[sdiy] Spouse Gating

[Ray Wilson]

Scott you should write for Mad magazine. That was too good!

Ray
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Stites" <scottnoanh at peoplepc.com>
To: <allenre at umich.edu>; "R. D. Davis" <rdd at rddavis.org>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 1:59 PM
Subject: [sdiy] Spouse Gating


> Congratulations Ryan; not married yet, but you have already been
introduced to the concept of 'wife gating'.  This is a term Larry Hendry and
I coined a while back through an email exchange.  To be fair, the term
should be changed to spouse gating, to cover that .01% of husbands who have
wives that are into Synth DIY.
>
> The concept is this:  you are the envelope generator, your wife is the
VCA, or low pass filter, or low pass gate, depending on her personality.  If
she's a bandpass filter, you may be in real trouble, depending on her Q.
>
> Anyway, the idea is favors, money, attention, repairs around the house,
etc. replace voltage as the medium of control. The goal is that you generate
a long, sustained, life-long note.  You apply the bias ("Here honey, I
thought you'd like this new set of diamond earrings" or (to be fair) "Oh
look honey, here's a special on chrome wheels for that lovely hopped up and
still-not-too-rusty 1980 Toyota pickup of yours").  This opens up the spouse
gate, and lets the signal (IE parts purchases, junky rooms, weird noises,
etc.) pass through unattenuated.
>
> Some people don't quite get the hang of spouse gating.  They're like
Morton Subotnick on a Pixie-Stix(TM) binge and fire off a series of rapid,
short blips of bias.  Not good.  You wind up with only brief periods of
contiguous Synth DIY time, and forget that Batz room.  You want a nice,
flowing Tomita attack with a very high sustain and infinite decay.  This
keeps the good stuff coming.  Until of course, the electric company (read
credit card company) pulls the plug on both the EG *and* VCA.  So be careful
about that.
>
> A real-life example of spouse gating:  My wife has been on an extended
return home to VN.  She took X amount of dollars with her.  Vietnam is still
a fairly inexpensive place to be (it's getting more expensive) but she took
plenty of dough.  I get a call the other day..."Honey, I'm out of money can
you send me some?".  That's the trigger.  I could have easily inverted the
envelope by exclaiming "What??!!!"  (that's all it takes, you know), but
sweetly it was "How much and when, honey?".  This will allow the
ex-post-facto purchases I've made in her absence pass through, though maybe
still with a bit of high end clipping.
>
> Cheers,
> Scott
>
>
> > I'm not married yet, but my fiancee has told me that I can have a room
of
> > music/electronic stuff (the basement, I'm guessing) if she can have a
room
> > dedicated to shoes.  See, it's all about compromise. ;)
> >
> > Ryan
> >
> > > Definitely!  Just curious about something though... something that
> > > some other bachelors are perhaps also wondering about: Those of you
> > > who've gotten married, and kept all of your valued posessions, how did
> > > you do it?  Those of you who've gotten married and had to get rid of
> > > valued posessions, what early warning signs should we be on the
> > > lookout for before it's too late?  Such vital information needs to be
> > > passed down to others in the best intersts of mankind and SDIY.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Copyright (C) 2004 R. D. Davis The difference between humans &
> > other animals:
> > > All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're
> > above Nature &
> > >                                her other creatures, using dogma
> > to justify
> > > such
> > > www.rddavis.org 410-744-4900   beliefs and to justify much
> > human cruelty.
> > >
> > >
>
>
>
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