A busy few days. Wonderland went ahead to plan on Thursday, a really nice performance and reception. We arrived at 16:00, which was just a comfortable time, setting up took over an hour. Our most complex show yet, and with 4 amps (and a spare), 3 keyboards, guitar, mix, projector, it's almost the largest show we can do. I can't imagine needing to use more than 3 keyboards. An extra mic possibly, an extra guitar possibly, but I think this is probably our equipment limit.
There were about 14 people there from the max of 30, which is not bad. Nobody from the Knutsford Music Festival were present unless the library staff count. We were assured that we were by far the most artistic element of the, from what I gather, is a rather traditional folk event, whatever that might mean. One nice part of the show was that the great actor, now in his 80s, Christopher Gilmore, wrote a spontaneous poem for us which we improvised and performed as an encore.
Home at 11pm or so, and carefully unpacking the many kilos of equipment. Yesterday was largely a day of recovery, but Deb and I managed lots of practical trips out. I managed to find some clip-frames for the glass, and some 21x46mm wood for the new frames, and a trip to Nantwich Museum to measure the venue.
One other thing done on Thursday was using wire wool to smooth and polish the 15mm aluminium tubes for my painting photography rig. This worked really well and now the little cradle does slide smoothly like a proverbial (and actual) trombone. It sticks a little in the inside edges. I realised that this is because the (identical) grippers on the ends are tightened, so, obviously, the cradle will want to be tight too. I'll have to put something in the ends to keep the tubes 'central'.
I've ordered a USB to MIDI cable and this works on PC. I've also managed to run an ancient version of Octamed Soundstudio v1.00, and for the first time in 20+ years, play an old tune called Addagio using the fantastic Amiga Forever emulator. That used synth sounds built into MED. Most of my MED music was MIDI only.
I've forgotten almost everything about the Amiga and MED. The Amiga didn't easily support MIDI, you had to connect an interface to a serial port. The PC also doesn't support MIDI, it's almost too old compared to USB. The odds that these will work together are very slim, even if they are technically possible. If someone can program the emulator to support emulated MIDI, probably a very specialist addition, it would have to connect to Windows' MIDI capabilities, which are also complex. This, while I have my Yamaha SY-85, represent the current only hope of re-playing the music I wrote back then. I have the SY-85 preset files, these were copied over the from keyboard's floppy disc, but even now in mere 2021, floppy drives for PC are rare, so I can't save them to a floppy to then re-load into the SY-85. I would have to use MIDI to send the data over if I can.
Of course, I'll keep the MED files and settings. One day, maybe the Amiga and a Yamaha SY-85 will be software synthesized, and these tunes can all be replayed. This is a somewhat distant hope. Now, buying an old Amiga 1200 might be easier, but hardly worth it. I have 90% of the music recorded somewhere, but much of it is on MiniDisc. I wonder if those discs deteriorate? If I know the tune, I can re-sequence them by ear relatively easily.
For the record, here are all of the MED tunes I composed in the 90s on Amiga:
I ache to create (and store) more. Art is like mining: we dig a tunnel; we shore up the tunnel. My main goal for the month is finalise the art and layout for Nantwich. It's also increasingly likely I'll have work to show in London this year. I will probably have to put up painting prices at that point.
