though it has a 2 octave keyboard, could be handy. I'm going to try and take the absolute minimum to this Plau thing - several synths, several loopers, the GR-1 and the BB. 

Recorded a fun thing yesterday (OK not yet given it the Sober Saturday listen) and today might do another or work on novel, which I've been neglecting. 

A couple of shots of me gazing enigmatically into the distance

Monday now and the deed is done. Very sad and has left me not feeling like doing much. 

Found some music from the guy I'll be supporting at the Plau - really good stuff, reminds me in parts of a more lively Carl Matthews or a less lively rozz3r. 

Now then, it's Wednesday and I got back from Dave's yesterday having done the swap. Haven't touched the Virus yet but have spent a few hours with the Microfreak. First impressions are that it could have been a really excellent thing with a few more quid spent on it - everything is so tiny and I was getting eyestrain trying to work with the screen, which unfortunately you do need quite a lot. The connections feel a bit flimsy and I've had a few power cycles due to slack power supply connection. It doesn't seem to have a way of quickly initialising a patch, despite the manual's claim you can press the encoder three times to do that. I think I'm going to leave the patches in and tweak them as I go, rather than try and big reprogramming campaign - don't wanna go blind! 
After saying all that, it does sound quite nice and all the different oscillator types are fairly flexible-sounding. The filter's pretty decent too, although it doesn't sound anything like an Oberheim, at least not the SEM. Think someone said it was meant to so I guess I'll have to dig further. Sequencer seems easy enough on a basic level and offers more depth when I get round to reading that part of the manual.The keyboard is awful. Don't think it'll be useful for gigs after all - just too small and enigmatic. While programming a few patches in the conservatory I discovered some dull brown text that needs strong daylight to reveal, revealing the functions of some of the buttons. I guess I'll learn what they are by the icons soon enough. 

Pat meant to be heading south on Friday for a few days - could be called off by wee man's covid scare so fingers crossed there. Not sure if walking tomorrow or not, awaiting word. RC-505 mk2 incoming for review, yay! It's all go. Should replace the one in my OT setup so no more fuckups forgetting to send OT output to Cue during record. We'll see. The old one can slip into the Digitone setup. 

Busy busy!

Mid-week Haweswater wonders

 The track I did yesterday seems pretty unimpressive, which I guess is hardly unprecedented. I was starting to think about the gig and doing some weirdy noises on the GR-1 and possibly went off at a tangent - got fascinated by a Jupiter 6 arpeggio which doesn't sound anything special today, oops. At least the thing I did with Paul (20 min piece for THC2) sounds good. I tried doing something with setup 2 yesterday and gave up, switching to 1 despite the dice roll. I need to do something with that area to make it more inviting. Task for today would maybe involve tackling the Eurorack again and finding a context in which it could be useful.

Mum discharged herself from hospital so will see what she's up to today, giving her time for a lie-in though.

Today I will fit a new battery to the P3 and then perhaps leave the studio alone in favour of some writing (since the ideas are still flowing). Last night Pat and I cooked another impressive meal, I think it's a chickpea curry tonight, what fun! Ah, update - Dean sent a track for some Synthi wibbles maybe. Turns out changing a P3 battery is much, much easier than doing it on my Cirklon. 

Sent Dean some noises - granular squeaks, MS20 wibbles and even some bland electric piano and truly terrible theremin. I should feel bad but I'm anticipating he'll either autotune it into something or ditch most of it, as usual. Was hard firing up the computer and even harder knuckling down to working with an arrange window. 

It's Monday morning and we're anxiously awaiting the vet's word on Caspian. I can't seem to start anything, been wandering around the studio looking at all the things I hardly ever use, the majority being in the center and the modular corner. Issue seems to be that I've put all my favourite things in two places - at the far ends - but it's hard to know quite how to fix it, especially as I've had these phases before. Would be lovely to get rid of the bulk of the Eurorack - may try advertising on Facebook as there are at least three unnecessary cases and dozens of modules I doubt I'd ever use again. I could get an input module or two and use the various filters and effects with regular gear. Dunno really, seems like time wasted even thinking about it; same conclusion I always reach when I think about my Eurorack. It ties up cash and space and resources that would be better allocated to other gear. 

Not good news re: Caspian. 
Tax man owes me £1k - for that mad and greedy grab he did last year. I suppose that's something.

I may finally be tiring of Jasper Fforde, or at least his Thursday Next series appears to have run out of steam and I find myself struggling to finish chapters. 
This morning I discovered a recording made by Tony Sawford of our (JIC's) gig in 2007. Quite a bit went on to be Book of Roach but I'm tempted to release the whole thing as is. What's strange is that both Tony and Phil are gone but I'm still here. 

Anyway, walked near Haweswater and it was spectacular. Saw and photographed a Brocken Spectre effect.