random osx questions I can’t find a good answer to so far…

How do I make the keyboard navigation better?
I enabled the extra special keyboard navigation stuff under
the accessibility dialog, but it still seems really bad. The
most common case seems to be when closing an app, and you get
one of the variations of “save file? cancel? dont save?”. By
default, these all seem to pick “save”, and there doesnt seem
to be anyway with keynav to select one of the other options.
“tab” doesnt work, arrow keys dont work, space doesnt do anything.
The Native Instrument apps seem bad about this, so it might be
an app level thing.

I need a app menu. Please.

I would love a configurable “windows start/gnome foot” etc
style menu on the dock. A simple way to launch an app seems
to be something that apple ignored. Apparently, they expect
you to put everything you use on the dock (already too big)
and go diving though the file manager to launch anything else.
Very aggravating.

The Plagiarist Manifesto

This is apparently old, but I hadn’t seen it before.
A perl script to randomly generate a manifesto by
munging together other manifestos.

I installed a small shareware OSX app called “Vocal Lab”. It’s basically
a tuner for vocals. If you can sing (which I can’t), you can use
it to test your intonation.

It basically graphs the pitch of your voice (both in terms of
hertz and musical notes).

But the more interesting part is that I now now my speaking
voices ranges from about 105 hertz (A2 or so) up to
about 128 hertz.

Theres something very right, yet
very wrong about this picture.

played last night with metaArclight.

Went pretty well. Turnout wasnt too bad considering Sonic
Youth was playing in Chapel Hill last night as well.

Myself, badger, and Anthony make up metaArclight.
I played a a usb game controller hooked up to my powerbook
running the “grainstates” instrument from the app Reaktor.
This is basically a granualar resynthesizer (aka, it
takes bits and pieces of a sample and plays back several
chunks at the same time). The controller was setup so
I had control over pitch, volume, grain size, and what
part of the samples the grains were extracted from. I
also had a midi footswitch setup to let me select different
samples and to control the feedback on two delay lines.
The samples themselves were pulled out of various recordings
of Phasmatodea practices.

Anthony had a cd player and various cd’s, a reverse delay,
and a looper. He was also playing the roland handsonic (essentially,
an electronic handdrum) on a tubular bells setting. He was feeding
the handsonic and the cds of chants and other sounds into the delay
and loopers.

badger was setup with the zeta electric upright and
his usual pedal array (well, a good size subset of it anyway…).

We also had two folks (Carlos and Todd) during abstract projections
(custom slides and hand tweaking and manipulation of slide projectors)
during the show. Very cool.

I think it turned out well. I wasn’t should what to expect since
I think all three of us were performing in a fashion we hadn’t done
before live (me on laptop, anthony on samples, steve on bass).

Very swirly churning noises. Fun.

Things I screwed up: I forgot the usb cable I need to hook up
the midi interface and had to run home to get it.

Arts Project Contest

Been looking for an excuse to use my dv camera and the editing
software on the powerbook, maybe this is it.

Who wants to make a movie?

reminder: metaArclight at Bickett Gallery tonight.

Evil Dead. The Musical.

Sounds like something badger might enjoy.

Hmm, what have I been up to.

Haven’t been to any shows in a week or two.

More fiddling with the powerbook. I think the music/audio/noise
software I like best so far seems to be Reaktor from
Native Instruments. The demo is quite impressive. Ordered
a real copy.

Also been fiddling with Junxion,
a app that lets you use USB game controllers as midi controllers. Fun.

Speaking of which, it looks like I’ll be playing with metaArchlight this
thursday at 919noise night at Bickett Gallery. I’ll probably be playing
the aforementioned game controller/reaktor/powerbook combo. badger
and Anthony from Subscape Annex are the other folks involved.

Had an idea for “decorating” the powerbook, involving one of the
mac skinz and a cnc laser
cutter. Or perhaps I’ll just paint it.

Phasmatodea practice
yesterday. Listening to the results now. Not bad.

So anyone got an opinion on what the best wave/audio editor for osx is?
So far my favorite is audacity, which is the same one I was using under linux
(its cross platform and open source).

I suspect that since I’m editing ~10-20 minute stereo wav files, I
should be using more of a DAW type thing, so suggestions for
that regard are appreciated as well.

Actually, for that matter, if theres any osx software thats cool
I should check it out, let me know.