Throat cooked, keys lost, curries eaten, volcano mildly erupts

Phew, survived. Very impressed with the drum mux and Pearl module, a limited range of sounds but sounding so meaty and punchy who cares? Have a tweaked OS with a basic temporary version of ensembles that actually gives me 90% of what I wanted at a stroke. Awesome! Talked UI, got some points across amongst the haze. Another lovely visit.

Decided to get a few jobs done on the Mini. Foolish but may as well have it exactly how I want it, which includes changing the mod source knob to a mix between the LFO and VCO3, with the switch now to concentrate on switching between noise and the LFO.Pitch bend will now work only on VCO3 when sync is off, giving me the change to control mod depth and rate from a convenient place. If the rumours about a remade model D are true, the thing may be less valuable 'as is' anyway. That's my excuse and it sounds flimsy as I type it.

Have just transmitted the headshock track for the compilation CD and am listening to a prototype of  the new album with that track as last up. What a life eh? Must finish that review tomorrow plus work a little on the new beta I got for the you-know-what.

With an hour or so this afternoon I cleared out some samples from the Volca Sample and added a fair selection of the ones I made with the MS20M. Still a few conventional drum samples to get rid of but I think I'll make some very specific percussion noises with various synths to slot in. I think the DRX-1 might have gotten under my skin. :)

While the Mini is away the Prodigy has returned. I'd love to fit that in all the time but it's either/or at the moment.

UI Brainstorming

Gonna have Colin and Tony here for a few days, an excuse for a curry of course, well two. Reminds me I haven't finished the text I was doing for the website but most importantly I need to get together my ideas for UI improvements, especially for the track view, and persuade the man himself. I think he knows things need to change but I hope to avoid the idea of democracy that can happen when you start to get a lot of users, each pulling in their own direction. That ain't how a great instrument is made, and I could offer some examples but shan't (on this occasion). One thing I have to have is faster, clearer navigation or the P3 will have to come out of its box.

Fortunately I made some notes although being hand-written I'll need to try and work out what the hell I wrote. I have some Minimoog mods to get sorted also, may as well try and get my modulation issues sorted and the LFO better integrated. Plus, as I've no use for pitch bend, it should have a new non-sync function, which will be to vary the speed of VCO3. Hope I'm not asking for too much.

May go over to visit Paul and admire his massive Arrick, all depends how drunk/stoned we get on Friday.

Dean has mastered our track for the Edgar compilation. It sounds great so must get that off soon. We also have a new Headshock album almost complete, with a few things I want to fix still but the core is there. Will get Dean to master the rest of it cos basically he's a genius. Noticed my old Two Voice in their latest video, glad it went to a good home.

Have a set of 'urban supernatural' tracks almost done, I wanted to do one last one so it's a decent collection but drew a blank of my weird piano piece today. At least I did something I like but it's not going to be suitable, too much melody which so often happens.

Managed to snatch a bit of time on novel, even did a preliminary cover after a few beers.

I have cash for a new synth but nothing is quite grabbing me. I should play with Paul's Serge again as it's the only thing in ages that really caught my ears as different. A new effect or two might be wiser. Keen to hear what's coming from France.

Been a while

Which obviously means I've been busy - true. Recorded lots with Tim lately, the track Electronic Meditation should go to Dean for mastering soon. Today's stuff sounding excellent at the moment, moved the CS30 and Microsampler into the 'ambient' submixer with the DD20 and its looping. Have cabled Erebus in CS30's place in the sequency mixer. Taken ESX-1 out of the equation for a while, the Volca Sample doing interesting things.

Sorted Tim's submixer positioning and cabling, got levels pretty good, sub/main mixmatch compensated for as mucha s possible. Over an hour's good recording, at least it sounds pretty sublime so far.

Here's Electronic Meditation BTW.


And some pix from recently just cos I like 'em

I continued to be impressed by the Micromoog, it just sounds different to other things. Like the Microbrute too.

A4 is now a chord sequencer and very good at it too. I no longer need to bother setting up performances since one track doing chord with one sound is easier to control by flipping around the menus. Each time I feel like it I record a new chord sequence into whatever bank, with bank A being Am, B being Bm etc. All patterns run at 1/8th speed, recorded either in realtime or from Cirklon where I might have created the pattern in a variety of ways for extra spice.

Almost finished a new batch of library tracks, new Headshock album almost done, stuff from the 80s for a compilation album (will take Paul's advice and widen it and boost the bass).

Yay! I am quietly drunk but content. Whatever else I planned to write is forgotten. Hehe.