On one hand it feels as if the pace is slowing

But - I stumbled into an extension of the my current lazy production platform. I took the first piece to come out Making Waves which is just a little harmonic exploration around a muted synth timbre. And I used my Wavelab-cannibal method to add some Dhorn in a relatively freehand manner. Then I edited the Wav to remove the grosser enormities. So far so normal.. This gave me about 4 minutes of raw material in a Wav.

The big step was to load the resulting Wav back into Making Waves which meant that I could apply some VST filters and other effects which seemed to improve the overall ambience a lot. I also added a few synth bass notes here and there. I might have added some percussion events.

The big step was to use the looping facilities in Making Waves - which are very flexible, linked to a time length - which I have set at four seconds. I set it looping around the first 12 seconds of the piece and recorded the output back into Wavelab adding a guitar line with the E-elf.

Point 1 is that the quality of the original track held up OK - in fact I managed to lose some hiss on the original with the filter. I ended up in Wavelab with just about a minute of music with a Dhorn / guitar dialogue over a synth ground - which I liked so much I dropped it straight into an AV..

Point 2 is that I can use the long synth track in different ways in a single take to create more dialogue in the same way - looping on specific sections - and changing the loop on the fly. I think what appeals to me about this is the combination of freedom and structure. At the moment I cant save MW settings as I am still working off the demo - but I think the 4 minute Wav is a reasonable store - the basis from which I can develop different specific pieces which will vary - not only in the new additions but also how a set the VST effects and odd synth evenst each time I reload into MW.

At the moment I just like the sound of the Dhorn as an expressive instrument - I think as a synth it must have some sort of affinity with the softsynth in MW.

I banged my head on the idea of Total Factor Productivity yesterday - but seem to have sorted it out after sleeping on it - and stuck the results in the Learning Grid Research strand.

The data on the diary shows the various things that bring in readers - often it is obscure musicians - so obscure that I have forgotten about them myself - for example the hard-bop/avant garde drummer I bumped into late one night at the Knitting Factory. Well the latest visitor is on the track of Shelagh Mcdonald - as well one might be. This has led me to the stupendous resource at:

http://www.ragamuffin.fsbusiness.co.uk/archive2.htm
This site is an archive for Ragamuffin Roadshow which seems to be two old codgers playing neglected acoustic wonders from the great era of singer-songwriting. Just click through and set the second programme stream and you will find several great SM cuts. Enjoy.