Hi! I'm Stephen. I have over a decade of experience in criminal justice, civil legal aid, government service delivery, and the role of data/technology in all of that. I've done litigation, research, tech projects, and organizing. Always trying to get better at all of it.
I also sometimes make music, go on hikes, go birdwatching, and hang out with my cat. I think that's basically it! #introductions #intro
I have appeared on a podcast again
Twice, actually. I would not presume people are interested, but if you are, here is the information:
This episode is about the weirdo B-movie "Trancers": http://withtwobrains.com/lost-in-criterion/2020/12/25/happy-holidays-w-trancers
This episode is about an old western called "The Furies": http://withtwobrains.com/lost-in-criterion/2021/1/15/the-furies
uspol -
In a lot of ways, it's almost poetic that the summer of the uprising for Black lives has led to a world where even lots of WHITE people in America now have to acknowledge their government doesn't give a fuck about them.
It's a Run the Jewels kinda day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32hUIGnMpOY
pol, David Graeber quote, carework
"You ask any Marxist about labor and labor-value, they always immediately go to production. Well, here’s a cup. Somebody has to make the cup, it’s true. But we make a cup once, and we wash it ten thousand times, right? That labor just disappears in most of these accounts. Most work isn’t about producing things, it’s about keeping them the same, it’s about maintaining them, taking care of them, but also taking care of people, taking care of plants and animals."
process, audio routing
- Guitar goes through an EHX Pi fuzz into the "left" audio-in.
- Microkorg is doing some arps into the "right" audio-in.
- Both audio-in channels are then panned center, creating just two mono ins. Then I process both with chorus and delay to widen them again!
process
Lot's going on, sorry if it's not interesting:
- No overdubs, all sequenced or played live.
- Trying to play in some more odd time signatures on Digitone.
- Lots of "trig-less" parameter locks on the ratios between the operators for the pad to make it jitter around.
- Put the tremolo bar on my guitar for the first time in forever.
deep digitone lore
Oh and actually if I map portamento to the mod wheel and play it that way, I can probably be expressive with the bend and still parameter lock it from a live performance. Hm. Something to experiment with.
deep digitone lore
Ok using a parameter-locked portamento would have been much easier than the LFO shoot
deep digitone lore
In the end getting this all set up was NOT faster than just learning to play it live on the keyboard and do the bends manually. But the point of this exercise was to learn the Digitone, not to learn the lead line from the Yoshi's Island theme, so. Here we are.
deep digitone lore
To get the pitch bends, I had to do a an LFO modifying the pitch locked on that note, then reset the LFO on the next note so it only runs for half a cycle. BUT that first one isn't followed by a note to cancel the LFO, so you have to use Digitone's "trig-less trig" feature (i.e. a locked parameter setting without a note associated with it).
process
An exercise in recreating something completely on the Digitone, but so it's not incredibly interesting. The title is weirdly a joke about the television show LOST.
Into criminal defense, science, sci-fi, hiking, birds ¤ also into dismantling the carceral state, the nonprofit industrial complex, capitalism, and white supremacy (it's good to have ambitious goals) ¤ (he/him)