Yamaha SY-85, Mechanical Tartrazine List

A busy day, but a sad day too. Busy because I've finally finished recording my old SY-85 music from 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 or so. After 2002 I started to use my software NosieStation, which, at the time, I thought was better - it ultimately became so, but the music of the SY-85 was really good quality in tone. It was the lack of finesse, fine control, that made it less expressive when sequenced using MED, but still, the sound of this synthesizer was, at times, lovely.

Today I recorded the last 22 tracks. These all used a mix of samples and synth, so needed to be fed through a mixer. I put the Zoom H4 recorder on a camera tripod to make it hover, neatly, in space while the many cables gently plugged into it. The overall sound quality was exceptional. I started with Overlander, the theme to my PC game, which was only used on the Xing Interactive CD version of the game, a bonus game which was bundled with Trax and Roton. The two Roton themes were also recorded today. Everything went well except for a track called Bullet, which has a similar feeling to 'Refuge' from Synaesthesia. The synth file was corrupt, so I had to re-create the instruments. In the end, the result was very similar to my Minidisc reference copy - not all tracks were recorded to Minidisc, so I'm lucky to have that reference copy.

Now, all 51 tracks from those days are recorded in superb quality: 2 hours 49 mins of music. They include The Arcangel Soundtrack plus one or two extra tracks, similar in style or others which were written for the game but unused. They also include all of the first Synaesthesia album, including two alternative, early versions, of tracks. There are game themes here, and other pretty tunes in the style of Jean-Michel Jarre; and other 90s fare, like my club remix of the Mission Impossible theme.

I bought the Yamaha SY-85 new in 1998 and it became a music workhorse for a few years, driven by OctaMED on Amiga, then MED on PC too. I recorded those two full albums on it, and I've sampled just about every sound it has; and its sound has partly become my sound over the years. I'm sad that I've now recorded everything I made with it and, today, restored the Factory Set. It's taken a lot of work and money to fit a new drive and get it refurbished, make it as good as new; ready to sell.

I think it's fair to say that this instrument has changed my life, not necessarily transformed me as a musician; that was a very slow, very steady growth. Before I sat at a real piano in 2008 or 2009, I could barely play a note live, but the keyboard has given me so much of its sound and colour over the years, and even now, the bulk of the sounds I use originate with it. I've taken this keyboard to Macclesfield many times for the Mash art performance nights, to the ArtSwarm live events, and perhaps most memorably to the Electric Picture House to perform The Spiral Staircase live with it.

I need a new synthesizer and haven't room to keep a second of this size, and for live performance would prefer something longer, and lighter, and newer, so I'll soon say goodbye and thank you to this great electric friend, Serial No. LM01014. It seems that many of these were not looked after as well as mine, which remains almost as good as new after 23 years, and I've certainly proved that, even today, MED Soundstudio can still make use of it. I hope its new owner gets even a fragment of what it's given me over the years.

For reference, here are all of the tracks I've recorded:

Adagio, Archetypes Theme, Bort, Bort Extended, Bort Samples, Boulderdash, Bullet, Burnout, Burnout Extended, Castaway, Castles, Epitaph, Gabbro, Haunted, Helix, Helix Edit, Innerlimits, Inside Messiah, Interference, Islands Of Memory, Lepton, Lonely Infinity, Lost In Space, Lotus, Metropolis 1999, Mission Impossible, Mission Impossible Edit, Mnemonic, O5, Office Life, Opiad, Orchestral, Overlander, Overlander Ingame, Overlander Level Start, Pioneer, Popcorn, Refuge, Requiem For A Scorpoid, Resurrection, Roton Jungle, Safe House, Space Infinity, SPDF, Termination, The Abyssal Plain, The Abyssal Plain Edit, The Chase, The Runner, Vektor3, White Planet.

Rehearsals

A full day of planning for the new Fall in Green show, which is 17 tracks/poems/songs long. I've decided to use the electric guitar and both small synths, so all of the existing poems, most of which used the piano, need to be redesigned. This is good, it will push me in new directions. Some of them sound really good as electronic works, though of course very different. It's difficult to get used to playing one hand above the other, with the bass level horizontally with the treble.

Playing guitar at the same time is tricky for reasons of balance, obviously I can't play guitar and synth at the same time (I pause to change key on a looping synth, but this is not easy). I did manage to experimentally hold AND pluck with the left hand using my index finger to pluck the string just after the fret - I dreamed of a new plastic adaptor to accomplish this, but in truth it would be too uncomfortable to play anything but a single note in this way. I can imagine an 'auto-strum' guitar, that should be quite possible, using a foot, or mouth or some other method; the strumming requires far less skill, for most applications, compared to the fret management. With this, we can play a bass guitar in the left hand, and a normal in the right. Easy.

Deb came round later and we ran though the tracks, just the barest of outlines with the new instruments, then played though the Sky Robes of Celeste for Friday. A long and exhausting day but, I feel, little done.

The stock market has bounced back, so they think that the Omicron variant is not severe. Even if it is, we are better off than last year when we were facing a certainly severe disease with zero vaccination and very few treatments. The government is now opening up booster, third, vaccinations to all adults after a mere 3 months. My 6-monthly appointment is due next month and apparently that is the earliest I can access it.

Tomorrow, I'll try to record the rest of the SY-85 tracks, leaving Wednesday for our only one of two rehearsal days for Monday's show. We're in the Macc Art Lounge on Thursday, and performing at the Tree of Light on Friday. I can't wait until next Tuesday when I, and we, can rest a little.

Mechanical Tartrazine, Descent Into The Maelstrom

A full day. Started by gluing my two remaining frames, the stain needed hair drying in these damp and freezing conditions. Then, the start of the music admin for Secret Electric Sorcery.

Then I decided to record more of the SY-85 tunes. One, a remake of an ancient Amiga mod called Vektor3, was compressed and could only be decompressed on an Amiga. This was a surprise. I loaded up Amiga Forever Workbench and, after realising that I needed a new library, which I placed into Workbench/Libs, the old Octamed Soundstudio loaded the file, allowing me to save it out for re-loading into the PC. I've probably not heard this tune since 1998, as I'm sure I didn't emulate the Amiga back then, and I didn't have an Amiga and PC at the same time.

So, a steady day of recording the tunes. The quality is excellent, I'm really pleased I'm recording these. One, O5, I can't remember at all, so it was nice to hear - I've probably never recorded it before. There are also two versions of The Chase (aka. The Runner), one of the tracks from the earliest version of Synaesthesia, so it was nice to hear the differences.

I've now recorded 29 tracks, all of the tracks which don't involve samples. About 15-20 tracks remain which will need a mixer.

In between I've watched a film of Philip Glass' A Descent Into The Maelström. The music, from the 1980s, sounds very like Koyaanisqatsi. The director opened the film by saying that the original reason for recording and discovering the music was Brexit - yet there were absolutely no Brexit references, and then talked about the Edgar Allen Poe tale which inspired the music... but again there were few references to that or its story apart from an opening reading and the landscape with occasional whirls of water. The film is mostly local people going about their daily lives in the snow. The director explained that he didn't want to emulate Koyaanisqatsi, but in the end he did, to the extent that clips from one could be cut into the other and nobody would notice. I think I'd have used actors, models, animation and tried to tell the Poe story, or the spirit of it, more directly.

Of course the music is very pretty and full of swirls. It made me think that Philip Glass isn't a minimalist. His music isn't about repetition and the differences between iterations. Instead, his music is chord-based rather than melody-based, and uses fast or slow arpeggios to convey urgency or relaxation.

I mention this because my old music to Arcangel, which I recorded today, was compared to Philip Glass at the time. I knew nothing of his music then. I'm unsure if my music is like his, but at the same time, there is something of it in there, mainly the doom-laden bass notes in descending chords.

Storms, Framing

With a violent wind storm, a stock market mini-crash, due to a new potentially vaccine resistant strain of Coronavirus which threatens us all, and the frenetic sales day of 'Black Friday' - I expect no creature slept well last night.

I was reminded that every animal spends every night homeless. A freezing day today. How many nests and shelters were lost to wildlife? I'm increasingly reminded how anthropocentric humanity is. Good or bad, this is the cause of climate change.

Today was spent busy, making new frames. I had three frames for 400x300mm panels to cut, but just ran out of my two wood lengths, so had one long side to cut, therefore needed one new wood length. Cutting this 300mm length from the end of a 2400mm length is not easy for reasons of space and balance, so it was easier to make a fourth frame, so I decided to make a new frame for an existing work, and chose Alien Nativity (many of these older works need new frames). That too meant de-framing and sawing the panel to size.

After that, I could cut my four wood lengths:

I've always used, since my first frame, a floorboard veneer saw for cutting - partly because it fits my 1960s mitre, a Marples Ridgway MR6807. It gives a super fine finish, as good as a 'Morso' guillotine (on plain wood, a Morso would be better for plastered or decorative mouldings - but I decorate mine after cutting).

After this, some simple painting, stain (after painting this time to create a weathered look) and assembly. Two are now glued with my band clamps, two remain for tomorrow.

Heard that I sold a painting too, Monument to Love, my third sale at the Macc Art Lounge in as many days.

Pleased to make good progress on the frames. Tomorrow I must work on essential album admin work, that will free up the week for music rehearsals and development; the two shows in December will be a lot of work. I feel I'm making progress on all fronts.

Selection Box Images, Macc Art Lounge

Staged and took some photos last night to promote the new Congleton performance of Fall in Green. It will be called Selection Box, or Winter Selection Box, and we have ambitious plans for it ranging from a new space-poetry-musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol, to games involving Christmas cards.

This one looks suitably Christmassy, too, though doesn't really convey poetry and avant-garde music.

Today, a day in the Macc Art Lounge, two painting sales. Collected 12 lengths of 2.4M wood first, to frame the English Triptych in December. Lots of admin, sorting out the poetry order of play for Neorenaissance when I returned.

Created a new profile image too, for Secret Electric Sorcery, but in the end went for a more radical crop of the front page:

Videos, Admin, Busyness

24 videos done this week. A few needed several re-takes, which in the end didn't take me that long, but even a short delay with this number of videos can lead to a long delay. This is probably the most I can efficiently create in a week. The first batch, from The Dusty Mirror, are now set up for daily release on my music channel. I'll set to making some for the Sisyphus album and Nightfood too.

Things are very hectic. We have a new, 90-minute (though casual, experimental, relaxed) performance of Fall in Green songs/poems, confirmed for December 6th in Congleton Library... very short notice, but we will rise to the occasion and produce new work, if not a new show in these 10 days. I'll use two synths and electric guitar - no piano for the first time for a Fall gig, so that will give it a modern feeling - perhaps we need to clash this with classical work... Dickens?

The music for Sky Robes of Celeste at Crewe Tree of Light is complete, I just need to rehearse it a bit more, well, actually memorise it. These two shows alone could take all of next week. I must not let myself become complacent.

I've ordered wood for framing the English Triptych in Nantwich Museum, and must collect this early tomorrow before a trip to Macclesfield to staff the Macc Art Lounge all day. This will be a key sales day, may the Gods of Ferenginar smile upon me.

I must also work on filing the album now, the essential music admin which typically takes a day, and I need the Nantwich Museum printing ready next week too, so I don't think I'll have time for more lyric videos until after the 6th. I have, joyously, also received some floppy discs which should contain SY-85 data, so I have these 40 or 50 songs to record too. That should take a week. I need to find a December with 7 weeks.

Things are a little too busy for my comfort, though I feel very inspired. Deb and I watched Wim Wenders' The Wings of Desire and it filled me with ideas, my first desire to actually make a feature film.

When daily troubles or stresses disturb me, I remind myself how utterly unimportant those things are in the long span of things. The things that are important seem to be ignored by 99.99% of humanity.

Onwards with joy and to glory.

Videos

A solid day of work on the lyric videos. I was unhappy with a tiny element of yesterday's recordings, so I decided to re-film all of the videos for The Dusty Mirror. The room was so cold that my sunglasses kept misting up due to condensation. I also needed to re-film one of the Secret Electric Sorcery videos. These are now complete and fine.

Now, the long work of assembling the ones for The Dusty Mirror, these are very lyric heavy, which makes the subtitles tedious and slow. I seemed to read these more slowly too, perhaps due to the cold room, cooling my mood towards dour seriousness. I noted that these are different art forms from either written poetry or the songs themselves.

Secret Electric Sorcery has been confirmed for release on the 18th Feb 2022.

Deb and I have also been offered a performance slot as Fall in Green in Congleton Library, a special winter-themed show on 6th December, so yes, we'll do that.

More video work tomorrow, but I, and we, have other things to do so I can't devote the time to these videos. I expect I'll finish this set of two album's worth by the end of the week. It's very hard and intense work.

More Lyric Videos

A full day of work on the new lyric videos. It will be impossible to create four album's worth in a week, each video takes took long, but I can do, at least one. The addition of subtitles adds a new focus on the words and, the visual quality is certainly better too, so I've decided to remake The Dusty Mirror videos too, and have filmed these today in the outfit of that album.

I will put these together, and the Secret Electric Sorcery videos, this week. These will eventually appear on my music channel.