Accessing the Android

OK, if I'm to blog on the go (sometimes I may venture from surgery to lawn..
And back), I had better test this Android app. You'll know it's working if you're reading this post.

And so it does. Although there appears to be a paragraph/line-break glitch. Whatever. If you're interested, I've a Samsung Galaxy S II (the contract renewal fell too early for an S III, but never mind). Why an Android mobile instead of an iPhone? Well, an iPad will be of more use to me for anything seriously musical. And there's the risk I'd spend so much time messing with an iPhone that the battery would likely be near flat every time I leave the house.

Thus far, the Galaxy has proved its worth as a comm device (even typing on it is easier compared with the iPod), makes tracking a personal profile page on Facebook that much slicker - I don't think I've Liked or otherwise responded to so many comments in ages - and has reawakened an old, old interest in astronomy thanks to the Google Sky Map app. Oh, and it supports Evernote, which is helping me in so many ways.

So what's new? Plays of Fell works have gone through 50,000 on ReverbNation, I've arrived at #3 in the UK chart and so am still at #1 in the UK rock chart. The Twitter following nears 2,000 and Facebook numbers are creeping up, even though I'm not doing much, apart from dispensing tips for recording musicians, to push that aspect of things. Still, they're just the numbers. More interesting are the people behind them.

It seems that ReverbNation visitors are playing more than just Logika, the promoted track, which is good. From comments received, the music appeals to a fairly broad church, which is useful because I'd be uncomfortable having to modify the way I write in order to generate a bigger audience.

It's with a view to keeping things honest that I approach this summer season's writing schedule - just go with the muse and see where it leads. Key to a successful start is getting a reasonable handle on the scope of the tone palette. I seem to have acquired a silly number of sound sources from which to choose, including a whacking great sample library which could do with sorting out properly.

In making sense of a burgeoning collection of samples, out comes a Mac-only piece of software called AudioFinder, which does as the name suggests. It'll read pretty much any audio file on the system, display each as a waveform and offers the means to trim the file, normalize level, chop it up, apply processing plug-ins and a heck load more. It's also a powerful cataloguing tool, which is one aspect I've been somewhat lax in exploring - better get my finger out and bring order to the assembled sonics. Just as long as I don't end up in the studio equivalent of a novelist's garret, a pristine environment in which everything is spick and span. And there's the excuse for just one more coffee before starting the first chapter. Oh, just remembered, I could do with mowing the lawn first, and... Etc.

Appositely cool, AudioFinder developer Iced Audio has namechecked me on its list of pro users. Ah, fame beyond measure. I'd rather notoriety, but by small steps do we advance.

In with the new...

The post below is my way of introducing something I've not seen before - a bloggy account of how an album takes shape, from drumming up ideas, through production to final release. I'd be fascinated to read diary accounts of how some of my favourite albums came about. While my own releases may never rub shoulders with such company, they provide opportunity for experiments in blogging and could highlight useful pointers for other recording musicians (I'm assuming project-studio pilots aiming for own-label releases, in the main).

A blow-by-blow account of am album's evolution (bang! As it happens) is not the kind of feature you'd find in a print mag, so it could make for an adventure and render this blog a mite more informative than the marketing hyperbole that oft gunks band websites.

An early thought, then, and possibly one that opens me to a world of pain as the blog gets in the way of the music. We shall see. But why do I say album? Sure, people are used to the album package, but these days folk are more likely to cherry-pick stand-out tracks for download and playback on computer, pod or mobile. It's not even like you can go bats on packaging - CD inserts are too small for lusty artworks - and the discs themselves become coasters once they're ripped (ahem, 'backed up'), left out of their cases, lent to incautious friends, dropped in car footwells, puked on at a parties and otherwise trashed.

I'd prefer to offer download-friendly copies of songs via the web, ie not full-fat WAVs, but psychoacoustically slimmed-down MP3s/AACs for sale at whatever is the going rate on launch. And, partly to justify calling it an album, but mainly for those who like a more analog sound and 12-inch-square album art, a vinyl release. So, we've the convenience and dynamic range of digital audio alongside the artifact-collecting joy of vinyl ownership in two packages that, as an album, are easier to market than, say, 'an amorphous collection of Fell's more outrageous musical rants'. Again, we shall see for it is a certainty that this life is characterized by uncertainty.

In with the old...

A miniDisplayport, yesterday
 - Jóhann Björn Björnsson

Back in the day, a prime technique in the technician's toolkit was percussive maintenance. If a bit of analog gear didn't work as it should, such as a wobbly TV or recalcitrant starter motor, brute force and ignorance (a thwack) often served as a means of bringing old tech to life. However, it's comforting to know that even in the day today, a bish, bosh, thwack or shove still has a place when dealing with digital gubbins.

This very morn', I had a run-in with a Mini DisplayPort on a Mac. Aye, I've been sorting a few things out in The Surgery (my studio and home to the Fell Cacophone), souping-up systems and streamlining software in readiness for a season of song.

Like many a muzo, I do the bulk of my work on Macs (PCs do feature because some choice sonic gadgets are Windows-only, eg Sony's samploid song sketcher Acid Pro and audio mangler SoundForge).

Lately, Apple has equipped Macs, along with the graphics cards found in the Mac Pro, with Mini DisplayPort sockets. I'm the sort to hanker for two displays per computer and so, with an adaptor deployed between a DVI-in monitor and the computer, I was a bit miffed to find nothing appearing on the screen. Duff adaptor? Nope.

After trawling Apple Support, and happening across all manner of weird solutions for faulty video cards (from flushing motherboard settings to taking the card out and baking it to make the solder re-flow - !), the solution dawned. A Mini DisplayPort plug looks like it's actually plugged in when, in fact, it's not in far enough to make a connection. One brutal shove into the socket and the monitor got its groove going. If only force would work when the computer blue-screens.