The Great Kitchen Hack!

 Starts... with ripping out the old one. We'll be coping somehow but no music making for me except on MPC I guess.

Well, taking it out was quick enough but nowt will happen now until Wednesday when electrician comes then nothing again until next week. Kitchen arrives thursday or friday so maybe he'll come and do a bit but doesn't sound like he's in a rush. Floor can't go down first now because of pipes or something. Personally I'd get it done and just only do up to pipes as that's all still gonna be covered up. Took Margaret to Blackpool this morning for her CT scan so hopefully will learn what they can do (it anything). Put MPC back upstairs. Seems I'll be able to use studio after all, at least until next week. 

A pleasant tuesday in pub with Tim. Talked some good shit, made some good plans. 

Did some work in kitchen, Pat doing some painting, me filling holes. Broc ran through the paint tray twice, which was far from ideal (!). Delivery of kitchen tomorrow morning. Hope to have time over weekend to fill remaining holes, file the filler flat and generally do what I can before the kitchen install starts on Monday. Hopefully by this time next week things will be almost normal again.

Friday I recorded some ideas for Oojami - a song he'd been working on. I fired up the Minimoog and it sounded great. Unfortunately the mixer confused me in my stoned state and I got one channel of stereo rather than a mono input on the MPC. Using it worked fairly well though although I need to learn to record in various parts rather than always from the start. Trying new stuff stoned probably unwise. Then recorded a couple of my tracks in progress, making sound improvements by compressing master output and making more intelligent use of buses and Q-Link knobs to keep control. Will update my default/template song soon when all the ideas come together. 

Did this

And back to...

 After Scotland, back to life with a bump. Sister's broken foot means she can't walk Izzy or do any of the stuff on mum's house that should already have done imho. Lisa currently can't do owt cos of her boob update and, of course, it's finally dawned on the pair of them we need to move mum's house or it'll start costing us...  anyway, getting an estate agent to look and we'll go with whichever offers the best cut and impression. Then we'll have to clear it all out. Have to go sort Les's computer too and Pat's ankle is not getting better. She's finally realised it needs a professional eye but, of course, you have to play the 8 o'clock shuffle at the doc's - and there's only one slot per week, this one already all used up. And so it goes. I'll need to walk the dog so she can rest a bit.

Well, that was my brain dump to bring March to a close. Well, another day to go but one I doubt I'll get any studio time. Did a little Cirklon checking today for the new gfx and it's looking good. However, what I really want is to play the Osmose again and play the Cric again and see how my V-Synth fits into setup 1 as I put it there and haven't powered up setup 1 in ages.

Tuesday, walked Broc, fixed Les's computer, tried the latest Cirklon firmware and its fab chord mode - sent a list of chords to add but not the inversions, which could be a second aux. Tomorrow it's estate agent day, gutters and Izzy. Seems the money is "on the way" but I bet it will be after financial year end, the feckers. I dearly hope I get a lovely Friday.

Oh and it seems my ME80P issue was a dying input as I switched them and all seems OK today. 

Got estate agent round and valued mum's house, now to get agreement amongst fam who to go with. Money came through from investments anyway. Hoping for a day in studio tomorrow.

Thursday, recorded good stuff esp last mix. Noticed mic still on as usual (!) Solace, a name generated by Cirklon. Minimal use of new chords but some. 

Well, it's Friday (Good) and the last of the investment money came through. Fam now wanting as much as poss for house rather than get a quick sale so going against advice of est agent and asking the valuation of another. Quite why we didn't use that other is unknown. Anyway, just updated my SP-404-II and, of course, Roland still haven't done that one useful thing - remove the pointless BPM that keeps leaping back onto the display, which could otherwise tell you something useful. After yesterday's productive Cirklon sesh I wanna hear the MPC song I started in Scotland and see if I can do owt with it. Soon the house will be in turmoil as the kitchen is ripped out so the studio may be out of bounds or at least not a refuge I can go to freely.

A nice bank holiday weekend just ended. Only a week before kitchen ripout begins and life gets paused a bit. Shame as yesterday I had a good sesh with setup 1, V-Synth sounding great and fitting in nicely there. Struck me that the old setup 4 has now spawned setup 5 based around the MPC. It could take the JD-XA in it and be an Octatrack/JD corner quite easily. Today (Tuesday) I expect to hear from estate agent and may just enjoy a day basking in the unexpected sunshine. Need to book train for Berlin. 

Had that old nagging idea of getting a Buchla Easel, which happens now and again. Would be more sensible to get the Command Station (correct vactrol needs verification) I suppose to save space but it's the whole instrument thing again. Main issue might be that Buchla don't seem to have modules in stock, say they just make them now and again, which doesn't bode well. I should restrain myself, at least until after Berlin. 

Wednesday took docs & key into estate agent, walked Izzy, didn't see Jan to put my idea to her. Probably a no-starter anyway. Another lovely sunny day. 

Some MPC work Thursday & Friday, nothing earth-shattering but good practice and made one long arrangement for possible further work. Next week it'll be mostly MPC as we're starting the big kitchen replacement. Saturday we cleared the garage, mostly and Jan/Lisa started on mum's bedroom. May not go to Longridge tomorrow as we need to totally clear the kitchen. 

Oh yeah, the MPC still crashes and gives bugger all useful information when it does. 

Nice view from my walk with Izzy...