I've decided after good example to write some diary pages with toughts and events.

Oh, in case anybody fails to understand, I'd like to remind them that these pages are copyrighted, and that everything found here may not be redistributed in any other way then over this direct link without my prior consent. That includes family, christianity, and other cheats. The simple reason is that it may well be that some people have been ill informed because they've spread illegal 'copies' of my materials even with modifications. Apart from my moral judgement, that is illegal, and will be treated as such by me. Make as many references to these pages as you like, make hardcopies, but only of the whole page, including the html-references, and without changing a iota or tittel...

And if not? I won't hesitate to use legal means to correct wrong that may be done otherwise. And I am serious. I usually am. I'm not sure I could get 'attempt to grave emotional assault' out of it, but infrigement on copyright rules is serious enough. And Jesus called upon us to respect the authorities of state, so christians would of course never do such a thing. Lying, imagine that.
 

Previous Diary Entries
 

Wed Apr 11 18:56:40 2001

I have to distribute time periods to the various subjects I'm working on, which at least can all lead even directly to commercial activities in various fields with some work on more contemporary machines, so the 3D stuff isn't out, in fact I've been looking at the 'blender' 3d designand render suite as well, though I can't test their software currently, at least it has my interest of course, they seem to even be interesting in hiring people with certain skills I certainly have.

I've been playing with the synth software I now have, and like making sounds, for instance with the fourier / sample addition based program with filtering and adrs, also combined with the detunable sequencer, which the last two days made me a few definately strong sounds. This morning I did a sound and sequence like the synth loop in 'I feel love' (an older Donna Summer Disco hit), which is actually convincing enough in the whole of things, especially with well timed arpeggiated chord changes. ANd that with relatively low sampling rate (maybe 25 kHz), incredibly tiny sample size (4 K byte), and based on the old PC driving the currently 10 MHz Z80 computer system, which reproduceses the sounds.

The two non-linearity controls I built in the latest ('zda') graphically controlled harmonics mixer and analog filter / adrs simulator program pay of when used right to make the kind of growly sounds and bass sounds that are getting there where I like them enough in the whole of things as well, a few of them are without modulation (except the filter does have an envelope for cutoff and resonance, and there are two fourier harmonics, I just used sines, interpolated oscilators) or further processing like chorussing or delay / reverb or additional guitar like distortion boxes fat enough straight from the DA converter at low volume even, which is neat.

It would be pretty good to take this stuff up to the next level with a DSP (or whatever applies) and maybe be able to make a complete product of it, at least there are strong enough possibilities, and I like it that this is all completely from basis building blocks upwards, there are no samples or tricks here, just simulated oscilators filters, and the rest, and not at all very lets say sophisticated or elaborately worked on, except for many of the very basic parts and their correct application. Its a strong starting point at least to make some developments work, there are first not many who have such in depth knowledge at all, though I'm sure they can be found enough, but the combination with the knowledge to make the associated circuits and then their simulations, and then do that with competative technology and then make it work right is not a very broad range of competetion. And then after 20 years I can even play such that I myself can be regularly satisfied in various musical directions, which basically is fun.

Oh, and for those interested or who should be interested, I've fixed a problem with the the Wavelaboratory Page so it should now correctly load the menu images and work properly, and also make the applet and all examples work right. I'm not sure what the browser requirements are exactly in terms of minimum, at least I think Javascript 2.0 and Java 1.2 must be supperted, which is the case with Netscape 4.5 supplied with the latest java virtual machine. Now it seems to work nice again, the page looks good, it's quite worth thinking about the audio interface, the synthesizer labaratory page sequel, and I'm sure a real course based on it is quite applicable, maybe a university course or so, or another kind of course at a level where some math and core material is not out of order would at least be quite well possible on the basis of this. At least it is available for free, so have a look and comment if you like, it for certain is good stuff and worth as a knowledge basis.

A synthesizer module as open software platform

There are no many, I think not realy one as an open platform, around, and though I'm not too sure about how powefull the motorola DSP that ticks in it is, the idea is interesting to see, I'd scew a Texas Instuments evaluation board with one of the almost latest of their DSP's in a 19 inch enclosure myseld as soon as I can invest a bit, and I'd not be surprised if that could be quite fast, but its interesting to see the idea being broght forward in another form. Those guys seem to be in builtup phase, and they are appearenly in the process of making a development package, which will be made available to interested parties to make programs for the DSP, the built in strongarm processor (like in some PDA's), and to drive the display and front panel controls.

An interesting phrase is that they might make a development machine available even for free to certain developers, which could of course lead to a version of my string simulator running as a synthesizer module. Or some of the analog processing programs, and of course what comes more of that and further developments.

I don't think making an alternative, with or without making a widely useable software development package available, is a problem comptetitionwise, and I've got more than enough ideas to make at least half a dozen versions ahead when with sufficient means, and it could be intersting to make software for more than one of those type of machines, and of course PC software or steinberg plugin modules as well, though I don't like the idea of running a computer to play a synth, and especially not that almost always there is considerable delay in the tone generator drive path when playing real-time, and of course running other programs at the same time becomes harder.

Mainly, I'd like the idea of a fast DSP to do top quality or as advanced as possible processing, which for a polyphonic string simulator is quite desirable, which makes pentiums for all I'd want probably not powerfull enough for years to come, depending on optimisations and demands. A fast or a few fast DSP's lets say a tms320C6711 at 600 MHz (preferably), or even a few of them are serious stuff in this area, that should give enough mips and flops horsepower to run a serious synth algortihm, and then still have room for good quality effects and routing and modulation possibilities with high accuracy.

Interestingly, too, I saw TI now has an offer for their latest floating point DSP on a developer board at 150 MHz, with 16MB ram (more than enough for serious sampling at least), 128k flash memory for progams and data, a parallel port PC interface, DA/AD converter, extension connectors, and PC based development software including C compiler, assembler, data transfer library, example programs, simulator and DSP driver programs and all that for the almost (industrial wise) ridiculous price of $299, orderable at TI themselves it seems.

I think it should be possible to make the board work also self contained, so it should be possible to after putting some software in the flash memory to screw it in a 19 inch or other enclosure (mayba an old electrical piano case) and make various machines with it.

Clearly, it is at least seriously possible to make such a machine also generally connectable to a PC, maybe with linus, and for instance use bwise to program it, also for users, which puts it in an interesting application area, I guess also commercially.

I've browsed some conference proceedings on the real time operation system that runs on these DSP's and its applications, which is convincing that I knew pretty much all the issues at stake at least, and that my management, preparations, software and guidelines that I made work and available for my 3K a month at my previous university were worth it completely years later still, and that I should have no problem overseeing the problem and solution area at least, and that working applications should be makeable with the background knowledge I have in mind when I think about these subjects, which includes communicating processes, various messaging and interface techniques, and hell, my Z80 with at least 30 MHz (at 4 bytes 120, at 8 240 MByte per second bandwidth equivalent) capable distributed bus infrastrucure is driven and programmed by a PC and my own made development environment, so what are we talking about, that works, it just doesn't make me money at the moment.

And it is programmed and dynamically given data all the time, over a standard interface as well, except that I'm sure making various windows versions convinced a certain interupt routine should work at a certain rate and with reliable cooperation with other devices is not so trivial, but more a development matter. Without fine grained double direction communication, that is not a problem, and programming the DSP board should not be too much of a problem as well, I allready made TI's own, official simulator run parts of my string simulator software, which apart from efficiency (optimisation) was not a problematic affair, in fact quite fun enough and overseeable, except that such a DSP has a more complicated infrastructure than most more ordinary processors because it has 8 computation units and more complicatied bus structure internally, and uses compound instructions made of 8 assembly statements each to allign operation timing in its pipeline.

Railtracks versus having wheels and using them

I have the lets say impression that there are a lot of systematic reasons that drive people to become or behave certain ways, which I find in general against normal humanness, except when it serves a clear purposes, such as all going to school at 9.

Why on earth should some system rule my every move in live, as extreme case, just to satisfy the powergreed of some, the control desire of other, the will to blackmail and hide the sins of yet others, to be told what to do to fit in the ideas of child abusers, and then you do as they told you.

In general: fuck you I'll not do what you tell me. As in the Rage Against the Machine song, that is, except evidently for normal enough reasons: if you'll enroll in this study program, you'l work hard, and in the end you'l be an engineer or such, fine with me, nice in fact, and of course also systematic. Or lets say I put in 8 hours of work a number of days a week, and somehow a number in the banks computer system changes miraculously every month, which in turn makes my creditcard work when I want to buy somethine, no problem.

But 'listen, your mommy though it would be good idea to suffer, make her wonderfull fake christian, of course over your head until either she's dead, you're dead, or you're at least 50 or so, because for various very dark reasons she likes that better', and we'll all join her, because this country has its own unwritten laws of making sure evil continues to rule, so at least we're sure it will always rule, because then in the end, well, then at least evil rules, is a deal where the song applies.

Would you be so kind to play this little nazi game along, please, it is just a little one, you'll only lose every credibility, your independence, every form of maleness you mommy and daddy and others that of course will help you in simular ways cannot be completely motherf*-ing or leading or putting under them, and of course you'l have to sacrifice you, your relation, your money and your live to the moloch, beelzebul, the mammon, and whatever other demon or idea comes along?

No. I will not.

Please pour all you've got in the bowl that in the end realy guaranteed will be held by even the real great whore, and make sure the rulers of the earth can become drunk with the adultery against the spirit of god she'll feed them with, we're sure we've done the right thing to do the same, and let the great beast now bookkeep us into salvation in its incredible salvation by making some other suckers do the same, so we in our midlife crisis can become so wonderfully one in the idea that for certain nothing works good for real and that we can therefore subsequently live in perfect sin of secretly hating the other one, and of course teach little ones that the real antichrist realy, realy agrees with every wonderfully one human being that all is well, and in the end, when nazism realy works, and those wonderfull sins are applied realy accurately according to the wonderfull demonic rules, everything evil incredibly comes together and for certain nothing whatsoever works anymore. Guaranteed, it has been tried. And at least in Holland Hitler would now have official permission to let a qualified physician betray him, and himself but only when someone else realy would want to abuse the trust, which sinners of course know is never realy betrayed when it is allways already betrayed before it is ever there, and get killed to end all this misery, even in the possession of his own will.

But all this is better, because the controlling deamon and the general state of mind that goes with the schizofrenia which of course every human being understands so wonderfully as the inevitable result of such systematic thinking, which every person of course understands is better for all of course, simply because it is there, agree completely that we are saved by such a double or more than double life, and that of course it is realy wonderfull we can make our hearts and minds so wonderfully fucked up with all this. What a priviledge. Thank you, oh great satan, sorry, I mean god, for making this system so gloryfull in the end, of course.

Incredible, that then we can make such thinking and rules into even proof that it is and that this in itself of course proves it is all there is, so we can ingore normalness and blisfully live in the lies that at least for certain will mess us up, and then use to realy guaranteed mess children up with just the same, so that we know it is good, because that realy actually works, too. And then we can even make games work with that that are even worse lets try some incredible gestalts, and have spiritual lies that are so incredible that at least for certain in the end they will prove destructive, and that everyone that lives in our liarish system will at least have preyed on all other, and that at least all receive damnation, but can lie long enough to realy make this work.

Such gospels are definately not gospels, messages of good new, and who wants to uphold them, live by them, or preach them in my opinion work out nothing good or worth while. I'm certain there are many spirituals parties that will inform anyonw who wants to know differenly, and that there are many written and other sources that you about the most incredible, powerfull, mighty, incredible, and again incredible systematic approaces that are completely worth your effort, because if we all play the lottey, we all become richer in the end. The amounts of money will increase incredible, and therefore we'll be al incredibly rich in the end, and live even rich messed up and essentially sinfull or sin directed lives, for certain, according to those sources.

The real gospel clearly teaches that all these schemes, just like made clear beyond any doubt in the old testament, are in essence sin, and its outworking in the world we live in, unless God in His mercy changes something, systematically, personally, in ways He seems to have chosen to show Himself and His properties with. His systematic view adds up to the fact that He is holy of all that misery, is good and honorable, and that He provides a way out following His rules, where He provides the means for many to be justified though his Son bearing the just punishment for the sins in the world, and where He reveals what is evil, and makes power available in the name of that same Son over all that is in the world and the spiritual, and makes people available too, that as a result of his salvation become capable of living in another spirit, another life, and can become usefull for saving, and showing mercy to others, and to make changes that are for better, not for worse.

This being relevant because if we take the bible for authorative, there is no good in the world as it has been damned by sin, no one that is righteous by nature, not even one, no one that even earnestly seeks God by nature, all have gone astray, essentially righteousness is not known, and the way of peace isn't either, and misery and destruction are on peoples ways, that is the way Paul sums it up in the letter to the Romans.

I guess the Holy and almighty God's judgement over the world has been complete and quite effective, and if it wouldn't have been for His intervention, things would be pretty bad hell, I'm sure.

'Christians', bewteen quoutes, in normal meaning of the word should reflect Gods properties, not the characteristics of the world system and evil persons, and be knowable as such, which of course is generally not true, there are complete systems which call themselves even the highest and most authoritive christian system even worldwide, while in fact they are a temple system worshipping the devil, and there are many maybe more hard to discern liars with similar characteristics of liarishness for reasons of greed for riches, power, and probably the having of the real life only God and his Spirit can give, which is not corruptable, and therefore automatically above all that is in the world systems, without question to the great horror of multitudes of demonic spirits and evil persons.

I in myself make clear separation between the two extreme cases of christian persons relations, one is good, that is how it should be, the other is bad, and therefor nothing worth, including the christian name or position, no reason at all. One can call oneself anything one wants, it is about the content, and when that is bad, it is bad, and that's it. There is no political rule of tolerance involved, when one playes soccer, a contries law does not demand that as a result of equality of everything, a few baseball rules must be followed, or else the socker team isn't legally tolerant of all opinions in its own name.

Crap.

In many cases, good is good, bad is bad, and thats it, and there is no point merchandising what is good to becoome bad, or to make a policital game out of forcing them to be mixed up, I see no good and only evil reasons to desire so.

In essence, all this would add up to the idea that only some chosen people that happen to respons right to built themselves up in their possiblities to good, can live in an acceptable way, and all other deserve to die or something, which of course is a fate that awaits everyone anyhow. Might be true in certain ways, but I disagree that only evil should be considered to rule, and then maybe a few special ones, and that's it. I live in a countrie where a certain constitution has been humanly strived for, and am a lot better of through a lot of facilities and lives in this society starting from the sun rising, though the availability of such machines as computers, concepts as universities, supermarkets, and all such.

So I am convinced of the desireability to make things work in an acceptable way enough, even when all human being s by nature deserve to die, which indeed happens in the end, and that in between there is no point in searching for damnation and misery, except when there is reason for such. Someone wanting to seriously injure or kill someone else could maybe even be killed to stop them, and that might be legally and humanly acceptable, though such and event in general cannot be called pleasant.

Clearly, centuries and millenia or real and fake illuminated thinking reflect various angles on these issues, and without question many teachings in the gospels and other parts of the bible are good sources of information, divine knowledge, and sensibility.

On the personal level, I think the only reasonable response when God saves a person is to want to follow His will for ones' life, and live as a proof of how He is and can make people, not of the misery that is more than enough there in natural sense. In biblical sense, God prepared good works for His own, where they can learn to live in, and develop themselves for and with, and without question that means both testing in His ways and benefits according to His will.

General rules are clearly that at least when He reveals His will, one does as He says, He is not an unknowledgeable sucker in need of power over man or in emotional need of sucking up or stupidity, of course after verifying to the best of our capabilities what it is what He is making clear, and wether indeed it is Him. And some generally present holy spirit imitation should definately not be taken for Him, I'm sure that is a great danger.

Given this, the systems in that type of christians' life (the right kind that is) are usually probably just in the way of the listening to the (real) Holy Spirit. A common example are christian systems, but clearly other power systems as well can put a person under leading that limits him or her to not become such as they can be intended. When evangelist for example becomes part of a local church, while in fact he (or she) should be traveling, because that fits his person and the plan God has, those limitations will limit the effectiveness and probably level of satisfaction of such a persons' life.

I'm sure it can be part of Gods purposes to be in just about every position, for that without question there are no general rules God can be captured in, but for certain there are clearly enough defined types of biblical christian ministries and the person kinds that go with them, and people should realize the limitation and possibilities of the choices involved.

I"m sure that in the darknes of what is, certain problems associated with wrong commitments can be savely written of as immaterial or not so relevant, but also when mcuh and great evil has to be fought or countered, on may anticipate that one needs what one has to be succesfull, and that Gods mercy might not be enough if we chose not to go about our lives the way He indicates, and as a result maybe even fall away in the sense that such a person would still be saved, but maybe not at all in the anymore living according to gods life idea for them, which os probably sad.

And for certain such reasons underly much misery in the world and christianity, when persons are intended a certain way by God, the wannabe gods in the world systems are not going to lead them into being so, or even accept they become or are such as the only good God intended. And thus if we follow lets say worldly clues and ways, we can be quite certain to at least be effective and succesfull less than possible. For quite certain, I'd say. When Gods gifts are not used or applied or made available right, we are going to worse of, so there is not much point.

Of course it is quite possible there are choices involved that are not easy or humanly desirable, over the whole, or for certain time periods, so I'm not saying do as God realy wants and become loaded rich and happy anf immedeately and eternally fulfilled, powerfull and what else there could be desirable, but I am sure that the real God is the only source of leadership that at least for certain is for the better, everything else can at least be taken for possibly suspect, or downright evil.

Normally, the fruits of (I repeat: real) christian obedience to his will, and learning and applying of His doctrines are without questiong in the end the most desirable, and personwise wholesome, though as it says in proverbs (I read long ago) there are many things in life that in this life do not add up to a certain limited form of justice and rightfullness. Some evil people are filthy rich, some poor are good, some wise become powerfull, some unwise, some have lives on tropical islands, others never get part of western riches, of course in ecclesiastical language, all that is vanity.

I'm sure when God is involved as person, which is quite a concept to start with, but let's assume after biblical image that such happens, His dealings with other parties are holy and just and even generally good, though of course I don't have knowledge or access to sufficient sources to proof such beyond reproach, I have to assume mainly biblical sources that I can take serious are correct on the subject.

Testing of spiritual sources

If we assume there is an almighty. allknowling God, and that under certain conditions He does communicate with mortal human beings, it is clear that such may be of interest, and at points maybe even vital. If we make the computer comparison, we in such case of course can be well aware of the risc of catching a virus, which when it finds place in the heart of the human operating system could be very dangerous, and in cases like kamikazes even lethal.

Then probably the comparison ends, but in spiritual sense it should be stressed there is only one Holy Spirit, and all other spirits are not God, they might be human, or demonic, but in neither case worth consulting as if they communicate with an authoritiveness, truth level, or knowledge like God has, and many human beings are certainly not worth much trust, and demons are worth none whatsoever. It never pais to listen do demons, they are only evil, and never serve a good purpose, except maybe they can damn bad people to become not so dangerous or something, but they themselves can safely be discarded, allways, without exception, there are no good demons, not even one is worth listening to, except maybe to discern and then to be commanded away.

WIthout question, it is unwise not to have spiritual communication tested, in general, and at least with the same priority when it concerns alledged communication with 'God', which in principle is possible for those who have found salvation through Jesus and the way opened to God though his righteousness which makes the punishment of being spiritually dead (seperated) from God not longer needed.

And when matters of some relevance or profoundness are concerned, without question we need to test wether indeed it is God giving revelation or insight or various forms of utterances. When such testing remains absent because others aren't involved in the testing process, or maybe because we are not very well edified in biblical truth to know what exactly is acceptable and completely in line with trut already revealed and widerly tested, danger is present. Prophesies as revelation and utterance of the Holy Spirit need to be tested by trust worthy, edified, preferably experienced fellow christians before they are taken as serious as they can be, and should be, and we shouldn't run on prophesies.

Multitrack Recording

How would I know? Ive made more than a few quality enough multitrack recordings myself, starting long ago. Mainly I've used a 4 track cassette based Teac Tascam 244 portastudio machine for years for recordings from various keyboards and synthesizers and instruments, including my own voice, and later on a Fostex 8 track reel to reel tape recorder with 12 channel mixer. Before that, I ping ponged or bounced tracks around on two sony tapedecks, and later, I've myself been recorded a few times in a more full fledged studio setup, also in a digital Alesis Adat based and 48 or so channel mixer env, though I operated only little machinery during that occasion, I was mainly there to play synth. Maybe I should count Video editing, with double sound track, and of course recently I've done my own hard-disc recording, I've tested that both on PC and MacIntosh, with various software, cubase audio, a illegal (just to try version) of rebirth and another well know audio processing package. The latter is definately not unlike more traditional multitrack recording and studio type of equipment use.

Mainly, I've gained advanced enough experience with guitar, my own built keyboard/synth, some commercial ones, a moderately priced microphone and some not high quality ones, and various effect equipment and the Teac.

Multitracking basically means that there are more than one audio track on a recording device, like stereo, but usually more than 2, and that those 'tracks' can be recorded or playbacked in combinations, that means one may first record one track, for instance with a rythm patters, then play that track back, and record a bass instrument on an other track, which then can also be played back, and then for instance voice and a solo instrument could be recorded on the next tracks. When a band or orchestra is playing, we could also feed every instrument to a seperate track on tape, and record them all simulaneously.

DUring playback, we can than change the mixing ratios of the instruments still, apply editing to the various instruments on their respective tracks, and for instance puch in replacement bars at points where such is wanted, for instance to replace an note error by the right note. The instrumentalist sits ready for the punch in, with the instrument connected to the right track on the tape machine, usually via the mixer routing possibilities, or directly, the tape is started in playback mode, and just before the error, the track at hand is switched from playback ot record mode to correct the glitch or faulty passage.

When all tracks are recorded and also seperately sound right, which makes it easier to check their quality, and the material is good, the mixing phase can begin. That first means that the channels on the mixer, where the tape recorder track outputs are fed into are adjusted such that every channel sounds right, the course volume, the equalisation, maybe some more bass or treble, the effects, such a effects added in seperate amount for every channel, such as reverberation or lesley, and then for testing the tape is run, with all tracks in playback mode, and the result listened to. When the tape is well made, the instruments can be made to sound well together, if not, some tracks may have to be redone. All tracks are played back, the muxers faders and maybe other controls are adjusted as desired during the song being recorded on some high quality master tape, for instance a quality stereo tape recorder. When that master tape is played back, the song must wor and sound right, or the mix, or maybe even some instruments have to be redone until the result is satisfactory.

I;m not sure how complicated or easy enough this sounds, but it depends on a lot of facters, besides the directly musical ones wether all this can be done smooth and easy enough.

I regularly did songs with lets say 8 or so instruments in it, on the 4 track machine. That means that after having recorded a few tracks, they are combined into a singe new one, leaving space for more instruments, which takes work, and means those combined tracks are 'fixed', because the ratio of instruments and their relative sounds cannot be changed anymore in the total mix. Also, going from recording to playback means that all tracks have their associated signals going from in to out direction, and if there are no automated or hand switches for that, it may mean that for every track a chord must be changed from the mixer to the recorder. Which for 8 tracks already could be quite annoying. Also, when mxing instruments together, and simulaneously wanting to play back what is called a monitor mix, to hear the already recorded tracks, requires at least two mixers, effecively, which must both be adjusted for each new track to be recorded.

Many albums I liked were recorded on lets say at least 24 or probably 48 or even more tracks in major studios. I one takes a short little over a second for just the volume faders, that means it takes minute just to quickly adjust them all, as an indication of the amount of know twisting possibly needed to make such and undertaking work. Of course switching from record to playback and making monitor mixes are supported by the muixer equipment, but one does need to keep track of what is there and apply some law of economics to make the whole operation manageable by leaving controllers in the same position as much as possible thoughout the recording process.

Productionwise, of course one needs to know what to make with the recording and the way the rracks are given effects and mixed into the stereo image. For instance, one may have a dozen drum tracks, with different equalisation and effects like reverb, delay, noise gating, and compression for each type of seperately recorded drum, and that can be adjusted such that the maybe seperate 'takes' together sound like a solid or some special type of drum section. Then the bass player may be called on to decide on the way the bass lines should go with them, wether some additional chorusing, short reverberation for the high range, and of course accurate equalisiation and dynamic accentualtion and control are in order and how much.

Playing the combination with the drum back might reveal a wonderfull rythm section, but also may make clear the bass drum isin the way of the bass guitars attack, the compression makes the bass pump such at cymbal crashes the whole idea is gone, or the playing just doesn't work for the desired sounds, so some instruments must be recorded again. Since it is a waste then to trow away otherwise satisfactory recorded tracks, on may chose for instance to make the drummer play his rythms again, hopefully being able to only rerecord the bass drum, accurately matching the rythm, and without too much crosstalk from the other drums, and record that sound on a new track, if still available, muting the old one, maybe while giving him the bass playing on the monitor mix on his headphones, since a loud monitor speaker would feed the spectrum competing bass sound into the new recording, without a way to get it out again.

When a string ensemple is blended in the recording, it might be quite hard to make the players make the same ensemble sound again, since they ar not machines, and then the choice could be to keep the old recording if something is wrong, or to risc that the right combination feel with the other instruments can be hard to get right on tape again. Singling out single errors may be hard, and editing notes may be hard because of the reverb in the recording room, which therefore may be a damped one, which leaves on with the problem of getting the reverberation feel right because the instrumentalists cannot play at it, unless the are unnaturally fed the used reverberation over headphones or maybe directed monitors.

The whole idea of recording seperate tracks makes a 'studio' recording less of a band thing than a live, directly recorded one, and therefore at least one should take into account which players and singers are recorded before others can be called in who need for isntance the pitch of some instruments, and the rythm to sync with.

When all is done well, the music works, and the multitrack tape contains a collection of high quality recordings of fitting together tracks for a song, which makes the mixing fun, because then there is space to play with the track combination, instrument soloing, effects, and maybe added special effects and equalisation. Then a good quality master can be made with a good stereo image, pleasing reverbeation suitable for for instance chamber but also for car radio sound reproduction, effective dynamcs control, with emphasis of the musical elements that make the song, with good dynamic range control for the type of the song, and brilliant and well sounding, noise and disturbance free distinct instruments in the sound, well blending together into the idea and production form of the song.

Sounds a bit academic, but in fact all those factors, and quite some more make complete practical sense, and immedeately affect wether a recording sounds like done on a toilet is is still completely worth playing on a good quality CD player and amp and speaker system even after 20 years, because all adds up, and the product is music produced to sound right.

Lists and commandlines

Unix and other command line driven operating systems and lets say interactive programming environments have various ways of dealing with a wealth of parameters passed to a program, for instance putting them in a file, distinquishing between defaults and changing options, having editable command lines, and various (shell) variable sustitutiono schemes.

Tcl is not far from unix in terms of process or function calling, the first element of the commandline is the command name, then options (preceded with -, having a default) and arguments (must normally be given in right order, and often have no defaults) together form a list which forms a command. When the list structure and the elements are correct and not mistyped, the command can be executed in the right way.

There are processes and tcl functions with a lot of arguments, lets say we want to type the command for creating a new block on the canvas, for instance a new procedure, then the command to do so is called 'newproc', and in fact I've arranged it such that the procedure default argument values are good enough to at least work, they will put a new block in the upper left corner of the canvas, with one input, one output, a simple pass functions as associated functionality, and automatic geometry.

I recently was progressing and updating the package here and there at some essential or interesting spots, and for instance wanted to create a new procedure graphical block somewhere else on the canvas, not at a fixed position. That is possible, and goes something like this:

newproc {some_function} "myprocedure" {input1 i2} output 50 {} mytag 100 100

Now it is clear that it is not nice to type this whole line every time we want to make a new block, so the tcl commandline editor (cursor motion with arrow keys) comes in handy, but that still leaves us with a long and maybe hard to read command line, and we have to accurately count the number of list elements. For procedures with standard in and ouput pints and geometry, it suffices to for instance only specify 'newproc {..tcl function...}', which works fine, one command, one argument, thats no problem, and the rest of the arguments are then filled in with their defaults.

The short version of the additional function calling possibility I for instance made is to be able to specify the arguments by name that need to have non-default values, so we would have

pro_args newproc {{x 100} {y 120}}

which is doable typing, and for long arguments lists works fine, too. And programmingwise, such mechanisms can provide inheritance improving mechanims where arguments (like functions) can be combined between various function versions in a general way, where only the required inheritance equivalent passing is explicitly done, and with every possiblity to make this automatic.

I've also looked at some user interface aids to call such functions, for instance one may select a function from the alphabetical list as I've displayed some pages ago, and get the function content automatically in a text window at a button press, also for editing, and now I'd add a command line with the function name filled in, which I'd supply for instance with its default values for editing, and possibly with an associative mechanism for certain parameters, possibly before the argument list is compiled or after (to replace some arguments in a default parameter list).

Programmers stuff, but in fact when a user would like to make a sorted list of all picture files on a harddisc partition using some blocks, and then wants to make this create an automatically updating database for instance, blockwise that is overseeable, minus that there are always a few parameters to fill in, which is always tricky. Having a completely standard set of list processing blocks with these types of aid functions can make all this overseeable enough for non expert use, and certainly a lot handier than mere shell scripts.

Environments offering user interfaces for List, and envs like smalltalk, and I think scheme are also in this area of thinking, though not always handily applied. In tk, it is not hard to make another function to put all the parameters on list of graphically editable text fields, possibly seperated in any way desired, with defaults filled in, in no time.

I've used block/network oriented packages like Khoros and AVS for years, and know how much hassle it is to call the functions and blocks in such environments in a user friendly way, except for the supplied graphical user interfaces, which are always more limited than using command lines.

When such works enough to use it can be applied, and just that is needed to begin with, though I now have popup menus for creating new blocks anywhere on the canvas, and for invoking input/output and function editing, datatransfer and running in sequence for blocks, which are so general and automatically updating with new behaviour becoming available, and so robust and portable because of tcl/tk being quite solid, straightforward and not bug loaded, that in fact is it not idiotic to think that even this version in construction is getting good enough for a wider audience.

I'll be doing some C programming and compilation under bwise control, I think, and hook up some of the existing synth blocks, that should be quite worth it.