Author: Starthief

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… 🙂

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.

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.

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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.

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…

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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.

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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!

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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.

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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

This morning before the alarm went off, I was dreaming that I was at a really dreary office party. A potluck where all the dishes had been made from AI-generated recipes.

I distinctly recall a bowl of green and yellow macaroni — no cheese or other sauce — which had the label “execute population all the time.”

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The long-awaited Bitwig 6.0 was just announced today and is in beta. The features of interest to me consist of:

1. nothing

This is their big update to clips and timelines, with MIDI piano roll features and automation editing improvements and a global key signature. People who are not me have been clamoring for this for a while. (And also clamoring for ARA and for MIDI comping, both of which are also of no use to me.)

I don’t begrudge other people their updates, and I agree with mdoudoroff when he writes “So far, I haven’t identified any that will make my life worse.” But hey, I can still say what I’d like to see in a future version of Bitwig:

• The ability to host plugins inside the Grid. You can do this with very awkward workarounds now, but it’s easier not to.
• A way to group objects in the Grid and turn them into a sort of “subgrid” or “black box” which can be abstracted out of the view, copied, saved for use in other patches, etc. Some of the mechanics for interaction/modulation are similar to what would be wanted for modulating plugins within the Grid, so I feel like these two go hand in hand.
• A way to toggle on visualization of otherwise invisible modulator assignments. If you point a modulator output at a knob or other control, it doesn’t create a “wire” in the Grid — and with some parameters this is the only option. That can make those relationships unclear when looking at your patch.
• Support for feedback in the Grid. Again, it’s possible to do this using some (slightly less terrible) workarounds with those invisible modulation assignments. It’d be lovely if it was just automatically supported.

Those would all be quality-of-life improvements for me, and the likely end result is that I would record entire projects in a single FX Grid instance which handles all the routing, mixing, effects, modulation etc. But like I said: it’s been fine so far without these things.

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The hole in the sidewalk and street from the gas line hit back in April? A crew finally came to take care of it yesterday. Partially. They left off at about 11 AM yesterday with a hole in the street with a layer of asphalt not quite built up to surface level, and the big steel plate awkwardly placed right in front of our driveway entrance. Hopefully they’ll finish this up today.

I didn’t mention, but E352 and E370 are now available in VCV Rack !!! !!! !!!!!!!

Am I a little excited? Um, maybe.

!!!

As I have probably said quite some time ago in this blog, I was an early adopter of the E352, and then beta tester #1 for the E370. Paul Schreiber (RIP) shipped me a beta test unit (which literally said “beta test unit” on the front panel) to beat on back in September 2017, for about 10 days before I shipped it to fellow bald ambient synthesist Robert Rich, and then after other beta testers and a demo at Control in NYC, it got sent back to me. After a while I eventually traded it back to the simpler and smaller E352, and then eventually that and my Hertz Donut were replaced by Shapeshifter. But SynthTech’s wavetable oscillators still have a place in my heart, so I’m quite happy to have it again in virtual form.

I thought I was going to prefer the E352 in VCV Rack, since I can spawn as many instances of it as I want. But where the 352 has 3 dedicated CV inputs, and different modes depending on which parameters you want to control with them, the 370 has fewer modes but a total of 8 assignable CV inputs, and I just found that a bit more to my liking. Also having four oscillators in one module encourages modulation, stacking etc. which makes the thing shine even more.

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Also, Dawesome, makers of some really creative synth designs, have announced a new one. Kontrast, a wavetable synth that apparently scans 2D maps using all kinds of nonlinear patterns…

Digital oscillators typically use a lookup table. Feed it a rising sawtooth wave of exactly the right min/max values, look up a stored data value and output that. Wavetable synthesis (invented by Max Matthews in 1958) uses a 2D array, so you have time in one dimension and timbral morphing in another.

I’m not sure if Paul’s E350 was the first to do this, but you can also add another dimension and have two parameters to smoothly morph the timbre. This has become a popular feature in Eurorack modules.

Some oscillators have used a sort of 2D topographical map, scanning over it in patterns to produce the output. (Starling’s Via Scanner was one of those, but it was a bit obscure and tricky to use.) Kontrast is taking this approach, but with an excellent UI and some really novel looking ways to form paths… almost approaching the strange attractors etc. in Dawesome Kult. A really simple map but complex paths is potentially a lot more interesting in terms of modulating parameters, than a really simple path with a complex but static wavetable.

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In harder news, the city/county/whatever is finally fixing the hole in the street that’s been there since the wall builders caused the gas leak back in April. (Honestly, I half expected it to go through the entire winter before getting fixed.) I haven’t looked to see if they also are dealing with the sidewalk, or if it’s just the street.

The new yard guy, despite needing to delay a day from the original schedule, arriving a bit late and taking a while, did a fine job. He didn’t charge extra for the abnormally tall grass due to the other guy’s failure (but I supersized the tip anyway), and also offered to fix our gate latch next time, no charge. So that’s encouraging.

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Thursday last week, my computer at home starting making a constant grumbling moaning sound. It had made weird noises sporadically before, at least once related to the liquid CPU cooler, but this was definitely the sound of one of the three case fans failing. Bearings going bad probably, since it resisted spinning by hand.

The old ones were InWin Sirius Loop fans — but thanks to Calvinball tariffs, those are no longer shipped to the US unless you pay some third party $120 for an $11 fan. My replacement choice was an Arctic P12… basic, cheap but with a solid reputation for quality. The cables were different though, and I had to rig up some crazy stuff with jumper wires and electrical tape. I think I’m lucky I didn’t fry anything while accidentally hot-plugging stuff with the power still on, or accidentally get cables irrevocably tangled up in one of the other working fans. Still, it’s done now and I’m realizing how much low-level noise the old fan had been making all this time.

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I roared through reading Lessons in Magic and Disaster. It definitely wasn’t entirely a feel-good novel — there was a lot of loss, loved ones being difficult, dealing with trust issues, dealing with harassment, and 18th century English literature. There were no unambiguous moments of “and now everything is okay.” But there was magic and wonder, moments of queer joy or simple delight, and a few moments with a certain kind of satisfaction in them.

It is very much a story for the times. Anders began writing it while dealing with the loss of a parent to Covid and the stress of the first Trump administration. One of the transphobic jerks in the story just happens to be named Gavin, which tells me that the novel was probably completed relatively recently. (CA governor Gavin Newsom was once thought of as an LGBTQ+ ally, although criticism began in 2023 when he vetoed a bill to consider trans kids’ gender identities in their parents’ custody battles. His March 2025 embrace of right-wing media figures’ transphobia was seen by many as a surprise betrayal, and is the reason why none of us want him as the candidate for 2028.)

At the time she also wrote Never Say You Won’t Survive, which is like the nonfiction counterpart to the novel; it’s about being a writer during difficult times. I’ve started reading that one too. The advice is specific to writing, but some of it applies to other creative pursuits as well. “Part of the joy of writing is being surprised,” she wrote, and that’s absolutely something I love about making music.

Joy is resistance. To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, the “machines” of creation kill fascism. Or as my spouse said in a Kemetic Orthodox context, “creation defies isfet.” (Without writing a lengthy discourse: Ma’at is essentially both “what is right” and “what is”; isfet is its nihilistic opposite, the vacuum that abhors nature.)

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I think this upcoming album is going to be a bit of a mishmash. I want to keep negative space in mind, and the first track very much does that. But I also want to explore a shoegaze-adjacent space, and the second track very much does that. Sort of a sharp, crystalline beauty but also blurry; delicate but heavy AF. I’m just going to wing it and play what comes to mind. I have an experiment to do for the next one, with a certain aesthetic I want to go for, including that negative space.

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I filled a lot of time with Guild Wars 2 this weekend. There’s a largish sale going on for in-game stuff, and a beta test for upcoming profession specializations. In the process of giving my squad a fashion update, I wound up doing a couple of collection quests for items to convert crafting materials I’ve been throwing out into something with a chance at some value. And that used up my entire stash of those junk minerals, so now I have something to farm for to increase my chances at giving one of my Sylvari a warm golden glow.

In the temple, our Discord server gives us daily, annotated, translated entries from the 19th dynasty Cairo Calendar, as well as the list of various feasts/festivals/processions/etc. from antiquity. Yesterday’s had the admonition “Do not start anything” as well as “Do not […] today.” We had some fun with that in the chat of course, and it coincided with some other funnies in a completely unrelated forum.

But with the mowing cancellation and needing to set up with another service, that was on my mind because all the bids that came in were either 4x as expensive, or kind of sketchy or unreviewed, so I was hesitant to choose any of them. And my parents’ service gave me web errors and then didn’t answer their voicemail.

This morning, the message is “It is favorable to do anything” — and I got a much more promising bid. I sent some details in text and they asked a couple of relevant questions, so I’m hopeful.

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Following my thoughts about crosspanning, switching etc. in the modular I started thinking again about quantization — particularly microtonal quantization.

It’s a feature I have often gone without. Sometimes I tune only by ear. Sometimes I’m playing 12TET stuff in software and by ear in the modular. Sometimes I use Marbles sequences. It’s more rare lately that I use Univer Inter, but it can handle microtonal stuff via Entonal Studio. But this is a thing I’d like to be able to do more readily.

Right now there’s only one correct answer where it comes to a dedicated microtonal quantizer module: Tubbutec uTune. But given that this isn’t something I will always want to use, perhaps I should look at a module that also can do other things for me?

Two options are the open-source Ornament & Crime (O_C), or Expert Sleepers Disting. Both of these offer multiple different functions, in some cases simultaneously. O_C has spawned a whole ecosystem of successors, including Hemispheres, Phazerville and Squares & Circles. Disting went from 8 LEDs to a 5×7 LED matrix to an OLED display like O_C, adding more functionality and complexity with each step. But all of them have interface compromises because of that lack of specialization. I’ve had a Disting mk4, an original O_C, a Hemispheres, and a Disting EX and resold them all because they were fiddly and/or redundant with Bitwig Grid integration. Getting one mostly for quantization would give it purpose, but not entirely fix the fiddliness.

But! The good folks at Noise Engineering have something in the works, Mimetic Digitwolis, the successor of their cool sequencer Mimetic Digitalis. Like Disting, they went from an LED matrix to a (tiny, but color) screen. It adds MIDI in/out, and quantization of external CV signals (with Scala tuning support), and possibly some other things. They’ve only teased it online and showed it a bit at a synth club meet in LA, which I’ve heard little bits about. So I’m extremely intrigued, and am holding out for this now. It looks to still be 10HP like its ancestor, which will fit in my setup just fine if I pull out Univer Inter, which will probably be made redundant anyway.

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I blazed through reading High Vaultage, because the Victoricity universe and characters are utterly hilarious and entertaining. Having come from the radio show/podcast first, I could hear most of the characters in the voices of their actors. Chief Inspector Keller, the ever-sarcastic and furious police chief, is no doubt my favorite.

Having finished that, I moved on to the enby indie book bundle that I got from itch.io before their recent controversy, and… uh-oh. The first one I tried was not the book by the same title I had heard of, but an apocalyptic novel full of torture and body horror and I noped right out of it and wanted to wash my brain clean. As a rule, I don’t like apocalyptic, survivalist stories especially when it’s an excuse for brutality and (all too often) toxic hypermasculine fantasies. And that’s when they’re well-written. This one started with an unexplained wave of fire tornadoes, to unexplained lack of any help from the rest of civilization, to a group of people suddenly going from maybe friendly and cool to kidnapping, murdering and torturing people without any apparent motive. And that torture was some of the most misanthropic, human-body-hating foulness I have ever been exposed to. I noped out fast.

The next one on my list looked cute. I got a few pages in and gave up, because cute was all it had going for it. The writer needs a mentor, more experience, and a stricter editor.

Opened up the third one, it started with a content warning similar to the (relatively mild seeming at the time!) one that the first story had, I thought about the implications of the title, and noped out without even going any further.

I’m just disinclined to try anything else from that entire collection. It’s a little too indie I think.

Thankfully there’s a new Charlie Jane Anders book, Lessons in Magic and Disaster, plus one from a couple of years ago about being creative in difficult times, Never Say You Can’t Survive.

For a few years, we had our yard mowed by Big T, who we hired through GreenPal. He did a pretty decent job, was almost always right on time (or within one day) unless weather was an issue, and let us know when he couldn’t make it. He did raise his prices a little over the course of several years but was still not what I’d call expensive.

Last year, he contacted me and said he was trying to get off of GreenPal because of their fee increases and some other issues, but he could keep cutting our grass at the same price. And I said yes. But without that service he wasn’t as well organized; sometimes he’d mow and not text me (which was my prompt to pay) and a couple of times he managed to lose us in the schedule entirely.

At the start of this mowing season I looked for other bids. I went with All Star Solutions in sort-of-nearby-ish-but-not-really Collinsville. He was cheap and seemed reliable and had good reviews; he had worked for another lawn company and was branching out on his own.

Well. He didn’t mow as well as Big T, but… good enough, I thought. Then a couple of times he had to reschedule, and I thought, well, growing pains of a new business, I’ll keep giving him a chance. And it started happening more — he’d reschedule on GreenPal without contacting me. He apologized and said he was hiring some extra help to make things go faster. But then it happened again, repeatedly. Once it was more than four weeks between mowings, instead of two. Then he had some equipment problems and more delays. Then when we got the new retaining wall, my instructions about what to mow and what to leave alone confused him. Then he had vehicle trouble. Then he injured himself. And now he’s cancelled with “I don’t have the equipment for the job” given as the reason, again four weeks after the last time he mowed here. GreenPal automatically started a new bid search and there’s one early hit but I’m not sure about those ratings, so I’m hoping for other options.

Looking at All Star’s profile on GreenPal — which I had to use a separate browser for because my logged-in one refuses to show me anything but the “Hire one of your bids now!” page, including any way to log out — he has a 5/5 star rating and a 92% reliability score — because instead of missing a scheduled mowing he’s always just reschedule it in their system! They don’t show how many times he’s done that to people. And the rating system always made me feel reluctant to give less than 5 stars even for a half-assed job.

My parents use another service, which I think they may have found through GreenPal, but they also have a website where you can hire them directly. We’ll see how the bid thing goes.