Month: May 2012

Weekend Cat Blogging: Artsy Luna Photos

Since Thursday, we at CatSynth have been once again on art-and-music overload. We stopped at two of three large art fairs happening in San Francisco; attended a fundraiser for 826 Valencia at which a friend was reading; and today it’s back in the studio for more recording with Reconnaissance Fly. So on that note, here are some rather artsy photos of Luna:

These are among the more stylized configurations I now have in the Hipstamatic iPhone app. The latter is the same combo I used in the most recent Wordless Wednesday photo.

The one downside of such busy weekends is not having a lot of time to spend with Luna.

Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by Pam at Sidewalk Shoes.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by our friends Nikita and Elivra at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

2012 Outsound Music Summit Benefit Dinner, June 11

The 2012 Outsound Music Summit begins on July 15, less than two months away. And thus is it time for our annual Outsound Benefit Dinner. It looks to be a great evening of food and music, and this year it will be in the “CatSynth HQ neighborhood” of San Francisco, otherwise known as South of Market.

Once again, we will be treated to a culinary experience from chef Miles Ake.

The menu is still to-be-announced. And our music will be provided experimental electronic musician Thomas Dimuzio!

San Francisco-based Dimuzio is one of those unsung artistic figures whose influence and abilities have substantially outstripped his visibility. Composer, multi-instrumentalist, sound designer, experimental electronic musician, collaborator and mastering engineer – Dimuzio has been busy doing his thing(s) since the late 1980’s, but is still only known to a small circle of electronic music enthusiasts. A true sonic alchemist who can seemingly create music events out of almost anything, Dimuzio’s listed sound sources on his various releases include everything from “modified 10 speed bicycle” and “resonating water pipe” to short-wave radios, field recordings, loops, samplers and even normal instruments such as clarinet and trumpet. And while his wide range of musical interests make it impossible to pin a label on him, Dimuzio clearly has an insider’s knowledge of older experimental musical forms such as musique concrete and electroacoustic, as well as more current dark ambient, industrial, noise and post-techno styles.

We know that many who read this site love and support new music. Those in the Bay Area who would like to attend this benefit event can register here. If the benefit dinner is not an option, Outsound of course welcomes donations of any size to help make the Summit a success.

CatSynth video: GRP A8, Minimoog, Moog Prodigy & friends

From Synthiefrau on YouTube, via matrixsynth.

“Hi lovely Synthfreaks, here is a new improvisation from me. My new cat ‘Tonto’ listen to my music. I use my Synthesizers.com Sequencer, the Sequencer of the GRP A 8, Moog the leads are from theProdigy, Minimoog, Roland V-Synth, the effects comes from the Dark energie and the Juno 60 (LFO sounds), welcome to the analogue sound universe!”

Weekend Cat Blogging: Back on the Patio

As summer weather comes to San Francisco, we at CatSynth venture out onto our patio.

The patio took quite a pounding this past season. During one particularly bad storm with high winds and heavy rain, that plant on the left side of the photo came crashing down from the sky, destroying a screen and one of those nice modernist black benches :(. Fortunately, everything can be cleaned up or replaced. And the sculptures were not damaged.

Luna ventures out onto the patio:

Of course, she goes right for the grass in that pot that fell fromt the sky.

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be brown, as many decorative grasses are. But I don’t know that it’s safe for cats, so I tried to discourage Luna from chewing on this. It’s not easy, as she particularly loves found grass.

Weekend Cat Blogging, Mothers’ Day Edition, is at Mind of Mog.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Kashim, Othello and Salome.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth pic (sort of): WATKINS (WEM) COPICAT Mk2 tube echo

Via matrixsynth, a rare 1960s tube tape echo machine. The “COPICAT” Mk2 tube echo sports a stylized cat logo.

From the auction:

This sounds lovely both as a pre-amp and as an echo unit. All three heads work well and sound excellent – good strong repeats that break up in an evocative fashion, and run into self-oscillation when the ‘reverb’ knob is turned up for authentic dub effects. The echoes have a good tone for an old valve Copicat and degrade with a dark crunchy quality – they cannot be desribed as accurate repeats as this is not a digital delay, but they have a sound and vibe that is most pleasing and create a unique effect that sounds ‘right’.