Tunebat ✶

Song key & beats per minute (BPM) database.

Exanima episode 10 ✶

Sound buzzing issues from the prior episode of my Exanima series are now fixed. They were caused by a forgotten compressor filter that had been turned on in the audio routing setup, and probably some electromagnetic line noise that is hopefully fixed. Still testing, but last night’s stream sounded alright.

Saturday, 4 July 2026

On the Declaration of Independence ✶

I was a ‘pocket-constitution’ kind of fellow in college, but one is regularly shocked by how little the average American citizen understands about how their government functioned or what the ideals of the framers were and one is regularly disappointed, but very much not shocked, by the endless parade of political entrepreneurs looking to exploit that gap in knowledge.

I will also note, for my international readers, that I think the exercise of looking at these documents is valuable, for the same reason I’ve made my students read Magna Carta or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: these are documents of world-historic significance (hardly the only ones, of course, but they make ready examples). At some point, particularly in leftish circles, it became trendy to dismiss the American founding as a mere ‘bourgeois’ revolution in favor of later revolutions in Europe and I think this is a mistake. There quite possibly is no French Revolution without the American one; the cross-pollination of ideas is obvious. The American Revolution (and thus the Declaration) therefore must also play a role in 1848 and it very obvious plays a role in the advance of democracy in Europe after 1945 and again after 1989.

The Declaration of Independence was recognized as a radical, potentially explosive document at the time of its issuance, as we’ll see. And it was explosive: the world of 1775 was one dominated by monarchies with just a tiny handful of traditional republics (which we should not ignore!). It took a long time for the seeds of the declaration to spread, but the world it helped create is one where liberal democracies, while hardly universal (more people have always lived in unfree societies than free ones) represent the most economically and culturally dominant bloc in world affairs – something that had never happened before. The Declaration, in its way, remade not just the Thirteen Colonies, but slowly, surely, as water seeps through the cracks of rocks (or my floorboards, alas), it remade the whole world.

…

And I must admit it was in this sense that I have been thinking about this document for the past year, because, as I have argued before, I think we are facing a government not merely that I disagree with – that’s not at all new and democracy must mean losing elections as well as winning them – but rather a government, particularly an executive branch, which does aim for “the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States,” in a way that is peculiar to any administration, democratic or republican, that I can think of.

Thursday, 25 June 2026

Hydrasynth Explorer notes

❦

Ongoing notes on the Hydrasynth Explorer (manual) to help me remember how to do things with it as I swim deeper into synth worlds. First off, some user interface and own particularities:

  • Orange buttons = selecting something. Repeatedly pressing orange buttons goes through different pages
  • White buttons = doing something
  • Hold Shift & press buttons with orange letters under them to select orange letter things
  • Main Systems = Browse, select, favorite, save, initialize and randomize patches, and system setup
  • Master Control & Module Select = main place to do sound design, contains secondary display
  • Knobs = encoders
  • Home = home view, macro display
  • Exit = Exit current view going back to previous one
  • Oscillators 1 & 2 = Identical, Single waveform or Wavescan mode, latter meaning you can pick waves from a wavetable and morph between them
  • Oscillator 3 = Single waveform mode, simplified oscillator, has ring noise options
  • Mutants = Effects applied to raw output of oscillators instead of end of signal chain
  • Mixer = Many options like soloing individual oscillators, specifying whether the two filters run in parallel or in series, etc
  • Amp = Bring volume of patch up (also Drive/Morph) among other things
  • Env = Envelope (attack, decay, sustain, release, etc)
  • Lfo = Low frequency oscillator, a wave below human hearing range that can be used to modulate the sound. Basically simulates you turning a knob continuously in a certain way, maybe very quickly, or slow as honey

Access favorites

  1. Hold Shift and press Browse.
  2. Use ▼ Page ▲ buttons to pick your favorite patch on secondary display, press number by the favorite’s slot.
  3. Press Exit or Home to return to main menu.

Assign favorites

  1. Be on your patch: Make sure the patch you want to save is currently loaded.
  2. Press the Browse button.
  3. Press ▼ Page in the Master Control & Module Select section to go to Page 2. Press 3 under FavAssign.
  4. Use ▼ Page ▲ buttons to pick your Bank (A–D), and then press the Control Button (numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4) under the slot you want to assign it to.
  5. Press Exit twice to return to main menu.

Browse patches

Press Browse, use big knob under Main Systems to select a patch.

Browse by category:

  1. Press Browse.
  2. Turn knob 4 by screen under Master Control & Module Select to select Find By Category.
  3. Turn knob 3 to change category, then use big knob to select patch.

Cancel action or go back to prior page

Press Exit button in Master Control & Module Select section.

Increase patch volume

Some patches are quite quiet, and rather than using the master volume knob, you may also want to press the AMP button between Env 2 and Lfo 2.

Manage & delete patches

  1. Use ASM Manager software to manage patches.
  2. To delete many patches you don’t use at once, select an empty Init patch and copy it with Cmd+C
  3. Hold Shift or Cmd and click multiple patches you don’t want.
  4. Press Cmd + V to paste the empty Init patch over the others.

Save patches

  1. First, press System Setup and turn knob by Protect so value is OFF in screen under Master Control & Module Select.
  2. After making modifications to your patch, press Save once and select destination in screen under Master Control & Module Select, the press Save again.
  3. If you want to overwrite the current patch, press Save twice.

Warmer analogue sound

  1. Press Voice (top right).
  2. Turn knob by AnalogFL in Master Control & Module Select to increase the value.
  3. Press ▼ Page and turn knob by WarmMode to ON position.
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　✦　 .　✶　.　✦　˚ 　✦˚　˚　　　　
    .　. 　˚　.　 ੈ  ✧̣̇ ˳ · ˖ ✦ .

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Sightread ✶

Open source web application for learning to play piano that listens to your MIDI instrument input while you play to songs displayed as sheet music or falling notes, both with extra notation to help beginners such as named notes (alphabetical and fixed do) and colors (Settings icon on top-right → Display → Visualizer).

You can also free play, choosing different instruments, and record your own performance into a MIDI file to use later in your DAW, or load custom ones.

I’ve added it to the piano resources page.

Barry Harris in The Hague ✶

I discovered Harris when looking up who played the delicate, beautiful piano part in Yusef Lateef’s performance of Love Theme From Spartacus and then found this series of videos put together by pianist and teacher Frans Elsen. A wonderful resource.

Monday, 22 June 2026

Steam Machine launch ✶

I use a Mac for work and a PC for play, and this little box seems a good opportunity to play The Legend of Linux on a desktop or a couch, and help make it true.

Polder model - cooperation despite differences ✶

The polder model is a method of consensus decision-making, based on the Dutch version of consensus-based economic and social policymaking in the 1980s and 1990s. It gets its name from the Dutch word (polder) for tracts of land enclosed by dikes. The polder model has been described as “a pragmatic recognition of pluriformity” and “cooperation despite differences”.

Lagom - just enough ✶

A Swedish word meaning ‘just the right amount’ or ’not too much, not too little’. The word can be variously translated as ‘in moderation’, ‘in balance’, ‘perfect-simple’, ‘just enough’, ‘ideal’ and ‘suitable’ (in matter of amounts). Whereas words like sufficient and average suggest some degree of abstinence, scarcity, or failure, lagom carries the connotation of appropriateness, although not necessarily perfection. The archetypical Swedish proverb “Lagom är bäst”, literally ‘The right amount is best’, is also translated as ‘Enough is as good as a feast’, or as ‘There is virtue in moderation’.

Saturday, 20 June 2026

SysEx Librarian ✶

App to let your Mac communicate with MIDI devices using System Exclusive messages, also known as SysEx. The most common use is to backup patch data from synthesizers, although there are others (such as sending firmware updates).

I think you can build a Linux version from the source.

MIDI-OX is a PC equivalent.

Saturday, 6 June 2026

Memory, sound design, discovery of music through intuition ✶

Interview with Matthew Florianz, sound designer of one of my all-time favorite videogames.

Monday, 25 May 2026

Solvitur ambulando ✶

When in doubt, move.

Saturday, 23 May 2026

Blinker Fluid ✶

Good live improvisation progressive rock band. Saw them at Tip Top Deluxe in Grand Rapids, MI, and look forward to whatever they lay down on a record.

Friday, 22 May 2026

Actual intelligence ✶

From Woz’s commencement speech:

You all have AI, actual intelligence!
…
I was at a company where the engineers figured out how to make a brain. It takes nine months.
…
The day you die, you’re not gonna remember things you learned in your class, formulas and all that, what you’re gonna remember is the good times you had doing things with other people, enjoying anything in life.

Thursday, 21 May 2026

Exanima 0.9.5 ✶

Yesterday I restarted my Exanima playthrough with the new patch and was vanquished by a zombie before reaching the iron gate.

The game is looking better than ever and I’m excited to get further in the next attempt.

Friday, 15 May 2026

Since you arrived Vol. IV: Taken ✶

What a webpage (or app) can tell about you when you visit.
Via jank.cool.

Thursday, 30 April 2026

Drawing 2 and some piano synths ✶

Rough drawing of hair and piano synth music improvisation.

Wednesday, 29 April 2026

Adrift advice

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Was thinking about the kid feeling listless, adrift.

At that age, living by Seattle (or anywhere, really)…if one likes music, even a little, get a guitar or a piano synth, learn two or three chords, and start writing songs while working at an ice cream store.

Or do some vocational training, electrician, nature guide, whatever attracts even a hint of interest.

Drawings of adrift hair
Adrift hair drawings made in an occasional co-working livestream.

Words that have helped me:

  1. Wild Geese poem by Mary Oliver.

  2. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. Art, nature, time, finding yourself, being in love with questions rather than answers.

  3. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Learn to draw and a little about how human brains work.

  4. Ten Things I Have Learned essay by Milton Glaser, who I later worked with in NYC. Can seem priviledged and outlandish given most people’s realities, but contains good life advice.

  5. Think on These Things by Jiddu Krishnamurti. What real education is, what the world tries to force on you, living through observation, listening, finding your own heart.

Others are listed here.

But those are just words, and it’s never “one size fits all” in these situations. Each kid is their own person and needs to find their own way, in the middle of the sign posts, the marketing and the recruitment and the advice from others.

I know other people with struggling kids, stuck on their phones. Pandemic was tough for them. As is the modern world’s competitiveness, consuming “content”, comparing self to others (and even to AI) in “social” media, and so on.

First, lets not forget we are animals, human beings, not machines.

If it’s important to find the edge of mystery, to ponder the things that can’t quite be defined — or rendered into a digital standard — then we will have to perpetually seek out entirely new ideas and objects, abandoning old ones like musical notes. Throughout this book, I’ll explore whether people are becoming like MIDI notes — overly defined, and restricted in practice to what can be represented in a computer. This has enormous implications: we can conceivably abandon musical notes, but we can’t abandon ourselves.

To walk, and touch things like wood and grass and strings and keys, to draw on rock, on paper, on the sand on the beach, to create, is part of being us, part of life’s process.

Try and observe and listen closely to any interest they have, however small, and encourage them to listen closely to those themselves, and for goodness’ sake, don’t push or force religion, nationalism, highschool, college, grades, and career paths on them. Rather, give them the space and time they need.

I didn’t want to go to college or school back then, and don’t think I’d want to today, either 😂 At least until I spent more time to find out more about myself, so I could better help others.

Some kids do know what they want to do early, but I think most later regret having wanted to grow up and move forward quickly.

Remain a child for as long as you can, I say. Ideally until the day of your death.

And then become another.

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  . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　.  ˚ ˚　　 *　　
　✦　 .　✶　.　✦　˚ 　✦˚　˚　　　　
    .　. 　˚　.　 ੈ  ✧̣̇ ˳ · ˖ ✦ .

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