April sun & showers

 I'm generally getting in the mood for Berlin and pondering any gear I want to try there (the Beetlecrab Tempera is something I'm still curious about, for example). Would like to talk to the Osmose guys and see what they're up to and a few others too, but mainly it'll be about the people I guess. I wonder if a new generation MPC is around the corner with a bigger, snappier, better-used touchscreen? I used to hate touchscreens but there's probably no better way to do a DAW-like interface in hardware.

Tree & Leaf arrived. Not cheese-free but hey, of its time. 

Fridays music had its moments, Saturday with Tim wasn't bad either. Didn't sort out new recording stylee but moving towards it. Setup MOTU's Performer on laptop along with new audio interface (M4) - did basic test but not sure it looks great on small screen. Setup Live Lite 12 which looks better so may try that, initially with arrangements of some BB recordings, which seems a good way to work. Maybe. 

Easter, sunny, off to see mum. A far cry from 2 years ago...

Hilarious - Synthi behaving itself AND the P3 too, the lack of MIDI output seemed related to connecting it to the Vermona MIDI/CV interface. So I'm basically going to Tony's to get Tim's Jupiter fixed. Oh well, it'll be nice to catch up and will get Tim to go get it when sorted. No worries. Oh, Ableton is much easier than Performer, clearer too - but dragging the audio into tracks produced clips of varying lengths so maybe I need to do something else. 

Feeling deflated this morning (Wednesday) as Walter finally met a marauding cat. Looks like he put up a fight. He'd been doing so well too, had even managed to get on the fence yesterday. RIP Walter. 

Friday was an odd day, slept on the settee for some of the evening, not entirely sure why. The music was a mixed bag with the weirder parts being the best. Saturday Tim came with his Machinedrum and Monomachine - sounded great and we recorded them separately. 

Hey it's almost the end of April, Berlin soon! Oh, I bought the Behringer 2-XD but am sending it back as it's a bit cheap and nasty. The MIDI doesn't work properly either, although maybe only for me. I think I've probably bought enough of their gear now and if the race is on for the bottom, I should be wary of getting any more. 

Stuff updated

 The most important of which is MIDICake Arp, which goes to V8. It still only has 8 chords for all pattern banks to share but at least now you can store up to 12 chains - with up to 32 links, each of a length you specify. Not all numbers are available - so no wacky primes or owt - but it's a great step forwards. Now you can have a chain running, switch to another and then manually load different patterns as you go. I had a great day with it anyway. It has some other stuff but less relevant to me as my "chords" are just note pools. Suggested a few display improvements - e.g. showing the chain progress rather than the somewhat pointless BPM and chord name (custom, all of mine so a bit tedious) and key (which is shown already on the actual keyboard). Anyway, he's been great at doing the updates and considering further ones and Arp has evolved into a very useful little jamming tool. 

The GR-1 got a fix update so should now be better for performance naming slots and so on. The other update I can't tell you about until it's official - and anyway, it doesn't work yet, for me. 

Friday and Pat just headed south, back tomorrow. I note that RK Dining is open at 10:30 so will head down there and stock up for tonight so I needn't go out for a takeaway. Yay! We will see what emerges...

Saturday again. Good week. Sunny. Hence not looked at blog. 

Mick did a remastering job on Lore, much happier with it now. That piano always set my teeth on edge and now it doesn't cos Mick snipped it out. I put it out and invited people to re-download (included the first edited track as a bonus in case anyone prefers the CD version. All good. Friday's track isn't bad either so the fact it's been too sunny to do owt since is fine. Tim and I drank beer on Saturday and absorbed some rays. Next week meant to be nice too and we're going to see Mick on Tuesday. What fun!

Great seeing Mick, must do it again soon. Decided not to walk tomorrow after being in too much slow traffic yesterday. Want to do some S4 beta testing. Will walk with Pat & Broc in the morning.
PRS day - another good one. I am constantly amazed by this and wonder what's going on that it keeps giving. Berlin soon so should get a new carry-on bag.