It's the 1980s all over again

I have had a bit of a break from recording any music over Christmas, and still haven't completed Secret World yet. I have been messing around with it over the months and after listening to the latest version again recently I have come to the conclusion that the track levels have gone completely to pot with the drums way too loud and other bits hardly audible in the mix anymore. Also the marimba type noise that starts with the second chorus is really getting on my nerves now so that needs removing I think.

I got my new (old) Shergold Masquerader for Christmas along with a line6 amp which I am very pleased with and I began having guitar lessons with Master The Guitar after the new year. I have had 2 lessons so far and am already learning to play 21st century scizoid man.

However getting time to practice is another matter, as over the last week I have decided to reform Strange Devotion. This may sound a bit strange as this blog has been around for a few months and it is called Strange Devotion - but it makes sense to me anyway. I used the name for this blog as I liked the name that I had used in the 1980s when I played synth music, but when I started up my music again last year I had decided to do it in whatever style I fancied playing at the time and even intended bringing some guitar into the proceedings, but after getting a couple of encouraging emails last week from a couple of people who had stumbled on 2 Strange Devotion songs I recorded in 1982 I have decided that I don't think my music has ever been better than what I did back then so I am going back to my roots and will be writing and recording synth music in the old Strange Devotion style for the forseeable future. Last weekend I dug out the reel to reel master from the studio I recorded those demos in and also transferred the video I made to go with them onto DVD so as to preserve it from anymore degredation. I am now trying to locate a reel to reel tape recorder in the hope that the original demo tape has survived enough for me to get a decent copy of both tracks off it. The copy of the songs on my .mac website are from a 20 plus year old cassette so I hope I can improve on the quality.

To help bring Strange Devotion back to life I have just ordered a new Korg MS2000BR for my birthday which should go nicely with my Korg Prophecy. Neither of them are true anolog synths, but the prophecy makes some very nice analog style sounds and I hope the MS-2000BR will be even closer to a true analogue synth. It takes the MS from the original range of MS analog synths, of which I use to own a Korg MS-10, so I think it should be pretty good and I can't wait to give it a whirl. I plan to get a real analogue synth to go with these 2 at the first available oportunity. I managed to get a Shergold again, so maybe I'll be able to get an MS-10 again too.

My final step has been to register www.strangedevotion.co.uk so I will then need to sit down and design a site to go on there - leaving me even less time for getting on with my guitar practice and leading to the question - Will I ever finish Secret World?