Friday, April 25, 2008: Messing with CR-8000
I finally had a chance this evening to fire up the CR-8000 and record it. I ran it's mono signal out into my Zoom G1 pedal then took the stereo "headphone" out signal from that and ran it into the Korg Mini Kaoss Pad, and on into the Zoom MRS8 recorder.
I discovered that the massive "tempo" dial needs some cleaning attention as it doesn't like to stay in place at first and after settling on a beat per minute setting the internal clock tends to drift off after about two minutes, varying the tempo by about 2 or 3 beat per minute. This seems to be similar to the standard analog keyboard problem of oscillator drift. Or maybe these old pre-MIDI boxes with voltage controlled clocks just sucked. I am not sure. I does make for a some challenges when recording, especially when one gets used to the digital taskmaster of the MIDI sync.
However when I recorded several drum track over top of each other the drift actually gave it some weird poly-rhythms and spooky feels. The sort of thing MIDI sync would be too unforgiving to allow.
I recorded about 8 drum loops at both 90 bpm and 45 bpm, each with all sorts of signal processing and foolishness. The results are a thousand year soup of nonsense that I will have to try and sort out. I can't do anything in the way of mixing until Lappy is back from the Notebook Healing House.
Thursday, April 24, 2008: 64th Floor
Tonight I joined Bonhomme, Rasputin and some other friends at some fancy-pants restaurant that is on the roof of a large building; 64 floors up I believe. The food was as outstanding as the view. I am just glad I wasn't the one who paid the bill.
The River
The view
The restaurant
Another view
The steps leading down to the restaurant
Wednesday, April 23, 2008: Roland CR-8000
While in Pantip I discovered my favorite place to buy old or used drum machines and groove boxes had an ancient Roland machine sitting there.
The Roland CR-8000 CR standing for "CompuRhythm" which implies that there was some sort of "computer" involved in calculating the complex patterns required by "rock", "slow rock", "disco" and everyone in the youth group's favorite "bosa nova". In any event such an ancient and truly analog drum box required me to at least test drive it as the price was cheap really cheap and if it functioned it would certainly provide hours of amusement in conjunction junction with The Sherman Filter Bank and or the Mini Kaoss Pad.
I've bought several items from this shop already. My second Roland MC-303, my Emu Vintage Keys, my Korg EA-1, and of course my Yamaha AN200. The last two items that I've tried (a Emu Proteus World, and a Roland TR-707) both had problems so I wasn't sure how this would go. At first it didn't go at all. The pretty lights flashed but no sound came out. This confounded the shop guy but it occured to me that items such as this have control voltage outs and ins to sync to other ancient machines not MIDI. So checking the back I found that the CV sync was set to "in". As no control voltages were coming in no sound was coming out. I switched it to "out" and behold it worked. The shop staff were amazed at my deduction. Being really old does have some advantages.
So I messed around with the machine for a bit and was satisfied that it worked well enough to buy. I will need to wipe it down and clean it up but it is now mine for about a hundred bucks.
I must say it is the ugliest machine that I own. It is made of this AWFUL brown/orange coloured plastic and the buttons are variations of ugly colours used for everything in the 1970s. It actually looks like a scientific stool sample testing machine designed by the people same who designed McDonalds restaurant furniture.
But it sounds outstanding. No PCM sample or analog modeling comes close to it.
It sure is ugly though...
Not just ugly!
But PHAT and ugly
Tuesday, April 22, 2008: Lappy Refuses
Sunday morning I went over to Siam Discovery and picked up a new "classic" 80 gig iPod. Only to find when I went home that Lappy, which has been acting oddly since about December, would not recognize the new iPod no matter what I did, or what names I called it. I have been putting off fixing Lappy because its a pain in the ass and I expected repairs to run around 6,000 baht. But I was forced today to take the humbling walk to Pantip and turn Lappy over to the repair people. The easiest way to repair a Windows problem of course is to reload Windows. So I had them remove the hard drive, stick it in a USB box and gave them instructions to fix Lappy and put a new fangled 250 gig hard drive in it. That should last me until next year.
In the mean time I have reloaded iTunes on Ol' Clunky and moved all my tunes (43 gigs worth) over there. Now the new iPod is syncing it all and soon I will have tunage again. Huzzah.
Big Rain
Saturday, April 19, 2008: Everything Breaks
Today I walked over to MBK and put my video camera in the repair shop. The touch-screen viewer had gone from normal, to 1974 bus station TV looks, to nothing... blank... dead. The plan was to fix it, then either repair or replace my camera which is suffering from age, being banged around in my pocket for nearly four years and being dropped in the snow.
However...
A few hours after dropping off the video camera my iPod began cutting out on one side. I thought it was the headphones but upon purchasing a new set I discovered it was in fact THE PLUG. The simple 3 dollar part. The Apple Service people informed me that they wouldn't repair it but that Apple would replace my model with a new one of the exact same type and capacity for the meager price of 6,000 baht (200 bucks roughly)... When the brand new iPod Classic 80 gig machine is only 3,000 baht more...
Not sure what I will do but at this point the new iPod route seems the best.
Afterwards I met up with Bonhomme and we did the usual wandering about, eating at Fuji and drifting eventually over to World Tard for yet more Starbucks.
A view to Central World Trade
Friday, April 18, 2008: Friday Construction
building the new BTS Station
The new BTS Line will run out to the new Airport
Thursday, April 17, 2008: Soundscaping the Bass Station
I spent this evening recording. I did some experiments running the Novation Bass Station through the DOD 12 second delay, then on to the Korg Mini-Kaoss Pad by way of the Cloud 9 Tremolo pedal, Digitech DigiDelay and Boss DD-20. The soundscape results were good. As much as I love the XioSynth and it's 3 oscillators there is just something about the rawness of the wave forms in the Bass Station that make it best suited for this sort of thing.
Many machines, many wires...
The Korg Mini-Kaoss Pad on top of the DOD 12 second delay
My trusty old Novation Bass Station
Messing with the tonal loop thanks to the Korg Mini-Kaoss Pad
Wednesday, April 16, 2008: Rainy Season Begins
It's not fog, its rain...
We had the first big rain this afternoon. The up side is that it breaks the heat but the downside is that it will be cloudier and rainier during the day for the next six months.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008: No Traffic
No Traffic
Song Kran ends tomorrow so there is still no traffic at all during the day. I think a large part of the population go out of town or up country during the holiday. Things were very quiet around here today. There are some hangovers.
Monday, April 14, 2008: Song Kran
Today Sandy, Julian, our American friend John and I went over to Sandy's Sister Dang's for Song Kran. We took a taxi over and once we'd stowed our stuff inside the house joined in the water throwing which went on until sun down.
Throwing water
We walked over to the restaurant near the Khlong afterwards and picked up ample food for everyone and then had a large meal.
Friday, April 11, 2008: Last Day for Shopping
I managed to get to Currahee today. Afterwards I had a nice breakfast at the Swan then did some pre-Song Kran shopping. I am not sure where we will be going this year.
Further Progress
A train passes under the construction
Another view
Tuesday, April 8, 2008: Back
I'm back home again. This morning I made a run over to the Swan for some breakfast. I have missed the sausages and the proper tea.
Busy construction
Sunday, April 6, 2008: Sun, Rain, Elephants
A view
Breakfast was had at La Croisette (the refuge from the rain restaurant) today. It was a good meal and the portions were very generous. The bread was outstanding although the bacon was less so. The coffee is excellent.
First coffee
Around the city
Traffic near Central Market
Central Market
After more shopping it was back over to the river front just in time for another big storm to blow in. It came at almost the exact same time of day as yesterday and refuge was saught in the very same place. Some fellow and his elephant also saught refuge from the rain there... The staff of La Croisette fed Mr. Elephant some bananas. It was strange enough a scene for me to ignore my usual fear of elephants and get some photos.
Look who's here
Only until the rain stops
The rain lasted about half an hour then died out. Once it had Mr. Elephant and friend headed along their way.
Saturday, April 5, 2008: Lazy City
Up early and out to FCC for breakfast before some shopping. Over all a lovely day.
Breakfast at FCC
Except when a big storm suddenly blew in. You could see it coming rather quickly up the river so refuge was saught coffee had.
Stormy Weather
Big wind
Our refuge from the storm
Safe and dry
Friday, April 4, 2008: Visa Run
Three months have passed since my return from Christmas so its time to climb aboard a plane and go on a visa run. The cheapest place to go is Phnom Penh. The drive out to the Airport was brutal. I had this halfwit taxi driver who refused to go on to the tollways, even though I would have paid the costs. Only towards the end of the drive did he manage to get on the highway. The rest of the drive was street level in the perpetual traffic jam.
Once I was at the Airport I checked in and did all that stuff then waited at the gate when the time came. It's a new airport but we're still required to take the stupid bus over to the short run flight and go up the Beatles staircase. Very annoying.
This is not progress
On our way
Once we'd arrived it was to the Hotel and then off for dinner at FCC.
The FCC roof
Phnom Penh at night
