(another one of those weeks). It started off with my 12 year old cat passing on. He was in bad shape and ended up passing away in the night. It’s funny because I go to a lot of human funerals and do not grieve much, but I really mourned the loss of this cat. Anyhoo… it get’s worse.

My normal responsibilities usually don’t require much work unless something really bad becomes a borderline disaster. So, last Sunday, the sewer station malfunctioned, and the tank was on the verge of overflow. It turns out one of the pump motors burned out because short circuit in the sensor wiring caused it to run while the tank was empty. The tank itself is about 30 feet deep in the ground and the pumps sit on the bottom. So… being that this is a hazardous job, I’m the only one “qualified” (stupid enough) to go down into the hole. We had a pump specialist come out to deal with the wiring and plumbing, but the shitty job was mine. It took a few days for the replacement to come in, so I spent a quite a bit of time down there. To make matters worse it was abnormally hot in the mid 90’s (about 35°).

I’ve been so busy with the CM magazine stuff that i’ve totally blown off getting my car smog-checked for the renewal registration. I finally decide to get it done, and even before the inspection, the mechanic says it’s going to fail. Apparently the “Check Engine” lamp came which automatically sends an emissions failure to the computer. So I had to take the car in to get worked on.

On top of everything else, i had to finish up the second CM article for a Beginners Tutorial on Reason that goes through the entire process of making a (simple) drum ‘n bass track using only Reason. Writing for beginners is tough, because you have to assume the reader knows absolutely nothing about music, computers, or Reason. My deadline was last Friday, and I managed to get the images, documents, and reason song files uploaded for transfer on Thursday night. I’m not sure of the publication date, but it’s probably going to be out in the next few months. Special thanks to Loopmasters for letting me use some of their cool ReCycle loops for the track! The track itself is nothing special, but the Malström bass patch i came up with is pretty cool.

Gilbert, a well and pump technician who handles repairs to our properties, wants me to school him on using his PC to convert his vinyl collection to CD. He’s a DJ, and one of those guys who’s really particular about sound quality. While he was playing a CD in his 600 Watt Truck stereo, he was complaining about mp3 encoding artifacts that he charmingly referred to as “background noise”. I told him that he would be a pain in the ass client because he probably wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than master quality audio from the original tapes. So we might actually trade services… Who knew that doing computer music could be used for bartering services!?

So the week of hell is over, and now i can get back to a normal leisurely routine by finishing up a review and some refills….

Power Tools for Reason reviews having been coming out recently. I’m still shocked that XLR8R decided to review it. The review says “like the Dungeon Master’s guide to Propellerheads’ popular studio software.” I know they’re getting into doing gear reviews, but it’s an honor that they selected my book. I know how hard it can be to even get a record reviewed in that mag! Future Music pummeled the book though. The main complaint is honest enough, FM stated that it’s not catered for nubies and “the assumption that Reason users will all want to know about merging and splitting CV signals and the like is perhaps misguided…power users go for it and for the rest of us, it makes a dry albeit very thorough read.” Good thing FM is difficult to find in the US because i’m using a phrase from the review with a deceptively positive spin

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