woot

I have republished my photo library. Concert pictures start on Page 12 or Page 13, depending on how you count.

There were a lot of people here last night. Every chair in the house was used. People were sitting on the coffee table. People were sitting on the floor. People were standing in the back. I didn't count. But I was very nervous. I get very scared when I play, which is why I don't do it very often and is why I should do it more often. I kept grabbing the wrong cord. And my hands were actually shaking, so it was hard to plug them in. When I play with my modular, I keep all the cords around my neck, so easy access. So eberytime I move, there's the sound of cable ends clacking against each other. Something I didn't think about. Normally, I just take a line out and don't play in front of people, you know, so the cable sounds don't exist. Weird playing in front of people. I have no idea how long I played or what I did. I started with a chaos patch. That's when you take three oscillators and take the ouput of one of them and use it to control the frequency of the next one. So if the first one is a very low frequency and the next one is higher, it sounds like a siren as the first oscilator frequency modulates the second one. If you turn the first oscillator up into the audible range, you can't hear the siren anymore, because the frequency modulation [fm] is too fast. So It makes a very complex wave form. In a chao patch, you take the output of the second oscillator and plug it into the FM jack of a third one. Then you take the output of the third one, and plug it into the FM of the first one,s o they're all cascading down a line. This is chaotic. Then take the ouput of any one of them, chnage the base pitch of any of the other ones, and un predictable things happen. It's complex. It tweaks in interesting ways. It's a good foundation. I feel like if I play again, I need to start with a different base. Good thing I'm not playing again for a while. The downside of starting with a choas patch is that it uses all three of my main oscillators. I have a few more, including three below-audio-range LFOs (low frequency oscilalators - synths are full of TLAs) and two more audio range oscialltors. But those and two of the LFOs and in a tiny little adjunct synth, which I don't know as well (and for which I have too few cables!). I want another oscillator. I know exactly which one I want. Alas, hardware is expensive, which is why I've been all laptop recently as it's portable and software is free. I actually need a mixing board way more than I need a new oscillator and new filter and a new MIDI->CV (cv = control voltage) converter and more more more stuff. A new row of modules! After I win the lottery. But I'm happy I played and I think I will do it again, Cuz actually, my synth does have a pretty good performance aspect for experimental music. ooooh, Wiard makes a very nifty controller. It's two joysticks, each of which gives you an X axis voltage and a Y axis voltage and a couple of buttons which can function as gates. somebody should sign me for a record deal and give me a huge advance which I can blow on modules and controllers. This is why analog synths were a great hobby during the dot com years and laptop music is a better plan for the immediate future.

Ok, yes, where was I? A ton of people showed up and then all quickly dispersed. Among the people who did not exit immediately, reviews were positive. Two professors came, including my advisor. If you missed it, there is a recording some place on the internet world wide web (as david calls it), but David has not told me where the recording exists. I want to listen. Will post when I know.