http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog Progress Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:49:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It may have looked quiet to you, but around here the scene is a-buzzin'. If you've been through this site memorising everything, then you'll know that in the seventies I used to play in a folk rock band called Caedmon. Caedmon played their farewell concert thirty years ago, recorded and released an ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/meanwhile/caedmons-return/ I was possibly a little unfair in my previous post Drumming for Beginners, which might have given the false impression to the more trusting amongst you that I was actually an excellent drummer with a superb electronic kit. Neither is quite true. I'm a shite drummer and the kit in question ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/progress/dd502-review/ So, what have I been up to in my long struggle to avoid actually finishing a song? Well, I've decided to learn how to play the drums. This is an ingenious and cunning plan. Instead of spending hours trying to make my computer sound like a real drummer, it suddenly became obvious ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/progress/drumming-for-beginners/ As you will know, I entered Fergus, my custom built 'Strat' style guitar into the Clarity and Sparkle Show a few months back. The results were disastrous. Fergus and I retreated to a health farm and slowly rebuilt our confidence and our wiring. But the good news was that The Clarity ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/clarity-and-sparkle-show-episode-2/ A comprehensive readers survey by polling research group 'Justaskem' has discovered that visitors to the James Bisset 50th Anniversary Edition are overwhelmingly in favour of 'More music - less tech!' The survey was conducted during an unusually quiet period on the Bisset blog, which we can now exclusively reveal was deliberately ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/progress/2008-readers-survey-results/ A while ago, I delighted in the fact that my little Epiphone Valve Junior 5 watt practice amp had been modded to include a line feed from the output transformer. As aficionados will know, this means that I can get all the tone that a simple valve amp creates, but ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/speaker-simulation-in-logic/ Bad News: I did something very strange to my knee whilst out running three weeks ago. I've been limping ever since. Good News: Now I've got good reason to resurrect that 'make your own hiking stick' project I started last year. Good News: Logic Pro 8 looks like being the upgrade I've ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/meanwhile/bad-news-good-news/ My big mistake was assuming that if iTunes could drive the MOTU 828 successfully, then so could Logic, because I'd already proved that when Logic couldn't drive the MOTU, neither could iTunes. Never assume. So I'm taking a step back and trying to see exactly what variables we have here. When I ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/recording/error-while-trying-to-synchronize-audio-and-midi-2/ Update: 12 hours later and it's all gone pear shaped. I'm off to Asda. Read on for a fuller explanation and await a further post in which we plan to use binoculars to see just how far up the creek we now are. So, as I explained briefly in the last ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/recording/error-while-trying-to-synchronize-audio-and-midi/ So, we had our family holiday break in August. A fun fortnight of camping in the rain. We managed to pitch our tents(s) in Orkney, Durness and Arisaig before settling down in Arran where we caught up with the usual suspects. Big shout outs (or whatever the current expression for ... http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/meanwhile/no-change-there-then/