As I still haven't found a way to get audio recording working properly on my Kubuntu system I've been thinking of alternatives. One is to do a fresh install of the latest version and hope that it resolves my various issues, another would be to rearrange my drive and install something like Ubuntu Studio with a dual-boot. Somewhere I picked up on dyne:bolic and its derivative pure:dyne. These are audio/video-biased live CDs that can write to existing partitions and even be run from there. I downloaded the latter to check it out.

It booted fairly quickly, but seemed to confuse my monitor which had problems locking onto a signal at times. Eventually I got to their very minimal desktop. It was running in what looked like 800x600. It was using the open nvidia drive. The preferences only offered 640x480 and 320x256. I'm not sure anyone would want to use those modes. Everything is run from a menu when you right0click the desktop. It offers things like Ardour, Audacity and Hydrogen along with Jack. I had a go at setting it up, but could only get playback with a bit of distortion at fairly high latencies. I obviously need to tweak it for my on-board sound. I didn't manage to record anything on the first attempt. Ardour didn't even load properly. So not a great first impression, but I will try it again after reading up. There is a later version that uses a DVD to provide more modules.

Malc had more success when he used it on an electronic music course. So it should be possible to do someting on my 'mighty' PC.

This week's Secret Bass drumming session had more atmosphere than usual when there was a power cut. We were drumming by candlelight, in a building made of straw. Torches were used at times for demonstrations of technique.