Re-entering society after 15 months in isolation

Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. A few weeks ago I received my second vaccine shot. Ten days later I knew I was largely free to re-enter much of the world. I'd taken self-isolation pretty enthusiastically for fifteen months, to the equivalent that it felt like a space station in our home. Parts of me really loved it, other parts (like my socialized mental health) knew that the farther I got away from general society the more painful it would be in re-entry. So the process started this past week. I got an eggs benedict at a favorite local diner. I won't lie: The food felt great, the crowd felt tough. So a discussion on that, along with egg yolk facts, is on the menu for this episode. Life is like an egg yolk.

Also, starting this week's show is a multi-episode tribute to mail-order psychiatry lessons. The 1960s offered all kinds of learn-at-home options, and I've been collecting psychotherapy tutorials for a while. These things are awesome. This first one is Part One of "Anxiety", with raw audio here and a reblended track for Side A: "All of Us Develop Patterns". More psychiatry to come! An interesting component of the 1960s psychiatrist is they actually spoke with patients about their problems (not just their symptoms). The modern world is more split now with a therapist/psychologist being the empathic voice and the psychiatrist merely being the druggist. So these perspectives on the dual role (nurturer and prescriber) of psychiatrists in the 60s is really interesting.

Demo for this week: AML 54F50 Diode Bridge Compressor
Finally, for Side B this week, a cool hardware demo. I had an opportunity to work with a Neve 2254-based Diode Compressor this month. Diode Bridge Compressors are wonderful analog tools, read about them here. They allow for a signal to punch and fade (or glow) almost simultaneously, making a very elastic and glued together sound. In memory of Rupert Neve, who passed away this year, I thought it would be cool to play the entire Introduction track through a 2254. Rupert Neve has reintroduced the 2254 but it lacks the sidechain limiter of the original. Audio Maintenance Labs in the UK makes the most exact recreation of the original 2254 (compare their clone to the real thing from 1969, it's uncanny) – So this week's Side B is a demo of the AML 54F50 Compressor / Limiter.

SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #55: Re-Entering Society After Fifteen Months In Isolation