Wordpress 2.8, and unhacked again

Got caught again – I’ve updated to 2.8, and have the Wordpress blog in my RSS reader to be ready for the next release as soon as it appears.
You’d think people would have better things to do.

A quick guide to opensource synthesis

A quick overview of Pure Data, ChucK, Supercollider, Csound, and several other synthesis languages/tools I haven’t heard of before. Looks like it would repay some link-mining. [Edited 01/08 ... I forgot the link!]

Different Skies audio

Between the two evenings (Friday tech rehearsal and Saturday performance) we’ve got good versions of everything, looks like. That’s excellent.
It was an outstanding year this year. We’re hoping to work out the best way to communicate the Different Skies experience altogether; I have no idea whether it’ll be a DVD, CD , or what at this [...]

Different Skies: after

I’m currently at the airport, having just finished going through security and having to have my backpack scanned twice; too many confusing electronic bits, I guess.
Load-out took from after the concert and final jams (ten-ish) until about 3AM. We got to experience the weather we might have had: 60 mph winds and cold. Fortunately, [...]

Different Skies: Day 5

Another big day.
Murray, who at the minimum should be knighted, supplied marvelous croissants again, and a Thermos of espresso midafternoon. Nothing like fresh musician fuel.
With 17 musicians and 27 pieces, we needed a spreadsheet to figure out who plays on what and who’s leading which piece. (It averages out to about 11 different pieces [...]

Different Skies: Day 2

Most of today was spent getting set up and setting levels. We spent some time on figuring out how many pieces we had ideas for (27!), and gathering volunteers for each possible piece.
I’ll be leading “Slow, Cheap, and Out of Control”, an ambient piece based on my Java-Cocoa application that randomly generates drones and various [...]

Different Skies: T -2:05:29

I’ll be attending the Different Skies festival this year as a performer. This will be my first public performance on keyboards. Gulp.
I’m still doing my last minute planning – I’ve finalized the gear, gotten the software I want to use ready, and have made lists of the stuff to actually be packed and taken. I [...]

Buchla 200

I saw one of these at a gathering at Recombinant Media Labs in San Francisco, with Buchla himself performing. It’s nice to see Real Analog Synths again, but the price point is still no more affordable for me now than it was when I first encountered synthesizers in 1972: $9K for a minimal version. Sigh. [...]

Subbotnick classics available

I’ve been looking for Silver Apples of the Moon and Sidewinder for a long time; how pleasant to find out that you can buy them from Subotnick himself via Kagi.com.Silver Applesand The Wild Bull are available on a single CD, with Sidewinder and Until Spring (which I’ve not yet heard) on another (update: available on [...]

The Orchestra: a User’s Manual

Fascinating site from the Philharmonia orchestra; includes an incredible amount of information concerning the individual instruments (including extended techniques, which I found particularly interesting).