What are your obsessions?

• Reading, writing, and history (I made a careeer of this and was an elementary teacher for 17 years)
• Culinary Arts (I made a career of this. After burning out as an elementary teacher, I was a Culinary Arts instructor for 15 years)
• military miniatures and 1/6 scale WWI action figures (Now that I'm retired, I've used these + art AI to produce and publish 4 alternative history graphic novels)
• Soap and candles that look and smell iike real food (I created a small on-line business to sell these but decided that I really hated dealing with quarterly taxes, paperwork, and customer service)
• Autism - I blog about autism and have created 3 graphic novels about autism. I am thinking of turning the blog into a non-profit.

My obsession and always has been,  is my superhero figures especially Spiderman,  I collect all things Spiderman and love superhero themed clothes to which I have a vast collection of

I am obsessed with anything purple, anything autistic or Trans related lol or even gaming related ^_^ because  I am a nerrrrdd hehe

When I was unemployed about 6 years ago for a year I got into music production using Reason.

I made mostly Trance, Prog House, one Psy Trance, some ambient and a kind of Hard House track.

I listen primarily to various forms of underground Trance and Prog House.

You have until 30th September.

I guess then it may head over to Amazon as they now produce it after SyFy cancelled it at the end of S3.

It seems they max-out all the tracks now to compete for attention and to try to be 'louder' than anthing else. That 'pumping' sound around the bass drum annoys me too - it's like old Dolby C without the eq switched in.

Good news! My Atari arrived this morning - all works ok so I'm hooking my toys together right now. I'm using Gajits Sequencer One for MIDI control.

I tend not to stick to one genre. I've made quite a bit of Drum and Bass but I haven't made that for a while. I used to make a lot of sample based hip-hop too. I tend to make more downbeat stuff now. Trip-hop, Electro, and a lot of what people would call Ambient. The last thing I completed was a collaboration with a guy I know. It was what I'd call slowed down Electro but with no hi-hats. We decided not to structure it in conventional 16 bar verses. It was pretty unstructured. I just let the mood take me most times.

Emma said:

A song of Ice and Fire

I'm pretty pissed with GRRM. Since Game of Thrones has been televised he seems more concerned with ComiCons and the like to write a new novel. It's been long enough now! I'm worried we will never see a new book!

Octave Kitten, nice! I think you can get random effects from software but I'd say sometimes the process can be convoluted. Running separate LFO between effects and the synth is something that can yield some nice unexpected stuff. Not just plug and go though.

There are still bands using that sparse production. I hate a whole track that has been compressed but running a nice crisp drum machine through compression can be interesting. That wall of sound thing sounds even worse with some of the sidechaining methods used now. I hear music where the whole track will collapse to let a kick drum in. It irritates me. It's like water in my ears everytime a kick comes in. I'm guessing you aren't a fan of "remastered" albums either! Loudness isn't everything!

I don't think you can choose a special interest, the interest chooses you, and after that you're just along for the ride

I don't think you can choose a special interest, the interest chooses you, and after that you're just along for the ride. 

I'm currently experiencing the beginning of a new special interest, which I am pretty confident I will get very boring about before long, if I haven't already.

It started when I was looking at our local river (more of a stream, really) at what would have been a pretty spot, near the abbey and a very old bridge, and tutting about the amount of litter. After a few visits, I had the idea of picking it up myself. Then I started wading into a shallow part of the river to pick out crisp packets and lager cans and such. Then I began spotting the wildlife.

Currently, I visit the spot 2 or 3 times a week. I've seen water beetles, shoals of small fish, and the burrows of bank voles (not the occupants yet, but I live in hope) I've found Victorian bottles and tiles in the gravel banks. Sometimes I just sit there and watch birds flying down to drink and preen. It's become my favourite quiet place.

I'm seriously considering going down it in a dinghy, I know it probably all sounds a bit weird, but I'm already past caring.

What type of electronic music do you produce?

Yeah - it was a lovely sound but it weighed about 40kg so moving it around was impractical. Especially when my JD800 could do its job and a lot more too.

I've got a real odd bunch right now - Octave Kitten, Korg Poly 61, Casio CZ3000, Korg X3, Roland SK88, Roland S10, Zoom effects etc. They all do interesting things that playing with software doesn't. It's the odd, random 'real' sounds that software just doesn't give that I like.

I like the old Depeche Mode and John Foxx sound - huge, clean, empty soundscapes where sounds are placed deliberately rather than the 'wall of sound' over-produced, compressed garbage that's been around for the last 20 years..

Collecting music (no particular genre).

Electronic music production.

Collecting, repairing, restoring watches (mainly automatics because they don't "tick") selling and buying them.

Film. I like every aspect. Set design, costume, cinematography, direction, casting, e.t.c.. I can appreciate a good 80's action film as much as a Tarkovsky film. If it's got something I like, I like it.

I read a lot but everyone does here it seems. The Dune books are my favourite fiction books.

Plastic said:

Worst deal ever was swapping an ARP solina for a £25 echo pedal.

Ouch! Mind you Solina's were looked at as inferior to a lot of the polysynths of the time. At least you got a guitar pedal for it, my friends dad threw a Freeman Ensemble into a skip in the 80's. Polyphonic string synths didn't get a lot of love until more recent times!

Plastic said:

I've just bought an old Atari ST to go 'old school' with my synthesisers.

Cubase on the ST was great. I don't really use outboards anymore. Hardware is more fun than software production though. I still have a few synths though. I have a Korg DW8000 and a Roland Juno Alpha 2. I still have my sampler too. I run a DAW now but the hands on feel of hardware is something I deeply miss! Which synths and outboards are you using?

I find that sucking air through your teeth tends to catch the attention of most friendly cats.

Looks like a kissy motion when you do it but it's not.

CRISPR CAS9 FTW!