Idea

Yes, I actually had one and it's a cracker. I was reading the Philip Jose Farmer book supposedly written by Kilgore Trout and feebly attempting some of Vonnegut's wry humour. Anyway... it occurred to me early in the proceedings that it suffers from the same problem as much of my own work - it's just a series of words the author enjoyed putting together, probably while drunk. It's empty, pointless, directionless - but not in a good/clever/funny (e.g. Hitch Hikers) way.

My idea is this: I'm going to complete the plot before writing the next novel. Radical or what? Furthermore, I'm going to write two novels - maybe simultaneously: (i) my usual wordy indulgence (ii) a shorter, snappier, reader-friendly version that is done after the wordy shit is laid down. Both will follow my plot and chapter plan but the first will probably be first person perspective (easier to write fast that way) and the second will be as if I were submitting it to an editor such as Debbie, who would not want to get bogged down in my usual insanity. Yeah, simple man!
I am enthused. This just might work. And since I've done very little on my 'Zombietime' sketch, I can test it out with that. Which means I'll have to crack on with the plot, which fortunately I have been thinking about.
Some vinyl arrived today - a remix of a track I did in the early 80s. Sounds like it featured an MS20, DR-55, Octave Kitten... shame I can't play it cos my deck won't power on.
Very hot today. Been up since 03:10 with Jasper, who has arse problems again. Very hot - too hot for studio. And that's a real shame as the new Digitone update is awesome - finally I can do the weird and totally wonky FM sounds that previously were denied us. Nice one Elektron!!! Combined with the Randomise page feature, I knocked up half a dozen cool patches very quickly, before the studio became an oven and I had to retreat. Am itching to get back there but gonna be hot tomorrow too.
Jasper looking better after his jab. Back on antibiotics tomorrow.

Played with OP-1 and realised I'd be an idiot to sell it. Still fancying a JD-XA though so might just get one. That and an Octatrack would make a fantastic composing/performing setup. I keep wondering why there aren't many knobby multitimbral synths around these days but the JD is that.
Got interest in the Tanzbar and think I should keep that too. And I should try the Microsampler on that old laptop before I give up on that too. Heh.

Summer! Another Friday.

It's been a wet and grey start to summer but I'm not writing off the year just yet. We'd planned to go to Martin Mere but not nice enough so had an expensive lunch at that new place in Cuerden Valley instead. Followed by a fab Thai green curry courtesy of local chippie and its awesome Thai cook. No wonder the place is packed most days now.

Scored a couple of old sci-fi books from the shop at St Catherine's. One is a 1951 first edition of Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Not in the best nick but seems to have all its pages.

Listening to Jon and Vangelis. Funny how some songs take you places - in the case of 'find my way home' it takes me back to the social club at Whittingham, playing snooker with Dave Thompson, another friend lost to fucking cancer.

It's Wednesday and I guess I could go to the gym. Think I'll potter in the studio instead though.
Oh, we got Amazon Prime and I see they have the complete Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel on there, along with more walking dead than you could hack to pieces with a samurai sword. I guess stocking up with so much telly means I may, actually, be writing off the summer after all. Just not writing off Buffy Summers.

I edited Mushroom Disco, losing a couple of monotonous parts and then splitting into tracks. I like bits of it and other parts seem weak, so I may toss it onto bandcamp as another 'pay nothing' deal. Assuming I get into the mood to do a cover.

DONE

Hmmm. I made the mistake of starting to read Bogus Realities and realised I still don't much like 'From Beer To Eternity'. The parts that don't work are those that focus on the AI Curio, so I want to fix them at some point. Bummer.

Tim took his modular for a bonding session and it died. Shitsville.
I got more Minilogue oscillators - all excellent A square one first but the good ones were sync and wavetable - a far better wavetable than those 8 oscs that make up the Plaits ones. Started a new thing in D that might go somewhere.

TD's In Search of Hades is wonderful. Shows so much more of their range. Sounds like Headshock too sometimes - more fun hearing them searching for a path than when they found one. Good to hear music that you are interested to hear where it's going. More of this kind of thing!

OK, so I relented...

... and brought the Behringer Model D back into the Studio of Light.
I kinda stuck to my 'one in one out' rule by taking the DD-20 away. I wasn't really doing much floaty ambient stuff in there and I needed space on the shelf for it.

I had spent absolutely ages trying to get a decent sound from the Analog Four yesterday and listening back, it's still the weakest, naffest sound in the mix. So I'm not fighting it any more. The A4 can be a single MIDI channel of pads, plus provide an audio input plus delay for the Model D. We'll see how long it lasts this time but it's either that or ditch the A4 completely, with no obvious replacement. It's around now that I really miss my Radias but, like an eejit, I got rid of it when I hadn't used it for a while. Never do this children!

Actually I'm thinking of selling more stuff - the OP-1, the Microsampler to start with. And I know that's probably a dumb idea but they're the things sitting around doing nothing for longest (unless I count that Prodigy that's been in a box for a few years now and the Virus Polar that I got back thinking it'd be a good keyboard only to find its keyboard sticky with fag residue and not working great).

Result. Swapping that A4 track that just didn't work for the Model D inspired whole new thing, probably the best layer.  Very different track to yesterday, sent to Don even before I got unstoned or sober or anything. See what you think >
https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/aquamarine-v2