Shelf Work, New Frame, TMG4 Mixing

A day of technical challenges.

First I clamped and glued the base and sides to the new shelves. The base was placed flat, with a spacer, then the loose top, this made a sandwich wide enough for the band clamp. The sides (after first drilling and countersinking pilot holes for future screws) were then placed vertically and band clamped to the base. The advantage of vertical assembly like this is that the floor is very flat, but the sides needed temporarily holding up before the clamp was tightened. When tight, everything was laid flat and the angles checked, with slight adjustments made to the tops of the verticals to make them exact right angles as it all dried. This may be overkill for mere shelves, but it will be as accurate as any other thing in the house.

Only this joint is glued, the rest will be done, joint by joint, in contrast to the first version of the shelves when everything was glued and clamped at once.

Then, removing the old shelves from the wall. On the floor they didn't sag, so the wood was not bent, but heavy under its own weight alone. My error was using wood which was too thin for the length of shelf; I made my priority a low weight, not strength. For the box shelves below, I've decided on the simplest solution of a leg to the floor. These shelves appear to be bent, rather than merely sagging, so I've applied a wedge to gradually bend back up to flat. I still consider these a first version to be replaced one day.

Then, work on a picture frame which must surround a stretched canvas. A rare job, I don't often use stretched canvas, and have hardly ever made a flush frame like this. The frame is cut, about 1 or 2mm larger than the canvas. I'll pin then staple it in place I think.

In the evening, more mixing on the new Modern Game. These songs were not written with my voice in mind and from the outset this has complicated everything. Still, this iteration will certainly sound better than any of the others.

Prometheus v3.78, CD Shelves v2.00

Started the day with more updates to Prometheus. Fixed the peaking filter, which didn't work when Wet was less than 1, and created a new Peaking Filter II, with separate post-amp. Then I updated my website, adding the Electric Sprout albums there, and putting the new album on the front page.

Back to programming. I thought of making the Cathedral Limiter a track as well as a song engine, which would make Prometheus useful for CD mastering (yet with hi-res audio); but it has a problem in that silence of one second in a track causes it to shut off until a note is played, and the look-ahead delay would create that silence. I can disable or extend it, but remembering to do that is a tad awkward. It took me hours to work out that the failure of this effect was due to this! The program also crashed once, which is worrying. It's not crashed in years. Crashes when experimenting with half-compiled plugins may be due to overlooked mistakes in that code. All I was using at the time was a Saw Wave, Peaking Filter, Cathedral Limiter.

At 13:30 I charged into woodwork on this, the last dry day forecast for weeks. With my mum's help I routed the joints and slots for CD Shelves Iteration 2. The Bosch bit is exactly 12mm, a fraction too small to create slots for 12mm MDF, so I needed to rout each joint twice, the second by about 0.2mm wider. This was enough. Then, masking, and at 15:10, spray painting. Even at 5 degrees, the paint dried quickly, perhaps because I kept the paint can inside at a cosy 18 degrees. By 16:20, the shelves were painted. A record time. Spray paint is much faster than my water-based stain.

It's Friday and I've not done a thing on The Modern Game this week. I may charge to finish the shelves first. My mood is low to despairing, but what can we do but ignore such animals and work at our best. Fate plays its hand and we must accept our cards. All we can do each day is try our best, and try to learn as we go.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock.

Woodwork Postponed, Painting Repair and Restoration

I'd hoped to rout new shelves, but it was too cold and I feared the dampness of my visible breath. Tested the new 12mm bit. The channel was too small for 12mm MDF, I wondered if the cold made the channel smaller, but perhaps not enough to make a difference. I'll aim to do this tomorrow afternoon, a still cold 5 degrees due, but better than a week of rain also forecast.

Then, work on painting restoration. After the first patch, a second yesterday to level it, and today a first application of paint.

This evening, an update to Prometheus to return the amount of pre-start silence at the start of a song; then a migraine on the left side of my head which continues agonisingly. I want to sit in the dark.

Fame at Last

Begun with singing some quick vocal for 'The Trees'. I had only about 20 minutes spare, so made the most of the time.

Then, a full day of admin on Christmas Tails and the new single, Will You Be My Snowflake? Time was when I'd finish an album and move on, now the finishing stage is full of work, which at times seems never ending. I filed Christmas Tails and sent out an email to all of the artists with a vital update. I noticed that today's Crewe & Nantwich Chronicle has a huge story about the album, so I thought this was the best time to list the album.

So, I did this, and added all tracks with lyrics, credits, ISRC and ISWC codes, and other details. This will be invisible to purchasers for now, apart from the first overture track, but it's still vital. Then, sending a preview to all artists.

Then, work on the Will You Be My Snowflake? single. Transcribed the sheet music for the two other tracks, this took a few hours. 'Heaven's Day' had to be entered manually. After that, registration of the music in various places. Musicbrainz should now (or should eventually...) list all of the tracks and artists for both albums. This meant creating the first official listings for many of the contributors, such as The Forrest Dick Band (Mick Dick and Mortimer C. Forrest, both of which are aliases).

I also had time to test the new router bits. They seemed to fit but I didn't give them a spin. I now have an urgent need for new shelves. The old ones are sagging millimetre by millimetre each day. Last night another DVD fell over due to shelf droop. We live and learn. I've removed all of the contents now. I've decided to get 5th wall bracket to ne fitted below and in the centre to reinforce everything. There is something inherently unstable with holding a rack or cabinet by the sides rather than underneath. I'll do both for iteration 2.

This evening I see that the miniature that David Lawton has painted of me is currently on exhibition in The Royal Miniature Society exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London, not far from Tate Modern. I feel famous today. Photo by Tom Mulliner.

Christmas Tails Overture, Will You Be My Snowflake Single

A super day of music work.

Started by creating an overture track for Christmas Tails. I needed a track that would be free to pre-buyers of the album, and one that acts as the free preview for browsers. It's an impossible choice to choose one of the tracks, which I consider equal, so this solves the problem. Like before, it's a medley which includes all tracks, but I with a church organ blasting out some festive sounding chords behind, where every chord seems to be suspended with Catholic cadences until the joyous C-Major at the end.

Then, work on a cover for my 'Will You Be My Snowflake?' single (with newly added question mark to the title). I'd already formed a sort of small album, with three tracks, and had thought about expanding it into 4 or 6, but then it wouldn't be ready until next year, by which time things may have changed and these may feel out of date. Up against a time wall I've decided to release them in mid-December.

The cover started with a photo of myself and some experiments with a snowflake fractal. That didn't work, so I tried a leaf brush acting as a negative mask and that looked rather pretty. Then text choice and placement. The whole thing took a couple of hours. The final touch was a star/snowflake sort of shape made using Genetica. Here is the finished cover:

After that, creation of the iTunes Digital Booklet (complete with lyrics), dividing the tracks, sending them for distribution, and the start of listing them in my catalogue. I still need to work on the sheet music and many other details; but that completes my 12th release of 2025, with The Modern Game already planned for the first month of 2026. A bumper year for new music.

In between I've worked on Christmas Tails a few times. This evening Andrew sent in a new version of his track, so the album is now complete. I'm awaiting a few small details for the filing process, and lots of background admin now needs to be done. Last time I filed it all with Musicbrainz, and will do the same here.

A last job of the evening was a two mile walk in the rain to collect my new router bits.

Christmas Tails Assembly

A full day of work on Christmas Tails, so much work. First working out the track order, setting the basic per track details and filing all of this. Then setting the master levels, and dividing the album into tracks. Plus, the visible track lists and lengths for the CD artwork, checking the lyrics. Lots of jobs.

One snag is the need for one 'free' track or one 'showcase' track, which is a key feature of Bandcamp. This was the reason I created a medley last time, a sort of overture. I may have to do the same here.

I listened to each track and checked the lyrics word by work as I listened. Amazingly (apart from my track, and Deborah's, of course) only one track, John Lindley's, had the completely correct lyrics. Each had at least one mistake, but one song clearly had 'first draft' lyrics with whole lines being different.

Here, exclusively for you good people, is the track list and order so far...

It may yet change. The release date is set for November 28th but people can pre-order it now.

Shelves Foiled, Mostly Modern Game Work

Awake for hours, ready to charge with great energy into routing my new shelves, on this, the warmest (well, mildest, at 11 degrees) and driest day for a few weeks. I woke early, assembled the wood, the hoover, rulers, and everything... but hit s snag. I'd not used the 12mm router bit, and the two that my father had used imperial shaft sizes - how I hate inches! The router comes with a few collets, but none would fit either of these, which is even more stupefying as almost all router bits come in a limited range of sizes. I sighed and was resigned to buying a new bit with the correct 8mm shaft. B & Q didn't have any (the very limited ones on offer, again stupefying, were also in inches. If I were prime minister I'd tax every device that features inches, pounds, pints, miles; it would raise money and help engineering). I ordered a set online, so must wait days, and now, my shelves which could have been completed today will take weeks. I should have tested the 12mm bit far earlier.

After that, a productive day of music. First, updating the cover artwork, and creating the 14 page iTunes Digital Booklet.

Here's the final cover (ta da!):

Then mixing the album again. In the night I thought it would be a good idea to release my Christmas song, and it's fellow two songs, as a single or EP now, rather than wait a year, so I've manically worked on mastering this. A single today has 3 tracks at most, but an EP 4 to 6, so I've toyed with making a new one. I looked at some existing songs and found a sequence inspired by Matt Gray's theme to Dominator on the Commodore 64. I quickly wrote some words on what this time of year is like; currently entitled 'Burn Me Cold':

Burn Me Cold

Dark dark November
Frigid in my bones
Everybody needin'
Money running low
It's a black white season
Don't I know

Windows are a leakin'
Saving up the mould
Give me some salvation
Dear dear Lord
And the screens that I stare at
Burn me cold

Later on, some initial mixing and track ordering for Christmas Tails. Work on that will start tomorrow.

Onwards!

The Modern Game 4 Continues, Shelf Marking

A full day of work on The Modern Game, 4th version. Created a new edit of the 'Masculinity Two' video for the longer album version, and new lyric overlays for 'The Games Played As Children', and added the new (much better!) vocals for this.

Then more work on the cover, small changes. I've mirrored the 'stave' image, placing it on the left. Then created the CD surface artwork, and more on the rear. Then small updates and fixes to the lyric booklet. Most of the artwork is now done in draft, though the images for the iTunes booklet remain.

Then final volume setting, for mastering, and lots more mixing and adjusting. 'Beyond Mars' gets brighter and brighter with each edit. The pianos are now brash and tinkly compared to the original mix; but they need to be, there are so few high frequencies here. There's more mixing to do on all tracks.

I still need to work on new videos for everything, though I hope that I can use the little animations I've created as Spotify Canvases. I expect it'll be 2 or 3 days work to make 10 or so videos, so this simple remaster will still take 3 full weeks, almost all of November.

Also today, work on the new shelves, marking out. The weather is set to rain and be very cold, so I must work on shelves tomorrow. Only 8 degrees, but still the warmest day, and so the best for spray painting. I have very limited resources here, and must pull the semi-dry work inside to dry after spraying. Steps: routing, spraying, assembly joint by joint, fitting to wall to mark and drill, final fitting.

The Christmas Tails tracks are all in. I need to organise these and master the album next week. This must, and should, take a day.

Just watched a documentary about Richard Burton. Inspirational, at any age, even as I approach the age at which he died.

Painting Repair, New Modern Game Cover, Deadlines

A busy day, as well as an angrily miserable one due to the dark weather, persistent rain and dark outlook. I was told yesterday that I was doing fine, as I had a legacy. For whom, exactly? I seem to be terminally obscure. From games, books, paintings, music; nothing is remotely popular or remotely valued. Well, all I can do is keep creating and trying to improve in my creations.

Started today by printing some photos from 2024 events. Then some work on a painting restoration job. I need to patch a torn canvas and repaint to cover the damage. It's a cheap cotton canvas, barely stretched and the wedges were not correctly used. I thought that a very thin cotton patch would be best, almost like silk. I found a white cotton handkerchief for this. I considered two main options for glue, either Paraloid B72 resin; an acrylic resin which is solvent based and archival, or PVA. Acrylic medium is possible, and stable, but it becomes waterproof and hard to remove. PVA remains soluble, and forms a hygroscopic relationship with the canvas. PVA can become mouldy.

I has a spare small canvas of the same material, so performed a test.

The B72 was my primary choice. It was difficult to apply as expected, with a mix of resin and acetone. The resin seeped through the canvas and left a thick hard gloss finish where visible. The patch was somewhat stiff when dry. The PVA discoloured the area with its water, but I expected that this effect would be minimal on a painted surface, and the result was a lot less messy. I chose PVA, using a 1:1 PVA:water mix, less water than in my test, then added a layer of Golden GAC400, an acrylic stiffening agent.

The result was good, though the tear in the painting remained concave, mirroring its shape from the front, as though the canvas was stretched and dented by an impact. This may be difficult to fix; removing any dent in semi-rigid fabric like this may be impossible, it's a bit like removing a dent in a sheet of tin foil. However, I plan on adding a thicker and stiffer patch over this, made from the test canvas.

After that work, I got to work on The Modern Game artwork. I like the Marius cover, so the main job is changing the name. As with Marius, I drew the name by hand. Here it is so far:

Then, work on the vocals for 'The Trees' and 'The Games Played As Children'. They are adequate, certainly better than the old ones, but I didn't feel in the mood and felt tired and restricted. I may re-record everything.

Throughout the day I've also worked on a new music pack for Flatspace, one for Another Violet Night.

It's now one day until the deadline for the Christmas Tails tracks. All of the tracks bar one were sent in weeks ago, and I'm still waiting for one. I have zero tolerance for people who miss deadlines. Deadlines are an excellent test of honesty and reliability. Not one minute's grace will be offered.

Singeth Sheet Music, CD Shelves II Begin

A slower day today which included a nice visit from a friend.

Several hours were spent working on the Fall in Green sheet music for our Christmas Tails entry, 'Singeth To The Body Winter'. It's a simple tune and took far longer than expected. It is in essence a string quartet, so it is scored as such. There's a clarinet in there, I may add that later.

Then, sawed some wood for 'CD Shelves II'; a second, hopefully improved, version of the first rack, which are too weak. These will use 12mm MDF throughout, have a vertical spine which runs from top to bottom, be spray painted before assembly, and have each joint fixed and glued once at a time over several days rather than all at once, with the aim of greater angle accuracy and less internal stress. The next step is the 12mm routing. I did the sawing today outside as today looks like the only dry day within the next two weeks.

Nothing else done, yet my to-do list is bigger than ever.

Another Violet Night Review

First album review:

“With Another Violet Night Mark Sheeky stands like an Easter Island head on the Cheshire Plain, a conduit of the passing ages but placed in the 21st century here and now. Songs to see you through, a flood of media and gadgets which define the now, to whistle defiantly as the familiar powers that be play on our paranoia.

On that windswept Cheshire Plain the sounds of Syd Barret, Depeche Mode, the Penguin Café and John Taverner, travelled the airwaves to the stone edifice of Mark Sheeky who was listening and absorbing nuances, gathering, mixing and adding his own identity.

Here are tunes and words to give courage in the predicament of a cruelly evolving world where defence comes in the form of show tunes and music hall with synth beats to accompany the disco of disaster.

In this instance the show tunes are an insight into the creative process where this is, the Mark Sheeky show.”

Peter Lilley, Nov 2025

Good Vibrations, Remasters

A nice singalong at the fortnightly Good Vibrations event in the library. I felt somewhat weak and exhausted and didn't play well, but the joy of these events is that it didn't matter, the music is part chaos but all joyous. Mike's leadership of each song is so vital. The after show lunches are becoming special events in themselves. We had a table of nine today, a record. We may need to start to book.

After that, lots of shopping for various winter related oddities like presents, spray paint, Japanese foodstuffs, old CDs.

As I've said to an interminable degree, I had hoped to complete a remaster of The Myth Of Sisyphus this year; with my plan of remastering one old album for each new one, but the change of distributor meant remastering a lot along the way for various reasons, so Sisyphus must wait! This should be no surprise, as I found out today that I've released a new (or remastered - which for me means partly re-recorded) album every month but one this year:

2025 Releases

Jan - Fear Of The Thing Itself
Feb - The Dusty Mirror
Mar -
Apr - Letters From A Square Spoon [new]
May - The Arcangel Soundtrack
Jun - Flatspace (The Official Soundtrack)
Jul - Finnegans Judgement
Aug - The End And The Beginning
Sep - All Controlled By Someone [new]
Oct - Another Violet Night [new]
Nov - Christmas Tails [new]
Dec - Tree Of Keys

Modern Game 4 Lyric Videos, Argus v1.61

Yesterday, bought more wood for shelves part 2, plus some for a future wardrobe.

Mixed the new Modern Game a little, making important changes. Most of the changes are movements from the bass, adding or enhancing higher frequencies. I also prepared for more vocals, for the last track 'The Trees', although today I realised that I'll have to re-record the vocals for the B-Side to 'Masculinity Two' too, a strange and fear-laden song called 'The Games Played As Children'.

Today, a long and often frustrating day creating the overlay text for animated lyric videos for these songs. I wanted to get the basics of the subtitles for every track. It's past 7pm and all are just about finished, apart from those two tracks that need new vocals. The subtitles were complicated by the fact that the three extant music videos are 30 FPS, when I now typically animate (and create the subtitles) at 25 FPS, so three of the videos had different timing and different frame numbers. A change I made to the last version of Argus also stopped my ability to split up the Set Modulator events, so I re-added the feature and therefore updated Argus to v1.61.

I've generally felt cold, weak, ill and anxious to the point of despair; yet used this as an incentive to work as steadily as ever. I like these songs more and more, even though I've heard them thousands of times, and it's important that the words and meanings, their art, is shared as best I can. So, the job of making the videos is, I think, necessary, so the faster I can complete this necessary job the better.

Other jobs on this album are those new vocals, and the lyric overlays for those; new cover artwork; updating the lyric booklet (one word has changed in the lyrics, and some capitalisation, I even spotted a glaring error); a new iTunes Digital Booklet; mastering and final balancing; dividing the tracks; admin and registration of the new works; final videos created, compiled, uploaded.

The last of the Electric Sprout songs should be coming very soon, so I must also master that. My hopes of remastering or re-recording The Myth of Sisyphus this year are perhaps overly ambitious, especially as I need to transcribe the sheet music for that. I must also complete the new shelves this month, and perhaps a painting for the Nantwich Open Art Exhibition... and I'd hoped to record some audiobooks and perhaps work on a new book.

Onwards we battle.

Binary Quantum Gravity

I've been thinking about some issues regarding gravity, and the need for gravity to be quantised, not for reasons of unifying any current laws of physics, but due to philosophical problems with classical gravity.

For gravity to operate, the curvature of space at every point needs to be stored. Mass shines out its existence at the speed of light with a ray of communication. Some points of space are more curved than others, depending on the strength of the gravity, but in essence this 'strength' is a simple result of the density of the rays emitted from the massive object. Let's assume these rays are streams of particles, the so-called graviton.

In classical gravity, this curvature of space can vary smoothly; sometimes shallow, sometimes steep. I presume that in a place without mass, space would be flat.

Space must be divided into tiny cells, grids, which store information like this. If not, there would be no sense of scale, no root, things would slide to infinity. Classical gravity has this problem, quantum mechanics does not; and the quantum must be correct. There are no infinities in the universe. One infinity would create another, and quickly and infinite number of infinite everything. If we find or need infinities, we, I submit, are wrong.

So, space is divided into cells which store information on the curvature of space into time. What sort of value is this? We may imagine it's a variable quantity, a 'steep' curve, a 'shallow' curve, no curve, an 'infinitely steep' curve. If this were the case then what value is the curvature of space on the boundaries between cells?

Thinking of this reminded me of the problem of dithering a sound wave into a low-bit resolution. I've written another piece here about audio dithering and quantum mechanics but I'll recapitulate. When digitising a smooth wave, we can assign a value to the nearest number that the wave amplitude corresponds with, sort of like fitting the wave into a series of boxes and choosing the nearest box to the current amplitude. See here:

Were are converting our nice smooth wave into 8 bits of digital, the 8 boxes on the right. Value 1 is exactly in the centre of the box, so that's perfect for the top box. Value 2 is not in the middle of a box, but it has a nearest box, so we put it there. Value 3 is on a boundary though... which box do we put it into?

We can choose top or bottom consistently, but there's something not quite right about it, because the reality we are trying to represent is that the sound is half way between, not in one box or the other.

The solution to the problem is dithering. We choose a random value, roll a dice so to speak, and 50% of the time we choose the top box and 50% of the time we choose the lower. For Value 2 we choose the upper box most of the time, but sometimes choose the lower box. This random value doesn't add 'noise', it makes the results more accurate; and quantum mechanics does the same thing. Dithering in this way is how and why quantum mechanics can be both accurate and random, and how it can avoid infinities by using random values in a digital arena.

Gravity must do the same, because without it any storage of analogue information on a cell-by-cell level would create inaccuracies across the cell boundaries. So, the curvature of space must not be a variable quantity, but a binary one. At each cell of space, space is flat or infinitely curved; that is all. What do we mean by the curvature of space, and flat and infinitely curved when we have already railed against infinities? General relatively shows that spatial dimensions are curved into the time dimension. Objects move fully in space, and the faster they move, the slower they move in time. At the speed of light, an object is moving fully in space and not at all in time. Stationary objects are not moving in space but moving fully in time. As an object accelerates, its movement through time decelerates.

This seems like a smooth, analogue process, but I postulate that it is not, that it is merely two extremes. At every point we either move fully though space at the speed of light, or move fully though time and are stationary. These are the only two values for the curvature of space: zero and one. Thus the map of the spatial curvature of our solar system is not smooth, analogue, and 'greyscale', but black and speckled with white. Compare these two photographs:

The latter is a binary image of the former, it uses only black and white dots, yet from a distance, the level of grey can be inferred due to random scattering. It is in this way, I postulate, that the curvature of space is stored. Objects which move though this space move, on a per-particle basis, fully through space or fully through time, but on average, it appears that the whole object is gliding through space-time in the correct proportions.

Problems regarding infinite spatial curvature in the centre of black holes vanish; objects are either stationary or moving at the speed of light. Everything on a quantum level is only doing either of these, and in our macroscopic experience changing rapidly between the two to produce the illusion of something in between.

Looking for a Lover Version 4

Two days of work mostly on The Modern Game. Recorded new vocals for 'Looking for a Lover' and 'Coming Back to Earth' yesterday, as well as Deb's vocals for our Christmas song, and have added all of these today. 'Looking' was always a bit of a production struggle. I always thought of the song as a Thriller-era Michael Jackson song, so I wanted some staccato-style vocals, but these carry a limited tone. The first two versions of this song used relatively normal vocals throughout. Version 3 used band-limited vocals with a scratchy telephone sound, which sounded rather nice. The new version uses a bit of both, and the fourth verse doubles up the vocals in octaves for a time, then breaks into the higher pitch before the chorus.

'Coming Back to Earth' by comparison is very similar to other versions, but does benefit from new, richer vocals for the plain verses, and better bass balancing.

I've also tweaked the mixes on all tracks. 'Beyond Mars' has higher pianos. I have a book on mixing. The most useful tip, the only useful tip in the book, is that all mixing desks have a high pass (bass-cut) switch and that most tracks are high passed. They cite a piano as an example of what not to high pass, which is terrible advice. Pianos and vocals are almost the only things that are always high passed. Every piano on a rock or pop song is twinkly and pushed into the high frequencies. A natural classical piano is quite muffly most of the time, and fits very closely within the frequency range of a voice, which is why it's best moved up, even the bass notes are high passed; if not especially so because they can so easily boom.

All songs are now finished apart from 'The Trees', which needs new vocals, and the final mixing and mastering. This is only the first half of the remaster; the new art and new lyric videos will probably take longer than the music.

I'm unhappy with my CD shelves, which are drooping in the middle by about 9mm. A shelf should be considerably heavier than the weight of the objects on it; this rule is one I've only just made and discovered after making these. Well, version 1 of everything is always, and should always be, about learning. I can re-use the screws, fittings, and everything apart from the wood, so a second version of the shelves is now in planning.

Modern Game 4 Recording

Things feel bleak at the moment. The economy seems to be depressed, even considering this is a traditional annual low. I feel hounded by requests and favours. I expect things come in waves, so can hope for some glimmers of success. Christmas Tails is getting some nice publicity courtesy of local journalist friends, so this is one positive. Andrew send me his tune for the album today. On the face of it it's a simple rendition of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem', yet, as in all of his music, he's managed make it full of fun and joy.

Another glimmer is my singing. The most recent, third, Modern Game re-recording was at the start of 2022. I recorded new vocals for 'Love in a Hopeless World' and 'House of Glass' today and am astonished at how much easier I found the process than before, and how much instantly better the results are than those of a mere 3 years ago. So, 3 years can be a long time.

I will keep some of the old vocals. The distorted rock vocals in 'Coming Back to Earth' are fine. The hard part now is the general mixing, which is down to the complex and non-standard arrangements with many of the songs. 'Two Kinds of Animals' has huge quiet bits, then an explosion of sound effects, vocoder megaphone speech, and other things which can't be 'mixed' in a true sense, so these sections can throw off checks of global balance. The pop songs like the two I recorded today are much easier; most were broadly fine but benefitted from less bass and a few more high pass filters.

In bleak times or times of plenty we must work just as hard, steadily heaving our rock.

Last night was the television joy of Celebrity Traitors, a rare example of a contemporary programme I've watched. In this case, Deb and I watched it all together over the weeks. It was a gripping series, and genuinely moving to see Alan Carr win.

Tonight is the preview of the Castle Park Open Art Exhibition and Colin from Galleria Balmain should be there, which will be nice. I must sell a painting here, and if so it will be 'Song of Experience'...

Now, I must attend to my outfit.

The Modern Game 4, Phone Irks, Aldora Britain

A day of work on The Modern Game remaster. It's amazing how much my voice has changed and improved since even that 3rd recording of it. Some tracks didn't really benefit much from new vocals, so some are more or less complete. 'Masculinity Two' was remixed a little. New vocals for 'Beyond Mars' and 'Two Kinds Of Animals'. Mars is a complex mix, it's largely piano, strings, vocals; a lot of mid-range sounds, not much bass, and even fewer high frequency sounds.

I had a message that my phone is not 4G compatible; hugely annoying as my mum bought this phone a couple of months ago from a phone shop with the specific aim of buying 4G phones for myself and herself. It seems that neither hers nor mine is 4G and that she was mis-sold. I did suspect my phone wasn't; the little '4G' symbol wasn't on screen, and my phone is full of bugs and doesn't appear to be a UK phone (the only city available in the time zone settings is Beijing). Similar (but again hopefully 4G) phones are now in short supply and expensive, so two for £70 have been ordered, with a long wait and a hope that these will work.

Aldora Britain published my interview, then asked for payment, which was explicitly stated as not necessary beforehand. Despite that, I of course expected this. Aldora Britain have something of a nagging and scamming reputation, but it's a good enough article, and I am, at very least, in a small group with the other artists in the issue. If I had an interview in a magazine I'd buy the magazine, so I made a voluntary payment. I will wait to see how far they promote their magazine.

Music Dream, Christmas Tails Cover Reveal, Prometheus v3.77

I watched an episode of Tracking Sounds  on YouTube, featuring 'Madam Who?' last night. What great pop songs she writes and produces. After the hour of listening, I listened to many of her singles. Pure pop, great melodies, intelligent lyrics. I can hear the Go-Go's influence.

I slept badly. I dreamt that I was set to meet Pete Saxer, for a long stay of some sort. While all packed and ready I'd set my watch oddly, and confused the alarm time and the actual time so I missed the bus in great disappointment. A second dream featured myself and Deb, playing in a music performance. A band of 4 or 5 young men, boys to us, were playing as a band too. I discussed synthesizers with them. Their instruments were simple, amateurish in their way, but they had youth and the joy of naïve mistakes.

Today, I completed a text interview today from a music zine and record label called Aldora Britain. I noticed that I am (rather than 'we are') in the local press with a Christmas Tails story written by Jonathan White. This was sent out before the cover creation day, a second story was submitted very recently with photos from the day, including photos of the artists.

It's also the public 'cover reveal' for the album. Here it is:

Most of today was spent fixing a bug in Prometheus, a rare thing now. The program can set an parameter in a playing instrument, track, or the whole song. Since v2.20 in 2010 these can slide from one value to another, so I can, for example, gradually fade down the volume of a track, or turn up the reverb wet. In all this time I've never faded two different parameters over the same space of time. This is quite legal and was designed to be possible, but the logic of what to fade to was a bit scrambled and didn't work. In fact I can start a fade of, say, pitch, and end the fade as, say, amplitude and, until today, the second value would be considered pitch! In all of the years I'd not noticed this obvious bug.

So I spent today fixing this. I also added the feature to automatically name a track by the first instrument played on it. So, now Prometheus is at v3.77.

I'm feeling very musically inspired. I've started the basic admin of the remaster/re-recording of The Modern Game. Listening back, there are some vocal elements that I can do much better today. Some of the first version vocals, the weak but emotional 'All The Broken Flowers' will be kept. I want to get this all out of the way, and the next one, so I can work on new things.

Fall in Green Production, CD Sorting

Today, finalised the music for the Christmas Tails Fall in Green track. Deb wrote the words a couple of weeks ago. I started by experimenting with keyboard sounds and modified the 'Tron Flute' to be something like Tron Strings, a sort of crackly and band limited string quartet. I played a few chords while mentally running though the words. The melody was largely in the bass, the music was essentially some chords which shifted majestically.

Today I experimented with a few layers, but this fundamentally live piece worked largely as played. I've added a deeper bass for some parts, and added an alien clarinet sound here and there. One final thing was adding some ambience, some live scenery, so I took a live recording. I think all is ready for Deb's vocals.

Everything was complete by 1pm.

Most of the day was spent updating my old CD collection, those 'second rate' discs without cases. I've created, printed, and cut new artwork for the CDs which lacked it and assembled many with new cases, including the 9-discs of Daniel Barenboim playing the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. A lot of these 'second rate' discs are best-of discs. I'm unsure what is worth keeping, though some are decades old and hold a special memory, rather than being good quality music. I can re-buy some, like 'Heart and Soul', the T'Pau album. Some, like Bucks Fizz' Legends (I can hear you applaud my taste) are out of print. I always preferred actual albums rather than anything best-of.

I may bin a few. Lots of discs have already been binned today. Aphex Twin (boring, a gift), even a Missa Solemnis; I don't need lots of versions of this. I'm wondering whether it's worth keeping my 9 CDs of the complete Bruckner Symphonies, when I found them forgettable. I'll keep Sibelius and Mendelssohn, and probably the Wagner Operas. My aim should be to create a palette, a wide gamut of quality. I'll keep Punishment of Luxury, and The Mothers of Invention album for now. I'll ditch Abba Gold, and all of Yes with joy. 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' is an interesting production, but even that, their only hit, is hardly a good song; and everything else Yes ever did is massively worse. I don't have that Trevor Horn album anyway.

Frodsham, CD Shelves, Winter Party Poster, Au Revoir Distrokid

Frenetic days. A trip to Frodsham yesterday to deliver my three paintings to Castle Park Arts Centre, then back home and a quick type up of Wednesday's event to form some sort of press release.

Then, putting up my CD shelves, which was exhausting. Drilling the wall and fitting the rawl plugs wasn't not too difficult, but the screws did not want to go in, they entered half way and spun like crazy, until forced. I half think that the speed of the screw was causing the plug to melt or twist somehow. After this, a trip to Deb's for some more tweaks, mostly aesthetic to the alcove shelves.

Today I moved by CD collection from one set of drawers to the new shelves. I now have the sort of CD shelves I could only have dreamed of in the 90s, and perhaps even then secretly wanted.

I love jewel cases, and often throw away CDs which ship in those horrid cardboard cases. My old theory was to amass 100 CDs, and cast away any that were worse than those 100, thus evolving the best 100 CDs evet; but I found myself wanting more than 100, so I kept some. These were mostly filed, disc only with minimum artwork, in one of those books where the plain discs can be slotted in. That book now presents a problem, I want to remove those discs and put the discs back into CD jewel cases.

This will take days. I want to make and print my own artwork for each disc, I at least need to see the spine. I already feel overwhelmed at the work.

I had news that my talk at Macclesfield College due this week, in planning since July, has been magically cancelled yet again. This date has already been set three times. I can't afford to waste more time on this.

The album cover is finalised, the big public reveal set for Wednesday. Another job done today was the design of the poster for the Crewe Library Winter Party, and the final cancellation of my remaining Distrokid releases. I must, therefore, get working on the fourth recording of The Modern Game this month. My priority though, is finishing the music for the Fall in Green Christmas Tails track. This is becoming urgent.

Onwards I dart.