Noticing

/Hello again, Looking back

I’m still thinking about this space a lot. I’d like to try another go round, but I probably need to wait until our newest is a little bigger. Things are changing and time is in short supply! Hope you enjoy your poke around, hopefully I’ll be back again soon.

Here’s what I had to say about the project before I started: 000-Noticing

Monthly breakdown of posts can be found here.

Tag Cloud:

/369 - Back On It, Ish

It’s been even longer this time. I have been working on projects and making music, but I’ve also been letting myself catch up on all the evenings on the couch I missed last year. As such, I very quickly fell out of the habit of posting. Thinking on it today I am going to set a goal for this year is at least 1 post per week. I’m not very good at doing it unless I have a fixed goal, so there it is.

The holidays were quieter than usual, but on the bright side it was nice to not have to do so much traveling. Since then our country has gone crazy and I really don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon. In the meantime we’re just staying close, trying to stay healthy, and hoping that the horrible rhetoric causing all of this division goes silent. After the last four years it’s hard to imagine being surprised at anything, and yet it just keeps happening.

Peace and love. Happy New Year.

/368 - Long Time No See

A few random pictures from the last week. I’ve tried posting a few times about my reflections on the year that was, but I’m not sure there’s been enough separation yet. Either way, it feels weird to be without it and absolutely insane that an entire year went by. 2020 was…

Have been playing with the modular a lot (and enjoying playing for an extra 30-45min than cutting it short to post on the blog) and tonight was pretty fun/cool. Playing a few drone samples, using Kria to sequence the v/oct input on microcell, using Pams to clock with a bunch of feedback patching to produce bursts of notes. Sort of reminded me of the late stages of a raga when the tablas go completely nuts. I was lucky enough to see Maestro Swapan Chaudhuri play live (with Ken Zuckerman at Eastman School of Music) once many years ago and my mouth hung open for a lot of it.

/367 - One More Day

Sine waves on the bitbox triggered by Kria. Was very tempted not to post but chickened out at the last minute. I was making the sounds, why not share them?

/366 - There Is No Ending

Today marks 1 year of daily posting to this blog. Looking around and all I can think is of all the things I didn’t do, wanted to do, or are sitting partially done. This isn’t to say that I am unhappy with things, quite the contrary, it’s just that there really is no end to the things I want to work on.

I am still debating on whether or not to finish out 2020 with a post a day. Seems weird to end with 1 month left even though I started on December 1st, 2019. I’m also not sure if I’m quite ready to say goodbye to it. The blog has become such a huge part of my life that it’s impossible to imagine my days without it. What comes next?

/364 - Long Long Day

Emi got up at 4 this morning, and Ash was in and out with photo sessions and errands, so today was a very long day. We played games, colored, etc. but otherwise only a very short window of time to spend in the studio tonight. I am really happy about taking a hybrid approach to modular. It can do so many fun things — new sounds and ideas, but I also get to use tools I already have/know/enjoy. Spending money on modules to replace things (or parts of things) I already have just so I can operate completely in the rack seems silly. Early days yet, and in all things an evolution.

Here’s a clip, I’m exhausted. Goodnight.

/363 - Old Tricks

I quickly recorded this yesterday afternoon for a few people on the Offset Guitars Forum. I had posted a picture of my pedalboard awhile ago and got a few requests for info on my setup with the 2x Freeze pedals running in a feedback loop. I had the idea before the super ego came out -- that adding an internal feedback loop to a Freeze would let you stack sounds. That may be true but I killed 2 units (both resurrected by EHX for a nominal fee) trying to do the smd soldering required to try it out. Using a feedback looper was the next best thing. You need to play with the amount of feedback and freeze volume to avoid runaway oscillation, but it does stack sounds. It also adds some interesting overtones as it's also recapturing the original frozen sound so there is phase and tuning modulation. I love it.

Signal is jazzmaster > pedalboard (only using freezes) > THR10 > mixer > iPhone. No added reverb or anything -- all sounds are just guitar and the Freezes. It's touchy, as feedback loopers always are. You can hear the oscillation building every time I stomp after turning up the feedback knob, but I like drones so it works for me. Crank it too high and it’s just immediate over the top howling/squealing. Not sure what's going on with the panning in the audio, but that's not an effect of the pedals. Interface weirdness I guess. I’ve posted about this before, but the video helps understand what’s happening I think.

/362 - Thanksgiving

Some moody pictures taken today which don’t at all reflect how I feel about today.

Spent a nice day with Ash and Emi. Watched movies, played a little music, video-chatted with friends. Took a walk at Mendon Ponds in the gray misty rain. Heard a strange thumping and looked up to see a pileated woodpecker. Unfortunately not close enough for a pic, but I had the binoculars so we all got to take a close peak. We had one in our yard for a split second once, so it was really cool to see another. Further along, there’s an area of the trail known for the birds coming to eat from your hand. I’ve been here with the ladies before and never put my hand out, but today I did. So amazing and wonderful to have these tiny creature land on a finger, cock their head and look at you. Ash said she heard me giggle. haha Come back, made a great dinner, watched Charlie Brown and at 2 kinds of pie. Not too shabby for a day.

It was weird and wanting not being able to be with the rest of our families today, knowing that feeling was being shared all around us. Still — very thankful for our health, our friend’s/family’s health and prosperity. Hope we can all be back together soon.

/361 - Not The Sound of Fields

I had to go to the hospital for work the last two days so I took the recorder with me. I use the H4N all the time to record jams, but haven’t taken it out very much lately. (I mean — it’s a pandemic, I haven’t been going out either.) Job sites can be full of interesting sounds, even if a lot of them are too loud to record and/or dangerous to be around. These are mostly my record of walking back and forth from meetings. Birds, cars, concrete reverb, people talking, HVAC, doors opening…

I really appreciate the renewed focus on field recording stemming from wanting interesting source material for the bitbox. Working with the files is still not intuitive, but I think they are turning out cleaner than they used to. I’m most interested in the total environment of a recording, so as long as things can be heard and distinguished I’m really not too bothered by a bit of noise.

/360 - Ticking On Down

Like last night, but different. Playing a few field recordings on the bitbox into clouds, while also looping and chopping in MLR. I had a really fun jam on this same patch this morning, but of course I didn’t hit record and by the time I realized how much I liked it it was too late. So it goes, tonight was fun too.

Getting pretty close to the end of the my 366 (leap year) days and not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, doing this has sometimes felt like a mad dash — that every day I had to slam to get whatever together to have something to post. On the other, I’m not sure I’m ready for it to end and will miss it a great deal. It’s not like by not doing daily posts I will stop working on my ideas, making music, etc but the extra push to make it a focus has been incredible. I want to keep things up but not sure what my plan is right now. I started last year on December 1st. Maybe I should just continue until January?

/359 - Back to Basics

Sort of! I’ve been trying out a lot of things with the modular. All very interesting, and sometimes fun, but so far only infrequently musical. Tonight I didn’t try so hard — played a field recording on the bitbox, played the baritone in and ran both into clouds. Send that to the mixer, but also split to norns running MLR for some varispeed looping. Ah yes. Sometimes you need to take a break from walking to run.

/358 - Sundaze

We had a very quiet Sunday — watched movies and played games together. Sat on the couch and played guitar for awhile. Ash worked on a craft and Emi painted some pictures. Made a bunch of weird stuff with Legos and then made up stories about them. Quiet is nice.

I was hoping to post some music tonight, but nothing really clicked today. Spent the evening working with Pam’s trying to get some generative sequences and scales happening: easier dreamed than done. It all technically works — it just doesn’t sound good yet. Maybe tomorrow probably. haha

/357 - Walkabout

Took yesterday’s initiative and snuck away for a walk around the city this afternoon. It was windy and cold so the streets were very empty. It felt pretty weird out there.

/356 - Last Hurrah (?)

Emi and I had mostly a great day together today.

Hung around this morning — watched a movie, did some drawing, played some games. Decided to go out to the treasure (thrift) stores to see if there was anything to find. I brought the field recording thinking that I could get some interesting noises, totally forgetting that it would all be ruined by the background music they pump into stores. I also sort of felt like we might not get to go out like this again for awhile since the covid numbers are spiking and another lockdown is pretty likely.

On the way there we passed a playgound that Emi likes and she asked if we could stop there on the way back. I told her sure as long as there weren’t too many people there. We pulled in and it seemed ok, but after getting up the hill I saw there were a lot more people than I’d guessed. Emi was THRILLED to be around so many kids, and is very good with keeping her mask on, so I thought it would be ok to stay for a little bit. Pretty surprising and disappointing to see so many of the parents and kids there not wearing masks. Anyway, Emi and a few girls were playing in the sandbox when I told her we needed to go and she came along without any fuss at all. Once we got into the car she started crying really softly and it broke my heart. “We didn’t get to finish making our cake, Dad.” I sat in the back with her and tried to assure her that it won’t always be like this and that we will be able to see people again. I don’t think she was very comforted and I really wasn’t either.

Once we got home she seemed to feel better (a lesson in resiliency from 4-year olds to us all) and we played outside for awhile. We have a small pond near our house that’s flocked with ducks and geese so we went and sat together and watched them chase each other around. Our last last hurrah was that I realized that it was this week 3 years ago that I went vegan, so while the restaurants are still open we ordered takeout from our favorite Red Fern and enjoyed the hell out of it. Ash and I used to go there on dates pre-pandemic and are really looking forward to doing that again.

We will get there. ♥

/355 - Tired

I miss walking around with a camera. I miss the city and seeing weird things, colors, shapes. Lines and textures. It’s all around me, I need to make myself get out there. I have a tendency to want to stay close to home anyway, and the way everything is right now makes it even harder to go out. I can, I should. I will?

It’s been a long few weeks and it finally caught up to me. Goodnight.

/354 - Wind Generator

I got this little mic with a 60’s reel to reel player and it’s so great. Lays flat and is perfect for adding environmental sounds to a setup. This morning I discovered that rubbing my finger across the metal grill through reverb stirred up some lovely windy leaf sounds. Very appropriate because it’s been whipping around here lately.

Everything just sort of clicked this morning. Playing/being surrounded by this in low-light at 5am was the perfect start to my day.

/353 - Quantize It

There’s still a lot to learn, but Pamela’s New Workout is pretty damn amazing. Here she’s triggering 2 granular samples, as well as 2 quantized guitar loops. There are some notes in there that don’t feel right (even if they’re actually “correct”), but the possibilities are pretty amazing. Definitely a reason I see this in so many racks.

/352 - Reorg

Moved the desk around to get better access to norns and grid when working with the modular. Things are definitely in a shake up as I learn how all these wires work and fumble towards getting things to work together as a cohesive system. It’s really lucky for my 3 readers that I didn’t start the modular system earlier in the year! haha

/351 - She's Crafty

One of those Sundays where you don’t feel like you did very much, but at the end of the day you’re still beat. I did manage to get a bunch of the mess cleaned up in the garage. It was way overdue and definitely needed to get done before the cold really sets in. I also managed to find the spot where I skipped numbers in my blog posts so will be fixing those soon. Ugh.

Emi and I did some more coloring and papercrafts today. She just can’t seem to get enough of turning large sheets of construction paper into small piles of scraps. The frog picture was from an ancient coloring book that Ash found in a thrift store — 70s or 80s? Emi had already traced her hand on it, but I just had to color this stately frog wizard so I worked it in.