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7.15.2001 -
Two
unusual in depth interviews with Wendy were conducted by the witty,
sharp music writer, Carol Wright via phone conversations in the
Spring of 2001. Both have been added to our Resources
Page, right above our other
interview postings. First, there's a
long Kaleidoscopic Interview,
deeper than usual yet droll and breezy, which Carol wrote for the
Synthmuseum
website's excellent magazine, on the effects and differences of the
newest digital tools on the creating and recording of music in the
21st Century. Both artistic and work-related topics are nicely
covered, and will answer many of your unanswered questions.
And then there's
a
shorter, soul-searching interview
that appeared in part along with several others in an article for
New Age Retailer. Carol thought the contrast with the other
more traditional spiritually inspired artists would be nicely
balanced by Wendy's thoughtful humanist realist views. Topics and
provocative questions that seldom are discussed anywhere arose, and
you will want to read our complete transcript, published here for the
first time.
7.10.2001 -
During
the past week our
new Eclipse 2001 Page
on the event of June 21st has been expanded in many ways, more
images, more descriptions. There's now even a memorable short story
by J. F Cooper, which we stumbled upon most serendipitously a day
ago. Even if you're not a coronaphile, you will probably find
something interesting on the new page.
7.04.2001 -
And
as promised in the sneak preview of ten days ago, we've finally been
able to assemble a nice assortment of images and thoughts about the
spectacular total solar eclipse of June 21st, 2001. The
report has its own new page here.
There are the usual special composite images of totality itself, and
several unusual panoramic shots taken in Zambia, complete with full
descriptions. Your best views of the corona other than being
there!
6.23.2001 -
Now
here's a scoop for you. Just go take a look at the first corona of
the new millennium, witnessed just three days ago, in decent
preliminary versions, with a couple of short paragraphs about a most
memorable experience. It's near the end
of our eclipse page.
6.7.2001 -
As
usual, there were a few edits to be made in the new additions just
added to
the photo page. Also another
image was processed and added, this one of Wendy with Subi, old
friends sitting together for a final quiet time.
5.28.2001 -
There
are several new photos and a brand new drawing uploaded this evening.
Most are about Subi, the blue-point Siamese Wendy just lost on May
17th. You may want to read her comments and see the pictures
on
the photo page and the
sketch on
the artworks page. There was
also some rearranging and editing of both pages done, and another
new
shot of Pandy (versus a
laserprinter this time, a new discovery) was added at the bottom of
the newer pet section of photos.
4.30.2001 -
We
have noticed for awhile that many of your comments and questions
cover similar topics, most often about the planned availability of a
particular favorite album title. Well, here's a new way to reply back
to you. This update includes our newest page of Frequently
Asked Questions, or FAQ,
as they usually are referred to in webspace. We hope this helps make
it a little less frustrating for you in the future -- when in doubt
and the question is not unusual, please take a look here first.
You may notice some edits and
additions to our newest
Color Vision section this
update. A few of the images have been replaced by improved and
expanded versions, and the text has been changed to reflect the
differences. Several subtle errors have been caught, and two
explanations which were a little ambiguous have been rewritten. Our
recent page
on Surround Sound has also
been polished and tweaked in many places.
4.17.2001 -
This
has been an extensive upload. You'll notice that the index
page reflects the newest
pages that have been added during the past two months, some of the
largest additions since we began this site. The new Surround
Page now has its own place
at the bottom of the list, where its leaf color matches the best
(note also a new olive leaf section below mapping). An oil painting
was added along with description and links, at the bottom of the
first category on the Artworks
page.
But the biggest addition this
time is a completely new
section on Color Vision,
experiments you can try at home, theory and practice, and a wealth of
information unavailable elsewhere. There are three interlocked basic
pages with several auxiliary ones, and over 80 all new images, the
most covering any one topic on our site! It's also a nice change of
pace from the other topics, something we hope you'll enjoy.
(Top
of the Page)3.28.2001 -
In
the usual way new pages need a couple of weeks of shakedown and
tweaking, our page
on Surround Sound has been
edited and expanded a great deal, including new sections, diagrams
and explanations, a whole
new page on recording in
surround, and a fine-tuning of the complete section. Many of you may
enjoy two
historical columns by Bert Whyte,
some of Wendy's earliest inspiration for multichannel music. Many
errors have been tracked down and fixed, and an additional dedicated
Table
of Contents page was added
for sake of speed in navigating and browsing.
We've also gone through many of
our other site pages which had broken links, and tried to get most of
these working again, and caught some remaining small glitches
overlooked earlier (a good web site is never done...). Obviously when
external sites update or delete pages they seldom let anyone else
know about it. So on any page which links to external sources there
will usually be links that cease to work without warning.
3.14.2001 -
The
newest
page on Surround Sound
just got another two pages of additions, plus some overall initial
cleanup in text and images, as all new uploads invariable require
that additional editing during the first week or so. We've also
created a new
section containing the story
and copies of two infamous letters written to Billboard magazine
during the heat of the Quad Wars of the early 70's. These documents
have not been seen in nearly three decades, and they couldn't be more
apt than right now. There's also the start of a new fourth page that
describes some
of the early Matrix systems,
with three cool sheets of technical notes and calculations.
3.12.2001 -
Let's
say you're just getting involved with assembling a home theater and
listening room, and are trying to install a good surround sound
system. Or you're a recording engineer, studio owner or producer
who's about to make your first 5.1 recording and mix. Or you've just
read a lot of conflicting stories about 5-channel this, or
quadraphonic that, and would appreciate someone who's been doing this
for a long time stepping forward with a few facts.
Wendy takes on many of the
issues behind the newest audio format, and speaks from decades of
surround sound experience. There are some good tips and experiments
you ought try yourself, before you agree too quickly to follow the
latest Pseudo-Prophet from the Mount. This non-dogmatic essay is easy
to read, with many clear illustrations to make the points, and
evenhandedly tries to sort out many of the main issues. This is just
the first portion of a new section of our website that promises to be
a most welcome addition to the web. We'll be adding more to it again
over the months ahead. Go
to the New Surround Sound Page.
3.09.2001 -
We've
managed to ignore the Artwork
Page for a while now, so
it's time to do something about that, however modest. You can take a
look at a new optimization of the
famous Mariner 4 image 11
that we first described a few years ago on its 30th Anniversary. This
new version is probably about as good as the ancient (computer-wise),
modest data permits, certainly better than the version we posted
originally. There's an update about Painter and Kai under the
Mandala
image, too. On our new CD
edition of Digital
Moonscapes page, you'll see
a description
with a link to a wonderful
new site for NASA's planetary images, appropriate to those who want
to learn more about the inspirations for this colorful album.
But the must
read for this month comes
from the Synthmuseum
site (index page from
this link), which has just
added ths brand-new,
Kaleidoscopic Interview with Wendy,
conducted by the witty, sharp music writer, Carol Wright. Much deeper
than usual yet droll and breezy, it may very well answer many
questions you've been asking. We'll post a mirror
version on our site
eventually, but for the moment it's theirs exclusively, in this
beautifully designed online version (thanks, Jay!). There's a lot of
fascinating other material on their site, too, if your interests
range to matters "synthy" and historical. Recommended!
2.26.2001 -
Images,
we've got scads of new images for you on the latest uploads to our
site. To see them all, navigate first to the Photos
Page, and check near the
bottom of
the new critter photos.
There are a half-dozen new silly shots, plus two more serious new
ones added to
the Miscellaneous category,
with new captions for all. Via the top photo and description for the
Circon (first image under miscellaneous images) go over to the
dedicated
page for The Circon. At the
bottom are three new current photos and captions that show you a lot
more about this unusual performance device. Also check out the
newly
added console image in the
studio
photos section, a nice sharp
new scan.
Then move over to the
Eclipse
Page, where we've replaced
an old mediocre quality shot of the '73 desert site with a new wider
version in more accurate color, freshly scanned and assembled from
two original 2 1/4" slides. This time you can even see the
whitish
disk of the sun as it was setting
in the unusual variegated colored, hazy sky of the first evening
on-site (a sandstorm had occurred the day before -- much of the
visible particulate had settled by the day of the eclipse). The
latter image is a fitting upload for today's date, the same that two
fine eclipses we document occurred: on 2/26/79 and 2/26/98. And
please to note the replacement of our
index page photo with a more current one,
and some placement editing for it -- you don't want to remain in a
rut too
long. Finally, we fixed a missing
gif image of the
dvorak
keyboard layout near the
bottom of our Resources
Page. Phew! Hope you enjoy
the new views!
1.17.2001 -
Added
some more reviews to the Beauty
in the Beast page this
upload (newest reviews will be found at the bottom of the album's
page, as usual).
(Top
of the Page)7.15.2001 - Two unusual in depth interviews with Wendy w
12.18.2000 -
This
time we've got some new images for you for the holidays. There's a
fine additional portrait photo of Carlos's producer in the 70's,
Rachel
Elkind-Tourre, on her own
page. And for those of you who love unusual vivid wide angle imagery,
take a look at the screen
filling shots of the studio
in a mind-bending Virtual Cinerama we've just added to the
Photos
Page. How and why is
described therein.
11.25.2000 -
You
finally can order your own professional quality prints of our finest
eclipse image, as described on our eclipse
page. Since many of you have
written about this, but we have no facilities to handle custom
prints, we arranged a connection through the leading amateur
astronomy magazine, Sky & Telescope, to provide 16" x 20" deluxe
photo prints. Read
the details HERE.
Also during this update many edits, revisions, additions and a few
spelling/typo corrections were made on a dozen of the site's pages,
including expanded captions to several images on the photos
pages.
Finally, acknowledging your
requests, we've changed two Kurzweil K2000/2500 Resource images from
downloadable .hqx format files, into on-screen GIFs
linked from the resources page.
You can now just view these directly from your browser (monitors are
generally bigger now than when they were first posted), and drag or
make copies for convenient use and print-out later. Try it out.
11.20.2000 -
At
last we've had the chance to update the News
Page. Included you will find
the story about the newest two albums being released in Fall of 2000.
There's a chance to compare the new
with original covers for
Digital Moonscapes. More important, you can read about the current
progress and upcoming
release plans on ESD of
Wendy Carlos albums as things stand at the end of 2000.
11.16.2000 -
Just
added the links for easy access to audition and purchase Digital
Moonscapes and Beauty in the Beast from the discography
page, and added extra
comments and notes to their respective "more info" pages on this
update. We'll get there yet...
11.6.2000 -
With
the summer given over to a frantic assembly and remastering of two
more albums for ESD, there was little assistance to go around, and we
were sorry (thanx for your patience!) to be forced to allow our site
to sit, "stet." No more. On the discography
page you will find the new
titles added on the top, and several other edits and cleanups have
been done, bringing this information up to date.
There are also two new pages,
one for each of the newest remasterings, Digital
Moonscapes, and
Beauty in
the Beast. As the latter was
available for only a very few months, despite excellent critical
response, it is with some relief and genuine excitement that we
announce its availability, in a new, ultra hi-fi 20-bit CD. The
former has also never sounded so good, and at last shows off the
original art concepts in a vivid new graphics reconstruction,
replacing the original, lame CBS version. These are the initial
pages, which we'll be adding to as the next few months progress.
6.12.2000 -
This
time you'll find some cosmetic improvements made to the top of the
discography
pages. Also a temporary page
that explained how the former Soundstone.com, later Rock.com, was no
longer in operation, has been removed (after only a few weeks). We
are now officially Amazon Associates. Each album's small CD icon now
links conveniently to the appropriate Amazon music page, with that
title in view. Some small mistakes and edits were also repaired
during the rebuild of the page.
4.3.2000 -
We've
just added a few new reviews and mini-reviews to the pages for the
Switched-On
Bach's Set (a long, major
new review from American Record Guide), Clockwork
Orange complete original
score, and Tales
of Heaven and Hell. Some
additional links were inserted, edits and a few small glitches were
fixed, and mention was added to the discography
page that the next ESD release
will be the long-unavailable critically
acclaimed CD,
Beauty in the
Beast! (Readers of Keyboard
magazine may remember this
colorful review by Jim Aikin.)
3.20.2000 -
Right
now the newest additions are to be found on our Eclipse
Page and Photos
Page. Thanks to letters from
fans of that page who asked that the 1974 eclipse (which they also
attended) be the next added report with images, this was finally
completed today. There are quite a few interesting details in the
report, not the least important being that the expedition was
airborne! You must see a shot of the retreating monster shadow on the
clouds below the plane. This first non-private totality chase took
place off the coast of SW Austrailia in June of that year, and
you
can read all about it here.
While finding some other images, we stumbled upon a few other shots
taken of the 1972 eclipse, which was a shipboard observation. You
might enjoy seeing a couple of new pix with the newly extended report
for this, the first total
eclipse sea-chase of its
kind.
Among those other images just
found was a badly faded snapshot of R. Dennis Schwarz wiring parts of
the Mark II console. After a mess of massaging in PhotoShop, we've
added
it to the Photos Page, in
the section on the second studio. We didn't think there were any
extant photos of "Bobby" to feature here, where it's only fitting for
his critical contributions to the equipment used to record all the
music featured on this site. It's great to be able to add his image
here. Also several text mistakes were fixed and a few photo captions
were edited and expanded on that page, for this upload.
3.15.2000 -
You'll
find two neat additions to the Eclipse
Page this update. First,
three lovely images (thought lost) of the dramatic conclusion to the
1963 have been scanned and optimized to add an exciting
addition
to the first eclipse report.
Second, a surprising astronomical adventure is now linked from the
Eclipse
Page, one of a rare
totality, indeed. It occurred in 1976 and is exclusively documented
here (the only place on the Web?) with images and a rather remarkable
tale. It has its
own web page, here, and
involves the covering up of a sun, but one that's not in the middle
of our Solar System. Curious? Go take a look!
2.14.2000 -
The
Open Letter
4 continues to be expanded
bit by bit, the newer material towards the bottom. It now includes
four winners of the Gold Leaf Award -- yeay, team, go! There's also
some commentary on the quality of earlier LP album versions (and
cassettes) versus the latest Hi-D
remasterings, and a caveat on research queries and similar nontrivial
requests that continue to be received here.
1.11.2000 -
Posted
today are the latest version of Open
Letter 4 and a handful of
corrections and edits in the texts of other pages. Skim through the
4th Open Letter for recent topics in the mail to our site: questions
about surround sound, digital audio standards, eclipse image prints,
the Peter & the Wolf parody with Yankovic, sensitivity to other's
belief systems (be kind), a thoughtful attempt to reply to queries
about achievement (versus vanity), those "original original
S-O"
covers, and our latest Gold Star awards.
There's also new information,
and some editing added to the page
about our background pattern,
with a new link you may enjoy visiting.
(Top
of the Page)1.2.2000 -
This
time a new IC-Bug icon and Post 1/1/00 commentary box (of the
"told-u-so" variety) were added to the Open Letter 4's curmudgeonly
predictions, Y2k
Bugs and other "Millennial" topics.
To start the year right, we also made a few edits and corrections to
that open letter, and a few other spots on the site where mistakes
were discovered. May we take this moment to wish you all very
Happy New
Year 2000!
12.28.1999 -
A
new brief Warnings
page has been added to
address recent sales on web based auction sites of unauthorized CD's
of Wendy Carlos albums. Please
note and beware the
copyright infringements by mediocre, phony albums and not-for-sale
promotional material. (Thanks to many of you for bringing these to
our attention!)
Both minor and major edits were
made on the discography
page, the S-O
Boxed Set page, and
elsewhere, reflecting a change of status of two albums. We've edited
and added more info
on buying music online, and
inserted some extra links for your convenience. Three additional
short reviews were added to the boxed
set page, and a few minor
display problems of the
contents list there were
fixed.
But the most interesting
addition for some of you, as 1999 is about to close, will be the new
Open Letter
part four that was just
posted. This is a fairly long single addition, and gets through over
a half of topics, questions, and thoughts that you've brought up over
this past year (made it just under the wire.) Take a look!
12.18.1999 -
Finally
we have added a good sampling of Early
Reviews for the S-O Boxed Set
information page, published, posted or sent in to us. We'd like to
thank those of you who contributed your early impressions and
enthusiasm on this recent major release.
A new message, with additional
links for your convenience, has been added concerning the
ordering
of CDs via the web. That's
on our discography
page, just below the current
release list.
For something completely
different, there's a new
subpage of the
Artwork
page containing three
home made
Xmas cards from past years.
The holiday season goes by very fast, so these will be timely but for
a short while. But you may still enjoy taking a browse whenever, for
whimsy's sake.
11.06.1999 -
We've
been asked both here and on the ESD site about the restoration and
musical/audio cleanups that went into the gorgeous sound on our
Switched-On
Boxed Set. We aim to please
the best we can. So the
boxset page itself has been
edited, and a whole new page was created and written than goes into
more details that you ever might want to know about this somewhat
technical topic. Read all about it on our new "Taming
The Beast" page.
10.28.1999 -
Quite
a few edits and updates were brought on by the 10/25 additions. So
there have been extensive edits and rewritings on the
Discography,
Recent
News, and S-O
Boxed Set pages. With the
Enhanced-CD files included on Disk IV of the boxed set some newer
html versions were created of resources available up to now only as
text files. These can be found, along with other edits, in several
places on the Resources
page. A well-done new
interview
written by Carol Wright for
New
Age Voice magazine was also
generously made available for us to add to the S-O
Boxed Set page in a newly
added section of reviews.
We've recently discovered that
many of you innocently find yourself looking at older versions of
pages we've worked hard to update and add timely, interesting new
information. It's a lousy side-effect of file caching, which was
designed to speed up browsing of often-visited locations. So we've
added messages in several places: you ought trash
your cache often, or if you
didn't, just do a reload
each new visit of any Living
Pages to be sure you're
seeing the latest version.
10.25.1999 -
Hear
ye, here ye shall find our
newest postings to browse. There are important additions on the
Discography
page, where the just
released Switched-On
Boxed Set is now
included, and several timely edits and updates were made. The new
boxed set also has its
own new page, which is
already filled with a lot of information and images of the new set.
You can also see some of the pages of the big book on our
Recent
News page. This is the album
most of you have been requesting with the loudest, most persistent
voice for several years now (we've got a folder of e-mail from you to
prove it). Your wishes have been granted, so give all those older
CD's and LP's to the kids and friends, as THIS is the one you want to
have, no contest. Now check it out online, and order your own copy of
this lavish collector's edition, the definitive Switched-On
collection like you never heard it or seen it before!
And for something completely
different, under the studio images of our Photos
page is a new entry on an
antique
four-track tape recorder
that's still working and looks pretty spiffy for 40 years old. With
the increased awareness at long last in Surround Sound, here's a
machine that was making exciting surround recordings of acoustic and
electronic music back in the late 50's, you might say a bit ahead of
the pack...
9.11.1999 -
You
may by pleased to learn the expected good news, now appended to the
Recent News
page: the newest major
remastering project, Switched-On
Boxed Set, was at last
completed on 9/9/1999 (!) , and is at the factory, along with the
design, graphics and text elements now being printed for the early
October ESD release. Also, since the eclipse info was updated below,
a few errors were discovered and fixed. So our Eclipse
page has been updated once
again in the report on last month's gorgeous totality.
8.30.1999 -
And
here's the expanded version of the most recent addition of a week
ago, for the 1999
Total Eclipse. It includes
the final, dazzling optimized version of that fabulous corona, with
more description notes, and another version of the eclipse that shows
the sun as if seen through a transparant moon, thanks to some SOHO
image data. If you never look at another total eclipse photo, please
take a look at these!
8.24.1999
- For
those coronaphiles among you (or just the curious), take a look at
the concise report of the latest Total
Solar Eclipse of August 8, 1999.
There's a dandy new composite coronal image to see that came out
remarkably well, of a particularly gorgeous corona. You may enjoy
reading some of the background info, including the essential
contributions of Jonathan Kern.
7.29.1999
- While
work progresses on the new Switched-On
Boxed Set (read about the
progress
on our News page), many
photos were assembled by the art director, Chika Azuma, for use in
the two packed books to be included. She has such a keen sense of
design and good taste it was difficult to argue that a few tiny cat
and pup pix might be slightly gauche. They've actually turned out
really well.
In collecting the raw images,
quite a few shots of the newest critters had to be taken and scanned.
Several have just been added to our Photos
page, where you can find a
running commentary on the newest members to the loft. Since quite a
few of you have been asking for such photos, at long last we have
something for you -- take a look!
4.22.1999 -
During
the remastering and assembly of the newest ESD releases, now underway
(halting most new work on our site for awhile,) some images of high
quality were needed for the new CD booklet. So all new scans and
extensive hand-optimizations were made including some much improved
images of earlier versions we had posted on this website. We've gone
ahead and updated several of our JPEGs here for you, and even if
you've seen them before, these new versions are worth a second
look.
First, on the Photos
page, You'll find that the
second color
image of the 410 studio has
been replaced with a considerably improved large version (just click
on the tiny image.) The first
and third
views of the brownstone studio are much clearer and brighter than
ever before (the WA view down the stairs into the studio, and the
lower angle view towards the console,) also the
full Moog synth shot that
currently is annotated with the full list of synth modules is greatly
improved. And the top
good photo of former
collaborator Rachel Elkind-Tourre, on
her own page, is now in full
color, and a lot clearer and brighter, too, replacing an early
B&W scan.
3.12.1999 -
With
the death of Stanley Kubrick, you'll find this time a pencil sketch I
just made, for a page
of reminiscences about
working with him (linked mainly from the Recent
News page,) and a little of
what I learned and experienced scoring two films, in 1971 and 1980.
There's a description of just the sketch added to the
Artwork
Page, and mutual links
between pages have been added here and there.
3.5.1999 -
Eclipses
galore this time. There may be a lot of interest in the topic while
August 1999 approaches, and with it a neat total eclipse over many
parts of Europe and West Asia. So while I'm going to be out of
availability (with the SOBox set remastering tasks of many kinds) to
do many more additions to the site, save short items that don't
require a lot of time, I wanted to get a good larger chunk of these
images on site, uploaded for all of you coronaphiles to browse.
So take a look on the
Eclipse
page. There's a feature
addition with many images of the long 1973
Sahara desert eclipse, the
remarkable images and tale from the near-miss
annular in May of 1984,
additional notes for three of the previously posted eclipses, and
another brand-new
image with the
behind-the-scenes story from the 1998 totality. This one includes the
actual solar disk taken in far UV light, to study and compare with
the associated corona surrounding it: cause and effect... Kinda
pretty, too!
(Top
of the Page)2.27.1999 - A smaller list than usual this time. I've been kindly sent a few typo corrections and have made the fixes (thanx to those who were sharply on the ball!) As the current crop of messages had more than the usual cry for help in finding albums I've never even heard of, I added a block of information to the bottom of the Discography page that speaks on this. It's sort of flattering that some of you seem to think I made every album of classical music on a synthesizer out there, or at least know of every example, however great or g r a t i n g ...
2.10.1999 - Small stuff added this go-round. There's a new TH&H review on its page, and a new page of questions and answers about vocoders, with added links from other site pages where appropriate. Several sections have been edited for clarity and content. General housekeeping on other pages, not worth pointing out here.
2.3.1999 -
We've
tried a ZIP utility on our Macs to generate PC versions of our MIDI
files on the Resources
page. They appear fourth in
the selections. These are built with Digital Performer as general
MIDI files, using DOS names with the extension ".MID". Then they are
compressed to ZIP format and uploaded as raw binary files. They ought
be readable if you had difficulties with the downloads here
before.
Note:
if it's missing when expanded, type in the ". MID" suffix. These are
not TXT files, even if they appear to be by default. You will need a
sequencer program that recognizes the midi file format to open them.
You may also need one of those file conversion utilities to make them
match your particular sequencer and operating system. This is obvious
to our serious intel-based users, and you probably have the proper
destuffing software already for binhex files, ".hqx" as have been
here for awhile. A few reports are that this is insufficient. We want
to help you out, so have generated these additional versions, which
have now been reported to be working well by several PC users.
1.31.1999 - After a lengthy scan-ocr-html session, we are able to add both this short Keyboard review of BitB by Jim Aikin, and the witty Electronic Musician Cover Story Interview with Connor Freff Cochran, appearing here for the first time in about 12 years. If you've been waiting for more interviews and reviews, go look on the Resources page under Texts.
1.30.1999 -
Three
additions this time. The first one's small: you'll find the often
asked for list of all the Moog Synth modules right below the color
photo of it on the Photos
page. Now you know. The next
modest addition is Wendy's description of adventures with Aris
Technology's new audio watermarking system: MusiCode, on our new
DiscNotes
page.
The large third addition is a
notable one on the Resources
page. You'll discover the
new subpage to download
the actual full MIDI files
used in composing and performing "HeavenScent" on TH&H.
There's a description of the files, and some background info on their
creation, with three screen snapshot images to help you navigate the
files, and several MIDI format versions of the music, all
downloadable. For those of you who've enjoyed the other MIDI files
we've made available here, this one's sure to please. Have
fun!
1.29.1999 -
Lots
of things uploaded this time. The whole Photos
page has been completely
reworked (into two invisibly linked sub-pages). It now loads all of
its images from a single folder (a huge upload of all new images!), a
mod recently made also to the Resources
page. All of these images
have been optimized to current monitor standards. You'll not
recognize some of them, the old murky look is vanquished to memory...
Some images had been stored as very large gifs. These have been
replaced with good quality JPEGs that look even better, and load much
more quickly.
There are new images added,
including reworkings of the original scans Matthew posted. These now
are grouped by context, and have new commentary for each. A new set
of photos of Nago haz been posted in the critter-pix
section, in his memory,
along with the emotional story of saying farewell. Recommended are
some new images of the older brownstone studio, which can be compared
to the way it looked just before moving from there. You'll want to
recheck this page again even if you thought you'd seen it all.
Our new Map
Making page has gotten
another map added already near the bottom. The book list was not
displaying correctly -- this has been fixed. The Tour
through Cyberspace (and to
lesser extent, the referring
Metapage) has been updated
with new images, notes, and many edits. Every current page on the
site was reworked to incorporate slightly improved icons for
navigating that no longer collide with each other. Some bugs were
worked out, a few missing or incorrect links were repaired.
Many of our
distinctive leaf-icons have been added in a range of colors. You can
tell at a glance where you are by noting the color of the Leaf-Icons
on that page. The newly revised index
page
shows you which goes where (the colors are: Gold, Tan, Platinum,
Gray, Violet, Cyan, Blue, Lime, Green, Orange, Red, and Magenta. Note
that brown versions are used for some secondary markers, in regular
and small sizes. You will also find purple versions on miscellaneous
pages. See if this helps you as our site grows larger, inevitable on
a Living
Page...!
1.26.1999 - Now here's something new to the site and probably surprising for most of you, a Map Making page. This site addition is about maps, their calculation, several neat examples newly optimized and rendered in Photoshop, and the story of how Wendy became fascinated in, and self-taught about map projections, and making maps with the help of a computer. A few of the large views are big enough to be suitable for printing, and there's a listing at the end of a few books that might help you learn about this old/new topic.
1.24.1999 - And for this upload we get a fairly mixed bag of new stuff. There are three new images on the Artwork page (at the top of the "via computer graphics" section.) There is a new clearer, larger version of the full size Headless Horseman jpeg on the page, while on the Photo page, an improved color photo jpeg of the 410 studio is to be found as it was when Timesteps was composed, and a better '68 studio B&W image from the time of SOB. Several more of the other murky photos have been carefully tweaked.
A few places allow you to link to an enthusiastic personal report on MotU's Digital Performer, which might be called a "Secret Weapon" (as it so often is for many media artists.) Many now out-of-date old files on our site were removed as part of the cleanup campaign to help the server be more responsive with less logjam, much more organized internally. No links to show that here, but trust us, it's being taken care of behind the scenes!
1.23.1999 - The Eclipse page has just gotten a further reworking to match the site's overall new look and feel. Begun a few weeks ago, it's now complete and much expanded, including reworked texts for the Aruba eclipse in 1998. There is the Newkirk letter, with more complete descriptions of compositing, in the opening and ending texts.
More importantly, you'll find extensive coverage of several new eclipse to the site: for 1963 July (a new image), 1977 Oct. (3 new images and their descriptions added), and 1984 Nov. (new text and 3 new images.) The coronal image for the 1988 was rebuilt to remove several problems. Similarly, the 1991 images were redone, the coronal shot in particular getting a much refined new treatment. Nice stuff to browse.
On a completely different topic, if you look at the Artwork page under Whimsy, you'll discover a couple of collector's buttons sitting right there, with descriptions of why they on our site, and why they seemed worth showing to you, too!
And finally, we've got the completely reworked version of the Resources page up and working. All the files are now being downloaded from their own folder. We'll try to expand the options soon for other formats in many choice cases. The reworked look and feel now matches all the other new pages, and several edits and broken links have been addressed.
1.20.1999 - Today you get eclipses. Each of the current batch of images has been lightened to match the general standard, and each has been somewhat enhanced and color balanced. Then more images were added, and the Eclipse page you'll find these on was edited quite a lot, including added notes and pix on the 1980 and 1997 eclipses. Other detailed notes for each eclipse and the final commentary was expanded.
1.16.1999 - You will probably note a few new icons throughout the site. Wendy's newest drawings are of a cherished old Topcon camera for the Photos page, a newspaper for Recent News, an amusing slightly "used" newspaper for Older News, some art tools for the Artwork page, and an appropriate faucet for your downloads from the Resource page. The older quill pen icon had been out of scale, and was resized and cleaned up in a new version, on the Open Letter pages, and a few other spots.
1.15.1999 - Read some very happy news just added to the Recent News page. It explains Wendy's current experiences with a new American Harvest dehydrator in restoring many old master tapes to decent, playable shape (as she puts it: Tron Lives!) Those ailing masters that had turned into "tree-sap" are slowly being recovered as this information is posted. There's also an excellent article by Eddie Cilletti that details how to restore such tapes, what to do and NOT to do! Recommended. Many of you will enjoy seeing an added photo with description, of Wendy's former collaborator, Rachel. You'll also discover more reviews (Thanks to everyone for the generous comments!) for SS/LMS and the full CO score.
(Top
of the Page)1.14.1999 - There's a collection of Tales of 1998 added to the Recent News page this upload. Topics of a very difficult year include the experience of the Woundings filmscore, some surprising master preparations for the three first ESD CDs, comments about a dispiriting legal brush with someone's Trojan "Tribute", and the changing of the guard of pets in the loft. A teaser of information on the next remasterings rounds out the news additions, and these are appended above the prior Recent News. Finally, the page is reworked to have the newest look and feel of our site.
1.6.1999 -
To
start the year off, there are many pertinent new notes and comments
in a new adjunct of the Discography
page, the Disc
Notes page. Some of you have
mailed questions about new
and old CDs. You may find
your answers on this new page
(we do try to respond to your many questions the best we can!)
There are details about some of
the timbres
used on TH&H -- how they
were obtained. Several recent reviews have been added to the bottom
of the individual ("more information about") pages for the first
three ESD releases: TH&H,
SS/LMS,
and CO.
The Recent
News and Older
News pages have been edited
and cleaned up. A few edits were also made midway in the
Open Letter
3, concerning Synergy
synthesizer support (thanks
to Frank Hausman for this.)
The most notable addition for
this update is that we've included a total of eight pages (on two
large high-res scans, pp.
1-4, and pp.
17-20, cleaned and edited
for clarity) of the original
score to TimeSteps! In the
composer's own handwriting, these clear jpegs (about 400k each) are
fascinating to study, even if you don't read music, as they use an
unusual graphic presentation of the equally unusual music. Compare
them with the first track on the new Clockwork
Orange ESD CD. This notable
score has been unavailable for over 25 years! View and download the
pages here, exclusively on our site.
12.21-30.1998 -
Redesign
and Expansion
of Site
Underway!
The complete <wencar.com>
Online Information Center is
currently being reworked extensively, with many improvements to the
"look and feel" and ease of use of all the pages. For navigating
handy return buttons have been added, to bring you back to the top of
a given page, or to return to a prior one. Additional links at the
top of most new pages let you jump quickly to topics of interest,
with less need for scrolling. This first major revision of our site
is being done without resorting to the sluggishness of
Frames,
or similar clumsy alternatives. We hope you will approve.
Check out the much better
organization and vastly increased content of the Discography
Page, (the most extensively
rebuilt page) now that East
Side Digital has begun
releasing nearly all of Wendy's back catalog and the newest albums,
like "Tales
of Heaven & Hell" (it's
finally available!) You'll find a clear description of what's
currently available (yes, even "Sonic
Seasonings", and the full
Carlos score to "Clockwork
Orange"!), with complete new
pages containing in-depth information about every title, the full
liner notes, early reviews, behind the scenes, and links for you to
audition and purchase online. (Note
that the already dwindling list of currently unavailable titles will
shrink to nothing over the next year...)
Finally we've added some expanded notes of what yet remains to be
done and why, in answer to your frequent questions, completes the
neatly reworked page. Take
a look.
The maintenance of our site had
to be put on hold for most of 1998, unfortunately, for a collection
of time-intensive projects with tight deadlines. Wendy will describe
this "most difficult year of my life" in the forthcoming NEWS page,
to be uploaded in early January (just the news from July is posted
for the moment.) It was only in mid-December that work on the site
could resume. There was such a backlog of things to be posted and
revised, which neither Matthew nor Wendy had time to do except
crudely up to now, that a full reworking of the site was called for
to bring everything up to date, not just patched on bits and pieces,
which most sites accumulate, like barnacles. For the moment, we have
added the December '98 Interview
with Wendy by Chris Twomey
of Exclaim
magazine (it will eventually
be linked from the News page, perhaps.)
Posted right now is the new look
Index
Page, which you have
probably already noted. There is a new 3-D shaded background on all
reworked pages (the pages yet to be updated still display the prior
background), based
on the original tiling of
Wendy's name. The new background better handles very large monitors,
as the recent would clumsily repeat it's tonal gradients on larger
screens. A few shaded variations of the background were designed, to
enhance legibility and the look of the newest pages. Some of these
include the MetaPage,
MetaNotes,
some Background
on the Background, and a
Cyber
Look behind the scenes.
Considerable trial and error was spent just to get the new look and
feel operating cleanly over the Net, although the content in many
cases has been edited and expanded during the process.
The biography has been
extensively rewritten and brought up to date, and an additional essay
in reply to those with prurient obsessions has been added. Find it on
the Updated
Biography Page. Similarly,
the Artwork
Page has been reworked and
edited, so things are easier to find and to read. There is now also
more room to grow after this latest housecleaning. The
Eclipse Page has been
reworked in an identical fashion, and images and descriptions of the
February 1998 total eclipse were finally added (not just the prior
links). The notes for the Peter
and the Wolf parody album
have been added to our site, and linked via the Discography
Page, as usual. New reviews
have been added to each new ESD album, as we discover them. Use the
"more info" link for that album (on the Discography page.) The
reviews are at the bottom of each info page, but can be jumped to
easily from "What they're saying about it -- Reviews", in the
selection box at the top of each.
Several other pages were updated
to match the new look of our site, and their content was edited and
updated here and there, but more importantly many errors that had
slipped in and collected were at last corrected. These now include:
Write
Wendy, the several long
replies back to you, starting with the first Open
Letter, the Recent
News Page, the note on the
Circon,
and the request for additional information Contributions
to our site.
Throughout the site you may also
note that selected images have been rescanned and improved over their
original versions. The poorest small views are now a bit larger and
much sharper. Color and contrast were occasionally a bit muddy, done
to earlier reference gray levels. Many are now optimized, and more
will follow ASAP. Behind the scenes the organization of all the files
for this site, sorted now by type and/or topic, is being completely
reworked, to increase download speeds, reduce internal lost links,
and facilitate continued growth with increasing complexity. There are
a very few links that are not working properly that you may run
across. This is just the temporary result of posting what's newly
reworked before all the interlocking pieces are ready. Thanx for
bearing with us during it all!
(Top
of the Page)
7.17.98
- We're back! Please check the Recent
News Page (do a Reload
first, if necessary). There are several important items to read
there, including one major headline. Go look and be pleased.
Also note that the prior news is now on its own Older
News Page, and that several
changes have been made to the index/homepage for the site, and a few
small edits were made to several pages. The newest news items also
explain why it was necessary to abandon this site without any updates
for so long. Matthew kindly inserted one added headline about the new
filmscore in May. Also added today is a chunk more of
Open
Letter III, some background
material as to what's going on right now, and what's planned for the
future.
11.30.97 - This time the additions are on the Recent News Page (do a Reload first, if necessary). A recent piano recital premiered a novel work by Wendy. Some additonal comments were added about the new CD project, a new page was added about Wendy's longtime collaborator, Rachel Elkind, and a few pages were edited and cleaned up.
10.28.97 - Here by popular demand, on our Resources Page (do a Reload first, if necessary) are many of Wendy's own custom Tuning Tables for several popular synths! The MIDI files are, as before, in the original Performer (and DP) format, and in Standard MIDI file format. There are PICT images to guide you, and Wendy has written a good basic guide on how to use the data. It could save many of you hours of tedium, and may get you started on this timely subject. Good Luck!
9.8.97 - Some housekeeping editing of the Resources Page has been performed this time (do a Reload first), and two very different new texts have been added there. One is a recent Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, explaining what it was like to be a composition student when the Serialist School was at its height. The other is an irreverent parody collection of so-called "Recording Tips for the Novice". Use with care!
7.28.97 - You may note a few improvements in the "look & feel" of our site. The background has been made with a somewhat smaller pattern, and given a subtle gradient across its width. The Blue Ribbon for free speech on the Net is now no longer necessary (hooray -- we won!), and has been removed from the Index Page. That page also has a smoother masthead title, quicker loading of its gifs, and some rearrangements and edits to the page layout. The counter has been giving trouble -- it's currently replaced with a User Stats page link. If you don't see these changes, do a Reload.
7.20.97 - This time there are some added comments about the new album, TH&H, early on in the Recent News Page, and a mess of new comments and answers to your questions on the newly added Open Letter Part Three Page.
6.7.97 - While looking for something completely different (of course!), Wendy discovered more of the original pencil drawings of her Siamese cats placed here last year. We've added two good examples on the Artwork Page.
5.21.97 - This time we've added some photos and final comments about the Bach at the Beacon concert to the Recent News Page, and a few words and photos in memory of an endearing feline friend to the Photos Page.
4.6.97 - Now that the concert is over, read some additional observations and reactions to the event by Wendy on the Recent News Page.
3.14.97 - For those intrigued by the announcements on the Recent News Page, check out the detailed comments just added by Wendy to the bottom of that page. This is the most up to date information on the concert and new CD...
3.11.97 - The Index Page now has an added selection for Recent News. This page will appear occasionally, and be updated promptly or removed temporarily to remain current. Events and new album releases will be featured, including pre-release information and Sneak Previews. News about a live concert by Wendy and the long-awaited major album, Tales of Heaven & Hell, have just been added to this Recent News Page, which features two neat new icons by Wendy.
11.17.96 - A new counter has been added to the Index Page. This is a new design counter that does not miscount "hits" as most counters do. The count is for the index page only. The other page counts and accumulated count can be seen from the User Stats Page.
11.10.96 - A lot of additions were just made to the Open Letter II. With a new album underway, and little time available for html-ing, the backlog of comments had grown rather long. Hope some of the ideas you were interested in got nailed.
10.20.96 - For a touching tribute to a canine friend, there are several new photos and a description of Heather on the Photos Page. This time also some small edits and corrections were made in several places. (Thanks to those of you who spotted a few and let us know.)
09.12.96 - The only additions this time are to the Open Letter II. The Green Leaf list of Bach 2000 Moog sound spotters has been continued on this page, as before, near the end.
08.25.96 - This time we've started a new Open Letter Part Two for you, which continues with comments and answers to the lastest round of feedback. So those of you who have kept current with this feature of the site can read the newer additions much quicker now. It's all there on the Write Wendy page.
(Top
of the Page)07.20.96 - There are several new additions to the Open Letter, plus the Green Leaf list of Bach 2000 Moog sound spotters has been moved near the end of the letter, just after the location where most new additions are placed.
07.07.96 - On the Resources Page you can download a copy of an article Carlos wrote for PITCH, a journal of Microtonal Resources. It's a concise overview of the family of Asymmetrical tunings, which sound sweet and exotic to our ears.
07.01.96 - The Open Letter has been updated again. And the Photos page has grown even more, with quite a few new images plus commentary by Wendy. Suggestion for repeat-surfers: Put your bookmark to the Wendy Carlos site on this What's New page, and you'll find out at a glance if there's new stuff to look at next time you drop by.
06.20.96 - Look at the Photos page for a bunch of new images of the brownstone studio, as promised. These were taken in 1977 on 2-1/4" slides which have just been found, and document this charming working space quite nicely.
06.15.96 - Several new items have been added to the Resources Page. You'll now find a cue card for transferring AIFF files between a K2000/2500 and a Mac, a Guide Book on the history and use of several Alternate Tunings on Kurzweil and other synthesizers, an image of the Dvorak keyboard layout, and a bit of Yankee word play from a New England Inn.
06.13.96 - Another image is now at the bottom of the Photos page. This one is in response to several of your requests. (Now where else on the Web do you get such prompt attention?) It's the beautiful cover from a currently out-of-print album, Sonic Seasonings.
06.12.96 - Now added to the Resources page are some more choice MIDI files from the 1989 collaboration album with (Weird) Al Yankovic. Included are two complete original compositions from The Carnival of the Animals, Part II and three fascinating sections of their parody on Prokofiev'sPeter and the Wolf. Things to take apart and study or to use in making MIDI sounds yourself!
06.06.96 - The Artwork page, now contains quite a few additional unusual drawings and images, with descriptions by Wendy. Worth a look-see. A few glitches that had crept into some of the pages were also corrected.
06.05.96 - Several items have been added to the Resources page, including two MIDI files of the actual tracks from S-OB 2000, a piano tuning session by Wendy's tuner, MIDI recorded (without his knowledge), a review of Beauty in the Beast, and the complete notes to the Telarc CD, S-OB 2000. Lots of things to look at and try!
06.04.96 - The Metapage now includes a new Tour in Cyberspace, with picures and a description by Wendy of her first visit to the Apocalypse site. A new decription of the Circon, with pictures and text has been added to the Photos page, and other info about it near the end of the Open Letter. A interview from Keyboard magazine by Bob Doerschuk is now linked on the Resources page
05.30.96 - Added a couple of animated icons. The Open Letter has been updated again today, independently of this 'What's New' page. (Note: Additions usually appear near the end, about a screenful or two up from the bottom.)
05.20.96 - Added the Resources page. Did some housekeeping on all pages. Added pix names for text-only browsers. Tightened color tables for better images on 8-bit color screens.
05.05.96 - Added the Headless Horseman drawing to the Artwork page, and reworked that page somewhat. Added the red leaf "bullets" to several pages, and increased the size of the first letter of new section paragraphs in those same places (Write Wendy, Open Letter, Wendy's Artwork.)
05.03.96 - Added several paragraphs near the end of the Open letter. It's now dated at the top, so you can tell when additions have been made. Made several edits to the Photos page, and a link to the recent QuickTime movie just below. Made the colors for linked text on all pages the same as those on the index page.
04.29.96 - Added the Studio Tour Quicktime movie (currently unavailable, sorry). Added a new icon to the Write Wendy and Open Letter page. Put the Living Page icon also on the index page.
04.27.96 - Added the Living Page document, with new icon by Wendy. Added eclipse page icon. Added MPEG audio examples from Beauty in the Beast.
04.16.96 - Added the Open Letter document from Wendy - located off the Write Wendy page. Added 'World Oyster' and 'Mars Images' to the Artwork page. Added Wendy's neato-new book icon to the Bio page, and Bijou icon to this page. Replaced bullets on the MetaPage with the small green leaf. Removed superfluous bullets on the Discography page.
04.01.96 - Added the Solar Eclipse page, starting with six of Wendy's total eclipse images, and her description of how they came to be, and why this page appears here.
03.29.96 - Started digital transfer of music examples off CD and encoded in the MPEG format. Added the MPEG Help Page to provide MPEG Helper Apps. Added the Clockwork Orange page. (Ed note: this addition has been replaced by the new discography page with audio links and much better support information, and its completely new Clockwork Orange page.)
(Top
of the Page)
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