Author: catsynth

Catsynth pic: actual cat with Octave CAT… and Kitten in Emulator X

Well, here's another cat sitting next to an Octave CAT – wonder why that comes up so much.

Actually I am quite interested in the Octave CAT and Kitten synths, I'm trying (yet again) to bid on one on eBay.

In the meantime, I have been trying several methods to emulate them, including building an Emulator X patch. The Kitten is definitely more feasible because it only has one oscillator and thus no FM – FM is nearly impossible to do on the Emulator platform. However, I did one out of MIDI controllers. So the end result is a “Kitten lite” that contains all the oscillator waveforms (Saw, Triangle and Square/PWM), the two independent sub-octave waveforms, square and sine LFOs, filter with realtime cutoff and Q and envelope mod, and of course ADSR envelope.

While not a real Octave Kitten, it's a nice little playable instrument.





Feline Alzheimer's disease

News of a studly on Alzheimer's disease for readers with ageing feline and human friends:

Ageing cats can develop a feline form of Alzheimer's disease, a new study reveals. Scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California have identified a key protein which can build up in the nerve cells of a cat's brain and cause mental deterioration.

In humans with Alzheimer's disease, this protein creates 'tangles' inside the nerve cells which inhibit messages being processed by the brain. The team says that the presence of this protein in cats is proof that they too can develop this type of disease…

…”As with humans, the life expectancy of cats is increasing and with this longer life runs the greater chance of developing dementia. Recent studies suggest that 28% of pet cats aged 11-14 years develop at least one old-age related behaviour problem and this increases to more than 50% for cats over the age of 15.”

Perhaps one of the things that makes cats and other companion animals so endearing is that they go through many of the same life stages as humans, from kittenhood/childhood to old age. Having recently observed a 96-year-old relative and a neighbor's 20-year old cat who recently passed away, one can see similarities in both the strong and the sad qualities. The old cat liked to simply rest in her favorite spots in the neighbors garden, staring out into the world. Her physical state deteriorated very quickly towards the end, but I believe she crossed the rainbow bridge quietly and peacefully. My relative is still with us (saw her on my recent New York trip), though her health and mental state has deteriorated quite a bit as well. Again, I find myself thinking of the similarities between humans and cats in this stage of life – though just as with human infants in comparison to kittens, older cats seem to on the whole do a better job of staying independent than their elderly human counterparts.

I wonder if any of the stem cell research on Alzheimer's in applicable to cats…



Spotted Cat in the news

While I was back in New York thanksgiving weekend, the Sunday Times ran an article on New Orleans in the travel section. Not only that, they featured the Spotted Cat, both in the article and as the cover photo for the section:

Readers may remember that I also featured the Spotted Cat in my article on NOLA night life. It has unfortunately been getting bad press lately, but not because of the music or the club itself, which remains one of the best venus in New Oreleans. Rather, the Marigny neighborhood has seen a spike in crime over the past few months, including some nasty murders – the most disturbing one involved a former Spotted Cat employee. It appears to be part of an overall increase in crime in New Orleans since people returned after Katrina.

With such negative perceptions, it's important to highlight the positive in New Orleans and it's institutions. In addition to my articles, others are doing their best to provide some good press for the Spotted Cat.







Meow Chow (WCB follow up)

I mentioned in the most recent Weekend Cat Blogging that we got a book of recipes for both cats and humans for Luna's birthday: Meow Chow: Hearty Recipes for Happy Cats.

I decided to try the crabcake recipe from the book because it seemed like something we both might enjoy – Luna's favorite human food to date seems to be turkey, but I'm a bit turkey'ed out myself. I bicycled down to the fish market on the Santa Cruz wharf for some fresh crab meat, and procured the other ingredients from various stores around town. The one substitution I made was matzoh meal instead of unsalted “saltine” crackers (isn't that an oxymoron). The preparation was pretty straightforward, mixing the batter, forming it into small patties and dropping them in the frying pan. Here is the final result:

A little overdone perhaps, but I do like the crust and at least for my own consumption I wanted to make sure the inside was well cooked. Luna had one half of a crab cake for herself:

She managed to eat most of it (which I cut into smaller pieces after this photo was taken), but I suppose it is quite filling for such a small cat.

I'm guessing next time she might prefer the sardines in the silver tray.

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Warped Cannon

Courtesy of fellow experimental musician Gino Robair, we have the “Warped Cannon” page, which features the Pachelbel's Canon in a wide variety of tunings. The MIDI files on the site present the canon performed not in variants of the traditional just and equal-tempered scales, but several rather odd tunings as well. Of particular interest to me was the the Bohlen-Pierce variation, using the Bohlen-Pierce tuning that I have discussed in previous posts. While some readers/listeners may find this variation a little difficult to listen to, and even disturbing when contrasted with the original, I actually find it quite inspiring. I am always interested to hear pieces done in this tuning ahead any future BP compositions of my own.






Weekend Cat Blogging #78: Luna's Birthday

This weekend, D and her lazy co-hosts are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging #78. This is also the weekend of Luna's birthday, which was officially on November 30 (last Thursday). She is two years old now – the ketzelas grow up so fast, don't they…

Of course, what birthday would be complete without presents? Luna had plenty from her human friends (click on the pictures below to see larger images):

Her favorite seems to be this little blue mousey, she's been playing with it all weekend:

There's still more birthday fun in store. A friend gaves us a copy of the book Meow Chow: Hearty Recipes for Happy Cats.

Doesn't the kitty on the cover look a lot like Luna?

We're going to try the crab cakes this afternoon, if I manage to get my act together. I know a lot of WCB'ers are foodies, so please do check in again later to find out how the feline culinary adventure goes!

New Podcast

Today's podcast release looks to the past. My performance two years ago at the Live Looping Festival in Santa Cruz received a lot of positive feedback from other musicians and audience members,, and it's one of my favorites. But it is largely overlooked by most visitors to my website. I encourage readers and listeners to check it out.

The performance was realized almost exclusively using Open Sound World, with a little backup from the Proteus 2000.



Gift ideas from CatSynth

Looking for a great holiday gift for that music lover, techno geek and/or pretentious hipster/snob in your life? Why not give them a copy of Aquatic?

If CD's are too old school, you and always gift tracks via iTunes or consider a subscription to emusic, truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Proportional Fish kinda sounds like holiday music, right?






Uninspiration

I haven't been particularly inspired to do any music or art lately – November has been a busy month with work, and the two trips to cities named “New…” – and now the extremely cold weather here isn't helping. Neither is the news, both out there in the world or recent tragedies closer to home. I'm not one of those people who finds inspiration for music from pain and sorrow, so hopefully things pick up…

One bright spot today is Luna's birthday. We marked the official occasion this morning with some gifts and treats, and will probably have some more fun on the weekend (and I'll post some photos).

So what to do when feeling cold and blue and uninspired? Buy a new computer.

It's one of the new Mac Books, the black one of course. That means that I will probably be selling my trusty little iBook soon. If anyone reading this has interest before I list it, please feel free to contact me.

In the department of unloading money, there also the charitable and public organizations I support that could probably use some help.

This is also an opportunity to reflect on what's important and/or precious to me – Luna of course, my music, my home, artistic and intellectual pursuits, family and friends, the causes I support…how bad or not bad are things really right now?

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Thoughts on animal-abuse tragedy in Tampa…and police shooting in New York

At about the same time I found that last article on cats from Lebanon in Ohio, I came across this horrific story of animal cruelty from Tampa. One of the victims is in the photo to the right. The details of this case are pretty bad, and many of this forum's cat-loving readers would do best not to read the original articles. As for me, once I find out about something like this I feel compelled to “bear witness” painful as it may be, read follow-up reports and hope that some sort of justice or good comes out of it.
Indeed, one of my main motivations for posting is to expose the sick excuse for a human who allegedly committed these acts of cruelty. Apparently, he just doesn't like cats and was mad that they would sometimes climb onto his car. As a cat lover, it is hard to comprehend the level of anger/hatred he must have felt towards them, but even so there is no excuse for his cruel executions of these helpless creatures :(. He has confessed to the killings, and has been charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty, carrying a maximum five-year sentence. I will respect the justice system and not pass sentence on him myself, though many participants in a local online forum have their own creative punishments in mind. It is somewhat satisfying to see a unified front of anger and revulsion, with not one person coming to his defense.

Apparently, this guy took shots at a police helicopter not so long before this incident. That's pretty serious, one wonders why he wasn't already in jail. Indeed, why didn't he end up riddled with bullets? Certainly, that would have saved the cats whose lives seem more worthwhile. But it also raises some interesting questions in light of the recent police shooting in New York – I was actually still in New York for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend when it happened. The cases are of course quite different, but nonetheless I think they are worth comparing. In one situation we have 50 shots fired at three unarmed men who apparently struck an undercover police van – one of the men was killed, on the day of his wedding. In the other case, we have a man very openly taking shots at a police helicopter, and not only escaping the incident unhurt but free to kill three cats days later. Is it just the different locations and circumstances? Is it that black men are invariably more likely to be treated as threats and shot than sick white trash with a known record of cruelty and violience?

I intend to follow both of these cases to see what happens…