STARTHIEF

I’ve done a lot of shopping lately, and it’s not for music gear! Christmas gifts of course. The new phones, and necessary accessories, and a couple of apps. Clothes and jewelry and stuff because I want to step up my nonbinary presentation a bit (and this part is where I’m not quite finished with the shopping…)

One more minor complaint about the Pixel 8a: it is very slippery. The back of mine (in white) almost looks like a squishy silicone rubber, but there’s Gorilla Glass. It might as well be coated in olive oil. I don’t quite feel like it’s going to slip out of my hand, but both of our phones have spontaneously slid off of what seemed like perfectly stable and level furniture. We were going to get protective cases anyway, but we both put the ones we wanted on our Christmas lists rather than immediately ordering them.

My Lego brick fix for the phone charger was an abject failure. It didn’t stick very well using the double-sided 3M squares, and wasn’t really wide enough to be secure. And also in that position the charging was intermittent. I took off from a stop, the phone tumbled out and the Lego wound up… somewhere in my car. The new charger should arrive Saturday; hopefully I won’t need GPS before then.

I decided on Square Home for my launcher. At least with the premium features enabled (there’s a 14-day trial that begins automatically; $1.99 a year or $5.99 permanent license), it’s very customizable in terms of layout and colors/theming, and I think it looks quite sharp.

The layout that I’ve set up puts everything I wanted on a single screen. (You don’t have to, and you can in fact set it to scroll through pages in an endless loop.) Most of the disunity in this layout is due to limitations of the widgets I’m using. I might also look for a more complimentary icon set rather than circular bubbles on square buttons. I’m sure I’ll keep tweaking things over time.

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I was going to start this part by saying that most of my life I haven’t really paid attention to fashion or felt like I had much of a personal style. But now I recall this isn’t entirely true — there was a phase in high school and college where I wore short-sleeve button-down shirts and even funky ties sometimes, when I didn’t have to. Still, most of my adult life I just defaulted to t-shirts (generally geeky ones) and jeans (or sweatpants when I worked night shifts and had low self-esteem particularly about my own appearance).

When I started coming to terms with being nonbinary (as opposed to a previous one where I merely recognized that something was going on with my gender but I didn’t really know what to think of it), I wanted to try to match my gender expression to my identity a little better. And that meant thinking about fashion, as well as quickly recognizing the difficulties in nonbinary gender expression.

(Briefly: society really only recognizes masculine vs. feminine, and this language is used even in nonbinary and gender nonconforming circles when referencing appearance. “Androgyny” can be somewhere in between, but to what extent and how that works is dependent on social context and your own mostly unalterable physical appearance. “Unisex” in clothes is almost synonymous with “men’s” although it says nothing about gender when an AMAB person wears it. There is not really anything that reads as off-axis from a masc/fem spectrum unless it’s so weird it only reads as weird.)

And also at that time, the LGBTQ+ community was still very much getting its shit together about trans and nonbinary issues (and how they interact). The stereotypical “Thing1 trapped in Thing2’s body” trans narrative was a blunt instrument and it didn’t fit everybody, and it took a while to recognize that other narratives about both identity and dysphoria were not threats to trans validity.

But in 2024, while the transphobes are certainly more active than ever, and by the way, fuck those people… some of the ducks have aligned within the community. There are places where you can ask for nonbinary fashion tips and share looks. There are designers and retailers catering to nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people in various ways; some of them radical, some of them much more subtle and everyday.

So, I’m in that process of working stuff out and feel a bit more hopeful about it this time around. Looking over advice, going through the clothes I have but set aside to cull them and gather notes about fit and put some thoughts together, doing a little scouting and shopping, ordering some jewelry. Apparently, today I accidentally threw together a decent outfit that looked intentional just for working from home. That felt good to hear.

…and here’s that new album.

Notes can be found in the usual place.

Enjoy!

(Also, when Tin Birds was released somehow I forgot to add it to the starthief.net landing page. That has finally been corrected!)

Our phones were 5 years old, battery life wasn’t looking too hot anymore, my spouse needed a new phone wallet anyway, and I was thinking… if the Orange Menace manages to slap arbitrary tariffs onto stuff phones could get a LOT more expensive a few months from now. And it was Black Friday.

So we got new phones. After a little review reading I chose Google Pixel 8a — not the newest, not the shiniest, but almost half the (discounted) price of the latest shiny things from Samsung, and reportedly outperforms its own price range. And not so AI-centric. And a similar size to what we had, though of course not identical because it would be a real shame if any phone case managed to work for more than one model and version of phone 😛

Setting up a new phone is a pain in the ass. You can tell they tried to make it better, with the ability to automatically transfer apps and data wirelessly from your old phone. And activating new unlocked phones on Credo Mobile wasn’t too hard, it’s just that… they tell you to call customer service, which means waiting on hold for a fair amount of time, confirming a lot of information, and then they tell you all you need to do is move the SIM card. So mostly, it’s poking the “retry” button several times while your phone gives you a vague error message, because you’re not getting a good enough cell signal, and waiting through several different progress bars.

All the preferences stuff, though. Between a 5-year-old Samsung with an older Android version, and Google’s official phone with the it-was-current-six-weeks-ago Android version, there are lot of little, annoying interface tweaks. These are the ones that bug me the most:

• The top row of the main page on the home screen/launcher always shows the date. You can’t turn that off anywhere (you can turn off the weather info line). You can’t use that space for widgets, it’s just dedicated to telling you what day it is. I preferred my old weather widget, but it’s basically been made forcibly redundant.
• At the bottom of EVERY page on the launcher, there’s a Google search bar that cannot be hidden. This is not the primary way I want to use my phone or search, guys. It’s wasted space.
• The 4×4 Media Monkey widget actually takes 4×5 spaces for some reason. Combine that with the search bar and you just can’t fit anything else on a page. On my old phone, I could use that widget and two rows of icons…
• Some of the customization that I liked on my old phone turned out to be Samsung-specific. I had a particular always-on screen setting I liked. I want my wallpaper to center on the screen and sit still when I change pages, not fit to some virtual space wider than the screen and then scroll, so things aren’t centered anymore.
• Maybe this is a Pixel-specific thing, but for some reason, the default action of the power button was to bring up Google Assistant. Yuck. It can be changed but it shouldn’t have had to be changed.
• This is definitely specific to the Pixel, but the volume buttons are about halfway down the side (instead of closer to the top as they have been on every other phone I’ve had). The wireless phone charger in my car clamps down on the Volume Down button. I have a new charger on the way but until it arrives, I’m going to “fix” it with a Lego brick. (Giving “bricking one’s phone” a whole new meaning…)

OK, other than that… the screen is nice, the sound is better than on the old phone, and it seems generally zippy (it boots much more quickly than my old phone and some apps seem to load faster). Its battery life also seems to be far less troubled by the coloring book app I like to fidget with.

I may look into alternate launchers. I installed Nova, then changed my mind. The main irritation to me is that wasted space, but I have set up a layout that works okayish.

I lost QuickPic because it was pulled off the app store years ago. Simple Gallery replaces it just fine.

Media Monkey just did not want to deal properly with album art, and combined with the messed-up widget and some generally fiddly stuff about it, I decided to look at alternatives. Musicolet, which is completely free, is what I’ve got on there right now. It seems to mostly be straightforward, and aside from a couple of minor quirks, pretty configurable. The navigation might be a bit of an adjustment but it might be what I stick with.

Partly because religious experiences are one of the things that makes me feel more fluid, and partly out of defiance toward the Project 2025/MAGA transphobia, I’m feeling more like actually expressing my… nonbinarity? enbiness? rather than keeping it entirely under the surface.

However, because I also don’t want to have to explain, or be stared at and judged, I’m likely to limit this to going back to painting my toenails (mainly in silvers, blues, purples, greens) like I did for a while several years ago. Which will be under socks and shoes in public most of the time. Under the surface, indeed. (Maybe even under the sea, given the color choices. It’s that mermaid thing again…)

A couple of my toenails have issues — quite possibly diabetes-related — but there are OTC treatments and a brand of polish that’s made to be safe and healthy regardless. So I’ll try that.

I do wish there was a way I could signal, with my presentation, that I am nonbinary but only to people who get it, not to the sort of people who will sneer and ask “what are you, anyway?” or try to turn me in for a bounty in Texas or whatever. I think I may need to dig for some more stuff in nonbinary pride colors maybe. (A bit of a challenge — I happily wear black and purple, but white and yellow are not my thing.)

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For the next album: recording is done, art is done, and it’s had a name for weeks now. But not that many weeks. The first track was finished on 10/8, then we went on vacation… after that everything happened between 11/1 and 11/24. Wheeee….!

I’m 4/14 of the way through mastering. Tracks 1-3 went super smoothly and effortlessly in one pass. Track 4 had some “crunchies” that took several attempts to clear up.

What I call “crunchies” is a kind of distortion or clipping that sounds like clicks, rasping, rattling, something of that general description. There’s a certain unpleasant texture to it that can stand out from the rest of the material. Tape saturation effects, if pushed hard, can sound like this. So can a bad headphone connection (sort of), which has fooled me a couple of times…

Crunchies happen with my stuff more often than I would like, and often I don’t notice until it’s already recorded (or during the mastering stage when things are generally louder and clearer). Sometimes it is associated with intentional distortion and is easy enough to explain; other times it just happens in otherwise smooth sound. It’s definitely not clipping in the recording process because I keep my levels quite safe, probably usually lower than I ideally should. But perhaps something else before that… I used to think maybe a specific Eurorack module or effect was doing it internally. But this track is one software instrument and one reverb, and I don’t think it’s that reverb but I’ll keep a suspicious ear out for it in the future.

Izotope RX7 De-Click is wonderful and it often cleans up little clicks. I can often (but not always) get away with processing an entire recording with it, or even use it on individual tracks live. More often I just target the specific time of noticed click(s). But crunchies are very often resistant to this treatment.

What I usually do is set up ZPlane Peel with a window in about the 5KHz-10KHz range. I’ll mute that range and fiddle with the frequencies and stereo width until I can’t hear the crunchies anymore. Inside of that, I start with a transient processor that tries to lower sudden attacks but keeps up sustained sounds. That… usually doesn’t work!

So I switch to putting Velvet Machine inside that window instead. At 100% wet, it can smear the attack of sounds and stretch the decay so that the texture of crunchies is smoothed out into a continuous sound. This also can unfortunately suck the life out of some sounds so it has to be used with some care.

Another trick is to mask it. White noise, intentionally buzzy or noisy textures, cymbals etc. will easily cover up the unwanted bumps with bigger bumps. Of course, that assumes I am willing to invite that sort of texture/timbre at that moment in the track…

This morning I finally got to do the religious ritual I had been looking forward to ever since rejoining the temple. Vacation and then illness and then having to clean up and rearrange stuff while recovering from illness and various other stuff had all delayed it.

Without going into explanation/details, it was lovely. Joy all around. It went pretty smoothly after a 13-year gap; even after realizing my printed instructions were missing one of the parts it came back to me effortlessly anyway.

This is supposed to be done daily (“for best results”). I know I like doing this in the morning and carrying the sense of peace, calm, insights etc. into the rest of the day. It’s not super time-consuming but does require some time, and I also enjoy getting my workday with over early. So rather than getting up super early I’ll try switching my schedule to shower at night, then ritual, then bed. Maybe I’ll sleep better as a bonus, we’ll see.

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I didn’t write about this before, but with a birthday coming next week, it was time to renew my driver’s license. Missouri DMVs have been, in my previous experience, pretty fast and efficient. Last time, my spouse (with an early November birthday) and I went in on Halloween and got it done together in just a few minutes.

This time, they had closed the offices for a computer system upgrade for a week, and we had colds, and it was all awkward. She got hers done right before the upgrade, I did it after, and… oh boy.

Monday was Veteran’s Day, so they were closed.

I was going to go on Tuesday without thinking about how this was (A) the first day on their new software and (B) they had just been closed for the previous 10 days in a row. It was chaos. I saw the packed waiting room and full parking lot at the place we usually go, tried a second one and it was also super busy. This was also during rush hour, so between about 8 miles of driving and getting stuck in two parking lots, that killed almost 40 minutes for nothing. So I went home, planning to return a little earlier the next day.

Wednesday: Google Maps said the first location was not too busy. But when I got there, there were people waiting outside on the sidewalk in the rain. I went to the second location, where I could at least wait inside… standing room only, but still. I pulled my ticket: 48. 15 minutes later, they called the first number: 98. 99? 1? 2? 3? #4 went up and got served. Not just the new computer system, not just catching up from being closed all that time, but also a trainee who didn’t know how to do anything and slowed everyone else down.

I stood for an hour before a chair became available. I waited an additional hour and 20 minutes before my number was called. I got the trainee, and she couldn’t figure out how to make her scanner work, so that took another 20 minutes. And it turns out I have the wrong kind of birth certificate (hospital-issued rather than state-issued, although it’s been accepted for everything else up until now)… so I still will not be getting a RealID-compliant driver’s license. Which means as of March I won’t be able to pass a TSA checkpoint for domestic flights. (Not that we were planning to fly, but still.)

When I get my actual card in the mail, I’ll order a copy of the proper kind of certificate, then probably get a passport or passport card.

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The album is now at 58 minutes. Plenty long enough, but I feel like there’s at least one more thing to do!

Not sure what my plan is after that, but another gear study is a good idea. Odessa would be a good candidate for that. Spectraphon is a great candidate for it, there’s a lot going on and I was wanting to revisit array creation and usage now that the firmware has fixed my major beef with it (and added another feature to it besides). Algo could be a good to cover. Techniques with Blades and with QPAS, also. Maybe not the Noise Engineering stuff — I feel like most of their modules are relatively straightforward to work with, the genius of them is making it so largely just “listen and turn knobs” and feel it out.

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The Linnstrument is great. Changing the settings is easy — everything is right there on the panel, no software needed. (There are a few hidden settings, but it’s mainly not stuff I will need to set ever again.) Once I got it tweaked to my satisfaction and had a few minutes of practice, it felt very natural.

The string-like grid layout is great. The default is perfect fourths between rows, and I like that a lot. You can choose which scale notes are lit, and I went with just C, F and G so it doesn’t lead me toward either major or minor scales but everything is easily located. Easy to play chords and melodies and find equivalent notes on neighboring rows.

I liked the Roli’s tactile squishiness for slow, pressure-oriented playing, and the way the “key waves” let you feel where notes were. The Linnstrument doesn’t have that squish, but I feel equally confident in my ability to control pressure with it. Pitch slides, bends and vibrato take a little more practice but that isn’t really a problem either. As with the Roli, Y values feel less precise and controllable — in this case because of the relatively small motion, rather than fingers physically “sticking” in one place — but could be good for subtle variation.

And the Linnstrument is certainly far better for faster, more percussive playing than the Roli. Velocity feels right on it. It seems like quite an achievement to me that it’s good for both velocity and pressure, no need for separate controllers!

Back in the days when I was super into Celtic mythology, looking for connection with my ancestors and the vague feeling that gods and spirits might be out there but no idea where or how to look for them, and before there was an internet, I was a fan of Morgan Llywelyn — a historical fantasy novelist who wrote retellings of Celtic myth, and some stories where legends came from the lives of hypothetical actual people. Red Branch, about Cú Chulainn, was the first of those and probably the best I’ve read, with a narrative voice for the Morrigan which spookily felt dead right (so to speak). I think it was The Lion of Ireland which was about a trickster-warrior with a streak of good luck who managed to sort of accidentally build a larger-than-life legend around himself, which only grew in exaggeration as others retold it… pretty clever writing I thought.

The earliest one of those books she wrote was The Horse Goddess. Presumably about Epona (with Cernunnos as an antoganist and other gods as secondary characters), it was really more the story of the Hallstatt C culture transitioning to Hallstatt D — the clash of early Celtic and Royal Scythian cultures at the dawn of the Iron Age (and some interaction with surrounding cultures). As that sort of story, it is pretty fascinating.

But it’s also icky. These were not particularly progressive cultures, especially toward women. As depicted, Kelti women were theoretically “free” and had rights and status, but the inciting incidents of the story were example of how this wasn’t actually true. The protagonist fled a life where she’d have been forced to live with and study under a creepy, sadistic, rapey authority figure only to end up in a culture where women were considered property, and all property was (A) stuff taken from others by force and violence and not treated with any particular respect, and (B) ultimately all property belongs to the Prince. I am not asking for a fantastical, sanitized and idealized version of history, but a more sensitive treatment in terms of writing style.

I may have to read some Becky Chambers next to wash this out of my system.

My Linnstrument 128 just arrived, and I’m still working for the next 90 minutes so I shouldn’t play with it too much, but I’ve plugged it in and Bitwig immediately detected it and it works. More later!

Since I record my music live, rather than either solely or primarily sequencing/automating it, controllers are really important to me.

It was replacing a dead MIDI keyboard with a Microbrute that got me back into synth hardware after going software-only for so long.

The Soma Lyra-8 got me thinking about touch/pressure controllers, leading to the 0-Ctrl (as well as the loosely-related Strega and the more closely related Elmyra).

The Polyend/Dreadbox Medusa was my introduction to grid controllers and MPE, which led me to the Novation Launchpad… which wasn’t MPE but had poly aftertouch, but it didn’t feel satisfying or precise. Which led me to the Roli Seaboard Block, where both pressure control and pitch slides are very precise and satsifying…

…except when the pressure drops out or goes intermittent as it does on my unit. This must not be a common problem because I haven’t heard of this specific issue anywhere else online, and I did buy mine used so I don’t know how it was treated or what abuse it may have suffered in transit (though it seemed well-packaged). I have heard some general gripes about the reliability and longevity of Roli stuff though.

With Black Friday November discounts in mind, I started thinking about replacing my Seaboard. A new one isn’t that expensive and might solve my problems. Or it might develop the same or other problems after a couple-few years of use. Meanwhile it would have the same limitations:

• Slides on the Y axis don’t feel natural, so I rarely take advantage of them. The whole playing surface could be about 2 inches from front to back (accounting for black keys and at least one non-key slide strip), as far as I’m concerned.
• Two octaves is usually fine, but a bit limiting at other times. However, I do need to keep things compact to fit in the available space.
• The squishy playing surface feels pretty good for pressure-oriented playing like I tend to prefer, but not so much for percussive, velocity-oriented playing (which I might want to do once in a while if the controller was more amenable, at least for jamming).

The Aodyo Loom was going to be my alternative controller. Compact and still just two octaves; relatively cheap; not squishy but apparently both velocity- and pressure- oriented, with a couple of extra playing areas/ribbons for other purposes. Alas, the production costs exploded, the money may not have been spent wisely, and the Kickstarter fell through and disappeared its backers’ money.

The Erae II, whose production was delayed, is supposed to finally ship to its Kickstarter backers in December, and they have opened general preordering as well. But I am more suspicious of how this technology feels to play, after disliking Roli’s little Blocks, and at the price I would certainly want to try one in person before committing. The original Erae Touch had some loyal followers but it was more of a niche thing I think.

Based on its looks, descriptions and reviews I bet the Haken Continuum feels great to play — a sort of smooth mesh fabric surface that squishes a bit differently than the rubber of the Roli instruments. It’s quite large and very expensive though. Even the Mini is pretty expensive, and too long to fit in my available space — and is merely duophonic.

The Linnstrument though… it comes in two sizes, the smaller of which fits my space. The price of a used one is a bit less than a new Erae II. The instrument has been around for 10 years, with minor revisions to the playing surface, mature and stable firmware (which is also open-source and has a robust community), and a track record of reliability. It is loved by most of its users (*), sensitive and configurable, and its designer, Roger Linn, has been one of the better-known names in electronic instrument design since the late 70s (and personally supports the instruments and community in a way that’s great to see).

The Linnstrument is a grid controller, inspired by string instrument fretboards, with a default interval of a 4th between rows, like a bass. That allows isomorphic chord shapes and options for alternate fingerings. You can also split into two zones, or use the bottom row for alternate control purposes. The surface is a thin silicone mat, not squishy like the Roli or Haken instruments, but reviewers say the pressure response is very precise and playable anyway (and some but not all say it’s also well suited for percussive playing). There are configurable LEDs and also subtle Braille-like bumps to identify note positions and scales, but unlike many other grids you can smoothly glide pitch like a fretless instrument (or, I’m told, with a light touch get a sort of fretted feel to slides).

I have heard from a few reviewers that the Y axis on the Linnstrument is not amazing, and… honestly I think that’s more because it’s just not as natural a motion as side-to-side or downward pressure, and it’s probably true of every MPE controller. It doesn’t much matter though. The grid layout seems like a much better use of vertical space than the Seaboard, extending the playable range and encouraging a different kind of melodic exploration.

(*) Where people don’t get along with the Linnstrument, it’s generally because they find they really want a piano style keyboard layout or action. I’m not worried about that.

So, I have a used one on the way now, in hopes that this will be the “keyboard” for me as it is for a lot of others.

No thanks to DuoLingo (and some thanks to a search that found a post on Quora), I finally made a grammatical connection in German, and it amuses me.

• “es tut mir leid” is always translated as “I’m sorry.” Obviously not quite a literal translation, otherwise it’d be “ich bin something”…
• “mir tun die Beine weh” is translated as “my legs hurt”. “I something the legs something?” Hmm.
• “Ich habe viel zu tun” is translated as “I have a lot to do.” This makes some sense, but there’s “tun” again.

As it turns out, “tun” is a plural form of “do”, and “tut” is the singular. But it’s apparently kind of a specialized “do” unlike the more general one in English; in German you’re more likely to “make” stuff (like homework or yoga, or even fun) than to “do” it.

“Es tut mir leid” is “it does me sorrow.” Which just makes me think of can has cheezburger. “It do me a sad.”

Even better, “weh” is apparently “ouch,” and so “mir tun die Beine weh” is “I do the legs ouch.” (You could also say the simpler “meine Beine tun weh”, my legs do ouch… but of course that’s not what DuoLingo teaches.)

On the music software calendar, the month between October and December is named “Black Friday.” (I’ve already complained about the terminology in previous years, so…)

Arturia threw a big discount on their V Collection. Stacked with the discount they already offered me for owning a couple of individual items in the collection, they finally made it tempting enough for me.

V Collection is a ridiculously large set of software synthesizers. Originally confined to a handful or so of emulations of vintage analog synths, it has grown into a true collection encompassing analog, digital, electromechanical and even some acoustic instruments, as well as the software version of their own Minifreak synth.

It’s that last one that got my attention. As a previous Microfreak owner, the slightly larger sibling is mostly familiar territory. The hardware Minifreak is 6-voice polyphonic (or 12-voice paraphonic) vs. the Micro’s 4-voice paraphony. It also adds a stereo effects chain and a second “digital engine” which can be an oscillator or a processor. The software version is a faithful emulation of that (as well as a controller and editor/librarian for the hardware). While part of the fun of the Microfreak was its small physical form and fun controller, the synth engine can do some fun things and the Micro, more so.

With the discount it was cheaper to buy all of V Collection than just Minifreak V, so I did. That meant also getting some other great instruments, which I spent the weekend playing with:

• CS-80 V. The 200 lb. organ-like synth monster, famously used for the soundtracks of Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire, the 1980 version of the Dr. Who theme, “Africa” and “Rosanna”, “Born in the USA”, “Billie Jean” and “Human Nature”… and sadly, McCartney’s yuletide abomination whose title I shall not utter here. It’s a unique and quirky design with a ton of performance-oriented controls for things that a really detailed modern software synth might allow you to adjust deep in some menu or other, and some unusual routing options you’d otherwise have to go modular to get. The software version feels pretty ridiculous in terms of UI, but hey, it makes nice sounds.
• Jup-8 V. The one classic Roland analog synth that I actually find interesting, because of its FM ability. While I’d never buy a real one due to the hugely inflated prices and the need for expensive restoration work on most of them, to play with it in software every one in a while is fun.
• SQ80 V. An early wavetable synth from Ensoniq, it’s got a lot of limitations, but has some neat sounds I’ll find useful.
• CZ V. An emulation of the budget Casio CZ-101, which I actually have one of in the closet (but the power adapter connection is loose and it’s not the funnest interface to work with anyway). The software version adds a lot more capability, including custom phase distortion functions. Very cool.
• Mellotron V. A very good emulation of the tape-based “sampler” famous from “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Space Oddity”, heavily featured on a couple of Tangerine Dream albums, and a bunch of 60s and 70s prog rock. It has a distinctive sound (or three) and can also be bent beyond TD’s usage into even more ambient purposes. I’ve used cheaper, more limited emulations of this before, but this is the best yet.
• Solina V. An early string synthesizer, used heavily in “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and several songs on The Cure’s Disintegration, a lot of disco and funk tunes, and by Jean-Michel Jarre. I already have the Waldorf Streichfett, and this sort of sound isn’t too hard to emulate with any analog-style polyphonic synth and a phaser… but this does open a couple of doors (I don’t think The Doors had one though).
• Vox Continental V. A transistor drawbar organ which can get surprisingly growly, and — most fun for drone purposes for me — offers the ability to retune notes of the octave.
• Augmented Voices, Augmented Woodwinds, Augmented Piano. Based on combining sampled acoustic instruments with complementary granular and wavetable synthesis plus effects. I don’t find designing sounds from scratch particularly fun with these, but they each have several included presets which, with slight tweaks (or not at all) and maybe some external processing, are true gold for drones and ambient work.
• (I already had Easel V and Synclavier V; those are pretty great too.)

There are several other instruments I either didn’t try due to lack of interest, or tried and rejected. Like I said, it’s a big collection! Previewing and playing with all of that stuff is what I did with my weekend, for the most part. While playing with Augmented Voices, I managed to improvise something I liked so much that I’ve planned to use it as that starting point for track #9 on the next album. (But I heard so many great drones, I could have had any number of starting points. In fact I was starting to prepare to record one with the Vox Con when its demo timer expired and it stopped making sound. That was the point where I decided that I better just buy the collection.)

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This cold is now about 2.5 weeks old, and I’d say that it has overstayed its welcome except of course that it was never welcome in the first place, ruining most of the vacation day when it first struck. But… I have stuff to do! I want to visit my parents, which we haven’t done since before the trip. I want to take my spouse out for her (belated by illness) birthday dinner, and I want to be okay when my own birthday rolls around in a bit. I want to walk around the lake while the weather is so perfect for it. I want to get that shrine back together and properly practice the religion I’ve come back to. I even want to do a bit of other cleanup (not too much though).

I do feel a bit better today, and have done some gentle walking around the plaza. But I’ve had other moments where I felt like I was pretty good, only to be brought down by a coughing fit, or an entire day of groggy fuzziness.

Posted elsewhere:

During his last reign of terror idiocy, I had nightmares featuring convicted felon and insurrectionist Donald J. “Small Hands” Putin-Trump, and my overall level of anxiety increased quite a bit during that time.

There’s this phrase “living rent-free in one’s head.” I’ve decided that this is not going to happen. Agent Orange is hereby evicted. He is an unimportant, insignificant little rat turd of a man, and he has nothing of interest to say.

Granted, I’m still thoroughly disappointed in the gullibility, mean-spiritedness and stupidity of voters. I’ll just have to let the scar tissue grow over that one.

Overall, I’m going to do my best not to be bowed by the weight of …things. I’ll make music and play games and pet the dogs and continue being my weird, nonbinary, pagan(-ish), leftist, environmentalist self. I’ll do what I can to be kind and understanding, and for everything else there’s spite. (This is something my spouse has been championing for years. I understand it more than ever, now.)

I just donated money to the Trevor Project, a thing which it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me to do today, if it weren’t for The Guy Who Fell Asleep At His Own Trial.

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I’m no longer going to read Metafilter. It’s been entertaining and interesting at times, but I cannot stand the political commentary (everything is the leftists’ fault, everyone is an armchair quarterback where it comes to running a campaign, etc.) and based on past history, the next four years will be pretty gross. There’s a filter option to disable political posts but they don’t always catch everything, and I just think it’s time to move on.

I’m also disengaging from a few political threads elsewhere. There’s this tendency for reporting on TFG to turn into this outrage-baity gossip column thing (what he just said will shock you! …not after all this time it won’t) and who needs that?