Howdy. I have many hobbies and post what I can, when I can, here and on sometimes on YouTube. Below are some quick links if you want to quickly tune into a certain hobby:
STORM CHASING: Click Here
ROCKHOUNDING: Click Here
MUSIC PRODUCTION / DJ: Click Here or these external sites:
The genoQs machines Octopus MIDI sequencer is the all-time KING of step sequencers IMHO. This hardware-only interface will boggle the mind of any laptop-jock, but for those like me that are into hardware this is probably one of the best sequencers that will ever be made. This German engineered musical instrument controller is actually quite simple, ergonomic and elegant and packs a ton of power into your studio! Any feature is less than two clicks away!
My only gripe is I’m not in my studio often enough and I tend to forget some of the steps for functionality; for example I always seem to hit the manual to remember how to put it in MIDI slave mode. That is what cheat sheets are for. If you have any handy cheat sheet references, leave a comment as I’d love to include them here. I’ll upload mine soon.
The rare, limited edition genoQs machines Octopus Black Sea edition (#8 of 20) – King of MIDI Sequencers
I was so excited when I read about the release of this MIDI controller I contacted the manufacturer in Germany and put one on order. Contractually I had to purchase through their US distributor but mine was the first one shipped to the USA. A while later I had the chance to acquire the ultra cool and very limited Black Sea edition. Although this is a beautiful edition, I ended up trading it and continued to use the original “Classic Legacy” edition in my studio.
Early in 2011 genoqs machines posted to the internet they were going to be going out of business; although they said they’d keep up their website and offer limited support. Fast forward three years and their website is down and manuals and OS versions are hard to come by. Often is the case with boutique equipment; I have no clue how many they sold, but with the several limited edition runs I suspect there are 200+ that made it to studios around the world!
genoQs machines Octopus (now called Classic Legacy edition) – First one imported into the USA – the brains in my studio (even when I’m there!)
I decided I would post what documentation and operating systems I had to the internet as these are scattered around the web (at best), and may become hard to find in the future. If you have other documentation that I don’t or OS versions and would like to add to this archive, I’d be glad to include it here, please contact me if that is the case.
Here are a couple of pretty useless videos i shot when I had both the Original and Black Sea versions; more eye candy than anything useful.
Here are some of the files, again if you have files that I don’t, I’d love to improve this archive so please let me know what you have!
Operating Systems
Manuals
Other
Tutorials
Links
I was able to attend a Lake George Gem and Mineral Club field trip to a private claim near Tarryall Mountain, one of the premier Topaz Prospecting areas in Colorado! The area is steep and rocky which makes a good hike; with the side benefit of having an outstanding view! We ventured up the mountain and I started a good day immediately in finding a topaz laying in the ground on the hike up the hill, albeit very small. Then just a few minutes later I found another clear topaz, this time larger and clear enough to be a cutter stone!
Small piece of topaz found on the hike up.
Alluvial clear topaz I found on the hike up the hill. Good enough for a small cut gem!
Once settled in near the top of the hill, I started to dig in an area that was previously dug to try and figure out what to look for. I know that Topaz forms in standard pegmatite like the smoky quartz and microcline/amazonite that I dig in the Pikes Peak Batholith, but I usually don’t dig in such rocky places. I dug a little uphill and in between two large rocks about 3″ deep in the sand out popped another topaz! This is the first one I have ever “dug”; everything else has either been on the ground or from excavator diggings at the Dorris’ Topaz Mountain Gem Mine. I dug for several hours more in this location and only pulled out a gemmy smoky quartz which was under a large (probably 100+ lb) rock I pried away.
Started digging and immediately pulled this out of the loose gravel. Definitely a cutter!
I proceeded downhill and started digging in more clay filled dirt. I found a couple of smoky quartz (not very good ones however). I was meticulously going through the clumps of clay and I found a topaz completely concealed in one. This was the last topaz I found, but it was a fully euhedral crystal with a slight blue color. It wasn’t gemmy like the others, but specimen quality!
This topaz was covered in red clay/mud and the only reason I found it was I was thorough in checking each clump of mud.
Throughout the day I found some very small but ultra gemmy smoky quartz and Hunter found a topaz on the ground (during the rain which illuminated it) on the way out, so we both had a great day! I used a screen all day long but that didn’t produce any topaz; luckily topaz when exposed from the ground typically “pops out” at you and it is obvious what you’ve found. I did have the one covered in clay that did not “pop”, however, so obviously screens and working clay is still necessary when prospecting for topaz.
Small but gemmy smoky quartz crystals
I have been invited to visit another private claim in the area later in July, so hopefully I’ll have some more “wild dug” topaz stories soon…and of course later this summer/fall I hope to find my first Devils head topaz too!
The finds of the day…all relatively small but my first “hand dug” topaz I’ve ever found!
For the 4th of July weekend we ended with a trip to Colorado’s popular Fulford Cave, which would be Hunter’s first “wild” caving experience. He’s been to commercial caves such as Glenwood Caverns (formerly Fairy Cave) and also to Cave of the Winds and Carlsbad Caverns when he was younger. I wanted to see if Hunter would be interested and/or ready for other caving trips and this is an awesome cave with no technical experience required.
Fulford Campground was $8 per site, first come first serve.
Being it was 4th of July weekend, we set out on Sunday morning planning to find a spot to stay on Sunday night (Fulford Cave Campground was option #1 with the backup being a sweet spot we found near the ghost town of Fulford). We got up there and the Fulford Cave Campground was nearly empty as we had hoped. We picked the best camp site available which had been significantly upgraded since the last time we stayed in that site, probably over 20 years ago. They added a fence which I’m sure has saved a life or two from someone backing up a little too far and falling down the near cliff…
Fulford Campground campsite #4, one of the best in my opinion.
The sun was beating down on us but luckily the convective clouds were on their way, which the eventual shade was more than welcome! We ate dinner and then started to pack up for our trip to the cave. The trailhead is at the campground and the hike is a good uphill venture. Along the way you go through an old aspen forest that is very lush full of flowers and plants (and of course mosquitos). The trail (Forest Trail #1875) is about 3/4 mile and you rise 500 feet in elevation to the cave entrance. Note that if you follow the trail past the entrance less than 5 minutes you will come upon the upper cave entrances, with no access into the cave, but a beautiful view and a grand cave entrance!
The higher you climbed on the trail the more columbines.
These are abundant throughout the aspen forest on the hike to the cave.
Dandelion reminded me of the pictures I took of the 4th of July fireworks earlier in the weekend.
One thing I remembered about the trail to the cave is the lush forest.
You enter the cave through a culvert with ladder affixed and that has seen many better days. Many rungs were missing and many were broken with sharp metal edges so it was a bit dicey. The culvert is uncomfortable to begin with so the broken parts make it a bit more adventuresome which is par for the course I guess! Once you get into the cave there is a rope (and a broken rope, sure would have sucked being that person) which you will need to use to get to the bottom of the entrance area as it is VERY slick with icy mud.
Erin, Hunter and I made it up the steep hike and are ready for the coolness coming out of the cave entrance!
Hunter coming out of the culvert entrance. The ladder in the culvert has many rungs missing and many more broken so be careful!
In the middle level of the cave there are some cool features–some huge ice stalagmites, flowstone and a bat guano room. We decided to skip the bat guano room and was going to hit the higher flowstone areas on the way out if we still had enough energy.
This is the big stalagmite ice crystal I remember from previous trips. The texture was beautiful! I remember a couple of times when this wasn’t there, so it does melt!
Big ice crystal near the entrance, about 5-6 feet long and 1 foot in diameter
We ventured to the end of the middle level of the cave and found the 3-level pit where you can go up or down. As you approach this pit you hear the reverb and echoes of a underground stream which is awesome! Just because it sounded so cool, we chose to see the underground stream which we could hear echoes of it cascading in the depths of the cave. The 3-level pit leaves you at the bottom of the stream passage. The hike is pretty quick to the waterfall. This trip was the lowest I’ve seen the stream; usually there is a lot more flow (perhaps that was just the time of the year I’ve been before?). Given that we were just commencing our journey into the cave, we didn’t climb the waterfall as we would have gotten too wet for the remainder of our trek in the very cold cave! I have climbed the waterfall several times before and you end up in a small passable tunnel where eventually the water comes out of the wall.
In the lower level, the underground stream comes out of a wall, down a cascading waterfall, and then disappears into another wall. From what I’ve heard/read, using dye, no one has ever found where this exits the mountain!
Leaving the stream passage behind, we climbed to the top of the 3-level pit into the upper level’s Breakdown room. This is a larger section of the cave where the ceiling has collapsed in large chunks making an underground skree area covered in mud. It isn’t overly difficult but the rocks are pretty slick and the ceiling was tight so I had to take the backpack off several times to avoid scraping the ceiling. We walked through the Breakdown room until near the Moonmilk corridor to my favorite part of the cave!
This isn’t named on the map, but there is a *very* tight and small loop that you can do to test your claustrophobia. This was my goal of the day and we all took turns with the super small and tight tunnel. At the midpoint of the tunnel there is a small pool that seems much larger than life due to the fact of you being in such a small/tight tunnel. A great illusion!
Getting ready to enter my favorite tight spot in the Breakdown Room.
Coming out of the “tight spot”…even though I’ve done this many times before, right at this spot I always get a spark of panic…I think that must be an involuntary reaction of the body! You simply mentally extinguish the fear and continue on…Yoda would be proud!
The Breakdown room turns into the Moonmilk corridor and that is as far as we ventured on this trip. I’d say we saw about 2/3 of the cave; but hands were getting cold and its no fun caving while freezing; so we decided to head out.
Moonmilk speleothem near the end of the Breakdown Room.
Hunter and Erin in the Breakdown room. Note the “fog” probably from our breath.
Hunter exiting the culvert entrance to the cave!
Upon exiting the cave we were treated with a gorgeous sunset for the downhill hike!
Sunset through the aspen, the picture doesn’t do it justice the way the pink light was hitting the trees!
Some of these trees are of significant age!
Sunset at Fulford Cave Campground.
Drying out the clothes. Everything went home in a trash bag and was washed down good with bleach as per protocol because of the white nose fungus.
Caves in Colorado have been closed for several years because of the White Nose Fungus epidemic and have just opened up this year with restrictions/precautions. The first important change is you must register with the Forest Service to get permission to enter Colorado Caves. One person “the trip leader” must register and then everyone on the trip must have a signed form on them. Basically they want to know who is going in/out of the caves (and that everyone understand the rules for decontamination) for protection of our bats…up to 90-100% of bats in some caves have been killed throughout Eastern and Central United States which is devastating (who eats the bugs if the bats are gone)! For decontamination we ensured that all gear is thoroughly cleaned (we used bleach) between uses. We’re ready for next time!
Headed up to Devils Head Colorado in late May on a gorgeous spring day to test my luck with finding Smoky Quartz crystals. I decided to visit a location I had luck with on Thanksgiving 2013 to see if the pegmatite continued on into a bigger pocket.
I started by digging more into the harder country rock directly behind where the pocket from last year pinched out. I went about 5 feet (of hard rock digging) around that area and found nothing of interest. Then I decided to head the other direction, which was piled with tailings and pegmatite rocks so I had some housecleaning to do. Immediately upon getting below the surface I pulled out a microcline that looked good…probably less than 2 inches below ground. I took another scrape with the shovel to remove sticks and top soil and a girthy 2 inch smoky popped out of the ground! This is the closest pocket to the surface I have ever found, the pocket bottomed out about 4-5 inches deep!
I took some video pulling out medium sized smoky quartz from this small pocket. As quickly as it started, it ended. I dug for 5-7 feet more but determined that the pegmatite at that point would have been above the current ground level. It was getting late and I was several miles from the car, so I buried the hole, packed up and hiked out.
Upon thinking about this more, I will pay another visit to this area and start prospecting down the hill for float that may have come out of the seam over the millions of years of erosion in this location (usually I find float and dig uphill towards the hopeful pocket). Never thought of doing this before so we’ll see if this twist on my normal routine pays out. ???
This small cluster was at the bottom of the pocket. Note the back side where the graphic granite is obvious. This is what I look for when digging test holes or while prospecting! Curious on the light colored smokey in the center.
Some examples of the smoky quartz I found (still to be cleaned). The right most is the one with the broken tip. Interestingly, so far this year each pocket/seam I’ve hit has one (and only one) nice smoky with a broken tip….in each case I have found it near by. Interesting…
When I was a kid, my Gramma Queenie told me stories of when she worked in a fireworks factory. Not remembering exactly what my Grandma did, I have always wondered how the fireworks were put together to create such an amazing light show. I wondered if this is what she did for her day job? I also wonder about the skill that goes into making such an amazing work of art. Of course, then the orchestration of all of these mortars is a whole other level of artistry!
Every year I enjoy the 4th of July fireworks but they don’t last long enough…so this year I decided to photograph them and I would then be able to view them over and over and perhaps get an idea of what went into the making of them based on my Grandma’s old stories. This year the show at Erin’s Uncle/Aunt’s house were quite phenomenal (both in real life and in digital form) and I figured I’d share in case you enjoy these things too.
Cinco De Mayo, 2014.
Went up picking as tradition on Cinco De Mayo and had some luck eventually finding blue amazonite and smoky quartz crystals. I was prospecting an area I’ve never been to before and wasn’t having much luck, after about 5 hours of nothing (and many miles of good exercise) I decided to check out somewhere else. On the hike back to the car I found some float pegmatite that had a shade of “green” and I started digging (you’ll see examples in the video similar to what I saw). After about an hour of digging test holes (about 2 feet deep) I hit some peg that looked promising and so I started to follow it.
I continued to hit color but only in what looked like a small crack. The color didn’t seem to follow anything specifically, but generally the color was in a certain area so I continued to follow it. Eventually I started to find crystals, most just sidewall or partial crystals with one or two flat sides, but that is a great sign so I continued.
I was about 1-2 feet down and following the peg when a seam started to open up and produce more traditionally shaped crystals. The video shows several spots along the way including the largest opening in the seam which was probably a good 5-6 inches tall and a foot or so wide. The seam continued producing smaller crystals and 1-2 sided microcline/amazonite for another 10 or so feet before it completely pinched out. I continued for several hours in all directions but didn’t find anything else worth while.
The crystals were double-coated with iron oxide and a thin white milky quartz type coating. This proved to be very difficult to clean up. I started with Iron Out for 72 hours and then I used a 10% Phosphoric Acid solution in a low heated crock pot for over a month along with a water gun to chemically soak and chip away the coatings. Several stones I was able to get most of the coatings off, but the blasting of hot chemical through the millennia in this pegmatite took its toll and etched many of the smoky quartz crystals and stained the amazonite. Where it has etched them the coating is very difficult to remove.
My favorite part of this dig, however, was that the sky blue Amazonite. Not the typical green that you find in the area. I have not yet invested time in creating cabochons but I suspect this amazonite will be gorgeous if used this way. Thus, I didn’t clean but about 1/3 of the crystals I brought home figuring someday I’ll be grinding away the coatings and not worrying about the specimen quality of the stones.
This was a cool crystal, obvioulsy needs more soaking but will give you an idea of what has come off the rest of the crystal
This was a cool cluster that was in the center of the largest part of the seam/pocket. Most of these are gemmy, and flipping it over they are mostly double terminated.
The smoky quartz “teaser” from the video.
I suspect this is amazonite, but I really liked the coating without any cleaning!
This Amazonite / Smoky Quartz combo was one of the several I found. This was at the bottom of an opening that was not in the video. Unfortunately 6 weeks in a hot acid bath didn’t clean it fully.
I like this one as it shows the quartz and amazonite starting to separate and form euhedral sides from the host graphic granite rock.
This was the largest smoky quartz I found as seen in the video. I love the termination!
I really like this stone for the natural facets and the gorgeous sky blue color!
Largest amazonite of the day, about 3.5 inches.
This parallel/stepped growth smokey quartz pair had a chunk of amazonite attached.
Many of the smoky quartz are gemmy, which I absolutely love the root beer color of this kind of quartz. Likewise, I have saved many of these stones for faceting if I decide to pick up that part of the hobby. I also procured many garden rocks.
Hiking out in the twilight it had been a very long day and I was exhausted, but deeply satisfied!
The bigger smoky quartz (uncleaned)
The smaller smoky quartz (uncleaned)
Spent the weekend with my folks at Red Feather Lakes and had a wonderful time. It was too windy to fish, although the lakes/ponds were recently stocked with 12-18″ golden trout I hear; but instead dad and I took a walk to a previous spot we had found and dug in a small quartz vein.
Dad started off the day prospecting a little and came up with a nice set of binoculars that someone had dropped a ways off of the trail. I’d say he got the best crystals of the day! LOL!
The vein we worked had graphic quartz with more course larger quartz chunks away from the seam. I am new to this type of digging, I’m used to digging in pegmatite so I was digging around testing out the whole area. The whole area was filled with sticky red clay making it slow going.
Right away we found the seam that we ran into last time and the largest crystal was one of the first we pulled out. Gave us false hope for others that size; but kept us digging for nearly 4 hours. The clay made finding crystals a little more difficult than normal as you had to work each rock that came out. The seam appeared to pinch out on each side of our two foot hole; but I suspect there was more in the area.
The crystals are white/drusy quartz and some started to get clear, but nothing to get over-excited about from a specimen perspective, but we did find many single euhedral crystals and several smaller plates. No amethyst that the area is world famous for unfortunately; but we’ll continue to prospect the area and maybe someday hit some purple crystals.
Over all, an outstanding day digging with my dad, looking forward to the next time!
Nice cluster, many will need to be repaired. Obviously uncleaned.
A small cluster of white quartz
The pay out from today’s 3+ hour dig. Uncleaned.
The pay out from today’s 3+ hour dig. Uncleaned. Arranged by Daphne!
My band project Freqmodif with Nathan Jantz are honored to have a track being released on the upcoming House of Mutes Vol.1 compilation on Obsolete Future Recordings! Here is the press release! Check it out, and don’t be slow or you’ll miss the limited cassette release; and buy the digital content for cheap at bandcamp!
House of Mutes Vol.1 Compilation – We’re the opening track!
We’re back after a short stretch of seasonal inertia with our first cassette compilation: House of Mutes Vol. 1 collects new material from Obsolete Future doyens WWC, Paradise, Dyad & Formant, in addition to a plethora of unearthed tracks from the likes of Denver’s Thug Entrancer, Rocky Mountain dub traffickers Freqmodif, Austin frequency-hackers Bodytronix, the Dallas/Ft. Worth electro crew of MKG Systems, Cygnus & Mannequinz, analog-acid from the Bay Area’s Headgear and a Dutch ambient oddity from BuzzzuwfarfewwW.
The tape is packaged in a putridly gorgeous neon-yellow case & specially designed by Kristen Koenig of Pull Trigger. The 15-track collection was compiled in Austin, TX by Conor Walker and mastered as a C44.5 by Jeremy Averitt in Denver, CO.
The cassette is limited to 150 // Preorder ships Friday June 20th
Track List:
a1. Freqmodif – Mesocyclone
a2. Mannequinz – Shiyan36
a3. The Argus Effect – Anklebiter
a4. MKG Systems – SCR
a5. Thug Entrancer – Resolve
a6. Cygnus – Varaxis Networks
a7. Bodytronix – Live at Switched On (Guy Taylor Edit)
b1. Formant – Fault Creep
b2. Paradise – Doom Rollster
b3. Dyad – Vertical Hold
b4. Hellhole – Shadow Projector
b5. Brown/Ballas – Furious
b6. Headgear – Edit 4
b7. WWC – This Ain’t a Hate Thing
b8. BuzzzuwfarfewwW – Morninghaze
Don’t be stuck in Purgatorial queue // Preorder your copy!
My buddy Terry introduced me to Devil’s Head locality back in 2009 through his friend Bill, who is a long time Picker all over Colorado. Thanks to Bill I’ve had a ton of fun pickin’ here! We’ve been wanting to meet up for years but one thing or another has prevented it from happening, until now! Terry and I took a Friday off of work and headed up to Devil’s Head first thing in the morning. There was a fresh snow earlier in the week and we figured there would be some left in the shady spots; but not enough to ruin a good weekend camp trip. Well, there was a little more snow than we thought, about 3-4″ in the road going in, but it was supposed to be a gorgeous weekend so we decided a little snow wouldn’t hurt us.
I had all the camp spots scouted out in the area and there was one I always have been fond of, and luckily because of the early season and Friday morning (and covered in snow!) it was available. All these campsites are first come first serve. We parked and Terry started to set up camp while I dug snow away from where we wanted our tents.
Bill brought a friend Cliff who was a first time picker and they met us later that evening. The day was gorgeous and we had a wonderful weekend camping trip. We picked two days, one day at a spot that I have had luck in the past and one that Bill had luck with many years back. At my spot we found some crystals but nothing super. The second day I bumped into a small seam of small, root beer gemmy crystals.
It was a great weekend and Bill had some useful tips that he shared from his decades of experience. I went up the following weekend to finish up a spot but didn’t have any luck. Overall, a wonderful camping weekend early in the season, and a beautiful view from our campsite. Also, some nice smaller gemmy crystals to bring home.
Campsite was awesome; needed a little snow shovelling though. NOTE: The snow proved very handy to keep our beer cold!
View of the eastern Pikes Peak Batholith and Pikes Peak!
View towards the west
Wonderful view of Pikes Peak each morning
Boogie found this under a fallen tree. Believe it was a grouse.
Devil’s Head small seam…most are gemmy root beer colored smoky quartz.
June 8, 2014. I had the opportunity to visit a private claim with the Lake George Gem and Mineral Club in this famous Colorado locality in spring 2014. The area and drive to the locality is beautiful; a stretch through the Hayman Fire burn area which occurred on this same date twelve years prior in 2002.
Wigwam area is in the heart of the Hayman Fire burn area. This is 12 years later (to the day).
Hayman burn area, June 2014.
The area is typical pegmatite digging; although it is several feet deep. I ended up digging a few test holes but found no peg and only found float type material that didn’t pan out. I started checking out natural washed tailings from previous digs and noted there was some amazonite in a certain area, so I started to dig in that general area. After a while I started seeing stepped/parallel growth on top of quartz chunks mostly anhedral with some faces. I tuned into where these were running finding a general seam and out popped some amazonite and quartz crystals that were really cool, in the soil no more than 8″ deep. That seam pinched out but I came home with some really unique crystals.
The first crystal I found in this spot which prompted me to spend 5 more hours in this area!
Cool capped quartz with multiple growth periods, terminated on both ends. Before the acid bath.
After the acid bath, about 3 inches long.
Awesome shaped amazonite euhedral crystal, about 4 inches wide!
My second visit was to see if I missed this seam going in any other direction. After digging many hours I didn’t find any further remnants of the seam but in the general area there were many types of crystals–some partial amazonite crystals, some more quartz chunks with parallel type growth which in some cases grew bigger as the seam opened up slightly, and more clear quartz growths on other crystals or host rock. I even found a fluorite crystal! I pulled out very few euhedral crystals but there were some amazonite and milky quartz.
Awesome parallel growth crystal cluster from Wigwam locale.
Shard of quartz with parallel growth tip.
Awesome parallel growth where the seam opened up just a little bit allowing larger crystals to form.
Cool clear fluorite!
I call it “The Right Foot” (due to it being found in the rightmost foot of my dig, among other obvious reasons), awesome unique quartz crystal!
It was fun to meet other members of the club and to visit this locality I’ve been meaning to pay a visit for years!