Cats

Weekend Cat Blogging: Rain

It’s been very stormy week here, with sometimes violent winds and heavy rain, and flash floods. Indeed, it has been raining at least once every few hours continuously since I departed from Los Angeles last Sunday. It’s the kind of weather where one really just wants to curl up and stay warm:

In additional to seeing Luna napping on one of her favorite chairs, I liked the way the clothing draped on top formed this perfect triangle above her. This image has a very symbolic quality – the triangle is a very powerful element in my own visual ideas, and I have often talked about juxtaposing geometric elements against more natural organic shapes.

This morning, the sun has appeared at CatSynth HQ for the first time in over a week, and Luna peers out into the world:

Weekend Cat Blogging #242 is hosted by Nikita Cat.

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

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth pic: CatBook

We take a break from our NAMM backlog for a cat-and-synth pic this Tuesday. From Kids at Midnight, via matrixsynth:

Arthur interrupts work on the latest tune, finding the laptop a nice warm place to settle down. He once changed the preferences on my Pro Tools with his arse and it took me about a month of fiddling and a call to a help desk to get it back to normal. Cat hair can also be a problem at the Kids At Midnight HQ. Shall be pooling our money and investing in a Dustbuster …

Infinite-Response VAX77

I have been pondering a replacement for my aging Roland A80 keyboard. The VAX77 MIDI Keyboard Controller from Infinite Response seems like a possible candidate:

This was the model with the heavier weighted keys (closer to a piano keyboard). It is one of the first I have seen since the A80 and the Ensoniq keyboards that has polyphonic aftertouch, as well as release velocity. I also liked how it folded down to have size and fit into a bag. It’s still a heavy keyboard, but it’s at least “schlepable”.

One caveat is the controller section, which is handled via the touch screen. I am interested in seeing touch-screen technologies grow in use, but there is a part of me that still wants physical knobs and sliders for my real-time controllers.

Nord Wave and Stage EX

As soon as I arrived in the hall at NAMM I immediately faced the bright red instruments from Nord. The Wave synthesizer (featured below with Zip) was interesting in terms of programming features though the use of external waves was a but limited. I did like the new filter models including the multi.

My friends had recommended the Nord Stage. I tried out the electric piano models and now I want one for my live shows! its too bad the stage and programming products arent in a single package.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Works of Art

I managed to get this photo of Luna sitting in front of a ledge overlooking the downstairs. I think she matches the works of art on the wall quite well.

Astute readers may recognize the large black painting from one of our reviews last October. See if you can pick out the artist.

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted this weekend by The Meezers.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up on Sunday at iMeowza.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Acxel Resynthesizer and Rhodes Chroma

From Kevin Kelly of The Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum, via matrixsynth:

The Technos Acxel is an interesting synthesizer, based on manipulation of spectra in the frequency domain. This is something several of us have been doing in software for quite a while.

In addition to the Acxel and the Rhodes Chroma, I see an E-MU EMAX in the background.

CatSynth pic: Button and a Dotcom Modular Bed

From James Price, via matrixsynth:

“This is my mostly empty dotcom with my kitten, Button, inside.”

“dotcom” of course refers to the Synthesizers.com rack, which apparently doubles as a comfortable napping spot.

We would like to remind everyone that you can submit your own cat-and-music pictures via our online form, via facebook, or @catsynth on twitter.