Noticing

/367 - One More Day

Sine waves on the bitbox triggered by Kria. Was very tempted not to post but chickened out at the last minute. I was making the sounds, why not share them?

/359 - Back to Basics

Sort of! I’ve been trying out a lot of things with the modular. All very interesting, and sometimes fun, but so far only infrequently musical. Tonight I didn’t try so hard — played a field recording on the bitbox, played the baritone in and ran both into clouds. Send that to the mixer, but also split to norns running MLR for some varispeed looping. Ah yes. Sometimes you need to take a break from walking to run.

/354 - Wind Generator

I got this little mic with a 60’s reel to reel player and it’s so great. Lays flat and is perfect for adding environmental sounds to a setup. This morning I discovered that rubbing my finger across the metal grill through reverb stirred up some lovely windy leaf sounds. Very appropriate because it’s been whipping around here lately.

Everything just sort of clicked this morning. Playing/being surrounded by this in low-light at 5am was the perfect start to my day.

/353 - Quantize It

There’s still a lot to learn, but Pamela’s New Workout is pretty damn amazing. Here she’s triggering 2 granular samples, as well as 2 quantized guitar loops. There are some notes in there that don’t feel right (even if they’re actually “correct”), but the possibilities are pretty amazing. Definitely a reason I see this in so many racks.

/346 - Moduloti Complete

I managed to get it all together and tested today! Currently it’s just passing midi from usb device (norns or ipad) and host (qunexus) to the Bitbox but it’s working great. The 4 encoders each have a push button and adjacent led so I can page through 4 sets of 4 parameters. I have a Sewastapol arriving sometime this week, so I’ll be able to use its send to run audio into Axoloti for more effects in the rack.

Hit record as I was playing around with things: field recordings from last winter at the park (remember that?), gamelan samples, and single cycle waveform drones. I’m beat, goodnight.

/340 - Closing In

It just sort of dawned on me tonight that I’m less than a month from finishing my goal of 1 post a day for an entire year. My mind is blown because I don’t think I ever conceived that I could actually do this. I also noticed that somewhere along the line I messed up my post numbering. Ugh.

Here’s an excerpt of tonight’s drones.

/334 - Something New

My first eurorack case arrived today. No modules until next week, so have to keep myself occupied in the meantime with making samples for the bitbox. Tonight: minimal Kria atmospheres.

I read about some unfortunate things that happened with Synthrotek, so I’ve updated the picture with the power panel flipped. Glad I bought this used. No support for people who say things like that.

/329 - Chilly

Quiet, but nice, anniversary day home with Ash and Emi. It was pretty cold and Ash has been feeling sort of sick this week so we just laid low, ate food, watched movies. I did get outside for awhile to finally finish installing the front storm door. It looks great and would have been done ages ago if I hadn’t made the mistake which required a lot of work and then rework to undo. Oh well. this is how we learn.

Cold, quiet, goodnight.

/325 - Left Turn Left

Dove back into VCV rack a bit today and it seemed to click a bit more. Made some interesting drones and thought some thoughts. It might be fun to build (or at least plan) a small sampling/looping, modulation, and effects rack. I dunno, famous last words and all that. I’m likely too capricious for such an endeavor and should stick with my software for things like this.

/323 - Mapping the Sounds

I can really feel the winter in the air.

Spent some more time with the iPad, etc today and pretty much confirmed the issue the the Twister was that it was trying to draw too much power. A high-current usb battery is en route to confirm, and it should also allow me to integrate norns. After so long of guitar straight into amp it's been really fun using these things for loops and processing. Also a great reminder that Spacecraft is wonderful. These sounds are mostly noodling while setting up channels and midi controls, testing and tweaking, listening and staring off into space.

It was a lazy weekend and I enjoyed it, even if I sh/coulda gotten more things done. Oh well.

/321 - Obscured

Pictures and drones of something and nothing.

/313 - Big Little One

Ash got a bunch of old film scans back today and this was in there. Love this kid so much. Happy birthday to the one who makes me laugh the most! ♥

Was cleaning out recent recordings and found this. Have really been enjoying #just playing guitar, but also missing processing and what comes of it.

/309 - Sundaze

This is a picture of a wren. I thought I saw one for the first time the other day, but have been doubting myself because it was quick and I haven’t seen it again. Tonight just before dusk I heard a lot of sound coming from the back porch and spied this little one singing its heart out. Then it flew up and hid in one of the hanging plants. It was too dark so the picture blurred. Still happy about it.

This is a short recording of some piano and pitched loops. Happy about it.

/302 - Communication

Got a nice little 3d printed ring to close up the sides on my Norns shield so I had a go at Awake sequencing Timber. I’m pretty sure that the only thing better than norns is 2 norns.

/301 - Infinity

Morning sounds playing the JM into a sequenced looper and effects, with a pulsing accompaniment by Continua. It has been awhile since I’ve played with effects and processing so it felt really good to quiet along with this.

This afternoon the ladies and I went to a nearby park to have a picnic and then walk along the shore of Lake Ontario. I know that Canada isn’t that far out of sight, but there’s still a really deep feeling when looking out over such an immense body of water softly swaying. Really reminds you how small you are.

/289 - Floaty

It’s been great getting all of these projects off my list, but I haven’t sat down at the desk in what feels like forever. I’ve been playing LOTS of guitar — I am pretty obsessed with the jazzmaster — but that’s just been guitar > amp. Tonight I set up compass as a longform delay by reducing the loop lengths and setting a low overdub amount. That way everything kept looping and slowing fading as new layers were built on top. All running into the Wedge, of course. (maybe a little too much) It was fun and I will definitely be exploring this further.

/287 - Inching Towards Mobility

Took my mobile mess out to the table this afternoon for testing. Still working on the Axoloti patch (and it appears that my damaged oled screen might finally be giving out, making it very hard to troubleshoot the patch) but things worked well running the jazzmaster into the mini > norns (mlr) > axo synth and reverb > portable speakers. Tons of variables so it definitely needs more use, but once I started playing it was a lot of fun.

The video is a synth drone with guitar loops playing from mlr, and live guitar over the top with bonus bird sounds. It was a beautiful day so the windows were open and the chickadees were really enjoying themselves at the feeders. Wasn’t planning on recording so it was done with the iphone mic. Sounds pretty decent, considering.

/284 - Full Up

I tried to record this morning and both norns and the h4n were full. I’ve been really bad about keeping them clean and backing up/organizing the files. Here’s something that was on there. I don’t know how I made it and I’m not positive I haven’t posted it before. (I’m pretty sure I haven’t, but I need to get better at staying up to date)

/261 - Monarch Morning

More meandering sounds with baritone guitar and norns running barcode. Recorded very early in the morning in 4 channel mode to pick up room sounds …and all else. I didn’t know anyone else was awake until Emi came bolting into the office on an important mission and it never occurred to me that our conversation was recorded until I listened back through files tonight. I’ve got the biggest smile on my face.

(They were all there, and all ok)