MATRIXSYNTH: Wednesday, October 3, 2007


Wednesday, October 03, 2007

NajNaj tutorial


YouTube via larsby.

The Danny Carey Mandala Drum - Preset 00 - Filter Synth


YouTube via metopia69.
"Here's a demo of preset #00 out of 83 total. It's a synth sound and I turned on the pan delay effect. Also, a filter opens up as the sticks hit from center to edge. All sound is straight from the Mandala Pad and Brain."

The Danny Carey Mandala Drum - Preset 10 - Lea's Harp

"This preset is a harp sound. The Mandala plays different notes in different scale patterns depending on where and how hard you hit the pad."

Be sure to check out the others via the thumbnails at the bottom of the player when done.

Synesthesia Mandala Drum

"LAUREL CANYON, Calif. (Oct. 3, 2007) – It’s a drum, it’s a harp, it’s a guitar, it’s a marimba… it’s all of those things, and much, much more – at once.
Musical ingenuity once again emerges from the hills of Laurel Canyon, as Synesthesia today announced Mandala™ 2.0 – a new version of its wildly popular, patented high-def drum and synthesizer, co-developed with professional drummer Danny Carey of the progressive rock band Tool.
Now a computer peripheral – its USB cable plugs into PC or Mac – the Mandala 2.0 is the only electronic drum that truly emulates an acoustic drum. It offers drummers and musical explorers the only drum pad that knows exactly where it’s hit and how hard, across seven assignable zones – with an immediate trigger delivering the fastest-traveling sound possible.
A new kind of synthesizer, the Mandala 2.0 packages a musical range so wide it simultaneously offers players the top of the line, most accurate model of a physical drum (via 3,000 professionally created, proprietary samples of the Black Beauty Snare Drum) – along with a library of sounds derived from more than 100 other instruments. In all, the Mandala 2.0 features four gigabytes of sound samples. It’s a synthesizer with drumsticks, with a drum pad so sensitive it responds even to a fingertip touch.
"The Mandala helps people find their rhythm – whether it's the beat of a drum, or of a sound they haven't yet created," said Vince De Franco, Synesthesia founder and CEO, and inventor of the Mandala. "Use it as a compositional tool, or to create any sonic reality your heart desires. It's got percussive sounds down cold – and that includes percussion instruments like the piano, the vibraphone and the triangle. Its range gives people a rich, satisfying way to experiment. It literally will be a different product for everyone who buys it. It's the smartest thing you'll ever hit with a stick."
Whereas most electronic drums have one zone in the middle that detects the strike, Mandala’s creators invented and patented a technology that enables the drum pad to detect the exact location and strength of every point of contact across the entire pad. With 128 concentric rings from the center to the edge – each offering its own sound variation – the Mandala offers unprecedented musical breadth. This high-def drum and synthesizer is bringing to percussive music-making the same kind of high resolution experience that HDTV has brought to viewers.
The Mandala 2.0 retails for $349, and is available November 1 online at http://mandaladrum.com and www.musiciansfriend.com. Each Mandala is hand-crafted and thoroughly tested before it is shipped. Expect two-week delivery.
Other key features:
• The accompanying software lets players synthesize a host of new sounds and expand their drum kits and sample libraries at will. The software automatically accommodates up to five separate drum pads. It’s also designed to inspire and facilitate composition – along with the included instruments, players can add their own samples to the library, and use the effects to mold and create their own sounds.

• The Mandala 2.0 works seamlessly with most major music software, including Apple GarageBand, Ableton Live, and Native Instruments Battery and Reaktor.

• Mandala’s easy-to-use software comes with more than 100 presets for out-of-the-box functionality. Players also can create their own configurations as they explore and discover its astonishing audio range.

• One pad can accommodate from one to seven different zones of sound – each of which can be configured as a separate instrument, with an array of specialized settings. Players can have a snare, a bass and a cymbal (or a harp, marimba or organ, or any other instrument) – all in the same drum head, all at the same time. One Mandala can act as one drum, as an entire drum kit, or as an eclectic combo.

Drummer Meets Physicist
Inventor and physicist Vince De Franco developed the Mandala with professional drummer Danny Carey from the progressive rock band Tool. Carey uses seven Mandalas every night on stage because, he said, it’s “the only way I can trigger and control all the sounds I want to play.
“I told Vince I wanted an electronic drum that would trigger immediately, and that would let me load a gigabyte of sound samples,” said Carey. “What he created is the most advanced electronic drum I’ve ever seen. And now this new version blows the last one away.”
Carey used the Mandalas to trigger many of the sounds on the band’s latest album, 10,000 Days. Every percussive sound in the track, Intension, is produced as a result of hitting a Mandala. Other professionals using the Mandala include Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson; Will Calhoun of Living Colour; Lol Tolhurst, co-founder of The Cure; and Matt Chamberlain – who has played with Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Tori Amos, and many others. "

[link]

Wersi String Orchestra

Listed for sale on the Matrixsynth Forum. More info on this piece here.

Update: it is now up for auction

Casio MT-400V Filter Tweak


"The Casiotone MT-400V may not be a serious, professional synthesizer, but thanks to its true analog lowpass filter section, it is seriously fun to play with. Having realtime sliders on a "toy" synth is completely unheard of in recent products and rare in 80s-90s products as well.

That said, the MT-400V's filter falls a bit short on the resonance side; it just doesn't make it into the "squinky" realm of self-oscillation when the resonance control is pushed to the max. But, with a simple tweak, it can!"

[link] via best in the comments of this post

Synthi Anton

"A comic from the year 1977, created by Klaus Schulze (text) and Harald Grosskopf (drawings). The story was one of Klaus' many efforts to tell and explain to the world: What is a synthesizer? This was still necessary in 1977. More than twenty years later we have digital equipment and computers..."

[link]

via Till "Qwave" Kopper

Tron - Light cycle sequence (1982)


YouTube via allertonoff.
"Among the all time great science fiction classics. The first feature film to make extensive dramatic use of CGI. It still looks fresh today, with a wonderfully retro score by Wendy Carlos. Sheer industrial delight and magic. Highly reccomended."

via Wikipedia:
"The background music for Tron was written by pioneer electronic musician Wendy Carlos, who is best-known for her album Switched-On Bach and for the soundtracks to many films, including A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. The music featured a mix of an analog Moog synthesizer and GDS digital synthesizer (complex additive and phase modulation synthesis), along with non-electronic pieces performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (hired at the insistence of Disney, which was concerned that Carlos might not be able to complete her score on time). Two additional musical tracks were provided by the band Journey. They were originally going to be recorded by British band Supertramp. The soundtrack album was released on record and tape by CBS Records. It has been recently re-released by Walt Disney Records."

ARP 2600 Vintage Modular Analog Synthesizer Video Demo 2


YouTube via 123synthland. Demo 1 here.
"We deal in vintage synths, so we get to play a lot of fun toys. One of our favorites is the ARP 2600. We've sold many of them over We deal in vintage synths, so we get to play a lot of fun toys. One of our favorites is the ARP 2600. We've sold many of them over the years, and each one sounds different. This is a video of 1 of a couple short "jam sessions" I had with the we just put up for sale. Its knobs are off as we were wrapping up cleaning and servicing this unit. We've got a keyboard for it but it wasn't used for this noisemaking session. ARP 2600s are well known for their filter instability. This one in particular is quite unstable - the filter clips really easily when the resonance is low, to the point where the sound can sometimes disappear, so it's great for distorted noises. Simply altering the volumes of the signals going into the filter and VCA can cause some very interesting rhythmic effects. Because of its unique sound, we decided to leave the filter the way it is rather than tweak it or replace it with a "better behaved" one. This video is a departure from my normal 10 second clips, so hopefully this won't bore you guys to death. :) Enjoy. Email us anytime at minime123@onebox.com"

Zeit in the Box


via Robert

Note this Zeit is not yet completed hence the lack of knobs.

The New Mellotrons on Radio 4

via Nelson:
"UK national speech station Radio 4 reported on the new Mellotrons today:
Link to the realaudio segment. The relevant sequence begins at 11m40s. in case that link doesn't work here's the link for the show. The relevant segment being 7:30-8:00. I don't know how long these links will work!

Cheers,
Neltron"

The Red Room NW

flickr by The Red Room NW

click here for the full size shot

click here to see the mouse overs for each item and more shots.

Prepare to get Wave:d

"As the development process of the new nord wave is about to be finalized, we would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the astonishing sounds that has been flying around the office the last couple of months. The latest nord invention closes the gap between analog and digital; now you can use digital samples in an virtual analog environment. That means that you can take a sampled sound and tweak it into something completely different. Here is an example using a sampled trumpet - the sound is tweaked in real-time. The nord wave has a classsic analog synthesizer set-up with filters, LFO's and envelopes plus a massive oscillator section capable of producing classic analog waveforms (with sync), FM-synthesis, wavetables, sampled waves (wavetable with attack), noise and other miscellaneous waveforms as well as - yes - samples. Plus, oscillator modulation allows you to modulate one oscillator with the other; for instance a FM-sound modulated by a sampled sound - the character of the sample is applied to the FM sound - this example uses a sampled persian santur, as well as a classic analog lead. At the end, the lead is tweaked into a drone like sound as it is modulated by a sampled accordion(!). Every sample in the nord wave can be replaced. You can use your own samples - simply map any standard .wav-file in the nord wave manager software (for Windows and OS X) and transfer via USB. Here is an example using a custom loop with some filters and overdrive, and adding some analog stuff as well as a some oscillator modulation using a Mellotron violin sample (multi-track recording). Since the nord wave uses flash ROM to store samples, even user samples are constantly available at power-up - no external loading media is required! The nord wave has a few more weeks to go in developement - more information to follow!"

more info on the Clavia website.

supa machine - supercollider + iPhone


YouTube via tn800. A little Kraftwerk.
"experiment for supercollider and iphone. Also the hommage for the masterpiece of 70s, performed with small contro"

ANALOG SYNTH SID 8580

more images

"This is a hand made Analog Synth with SID 8580 as the sound engine. It has a 2x16 Blue LCD, RED LED power and BLUE & ULTRAVIOLET midi in indicator LED's. There are (6) BIG GREEN ARCADE Buttons to select menu functions. There is also an extra GREEN BIG SID MENU SELECT BUTTON on the side. It is the same function as the small gray one on the front. There are midi in and outs on this unit.


_it has blue, ULTRAVIOLET and red LED's
-this version has artwork on front panel
-All internal wiring is CAT5 and hot glued down at the solder locations to survive a very long lifespan
-the front and back panels are very thick clear and Transparent RED plexiglass.
-12v AC power adapter is included (WALLWART)
-It can be edited via CC midi messaging.

This item was a prototype I had for about a month, that is why it is 'Used'. I was going to keep it for myself because of the Rare 8580 SID chip but i have decided to let it go. The wood is painted C64 case color. The bottom has a few scratch marks on the wood. You can't see them unless you lift the unit up and take a close look.

The difference between the 8580 chip and 6581 is that the 8580 sound more musical and has more clarity. The resonance is also a bit more defined.

Here is the myspace link to here a demo of what it is capable of: It was mixed down in CUBASESX. The demo's here however re from a 6581, i haven't had the time to record the 8580.

All songs are 100% SID only, the first song only has VOCODED INTRO."

Not fully analog. More info on the SID chip here.
More info on MIDIBox here.

L1000286

flickr by one_point_twentyone_jig awatts

KORG MS20

click here for the full size shot

modified TR-606


YouTube via lesingemonotone.
"My modified TR-606 based on Geoff Waterston modifications."

pro-12 twiddling


"Creamware pro-12 twiddling"

Creamware ASB Pro-12 live-tweaking

"Creamware ASB Pro-12 live-tweaking in "manual mode" to demostrate some aspects of the soundpotential in Creamwares "Prophet 5" hardware/software-emulation."

YouTubes via lesingemonotone.

Moog prodigy, evolver and a 606


"Trigging the evolver from the 606, using the evolver to sequence the Prodigy via its synhouse midijack."

moog workout

"Giving the moog in the kitchen its daily workout."
YouTubes via lesingemonotone.

Korg Polysix tweaking


YouTube via lesingemonotone. via kroffe in the comments of this post.
"a little Polysix demo showing off some of its sonic potential."

La Invención del Sintetizador Moog


YouTube via funkberto. Description Google translated from Spanish:
"To the equal q the one of the Mixer de Sun Record, this video also is of “Lost Objects.” of the History Channel. Here one is, by means of interviews to his inventors, the creative process of one of but the revolutionary musical instruments. Although I doubt the veracity that the Beatles has used one, and to the mediocre sound of the video; very interesting and it is entertained for the “tecnomúsicos”."

Wendy Carlos

"Composer and musician Wendy Carlos discussing electronic music and the Moog synthesizer."

embedding on this one is disabled. Click here to watch it. The video includes both Wendy Carlos and Bob Moog.

Lev Thermen 2


YouTube via MattatoioNumero5. Leon Thermen receives and award at Stanford and plays the theremin.

Lev does Patsy


YouTube via moonmilklabs.
"Since one "Crazy" isn't enough. More craziness at moonmilk.com."

toy theremin

flickr by -hi-no-to-ri-mo-rt-al-

click here for the full size shot
click here for more shots

Lego NXT Music Synthesizer


YouTube via robotixlab. via Nusonica.
"Interactive Music Synthesizer deviced by Robotixlab for a Robotics Demo, based on Lego Mindstorms NXT and Alesis Micron Synth."

Sequential Circuits Pro-One

hi-res images of this Pro-One up for auction. I asked the seller if I could grab the shots for a post and he was kind enough to send me the hi-res shots.

"This unit falls into the 4xxx serial number range, so it's the most desirable version, with the case-mounted power supply (unit prior to serial # 1500 had a board-mounted PS), and with the J-wire keyboard (units after serial # 8500 had a membrane keyboard)." More details at the auction.

SleepDrone vs FreqBox (Moogerfooger Fight)


YouTube via Analogger
"This was originally 20 minutes long so I had to chop it up for You Tube. The Sleepdrone was my main sound source - its four oscillators modulated each other in interesting ways. That was fed into the FreqBox with its own oscillator which refused to play nice. I tamed the whole thing a bit with the Lowpass Filter but that was fed into the Ring Modulator which stirred up the insurgency all over again. That was fed into the Virus where I used its Phase Shifter. Roland SH-32 drums. Again, I used my Roland MPU-101 midi-to-cv converter to modulate different parameters.

That's a crazy woman at the train station in lower downtown Denver. she was coming up to people and saying all sorts of insane things. She approached me and began talking about her "private parts" and how they suffered when she didn't follow a strict hygiene regimen. I was able to get some video before security escorted her out."

Crumar Performer

images via this auction

"All keys work they produce sound when depressed but because it is circuit bent, there may be alterations made on the normal controllers which I wouldn’t know or not sure about. The ones I can tell and obvious ones are the bunch of switches on the left hand side when activated act like it detunes the note half step.

Some sliders and switches may have been disabled. The ones that work are in Modulation section like Depth and Rate. The Sustain slider, LED indicator switches light up, The Transpose UP/Down work, The Tuning control at the back works but it is missing its knob. Crescendo and EQ section don’t seem to generate any changes. The controls on the brass section don’t seem to change in sound when slide up and down. The volume controls are disabled. There are 2 slider caps missing and crescendo slider cap insert thing is broken but you can still slide it up or down without the cap. It is missing one little screw at the front."

Roland Juno-106

images via this auction
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