Hello, my name is Looptron.

The week in "Real".

It's been somewhat frustrating this week because "real" life has been getting in the way of playing with the new stuff. I've managed to get it all talking together but not actually produced anything of note. Or indeed anything that even sounds like notes. And I haven't practiced my singing either. Still, it's a bank holiday weekend and I've not got anything much on. Just need to do a spot of cable shopping tomorrow morning and we're away. Honestly, this time.

It's odd, because I've got tremendous energy for this project, and it's always creeping into my thoughts even when I'm doing other things. It's just really hard to make time to actually sit down and get on with things. Perhaps I need to be project managed. Hmmmm.

Anyway, one of the distractions this week was very cool.... I went to see an act called Cassette perform their first ever gig. They were fantastic, and it was quite inspirational to see live electronic music, including a bit of hot Mac meets synth over guitars meets vocals type action. I mean, I know Moeker are kind of electro, but the live drums and excessive guitar work do distract from the synths/beats a lot. This was a lot purer, and t'was gorgeous as well. Check 'em out.

Off to spend my Friday afternoon reading the Live manual while making it look like I'm working.

Walls [first draft]

the lines you dare not cross
all bruised and bunker bound
with your passwords and secrets
and your sleight of hand

in ever smaller circles
the world keeps spinning
sandbags on the river banks
keep the walls from falling in

keep the walls from falling in
keep the walls from falling in
keep the walls from falling in

Copyright ©2006 Neil Sharkey, all rights reserved.

Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-aaah.

So...singing. Yeah. Tricky. Had my first singing lesson on Saturday (with a very nice lady called Jennifer who was very cool). It seemed to go ok (certainly I'm going back next week) and I learned loads but it also kind of emphasised how far I've got to go. Still, she didn't tell me to give up and stop wasting her time at any point so I probably can get to where i want to be.

I would've posted about this last night but my Native Instruments Guitar Rig turned up yesterday morning and proceeded to cost me lots of time. It's f'kin wonderful. I've only been playing with it in standalone mode, and off the bat there was a little bit of "is that it?" until you get into the control and modulation stuff. Wow....

Anyway I reckon the new live rig really is gonna just be guitar and XioSynth into laptop and from there out to PA/amplifier. All I need to figure out is a good sequencer for performance that i can control from the XS and will happily host the Guitar Rig in plugin mode and I can probably achieve just about any combination of the two, have them trigger each other, etc, etc. (Recommendations? Was looking at Ableton Live...)

On the downside I've got a really steep learning curve and a lot of manuals to read now. :-)

Machine Quick [first draft]

machine quick
not how you think
it's what you think
is wrong with me

dreaming quick
your ruby lips
your reptile hips
is wrong with me

one more track
taping my mind
now press rewind
is wrong with me

make me sick
the bell that rings
that makes me sing
-ularity

and it will rise like the sun
and it will fall like the rain
and it will shine like the stars
and it will call out your name

god is in the
mathematics
speaking to you
can't you hear?

Copyright ©2006 Neil Sharkey, all rights reserved.

Beep, squelch, beep, thrrrrp.

This turned up before I came into work this morning. I haven't even had a chance to power the damned thing up yet! Very frustrating. I can feel an evening of synth squelch and pizza coming on. :-)

Toys for the boys.

Right, so I'm into pre-production mode. Sort of. I've tanked the last of my disposable income plus some of the money I was saving for the long term things by ordering a couple of new toys for the studio... first a Novation XioSynth 25 which is a MIDI controller (with a great many knobs), USB audio input and hardware synthesiser. Although the synthesis offered is a bit limited it's real value is the control interface - I want to get a fair bit of human influence into my loopy electronica thank you very much.

The second thing is a bit of a gamble because I've never actually played with one before. I've heard the demo, read the (almost exclusively fantastic) reviews but I've never actually seen it running in the flesh... it's the Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2 software and associated foot controller. It basically lets you play your guitar through any combination of modelled amps, effects, loops, etc, la la, woteva... it looks like loads of fun and from I can discern it sounds fantastic.

And thus my new rig (potentially for live stuff as well...?) may well be a laptop with these two beasts plugged into it with everything else happening in software. It's all very, very experimental but I've got some time before I take time off to do the main recording stint to get everything sorted.

Toys! I'll let you know when they turn up...

In other news I've also set up a directory structure and auto-backup regimen for the stuff I'm going to be working on. It sounds really geeky. Cos it is. But given my luck with hard drives it's an essential thing. Call it a lesson learned.

Oh, and I've started programming drums for things. And I think I have first drafts of lyrics for everything and a zillion scribbled ideas. And the first singing lesson is booked for Saturday.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're off.