a week to myself!

Pat heading north for the week leaving me home alone.
Plans include testing latest Cirklon OS (this afternoon) with the mute holds etc. in it.
Later I'll tackle that middle room, could take all evening but worth doing. After that plenty of time to get hammered and work on my novel, work on tunes for Glade and Shamania, maybe do another house tune or two for Absolute (must ask how many they want), listen through the latest Ideation and Headshock material and see what's good and what needs doing.
Curry, pizza, probably not much fresh air. :)
With luck the Prodigy ready so Pat can pick up and bring back with her on Friday along with bass-modded theremin. Promises to be a good week.

A good couple of days except for losing a really cool Octatrack pattern. I realised it was good then panicked which, in turn, caused its destruction! Oh woe. In trying to quickly save the part I managed to reload the part, losing all the samples and changes to each track I'd made. How bloody annoying.

Not sure I totally recreated it either. I lost a groovy/spooky indian chick voice with a nice transposition thing going on but did my best to capture its essence again. Keeping it simple now working for me - much simpler than I'm used to which is probably better musically! So no longer considering Octatrack as an audio looper or effects unit, nor am I sendings its cue out to external effects or doing any complicated stuff at all except trigger loops and samples. Then doing simple scenes that just fade from one loop mix to another, with or without effects changes etc. but usually with. Not even triggering from Cirklon anymore except for long ambient static patches and the longer drum loops, again static, that contain breaks and fills already built-in ready to add live sequences to.

I really must remind myself how you clear a sample slot. The shift and clear has to be in the right screen and so far I've succeeded in clearing the trigs and the pattern but not the bloody slot! Ran out of flex memory too and had to save the project as new then purge unused, gave me a bit back.  Deep breath Paul!

Workwise, did one complete house track today (very jolly and "Holiday Program") and started another quite dynamic one. May give myself the day off tomorrow - then again planning to give myself next week off while Pat and Dawn are away! Gosh, work Fridays??!!!! Half day perhaps...

Heading north tomorrow with theremin and Prodigy. With luck I might get them brought back next week by Pat and Dawn as they're up there. Could work out well.

Spent today doing more house tracks and changing all my Vermona bass to Proteus. Found some surprisingly useable basses which, with Cirklon's track values to personalise them, will do nicely for my minimal rig. Must get some new drum loops but starting to fix a few of the crappier songs I have lying around and trying to love those I can't fix. New Ck OS with some useful stuff, especially in terms of preventing accidental MIDI thru to selected track.

I think my novel's next step is starting to become clear. Not sure it's the direction I was expecting though.

lol, didn't realise folks read this sometimes, doh! Too late to make it interesting.

Today I thought about my little rig for Glade (Cirklon, Octatrack, Radias, Proteus 2000, keyboard) and started doing little jams. Keeping the Octatrack to real simple stuff so far, essentially lots of loop variations, fx stuff but nowt complex to cock up.
http://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/everlast2

OK, my Vietnamese track went down well with the client, all good. They'd like another version too with a more military, dark feel - so that's tomorrow's work. :)
Agreed to do Glade, did I say that already? No idea what form it will take but improvised and messy with ambience rather than beats I think. Will think about it more sometime but not today.

Off to see Tony to get the Prody sorted. The click doesn't happen when you bypass the keyboard. Wondering whether to take the Monowave too and have its envelope sorted. Reminds me, let's book synth-diy!

Very interesting day. Prodigy arrived, a few faults so booked in with Tony. Sounds lovely. Also got offered a chance to play at Glade, might do it! Heck, why not! Had a call from Synctracks wanting some vietnamese music for a documentary, which I have started. So a good day all in all.

Hmmm blog looks different. Not much to report, busy with tracks for Absolute, working on a review but really all I want is to work on the novel. Tiddly pom. Might play Shamania, as long as I can put everything in one box and make it easy.