Piscine mosaic in the New York City subway. Specifically, at the Delancy/Essex Street Station.
We passed through this station last November during our Ai Weiwei expedition.
Author: catsynth
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CatSynth Pic: Cat and XP-50
Cat sitting atop a Roland XP-50 synthesizer, and not looking too pleased 😸
By Dragos Frangulea in the group Synthesizer Freaks.
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Fun With Highways: Downtown Atlanta on #MLKDay
It remains to be seen whether this Martin Luther King Day is more surreal than last the one last year. But in the meantime, we take a virtual trip to downtown Atlanta in the vicinity of the historic and social institutions celebrating Dr. King’s legacy.
The Downtown Connector carries Interstates 75 and 85 through the heart of the city, with downtown Atlanta to the immediate west. Aesthetically, we at CatSynth have a fondness for urban freeways, but we cannot ignore how the adversely affect neighborhoods and displace residents. The Downtown Connector cut the Sweet Auburn neighborhood into two. The historic neighborhood is also bounded by the Freedom Parkway (Georgia State Route 10) to the north, and Blue Line of MARTA to the south, which serves the district via delightfully modernist King Memorial station.
[By Keizers (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons]Sweet Auburn is Dr. King’s neighborhood. His childhood home is at 501 Auburn Ave. The Ebeneezer Baptist Church is about a block or so away. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park covers these and the space in between. On the south side of Auburn Avenue is the King Center (formally, the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change). Martin Luther King Jr’s tomb is on the site. But it is also worth noting that the King Center is not simply a museum, with ongoing research, education programs, and activism.
[User:Sjkorea81 [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons]Many of us are perhaps approaching this day with bated breath, hoping a certain openly racist leader with a tendency to make everything about himself doesn’t make things even worse than they already are. But it might be better to reflect on some of King’s darker words that seem prescient in the moment, such as the Mountaintop Speech or “It’s A Dark Day In Our Nation” (primarily about the Vietnam War). We leave this as an exercise to the reader.
See more of Atlanta and many other fine places across North America in our Highway☆ app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
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CatSynth Pic: Volca Collection (Eevo Lute)
Our fluffy white friend from Eevo Lute Music & Technology is back once again. This time with four Korg Volca synthesizers.
We currently have two Volca’s here at CatSynth HQ, so those stands caught our interest. 😺
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CatSynth Pic: “Mister Bluuuue Skiessss” (Korg VC10 Vocoder)
From Alsún Ní Chasaide on the Facebook group Synthesizer Freaks.
Like I spent weeks restoring this & she can’t wait to get on it. If vocoders aren’t for sits, then why are they made of warm?
We at CatSynth had the opportunity to play with a Korg VC10 vocoder last year. It is indeed made of warm, as are most analog vocoders 😸. It also had a bit of the Korg grit that characterizes their vintage instruments, and best of all it allowed for external carrier signals (this is something I wish was easier to do on the Roland VP-03).
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Highway☆ 1.2.0 now in the Apple App Store!
We are excited to announce the release of Highway☆ 1.2.0 for iPhone and iPad! It is available in the Apple App Store.
This new version includes some of our most requested features.
- Switch between map and satellite views. This saves battery and bandwidth on the road.
- Sometimes connectivity on the road can be poor or non-existent. Highway☆ now matches missed routes once connectivity is restored.
There many more features we have in store, but for the moment we turn our focus to the 1.2 version for Android. And we are looking forward to putting the app through its paces on our upcoming road trip to NAMM 😺
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NAMM Classics: Bastl Instruments and Bitwig Studio
That most wonderful time of year known as NAMM is fast approaching! As we prepare to cover this year’s show, we’re sharing some of our past NAMM videos on CatSynth TV!
This year’s show starts on January 25. Please let us know in these posts about anything specific you would like us to investigate or review while we are there.
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Wordless Wednesday: Tempest (without a Teapot)
Mary Street, a small alley in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. Tempest is a local bar visible in the middle of the image. More in the comments section.
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CatSynth Video: Rosie and Korg Electribe MX
Rosie with a blue Korg Electribe MX. (At least we think it’s Rosie. We’re pretty sure about the Electribe.) From our friend Karl Lee Avery via Facebook.
The Electribe family has undergone quite a few iterations, including the newer Electribe 2. I do like the blue-tinted models in particular.
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CatSynth Pic: Mister Kitty and RE-303
Our pal Mister Kitty returns to the pages of CatSynth with his new RE-303 bass synthesizer.
The RE-303 is a replica of the infamous Roland TB-303. This one was assembled by Mister Kitty’s human, Prophei (aka Michael Dietel). We at CatSynth approve of their choice of the black case. Oh, and it sounds great, too.
As a replica, the circuit board and CPU are compatible with the original TB-303, which suggests the parts can be used to refurbish vintage instruments in addition to building new ones. You can read a bit more in this Synthopia article from 2015. Clearly, the statement about DIY kits turned out to be wrong, as evidenced by this article. You can find out more about the RE-303 and kits here.
Meanwhile, we wonder what Mister Kitty may have in store for us next…
