Compromise

Sometimes nearly good enough is as good as it gets.
Compromising is a difficult thing to do especially when you're 99% there. It's like riding a bicycle with a flat tyre that last mile home because it's still quicker than walking. If the end result is all one is after does it matter how it is achieved?
In my case, no. So it has been this past week with trying to iron out a couple of problems with Windows software and trying to get it to run successfully on Linux. The end result is that I got my way but I had to be content with 99% and a couple of work-arounds. This means that time and money invested in my studio has been well spent. I can still do what I intended to do and that is good news.
One of those things is that I can after many years run FL Studio on my Ubuntu Studio laptop. It isn't as good as Bitwig Studio in that environment but it can be used as an audio processor and sound source which is all I need it for these days.
One thing that is working 100% is the Yamaha MU100. As you can see I've created my first patch and it sounds amazing. I could spend hours sound designing, it's a lot of fun and very rewarding especially as I can multi-sample my results into Bitwig.
I intend to add one more piece of kit to the studio and then that's it. I will have to wait, there are more pressing things that I need to spend money on.
Maybe I'll treat myself at Christmas.

Layers Of Complexity

I've learned a valuable lesson.
Years ago when I started writing my own tunes I had few sound sources and I wondered where people got their sounds from. In the 80's there weren't any samplers to speak of until the Fairlight. What I thought was that electronic bands had access to a multitude of synths and that they messed around with them until they found the right sound. I have spent hours sound designing only to settle on something that was only 'near enough'.
Last week I bought the Yamaha MU100 simply because it could layer 4 sounds at once, I thought that might be interesting. It's a brilliant sound module for a whole load of other reasons, too many to list here. My Korg Liverpool similarly has the ability to layer sounds but thus far I had only dabbled in that side of it. Back to the MU100. The presets for the layered sounds are nothing short of amazing. The videos I had watched online don't do them any justice. I also started double layering tracks with the RM1x and it instantly became obvious that the years I had spent thinking that amazing sounds came from a single source were totally misinformed.
I think just about every one of the tracks I have ever released had every sound as a single source sound, regardless of how many oscillators were involved. The secret all along was to get simple sounds from various sources and layer them.
I really do feel stupid. My search for those elusive sounds is over. I know how to make them now.
It's a shame it took so long.

Hey!

I've been hard at work on this track for a while now but it's finally finished.
There isn't a lot I can say here apart from the track is called "Hey!"
As usual it's available to stream and download for free from the Internet Archive and is covered by a Creative Commons licence.

Destinations

Today has been a good day.
The Bear and I went for a small adventure to Astley Book Farm. I liked it there. There were obviously plenty of books, I bought a few on maths, and the cafe is very good also. We enjoyed fish finger sandwiches and coffee and cakes, but not all at once. I recommend that if you get a chance to go you really shouldn't miss the opportunity.
I also managed to get everything working in the hardware studio. Finally!
The QY10 talked to LMMS, LMMS recorded the MIDI signals and the RM1x played the MIDI notes back with fab new voices. The only problem at the moment is that I output a type 0 MIDI file instead of a type 1 but that's my fault and I'll rectify that next time.
I have a tune and an idea on the go at the moment so I'll get on with those next weekend which fortunately is a Bank Holiday so I'll have a few spare hours for mixing and mastering.
Hopefully I'll have something to play you next weekend.

The Expanding Studio

I'm going to stop saying that I'm not going to add anything else to my studio.
Every time I say that it's complete I find something else to add. This time it was a reconditioned Lenovo laptop. I installed Ubuntu Studio on it so that it has a real-time kernel. That means much less latency when I'm running multiple pieces of software.
I'm adding it to the hardware studio because although all my old kit is wonderful the MIDI implementation isn't. Fortunately the MIDI routing in LMMS is wonderful and I can't keep adding software to my everyday laptop because it's filling up with stuff that should reside elsewhere. Hence the new laptop which is basically a glorified MIDI controller and patch-bay.
Because it does so much else it'll also be a staging post for new tracks on their way to the software studio. The workflow will allow me to get ideas off the QY10 and into a MIDI file, something it can't do as a stand-alone unit. Other tracks will stay on the hardware side and be recorded into the R8.
I'll hopefully have everything installed by this time tomorrow so I'll post a picture then. In the meantime I have to sleep before a rare day out.
There may well be a post on that also.