NEWS FLASH ... (16th.February 2023) Hi Soundclickers, the legendary UK psychedelic Pop/Rock band The Lykes Of Wytch have woken from a very long sleep. Oh yes, they still think it's the year 1967! They had a few strong cups of coffee and 'got their collective heads together', and recorded and released a brand new piece of pure 1967 in musical form ... The song in question is, Lucifer Sam. Some of you who are as ancient as I am, will of course remember that it's a song from Pink Floyd's debut LP, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. The so called 'Syd Barrett' Pink Floyd years is my favourite era of the band... and their's too of course I'm sure that Syd himself will be smiling when he hears his song again. So, let's hope that The Lykes Of Wytch don't stop now and go on to record a bunch of new songs. [media]

There is a growing trend to steer away from using DAW's now that Microsoft and others want you to pay a subscription for using their products. If for some reason you are unable to carry on paying that 'subscription', then you cannot retrieve your own work. I am finding that by using an audio workstation rather than a DAW, I am able to enjoy recording all over again. It's simpler, quicker, more convenient, latency free and a lot more fun. It's like going back to using a cassette based 'Porta-studio'. Sometimes with a DAW, you have too much choice which kills your enthusiasm for what you set out to do...to record a song or tune. Now I find that I am able to immediately get a musical idea down at the time that I have it.

The Lazarus Ladders were a fabulous psychedelic band who enjoyed short lived fame and fortune at the tail end of the 1960s. Originally called Holland Park due to the fact that their guitarist, was Dutch and their keyboard player said that he would buy a big house in Holland Park with all the money he was going to make as a member of a famous rock group. An amusing name for a band who clearly could never have afforded to live in the very expensive Holland Park area of London...even when they were playing at the larger venues, once they'd 'taken off'. Other members of the band were from different parts of the UK. These songs and instrumentals are taken from the only two albums that they released...On The Way Up (late 1967) and Insert Coin To Continue (1968).The lost/stolen master tape of their third album sessions (recorded at various dates in 1969), has still to be found. Someone must have it somewhere. Rumours are that it is their absolute masterpiece. The group split up under mysterious circumstances. None of them have returned to music. Their guitarist is now a photographer and refuses to answer any questions about the group or the whereabouts of his former bandmates.

Playing music and recording it is essentially a pleasurable pass-time for me. I've been doing it for a long time. I began with a small Sony portable cassette recorder which was about the size of a large book. You can probably remember them. I was shocked to hear my own voice...as we all are the first time we hear it recorded. " oh no, I sound so Northern!.." well, I am you see, so it's not really surprising. Anyway, then when I saved enough (and when the price had come down sufficiently) I bought a cassette based 4 track Fostex porta-studio. I wore the poor thing out. Then the really big step was in the computer age...I obtained the legendary Cool Edit computer software, and then Adobe Audition 1.5 So far so good...but computer companies being what they are, made changes, seemingly just for the hell of it and everything 'went south' as they say. When I was forced to change to Windows10...I couldn't get the Adobe Audition programme to record anymore. It still works as a mastering/mixing programme fortunately. So now I record onto a stand alone audio workstation ...Zoom R-24 and transfer the recorded wav. files into Adobe Audition for mixing/mastering. At this moment in time...2021, this is what I use. I will continue to make my home recordings for as long as I can...until I can't fathom out how to use this ever changing and ever more complicated technology. In years to come, I guess that the home recording technology will be too complicated for me to use. I'm basically... a plug in, press record, dream away, press stop kind of guy at heart. The bottom line is...music is fun, not a competition. Have fun boys and girls.

I've recently been doing this a lot more on my own recordings and not relying on a drum machine. Once you get the hang of it it is much more 'authentic sounding. You can 'react' more like a drummer would do to the rest of the band. I'm not very good at it yet but I'm improving with each new recording. Give it a try...all keyboards have the kick, snare and Tom's in exactly the same place on the keyboard. Something that Yamaha, Casio etc.. all agreed on years ago ...neat eh...