Noticing

/249 - Meadowphysics

We’re getting more plants in the house, and managing to keep them alive, and it’s pretty great. Since we got the new blinds which have the top-down function I have been (slowly) working on getting brackets and hanging bars up. (Need to keep it going)

Little jam with Meadowphyics tonight. I often wonder what/how much of the music I make should get posted, feeling like I should be more judicious in the choosing. Really, that’s just the opposite of what I am hoping to do here — just be less critical and more open. If I enjoyed making it, perhaps someone might enjoy hearing it.

/248 - A Tale of Two Continuas

Above: Feather from one of the downy woodpeckers who frequents our feeders.

Rebelling against the lack of mod options in the SH-01a by spending my morning studio time with layered instances of Continua. (As if one isn’t enough.) It’s apps like this that help me remember all the hardware I don’t need.


/247 - All Together Now

Stand installed, everything wired (as cleanly as this amount of wires can be) up and tested. Looking at this picture, sitting in this space, looking around feeling very humbled. I’ve never clicked with a setup as much as I do this. Time to spend some (a lot) of time making it sing.

/246 - Sundaze

Another hot one today. I got the S80 stand finished and installed, but decided to play it instead of clean up all the wires (best choice) so no pics today. In other news I am on the fence about keeping the SH-01a. It sounds lovely, but I have other things that can cover those sounds, and it is a little limited. The perils of slider-per-function. it also puts the desk officially at “too full” and it seems like that’s a good threshold for “too much.”

This afternoon we went and reclaimed a tree. It’s a dwarf lilac that was given to Emily before she was born. We didn’t want to plant it at our last rental so it stayed in its pot, but I was worried it wouldn’t survive the winter so I buried it. Time went on and we moved and you know how it goes so there it was until today. Digging out the pot enough to haul that huge/heavy thing out was not the greatest time, but we are all very glad to have it back. Time to find a place in our yard for it to have a permanent home.

Some watery sounds, goodnight.

/245 - Progress, A Dayful

And these images have nothing to do with it.

Finished making the S80 stand today — it’s currently in the garage drying from its second coat of paint. No good pictures of it really. I was hoping that the heat would help cook off the smell, but it’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow (and Monday/Tuesday) so not sure if it’ll be ready to bring inside. Have to admit I am feeling a bit discouraged about this one. As much as I love to do things myself instead of just buying something, I am wondering here if it was worth the aggravation in getting it all together, and if the finished product is something I’ll be happy with. We shall see.

/244 - Arise

One thing I have been wanting to fix for awhile is my lack of a stand for the S80. It’s currently on a couple stools and sits way lower than it should. I’ve drawn up a whole bunch of over-complicated designs but decided today just to add some legs to it. Didn’t have a lot of time today, but did manage to get supplies, cut the legs, and install the threaded inserts. Hopefully cut cross-braces and paint tomorrow, then install as soon as the paint smell goes away.

/243 - Poking Around

Had a bit of time to move some sliders on the SH-01a today. The number and simplicity of the controls belie its true depths. Everything parameter is so interactive with everything else that I kept finding myself in unexpected places. Nothing amazing here, but I had fun making this — saw waves, noise, sustained notes, arps, and lfos. I particularly enjoy how the noise source makes everything flutter/rumble.

/242 - New, Old

I played one of these at Switched On a few years ago when I was in Austin for work. They had tons of great stuff in the store, and yet this little thing was my favorite — it sounded good, and it was really fun to play. It had been in the back of my mind since then (I really didn’t need another synth) but last week I found an amazing deal so I jumped. I only had about an hour with it tonight, but I still think it sounds great and it still feels fun (minor speedbumps of getting it integrated into the midi and audio routing system notwithstanding) to play. Looking forward to digging in.

(and it can do a quick one-handed version of the Terminator theme too)

/241 - Found, Cranes

Emi threw a party for us this afternoon, so I was finding festive object drapings all around the house. These ribbons had nice shape/color against the plain backdrop. Maybe she’s the creative one.

Recorded a short piece with Wurli and Cranes. I keep coming back to this script and it always produces interesting/beautiful results. I let this one loop for quite awhile today.

/240 - Heat

Didn’t have much downtime today between family and work, but I did get to play outside with Emily this afternoon. It’s been very hot here. It was supposed to storm this afternoon so the air was incredibly thick, but then there was no rain so it just didn’t cool down. I tried to get a good recording of the cicadas (so amazingly loud) but all the human noises (cars, planes, chainsaws, lawnmowers, neighbors pugs) really made a mess of it. The true sounds of summer, I guess.

/239 - Morning

My pedalboard has always lived with my amp, away from the the desktop setup. That seemed sort of silly (since I spend most of my music time at the desk) so I brought it out and wired it up under there. Integrating it with the iPad/Norns setup is pretty great! Here’s morning noodles.

/238 - Sorting and Shedding

Ash and I did some major work on the basement and garage today, getting things to keep in order and things to go ready to head out. Put a large free pile out front and posted an ad to Craigslist — hope that this stuff can find a second life somewhere with someone who finds it useful. I personally feel very creative when I am organizing because I am often also visualizing the transformation of space and how that can be turned into some new function. That said, not a lot of interesting things to look at came out of it, so I challenged myself to turn the quick free pile snaps into “something.” Well, there’s “something.”

/237 - Not So Much

Decided to try this idea out in an old enclosure before I spent the time to design and etch an enclosure for it. Good thing because it didn’t really work. It’s a simple piezo box — the idea was that it would clearly pick up the ringing/vibration of the bells, but it didn’t. It was there faintly but turning up enough to really hear it meant a huge THUMP every time a bell was struck. Oh well.

/236 - Old Beginnings

Re-found these old bells (salvaged from the wall-mounted rotary phone in the hallway of the last house we rented) and remembered something I have wanted to do with them. So I started doing it…

/235 - Wednesdaze

Long drones are also nice on Wednesdays, I guess.

/234 - Tuesdaze

Really long drones are nice on Tuesdays.

/233 - Knock It Out

I didn’t jinx myself yesterday and look what happened — project complete. I modified the design because I realized that the model I posted yesterday would have problems with lateral stability. It’s a simple set of parts, but still pretty proud of how it turned out. There is a bit of roughness on one side of the cuts due to my endmill just barely reaching to finish the cut, so I’ll have to look for something longer for future jobs. I tried to take a picture of it on the desk, but it’s not the easiest thing to see. Fits/works great!

/232 - Desking

The new midi setup is working very well. Routing changes are easily made then I don’t need to think about it anymore — it just works. Ergonomically, I need a small riser stand to angle the iPad and/or Model:Samples on the desktop. Took a few measurements and then drew this in Sketchup — will try to cut it on the cnc sometime this week.

(I was going to say “tomorrow” but you know how it goes.)

/231 - A Feederful

Our feeders continue to increase in activity and types of birds that visit, so much so that I started a list to keep track —

Common: House Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay , White-breasted Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse

Infrequent: Northern Flicker, Brown-headed Cowbird, Mourning dove, Common Grackle

Rare: Baltimore Oriole, American Goldfinch, House Finch, Downy Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker, Black-capped Chickadee, European Starling

I never believed I would become a birder, but it’s been fascinating watching them and learning their habits. I should rig something up to be able to record them so that they can’t land on the zoom or mics.