Cats

Weekend Cat Blogging: Modernist Sunshine

Luna always loves the patches of sunshine that pour into CatSynth HQ in the morning. On this particular morning we see her posing regally in an Art-Deco-patterned sunshine spot. The shadow is cast by the table just behind her, a piece that dates back to my graduate-student days in Berkeley but still fits the overall style of our current pad in the city.

On a sad note, we learned that our friend and fellow cat-blogger has passed away. We send her family our thoughts.

Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by Bengal Business.

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

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Artsy Luna Photos

Since Thursday, we at CatSynth have been once again on art-and-music overload. We stopped at two of three large art fairs happening in San Francisco; attended a fundraiser for 826 Valencia at which a friend was reading; and today it’s back in the studio for more recording with Reconnaissance Fly. So on that note, here are some rather artsy photos of Luna:

These are among the more stylized configurations I now have in the Hipstamatic iPhone app. The latter is the same combo I used in the most recent Wordless Wednesday photo.

The one downside of such busy weekends is not having a lot of time to spend with Luna.

Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by Pam at Sidewalk Shoes.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by our friends Nikita and Elivra at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth video: GRP A8, Minimoog, Moog Prodigy & friends

From Synthiefrau on YouTube, via matrixsynth.

“Hi lovely Synthfreaks, here is a new improvisation from me. My new cat ‘Tonto’ listen to my music. I use my Synthesizers.com Sequencer, the Sequencer of the GRP A 8, Moog the leads are from theProdigy, Minimoog, Roland V-Synth, the effects comes from the Dark energie and the Juno 60 (LFO sounds), welcome to the analogue sound universe!”

Weekend Cat Blogging: Back on the Patio

As summer weather comes to San Francisco, we at CatSynth venture out onto our patio.

The patio took quite a pounding this past season. During one particularly bad storm with high winds and heavy rain, that plant on the left side of the photo came crashing down from the sky, destroying a screen and one of those nice modernist black benches :(. Fortunately, everything can be cleaned up or replaced. And the sculptures were not damaged.

Luna ventures out onto the patio:

Of course, she goes right for the grass in that pot that fell fromt the sky.

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be brown, as many decorative grasses are. But I don’t know that it’s safe for cats, so I tried to discourage Luna from chewing on this. It’s not easy, as she particularly loves found grass.

Weekend Cat Blogging, Mothers’ Day Edition, is at Mind of Mog.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Kashim, Othello and Salome.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth pic (sort of): WATKINS (WEM) COPICAT Mk2 tube echo

Via matrixsynth, a rare 1960s tube tape echo machine. The “COPICAT” Mk2 tube echo sports a stylized cat logo.

From the auction:

This sounds lovely both as a pre-amp and as an echo unit. All three heads work well and sound excellent – good strong repeats that break up in an evocative fashion, and run into self-oscillation when the ‘reverb’ knob is turned up for authentic dub effects. The echoes have a good tone for an old valve Copicat and degrade with a dark crunchy quality – they cannot be desribed as accurate repeats as this is not a digital delay, but they have a sound and vibe that is most pleasing and create a unique effect that sounds ‘right’.