No offense to the sparrows, but we’re finally starting to see more color in the yard/at the feeders. Managed to get this picture of the Northern Flicker (L) and Goldfinch. The goldfinch was there for quite awhile, going to town on sunflower seeds. Meanwhile the magic finch sock went untouched.
As much as I like loop-based music and drones, I don’t tend to enjoy (with some notable exceptions) repetitions of short loops for extended periods of time. This morning I ended up with a loop out of Compass that I meditated on for a very long time. Tonight I ran it through the reel to reel for some saturation and wow/flutter, but it wasn’t too long before the tape snapped. Very old tape plus wheels that need grease, go figure.
This is what we get when we rush. Was drilling a hole for the power jack and the enclosure slipped out of my hand and flew across the bench. These pots are done, but things are otherwise ok. Very lucky that was all that happened and a good reminder to work safely.
It’s been a long time since I plugged a guitar straight into an amp. Felt (and sounded) pretty good. I’ve also not played this guitar very much in awhile as it usually lives in the basement. When I got it it was a 24” scale sears bass from the 70’s. I converted it to a 6 string with plans to make it a guitar synth — the entire area under the pickguard is hollow to let me put a microcontroller in there. In the end I just liked it as is and left it. It’s definitely rough around the edges, but it plays and sounds great. The P90 is soooo #jangly.
It takes me forever to do things, always having to stop and stare and reassess. Some would say “methodical.” I might say “trepidatious.” Either way, it will get done. Soon maybe!
I’m still pretty obsessed with making these. Reminds me of a few pieces I made in school — images reduced to color fields and then reproduced with stencils and paint or cut paper. I’m slowly working out the logistics of using the cnc machine for things like this. I like the idea of using/abusing it as a tool to make art.
Finally etched the enclosure today! Set it up, held my breath, and pushed the button to make it go. Worked great and am happy with how it turned out. Then I got it painted and sanded so now it’s ready for reassembly.
I also had a great Father’s Day hanging out with Ash and Emi. Picnic lunch and then some project time. Dinner together and then our usual bedtime routine. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
A few years ago, my uncle gave us a HUGE box of old slides and a projector. He said he wasn’t sure where they came from (something he found after his parents passed) but they aren’t of our family, though there are lots of local pics and what I assume are vacation pics. Most of the dates I’ve seen on them are 50’s and 60’s.
Emi and I were organizing in the basement yesterday and found them and she demanded to set things up to look through things. It all worked great until it stopped advancing slides and I’ve come to find out that there are plastic pieces in there that disintegrate over time. We were both really disappointed since there’s no way to change slides until it gets fixed, so I guess I’ll be digging into this very soon. haha
Felt inclined to try the enclosure art with paint pen as a test run before cutting into the aluminum. Not sure why since I’ve got the setup ready and have done it before. I guess because I wanted to see the design in print before committing. It’s fun to watch the machine work anyway, so no harm done except (at least, I’m slow) one more day before I can put it back together.
Things in the garden are taking off way faster than they did last year. We added the box on top for extra depth and mixed in the stinkiest mushroom compost. The tomatoes did nothing until very lte last year and we already have flowers. I also see this frog out there every night when I go water. No matter how close I get he just sits there. Now if only we can just get the chipmunks to be as chill and stop digging up the carrots every night.
I went looking for an old file and ended spending most of the evening listening back to so much stuff I’ve recorded over the years. Part of me wants to make something out of some of it, but I very rarely go back to stuff that I’ve left behind. Who knows. Did find some cool old samples to throw into the M:S though.
I also found this picture of this weird synth I had a few years ago. It was a strange story. I don’t remember how I found in, but there was a rabid online debate on whether or not this thing actually did anything. It was cheap and seemed interesting so I decided to take the risk. It was a real thing, based on a teensy.
Each of the 6 bars on the right are a note that you tune by tapping at the same time as one of the 2 bars on the left to go up or down in pitch. Had another couple combos to get a few different waveforms and envelope modes, and a “sequencer” mode that let you tap the bars to set a rate at which each note would repeat. Was pretty cool for generative drones.
Despite posting pictures and audio to say that this thing was actually real, people still seemed not to want to believe it, and claimed I was in on the scam. What can you do? Shortly thereafter the price went way up (hundreds of dollars) and then disappeared completely. It was cool and I had fun with it, but in the end it was pretty limited so I found it a new home.
Or: more fun with vectorization.
Take 2 with nanoloop. Recorded the whole thing with some outboard reverb and delay, but then couldn’t get iMovie to sync them together. Oh well.
My first go at playing around with nanoloop and this popped out. There’s no way to use it with other apps and I have yet to figure out how to load samples (I think you have to use iTunes?? no thanks) but it’s still pretty fun. I grew up on Super Nintendo, so lofi has a special place in my heart. Look out Nobuo.
Today was a day. Happy birthday, Cam.
This morning I asked Emi if she wanted to help me with a project and of course she did. We went to a hiking trail near our house with the H4N to find some stones and record some sounds. We were there for a few hours and her energy never even flagged - climbing and jumping and exploring. She was cracking me up the whole time — every time we would stop to record (her idea or mine) I would set up and say “ok, here we go lets be quiet and listen” and she would almost immediately start singing/humming/throwing rocks/cracking sticks. Oh to be 3. It was such a great time. ♥♥♥
Back to my usual speed tonight. Feels nice.
Emi and I spent a long time sorting and re-sorting this collection of objects, making combinations of shapes and colors. This is where we both decided it was done.
She’s very particular when she gets an idea in her head of how things should be. Aren’t we all. It’s really amazing to see the connections being made inside her head. Can’t believe she’s already/only 3.
Have been having a tough time coming up with graphics I like, but these are both pretty nice. Abstracting pictures into vectors is a lot of fun. Want to do something a little different (color) than I did on a few other enclosures, but not exactly sure how I can pull it off yet. Hrmmm.
Squarespace had an outage last night which prevented me from posting…
It’s very rare that I do anything synced, typically preferring overlapping generative sequences/loops. Was playing with Model:Samples and randomly (ha) decided to plug in into Norns to clock Awake, with a little reverse delay for color. Was nice.