MATRIXSYNTH: Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Sad news in the blogosphere today. Orpheus Music has just put up a post announcing that "This blog has attracted the attention of an 'unwanted party' and, as a consequence (to save me from any potential trouble), will be closed and deleted in the next couple of days."
If you haven't checked out Orpheus Music, do so while you can. You will find tons of classic synthesizer based albums of times past. The post does not go into detail as to why. So sad that all of this information will be lost.

HardSID 4U

"The HardSID 4U is the most powerful SID synthesizer since the legendary C64!

* USB connection (compatible with both 2.0 & 1.1)
* Isochronous USB endpoint for low-latency audio
* VSTi interface with 8000Hz update rate on all SID registers (free)
* Wave-in VSTi pin for routing 8000Hz signals to any registers (example: playing other VSTi's sound on the volume register)
* Full automation of all VSTi parameters
* Superior sound quality (..it is a HardSID!)
* Support for up to four SID chips (6581/8580/6582 in any combination)
* Updateable firmware over USB
* Microsoft Vista compatible (drivers for Win2000/XP/Vista)

..and if you're a C64 fan

* Cycle-accurate playback of your favorite SID tunes
* Digitized sound + high-speed playback with low CPU utilization
* Seamless playback of .sid tunes while you work on your PC by providing a huge playback buffer for non-VSTi applications"

http://www.hardsid.com/

CLICK FOR MORE »

KP3 as a MIDI Controller

YouTube via Denkitribe. Sent my way via fischek.
"Ableton Live with KORG KAOSS PAD KP3.

Stage6 version: http://stage6.divx.com/content/show/1...

In "EXT CTRL" mode, KP3 acts as a MIDI controller. It has eight virtual sliders, fourteen keys, one slider and volume. These controllers are assignable to any MIDI notes or CCs using KP3-Editor (PC software).

KP3 is not just a multi effector; It is also a MIDI controller with nice LED illumination :) I think KP3 is one of most cost-effective gears in the current market."

The Chemical Brothers Win Grammys and Their Modular Setup

Image via The Chemical Brothers website. I found this under Good Things, where you will also see Matrixsynth listed. Yeah I like to think this site is a good thing. :)

Pictured: ARP 2600, Roland System 700 Modular, Doepfer, Plan b, Cwejman, Livewire Modular

And the real reason for this post? The Chemical Brothers won both Best Electronic/Dance Album and Best Dance Recording in this years 2008 Grammys. Congrats guys! Very, very cool. You can see who they were up against here.

The Album: We Are The Night
on Amazon

The Recording: Do It Again
on Amazon

Do It Again - The Chemical Brothers

Chemical Brothers - Salmon Dance - Just had to through this one in.

Update via Mike Brown of Livewire:
"just thought I'd pass along some info regarding the chems... oddly enough, that photo they have on their site of their modular setup is considerably out-of-date... they actually have a much, MUCH bigger modular system now...

the system was designed by shawn cleary & myself and is a multi-format system with MOTM/modcan, frac & eurorack... it stands about 5 feet tall by nearly 4 feet wide if I remember correctly... the cabinet was constructed out of black walnut by flames brennan (who also fabricated the NIN case)...
the hardware & power distribution were built by mat mitchell & me. should also mention that a *bunch* of other people helped... andrew & antonio at analogue haven, steve r, nuryah ben-el & ken reeves to name a few.

I've been waiting for them to post photos of it... but haven't seen any so far. also, I heard from mat that they were using it on-stage during their last tour, but haven't seen pics of that either..."

Analogue Systems rs95 oscillator tracking demonstration

YouTube via bigcitymusic
"Here is a demo of the Analogue Systems rs95 analog oscillator played along with the rs370 digital oscillator (for reference). This test shows the amazing accuracy of the scaling on the rs95 oscillator."

Vivian plays keyboards?

flickr by * YUKO_M

full size

via CatSynth.com

Anyone know what synth that is? I thought it was a Yamaha S08, but the buttons and data wheel are different.

Update via Väinö in the comments: "Pretty sure it's a Yamaha S90, not the ES model but an older one: link"

How a VCO Works

Sequence 15 has a post up on how a VCO works. If you are interested, you can check it out here.

"So synth circuit designers, starting with Moog and Buchla in the early 1960s, long ago turned to "artificial" oscillator circuits that do not rely on natural resonance. Rather, they rely on an analog implementation of a mathematical function that can be made to increase and decrease proportionally to the control voltage. A second consideration is that a useful synth VCO is expected to output several different waveforms, so that the synth player has harmonic starting points for creating a given sound. Rather than create a separate VCO circuit for each desired waveform, it is far more cost-effective to design a VCO "core" that generates a waveform from which the other desired waveforms can be derived."

Korg Brochure late 70's/early 80's front

flickr by Heath Finnie

full size

the back

BTW, be sure to click on the scans label link below for more. To date there are 233 posts featuring the label scans. If you look at the list of labels at the bottom right of the site you can see the counts for each label. To get to older posts, just click on the Older Posts link at the bottom of each page.

Brian Comnes Metasonix TS-21 Hellfire Modulator Clone

More info on Deviant Synth

Modular Beats

YouTube via verstaerker
"mangling some Machinedrumbeats with my Modularsystem, the bassdrum in the beginning is not from the Md - it's created my the Cwejman VCO and Adsr

te beat from the md runs through the Doepfer BBD , the Cwejman Resonator and the Doepfer Wasp Filter"

Devantech SP03 Text-to-Speech Synthesizer

YouTube via MarcusACU
"Here you can see (and hear) my SP03. The Sp03 is a small Text-to-Speech synthesizer. Normally the Sp03 uses only a little 0,4Watt speaker. I connected a bigger speaker through a external universal amp.

The text is:
"How are you? I am fine! My name is SP03. I was build by Devantech. You can send me a englisch text and my integrated speech synthesizer willl produce a voice. Can you understand me? I am very sorry, but I can speak only english."

For more details: http://www.acroname.com/robotics/part.."

Flame Triode With Gain And Intriguing Flame Phenomenon.

YouTube via nylesteiner.

The application of what is described begins at 1:34.

"More info is available at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com

If a cathode is chemically treated with a common household chemical and put into an alcohol flame, electrons can flow to a positive anode that is placed inside of the flame. This creates a diode rectifier.

What is very intriguing though, is that electrons can still flow to the anode even when it is well outside of the flame.

A grid placed within this space between the flame and anode can control the amount of current flow. This creates a triode with gain with similarities to a vacuum tube triode."