The Equipment

From left to right:

Aria Pro II bass guitar: This belongs to a mate of mine but I've had it for about four years now (he has a much nicer bass to play). It's actually really good and can give a wide range of sounds thanks to the rotary pickup selector switch - it has about 700,000 positions. I've replaced the original strings with the bottom four from a 5 string bass so I can get some serious low end.

Washburn Nuno Bettencourt Signature Model: My baby! She's been with me for 10 whole years now and plays wonderfully. I've replaced the bridge with a better quality Floyd Rose system, but other than that it's all original stuff. Washburn pickup with plenty of bite in the bridge, Bill Lawrence in the neck position for a more mellow sound (or accuracy when speed picking). I love this guitar!

TLAudio Fatman stereo valve compressor: Everything runs through this before it hits the PC. Gives a nice valve warmth as well as mases of punch and a volume boost.

Korg AX1500G Multi FX: (the silver thing on the floor) Brilliant effects on a budget with a stack of parameters controllable via the foot pedal. Great distortions and amp simulator and some nice delays too - sounds really fat when run through the compressor, particularly combined with some software like Guitar Rig.

Digitech XP100 Whammy Wah: Picked this up years ago and I don't really use it for its wild pitch bending capabilities any more. I tend to use it now for the impossible double lines (when you should have run out of frets), low octave doubles and for adding textures and layers.

Jackson DX7 7 string guitar: Heaviness on a budget! This beauty set me back less than £300 back when 7 strings were a rare commodity and aside from a high-ish action and some annoying reverberations on the low B, it generally delivers the goods, just don't try 2 handed tapping on it unless you want to fail. Once you know how to manage it live and in post production though it's a cracker.

The Computer: It's old, it's beginning to slow down (I shan't embarrass myself by revealing the spec), but it never crashes and never complains. It's running Cubase SX 1.1 (although I have SX3 on my laptop) and a load of VST instruments and effects, although I mostly just use Guitar Rig and some high quality compression, reverb and delay plugins these days.

Random SG shape guitars: They aren't Gibsons, and they didn't cost me a penny. One usually stays in 'open c' tuning (for those Devin Townsend moments), and the other gets used when I need that 'SG sound', but mostly my wife likes to play Soundgarden on it (rather well too I might add)

Misc: Random dvd drives and external HDD, but I also have a mandolin, two recorders, a jaws harp and some kazoos - some of which may get used on future recordings. Oh, and there's another guitar which I'm in the process of 'customising', and there used to be an audio amp and speakers but my AV system need a re-jig, so stuff had to be moved. I also have a 100 watt Laney Linebacker transistor amp (from the 80's) but that has to live somewhere else at present.

Music update

I've finally got around to doing some more recording - it's been a while. To ease myself back into it nice and gently I decided on a theme tune, or more accurately four theme tunes in the form of a medley of sorts. Click here to go straight to it, answers on an e-postcard as to which tunes I included!

Now that my treatment is over (for the time being - I find out the details on Friday) I've decided on some direction for my musical output over the course of the next year. On the guitar and 'real' instruments side of things, I intend to write another album of metal, possibly less complicated than I usually write but we shall see where the old brain takes it. Anyway, the purpose of this is to put together a band to play the stuff live, so at some point I shall be requiring musicians of reasonable competence and flexibility. I currently have a stack of ideas for tunes but as yet have not recorded a single note, however my little notebook accompanies me everywhere I go.

To go alongside that I have decided to broaden my production horizons by undertaking some remix work. Well, not work exactly, but there are masses of remix competitions around so I thought I'd enter a few and do some downtempo electronica (using my alter ego 'Bubble Ghost'). I'm currently remixing a track by Zombie Nation, results to be posted as and when they arrive.

Scan and appointment updates

So I've finally had a date confirmed for a CT scan, after much hassle and irritation. It seems that communication in the NHS, particularly at Cheltenham hospital, is utterly hopeless and it was only after a chance trip to my GP that I found out I had a scan at all. Nobody had told me, in fact nobody had told Hereford hospital! It then took a further week for Cheltenham to send the paperwork through (which they should have done in January) and I finally got my scan date confirmed this morning. Rest assured I will be writing to complain about all of this. Anyway, I shall be scanned on the 2nd March, and then see my consultant on the 5th, and then I should know my fate i.e whether I need more chemo, if/when I can have this wretched tube removed or whatever else the scan reveals.

In the meantime, I'm back at work doing less than not very much ;) and occupying my spare time with occasional bouts of activity in my studio making a mess of popular theme tunes once more.

Further updates to follow early in March, if I can uncross my fingers to type.

'No more chemo any more'

Ok, so maybe that's a bit optimistic, but there's no more chemo for the time being. I have a follow up appointment in six weeks and I should also have a scan at some point (dates yet to be confirmed) which will determine whether or not I need more treatment. I sincerely hope I don't but I'm prepared for anything really. I still have a tube draining my right kidney and it is still draining, albeit a very small amount. I shall wait and see. In the meantime I have decided to go back to work early in February although I won't know how much I can do until I start. As and when anything happens I shall post here, but I might also post about music as I have been writing new stuff over the last few days - inspiration provided by a chap called Don Ross - listen to everything, he's brilliant!