Exported K03 from the master project. I'll extract several pieces from it in the same manner that K11 spawned about four compositions. I’ll be working in K03 for about four weeks. There is an additional track Jamal recorded which sounds like a smallish wood drum. I’ll have to ask him what it is.

The composition I worked on this weekend was closest to the original tempo – 128bpm. The bass ostinato is a combination of my standard JV bass and two tracks of Warr Guitar (doubling at octaves) The ostinatto then shifts into a three feel (why do I keep doing that?) I’ll try to flesh out the three feel with more Warr Guitar and MIDI tracks.

Created an amazing drone sound from a layer of two samples from my drone archive with Kurzweil and Prophet 5. Used the Prophet 5 for a few tracks on this piece, it turns out. This is the first time I have used it for a specific purpose and not just farting around. Used Battery for a tick sound, but came up empty looking for a muted kick drum. Used Reason to generate this with a touch of reverb. Julie heard a piece of what I was working on and commented that I must be feeling bouncy. Not really, but I suppose anything 128bpm with a four of the floor kick could be considered bouncy.

Sunday we hosted two recitals for Julie's students. Amanda was presenting a composition which I reinforced with MIDI & audio tracks from the studio downstairs. Used the plate reverb on an open mic on the flute and controlled the overall mix with my airport equipped laptop running Timbuktu. That was a lot of technology to throw at a problem, but it worked like a charm.

Conditioned the walnut of the Prophet 5 with furniture cleaner and oil from workbench. Polished out a stain left by what I believe was a beer can. The wood looks brand new now. Even Julie was impressed.

D54 crashed consistently for me, one crash corrupting my system file. Lost some audio I had recorded and was down for about two hours on Saturday while I tracked down the problem with the corrupt system file. Reverted back to D52 and everything was fine and crash free again. I don’t know what changed between D52 and D54, but it was nasty. It has been so long since DP crashed on me, that I have become complacent and not taking the usual safeguards.

Horrible discovery that some of the ADAT tracks I transferred got garbled. I’ll have to go back and re transfer them They got garbled in a special way, so I’ll keep them around for interesting effect.

06.06.01
Monday night I eschewed making music in favor of dinner with Ray & Elizabeth and sleeping for 10 hours.

Tuesday I worked on the track I started on the weekend, recording some Warr Guitar and adding some MIDI tracks. Attempted a triggered gate sound on the Kurzweil played through the Pod Pro with disappointing results that I canned shortly thereafter.

Picked up Radiohead Amnesiac yesterday.

This morning I feel utterly horrible. I can’t tell if I'm sick or simply suffering from allergies.

06.07.01
Yesterday I left work at midday to go home sick. Slept some. This morning I feel slightly better. I was not able to concentrate on anything with the exception of listening to Amnesiac. This inspired me to power on my computer and work on some music…briefly. I had gotten as far as editing an 11/8 groove from K03 – before succumbing to sleep yet again. I also want to generate a 7/8 piece in a different tempo from the same source material.

The guy I sold my Kyma system to had the nuts to request that I send him some pirated Macintosh music software, specifically Logic. I don't recall every being both morally outraged and insulted in a single sentence before. I was never coy about my email address - he should know that I work at a software company and the protection of intellectual property translates more or less directly to my paycheck.

In the afternoon I received a call from Scout about mixing First Person. They dropped of off a video tape of past episodes that evening. I'm kind of ambivalent about negotiating for the job. I would have to rent a digibeta deck and I’d rather work on my current project. We'll see how it turns out.

06.08.01
Still feeling somewhat ill. Yesterday I remember walking to work and walking home – everything in-between is fuzzy. I worked on the box back for DP3. When I got home, I worked on K03 11/8 some more. Dipped into the pool of Reason/Recycle concoctions I prepared in the month of April in anticipation of this project. The trick with Reason is to use it in a way that is different than what it was designed for, otherwise the result sounds like something made with Reason.

It is interesting to note that DP was the last to jump on the rewire bandwagon and thus implemented the latest version of the API from propellerheads. As a result, DP was the only application 100% compatible with Reason when it came out. Only the Germans could make Logic incompatible with Reason.

Talked to Scout again about First Person. We're moving ahead with a meeting next week.

This morning I see the Kyma system I sold last week is for sale by the person I sold it to. That did not last long.

06.11.01
A weekend like any other… worked on the 4/4, 7/8 and 11/8 K03 concoctions. All three compositions are equally not done. I really need to wrap some stuff up before moving on.

Received the replacement key and Battery for the Prophet on Friday. Still waiting on the cleaners and lubricants for the two pots. Did I mention I ordered a Filter Factory from a guitar center blowout on electrix gear? I'm still kicking myself for not taking advantage of the $400 K5000 blowout a few years ago. For $99 I get a Filter Factory. Might be kind of fun.

I have four sets of strings for the Warr Guitar sitting around and I'm recording constantly, so I thought it might be a good idea to slap a new set on. The new strings don't sit in the nut. They're too big. I'm not sure what to think of that. Now the new set is half on, the old set is 3/4 on and one string is missing.

Went to the dragon boat festival on Sunday. While walking there I composed a strange syncopated series of chords (syncopated while inside 11/8, mind you) that I was actually able to get into the computer when I got home.

06.12.01
We're are getting frighteningly close to releasing DP3. The getting started manual arrived yesterday and the user guide should be here today. CD labels are here. The developer's catalog we have proofs, hopefully we'll get this back by the end of the week. Boxes have arrived and they are… perfect. They should be after the countless proofs and revisions and mockups I made. Absolutely nothing was left to chance.

Worked on K03 – primarily on K03 4/4. Created some new loops from Jamal’s performance and added some TX816 percussion on top. The TX sounds are not as dynamic with velocity as I would like. Maybe I’ll dig out my DX7IIfd . There is nothing like getting your hands on the instrument. Saw a TG77 for $365 today. Nearly an impulse buy.

06.13.01
I'm getting tired of people telling me how badly I look. I may have to find a doctor if I don't start feeling better.

On my way to work this morning I noticed my leg was wet and getting wetter. The tea I packed had become uncorked in my bag. I opened my satchel on mass ave and poured out half a pint of liquid . I'm not sure if my psion survived the bath. It is currently drying out. Usually under such circumstances I'm half mad I made a mess and half made I've wasted some tea.

I met with scout. I'm not sure why as it seems they have already decided to stay in New York. I'm quite relieved, actually. One thing I did learn was that Password is quite dead. As far as Scout is concerned, it seems.

Placed a musicians wanted ad on Harmony Central. Met with resounding silence. Does not help that harmony central’s focus seems to be on rock band instrumentation. (choose: guitar, bass, drums or ‘other’) I’ll do the same thing to the Berklee alumni list today.

The DP3 user guide arrived yesterday. When working on the manual, I would frequently use whatever DP project was close at hand to make screen shots. A good example of this is page 551where you can clearly see the chunks window from the master jamal file. There are other playful references, such as the ‘Bosch’ editor shown on p40, references to Blue Forest Mass on p41 and MOTU-Mac people on p612.

Printed the TX percussion to disc thru the PCM80 last night. Dug out the DX7II as well and played some clav. The velocity scale of the DX is wildly different from my default A50 patch. I ended up playing the part in on the DX itself. Experimented with some Prophet 5 parts some more. What a study in contrasts that was – playing the Prophet after the DX. You can't get much more ultra analog or ultra digital than that. The juxtaposition is very pleasing.

Spent more time moving stuff around. The arrangement is starting to take shape. The composition builds and then disintegrates into some Warr Guitar and then explodes back out into full percussion loops plus additional FM percussion. I used this combination of instrumentation on Laudamus te and it seemed to work out. I might move the piece into a heavy jamal section with simple orchestration – like a single melodic lead instrument, but that would require some tedious editing. I have to be careful, though. Some sections already have an over edited, Roger Nichol’s™ quality to them. I remember overhearing an MP&E faculty talk about spot erasing in-between hi-hat strikes and I thought, "How obsessive…" Now I have become THAT GUY.

06.14.01
Added some tom fills last night with the intention of processing them into something else. I probably will not end up using it. I did end up processing vast swaths of the mix through a 100% mix of the PCM80, muting and unmuting portions and re-recording the result back into DP. This created a very Michael Brook or Distorted Reality quality to the percussion tracks. This technique is only really useful with hard disc recording because I can compensate for the processing latency of the totally wet signal by shifting the result forward in time. I did not explore the whole depth of this process before succumbing to sleep.

Had a dream last night consisting of my buying two semi-working SH-101s and restoring them. There was something about radio controlled gliders that was probably derived from alex’s recent radio controlled blimp acquisition. Mylar Zeppelin just does not have the proper ring to it.

Finally got a hold of Jim Wright regarding the nut on my Warr Guitar. It needs to be filed to accommodate the new strings. I'm going to take it to Sandy's Music tonight to have this done. Hopefully I can pick it up before the weekend.

Contacted a trumpet player I found on Harmony Central yesterday to see if he would be interested in overdubs. It might turn out. I should construct some baffles to tame the small room sound in my house.

06.15.01
I took my Warr Guitar to Sandy's music to have the nut modified. He did not seem happy to see me or any customers. However, it was clear that he had never seen something like the Warr Guitar before. He did the work while I waited and then I went home to put the rest of the strings on and chat with Julie on the back porch. We have not fired up the AC yet, and it was too hot to be inside.

I called Shawn Hines (trumpet) last night. He is going to email me with his schedule so we can arrange a time.

My post to the Berklee list yielded four responses this morning. I prefer working with Berklee guys as there is a shared vocabulary, but something else as well.

Porcupine Tree is playing at the Middle East on the 26th. I would have driven to NYC to see them, but they'll be walking distance.

06.18.01
Where did the weekend go? No new music. I did take stock of where I am at for additional overdubs. I have about 15 2-3 minute compositions that need to be finished. Six more new ones for 21. Backed up the entire project onto my Powerbook.

One of the musicians who contacted me asked me to ship a CD to a specific address which turned out to be half a block away. I wrote back saying alternately, I could simply turn my monitors up and he could listen in his kitchen.

I blew Saturday by spending six hours restoring the Prophet 5. That took about twice as long as I thought it was going to take. Saturday night we played bridge with Ray and Elizabeth. Sunday morning I read the paper, cleaned the studio. In the afternoon I interviewed a Berklee clarinet player. Hopefully we’ll record next weekend. Sunday evening we ran out to Chau Chow for take out which was a bad idea given that the rain had flooded Storrow drive. I can't for the life of me remember what I did Friday evening. Must have been good.

By this point, I'm pretty sure Shawn Hines wants to blow me off. I should start looking for another Trumpet player.

06.19.01
Beautiful evening last night. I knew today would be too hot to lounge outside so I soaked it in. Spent much of the remainder of the evening attempting to upload factory patch data into the Prophet 5 with no success.

When I opened up the Prophet 5 on Saturday, I noticed a long history of repair and travel. There are hand written repair notes in a language I am unfamiliar with dating back 15 years ago. I know this instrument had a 220v power supply at one time and I believe Shelly outfitted it with a US power supply. Some repairs were very ad-hoc like the switch that had been repaired with a paper clip. This worked okay until last night when the switch casing popped right out. For two, brief shining days, the Prophet 5 was 100% functional. I don't believe I’ll futz with this for a while.

Began K06d project. Exported into an independent project. Culled past projects from Reason. K06 may not spawn quite as many compositions because of the relatively fast tempo (132) Sped up tightens the playing but slowing down loosens it up. Most of the reason projects are nowhere near this tempo. Should prove challenging.

Wrote Jamal about progress yesterday and asked him about naming the project.

06.21.01
It looks like Jamal will be in town for the Berklee Percussion workshop next week. I asked him about getting together, but he has yet to get back to me.

When I went to Digiworld a few weeks ago, I ran into Rick Scott from Parsons and we had a chance to talk a bit. He mentioned that he was scheduled to play some progressive rock festivals with his band. Had a meeting with the Flute player who lives down the street last night. We are trying to find a date to record and work around his schedule which includes, playing in some progressive rock festivals with his band. Band? Which band? Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. Now that I think about it, I recall Rick talking about having a friend in the area in which I live. The bios for this project is going to be interesting

Worked some on K06. Imported some sound design I created with RiverRun.

06.22.01
Yesterday I asked Larry Fast if he would be interested in contributing to the project. He wrote me back this morning and agreed. This is very cool. I also wrote Wendy and asked her for advice on what to do about a duduk sound. The eclipse was yesterday so it should be a few days before she gets back from Africa.

Julie and I blew nearly two evening hours by dining at S&S. Bad timing. I managed to work a little on K03 – added a simple chord progression and created a soundhack drone on G. Experimented with live mode processing on the Kurzweil.

This morning I woke up at 6:15 and worked for another hour with headphones. I discovered some noise in the drone I created and set soundhack to try again while I crawled back to bed until 8:30.

Lori Berenson was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison yesterday.

06.25.01
The Filter Factory arrived on Friday which was nice because that enabled me to play it over the weekend. It really exceeded my expectations, but then, my expectations were low. There are a lot of features I was not expecting like CV input, full MIDI implementation and balanced I/O. I used it on Friday and Saturday to tame the pads on K03. I also used it in high pass filter mode with distortion on some electronic drums. What a blast. Now I really need the ability to quantize controllers in DP.

Otherwise, I spent Friday night and Saturday doing some quick arranging and chart preparation for the session with Gunnard on Sunday. I really have to start naming some of the compositions as I have not made a mental connection between their antiseptic descriptors and the way the sound.

The last Benadryl I took was Friday evening in the vain hope that I could sleep in on Saturday (Julie had no students) This plan did not work as trash and recycling were picked up first thing in the morning. After taking Benadryl daily for a few weeks now, I have exchanged the feeling of spacey-ness for a shortened temper and a generally crappy attitude – that and a splitting headache Sunday morning 36 hours since the last dose.

I spent Sunday morning shuttling gear around in preparation for the clarinet recording session. The session itself went very well. Gun is unique in that he is classically trained, to the extent that he could work in a professional orchestra, if that was what he wanted to do, plus, he went to Berklee, plus he know exactly what it is I'm attempting to accomplish. What this means is I could set printed music in front of him and he can sight read it. I can set a lead sheet in front of him and he can improvise and I can tell him absolutely nothing, play back the existing tracks and he can structure meaningful contributions in real time. We did all three. Usually when I work with a musician, I feel out their boundaries and try to pull the best playing from them – play upon their strengths. I failed to encounter any boundaries with Gunnard. He is easy to communicate with, and understands/is excited about the project. What a combination. My sadness with him is 1) he does not play more instruments and 2) he is leaving in January.

Here is the kicker: he is learning how to play the duduk. He ordered an instrument recently and received it last week. He brought it to the session on Sunday – it is THE sound! We are planning another recording session in 2-3 weeks after he has had some time to practice it.

Actually, the strangest thing is he drinks tea – really. He went on about Darjeeling’s and flushes and it was all I could do to contain myself as the vocabulary of someone who knows the difference between a bag of Lipton and Tea spilled out into the room.

Mic-ing the clarinet was a non-issue. Gunnard was MP&E at Berklee. I asked him about his preference for mic choices and we determined that large diaphragms were not typically used in recording sessions due to their bulk in an orchestral context. I had already set up a small diaphragm choice (KM184) and a large diaphragm (U87) in preparation. I listened to him play the instrument and simply set the mic a reasonable distance away to capture an even sound while minimizing room tone. Other than plugging the mic into the preamp and multing the output to a reverb for monitoring, the signal chain was kept quite simple.

With direct hardware patch through and 512 sample buffer, I'm going to try assigning the live input to a separate set of outputs which are patched thru the outboard reverb. This way I can avoid the mult on input and previously recorded tracks will play back through the reverb that was used for monitoring. I can also have greater control of monitor level via the line mixer. This seems like a slightly more intelligent way of dealing with this. I miss my big console for separate monitor mix flexibility.

Most musicians would like to create music full time, but I'm wondering what the really means. Even if you are able to pay the bills and live comfortably with a full time music career, what kinds of sacrifices do you make in order to do so? With few exceptions, you are answerable to some higher authority and never have total creative freedom. It occurred to me that by working full time, when I do work on music, it is exactly what I want to do.

Theoretically Jamal should be at Berklee today. I have no way of getting in contact with him, but even worse, based on the fact that he did not respond to my message, I am unsure if he has any desire to see me. Surely he must remember I live in Cambridge.

06.26.01
Last night spent a good portion of time rendered some audio in preparation for exporting some projects to Larry today and I forgot to bring the damn CDs to work this morning.

I experimented with some clarinet processing with the PCM80 and created some slow percussion with Battery. Processed the result with plate. Argued with Spektral Delay – I've forgotten the magic recipe that makes it work.

06.27.01
I called the middle east about when Porcupine Tree went on last night. I'm glad I did. They took the stage at 10:15 so, I'm happy I was not standing around for two hours. I used the time instead to work on music a little bit. Did another variation of the clarinet processing – this time mixing with the drone and I managed to get Spektral Delay happy again with another extension set. I managed to burn over ten minutes of stereo audio processed through Spektral Delay. For some reason, it was a productive session.

Porcupine Tree was interesting. There were maybe 200 people (male geeks, a demographic I sadly fit into, primarily) present and clearly half or more were provided with comp tickets. The band did not seem terribly happy about playing to such a small crowd. They played an odd assortment of tunes, seemingly eschewing any of their more accessible songs. At one point Steven Wilson actually ‘shushed’ an over enthusiastic crowd member during a quieter portion of his singing – a gesture I found very humorous and/or British. Richard Barbieri looked older and pensive and had the audacity to be touring with a Memorymoog, which he used to good effect. There were a surprising number of people I knew there including Adam Crary who had the good sense to bring his CD to the show which he presented to me.

Wendy wrote me this morning telling me about her eclipse trip. She sounds to be in good spirits and also was able to attend a screening of A.I. which she gushed about.

06.28.01
The discs I prepared for Larry did not go out yesterday as US mail was not processed in shipping. This is becoming comical.

It seems that I took a step backwards yesterday. The Spektral Delay file I created two days ago is corrupted in a strange way in which it believes it only contains a few seconds of audio. The file is nearly 200MB, but when placed in DP or opened in an editing program, it only displays the first few seconds. I brought a copy of this file in to see if we can work with it in MPW and see what is up.

Spent some additional, less productive time with Spektral Delay and poked at K06 without much result. Experimented with creating an ambient piece comprised entirely of clarinet recordings.

Spent the rest of the evening with Ray & Elizabeth. Consumed two gin and tonics and experienced the best nights sleep in several weeks. I even felt less congested this morning.

Users are beginning to receive DP3 upgrades. Hold me.

06.29.01
With Mark’s help, I was able to resurrect the 200MB file I created with Spektral Delay and bring that home.

Such a beautiful evening last night. It would have been very pleasant indeed to spend it entirely on the porch. I retired to the studio around 8:30 and fulfilled my nightly obligations to the furry ‘studio manager’ and proceeded to wallow around, not getting much done. Julie had been making noises the past two days about playing something on the project and she brought up the subject again last night so I tossed he the liner notes from Passion and told her to find something to play something from the liner notes. She chose finger cymbals. So, there is now a finger cymbal track in a K06 composition. While I had the mic set up I recorded a shaker track as well.

Zoran backed out of the recording session on Saturday. I'm glad he did because when he agreed to do it, he had the attitude of someone who was doing me a favor, and I really did not want to deal with that. I only want to work with people who truly believe in the project.

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