User:SyntheticThought
“Very nice music, I like the 10 TET! Congrats!” —Tolgahan Çoğulu
“Listening to your music now and it’s great!” —Brendan Byrnes
"Kurt Cobain liked (your old band) Bomb. Kurt turned me on to Bomb." --Krist Novoselic
SyntheticThought a.k.a. Michael Feen, real name Michael W. Dean
I'm in the music group BipTunia. https://biptunia.com/ Our microtonal music is here; https://biptunia.com/?s=microtonal
BipTunia has made many albums (14 as of March 2019). All but the first 7 contain some microtonal music.
It's not a jam band. structured music. I work on music largely 24/7. Or close to that.
I've played music since 1978. First played a synthesizer (hardware) in 1980. Built a synth in 1981 (PAIA kit.)
First put out a record in 1985 with a jazz-punk group called Baby Opaque.
I made several microtonal VSTs, and a microtonal sampler. Most are for Windows, but one is for Mac. You can get them free, here.
I put out a xen compilation album called "Microtonal Freedom (A Benefit Compilation Album for Lyn Ulbricht)." Some of the folks on this wiki are on that album. More info here. And you can listen to it free, here on Spotify.
I used to do the Freedom Feens radio show. I don't do it anymore, but they still play replays on 16 commercial stations around the US. I've been podcasting regularly since 2006, and started on radio in 2011.
I write and edit tech books: https://www.oreilly.com/pub/au/3220
I make documentary films: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1543780/
I was in a very cool band called Bomb that was signed to Warner Brothers and played in a lot of dive bars around America, Canada, & Europe.
Last gig I played was in 1999. Touring is a young man's game. There is video of that gig though.
Fun facts: I have no trouble speaking in front of a crowd, have done it a lot, but prefer to avoid people. I am self-employed, work at home, am often up all night and sleep in the day, and sometimes go weeks without seeing any humans other than my wonderful wife.
My user name SyntheticThought is from a line in a BipTunia song. The phrase was created by Phil Wormuth, the Poet Laureate of BipTunia. He and I went to college together, back in the early 80s.
I love cats. Have 3 cats. Bob, Beast, and BipCat. They're awesome.
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Oct 16, 2018 update: Stopped editing the wiki, for the same reason good editors usually leave wikis; frustration from admins not blocking people who make counterproductive edits, when those people will not stop, despite repeated warnings and banning.
March 20, 2019 update, had started helping here again, but quit again. And am watching people who don't know me throw me under the bus on the Xenwiki Work Group. No good deed goes unpunished.
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Here's what I did on this Wiki. (And the only thing I ever blanked was viagra spam.):
I combined two pages with a lot of redundant info (Artists, and Bands, combined to new page, "LISTEN.")
First I discussed it with Kite, Mike, Tyler. they OKed it.
Plus found all the long-dead links on those pages and deleted dead links, put on the talk page what I deleted, then found working Listen links for artists when I could.
That took about 2 weeks of about 3 hours a day.
I spent an afternoon putting this up, and formatting it all, and adding the links. Kite suggested I do that. And I wrote a few short tutorials on doing specific things in Scala. And updated the VST page, looked for dead links, and found live links. And wrote the suggested Conduct page they're freaking out about. Wrote that after discussions with you, Kite, and Tae. Talked a lot about it with Mike B. and Tyler. Mike B was cool with it, Tyler, gave me a lot of pushback, but I did it anyway, so people could see what I was talking about rather than sending bits here and there as PMs. I never blanked anything, except viagra spam. Added my music and my VSTs to the Listen and VST page. that's pretty much it, that I recall. certainly nothing destructive. Other than that, just helped the community when possible. Put together a compilation album, made some free xen VSTs, and answered a lot of questions from Noobs on the Xen Alliance, and Microtaliaty Facebook pages.
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Read "The Great Failure of Wikipedia — November 19, 2004" for more on this. Written by Jason Scott, one of the people who helped build Wikipedia in the early days: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808
tl:dr version of Jason Scott's article: The productive contributors leave because they go from "being a content creator to being a content defender.".. When a very few people shit all over everything, and admins don't stop them, because admins don't want to be "mean." And usually a few editors jump in and tell the people trying to make things work that they're being "mean."
Or the editors and admins think a wiki is a democracy. When they should think of it as private property jointly owned by the admins and editors who are currently making useful edits.
WANT TO CHAT WITH ME?: Like many microtonal musicians, and many musicians in general, and many synth players, and most software designers, I have Aspergers.
So I have a hard time reading sarcasm, especially in text, especially from people I haven't talked with a lot.
So if you're kidding with me, add "lol" or I'll never know.
And if you're pissed at me, let me know clearly, or I'll never know.
If you're trying to convey something more subtle, explain it in plain English or I'll never know.
These are, by the way, good overall suggestions for anyone talking to anyone on the Internet.. People don't know your baseline, then they can't read between your lines