Saturday 12 May 2007
I’ve been messing about with Flash and Actionscript lately, and one of my big motivations was was wanting to finish the Presonance site.
Some months ago, I started trading files with Rezo Largul, and we decided to use the name “Presonance” for our collaboration, and “Mycestene” as a name for an eventual CD. So far we’ve completed four tracks and have a couple of others in the works. The finished ones are now up, along with some pretty little visualizations (yup, there’s the Flash programming coming into play). Spacy analogue waltzes, mysterious orchestral arrangements colliding with mad electronic rhythms, a dose of Casseiopean free jazz…
Have a listen! You can download the tracks there too.
And in the acoustic world, another Toronto lamppost has been graced with its own built-in bass. Now that I’ve got a new digital audio recorder I’ll have to pay the new “Garrison Creek” bass a visit. All hail RGB for bringing more music to our parks and sidewalks!
Monday 5 March 2007
15 minutes to a ribbon controller. Oh, rock on. I’d all but given up looking for an anti-static plastic bag with the right resistance (as suggested by the article from PAiA). Sadly I don’t have an SVHS tape to sacrifice at the moment, but I’m wondering if the tape in a DAT cassette will work.
[Edit: I tried the DAT. No dice. But graphite works! I scribbled a big black line on a piece of paper using a soft pencil, put a clip on either end, and used a bare wire as a wiper. Down side: it does get on your fingers. Go for the SVHS tape.]
Found the link on the companion blog to Make, O’Reilly’s wondrous gonzo DIY-tech magazine. Recent links include knitted fruit, the latest add-ons for your favorite microcontrollers, a gorgeous “steampunk” keyboard and a photo-gallery of some of the freakiest basses ever.
I did have a subscription to ReadyMade, the other big magazine on the DIY scene, but I won’t be renewing. Make gets a bit technical, but I like its philosophy better. It’s much more about hacking - finding out how everything works, and adapting it to your own purposes. ReadyMade is much more about household stuff, and so much of it is about cute-looking furniture that you can buy, er, ready-made. There are quite a few neat articles, and I certainly don’t mind the household angle, but I wish they’d go deeper: what sort of materials to use, designing for longevity, the philosophy behind everyday objects, that sort of thing.
Tuesday 16 August 2005
From time to time, the four of us in this house get together with a friend or two for coffee or dinner and talk about Stuff - tonight it was a long conversation about spirituality and purpose and big things like that. Afterward, we wandered up Augusta St into Kensington Market, and sat for a while in Bellevue Square Park, chatting and watching the action: two rambunctious dogs, a grizzled guy with a staff who seemed to be putting hexes on people…
And then I looked up at the light standard next to our picnic bench, and saw that it had strings.
Someone had drilled holes in the aluminum pole, bolted on a makeshift bridge, and strung it like an upright bass. Above the nut (if it can be called that) was inscribed “The Kensington Bass”, and below, the artist’s name (though I understand he’s a bit secretive about it now). It was tunable, and in pretty good tune. It’s been there, according to the inscription, since June. I amused myself playing all the Soul Coughing songs I could remember. A bit hard to play for my hands, used to playing electric… but still, how delightful!
