I’m feeling discouraged right now. Like, “throw in the towel,” discouraged. (Not on life in general — just on music.) It’s hard to know what to write about feeling discouraged, because it’s so easy to slip into self-indulgence, and I’m not sure what about, “I’m discouraged,” makes for interesting reading for the reader, especially since there’s not a whole lot more to it than that.
It’s mostly me being envious of someone else’s work, which sometimes comes out in a positive way, giving me ideas and encouraging me to want to try some of the things that I liked in their piece. That’s been an attitude that I’ve tried to work on. However, sometimes it manifests itself this way — by me feeling like there’s no point in even trying. I think I get this from my Mother, who was a big proponent of the, “If you can’t get first place, then I don’t see why you even bothered showing up,” school of encouraging me to excel, but I’m old enough now that I really should stop blaming my issues on my parents and own them myself.
So sometimes I have a problem that I should learn to get over wherein when I hear something that I really like it either encourages or discourages me, seemingly at random. The former response seems to be happening more often with artists that I don’t know personally and don’t know their life story, which I count as progress. But when it’s friends, and especially friends who don’t model themselves as composers or musicians but who decided to toss something out just on a lark, then it becomes much harder not to feel discouraged, especially when their simple melodic line played out on a built-in piano sound is more emotionally evocative than the entirety of my ouvre to date.
*sigh*
I guess really all it comes down to is to try and learn from it and move on, but right now… discouraged.
You know, most of the time I just kind of shrug at the deaths of famous people. I mean, it’s sad, especially when they die young, but I have never felt connected enough to a famous people to feel strongly affected by it, even if I enjoyed their work. Like, if a great musician dies, it’s not really that different for me than if they just quit music. Sure, it sucks that they won’t be releasing new albums, and it’s sad in an abstract way.
However, I must admit that I’m feeling really weirded out by Michael Jackson’s death. Perhaps it’s in part that he never really felt like a *person* to me. He was just an icon, a part of the music business. It never felt like he was someone who *could* die. And it feels like this changes the world in some way. I’m not even a fan of Michael Jackson, but he was a defining element in the world, and it’s just so weird to think of him not being in it.
Despite my lack of a multiples module, a mixer or anywhere near a normal number of cables, it’s entirely possible to sit there for an hour building crazy patches and playing with them now.
I just have to be careful to not become one of those people who spends the rest of their life playing with modular patches and never writes another song.
Okay, so obviously I wasn’t going to be able to let that sit for long. I looked at the oscillator’s spec sheet, and the cables that I have seem to represent two of the four cables required to attach an oscillator helper module. I’m a little confused by that. I’m not yet sure what else they’re for.
On the other hand, while I had the specs out, I was able to check and set the jumper that allows me to route the incoming pitch signal in the oscillator out to another oscillator, so now I can do some detuned mixing without waiting for a multiples module. (The “mixing” here being in the very loose sense of just plugging both outputs into the amplifier, or plugging both into their own amps and mixing them on the computer.)
I’m still curious about these, “Time Cables!” I suppose I could ask the guy I bought the modules from, but that seems like less fun somehow.
Well, this is mostly just a follow-up. The second-hand modules that I posted about a little while ago arrived today in good condition and are installed in the modular. It does look fancier! I’d be doing the photos-and-video thing, but I made a critical error in planning.
You see, since I’m getting my modules as part of the Synthesizers.com entry level plan, the part that I don’t usually bother mentioning is that each installment comes with one or more cables as well, of various lengths more or less plotted out so that you’ll have everything you need at any given time. These modules, having been bought a la carte, did not come with any cabling*, nor did I purchase any. As such, I’ve got them installed, but lack the required cables to make them *do* much of anything. Whoops! I’ll be popping out to Long & McQuade on Friday to get some assorted cables to rectify the situation, but until then, I’ve performed some basic tests and did make one patch with both oscillators included (one acting as a “drone”), but otherwise they’re not really active.
(It will also help to get the Multiples module and the Mixer, which is going to be a little while yet.)
That said, 9 of the 22 front-facing spaces are full, so I’m a little less than halfway there. :) (My current plan only has me filling 21 of the 22 spots immediately, actually.)
* It’s not strictly true that it didn’t come with cabling — it came with two small cables in a baggie from Mouser labelled in Sharpie, “Time Cables!” I have no idea what these are for. They seem to be three-pin female connectors on both end, and there are some male connectors of that sort on the circuit boards of the modules, but without going and flipping through the specs sheets, I don’t even know what those connectors do, much less why I’d connect them to anything. I guess it’s time to go look at specs! If any of you have any idea, feel free to drop me a comment. :)
As you can see from my photos, the seams aren’t staying together very well. If I have one recommendation about this fun, 15-minute project, it’s to use a good liquid paper glue! I only had one of those cheap glue sticks available. I still think it looks pretty nifty anyway.
I spent about an hour learning how to get the Synthesizers.com analog modular working with my workflow tonight. It’s not as easy as working with the softsynths that I’m used to, but it’s doable, and it has a lovely sound.
Once I had the hang of it, I spent a short while tossing together this little loopy thing so that you could all hear it. The small amounts of percussion are actually being provided by Battery, but otherwise it’s being done with the Modular (and a small amount of effects).
Dotcom Test 1:
I’m sure I’ll learn to do more interesting things with it in the long run, but I had fun tossing that together. I may hang on to it to maybe use in something later.
I just got my first Q106 Oscillator, Q108 Amplifier and Q109 Envelope Generator. Together with the Q104 MIDI Interface, the Q137 Power Control Module and the QPS1 Power Supply that I already had, I now have a functioning noise-maker thingy!
I patched it all up and, after only a couple of minutes of fits and starts (really, I thought I should use the trigger output from the MIDI interface to control the EG rather than the gate, but that was it), I did indeed get sound out of it! There’s some drift and a really weird bump at the beginning of the notes when using the pulse wave, but I’ll have more time to play with that tomorrow.
I wasn’t able to lay things out in my planned arrangement because I don’t have enough long cables, but I can move them later.
Photos, audio and video to come tomorrow, no doubt.
In the meantime… w00t! (Of course, now I have to figure out if I have a MIDI cable long enough to use for actual sequencing.)
And the panel lifts and lowers!