Retro Synth Ads posted this fact sheet for the Octave CAT yesterday:
[click to enlarge]
I believe we have seen seen this picture with the actual cat before. Additionally, the spec sheet contains the blank patch diagram that I have occasionally used for the Octave CAT.
You can see full-size images as well as additional analysis at Retro Synth Ads.
One of several instruments I encountered at the Analogue Haven booth at NAMM, the Mungo State Zero from Mungo Enterprises:
The State Zero is a large patchable synthesizer. Among its novel features are polyphony (patchable synthesizers are typically monophonic per oscillator unit) and the ability to “memorize” the most recent state of the patch even after the cords of removed. There is also a display feature that shows the signals of the most recently patched elements:
I like the industrial design and the textless graphical elements representing knobs and units, reminiscent of international symbols.
The Eigenharp Alpha from Eigenlabs:
The instrument looks a bit like an “electronic bassoon”, but beyond the mouthpiece, long thin shape and wood finish, it is quite different. It has 128 discrete keys that are also sensitive to pressure and motion in two directions, several large heavier keys and continuous controller ribbons. As such, it has the potential to be a very expressive instrument.
There is also a small version, the Eigenharp Pico:
And a new intermediate version, the Tau:
I particularly like the sleeker, modernist design on the Tau.
I did hear some demonstrations, which showed the features of the instrument, but focused on very conventional sounds and performance techniques. There were standard software synthesizers with keyboard and wind control, percussion sounds and beats and patterns controlled by the keys. With so many degrees of freedom and the ability to map different axes of expression to different musical parameters, I would like to see such an instrument used to push musical expression in novel directions. To this end, it is great to see that they are making their SDK open source. The first extension I would recommend is an OSC (OpenSound Control) protocol interface.
We take a break from our NAMM backlog for a cat-and-synth pic this Tuesday. From Kids at Midnight, via matrixsynth:
Arthur interrupts work on the latest tune, finding the laptop a nice warm place to settle down. He once changed the preferences on my Pro Tools with his arse and it took me about a month of fiddling and a call to a help desk to get it back to normal. Cat hair can also be a problem at the Kids At Midnight HQ. Shall be pooling our money and investing in a Dustbuster …
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.
From Kevin Kelly of The Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum, via matrixsynth:
The Technos Acxel is an interesting synthesizer, based on manipulation of spectra in the frequency domain. This is something several of us have been doing in software for quite a while.
In addition to the Acxel and the Rhodes Chroma, I see an E-MU EMAX in the background.
From James Price, via matrixsynth:
“This is my mostly empty dotcom with my kitten, Button, inside.”
“dotcom” of course refers to the Synthesizers.com rack, which apparently doubles as a comfortable napping spot.
We would like to remind everyone that you can submit your own cat-and-music pictures via our online form, via facebook, or @catsynth on twitter.
From Retribution Body on flickr, via matrixsynth:
“I’m very happy with the new rig. It’s very West Coast Serge / Buchla compared to the ARP, it’s a very different beast. I’m looking forward to doing some serious recording with it.”
“Once again, Ernie is very helpful.”
You can see more on the associated flickr set.
From softestthing on flickr:
There are several other pictures in the “kitteh can has moogs” series featuring Harrison (aka “harry potterbelly”). You can see the all of them here:
I realized that we have actually met this cat once before, in “kitteh can has modz”.
