MATRIXSYNTH: Thursday, April 5, 2007


Thursday, April 05, 2007

ARP Hexaphonic Guitar Pickup


Title link takes you to shots of what is in the box.

via this auction.

Details:
"In 1977 ARP pushed into designing a synth that could respond to in-coming guitar signals using pitch-to-voltage technology. This gave rise to the Avatar, which in turn, was such a dud it practically sank the whole company before ARP finally sold off it's last and would-be greatest project - the Chroma - to CBS Musical Instruments. The Avatar was too expesnive for its own good ($3,000). It did seem to work, however; you use a hex pickup for your guitar which allows the guitar to play the synth sounds. Today the Avatar is used more like an expander module (as pictured above) with other ARP and CV/Gate type synthesizers.
It has two oscillators and is very much like the ARP Odyssey in terms of its sounds, programming and interface. Many of the features that make the Odyssey great (oscillator sync, ring modulator, sample and hold, portamento, envelope follower and more) can be found on the Avatar. The Avatar makes a great and more affordable way to get Odyssey sounds. Use it to fatten up you're current Odyssey or incorporate it into you're synth studio as an analog synth module via CV/Gate."

via Dave.

Graziano Mandozzi - Bach Handel 300

Another one synth album. This one apparently is 100% PPG. A tribute to Bach. You can find it on Amazon (affiliate link), or you can search for it.

Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital

Title link takes you to an interesting article on Popular Mechanics that focuses on the dying trend of using analog knobs in automobile controls, by Glen Reynolds. What's interesting is the author makes references to synths! Bringing synths to mainstream. Woot!

"One of the most dramatic examples of the return-to-analog controls comes from the field of electronic music. I own a 1980s Roland Alpha Juno 1 synthesizer. It's a sleek machine, controlled with minimalist buttons — a classic. But most musicians will tell you that it's hard to perform while you're trying to squint at the Roland's LCD display and navigate its nested menus.

The synthesizer I'd like to own is the Alesis AG [A6] Androm­eda. Unlike the Roland, the Alesis puts many key functions on dedicated knobs — so many, in fact, that it looks like the cockpit of a B-17. And that's why musicians love it — knobs are easy to grab in the dark. Knobs also make it simpler to transfer knowledge from one device to another. Once you know what a low-frequency oscillator does, you can use it on any device. But with nonstandard menus, you have to spend precious time finding, and remembering, how to get to the function you need on every new device you use."

Hmm... I wonder if the author knows about Matrixsynth. :)

Nord Wave Videos on Gearwire

Three vids up:
Intro
Walk through
Sounds

Circuit Bent Roland TR-505 with Arcade Style Controls

via GetLoFi.

Koopasynth


Via SuperKooper on this electro-music.com thread:

"Months ago i've finished my sound lab now i've enough time to post some pictures
It's a classic sound lab plus a VC Vactrol delay and an integrated PAIA theremax as VC source.It has also the guitar trigger and a microphone trigger."

Click on the image for a much larger shot. Check out the thread for more. Images backed up here.

Muskmesse Superbooth Shots


Click here for a few sets on sequencer.de including the building of the Superbooth at this year's Musicmesse.

Roland SH-2

Title link takes you to more shots.

via this auction.

via this Matrixsynth forum post.

Schippmann Ebbe and Flut Audio Deomo

Title link takes you to the demo.

Details via this VSE post:
DO NOT USE HEADPHONES!!!

First one is processing a machinedrum.

2nd one is processing nothing but it's own internal distortion and compression circuits, being sequenced by a fat controller to help provide movement. The Fat Controller is only sequencing the Cutoff Freq....not the Reso. The rest is all knobbery.

Please post comments on my myspace page if you are already a friend. Not the best demo, and very very limited in specific application.

you should hear what this thing does to guitars!!!

I have a gazzillion mb movie of jaming with the MDUW / Ebbe setup ...but have no way to send it or share it, lol. Idiot.

This was requested at least 2 dozen times. Sorry I didn't capture more, but it's 4:15 am and I have to work in 2 hours.

Shag"

4x4 SM Programmable Sequencer


YouTube via synthmonger. Click for more videos.

"This is a new kind of programmable sequencer. Each step can drive other sequencers or clock sources. For instance, in this video I am running one clock source into Row 1 -not into the other Rows. Each of Row 1's step outputs 1, 2, 3, 4, are sending a clock signal to Rows 2-4. Steps on Rows 2-4 are sending signals out to each other. I forgot the exact patch ;C

The Rows are CV'ing 4 simple ghettofied vactrol oscillators.

Here is an example: if you want Row 2 to advance one count everytime Row 1 hits it's 3rd step, you would run a patch from Row 1's 3rd step to Row 2's clock input. You can also run a patch out from Row 2 to Row 1 to allow even more crazy complex sequences.

I used banana jacks because I did not want to use multiple strips. It's 42HP Eurorack.

This is a very SMALL sequencer and I do have one planned for bi-directional sequencing, reset, step amount, etc etc etc. Basically the super duper version is going to be freaking huge -probably 80HP in Eurorack.

If anyone wants to buy it or find out more info on it, hit me up at synthmonger[AT]gmail.com"

GOWNS

This came in on the AH list:

"The music band/group/entity Gowns are on tour right now. If you haven't heard of them, Gowns consist of Ezra Buchla, who has been known to use a 200e live, Erika Anderson, a fellow South Dakotan and therefore automatically a badass, and Corey Fogel, who I don't have anything clever to say about, but I'm sure is very nice.

They'll be in Chicago next friday the 13th (ooh, i'm so scared). I'll be there.

tour dates here: link

Go support somebody who actually tours with modular gear!"

Update via christian in the comments: "come see the fella with the ARP/cat tatoo play with gowns in phila. he's my bandmate, we play in br'rer."

tr-606+speak&spell=SYNC.mov


YouTube via cretin4321. Previous circuit bent sync.

Jupiter-8V at the Musikmesse 2007


YouTube via Arturiaweb.

Retrosynth PPG MiniROM for Blacet Wiard Miniwave


YouTube via therealretrosynth, aka Cary Roberts of Retrosynth.com.

"This is a demo of the Retrosynth MiniROM loaded with PPG wavetables courtesy of Jason Proctor. The Miniwave is being driven from the sawtooth output of a Serge PCO scaled and offset through an audio mixer and scaling buffer. The wave select on the Miniwave is modulated by a Universal Slope Generator with gain and offset from a CV mixer. The output of the Miniwave is patched directly into the dual channel stereo mixer module for final level adjustment and then it's off to a small Roland MA-8 monitor."

Update via retrosynth in the comments:
"There are 64 waves in each PPG wavetable bank and a stock Blacet Miniwave can only do 16 waves per bank. Plus there are only 16 banks in a stock Miniwave. The board I made allows for 32 banks of 64 waves each. That's 8X more samples per ROM. Jason Proctor provided me the wavetables. I'm just the hardware monkey that made them fit in a Miniwave socket. Some pictures here: [link]"

Kurzweil K250

Title link takes you to more shots.

via this auction.

Roland Jupiter-6

Title link takes you to more shots.

via this auction.

"A Brief Description:
The Jupiter 6 is a 6-voice polyphonic synthesizer with a 61-note (C-C) keyboard. Each voice consists of 2 VCOs. VCO1 is switchable between any combination of triangle, sawtooth, pulse, and square waves and can be switched between 4 octaves. VCO2 has the same options, except the square wave is replaced by a noise generator switch and it has a 6 octave range, with an octave above and below VCO1's range.

The Jupiter 6 also allows Oscillator Sync. VCO1 can be synced to VCO2 or vice-versa. Either or both VCOs can be modulated by either or both of the LFO and ENV1. The LFO features controls for rate, delay, and four waveforms, triangle, saw, square, and random (sample-and-hold). LFO2 is triggered by a big white button next to the pitchbend/modulation lever. There are two knobs, one for pitch (the level of LFO2 routed to the VCO) and the other for filter (the level of LFO2 routed to the VCF). In addition, there are also knobs that control the rise time (how fast LFO2 reaches full amplitude) and the rate of LFO2.

The VCF on the Jupiter 6 is unique amoung the Jupiter series in that it is a multimode filter, with either 4-pole lowpass, 4-pole highpass, or 2-pole bandpass. The filter is resonant in all modes allowing for some interesting resonant sweeps using the highpass and bandpass filter instead of the more common lowpass sweep. However, the Jupiter 6 does not have the separate fixed high-pass filter as do the other Jupiter models. The filter can be modulated by an envelope (either ENV1 or ENV2), the LFO, and keyboard tracking. There is a slider to determine the level of each of the three modulation sources. Both envelopes (ENV1 and ENV2) are ADSR (Attack Decay Sustain Release). A slider controls the amount the envelopes are modulated by key follow. ENV1 can be set to normal or negative polarity. ENV2 is hardwired to control the VCA, with a slider controlling the amount. The bender can affect pitch and/or filter cutoff, each of which has a slider for amount. VCO1 and VCO2 have separate on/off switches for bender modulation. There is also a "wide" bending option, which scales the bender to extreme ranges.

The Jupiter 6's memory can hold 48 patches, and 32 patch presets. Patch presets can store keyboard splits, along with the settings for the arpeggiator, voice assign mode, hold, portamento, as well as many of the modulation settings. The Jupiter 6 features keyboard split, allowing you to assign two voices to the upper split and four voices to the lower or vice-versa. The balance between both sides of the split is controlled by a slider. The arpeggiator is switchable between 1, 2, 3, and 4 octaves and three modes: up, down, or up and down. It can be assigned to work on either the lower or upper split or both. Portamento can be switched between Portamento and Glide. Glide quantizes the portamento into half-steps for a staircase effect. Portamento is separately programmable for both sides of a split."

Sequential Circuits Prophet 5

Title link takes you to more shots.

via this auction.

Steiner Parker Synthacon

Title link takes you to more shots.

via this auction.

A couple of vids showcasing the Synthacon:
one
two

Roland Jupiter Lapel Pin

via this auction.

Previous synth bling

Yamaha SK15 String Ensemble

Title link takes you to more shots. As always, click the image for a bigger shot.

via this auction.

KORG Polysix

Title link takes you to more shots.

via this auction.
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