W09 - 2_28_26 ChineseSchool
By ENC_ on February 28, 2026 10:29 am
Last weekend visited family in the capital for Tet. Focused on aunts and older cousins mostly this time. Gambled in dice and animal game, doubled earnings. Lost earnings in Lotto pool. Said goodbye to A&T before Texas. VTC crying as she left with G for his play. A bit teary. The boys drove themselves home. Handed off The Message to G. Photos in the sun in Áo Dài. Shared poppers from Costco. Hung back with aunts to complain about politics, check in on their lives, gossip, and joke. First new years without Co M's husband. Consoled her. Ly approaching 70's. Retirement talk. AL and I left late. listened to 90's music and talked on the drive home.
Behind on planned tasks, no time for listening again. Ramping up for Delorean Overdrive. Flyer out. Potential Californian mini tour? JK confirm for SF. Woke up in the middle of the night on Monday. Electrical fire at in-laws. Drove across town and worked with KL to fight fire in attic while fire department came. Melted light switch. exposed wires. Heater insulation smoking. Ran to kill breaker. They cut out the walls. luckily only a small fire. AL has been translating and calling insurance, the department, electricians, etc. all week. Had to forgo electricity for a while. Picked up supplies for them.
Cafe read and visit w/ AL. Adopted Kik (monkey). Tetris return. Visited Donna Summer, club to support local organizer. Talked about her career with enthusiasts and shared infor on history and production with Moroder. Looked through original records with locals.
Media Consumed: The Toxic Avengers (2023), Cheers, The Orville, Make some noise, Very Important People, The Age of Magical Over thinking by Amanda Montell, Nullsleep - Boundary, River Tiber - Dreaming Eyes, Marco Zenker - Challenge EP, Higher Brothers - Black Cab,
Gear Used:
Elektron Digitakt Mk.I
Tascam Dr-40
Software Used:
Ableton
Izotope Ozone 10
Tal-J-8 (sampled)
Tal-Pha (sampled)
Wanted to rotate samplers in use. More effort than last week to make up. Jumped to Digitakt, started w/ building samples from Jupiter 8 and Alpha Juno VSTs. Patches from scratch, also modified presets. Distributed samples to Digitakt and other devices. Working with Elektron sequencers is always a delight. Nothing sophisticated for the sequences for this one. Despite having some Digitakt practice in 2025, it was challenging finding ideas and results. Utilized previously generated samples from 2025 MG-1 session and others to fill in gaps. Worked in polymetric sequence and experimented with faking acid-ish lines using reso sample and digitakt's filter (bad 303 emulator but not too bad of a 202). Dropped standard velocity. On accented steps, P-locked full velocity and slightly raised envelope. When performing filter sweeps stays interactive. LFO to move sample start to add life to instruments per hit. Missing slides. Thought of Tet and remembered the voices from the kids in the school behind our appartment singing about the new year a while back. Practicing for a performance for their parents? Sounded good together. Sampled from phone recordings. Included H&A's kids in there pillow fort meeting.
Track 4 reserved for live intractable knob twiddling instruments. Live played along with song mode to add extra automation and more personality to track. 5 always bass. Recorded down to Tascam out for simplicity. One take on Digitakt alone. Just got the Zoom L-6 and have not familiarized yet outside quick test. Late night can hear yelling outside at 1:46am. From the church? Late night write up. Modular Is locked down Until Live Delorean sets are done.
File Names: 2_28_36 ChineseSchoo Ableton, ChineseSkool Digitakt, ChinaSchl2-28-26 Song mode,
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You had me at the rimshots. 
Honestly I don't think about it much these days. What comes out comes out and I am just happy I made something.