an indispensable accessory for the New Masculinist
February 2011
"Software Caddy Variation"
"Software Caddy Variation" [mp3 removed]
The beats are from Reaktor's Rhythmaker synth, beefed up with reverb, delay, and compression; the pads are Carbon 2. I keep coming back to Rhythmaker because it is a pure electro synth--no PCM (samples), it's a series of dedicated channels (kick, snare, percussion, toms) with tweakable variables driven by an onboard sequencer. Basically a software 808 with more up-to-date sound generators (e.g., spectral synthesis for the snare). The two beats used in this song are presets where I made small changes to the sequences and levels on the individual channels. Other variables included switching between wet and dry on the reverb effect, and seeing how different beats interacted with different pads. The song starts out minimal and gets more lush as it goes.
Let us read your mind
Was called a concern troll recently for making fun of Apple, since I don't use Apple. You can't escape their products, though. A few days ago I mentioned to someone that I had written about Minecraft here. He gave me his phone and I typed "Minecraft" into the search field to the right. I got an "Apologies, but we were unable to find..." notice from the Word Press software. How could that be? Tried it again and realized the so-called smart phone was changing "minecraft" to "mineshaft" as I was typing. There's the Apple philosophy: "We will protect you from your mistakes even if we are less reliable than you are."
Hugo Flesch
For some reason I thought of Hugo Flesch yesterday, who wrote amusing filler items for the Village Voice back in the '80s. Filler is an odd vestige of the print era, before computerized typesetting, when gaps appeared in the final newspaper page layout that had to be filled with classifieds or random bits of text. Flesch, who also wrote for the National Lampoon, turned deadpan, absurdist filler items into his special art. A quick Googling revealed no cult of Hugo, but I found a PDF of his college newspaper, which showed him writing filler before he even graduated! Above is a screenshot from the Stony Brook paper.
Update: In case it needs mentioning: Lou Grant doesn't exist, he is a TV character played by Ed Asner.
