Friday 26 October 2018

Dopey stoner online.. buys Odyssey, realises Korg cocked up (again)

Yesterday I felt like tackling a small anomaly in the novel so I had a wee smoke. The novel kink was quickly ironed out but then... the next thing I knew I'd ordered a whiteface Odyssey module, because the idea had occurred a while back and I never dealt with it.

The following morning I was pondering what I'd done and noticed that I'd paid £50 more than I should have. So I cancelled - Signal Sounds are pretty good to deal with BTW, you can mess them about and they're still lovely. Now, however, instead of ordering the cheaper one I saw, I'm thinking I could save even more money by not buying it. Tim's real Ody is here and I don't play that, so it may not be essential after all..

Just got contacted by the British Library Sound Archive, requesting some of my music. Apparently they have some of my stuff already but want more. Something to play to cockroaches after the apocalypse or something.

Ahem. The Ody saga continues.
A pal sold me a s/h Ody whiteface and it arrived yesterday. Today I tried it out and discovered why everyone is discounting them so heavily. Korg cocked up. Again.
1) Korg implemented a bodged means of setting single triggering active which, perhaps due to their leaving the LFO reset behaviour of the original, means you can either play legato or have the LFO work but not both. Using their prescribed patching technique (which presumably nobody tested) means the LFO only works when all keys are released. Shame no review looked at this as closely as, say, the Behringer Model D.
2) this one has a noisy slider. Bugger. The quality of all sliders feels poor to me, can't see them lasting long. As I was planning on getting the LFO reset fixed I guess that needs looking at too...
3) Despite my misgivings it sounds really nice. Having all 3 filter options is fab, my fave being the 3rd but all sound good. HPF doesn't seem to do a load over much of its travel, must compare with Tim's.

Summary - Korg could have done much better. The sliders feel cheap and the MIDI is half-arsed. I doubt I'll ever use the PPC as it requires a huge amount of pressure. I suspect Behringer will do the job with more thought, as they did with the Model D. Weird/sad to admit that but Korg seem to have blown their original "we're a big company doing analogue again" vibe. I guess I never forgave them for the Minilogue/Monologue digital envelopes.

Friday coming, hope to indulge myself in music and writing. Almost finished the Marbles review, just need to make it slightly shorter - as usual I've gone on a bit. So much to say though and what to trim?

The Benjolin arrived, or was it the Banjolin? Anyway, it's pretty cool but I spent most of the day on the Ody, which sounds great. Oh and the TT-78 arrived and that really rocks.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpZi9gbh8tB/





Monday 15 October 2018

Curry Satisfaction

Yeah, I got the curry desires which weren't satisfied last weekend in Sheffield. Finally sorted them this evening - but it was a strange encounter with my only openly Brexiteer friend. We simply didn't discuss it or I think it would have been like when religion comes up with a certain other friend. Jeez. Very weird.


I can't help wondering if that's going to be the way of it in future though. Epic self-harm is brought about by misinformation and belligerence. Instead of dealing with it, sorting out the details and ramifications, we don't discuss it at all.

The curry was nice though. It's Monday morning and I've just bid it a fond farewell. Trying to get in the mood to go to the gym but the mood eludes me.
Things to do this week: fix Les's studio problem, check mum's OK, see John for tea and cake, get some shrooms, tackle at least one of the trees in the garden, do the Marbles review, start the Medusa review (assuming firmware update comes).


The last photo from a session we did just off the motorway. I say 'we' but I didn't participate. There's probably a link somewhere from Divkid's Youtube page.

I didn't talk about Synthfest did I? Well, in short, it was fab. I got to play a Grandmother and realise I don't need one. I would probably have bought an Odyssey desktop but they didn't bring any. I was left with a desire for a GR-1. Saw Dean's band and they were fab, hung out with some cool people and talked until my voice was a croak.

I realise that's not much of a summary. Oh, it was weird driving Kim's left hand automatic there and back but not excessively so. I probably grumbled about the traffic cos that's what I do.