Gonzo has made a few appearances recently, and we thought this early photo would be great for our next Caption-the-Cat contest:
SImilar to our original caption-the-cat contest, all you have to do is leave a comment with your captions, whether in LolCat dialect or not. There is no prize per se, but we will post some of them over future weeks.
Have fun!
Today we celebrate CatSynth's first anniversary.
It's been one year since we posted this photo on July 19, 2006:
The idea came from a friend who said something like “dude, you should do a website about cats and synths.” So I did. Really didn't have too much idea what I would write about. I quickly learned that there was quite an abundance of pictures of cats and synths, and sites like matrixsynth had been collecting such images for a while. Indeed, one of the first external “CatSynth pics” to be posted here was of matrix's own cat JD:
Sadly, we recently learned that JD passed away this month. We offer matrix our sympathies. It's always sad to hear about cat friends passing away (or human friends, for that matter), and we at CatSynth have seen our share this past year.
I expect to post more this evening reviewing the year with photos, not-so-useful stats and the other things we at CatSynth like to think we do well…
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).
From dj vivi pedraglio, who left this photo for us on myspace:
dj kikovas…with his roland sp-404.
dj vivi pedraglio comes to us from Argentina and has some really interesting beats and sounds. Check out her link above. She has also been featured recently on matrixsynth.
dj kikovas has at least one other photo, so we'll see more of him soon here at CatSynth. As for dj vivi herself:
Looks like she has the same idea here as Mimì 😉
For those who actually care about such things, I finally updated The Synths to include Octave “the CAT.” I fixed a few typos in the process.
Anyone ever bother reading that page?
From serandipatree at flickr:
Although I don't have comfirmation on this, I gather the names of the two ginger kitties are Marx and Engels, and the lower keyboard is an Ensoniq (that's kinda E-MU, right?).
Those are great cat names. Power to the proletariat!
A prolific week for catsynth pics.
Two more photos via matrix:
“Cat and Nord” (the original title) sounds to me like it should be expressed in French: Le Chat et Nord.
Next, we have another photo of Bob from Maggie Osterberg:
From sendling we have this video of artist (co)sine. Great stuff, and it's at Luna's Cafe! How could I not repost.
Scrolling down one post earlier at sendling, we see a familiar face. Remember Mimì? Well, it seems that she's been making the rounds since her debut here at CatSynth, popping up at sendling and matrix. Go Mimì!
cat
synthesizers
cosine
electronic music
noise
luna
cafe
mimi
Inspired by a discussion on the Bay Area New Music maling list about electronic-acoustic music as well as different electronic tools/technlogies (e.g., MAX, CSound, etc.), I present the Guess the Electronics game.
Simply listen to each of the challenges below and leave a comment on how you think each was one created. You can also take a guess as to which examples include acoustic material.
It's fun for the whole family ?
