Synthesizers

RPM finished!

Well, it's been a pretty intense few days finishing up the RPM challenge, but we made it! Finished recording on Feburary 27, did some very cursory mastering and CD artwork on Feburary 28, and today, March 1, assembled the finished goods:


The final title was indeed “2 1/2”, and the final track list was as follows:

01 Prologue – Jerry Gray (1951)
02 Fragments in Gray
03 Twista Dilemma
04 Trieste 116
05 Four Days
06 ghanaplasticity
07 microkitty
08 RPM Filler Track
09 pique
10 Happy Machine
11 Epilogue – Count Basie (1953)

Musically, it's a fairly mixed result, some tracks were exceptional, others need a fair amount of work, which I can do at my leisure outside of the RPM challenge. But it is still a fairly good result for what was really just 2 1/2 weeks of solid work amidst the various other dramas of this past February…

At 11:30 this morning, I mailed it out from the post office in Scotts Valley, California. And with this simple act, it is done.

You can read some more detail of the last week on my rpm blog. As for me, it is time to rest.




CatSynth pic: Mimì and TB-303

Submitted by polynominal from Italy:

Mimì is a 8 years old female cat, born in the island
of Sardenia in Italy.
Her name is from a character of the opera “la Bohème”
composed by Puccini, although I could never bring her to the lyrical
theatre “La Scala” of Milan,
the city where I live and have my recording studio.
Mimì likes to stay in the studio for the warmy
heat produced by analog machines, perfect for little
cozy naps!
In the snapshot she's thinking of a way to sync a tb303
to an Elka Synthex's sequencer!
I hope she'll find out soon! 🙂

Besides being a classic analog instrument for techno and dance music, the TB-303 is quite a comfy location for a nap. Who knew?





WCB and RPM collide this weekend

While the RPM challenge continues to dominate life here at CatSynth, there's always time for Weekend Cat Blogging. Indeed, Luna has been helping out quite a bit in the studio the past few days:



Take a break with us from the struggles of art to visit Kate, Bustopher and Harmon who are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging 90.









RPM update: Trieste 116

Yes, this is the second RPM post in a row, but the project has been dominating my outside-of-work life the last few days, at least the parts not taken up with eating, drinking, sleeping and playing with Luna.

Even though I didn't spend a huge amount of time this evening, I think I produced my best track to date, as I described earlier on my RPM blog:

Well, this is the first recording I have made for this project that felt truly inspired – even as I was working on it, I had the feeling “this is going to be really good.” So even if I never release the RPM album to the public as a whole, this piece will be released in some form no matter what.

It is called Trieste 116, and splices together an improvisation done with my favorite custom patch “116” on the DSI Evolver, with excerpts from a live recording of a jazz combo with pennywhistle at Cafe Trieste in San Francisco (yes, that's the famous Beatnik hangout). The Evolver patch features non-linear feedback and filtering only (i.e., no traditional oscillators), and has an unstable flute-like quality that I attempt to blend with the pennywhistle in the Cafe Trieste clips. It all works together, at least for me. Additionally, the track opens with a quiet recording of a Dixieland band, an element I wanted to use somewhere in the album as a New Orleans tribute.

The Cafe Trieste recording as well as the Dixieland band were obtained from the freesound project and released on the Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License.

Once again, a demo track is available to RPM participants (do any RPM participants read this forum?) via the Sample Engine, just look for “Amar” in the Author column. One can also get a pretty good idea by listening to the October 14, 2006 podcast, which also featured an improvisation using my Evolver patch “116.”

UPDATE: Trieste 116 is up on the front page of RPM today!

I also recommend checking out “Angie Fights Crime”, I had coincidentally looked at them yesterday, too.







RPM continues

I actually had a very productive day working on the RPM Challenge. I now have three “completed” tracks, one half-baked, and the prologue and epilogue tracks done. However, that is only about 12 minutes, one third of the required length (35 minutes). Here's a little from the latest RPM blog entry (and this one is relatively optimistic):

Well, it looks like I managed to finish another track for tonight, it's entitled “ghanaplasticity”, named for the demo on a hacked E-MU Morpheus that I used as the original source. I then imported the source into Emulator X2 and performed it using the keyboard to process the original in a variety of ways.

Compared to the previous tracks, this one was remarkably quick to produce, and quite a pleasure to create. It was more like a live performance. I can listen to the seemingly strange timbres and rhythms and intuitively find something to enjoy in it, much like I do in abstract visual art.

So this one feels right, while the more structured tracks feel half baked at this time, which is why things have dragged on this long. So the question becomes, do I give up on structure and composition in order to “get this thing done?”

Other RPM participants can hear the works in progress using the Sample Engine. Everyone else will have to wait until at least next podcast, which is probably this coming Sunday.








E-MU modular for $5.6K

Bidding ended today for this E-MU modular system at eBay. The final bid was $5600.

Among the listed modules are “11 filters, three oscillators, 6 VCAs, four transient generators, two preamps and a filter controller.”

I of course follow things from E-MU, past and present, quite closely. I might have considered specific modules, were they available, but not the unit as a whole. Anyhow, it looks like people still covet this historic instrument.




Catsynth story: "Mewg"

Our friend and regular WCB'er whaleshaman posted this great story as a comment on the Waldorf Pulse and cats. I thought this was worth bringing forward as it's own article. Enjoy!

certainly without cats the synthesizer would never even have come into existence AS WE KNOW IT.

few know that robert “moog” really was a cat! his name is more correctly spelled “mewg,” but changed to hide his real identity.

he had a cute little sporty car with the license plate “moog,” which he parked on broadway near columbia university in the riotous good old days [late 60s, early 70s].

people used to stand around and stare, and through the fog of “herbal” smoke, proclaim knowingly: oh, man, he is SUCH a cool CAT. and btw, end the war but sieze the dean's office first.

i suppose you're wondering how he got away with being a cat and having a drivers' license.

apparently there was a motor vehicle office back in the 60s, on central avenue in white plains [near the county center where i went to music camp in the summer of '59]. the employees in that particular office were unusually corrupt [driven insane by the music camp's awful band rehearsals] and would license “anybody” who showed up.

so that's how bobby the cool cat got to drive a car on broadway.

true story — parts of it anyway.

I can vouch for the DMV office on Central Ave. in White Plains, NY. That's where I got my first driver's permit and then license!

Maybe Toonces should try them for his license as well…




CatSynth pic: synth studio, with cat

Another from our friend Knox Bronson at SunPopBlue:

This is a rather abstract representation of his “almost all-analogue synth studio.” Mars kitty can be seen in the bubble at the lower right (and in the enlarged clip to the right). The overall composition suggests a blend of the CatSynth banner with my Music of the (Blue) Spheres graphic artwork.

The original photo is from 2002, and Mars has since passed away. You can also see a close-up video at the original SunPopBlue posting.