Saturday, May 31, 2008

Modular Case - Progress Made!


I decided that I would finally get some shit accomplished this weekend and so far, so good.

I went to the local surplus store and got the right length screws this time. They actually have Torx heads, which looks really cool compared to regular phillips head screws. I didn't go through and remove the screws for the modules that I had racked up already, but I'll do that eventually.

I racked the rest of the modules into the vector rails and stacked them up. Now all I need is to find some 90 degree angle mounting hardware for the rails and some nice looking wood to build the case. I hope to have that wrapped up this weekend too, although, the yard really needs some attention too.

The spaces in the top row are completely arbitrary, although Harvestman Tyme Sefari, Zorlon Cannon and Malgorithm will go up there somewhere, hopefully all in the very near future.

The large open space on the lower left is for the AFGs, which are due to arrive anytime now, since I've got two from the first batch. The 2nd open space, in the lower-middle is for a Plan B M14 Voltage Processor and the Livewire Chaos Computer, whenever that gets released.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. It's actually not as big as I thought it would be in terms of size, both height and depth. It should still be very portable (it's a little smaller than a Doepfer Monster Case).

Off to the hardware store!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

I *LOVE* the MonoMachine


What a great way to follow up the previous post, eh?

I'm not sure what took me so long to post about it, but two weeks ago I took delivery of a MnM mkI. It's fantastic. It's just as fun (and creatively challenging) to program as the MachineDrum and the sound is very unique and punchy. I won't say I'm totally wild about the sound yet, but it definitely has some rad qualities. I'd have to say my favorite machine so far is SID (SidStation / C64 emulation) but I have barely dipped into the FM-based machines.

Since I'm still in my "Reason phase"† with it, I can't really talk much to the depth of it's functionality or my connection to it yet.
However, Jyoti Mishra (of whom I have no idea) made a very succinct post that explains my thoughts much more clearly than I could.

Check it out.

† A "Reason phase" is my term for the time period in which you have just recently purchased some piece of gear and the easiest thing for you to make with it is repetitive techno. It's named this because for the first 6 months that I had Reason, all I made was awful, repetitive, techno. :D