I transcribed the music in the Drawing In (v.3) video to MIDI and tried it out with a few standard library instruments. Which wasn’t all that impressive initially but something odd happened when I added the timing track in — what had been a fairly basic delay effect on the Glockenspiel (substituting for the bell sound from the MS‑20) started doing some fairly wild and wonderful things. I’m not sure quite why, but this is clearly adding some modulation to the delay timing, so it probably qualifies as a flanging effect. After listening to it for a while I realised it is similar to some effects I heard long ago, possibly on some Pink Floyd albums from about 1971. So presumably you can do this sort of thing with tape delays.

This is the audio output I’m getting. Not a finished track, just for illustration.

To be clear, I wouldn’t expect audio arrangement software to do this. It seems like a bad idea if timing changes can affect your sound. But I’m starting to like the result. I just want a way to do it deliberately without having to change the timing.

(Found this again and thought I might as well post it.)

slowly, near-disbelieving,
in our blindfold race to be, or
to perceive what truth may lie untamed
beyond the worldʼs analgesic persuasions,
together we pieced
these clues and visions
seized from our
inculcated dreams,
and so, discerned
its trail of shame,
grasped, and so saw past
its dress and painted finery,
and within, beheld at last
the tortured face
of true horror;
and so finally,
we have learned
its dismal name:
normality

‘an offering to the goths’ electropict 2019

A little while ago I obtained a stack of old electronic instrument paperwork which I’ve been sorting through and am planning to scan. To start with, this is a single sheet giving what seems to be an update for the Armon “A61S-A492-K4009-ARMONPIANO”. I’m not clear whether that’s one or three separate models. The update is for a revision to a tone generator board, now AR-27. It’s undated but I’d guess late-70s. Perhaps this will be of interest to someone?

original drawing by Armon c.1970s

A little note about Quasimidi’s typography.

For some years I’ve been writing the Quasimidi 309’s full name as Rave-0-Lution with a zero in the middle rather than a capital O, which I’ve never liked but had somehow believed it was the original. But it struck me earlier that I can’t remember why I thought that, so I should check. And I realised that I can’t tell the difference at a glance between the O (presumably) in LUTION and the 0 (presumably) in 309 anyway, let alone decide which of them the middle character matches.

I do have a PDF of the manual but it’s a scan. As it happens I’ve had the font — Serpentine Bold Italic (PS Type 1) since about the time Quasimidi made this and it’s a good bet that they had the same font, as it was part of a Freehand package at the time if I recall. So I looked at them on screen to see if there’s a difference and couldn’t see any. So I put them one atop the other in Illustrator with colours mixed, and, yes, there’s a difference, but to be honest it’s so slight that it might as well not be there.

I never much liked this font though I probably used it for odd jobs around that time once or twice as we weren’t spoiled for choice. (Nor were Quasimidi.) But this isn’t what I’d call good design. Perhaps this package is traced from the originals, and the originals were identical? In which case I shouldn’t bother asking if it’s a zero and just use the O? I took close up shots of the middle character and the O as printed on the Q309 to compare, and put the one atop the other in Photoshop. There’s less of a difference here than between the font outlines, but still, there is a difference, and most of the differences are in the same places, which I think is a smaller difference than you’d expect from lithographic printing on brushed aluminium anyway. (In both images the majuscule O is in green and the zero (?) is in red.)

I’m not completely certain one way or the other, but I’m feeling free to write it as Rave-O-lution rather than Rave-zero-lution in future.

Video of a practice session with the third iteration of ‘Drawing In’.

Audio produced by:

• Behringer 2600
• Coron Drum Synthe RDS
• Korg MS-10
• Korg MS-20
• Quasimidi Rave-O-lution 309
• Waldorf Rocket
• Yamaha CS-5
• Yamaha CS-15

I count seven sequencers currently in use in this version.

Sometimes you seem to leave messages for your future self. I found this scribble in a box of 20-year-old documents I was sorting through.

In the moment of your birth you began to learn to breathe, inhaling air, exhaling; crying at first; it was as new to you as you to the world. But you had an instinct for it. What didn’t come naturally came before long through learning — when to breathe and when not to breathe, and when to breathe in and when to breathe out. I assume this is all true, because you’re still alive.

And yet the strange thing is, you’re not happy. I wonder why we don’t have the same instinct for happiness we have for air. We know somewhere that once a moment’s joy is in us we have to let it go again lest it turn stale and choke us . . . yet it seems difficult to turn this knowledge into action . . . as if we spent our days turning red in the face and moaning about letting the moment’s breath go.

So learn: Each moment of joy is that moment’s joy; it cannot be grasped without halting the flow of happiness by which you live. Breathe it out, use it for speech or for song, but at all events, do not seek to squeeze it within you and suck up more without letting the old air go. Learn to breathe again.

Happiness is like breathing. You cannot hold a breath for long lest it turn stale and choke you, but you learned to breathe it seems . . .  You must also learn to exhale this moment’s happiness and allow the next moment’s joy in.

(Update: Since people seem to like it, here it is as a printable PDF.)