Author: catsynth

CatSynth pics: Mattson 3X Experiment

From George Mattson, via matrixsynth.

“I was wondering if I could do a ‘piano finish’ for the case I’m going to make for my EML sequencer/ modular.

In a moment of insanity, I decided to do a test run by building a 3X wide horizontal case. I figured that if it worked, great! If it didn’t, I’d still have something I could use.

One day of building out of canary wood and 15 days of coating, sanding, re-coating, sanding, etc and the final polishing process let me know that yes, I CAN do a piano finish. But, My EML project isn’t going to get one 🙂 It’s a lot of work.

I was trying to set it up where I could get a good angle to catch the reflective surface. Once I scrubbed the kitchen floor, it was as good as spot as any. Our cat decided to check out the new ‘thing’ that was invading the floor. I figured that it gives a good scale comparison. So, there he is, being a cat.

The case measures 44″ W x 11″ H x 3″ D. It contains 36 module spaces.

I decided that it was perfect for creating a system synthetically comparable to an old stock Moog 55. I researched the ‘standard’ module compliment from their brochure and had to sort out cross-generation compatabilities. I came up with the following modules that I’ll need to create a comparable system:
6-VCO’s
1-Noise
2-VC Dual LFO
1-Sample/Hold
3-ADSR EGs
1-MIDI/CV
1-Envelope Follower
1-Quad AD/ASR EG
1-4X Gate Delay
1-8-stage Sequencer (which, I have to finish)
3-VCFs
1-Quad VCA
3-Full VCA’s
1-4-channel Mixer
3-4X Buffered mults
3-4X VC Mixers
1-Utility 1

There was a lot of ‘back and forth’ due to some of the functions were standard within certain modules of mine.

Whether it’s the same or not, who cares. It’s going to be a lot of fun either way :)”

I wonder what the cat thinks. 🙂

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Yellow

Today’s combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt is on the theme Yellow.  So we reach into the CatSynth archives for this photo of Luna with a yellow lens effect on Hipstamatic, taken in August 2010.

I don’t particularly like doing re-runs on the blog, but this photo seemed perfect and I am a bit pressed for time this morning, with preparations for San Francisco Open Studios next week and a meeting for another upcoming project.  So it will have to do.  It’s also surprising to see how far things have come in one year, both with the app and my ability to use it.  Many of the recent Wordless Wednesday pictures have also used the Hipstamatic.

Yellow is also the color of the LIVESTRONG campaign, in support of those who are currently fighting cancer and the memory of those who have lost their lives.

Many in the cat-blogging community participated in an event the first week of October last year, and will be doing so again this October 2.

Weekend Cat Blogging #329 is hosted by Kashim, Othello and Salome at PaulChens FoodBlog?! We send them our thoughts this week for the recent loss of their beloved dog, Ben.

Photo Hunt #284 is hosted by tnchick. This week’s theme is Yellow.

Carnival of the Cats will be up tomorrow at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat. Next week’s COTC will be hosted right here at CatSynth!

And the Friday Ark is back at the the modulator.

Fun with Highways: LA 998, Belle Rose, Louisiana

In light of my poem “998” that I posted earlier today, I decided to see if there was an interesting highway out there numbered “998”. It turns out there is one in Louisiana.

Highway 998 is a short road (under 1 mile long) entirely in the community of Belle Rose. It starts highways 1 and 308, which straddle either side of a canal. It passes through a residential district and then ends after a few blocks, with fields stretching out in the distance beyond.

It is challenging to find any information about Belle Rose, beyond that the population is a little over 1900. It does appear on Google Street View, from which the above image was taken. A virtual walk down 998 reveals sparsely distributed modest homes and a few rundown structures, and a few stores at the intersection with highway 1 before crossing a small bridge to the other end at highway 308. The view reminds of a bit of some of the images from Doug Rickard’s exhibition at Wirtz Gallery this past spring, which also was based on Google Street View images and focused communities that are often overlooked.’

Any readers who may know more direct information about Belle Rose are invited to comment.

Car Doors (April 17, 2003)

I heard a car door slam shut, and then another and then another. It seems to me too many car doors to be shutting at the moment, but I suppose eight o’clock in the evening is a good time to close a car door. Some cars, of course, have more than one door that may need to be closed, particularly if they have more than one occupant, or just a lone person retrieving an item from the other side of the car, as I often do. Still, it seems like a lot of car doors being shut.

There are supposedly one hundred and fifty million cars in use in the United States at this time. There are approximately thirty-one million seconds in a year. If each car had only one of its doors shut once every year, that would be about five doors being shut per second. A quintuplet at sixty beats per minute. Cars generally have between two and six doors, which subdivides and complicates the rhythm, perhaps a theka that does not land evenly on a quarter-note-based meter. Of course, the number of times each door on each car is shut has such enormous variance that all we are left with is noise. But noise has its own rhythm, a soft steady continuum that swells and ebbs, forming a multitude of short pulses in between stronger beats, waves whose strongest crests occur at mid morning and mid evening. Pulse, beat, meter and form arising from millions of independent actions, happening without their actors aware of one another but nonetheless connected.

I heard a car door slam shut becoming water and the water became music.