Category: Uncategorised

Quick Scenes From America

I’m unused to hearing my native accent, so I keep looking up in surprise. There are so many American accents, some of which are almost never on TV or heard overseas. I want to record people talking, but I can’t imagine them agreeing to it.

1

In the train station in Emerville (the town between Oakland and Berkeley), there is a young woman eating nori seaweed. These are the flat paper-like sheets of seaweed used to wrap sushi. I’m jealous that I don’t have some. . . . Now she’s reading a book about the oneness of the universe. . . . Now she’s meditating in the busy train station waiting room. . . . Now she’s writing in her journal. I do miss California so much when I’m away.

2

I’ve woken up quite early on the train and gone to the dining car where it’s me and senior citizens. There are cups of coffee with free refills. It’s not good, but it’s not bad either. I have two cups. The man seated across from me asks what a croissant is. Later he makes a joke about shoot black and hispanic people. His wife gently chastises him. I’m unsure how angrily I should respond. I tell him it’s “a bit alarming,” which seems inadequate, but of course, I don’t want to be rude when confronted with apalling racism. There are some things about California that I don’t miss at all.

3

The man seated next to me at my regular seat spends an amount equal to half his rent money on health insurance that only covers sudden, catastrophic illness. He is unemployed. He wishes there was socialised medecine in the US, but understands, he says, that this is incompatible with rugged individualism, and doesn’t see an answer that’s compatible with American culture. We can’t have nice things?

I wasn’t dreaming of a white Christmas

Yesterday, I sat on an airplane for five hours and when I got off the plane, my ears were uneffected, I had no jetlag and my carbon footprint was minimal! Unfortunately, this is because my flight was cancelled.
I was worried that forecast snow might stall all trains to the airport, so I’d arrived hours early. I knew they had de-icing equipment at the airport, so I wasn’t too worried about the planes. But as I was eating lunch, I glanced out the window and saw whiteout snow. I could barely see the airplanes at all and couldn’t see across to the adjacent terminal. It was beautiful, but also alarming. Then, after abuot 20 minutes, the skies turned blue and the sun started shining again. Amazingly, there were a few minutes where the sun was shining and it was snowing at the same time. Does this cause rainbows ( or snowbows)? I wondered.
It was all over very quickly. I wasn’t surprised when my plane boarded a bit late and also not surprised when they said we had to wait for a de-icer. I was, however, surprised by how long we sat at the gate. I read in news reports later that they couldn’t deploy all their de-icers because they had no place to park planes while they were being de-iced. So planes were ordered to stay at the gates. However, this caused a problem for landing planes, since the gates were all full. Thus planes full of arriving passengers sometimes waited for 4 or 5 hours to get to a gate. In the mean time, they parked them near the de-icers.
It might be because I have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and thus have studied logistics a wee bit, but I could think of a solution to this problem . . ..
After five hours, our plane was delayed so long, I was started to get worried about arriving after BART shut down and this may have been why, with only 4 planes ahead of us in the queue, our flight was cancelled.
It wasn’t all bad spending so many hours on the plane. The cabin crew was helpful and polite and people chatted amicably with each other. The in-flight entertainment system was working. It was exactly like being in the air, except that we weren’t. I think that it would a perfect thing for somebody who was afraid of flying. They could have the whole experience as a kind of a dry run.
Once I got off the plane, however, things were a bit more chaotic. I had to clear immigration, which was a long queue and then the baggage reclaim area was chaotic. It was mobbed with hundreds of people from cancelled flights plus all the people who were finally getting released form their planes that had been waiting. The computer screen which said what carousel to go to was not giving any meaningful information, so I asked an employee and he seemed on the brink of hysterics, from not knowing anything (while at the same time being as friendly and polite as possible). After maybe an hour, there started being announcements, “If you are from a cancelled long haul flight, you baggage will be on carousel 3, 4, 5, or 6 . . ..” Some enterprising traveler and his friends split up, each monitoring one carousel, so when bags marked SFO started appearing on number 4, he got a call and then walked around the reclaim area loudly announcing “San Francisco bags are on number 4!” This is what I love about Bay Area culture, actually. Friendly, helpful and loud!
I went through customs and then got to the arrivals lounge which was heaving with people, who had been waiting for hours for passengers who had landed but not alighted. Frequent announcements indicated that the airline was very sorry that nobody had been given any information whatsoever. Other announcements encouraged those on canceled flights to sort out rescheduling on the BA website instead of queuing at the airport. I decided to follow that advice and got on a tube.
I texted Paula and she told me to come around fora cuppa, so I did, despite it being quite late. I brought my laptop and searched in vain for the rebooking link that British Airways kept claiming existed. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I handed my laptop to Paula and started trying to call the airline. Paula couldn’t find the link either and a recording at the airline’s phone number told me they were very busy, so I should try calling again later.
Finally, after 2AM, I got hold music! Yay, I was on hold and they hadn’t hung up on me! I stayed on hold for an hour, while trying to find out any information at all about what was going on. I discovered that the best and most reliable way to get information from the airline was via twitter, but their tweeters had all gone home an hour or two earlier.
I use twitter. I think microblogging is fabulous and I’m glad to see somebody making good use of it, but in this case, I have to say that they really needed to also update their actual website and/or their phone message. It took quite some time before it occurred to me to even check twitter. And, indeed, if they’re going to make that the only reliable way to get any information, then they need to announce that someplace else, like on their website or their phone message. It was at this moment that I began to get a bit annoyed. I was even more annoyed when I realised, after 3 am and more than an hour on hold, that their call center was closed and nobody was going to take me off hold until it reopened at 6 am.
I went home and set my alarm clock for 5:59, but when I called, the phones were already overwhelmed and hung up on me. I kept retrying until 7 am, when I finally got through to being on hold. This time, the hold music was accompanied by spoken messages actually telling me that I was on hold. I put it on speaker phone and tried to stay awake until somebody finally picked up at 9:30.
I will be on the same flight on Tuesday, 21 December. This should land before 18:00 and give me enough time to get to Emeryville to catch me 22:00 train to Oregon, which arrives in Portland in the middle of the afternoon on 22 December. I am going to have an alarming odor by the time I arrive. Fortunately, I should be able to sleep on the train and I will still get to see my family, which is what motivated me to wake up after so little sleep.
And now I’m typing this out, in a haze of exhaustion. But hey, no jetlag, at least.

not just like now, but with better gadgets

They say
“The future is now”
A Wallmart boot
in the face of a Target stampede
trampled back friday shopper
Forever.
It used to be
the beach was lurking
under the cobble stones;
Waiting to be uncovered
and realised.
And maybe
thing aren’t perfect now,
but it’s fair to say
it could have been much worse
The future is
not for sale and
not fixed.
We make it and find it
still waiting
beneath the cobble stones.

The 1932nd Psalm

Depression is my shepherd; I am in want.

He maketh me to lie down on park benches; He leadeth

    me beside the still factories.

He restoreth the bread lines; He leadeth me in the paths

    of destruction for his Party’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Unemployment,

    I fear every evil; for thou are with me; the Politicians

    and Profiteers they frighten me.

Thou preparest a reduction in mine salary before me in

    the presence of mine creditors; Thou anointest mine

    income with taxes; my expenses runneth over mine

    income.

Surely unemployment and poverty will follow me all the

    days of the Republican administration; and I shall

    dwell in a mortgaged home forever.

Purportedly written in 1932.
You know what totally didn’t help then? Austerity measures. I’m just saying.

Not Shopping at Amazon

Dear Sir or Madam,

I was distressed to read in the Guardian that you quit hosting wikileaks’s website (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-website-cables-servers-amazon). I had intended to do all of my Christmas shopping with Amazon.com, but instead, I’ll find an online retailer who does not practice censorship. I’m very disappointed by this and I hope you change your mind.

Thank you for your time,
C Hutchins

Sooooo….. anybody got any suggestions about from where I should mail-order gifts for my family in the US?
First of all, I think the wikileaks thing is really cool. On the one hand, it is a problem for diplomats if they can’t write frank assessments for fear of seeing them in newspapers. But, on the other hand, there’s so much unnecessary and undemocratic secrecy that the embarrassment of the diplomatic corps is a small issue by comparison.
Also, the leaks don’t seem to be actually making the US look as bad as I thought they would. The bad behaviour (bombing and lying about it) was already fairly well known. I didn’t know, however, that the US was being pressured by Arab states to declare war on Iran. I would have guessed the opposite. So I’m happy to learn the US has been resisting this course of action. Also, the the cables about Sarkozy and others are really fascinating.
I’m also very happy to hear that banks are next. This is whistle-blowing on a large scale.
They keep telling us that if we’ve done nothing wrong, we have nothing to fear. Well, large, powerful organisations like governments and banks actually should be accountable to society at large, so prying into their secrets actually serves a useful purpose whereas CCTV cameras pointing into our windows do not. If the banks hadn’t destroyed the economy, I’m sure the prospect fo seeing their memos leaked would be much less pertinent. So I hope wikileaks keeps it up. Also, Manning is a hero, assuming he did it.
What’s not cool is Amazon giving in to government pressure. This is part of why I’m very wary of using US-based web services. Certainly EU governments do censor things, but the land of the free and home of the brave seems to be full of corporations who cooperate very easily. Also, as far as government goes, the Patriot Act gives them the right to spy on us, which is also not really what you want from your IT provider.
In short, Amazon pulling the plug makes the US, and especially US-based companies, look worse than the leaked documents do.
But seriously, from where should I order Christmas gifts? And what does one get for a 2 year old, anyway?

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

  • 1 medium sized orange squash – pumpkins are good, butternuts are better, crown prince squash is best. Pottimarons also work, etc.
  • 1.5 C + 2 Tbs Soya milk
  • 4 Tbs arrow root powder (or cornstarch)
  • 0.5 Cups (300 g) sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 0.5 tsp powdered ginger
  • 0.5 tsp allspice
  • 1 pie crust

Hardware

  • Bowl
  • Measuring cup
  • Measuring spoons
  • Oven
  • Spoon
  • Knife
  • Optional: blender or hand blender

Instructions

In advance

Heat the oven to 350 F/180 C / gas mark 4. Put the squash in the oven and bake until the skin discolours and the squash is squishy. This may take 30 minutes – an hour. Then, let the squash cool down.

After the squash has cooled

Heat the oven to 50 F/180 C / gas mark 4.
Mix the arrowroot (or cornstarch with a bit of the soymilk until smooth. Then, add in the rest of the soya milk and mix well.
Cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds (they’re edible too!) and then scoop out the flesh. Measure out 2 cups of the squash. Put the rest aside for soup or something else. Add the 2 cups of squash to the soymilk mixture.
Add the sugar and spices. If you have a blender, use it to blend the mixture until smooth. If you don’t, then make sure the pumpkin is squished into as small pieces as possible and try tog et out as many lumps as you can.
Pour the filling into the pie crust and put it in the oven. It should bake 30-40 minuts, or until the centre is firm. If you are baking other things at the same time, it will take longer.
Let the pie cool before serving. I like it best near room temperature. Some people like whipped cream on it also.

Commentary

I usually get somebody else to make the crust for me, so I don’t feel qualified to offer a recipe for one, but hopefully, this will change by Monday.
If you use a sweeter squash, like a crown prince, you can cut back a bit on sugar. Taste the batter if you’re unsure.

Body Scanners

Passengers who wish to fly from the UK have no choice as to whether to allow the government to peek at their genitals. However, in the US, you can opt to allow an agent to feel them (through clothes) instead. Speaking as somebody with an unusual genital configuration, I would rather allow myself to be groped than photographed, for a few reasons. One is that nobody can keep a copy of a grope to look at later. Another is that it’s highly possible I would be groped anyway and I don’t want to be singled out for special attention based on an unusual scan. Finally, I don’t wish to increase my risk factors for skin cancer by stepping into a beam of ionising radiation, if I can at all avoid it. For those who are fertile, there are also issues with exposing germ cells to radiation, especially those with testicles, as these would normally be shielded during an X-Ray.
There is a movement afoot to try to get people to ask for a grope instead of a scan, especially on the Wednesday before thanksgiving, when many people in the US will be flying. The TSA is making ridiculous statements about this helping terrorists, however, I’d like to posit that when getting on an airplane necessitates security agents looking at or feeling my genitals, the terrorists have already won. It is your right to ask for a “pat down” instead of a scan. This may be inconvenient for TSA agents, but this is a normal tactic of protesting. It would hardly do any good to launch a protest that nobody noticed.
Today, I read an article in the New York Times, which stated, “Do the imagers, for example, detect sanitary napkins? Yes. Does that then necessitate a pat-down? The T.S.A. couldn’t say.” So some security worker at the airport knows whether or not you’re menstruating. Charming. And they may or may not decide to grope you as a result of that. “Screeners, the T.S.A. has said, are expected to exercise some discretion.” They have little training, no union, low pay and no job protections, but a lot of discretion, I’m sure.
This is just too much. I wrote a letter to my senators:

Dear Senator –,

I am wiring to oppose the new body scanning devices that have been installed at airports. Today, I read in the New York Times that the devices are able to detect menstrual pads and the TSA “couldn’t say” whether this detection would necessitate a pat down. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/business/16road.html?_r=1) This level of grossly indecent privacy invasion is unAmerican. It is an outrage.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the pat down one receives if they opt out (or potentially, if they’re menstruating) involves a TSA agent feeling the passenger’s genitals. All aspects of this policy are horrifying and I hope you take action to change it.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Charles Hutchins

Ok, yes, I did actually call something unAmerican. I know this is problematic. But Americans are, by and large, a prudish people and this is really not prudish at all and hence violates the national character. Also, I am exceedingly annoyed.
I wrote a different letter to my Representative, Barbara Lee, who is a proper leftist and involved with the Progressive Caucus in the House:

Dear Representative Lee,

I am wiring to oppose the new body scanning devices that have been installed at airports. As a transgender person, I am concerned about how these machines peer unnecessarily and invasively at my genitals. I am also highly concerned that once a security screener becomes aware that I’m transgender, I may be subject to discrimination or be publicly humiliated.

I intend to opt to be patted down instead, but as this involves an agent feeling my genitals, it’s hardly better. There is little evidence that any of this makes us safer while flying but it certainly causes me and many others quite a lot of distress. I’m faced with a terrible choice between not seeing my family over the holidays or having my genitals looked at and/or touched by a TSA agent.

I hope you can do something to improve this situation.

Sincerely,
Charles Hutchins

Ha ha, trans people sure are funny

John Oswald:

Pretender (based on ‘The Great Pretender’ written by Buck Ram) features the opportunity for a dramatic gender change, suggesting a hypothesis concerning the singer, Ms.Parton, perhaps worthy of headlines in the National Enquirer. The first inklings of this story came from fans of Ms.Parton’s earlier hit single ‘Jolene’. As many consumers have inadvertently discovered, especially since the reemergence of 12′ 45rpm records of which this present disc is a peculiar subset, it is not uncommon to find oneself playing 45rpm sides at the LP standard speed of 331/3. In this transposed tempo ‘Jolene’ reveals the singer to be a handsome tenor. Additional layers of homosexual longing , convoluted mŽnages ˆ trois and double identities are revealed in a vortex of androgyny as one switches, verse to verse, between the two standard playback speeds.

Pretender takes a leisurely tour of the intermediate areas of Ms. Parton’s masculinity. This decelerando reveals, complete with suggestive lyrics, an unaltered transition between the ‘Dolly Parton’ the public usually hears and the normally hidden voice, pitched a fourth lower. To many ears this supposed trick effect reveals the mellifluous male voice to be the more natural sounding of the two. Astute star gazers have perceived the physical transformation, via plastic surgery, hair transplants and such, that make many of today’s media figures into narrow/bosomy, blemish-free caricatures and super-real ideals. Is it possible that Ms. Parton’s remarkable voice is actually the Alvinized* result of some unsung virile ghost lieder crooning these songs at elegiac tempos which are then gender polarized to fit the tits? Speed and sex are again revealed as components intrinsic to the business of music.
*chipmunked

From http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xnotes.html, which is associated with his tune Pretender, which you can download in a zip, from here. Click through to see his awesome, edgy and totally not race-baiting or queerphobic take on Michael Jackson.
I want to be on his side because he fought for fair use, but this stuff is really assholish. It’s like wanting to side with Larry Flint. I was trying to find out if he was gay or not, because that might sort of his explain his gender stuff or least make it possibly deeper than a cheap laugh,. All I could find was that his official bio claims he did sound for a Bruce la Bruce film, Hustler White, which he claims is a gay pron film. Wikipedia and IMDB imply otherwise (the latter doesn’t tend to cover porn films, for example Deep Throat has no entry) and neither mentions Oswald.
The Dolly Parton track, by the way, is really, really good (as is the Michael Jackson one). It’s just the liner notes that suck. And usually, changing the speed of a recording of somebody’s voice just sounds weird. But her voice slowed down gets a James Brown-like tenor quality which is quite remarkable. So he’s on to something, but then he went for the cheap laugh.
ha.
ha.

My life lately

I had a houseguest from Friday – Tuesday, which is always nice. I tend to go out more when I have somebody staying over. Also, it’s an excuse to go do slightly more touristy things, or just go to a museum. (Indeed, if I know you in real life and you’re looking to stay on a sofa bed in central London, drop me a line.)
However, I used him as an excuse to procrastinate on writing my lecture. Fortunately, I was able to write the whole thing on Tuesday afternoon, in about half the time it normally takes me! I must finally be getting the hang of this. I went out on Tuesday night, feeling very pleased with myself.
On Wednesday, I presented the lecture and found out that it also seemed to take about half of the appointed time. My efficiency knows no bounds! I spent the second half of the class showing them MCLD’s dubstep patch and how to do some bitcrushing stuff, which seemed to go over well, so it was ok. I try to have emergency backup material in case this happens, but now I’m fresh out.
I also got a bit of feedback where apparently they want to learn more about how to do stuff, which is fair enough. Unfortunately, all of the really good how-to topics are in the past, so I may end up going back over them. I should probably ask if there’s any particular topic they wish they’d gotten more detail on. They seem to really be into break beat cutting and this might be because they already liked it or because I talked about BBCut. I gave them some how to program drone stuff, though, and nobody seems to be writing drone pieces.
Then I went to Brum, where we had a guest speaker who was talking about how to master electroacoustic music for CD. He said we could all get a very decent home studio for only £5000. It was like he forgot that he was talking to students. I don’t have a room that I could convert into a proper studio like that, and if I had £5k extra lying around, well, actually, music gear is probably my second priority at the moment, so that’s not entirely unreasonable. Until I get regular full time employment, though, it’s not on my budget. I guess I could mortgage my dog or something, but that’s risky.

Saturday

I haven’t been getting much done lately, so I haven’t been going out much, on the idea that if I sequester myself at home, I’ll quit procrastinating. This doesn’t actually work. So Saturday, I decided to go out and ended up having a kind of a surreal evening. I came home at 4 am with 3 different hand stamps.
I skipped dinner so I could go to the FTM London meeting, which is once a month. It’s a support group kind of thing and only the third time I’ve ever been to a such a meeting in my life. I had some useful conversations and the people there are good guys, and I should keep going, but I’m not a huge fan of the support group format. I don’t actually understand what the parameters are about what I’m allowed or not allowed to talk about, so I’ll just say that it was good to be reminded that I have more surgical options than the ones presented to me last week.
After the meeting, several of us went to the Black Cap in Camden and had something to drink. This was the source of my first hand stamp, as they start charging a cover at some point after I arrived, so a security guy came by and stamped everybody already in the pub.
I ran into a friend there and she said she was going to something called Duckie at the RVT and asked me if I wanted to come along. It was packed to the gills. I’ve only ever been to Wotever-related events there, so I’ve never seen it so stuffed or so gay. It was 95% gay men, I think. I saw somebody else I knew there who was in to noise music and talked (shouted, really) to her and her partner for several minutes and then retreated outside with the smokers. We went back in for the stage show. There were two women dressed as tea ladies, stacking tea cups and pouring tea into them, on a table. It was already kind of surreal, as the music could have been part of the Leave it to Beaver soundtrack, and they had done some choreography that was supposed to invoke the idea of sexiness without actually embodying it.
Then, just in time for the last cup to be filled, the tea pot was empty! So, one of the women stood up on a chair, hiked up her shirt and pissed into the tea pot. Then, they dropped a tea bag into the pot, swirled it around for a moment, poured the contents of the pot into tea cups and both performers sipped at them. Thus ended their act.
I tried to suavely hide my look of open-mouthed-shock. I’m from a more prudish country and obviously gay men in London must want to go out and watch women do things with piss, and that’s perfectly fine. And anyway, it had to be faked, as she weed for quite a long time, so it was obviously some sort of water bottle or something hidden under her skirt.
The pissing performer turned out to be friends with my friend. Which is how I learned that she had been complaining a bit about the vast quantities of water she’d had to drink before her act in order to be able to produce enough fluid at the end. Um, wow. So I saw the liquid version of two girls, two cups. Awesome.
At midnight, I left to go hear Danse Macabre play a gig very near my house. The drummer had texted me the address and then said I was on the guest list. So I showed up kind of drunk and then noticed that she had gotten me on the guest list by saying I was doing sound for them.
They were playing in a straight, mtf-crossdresser fetish bar. So there were a lot of leering straight men around, being lustful. And a lot of middle aged drag queens in extremely fabulous cocktail dresses. The entire club was structured around the male gaze. I retreated backstage with the band and drank more.
Then they were on and I was in the sound booth. I’ve only done live sound once before in my life and it was a total disaster of feedback and mics crapping out. But the band said they’d already sound checked and I shouldn’t have to adjust anything, it would be fine. So they got on stage and immediately the feedback started. The person who sound checked them had no idea where it was coming from. I finally worked out it was form the mics for the backing vocals, but then somebody who actually knew what he was doing came charging back and asked me if I was actually a sound engineer. I said no, so he started twisting all the knobs on top of the board and not only did the feedback go away, but the band sounded way better. He then said things would be fine and wandered off.
The band had a new line up. They have a sax player now, who I could barely hear, so I kept pushing her mic hotter and hotter and she kept playing farther and farther from the mic. Arg. Later, I found out that the sound checker put her way too hot in the monitors, so she could hear herself blasting. Rather than turn that down, the woman told her to play quieter! So the saxophonist was on stage, trying to play sax quietly into a microphone!
I really should learn how to work a PA for public events. It would be a really useful skill.
Also, the male gaze is reaaaaly troubling.

How to Write BBCut FX

First, here’s my file:

CutMask : CutSynth { 
 var bits,sr,bitadd,srmult; 
 var synthid;
 
 //makes SynthDef for filter FX Synth 
 *initClass { 
 
   StartUp.add({
  
  2.do({arg i;

  SynthDef.writeOnce("cutmaskchan"++((i+1).asSymbol),{ arg inbus=0, outbus=0, bits; 
  var input, fx;
  
  input= In.ar(inbus,i+1);
  
  fx = MantissaMask.ar(input, bits);
  
  ReplaceOut.ar(outbus,fx);
  
  }); 
  });
  
  });
  
 } 
 
 *new{arg bits=16,sr,bitadd=1,srmult=1;
  
 ^super.new.bits_(bits).bitadd_(bitadd).sr_(sr ?? {Server.default.sampleRate/2}).srmult_(srmult);
 }
 
 setup { 
 //tail of cutgroup
 synthid= cutgroup.server.nextNodeID;
  
 cutgroup.server.sendMsg(s_new, cutmaskchan++(cutgroup.numChannels.asSymbol), synthid, 1,cutgroup.fxgroup.nodeID,inbus,cutgroup.index,outbus,cutgroup.index, bits, bits);
   
 } 


//can't assume, individual free required for cut fx
//synth should be freed automatically by group free
 free {
  cutgroup.server.sendMsg(n_free,synthid); 
 }

 renderBlock {arg block,clock;
  var samprate,bitstart,bitarray,srarray, s;
  
  s= cutgroup.server;

  bitstart= bits.value(block);
  samprate= sr.value(block);
  
  srarray= Array.geom(block.cuts.size,samprate,srmult.value(block));
  bitarray= Array.series(block.cuts.size,bitstart,bitadd.value(block));

  bitarray= 0.5**((bitarray).max(2)-1);

  block.cuts.do({arg cut,i;
  
  block.msgs[i].add([n_set, synthid,bits,bits]);
  
  });
  
  //don't need to return block, updated by reference
 }
 

}

What I did there: I took CutBit1.sc and did a saveAs CutMask.sc. Then I changed the name of the class to CutMask.

In initClass

I changed the synthdef name to cutmaskchan
I changed the arguments to the SynthDef
I put in my own code for the fx = line. That’s where the magic happens!

In new

I changed cutgroup.server.sendMsg to so it uses my synthdef name and my synthdef arguments

In renderBlock

I changed block.msgs[i].add( to have my synthdef arguments
since mine doesn’t change, I could skip sending anything, afaik