Trying something a little new: train weogging. Since last we spoke (around the time I reported my car getting bullied) I've bought a bicycle, and have been biking and taking Caltrain to work. I'm pleased to say that it's been an absolute revelation! The bike ride on either end is relatively quick (~10mins) and not at all unpleasant (save the vengeful wind that blows up now and then on my way home in the evening), and not having to worry about controlling a vehicle for the lion's share of the distance leaves me with all kinds of time to myself. For the few weeks that I've been operating under this new system I've spent most of my train time doing work-work, which is nice as I can get about 45 mins done on my commute (a little over 20 mins each way) meaning a little less time at the office. Today, though, I decided that a post was long overdue, so here we are. I'm approaching South San Francisco at the moment, if that helps set the scene. And... begin.
Recent musical developments: I got a couple of new toys this week, a Novation Remote SL 37 and a home-built monome. Got a really good deal on eBay on the former, and finally got all the components collected, sorted, soldered and assembled on the latter. I haven't had a whole lot of time to work with either, but I'm excited for the possibilities these will offer to the performance concept. The SL largely (and I mean largely, the thing is pretty huge compared to my little O2) offers a bunch more continuous controllers (knobs, sliders, pads, etc) which is the primary reason I went with it, though the added octave over the piddly 25-keys I was working with before is a welcome addition. Shame it doesn't fit on my desk at the moment.
The monome is a wholy different beast, and one that I have a different sort of connection to given the months that I've been planning, sitting on components, re-learning to solder, etc. in preparation for actually building it. I ultimately went with the official monome keypads, but replaced the logic components with an Arduino and a custom shield (basically a PCB that piggybacks on the Arduino board and holds the LED driver, shift registers, and other little components like resistors and capacitors) and put the whole thing into a poplar box I built over the weekend. (You should have seen me with those power tools- it was like a Budweiser ad, but back when they were still Amurican Maide.) I still need to actually secure the logic boards inside the enclosure (where there's a generous 0.1mm of wiggle room, if that), but it's already usable and a lot of fun to play with. Oh, and the LEDs are blue.
As far as actual composition, I've started a few new projects in the months since I've posted anything new, and I think they're coming along well. I'm trying some new angles with this upcoming material- trying to focus on structure before detail and keeping things clean and relatively simple. It's an interesting experiment and I'm curious to know how it'll end up. I've also been trading tracks with Vibrasol, and apparently they had a little recording session over one of my skeleton songs that went well, so I'm excited to find out what they came up with.
And now, magically, it’s the train ride home after a thoroughly unproductive day at work. Just could not focus at all today… I guess it happens to everyone. I’m not in much of a mood to write anymore, and this post is already pretty hefty, so I’ll cut myself off here.
Ciao.
