OK, this is probably crazy...

... but I'm going to try to have the next two albums done in a year and a half.

I have reasons for wanting to get Amethyst Rose done -- at least at the duplicator -- by next August. On the other hand, two years is a long time to wait for the one after that, Hacker's Heaven, especially since that will be more upbeat and have more of peoples' favorite songs in it. Also, I've been feeling particularly mortal lately, and have both cancer and heart disease on both sides of my family. Should have started a decade ago. Oh, right.

On the gripping hand, a lot of the time I spent mostly not working on CC&S was spent learning how to use the tools, trying to figure out what needed to be done and how to do it, working on things like the bonus CD that didn't really need doing, and not knowing when I needed to ask for help. I've done that now. Got the T-shirt (from Oasis), even.

( So here's my plan. )

I spent most of my year-end vacation last year working on ABT, hacking on the website, and building the toolchain. When I sat down and analyzed what I've done over the last couple of years, I really did crank out two albums. (Facepalms.) No wonder it took longer than I expected.

OK, you can call me crazy now.

Gadget lust sated for the moment

Having determined that my favorite local store, Guitar Showcase, doesn't have the Zoom H2, I went and ordered one from AMS. (GS did have several fascinating instruments in their consignment shop, but I've been assured by the flower_cat that she'll divorce me if I bring another home. Besides, I'm out of closet space.)

I also ordered a Rolls PM50S personal monitor. This is basically a headphone amplifier (which I need for the Delta 1010 I bought at GS's consignment shop a month and a half ago) with the ability to mix in the signal from a microphone, which it taps off without interfering with either the signal from the mic to the preamp, or the phantom power going the other way. (I checked the schematic, which was in the two-page manual AMS links to from the product page.) I'll probably get another eventually, though I'd like to find the one mentioned in the manual as having a battery compartment. Or maybe I'll just cobble one together from parts.

See this post for technical trade-offs. I don't expect to ever use it as a USB microphone or interface, or to multitrack with it. That's what the UA-25 is for. The H2 looks ideal for recording concerts, circles, and rehearsal sessions.

That reminds me: I have concert recordings from Baycon, Westercon and ConChord that I still have to split up and upload. Oops.