This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Number 20 is a bit of  a remix of sorts, if you don’t mind me borrowing some jargon from our disc jockey brethren. Remember Number 8? Well, this is what it looks like now, paired with an additional filter. I (re)-built this in January 2011 in preparation for a west coast tour I was going on with Liz Meredith. I was already set to bring Number 16, as well as my Doepfer Dark Energy and figured I had the time – I was already set on moving to Costa Rica, so I nixed most major projects that I was involved with in San Francisco and had a free minute or eight in the home stretch – so why not go for consistency. Not to mention that shiny, silver enamel paint tarnishes over time, and hey, if you’re rocking your own wares, you might as well look spiffy, yeah? As you can tell from the pictures, my fine motor control is a bit lacking – well, that and all holes were done by Dremel – I really should have picked up a drill press waaay earlier – you’d be surprised the difference it makes – but hey, the painting’s cool, right?

By the by – here’s a picture of the rig I took on tour with me:

And this is what we sounded like:

Upgrade and Retirement

So in 2016, I found myself inspired and motivated. Not exactly sure how that happened, but while writing this two years later, I can in fact ascertain that it happened. And during that spell of motivation, I managed to convert a whole gaggle of older instruments to a standard, 1/8″ jack interface which I toured on for a second while still getting my sea legs back for performing after Xime was born. The only problem with that was that these instruments, while beautiful, weren’t exactly designed for the rigors of the road – a fact that I learned only after I took them all in a flight case to England. In the case of this particular instrument, while I was upgrading it, I decided to coat the underside of original point to point wiring with hot glue to prevent it from shorting out on the case. Unfortunately, a few wires came loose in transit and I realized that in order to reseat them, I’d have to remove the glue – and most likely destroy the circuit in the process. Thankfully, the more or less still works – its just never truly silent – great for drone stuff, but eh, you know, dynamics. So as of April 2018, a gallery hook went in the back of it and it now lives on the wall at our house, awaiting the day when it gets to be part of some sort of retrospective or dissertation show or something. But before that happens, here are a couple of unofficial dirges and requiems for Number 20: