The Packrat Gets a New Waldorf Quantum

via http://umop.com

The Final Episode of The Packrat

via Dave

"Hello there,
It is ridiculously weird timing ending the Packrat's run so soon after its transition from print to web-only. But after sketching out no fewer than two dozen ideas for an all-new daily webcomic idea (to be announced next month), it just feels like it's time to call it quits for this monthly comic strip about a synthesizer-collecting rat. This is his ten-year anniversary and it just doesn't feel like the Packrat owes you or me anything more.

I've also decided that ten years was long enough to see if the comic could ever be more than it was. Maybe if it was a daily offering, it would have gained more traction, but I had a hard enough time coming up with monthly keyboard-related comic ideas. So the concept of daily ones seems very unrealistic to me! It would just get stale for everyone on both sides of the screen.

Meanwhile, there's $14 worth of income (and as anyone on Patreon will tell you, this is no small feat) coming from six monthly subscribers on my Patreon page. For those early adopters I do promise that my new webcomic will be entertaining and even somewhat keyboard-related. I'll reveal everything else in March. Until then, anyone possessing great faith can be an early adopter while the page is transitioning from the Packrat to the Next Big Thing. You might want to get in early, because I have a feeling that for once I've actually bottled real lightning.

That's all for now. I wish I had the ability to dedicate to two comic art projects, but there just won't be room for both of them in my brain."

I'm sad to see The Packrat go, but I'm glad it's by Dave's choice. I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next. The Packrat will always have a special place in the annals of MATRIXSYNTH. The first appearance to be featured here on MATRIXSYNTH was back on October 31 (Halloween) of 2005, only three months after the launch of MATRIXSYNTH in blog form. The Packrat brought us some great times. We are going to miss you little buddy.  Rocks instead of synths?!  I guess it would be more affordable.

The Packrat - January 2015 & The MATRIXSYNTH Packrat T-Shirt!

And we start 2015 with an episode of The Packrat! :)

You'll find the awesome MATRIXSYNTH Packrat T pictured below and more Packrat schwag at http://umop.com/packrat.htm

You might recognize the image on the T from this post. Support The Packrat on Patreon here!

YYZ on a keytar - no further description is needed

Published on Dec 2, 2014

"Welcome to another installment of ridiculousness!

Thanks for so many years of YouTube support. Despite my intergalactic adventures I am a real person in need of real support. Please visit patreon.com/packrat for more information.

This film was masterfully cinematographied (blorg?) by one of my very best friends, an 8-year-old by the name of Jaxon Ventura. It doesn't matter that you don't know who that is; your kids will absolutely worship him sometime in the 2030s.

It's all OK.

You have no idea what is happening right now. It's weird when time travelers post shit on YouTube. Anyway, that's just going to have to be all right with everyone, and most especially Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart, who wrote one of my favorite all-time songs, "YYZ," which I've decided to sequence on an old Korg O1/W keyboard for nostalgic, shreducational purposes, and play along with it on one of my 1984 Roland Axis keytars controlling a Roland JD-800 synth. This is all happening at the Safehouse, which is an independent republic located in the heart of Connecticut and recognized (by at least five people) as a sovereign state known as "The Din." Its liege lords, the Royal Din, are what you would call "my band," and while we don't marinate in this kind of progressive wankadoo horseplay while playing live in front of anyone, we do on occasion do some pretty amazing musical feats together. It can be monitored on royaldin.com.

Meanwhile, keep coming back to this YouTube channel for more feats of berzerking amusement, and of course umop.com for updates on my comic strip "The Packrat," which contains a lot of synthesizer references and other stuffs of nerdist delight.

Pants by Betabrand, shirt by Beloved.

--Dave"

The Packrat on Patreon

Published on Dec 1, 2014 hamsterdunce

"Now YOU can help support my comic strip 'The Packrat' by going to patreon.com/packrat and donating to keep it alive!

Thanks to all the loyal Packrat fans!!"

The Packrat Comes to MATRIXSYNTH!

I'm happy to announce that starting with the December issue, The Packrat has found a new home here on MATRIXSYNTH!

The Packrat has been featured on MATRIXSYNTH many times in the past (and of course the MATRIXSYNTH Packrat on the right has been a staple of the site since 2006), but now it will be a bit more official. You'll find some words from Dave, the creator of The Packrat, below.

But first, click the image for the full size comic. You can find previous issues on Dave's Packrat site here, and be sure to check out The Packrat Book! It's a great bit of synth history and it makes a great stocking stuffer. MATRIXSYNTH and a few other names in the synth community are featured in the book.

Regarding the future of The Packrat, Dave has the following to say:

"The Packrat is by all accounts among the smallest, most niche-y comic strips in the entire universe. Nevertheless, it has its fans, and just in case they have any curiosity, they are owed the backstory of the events of the past few months.

I came back from my August, 2014 camping trip through the Canadian back woods with a hot, steaming case of Lyme Disease (I'm fine now!). I was covered in a rash for several weeks and ended up submitting one comic strip too late for print. The following month, specifics too unexciting in which to delve (exclusively involving the publication's administration, going higher than Keyboard Magazine itself) created problematic logistics preventing the print of the next two installments.

I bear the magazine itself no ill will at all, and consider the matter unfortunate only for the fans who had perhaps thought that the Packrat had been retired (by me or the mag). Indeed, those of its followers who are wise enough to follow it on Facebook or my own personal art site umop.com have been able to see monthly synth-tastic adventures at the usual periodic times, so hopefully the notion that the Packrat went to Synth Heaven wasn't too widespread.

Comic strips are trifles in this world, and this one is damn near the, uh... trifliest? So the details about how this strip gets made surely must consist of the silliest orts of minutiae ever to cross anyone's plate. But here they are anyway, every last crumb of them.

Anyway, inasmuch as the break from the magazine was unintentional on the part of everyone directly involved with its creation, I'm using the resultant reality of things as an excuse to move onward with the Packrat. It will now be available online on all the aforementioned sites, and Matrixsynth has agreed to be the exclusive first link to it every month (and possibly, in installments of a more timely fashion!). Neither he nor I are currently making any money at all from any of this; we're both in it for synth-love alone right now (and for me, exceedingly rare book sales). While I was formerly earning enough for a couple of tanks of gas a pop from the magazine (and was lucky to get it in this economy), even that modest honorarium will be gone.

This comic strip has somehow survived ten years of life come February, and I have no plans of slowing down any time soon. In order to help keep it going, I plan on setting up a Patreon page this week. I would consider even $100 per month a major victory, since that would at least cover its own dodeca-annual creation. Details about the page will follow once it's all set up.

Thanks for reading the Packrat comic! Enjoy this first Matrixsynth-exclusive episode, featuring an appropriately green synth to start off the maiden voyage."

A Packrat Christmas

Saw this shot over on Moogulator's blog. Check out the Packrat site for more. Now that's a Christmas tree. : )

The Keyboard Player Cartoon

In from Dave on Synth Sights. Click through for a bigger image you can actually read. One thing, at least we don't have that ear piercing guitar feedback. Or do we? : )

Hi there,

Figured y'all would get a kick out of this scan from a 1989 book
called "The Rock Musician's Survival Guide" about keyboard players.
As we all know, around 1989 us keyboard players were enjoying their
final days on Earth as respectable members of the human race. I blame
this book for our collective downfall in the few short years after it
was printed.

Just kidding. It's funny crap (out of print, too...so we get the last
laugh). Enjoy!

--Dave