Hello, my name is Looptron.

More wires? Joy.

Still not read the manual for the Tenori, but I did manage to find the one and only MIDI lead that I own. Turns out each of the layers maps to single MIDI channel which means goodbye onboard Japan-o-pop sounds, hello controlling the Ableton-based Looptron rig. There nothing quite like listening to one machine playing random notes on the sampled Rhodes piano on the other. All the Tenori's sequencing features work fine so you can let things like the bounce function just play the notes when they "collide" with the bottom of the grid rather than when you played them... hehehe.

Also, programing drum loops on the fly just got a lot more fun. Hell, with a bit of pre-config you could do all sorts. As a performance interface...well, this could be quite special. Not sure how it works in reverse (Ableton triggering/syncing the Tenori-on) because I'll need another MIDI lead for that. Frankly, I'm not sure I care....it'll take ages just explore what I've been playing with so far.

Of course, the bad news is I didn't record all the guitary stuff I thought I was gonna do this evening.

Oh well.

[insert big cheesy new toy grin here]

Things that make you go beep.

The cold that's been threatening to hit for a week or so finally landed overnight so I'm off work today and cracking through the lemsips at a fair old rate.

On the bright side I was off work today so I was able to take delivery of my Tenori-on at last.

The bright flashing lights and weird Japanese synthesiser noises are both frightening and confusing. Although, that said, I have actually been able to construct "music" (albeit frightening and confusing Japanese sounding synth pop) on it without attempting to read the manual at all.

More experimentation is required, I feel.

I'll let you know.

Sniff.

Surprise.

Who'd have thought the EP version of Hello, My Name Is Looptron would need a trio of e-bowed guitars? Bizarre.

It looks a little different round here.

Mmmmmmm. Less brown. For now at least...I've previously been using a TypePad blog as jsut the backend for the website but there seem to have been some issues with the feeds updating and some other stuff so I've made some tweaks and I'm redirecting everything here for a while. Apologies for the somewhat spartan appearance. I'll get the decorators in sooner or later.

Commitment Issues.

I hate recording. It takes ages and with the Looptron thing it's something of a solitary process. But worst of all I hate the quality control process....deciding whether that take you just did is something you can honestly live with forever or whether you should go for another one. Whether the drums are just so. Whether it's good enough. It's so damned wooly....when you play live the decisions are made in the moment and you live with the consequences there and then and then move on. The natural tendency when you're recording is to second guess everything.

Hell, I'm even second guessing whether I should be second guessing what I'm doing or should just play the damned thing through once and be done with it.

Still, most of the computer-based stuff is now nailed. I've been capturing all the performance that can be captured in MIDI and parameter envelopes. Next step is to get the electric guitars down (cos I'm using simulated amplifiers it can be done at anytime of the day or night), and then find some quiet times to do the vocals and all the other instruments that have an actual acoustic resonance to them. Which'll take ages because the odds on me ever being happy with a vocal take are minimal.

I mean, I've not even started writing the ocarina parts yet. Will it never end?!! ;-)

Blame Canada...no...the EU...no...

Interesting piece on Beeb News about a Canadian wiki-based website that stores thousands of music scores that have passed into the public domain being closed down in October by a European company... for copyright infringement. Music copyright in Canada passes into the public domain 50 years after the composers death, 20 years before it does so under EU law. Surely they can just filter the site based on where in the world the user is browsing from and sidestep this completely?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7074786.stm

Stupid copyright law. Should be the same everywhere.