Modules
Jul 28, 2009 Gear
So… it’s been a while, eh? Well, the truth of it is that it’s been a busy summer, and a challenging one in some ways, and I have not really been working on that much music since the last time I posted for you all.
The Synthesizers.com system comes along. It’s not going quite as fast as originally projected because I bought a few (small) non-synth things, but it’s coming. I’m up to ten modules now: the power control module, MIDI interface, multiples module (just came yesterday), two oscillators, two envelope generators, a state variable filter (just came yesterday) and two amplifiers. I also have a pile of cables for it — I need to organize them somehow. Visually, the chassis looks just over half full — 12 of the 22 front-facing module bays are used. It’s starting to look like a fairly serious piece of hardware.
I re-organized the modules when I put the new ones in today, putting both oscillators together, both EGs together and both amps together. Just in the process of testing the system I think I’m finding that sub-optimal — it requires more use of longer cable lengths to achieve the same thing. I’ll leave it like this for a little while and see how it goes, but I might break the system up into “voices” again.
I wish I had more to share, but that’s honestly about it for me right now. I’ve been tremendously busy, but almost entirely outside the studio. That’s likely to continue until near the end of August, and then after that hopefully I’ll find some time to work on stuff again.
Simple Patch Monday!
Jul 6, 2009 YouTube
A simple bell tone patch demo (the video cuts off at the end because my camera stopped recording, but all that was left to say was, “I hope you had fun!”, so… I hope you had fun! Also, the high-pitched noise in the background is how the camera’s mic picks up our air conditioner — I usually filter it out with SoundSoap, but I just tossed up the raw video today):
Discouraged
Jul 2, 2009 Uncategorized
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.