The Studio Log - What Did You Do In The Studio

[elxsound]

As for the title, I’m ramping up my Studio B (the Van Gogh corner for Cryophonic? Maybe that’s better and not hookerish?)

1010music added (2 stream) audio over USB and class compliant audio interface capabilities so my plan is to have BlueBox fixed in position. I only need to raise the 2600 another inch/2.5 cm to slide the bluebox underneath.

I also added Syntakt and Analog Heat into the corner by placing them in the desk drawer.

The trick to this going smoothly is obviously going to be sync. Yeah… that’s always a quick fix!

Should be easy, but I’m trying to keep all of the fixed wires out of view and that’s the tedious part but can’t help thinking this is gonna be fun.

Im also looking at ways to add/not add Bebe Cherie… which if I’m honest is just GAS and not needed, but it would be fun.

[whyterabbyt]

Yesterday; found a long-forgotten kickstarter thingy, a Gecho, that had never been cased up, so finished that and flashed the newest firmware. Also turned one of those £1 LM386 boards into a little piezo noise/feedback toy for further messing about with.
Today built the Mikrophonie Mk3 and the Selam. Selam build instructions are erm, well pretty much the most minimal Ive ever seen; 6 lines of text on the website. No manual for it either it seems, and almost nothing on t'interwubz about it at all.
Nothing demanding in the build, though, PCB is predone SMT, same as the Mikrophonie, so just hardware to do. First test had a couple of channels responding a wee bit differently from the others, reflowed all the soldering, and now they're fairly consistent except for a very slight bit of variance at the attenuator centre detente. Indications are that that might be fairly normal. Mikrophonie worked properly first time.
Working up to finishing redoing the LEDs on the Elmyra, they're all desoldered, surprisingly neatly for me, and I got new ultrabrights from Digikey yesterday. Will possibly do that tomorrow, and/or maybe build the Meg.

[Medenka]

Played electric guitar unplugged.

Opened host and tried out some vst's. Was not happy with what I heard, closed without saving.

Sounds like a downer, right? Actually not, I really enjoyed doing both. Sometimes I'm a bit more productive, I enjoy that too.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Trying out some minimalist jam setups, Edge plus one or two other things.
Not found a combo to stick on yet but having fun looking.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Still one hardware unit I can't decide whether to keep or give up.

It's a cheap-arse Sonicware Bass&Beats, but it's so easy to sequence rhythm parts on I'm unsure as to if it's useful or should be dumped to make room for a Roland Boutique unit. Ugh argh FEH. Much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments ensues.

I do think I've talked myself out of a guitar, between the diabetic nerve damage and how sensitive the skin on my hands is I just don't see ever being able to play what I want. But, folks, Reality doesn't care about what I want.

Maybe I'll buy a harp, quit electronic music, and write erotic horror and erotic fiction until I die of old age. Sounds like the kind of radical shite I periodically pull...

[cryophonik]

Working on a new chill house track for Bella to record when she gets back from Norway in a few weeks.

[foosnark]

Okay, how is it I never managed to try out Virta before? I apparently installed it 9 months ago and never used it, because it was in a weird folder that wasn't indexed by Bitwig. I played with it a bit using the modular as a source and it was really cool. Unfortunately the pitch tracking does that typical octave drop on release that so many other pitch trackers do, but there are ways to patch it that minimize that. I haven't tried it on bass or kalimba yet but I definitely plan to.

I do think I've talked myself out of a guitar, between the diabetic nerve damage and how sensitive the skin on my hands is I just don't see ever being able to play what I want. But, folks, Reality doesn't care about what I want.

I'm diabetic too. No permanent damage to speak of yet, but I did have several weeks of mild neuropathy in my left pinky finger that I was afraid was going to be permanent or spread.

I don't practice enough for calluses, so trying to play bass for a whole recording session can get painful. But I got a pair of "musician's practice gloves" and those work quite well.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

@foosnark: I didn't know there were such things as practice gloves! I'll buy a pair and try them out, if it makes thing less painful that might be a way forward.

THANKS for posting that!

[elxsound]

@foosnark: I didn't know there were such things as practice gloves! I'll buy a pair and try them out, if it makes thing less painful that might be a way forward.

THANKS for posting that!

I’m using a practice glove after undiagnosed, likely arthritic pain. It does help.

I also recently bought a Uke to quickly play around with in-between. Not a 1:1 obviously, but it’s to not lose the habit of playing.

[foosnark]

I wish my fretless bass uke had slightly better build quality and looked cooler but it's fun, and its tone works surprisingly well for really dark and doomy stuff.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Not the fault of the instrument but in my mind I only associate ukuleles with George Formby and the idea of that guy playing something really dark and doomy makes me laugh a lot.
https://youtu.be/sfmAeijj5cM

[foosnark]

Not the fault of the instrument but in my mind I only associate ukuleles with George Formby and the idea of that guy playing something really dark and doomy makes me laugh a lot.

Heh

Picture something that looks like an oversized uke or a shrunken guitar, but with big thick rubber strings on it and it sounds surprisingly similar to an upright bass. And then run that through some heavy distortion and reverb. It's still pretty incongruous looking though.

[elxsound]

I wish my fretless bass uke had slightly better build quality and looked cooler but it's fun, and its tone works surprisingly well for really dark and doomy stuff.

I wanted to order the bass uke, but for the intended purpose, this was more practical, especially considering space constraints.

I fell in love with that sound after Cinematique Instruments first made a library for it. It's now part of the Uke Trio library: https://cinematique-instruments.com/pag ... utrio2.php

Although I haven't tried their (Cinematique) library, I own a Tres guitar, and this is the first time I've seen a sample library for one. These have great character. Could be fun to add a different sound.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

@foosnark: I didn't know there were such things as practice gloves! I'll buy a pair and try them out, if it makes thing less painful that might be a way forward.

THANKS for posting that!

I’m using a practice glove after undiagnosed, likely arthritic pain. It does help.

I also recently bought a Uke to quickly play around with in-between. Not a 1:1 obviously, but it’s to not lose the habit of playing.

That's an EXTREMELY good point. For me, the muscle memory is almost gone, and I have the uphill fight of re-learning (ugh). It's just going to flat-out be Hard Work(tm) to get to the point I need to be to do what I want.

Ah hell, I was getting bored with ambient after all this time. I'm re-arranging everything I have in the studio to make goth/industrial, my third love after blues and metal. Got a guitar picked out and a few things for vocal processing.. maybe singing lessons again.

I'm "too old to change" but eff it, going to anyway!

[foosnark]

More Virta tinkering. This time I tried it with the bass uke, and it's pretty brilliant. Pitch tracking isn't perfect but good enough and I got some fun spectral reworking out of it.

Then I played with feedback patching it (DC Offset device in Bitwig, modulated by the audio output from Virta, feeding Virta's audio input). That led to a few fun things too. It was then that I realized MPE pitch bend doesn't work right in Virta, but I can live with that limitation since I'll probably be pitch tracking with it most of the time anyway. I'll buy it at the same time I buy Sumu.