Well, summer is over, let's see what I've done so far. GPN 22 was... rainy-wet but fun. I was mostly outside but to keep my equipment secure I played in the underground car park in front of the back entrance. Sadly I fucked up the recording levels and thus everything I recorded was clipped and not in a fun way. No recordings from GPN this year. Sorry.
I also was at Rock Harz Open Air and no, I was not booked to play Acid House on stage at a Metal Festival. Of course not. Instead I was sitting in our camp with my friends and randomly put synths out of my tent whenever I felt about it. At one point I recorded a nice little session, I put it into the SynthTrain album: https://funkwhale.apps.phentr0pulse.de/library/tracks/4/ This years Rock Harz taught me a few things. First: I have to use headphones! I made the mistake and used the speakers on the main output to monitor what I play. When everybody is talking I sometimes was unable to hear the beats and missed the bar timings. If you hear a drop and feel like WTF is this, what happened here?, then you found one of these instances. Then: Even if I feel like I'm too lazy to get up one more time because I forgot to grab the midi clock, I should do it anyway. Makes stuff so much easier! And finally: There are a few synths who absolutely don't like daylight. The Korg Volca Sample 2 for example is NOT one of these. Whenever I try to figure out which step keys are lit on my Roland T-8 and which are not (because the look the same in sunlight), the Volcas eyeburning bright red step LEDs go pew-pew-pew like little lasers. But take the Novation Circuit Tracks for example. I had a few times where I was unsure if it was switched on yet.
What am I taking from this summer? Well, doing stuff live in the sun is great but I need some kind of portable shadow solution because not every gear provides enough visibility in daylight. Don't sleep on the midi clock, it is great. Use headphones. Hydrate properly. And watch them recording levels.
What's next? Uh, the year still has like 10 weeks or something, maybe I do a little home studio recording? I don't think it is a good idea sitting outside with my gear in freezing or rainy weather. I could do a youtube video. I don't know. But I think I'll do something before the year ends. Just for the finale, you know?