The new guy

Sufficiently awesome. Must live up to challenge presented by pricey wooden/carbon fiber object.

Meaning-Object

From deep in my past, this radiates significance in a way that I can't touch directly...Sadly, this is not a photo of something I own, but rather something I very much want to own, and it seems that is no longer possible. At this late date it would be more an exercise in nostalgia-pursuit than anything more practical, but I don't care.

Capture-riffic

Better living through technology.

I see...

The Horror, The Horror

After this many of these, it really _is_ like Groundhog Day, except with a lot more blood. Surprisingly, still creatively fun.

Goings-on

...somewhere between what was, what is and what will be soon enough.

"...Since this is an exceptionally bad case of 'old'..."

My Mirage better appreciate the effort it took to get this SE/30's RAM upgraded to a whopping 32mb, PRAM battery changed, HD replaced, System 7.5.3 and Sound Designer Universal installed, just so I can send tiny samples down to it. That's all I have to say.

Mmmmmm, functional

Normally I'd put this in the "who the hell cares?" column, but after searching for an accurately-tracking bass octave divider pedal recently, I came to the rather shocking realization that there appears to be only one on the market currently, despite the fact that this tech has been around for decades at this point. Worth the dosh, this MXR is. Keith Barr originally founded MXR and went on to develop some great things for Alesis in their early days (namely the Midiverb and Midifex)...Even though Dunlop apparently owns the MXR name and products now, this thing lives up to the quality of their classic stuff.

Fail

I suppose if you're gonna have 3 important pieces of gear all fail at
once, it might as well be when you're in between projects, right?

Thank fucking god

It's a pretty barren landscape in the world of high-end hardware reverbs at the moment. Lexicon is now essentially Digitech, it's hard to get parts for a 480, the 960 and TC M6000 are out of production and almost nobody is stepping up to fill the vacuum, except these guys. This is the real, built and priced for professionals and it sounds fantastic.

Let me say this about that

I've always tried to look out for the possibility of new creative/collaborative situations where I saw the opportunity, the underlying idea being that if one can manage to produce some genuinely good work once in awhile, it will somehow balance out the uninspiring bullshit one has to put up with the other 98% of the time. It's a sad moment when your first thought of a potentially exciting collaborative circumstance is immediately quashed by the realization that the person you have in mind has, after many years, finally managed to piss you off to the degree that even your relentlessly idealistic desire to make something good can't overpower the weight of history any longer. It's a threshold I never thought anyone could really make me cross.

I know this isn't exactly a news flash, but it's true-
Humans are poorly designed.

Digital Flotsam

...I just finished a significant amount of work. Now to send it where it's going and start the next chapter of things. In the meantime, it's time for (you guessed it) another narrowly-targeted technology mini-ramble.

It's interesting when random technological detritus from the "obsolete" pile of history can be repurposed in a modern context. Case in point:

Please find enclosed one Oberheim Systemizer. An obscure MIDI box from the late 80s, it allowed an entire studio full of MIDI instruments to be marshaled conveniently and powerfully under the control of one MIDI controller, no matter how unsophisticated that controller was. For up to 16 MIDI instruments you could layer, create keyboard splits, positional and velocity and aftertouch crossfades, as well as a host of other musically powerful functions such as having each successive note you played be sent to a different instrument, just to name one example.

These devices never really caught on at the time- While undeniably powerful, their cryptic programming method (via a cheap two-digit LED display that was common at the time for low-end MIDI devices) and dubious plastic hardware neither won friends nor influenced people. However, this quirky little box has proven interestingly useful lately when brought into the modern world of software instruments- It allows for some fascinating and unpredictable sonic possibilities, and cost precisely $40 on Craigslist. And interestingly, there is no readily available way to achieve the Systemizer's functionality these days without a significant amount of custom programming, which results in a certain potential for interest and uniqueness. Everything old is new again (again.)

Soon the beast will live...

The saga continues.

More is more.

...innit?