cat

1000th Post

Today we at CatSynth publish our  1000th Post!

To mark this milestone, I created this mosaic featuring a few of Luna’s appearances:

Mosiac of Luna's appearances on CatSynth

[click to enlarge]

A few fun statistical facts about our first 1000 posts:

  • Luna has appeared in 238 posts almost 25%.
  • To date, there 270 cat-and-synthesizer posts.
  • As of this writing there are 5439 comments, or an average of 5 comments per post.
  • Over 150 Weekend  Cat Blogging posts.
  • 115 Wordless Wednesday posts.
  • Approximately 10% of posts feature our current hometown of San Francisco.

Here are the top 25 terms:

Cats 582
cat 414
Synthesizers 348
Luna 238
Music 200
weekend cat blogging 153
WCB 152
News 149
Art 145
Personal 133
Wordless Wednesday 115
San Francisco 97
Modernism 88
Photography 86
Reviews 77
Highways 70
synth 62
electronic music 59
cats on tuesday 56
analog 45
carnival of the cats 43
video 43
Music 40
Travel 38
midnight monday 36

Weekend Cat Blogging: Preparing for next week’s performance

Today I had a rehearsal for next week’s Pmocatat Ensemble performance at the Luggage Store Gallery. Pmocatat stands for “prerecorded music on cds and tapes and things”, and among the prerecorded sounds I plan to use this time are some recordings of Luna:

The name of the microphone I used this morning to record her is also called Luna. It is a pretty decent microphone, though recording a cat is going to be challenging with any equipment. Here is a recording of her purring:

You can hear a recording here.

I also used the audio from Luna’s chattering videos.

For those “in the business,” I would like to mention that using Pro Tools (my default option) to extract the sounds from the video did not work at all – it was difficult to do and produced really noisy results – while using Final Cut Pro plus the free program Audacity worked great.

All this preparation work got us rather tired, so time for a nap:

Weekend Cat Blogging #235 will be hosted by Kashim, who stepped in at the last minute.

And don’t forget that Carnival of Cats will be hosted tomorrow right here at CatSynth! To participate, please submit your post here.

Reunion

This morning I brought Luna home. She immediately went about reacquainting herself with her domain:

In addition to being reunited, we marked her birthday with gifts and treats. She also received a card from a far-away friend of ours:

Doesn’t the cat on the card bear a striking resemblance?

We also had a belated Thanksgiving, complete with leftover turkey from New York:

It’s great to be home together again.

Weekend Cat Blogging #233: Away

While I am away in New York this week, Luna is back at her deluxe boarding facility. She seemed to adjust relatively quickly after reacquainting herself with the place:

Of course, she quickly found her little alcove where she can peer out.

It’s always a little bittersweet to drop her off, but I know she will be well cared for.  And I have a sense this trip to New York will be good.   I expect to post some art and music reviews as time permits.

Meanwhile Weekend Cat Blogging #233 is being hosted by Samantha at Life from a Cat’s perspective. We still hope that Mr. Tigger comes home.

The Carnival of the Cats returns this Sunday to Pet’s Garden Blog.

And of course Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Preparing for Saturday performance

I am busy preparing for the first of three upcoming performances this week. That primarily involves hastily assembling a collection of gear and cables:

For this show, I will be using the Evolver, the Korg Kaos Pad, looping and effects software the MacBook, and several of my Chinese and Indian instruments, including the prayer bowl at the center of the photo. A challenge for readers: how many cats do you see in the photo above?

Meanwhile, Luna sits nearby. She seems to be accustomed enough to the odd sounds from my musical instruments to remain relaxed and even take a nap.

Appropriately enough, Weekend Cat Blogging #232 is being hosted by our audio-gear-savvy friends LB and breadchick at The Sour Dough.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at Artsy Catsy.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth video: My cat plays better synth than me.

From blwvideo on YouTube, via matrixsynth:

“My secret weapon for all two of my synthesizer videos is my cat, Buddy, who is a synthesizer virtuoso. He agreed to share one of his amazing jams with us. First he takes a stab at horror film fx, and then he goes slow and sultry with one of his more jazzy grooves.”

You can also see a related synth video on matrixsynth.