Saturday, August 05, 2006

Hazy, Lazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Please forgive the light blogging, but there has actually been almost too much going on in my life to be blogging for the past week or so. No "wucking furries" - as an Aussie pal of mine would say - because it's all been good. Very good. So good, in fact, that I don't want to jinx some of it by talking about it. Let me begin by saying that I have spent many man-hours getting the Glissentar/CP-1A and Murray/CP-1 guitars ready for giggage, and that project is now in the pocket.

What I had to do there was develop twelve "virtual acoustic environments" - one for each of the suites in my set - in my Lexicon MPX-G2... for each axe. That required modifying the twelve I had already developed for the Multiac/RMC Polydrive guitar - and which began their evolution back when they were for a Gibson Chet Atkins CEC guitar (There are, without exaggeration, literally hundreds of man hours in these programs) - and renaming/storing them down the user program address chain. I have gotten that done for the MPX-G2 I use in my recording settup, but I still have not entered them in the MPX-G2's I use for my small venue and large venue performance rigs (Remember, I need three MPX-G2's to make my life work).

This has to be done by hand: I have to stack the units and modify the programs one-at-a-time by comparing the new ones to the old ones in the other units because there is not data dump or sysex function in those units (Well, that I can figure out, anyway). That's for each and every parameter of each and every effect in each and every program! So, the reast of this week will be spent getting that done, because I have to re-EQ all of those programs for the various amp/speaker configurations. It's a freaking nightmare.

A nightmare that I must get through, however, as events seem to be conspiring to make me even busier (I'll have to leave it cryptic, as I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch).

I have some seriously cool guitars now.



*****

I want to take a moment to thank Carlos Juan for putting up a nice splash page for me at his site. It is no exaggeration to say that his CP-1A and CP-1 pickups have changed my entire musical life for the better, and I'm proud to be associated with his awesome products.

I'm too good to be true, and I get better looking every day, don't you think?



(Don't answer that!)

*****

The Great Irony: While the north, and then the north east, have been suffering with a record-setting heat wave, we out here in the desert chapparal have been having fabulous monsoon rains this year. Here's a pic from a couple of days ago, taken at about 6:30AM, from the back porch of El Rancho Ucobaldo.



"Red sky at morning, sailor take warning!"

It rained furously that afternoon.

*****

One other thing I'll have to be elusive about is a potential new location for my "Rancho": This will be the fulfillment of a thirty year dream if it pans out, as I have been offered a "sweetheart deal" on some acreage a couple hours north of here. I'm going to scope it out next week. Most of the land sold out here is never listed with a broker: You have to be part of the community for a while, and put out feelers. If folks like you and wouldn't mind having you as a neighbor, then - and only then - will you get some offers. I love that.

Remember this?



Just a couple of miles away.

*****

Perhaps I'll end up with some neighbors like this?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Land, Scarlet. It's the only thing that matters.

Good luck with that.

6:38 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home