Let me try and put into words the last 3 weeks for me...

blerg.

It was a really bad time; I've had no real energy, hardly been awake. Games weren't even doing it for me, although the excellent Plants vs Zombies did help for a while (and I recommend getting it from Steam), and even at work I hadn't written any code for ages. OK, so for some of that time I was off (bank holiday, holiday and illness) but for the majority I was in work.

Things thankfully worked to my advantage;

First Secret Project 1 @ work made it to green light and while the publishers are happy with it they couldn't agree terms with each other so that project has been scaled back (seriously, we have like 1 coder on it full time now and that's it) and the team was redistrubed.

Then Secret Project 2 which I got moved on to which is a Wii title then kicked off but was in 'fact finding' mode. So lots of reading, no coding.

At the start of last week we got called into a meeting and told that as Secret Project 3 (A 360 title) was looking like it was more likely to sign first we were being pulled from the Wii title and put on that.

This lead to a week of 'wrapping up' for the thursday for our change over on friday to the new project. Much joking about how nothing we were doing mattered so we could leave problems and let the team who was taking over deal with 'em [grin]

Then, on the thursday the coders got called into another meeting and told that the plans had changed and that only 2 of us would be moving to SP3 (myself being one of the two) and the other 3 would be staying on SP2.

Well, what really happened was;
Producer (with smile on face and in a joking manner): So, we warned you this would happen.
*coders laugh*
Producer: First it was 3 people, then it was all 5 going and things have changed again, so can you guess how many are going now?
Me: 7?
*everyone falls about laughing*
[grin]

I'm great to have in meetings [wink]
The meeting ended with one of the coders turning to the other he had been working with and saying 'you know that problem we said we weren't going to fix... we should probably fix it...' [lol]

So, yeah, moved projects and no coding.

While I'm very much a coder I've always had a keen intrest in music, indeed I even had a GCSE in it (well, an E which is about as low as you can get without failing but never mind [grin]).

A number of years ago I agreed to do a music project with a mate of mine; a midi keyboard and some sample DVDs were obtained by myself and then nothing happened quickly.

When I moved to Brighton I decided, once again, to pick up this project but on my own (what with my mate being 200miles away and not really my mate any more, heh); I downloaded FL Studio, had a play but never really got anywhere.

Friday night I was playing about with FL Studio and got a decent little tune going based on a single pattern and some manual messing about with things being on and off.

"hmmmm", thinks I, "It would be useful if I could save this..." however no go in the demo so I did the next best thing and took some screen grabs for the pattern/arrangement [grin]

I then looked up the prices of the various bits and resolved to buy the things next month.

I woke up on the saturday to find a twitter message from a guy saying I could get 10% off stuff if I brought it via a banner on his site. No doubt this was self serving as he probably get some kick back from it BUT 10% is 10% and after a few button clicks and deciding what I needed I had parted with a sum of money and was the owner of FL Studio 8 Producer and 3 software synths (Morphine, Toxic Biohazard and PoiZone); huzzah!

I then set to work recreating and improving the track from the previous night, stopping only to buy Sytrus and DrumSynth Live which were needed for the track.

After a few hours I wandered into the unknown world of the Music and Sound forum here on GD.net and asked for some feedback.

Some positive feedback and some good tips later I had made some adjustments and thrown up a new mix.

I've since made some changes to the mixing, although having looked back over the two I think I might change it again at some point to be closer to the first mix than the second.

Anyway, for those intrested;
Untitled
Untitled mix 2

(Any feedback here would be appricated as well)

Since then I played with a tune a bit which came to nothing and then, around 10pm tonight, while messing about Biohazard, I hit upon a nice little chord/sequence riff and I've started to run with that and I'm genuinely excited about this track as well [grin]

The thing is, ever since I started doing this I've felt more awake and generally in a better place. I figure I've been overloading one side of my brain and this switch up into something new and intresting which uses a different part of my brain has helpped this a great deal; so that'll be a top tip from this entry: if you a feeling tired etc then try something new and utterly unrelated to your normal activites.

Anyway, expect to see more music from me as the weeks rumble on, aside from this new track I'm working on I'm also considering entering the themed contest over in the Music and Sound forum. If nothing else it'll give me some practise at working within a theme rather than just throwing things together.

Oh, and the 2nd top tip I have is for those of you who like your metal; You should be getting out and buying Echoes Fall - Ignite The Fury. I'm a little bias as the lead guitarist is a mate of mine, however they are truely a great metal band and deserve to go places. I got a free copy of the EP but plan to buy a copy to support 'em, that's how good I think they are.

Right, I'm done for now, and as mentioned any feedback on the track would be appricated.