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.








Worthless Kitty Interlude: Summer in February and "There goes the neighborhood"

This is the sort of thing we like to see in Februrary, especially after a fortnight of gloom.

Crack open a window!

A perfect day to spend outside, perhaps in the garden. Things have an annoying tendancy to grow here in the winter, so there's a lot of cleaning to be done. And the notice I got this morning from a neighborhood group concerned about “blight” makes me think I better get the garden nice and clean before some crazy white suburban-types throw bricks through my window.

Speaking of blights on the neighborhood, one of those dog-beasts just wondered by on the sidewalk as I was working out front. No associated human in sight in either direction. We have a lot of cats (and small kids, for that matter), so I don't like to see unattended dogs. Plus, he decided to use the corner of yard for a very unneighborly purpose. 😛 I guess it's time to call in the Biohazard Unit. That kinda dampened my enthusiasm to keep working. I guess at least it gives me something to complain about should I choose to attend the March 6 meeting of “concerned neighbors.”

Maybe I should just go for a bike ride instead…

…ah, now this is more civilized. Relaxing at an outdoor cafe with a beer in 75F weather. Feels like Europe in the summer…

Crack open a window!


Weekend Cat Blogging #89: V-day with Luna

A close friend of ours sent Luna this card for Valentine's day. Here we see her coming forward to inspect her new offering.

The card reads “For a Sweet Girl…”, and that she is!

Of course, for me and those who have come to know Luna in real life and online, her identity and gender are completely intertwined. I am curious if people would recognize her as a “sweet girl” if not for name and narrative, however. This speaks to the interesting idea of how we humans recognize gender in other animals, and thus in ourselves.

Anyhow, for more cute cats with less social/philisophical drivel, visit Weekend Cat Blogging #89, which is being hosted by…well, it looks like did not have an official host designated this weekend. But kitechnmage, Trubble and Drago have graciously offered to host this weekend. Looking at the URL, I was hoping to see “cats too L.A.”, but it's just “cats too lazy…” We at CatSynth wouldn't want to accused of conflating the two, though…






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.




Fun with stats: V-day edition

Today's chart rates four ex-girlfriends against criteria from an article at everything2.com:

Just like how women can be treated badly, men can also be treated badly. And for some reason, men are socially engineered to take more crap from the woman. Here are some of the things women who treat men badly do:

S L M D
1. “Disapprove” of him and his likes in
attempt to change the man.		 X X
2. Keep reminding him that she wants to break-up with him on a
specific set date.
3. Taking for granted, his ability to understand and compromise. X X X
4. Taking advantage of his generosity. In this case, she
starts becoming a gold-digger.		 X
5.
Getting her way whenever there is a conflict. Some would argue the man may be
passive at this point. But usually, the only thing he wants to avoid is a
meaningless argument.		 X X X X
6. Flirting with other men either in front of him or behind his
back.		 X X
7.
Cheating on him.		 X X X
8. Not understanding that his personality can grow to
become more enlightened.		 X X
9. Having sex
only when she wants.		 X
10. Not respecting his private/personal life. X X
11. Arguing over every meaningless detail of either “what he
said” or “what he did”.		 X X X
12. Having little tolerance and patience of his own
“flaws”.		 X X X X
13. Not saying “sorry” when she’s wrong.
14.
Not admitting when she’s wrong and always trying to get him to admit he’s
wrong when he really isn’t.		 X X X X
15. Blaming him for everything or anything that goes
wrong.		 X
16.
Not going to important events with him. (e.g. his graduation, lifetime
achievement award ceremony, their wedding, etc…)		 X
17. Not sacrificing nor compromising anything of
hers for his benefit. (Aren’t relationships suppose to be a two-way street?)		 X X X X
18. Telling him “I don’t love you,” yet still wanting to
have sex with him.



men treated badly

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…




RPM update

I haven't posted an update lately on my RPM challenge album. Needless to say, it hasn't been going all that well, you can read some musings/whinings on my rpm blog.

I'm hoping that getting restarted with a new more deliberate overall sketch of the album structure and energy, and a return to more experimental timbral-based tracks similar to my recent music for Dorian Grey, which is in a lot of ways the most inspired piece of done in a while. Can it save RPM? We'll have to wait and see…





Nora, The Piano-Playing Cat

This wonderful video features Nora, the piano-playing cat. Not a synthesizer, but it is a keyboard instrument.

In addition to the simple cuteness of a cat playing piano, I actually found myself listening to music itself. Clearly a lot of major and minor seconds, mostly because they are easy to reach with a single paw, but there is also the strong repeating rhythm. And she seems remarkably consistent over multiple brief “performances.”

I recommend listening to Nora's music without observing the video, as I am now, and you will hear an interesting minimal atonal piece that stands on its own. Many detractors of atonal and free-rhythm music often argue that “their five-year old could do that” or even that their pet could do that, but perhaps the fact that it captures childlike and cat-like innocence is part of the charm such music.