e-mu

Weekend Cat Blogging and more: Studio

Luna looks out the window, as the new studio starts to take shape.

We see a side rack here, with a couple of colorful E-MU modules, and a couple of classic Yamaha FM modules. Near the window is a non-electronic instrument, a large bell made from a spent CO2 cartridge.

Of course, the main attraction is Luna with her perfectly groomed fur and sharp pose. This might be one of my favorite photos of her to date in our new home.

We saw Luna playing hide-and-seek in the studio last weekend. And that is the theme of this weekend's Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos, hosted this weekend by Chandra & Samantha at New Tuxedo Gang Hideout.

Weekend Cat Blogging #143 is being hosted this weekend Meowza at Mind of Mog.

The Carnival of the Cats is happening this Sunday at Grace & Kittens. And of course the Friday Ark #180 is at the modulator.

CatSynth pics: Niki Fried Rice

Remember Niki? Well, she has some more gear photos:

Looks like a Nord micromodular in the first pic. And in the second, is that an E-MU Xmidi? Well, at least someone bought one. I wonder if that is a standalone unit, or the one that comes with Emulator/Proteus X2? (The fact that it's not connected to any MIDI cables suggests the latter)

sigh

"Trailer" for Obama NYC Rally

Watch this “movie trailer” for Barack Obama’s rally last week in New York:

The rally may have come and gone, but the video is still quite funny, as the viewer comments suggest – and in that dry sort of way I appreciate most.

But the real reason I’m posting this is to shamelessly but honestly take credit for the music. Yes, I cranked out this orchestral “film score” piece using E-MU Emulator X2 and Modern Symphonic Orchestra in just a couple of days. Most of the effort is in the back and forth that always happens when working on film or video, but I’m very pleased with the result.

With almost 7000 views as of this writing, it might be my most “heard” piece of music. And it joins a small collection of pieces I have done for (other people’s) film and video, including the East Bloc Call To Prayer, and Neptune: Prelude to Xi. You can hear some other of my film or film-ready music here or at myspace.

And if you need music for your film or video project, drop me a line. . 😉

Sometimes life takes a major unexpected turn.

Well, friends, this is one of those times. My official association with E-MU Systems is coming to an end. Basically, it appears that our parent company Creative Technology Ltd. has some serious plans for E-MU, and those plans do not include my continuing to work there. So 4 1/2 years of leading the group responsible for award-winning products such as Emulator X2 (winner of the coveted mipa Award) and bringing E-MU to the Mac OSX platform, and six years with the larger organization, comes to a quiet and somewhat undignified conclusion.

Manager, E-MU Software Engineering, March 2003 – July 2007.

It is sad to leave behind friends with the local group, and I do worry a bit for those who remain behind. I am actually looking forward to some of the opportunities ahead for myself. Rather than jump right back into the job market, I think this is a good time to reflect and consider some ideas more ambitious or rewarding than a simple paycheck. Though I do suspect I'll start missing that in a month or so.

For now, things should pretty much go ahead as normal for those of us at CatSynth HQ. And of course this site continues as well. I have been planning to do more weekly features like Weekend Cat Blogging and the CatSynth Channel podcasts, including a weekly CD or film review. I may start a weekly feature on being unemployed as well…for as long it lasts.

Preparing for tonight's performance: Cats, Rehearsal and Software

First, I have to remind myself to ABC: Always Bring a Camera. I missed several photo opportunities before and during our rehearsal in San Francisco on Wednesday. There were some great shots on the new Central Freeway terminal ramp. And then the “kitty moments” during the rehearsal with Polly Moller and John Moreira. I did snap this cell-phone pic of John Moreira's cat Crescenda rolling around among our cue sheets and amps. She and her fellow cat Pearl joined us several times during the rehearsal, but Crescenda's little act stole the show.

Musically, I had a minimal setup – a subset of what brought to the Skonkathon two weeks ago – just the MacBook, the E-MU 0202 | USB and a MIDI keyboard. The Mac was running the new script-based Open Sound World to process live guitar input. The processing worked quite well, I think, with several wavetables, ring modulation, and a rather nasty little FM algorithm (it's a lot like those distortion-modulation “sound mangler” pedals). Both the guitar and processing needed to fit within pieces with voice, flute and existing electronic material.

UPDATE: You can read Polly's account of the rehearsal and Crescenda here.

The one concern was the frequent OSW crashes – it wasn't a huge problem during the rehearsal because the system can reset itself very quickly (far more quickly than the older UI-centric version), with only a few seconds of dead time. But still, that's not cool. I suspected something related to the MIDI input handling. Fortunately, last night I was able to track down the crashes last night. They were indeed in the MIDI handling, some issues exposed by the multi-processing with the Core2 Duo. Easily found and fixed by playing the patch with a lot of MIDI control, with the laptop and keyboard on the coffee table. Actually, I made some interesting lo-fi music with the built-in mic and speaker and feedback while testing and debugging. This will probably form the basis of my next piece.

Preparing for tomorrow's today's performance, part 2

Things were looking pretty dire yesterday afternoon, with major audio problems on both the PC and Mac. Without going into details, I was getting intermittent pops, clicks and stutters on the PC, and the Mac was simply outputting something wrong. Eventually, I was able to get the mac working with clean audio, so that became the computer for today's performance, together with an E-MU 0202 | USB and an Xboard.

Basically, the mac is running Open Sound World, more specifically, the latest version that works with my new Python interface. Without the pesky graphical interface, the system is rock solid and a lot more efficient to program. It's more akin to SuperCollider or the practice of “live coding”, if you are familiar with either of those. So with this setup, I was able to get things up and running for today very quickly. And it is rock solid, though I don't want to jinx the actual performance too much by describing all the things that didn't happen.

The “instrument” for today allows two live recordings to be played back at various rates, controlled by the MIDI keyboard and knobs. I will be playing several of my Indian instruments to feed the recordings, in particular the ektar (single-string instrument) and the gopichand (also single string, with a bendable neck for pitch modulation).

Of course, the ketzela wants to get in the act again, too:

One last-minute change was dealing with my Xboard killing itself (something stupid on my part, really). Fortunately, I also have the Novation keyboard as a backup, and although the keyboard itself isn't as good, the controllers are a better fit.

The setup is also extremely compact. This is all I have to carry:

Well, actually, this and the folding table I usually bring. Still, it will be very light and relatively easy to set up (especially as the mac boots very quickly).

New Podcast: Synth Summit at Luggage Store Gallery, July 2004

Tonight's podcast is an excerpt from the “Synthesizer Summit” at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. Basically, the performance is an improvisation by several artists playing hardware synths. If I recall correctly, the artists and their respective synths were:

Synthia Payne: Roland JP8000
Amar Chaudhary: E-MU Proteus 2000 (Mo'Phatt + Vintage) and Morpheus
LX Rudis: Oberheim Matrix 12
Jim Ryan: Arp 2600
Will Grant: E-MU UltraProteus

Note: many subscribers may have heard another excerpt fromt the Synthesizer Summit that I accidentally released a few weeks back instead of the advertised Woodstockhausen 2003 performance (that has since been corrected).