CATSYNTH

cats synthesizers music art opinion

Tag: blogoversary

  • CatSynth 16th Anniversary

    CatSynth 16th Anniversary

    Today marks 16 years since our first post on CatSynth. And of course here is the photo of our beloved Luna that started it all.

    Although I still miss her dearly, I love being able to see her through my hundreds (maybe more than hundreds) of photos.

    With everything that has been happening in the world and personally, I haven’t marked the anniversaries as much as in the past. But this year seems like a good time to do so, as at least some things from the past are beginning to re-emerge.

    And with that, let’s look at some stats. The viewership for the blog continues to be down from its heights in the early 2010s. But we do still get a lot of visitors from all over the world.

    According to our Google analytics, the greatest number of visits from July 2021 to July 2020 came from the United States, the United Kingdom, China (glad to see we’re not blocked by the “Great Firewall”), Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, and Sweden.

    Our most popular blog post over the past year was NoiseKick FX Meme Screamer Plus (TS/Klon/Boost). And of course, we ended up buying that Meme Screamer pedal and presented it on CatSynth TV.

    Speaking of CatSynth TV, the channel has continued to grow. We gained almost 1,500 subscribers and had well over 150,000 views. Perhaps small by YouTube standards, but I am proud of the work we have done and look forward to more growth. Our most popular videos were mostly old favorites including our many Arturia V Collection reviews and demos. Our tributes to electronic-music heroes also were among the most viewed, especially our tribute to the great Klaus Shulze. Again we welcomed viewers from around the world, with the largest viewership in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan.

    We at CatSynth are looking forward to another year of cats, synthesizers, music, art, and so much more. And thank you for all your support from myself, Sam Sam, and Big Merp.

  • CatSynth 12th Anniversary

    CatSynth 12th Anniversary

    It’s our twelfth anniversary!  It’s hard to believe that this little project I started as a lark in 2006 is still going and expanding.  Here is that first picture of Luna that went up on July 19, 2006!

    As always, we look to the anniversary as a moment for reflection and for changes.  We don’t have compiled detailed stats this year, but we do have several high-level milestones.  Most notably, we launched CatSynth TV last October, and since then have shared 74 videos! More are on the way.  We have continued to develop our apps, including the original CatSynth: The App! and Highway☆, though there is so much more we want to do there, both with existing and new apps.  And Sam Sam has blossomed into the new star of CatSynth!  With so many facets competing for our attention, there has been less time for the long-form reviews that once dominated this site, though we still write long-form articles when we can.  So with that, we make some announcements:

    • Sam Sam finally takes her rightful place on the masthead alongside the late great Luna!  It’s a change that is long overdue.  And appropriately, we are featuring one of her scratch’n’roll poses.
    • We are going to open up the site to new voices.  We have already had a couple of guest music reviews, and of course the semi-regular Mensa Cats cartoon series.  This is going to expand in the coming months.  If you have an idea for an article you would like to contribute, please let us know.
    • And as always, please keep sending us your cat-and-gear pics.

    So please join Sam Sam and me in celebrating twelve years of CatSynth!  We look forward to sharing many more with all of you.

  • CatSynth 11th Blog Anniversary

    Luna on iPad at 11:11

    It’s been 11 years since we started CatSynth on a bit of a lark, and since then it has grown into something that we treasure, and quite seriously. But not too seriously. As always, we mark the annual milestone with a few stats.

    3210 Posts
    14358 Comments
    4.47 Comments Per Post
    1202 Cat-and-synth pics
    474 Reviews and related posts

    Comments and interaction on the blog has continued to decline (from an average of 4.7 to 4.47 comments per post). This is not surprising as interaction has largely moved to social media platforms.

    Our most visited post this last year was our Sad Farewell to Luna, both on the blog itself and on social media. This, too, is not surprising, and we continue to be very grateful for the outpouring of emotional support we have received.

    Other individual posts that were widely read and shared including our explainer on Lake Oroville, our review of James Chance and the Contortions in San Francisco, and of course our annual NAMM coverage.

    Every year we share the photo that started it all on July 19, 2006. It featured Luna in the beanbag chair along with a Novation keyboard. We feel its still appropriate for this day.

    Luna with Novation Keyboard

    We continue to grieve for Luna, but we also welcome Sam Sam who we hope with be with us and featured on these pages for years to come.

    Emphatic Sam Sam

  • CatSynth 8th Anniversary

    Well, our eighth blog anniversary occurred this weekend.  So today we celebrate that milestone as we do every year, with some statistics and a look backs.

    First, as always, the photo of Luna that launched it all on July 19, 2006.

    We are always happy to receive visitors from all over the world, and we do.

    Our top countries are:

    1. United States
    2. United Kingdom
    3. Canada
    4. Germany
    5. France
    6. Australia
    7. Switzerland
    8. Italy
    9. Netherlands
    10. India

    Not surprising, the largest English-speaking countries are on the list (I include India), but also a strong presence in countries of Western Europe, especially Germany and France. Beyond India, several countries an Asia were well represented, especially Japan and South Korea. Notably, China had only 6 visitors this year, perhaps we have been blocked? Our top country in the Middle East was Iran, in Africa it was South Africa, and in South America it was Brazil.

    Our top ten cities were San Francisco, New York, London, Zurich, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sydney, Melbourne, and Chicago.

    Our top post from this past year was Our review of new modules from Make Noise. Indeed, we saw the highest overall engagement on our NAMM coverage.

    Our top commenters for the year were:

    1. Georgia and Julie, along with the late Tillie (we miss Tillie)
    2. meowmeowmans of Animal Shelter Volunteer Life.
    3. Snowcatcher
    4. Louis la Vache (of the now closed Bay Area Photo blog)
    5. Beth F of Beth Fish Reads
    6. Our friend “Kitty” from Canada
    7. Gattina
    8. Sukhmandir Kaur
    9. Sue St. Clair
    10. Lee County Clowder

    Overall, activity on the blog itself is down, while participation via Facebook, TwitterInstagram are increasing. Our top “liked” posts via Facebook were:

    1. Chris Broderick Farewell Bay Area Concert
    2. Happy Gotcha Day to Luna!
    3. CatSynth pic: Belly Rub
    4. Cat Museum of San Francisco’s Morrissey Birthday post
    5. CatSynth pic: Nina the Studio Kitty

    Our Facebook channel has become particularly strong on its own, often with distinct posts and readers from the blog. As for the blog itself, my own activity has gone down quite a bit this year, due to a variety of work and personal issues. In particular, I’d like to get back to more of our interest posts, including more music and art reviews, “Fun with Highways”, etc. And of course more cats and synths.

    And finally, thanks to everyone who has stuck with us through any or all of our channels. You are what makes this such a rewarding experience!

  • CatSynth 7th Anniversary!

    Today we mark seven years since CatSynth first went online!

    Here was the photo of Luna from that first post on July 19, 2006.

    Luna_Keyboard_resized_c

     

    As we do every yeah, we celebrate this occasion with some stats.

    2,278 posts.
    12,218 comments.
    538,771 visitors.
    760 “cat-and-synth” posts.

    Some overall stats for the past year:

    Our top day for visitors was January 26, 2013. This was during NAMM.
    The greatest number of visitors came from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany.
    The top cities are San Francisco and New York. The top city outside the U.S. is London.
    iOS and Android are among the top five platforms used by our visitors, surpassing Linux.

    Our top commenters over the past year:

    Tillie and Georgia 187
    meowmeowmans 142
    Gattina 70
    Snowcatcher 57
    Kitty 56
    CatSynth 53
    Beth F 45
    Sukhmandir Kaur 42
    AVCr8teur 42
    Louis la Vache 40
    Sue St Clair 39
    KatzTales 37
    Cafe au lait 34
    Marilia 33
    The Chair Speaks 29
    Sweet Purrfections 27
    Cats of wildcat woods 25
    Marg 24
    Team Tabby 23
    Beth @ 990 Square 22
    SandyCarlson 22

    It’s great to see longtime readers continue to participate over the years, and always good to see newcomers as well.  Interestingly, the number of comments has gone down significantly over the past year.  My conjecture is that an increasing amount of the engagement around CatSynth has migrated to our Facebook page, and to Twitter, where we have lively communities of commenters.  In terms of Facebook, here are our most shared/liked posts over the past year:

    The Green Wood, an opera by David Samas 64
    CatSynth pic: Brian Eno Purina ad 44
    Weekend Cat Blogging: Good News from PAWS 38
    Pitta of the Mind, Red Thread, and Pet the Tiger at Turquoise Yantra Grotto 36
    CatSynth pic: Gary Mew-man 33
    CatSynth pic: Moog Little Phatty 31
    Superb Owl 29
    Outsound Music Summit: Fire and Energy 28
    CatSynth pic: Chewie on Ensoniq EPS 26
    CatSynth pic: Pinto and Moog Little Phatty 25
    Jay Korber Benefit Performance, Berkeley Arts 25
    The Fashion World of John Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, De Young Museum 23
    CatSynth pic: Maggie Monotron 23
    Military Cats 20
    CatSynth pic: Schnuffi and Modular 19

    It’s gratifying to see a mixture of “cat-and-synth” posts and art/music reviews in this list.  It supports my belief that mixing all the different topics together into one stream is worthwhile.  I particularly enjoy our many cat enthusiasts commenting on the music reviews or highway posts.

    We hope to continue this project for a long time, and hope it continues to be a valuable and worthwhile resource.  And a big thank you to all our readers and fans!  You make this a joy to work on.

  • CatSynth 6th Anniversary

    Today marks our 6th anniversary! It’s amazing to think that we have been going on with this for 6 years. The past year has been a good one, in terms of quality of the post and engagement with readers here on the blog as well as via Facebook and Twitter, and we’re looking forward to an even better year ahead.

    And we are celebrating as we always do, with statistics.

    1933 posts.
    10714 comments.
    463,958 visitors.
    258 reviews of art, music and technology.
    621 catsynth pics and videos.

    57% of posts feature cats
    19% of posts feature Luna

    Most frequently-cited synthesizer brands:
    Korg (100)
    Moog (72)
    Roland (70)

    Via Google Analytics, a map of where people are visiting from:

    Top countries:

    United States
    United Kingdom
    Canada
    India
    Germany
    Australia
    France
    Italy
    Poland
    Netherlands

    The non-anglophone country that sent the most visitors to CatSynth is Germany.

    Our top commenters for July 2011-July 2012:

    Kitty 141
    Tillie and Georgia 135
    meowmeowmans 132
    Gattina 77
    Snowcatcher 61
    AVCr8teur 55
    Beth F 50
    Sue St Clair 46
    Marg 45
    Beth @ 990 Square 44
    Daisy the Curly Cat 39
    SandyCarlson (USA) 39
    Cafe au lait 37
    Judi 33
    Louis la Vache 33
    Mitch 32
    Maria @ LSS 32
    The Chair Speaks 31
    caite@a lovely shore breeze 29
    Indrani 29
    Robin from Israel 27
    Sweet Purrfections 26
    Carol @ There’s Always Thyme to Cook 24
    Sukhmandir Kaur 24
    Katz (And Other) Tales 21
    Li 19
    Cats of Wildcat Woods 18
    Daisy Deadhead 15
    Fuzzy Tales 12

    Our most commented articles this past year:

     

    Happy Birthday Luna! 36
    Happy Gotcha Day, Luna! 27
    Wordless Wednesday: Green Window 26
    Wordless Wednesday: Cat and Koi Street Art 24
    Wordless Wednesday: Installation views of upcoming show 24
    Wordless Wednesday 24
    Wordless Wednesday: Portals 24
    Wordless Wednesday: Blue Barrels 23
    Wordless Wednesday: Oakland Maze 23
    Wordless Wednesday: View from Brooklyn 23
    Wordless Wednesday: Ominous Sky 22
    Wordless Wednesday: Ferguson 22
    Dona Nobis Pacem 22
    Wordless Wednesday: Union and Octavia 22
    Wordless Wednesday: Looking Upward 21
    Wordless Wednesday: Quicksilver 20
    Wordless Wednesday: LACMA 20
    Wordless Wednesday: Jungle Cat 20
    Wordless Wednesday: Doll and Fish 19
    Wordless Wednesday: Mystery Sunburst from New York 19

     

    And finally, the posts most “liked” by Facebook users.

    Broadside Attractions | Vanquished Terrains at Intersection for the Arts 40
    CatSynth pic: Happy Minimoog Monday (On Tuesday) 37
    CatSynth pic: Bengal Cheetah Cat on a Moog Little Phatty 22
    CatSynth pic: Bessie and Korg Monotron 21
    Pas Musique and Thomas/Levin duo, Luggage Store Gallery 21
    CatSynth pic: Mog Moog 20
    CatSynth pic: Missy and Nord 20
    Paul Stapleton improvisation sets, Luggage Store Gallery 17
    CatSynth pic: Mimi and Korg MS-20 16
    CatSynth pic: Techno Puff (JL Cooper CS-32) 16
    CatSynth pic: Binary Heap 16
    CatSynth pic: VideoCat and Korg Mono/Poly 16
    CatSynth pic: Video the cat with Wurlitzer and Fender 15
    CatSynth pic: Steerke and Korg Mono/Poly 14
    ReCardiacs Fly, Surplus 1980, PG13 at Hemlock Tavern 13
    CatSynth pic: Lenny 13
    Robert Reich at #OccupySF 13
    CatSynth pic: I smell a rat 12
    Alan Turing and Computability 12

    It is quite interesting how the set of posts receiving the most blog comments and those receiving the most Facebook likes are completely disjoint.  The former tends towards Wordless Wednesday and Luna, while the latter tends towards cat-and-synth pics and art/music reviews.  Certainly something to reflect on as we move forward into this next year.