Weather is always a risk with an outdoor event, and so it is with Woodstockhausen 2007. As suggested earlier, we are having some unusually bad rain, which affected both the stage as well as the roads in the Santa Cruz mountains, so the event had to be cancelled.
At this point, I haven't heard any plans to reschedule…
As usual these days, we are consolidating our weekend cat blogging activities. Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by Kate and Puddy (one of Luna's look-a-likes) at A Byootaful Life.
This weekend's theme for the Bad Kitty Chaos Festival, hosted by Pets Garden Blog, is pillows and beds. Well, soft cushions are one of Luna's areas of great expertise:
Of course we have seen her curled up on the bed many times:
And it is one of those days where curling up on a bed or a cushion seems like the perfect thing to do, with a steady cold rain coming down around us:
That wouldn't be much of a problem, except that we have an outdoor music festival tonight! September is the usually the hottest, driest month here, so something is wrong…
In addition to WCB and the Festival of Chaos, we also have the Carnival of the Cats, hosted this week by This That and the Other Thing, with Amber, Kosmo, Mouse and Indigo (another fellow black cat). And of course, the Friday Ark at themodulator.
It's only two days until the return of Woodstockhausen.
|
Woodstockhausen A tiny, esoteric
|
I am going to try and keep things simple, given that the performance is out in the middle of the woods, and a total of 12 minutes in length. In fact, I am going for something very similar in setup and programming to the performance we did at the Skronkathon back in July:
It's just the MacBook running Open Sound World (the new version), the keyboard, mic, and the E-MU 0202|USB interface. The program is the same series of wavetables, with several minor modifcations to make the FM patch work without going unstable. For the math and DSP geeks: I simply changed the modulator from a sine function to a sine-squared function, and added a hyperbolic tangent to control the output levels. For the rest of you: I made it so the sound doesn't blow up constantly.
The input sources will be my workhorse Indian string instruments the ektar (on the left) and the gopichand (on the right). In addition, I am using these “acoustic” sources:
That duck has been a great instrument, and a mainstay of my live setup the last couple of years. I'm worried that the batteries will run out one day, and I won't be able to replace them unless I figure out a way to safely open the poor ducky without destroying him in the process.
So we've tried everything out, and should be ready to go. We'll have to make sure this is still the case tomorrow, and again on Saturday. My first performance at Woodstockhausn in 2002 (and at last year's related “micro-hausen” event) have been plagued by unexpected technical problems, so I'm a little cautious. Actually, I will probably make reference to that fateful 2002 performance on Saturday…
For those who are in the Bay Area, or anywhere in California for that matter, and wish to attend Woodstockhausen, the information is printed above. You can also visit the official website for more information.
From Ivan, we have Rudy the Rack Cat:
I am curious about a couple of the items in the rack. For example, the unit labeled as a “PCA-200 Low-Frequency Synthesizer”, and it's neighor below. Anyone know anything about them? The only references I can find to “PCA200” are a measurement device and an old ATM networking device.
Those folks over at dreamchimney are all over the synth tatoos again:
No cat, but we did get a nice shout-out anyway.
So…we at CatSynth will welcome all your synth-related tatoo fun, whether feline or not. You can use the current submissions page for synth and electronic-music themed body art.
I hope we don't regret this too much…
Luna wanders into the (somewhat messy) studio, where I spent much of this weekend working on several projects, including music you will probably never hear and the Sunday podcast. It's a rare shot of both the PC and Mac laptops along with the keyboards and other gear.
Actually, I think the ketzela is more interested in those cushions and bedding than in any musical or technological mischief.
This ad for the Octave CAT is one of many classic synthesizer ads from the 1970s and early 1980s on display in a new gallery at polynominal, the home of frequent contributors Mimì and Eric Pochesci.
They have quite a collection, with over 180 pictures. It is definitely worth a look, not only for those interested in old synths, but anyone either nostalgic or fascinated by that era.
They also have a poll for the the most ugly synth ad. And they have some really good candidates for this illustrious title. I did vote for one that definitely stood out, at least for me. See if you can figure out which one it was. Hint, it is probably the most “Republican” (US) synth ad I've seen…
Click here to subscribe. You can also visit the CatSynth Channel page for more info or to listen live.
Sean Carson is the first the first to take advantage of our open submissions for the CatSynth Channel podcast. And we are very to happy to have his piece “resting tones 5”, which very much fits our standard aesthetics, and includes “cat-like” sounds as well.
one of my most bizarre pieces.
there are some cat like sounds made by the cumbus oud. Its a steel string fretless instrument from Turkey
To submit your own music, visit our submissions page. Anything is game, as long as it vaguely fits the aesthetics of the CatSynth blog and/or podcast.
And kids, whatever you do, do NOT type that stage name into your Terminal window ;-).
