Stuff

[Todd Madson <crash@waste.org>]

HE MADE ME CRY BECAUSE HE MOCKED MY GUITAR PLAYING LOUDLY TO FRIENDS.

Nevermind.  Neanderthal behavior mode off.

I tried an instrument tonight that I think all of you should try out
because it gave me the same reaction I had when I tried the Vortex 
in years past.

I think it would make a great textural looping instrument.

I'm primarily a guitarist, but I also play synths and I tried a synth
that was very strange this afternoon, an Ensoniq Fizmo.

Damn weirdo device.  I couldn't for the life of me make it act normal
at all.  No conventional strings, brasses, or moog sounds here.  No
way. 

 Instead, giant shimmering sheets of molten metal rippling in the
solar wind, harpsichords made out of lead and cadmium, and the sound of
glass oozing through an ionospheric medium.  I mean, what the hell were
they thinking?  Anyone try using one in a top40 band would be shot on
sight.  Anyone looking for oozing, fluidic, metallic, shimmering 
atmospheres has at least gotta check it out.  Kind of like a PPG Wave
on hallucinogens.

The funniest thing was these knobs corresponding to the name of the
device, an f knob, an I knob, a z knob, and so on.  And it was like it
was designed to mess with my head as one knob would change the PITCH
on certain patches and others would boost the ultra-piercing highs this
thing was capable of and still others did stuff that sounded like it
was ring modulating some notes in a patch (but not others), and I'm
not sure I can describe the other sounds but it would really be cool
looped thru a vortex into some other looping processor.

I'm not fully convinced I figured it out, but I at least made it sound
musical.  And it was about $1000.  I suspect that someday it will be blown
out in a guitar center sale because nobody could figure it out.  It's 
really weird.

Back to your regularly scheduled looping content.

-t