so now there are cousins. alright

Um, Yeah.

Well it's damn near March already. What the hell? Where does the time go?

The whole world is in a huff about COVID-19, and here in Japan too, obviously, but people are in full-on freakout mode. First thing they did was go on a panic-buying-spree of masks, like surgical masks, you know, the ones everyone here wears when it's either flu or hay fever season. So, there's a shortage of masks now. "ONE BOX PER CUSTOMER!!" signs at the shops with any remaining stock. For me, the funniest thing is that masks do not prevent the wearer from catching a virus. The seal around the face is not perfect, so guess what, shit don't work. Unless you strap on a military grade chemical warfare motherfucker of a mask, like with the filter cans and shit? Nope. I mean, even the homepage of the WHO where you can find a coronavirus FAQ says so ("BUT THE WHO IS CONTROLLED BY THE UN AND THEY'RE SECRETLY OUT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD SO YOU CAN'T TRUST THAT!!!!" yeah yeah yeah. Shame. On. You). But nahhhh who cares about actually using your head and thinking about how viruses spread. See, the masks work (sorta) when worn by people already infected, as they trap most of the fun stuff ejected by a sneeze or a cough. Not all of it. We can still hope for some fun to be shared among the general populace can we not? Ahhh but it's easier to be a total idiot and follow the herd mentality and panic-buy useless shit. Then there was the fiasco with the cruise ship and not letting passengers disembark, and then it turns out a number were let off without having to go through screening, but the Chinese are still being confined to quarters blah blah blah. Jeeezus Fucking Christ EVERYTHING is made in China anyway, from rubber dog shit to the (probably) fake ICs in your military hardware to your beloved smartphones and related devices, shit, even the incessant machine-diarrhea geyser of clone synths too, so what the hell is the big deal about a potentially pandemic-level megavirus every few years? Chinavirus. Next in the ongoing series. Personally, I don't really care where the viruses originate, and to tell the truth, I get a warm feeling inside when people lose their shit over stuff like this, and even warmer when the death toll rises and rises. Can't think of a better species to get a good culling than the old homo sapiens. Heh. Mister Misanthrope at your service! But anyway.....

Found this ancient beast sitting forgotten and forlorn in a closet at work. It's a Luxman 38FD "High Fidelity Stereo Integrated Amplifier" made around 1970 (like me!). It is in near fucking mint condition. HEAVY. AS. FUCK. And the winningest part of the whole thing besides it being destined for the Big Garbage pile and as a result free for the taking? IT WORKS. Oh, and even better...

IT'S A VACUUM TUBE AMP!!! Those are the main tubes, 50CA10, pretty much but not totally unobtanium. Yeah, they fucking glow a warm orangey red, and after a bit you can see blue vapor inside. Well, if you turn off all the lights and take the top cover off. It runs hot as fuck too. I was just shocked the thing worked. It's sitting comfortably atop the desk in the lair, where you'd normally park a printer, with a pair of Yamaha NS-100X speakers on risers above it. Sounds great. There's considerably more noise (hiss?) than a modern amp, but with the volume knob raised to about 10 o'clock, it's already loud enough that the hiss isn't even a consideration anymore, and any louder would be asking for trouble with the neighbors. I can't believe it because the amp is supposed to be a mere 30 watts per channel. I guess 30 watts from vacuum tubes is a hell of a lot different from even triple that from a modern amp. LOUD!!! So yay me.

Oh and speaking of viruses....

I was watching this one on the auction for about a month and a half. The opening bid started out at around $1700 but nobody bid, and the auction ended, and one option here on the yahoo auction is for an automatic re-listing with the opening bid discounted by a certain percent. I watched for a while, then just when I'd forgotten about it, it came up in the look-at-me feed and the price was down to a grand so I bid on it and won. I had one of these before and regretted selling it, thus the TI Polar in my arsenal now, but the 61-key TI has THE BEST keys ever. Feels so good to play. Fatar! I thought yeah ok I'll just say see ya to the Polar and call it even. But... Hmm... Wait... One thing led to another and in the end I decided to keep both the viruses and... and...... and...... sell the ION. Say WHAT?!?! After all the work and repairs and maintenance and customizing LEDs and and and and.... Yeah. It's a hell of a synth, no doubt about it, but I think anything with the Alesis logo on it has a very definite shelf-life. The pots are gonna go, a few are acting up already, and those are unobtanium unless you wanna shell out the dosh and buy from syntaur. You can't get NOS pots either. So... After some serious deep-thinking and careful consideration and deliberation I had to say to myself, "self, it's a wonderful machine capable of some great sounds, but it's only 8-voice polyphonic, there are barely any effects to mention, ok sure the mod matrix and plethora of filter models and waveshaping are fantastic, but you know how ridiculously MORE powerful the Virus TI is almost every respect!" And I admitted defeat. To myself. Weird, I know. But there you go. I don't think I know anyone with two Virus TI (or TI2) synths in their collection. Maybe Anthony Rother. I know he has two IONs. 

Ahhhh but this 61-key virus wasn't without problems. Uh, well, OK one BIG problem. The power supply shat itself when I turned it on for the first time. The LCD sorta flashed, there was a brief sign of life with some of the LEDs, but then blip! Nothing. Aaaaargh! Unseat the power cable, reseat it, try again. Nothing, just a high-pitched whine that was getting louder. I put my head up against the front panel, listening for where the whine was coming from, and figured out it was the far right side. That's where the PSU is. Then suddenly the sound changed to a higher pitch that swept downwards over the course of a few seconds, all the while sputtering like it had a downward sawtooth filter on it, then POP! No more sound. When I opened the case up, I immediately remembered that for whatever reason, Access decided to go with a PSU like you'd use with a laptop computer, the big brick-like deals, and that they'd carefully bracketed the brick in so that the eyeglass-socket for the plug lined up with the hole in the rear panel. OK so all I needed to do was find a same-rating PSU and then go about modding the bracket so cosmetically it would look from-the-factory. Incidentally, I contacted Access and asked about parts, but the rep said they don't have any more PSUs for the TI series, only ones for the TI2 series, and that they aren't the same size so when they do the repair, they put a DC jack on the rear panel and the PSU gets left out—goes from internal to external if you catch my drift. Well, no thank you, I do not care for that approach, no sir, I didn't wanna go that route at all. So, thanks to having access to a drill press and diamond-saw dremel tools at work, I made the necessary mods to the bracket, padded it a bit so it would securely hold the new PSU in place, and in the end you can't tell it isn't a factory PSU (from the outside). Yay me, part two.

This is the bracket, post choppy-grindy. Yeah so I "secured" the cabling with Scotch 33+... Hey, from the factory it was held down with hot glue!

Yeah that's where it attached to the PCB. CHEEKY!!!!!!!

Not bad, right? You'd never know. But I've told you, so now you know. Oh and the PSU was $22 from a local parts chain (Marutsu). I think Access wants about $50 but I think that includes free shipping anywhere in the world. I'm just glad it's working fine now.

Other goings on... I've sold the Timeline and Space pedals, and used part of the proceeds to pick up a Sony DPS-D7 delay and a DPS-R7 reverb to use in their place. But the D7 had a wonky input knob that actually broke off in my fucking hand the second time I went to use it. That pot is super unobtanium, so I thought I'd just epoxy the broke-off-bit and not worry about separately controlling the input levels for the L and R channels (does anyone even DO that?)... Here's the pot.

Even after it was epoxied back together, it was fucking bent as fuck. Red line shows the angle, blue arrow shows where the epoxy ghetto fix went down. I saw another D7 listed as-is for $10 and nobody bid so I won it, and I had intended to just cannibalize the pot, but it turns out that it has a newer OS and it works fucking fine, so that was kind of a head-scratcher. People are weird. This delay is stupid deep. There's a multi-tap algorithm that has like 40 separately programmable taps, each with its own level, pan, feedback, and all that. The reverb (R7) is just as insane with parameters... Dudes, and dudettes, seriously, you need some deep-sea rated scuba gear to really get to grips with these Sony DPS motherfuckers. DEEEEEEEEEEEP AS FUCK. I've owned these before too. Had the F7 Filter too. That thing had a 40-band vocoder and a multi-part digital drum synth in it!? Man I think the engineers at Sony had access to some GOOD drugs back when they were working on this line of effects processors. Seriously. I mean, I love programming, but even I was intimidated by the sheer amount of programmability in these things. The ones I had before were a bit noisy, but these aren't at all. Strange. Fun shit though. Oh and there's this:

Ah fuck, looks a bit out of focus. That right there is a TOA DE-1000 delay. Rare as shit, and this one is in NEW condition. Insane! I've had this one on my radar for a while. Why? Because it's fucking WEIRD!!!! So the max delay time is 255ms or something really not that long at all, but you've got three to control: Left, Center and Right. Individual times (LEDs) and levels (white sliders), plus global wet/dry and feedback, AND modulation time and depth sliders. SLIDERS!!?? Ok it only has four memory slots, and no MIDI, but you can get up to some good mischief with this thing. Last two goodies to blab about:

Top: SONICWARE ELZ_1. What a weirdo synth. I heard that it's a raspberry pi under the hood but really? Who cares. It can do some off the wall shit. A handful of wacky synth engines, topped off by four effects processors at the end. And it has a speaker. My only complaint is no DIN MIDI, just USB and you have to buy a class compliant dealie. I suppose I should do so before I forget. Sounds pretty damn good though, and it does things that I've not heard other synths do. Built well. Fun to play and fun to program. Runs on batteries. Worth looking into. I was so impressed with this that I backed their next project (a groove box type thing it seems). Bottom: KORG AM8000R. This fucker does some WEIRD SHIT! I had one before (and its delay counterpart, the DL8000R) and for whatever reason didn't hold on to them. I think I was looking for more bread and butter, set it and forget it type effects. This was really cheap and it's in great shape. I don't think so many people know about these. Relatively easy to program, and you can get some really good, usable stuff as well as some super far out WTF stuff. The WARP! knob is good fun too.

Oh I suppose it's worth mentioning that I had an album released by Anti Gravity Device out of Tokyo a few weeks ago. Let's see if I can find a link...

https://anti-gravity-device.bandcamp.com/album/black-rainbows-agd036

Have a listen. It's stuff I recorded from about November through December last year, maybe even the first week of January this year. Live jam format, no master sequencer, wish I was an octopus because two arms and ten fingers just wasn't enough type stuff. All hardware. Fun!

So, my invisible tumblrpeeps, it's been a busy 2020 so far here. More things in the works. Keep your eyes peeled. Stay well. Watch out for number one, and don't step in number two. (thanks, Carlin!)