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I rambled downstairs today and got back into the studio and worked over three songs for Crosstime Bus, leaving me three to go, all of which are fingerpicked guitar, so they will require a slightly different setup. I'll see if I can get those to behave tomorrow.

One of the songs that I worked on today, "Dance by Starlight", is going to need some fixup before I'm done with it. I wrote that song back in 2005, about ten years after Gretchen and I got married, when I was an ocean away from her at the British filkcon which was very, very full of wedding vibes that weekend. I like the song a lot, which is why it's on the album list.

It is, however, being a pain in the butt, because I wrote it *before* I started using a pick again. When you're not using a pick, you can easily transition between the fingerpicked section at the beginning, the strummed section in the middle, and the fingerpicked section at the end. When you are using a pick, this is not something that can be managed at my skill level.

When I'm playing the song *now*, I have worked out that I can arpeggiate the formerly fingerpicked sections and play them with the pick. However, the timing on that is just slightly different from the timing when fingerpicking. The scratch tracks, which have some accompaniment associated with them already, were played without a pick.

Today's session made it clear to me that I cannot get the fingerpicked section to time out correctly when I'm using a pick. This means that I am going to have to record a separate guitar track for the beginning and end of the song and patch it in around the picked section in the middle. I can do this, of course.

It's just another learning experience. :)

But I really like the song, so it will be worth it.

It Lives!

Jul. 1st, 2025 09:07 pm
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The new machine is up and running and producing sound from Cubase. I *think* that I've loaded all of the plugins that I should have on the box, although the list seems shorter than before. That may be because I haven't loaded a few plugins that I never use that I picked up as freebies. And that is just as well.

The old box has had the CMOS beaten into submission again and a new battery is now installed. I removed the Thunderbolt and Firewire cards and have it sitting in one corner of the studio, powered up and waiting to see if I need to use Remote Desktop to go find anything on it.

But the studio is up and running again. And that makes me very happy.

And very relieved.
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The optical drive arrived today on schedule. It only took a few minutes to get it installed, the new computer buttoned up, and then I was able to take it to the basement.

It took a while to work through the Windows 11 install, because it kept wanting drivers that needed to be downloaded and there was no computer here to do it with, the old machine having been disconnected. Eventually, I got bright enough to bring my laptop to the basement for the driver downloads which allowed me to stop going up to the second floor. :)

Anyway, the good news is that I got the Universal Audio software installed and it promptly detected the Apollo interface on the other end of the Thunderbolt cable. I am now in the process of reinstalling all of the other software that makes things run down here.

And then there is the copying of the audio files. I had intended to bring them across from the old machine, but I think the BIOS battery there has given up the ghost, so it is not going to be booting up until I replace that, hook it back up to a monitor and keyboard, and fix those problems. But everything is backed up to the NAS in the office, so I am now entering the second quarter of a projected twelve hours of copying files down.

Whee!

But I should be able to get things up and running again tomorrow -- depending on how much software still needs to be installed. :)
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For a variety of reasons, I was later getting down to the studio to start recording than I'd hoped. I fired up the Apollo unit, woke up the computer, and discovered that they were not talking to each other. Again.

I unplugged and replugged the Thunderbolt cable with no improvement. I rebooted the computer. Same story.

I can't get work done with the machine behaving this way. It was now time to go to my backup plan and build a new computer. Today.

I went to the Micro Center website and threw together a configuration based on the research that I did last weekend. It has twice as much storage and RAM as the current machine, because it didn't cost that much more. I wanted the same case that I had for the old machine, but Micro Center doesn't carry Antec cases and the soonest that I could get one of the Silent series cases here from either Amazon or Newegg was about two weeks which was not any help for the time frame that I'm looking at, so I grabbed a Fractal Design case and am hoping that it is reasonably quiet, given the minimum number of moving parts. If not, I can always cannibalize an old case and move things around, but that was not going to be today's project.

The one thing that I couldn't get was a CD-R drive, but I *can* get one of those from Amazon to show up here tomorrow. I placed the order and tore out for Micro Center so I could get the parts and get back home tonight.

It took about two hours (and a modicum of swearing and dropped screws), but the machine is now assembled, save for the optical drive which can easily be popped in tomorrow.

And then we'll fire it up and see how it works. Which will be tomorrow evening's project.

I am going to buy the old machine from Dodeka for whatever it is worth and use that to help defray the cost of the new box. Gretchen is going to need a new desktop to replace the one that is ten plus years old (the previous studio computer) and which will absolutely, positively never run Windows 11. This machine is wretched overkill for what she'll do with it, but that's ok. :)

Just for those observing, the total cost of this build will be well less than half of the cost of some of the fancy pre-built recording computers that I could buy. And it has a fancy gaming motherboard, because that got me the right combination of ports on the back.

The best thing about it is that I can have it tomorrow.

I hope...
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It is sad when the *second* worst thing that happened last night was Ruby getting skunked again.

I had plans to do a lot of recording this weekend. Now, whenever I need to do some recording, I usually wander down to the studio and discover that it is time to install a whole bunch of updates. It was pushing 9 PM, so I figured I could quickly run down to the studio, install the updates, and hit the ground running today.

I already knew that there was a Cubase point release that I should go ahead and install, so I did that. Then I noticed that there were three Intel updates waiting to be installed. Ok, I could take care of that too. No problem. A couple of reboots, but no problem.

The Intel update screen lists (among other things) my motherboard type and the current BIOS version. I looked at that and said to myself, "That BIOS is pretty old. I wonder if there is a newer one that I should install." This was my first mistake.

On the ASUS website, there was a brand-new BIOS for my motherboard, less than a month old. Looked good, so I figured I'd install it. This requires putting it on a memory stick, booting into the BIOS, and then loading it from there. I've done this sort of operation before, so I didn't have too much trouble with it. There was also a newer version of the Intel ME utility, so I installed that too. All good.

Having installed a new version of Cubase, I figured I'd fire it up so that it could inspect all of the plugins, because that sometimes can slow things down on the first restart. Still no problem.

Well, there was no problem until Cubase told me that I needed to pick an ASIO driver. It should just default to the Universal Audio Thunderbolt driver. Except I picked that and Cubase said "What Thunderbolt device?"

Oh, that is bad. Let me start up the UA application and see if it sees the Apollo unit. It does not. And the Thunderbolt cable is plugged in. Ack!

I start searching the Internet. Apparently, this is a problem with older versions of the ASUS Thunderbolt add-in card when the BIOS for this type of motherboard (and its various relations) gets updated. I check the Device Manager and it tells me that there is a problem with the Thunderbolt port. Yes, I had figured that out. Removing the device and putting it back does not help.

Maybe there is a newer driver or firmware for the Thunderbolt card. There's no new driver, but there is new firmware. I set up to flash the card with the new firmware and discover that it won't take it.

Apparently, there are *two* slightly different versions of this card. I have the older one, which will not take this update. There does not appear to be an update for the older card.

Maybe I can get a newer version of the Thunderbolt card. Micro Center does not carry this card. Amazon does. They can get it to me around July 1st, which is not compatible with recording this weekend. Or next weekend.

Ok. How can I get up and running? I *do* have a laptop with Cubase installed *and* a Thunderbolt port, but that is the same port that it uses for charging. About now, I realize that I could probably bodge things together with a Thunderbolt dock, but it was approaching midnight last night and I was running out of brain cells.

The latest generation of PC motherboards has a number of boards that support Thunderbolt directly on the back panel ports. My new office PC is one of those. I am not going to move my freshly-configured office PC to the basement for this. Really not.

I could *buy* a new motherboard. Which will require buying a new processor and new RAM. And a new heatsink. That is going to be annoyingly expensive and a whole lot of work, but is an available backup plan.

Let's try reverting to an older version of the motherboard BIOS. What version had I started with? Eventually, I realized that I still had it on the computer in installable format, so I copied it to the memory stick, rebooted, and installed the older BIOS. So far, so good. Let's boot up the computer.

The computer does not boot up. It beeps eight times. My phone tells me that this is a sign of a problem with the CMOS memory on the computer.

I am old. I know what to do about this. I shut off the power to the computer, pull the plug, and pull the CMOS battery. If I wait until morning, the computer will forget all of the BIOS settings and I should be able to get back into the machine. (Later, I check the manual and find the location of the two pins that I need to short to clear the CMOS. They are inconveniently buried behind the Thunderbolt card. I try fishing at them in the morning with a screwdriver, because why not? I'm not sure if I ever got to them...)

It is now nearing midnight and time to head up to bed.

At some point during this fiasco, Julie comes downstairs to tell me that Ruby has encountered a skunk, so if I smell something when I go upstairs, don't panic. It is apparently less bad than some of the previous skunkings. Gretchen has rubbed the dog down with some odor killer called "Pooph" and the report is that it has improved the situation. Gretchen, meanwhile, has gone off to the bedroom, having had enough of all of this for the night.

When I get upstairs, things are not *too* stinky, so I turn off the kitchen exhaust fan and head upstairs to join Gretchen. It is a *long* time before I can manage to get to sleep (which includes watching another episode of "Leverage" so that we can both wind down).

This morning, I get up, get cleaned up, and head down to the basement. I fish around for the clear CMOS pins, decide that I am not going to remove the Thunderbolt card to try to get at them right now, and put the battery back in. Then I fire up the computer.

Happily, after a mild round of complaints, it boots into the BIOS. I turn the Thunderbolt support back on and reboot. Windows fires up, I start the UA application and it informs me that there is no Apollo unit attached.

Then I plug the Thunderbolt cable back in. And now I have a connection! And there is much rejoicing.

And then I fire up Cubase and it tells me that there is no device connected. So I fire up the UA Console app, see the message "Connecting to Apollo", and now Cubase can see the device and lets me select the Thunderbolt ASIO driver. I open up a song, hit play, and there is sound from the speakers.

My mood is *greatly* improved.

So, kids, this is why you just shouldn't mess with a system that is working. Just ask old Uncle Bill.

In other news, the house still smells mildly of skunk downstairs and we are trying to air it out. Ruby does not seem to be very skunky, for which I am thankful.

At least I didn't have to run out and buy peroxide last night.
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I am off on Thursday for the Juneteenth holiday and will be taking a vacation day on Friday, because four-day weekends are few and far between. I intend to use this time to try to catch up on many things that I need to be doing in the studio.

This does not mean that I am not *sorely* tempted to head down to watch what is now a scheduled straight doubleheader between the Cardinals and the White Sox tomorrow afternoon, tonight's game having been rained out. Two Cardinals games *and* the usually better food on the Southside...

I have things to do. :)
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Gretchen's knees were giving her heck today, so I went out to lunch by myself. City Barbecue had dropped a coupon for a free dessert in my account, which convinced me that going there was a fine choice. I had a lovely brisket sandwich that I think had come directly out of the smoker. I had the peach cobbler packed to go and took it home to Gretchen, where we split it, which is a *much* better choice than trying to eat it by myself. :) I also picked up food from Culver's on the way home, which meant that no one had to go out and feed the kids.

I had now arrived at the stage where it was pretty much time to do some recording for the "Crosstime Bus" album or just kick myself in the head. I'm not flexible enough to kick myself in the head, so my choices were limited.

I picked up one of the Universal Audio Sphere modeling mics a while back and have used it on a few things, but I have never used it to mic an acoustic guitar and I wanted to give that a try and see what the results were like. Cleverly, I read the instruction manual before going downstairs. The target song for today was "Love at First Sight", where I had used pitch shifting to move the original vocal and guitar scratch tracks to capo 2 while leaving the drums intact. The scratch tracks had to go, starting with the guitar. I retrieved the lyric sheet from my office, along with my iPad, which I pretty much only use as a Cubase remote. Realizing this, I took the charger along with me. If I'm using the tablet in the basement, it can live in the basement. I also grabbed the guitar and took it to the basement with me. Cool! All set.

Ha! I fire up Cubase and the iPad remote software and verify that they are talking to each other. Ok, let's go to the Apollo unit and turn on the phantom power for the mic. And I need to configure a stereo input to grab channels 1 and 2 so I can route them to the mic modeler and get a stereo guitar track out. Input configured, all good.

I ducked into the recording booth and realized that *nothing* was configured correctly. A dead USB microphone had been wished onto the top of the rolling cart where the iPad was supposed to go. It left. I moved the guitar stand to the opposite side of the room, because I was planning to sit while recording, which meant I needed to pull the cart closer into the space the stand had occupied. And then there was adjusting the microphone. One of these days, I will find a mic boom that doesn't slowly sag under the weight of any microphone of size. And for this application, the mic needs to be turned 90 degrees from the normal position, because I'm using it to capture a stereo image.

While I'm in there, I put on the recording headphones and verify that I can hear playback, having remembered to turn on the headphone amp while passing through the engineering side of the booth. The headphone cord has developed an annoying short, but wiggling the cord gets everything working.

I fire up Cubase and the iPad remote software and verify that they are talking to each other. Ok, let's go to the Apollo unit and turn on the phantom power for the mic. And I need to configure a stereo input to grab channels 1 and 2 so I can route them to the mic modeler and get a stereo guitar track out. Input configured, all good.

Except that there is no signal on the input or the target stereo track. I expect some noise. I twiddle the knobs on the Apollo and nothing happens. Let's go in and play the guitar at it, because maybe I just need some reasonable volume. Nope, no signal. And I realize that the Sphere mic lights up when it is powered. This mic is dark. Grumble.

All of this is more difficult, because I need to be in two places at one time. I have not yet mastered bilocation. I want a noticeable sound source in the recording booth so I can track the signal in the engineering booth.

I have a phone. I pull it out of my pocket, set it to play "Mamma Mia" on a loop, and leave it on my chair. Back to the engineering booth I go. There is still no signal.

Ok, let me pull up the UA Console application that is used for routing things. Unlike the Apollo unit, the Console app believes there is no phantom power to the mic. Power up channel 1, power up channel 2, and -- surprise! -- the mic lights up and I have signal. Make sure the signal is routed from the input to the track and I should be in business. Time to go record!

Back to the recording booth. Close the doors, adjust the position of the sagging mic, check the tuning on the guitar, put on the headphones, press record.

There is no sound in the headphones.

What the heck? There was sound here a minute ago. I check to make sure that the short in the cord is not the culprit and convince myself that it isn't. Stop everything and go back to the engineering booth.

I have a very old silverface Apollo Firewire unit that has a Thunderbolt card installed. Somehow, the mapping that the latest version of the Console software has supplied is shifted by two positions, so that almost all of the hardware is entering in the wrong location. Hardware location Line 1 and Line 2 are mapped correctly, but Line 1 is then mapped again to Line 3, Line 2 to Line 4, and so on. I'm getting sound, because Line 1 and Line 2 have correct mappings, but the software Monitor channels that feed the headphones are not getting any signal.

I remap *all* of the channels on the Console. I *save* the mappings as a preset. I hope this works. In the meantime, I found another set of headphones in the engineering booth, plugged them into the headphone amp, and once I had mapped the Monitor channels correctly in the Console and *then* made sure that everything was mapped correctly in Cubase, I had sound in the headphones again.

Rah.

Unplug the headphones in the engineering booth. Go back to the recording booth, close the doors, fix the sagging mic, check the tuning on the guitar, put on the headphones, and let's hit record. There is sound!

I blow the count in, but there's sound.

After a little while, I have multiple copies of the guitar track, at least one of which is pretty satisfactory, along with two backup tracks to use to fix any glitches.

It would be a good idea to replace the pitch-shifted vocal, which sounds terrible, because it was a scratch vocal and the pitch shifting has done nothing to improve the sound quality. Back to the engineering booth I go to create another stereo track, but I'll use a *different* modeling program here so that I end up with a mono signal that I can plug a number of different types of mic into and see what they sound like. Piece of cake.

Back to the recording booth. Close the doors and now I need to raise the mic so that I can sing standing up and also turn the mic 90 degrees so that it's in the correct orientation *and* convince the whole assemblage not to fall over. This last just requires some minor boom adjustment. Then I put the pop screen back up and now I'm ready to try recording a vocal track.

About a verse in, I realize that I have left the lyric sheet nowhere near where I can read it. Do not underestimate my ability to farble my own lyrics under pressure.

Let's move the music stand so that I can read the lyrics. That's better. I do several takes to give myself choices, but the last one is, I think, pretty good so I can go play with it now. Mucking around with tracks and plugins follows.

I will listen to this more critically at a later date, but it's progress.

A learning experience. That's what we call it.

I packed everything up and went upstairs where I grilled some steaks for Father's Day dinner while Gretchen prepared baked potatoes and sweet corn. Dinner included the kids and was remarkably silly.

And that's a good way to end the day. :)
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I am down in the basement today and will shortly (I hope!) get back to working on "Crosstime Bus", which I hope to have out soon. This would be good, because I have been working on this album for a very long time. Long enough, in fact, that the newest song on the album was written in 2006. The track list for this album is on the Filker website, along with the track lists for my other three studio albums and "Live in Germany (mostly...)", which is Gretchen's and my live recordings from when we were guests at DFDF. (Thanks, Smac!)

My question is this: when I am in a position to make another album after "Crosstime Bus", what ought to be on it? Let's toss out anything that is on the five studio albums (including "Crosstime Bus"). Songs that are only on "Live In Germany" are eligible. Songs written after 2006 are likely to be good choices, but maybe there is something older that I have managed to blindly skip over that should be included.

Note also that there are a bunch of individual tracks over on Bandcamp from the "Amy and Me" project which are from concerts where I've been fortunate enough to have Amy McNally accompany me and I think none of those are on a studio album, so if you want to know what some of these songs sound like, it's a good place to look.

Anyway, I have some ideas, but I would be interested to hear what you think.

Thanks for the input!

Prepping

Jun. 13th, 2025 10:42 pm
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I have a ludicrous number of things that I need to get done this weekend. Many of them are laundry.

But I also plan to do some recording, so I have hunted down the iPad which I use as a remote control in the studio and have now plugged it in to charge. It was sitting turned off at 82% charge, which is not terrible, but could be better. :)
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The weather has twisted into something resembling early summer and I have decided it is time to embrace it.

One of the fellows that I used to coach softball with came by to pick up the items we had to donate to the league. We had fun catching up. His team has a big game coming up on Wednesday. One of the other coaches that I worked with has talked about going to catch a game, so I texted her and if plans hold together, we'll both be at Wednesday's game to see how things are going. It's been a while. There are definitely days when I miss coaching softball, but I have to admit that I enjoy the additional sleep. :)

K starts her summer job (her *first* job!) tomorrow. Today, we went out to lunch and then I took her over to Walmart to pick up additional summer camp appropriate work clothes. She also used the gift card that she'd gotten for graduation to grab some more games for the Switch, which seems like a fine idea. (We gave her a pair of additional controllers so that four person games are now possible.)

While both cars were out of the garage temporarily, I took advantage of the access to do a bit of minor rearranging so that things fit better. My side of the garage now seems fine. Gretchen's side may need another tweak or two. We'll see. (The branch chipper that we acquired in the interim is taking up a bit of space that I'd rather it not, but the options for where to put it are limited.)

Yesterday, we had grilled hamburgers and sweet corn for dinner. Today, Gretchen made some grilled onions for me which I added to some pan-fried Polish sausage. Gretchen had boiled stadium brats. Dinner was simple and tasty.

And I spent some time down in the studio hunting for an ADAT tape for a project that a friend is working on. The ADAT tape has not turned up and I have run out of places to look, so I've sent off an email apologizing. I have a *lot* of ADAT tapes in my basement, but apparently not *this* one.

*sigh*

Recording is resuming shortly. *Very* shortly.
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Great. I got a letter from the IRS saying that I have failed to file the Dodeka return. I *mailed* the Dodeka return on a timely basis, but apparently it is lost. Now they want nearly $500.

This can probably be sorted out and I will have to pay to mail them return again (which is a noticeably large amount, because you have to use a large, flat envelope), but I can't call them to discuss this until Monday, because the letter arrived late today. I will get to chew on this over the weekend, which is just perfect.

(Note that I have heard nothing from Illinois, who got a copy of my Federal return appended to the State return, because that's how Illinois rolls...)

*sigh*
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In and around the three loads of laundry I did today, I was able to duck into the studio and use Cubase's pitch shift function to capo 2 the scratch vocals and guitar. The vocals did not at all appreciate this treatment, but they and the guitar are going to be replaced shortly and only need to be there now to assist me in timing everything correctly to Sally's drum track. They will do for this purpose.

K is off on the high school's "all night" sojourn to Six Flags. It is not actually "all night", but they'll be getting back around 3:30 AM and I'll need to go rescue her and one of her friends. I offered K my car, but she cleverly declined, as she expects to be in no shape to drive at that time.

I will be snoring away waiting for my wake up call...
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The Dodeka taxes are in the mail and the accountant has everything else. Go, me.

Tonight was the choir concert over at the school. It was a lot of fun watching the kids.

The kitchen sink is hopelessly clogged. Since I am off to Thing tomorrow, Gretchen will have to find a plumber to clear it.

I will see some of you there!

(No, not at the kitchen sink...)
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The taxes are off to the accountant.

I still have to *mail* the Dodeka forms to the Feds and the State, but I can assemble those tonight and get them out of here tomorrow. :)
billroper: (Default)
The Dodeka taxes are now done and ready to go in the mail.

All I need to do now is locate everything that needs to go to the accountant for our taxes. :)

Taxation

Mar. 10th, 2025 08:07 pm
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I have made the final adjustments to the Dodeka taxes and have filled out and printed the Federal forms. I still need to do the same for the Illinois forms.

And then I can gather up all of my other documents and give them to my accountant so that he can do the taxes for Gretchen and me. Whee!
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It is amazing how difficult it is to make headway on the taxes when you're just a little under the weather. And I continue to be just a little bit under the weather.

The taxes, however, need to be done and filed and/or on their way to the accountant this week, so tomorrow night should see progress made.

Or else.
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The taxes are almost done. I need to go over some of the inventory numbers and figure out how to account for a few odd things, but the overall picture is pretty close to correct.

It is not a pretty picture.

We are close to the point where getting tables at conventions and selling CDs becomes a money-losing operation. Not yet. But the total income for the year was less than $1000 and *half* of that was from our Bandcamp and streaming sales, where I've effectively just thrown all of our income into the company. And there are various things that made last year relatively expensive -- for instance, not having a roommate for GAFilk, which I corrected this year.

But we're down to three conventions a year right now and getting into more conventions to sell is likely to be annoyingly expensive. If you don't do $1500 in sales at a convention, you are probably going to lose money there. Only one of our three cons cleared that much and that was OVFF. Not counting the COVID year of 2020 where we only had two conventions (and no OVFF!), our sales were the lowest ever and down more than 30% from last year.

It may be that we are dinosaurs.

But we are dinosaurs who are carrying about $10,000 worth of other people's inventory (and about the same of our own), so we will lumber along for a while longer. :)

Tax Season

Feb. 15th, 2025 10:04 pm
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After two weekends of good intentions, I have actually gotten started pulling together the Dodeka taxes for 2024. This is not going to be pretty...
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I got a push from a friend of mine and I am now trying to sort out streaming for my music. This is being a learning experience.

Apparently, I managed to set up the remix of "The Grim Roper" for streaming as part of the duplication process. It is now bringing in about $20 a month in streaming royalties, which is not a huge amount of money, but which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Today, I have succeeded in reclaiming my BMI account. It has 21 or so of my songs registered and they apparently owe me about $20 that should arrive some time next month.

I started setting up "Seven Miles a Second" for streaming, but didn't finish it. I have since finished setting it up and have done the same for "Falling Toward Orion". Next up is "Liftoff to Landing" and then "Live In Germany (mostly...)" which means that I should get the BMI registrations complete for all of the songs of mine on all of those albums.

This is a fascinating little bunch of stuff to sort out...

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