NAMGLA Day Three & Home Again...

On the third day of the convention, I mostly just talked to people about AD stuff and the suchlike and played pianos. I didn’t make any earth-shattering gear discoveries, unfortunately. I didn’t go to the fourth day, because that’s the day they let the Dirt People come and touch things, and I don’t want any part of that.

One thing I did do that was interesting was listen to Morton Subotnik give a little Q&A at the Buchla booth. The conversation wound, in a circular fashion, towards limitations, and someone asked about intentionally limiting one’s palette (a subject, as you all know, near and dear to my heart). He basically informed the questioner, who was thankfully not me, that limitations are stupid. He rhetorically asked “why would you not want to be able to make the sound you know you need?”

Obviously I have a fairly fluid idea of intentional limits, and I have my reasons for imposing them, but it was an interesting point. He’s a smart man. He’s also touring all year in various parts of the world, and it’s probably worth going. Info here.

After Saturday’s NAMGLASTRAVAGANZA, I went in to L.A. to grab an ESQ-M off a friend, because I suddenly needed one of those. (You know how it goes.) When I got home and started fooling with it, I realized this 25-year-old synth that I paid $100 for is easily on par with most of the current analog offerings I saw at NAMM. This made me sad, for obvious reasons. We get all excited about new shit, just because it’s new shit. We overlook the fact that it is lacking in many ways. The Minitaur could have been released in 1986. Easily. So could the Aurturia Minibrute. There is _nothing_ in these products that makes the intervening 26 years seem relevant, except maybe some construction methods and materials science.

And then the Trash_Audio BBQ. Which wasn’t a BBQ at all, but rather Taco Time. So they might want to re-examine their naming paradigm. Good fun that; saw many people I normally only speak to in the twatscape, hung out with Tom Erbe, who is very smart, and Peter Nyboer, who is also very smart. Basically I just stood around feeling stupid. There were several AI regulars there, and I had some excellent conversations about meta-stuff, which I always enjoy.

Anyhow, home again, and back to work, which is stacked up like planes waiting for approach vectors at O’Hare. Shit just got real.