Difficulty and Ego

JWise Moments

Calibrating the Ornament & Crime Eurorack Module

The pain of learning something complex is exacerbated by the risk of exposing oneself to the perceived notion that ridicule could be an outcome of accomplishing anything less than perfection. This dilemma and fear of allowing others to see your incompetence as you struggle forward are real and unfortunate.

I have endeavored for more than a year to learn about making electronic music on an incredibly deep and complex machine where I’m confronted with difficulty every time I turn it on. For example, just last night, I spent a couple of hours trying to calibrate my Ornament & Crime modules. While I’ve had these for quite some time, it has not been necessary prior to now to have them properly calibrated.

As a matter of fact, it was not my intention to even start that process last night; I was simply looking for the instructions on how to change the time until the screensaver kicked in because one of the units was set to 15 seconds, and the other 25 seconds(?). So I set them both to 30 seconds, but while I was on the instruction page, I saw the information regarding calibration. I didn’t build these modules (they are DIY units), so I figured the two guys who built them surely calibrated them before they shipped them to me. They may have, but as I would come to learn, other factors can interfere with how accurately they are calibrated.

On my first pass, I had to contend with the fact that my Mordax Data Oscilloscope only reads out two decimals of accuracy, and the instructions were telling me to take it to four decimals. I started the process and decided to get as close as possible. After finishing the second unit, I glanced over the instructions again, but this time, I saw that it clearly says that as you go from, say, 3.99 to 4.00 volts, there could be a flicker of the numbers; rotate the dial just until the flicker stops, and you’ll probably be extremely close to 4.0000V, and so I started over and readjusted my calibration. For the calibration point around 0.0000V, as soon as I got to -0.00, I adjusted the encoder until I had a solid -0.00V without flicker.

Mostly done with the second unit and my eyes straining in the poor light, I turned on two LED USB lamps that are mounted directly in my Eurorack case. They each have 10 LEDs, so I get some great bright light on my instrument. There’s a problem, though: as I turned on the lights, the calibrated voltage shifted. I turned off the lights, and the voltage returned to near-perfect calibration. Turned them back on, and sure enough, I was seeing a shift in voltage that would have a small, maybe imperceptible impact on the notes being sent out of this module.

Lucky me, I was also starting to think about that -0.00V reading and got to wondering if there wasn’t a point between the negative zero and positive zero. Seeing I was going to start over again anyway, I sent directly to the zero reading, and sure enough, there were quite a few turns of the encoder before I got to the point where the readout was flickering between -0.00V and 0.00V. Once the minus sign stopped flickering on and off, I figured that I had a near-perfect zero voltage point. With that, I had to calibrate these units one more time.

This issue arose because I finally took time to look for something in the manual, and upon finding one thing, I casually and not very accurately read another and because I didn’t even try to be meticulous in the slightest, I moved forward without enough information to do things right the first or second time.

Now, finally, we get to the gist of why I started this blog entry. Eurorack synths, foreign languages, electrical engineering, coding for things like deep learning and complex network systems, and a host of other non-intuitive endeavors/hobbies can tax our faculties and make us scratch our heads about why we sought out something that at times feels impossible to excel at.

Our egos at these weak points ravage us with uncertainty and can make us not only angry with ourselves, but with others around us. Case in point: forums!

How many of us want to be mad at a thing and its creator because the version we bought is obviously broken? Most often, it is not broken; on the contrary, it is us that is broken. We have been set up by a system that doesn’t have much room for mistakes and failure. You have one chance to win, one chance to get good grades, one chance to get things right, or risk getting fired from your job.

We then apply this to the things that should bring us a sense of personal accomplishment, but our conditioning from a relentless march into incremental, often meaningless rewards is then applied to our passions. From the inability to master difficult situations and complex learning scenarios, we don’t want to risk our egos and allow shame to hammer away at us, so we lash out and blame something or someone else. We are not adulting when this happens. Instead, we go to a forum and rant as a poor exercise in a catharsis that only works to alienate the hostile blowhard who is likely feeding the anxiety of those who would like to help but are put off by the toxic volatility of the poster.

This then begs the question, “So what do we do as a society to correct this broken process?” The answer is too complex and would require another few thousand words to start to offer my thoughts on some of the structural and cultural issues that could be part of our dialog, but this blog entry is already too nerdy and long, so maybe that’s a topic for another day. It’s kind of like starting the calibration process only to recognize there’s more to know, and you’ll just have to do it again and again anyway, so persistence, at least, should be a large part of the key.

Stillson Hammer Time

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day

The past couple of weeks I was offered the opportunity to beta test a new firmware for the Stillson Hammer MKII from Industrial Music Electronics. The Stillson Hammer is a Eurorack format modular synthesizer piece of gear from Scott Jaeger out of the state of Washington.

I first learned of this device in the late spring of 2016, and by the summer, I was ready to place my order. The Stillson Hammer had a rocky start when it first shipped in March 2016, with more than a few bug reports and frustration getting it to play nice. By the time I made my order in July, the firmware had been updated to version 1.5, but it was still less than perfect. Hot on its heels was firmware version 1.666, which was poetically appropriate, seeing that the list price of the Stillson Hammer was $666.

Even with its share of wonky behaviors, this sequencer was building a dedicated fan base. In mid-September, I finally received notice that my unit was shipping; my enthusiasm had not been tarnished by the negative reports. I guess my many years of testing software braced me for dealing with a product that is evolving.

Stillson Hammer MKII from Industrial Music Electronics

What made the Stillson Hammer so desirable was its emphasis on live performance and modulation possibilities. While the MakeNoise Rene was arguably more popular that summer, it wasn’t suited for live shows. The other big point of differentiation was that this sequencer had four CV and four gate outputs. In addition to the 16 sliders for snappy adjustments of gate and CV values for each of the steps per track, it appeared that we were on the verge of a huge shift in sequencers for the modular market.

The ER-101 from Orthogonal Devices may have been more fully packed with features, and it was certainly out a lot longer than any of the competition, having been released in December 2013. The companion device known as the ER-102 followed a year later, but with the full system price at over $1000, it was out of reach for many. What it had going for it was deep programmability, four tracks, 99 steps, eight CVs, and four gates; with the ER-102, the capabilities skyrocketed. While this module remains a strong contender as the best sequencer for serious composers, it is a bit difficult to program on the fly during live performances. Colin Benders is certainly the exception to the rule regarding this last claim.

So, creating something that went beyond the one track, one CV, and one gate-dominant design that could be had for only $566 on sale was something the market was hungry for. Scott Jaeger hit on the right design at the right time. Keeping an impatient fan base happy while he nearly single-handedly dealt with the pressures of manufacturing, creating new products for the next big trade shows, maintaining existing products, dealing with customer service, and having a life may prove as difficult for him as it does for the majority of small companies operating with between 1 and 5 employees.

When my Stillson Hammer arrived, it may not have been perfect, but I was even less so. This was my first dedicated Eurorack sequencer, and I honestly didn’t understand the first thing about tracks, steps, gates, scales, ratchets, delays, and transposing. As I stumbled through some rudimentary tutorials in exploring this thing of complexity, I had plenty of other options within my rack to distract me from the other things I didn’t understand.

Around the same time all of this was happening, I was expanding my company that had just gone public and was taking my employee count from 20 to 30 people after raising another round of capital. I was busy. As the end of the year rolled around, I was mostly oblivious and unaffected by the issues I was reading about the Stillson Hammer in the forums, as the topics were mostly beyond my comprehension and fully in the domain of people who apparently knew what they were doing. I’ve since come to learn there are a lot of people new to Eurorack who also have no idea what they are doing.

January 2017 saw a lot of chatter about pending firmware updates. I took the opportunity to order a Picket 3 device for $20, so I’d be ready when it arrived. In April, firmware version 1.777 was delivered along with my skill set having to come to grips with updating my Stillson Hammer.

To someone already lost in the confusion of this modular synthesis entanglement of complexity, it is easy to feel updating your device is a near impossibility. First, I needed this strange little red electronic device known as a Pickit that I’d never used before. Next, I needed an application called MPLab IPE, that’s a 600MB download and, at first glance, is intimidating. The Stillson Hammer user manual offered nothing in the way of help. Fortunately, some friendly soul on the internet shared his story about how to update the firmware.

Still being a green user of sequencers the advances from 1.666 to 1.777 were invisible to me. Then, in September, Scott started releasing a quick succession of updates, starting with 1.85 and culminating with 1.852. By this time, I had cultivated enough familiarity with the Stillson Hammer that the improvements earned quality of life points for me.

Just a month later, Scott reached out to me after he and I exchanged a couple of emails regarding an order I had made for a Plexiglas window replacement for the red film that shipped with early units. He asked if I’d be interested in testing firmware 2.0. My answer was an enthusiastic yes.

How Scott thought I’d be a good candidate to test his firmware is beyond me, but as I accepted, I was determined that I was going to give him some kind of feedback.

What was great about the next few weeks was that I had to methodically go through every single detail that I could explore to the best of my ability. My familiarity with the Stillson Hammer was going up exponentially. The previous year spent learning about the multitude of other things I needed to understand was starting to pay dividends in my overall understanding.

There were a lot of rough spots and inconsistencies still in the firmware prior to this push for 2.0. There were probably many things I reported to Scott that were not issues but design choices for things I wasn’t familiar with enough to understand why they worked the way they did. All the same, Scott took the time to read each of my short missives and, on occasion, explain why something was the way it was. As I progressed from beta 1 to 2, 3, 4, and finally released candidate 1, I saw more than a few things I’ve reported fixed and at least a couple of new additions. The capability and maturity of the Stillson Hammer is now rock solid, in my humble opinion. With the new firmware, it will be an interesting next couple of weeks as others start to dissect and push the boundaries of what this sequencer does; I hope to learn a lot more from these enthusiasts.

Through all of this, the tutorials from Robotopsy and a Japanese language tutorial from Clock Face Modular were watched more than a couple of times each. The user manual in its first incarnation didn’t help me that much, but it promises to get better with the final release of the 2.0 firmware. Giving yourself some dedicated time to methodically dig into a sequencer while reading and watching all that you can ultimately pay off, but it’s a tough slog when you come from knowing nothing about music composition prior to diving into the world of Eurorack.

Healing

JWise Thoughts

The sun setting on the western edge of America

What is the purpose of a vacation? Adventure, restoration, discovery, learning, escape, and sharing are some of the things that come to my mind. Vacations nearly always seem to happen at key moments when the elixir of their magic can prove the most effective unless they are obligatory chores used for collecting marks on the trophy wall, of which I’ve met many people who could be wearing that mantle. The idea that these ventures into new experiences outside of normal living situations are able to maintain their novelty is in large part measured by the amount of discovery that is found along the way. Even those places I have visited before often hold an untold number of secrets that either escaped my purview on the first visit or maybe I wasn’t ready to see and understand them. Then, there is the discovery of things within ourselves that can also be had.

The very trip that almost didn’t happen for which this writing exercise is being undertaken was our upcoming expedition into the remotes of the Yukon and Alaska. The reason behind the near cancellation was the grim situation where the company I founded ran out of money which dictated that I lay off the entire staff en masse on July 5th. Our departure was scheduled for just ten days from that bleak day. Canceling with less than 90 days’ notice would have meant a forfeiture of the entire cost of the journey, a substantial amount of money that trip insurance would not have covered, seeing that my personal mental trauma did not constitute a physical emergency or death of myself or close family member.

Finally, with mere moments to go, our payroll situation was resolved, and our staff was paid what was owed to them. With the assurance from my business partner that we were on the path of repairing things and that we’d be able to hold on to a skeleton crew to maintain minimal operations, Caroline and I, after weeks of discussing our options to the point of ad nauseam it was decided that the cost of not going would be too great. Not the cost of the money lost, but the impact on our happiness due to the burden of crushing weight watching a 27-year dream that had accrued over three years of work and constant toil approaching the juncture of failure.

A glimmer on the horizon for me was that the nature of our vacation meant we would be fully off-grid, dampening my ability to dwell on or respond to the myriad issues that occur due to the messy nature of layoffs, bruised egos, pissed investors, and creditors who want to know your next step. For that respite from the fury that was upon us, I am forever indebted to my business partner for shouldering that burden.

The forensic examination of what went “wrong” is not ready for a telling, especially in light of the fact that the tombstone for our company has not yet been erected. Sadly, we lost some very talented staff who rightfully were hurt by the perceived sudden situation that apparently caught them off-guard though the rumor mill was rife with back-chatter from those who’d read our public financial filings half a year prior.

With all of this in mind and my confidence approaching an all-time low, creeping depression, and near overwhelming anxiety, I am trying my best to put a stoic face forward and take the next step needed to begin the process of allowing vacation to do the work it can be so effective at; healing.

Stay In The Confusion – A Journey into Nearly Overwhelming Complexity

JWise Moments

MoogFest

I was probably 18 when I bought my first synthesizer, a Moog Rogue, back in 1981. Whatever happened to it escapes me through the fog of extended adolescence, but I do know that life at the time was consuming me on so many other fronts that I found little time to explore the discipline of studying the making of music. What brought me the desire to make electronic noise in the first place was Industrial Music, specifically the work of Throbbing Gristle.

Fast forward thirty-five years, and Caroline and I are on our way to MoogFest 2016 in Durham, North Carolina. We are not planning to buy equipment; we are going to attend a dozen workshops and an equal number of concerts and gigs. That was until we walked into the Moog Pop-Up Factory set up just for the occasion. It is May 19th, 2016. The adventure begins.

Moog was featuring the self-contained Mother 32 semi-modular synthesizer with a discount of $100 running for the duration of the event or until they sold out. My FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) started raging as I was certain that this deal was too good to pass up, and by the time I was done waffling, it would be gone. So I took the plunge and dropped the $499 right then and there to dip my toe once again into making car alarm sounds.

Fresh from the betrayal of my self-imposed discipline to not give into GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), we head to the quirkier side of the shopping area and explore stuff that has little to no meaning to our curious eyes and ears: the real modular stuff. Earlier in the day, the organizers of MoogFest sent out an email with a link to a video from some guys out of Brno, Czech Republic, working under the name Bastl Instruments. The clip featured a beardy guy walking through the woods playing with a “Bit Ranger” and some sticks. The video was kind of corny and a bit gimmicky, but it also left an impression. Nearly right away after walking into this hall, the beardy guy is standing right in front of me; it’s Peter Edwards of Casper Electronics, who had recently joined forces with Bastl.

Sticking with the theme of being “self-contained,” I felt I could justify supporting these starving Czech engineers/artists and buying one of their Bit Rangers. With it, I wouldn’t need any other modules, and they assured me that it would play nicely with my newly acquired Mother 32 by using a simple patch cable to make the connection. I was satisfied I had everything I would need for the coming years to make audio doodles in my spare time.

Patricia aka Max Ravitz

Onto the main reason, we had traveled to North Carolina: music and workshops about the future. The rest of the day passes with me not buying another thing. Friday comes around, and we are busy learning and exploring up until the early evening when we head over to see a demo by Antenes, who is making her own unique form of “Switchboard Synthesizers.” By 8:30 p.m., we are at a packed larger venue to see Grimes performing, but we’ll have to leave early if we are going to make a gig over at the Pinhook. In a small club with a capacity of just 150 people, we watched Afrikan Sciences (Eric Douglas) followed by Patricia (Max Ravitz), both on modular synth rigs. I was hooked. This was the first time in over 20 years someone made sounds that made me want to dance – modular synths in the form of Eurorack were going to be part of my future.

For those who don’t know, Eurorack was first created by Dieter Döpfer as a modular synthesizer system back in 1995. The modules were specified to be 3U in height (5.25 inches or 133.35 mm high), and their width would be measured in Horizontal Pitch (hp – 1hp is equal to 0.2 inches or 5.08 mm). These dimensions were taken from server racks that were standardized by AT&T in 1922. While 5U systems had been in existence since at least the early 1970’s they had been falling out of popularity until Dieter revitalized interest in modular systems and is still leading the way with his Doepfer brand.

Two days after I walked away with Mother 32, I was about to be snared to dive deeper by one of the exhibitors. It was Rick Burnett of Erogenous Tones who was about to play an instrumental role in my fall down the rabbit hole. Knowing I knew nothing about Eurocrack (yes, it is often referred to as that) he goes on to enthusiastically explain how my system would benefit from a second voice. I’d forgotten to tell him of the Bit Ranger as I was still seeing it more as a toy than a serious musical instrument; oh, how wrong I was! As this guy takes me under his wing he is seducing the absolute novice with magical thinking about how the keys to the modular kingdom were to be found by acquiring more gear. Armed with the facts that I simply needed another voice, an effect, a filter, and a mixer, I’d now be seriously ready to tackle the world of using modular synths to build a solid hobby.

Rick sells me his Levit8 mixer, another guy convinces me I need a Colour Palette for filters, and because you can never have enough filters, someone else sells me a WMD Aperture. By the way, this line “You can never have enough…..” is applied to everything Eurorack. Another vendor hooks me up with the Noise Engineering Loquelic Iteritas (my second voice, okay technically my third, but the Bit Ranger is not in Eurorack format). Finally, I picked up the WMD DPLR delay effect – system complete. Until I learn that I’ll also need envelopes, voltage-controlled attenuators (VCA), more effects, modulators, an interface to my computer, a mixing board, better monitors, sequencers, and a multitude of other things that promise to ensure “I’m never able again to maintain cash savings.”

With the festival over and me back in front of a computer in Phoenix, it was obvious that I’d need a case or rack to put my new acquisitions in. Researching modular cases, it was clear that this industry serving those interested in Eurorack was backlogged, and unless I wanted something off the shelf and generic, I’d be waiting a good amount of time and paying for it. My thinking was that I was building a piece of art that I would have to want to play with, fall in love with even, and that if I compromised my aesthetic sensibility, I might quickly get bored of my evolving instrument and want to move on.

The Original Oscelot

It was the handcrafted work of Steffen Ahmad of WeedyWhizz in Germany that captivated my imagination of what a great Eurorack case should look like, and so on May 25, 2016, just six days after my first purchase I put in an order for a 9U/104hp case with TipTop uZeus power. The cost of a handmade red and black 21-inch wide three-row case was $999 with shipping; I was getting deeper and still didn’t know that this was just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Better order the patch cables today, too, as maybe the case will arrive sooner than I think. Four days later I see that I’m going to need the ability to connect my modular rig to my PC as I’ve determined that I must get Bitwig (my DAW or Digital Audio Workstation of choice) talking to my new modular system. Welcome to the world of near-instant gratification, mail-order modular components. I’d heard their names while at MoogFest, and now was my moment to establish a connection to the mother ship. First up is AnalogueHaven over in Santa Monica, California. I order the Expert Sleepers ES-3 with confidence and prove one of the first lessons the experienced wigglers try to share with the novice – learn what you have before you go in 100 different directions.

Another clarification is in order: “Wiggler” is a common term given to someone who is turning knobs in an effort to make music. There is an entire forum dedicated to this form of music called “Muffwiggler,” which certainly suggests a different vision of things. The guy who started the forum was inspired by two guitar pedals, the Big Muff Pi and the Wiggler – hence Muff Wiggler. The political correctness of the term is not the subject of this post; it is what it is, and the forum has become so instrumental in helping people from around the world with this complex subject that a world without the Muffwiggler would be a tragedy for thousands.

You can only know so much about a complex electronic instrument by reading about it or watching videos. Ultimately, you must get your hands on it and figure a few things out, such as whether the device is incompatible with your current configuration. While the ES-3 is a remarkable unit for sending control voltage (CV) signals to other modules, it requires an audio interface that can handle DC-coupled signals. DC-coupled means that capacitors that might otherwise filter certain frequencies out are left out of the design, so the full spectrum is allowed to move between devices. Typically, your home stereo doesn’t need to play very low or very high frequencies, so they are filtered out, but in modular setups, those frequencies can be key to moving signals through our system and modulating other sources. My brand new Apollo Twin Duo did not meet those criteria, and at $900, I wasn’t ready to part with it. Seeing I had a lot more to learn before hooking my DAW to my still boxed-up Eurorack components, I figured by the time I learned how this stuff works, someone else would have come up with a solution.

From calling it my Eurorack, rig, modular system, modular synth, synthesizer, gear, and probably a few other things, it is my wife who recommended a name that was going to stick. Over the previous couple of weeks, all I could talk about were my plans for this instrument. Constantly Caroline was hearing about different modules, voltages, patch cables, knobs, jacks, subtractive synthesis, sequencers, and skyrocketing costs. She told me that I should call my synth The Oscelot. She explains by way of, “How do you titillate an ocelot? You oscillate its tit a lot.” Because she foresees me oscillating the knobs a lot, she thinks it fitting for me to name my synth Oscelot – done.

June comes and goes still no word from Weedywhizz and my case. I still don’t understand how to use Mother 32, and the other pieces remain in boxes. July comes around, and I learned that almost all retailers of modular gear here in the States offer 4th of July sales. This also occurs around Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and, on occasion, Memorial Day. Seeing how I’m going to have all this empty space in my case, I figure this might be as good a time to order as another, as the next sale might not happen until late November. At this time, I didn’t yet know the sales cycle.

July 2nd and 3rd are a flurry of insane indulgence where, after having read countless articles, forum posts, and watching a hundred or more videos, I’m ready to seriously build on being overwhelmed once my case arrives and I can finally turn this equipment on. Mind you, I’m reassuring myself that the reason I don’t know how to use the Mother 32 yet is that I need all this other gear. I’m now certifiably suffering from GAS. On order are the obligatory Mutable Instruments modules that everybody new to Eurorack must have, such as Braids, Clouds, and Warps, along with Make Noise Maths, Wogglebug, LxD, and Pressure Points. Also in the order is my first Disting from Expert Sleepers, a Buff Mult, the Verbos Multi-Envelope, Kermit from The Harvestman, and a Polaris filter from Intellijel.

Visit to AnalogueHaven in Santa Monica, California

It’s Monday, July 4th in America, aka Independence Day. Steffen from Weedywhizz finally sent me my shipping confirmation; it’s my day of celebration on a whole new level now. I’m certain it will be here by Friday; it just has to be. Ten days later and nothing. I need therapy, time to buy more gear. I’m off to Los Angeles to make a pilgrimage to the temple of Eurorack – AnalogueHaven. I called Shawn Cleary a day before to schedule an appointment, and on Saturday, I walked through the door. They have everything and a lot of everything. I have no idea where to start, so Skylar offers to demo anything I have questions about.

By now, I’m wondering if my case has been lost in shipment, and with the AnalogueHaven guys being so helpful, I feel obliged to, at a minimum, buy me a skiff. Make Noise makes a powered little 3U/104hp rack commonly called a “skiff.” During my tour of the synths on display, I started to dig into the functions of the Ultra Random Analog from Steady State Fate, the polyphonic potential in the Flame 4Vox, another couple of Mutable Instruments units called Peaks and Rings, the Xaoc Batumi, which is my first LFO, another Noise Engineering module called Basimilus Iteritas Alter which is a drum unit, the Arturia BeatStep Pro sequencer with CV outs, and finally the MixMode as I won’t be able to listen to a thing tonight if I don’t have a way to mix and output sounds.

Temporarily satisfied that I have a real working modular synth system I head back to Phoenix. On Monday, it is now two weeks later and still so sign of my Oscelot case. I try not to panic. When it’s three weeks later and nothing, is that depression at the door? Then, on the very next day and two months after I placed my order, the case was delivered. It’s beautiful, and I’m entering Nirvana.

Time to gut the skiff, open boxes, and start migrating stuff into the Oscelot. This thing is huge and is certainly larger than anything I’ll ever really need, but that’s okay because I have room to grow. Or so I thought for an hour or two. Twenty-seven modules later and the writing is on the wall; I’m running out of space, but no problem, as I have the skiff to refill.

For the next two months, I tried turning on the Oscelot every day and patching something. I’m not as much interested in the idea of making a song as I am in exploring sound possibilities, so doodling in audio is just fine for me, but not for people who know me. It’s feeling like I’m being asked a few times a week if I have something to share with others yet or if I’m going to release something in the future. My retort is to ask the person if they watch TV, followed by a serious question: when was the last time they created an episode?

The fact of the matter is I’m like an infant that just inadvertently made a sound that could be construed as “mama,” and I’m told to get serious and write something on par with Moby Dick next week. I was in my 40s when I started to blog, almost 50, when I wrote a book; I’ll probably be close to 60 before I let anyone hear the bleating fart sounds being tortured out of the feral cat called Oscelot.

A rainbow of blinking lights and colorful patch cables

Obsession with this new hobby has gripped me hard, and in order to maximize my time with my new best friend, I drag it to the office. I stay later in the day, and I come in on Saturday and Sunday as I get to turn the volume up beyond what is civil while the crew is at work Monday through Friday. At its new residence in the office, it has another adherent, my old friend, XXXX. When I’m not on it, he is, and then on the weekend, things get kind of wacky as XXXX is a natural on the mic with the ad-libs. Add a delay to a voice, and you can talk your way into hysterics.

From that July order spree, there were still a few things that hadn’t been delivered, and it was already moving into September. These waits are normal and bring to mind a quote by Tim Churches, who was talking about a module he’s had a coding hand in called Ornament & Crime, which I feel says volumes not just about that module but about the entire modular industry. He said, “This isn’t a traditional product designed, manufactured, and sold by a single entity – it’s a post-capitalist artifact of the after-hours sharing economy, and thus mash-ups and overly complex pastiches are to be expected.” And so it is that many of the modules one might like to buy can be out of stock for extended periods of time (in some cases for years) as supplies are difficult to find or other circumstances distract the attention of a module’s creator.

Then, on September 12th, Perfect Circuit Audio notified me that the Stillson Hammer MK2 from The Harvestman had shipped and that they were expecting my Mutable Instruments Blinds to ship in a couple of weeks. Once I got the Stillson, I knew I wanted to order some drum modules, but with the extra modules, I’d soon be out of space in my case and skiff. I guess I have no choice but to reach back out to Germany.

Oscelots at Night

On September 27th, I placed my order with Steffen Ahmed for another red and black WeedyWhizz 9U/104hp case. This time, it cost $1,009 due to currency fluctuations; oh well, $10 wasn’t going to change this equation. The equation I refer to is the one of cost and level of investment someone is going to make who embarks on such an endeavor. People just starting out typically want to have an idea of how to budget for this stuff; the cost of cases and skiffs can be roughly calculated at a per hp price. Consider that a Make Noise powered skiff with 104hp is about $250, a Doepfer A-100PMS9 case with 504hp is $1250, and my handmade case with 312hp was $1000 you get a range of price from about $2.50 per hp to about $3.25 per hp, though if you shop around you might find something as cheap as about $1.75 per hp (ADDAC Monster case with 1,379hp).

The larger the case, though, comes with its own issues: the cost to fill it. It would be a relatively conservative rough estimate to suggest that spending $23 per hp is about what anyone would be forking out to build this type of instrument. So, a case with 3x3U rows at 104hp each would equal a total of 312hp and cost at least $7,000 to fill. A much cheaper route would be the DIY build-your-own modules way, but that’s not the path I took. To be honest, I wanted as much instant gratification as I could afford.

Knowing I have another case on the way gives me a license to start buying modules again. Next up is the Quantum Rainbow, Skorn de Bask, Make Noise Tempi and an Intellijel uVCA ordered on October 13. Over the next weeks, I order the Evaton Technologies CLX which can act as a clock and an LFO, a Make Noise Telharmonic, and the Ornament & Crime. Finally, I ordered the Folktek Matter drum/oscillator voice and a Resist for modulating it.

Uh oh, here comes Thanksgiving and another big sale. But before Caroline and I can take off for a 10-day trip in Oregon over the holiday, Oscelot 2 is delivered. Six months since I bought the Mother 32, and I’m on my way to having 728hp of capacity. It’s feeling crazy, and it will get worse before ever getting better.

Control Voltage in Portland, Oregon

On the coast, I get the notification that the sales have begun. From AnalogueHaven, I nab six more modules the day after Thanksgiving, but my next order will happen in person on Saturday. We left the beautiful rocky Oregon coast to venture into Portland, one of the modular synth capitals of the world. I’m not sure, but I’d wager there are more manufacturers in this city than any other. With them comes an amazing synth shop nearly fully dedicated to Eurorack modules – Control Voltage.

All the while, I’ve been building my ensemble of cases I’ve been doing what many of us do when not wiggling: I’m configuring and reconfiguring my cases virtually on Modulargrid.net. So, even before you buy your first module, you can start dreaming of what you will one day own and build by dropping images into a placeholder case and then endlessly moving them around until you achieve the perfect configuration.

Knowing what I already own, what has been ordered, and what I will buy at Control Voltage, I also know I’m going to be buying a new skiff, bringing me to 832hp of modular Eurocrack addiction. At the shop, I meet Joseph, who is now working full time with 4MS, and Eusebie whom I will meet again on subsequent visits; both are incredibly helpful. Satisfaction is within my grasp and can be mine for the swipe of a card signifying I am transferring my cash to an account that allows me to consider a bunch of new modules as now being my property. Going into my carry-on bag are one 4MS VCA Matrix, a Soundmachines Lightplane, the Malekko Heavy Industries Varigate 8+, and another Intellijel Buff Mult.

Eurorack Modules

Back at home in Phoenix, I get to work rearranging my cases in the endless pursuit of finding an optimal layout that will probably remain forever elusive. In my frenzy, I ordered even more stuff; sales are hard not to get excited about when 10% off an order could save me the price of an entire module. So before I know it, I have another bunch of modules, including some Hexinverter Mutant drums, a Neutron Sound Orgone Accumulator, a couple of Soundmachines Lightstrips, the Intellijel Planar, the AntiMatter Brainseed, and a couple of modules from the incredibly entertaining Jesse McCreadie of Animodule.

Only a couple of days go by before I get an email from Brian Clarkson of Orthogonal Devices in Japan that the ER-301 Sound Computer/Sampler has been shipped to me. Back on October 31, I had read about a new very expensive module that had recently gone up for order. If it was truly a work of art and genius, if it really did all that was claimed. At nearly $900, it felt way out of my league, and I left my office dreaming about it. A friend and I were on our way to meet someone else for dinner; he was driving. We weren’t 10 minutes up the road before I pulled out my phone and slain the monster of FOMO. I punched in my PayPal info and had my unit reserved; I was winning. Good thing, too, as not long afterward, it was sold out and would remain so for almost six months.

Orthogonal Devices ER-301

On December 7th the last module of the year arrives, the ER-301.

Years before, when I was playing with Adobe’s Premiere Pro and After Effects, I came to learn of Chris Meyer, who was offering some crack tutorials for After Effects with his wife, Trish. I signed up for Lynda.com because of them; I bought their books, and I was in love with After Effects. By 2016, they were a distant memory due to my previous two years of being immersed in my virtual reality project. Then, as I embark on this modular endeavor in one of the forums, I see the name Chris Meyer. A coincidence for sure, but no way it could be the same guy. That other Chris Meyer was a video guy, not a synthesizer nerd. After seeing his name pop up a few times on Facebook, I take a closer look and sure enough, it’s the After Effect guru himself.

Turns out he had a Learning Modular course on Lynda that I just had to sign up for, which turned out to be super helpful. He wrote a great resource on his website in the form of a glossary of modular synthesizer terms. The guy is incredible for the amount of material he shares, and I’m about to knock on that door and test just how helpful he can be.

I remembered that he’d posted an image of a damaged Eurorack case that was GIANT; as a matter of fact, it was a Monster – the ADDAC Monster case. My cases were approaching full status, and my curiosity for playing with unique modules was not subsiding. I pinged Chris and hoped he’d take a moment to answer the questions of a novice about his big boy toy. Sure enough, he answered promptly, but my knowledge of power supplies, busboards, +12V/-12V, and +5V rails is non-existent, so I’ll have to read more and ask a lot more.

John Wise and the ADDAC Monster Eurorack Case

A flurry of emails between André Gonçalves of ADDAC and myself starting in late January allows me to build up the nerve to cross a serious rubicon; I’m going to order 1,379hp of new Eurorack space; I just don’t know exactly when yet. Turns out that I needed another 60 days, and then on March 25th, 2017, I wrote to André and told him to bill me. Over the next weeks, he will send me photos of the progress and how it will be packaged for shipment. Then, on May 1st, the Monster arrived; it was all mine.

By now, you know what comes next: order more gear. Again, I put orders in with AnalogueHaven, I stop at Perfect Circuit Audio on a trip to Los Angeles, I make a stop at Noisebug in Southern California on another trip over to Los Angeles, and finally, I drop in on the guys at Control Voltage in Portland again. Mail order is also in high gear, with orders coming in from Iron Ether and their Pithoprakta; a guy is selling his Benjolin, which I can’t find anywhere, so I take it. Over on Kickstarter back in February, I got the first order in and nabbed serial #1 of a giant 4-voice oscillator coming from the brilliant mind of Paul Schreiber at Synthesis Technology called the E370. At 54HP, it is enormous but doesn’t ship until the end of the year.

It took me nearly 10 hours to empty my two WeedyWhizz cases and two Make Noise skiffs and mount all the modules in the new Monster. Lucky me it’s about 10:00 pm when I first power this thing on as it lights up like a Christmas tree. I say lucky because I get to turn off all the lights and marvel at this work of art. Earlier in the day, I had already powered it on and let it sit for a while, then I powered it off and back on, cycling it quickly to make sure there weren’t any apparent anomalies. Then I plugged in a buffered mult and sniffed around, making sure nothing smelled out of the ordinary. Then, to be extra cautious, I plug in another relatively inexpensive module and fire it up again, sniff sniff….nothing.

ADDAC Monster

So here I am on the one-year anniversary of finding myself with a new hobby and there’s been a lot learned along the way. The age-old cliched and worn arguments of Ford vs. Chevy, Coke vs. Pepsi, PC vs. Mac, and iPhone vs. Android are alive and well in the world of modular, with the sides being Analog vs. Digital. This is inherently dumb, as who cares what creates the sounds if the music has entertainment value? Nobody cares how a catchy track is made and on what gear, they want to like what they hear. I’m nearly certain there were arguments 40,000 years ago as someone boreholes in a bone and invented the flute from others in the group who fought for banging rocks and clicking twigs vs. flutes.

It’s not impossible to teach old dogs new tricks; it just might take longer. Then again, I don’t run into many people older than 40 who are venturing into complex new trajectories where they are allowed to put their incompetence on display. My biggest impediment to springing forward is money and time. Here we are with the ability to purchase a computer capable of running artificial intelligence algorithms for about half the cost of a new car, but $10,000 is still quite a bit when your synth hobby is costing you almost four times that amount. Then there’s time: I operate a small company of about thirty people and finding free moments to teach myself about control voltages, subtractive synthesis, Euclidean rhythms, chords, measures, keys, notes, beats, midi, and mixers is already at a premium. One of my dreams is that I might have the ability, time, and equipment in retirement to dedicate myself to writing, photography, video, coding, music, reading, cooking, and, who knows, maybe even some knitting.

When one delves into modular synthesis, one will learn that this field comes with as many opinions as there are modules, now estimated in the thousands. It is often said, “Learning this can only be complicated by owning too many modules too quickly,” but how much is too fast too soon? I’m now up to 124 modules, which equates to one new module acquired every three days. I certainly have not had enough time to master even one of them. You will often read the advice to go slow and get a few modules to start and learn them in all of their intricacies and only then start adding to the collection. While this is probably valid, I find the opportunity to explore combinations of modules interfacing with other diverse units to be an exercise in sifting through the complex of infinity, where it’s simply fun to play among audio doodles that don’t require explicit function or performance qualities. Again, it need not be the goal of a hobby to impress others with your prowess but to relish in the ability to slowly increment your body of knowledge and skills.

A painter with a palette of one color will surely make something incredible once they’ve developed enough skills. I’d never argue against the idea that the cave paintings found in Chauvet made with charcoal black are astonishing glimpses of early human creativity, but the vibrancy found in Marc Chagall’s work allows us to peer into the imagination of a dream where reality is giving way to the unexpected. It is my hope that as I explore from a palette of over 120 “colors,” I may discover a new method for weaving a tapestry drawn from frequencies, beats, drones, found sound, randomness, and complexity so I may discover another aspect of my voice for altering the cultural landscape.

Ultimately, I will approach the fulcrum, both equipment and skill-wise, where the output will start to demonstrate a basic level of adaptation, allowing me to communicate to others what I’ve learned along this path. I harbor no illusions of stumbling upon something that will have anyone take notice of my efforts; on the contrary, I require this exercise in order for me to edify myself at a stage in life where I’ve witnessed many other people fall into intellectual stagnation. Growing older I’m delighting in the knowledge that I have an ability and a large interest in exploring the unexplored territory where discovery and the complex is still a magical journey.

Oregon – Day 10

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day, Travels

Control Voltage in Portland, Oregon

There are barely a dozen of these types of shops on Earth: places that carry a wide offering of Eurorack synthesizer modules. This one in Portland, Oregon, called Control Voltage, is one of seven on the West Coast that I know of. There’s also one in Detroit, New York City, and Berlin which covers all the major players and a couple of the minors ones, too. Unfortunately, none of them carry everything available as many modules are made in limited runs, and some units never even make it to retail as manufacturing operations can be so small that the creator only sells their modules directly to end-users. To be frank, I find most of the shops to be difficult places to visit, not only because I want to buy everything, but mainly because I’m not a regular, I’m not in their target age group, and maybe because as fellow artists, they too are awkward. If you are persistent and go in with specific questions while not being too shy, most of the time, the people in these shops are full of a vast body of knowledge after you get past the heavy hipster vibes.

What Caroline was doing while I was making my pilgrimage is beyond my recollection, as this temple requires my full attention. From here, we returned to the airport for our flight back to Phoenix in time for dinner.

While waiting on our flight, I took time to write the following, which closes out my writing exercise for this adventure:

The Fibers of Creativity:

You discover a clump of long animal hair or crimped strands of fiber but it will require a leap genius to get to the point where you can create clothing from it. Because learning is inherent in what humans do, we rarely, if ever, recognize the incredible leaps of intellect at work on a day-to-day basis as we go about our lives of constant discovery. Once the process has begun in our first months of life and without our explicit awareness that it is happening, we are being programmed by those around us to pick up fragments of information that are going to be brought together in the tapestry that will form our character and help shape our future.

This process is similar to the discovery of that strand of hair I just spoke of. Without another hair and another and so on, we will never accumulate enough of them to begin the process of spinning them together in the fundamental building block that will create a piece of yarn. Only after many steps will we finally be able to start weaving together our yarn to create cloth, rugs, blankets, or any of the many other things we can use to help us survive our exposure to the elements.

Knowledge of a process such as those found in the fiber arts extends to all things in life. But what happens when we are lazy and don’t continue adding to our fabric? We outgrow our clothes, they wear out, and ultimately, they will fall back to dust and no longer serve us. What happens when we no longer tend to the accumulation of knowledge? We outgrow our immature thoughts; they no longer fit with those around us, and they will ultimately fail us as we humans are always moving forward with the demands of work and play that require ever-greater skills that can only be achieved by constant learning.

Out of the tapestry, a picture begins to emerge, but what if the tapestry never grows beyond a few inches, or as it gets older, it frays, and its image can no longer be clearly seen? This is the perfect metaphor for our own knowledge. It doesn’t matter what we add next, as it is the randomness of impressions that leave traces and etch strong memories that will forever shape the person we are becoming. So why should this ever stop? Essentially, it probably never really does, although people can put themselves on a personal treadmill of repetition and habit that effectively stops the incoming world from offering more from its cornucopia of never-ending knowledge.

So, I would like to suggest that it is a personal imperative that all of us understand our place in the weaving of our own stories. If you’ve been laying down too much nondescript beige in your cloth for the past years, it’s time to break out the lime green and fluorescent orange. This will require you to learn and do something new and out of your ordinary. Stop reinforcing negative attitudes by repeating that you don’t like something you may have never tried or experienced a decade or more before. Stop listening to the same music just because it makes you feel nostalgic for a time you believe was better; it probably was because you were still hungry for new experiences.

Do something you thought you’d never do, go somewhere you can’t believe you are making the effort to go to, and read up on a subject in-depth that you thought you had no interest in. I’m always meeting people in Arizona who’ve lived in Phoenix for 20 years and have never been to the Grand Canyon: go. Don’t know what to read? Try Swerve, Salt, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms, or Moby Dick – it’s long but is way better the older we get! Maybe it’s time to eat some haggis, heart, turnips, raw fish, curry, or whatever food items you’ve been afraid of or convinced yourself you don’t and will never like. Stop whining about this or that music giving you a headache; listen intently a few times to some classic examples of what others have considered the greatest hits of a genre. You may have to try any of the above a few times; they say that anything can be brought in to be enjoyed if we only give a chance a few times.

Give your mind a chance. Understand that you are a learning machine that is constantly adding to your own tapestry. Keep on weaving your personal story; it should be as long as your life.

Oregon – Day 7

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise walking on the Oregon Coast

What a peculiar day. I don’t believe we’ve ever traveled anywhere else where I only shot one photo all day, but apparently, that’s what I did today. Was it raining earlier? Did we sit somewhere and knit and write in a coffee shop, letting the world go by, not concerned with the photo travel trophies? Without notes or other pictures buffering this image of Caroline walking down this lonely beach, I have no idea where we started, where we ended up, what we ate, or what precisely we did. Kind of nice in some way, only having this one photo of a walk along the shore.

Edit: After writing this, I found a bunch of stuff I was writing on those days in Oregon, and the following was how I spent the morning so it would be certain that Caroline was next to me knitting or reading and that we just chilled the entire day. Here it is:

Preoccupation

The problem with preoccupation is that it saps my ability to broaden my scope of thinking. My greatest time with creativity and having a spectrum of thought that delights me is when I’m fully in the moment.

On this trip to Oregon, I compromised the full relaxation element by focusing too much on a recent hobby I acquired: modular synthesis in the form of Eurorack. I knew going into this ten-day sojourn that I’d be stopping in Portland on the way home to “possibly” buy some new modules; in retrospect, I should have done this right away so I wouldn’t spend the next week configuring my purchases.

The problem with this new endeavor is that it is incredibly expensive, so purchases can not be taken lightly. While there is great resale value in used equipment, even selling the stuff takes precious time away from learning the incredible complexity this embodies. Each component plays a specialized role in music synthesis, so some level of familiarity should be had so the builder of such a system has a fairly good idea of how a new piece will influence the whole.

Realizing that you have fallen into this trap a week after you started a vacation is not a great place to find yourself. If I had it to do over again, I would have spent a week before vacation figuring out and planning which modules I wanted so I could have visited the shop at the beginning of the trip and had them sent home, thus clearing my mind of a million synthesizer thoughts.

This has been so consuming that my dreams have been of wires and knobs. Being obsessive has its moments, especially when planning a business or organizing large projects, but on vacation, it is a burden.

I wonder how this affects us in our daily lives. What happens when we are obsessed with being lonely or without someone close? How does this bring stress into someone’s life when they are worried about job security or learning something new and challenging? Maybe we cannot earn enough money to support the basics, and we fret about the fear of an unexpected expense that can derail us. No wonder then that people turn to substance abuse, be it food or drugs, to combat the uncertainty and preoccupation of things we cannot control.

A small example of clearing the mental deck so I can better enjoy myself and, in turn, my wife can better enjoy her time with me: before leaving for a vacation, I wash all the laundry, pay the bills in advance, arrange for someone to water our plants, clear out food that might spoil in our absence, deep clean our place, fill the gas tank in the car so we have one less thing to worry about when we get back and then finally we can take our vacation and be in the moment.

Being in the moment is an essential key to happiness in my worldview. We know this from our visits to the Whitehouse, rafting the Colorado River for three weeks, or rafting the Alsek in Alaska for half a month. On road trips that have taken us across America, we have been free to enjoy the open landscape of Kansas without worrying if we left the stove on or that we’ll have to go home to dirty dishes and unpaid bills.

Well, then, it would seem to me that we must always be aware of the need to “clear the deck.” A list should be kept at hand that allows us to check off things that might derail our intention of having a great time when we venture out of our routines.