zip

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: miniature

The theme for today’s combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt is miniature. And we happen to have a “miniature” version of Luna:

The little stuffed kitty Zip has appeared in numerous posts, including our coverage earlier this year of the NAMM show. Of course Luna is curious about her miniature alter ego and comes over to investigate:

Weekend Cat Blogging #280 is hosted by Sam, Clem, Mav & GDB. (Mav and GDB are canine and human, respectively, but that’s ok.)

Photo Hunt 235 is hosted by tnchick. This week’s theme is miniature.

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

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Reconnaissance Fly at Studio 1510, Oakland

A few photos and thoughts from last Friday’s Reconnaissance Fly performance at Studio 1510 in Oakland.

I knew that Studio 1510 had a great acoustic piano, which I wanted to take advantage of particularly for our piece Emir Scamp Budge which features an extended jazz piano solo. But it turns that they also now have an actual Rhodes Stage Piano Mark II. I could pass up the opportunity to appropriate it for our set. Here is the Rhodes with the E-MU Proteus 2000 and Korg Kaos pad conveniently perched on top:

Together with the acoustic piano and MIDI keyboard for a rather massive keyboard setup:

Click the above picture to enlarge it and spot the cat!

Here we are getting ready to play the first note of our opening piece “Small Chinese Gong”.


[Photo by Tom Djll.]

The set went well from that point. I have not yet heard the recording, but I thought the first piece, as well as “One Should Never” (which was about as tight as I have heard us play it), “Ode to Steengo” – with the interplay of the text, the Kaos Pad, odd drum beats and Tim’s live electronic processing – and “Emir Scamp Budge” went particularly well.

Matt Davignon opened for us with a solo set featuring a live performance on drum machine and effects processors.

This was nominally a performance marking the release of his new CD Living Things, although none of the pieces in the performance were actually from the CD. But that was OK. I particularly remember the last piece in the set for a variety of reasons, including but limited to the subtle effects in the music.

Thanks to Scott Looney and Studio 1510 for hosting us!

Reconnaissance Fly at KUSF

Here is the first photo of the current Reconnaissance Fly lineup, taken after our performance on KUSF today.


[Photo by Bryan Chandler]

Thanks to our host Bryan Chandler for the photo, and of course for the opportunity to play.

Here is a photo I took at the start of the set.

You can see the score for our opening piece “Small Chinese Gong” laid out behind the keyboard. This is one of the graphical scores that I have mentioned in a previous review. This is also the piece that fell victim to the “rebellious blue cord” that left the performance bass-less. Fortunately we were able to correct that and the rest of the set went quite smoothly.

You can listen to an audio archive of the performance. I thought the later pieces, in particular “Canada”, “Ode to Steengo” and “An Empty Rectangle” came out quite well. We are definitely looking forward to our live performance tonight at Studio 1510.

For those interested in the technological aspects: I was using my trusty Korg mini-Kaos Pad, E-MU Proteus 2000 (with Vintage Pro and Mo’Phatt), and a Voce Electric Piano module. Tim Walters was also performing live custom electronics programmed in Supercollider.

Analogue Haven

Our last post from NAMM 2010 features more images from the Analogue Haven booth, where I spent a fair amount of time.

First up, a modular from Make Noise:

I was particularly intrigued by the two-dimensional sequencer module (in the lower left). A wide variety patterns can be generated along the X and Y axis and modified by selectively removing elements or subsections.

This video probably doesn’t do it justice, but it at least provides some atmosphere:

A portable modular rock (from Analog Rocket) featuring modules from The Harvestman, including the Hertz Donut and Piston Honda:

If I put together a modular system anytime soon, I would want that monorocket case.

Livewire modules, also some remakes of Wiard modules by Malekko Heavy Industry:

Of course, there are a splattering of Doepfer modules in many of these setups.

A compact modular setup from Tiptop Audio:

Muzundrum

Muzundrum is a “game of musicians”. In the standard game, players take turns rolling 12-sided (dodecahedral) dice that contain one of the twelve tones in standard Western music and attempting to place the die on the board to form chords and scales from standard tonal music theory. For example, if a player rolls a G, he or she can place it next to a C and E on the board to form a C-major triad.

There are of course many variations on the game. And the twelve sided dice can also be interesting tools for chance compositions or guided improvisation.

We now have a pair of sample dice here at CatSynth HQ:

The black die has the standard tones as described above, while the white has the solfege syllables do, re, mi, fa, so, etc.

Mungo State Zero

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.

Eigenlabs Eigenharp

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.

Snyderphonics Manta

Jeff Snyder of Snyderphonics poses with the new Snyderphonics Manta, a “a touch-sensitive interface for controlling music or video.”

The Manta has a series of hexagonal sensors with LEDs that can be used as independent controls or together as a large X-Y control surface. I’m always interested in new control surfaces, and wouldn’t mind trying one of these out.

jamLink

The jamLink from MusicianLink allows musicians to play together from different locations via high-speed internet. Below we see two performers onsite at NAMM jamming with a guitarist in Plano, Texas, which was 1438 miles (2312 km) away:

(Can you spot the obligatory cat in this picture?)

The performance was relatively tight, though one could hear a slight bit of delay or hesitation on the first beat of some measures.

I have actually had a chance to glimpse the jamLink during its development, and would like to use it in the future. At the moment, however, it is doubtful that the network service at CatSynth HQ is up to the task.