
Some sad news today in the world of cats and synths. Oscar, the cat whose photo sitting inside a Moog modular went viral and delighted so many, has passed away. We at CatSynth extend our deepest condolences to Oscar’s family.
Sylvester inspects his large modular installation. It’s actually three different modular systems. To the left is Serge format, to the right is Eurorack and in the middle is 5U.
From our friend Elise of Slope 114. You can hear what they’re up to musically via their Bandcamp page.
Sidney Crosby sings along with a modular setup, Dave Smith Mopho, Arturia Mini Brute, and a Moog Mother 32.
Submitted by @bittersweetdb via Mastodon.
2024 has come to a close, so it is time for our traditional end-of-year collage and post. You might notice another kitty in the corner this year – that’s Golda, one of the wonderful cats I stayed with in Berlin. She is representing our European adventure this summer, along with Plac Grunwaldzki in Wroclaw, Poland.
It was a banner year musically. I am especially proud of the album, the best musical work I have done to date! If you haven’t heard it yet, you should. Opening the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival was a special experience. And we had numerous other musical adventures both live and recorded, and an ever growing community of musicians scattered across the country and beyond that are not just colleagues, but friends.
It was a banner year for CatSynth TV, our best to date in terms of viewership, subscriptions, and audience interaction. 50% year-over-year growth ain’t bad. January of 2024, with NAMM, was our best month on record. We even saw an uptick in blog readership, including a new cohort of loyal followers for our cat+synth posts and Wordless Wednesday.
Indeed, with CatSynth TV, I look not only at what we accomplished this year, but what was left undone. So many videos partially complete or in the ideation phase, waiting to be finished in 2025. We are particularly looking to jumpstart our interview series that was big in 2023 but took a bit of a back seat this year because of various circumstances.
The dissonance between things at a personal and CatSynth level, and at a national and world level, is deafening. The election here in the U.S. this year was tragic and heartbreaking, and this coming year is going to be difficult. This time, it wasn’t a fluke, it was a choice, and we chose…unwisely. In my usual cynical way, the best I hope for is sheer incompetence by the new regime, but even so, a lot of people will be hurt, including people who are a lot like me.
So we go into 2025 in a very strange place. The personal successes and hopes for the New Year, set against the fear and coming disasters in the world. All we have is forward motion, each other, and defiance.
Tweek poses handsomely in front of a large modular setup in this moody black-and-white photo.
Submitted by our friend dafake (Antoine Marroncles) via Instagram.
It’s rare that Sam Sam ever gets up on one of the synth desks, so when she did I rushed to snap some photos. This was the best one, with her standing on our vintage Octave CAT (safely covered) and inspecting the Arturia MiniBrute and RackBrute modular setup.
A full account of synth brands in this photo can be found in the tags.
Keks sits in front of a multi-row and multi-case modular system, along with an Arturia KeyStep. Submitted by nystada via Twitter/X.
It turns out the Keks means “biscuits” in German.
Tweek peeks from behind a modular system in this moody black-and-white photo.
From dafake via Instagram.