CATSYNTH

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Category: Cats

  • Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Spiral

    The theme of this week’s Photo Hunt is spiral, a shape that appears frequently in art, mathematics, nature, and of course in Luna’s expressive tail.

    This is an old photo with a much younger Luna in our former home in Santa Cruz.  It is one of the best examples of the tight curl she often forms in her tail.  Here is a more recent example:

    The spirals in Luna’s tail are all about motion, and often difficult to capture in a still photograph. However, you can see them very clearly in the recent videos from our performance.

    With respect to music, a spiral was also one of the symbols I used in my recent piece for conduct your own orchestra night:

    This is the classic Archimedean spiral, defined by the formula r = aθ. Essentially the distance from the center increases proportionally to the angle as one “spirals out” from the center. There are other formal mathematical variations on the spiral, such as Fermat’s spiral, which I find visually interesting.

    Is mathematics, music and cats not a fine way to start the weekend?

    Weekend Cat Blogging #249 will be hosted by our friends LB and breadchick at The Sour Dough.

    The Photo Hunt is hosted by tnchick. This week’s theme is spiral.

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

    And the friday ark is at the modulator.

  • Cat Rack

    This the cat-shaped CD rack that Ann O’Rourke used at Conduct Your Own Orchestra Night.

    I am curious if any of the collectors of cat objects out there have seen this, or something similar to it?

  • Cats & Gear 2

    Another from pulsewidthmod on flickr:

    Not a “Cat-and-synthesizer pic” per se (though Logic does come with soft synths).

  • CatSynth video: shamii_in_studio_annoclip1.m4v, with Mister Kitty

    From prophei on YouTube, featuring Mister Kitty and an extensive collection of synthesizers:

    “annodalleb studio cuts #1”

    We featured Mister Kitty in this previous post.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Foreign

    This week’s Photo Hunt theme is foreign. Cats often intersect with my foreign travels, and with the objects that I bring home. Consider the Suzhou painting silk cat and Maneki Neko from Japan in the photo below:

    We have seen these items before, in discussions of cats of China and the cats of Tokyo, respectively.

    Here, we see Luna near some of our art pieces:

    Most of these, including the large watercolor on the left and small metal sculpture, are local. However, the mostly yellow geometric print is foreign. It is by a Cuban artist. I visited Cuba twice in 2001 and purchased this print in the town of Matanzas. The topic of visiting Cuba as an American (and the entire U.S. policy towards Cuba) could fill up an entire article.

    Sometimes one may assume something is foreign when it is in fact not. Consider this photo of Luna from December:

    The title may be in French and evoke a bygone era in Paris, but it is actually the work of an American artist, Ken Bailey.

    We close with some more maneki neko figures:

    All of the cat figurines in this photo are from Japan. There is one more cat, however, on the matchbox. This is not foreign, and created by a local artist.

    A sad note this weekend. Gattina and family, who regularly host “Cats on Tuesday”, said farewell to their cat Lisa this week. Lisa was a little over eighteen years old, which is a good long life for a cat.  We send them our thoughts.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #248 is hosted by Meowza at his blog iMeowza.

    Photo Hunt 203: Foreign is hosted by tnchick.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Nikita Cat at meowings of an opinionated pussycat. We also wish Nikita a happy birthday this weekend!

    And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • CatSynth pic: Luna checks the mini jam

    From rarebeasts on flickr:

    “Luna checks out the Wicks Looper and DinoAxe.”

    We at CatSynth are always delighted to meet another musical cat named Luna!

    You can see the actual mini jam with the Wicks Looper and DinoAxe in this video:

    We recently presented this Wicks Looper in this post. I am quite fascinated by this little instruments (and not just because of the black cat logo).

  • CatSynth video: Analogue synths and sleeping animals in my bed

    From Synthiefrau on YouTube, via matrixsynth:

    “Hello lovely synthfolks, my cat Cleo and my dog Susi have a funny life. They always sleeps the hole day and listening to my music;-). The sequenz comes from my Dot.com 911 Sequenzer, I play the Minimoog, Synton Syrinx, Moog Prodigy, The effects comes from the Roland Juno 60 and from Doepfer Dark Energie”

    I quite like the leopard-print Minimoog and modular case.

  • CatSynth pic: Zoe and Living Room Studio

    From oliverchesler on flickr:

    In addition to Zoe the cat, there is a Voice of Saturn, Korg KR-55 and Boss DR-110 rhythm machines, a Roland SH3 and a Yamaha CS5, among others.

    Oliver Chesler is also the author of the blog wire to the ear which we at CatSynth follow.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: post performance

    Luna was a big hit at my performance last Thursday, where she was featured in the video 月伸1.

    Here are more screenshots from her video debut:

    The video quality in different sections is deliberately different, sometimes dark or grainy, sometimes really crisp, as these shots below (which were featured in previous posts that you can find here and here):

    And here are some clips from the video:

    The video was just part of the performance; I did live improvisation with electronic instruments to accompany it. I do have a video of the full performance, although I have not had a chance to review it. Look for a formal “CatSynth review” of the performance as well as Polly Moller’s Genesis in the near future.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #247 is hosted by Nikita Cat.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Sniffie and the Florida Furkids.

    And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • CatSynth pic: Chloe in Studio, October 2009

    From Señor Pantalones on flickr:

    “Cat perspective distortion! (she’s backup security in case the primary one fails)”

    In addition to the cat Chloe, there is a Clavia Nord G2, a Moog Voyager, a Snyderphonics Manta (see this NAMM report on the Snyderphonics Manta), L.L. Electronics Rozzbox, several offerings from Roland (System 100m, TB-303, TR-606, MKS-50/Juno), an SH-101 Novamod, and a Cwejman S1 mkII among many others. I also like the modernist studio furniture from Heckler Designs.

    You can see a full-size image as well as labels for all the gear on the original flickr page.