April showers

We had some this evening, and lightning and shit. We're heading into May, I notice, and at this stage in the year I want to try and hold onto something or it all shoots by out of my control.

Pat went off to a horse thing tonight and I, not realising I had hours to mess, watched zombie shit on Netflix. This afternoon I had a few hours playing though. A few other users have replicated my 'xd' click so hoping that Korg did too and are on it, rather than ignoring me. A bit annoying that they consider bug reports to be a nuisance rather than a way to improve their fledgling software.

I'm happy with the garden at the moment, lots of things showing their colour. Others might find it untidy.

Not the Virus I was hoping for
Had an interesting challenge trying to delete a WAV file that came from Andy Mason, the guy who has my Virus. Amusingly, or not, the wav was impossible to delete from a USB stick. It came from a dodgy website (my virus guard warned me but didn't find any problem with the wav itself) but Andy assured me it was OK. I tried everything - command line force deletes, format of the USB drive the thing was on (I managed to delete from hard disk, after a bit of faffing). I even tried killing the file on the Mac but it kept ejecting the USB drive, so in desperation, I dug out an old Windows XP laptop. As soon as I plugged in the USB I got a message that it couldn't edit the registry (!). Anyway, from there I killed the file from the command prompt. Haven't formatted the USB drive but suppose I should.
Moral of the tale: don't accept files from DJs, they're bound to be riddled!

Got no music done, thinking of going back to Dark Studio tomorrow as I fancy doing something ambient and long-form, so those quantized, 4-bar Octatrack patterns are going to be a bit of a barrier, even with the 1/8th speed and Arranger. Might bring the Minilogue xd through as I'm still learning to do things on it (may try Mac version of librarian, if it works on my old OS, as I want to drag in a new version of an oscillator I bought - the PC version drag and drop is shit, at least at my screen resolution).

It's gone all dark and gloomy now. So much for Thursday.

Friday. Virus Polar meant to be back today. Will let him have my old Novation Remote 25 as compensation since I only ever used that as a controller for the Repeater.
Contemplating a t-shirt for Berlin, along the lines of 'rtz sucks' with an envelope image on it.

Just had a great idea for a synth performance feature : keyboard probability. You could do complete MIDI keyboard maps, like a kind of weird FTS, giving each note a probability of playing when hit. Thought of this cos my old Virus Polar just returned with a key not always working. Annoyingly, I decided I like it when keys don't always work, or play every other time or something. Helps dilute my 'too many notes' playing style, Mozart

Darn. Got stoned. Broke iRig thing (dropped from that stupid cheap stand that I should have got replacement for weeks ago instead of ordering yesterday, or whenever it was. Recorded something subtle, for me.
https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/effervesce

At, like, 63BPM or something. Heh. Virus back and sounding nice. Will need to clean keyboard I think but the random top G might not be a tragic thing, we'll see.

Good Saturday

That's what I'm calling it. Yesterday was hot and sunny but I got no enjoyment from it.
Got stoned, did a track, sent to Don, possibly prematurely as it sounded a bit diffuse and incoherent this morning.
Sunday afternoon, sunny, have chilled with some beer and now I may go and do something else. My appetite for making these simple pieces of music is undiminished. Must chase my pal about the missing Virus as it's starting to seem like he's not actually willing to part with it. I dunno, you do folks a favour...
Knocked off another. Resisting sending it to Don but think I can do a better performance. Tomorrow though. G&T now methinks and lounging around.

Monday, still sunny. I must have commented how lovely it was to at least five other dog walkers this morning. Every one responded with a warning about how shit it'll be starting Wednesday. What is it with people???

Monday and I knocked up a better version (on second go) which I would possibly trim by a couple of mins if going entirely for lean. Working title is Old Juice 3. Will send to Don if I think it OK later. Still a bit stoned. Gonna walk Jasper and enjoy sunshine. MP3 sounding good, bit dancey possibly but drums easily liftable.

Small de-clutter, oh and 'Good' Friday is here, apparently

You'll laugh at this, but I removed the Behringer Model D from Studio B. I did it because it sounds so much better than the Analog Four that the A4 felt pointless and superfluous. So I've reverted to the simpler setup and having to work to make the A4 sound half-decent. Besides, it had overflowed onto an adjacent table and I know how that always goes.

Today I really wanted to start a painting but have absolutely no ideas about what to paint. Time for some abstract explorations methinks. Baby coming tomorrow evening for a few days, well he'll starting school in September so I guess he's a baby no longer. Will be the youngest in his year I think though but it'll do him the world of good. Time flies by more obviously when you see kids growing up, possibly why I've tried to shield myself from it in my ageless bubble.

Pat's hand-me-down iPhone working well, although the camera is a bit shit and out of focus. Can use it for now though and get one if I decide I like it.

The world is very upset at Notre Dame's fire and I wish there was similar emotion about the willful destruction of our environment. I mean, there won't be any massive old oaks to replace those burnt.

Little lad came in the afternoon but I did get a bit of studio time this morning. Explored my poppy Minilogue xd and asked Korg, who suggested there was a voice update in the last firmware. I'd read this but the docs say you're prompted if it's needed - still, the fact they directed me to it gives me hope. Could be Saturday before I get chance to try but would be great if it was fixable without a return to base. Not sure they will ever forgive me for my envelope complaints but the fact the developers took a different approach this time is enough.
Made a few patches in which the joystick sweeps through voice mode - nice effect if you have chords selected. More of that to explore when I have time. I also want to see if I can make my weird little setup do some totally ambient tracks.

Thursday. Oh dear. The voice update made the pops almost go away - but sadly they introduced a click which wasn't there before. Have sent audio to Korg with description on how to recreate so we can discover if it's just mine or everyone's. Really losing faith in them when it comes to software envelopes and maybe losing faith altogether, which would be tragic as I've always been a Korg lover. Here's hoping for a solution...
No response all day, which may or may not mean something. I may drop Gordon a line as he's probably reviewing it, or could have done it already. As he missed the god-awful 'rtz' on the first model he might be into taking a look for me and pushing it.

Woke this morning, Friday, stupid O'clock, realised there's still a full day and night and probably most of Saturday morning of toddler minding. Desperate to get into studio and work on more tunes, especially as the one from last week has become something really cool, really quickly. Desperate for some peace and quiet actually, but doing my best to hold it together for Pat's sake.

New Minilogue oscillator

Well, it was cheap - a simple Karplus Strong pluck but a nice addition I thought for less than £4.
I will keep watching which oscillators I'm using in case of another hang. Let's hope the drag and drop doesn't screw the order of my existing oscs. I really should put them in a sensible order but Korg's app wasn't great on my laptop. May try different screen resolution. Would be nice if a full backup backed up all your user oscs and fx too, just discovered this ain't the case.

Finally found a resolution that worked. Well, it reliably copied to position 4 in the table which let me move stuff around manually to where it all should be. Sadly patches point to the oscillator slot with no knowledge of which actual oscillator was there. So some thing are gonna sound different unless I stick to a strict list. Pluck sounds OK but didn't use it today.  Recorded a fast version of Fomalhaut today, 144 BPM and generally interesting I think. Will send to Don.

Someone bought all the JIC online albums, which is nice as I rarely mention their existence these days. Good to know Phil's guitar is being heard.

I've been growing more and more tempted to add the Model D to my minimal studio. In my current project I've reduced the Analog Four to just 2 channels with the second doing some kind of unsatisfactory sequence noise. I could reduce it still further to a single channel doing pads without too much extra complication - even putting the Model D through the A4's effects. I'd still be limited to the same audio and MIDI channels so I don't think this will be the overbalance point. If it is, I'll pop it back. Would consider the Ody but it's too large. Behringer even helpfully added a MIDI thru, without which I'd have been scuppered without nicking one of my other thrus.

Have finally started using a second OT Part. Decided to do a set of alternate mixes for the 'stars' tracks and having different MIDI channels/patch changes for the Blofeld/OT samples all makes sense when you have the Arranger loaded with the correct tempo, patterns etc. Being forced to use the OT for everything is making me appreciate it far more than when it tried to play along with other things.

Sunday, did a groovy one based on Betelgeuse. Has too many basslines at the mo but rough mix shows the good bits. It's a bit jazzwank at times with the FM vibes but what the feck! Don wrote a song based on one I sent the other day. Wooo! It's all good.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwPYk2Klfl7/

A walk on Longridge Fell, a book, some sunshine...

Try everything, embrace your failures as readily as your successes - more so, perhaps, because they can teach you so much. I don't know who said that but it may have been me, possibly paraphrasing someone cleverer.

I finished Stephen Palmer's The Autist today and really enjoyed it. He covers some ideas I've tackled but does so with greater intelligence, craft and writing skill. Where I write CIP, he's definitely PIC (Plot/Idea/Character). In some ways like Asimov in that his characters are only revealed by their actions and there are many fab ideas to wallow in. I will now go and read some more, having previously been put off by his first one.

Another splendid sunny day. I confess I did nothing except read and bask and don't feel bad about it. Tomorrow I might fire up the studio. PRS came in - once again much more than I expected. Although there is nothing I want, I did buy a friend's second hand SQ1 sequencer, mostly to feed the CV inputs of the Minilogue xd. It was either that or blow £100 on a small 4MS Eurorack case to house an LFO, attenuator and so on. However, that would contravene my current 'no more Eurorack spending' rule.

I confess I have done nothing with the 4 module reviews I have lined up. If the weather continues to be nice, I can't see that changing.

Went up Longridge Fell the other day but I don't think I'll visit again for a while. They've logged the heart out of it and it may not grow back in my lifetime. Drove past 'the haunted altar' but didn't go and look for it. I suspect I'll never find the thing again.

Fell into the trap of debating with someone online, the EU of course, but eventually reached the 'what is the point?' stage. There really is none and you can never change cognitive bias by challenging it on Facebook. A better ending than that time I foolishly discussed gun control with an American. I did wonder whether the guy owned a flag pole. If so, the only pole he welcomes. Ho ho.

Saw a picture of a black hole today. Made me think I haven't had a curry for a while.

Gianfar

Or lambda Draconis. That was today, Thursday. A stately 55BPM and, being stoned, I tested out how easy it is to overwrite a previous project (very). Fortunately, I had backed it up. Have not recorded Fomalhaut, Arcturus or Deneb so they must not be good enough yet. Chilled afternoon not looking at news. Keep doing that!

Went to the Spar and saw someone walking a cat, on a lead. The cat seemed pretty content too.

Robert just dug up an old tune, reminding me we really should get together and do something. He did some great tunes in his David Sylvian phase.

Phil, my old boss, bought a novel. I should probably have directed him to Future Art Factory as he might have recognised some parts of it, and even some people. It got me thinking back to the early days of the DISU, the stories Bunty and I used to write. I wonder if he went on to write any novels? We really should have kept in touch. I also wonder if any Neville the Frog stories survived. I notice a common them of my blogs is to wonder or to suggest I really should do something. Is there a more wishy-washy human being I wonder? I should find out...

Oh look, it's Sunday. Yesterday I sorted Deneb and recorded it. Today I went to Fomalhaut and did a new thing in it. Possibly cheesy - one of those melodies I always do in Fm. Anyway, didn't record it but it's a nice break from the first couple of patterns and could be extended further.

Today the Minilogue hung on me. Wouldn't respond or even power off with its button - had to pull the power cable. Will keep an eye on it. Was sending MIDI notes from Octatrack but nothing untoward AFAIK.

Nice day. Set up mum's new laptop, seems OK and actually a decent deal for a refurbished one. Takeaway tonight methinks. Did not make much progress on review. Practically none.

Stars - reached Enif

Which is a pretty good place to be. This simpler, restricted setup is working out really well compared to a setup that gives me everything I could ever want, at once. Forcing myself to use the OT sequencer is making me make more of its patterns, to create melodies fragmented according to a plan. Just takes a while setting up every trig though. I do wish for proper real-time MIDI recording rather than the 4x16 step arrangement but forcing myself to stick with something is bearing its own rewards.

Loving getting into the studio at the moment.
Got to get that Pipe sorted though.

https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/enif

Yeah, well. Went to see Tony. He made the tweaks but concluded the issue is not the contacts but the thing itself being borked. So, after months of pointless faffing, it's going back. Arse. I should do those module reviews before my final burst of enthusiasm goes.

May attend Synth DIY after all. Colin gonna come into Liverpool and we can have a few days in the studio, doing curry, etc. Sounds like a plan. Right, today I think I'll head to Fomalhaut!