This is Paremsan the cat. He comes to us courtesy of Anton Gabriel Largoza-Maza via our CatSynth page.
Parmesan paid a visit, looking at the strange new synth just beside the DX7.
What could this strange new synth be…
A Korg Minilogue! An excellent choice for humans and felines alike. But we think Parmesan particularly enjoys his scritches.
It’s been a busy musical time for us at CatSynth. Last week I performed a solo set and collaborative pieces with Amy X Neuburg at the Jewish Community Center in Berkeley. This weekend, I have two more performances, again in Berkeley, as part of Hardly Strictly Personal 2017. It’s a three-day event featuring a wide range of experimental and adventurous music, and benefits EarthJustice and the Homeless Action Center. You can see the full updated schedule, as well as ticket and location info here.
Vacuum Tree Head will be playing tonight, and my fusion/experimental project Census Designated Place (CDP) will be playing on Sunday. I have been busily preparing to make my debut on the Roland VP-03 Vocoder in both bands. Needless to say, between that and the various everyday tasks of an adult in San Francisco, we haven’t had as much opportunity to post here. Regular (?) CatSynth pics and more resume next week.
From Steven Franks via Facebook page.
My new Cat video synth. Looks great!
It does indeed look great. You can find out more at the Cat Full of Ghosts Electronics Facebook page or their website.
Tuxedo cat “Agent” Cooper is ready to make music with his laptop M-Audio controller. From delicatedecay on Instagram.
delicatedecayAgent Cooper in his beat laboratory. 🎶👾💻🎹🤖🎶
This was the awesome poster for the past weekend’s Volt Divers show in Portland. Not only does it feature a cat, it is monochromatic purple!
If you are not familiar with this series run by our friend Jeph Nor (Runkl Nor’s human and synthesizer virtuoso), please check out their Facebook Page. We hope to get back up to Portland ourselves sometime soon…
Cat atop a keyboard in front of a Korg PolySix synthesizer. From Björn Lif on that same post on the group Synthesizer Freaks. Life is good.
Identification of the lower keyboard is left as an exercise to the reader.
In this article, we go over a few remaining items from NAMM, and share some final thoughts as well.
The DATA module from Mordax takes the trend of built-in displays to another level. The large color screen displays a variety of functions, including oscilloscope, tuner , waveform generator and clock. It also has quite a few utility signal functions. It seems like quite the useful item for a medium or large modular system. Plus it looks great!
It’s a common problem with modular synthesizer systems to end up with 2hp empty and nothing to fill it with, except maybe a branded plate. 2hp quite literally fills this niche with a large selection of functional modules exactly 2hp wide.
We could all use extra multiples, or another envelope generator, or VCA. But their 2hp offerings include oscillators and filters. We could see these in various cases to get some handy functionality when needed.
Delptronics has made quite a few modules for percussion synthesis as well as for complex triggering of other modules. Their product line has grown; and we were particularly curious about the new spring module an its electro-acoustic possibilities.
We are always curious to see what 4ms has to offer, as the Spectral Multiband Filter has become one of our favorite modules for a variety of musical purposes. Their new offerings this year included a sampler module and tappable delay, which are shown in the upper right of the following photo.
There was of course more at the modular super booth and in the neighboring booths beyond what we have been able to cover this year. It will be inevitable that some products and manufactures don’t get mentioned in the blog, though we do have more on our Instagram feed during the show. We will have to figure out if there are any logistical changes we might want to try next year in order to see more while still remaining authentic and having the fun time at NAMM that we always do.
The trip home, despite the pouring rain and flooding in the LA Basin, ultimately turned out to be a pleasant one. I suppose I had a bit of a glow from the show, and full of ideas on how to move forward musically and personally in the challenging times ahead.
Even with the literal rainstorms outside and the dark pall cast by the political situation, inside the convention center we were all able to be ourselves and follow our passions for music and music technology. That doesn’t mean that outside reality didn’t intrude. It was impossible not to despair a bit on inauguration day; and by contrast Saturday with the Women’s Marches gave a bit of optimism. Mostly, I just kept doing what I came to NAMM to do. We hope you have enjoyed following our coverage, and we’ll be back doing it again next year barring some world-changing catastrophe (which unfortunately could happen).
