The loopy season turns with surprising blooms—suddenly there. Open the windows. It’s so nice out, stay in & dig around. There’s a mass of neglected melodies & moments that are ready to be chased again, but go to the workroom cold instead, with no premeditation. Re-meditate. Direction is usually taken from lost adventure or pressing laziness. Either apply depending on the knee-jerk ego du jour.
There was a growth spurt in April & May of new cold-takes that began with a preemptive checkup on the initial health of the equipment. Immediately apparent, as it has been for over a year: disintegrating headphones. After hours of on-&-off, tiny black flakes from the vinyl pads freckle the face, ears & neck. One side just gives up.
Order new ones & find an old pair that're almost better than remembered.
Try a go-to setup: an iffy tube preamp to use as a direct plugin for quick recording. It's so iffy, it's dead. Try the stereo mic pre. It’s alive but not responding. It might be acting up or it might just be its foggy owner. Put it on the possible repair list & hope for a corrective happy accident next time. Move to the single channel Grace mic pre that was the only one used for decades, purchased around the same time as the Yamaha MD8 recorder. It still works. A desperate reunion that feels quite at home—slow-paced & one track at a time. Assess: Put a Vox mini amp in a salvaged drum with a SM57. The XLR works.
Try to plug in a Yamaha CP keyboard directly into the Grace.
There’s half of a headphone adapter broken off in the CP’s 1/4” output.
Dr. Leatherman recovers. The CP registers.
Close the eyes & feel around.
I remember the mini-disc era. It lasted all of ten minutes! 😂 Still, it sounded pretty good.
Our grandfathers never dealt with this, because they predated home recording technology. We are the pioneers of digital preservation.