August meeting (retrospective)

Well, I have to say the meeting we had last Sunday was quite good. Where most meetings it ended up being Darren and I and someone else, we had 6 people attend, and it stretched out to 3 and a half hours long.

A lot was discussed. I would be hard pressed to put together minutes. However, here is the gist of it for people that want to know:
-Musical education
-mid 80's Korg synthesizers
-kaos pads and how much they do (or don't) suck
-loopers and live performance
-really massive effect racks
-a gig that 3/6 people attended or played in the night before
-feasibility of pursuing the idea of making the group into a 'society' (or even how cool it would be to have a seal)
-the future of the gathering, most importantly the idea of having a show and tell or a large scale jam
-paia synthesizers

There was a lot more, but I was without pen and paper, and was much more interested in participating than simply documenting it.


A side note, if anyone is a fan of the evolver synthesizers (I know I am), Dave Smith Instruments just announced a very new 8 voice all analogue version of the evolver called the Prophet 8. It looks beautiful, and I am sure it will sound amazing. The only three things that I did not like from the evolver was 1-too much digital stuff 2-no arpegiator 3-modulations are too sophisticated. It looks like 2 out of three of these issues has been rectified (this news is enough to cause my GAS to jump straight through the roof into bad-credit land).
information here

August Meeting

Well it's meeting time again as we are coming up on the 2nd weekend of the month.
A few people can't make it for the usual Saturday-noon at The Grind so we are going to try for Sunday at a new local.

This meeting will then be held Sunday August 12th @ The Elysian Room, 1778 W.5th Ave. in Vancouver, at 1pm instead of noon. Apparently they have great coffee, as in a bit of a treat type of coffee.

Therefore, do not expect to find us at The Grind on Sat.

d.

Radio Shack Alert!!

One of the members named Al, recently informed me that Liquidation World's around the Low. Mainland are clearing out NOS R.S. stock. In other words there are some deals to be had for the avid DIY'er. :-)

I've been to the Richmond location & spent $5.65 on about 20 pots, a handful of caps & a few other things!!! At regular prices this would have cost me in the neighborhood of $90, uummm.... can u say SCORE!!

You've been told. Done!!

So as for the August meeting, me & Al are thinking instead of the usual coffee talk @ The Grind why not get a vehicle & a handful of us could tour around to as many locations as possible on that Saturday?????

Please post to the comments if you are interested in this idea??

Darren

Another Meetin'!!

Hey.

Well this Sat. is the 2nd of the month, so it's meeting time again!!
The Grind on Main @ 12 noon. How's that sound?
So that'll be Sat. July 14th.

Also if there be anyone that can't make it & would like to meet on a weeknight.... just let me know & we can arrange a sort of side meeting where i can bring you up to date on things.

Darren

Modular Inspirations (pt 2)

This picture was taken from bluesynth.com. Its another DIY modular. This is more my style. I love the metal on metal look, and the kind of knobs that were used.

However, I don't like the flat paneled look.

Which leads me to the following post on matrixsynth. I think a mixture of the two, with a control interface/sequencer as part of the bottom row, and a modulation section as part of the second to bottom row would be awesome.

Modular Inspirations?

Well.... seems the group is moving towards a modular synth focus.
That's fine by me!! I wanted it that way in the first place anywho!!!

So, I found this post on Matrixsynth about a Swedish synth diy'er or perhaps he's just Euro. of some kind. Anyways, i downloaded an image of his rig & i'll try to post it here, w/any luck??

Needless to say he's definitely got the right idea in my books!!! This is pretty much what i'm after, just not quite on this grand a scale!! Basically i'm looking to do this; a modular of large & small modules & a mix of diy & company modules.

Go to Matrix & today's posts for more info.

Darren

Yesterday's Meetin'

Thought I'd post some minutes from the meeting. Me & Jason discussed:

- Future locations & date/time of our scheduled meetings.
We feel that ultimately Saturdays @ 12- 1 PM is most logical & conveniant for most people. Sorry to those that work @ this time :-(
As for the local??? Well... we probably could find somewhere better than The Grind? Maybe somewhere near a Skytrain station?? What do u think??

- Options for creating a bigger profile for this group/blog.
We will look into finding some alternatives to marketing & exposing the blog. Does anyone out their have any ideas to help out here??

- Gear discussion centered around The Fatman that J's building & how it's tweaked some interest in building some modules, in particular Ken Stones' CGS diy pcb's/modules. This option has me stoked for sure as i'd like to expand upon my modular gear!! In fact what i'd like to do is a group buy of some diy kits & build them together in this group. Who's with me?

- A new member came to the meeting aswell, his name is Rich.

Darren