Definitely not doing an intro paragraph for the third week of… WEAK NOTES.

Work - ugh. Much documentation and fighting with the IT Service Desk. Not sure I’ve written any actual code (which is the fun bit). And the news has mainly been about how the world is on fire in so so many ways. Oh, look! Guitars…

I’m off on holidays and I always miss the guitar when I’m travelling. Playing has always been therapy. I’ve been spending some time on my Risa uke to make it as portable as poss - removed the strap buttons and fitted it with some plastic Graphtech Tune-a-lele rotary tuners are the main new modifications. I’ve also gone with a low G-string for the first time instead of the more traditional high octave… it completely changes the instrument. All your regular ukulele chord voicings now sound terrible, but with the strings now in pitch order all the scales I know from the guitar make sense again.

Still not sure if I’ll take it. It doesn’t quite fit in my M-51 Field Engineer’s bag…

It saddens me that Jim Caviezel has turned out to be a bit pro-Trump. But each to their own, and I still love Person Of Interest. With all the AI stuff in the news it could be time for the 35th re-watch.

I used to have a website where’d I post new (to me) songs that I liked for public consumption. The website got neglected and vanished but I’ve decided to get back to it here. I’ll tag everything “Listening Room”.

(My wife still gets a monthly mixtape full of stuff I’ve found.)

I ordered a Free-Way switch for the Duo-Sonic project. I’m 90% sure in the pictures it said “Made In England” on the casing of the switch, so obviously I’ve had to order it from Thomann in Germany. Pots, caps, knobs (and a weird variable treble bleed I’m going to try) have all been all sourced from the wonderful James’ Home of Tone and some new saddles from the also wonderful Northwest Guitars.

I’m particularly intrigued by the switch - I’ve gone for a pre-wired one for two pickups which allows the standard neck/both/middle on one side and parallel in phase/series in phase/series out of phase on the other. I mod almost all my two pickup guitars with a blade-style selector to have series wiring in a 4th position, which I use a lot for percussive drum loops. If it works well I’ve got a Cabronita tele and a Les Paul which will also get them… but Fifty-odd quid for a switch is a bit steep…

Goals achieved from the previous week:

  • spec out new innards for the Duo-Sonic: not only specced, but also mainly ordered too. It’s got a suprsing large cavity for such a small bodied guitar
  • do some FX programming for Medusa: done, although I’m not 100% happy
  • wipe out all the itty bitty cruft on the to-do list (chasing down courier refunds, posting some stuff): pretty much done apart from shouting at the courier, but they’re getting a sternly worded email after I press send on this.

Goals for the coming week:

  • survive being in the office with the client, and somehow design and cost a whole new app based on slightly fuzzy requirements
  • get ready for holidays
  • that’s enough, right? One more week…

That’s yer lot. Got a surprisingly active Sunday to get through, pressing send. Next time, Gadget. Next time.