Sunday 31 July 2016

Summertime



The last couple of months (since the last blog post) has been interesting and frustrating.

If you are one of the few following this blog, you will know, that I am slowly working on an album of original material, left over from the last 16 years of Hair Thieves tunes or songs I have written in odd timings or tunings.

This has meant, that some of the songs were started over a decade ago, using software that has been updated many times, in the intervening years and using plugins that no longer run in the modern software (Cubase) that I use to record into.

So sometime, Cubase won't open a song, or I am missing a virtual instrument or synth or an effect, or (and this is the frustrating one), the latest version of the virtual instrument has changed name, so won't open nor tell me which patches it used.

So I have spent quite a few hours over the last two months (and on and off for the last two years), trying to track down all the old versions of virtual instruments and effects I used back in 2006 / 2007 when we recorded the first couple of EPs.

I think I am pretty much there now.  I can now open the works in progress that I needed to and have been generating a patch list, so I can recreate the songs as was in my latest software.

This means, some songs, are now closer to the original than they were a couple months ago, when I had to use new matches and synths.  So I am a lot happier about them.

I have been chipping away at the album. Two songs that were just guitar ideas are slowly being fleshed out.   I seem to have mislaid some notebooks, so I am missing the original notes on these songs, so I am having to re-learn the songs by ear.     Which has been interesting, especially, when after a week or two, I realise I have been playing something slightly wrong.

So progress is being made.   August is festival and holiday season, so not much music happens normally.  So I am not expecting much progress over the next month.

Nina Kitten Records, the home of my musical output, has a new website. 

Hopefully, by late September, I will have a website for this project, with some audio and video for some of the songs on the album and more details on the first release.