How mesmeric is this Nixie counter?  It's the three dimensionality that gets me - each vacuum tube contains 10 cathodes that make the lines of each number, so as it counts up the numbers close in and move away.  Check out the way the light subtly shifts on the holding bars for each digit, just fantastic.

I've just had this 6 tube Nixie repaired after a long absence.  I always used to have it running at one click a second, 24/7 in the studio, and we'd all hold up for an exciting number - a 'hey-look-at-that' for something nice like 012210, and a 'put your instruments down, we're going in' for a flip over from 099999 to 100000 or 123455 to 123456.  You'd call people in from other studios for the big moments... celebrations all round, creative nodes for sure.

I wrote the music for something that never happened, so here it is instead.  It's called Pulse. (I can't pretend to have thought long and hard over that title.)

This is a my eye view of a live improvised session, playing an Arp Explorer I analog monosynth through a Line 6 Echo pedal.  I did this mainly as a texture-gathering exercise with a bit of hey-let's-see-what-happens thrown in.  I might make use of some of the textures in a more structured track, however I find this piece interesting on its own so here it is.   

I like the idea of only using one instrument to make a whole bunch of sounds, the restriction pushes you to be more creative.  The Explorer is a deceptively versatile synth; despite looking plasticky and cheap it can make some really varied, often aggressive sounds with a bit of application.
 
*The audio on this film slips slightly out of sync for some reason or other.  I'll upload a sorted version shortly.

I hadn't turned the Explorer on for a couple of years so I couldn't remember how to use it at first.  Quite a few keys triggered strangely or sometimes not at all, playing odd notes on release, and most of the sliders could do with the loving attention of a service engineer, the filter and resonance sliders most obviously.  You'll see the smallest movements I make with the filter slider (slider panel top right, one in from the end) having a big effect on the sound, but only in the very top of its range.  You'll also see me drowning the controls with contact cleaner to see if that would help.

I played the Explorer into the Loop Recorder bit of the Line 6 Echo, activating the record button from time to time to build up some textures to play over.  A track like this is as much about the choices you make in building up the loop as the instrument that you're playing.  To take this process to another level you would have other effect pedals after the loop pedal so you can twist the loop some.

This shaky, hand held film takes a while to get going which makes for slightly frustrating viewing, but I've left all that in because people have asked me how I build up my textures and this shows the process from start to finish.  The film making was very much secondary to the music making, so there are bits where I didn't pay attention to the picture while I was concentrating on a button or a slider - it can be quite hard to play and film at the same time.  I could have creatd a more fluid ending, but the way it finishes makes me smile so I've left it the way it is.

This is a mono recording with no overdubs.  I've edited out a couple of sections where the signal collapsed or got REALLY LOUD for some unknown reason, but this is effectively a live performance with no computer jiggery pokery.