I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Month: October 2010

Sutton Environmental Fair

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I thought I’d posted about this before, and whilst clearing a load of magazines and paperwork I came across the programme.

I went to the Environmental fair at the end of August. I hadn’t been to it in a while, but it was just as good as I remembered. The fair is a relatively small event, but it is a local event and has a real character to it, which it hasn’t lost at all.

There were 3 stages and some really interesting acts played, from the larger traditional band type format, to solo musicians and people doing some fairly experimental stuff for a local event.

I was so glad that I went to this fair, it always feels good to support local events and the stages were all powered by solar energy too. I don’t think many events can make that claim.

I’ll have to make sure it is in my diary again for 2011.

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Bro Ar Men at Beyond the Border

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I saw this band at Beyond the Border in the summer, and I really enjoyed them a lot. The guy playing the Mbira was a real character and really funny. He was also a great Mbira player amongst other instruments he played.

I wish I’d got their CD now.

More about beyond the border

Here are a few more posts about the Beyond the Border festival if you’re interested.

If you have never eaten one of these then you’ve never lived

The last time I went to Beyond the Border I discovered these. That was back in 2014. I’ve waited two years to have the pleasure again, and it was worth the wait. I’d hoped that these would be available again at Beyond the Border, and they were, possibly one of the best foods I’ve ever…

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Old tech

Posted by on in Creative ProcessLeave a comment

This is what I’ve been using to retrieve my old songs from often crumbling cassettes. Sadly it too is somewhat past it’s best and I’m not sure how much longer it will last.

I’m considering getting an old cassette 8 track. Probably not immediately, but in a while I think.

Some more about old multitracks

If you’re interested in old multitrack stuff then here’s a few more posts on the subject.

Look what I found

Posted by on in StuffLeave a comment

I haven’t seen one of these in ages, but in unearthing loads of old cassettes you can find some real treasures. This is a TDK Metal tape with an aluminum body. A great find, and I think they were pretty expensive when they first came out.

I wonder what else I’ll discover?

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Four Track Futures

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Since I started going back over my old tapes and retrieving them I’ve been thinking about the process of recording to tape, or if not to tape in a linear way and not wholly sequenced.

I liked that way of doing things in the past. There was more room for error and because of that more room for inspired accidents. I miss that. You just don’t get that so much with sequencing.

So I am giving serious consideration to tape again. I might even consider getting a tape 8 track at some point!

  • Tascam Cassette Multitrack
    Tascam Cassette Multitrack
  • Teac Blue Reel to Reel Cassette
    Teac Blue Reel to Reel Cassette
  • TDK Metal Cassette
    TDK Metal Cassette
  • Teac Black Reel to Reel Cassette
    Teac Black Reel to Reel Cassette

Autumn

Posted by on in Thinking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I took this picture while I was out yesterday. It felt truly autumnal, in fact, far more like autumn than it does today.

I like autumn. It is perhaps my favourite season. I love the leaves coming down off the trees, the fact that it starts to get colder and and that there is a sense that renewal is on the way for everything.

Some more thoughts …

I’ve been looking for a long time

Back in the 80s I used to listen to John Peel’s show. It is where many of my musical tastes were formed and a lot of the artists I first heard on his show are people I still listen to now. But there are still one or two things that I have never found. One…

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Hello 2016

So, here we are in 2016. I often think it is strange that we somehow cross this imaginary boundary into a new year, but today is a day very much like yesterday in many ways and for many people. It is just a day, and yet we like to make it special, a new beginning,…

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You won’t see one of these I’ll bet

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I checked the tapedeck site to see if they had one of these in the list of cassettes and they don’t, so I sent them some photos.

I have 3 of these Teac cassettes and I can remember that when I bought them that they were pretty hard to get hold of back then. Now, well I doubt that there would be many of them around any more.

I’ve only got one of the blue ones and the other two are black and not in as good condition.

Beautiful though isn’t it?

Teac reel to reel cassette

Finding my first cassette recorder

When I was about 11 or maybe 12 I really desperately wanted a tape recorder, and for Christmas I got one. It was a fergusson and it looked like this. I found it again at a very weird museum a few weeks ago. It took me right back. I used to use it for recording…

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Experimenting with little modular things

I’ve been exploring some of my tiny modular devices. Above you can see. I posted this picture a while ago on Instagram. It was a fun thing to play around with, and I think that these devices go very well together. I can see myself doing a lot more little sessions like this. I’ve been…

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I love tape, so I love this …

I’m a fan of Deerful’s music so it was good news when she announced a cassette release. It’s a really nice EP too and very well put togeher.

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Messing about with App Inventor

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, TechLeave a comment

I’ve been playing with Google’s Android App Inventor site, and it is a lot of fun to mess about with. However, at the moment, it is unlikely to be useful for any kind of serious musical application building.

There is talk of being able to introduce extensions to App Inventor so you could do more with it. Things like using Pure data would be useful if you could integrate that into what App Inventor is about, and maybe that will come at some point, but at the moment musical applications will be somewhat limited and toy-like.

Still. Good fun to play with.

Pythonista 2.0 is a massive leap forward

There’s loads of new things to explore in the latest version. Here’s what’s new: Pythonista is now compatible with all iOS screen sizes — from iPhone 4 to iPad Pro, and everything in-between. For larger projects, you can now use multiple editor tabs to switch between related files more quickly. The Pythonista app extension allows…

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Processing 3 and the new sound library

The last time I used Processing I was messing around with the minim library for sound. Now, in version 3, there’s the new sound library and it looks (and sounds) amazing! I’ve only played with it a little but so far the example code looks really straightforward to read and understand. I might even start…

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Listening to myself

Posted by on in ListeningLeave a comment

I’ve mentioned before that I’m currently going through a process of moving all my old cassettes to digital. It will take a long, long, long, time. I assure you.

But part of the process is listening to music I haven’t heard in years. Mostly things I’ve recorded myself, some great, some terrible, some embarrassing, and all enjoyable in one way or another.

It is a good reminder of why I love music, why I love the creative process. A reminder that software and hardware are just tools for doing something creative and should be looked at as that.

I think it can be really easy to get lost in tools you’re using to the point where you focus so much on what the tool can do and can’t do that you forget what it is you’re trying to achieve. That’s the danger and listening to my old stuff made with simple hardware and usually no software at all made me realise that perhaps I need to think long and hard about where my music is going, or more importantly the fact that it isn’t going anywhere at the moment.

A signed copy of Steve Jansen’s ‘Slope’

I already have this album, I got it when it first came out, but when I heard that Steve Jansen was selling off the last remaining stock and signing them I thought I ought to buy it again. It’s always lovely to have a signed copy of things and this album especially so. I hope…

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