Year ends

An elf served me in the local spar today, telling me 'it's christmas eve'. So I guess it must be. For some reason I'm a day out this week, perhaps due to the many Headshock sessions that have blurred my mind and pickled my liver. Darn pleasant week actually but may lay off the beer today.

Of the various people who have said they'll read my novel, one has confessed to starting it. Pat has forced herself to read a couple of chapters and already declares 'doesn't seem as shit as the last two novels so far'. High praise indeed. :)

Received two ribbons for my Eventide pedals that have been doing the flickering screen thing. Very kindly sent from the States and then on to me for free, very impressive service from those guys and HHB. Merry Wossisname is what I say. If the Pitchfactor now working reliably again I will sell it if poss or swap for another Time Factor.

Oh well, some beta testing to do, should have been a posh sequencer to review over the hols but it never arrived despite being supposed to come Monday. Arse. A few other things to review so I should be kept busy enough but a chap's supposed to have fun too.

Here's a rather lovely shot of Jasper wondering if we're going to walk through the water or turn around. Bloody useless South Ribble Council totally unable to grasp the idea that you sort an area's flooding problems before doing new paths. Idiots everywhere. Which reminds me - PC World... the HP laptop I bought with Windows 10 on it, turns out it isn't really Windows 10 compatible so the fecker is crashing quite regularly, BSOD and screen driver issues. When I asked PC World about this they said I should sort it myself with HP and Microsoft. Hilariously, their tagline for emails is:

Never leaving a customer to fend for themselves.

As I said, idiots everywhere.

I just hope Virgin Cable doesn't turn out to be shit too. So far everyone I've spoken to about it since ordering and cancelling BT has told me about their problems and poor service. Sigh...

Place Setter

I'm not sure I've posted anything since getting this new laptop. Slimline HP jobby, more expensive than I'd typically go for but still less than half price of the Mac it obviously aspires to be. Fortunately the old one still works in case I get some pages where there are passwords coded I have no idea about (like the bloody BT one).

Broadband continues to suck monkey balls. In theory some dude called Ashid was monitoring my response for 24 hours so perhaps he'll be in touch as he did promise to do *something*. If it doesn't improve I'll be ditching BT after many, many years.

The good news is that my video helped Korg see the fault I've been describing and a fix is promised for the next update. I'm glad I stuck with it and slightly amazed nobody else encountered the same issue. It seems unlikely I'm the only person to use external sync.

Had a good visit with Paul the other night, marvelled at his modular without coveting, which is good. Got my CS30 back from Tony on Thursday, knobs apparently never touched, which rather explains the state they were in when they arrived. They do feel a lot better now. Have had some interest in the Elements module I want to sell. Will stick to my original plan of making the euro into a processor more than a synth.

Some gear pix

Roll on weekend. Oh, it's here...

An odd week in some respects. Not much work done, lost my studio amp to some kind of smoking death. So had to dig up the old Alesis one I have - now missing my sub though, you really get used to that low wub!

Colin came to stay Tuesday and we did the curry thing, turned up unexpectedly last night too and stayed - better than trying to drive back to Scotland in the foul weather. Hopefully all production issues now resolved and development can burst into life at long, long last. Optimism returns!

Anyway, my Cirklon display replaced so I'll tuck the P3 away and force myself to get back into it with the prospect of getting stuff slicked up. Colin's taken my CS30 with him to drop off with Tony so I'll finally get that crusty knob replaced, something I should never have had to do. Won't buy anything from RL again.

Listening to the new Jarre album. Wasn't massively impressed on first listen (with a few exceptions) but maybe it'll grow on me. The TD track sounded bland, which is disappointing, but maybe it has hidden depths. I have to keep reminding myself it takes 3-4 listens of a newly-hatched Headshock session before I understand it - and I have a vested interest!

Another day waiting for men to come and brutalise our kitchen. Meant to be here 'in the morning' but they have 30 mins before that's untrue. Another day wasted as far as I'm concerned. At least Colin left some beer in the fridge. :)

Some beta testing to do when I get chance. Since this blog is public I can't say more, but good shit is coming for one of my fave pieces of gear.
Also, I reported to Korg again about the delay sync bug they've now spread to both machines. I found a workaround that involves changing the tempo of the external source, which seems to kickstart the Electribes into taking a proper look and resyncing. Most obvious in 3/16 delay IFX which, when wrong, sounds truly horrible. Apparently nobody else has complained, which is bloody typical innit.

Would love to get stoned and work on my novel today but doubt I will be able to. Hey ho.

My fave two pix from this week.
Right, now to choose a new laptop. This one is making bad noises. Colin suggested imaging the disk onto SSD as a better solution. He's probably right, as usual.

Just some dog pictures

That's all...

Hey I snook in the SMR cos I like it.

So lots of updates coming for things. The Electribes got an update with minimal stuff in it, the only biggie being you can opt out of the accidental pattern changes AND (so far) it seems the delay sloppy sync of the E2 is resolved. The rest of the update seems intent on preventing the machine hack, which is sorta petty by Korg given they have yet to address all the real issues. The main one for me is still the inability to save smoothly during playback, a given on the X versions. It's starting to look like this will always be the case.

Elektron have sequencer updates in the pipeline too, probabilities and fill type functions. Yay. Hope also the individual track clock divs are gonna be there and I still dream of basics like a universal CV/Gate def, universal External input def as it's a PITA to do that stuff per kit. I thought I was on the beta team so should know something but maybe they dropped me. I didn't even whine so they shouldn't have.
Arturia have updates for the BSP too - supposedly soon. I guess I didn't get on that beta team, even though they need me. Maybe I should have made more of a case.

Tim's P3 hanging didn't help our sesh yesterday. Hope it's not too serious. My Cirklon has been out for months and I'm surprised to say I'm not missing it at all. Except for its MIDI thru capabilities it's doing nothing for me, although I've got back into the P3 so much I could easily consider just having two of those (again).

Very sluggish response from Roland to my (many) questions about the gear I'm trying to review. At some point I'll have to just give in with them. Headshock recording today.

Heh

No deadlines for next week, still some kitchen work but maybe time off to chill and write. Did some today, sanitised up to 1st 35 chapters by now. Making each chapter count, or trim and condense brutally. 37 now, which is later.
Tried to engage a dear old friend in conversation again but failed. Probably tried wrong track but tired of trying, dead horse flogging not my thing. Enjoyed pil on jooz. Back to novel, Pat gone to bed tired. Extra hour in bed, stupid idea...

Yep, Sunday evening now and it's way too dark already. It's like we got kicked into winter before time.

So a weekend off, with beer, chocolate, writing and probably some Game of Thrones later. Bliss. Sorry, nothing exciting to report but here's some pix, each spoilt by something.

Tempus Fugit

It sure does. A month since I remembered I have a blog, must mean something. Naturally I've been busy, have also had a stinking cold that's lasted about 3 weeks, still lingering slightly.

So what's new? Well, I put out a couple of old albums on bandcamp. As usual I was wrong about which one people would like, that award going to Ephemeris rather than Transhuman Express. I thought the first was too gloomy but it turns out the second is too experimental, or disorganised, which is very possibly true. I reorganised the bandcamp page into some kind of order. Keep getting requests for the very early stuff - and by that I mean 1980 onwards. The stuff before then I don't even admit to as the stuff that is known is bad enough. Better to keep the mystery and not put it out, I think, even if I did have a working cassette deck. Yet another person has offered me money for the original tapes, which is like 4 or 5 people now.

https://paulnagle.bandcamp.com/

I've written a lot lately - well not last week. Plumbers are destroying the house. Today two plasterers really showed the others were playing at it, the place is a total mess now. Novel progressing well, have sanitised first 30 chapters. Each comb through improves it, sharpens, snappifies. More to do as I'm getting down to the details. Could carry on forever, I enjoy this part most of all. Reviews going well, despite some slowness in response here and there.

Bought another new module. Did I tell you my Clouds arrived? Well, I added a Spectral Multiband Resonator and it's awesomely good. And I'm reviewing another I love, so it's getting a bit mad in the eurocrack box.

So anyway, stuff to do, just saying that I'm still alive really.

New Headshock album

Of course to us it's quite old. We sat on it for a while to see how comfy it felt. By a while I mean months. In the end, it made no sense to keep doing so, so here it is
https://headshock.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-meditation

In other news, my Clouds module arrived - it's all part of the eurorack rabbit hole I swore I wouldn't get dragged down. It sounds fantastic, haven't looked at installing any alternate OS yet, still plenty to go at with this one.

It's been a sunny week. My promises to get some work done in the garden have been only partly fulfilled. Picked a few shrooms but there weren't many. Then Pat threw half of them away by accident. Such is life.

Novel still in that 'finished but could be improved upon' state. I'll pick away at it over the coming months until I reach some kind of contentment. Some parts of it are very good indeed. Some are still poorly-realised. I made the mistake of starting a Douglas Adams and suddenly the parts I thought very good had to be downgraded. Any writer who thinks he can write should read even a few paragraphs of DNA to restore humility.

Whatever else I have to say will have to wait. For it's Friday, the sun is shining and my reviews are almost complete. Day off methinks!