I know we’re probably all tiring of holiday music, but I will make an exception for Julie’s original compositions.
Synthesizers
Miss Little Star with Korg microKEY and Akai MIDIMix
The adorable Miss Little Star steps onto the Korg microKEY for her co-producer debut.
From Martyna Basta (@martynkabasta on Instagram).
warning 2026 my co-producer is about to detonate
You can see a short video of Miss Little Star on the microKEY here
Haku and Infinite Machinery modules
Haku helps his human pal Erik Ribeiro (@eriksuperlazy on Instagram) unbox and set up new modules from Infinite Machinery. Erik got these back when we were all at Knobcon. I, too, am still setting up some of the modules that I acquired there.
It appears the Infinite Machinery modules in question are the TZ (thru-zero) Dual VCO and Low Road filter.
And here they are installed and set up to make some noise.
George and Casio keyboard ambient track
A soothing ambient track by George on his trusty Casio keyboard. Check out his Instagram for more performances.
He seems to really be relaxed and enjoying himself, too.
Nimbus on the keys
Nimbus plays us a little tune on the piano. And he is dressed for his performance, too!
Nimbus lives with our friend and local artist, Sandy Yagi, here in San Francisco.
Find out more about Nimbus and his many talents at his website.
Boris & Natasha with Arturia MicroFreak
Meet adorable kittens Boris and Natasha! We see them posing here with an Arturia MicroFreak (complete with vocoder mic).
Submitted by Darren Douglas Danahy, the human of the late great Hookah the Cat, via our Facebook page.
Hello CatSynth, it’s been almost a year since we lost our keyboard playing cat Hookah, but a week ago we adopted Boris and Natasha. Today I let them in the music room and they are ALL ABOUT IT.
We at CatSynth welcome Boris and Natasha to their new forever home, and look forward to seeing more of them in the future.
Chichiro and Doepfer Dark Energy Mk1
Chichiro inspects a Doepfer Dark Energy Mk1 synthesizer. Submitted by our friend Erik Ribeiro (@eriksuperlazy on Instagram).
The Doepfer Dark Energy was built around the Curtis CEM3394 “synth on a chip”. Curtis filter chips are well known and prolific in analog synthesizers, but this chip also includes a VCO and VCA – in short, a full synthesizer voice. It would definitely be fun to get hold of one of these, either packaged like the Dark Energy or on its own to experiment with.
Astro, Roland TB-03, Polyend Play, Meris LVX
Mon petit helper à l’œuvre
A cat helping out in the studio with various signal-processing units, including Klark-Technik LA-2A clone, a vintage Alesis MIDIVerb III, a couple of units from A.R.T., and more.
Ringo and Waldorf Blofeld Soundscape
Ringer creates a soundscape with the Waldorf Blofeld. Submitted by our good friend Damien Olsen.
We also see a Line 6 delay pedal, Korg M50 and TR61 keyboard synthesizers, a Roland SP-404 SX sampler, and more.