keyboard

Weekend Cat Blogging: Getting ready for today’s performance

We present a rather short Weekend Cat Blogging, as I get ready to head to Sacramento for my performance with Reconnaissance Fly at the In The Flow Festival. As you can see, we’re all packed and ready to go:

Luna was fascinated by the case for the Nord keyboard, as opposed to the keyboard itself in which she has shown no interest whatsoever.

By coincidence, this edition of Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by our friends LB and breadchick at The Sour Dough. We know they will appreciate that we are once again featuring audio gear this weekend!

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at When Cats Attack!.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth video: Questo gatto è un genio

Submitted by Bethany Kxfjghkfhg via facebook:

“E’ troppo soooo cute ! A parte il fatto che è un felino e oltretutto un cucciolo, e da qui tutti gli infiniti pregi di questi esseri,ma poi dico : lo vedete ? E’ superbo ! Effetti completamente dopanti !”

Of course, it’s easy to sound good when you only lie on the black keys 🙂

Teenage Engineering OP-1

Perhaps my favorite new instrument of the show, the OP-1 from Teenage Engineering:

Among the attractive features are its small size, the tape mode (shown in the picture above), and the user interface which uses color coding to visually map the parameters being edited to one of the four colored knobs. The color coding was present in all the modes, including the tape mode, the sampler, the pulse-wave synthesizer, envelope generator and others.

I might have bought one had it already been available.

More info at the Teenage Engineering website.

Korg microSAMPLER and Kaoscillator Pro

I could definitely see the utility for one of these in my live shows. It is a bit like a Casio SK-1, but with more up-to-date features in terms of ability to control and play samples, including multiple samples, and arranging them into beats and layouts on the keyboard. And of course higher quality sound.

Also, check out the new Kaoscillator Pro:

More at the Korg website.

Infinite-Response VAX77

I have been pondering a replacement for my aging Roland A80 keyboard. The VAX77 MIDI Keyboard Controller from Infinite Response seems like a possible candidate:

This was the model with the heavier weighted keys (closer to a piano keyboard). It is one of the first I have seen since the A80 and the Ensoniq keyboards that has polyphonic aftertouch, as well as release velocity. I also liked how it folded down to have size and fit into a bag. It’s still a heavy keyboard, but it’s at least “schlepable”.

One caveat is the controller section, which is handled via the touch screen. I am interested in seeing touch-screen technologies grow in use, but there is a part of me that still wants physical knobs and sliders for my real-time controllers.

CatSynth pic: mama & the wire-spaghetti

For National Feral Cat Day, we at CatSynth feature a picture of a former stray cat with a keyboard. From Poekie on flickr:

This is Mama, a stray cat, who has spent the last 2 years at the animal-shelter, where she gave birth to her son Zoen.
Mama ( we’re already calling her Mama Cat ), is very shy …. she doesn’t like anybody getting too close and spends most of her time in a dark, out-of-the-way corner…… we were warned she will be ” a bit of a challenge ”
Once the door of the cat-carrier opened, Mama Cat shot out in a flash and cowered in the dark, at the bottom of our cupboard, amoungst the cobwebs and wires, behind A.’s piano and synthesizer……. and there she still is !!!!

Mama is very slowly growing accustomed to us. She still
won’t let us touch her, but she has left her hidingplace and
now enjoys roaming around outside. Allthough she doesn’t
sleep indoors, she does come home to eat a few times a day,
so she must consider us to be her ‘home-base’.
She may never again be a lapcat, but as long as she seems
to be happy, so are we 🙂