more electrobusking fun!

Electro-Busking BC Ferries

electro-busking the post office

Rick Wakeman Eat Your Heart Out!

electrobusking the intertubes

I just got interviewed this week by an online art magazine because of my noisecore busking here's a link to the fun:

http://www.destroyserious.com/categories/music/desolation-sound-interv iew#more-534

Electro-Busking in East Vancouver

This is what I do in my spare time

Come one come all!

Chris forgot to mention the event is happening from 1pm to 5pm

modular family photo

I just got my Doepfer 9U a couple of days ago and this is what I filled it with before I had to take it all out again and try filling it again properly:

The black one on top is called Dante the larger frankensynth underneath it is called Virgil and the stuff in the foreground doesn't have a name... maybe Roland...

Ernie and Bert do noisecore

sunshine FUN coast

hup hup!!

a group member sent this my way.... now i'm passing it on to you.
please read below.

Darren




Hello friends.

This is an email to inform you of a special art opening and subsequent
series of events taking place in September at the Sunshine Coast Arts
Centre in Sechelt, B.C. The Sunshine Coast Arts Council is proud to
present the art of Heather Gatz during a three week residency entitled
"Groping for the points of contact." The artwork is also the
inspiration and point of entry for an ongoing video and sound
installation curated by Giorgio Magnanensi. The opening reception will
be Wednesday, September 2nd at 7 pm. Also featured throughout the
month will be a series of concerts and events featuring stunning
visuals and 5.1 surround sound. The concerts will feature a rotating
group of guests involved in particular themes each evening.  The
events will range from sound workshops for children, a sound thinking
discussion and forum, video art, circuit bending, and live
improvisations. It will also signal the launch of “Laboratorio,” which
is a new Non-Profit Society based on the Sunshine Coast devoted to the
advancement and fostering of research and development in art practices
and performance. This is an ambitious presentation for all artists
involved, including the Arts Centre and its board members and staff.
Please support this group effort to bring new and challenging ideas to
our community through this inclusive, and groundbreaking event. Below
is a list of dates and events. Please feel free to forward this email.

Thank you!


LABORATORIO 01

Curated by Giorgio Magnanensi and Steve Wright
and inspired by the art of Heather Gatz.

Featuring

Andrew Bate
Heather Gatz
Kedrick James
Hanif Janmohamed
Giorgio Magnanensi
David Murphy
Chris Rolfe
Steve Wright

...and more special guests

Wednesday, September 2 Groping for the Points of Contact
Opening Reception 7-9 pm

Saturday, September 5 Kids Art and Sound Workshop
10:30 - Noon Ages 5-12 (Pre-register)

Neil Young remix 8 pm

Friday, September 11 Butterflies - pure tones and oscilloscope visuals

Saturday, September 12 Sound Thinking
Conversations on audio art  1pm - 4pm
A forum of discussion and debate featuring guest speakers, artists and demos.
Open to the public.

Laboratorio 8 p m  A multi disciplined sound and visual event where
the participants are guided and encouraged to move through the room
and explore sound creation featuring a customized six speaker surround
sound environment

Friday, September 18,  8 pm
Pillow Flight - Soft songs, pure sound and improvisations in space.

Saturday, September 19,
Circuit Bending Workshop 11 am-4pm (Pre-register)

Bent 8 pm Glitch noise and audio toys

All events take place at the Crowston Gallery at the Arts Centre
5714 Medusa Street, Sechelt, B.C. 604.885.5412

http://www.suncoastarts.com/profiles/scartscouncil/galleryshows.html

Dante's Inferno done live by Chris Rooney and Public Disturbance

Chris Rooney and Public Disturbance

I've got a gig! Performing spoken word poetry and electro-noise at the Summer Dreams Reading Festival

Saturday August 22 2009
starts at noon
I'm on at 1:15pm

Lumbermans Arch Stanley Park
Vancouver BC

If you live in Vancouver and you want to come out it will be awsome I'm on the Main Stage!!

Watch me rip it up with a Little Boy Blue and a few stomp boxes, the volume on this one should go up to 11!

more info here

Square Waves and Square Knots: time to write a blog entry

So it's almost 7am and I'm tired and a little buzzed and I've been awake all night listening to music and learning how to make a hemp necklace with spirally square knots it's time to write about what I did yesterday.

First of all my wife found a cat! we weren't looking it actually found us, his name (according to the tag) is Stewart, and from the look of him he's been outside a long time. I've decided to name him Stewart Nagasaki Squarewaves at least until his rotten negligent family insists on having him back.

Nagasaki because yesterday was the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and Square Waves because it was the day that I was supposed to go to the Square Waves electronic music festival at the local library.


I was lucky I remembered what with the new cat-guest and all but I got up and went out to see music and meet up with friends.

I'm not a very competent reporter so I'll just describe what were, to me, some of the highlights of Square Waves and my impressions of the event.

first of all I missed th first two acts. I found my way down to the Alma VanDeussen Room at the library and when I got in there were three ladies playing home made synths and lots of guitar pedals. Finally I was in a room full of people who understand me! Seriously after over a year of disinterested relatives, friends and a saintly-tolerant wife being in a room full of real live not on the intertube synth geeks was a blasy of exciting and headdy fresh air.

At the interval I met these ladies and found a couple of my friends. The next act was one of the highlights for me, a dance troupe called Prophecy Sun did a composition of modern interpretive dance to really penetrating ambient vocal music and tape noise. I think of all the performances this one was my favourite.

I finally got a chance to hear Andrew Short's project Vedic Space Program do a tongue in cheek set consisting of samples from a hypnotism record and other interesting sounds including James Brown and clips from the riots after Martin Luther King was assasinated.

The next group, Stimulus Package played some really amazing electro-accoustic stuff featuring a Tenorion, the first one I've ever seen in real life. I might have to get one.

and lastly a group called Spectrum Interview, composed of members of the other acts and others got onstage for an eery and beautiful experimental synth oddessy. After the show I introduced one of my friends to the rest of them and mingled a bit, there were people filming the event and I'm hoping to get some footage to share with you soon.

If this is the experimental music scene in Vancouver then I want to be right in the thick of it. It felt a bit like coming home.

Xposted at Wiresource

squarewaves & such

here you go, a link to the site by the fine folks at squarewaves in Vancouver.
it appears these people have set-up some sorta website for possibly an ongoing series of performance around town. have a look & support them if you can.... i know i will.

http://www.squarewaves.ca/

oh yeah, it appears there are 2 shows listed right now, 1 tonight, 1 next Sat. i'm definitely going to next Sat. provided i'm not called into work as this one is happening in the afternoon.

d.

Synthy Fun

Hey people, been awhile. Just starting to get back into it now the summer (?) activities have died down. Here's a pic of my modules going into a cabinet with the truly mind blowing Klee sequencer at the top. I have about 2 rows of modules now.

Wondering if anyone is going to the Synth DIY event this year in Renton Wa. here's the lowdown from down south.

In an e-mail exchange with John Marshall he confirmed the upcoming PNW synthesizer meeting:

Saturday, October 25th
10:00AM to 3:00PM

Renton Technical College
3000 NE 4th St
Renton, WA 98056

Different room this year, possibly H-203/204. More info to come!

Would be great to meet you guys down there.

George, Victoria.

New to Group 2

Well if Dave is going to play show and tell, so am I. My name is George and I've recently re-activated my love/obession with music/electronics. Not going to give my age but i'm old enought to know better.
I live in Victoria and I decided to build a modular, something I always wanted to do. Analog electronics is having a huge resurgence these days, so it seems like the right time.Here's some shots of my fledgling modular. I went with frac format to keep the size down and while there is some issue with getting my fingers to the knobs, I can live with it, 'cause you can pack a lot of noise into a small space.
No cabinet yet, just some rack rails to hang things on. Modules built so far include PAIA Midi2cv8, Thomas Henry VCO and ADSR, both rock, an EFM VCO and VCF, both junk, VCO doesn't track and VCF has limited cutoff, motto: stay away from EFM stuff, poor service and docs and they don't seem to work too well. Also a couple of utility modules, a multiple and an attenuator. I have lots more to go with a Thomas Henry Super Controller and MAnkato filter in the works.(I like T.Henry stuff as you can tell).
The EFM power supply works ok, but a simple p/s is easy to build, I just went with them for the distribution board, which provides 16 power connections for modules.
I have spent at least the same as Dave, so figure on spending double what you thought if you decide to join the madness. If you do, you will find it very rewarding to build and fiddle/troubleshoot a module and you will always be able to fix it in the future and have a good idea on how it works.

I've included a pic of the Klee sequencer panel that has been a pain to get right. I'm going to give it one more go, if that fails, on the backurner it goes!

George

New to the Group!

Hey everyone. My name is Dave. I'm 24 years old and absolutely obsessed with modular synthesis. I come from a very musical background and started on piano way back. I soon after went full force with guitar. I've picked up other instruments such as tenor sax, violin , bass, drums, larynx among others but guitar is still my main thing. I'm a bit if a gear-head. Before we get to the modular stuff, this is my main gear I'm currently rocking:

-'65 reissue fender twin reverb (for sale.. thinking a Dr.Z stang ray and 2X12 instead)

-'61 reissue gibson sg 

-home-made distortion (couldn't stand crappy tonebone switches). 

-home-made digi-delay

-home-made fuzz

-keeley compressor

-line6 modulation modeler

-boss tu-2 tuner

-univox microfazer

-boss dd-20 giga-delay

-roland re-150 space echo tape delay

-akai s5000 sampler with maxed polyphony/ram and full sampled mellotron/rhodes etc...

-macbook pro

-axiom61 midi keyboard

-altoids mintbox theremin

and......

-An ongoing diy modular synth. This is really all of you care about! haha. Let me explain a bit before showing you the pics. I've always loved synths and mainly analog/modular synthesis. I always wanted to buy one but to get a nice oldschool moog style big knob/1/4" jack equivalent.. i was looking to spend at least 3 grand which i simply could not afford. at ONE point, it seemed like it would be less expensive to build my own.... oh what a fool I am. I am only 2 modules in and have spend well over a grand thus far. Either way, it's fine since i'm learning alot, and have something truly unique. I also decided to go a direction that would cost more since i wanted bigger jacks and whatnot. After making a few stompboxes and getting some decent power tools, safety equip, soldering workstation and whatnot, i was ready to start the modular. It's not meant to look great or anything like that. It's a hobby for me and It may never see the light of day. The cool thing, there are no rules. It can get as insane as I want it. I followed the synthesizers.com diy cabinet and made a crappy barely workable cabinet. Made it from inexpenive "knotty pine" from home depot. I had panels cut at a local metal shop. All are moog specs. I had 1/2/3 length panels cut. Just using 1/8" thik aluminum plates. Nothing is properly measured out on the front. Everything's been eye-balled and has worked out this far. Theres so much to do that sometimes I just opted to make a quick decision and press on. I made a paia midi2cv8 for my midi-cv converter. I had to cut a gross hole in the panel since the kit wants to use 1/8" jacks and needed the dip switch to be accessible. My first/only other module past the midi-cv converter is an mfos vco. I purchased the pcb's from their site since they are actually cheaper than me doing it myself. I'm also in an apt. now so less chemicals the better. I bought their vco, 4-pole lowpass vcf, vca, adsr. The other 3 have yet to be created. All parts are in my hands as are all necessary tools. Just need to get it put back together since the move from nan-vic and away she goes. I am using 2 motm distro's. Only 1 connected at this time. I'm just using the 960 right now since the mfos modules are +-12v only and will work off of +-15v. I have the 990 as well setup so if i get my hands on any modules with the additional +5v, I'll have it all ready to go. I know there are other ways to go about this, but i'm still quite new. I'm using a power-one triple output linear power supply. their biggest one. It's rediculous. +-15v, +5v. I generally would run it to the 990 first, then to the 960. So i have groups of connectors for either the dual or triple power needs. I decided to go with mate-n-lok connectors. Connected wires from the +-12v, g, g on the pcb's to one end of the connectors. (they are free hanging but through a hole in the pcb to keep slack on them so they don't get tugged). The other end is the motm style connector to the distro. I had to hack one end of the cable off to create the mate-n-lok. that way i can unclip easily and they all have uniform connectors.... what else... I tuned the converter to 1v/oct using my multimeter and actually used a computer based scope on my mac for the oscillator. I had spent so much already that i wanted to try a free equivalent before buying more hardware. I ended up using the bram and sean smartelectronix s(M)exoscope and it worked like a charm.  had great visuals. I shaped the waves using that tool and listed with my own ears to eliminate sine distortion and whatnot. The synth doesn't do that much yet, but it works and plays in tune. I went for the temperature compensator on the vco as well so it won't slip. Soon enough, i'm going to piece it back together and start on the next module. Probably the vcf. There's alot I'm forgetting right now but it's been about a year of research (never soldered before that) and a year of collecting parts and building. here are a couple of pics. I left my digital cam in Nanaimo by accident so there are better pics on that for later. This is all I've got so far:

So there you have it. Questions/comments/ideas/thoughts? I live in Vic so you guys probably won't see me much at meetings but I'd love to be a part of the community. Bye for now. 

Dave

Now w/Blinking Lights

As per request, here' some colour shots of D. and the ThrobKnob.

J.

Moogin' Foogin' Xmas

Here's some boudoir shots from D's basement from my recent visit. All that was missing was a large P.A. planted on the roof for the interstellar broadcast capturing the ecstatic mumblings from the ThrobKnob.

J.

FINALLY!!

I picked up the Moog Freq Box this week, as it finally arrived in town. It appears Moog had been having some problems with the final production of this latest moogerfooger. I got it from NJAMS here in Vancouver, so my thanks goes out to Chris & Kate for putting up with my constant inquiries since June as to it's arrival. So yeah, NJAMS are stocking them along with the full 'fooger line & this one will cost you about $450 Can., not really a bad price when you consider they're not an official Moog dealer & are forced to get them through the only company that is Canada's Moog dealer.

As for this pedal/module, so far I've only scratched the surface of it's uses. In fact I've only used a guitar & one of my shitty Roland exp. pedals. Next time (maybe Sunday??) I'm gonna run it back & forth to the S&H on the cp-251 with the guitar & also a bass.

My overall impression is thus: the Freq Box is almost a synth in a box, almost!! I say this because I've already found a dozen or so sounds/uses for it & that's only with the guitar. I was able to get some fun Theremin like pitch, nasty fuzz tones, drones, ring mod like tones & a few other interesting sounds. Basically I have no other pedal/effect like this one.

Anyways... there's a lot more I could say about it & I probably will once I place it in the flight case I built this summer. But that's for another post when I take some pics of that entire set-up.

So does anyone have an opinion or a question about the Freq Box??? Please comment away!

Used Poly Evolvers... A Thought?

With the introduction of DSI's new Prophet 08 I've been wondering to myself if a lot of the used PE's would start showing up on ebay, AH, etc???

Well I obviously don't know if it is just a coincidence put I see AH has two PE's in their used section for about $1800. US. Hhmmm.

What do you think? Does anyone out their have a PE they'd like to tell me about? I've never really even tried one. I couldn't justify buying one even at these lowish used prices, but I must admit, it's really tempting.

Darren

PS. I realize we have sorta spoke about this issue on a previous post, but what the hell :-)