New music gadgets!

I’ve been designing a laptop based “live” music rig for quite some time now and it’s finally starting to come together. In the process I’ve picked up some new toys for this effort and I pretty much have everything I need at this point.

I needed a controller, preferably with 76 keys as I like to stretch out from time to time and it would also allow for the possibility to play other styles of music outside of my usual electronic and ambient work that I do, should the need arise.

After some research I decided to pick up a CME UF70.

It really seems to do the job. It has a great action and all the features I really need. The manual is horribly written but it gives me enough to figure things out on my own. Honestly though, I can’t imagine that someone new to keyboard controllers wouldn’t get frustrated with the documentation that comes with this instrument. Also, I should note that I’ve heard some bad things about the USB drivers. I don’t plan on connecting it via USB so that really isn’t an issue for me. As I spend more time with it I’ll post more about my experiences.

And the other cool little toy I decided to purchase was BleepLabs Thingamagoop. At it’s core it’s pretty much just a noise maker. It’s essentially a very basic analog style synth with some interesting controls, including a photosensor and some knobs and switches that allow it to emit some truly unique and mostly unpredictable sonic strangeness. With all this wrapped up in a silly (but oddly appropriate) package, I just had to have one. You can read more about them at http://bleeplabs.com/thingamagoop/.

 

A Zune and tuning back into music.

It would appear that I have to eat my own words as I went and bought myself an 80gb Microsoft Zune around the holidays and have begun to feed my music addiction like I wouldn’t have expected. I’ve reacquainted myself with a bunch of my old favorites like Massive Attack, The Orb, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Spock’s Beard and many others as well as begun to dig into new music (to me anyway). Some standouts that I’ve recently acquired would include recordings by Kiln, Tim Hecker, Mouse on Mars, Loscil and The Flower Kings. I should also mention all the free great recordings that I’ve been listening to from the nice little web label Earth Mantra.

It’s actually been great fun exploring various music sites and looking for interesting things. It reminds me a little of my younger years (yes I am officially old) when I would just scour music stores for something new and cool to listen to. I honestly can’t wait to get my hands on my CD collection (which is still in Indiana) and load them all up.

Although it might be a little Orwellian, the Zune software also keeps track of the stuff I listen to and allows me to show it in a social environment and on sites like Facebook and Myspace. Check out what I’m listening to. I’m happy to say you won’t find any Yanni or Kenny G there.

 

CatSynth.com

As an owner of two cats as well as a few synthesizers it’s completely inevitable that the two eventually meet from time to time. I’ve nabbed a few photos of just such meetings on occasion. As I’ve found on CatSynth.com I’m apparently not the only one. (not that I really thought I was unique in this respect.)

CatSynth is a blog written by Amar Chaudhary seemingly focused on just such a phenomenon…..the pairing of cats and synthesizers. (and I don’t mean in some bizarre cloning experiment)

The blog is one I frequent and it’s been in my blog links for a while but the reason I bring it up in a post is Amar saw fit to give my cat Gabriel (and my Roland JP-8080) some face time.

You can check out the post HERE.

So, if you’re a cat lover, synth lover or both wander on over and give it a read.

 

Holiday trip to NYC

Sharon and I took a trip to NYC this past weekend. It’s something we hope to enjoy more often now that we’ve moved up to the northern part of Jersey.

It was chilly but we had a good time seeing some sights while wandering around for most of the day. You can see the whole set of photos here.