There's not a lot of time left for 2011. As I was reviewing the year, I realized how much I've accomplished, and how little media I have to show for it.
This has been an odd year for me in that I have a lot of equipment; I'm possibly more well stocked than I ever have been before. Added to my arsenal of computers, midi controllers, synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, I have a new guitar, a recorder, a wireless monitor system, and some new effects boxes. I have a space that's better suited for me to produce as well.
I was able to set up a new rig for jamming on my electronic guitar that's more portable than my full rig. One of the difficulties of playing an electronic instrument with a band is set-up; this system makes it easier for me to show up, set up, and then be out of the way until my time to jam--and it should work well for any soundguy to interface my equipment with their gear. So I should be soliciting some local bands to set up some jam time in 2012.
I started working on a new recording/compilation, hoping that I'll be able to wrap it up before 2012 arrives. Its basically the odds and ends of things that I recorded in the last few years, as I haven't released any new albums in quite some time (long enough that I don't even want to print the last year I released an album). I'd recorded a fair number of random loops of rhythms, basslines, ambient pads from 2010 to present while riding around in the car (as a passenger), or killing time while waiting for something to happen and playing in Ableton Live. These loops were sitting inside of my Live projects, and when I randomly stumbled onto some of them, I thought perhaps I should collect them and make something of them. I collected them off the two laptops I have Live installed on.
Once I'd collected the random bits and pieces together, dropped them into my live performance template in Live, and I had so much fun playing with them, that I plugged in one of my cassette tape recorders, and recorded my improvisations onto the tape. I'm not so in love with the recording that I want to make much of it, but the loops are strong material, and some parts of the improvisation are worth snipping out as tracks. As I was working with the cassette recorder, I found other tapes of material I'd forgotten, and the whole experience of finding lost material sparked off an idea of collecting these random bits together. I'm calling it Flotsam+Jetsam for the moment.
Also I'm looking at potentially remixing/remastering a project called For My Friends that was originally recorded around 2006-07, but never saw the light of day. With the equipment I have at present, along with the original material, I think it may be possible to finish the project up as I originally intended it, although some 6 years after it was originally tracked out. Still, when I began reviewing the stems, I found I really liked the tracks, even after all that time, and I regretted that they'd never been mixed down to my satisfaction. So I'm looking at that as my first release of 2012, pending how the Flotsam/Jetsam project works out.
So as I'm writing this, I have about 3 hours of material to listen to, take notes on, and then edit/process. Hopefully I'll have the material completed and uploaded soon, and if not, I'll have this post to bug me for eternity when I reread it in the future.
(((( [-_-] ))))
