You are allowed to enjoy this…

While looking after Verity in the afternoons, I ‘ve been watching too many repeats of Bergerac on UKOLDDRAMA or whatever the channel is called these days. The problem with having an active imagination like mine is that you can be sitting there one moment and before you know it the creative juices kick in and your brain starts kicking up “What if…?” scenarios. And as the end credits of this particular episode of Bergerac rolled by, I had written the entire story in my head.

The Missus poses with Bergerac’s Car [6 June 2007]
Again, the problem with having an artistic bent (oooer, missus – it’s just the cut of my trousers) is that once an idea goes into that mushy piece of gloop between your ears, you have to act on it. Otherwise, it whispers at you: “Darren, I’m still here. This is how the story goes and it is really really good and I’m going to keep repeating myself over and over in your head until you do something about it”. Well that’s what happens to me, anyway.
So over the past three days, I’ve found myself writing a TV script for the show. Titled “The Return of Bergerac”, the TV script was more of a writing exercise than anything else. I’ve never written a proper script before – done a play and loads and loads of traditional fiction, but never a TV script. So it was a new discipline to learn and a really interesting way of approaching a story. I went to the BBC Writers Room microsite and had a look at some scripts on their to give me an idea of how it is done. In fact, I found the whole experience rather satisfying. In fact, I should have thought about TV writing when I was young and maybe I’d have carved out a different career trajectory, rather than the spectacular nosedive I’ve performed over the past decade plus of being stuffed by the media industry.
But my script is finished, the Missus is giving it a read-through and once that’s done I’m going to send it off to the Beeb for a laugh. They have a submissions unit. I know this script has zero chance of ever being made into a proper TV show, but the masochist in me is thrilled at the idea of the decision makers at the BBC laughing in my face and throwing my script back at me as if it were a piece of fresh monkey shit.
Of course, once it is rejected, the Internet gives me the chance to put it on the website for my single solitary reader to download and enjoy. The Internet allows us failed artistes to ejaculate our creative juices into cyberspace to be lapped up by all and sundry.
Oh well, at least it keeps me occupied and out of trouble.

So what am I doing at the moment in StudioLock? Well I have been experimenting with 5.1 surround sound mixing. I know it sounds like something only a proper studio could do, but it is surprisingly easy to achieve surround sound mixes. Firstly, you’ll need to have a sound card in your PC that has multiple outputs. I purchased a USB external soundcard for my laptop for £10 to achieve this. Of course, you will need a surround sound speaker system to connect the soundcard to. I’ve had a such a speaker setup in the living room for nearly a decade now, so it was just a matter of connecting thiings up.
I use Cakewalk Sonar 7 to do my recording. I’ve been using Sonar since 2000 and the latest version give you surround sound mixing out of the box. The tricky thing is configuring your speakers. To do this, open an audio project you are working on and go to Projects > Surround and then assign an audio channel to each speaker channel on the list. When you are happy with this, save the configuration for future use. Now you’ll need to right click and create a new Surround Bus and then click on each audio channel in your project and change the audio output from the stereo bus to the new surround bus. Following me?
Now a surround panner panel will appear in each channel that’s been designated to the surround bus. You can use your mouse to position the audio channel in the surround sound field. You can even automate panning to make the sounds whizz around, etc.
Once your mix is complete, export the audio as a multichannel RIFF audio WAV file. This can be encoded to a DVD disc for playback on a home entertainment system through a multichannel audio system. Alternatively, you can encode the audio as a multichannel Windows Media Audio file, which means you an easily distribute it via the net, but it is aimed at those who have surround speakers connected to their PC or an Xbox 360 connected to multichannel audio system.
This has been your lesson for the day…

So it was my very first Father’s Day this year and it was an honour to receive a gift (Genesis biography) and a card from my baby daughter – even though she had help with the purchase. You really do see the world differently through a father’s eyes. Before I was just ordinary, but now I feel special and take my duties very seriously. Even when I have no strength left, I’ll always have time for little Verity. You and your mum make me feel very special indeed.

THE BPA ‘TOE JAM’ FEAT. DAVID BYRNE & DIZZEE RASCAL

Look, here’s a smart little player for my new set of recordings:

OK – so it took a little longer than I planned (thanks to the disassembly, relocation and reinstallation of StudioLock), but we got there in the end. Yes, it is that time again to pounce on the unsuspecting public with my files of audio terror. “Here Comes the Future” is now completed (or abandoned, whichever way you want to look at it) – so download and enjoy.