SteveCastellano.com

there, that's a better picture

I didn’t mention in my previous post that my Etherwave was missing a part when I bought it. It wasn’t an essential, large, or expensive part – it was a compression nut that should have held the pitch antenna in place. Gravity does a fair job though, and as long as I wasn’t planning on playing on a moving flatbed things were going to be just fine. But I called my local dealer to ask if they had a replacement part anyway. They didn’t. They said, “We could order it for you, but you could just get one at your local hardware store.” So I went to my local hardware store, and my visit produced much head-scratching, but no compression nut. So I emailed Moog Music to ask if I could just order the part directly from them.

I emailed them on a Sunday. They emailed me back a few minutes after ten a.m. on the following day, and after confirming which part I was missing, assured me that they had it literally in hand and were dropping it in the mail for me. An envelope appeared in my mailbox this week, containing the missing part, and a spare. No charge. Not even postage.

I have had pretty much boundless admiration for the late Bob Moog and the instruments that bear his name for as long as I can remember. And to find out that the company that continues to carry his name is this decent and helpful to someone who bought one of their least expensive products second hand has really just made my week.

Marketers tend to go on ad nauseam about how important word of mouth is and what kind of social marketing strategy or viral video or what-have-you will get customers talking about their clients’ products. But Moog Music’s practice of making quality gear that they stand behind, and being just plain nice folks, is a great example to follow.

my first moog

As I mentioned in the previous post, scanning the musical instruments classifieds on Craigslist is a mindless pastime of mine; I do it habitually and not quite obsessively. I’ve found some pretty good deals there over the years; the Motif ES 7 is probably the best example. I’ve also made some impulse purchases that I’ve changed my mind about, like the Sequential Six-Trak.

Craigslist isn’t a secret anymore; it’s a pretty high-traffic channel. Which means it also has a pretty high noise floor, and aside from the occasional chuckle it can make a grown man wonder if he’s wasting his time. But I keep at it, a bit like the compulsive gambler but without the risk – because occasionally I have days like last Saturday, when I found someone in Markham listing a used Moog Etherwave theremin for sale or trade.

I borrowed a PAiA Theremax from the friend of a friend a few years back and found it kind of fun to play with, but the build quality and sound of those models is not really up to my standard. To be fair, they are sold mostly as oddities, in kit form, for hobbyists – and they’re very reasonably priced. So I knew I would get a theremin eventually, and the obvious choice would be a Moog. And I’ve been keeping an eye out for years now. It’s tricky to play, but rewarding. I’m running it through Mainstage on the MacBook Pro and latency is negligible – but you have to turn the automatic feedback sensing off, for obvious reasons. I’ll post some audio when I can produce something listenable.

I haven’t uploaded any original music in a while so I thought I’d just toss this one up here for you to listen to and comment on. Recent developments in OS X and Logic Studio necessitated my upgrading my hardware to an Intel system, and to make a long and somewhat geeky story short I’m now running Logic Studio (Logic 8 for the moment), Reason 4, and a complement of Universal Audio plugins off of a MacBook Pro with a UAD-2 Solo/Laptop card jammed into it.

This is the sound of me putting the new system through its paces, and pounding away at the Wurlitzer, which is a great way to relieve stress if you haven’t tried it.

The Reacquaintance

I reserve the right to remix and re-upload this recording tomorrow, and probably several times on the weekend.

This tune has been kicking around on my hard drive in various forms for a few years now, but I finally have an edit that I’m satisfied with. The majority of the tracks were composed as part of a remix contest submission, which I didn’t win, and then the sponsoring label refused to give me permission to make my losing remix available on my website free of charge. They have standards, I guess. This is why I don’t enter remix contests anymore. After all the unlicensed copyright material was excised I was left with a lot of bed tracks that I felt could stand up on their own. Archival recording supplied by the Internet Moving Images Archive (at archive.org) in association with Prelinger Archives.

In the Radio Studios of America (7.1 MB MP3)

I got a copy of Ableton Live Lite with an audio interface I picked up last year and had been meaning to fire it up and play around with it at some point. Likewise I had been thinking about remixing Mike Doughty’s “Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me the F Train” for some time, because I’m a fan, it’s a great tune, and there’s a solo acoustic version on his Skittish album. Some of you may know Doughty as former front man and songwriter for Soul Coughing, and since that band’s breakup he has released three solo CDs (that I know of, plus a live CD) and is working on a new one according to his blog. So if you like the sound of this and want more original Doughty stuff, check out his online store.

I’m pretty happy with this version. Beatmapping a solo acoustic performance was a bit of a challenge, but Live is pretty intuitive and I got the hang of it after a while. I think I’m coming to the stutter party a little late, and some of you might find the obvious trainyness a little on the cheesy side. But that’s what I did, I had fun building a train machine combinator in Reason, and I’m on to some original stuff next time.

F Train Remix (3.9 MB MP3)

Just in time for the ’04 election, I have uploaded a remix of America. In keeping with the spirit of the election season, it features a guy saying the same thing over and over again, and isn’t really all that much different from the version that I recorded four years ago. Featuring vocals by Joe “could have been a contender” Lieberman.

Time:	5:32
Size:	6.9 MB
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Perversion for Profit is a light-hearted public service composition that weaves together the timeless themes of sexual perversion, adolescent mental health, and communism. Archival recording supplied by the Internet Moving Images Archive (at archive.org) in association with Prelinger Archives.

Time:	4:12
Size:	4.9 MB
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I’ve maintained a firm but until now untested belief that the computerized, virtual, analogue, and electromechanical instruments here in the studio can be used to create a warmer modal type of electronica. A few sounds that I was looking for in particular were a live amp sound for the Wurlitzer using the UAD-1 Nigel plugin, and any opportunity to hear the Metasonix TM-1. This piece started on the iBook in Reason, eventually presented itself as an appropriate vehicle for a famous Bush justification of the impending war with Iraq, and finally revealed itself as a return to the modal funky instrumentals of the 70s. Sort of. This mix originally uploaded on 3/11/03

Time:	4:49
Size:	5.6 MB
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I maxed out my processor in order to bring you a celebration of the Stereophonic Victrola by way of Reason, Logic, and some very painstaking psychoacoustic stereo placement techniques. Excerpts of this piece have been adapted for the soundtrack of the intergalactic simulation game Yexi. Archival recording supplied by the Internet Moving Images Archive (at archive.org) in association with Prelinger Archives. This mix originally uploaded on 7/21/02

Time:	6:03
Size:	7.0 MB
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