azazil.net

Sigh. The GNU project machines are taking a real hammering recently. I’ve just about sorted out the files pulled from the libtool directory at ftp.gnu.org, and now the project CVS repository has been taken down :-(

Time to work on one of the big tasks I’ve be holding back on. For the last couple of days I’ve been trying to rewrite the m4 macros that generate the config and tag sections of the libtool script. I’ve already committed some patches that move the generation of libtool into config.status, which tidies bootstrapping immensely. I’m hoping that by consolidating the various repeated blocks of shell code at the generation stage, and moving as much of the processing as possible into m4, I should be able to cut down the size of libtool, and config.status at the expense of a few more helper macros in libtool.m4. Watch this space!

Really, I think the last show-stopper before I can start releasing 1.6 candidates is some version checking between ltmain.sh and libtool.m4. I’m not sure how to tackle this, but once I’ve finished my current task, I can take inspiration from Automake ;-)

At the last practice, the electrics in my Iron Bird started playing up again, which was all the excuse I needed to go guitar shopping this afternoon. I knew I wanted something with a fixed bridge so that I can experiment with tunings more easily. I also wanted something with a faster fret board and lower action, maybe with 7 strings… probably an Ibanez.

After a lot of shopping, I saw about a million variations on the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Strat, but not a great deal of innovation from the big names. Sound Control (formerly Musical Exchanges) is, I believe, the largest guitar shop in Europe, so I got to play with dozens of axes but nothing really grabbed my attention… except the BC Riches. My Iron Bird was near the top of the range when I got it ten years ago, and should have cost almost £600. It is a great rhythm guitar, but the neck is too fat and the frets to high, so I didn’t look at the new ones until my options were running out. To my great surprise, the new £300 range feel much better quality than my Iron Bird. I guess things have come along since I last looked :-) They have saved by taking off the Floyd Rose, but I wanted a fixed bridge anyway.

Next week, I can collect my new City of Brass artwork BC Rich Beast, replete with filed nut for 4 wound strings (3 from a 10 set, and a .46 as the lowest), tuned from C (a compromise for not having a 7th B-string) at concert intervals, and the intonation set up to match. Merry Christmas to me!