trick or treat!

Untangling Midi embedded

here's the intro to Untangling Midi

I'll make with the regular embeds of this there's 7 parts I'll embed them as I've finished watching them, might take a couple of days. if you are impatient and cant get the above link to work for you you can watch the whole thing on youtube.

becoming part of the rumor mill

I have been writing to Buchla and Associates trying to learn as much as I can about the 200e and in the course of conversation I was told by Don that they are going to be re-issuing the 285 Frequency Shifter/Balanced Modulator

A modern version is due to go up on their site next month.

here's a link to some movies

I found this instructional video called "Untangling Midi" by following links on matrixsynth. Damn but the narrator's glasses are huge.

The whole thing is painfully retro but that's all part of its charm.

go here to download the film in segments I wish I could just embed it here. It's late right now so I'm going to bed but maybe tomorrow I can find it on youtube. if I can find this in an embeddable format I will be posting it here.

in the meantime here's a link to Barry Truax

getting the most from my modular

A couple of days ago I had a thought and it went something like this: my Evolver has four 16 step sequencers on it and only one will play on the vostok at a time. However because the Evolver can remember midi sequences I can program a 16 step melody and recall it when I like and the Vostok will play it... My modular's got memory.

So if my modular has memory and there are for sequencers then in theory I can save four different melodys for each one Evolver preset... that means I've got potentially four times as much memory if I wanted it.

It's not as sophisticated as say a Buchla 200e which can save all the knob settings to be recalled but knobs are meant to be tweaked anyway, I can compose and recall!

I've been tying with it and it does work though not always well. At least not with the internal sequencer. The Vostok's 8 step internal cv gate sequencer has to be re-programmed every time and I'm still working on how to accurately take notes for step sequencers. So Buchla has one more up on me in that the knob settings on an Arbitrary Function Generator can be saved in the 200e preset memory. But hey, knobs are meant to be tweaked.

re-mixing the Apocalypse

Late at night when my wife is in bed and I'm up doing work sometimes I plug in my computer to my synth and play video news clips through the ring modulator. As I write this I've got a good idea for an installment someplace if I could ever get the space and time. These passive mixers give me way more control over the vostok and with the Evolver's incredible amount of memory I can create midi-note sequences which the Vostok plays while it's internal clock drives the Evolver's sequencer adding an extra eight steps to play with.... Beautiful.

Any way, like I was saying. ring modulating Sarah Palin and Bill Moyers is freaking awsome and the Evolver/Vostok/mixers trio realy lets me do some great stuff.

It's got me thinking about how many tape loops I could make if I just sat down to do it and how great it would be to do some live music concrete... though technically that's impossible so would it be music wet-concrete? I don't know but I'm going to need to find some places to take this shit it's too good to leave in my living room.

Also I need a web cam so I can put this up on the intra-web... (fingers crossed) I'll have to figure that out.

In other news my CD is Finished! Finally after two and a half years I'll be getting it from Jeremy Enkel (who produced it) and then it's all about pimping my tunes! I'll need to find a way to get them onto the web, I'd like to make them available to download here for free and I hope to be making copies to leave around the city maybe if I'm lucky someone will offer me a gig.

ok no pics tonight it's coming time for bed. just want to do one more headline.

photos of my gear

Finally I took a bunch of pictures and re-sized them for you, I guess this would be my first official gear-porn post. It's a humble beginning but this is basically my main set up and it's out in the living room because there's a bit more space to stretch out. my studio shares that room with my wife's sewing space consequently neither of us uses that room much. Please ignore the laundry I didn't straighten up before taking these and don't feel like taking new ones, this is a music blog not better homes and gardens.

and while you browse might I suggest listening to this song by 23 Skidoo.



Here's my studio: in front of you is my very first keyboard, the one I got in trade for a David Icke book. It's got my midi interface resting on it, I'm not really sure if this works any more, it was out in my mom's garage for a while and I havn't tested it out yet the yamaha is great, once I get the tools I'm going to try my hand at bending it:


Now here you have pictures of my MS 20 and SQ 10, I got them for my birthday last year thus kicking off an obsession with analogue synthesis and synthesizers.

Above you can see my Nova and my X Station I really like the X Station as a polysynth it's got some very nice presets and as far as a combination between a midi keyboard and synth it's well worth the money, and cheap too only about 300 new. I still havn't really pushed the Nova so I'm undecided on wether I like it as much as I had thought I would. it's for sale if you are interested.

The little guy below the MS 20 is a Cassio SK1 that I got from Craigslist. The dude who sold it to me got it from some asshole named Jesse Mesa Savage, I guess he's a famous circuit bender but he treats his patrons like shit, good keyboard though, the bends in it are great.

Here's my livingroom set up. The black in the corner is hiding undergarments.

That guitar is my baby it's been with me since I was 12 and the only place it hasn't visited with me is Ecuador.

I got two of these three channel mixers for two dollars at a thrift store, they are really useful for attenuating and mixing tape loops and as an extra set of inputs on the modular I have a second one I'm not presently using, they are indispensable.

I got this at a thrift store in preparation for Halloween I wanted to go about shouting "Merry Christmas" and pelting stuff with other things but it's also really handy as a cheap-o amplifier, it does some nifty feedback and distorted echoing on it's high settings and it's got two inputs, the mike it comes with makes sound effects too and I mean it's called the "Sing n' Jam" it doesn't get much better. One day maybe I'll see what kinds of bends I can get from the mic.

And here's the baby of my instrument family, the Vostok of my dreams. This is so freaking great to have and together with the Evolver it's one bad ass synth.

So there it is folks... photos of my synthesizers. Presently my favourite configuration is to have the Vostok's VCA output running through the Evolver and also sepratley through the little mixer I have there and then both going into my amp.

Lots of fun... more when I've got it.

it's been quiet here for too long.

I recently got the vostok back from Front Line Assembly and have started playing it again experimenting with combinations of cables and pins and figuring out the attack decay envelopes. I wrote to Tom Carpenter tonight to get some more information on just how simmilar they are to the EMS trapezoid generator.

I've also come into a Novation Supernova rack which I bought from my friend in FLA who just came back from an aborted tour with his other band to find some very urgent debts.

I don't know how long I'll have it for. Honestly it's a great instrument but I think it's the wrong sort for what I'm in to. Besides that I've fallen in love with the Buchla 200e (as far as it's possible to be in love with a musical instrument). I've decided that I'm going to try and save enough to buy a 12 panel system and keep my fingers crossed that one comes up for sale used because the price tag for a new one is head-spinning. My plan basically is to save and save and save, and if one comes up for sale used and I can afford it I'll buy that one, and if I have to save until I can get one new, well I'll have to wait a long time but it will be worth it and the time between then and now will give me the opportunity to bone up.

I followed some links a while ago and found this gem by Bary Truax The Handbook for Accoustic Ecology

I've also beel listening to this a lot. Particularly the track Round Rolling Mirror, I think that one's beautiful.

here are a picture of my new Supernova. I'll post some more pictures tomorrow while I do my laundry.

as soon as I can I'll try and have some audio and video up but for now chances are if you read this blog you already know me so just give me a call and we'll hang out if you'd like to hear some of my modular noise.

he's back!

I'm back from my honeymoon. We didn't end up going as long as I had originally thought because of money issues but it's just as well, we've been having a great time just resting up before work starts for my wife. I'm starting this blog up again officially as of tonight. We took some good video and as soon as I figure out how to get it up on youtube or vimeo there will be some here. Also, learning how to take video with our camera means that as soon as I get my modular back from Chris Peterson there will be some vostok'in In the mean time here's a clip of someone playing the shit out of an old and un-bent Yamaha Portasound.