black cat

CatSynth 5th Anniversary!

Today we mark the 5th Anniversary of CatSynth!

I started this site on July 19, 2006 as a novelty when a friend and former colleague at E-MU systems suggested that I “should make a website about cats and synths.”

Every anniversary we feature the photo of Luna from the inaugural post.

I still have that Novation keyboard, though it does not get used as often of late. Luna of course still is very territorial about that beanbag chair. Times have changed a bit, here is an iconic photo of Luna from this past year, this time with an iPad app (in this case, the Smule Magic Piano):

Another quirky way we like to celebrate is with statistics. First the basics:

1559 posts.
0.85 posts per day.
8784 comments.
5.63 comments per post.
476 posts featuring cats and synthesizers.
195 reviews (and gig reports).
381,735 visitors.

Even after five years, people from around the world continue to send us pictures of cats and music gear. These days most of those come via our Facebook, which together with twitter has become a major way people engage with this site.

From Google Analytics (which we finally got working properly over the past year), here is an overview of where our visitors come from around the world.

By far and away most of our visitors are from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Australia, France and Germany. I’m gratified to see so many visitors from India, though I’m curious why we never receive any comments from there…

It’s also interesting to look at cities.

Not surprisingly, the top cities are San Francisco and New York. In Google, it’s SF followed by NYC, while in Facebook, New York is the top city.

Our most popular posts judged by number of visitors are the annual endangered wild cats on earth day.  Over the past year, our most commented posts were:

Wordless Wednesday: Herman (Groundhog Day) 35
Wordless Wednesday: Doll and Metal Beams 28
Wordless Wednesday: 6506 (Baker Beach) 27
Wordless Wednesday: Matzoh Man 27
Happy Birthday Luna! 25
Wordless Wednesday: 7643 (New York, Late Autumn) 25
Wordless Wednesday:  Wet Paint 25
Wordless Wednesday: Mosaic with Saxophones 24
Wordless Wednesday: Summer Solstice 24
Wordless Wednesday:  Harrison Street Hipstomatic 23

Our top commenters the past year:

Kitty 199
Mickey, Georgia and Tillie 146
Gattina 94
CatSynth 90
The Chair Speaks 66
meowmeowmans 65
Snowcatcher 56
AVCr8teur 51
Daisy the Curly Cat 48
Cats of Wildcat Woods 41
Beth @ 990 Square 40

Thanks to all our friends (in time zones earlier than U.S. Pacific Daylight Time) who already sent in comments for the anniversary, and to the Cat Blogosphere for their anniversary shout-out!

And while we will continue to keep doing what we do, it has been more of a challenge over this past year to keep up with posts, especially the longer-form reviews. There is a trade between doing music and art, and writing about people doing music and art. But I still love doing everything here, and will find a way…

Weekend Cat Blogging #319

Our foggy, overcast summer days in San Francisco make for great cat photography:

Luna enjoys looking out the window, and a nice stretch.

Weekend Cat Blogging #319 is in honor of Sher, one of the original WCB participants we met back in 2006, who tragically passed away in July, 2008. Like many longtime participants, Sher was primarily a food blogger, and in tribute we made one of her recipes. Between work, music and social events we haven’t had much time to cook here at CatSynth HQ – and as I look back through the archives, that has happened each July since 2009. But we will make time this summer to try out a new recipe and share it on an upcoming weekend.

Weekend Cat Blogging #319 and Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this weekend by Billy SweetFeets.

And the friday ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging #318

For Weekend Cat Blogging #318, a few interesting photos of Luna from multiple cameras. First a high-contrast picture in the window:

And here is Luna today, once again napping in her favorite beanbag chair:

This was done with the impulse-acquired Roboto Glitter lens for the Hipstamatic iPhone app. The first photo was with done with the conventional camera.

Like Luna, I am looking forward to a relatively quiet afternoon.

We know that several regular WCB participants are foodies, so do check out the report from the Outsound Music Summit Benefit Dinner that I posted yesterday.

Weekend Cat Blogging #318 is hosted by Jules and Vincent at Judi’s Mind over Matter.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Samantha and Clementine at Life from a Cat’s Perspective.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Happy Gotcha Day, Luna!

June 10 is Luna’s “Gotcha Day”. It was six years ago today that she was adopted from Santa Cruz County Animal Services and became the much beloved member of our household that readers have come to know and love.

As we often do on this occasion, we look back at some early photos in comparison to the present. This particularly cute one was taken during her first week at home in June, 2005.

By contrast, here is one of the most recent photos of Luna:

She is quite fond of that PurrPad at the moment.

Another interesting comparison. Here is Luna sitting with our often-featured glass table in June, 2005:

And here she is again in 2010:

Some things stay the same.

Please join in me in wishing Luna a Happy 6th Gotcha Day! It is a day to celebrate, and to remember what’s important in life.

We would also like to give a mention to Friends of Santa Cruz County Animals – I support them every year in gratitude connecting us.

CatSynth video: Gabber cat (Bella)

My cat making gabber for us.

Submitted on facebook by Ian Lambert of Daed.

Nord lead’s arpeggiator was producing the kicks and the DSI mopho was making the hoover sounds (Drum machine acted as a sync clock, and the x0xbox was being used as a sequencer for the mopho)

Bella picked up on it pretty quickly.

A black cat, Nord and Dave Smith Instruments, what is not to like?

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Square…and Rememberance

This weekend, we have another combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt. The theme this week is square. Geometric shapes, including squares, abound at CatSynth HQ. But with the exceptionally gorgeous weather, we turn our attention once again to the patio:

The patio is covered in square slate tiles on which Luna enjoys rolling around. We are still doing some work to fix things up for spring now the construction is in the past. New design ideas to emphasize the industrial and geometric aesthetic.

This weekend we are also joining our friends the Three Tabby Cats in Vienna ~ Kashim, Othello and Salome ~ in a Weekend of Remembrance. We participated when they hosted a similar weekend back in 2007, lighting a candle like this one.

As we have made more friends online, so we have also lost many friends. We said goodbye to Mickey only a few weeks ago. Last year, we lost DJ Kikovas, the feline companion of our friend and fellow electronic musician Vivi Pedraglio. We also said goodbye to Tali and Sniffie. It is interesting to look back and see the diverse collection of people, mixture of musicians, engineers and cat lovers, who cross paths in these stories. We have also lost many heroes in music, art and mathematics in this same period of time; and some personal friends. We remember them as well.

Our thoughts for all our friends who lost love ones (human and non-human) over the past year, and for those who are struggling in the current storms in southeastern U.S., recovering from the disaster in Japan, and living through the seemingly greater number conflicts around the world.

Weekend Cat Blogging #308 is hosted by Samantha and Clementine at Life From a Cat’s Perspective. They are dedicating their post in remembrance of Praline.

Photo Hunt #263 is hosted by tnchick. This week’s theme is SQUARE.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up tomorrow at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging #306

Luna inspects the equipment for the next show during a recent practice session:

UPDATE: Luna just posed more regally next to the Nord keyboard. I think it’s a better picture (what do you think?).

The Nord Stage continues to be the main workhorse for idiomatic music, such as the jazz, caberet, etc. that may work its way into the performance.  The iPad (barely visible here) will provide the experimental counterpoint.

And here is Luna with some of the “analog” instruments:

The prayer bowl will be part of the show tomorrow, but the toy piano and tablas probably will not.

Weekend Cat Blogging #306 is at Pam’s Sidewalk Shoes. Check out the great close-ups of all three cats.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Pet and the Bengal Brats at Pet’s Garden Blog.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.