Matthew Supert

It has been years since I have really purchased any new music hardware for my music setup. It is hard to believe that most of my equipment is 10+ years old now. About two years ago I was looking at some new hardware, but I was unable to find anything that I liked. I settled on an effects pedal to spice up the sounds of my Korg EA-1, and that has worked out great. 

I have still been wanting to try and find something different. I love most of the gear that I am working with, but at times, I find that it can be a bit cumbersome. What do I mean by that? Well, the Command Station is a wonderful sequencer as are all of the other synths that I have, but I often feel that I have to spend a lot of time trying to create the sounds before I can create the music. They don't necessarily lend themselves to improvisation. I also find myself getting fixated on the minutia of the sequencing.  That isn't a bad thing, but it does lead to instances where I end up not doing music for months because I look at the gear and see a "process" of several hours in an afternoon of noodling around without much process. 

I have wanted to try and find something that can provide me some "instant gratification" for quite some time. A box that I could instantly sit down in front of to get some notes playing and also make live-streaming more fun. I looked at the Korg Volca series and several other synths, but I decided to go with the Novation equipment for one primary reason. There is no screen. 

Novation's motto for these little boxes is something like "happy accidents"

This is exactly the type of gear I am looking for. Something to crank out some fun tracks on, where I don't have to worry about them being polished studio productions. I hope they can get me to play live more on Twitch. 

My first couple nights with the boxes has been fun. The interface is hard for my mind to digest and I am intentionally avoiding reading any sort of manual at this time. I hope to get them properly setup this weekend for some streaming and jamming. 

What is going to happen to my other gear? So, I think I am going to downsize quite a bit. I will keep my EMU Command Station, since it is the best sequencer ever made in my opinion. The sound engine on that is unique and quite good for ambient, something else I want to get into. Everything else might end up going. I think I am more excited to offload most of the equipment to allow me to purchase some effects or something for the Novation or EMU. 

I have finally found a game that has broken by addiction to Overwatch (more on that later), and with that game came a soundtrack that almost broke my addiction to the Skyrim Soundtrack. 

Destiny 2 released this past week and with it came a beautiful soundtrack that includes 44 tracks of beautiful and haunting orchestral music. The music here is simply gorgeous, and while it does feature several tracks with repeating melodic themes, it really does capture the melancholy mood of the game. The highlight of the soundtrack is the song "Journey", which is performed by the Kronos Quartet. The song comes in the story at a time when your character is broken, both physically a mentally. As a  player you find yourself in the wilderness, exposed and vulnerable to death and perhaps even hollowed out by the loss of the "light". 

The track is simply beautiful and Bungie did a fantastic job of settling the rest of the ambience of the game into the background to let the music shine in your time of desperation. You can find that track below

If you are in any way a fan of orchestral film or game soundtracks then this is a must buy. It is ranking up there as one of my top favorites and I have been listening to it on repeat all week long. 

This year's big end of summer motorcycle trip was perhaps the longest trip I have ever taken. 2,750 miles start to finish and we traveled through at least seven states and two providences of Canada. 

 Let's see how that trip went. 

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Day 4, our final day on the cruise. This was a day at the private island and we spent most of it just snorkeling. We got to see a sea turtle!!!!!

And that's it!!! The next morning we were back in Miami and heading back to Chicago. 

Day three of the cruise, and Megan and I were doing some more tours. This time we were doing two tours for the day. The first was to a cigar factory and the second was to the Old Havana Rum museum. When we arrived back at the main square to meet up with our tour group we found out that  we were the only ones in our tour. Our tour guide this time was not nearly as good as Mercedes from the day before. She unfortunately did not speak very good english. 

We took a cab to the cigar factory, which was located pretty deep into the city. Our cab driver was actually much more friendly and talkative than our tour guide. 

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Day 2, July 4th, we arrived in Cuba. Megan and I both got up early and watched the ship pull into the Havana port. 

Cruise day started out great. We got up early and then had breakfast an a small empanada restaurant near the hotel. We grabbed our bags and then called an Uber to take us to the port. Once we arrived at the port we had to go through the long line of checking in, which took almost an hour. I was a bit nervous about the whole process because I wasn't quite sure how the visa process for Cuba was supposed to work. Some of the travel documentation stated we needed to obtain the visa 70 days prior, but thankfully it was all taken care of by the cruise company. 

We got our visas and then got onto the ship, or at least we were supposed. We ended up sitting in the terminal for another hour or two and the crowds of people just kept pouring in. At the time we didn't know what was going on and Megan's hangry monster was beginning to show up. We later found out that the port authority had discovered drugs aboard the ship. We don't know if they were from the crew or former passengers. 

The ship finally cast off around 5:30 pm. A little bit late, but everything was good. 

We didn't do much else that night except hang around the ship, goto a few shows and have some dinner. 

Megan and I just returned this past Friday from Cuba. Yes, that Cuba!!!!

We left Chicago on July 2nd to fly into Miami. We flew into our cruise the night before this time, because if you remember our last cruise adventure, we missed our flight and almost missed the cruise. No mistakes this time. 

We arrived in Miami late that night, around 8:00 pm. There wasn't much to do, but go grab some dinner. We ate at CVI.CHE 105, which as you may guess, is ceviche! The food was amazing and we of course ordered too much. Megan and I both agreed that we should try and spend some more time in Miami at some point.