February 2025 Diary Now CLOSED

Hey Nick,
Funny that you mentioned the click track topic. For some reason or other I can't play to click tracks. Probably a genetic defect or the consequence of an unhappy love affair. I do use clicks as a visual indicator when I splice and dice tracks and also when I need to adjust attack and decay values on my synths. But playing to a click...no can do.

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i never played to a click track before until joining here. it took me a while to get used to it :) maybe within the past year i started 'seeding' the tracks with drums.

your "Probably a genetic defect or the consequence of an unhappy love affair" had me laughing haha :D:D

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Feb 22, 2025

Haven't uploaded anything for a couple days as I'm busy with making a new album. I thought I'd revisit some old tracks and just this once do a proper job with mixing and mastering.

Hah, dangerous territory as I discovered that polishing mistakes and making them sound good was not what I had intended. So back to the source aka re-record my stuff and only then start mixing and mastering.

There's a particular track I've been working on for some days now that needed a complete start from scratch. Just my luck that it contains more than 15 individual keyboard tracks and is 7 minutes long. I've given myself until end of March to finish the whole album project so I don't feel any pressure...yet. I have this feeling that this album is somehow important to me so I'm putting in lot's of hours to make it as good as I can. Anyway, who needs sleep, food and social contacts ...

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This is a great diary entry Nick, however, I glazed over watching it because, while I admire the knowledge and expertise involved I can't identify with these technical procedures at all. I do think many people here will learn as they watch however.

I think on wikiloops a "Template" was originally meant to be a simple 'one instrument' upload that people can build on.... but it's very difficult for many of us to limit it to that - it's a natural impulse for a musician to want to showcase their whole vision. Now we are seeing many complete song uploads.
I admire the brave person who will just add a boring drum track for us to jump on, some of those are still going years later, they are the 'bread' we like to butter and make our musical sandwiches from.

Seeing how different wikiloopers can be from each other but also knowing how well we interact is testament to wikiloops Worldwide jamming culture.

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Sunday 23rd February
Today I was working on an idea to recognise a range of 'new upload' adds that worked well with the template or mix and stood out for me (and hopefully others) So to make it fun, I intend to give out Shammy Awards on the song page. Now see if you can earn one :)

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/44PqnY9g/shammy-award.jpg[/img]

Apart from that I moved some furniture around as I've arranged to have a house valuation done next week... and I had soup, crisps and a Kit-Kat for supper.

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love the name, The Shammy's, very cool :):W now you just need an image of the trophy :)

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I love having a nosey here :D I'm getting to know you all.
it's so lovely reading all about you all.<3

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Working on it :)
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/NG2CkJ9p/shammy-trophy.jpg[/img]

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In the Gee household football is very high on the agenda. The boys and I are all Manchester United fans through, we talk a lot about football, my eldest son is a semi professional football player and we are all suffering severely since 2013 when Sir Alex retired. At least your club won the league in 2016 against all odds, I can't see United doing that in the next 10 years. Actually, I hope I will live to see it, the way it goes I might not...

However, as bad a the football is, I will continue to support my club even if we get relegated. A club is for life...

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I realize I'm late to the February party. Been busy as of late. Life gets in the way of life...ya know? Today is the first day I have seen the ground since our last snow storm, the sun took all the snow away and returned the color to the earth. and the MUD. So much mud. The dog is making sure to leave paw prints every time he comes in. Endless Mopping. (New song title?) Such is the life of a pet owner in mud season. (Which reminds me of Mad Season, which I love and think I'll go listen to.) Welcome to my live stream of thought. haha! We here in Southern Illinois are actually beating Chicago by volume with snow...which is unheard of. Today there are workers on my roof fixing the last of the damage from the trees that fell on the house during the ice storm. It's the first day above freezing in a good long while.

Nick- about recording. I'm insanely jealous of how organized your tracks are. :o That is an art form, sir. I usually end up with about 20 different tracks and it kind of looks like someone Jackson Pollock'ed a bunch of tracks in my DAW- a hot mess on my screen. :P A punch in here- a harmony there- a whisper on another. I am self taught with my recording program and only mess with vocals for the most part. But the process? I don't have any vocals written before I hear a song. I don't have a stash that I pull from. I let the music tell me what the song is about. Then I usually feel a theme, come up with a hook and build on it from there. I also have to be careful what I listen to because once I hear someone else's vocals on a track, that is the melody that gets burned in my brain. If I hear music I want to sing to I have to isolate that track so as not to influence my own melody. so in summation, my entire process is a "hot mess". HAHA

Enjoying everyone's entries. Shamika- the diary was a great idea! <3 :) What a great way to get to know your music family better!

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I think KellsBells and I must have been separated at birth, we have the same 'scatter-brain' genes :)
It's odd that I decided to start this Diary because in real life I have NEVER kept a diary, journal or any organised regular account of what I've done or should be doing. I always get caught up in the moment and don't like to spoil the flow with stuff like record keeping, notes etc. I can never find a pen or paper and as you know my computer skills don't go beyond the absolute minimum required.

Had a quote for the 'leak' which was much lower than the first one so that's booked in - plus a house agent is coming to view next week so I've been trying to 'stage or dress' the place ready for photos. Moving house is the most stressful thing and you lose loads of money doing it, especially now Stamp Duty is so high and you never get that back.

Had a nice crispy haddock fishcake for lunch followed by Strawberry trifle :)

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At one point in my career I worked for Philips at a factory site that made private mobile radio equipment for the forces and emergency services and also provided infrastructure (hilltop radio sites).

On the site there was a full on clubhouse, open for what was normal lunchtime licencing hours back then - 11am to 3pm. It had a capacity of about 3-400 and was busy every day peaking between 12 and 2pm, but I sat it there many times until they kicked us out and I wasn't the only one. 3-4 pints of proper strength beer and back to lean on my drawing board for a couple of hours. I got my work done, nobody cared, the company was going down the drain with the advent of mobile phones. :)

In fact, our the joke was the factory employed 2,000 people and was loosing £10M per year while a salesman, a surveyor, a structural engineer and I, operating from a temporary building in the car park/the social club (later I worked from my spare bedroom) were making them £10M/ year selling equipment space on their existing network of hill top radio transmission sites to budding mobile operators. I used to design equipment buildings and rooms like the one you were in. :)

When I was at Technical College as an apprentice for 6 months / year I spent every lunchtime in a pub playing pool. sinking pints and munching cheese and onion toasties.

Lunch here was usually an hour for office type jobs or 30 mins for manual jobs. After 1990 though I have no idea because I worked for myself.

I expect nowadays a lunch break is a thing of the past. Incidentally I worked for an American company for a few months in the late 80's. The ethic there was like nothing I'd ever seen before. They started bang on time or earlier, there were no windows (by design), they ate lunch without stopping and worked solidly, no small talk, just work, work, work. This was just prior to working at Philips with the clubhouse bar.

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really enjoyed your comment KellsBells. i sorta guessed most have some 'spark' somewhere that triggers that creative soup :) i also didn't think i was that organized, so thanks for that :D

hey, Mad Season, awesome right? :o i love that album <3 Artificial Red might be one of my favorite songs.

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you'd fit right in with some of my friends zedders. a few of my buddies are into ham radio stuff, erecting their own antennas and things like that. i'm assuming it's close, somewhat, to the mobile stuff you did. i never got into the mobile/antenna side of things, mainly wired LAN/WAN stuff, switching/routing, etc.

cheers zedders!

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Strawberry trifle? You should have told me, I would have been on the next plane. Years ago, when I was commuting between France and the UK on a weekly basis, I had an extra suitcase filled with apple pies and strawberry trifles that I brought back from the food department at Marks & Sparks (that was when they still had proper food) for my parents. They were addicted to the stuff.

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- I'm still taking a break from playing. My ears are blocked and they ring sometimes. Even if I mix at a low volume, my ears don't like wearing headphones for many hours a day. Well, as soon as I get rich, I'll buy cheap studio monitors.

- I promised a video for the diary, but I don't think I have time to edit it today.

-I haven't listened to other people's songs in a while. I do listen to them, it's always nice to give thumbs up.

- I found a good syrup to mix with the coffee. I already drank too much coffee every day anyway, but now I'm really in trouble. Well soon I'll be the fastest bassist in the world, because I'm shaking from too much caffeine. Note though that I will be just a fast player, as I didn't say anything about playing the right notes.

- Now I'm going to take a shower and start my day.

-Breakfast. Chicken soup and rye bread topped with liver pate. The liver pate is badly translated, but close enough.

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Aito attached the following image:

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Edited by Aito on 25 février 2025 à 11:45

Soup and pate ! Sounds more like my evening meal than breakfast :D But it does look tasty.

Tuesday 25th February.

* I stupidly pulled my lower back out this morning so I'm having to move slowly and carefully now. I was lifting a heavy mirror, I nearly dropped it but in saving it I twisted something - at least the mirror didn't break, just my back I guess :o

* I found a nice ballad I recorded in 2021 and uploaded it this afternoon. The problem now is that I can't remember if I've uploaded these songs before, or maybe used the lyrics elsewhere.

* Right now the screen on my PC is green, I think that is because I've moved it so many times, maybe there's a loose connection somewhere :(

* I've been thinking about the future of this diary, the posts are getting so good now with vlog entries but it's just a handful of contributors. I'm working on an idea to liven it up in March so be prepared for slight changes on Saturday 1st - I want it to carry on because some readers love it <3

Time to eat now, Aito has inspired me for soup and potted beef.... I haven't eaten bread for years (health reasons) but it always looks tempting. A yogurt would be good to follow, I think there's a vanilla and coconut one in the fridge. Have a good day people :)

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Nothing much to report other than the regular stuff I did in the last 7 days

*spent quality time alone in my cellar restoring a machine vice that I bought in a sorry state, full of holes. Welded the holes even though common knowledge says you can't stick weld cast, it will crack. Well, it didn't.

*Also machined a new pulley wheel for the new brushless motor for my old Chinese made lathe, including a Woodruff key slot inside a 10 m bore - I think I am slowly getting the hang of lathe operation thanks to YouTube videos. I bought the lathe/mill a couple of years ago, ever since I had fine mechanics lessons in school as a 15 year old I wanted to have one.

*spent a good amount of energy cursing and effing the German bureaucracy, getting a small package from England through the customs is almost as hard as passing a kidney stone :(

*watched finally getting my weight down to my target of 85 kilos, only to see it go up again after a week :o:D . However, I am setting a new target of 83, but that will be it for me. I can say however that the fat belly is almost gone, hopefully forever. I am actually not worried about the weight, I just wanted to get rid of the belly fat ;)

Finally: Shamika my dear, please keep the diary even though it's only a few people participating, it's fun to read the entries :)

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TeeGee attached the following image:

Really?
That's strange
I order stuff from China, arrives within 5 days, NO problems at all

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Wednesday 26th Fab Feb

I'm struggling with this diary entry today because I'm not feeling up to much.
Yesterday I pulled my back out and now I can't move without a jabbing pain.
Also, the tooth that lost a filling is painful so eating is very difficult - not sure what to do, thought about using pliers and pulling the damn thing out :o
It's really hard to find a dentist these days, I keep telling myself it will heal... that's my philosophy about health matters :D
I'm not registered with a doctor (because of all the moving around) it's been 11 years since I needed to go, before that everything I had healed naturally anyway. I have a degree in Health Studies and at the end of the course I was very cynical about the health system.... and university actually.
I'm aware that this post is not very entertaining, but the nice thing about the diary is, you can share problems with virtual strangers and it helps in a way :)

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