Yes, yet again, I’ve vanished like Brigadoon.

I’m working on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure.  Hard as it is to believe, I’ve spent about 30 of the past 48 hours recording.

I just posted the story, “The Spring Forward Sessions“, to my Dandelife blog.  It has a short preview of the first 9 songs on the album, and even lyrics to one of them.  No audio previews yet, though.

I have a lot to discuss here.  As far as Linux Audio goes, I still have to talk about my music powerhouse program of the year, Renoise.

Although I play most of my music “live” (long, single takes is my preferred method), I’ve used Renoise to engineer most of my percussion this time around.  I wanted to go for a different sound, something modern.  And yet, Renoise is flexible enough I’ve actually been using it to write a pipe organ piece as well.

I’ll have more to say about it later.  Also, I really should mention Csound in a future article.  I’ve been learning a lot about software synthesis.  Then came the day I realized this language — with a learning curve like Superman: the Escape — could easily be the most powerful synthesizer on the planet.  And all of that power is hidden away behind a syntax that combines the expressiveness of technical manuals with the eloquence of assembly language ;-)  Nevertheless, it couldn’t be any other way: it’s too powerful, too close to the bare metal of software synthesis, to be couched in a more contrived and syntax-laden language.

More later.  Time to go walk the dogs.  Sitting in the studio for 16 hours a day doesn’t exactly work the quadriceps.