Blandcanyon

Practicing

2024-02-26T00:00:00Z

I'll be performing live this Thursday (Leap Day!) with my Synthstrom Deluge at the Rocky Mountain Synth Groovebox Invasion. I've used the Deluge in live performances before, but only as an adjunct to my main modular rig. No modular this time, just the Deluge! I've spent the last few days in deep dive learning mode working toward a good comfort level playing the instrument. Almost there!

Quick Jam

2024-02-19T00:00:00Z

I've been spending more time with the Synthstrom Deluge this week. Here's a short jam I'm working on.

Moonrise

2024-01-27T00:00:00Z

Today was the Youtube premiere of January Skies, a space music concert presented by the Colorado Modular Synth Society. I recorded Moonrise for this concert a couple of weeks ago.

My inspiration for Moonrise is from the "Pet Rock" module, which I had just received the day before and described in yesterday's post. Pet Rock generates a pair of random rhythms each day based on the phase of the moon. The day I recorded the music, the moon was in the waxing crescent phase, shortly after the new moon. Pet Rock played the rhythms of the two lead synthesizer voices.

The bass drone is a mix of three oscillators: Manis Iteritas Alia, Mindphaser, and E352 Cloud Terrarium. The first lead voice is the Ensemble Oscillator. The second lead voice is Chainsaw. Percussion is a simple kick drum played on Synthstrom Deluge.

Pet Rock supplies the triggers for the two lead voices. Their pitches are sequenced by Ansible Kria. The pitch and trigger sequences are different lengths, resulting in some interesting unsynchronized melodies. During the performance I repeatedly changed which sequences were being played by Kria, which further varied the melodies.

Here is the full January Skies video featuring performances by seven artists:

Pet Rock

2024-01-26T00:00:00Z

Last summer I heard about an unusual Eurorack module called Pet Rock. Jonah Senzel, the maker, calls it a rogue-like rhythm generator or Wordle for Eurorack. After reading about it and watching a very entertaining video by Jeremy at Red Means Recording, I pre-ordered it. It arrived a couple of weeks ago and I've been having a lot of fun with it.

Pet Rock is a very simple module. Feed it two clocks and it generates two trigger patterns. No knobs, no modulation, no controls. Just clocks in, triggers out.

It's rogue-like in that it generates a different pair of patterns every day. There's no way to anticipate what the day's patterns will be in advance, and you can't make it recall a previous day's patterns. Use it or lose it.

It's like Wordle in that everyone who owns this module gets the same patterns every day, no Internet connection required. That could make for some fun collaborations or challenges among people who own this module.

It's unlike any other module in that it uses the phase of the moon to influence its behavior. Yes, the phase of the moon! The patterns it generates ebb and flow as the moon cycles between new and full. And did you know, the moon also has a mood? That's mentioned in the Farmer's Almanac, right? The moon's mood changes every month. An Angry moon makes different patterns than a Calm moon.

Ultimately, it's a simple way to create randomized trigger patterns to use in your music. Feed the same clock to both patterns and you get two related rhythm patterns. Send different clocks to explore relationships between the patterns. Send them to some percussion modules to get an interesting drum beat. I've been enjoying using them with unrelated pitches from a pitch sequencer.

If you get a Pet Rock, beware of the new moon. Mine arrived on the day of the new moon, and when I hooked it up to check that it was working, something seemed amiss. From a hint in the manual I made a guess what was happening, and the support forum confirmed my suspicion. The module was working, but I had to wait a day to be sure it was really working.

Influx

2024-01-16T00:00:00Z

I recently had an unexpected influx of several new and deep Eurorack modules, along with one simple but clever module that's quickly become a favorite.

A week before Christmas I decided to treat myself to a new Eurorack oscillator. I'd been wanting something to beef up my ambient drones, especially since I recently sold my Matriarch, which was quite the drone machine. I usually base my Eurorack drones on the E352 Cloud Terrarium, a dual morphing wave table oscillator, and I wanted another layer to add to it.

While researching modules suitable for ambient drones, I came across two modules I previously wasn't aware of: Magerit Laniakea and 4ms Ensemble Oscillator. Both of them have unique takes on oscillator voices. After watching some demos, I decided the Laniakea sounded interesting enough to be my first choice. But it was out of stock in the US. My second choice, the Ensemble, was available at one of my favorite shops, so I ordered it.

While waiting for the Ensemble Oscillator to arrive, a plot twist occurred. A used Laniakea became available locally! I immediately grabbed it! The Ensemble arrived a few days later, so instead of one new oscillator module to play around with I had two. Both are deep modules so they will take some time to master.

But wait! There's more! In another twist, that same week a local person pinged me on Discord wanting to buy several modules from me that I had been trying to sell for a year. He offered several modules in trade, and I ended up with two more new and deep modules: 4ms Spherical Wavetable Oscillator (SWO) and Malekko Voltage Block. The SWO is yet another wave table oscillator with lots of modulation points for droning and built-in LFOs. It was on my radar a few years ago when I bought the Cloud Terrarium instead. And the Voltage Block is a well known CV sequencer I've always wanted to try, but it was never a high enough priority for me to buy one.

So in the course of one week between Christmas and New Year's I suddenly had three new, deep oscillator modules, plus a sequencer. Lots to learn!

These are all deep modules. I keep using the word deep, which means they have a lot of functionality, lots of knobs and jacks, menus of some sort or perhaps some hidden button combinations, and manuals that need to be read to understand the subtleties.

Quick first impressions

Laniakea: I've made some of the most interesting sci-fi sounds I couldn't even imagine, as well as some dark drones, but I have no idea how I made them or how to make them again. This is a complex module I don't understand yet, and I haven't been able to make it work in conjunction with my typical tracks. It may be best as a stand-alone oscillator, or in less traditional musical contexts.

Ensemble Oscillator: The sounds are beautiful with interesting variations. I've already used it in my first recording of the new year, not as a drone, but as one of the lead voices. This module brings much happiness.

SWO: I've only played with it briefly. The sounds are wonderful, with a ton of on-board functionality. I'll have to study the manual and watch some tutorials to make the most of this module.

Voltage Block: I haven't even tried it yet since I wasn't really in the market for yet another sequencer. Soon, baby, soon!

And this leads us to the final module I obtained during this rapid influx: the Pet Rock. It's quickly become a favorite, and I'll talk about it in my next post.

Refresh

2024-01-15T00:00:00Z

Blandcanyon is now live on the new web host (Cloudflare Pages), new static site generator (Eleventy), and new source code server (Github). On the front end, other than a fresh coat of paint there's really nothing different. The back end has seen a lot of changes, which I talked about in my previous post. Other than a few hiccups here and there, the transition to the new tech stack has worked well.

That makes two domains I've moved to the new stack, with one more to go. Then I'll be able to cancel my account at the old web host, freeing up a few bucks. I'm on the Cloudflare free plan, but the Cloudflare dashboard makes frequent attempts to upsell to a paid plan. Hopefully I can resist and remain on the free plan!

Website tweaking is one of my hobbies that went by the wayside for a few years. My last technology refresh was in 2019, which seems like ages ago. That last refresh was around the same time I fell into the modular synthesizer time and money pit.

I'm still feeling my way around what goes on this web site vs. the others. Once I get the remaining website converted, which will be the most work of them all, the answer may become clear.

Changes

2023-12-26T00:00:00Z

What is it about personal websites? I want to have them, but I can't seem to keep them updated.

Lots has happened with me creatively since the last time I posted here. Three or four more live music performances, a few music videos, several music live streams, some hand-painted AI-influenced art. It's been my busiest year creatively in six or seven years, yet this journal site I created to report on my creative activities has been idle.

I used to post more on social media as well, but as my old favorite Twitter burns to the ground and potential replacements take hold, my social media presence has changed. I occasionally post creative notes to Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky, and more rarely Facebook and Instagram, but not here on my very own creative journal. It's just not a habit.

But I still want to have personal websites. Tinkering with the technology behind them is a hobby.

So where do I go from here?

Site Generator

First, I'm changing my website generator. I've been using the Jekyll static site generator for a few years. While I'm sold on the concept of static site generators instead of content management systems like Wordpress and Drupal, Jekyll just wasn't the best choice for me.

And by that I mean Jekyll's reliance on Ruby. I never got along with Ruby. It's not widely used, it's quirky, and it's dissimilar to every other programming language I know. It just wasn't worth the effort to struggle with Ruby to customize Jekyll. So Jekyll is out.

To get away from Jekyll and Ruby, I'm switching to Eleventy. It's another fairly popular static site generator. It's similar to Jekyll in many ways, but instead of Ruby it can be customized using Javascript and Nodejs. While Javascript isn't the best of programming languages, it happens to be one I've used in other projects the last few years. So some of the things I wanted to do with my old sites but couldn't thanks to Ruby, will now be within the realm of possibility with Javascript.

Source Control

I currently use git with a locally-hosted git server for source code control, along with some custom shell scripts to deploy my web sites to my web host.

I'm retiring the local git server and replacing it with github. My web site source will be in the cloud in private github repositories. This simplifies my local development environment, and having the source on github opens some new possibilities.

Web Hosting

I'm changing my web hosting from Dreamhost to Cloudflare Pages. Dreamhost has been very reliable, highly performant, and easy to use. I highly recommend it. So why change?

Cloudflare Pages integrates with github and Eleventy to automatically build and deploy my website whenever I push a code change to the main branch on github. Dreamhost can't do that without a bunch of custom scripting.

I surveyed web hosts with equivalent capabilities, but for my situation with several small personal web sites, Cloudflare Pages will do it for free. I've been paying for a premium hosting plan at Dreamhost that I originally needed, but has been under-utilized since I switched to using static sites. Why keep paying for something I haven't been using and doesn't do all the things I really want now?

Domains

The final change I'm working toward is yet another repurposing of my domains. I'm still thinking through exactly how I want it to look in the end, but in the past couple of years I've retired a few domains that no longer made sense for me, and started one new one. I'm not sure whether this website remains as a creative journal for all my creative pursuits, or if it narrows in focus to its roots as a photography blog, or something else entirely.

But no matter. The bots will continue to index and probe this and my other sites, and maybe an occasional human will find their way here too.

In total, these changes will simplify my local development environment and save me a couple hundred a year in hosting costs. They won't necessarily make me update the sites more frequently, but removing a few little speed bumps helps.

Freaked

2023-06-14T00:00:00Z

Is it Freq Boutique, or Freak Boutique? At last night's Freq Boutique, one of the performers brought his cosplaying furry friends along, and he was dressed up himself during his performance. Freaky!

I performed a couple of sets later. Without a freaky costume I felt seriously underdressed. But I made good music that was well received by the crowd.

Here's the live stream of the night. I start at 2:14:40. You can skip earlier to the second performer to see AMRA play in costume, and perhaps catch a glimpse of some of the cosplayers in the audience.

This was my third time playing at Freq Boutique, and I'm starting to get quite comfortable performing live with a modular synthesizer.

The first time I had a highly sequenced and heavily practiced set, with some improv but mostly driven by the sequencer.

The second time was more free form, but I still practiced a lot to create an overall composition that drove the live performance.

This time, my practice was mainly just improvised jamming. I made the patch several weeks ago, jamming and evolving it because it was fun rather than trying to build a song. I wasn't originally on the schedule for this Freq Boutique, but when Alex called for more performers at the last minute, I volunteered since I had this fun patch in progress. I recorded one practice set to check the mix, then went into the live performance with very little organization in mind. I just played an improvised jam following a loose A-B-A structure, and made the intro and outro the same. I'm very happy with the result and hope I can find time for more modular synth performances.

Drone Day

2023-05-27T00:00:00Z

For International Drone Day 2023, the Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meet group streamed a collection of videos created by members. One of them was my video, called "Bloom"

I performed the music on Moog Matriarch and Monome Grid. The Matriarch was in "drone" mode, playing sustained notes with its four oscillators tuned to different notes in a chord.

I played the melodic/arp lines on the Grid, modifying an Ansible Kria sequence in real time to play notes on the Virt Iter Legio and Cloud Terrarium in unison. LFOs from Batumi and Ochd were modulating the Cloud Terrarium and Virt Iter Legio parameters. Those sounds were mixed in the modular and sent into the Matriarch mixer noise input.

All sounds were processed through the Matriarch stereo filter in LP/LP mode and the stereo delay.

I recorded the video clips several years earlier in Boulder and Crested Butte.

Freq Boutique

2023-04-12T00:00:00Z

Last night I performed a live modular synth set at Freq Boutique at Fort Greene in Denver. Check out the Youtube live stream. I'm the first performer.

I recorded a practice session a few hours before the show, which I think is better than the live performance.

During practice, I made two "mistakes" I liked so much that I incorporated them into the live performance. But during the performance, I made one mistake that makes me cringe, a few more timing mistakes that I'm sure went unnoticed, and I had a cabling issue with my mixer that messed up one cue until I fixed the cable. Nobody would notice but I hate it when that happens.

I also think the vibe in the practice session is a little better.

If I publish the music somewhere I'll probably use the practice recording instead of the live performance recording.