AFTER a morning session with one of my online guitar students I get busy with the initial mixes of the remaining four tracks for the new album.
I take break late morning and an engineer from Greener Energy Group arrives to see what’s happened to our heating. The radiators seemed to be on full pelt despite the temperature.
Turns out the bit that connects to the remote thermostat is goosed. Another is ordered and they’ll be back to fit it ASAP.
Our pal Sandy drops by to chat over some local stuff – there’s a community trust eating this evening and he can’t make it, so catching up now.
After finishing the mixes I take them to the house to have a listen.
I’m about to had out for a walk when Margaret goes to answer the door…it’s one of my guitar students and I’d forgotten to put it in the diary. Glad I wasn’t out!
After the lesson Margaret goes off to the eating and I make some pasta dough using the wild garlic I picked the other day. The resulting carbonara is amazing (though I say it myself!)…
I HAVE online guitar student first thing then I get busy with video editing.
There’s two bits of video I wanna get sorted for tonight’s livestream into my Wildcats’ Facebook group.
First, another ‘mixing’ video `I captured on Sunday morning. I did one as a livestream but the sound quality was poor.
Second, a live video from November’s show at BluesAlive in Czech. The video footage was capured for the big screens at the sides of the stage so isn’t the kind of stuff I would normally use as there’s no mid or wide shots…it’s all close-up or medium close-up. Still, good to have – and I edit up a song to spin into the livestream later.
After my late afternoon guitar student has left I get a quick walk then prep for the livestream which, for once, goes relatively smoothly! 🙂
AT 7am I become the human trampoline with the kids jumping all over me. It’s fun tho’.
After breakfast I manage to escape to the studio for half an hour to get another song mixed and some other bits and bobs out the way.
At 11am we get the kids and all their stuff isn’t eh car and make for The Peak in Stirling for Freya’s midday ice skating session.
She’s still a bit stekky and really needs the full-time help of the group instructor to help build her confidence.
Once she’s done we have a snack at the coffee bar then take them back to Doune where we hang out for a while before Catriona and Will take us for an early dinner at Corrieri’s in Causewayhead.
We have a lovely time then stop for coffee and cake back in Doune before heading home.
AFTER breakfast I head straight to the studio to get on with mixing tracks for the new album.
Will drops the kids off late morning – they’re here for the night so he and Catriona can celebrate Catriona’s birthday with a night in Glasgow – then we make our way to the village hall for the community lunch.
I walk back and listen to some of the mixes on my earbuds. Have to say they’re sounding pretty good. I need to check the mix on earbuds, hifi and anything else I can find as well as in the studio.
I take a break from mixing to make a wee gift for Catriona then Joel rocks up with wee Rosie the Jack Russell…Freya is obsessed with dogs. Joel goes off and leaves Margaret and the kids to take the dog a walk and I get some more work done in the studio.
I go back to the house to say goodnight to the kids then make some avocado sauce then mix some tortilla dough for our pulled pork tacos….
UP EARLY – Margaret’s off to Dundee to help Mikey with some bank stuff and my pal Elaine’s coming to spend some time working on a song.
I manage to get the studio tidied a little before Elaine arrives and we spend a couple of hours tweaking a song we’ve been working on.
After a quick stop for lunch I wash out my winter wetsuit, clean the smoker then get back to the studio for an online meeting about our local hydro society website.
Next it’s onto the batch of spurtle pins I cast the other day. The need sanded and properly shaped.
It’s a messy job that I need to do outside due to the amount of dust. It’s also time-consuming as it has to be done by hand. Any power tools will destroy my carefully crafted pins.
I get the main sanding done and decide to leave final polishing, marking/engraving and attaching the pins ‘til tomorrow.
There’s time to get some work done in the studio before Margaret gets home then we chill and enjoy paella for dinner.
The new, improved version of the spurtle pin….bigger than actual size!
UP early to get the sourdough in the oven then straight into the studio to try and finish the recordings for the new album.
By lunchtime I’m done. I think. I hope.
With the recordings in the bag I can get on with mixing and mastering this week.
After lunch I sand, polish and finish one of the new, improved spurtle casts and send a pic to John. He likes it, so I’ll finish the rest over the next couple of days.
My afternoon guitar student arrives with her mum and we have a good wee session then it’s back to the studio to edit some video and prepare for this week’s Wildcats’ livestream on Facebook.
Despite having everything working perfectly, Facebook decides not to let me stream and keeps throwing a stream key error back at me. Eventually I submit and resort to doing this week’s livestream using my phone.
After a late dinner I finish making a batch of kimchi..then time to crash.
AFTER breakfast I discover – by accident – that my Buzz website is down.
It takes me an hour of deleting and replacing files and messing about on the server to get it back up and running.
I’ve redesigned the protoype spurtle I made the other day and start casting some. It’s not an exact science and, for what is essentially a simple process, pretty time consuming. I need to have ten finished by the end of the week.
I take a break to get the smoker fired up and tonight’s bacon-wrapped pork loin on – Betty and Liz are coming for dinner.
It’s late afternoon by the time the spurtles are cast. I have 12 – a couple that only just made the grade and, if necessary can be used for other areas of experimentation in the finishing process.
There’s a considerable amount of cutting, sanding, polishing and engraving to be done – and pins to be attached. A busy week coming up, so I’m gonna have to juggle things.
The pork is done and into a faux cambro an hour before our guests arrive so I have a little time in studio trying to get things organised for the week ahead.
