Practice makes perfect.

Been noodling around in Bina's absence, she's been off watching the northernlights in Iceland (she managed to see them last night..she's dead chuffed) but no recordings as yet....in the works.

Got much better at a few classic numbers, Hey Joe, and even most of the rythym parts of Purple haze. A bit of All along the Watch tower...as well as some quite passible Cold Shot from SRV. Topping it all off with the rather tasty Tito and Tarantulas After Dark grooving...for those not it the know, its the music played during the sexiest dance scene with snakes and beer ever put to film..points if you know what film?
I'm hoping to get a recording of Hey Joe, Albert Kings, Can't you see what your doing to me (great Bass line) and maybe Howlin Wolf's Red Rooster done this week.

Probably will only manage one but we'll see. I dont' really have proper drums for Can't and Rooster, but got a backing track for Joe so that'll be the easiest to try.

I spent quite a lot of time messing about with my ADIII trying to get a MIDI contoller to play its drums...I was thinking if I could program a few drum patterns and then get the ADIII to play them it might even be possible to carry those MIDI patterns on an Ipod and voila, stand in drummer for practicing band numbers or filling in when he's not there.
But man what a can of worms, the only drum package I came close to working out is Open source Hydrogen (which I did stupidly buy from an ebay seller...oh well) But it "saves" a midi file it does not output on playback.

So began several frustrating days hunting and demo'ing packages reccomended to me by more musical software minded friends.

They had to be having a laugh, these things are so complex you practically need a degree to use them. Even getting a simple drum track on some packages was an effort in menu hunting and random button presses...

I needed something simple and easy and intuative, it seems it does not exisit, so maybe, I'll write one someday...

In theory though I can save MIDI from Hydrogen and play it back on my Ipod fitted with IrigMIDI through FL Studio mobile..at lest I hope so cos I certainly couldn't do anything else with FL Studio mobile, its just as complex as its PC version!!

I think the ADIII is also not really a MIDI friendly bit of kit..though you can trigger individial drums, as I do on my contoller pedal board, all I managed to do with multiple packages was sync a start..no playback..so...perhaps a lost cause.

Life is too damn short to give a damn about it...I'll just use the patterns that are in there, even if they get a bit repetative (why no fill button??). I'll kidnap Robbie the Drummer and stuff him in the cupboard till needed...a few fish heads tossed in from time to time should be all he needs.

Oh and in other news...the Satellite dish is broken..Wind damage...it pulled the main brick it was fixed to out ot place I tried to fix it but the LNB clap has snapped and its out of alignment...Tried to buy a new clamp but could not, so buying a new LBN. Fortunately not an expensive item...should be here in a few days..I'll need to get a willing helper to shout out at me if the thing is getting a signal before I tighten it all up again.






Ahthankyew