MATRIXSYNTH: Wednesday, July 19, 2006

This is probably only interesting to me, but that Waldorf Wave that was up for sale in Sweden back in April is up for sale again. It didn't sell the first time. Asking price is $6000. What's also interesting is the asking price was $7000 when I put up the previous post but the link to that auction shows it ended with 0 bids at $6000. It's all supply and demand and the demand doesn't appear to be there at that price.

Buchin' it up eben mo - New Flickr Shots

flickr by ica~icarus. Title link takes you to more Buchla shots.

CP Music

Title link takes you to Pete's CP Music website, home to a few DIY projects, synth shots, samples, and more. One of Pete's projects is a Phase Shifter based on the CEM3320. There are images and a sample of his Prophet 600 going through the phaser on site. Also, make sure to check out the gallery when you get there. There are some nice shots including the DK Synergy a rare digital synth from the early 80s. You can find more on the Syndergy here. And of course some lovely waveshape shots.

Spaceware on the PDP-1

flickr by the earthling. The caption reads, "Spacewar was the first video game... ever. Yes, I played it on this restored PDP-1." I wonder if it produced sound and if so, how. If you have any idea if the PDP-1 could produce sound, please comment.

via unrest.

Update via solipsisnation in the comments:
"Well, PDP systems were digital, and their CPUs were waaaay too slow for anything resembling real-time sound.

That said, the PDP series was used for electronic music composition, and while I was going to mention Paul Lansky's "Mild und Leise" (AKA "the neat FM-y noises from Radiohead's 'Idiotique'"), that appears to have been made on an IBM: link

Here's a timeline that mentions PDP-series computers, though: link

Of interest are these paragraphs:

"In 1968, Barry Vercoe working at Princeton developed a very fast version of MUSIC IV B, entitled MUSIC 360 [9] [12] for the new generation IBM 360 mainframes. In 1973 at MIT, Vercoe developed a compact version of MUSIC called MUSIC 11 [3]. It was written in PDP-11 assembler code for the PDP-11 computer. This was the first digital music synthesis program for mini-computers with a keyboard and teletypewriter VDU (Visual Display Unit).

John Chowning and James Moorer at the University of Stanford, California wrote another version of MUSIC called MUSIC 10 [13] for the PDP-10 in 1975. Further improvements to MUSIC 10 were implemented both at Stanford and IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris. The IRCAM implementation allowed input of short external samples through the use of Analog-to-Digital (A/D) converters. The input could be analyzed digitally providing data for modifications and re-synthesis, in combination with internally generated sounds."

So, the PDP-1 was probably too primitive, but systems with a similar architecture could be used to synthesize audio in a very slow and painstaking way-- no realtime sound, for sure. These were the days before microprocessors, and even KHz CPUs were still in the future. "

Acid ohne Roland's TB303

Title link takes you to a list of TB acid tracks featuring various synths inlcuing:

Propellerheads Rebirth
Yamaha AN1X
Kawai K5000S
Waldorf Microwave XT
Korg Z1
Korg Poly 61
Yamaha FX900
Hohner HS-1
Access Virus C
3x Creakbox Beta
MAM Freebass FB383
Audiorealism Bassline V1.5
Roland JD800

Each track lists what synths were used. These are really good demos.