CATSYNTH

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Author: catsynth

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: Luna and Kitty Grass

    With a major performance safely behind us, and a whole week until the next one, this weekend is an opportunity to catch up on enjoying simple things. For Luna, that means enjoying some kitty grass.

    Luna loves her kitty grass, as we have posted before. But’s been a while since we featured it here on CatSynth.

    We recently found that one of our local grocery stores is once again carrying the Rosy’s, the brand of kitty grass featuring a cat that looks just like Luna. As if it was made especially for her.

    This photo was taken with the “Foodie Pak” lens, film and flash presets on the iPhone Hipstamatic app. Although it was originally designed for photographing delectables from urban food trucks and late-night pop-up stands, we thought it would work well for a feline treat.

    On the topic of food and cats together, Weekend Cat Blogging #381 is hosted by the tabbycats in Vienna Kashim, Othello and Salome at PaulChens FoodBlog?!

    The Carnival of the Cats will be up tomorrow at Mind of Mog.

    And the Friday Ark is on hiatus this week.

  • CatSynth pic: Din Sync OSC303 & Synth Cat

    From Paul Barker (Din Sync) on Facebook, via matrixsynth.

    And picture of the synth module sans chat.

  • Wordless Wednesday: Our 2000th Post! (with Luna)

    This is our 2000th post on CatSynth. It’s appropriate that it is both an (almost) Wordless Wednesday and features Luna.



  • San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (SFEMF): Art Installations

    In addition to the main concerts, this year’s San Francisco Electronic Music Festival featured a concurrent gallery exhibition. It took place at Million Fishes in the Mission District of San Francisco, and featured a variety of works that combined sound and visuals. I had the opportunity to visit the gallery on the Saturday of the festival, just before that night’s concert.

    I have experienced Matthew Goodheart’s work with transducer-excited cymbals a few times now, most notably in his solo performance at the Outsound Music Summit. Here, he arranged them around the front room over the gallery to create an immersive installation called …silence through things secret….


    The installation dominated the main room both visually and aurally, with the late-afternoon sun reflecting off the cymbals, and a variety of sounds echoing around the room. Computer-generated sounds were created from analysis of the resonances of each cymbal and recordings of each instrument played in a variety of manners. The sounds were then used to excite the cymbals via small transducers.


    [Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

    Because the sound from the cymbals is acoustic, the only notion one has of electronics at work is the fact that they are standing on their own without anyone there to play them. But there is nonetheless something otherwordly about the visuals and sounds of the unattended cymbals. Goodheart’s piece was part of a larger project he has developed in conjunction withe Center foew New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at UC Berkeley.

    Giant Leap, the result of collaboration by Floor van de Velde and Elaine Buckholtz, paid tribute to the late Neil Armstrong and the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. The audio-and-visual work combined an anaglyph image of the moon with a sound score realized using modified rotary telephones.

    The moon landing and the sounds associated with that achievement are still quite fresh, but the use of rotary telephones reminds us just how long ago this achievement took place. I consider rotary phones a particularly endangered technology in that it bears so little resemblance to contemporary phones in both form and function.

    Dan Good presented two small kinetic sound sculptures. Artificial Lung combined standard speaker drivers in a novel way. They were pressed against one another a driven with a 1Hz sine wave. While the signal is far below the range of human hearing, the pressure on the speakers was visible and created the illusion of a breathing organism.


    [Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

    In, Good’s sculpture Petri Dish, small glass spheres are pulled up and down in a glass bowl and tubes. The sound of the glass is subtle, but the visual is quite striking, especially when it is moving (the photograph does not really capture this aspect.)

    Both of Good’s sculptures draw upon simple shapes, lines and processes to create something conceptually compact and understandable. As such, they play to the strengths of modernism – something refreshing to see in a contemporary setting,

    SFEMF has featured installations before, usually as fixtures in the lobby during concerts. I thought separating it out into a gallery presentation worked well and allowed the pieces the chance to be seen outside the shadow of the live performances and milling crowds. I hope they do this again next year.

  • CatSynth pic: Arthur and Korg Mono/Poly

    Via regular reader and contributor Sawa Masaki on Twitter.

    If you have a cat-and-music photo to share, you can do so via Facebook, Twitter @catsynth, or by contacting us.  (Coming soon, Pinterest…)

  • CatSynth video: Namasitar Stylophone

    From Qi Meng, via matrixsynth.

    “Circuit by Peter B
    PCB/Design by Meng Qi

    Portable and great sound.
    Can be played standalone and as effector too.

    ciat-lonbarde.com
    mengqimusic.com”

  • Getting Ready for Ghost House

    “Obake Yashiki” (Ghost House) officially opens tonight at Arc Studios and Gallery in San Francisco. The project is a collaboration with artists Priscilla Otani and Judi Shintani, and combines sound, Japanese lanterns and “deconstructed kimonos”. Here is a view of the installation:

    And the project statement:

    An atmospheric space in-between worlds is glimpsed in this installation. Fragments of sound from crickets, chanting monks and Japanese instruments envelope Japanese lanterns, womanly silhouettes and floating deteriorating kimonos. Obake Yashiki or Ghost House, is a dwelling place of spirits that continue to haunt us. They cannot find their peaceful resting place due to tragic occurrences during their lifetimes. The exhibition calls attention to women around the world whose lives have been taken due to earthly disasters and violent human interaction. We honor the spirits who are trapped between life and death in hopes they may find peace and resolution.

    A lot of work went into making this installation happen, including hanging the kimonos and approximately 100 lanterns! But three of the lanterns were also outfitted with tiny speakers and MP3 players to create the immersive soundscape in the space:

    The assemblage works quite well, and the sounds emanating from the lantern clusters adds to the overall eerie quality of the piece. Of course, portable electronic devices need to be recharged, so we have the odd visual today of Japanese lanterns being recharged via USB cables (i.e., like an iPhone) ahead of tonight’s reception:

    Hopefully everything is charged up later this afternoon and ready to go.

    If you are in San Francisco this evening, feel free to drop by our free reception. It is at Arc Studios and Gallery, 1246 Folsom St, and goes from 6PM to 9PM. We are also planning an interesting closing program in October.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: Wires

    For Weekend Cat Blogging, we see Luna relaxing amidst some of our many wires and cables:

    Whenever we post pictures of Luna with wires, there is an assumption in the comments that she will want to chew them. But in general, she leaves them alone. Except for the USB cables used to charge iPhones and iPads. For some reason, those are fair game.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #380 will be hosted by Kashim, Othello, and Salome at PaulChens FoodBlog?!

    The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at When Cats Attack!

    And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • Space Shuttle Endeavor over San Francisco

    This morning, the decommissioned Space Shuttle Endeavor flew over the northern California today, including San Francisco. It is part of a farewell tribute as en route to its final resting place at California Science Center in Los Angeles. We were able to get a good view of the flyover from the roof of CatSynth HQ.

    It was impressive to see so clearly over the city. But it was also a bit melancholy. I was in my early school years when the first shuttle flight took place – I of course had my own model of it (probably more than one), and was enamored with space and space travel in general. With the shuttles now decommissioned, it is unclear what we do next to keep moving forward space-wise. The moon and Mars proposals still seem squishy, and in someways feel like a step backward from the space shuttles when I see the proposed vehicles. Nothing to really bridge the gap between our past in space and the promise of routine travel from science fiction. I hope we can somehow rekindle the shared desire to explore and move into space.

  • CatSynth pic: AudioCubes (The “9 Box” Method is So Easy to Use My Cat Can Modulate Bit Crushing!)

    Submitted by Mark Mosher, via Twitter.

    One my cats sitting in “Player 4” position. The FX Audio Cube is detecting his position and translating this to “Bit Crushing” strength for a “9 Box” configured for drum loops.