So what’s next?

My near-term plans are to get some much-needed studio upkeep & improvements done. I’ve already replaced the power amp and finally “finished” the first set of my DIY monitors. There’s also a new drum machine enroute and lots of little projects to complete.

Since split cassette submissions are coming in slower than expected, next up may actually be a quick companion EP to Acetic, with remixes and unreleased tracks and a couple of new ones (want to remix? Everything on disc 2 was multitracked, so stems for those can be made available upon request…)

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• It’s had the biggest traffic surge to my Bandcamp site in the nearly two years it’s been in use. Both in plays and hits to the site.
• Sales are coming in at a reasonable pace, including my first international sale! Going to have to start assembling the next sub-batch of ten.
• Response has been largely positive.

I also did a live performance on WCSB last night- it’s likely to see release sometime in the future.

In theory, the next scheduled releases are the two planned split cassettes. I’m still waiting on material/submissions- I guess if I have to I’ll start working on something for one or both of them… There will also be a batch of contact microphones for sale in the next few months as well.

Also, if you want a free Acetic download code, I’ve been occasionally dropping them on Twitter and Facebook, so you might get lucky and find one that works

Lastly, one of the tracks from the new album is on this compilation. All proceeds go to support Red Cross efforts in tornado-stricken West Liberty, Kentucky. I’ve got family in an adjacent county, so this is kind of important to me. Go check it out.

If you’re one of the people affected by this, I will correct this by sending a new download code for those who have purchased the download, and replacement CD-Rs upon request. Luckily, I’ve only duped about ten physical copies so far and only distributed a few, so it’s not a huge loss/remediation effort.

2- Since people (radio DJ’s in particular) are always after me about including tracklistings with albums, I have broken down and purchased a laser printer. Physical copies of Acetic will now contain a fancy cardstock printout with the full tracklist for both discs, and a download code (if you bought it via Bandcamp and have the download already, just give the code to a friend or something).

On the positive side, this seems to be the biggest launch of a release so far- the Bandcamp hits and plays are the highest in a one-week period that I’ve seen since starting to use the service. I’ve also enabled per-track purchases on the album, so if there’s just one song that knocks your socks off, it’s yours for a mere fifty cents.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get around to the other two components of the release that I wanted to do- a mix containing all Ohio-based acid house artists I could find, and a KLF-esque road trip driving along the entire length of OH-303 today- I just ran out of time. They may still happen in the future, though.

So, I’ve had this Yamaha TG33 for a while (bought it in 1999 or 2000)- I used it pretty regularly until some night in the 2000s when it suddenly stopped playing during the middle of a radio broadcast. Technically, it didn’t stop, it just suddenly started playing really quietly, even though the volume was cranked. I got as far as taking it apart to determine if it was the volume knob, but it appeared not to be. I was then stumped, and decided to shelve it until I could decide what to do with it later. At some point in 2008 or 2009, I removed the joystick to make a little X-Y CV controller for my MFOS Sound Lab. I later bought a Korg Wavestation SR to get my vector on.

Fast-forward to a couple of nights ago. There was an SY22 (sort of the keyboard version, but with a few changes) that was very tempting on eBay (61 keys, velocity/aftertouch, voice architecture I like, etc.). At some point I was doing some due diligence and reading reviews and whatnot, when I found a statement about how SY22s have a known issue that causes the audio to suddenly cut out and get really quiet, and that the fix is relatively simple- replace a transistor that controls a relay on the outputs.

Armed with this information, I thought that perhaps the TG33 might share this same problem. I pulled it from where it had been sitting and took a look around. I didn’t see anything like a relay anywhere on the PCBs. Hunting for the Service Manual proved mostly fruitless (there are some sources that may have a manual for sale, but none seem to be available online). However, the SY22 Service Manual is readily available online, so I grabbed that to see if that offered any assistance or enlightenment. There was no major enlightenment, but there was some wisdom to be gleaned from it.

From tracing back from the outputs, I can say that in place of the relay, the TG33 seems to use a bank of four 2SC2878 NPN transistors, which were specially marketed for “muting and switching applications”, and are designed with “reverse Hfe” in mind. There was also what appeared to be electrolytic capacitor leakage in the general vicinity of those capacitors (though I don’t think they’re damaged as one is outside of the “leak zone”), and some more near another transistor that may be related (a 2SA or 2SC1015), which may be the one at fault. I replaced both of the caps, as I had replacements on-hand.

Since replacing that transistor may not fix the problem, I decided to do some more sleuthing around the boards to see what else is possible. The SY22 service manual does have a little information about the VCA that the TG33 uses, a Mitsubishi (now Renesas, I guess?) M51132L dual VCA (two, actually- one for each pair of outputs). I made up a quick audio probe, and started poking around the pinout that I had- attaching to the input pin did give me a nice loud signal!

I think my next steps (when I get some time) are:

1. Poke around the VCAs some more- see if the output signal is as loud as the input signal.
2. See what the voltages on the VCAs are, and if they change when the volume control is turned.
3. Poke around that lone transistor that may have had some cap leakage, see if it should be replaced.
4. If it turns out that it’s both VCAs that have failed or something I can’t outright determine or fix, I can wire up jacks directly to the VCA inputs and just worry about volume on an external mixer.
5. Oh yeah, and I’ll have to remove the joystick from its current home and get it back into the TG33. Could be a challenge…

So, I’ve got at least one hack solution if I can’t determine the actual cause. If it’s not a full victory, it’s certainly an okay one. And no, I didn’t win the auction on the SY22. If you’ve got one of those or an SY35 you want to part with for cheap, let me know

Somewhere in the middle of all this recording, I think I’m going to try to submit something for this, and I have three shows planned for this month- February 9th and 24th at bela dubby, and a return to the Grog Shop on the 15th with The Hexadecimals. New material for the double CD will be getting played at these shows.

Going to be busy for the next four weeks!

As mentioned in the paragraph above, my first show of 2012 is happening Friday at bela dubby. Should get going around 9pm. I’m even hearing a rumour that it’ll be webcast for those out of town or unwilling to leave their homes.

More special projects in the works, but I’ll talk about those later…

I finally dug into my vaults and found the episode of Press The Button featuring 9 Volt Haunted House from August 2009, cleaned it up a tiny bit, and put it up on the internets for your downloading pleasure.

You can grab the files here: GLAC-13.

Live-wise, a few performances are still lined up for the rest of this year(Dec. 26th at Pat’s, and Dec. 28th on WCSB-FMpostponed, stay tuned) and a few already next year, but I think I’ll be turning down any additional shows in January and maybe February. If something really interesting comes along I’ll give consideration to any opportunities presented, but I’ve got some projects coming up that are going to take a lot of my time between now and February:

GLAC-27 (the debut EP by Béton Translucide) is very, very close to done. Mixing is something like 75% complete. Tapes by the Dec. 26th show? It’s looking possible.

I’ve gotten a number of inquiries about the split tape series, and if everyone who has contacted me so far submits something, these should be two killer splits(currently assigned catalog numbers GLAC-28&29).

GLAC-30 will be a third split, featuring myself and another artist to be announced soon. My side may well be along these lines.

GLAC-20 and GLAC-25 are making slow progress. On a positive note, I finally found a “lost” 4-track tape that I wanted to mix down for -20, so that’s a positive. The scope of -25 has gotten really big (two full CDs + a limited edition mix + a sort of performance art project/road trip), and may well be a box set if the scope creeps any further .

There’s another project I’m about to start on soon(which is likely the primary focus in the short term), but I don’t want to give too much information on it just yet. It’ll be properly announced when it’s ready.

I’ll leave you with this: Go see the show at Pat’s on December 26th. There will be more synths in there than you can shake a stick at- Inner Spaced (i.e. Telecult Powers+John Elliot of Emeralds/Outer Space), a Fragments/Fluxmonkey collab(!!!), Moth Cock, your humble narrator glacial23, and maybe one more act. UFOs will be seen!