Been a week or more since I updated my diary, so here is what’s been happening:

First of all, I was sick. And stayed sick for a while.

Just as I was began to surface, Gopi fell ill, having just nursed his son through a similar flu.

So I had to sit in office minding the shop. Which caused me to fall ill again

Ah well…..

Have started playing around with my proposed home studio again. As a first run, I got my mixer and assorted equipment talking to my PC, so that I could *finally* do some decent recording. Found lots of flaws – an SMPS that is too noisy (physically and electrically), a sound card that has a permanent crackle, a mike that loves to sing along (with feedback), bust cables, etc. etc. etc.

Am slowly fixing issues one at a time. Am playing with the idea of picking up a Creative Audigy Platinum EX sound card, which really is the closest that you can come to non-professional home-recording equipment. Turns out that it costs a whopper (like around INR 13K) so that one is still under consideration.

But at least I am off the ground now, so hopefully I should be able to upload a few MP3s soon.

News on the Guitar MFX front is that we are now into the 5th attempt at getting one down here from the USA. This one may actually succeed – in the sense that it has been purchased and actually packed into the luggage of the person (Shubha’s cousin) who is supposed to bring it here.

Am holding breath!

I have also re-started the process of learning more about audio engineering – especially about stuff like balanced and imbalanced inputs, EQ, recording techniques, etc. I had actually started doing that years ago, but not much was available on the web then. Today, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a webpage talking about stuff like this!

On the work-front: the next seminars are now being shaped, prodded and moulded, and they are beginning to look good.

Keep an eye on Exocore’s Events page for info.

After weeks of no star TV, Siticable finally coughed up their dues to star and started re-broadcasting Star’s channels, much to the relief of their subscribers who were ready to go out to tar and feather a few Siticable executives.

Personal problems (read – family issues) occupied my time for the past couple of days – hopefully these issues will be resolved by tomorrow.