Cats on Synthesizers in Space

Pets in the studio

Cats can be an excellent creative companion for most synth enthusiast or modularist and even for mixing and mastering engineers. We love as they calm us down and create a good vibe in the studio that surrounds as with the atmosphere of home. These positive emotions will surely be noticeable on our work. Although it is very tempting to share the workspace with our faithful assistants one must not forget the potential dangers of their behavior. They like to lie on warm equipment. This may lead to an unexpected change in our carefully finetuned settings. Also must note that their soft fur can cause hair to fall into the equipment. Not mention the worst case scenario, everybodys nightmare: cat piss in gear. Not only does it have a very strong smell, but unfortunately it chemically interacts with the internal components, which leads to an inevitable disaster, because cat pee is corrosive, so like a ticking bomb, sooner or later it will definitely destroy the victim’s equipment. Sadly there is no cure for a damaged PCB only replacement can solve the problem, which can easily cost an arm and a leg. I personally know a story where the kitty sprayed over a Crane Song Avocet monitor controller that slowly died in about a month and the replacament for one is more then 4000 EUR. This might be too big price to pay for the capricious behavior of a pet.

Helping?

Another aspect is the constant attention crave they have that usually pairs with some kind of noise making of their own. I personally love talkative cats but could easily disturb my concentration when I am paying attention to critical details. Same when they purr, I just can’t stand to not hug them when they do it, but again it would just grab my attention in the middle of a session. My biggest concern was the constant jumping and movement my cat made as I always looked after him and checked where is he or did he knocked something down. There was a time when I stood up from the listening position to reach some gear and when I sat back poor kitty was aleady layed over my chair and I happen to accidentaly sit on him. I don’t know if that was the deal breaker for him or the case when he unfortunately fell behind the rack cabinet and got so tangled in the cables while trying to free himself that he was only able to get out with my help even though he chewed a few during his persistent fight for freedom. From that point we agreed he should stay of the controll room when I work. That maybe the best for all of us as the next aspect is health related.

Effect of noise on our pets

The constantly variable sound pressure may be too high and stressful for them. Some will run as soon as the speakers fired up, but some loves the sound. Either way long listening sessions for them will surely do harm as their senses are much better therefore super sensitive, we definitely have to take this into account. I mostly do techno and house styles so as both are bass heavy genres it is inevitable that I check the result with a bigger subwoofer and higher volume. The vibrations created thisway could stress cats. Maybe not straight fear is what they experience but disturbance for sure. My cat used to hide in the bathroom or in the gardrobe when We did a club level check. A friends dog on the other hand always got excited and love the subs power and you could see the happiness on his face. I think this may be because the presence of strong bass is associated with the fun and freedom experienced during festivals, like a pavlovian reflex.

Cleaning

One thing is for sure that during shedding, the waxed membranes of our ATC monitors act as an excellent hair magnet, that’s why since I’ve been using these monitors, I’ve strictly banned all small and large pets, heck, hairless cats can come if they behave well. It’s not like my girlfriend’s hair isn’t everywhere, but it’s much easier to deal with human hair because it doesn’t fall out as much. Anyway did you heard the urban legend that the largest component of household dust is exfoliated human skin?

Keep your pets safe and the studio clean and don’t forget to fasten the leash on the suit if you go on an adventure with cats on synthesizers in space.