Today is Bandcamp Friday. This morning I recorded a new track, “Wilder So.” This afternoon and evening I worked on a video to accompany it. This is the result.
The track can be streamed and downloaded/purchased on Bandcamp.
Thanks for your support, and thank you for listening.
Special thanks to Kate Burkart and Ruth and Glenn Garland. And this track would not have been possible without the assistance of Dan Phillips.
This is a new 19-minute track accompanied by a video I shot in December 2019.
There’s a shorter version of the track that’s currently a pay-what-you-want item on Bandcamp. Price will be raised to US$1 on or shortly after January 1, 2021.
Here’s hoping for a vastly improved 2021.
Thanks for listening.
In early December, I spent a week at my favorite place, Mono Lake.
The weather, for 7700 feet high-desert elevation at the eastern foot of the Sierra, in early December, was disturbingly mild. I was hoping for cloudy days and some snow, but there was none of the latter and little of the former. I did a lot of reading, writing, taking photos and videos, offroading in my truck, some volunteer work, and relaxing (somewhat).
I also spent some time working with the Korg wavestate, tweaking programs, recording, and tracking and processing some existing stuff.
A couple months back I traded in the defective Modal Electronics Argon8 for a Korg wavestate. The latter isn’t especially easy to learn, with a lot of menu-diving involved.
The stock “performances” that were oh-so-cinematic in the YouTube wavestate demos turned out to be, with few exceptions, not so alluring after a few listens; I spent last evening scrolling through program presets and making a list of favorites.
I’ve also been working on learning the ins and outs (and sends and inserts and returns and busses) on a new Mackie 1642VLZ4 mixer. Initial forays include incorporating blends from three different Buddha Machines, as well as continuing to digitize long-neglected Funharm cassettes dating back to the early-to-mid-eighties.
This is the audio from the YouTube video I released for Drone Day in late May, 2020. It’s the first new recording I’ve made public since 1985’s “Ideal Planes.”
* This track’s price has since been raised to US$1.00
This piece (video and audio) was recorded near Mono Lake in December 2019 and March 2020. The audio is one of the few usable things I developed on the Modal Argon8 synthesizer before sending it back to Sweetwater.
Happy Drone Day.
I find myself, as I often do, in the Eastern Sierra. I’m just north of Mono Lake. I head this way whenever I’m able to get time off work.
This time I brought more stuff than usual.
A couple months ago I purchased a demo unit of Modal Electronics’ Argon 8 wavetable synthesizer. Since then, I’ve been trying to learn its various knobs, patches, effects and other doodads.
The place I’m staying has no satellite TV, and very slow internet. It’s a good place to concentrate; the only real distraction is the view of the lake. It’s a good location for sketching out ideas and doing some recording (and re-recording).
I have an old M-Audio Firewire 410 interface that only works with old versions of OS X on old laptops. So I brought the old laptop. The Modal app, however — useful for patch editing and the like — only works on new(er) laptops. So I brought the new(er) laptop, too.
As misfortune would have it, the Modal app stopped recognizing the Argon after I upgraded the latter’s firmware this morning. The synth still works fine. So it goes.