In this section, you'll find pictures from my insane techno studio, as well as photos from live-pa shows at raves, clubs and house parties. I'm lucky to have a very talented photographer for a girlfriend - Erin is always taking photos, and my live shows and gear collection are often a source of subject material for her. I'm also always looking for more, so if you've got photos from a MUX show, drop me a line and let me know.
Our housemate and close friend Ross Granolaboy decided his annual blowout Halloween party might just get a little too rowdy for our new shared house, so he made arrangements to take over a bar for the evening. And a good thing he did, too, 'cause a little over 200 people showed up to party! My set went pretty well, even after major soundsystem problems and having to back the soundsystem down to a third of its original power.
My set at The Listening Room went awesomely - both rooms were packed, the beer flowed freely, and a good time was had by everyone involved. Man, one of these days I'm going to have to get some crowd pics - there was no real dancefloor to speak of, but the walkways were packed with dancers anyway. :)
Daaaaamn. Eleven months since the last update. Costa Rica is now a faint memory, and Erin and I have settled back into the Vancouver lifestyle. After almost three years without a live performance, I finally got myself booked for the Listening Room event in the Planetarium. It was an awesome set, lots of people dancing even given the lack of a proper dancefloor!
The live rig (first three pictures) has been tweaked, engineered, hammered out, torn down, reconstructed, and finally has emerged, phoenix-like, as a finely-tuned collection of machines working in perfect harmony. The Alesis MMT-8 sequencer is driving the heavily-modified Simmons SDS-800, which provides kickdrum, "snare" and tom sounds... the snare is quoted, because it's more of a quirky synth-drum than a snare - it makes a vicious, cutting highhat sound when taunted. Also being controlled by the MMT-8 is the mighty Waldorf Pulse Plus singing baritone, and the venerable Roland SH-101 providing leads and the occasional percussive noise.
In the mixer rack, I've got the Mackie CR-1604 battlemixer, a pair of Electrix "ModFX" for Stupid DJ Tricks(tm) (hey, if we're expected to go toe-to-toe with DJs, we at least get some of their cheats!), a Rockman Stereo Chorus/Delay for weirdness, and an RNC compressor for the whole mix. The newest addition to the rack, the DBX 166XL compressor, adds extra punch to the kickdrum and SH-101.
In the floor rack, there's a power conditioner, Alesis Datadisk MIDI backup thingey (MMT-8's are known to become amnesiatic when stressed), Waldorf Pulse Plus, and Ensoniq DP/4+ multifx box.
Visible in the synth rack (fourth picture, aka "the stuff that doesn't come out to live shows") is a Simmons SDS-9 (younger and slightly nerdier brother to the SDS-800), Boss BX-600 mixer, ultra-rare Yamaha SY-1 (the first "synth" Yamaha ever made!), Roland Juno-60, and a very tempermental Korg PolySix.
Lastly, the desktop workstation - this is not only where I spend my studio time, but also where I work for my fulltime dayjob as a Linux network administrator.
October already, hey? I've been working on a bunch of small bits, but never seem to be able to complete them. Moving back and forth from the computer to the "sweet spot" between the monitors sucked a bit, so today I decided to rearrange to better suit the whole "production first" thing I've been working on. Seems to be ok. In the few hours that it's been up, I've already recorded a bit of a jam... not good enough for here yet tho. ;)
The studio seems to have stabilized, and I'm spending most of my time learning the new ins and outs. Logic Audio has proved, after a month of banging my head against it, to be worth the effort of learning, and I've got it sequencing the gear *and* recording 24bit/96khz audio! Hopefully I can knock some of the old crap off the tunes page.
The SDS-800 surgery is working *flawlessly* - I'm actually debating whether or not to open it up again to add another envelope to the basskick. You can see the generous use of CAT-5 ethernet cabling in the pics... I managed to find two panel-mount ethernet sockets in Houston, but I still need a panel-mount power connector before I'm gonna start drilling any more holes. Notice the four extra trigger-outs... these allow me to trigger the Boss PC-2 Percussion Synth and the Boss HC-2 Handclapper modules... not sure exactly what I'm going to do with the other two triggers just yet. >:)
Photographs 
