And yet another exclusive on Track It Down for today. This time we see Kinzy (Ripgroove competition winner) release his Clapper Claws for Under 5's, including two big tracks 'Clapper Claws' and '1 Seven One 7' that are now up and ready to take ove...

Last two weeks, very many things have happened. Some for good, some for bad, some I can speak of, some I can't. There has been a lot of unexpectedness, amounts of drama, but also good things coming up. Hopefully the next few weeks will ease down so I can focus on writing new stuff, which is what I long for.

Productionwise I've been working on new material for both Ugress and Shadow Of The Beat. In all of my projects there will always be a certain amount of overlap. Right now I'm working on 5-6 tracks and I'm not sure where any of them will end up. I observe, even if I sit down to write Shadow tracks, I'm really in a Nebular Spool kind of mood so maybe the next Spool isn't too far off. I am nevertheless looking forward to revisit and upgrade older Shadow tracks, preparing them for the upcoming liveshow.

Got myself a new hardware controller, Edirol PCR-300, not sure how satisfied I am with that, wrote a separate journal on it.

I do manage to get some fresh air. After rediscovering skiing, I've got myself a pair, and I try to ski as much as possible before the snow disappears.

A friend of mine brought us up to the Vidden, a mountain plateau available from local Mount Ulriken, a quick trip by cable car from the city. I had no idea there were so vast opportunities for proper skiing right outside my door. We skied down the mountain afterwards and I probably faceplanted twenty times. It was awesome.

Thursday I went to see Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra perform Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Bartok is one of my favorite 20th century composers, and the Concerto did not disappoint. There's a couple of delicious parts where the whole string sections are going off like crazy with staccatos, it tears in your ears and hairs are spiking in your neck, I don't know why but it just feels incredibly satisfying. The whole piece is kind of built for each group of the orchestra to show off and they certainly did.

There was also a violin concert as part of the program, I'm usually not too fond of those but this one had a good performer in Nikolaj Znaider who drew me in and I very much enjoyed that part too.

Bookwise, I've finished Foundation, my first experience with Asimov (in direct literature), and it wasn't bad. Not sure if I will be continuing the series though, it didn't capture me that much. I suppose that's because political systems and civilization development are the main protagonists, not people. I think I'll check out his robot novels before extending on Foundation.

OK thats it for journal update... Right now it is weekend, I'm off to a pub catching up with an old friend, the snow outside is slowly disappearing in the frontline of spring rain. I wish it would keep for some time so I could play more with my skis but what happens, happens.

There will always be another winther, that's for sure.

I got myself an Edirol PCR-300.

Why

Why not?

Well actually I do have a reason for getting this - at my last live show, the Lemur controller broke down, and I lost a lot of realtime control. I want to have a portable hardware backup with lots of physical options, so if the Lemur breaks down again (it will), I have something to fall back on.

Also even if I never use all the controls in the studio, I like to look at lots of controls. I like having access to potential in front of me, even if I never use it.

The good

The build is good, the size is GREAT!

Tactile wise, the feel of keys, buttons, knobs and faders are good for this price level.

The unit fits perfectly between my keyboard and monitor, it also fits perfectly in my gear flight. Looking forward to give this a spin on the next live show.

The notes on the keyboard are slightly smaller than regular, but I am a tiny person with nimble fingers, so I actually prefer the subsize keyboard, it means comfortable playing and greater reach.

It looks neither too much nor too little, visually and mentally it fits my world just where it should.

Crossfader feels good but not slap-able.

USB powered.

MIDI in and out, can hook up to my Faderfoxes if need be.

The bad

I was surprised that the keyboard starts at F, not at C, there is only 2.5 octaves, not 3 like I thought. My bad for not noticing this in the photos or promotional material, slapped myself when unboxing. I've had something like this before, can't remember what it was, but I'm not a stranger to lower F, and I'm not too fond of it.

Normally this wouldn't be as overly dramatic, but I've kind of got a weird way of doing things in realtime, during production, the lowest octave of a keyboard are set up to be control commands (a dimension of 12 commands with potentially 127 steps each) instead of regular notes. Not a life or death situation loosing parts of this, but not paradise either, could mean a lot of button presses.

Crossfader feels good but not slap-able.

Pitch bend and mod wheel does not display transmit value, but everything else does. Why not PB and MW?

Not universal USB support, needs an installed driver.

The driver install needed to reboot the computer. WTF kind of 1990ies setup is that? What's next Roland, I have to edit config.bat to adjust realtime parameters?

Conclusion

Really like the unit as a physical thing. Fits my fingers and workspace perfectly.

Surprised at lower key is F not C. Would actually prefer 2.00, or 4.00, octaves instead of half-assed 2.60.

I'm going to try it for a couple of weeks, see if this works out. If not I'm getting the 500, even if I think it is too big. That could actually be a win-win, having the 500 for studio work and the 300 for live work. I do dislike all the rigging up and rigging down so this is a viable option.