I enjoyed Arthur Lee on the TV and PJ Harvey on the car CD. I listened to Blue Flame as well and thought how good it is.

Robin�s dreamy Lullabye is up on the Kwase-kwase site. See what you think � not at all like Gilbert�s or Paul W�s .

The Roland MIDI interface has made me look more deeply into MIDI once again. Since working on the portable I have been more and more absorbed in WAVs and WAV editing at the expense of MIDI. � deterred by some of the barriers in Cubasis. Cubasis offers really good MIDI editing with the digital audio mixer for just four stereo channels of the internal softsynth but nothing else. I have never got very far with the internal MIDI mixer in this version Cubasis and so I stopped using MIDI so much � particularly patches other than those in the Cubasis softsynth.

The Roland interface allows me to route Cubasis through to external sound generators more easily such as the little Yamaha XG MU10 box. Exactly how I came by this device is a story I can�t comfortably repeat. It only cost �100, it�s no longer made and some webpages advise that its bought on sight because its so powerful. It took me ages to work out what XG meant .

My first experience exploring any synthesizer outside a PC was a Casio which has lots of buttons on the outside. The MU10 has hardly any and it took me ages to discover that I needed an XG editor on the PC to get the most from it � and access all the sounds and effects which are allegedly inside. I still have a long way to go but at least I am trying to find my way.

To help with understanding the MIDI insides of the portable I have bought a copy MIDI-OX which is meant to be the business in terms on MIDI mintoring, tracking and control. Am I biting off more than I can chew? At least I have got my MIDI-OX linked up to a MIDI-YOKE.

But the real leap in the dark has been FractMus2000 which generates MIDI files from fractal algorithms. I have generated my first one and loaded it into Cubasis so that I can read some of the output. I am utterly fascinated by it.

A fractal is a bit of iterative mathematics which offers infinite variety with varying degrees of internal symmetry. Someone has parameterised a lot of this mathematics and shoved it an interface round it which provides a user with degrees of control � starting with the extreme of �randomise everything and lets go.� I took the cowherd�s way out and liked the result enough not to try anything else for a while

Judging from the site that I found the software on, fractal music enjoyed a peak of interest in the 90s. It is well suited to MIDI because the system has so many numerical dimensions � pitch, duration, voice, pan etc. The meaning of �code� looms large in this enterprise.

In the mathematics, a set of current state numbers (x1, y1, z1��.) generates a the next set of future state numbers (x2,y2,z2������) by some mathematics which manages to produce symmetry within variety. Which set of current state values generates which future values and how that linkage works for the user to chose (one way or another) when you set up the software for a run � this is the essential mathematical feedback loop where chaos theory is used. The other key issue is the set of rules which link any numerical state to a sensuous dimension of MIDI.

It is a mathematical model � a set of mathematical relations and a set of interpretations or codes. The mathematical relations can deliver some regularities and with luck these are discernible in the sensuous realm � this is the striking thing about the software, the degree of �meaningful� pattern which emerges.

I have been very lax about posting news on Kwase-kwaza but I managed to get a few items up today..

I also had a dredge through the stats � volumes are about 50% on a year ago. The Netherlands has topped 2000 requests to the site. Over 11,000 individual users have visited. Both Paul and Gilbert�s lullabyes have had over 100 plays. The total number of plays for all the artists on the site is around 2500 � which is about the number of visits to Derek�s photos. The main countries visiting besides the UK and Netherlands are Belgium, France, Italy, USA, South Africa, Germany and Japan.