Starthief

breaking news

That’s one of my skinny patch cables from Modular Addict. I noticed as I was unpatching my latest recording that the insulation is separating from the jack at both ends. None of my other roughly 70 cables from them have this damage at either end, but now I’m going to keep an eye on things and prepare to consider replacements.

The thing is, these cables are considerably cheaper than most, and have been pretty reliable. I’ve known some more robust-looking, more expensive cables with strain reliefs to fail at a much higher rate. So if I lost enough of these I might just put in another order of the same kind.

Also broken, both in terms of the sound aesthetic (intentionally and beautifully) and literally (unfortunately), is my Mesmeriser pedal.

First, what’s good: the overall sound. It is a specialist in the sort of vibe I’ve begun thinking of as “blissfully overwhelmed.” There’s a masculine-feminine aesthetic spectrum from Sunn O))) to Lovesliescrushing, where one side is dark, ponderous and massive, and the other is bright, joyous, sunlight-dazed… but no less noisy and powerful. Or earth vs. air. Or think of Gothic architecture: on the one hand, a quarter-million tons of stone at an oppressive scale, covered in gargoyles; on the other, vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses, stained glass. (Perhaps mine is a bit like the Sagrada Familia, a weird ancient/modern/alien blend…) A little more literally, it’s a stack of budget early-90s effects being creatively pushed beyond their limits, turning a guitar (and often, screaming feedback) into a mighty otherworldly orchestra. The darker side will tend to emphasize the low end more, sub-bass meant to be played loud and felt in the chest, while the lighter side often rolls off both lows and highs to some extent, like an old telephone, and finds resonances in the gear.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Mesmeriser does the latter bit. Lo-fi, 90s-style reverb and modulation and saturation and sample rate reduction. None of this is new to me, but this is a finely, beautifully tuned combination of effects meant for a specific purpose. In fact it’s probably meant for the deeper end of shoegaze, the slowest, noisiest, droniest, least pop-like, most texture-oriented you can get while still being loosely affiliated with dream pop. And it’s a beautiful thing.

Being such a specialist, I definitely cannot recommend it as a general-purpose reverb, or even as an “ambient” reverb (with some cautious settings and some post-filtering, you can use it for that, but there are at least two dozen more suitable ambient reverb pedals out there; I will heartily recommend Slöer any day of the week). For instance, the fixed predelay time is way more than I would want in a general ambient reverb — but I am not arguing with how well it works in its proper context.

Setting aside the history/genre and considering just the sound, it fits 100% with the sort of Strega-into-wavefolder shenanigans I like to get up to. The Eternal switch = instant drone. And it’s an absolute texture monster, without technically being a granular effect.

Now for the unfortunate:

Mine is… not stereo! The dry signal is passed through as it comes in, but the reverb, modulation etc. are exactly the same on the L and R channels. There’s supposed to be subtle differences in the reverb (and possibly the modulation) on the two sides, which contribute to the lushness and are really obvious when listening to Pedal Partner’s YouTube videos in headphones. Those aren’t happening.
Mine also has crashed a few times — the dry signal continues to pass through but there’s no reverb, the Eternal (freeze) and Mesmerize (effect on/off) stop doing anything, and the only fix is to power it down and wait a couple minutes for its internal capacitors to discharge before powering back on. I’m hoping this is a problem with this specific unit, not something that happens with all of them.

Even in mono it’s still gorgeous, and I can put a little light Valhalla reverb or Audiority Tube Modulator or something after it to give it a more stereo vibe. But those demos are more lush yet. So I wrote to Maneco to ask about it, and it sounds like they’ll send me a replacement. This requires building me a fresh one, since the second wave sold out. And hopefully the shipping/tariff situation won’t be too ridiculous.

This is on me, but the foam wedges I’m using as a temporary desktop pedalboard, combined with the cables I have, are just too awkward. A lot of the low-profile, right-angle guitar cables I have, have extra-wide heads and can’t fit next to each other either on the back of my audio interface, or on the pedals. Plus a bunch of right-angle cables start colliding with each other and lead to an omnidirectional spray of cables. So I’ve got a 3D-printed desktop pedal stand on the way, plus a few extension cables to tidy things up a bit, and another TRS to TS splitter so I can experiment with putting Dark Star on its own channel and then Slöer before or after Mesmeriser.

Something I observed when powering the Mesmeriser down, was interesting behavior as the power drained away. Probably what was going on there was, the DSP simply shut down but the analog saturator started to get funky at low voltage/current. I do have a variable-voltage “starving” power supply I might try with it.

With the Mesmeriser directly contributing to two tracks, I now have a total of 12, over 54 minutes. That probably means I’m done, but I’m going to take a good undistracted listen to the whole thing and make sure of track order/inclusion. I rejected a larger than usual number of recordings this time so I want to make sure what I’m keeping is worthy and the flow is coherent.

Mimetic Digitwolis has shipped (some lucky folks have theirs already), so I’m looking forward to that. Between it and Polyllop, there’s likely to be a bit more sequencing on the next album…

the times

This weekend, Marie, a fellow former priest and good friend from years ago, died. She was a regular at events in Chicago, and everybody loved her — she was just the nicest person. She used to call me “big brother” (*) despite being several years my senior, because I’d been in the temple longer. But I always valued her perspective and she was as much my mentor as I hers.

I wish I had kept up with her, and other friends from the temple, better when I left it. This is a definite downside of being shy/introverted/socially anxious. It’s probably silly but it seems like an awkward, difficult chore to email someone just to say “hi, how are you doing?” Part of it was, many of us were on social media and still more or less in contact for a while anyway… but there was a lot of drifting away from that over time as well.

(*) before I realized I was nonbinary

I have been doomscrolling over this Chirk thing, because of concern for the tyrannical fallout from it. From the very beginning, the MAGA crowd has been trying to blame leftists and especially trans people, whether or not that has any relevance. While, of course, simultaneously claiming the left are “politicizing a tragedy” (the same thing they say after every school shooting when someone suggests gun control). One of them even said “this is our Reichstag Fire” — they don’t even bother to use dogwhistles anymore, do they?

It seems if you’re not appropriately mourning the dead asshole, you’re “Unamerican,” and can get fired from journalism and education careers. They’re even talking about revoking passports. This from the supposed “free speech” advocates who whined about cancel culture. This from people who wanted to pardon Nancy Pelosi’s attacker, who couldn’t be bothered to give a shit about the murder of Melissa Hortman and her husband in June, who complained about the flags flying half-mast for former President Carter. Trump didn’t even want to lower the flags for fellow Republican Sen. John McCain. And now the Vice President — emphasis on the word vice — is threatening to “crack down” on all kinds of left-wing groups under the utterly farcical, absurd, pretense that they promote violence.

But despite all of the performative grief, Trump decided to skip the vigil for Chirk at Kennedy Center, to go play golf.

Apparently, I am still able to be amazed by the depth and breadth of MAGA hypocrisy, despite everything. But I’ve certainly had more than my fill of doomscrolling. Let’s hear more about Trump’s friendship with his other good buddy Epstein instead.

On the lawn mowing saga… our second lawn guy, who I thought was going to be really good, is now fired. His truck broke down and he didn’t contact us about it. GreenPal notified me that he was late, and its bot was going to automatically nag him 3x a day about it. A few days later, he texted me to say his truck was back, and he was locked out of the app until he took care of our yard, so when would we like it done between then and Friday? Anytime is fine, I said.

Friday went by, and nothing happened. Saturday night, GreenPal notified me that the guy had “gone out of business” and automatically started seeking bids again. This time, the service that my mom uses and is happy with came up, and I pounced and signed up. I texted the other guy, and he said his truck had broken down again (and he didn’t notify me again), but keep him in mind for next year. Yeah probably no.

Fixing the Doefper switch was easy, and there was no damage beyond the one obvious burned-out chip. Of course it would have been easier if there’d been one little diode or even one little stripe preventing the need to fix it in the first place…

I’ve broken my failure streak with recordings, and finished two good tracks this weekend. And now that the album has got more than enough material for a release, now my Mesmeriser pedal is finally about to arrive… maybe. I see it’s “on hold” again but in the nearby DHL office, with no reason given. I already paid the @$#%! customs fee (plus the extra fee DHL added for collecting the fee) so this could be something as simple as “it didn’t arrive in time to get on today’s delivery truck but it’ll be delivered tomorrow” (DHL is really kind of lame sometimes).

Mimetic Digitwolis is supposed to ship this week too, but that probably means it won’t arrive until next week.

I had an alert set at Plugin Deals for 510k Polyllop, a polyphonic version of my favorite sequencer plugin Seqund, and it just went on sale so I grabbed it. It’s got 4 lanes for gate/pitch/length/velocity/hold which run simultaneously, with independent lengths and directions and some common controls. Should be fun on occasion for polyrhythmic/polymetric/whatever sequences.

Somehow I missed Brando Sando’s 5th “Secret Project” book, Isles of the Emberdark, up until this weekend. I’m still not sure what I think of dragons in the Cosmere, and the world of First of the Sun isn’t one of my favorite settings of his, but the story is pulling me in.

I really want to know how the Scadrians got such a reputation among the other worlds once they mastered space travel, and what the heck Kelsier is up to. It seems like there was a face-heel turn there somewhere when we weren’t looking. But I don’t expect to get answers to that until the next Mistborn era books come along.

just a few more words

There was a brief rumor yesterday about the gun and ammunition being “scrawled with anti-fascist and pro-trans” messages — at least according to the WSJ, but not more reputable news sites — which was then silently retracted, but only after giving the usual trolls like Nancy Mace the opportunity to pounce on it.

Today, as the killer was turned in by his own family, the actual messages were released, and people — with the press rather behind the curve — have identified them as “Groyper” memes. Some of them are references to the game Helldivers, where the player characters fight on behalf of a fascist state which calls everyone else fascist.

The Groypers are a far-right white supremacist group led by Nick Fuentes, who turned against Trump and hated Karlie Chirk. Part of their beef is a hatred for Israel due to rabid anti-semitism (as opposed to dislike of the state of Israel for its genocide), and part of it is their belief that Trump isn’t extremist enough where it comes to things like immigration and shouldn’t have wasted time talking about the economy when he should have been more hateful instead. They had a campaign of trolling Chirk’s events and claiming he was “anti-white” and a “fake conservative”, as well as attempted platform manipulation of various sites.

Having learned that the murderer was actually (probably) a white supremacist troll, Mace immediately switched from ranting about trans people to calling for people to pray for the poor misguided boy.

(I suppose it’s possible that those memey messages were also misdirection, and things are even less coherent. But that seems less likely. It’s known that the killer’s dad who turned him in is a conservative Mormon ex-sheriff, that the family are gun nuts (his mom had Facebook photos of herself and him posing with machine guns, until she scrubbed them), and the killer is registered as an independent and didn’t vote in the last two elections, which seems plausibly consistent with someone who’s far right but also anti-Trump.)

a few words

In a just world, there wouldn’t be political assassination (or… whatever it was). But also in a just world, there would be no Karlie Chirk.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. That goes both ways — murder doesn’t fix the wrongness that was put in the world but potentially makes it much worse. And also the wrongness of murder does not suddenly turn a person whose career was about spreading hate and disinformation, into a good person that we should admire.

Karlie Chirk advocated for violence against immigrants, gay people and trans people. He was against women’s rights, but he was all for gun rights — he literally said in 2023 that a few gun deaths a year was a worthwhile price for the second amendment.

So Gavin Newsom can fuck right off with the “continue his work” line. The man’s work was to spread literal Nazi propaganda; his work made some people more hateful and all people less safe. You don’t “debate” publicly executing people for being gay, you don’t “debate” flogging immigrants with whips, you don’t “debate” whether women should be allowed to have careers and own property of their own, and you don’t “debate” whether it’s okay for thousands of American kids to be killed by guns every year.

Ezra Klein can fuck off into the sun for writing that “Karlie Chirk was practicing politics the right way.”

The Republicans accusing Democrats of “politicizing” the shooting (for pointing out what I just did above, that Kirk promoted violence) can also fuck right off. They themselves immediately blamed Democrats for the killing, and a couple of them are calling for the complete shutdown of the Democratic party. They don’t care about mass shootings at all unless a victim is one of their fellow fascists — Trump said “we have to get over it” literally one day after the Perry High School shooting. Several times, they’ve spread false claims about shooters being antifa, transgender, etc. And in June when Minnesota Democratic legislators John Hoffman and Melissa Hortman were murdered, several right-wing senators and media types claimed that the shooter was a “leftist” and/or Governor Tim Walz’s “goon.” When it was no longer deniable that the shooter was a Trump supporter… then it must have been a false flag operation or the guy was somehow manipulated into it. And Trump refused to call Walz to talk about it.

Getting back to my thought though. This isn’t a sudden national tragedy, this is a consequence of the exact mindset that Kirk and his ilk promote. It’s one event in a set of overlapping, decades-long, slowly unfolding disasters — the hatred, the incredibly fucking stupid “culture war”, and the uniquely American type of gun violence.

I’ve now set up three patches in a row, and two recordings where I just didn’t get a result I liked — some interesting sounds but not a good musical flow, so the result is just dull and/or incoherent. I think I have been pushing too much for a specific kind of result, instead of just floating with the current.

On the book front:

April Daniels, Dreadnought and Sovereign. Trans lesbian YA superhero novels which came highly recommended. The first was a lot of fun, minus some really uncomfortable transphobic behavior from a couple of characters, and after finishing it with a grin on my face I had to launch into the sequel (which was just as good).
Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary. Been on my list for a while. Because it’s an ebook I didn’t notice it’s just 64 pages (of what would be large print). It’s… okay, a sort of introduction to the kind of discrimination that nonbinary people face without any sort of in-depth analysis or offering of solutions or coping mechanisms. But one good point that it made was the difference between normal and normative. Normativity is where value judgements and power dynamics are, and this — not gender itself, or any other sort of identity — is what we would like society to dispense with.
Phillip K Dick, The VALIS Trilogy. Or really, just the first book, which I don’t think I’m going to finish. I feel like it was misrepresented to me. It’s all just drugs and schizophrenia and babble, not science fiction, unless there’s a supposedly ironic punchline that I’ve been half expecting since the first chapter.
Molly J. Bragg, Scatter. An algorithmic recommendation after Dreadnought, since it’s another queer superhero story, but this time more of a romance. There’s kind of a weird tension between obviously not wanting to be copaganda while having an MC who always wanted to be a cop, plus gross Tom Clancy-ish gun fetishism of the type that has to regale you with brand names and details about the ammunition. But it’s also been a pretty good story and is character-driven rather than action-driven, the romance parts are actually pretty great, and it’s thoughtful overall. I went from thinking “probably not gonna look for sequels” to “well, maybe…”

synth show & tell 2025, part 2

Happy Tuesday, on to row 3! Buckle up, the modules get smaller and more numerous from here.

Mazzatron Mult & Passthru: Provides 6 convenient jacks bridged to the patch panel on the other side of the desk, 2 to analog inputs on my audio interface, and 2 are the Algo’s L and R outputs. The other two are unused. I’ve got 1HP of space on its left for those cables to sneak out, because I never bothered to drill a hole in the side for them.

Mystic Circuits Ana 2: It’s great for both utility and weird distortions/combinations of signals, but for some reason I’m still underusing it. There’s a pretty great manual with a lot of patch ideas, and I should maybe shift it a little farther toward the middle of the case spend more time working with it. Maybe even write up a page on it as I have on some other modules.

Rabid Elephant Natural Gate: Or is that Natural GOAT? While the droning nature of my music means sometimes I just don’t need an LPG, sometimes I use this in place of a volume control anyway. When I do want those pings, nothing is better.

AtoVproject cDVCA: I like my VCAs like I like my coffee: linear. But hey, this provides some juicy extra dirt and/or a handy lowpass filter, or can double as a high-rate clock for Drezno or a switch or whatever. Neat.

Toppobrillo Cluster: replaced my Mutable Blinds, since it more directly handles crossfading. Coincidentally, I haven’t been doing as much crossfading since then. Isn’t that always the way? It’s still good though and I don’t find myself missing Blinds.

Jones O’Tool: still helping me analyze signals and measure voltages and frequencies, to better understand complex patches and new modules. Still better than using an external scope or a DAW plugin.

Mutable Instruments Shades: the most basic but most commonly needed utility. I still think this one is more ergonomic and flexible than others out there, for what it is.

Make Noise Function: still my favorite basic envelope, slew, LFO etc. It just has the right feel.

Mutable Instruments Stages: I mainly use it for simple LFOs and decay-only envelopes, though it can do much more complex things. I have no interest in fancy third-party firmware that adds more functionality at the expense of needing a cheat sheet or more memorization — but I wouldn’t mind a slight adjustment to the minimum LFO speed without having to patch an offset. I’m a programmer, I could do this myself if I bothered to…

Noise Engineering Clep Diaz: I almost never use LFO mode but it’s amazing how frequently basic stepped modulation brings more life to a patch.

Make Noise QPAS: I originally switched away from this filter partly due to concerns over its power consumption (before I fully understood my PSU’s ratings), partly because I didn’t think I liked its resonance character when used as a typical, envelope-controlled, subtractive LPF. But I came back to it because it sounded so good in many Make Noise videos, and the equally sized Rossum Morpheus was just too annoying for me. Thinking of the filter in terms of its peaks rather than basic usage gave me a new perspective on it, and I love it now.

Instruo DAPF: allpass filters are neat in theory, and this can do some stuff in a feedback loop, can act as a phaser, and can let me wavefold squarewaves. In practice I’m just not patching it that much and might consider an alternative, I just don’t have pressing needs.

Xaoc Drezno: there’s a whole ecosystem of expander modules for the Liebniz system but frankly, I find the core module alone versatile enough for my needs, and not having the back-panel bus to worry about simplifies things. I use it to mangle audio, turn LFOs into gate patterns, and generate noise and weird chaotic loops. And while the newer version of Drezno is more stable and precise, I like the noise this brings to the table. That said, I am curious about both Berlin and Rostock; it’s just that the curiosity hasn’t been enough to actually make space and buy either of them.

Row 4:

BoredBrain OptX: I have the first version, and it’s fine for my purposes. A major pillar of my Eurorack/Bitwig integration.

Noise Engineering Versio: this one has been my “floating” Versio that I’ll switch firmware on. I especially like Fala and Melotus. Imitor, Ruina and Desmodus are great too but they’re also in plugin form (if a bit different). Lacrima’s so good, I keep a dedicated one.

Whimsical Raps Just Friends: super-great at audio, great at LFOs, a little weird but good at envelopes. And it’s an interesting partner for some of the other stuff in this row…

Doepfer A130-8: it’s crowded, but with some of this other stuff, sometimes you just want a whole lot of basic linear VCAs. I have a patch going right now, which I’ll be recording after finishing this entry, with a hideous number of patch cables for some hex-voice action…

Doepfer A150-1: dual switch. I laid it aside when I tried the Make Noise Jumbler, but I missed it, so I put it back in. (Except I fried one of the chips by reversing power, because Doepfer does not mark their PCBs or use shrouded headers or reverse power protection, and I’m waiting on a replacement to arrive.)

Make Noise MultiMod: a truly brilliant thing. I have been using it a lot for audio, turning a sound into a cluster of detuned, spread-out-slightly-in-time, or perhaps made lofi by stretching out the time so it has to downsample. But it’s also great as a modulation source or a modulation disruptor. I understand why some people feel the need for two of them. I’m fine with one though, partly because I have Just Friends.

Takaab Nearness: the simplest stereo mixer, it’s great for JF or Multimod — and can serve as an alternate, low-tech secondary DAC for Drezno etc.

Whimsical Raps Silhouette: it’s an odd combination of parts that works surprisingly well as a whole. I’ve been using it a lot, despite wishing it was easier to do simple circular rotation rather than the “magnetic” lumpy rotation it does.

Xaoc Katowice: I briefly had removed it, but with an increased emphasis on feedback patching thanks to Silhouette, it went back in. Modulating its frequency, width or mid level can be pretty rewarding but not something I can’t do in the DAW. But sometimes it’s just nice to have a little simple EQ in the rack; I don’t even use the individual band outputs all that often.

Make Noise Mimeophon: still my favorite delay ever. But I am extremely curious about the just-announced, not yet ready for release WMD Cosmic Debris, which actually has the potential to defeat the reigning champ. (It’s a bit pricey and I need to be convinced it’s doing things I can’t get out of software and/or clever patching, first.)

Intellijel Planar 2: not a daily driver, given how much I use my expression pedals and faderbank… but sometimes it’s just the ticket. It’s got a few extra tricks beyond just being a joystick, like the mixing, polar-to-cartesian conversion, etc.

Bela Gliss: also not commonly used, I do enjoy its always-looping, recorded gesture mode that’s like an instantly changeable LFO.

And the skiff row.

First, Make Noise 0-Ctrl: it’s lovely as an analog sequencer, or as a freely tunable 3-channel “pressure” (really skin contact) controller. Indispensable.

Noise Engineering Mimetic Digitwolis: it’s scheduled to ship out next week, so I don’t know yet. I have high hopes for the really flexible functionality, and slight nervousness about the interface, but I expect it will be great.

Noise Engineering Lacrima Versio: an autowah in Eurorack seems a little goofy but this one is brilliant. I don’t care that it’s digital, both the saturation and filter sound great, and greater together.

Auza Wave Packets: another weird, quasi-experimental combination of functions that works really well together. I like sequencing the pitch externally while also using its internal 3-step pitch sequence, and the “F-Sync” option tracks really well. Superb.

Tesseract Sweet Sixteen mk2: the other mighty pillar of my DAW-Eurorack integration, and the control center for nearly every patch. Things would be much more awkward without it.

…and that’s my hardware. I won’t even go into the software infrastructure, beyond saying “Bitwig and Sound Forge and lots of plugins.” I don’t know if this was interesting to anyone, but it helped me gather my thoughts and that’s part of what this blog has always been for anyway.

synth show & tell 2025, part 1

And here we get to the actual Eurorack stuff. I have a MDLRCASE 114hp x 4 row studio case, plus a skiff row below that. I’ll start at the top left (ModularGrid screenshots here).

Row 1:

ALM Akemie’s Castle: 38 HP is big, and sometimes I think about what kinds of other stuff I could fit in that space. But it’s got so much charm! There are two specific kinds of FM synthesis nostalgia for me, and this covers one of them beautifully, like no emulation I’ve tried. I seriously would part with everything else on this row (if I had to) before letting go of this one.

Setonix 2hp vented panel: Only secondarily for ventilation. The Algo has a goofy TRS stereo output (not compatible with anything else in Eurorack). So I have a low-profile splitter cable plugged into it, running through a vent hole, to the back of my Mazzatron Mult & Passthru on row 3. Voila, proper separate L and R output jacks.

RYK Algo: this is like the clean, silky-smooth, modern version of the Castle, but with some algorithms not commonly found in other FM synths. I could theoretically replicate it in software modular, but I’m more inclined to use this beautiful thing as it is. It’s not without its weird design choices and UI quirks, but it’s gorgeous.

Industrial Music Electronics Zorlon Cannon mk2: not a module for everyday use. In terms of sound, Befaco Noise Plethora beats it, but I’m okay with only having that in VCV Rack. For CV or gate pattern sequences, Zorlon is not something I want to use all the time… but it’s still cool. It could hit the chopping block if I decide I really want to shake up my modular a lot.

Industrial Music Electronics Kermit mk2: I have never been able to adequately imitate the uniquely dusty sound that I love it for. It feels like it should be something really simple, but I haven’t stumbled on it yet. That sounds keeps it in my rack.

Mutable Instruments Rings: the first Eurorack module I acquired. It’s been a while since I have really exercised this one, but I doubt I have completely mined it for ideas yet either. I still mock people who think it makes one sound — guitars also only make one sound, right? 😉 Patching and technique matter. Also people tend to overlook its audio input, and that’s a crime.

Mutable Instruments Beads: I will never really understand why some people prefer Clouds over Beads. The way I use Beads is limited to a small subset of the things it can do, but it serves me well that way; there’s no imitator that quite gets there for me. A lot of people lately have been talking about Intellijel Multigrain like it unlocked the secrets of granular for them when they didn’t like any other granular modules, but to me Beads feels right, and MG’s design seems like it would bother me.

Setonix 3hp vented panel: more ventilation, and also making up for Zorlon being an odd width.

Row 2:

Mutable Instruments Marbles: I sometimes use this just as a clock/trigger generator, sometimes as a little melody loop machine, sometimes to feed in sequences to rearrange and create variations on them. Sometimes when this shows up in a recording, it’s because I used it as a lazy way to get a sequence going to test a patch idea but I liked the results I was getting enough to keep them.

Mutable Instruments Blades: my go-to filter; some people dislike it for being too clean but it’s got that drive/wavefolder RIGHT THERE and you can use its two filters in parallel or serial (or a combination!) to make things even more spicy. The thing that concerns me is the drive/wavefold knobs have a tendency to crackle a lot and this apparently a common issue.

Noise Engineering (Toros Iteritas) Alia: Alia is a cool platform overall, with a few oscillator models I might want to revisit again — Cursus and Manis in particular, or even Ataraxic if I feel the need to double up. But Toros’ unique take on FM, where each index knob crossfades between carrier and modulator, works great for me.

Noise Engineering Ataraxic Iteritas: of all the Noise Engineering oscillators, this is The One, which is why I have it in dedicated form rather than as an Alia. It’s sort of a weird, proudly digital, often kind of thin sound, not really suited as anyone’s primary or only oscillator. But it beefs up very nicely when distorted, serves well for special noises, effects, accents, etc. and makes nice fodder for a juicy lowpass gate. Sometimes it just has the exact right texture for a background drone.

Make Noise Spectraphon: I still haven’t really revisited array creation on it, and I just don’t feel the need to — SAM mode is fun and unique and Chaos mode sounds great; I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

Xaoc Devices Odessa: it’s still gorgeous and unique, I’m still a big fan. (And I still wish there was a reliable way to completely remove the fundamental from the main outputs, but apparently that’s not even fixable in a firmware update.) I especially feel like some distortion can boost it to new heights, and that while it doesn’t actually need an external filter, it can make some good material to feed to QPAS or other filters, or Spectraphon for that matter.

Tune in next time for more condensed module thoughts… 🙂

synth show & tell 2025, part 0

I did this back in November 2018, and it’s time for an update. It feels extra appropriate to start this during KnobCon weekend when many people would have just been looking at a bunch of gear anyway.

My studio is still an L-shaped corner desk, with the long side to my left. There’s a printer, then a shelf of random supplies with my patch cable holder mounted to that. Since people have opinions about cables: I use Modular Addict stackable & skinny cables, one color per length. They’re cheap, reliable, slim, and hang straight from the rack. I’ve tried other kinds, but this is what I have stayed with.

In front of that, a foam wedge serves as a mini pedalboard. The pedals are:

OBNE Dark Star V3 (stereo), in blue. It’s my most recent hardware acquisition. The reverb itself is super long and ambient but honestly nothing special; it’s the lo-fi pitch shifters, crush/drive, filter, and the feedback response that make it more interesting. To be honest, I don’t know if this will be a long-term keeper or if the novelty will wear off, but I’m enjoying it so far.
Walrus Audio Slöer, also blue. While is specializes in ambient reverb, so do I, and I feel like I can run anything through it and it’ll serve well. It’s extremely good at being lush or woozy/dreamy; less lo-fi than one might guess from a Spin FV1-pedal with a clock rate slider. It holds its own in a world of excellent reverb plugins.
Pedal Partners x Maneco Mesmeriser. I’m still waiting for it to ship, super excited about it based on the demos though.

Right now I have one stereo effect send/return running through Dark Star then Slöer, and I’m setting up a second for the Mesmerizer. I just leave stuff plugged in and do my routing in the DAW, even though it sometimes means a little more latency.

To the right of that, I have a 3U studio rack box:

(It’s only when you take a photo of your gear that you realize how dusty it is…)

On top, not shown, I have my Arturia Minibrute 2S and Make Noise Strega on a Loci stand. This pair works so well together that it’s rare for me to use one without the other, and they share a dedicated audio input on my interface. Minibrute on its own is an underrated wonder, a “both Coasts” synth that’s both simple and deep. A lot of people can’t get past supposed “harshness” of the Arturia brute filter sound without realizing that it’s 100% due to overdriving the inputs when you crank the levels all the way up (or that MB2 is less harsh than MB1 which is less harsh than Microbrute). I would say “more for me” but I only need the one. 🙂
Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen audio interface. Probably the best possible choice for my purposes, with the right number of inputs, slightly more outputs than I really need, convenient front panel controls. Low latency, absolutely no driver problems, no glitches and dropouts or crashes or other BS. There’s a 4th gen version that replaces hardware controls with a phone app: no thanks.
DIY patch panel. 1/4″ TS jacks on front and back, connected via a bundle of shielded cables to the back of a Eurorack module that’s the same idea. Makes for more convenient patching from the Witchbrute to the modular.
“Power distribution unit”, aka power switches with outlets on the back. Really handy for gear without their own switches, as well as the router/cable modem so I don’t have to crawl under the desk to reset them.

(I’m going to sell the n0b control. It feels smooth, but I have just never gotten in the habit of using it.)

At the corner of my desk, I’ve got my dual 21:9 LCD monitors, one above the other, Nixie tube clock (fun), QWERTY keyboard (Akko 3084B), trackball (Nulea M505), and a cheap laptop riser with my Linnstrument 128 on it. The latter is definitely my favorite MPE controller of all time. At first I missed the squishy “waves” and larger size per note of the Roli, but a grid just works so much better for me.

Also kept toward the middle when not in use: Neutral Labs Elmyra 2, which is a wonderfully dirty cousin to the Lyra-8. More controllable and rational, perhaps less “soulful” but far more versatile and sits more easily in a mix than the Lyra. Also DecadeBridge Sn, a tiny FM drone synth I enjoy. Neither of them are what I would call essentials, but I like to bring them out at times.

Below the desk, I have three cheap Nektar NX-P expression pedals plugged into a Midi Expression Quattro. Super nice to have when my hands are busy with other things. I also keep my Maurizio Über Basses Miezo and a Hadean bass ukelele in cases down there; they come out to play every once in a while, though I would not really call myself a “bass player” as such.

Next time I’ll get into the Eurorack stuff itself.

unfun facts

The nutcase right wing is trying to pin gun violence on trans people, and calling for either taking away their 2nd Amendment rights (*) or just putting all trans people in camps. Here are some fun facts:

94.6% of mass shootings are committed by a solitary cisgender man.
3.8% of mass shootings are committed by a solitary cisgender woman.
0.7% of mass shootings are committed by a trans person. (But about 2.7% of the population self-identifies as trans or nonbinary.) (Note, this statistic does come from a different source than the above two, which did not consider trans people at all. The definition of “mass shooting” varies somewhat. But it is known that of the approx. 3400 mass shootings in the past 5 years, at most three of the shooters were trans. There is often a rush to spread rumors and disinformation about shooters being trans when they are not, as part of society’s general transphobia.)
96.6% of lone actor terrorists are cisgender men.
Men are twice as likely as women to personally own a gun. Men are conditioned to see themselves as protectors, warriors, hunters etc. Guns are marketed in a very masculine manner. And social pressure is more likely to push men to suppress emotions, internalize trauma, act out violently and feel a need to “prove” their masculinity.
63% of murders overall are committed by cisgender men.
86% of US mass shootings are committed with legally owned firearms.
The only countries with higher rates of violent gun deaths than the US are those rife with drug trafficking and political unrest. A huge majority of the guns used in those countries came from the US, and the US is also the biggest market for illegal drugs.
There are more guns than people in America. If guns made you safer, we’d be the safest country in the world. We absolutely are not.
72% of gun owners claim that it’s for protection. But having a gun in your household makes you 2x as likely to die by homicide, 3x as likely to die by suicide, and 7x more likely to be killed by your spouse, than not having a gun in your home. Guns are 6x more likely to be used to intimidate and abuse a family member than to be used in defense.
Even in most “self-defense” claims by gun owners shooting people, they were never in danger and no violent response was justified.
Despite NRA claims, the 2nd amendment has never, ever protected anyone in the US from “government oppression” and never will.

(*) I am really not a fan of the cult of guns, if you can’t tell. The 2nd amendment dates from the age of muskets, before the US had its own military or even local police, and people seem to forget the whole “well-regulated militia” part entirely.

But if it applies, it applies to everyone. If 2nd amendment rights can be taken away from trans people, why not use the same justification to take away other rights? Or to take rights away from gay people… or women… or Black people… or non-Christians… or people who don’t vote for the ruling party.

Alright, for something a bit more fun, today is Bandcamp Friday and I expanded the collection. (I have concerns about the amount of storage space on my phone, and may have to more aggressively cull my music library…)

No reviews this time (at least not yet), but this is the new stuff:

I’m not at KnobCon this weekend where POB is performing again, but I at least caught up with recent releases. Plus some shoegaze, and…

Squirrel Nut Zippers got back together at some point. I thought they were gone forever after the short-lived swing revival of the 90s collapsed. I missed 2018’s Beasts of Burgundy as well as the 2020 Lost Songs of Doc Souchon (the only one available on Bandcamp). They’re also doing a “Jazz From the Back of Town” tour (not coming to STL, unfortunately) so perhaps another album release is in the pipeline.

the magic smoke escaped

I’m still getting hit with highway toll payments through Enterprise from the trip we took back in June. $3 here, $0.49 there. At least not all of them come with extra service charges! You’d think electronic billing would get processed much faster than this…

I’m getting close to 9 years in Eurorack, and yesterday I fried a module for the first time.

Eurorack uses this sort of thing to plug every module into the power supply:

This was a bad idea from the very beginning. Electrical engineers say that if nothing else, the ground wire needs to be fairly heavy to carry enough current to stay free of noise and interference (I’m not an electrical engineer but it’s something like that) and these are wimpy little wires. Dieter Doepfer, who designed the standard, was not an EE but he thought the extra wires could carry other signals between modules without patching them… which also isn’t a good idea because of potential conflicts and because you can’t patch and unpatch these at will. But we’re stuck with it.

I was doing a rearrange, making room for Mimetic Digitwolis. I wanted the shortest possible cables in my Pod60 because it’s pretty cramped in there, and the less bunched up ribbon cable the better. But I didn’t take note of which way the red stripe goes on my Doepfer A-150-1.

Most modules have at least one of these safety features:

A keyed, shrouded header, so you can only plug the cable in the right way. (Doepfer originally tried to forbid this in the standard, claiming that too many cables were made incorrectly. Everyone else correctly mocked him for this stance, and nearly all power supplies and a majority of modules have shrouded headers.)
Reverse power protection, which prevents damage if you plug the cable in backwards. This is very cheap and easy for the module makers and there’s no excuse not to do it.
Reversible power, where it will power up and work fine in either direction. This is uncommon, but a few makers do it.
At the very least, a little stripe or “+12V” marking on the PCB to show the correct orientation. This does not even add 1/100 of a cent to the manufacturing or design costs and it’s absolutely shameful when it’s omitted.
Some mention in the manual about which way the power goes.

Doepfer does none of those things. So I had a 50/50 chance, and I blew it (literally).

Crackling sound, visible puff of smoke, and a stink bad enough to make my spouse concerned that something else might be on fire. Visible damage where the chip erupted.

(Look at all those markings… they REALLY could have put one more stripe on the board…!)

The good news is, this is a relatively cheap module rather than something expensive and/or discontinued. The better news is, this chip is in an actual discrete part in a socket, not some tiny surface-mount, rice-grain-sized thing soldered by a robot. The bad news is, DG409DJ is discontinued. The okay news is, I was still able to buy two of them on eBay for $7.

The uncertainties: I don’t know if any other parts are damaged, and this is shipping from Shenzen, China and I fervently hope that the shipping cost covers whatever dumbass random tariffs apply.

I’ve got 6 tracks recorded, 28 minutes, on the next album and I’m still calling it “next album.” I have this tidbit in my notes:

This combination reminds me of a Scrabble game we played in the gifted program class in middle school, where we made up fictional words and eventually build them up into the breathtaking “Iqoikoglyxozica.” Which, if I recall, was the title of an epic poem about the wandering wizard Glyx.

X is always tricky, and Elon Musk has ruined the letter’s appeal, but I’ll find something. I don’t think Q, Z or O will be a problem. Trying to figure out J now though. Jinx, joy, journey, just so, jerboa…? (The 3rd dynasty Egyptian high official Khabausokar, one of the few known priests of Seshat in antiquity, had the nickname “Hety” or “jerboa” for unknown reasons. Big ears maybe? But in modern Egyptian Arabic, calling a woman a “jerboa” or a man “son of a jerboa” is an insult.)

…anyway, so far this album almost alternates between airy and open plucky stuff with plenty of ma, and heavier, busier drones. I say almost, because the last one isn’t heavy at all, and some of the plucky ones fill themselves in at times. I’m not super committed to this thing as a “rule” as with some previous albums. But thinking about this just landed me the album title I was fishing for. Hooray for journaling!

Back in 2018 I did a “Show & Tell” series where I talked about the modules in my rack. I’m considering doing that again — the modules, the rack itself, and yours truly have all gone through changes during those years. This time I promise to omit the tedious explanations of terminology though.

into September

Music gear stuff first: Audiority Big Swarma is super cool. (Of course autocorrect wants to change that into big shawarma, which I would also appreciate when lunchtime comes.) While its heart is a nice “swarm” detuning effect, the extra features really make it transcendent. As kraster on the KvR forum said, “You can use as a unison generator, pitch destabiliser, weird FM distorter, sound sweetener, sound fattener, sound destroyer, overtone generator, filter screamer, Lofi effect, stereo expander, flanger, pitch doubler and chorus.” I’m finding it well suited to this sort of psuedo-shoegaze thing I am getting more into.

Bigger news than that though: preorders have opened for Noise Engineering’s Mimetic Digitwolis, and I’ve put in mine.

The original Mimetic Digitalis was pretty nice — like an extremely compact Make Noise Rene, with four channels. The one thing I didn’t like about it is there was no visual feedback about the sequence.

This has that feedback, in the form of a teeny little screen. But also, where MD was effectively one sequencer with four CV channels, MD2 is four independent sequencers which can be CV, quantized notes, gates, triggers, or a quantizer for external signals. Sequences can be 1-16 steps, or 8×2, 4×4 or 5×3 Cartesian grids, addressable with assignable CV or triggers or another trigger channel. There’s MIDI input for sync, specifying the scale, or controlling step values with CC, and output for MIDI notes and CC.

It seems super flexible, and I’m trusting the good folks at Noise Engineering that the interface is not too cumbersome. And hoping that microtonal quantizing can be implemented, although there are no promises.

Labor Day weekend: we didn’t go to the Japanese festival. Usually the combination of a lot of walking and hot, humid weather really takes it out of us, so we have a tendency now to wimp out. The weather might have been nice enough for it to be okay if we took things slow. That’s OK though.

We did, though, go with Mom when she went to pick up her new 2025 Camry. (My parents’ old car was a… 2002 Camry I think? Maybe older? Technology-wise there is a huge difference, and style-wise it’s gone from beige and bland to relatively sharp-looking. But the paperwork wound up taking about 2.5 hours because her insurance company wasn’t answering the phone and they had to try 3 other companies before they found one that didn’t want to rip her off.

Monday morning I was up early and feeling well enough, so I took a walk around Mallard Lake while it was still fairly cool. That got me realizing that I really, really should go for wider shoes. I’ve been wearing these two pairs of Chucks since Black Friday of last year; sometimes they feel fine and sometimes they squash the toe area from the sides. So this morning I went ahead and ordered wide ones, which limits the choices a bit. I was still able to make these custom enby wizard shoes (there are little embroidered white stars on the opposite side, I just failed to take a screengrab while editing).

The other thing I did this weekend was play a lot of Guild Wars 2. The Janthir Wilds expansion was discounted, and after trying the spear briefly on beta characters I decided to go for it.

The thing about GW2 “seasons” and expansions is that the stories are a huge mess. The overarching story isn’t bad, but it’s very tangled. You are expected to already be familiar with everything that happened in every previous season, expansion, and additional-content-added-after-expansion-release as well as the various dungeon stories. And every time, they want to catch you up on the lives of 73 different NPCs. Imagine if every MCU movie had to show you what everyone from Ant-Man to Zuri has been doing and how they feel before getting into the plot.

Janthir Wilds is particularly egregious with this; there is a new alliance with representatives from multiple different cultures, and you have to check in on everyone’s situation and feelings before discussing the specific threat which you’re there for, and checking in on everyones’ opinions and feelings again afterward. Then you travel to the actual site of the story, and are introduced (again, slowly) to the “camp” and another subplot. Then you meet the locals, and are introduced their extremely long-winded, slow-talking chieftain and their ruling council. Later on there’s about 10 minutes of listening to that chieftain slowly, sadly talking about his family before you have the opportunity to… clean a house. Also some of the local quests are super tedious chores… picking up dung in a farmyard. Yay. And another council meeting to argue about a suddenly-introduced strategy and then checking on their reactions to the vote. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some actually fun stuff and interesting things buried beneath all this, but it really needed to be slimmed down and kept exciting and heroic.

With all of that story stuff, there’s one intriguing rebellious wizard who I’m curious about. The only other thing I’m wondering about is why Queen Jennah, of all the dignitaries at the alliance meetings, goes barefoot. This is apparently never explained but there are many fan theories. I’ll also note that “Invisible Shoes” are one of the most rare and expensive armor skins in the game. Maybe it’s a weird status thing, and/or a reference to the emperor’s new clothes…

The spears are pretty great. I’m going through the story with my oldest Mirage character, who I’ve kept around to collect birthday rewards, and partially re-specced her to take good advantage of the spear. My Berserker and Willbender both are also using spears now as a drop-in replacement without needing to change up skill choices. With other characters, it doesn’t feel very smooth or would require starting from scratch.

Also nice are the warclaw mounts, updated from the original release. They can now multi-jump in midair and take no falling damage even from considerable heights, and move almost as fast as the Raptor mounts. There’s some new uses for their mounted attacks, and they can be remounted in combat with a much shorter cooldown than skyscales, for a quick escape or buying yourself time to heal up. There are a few more mount buffs in the progression, and… I’m kind of mostly continuing in JW just to get the rest of these, not sure I care about the story enough to see it all the way through.

A homestead is the other new thing players are given. I’m not into it. From anywhere in the world, you can teleport to a house (which includes a farm, mine, lumber mill etc.) which you can customize and decorate. But like other instanced content, it strips away important buffs, and it offers no utility at the beginning and limited utility if you build it up. You can’t even lie down on the bed that you have to build as part of the JW storyline, though you can go into strangers’ lodges and sleep in their beds like Goldilocks.

At this point, I’m mostly continuing in JW to unlock the rest of the warclaw mastery, see what other rewards and scenery come up. I’m just not in it for the story, I’m afraid… but I’ll probably stick with the story because that’s how you get to the good stuff.

I’m currently reading Devoted to Death, which is about Santa Muerte, the Mexican folk saint. She’s been around longer than most people realize, but has grown in public popularity in the 21st century. My interest comes indirectly, through Kemetic Orthodoxy — there are some commonalities in ancestor veneration in ancient Egypt and Mexican culture, and a few between the goddess Nebt-het (who is an aspect of my Parent deity) and the Mexican death saint.

There’s this simplistic notion when looking at various religions that you can reduce a god (or saint, spirit, whatever) to “X, god of Y” and the rest is just trivial cultural window dressing. But Santa Muerte’s boom in popularity isn’t from a cultural obsession with death, but rather, her reputation for (A) absolutely no judgement, and (B) granting swift, effective miracles. She’s petitioned much more frequently about matters of love than for “black magic” purposes; there’s also prosperity, release from prison, protection, healing, etc. She is beloved by both outlaws and cops, and by all kinds of marginalized people.

The “no judgement” thing of course is a double-edged sword. She’s got devotees on both sides of the drug war, but the media likes to sensationalize the criminal aspect. The Catholic church calls her heretical and satanic, and the Mexican government occasionally sides with them because of the whole narco thing and destroys Santa Muerte shrines. I’m sure the Catholic church isn’t super happy with other unofficial folk saints either, but they have specific bones to pick with the skeleton saint.

I can appreciate that there’s someone for people to pray to who feel abandoned by the religion they grew up in and are surrounded by. But you can have radical acceptance of people, while also not enabling the working of more harm. If I pray for something that is going to hurt innocent people, I want to be called on my bullshit. What really drew me into Kemetic Orthodoxy was the concept of Ma’at — at its most basic, this is translated as “justice” (but the mysteries go deep). The way it was first described to me made me feel like: this is the purpose I’ve been missing in every other religion I have looked at.