"Hi all, As you're all no doubt aware, STS stopped taking custom panel orders back in June of 2007. What you may not be aware of is that there have been some exciting developments percolating beneath the surface at STS headquarters since well before that announcement. I'm pleased and very excited to announce the new Serge M-Class series from Sound Transform Systems.
What is it? Well, imagine the Serge modules you already know and love in a half-panel format -- we'll call these half-panels "M-odules -- and the modules, as they were previously known, comprise "function blocks" with individual "function cells", i.e., a DTG is a function block and a single TG is a function cell. Let's leave the new nomenclature for a moment so it can sink in and visit the tangible differences, now.
Rex has made a slew of changes under the hood and these include improvements to the designs, topologies, and circuits, across the board. Yes, there was still room for improvement, if you can believe it! Externally, very little has changed except for the new format, which, as I mentioned above, resembles half-panels, now known as "M- odules, joined in the center by a new power distribution scheme which incorporates the familiar PSD, indicator LEDs, a cool modulatable water-diffused blue LED, and eliminates the dangling power interconnection cables we're used to. A new, smaller, and custom- built power supply, the PS2a, is available to power 2 M-boats (each M- boat holds two "M-odules plus the new power distribution strip). It's also switchable for operation in Europe and will come with the appropriate power cable, as well. If you need to power more than this you can still opt for the PS4 or PS6.
Last, but not least, there are some new function block designs, such as the VC Timegen Oscillator, and VC Timegen Clock. Each is comprised of two distinct halves, or function cells. Two "M-odules incorporating these blocks are the "Creature" and "Sequencer" which, when combined, form a powerful mini-modular in a single M-boat. It's my understanding that these will be some of the first "M-odules available.
Well, now I'll turn it over to the list so we can get some discussion going. Undoubtedly, you have some questions, and we'll do our best to answer them.
Update in the comments: There's some good info from Carbon111 who will be creating some pages for the new Serge systems as well. If that doesn't get you excited just check out http://carbon111.com/. He has some of the best pages on individual synthesizers out there including Serge.
No, that's not the actual drum machine, but an image in the Roboterwerke.pdf. Keep reading... via Hajo: "In about 1982, I had contact to Dieter Kolb, the guy behind the drummachine „ROBOTERWERKE“. As an attachment I did scan the original leaflat from this time. As I know, there were only a few machines build:
- Klaus Doldinger had one - Tangerine Dream used one - SUPERSEMPPFT aka Roboterwerke used it intensely
Go for www.WUNDERWERKE.de you will find more informations. I can recommend all the LP, absoluteley perfect EM music, a bit Kraftwerk, a bit Tangerine Dream ans some Samba and Disco influences. At all, perfectly arranged.
Greating from secret Duesseldorf Hajo" Thanks Hajo! You can find the scan here.
Update via Hajo (see image below as well): "to complete the information: - the whole project was called WUNDERWERKE (Wonderworks) - the machine was called ROBOTERWERKE - the main person in the whole story was the frog „SUPERSEMPFFT“ - thei frog was smoking grass all time and made funny thinks o look for SUPERSEMPFFT in the WEB, also YOUTUBE o Dieter Kolb and Franz Aumüller, arranged a 6 Minute movie about the frog ( I have it here) o A short version with totally different music will be found in YOUTUBE
- The www.WUNDERWERKE. DE Webside is off for a while, it was too funny !!!"
Supersempfft - I'm Gonna Make You Big My Friend YouTube via Zrix1000 "Video footage from 1982 with the original track from the 1978 album Roboterwerke"
I did a quick search as suggested by Hajo and found this scan here. Do a search on the web including image search and you will find more.
Update via BirdFLU in the comments: "If you don't want to pay 90 euros for an album before hearing it, you can hear some 30 second samples here"
Update 3/5/2008:
More info via Hajo: ------------------------------------------ "Franz Aumüller from Roboterwerke By: Ryan Chimney
Q: To start, explain Wunderwerke. A website, a record label, a production studio.. or all of the above ?
Wunderwerke is a multimedia company that is producing music,videos,events, and magazines since 1978 when it was founded by Franz Aumüller and Dieter Kolb. FA is managing director. It is also a music publisher,distributor and a website. And since this year a galery.
Franz Aumüller
Q: You were particularly involved in the lyrics, stories and artwork for the band. When did you first begin working on your creations and did you imagine they would be used this way or was that its intention ?
A: Dieter and I have been frieds since kindergarden, when he started playing guitar in a band I was his biggest fan and designed the logo for the drum and the posters.Later, when he chaged to Hammond I helped him carry it on stage and later after the concerts back to the car. His parents had a shop for musical instruments. Dieter practised every day for hours in the basement (the shop provided us wih the latest models, I brought the records) and later we experimented with 2 tape-recorders. Franz Knüttel our classmate joined on drums and built our first sythesizer. later when we found out that his possibilities as a drummer were limited, he developed a drum machine. I came up with the name Roboterwerke and the story. Dieter studied music and had a fellow student Jof who made the first deal with CBS. Then I created the story and the lyrics for the first Lp. Although we sold more than 30 thousand copies we decided to become independent. The second Lp Metaluna was released on our own label Wunderwerke and sold not even 1 thousand copies... So we had to release the third Lp Futurist with RCA but at that time in Germany was the Neue Deutsche Welle and everybody was listening to songs with german lyrics. Therefore Futurist flopped too. Meanwhile I had spent all my money on a 6minute full animated movie, but since there was no music tv at that time it was never shown. We worked for annother year on the 4th Lp Cosmotropics that was not finished.
Q: The artwork and stories ive seen focus on a strange yellow cartoon character who seems to always be getting high or be tempted by others on his adventures. What is the history behind this little guy and does his story continue on after Roboterwerke albums were completed ?
A: The little frog is Supersempfft a caricature of Dieter who has the most amazing adventures through the universe but when he comes back to earth finds his superpowers vanished.
Q: If your characters from the album were animated it could have become an early or the first music video. Did ever you have any interest in this at the time?
We are still intersted,but...
Q: You are credited as producer on some of the albums, were there times when you aided in the music production or was it solely the lyrics and story.
A: Dieter an I developed a way of working together as a team.
Q: You are photographed with the amazing "GUITARET" did you play? Was it used on any Roboterwerke recordings ?
A: Our next project after Roboterwerke was 4D the 4th Dimension which was completely sampled with our Drumcomputer exept for the vocals.The Guitaret that I found on the fleamarket was used on the pr shots, because we didnt use any real instruments. We sold about 3000 tapecassettes when Virgin contacted us to be the first act on their new German label. At the presentation of the record at Virgin they loved it very much, but when I told them that all the instruments were collaged from records they were too afraid to release it. Later I played the tapes to Rusty Egan (I wrote the german lyrics for Visages The Anvil) he took them to New York to Africa Bambaata who used it for his Timezone : the Wildstyle.
Q: Seems you have be apart of so many elements of the art world, from writing to print/design to music videos. are you still involved in all of the above ? Was there an area you enjoy(ed) the most ?
A: What I always enjoyed most was producing experimental music videos.
Q: Dieter Kolb was the first to use a drum machine from his own creation. This seemed to attract a lot of attention from artists ranging from Kraftwerk to Herbie Hancock. Were you there to witness this? how long did it take for him to get noticed for his inventions and what, if any, machines did Dieter produce for them ?
A: The machines we showed to alot of artists were only prototypes we planned to sell them, but when we had them professionally made there were better and cheaper machines on the market...
Q: Considering Roboterwerke was the first or one of the first to play this new type of drum machine electronic music, what was your reaction as it began to become popular ?
We loved it!
Q: Im really curious about the track "Pinhead" seems to be dedicated to your love from playing Pinball. I cant understand all the lyrics but i hear "extra ball" in there and many of the sounds could easily be used as pinball background sound effects. Did you write the lyrics for this? Was pinball a favorite pastime of the band ?
A: Yes
Q: You mentioned Dieter stopped playing live in the early 70s. So Roboterwerke never performed live ?
A: Yes the Roboterwerke equipment was too difficult to take around. We only performed live on the first art electronica in Linz.
Q: I've read briefly that the band would spend time in the Caribbean enjoying the local music etc, were you a part of these trips? At what point did this influence the musical style of the group ?
A: We were big fans of dub music especially Lee Scratch Perry and King Tubby. We went to Tobago + Trinidad because we thought reggae was played everywhere in the Caribbean only to discover Steelband and Soca which we liked even better. We were there 4 times for the carnival season.
Q: Honestly the first id heard of the group was from eBay! I noticed the amazing album cover for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight/High on Tech" and then began tracking down anything i could find about the band. what do you think of the eBay phenomena ?
A: E-bay is great for finding things.
Q: Recently there has been a resurgence in the band's music including a re-released track on the MAGICK KUTS edits label, what do you think of this and are you surprised it took so long ?
A: We love it and would encourage everybody to make remixes. Lately DJ Flowrider has Played me a scratch version of the Roboterwerke Lps on two turntables which I loved because the mix of old school electronics and scratch."
------------------------------------------
"here is an article in GERMAN, which I wrote in 2006 for a German EM Magazine SCHALLWENDE. Perhaps somepeople can read German. It is a kind of very funny Hajo Liese from Düsseldorf"
"Digital samples got no soul? How about digital samples of tape and cassette samples of classic Roland instruments? Huggie from New Zealand (and Goldbaby Productions) has been producing some lovely sample libraries from favorite gear, free and payware. He’s posted two of the best as freebies to the CDM forums. The hook: they’re recorded on analog before being sampled again."
YouTube via 2uptech "Demo of Coulbourn Instruments modular rack gear. Designed for animal behavioral experiments, not music. Makes noise."
Note these are currently up for sale on Craigslist. images saved here Details: "This is some really strange modular gear. It was made by Coulbourn Instruments in the early '80s. I have one full 4U rack with an enclosure and power supply, and another rack with no enclosure or power. When I got the gear it had no power supply---I added a +-12v switching supply [this one]from All Electronics.
The modules are 2 units high and fit into the frame by clipping onto a series of rails. You can see this and hear some demos of the system doing weird things to audio at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MytMxgCn7PM The system has the following modules:
Noise - 1x Sine / Square VCO - 1x Lowpass / Highpass VCF - 2x Switch module - 3x RS/T Flip Flop - 1x Gate - 2x Precision Time Base - 1x Predetermining Counter - 4x Analog/Digital Converter - 1x Digital/Analog Converter - 2x Switch Input - 1x Attenuator - 4x And Gate - 1x Audio Mixer/Amplifier - 1x A weird mix of analog and digital stuff.
The system has two kinds of connectors: 1/8" phono jacks for audio, and some really weird stackable plugs like micro-banana cables for digital signals. I have about 20 of these esoteric cables and will of course include them.
Please note that these devices are designed for laboratory experiments, not music. So, the VCOs are not 1v/octave, the VCFs are not resonant, etc. However, if you already have some Doepfer modules or something and want to make some strange new noises, these will definitely do that."
Update: People are still submitting their synth lists in the comments, so feel free to join. I added a permanent link to this post in the Poll section on the right of this site.
Dave of umop thought it might be fun to get a list of what synths the readers of Matixsynth represent. We could then see what synths are the most popular as far as ownership. That said, below is the poll. BE SURE TO SEE IF YOUR SYNTH IS LISTED before just adding it. As you know, posts only stay up for two days on the front page, so don't wait too long. If you have too many synths, just enter the top three for now and add more later if you like - this is meant to be fun, not work. I will add a link to the right after two days, but my guess is it will get forgotten, so... again, do it now. :) BTW, this is 100% anonymous so if you are worried about others knowing what you own, don't be. It will just be a list of synths and a count for each - zero mention of who voted for what. Also enter the Manufacture before the model so it will be sorted as such.
Hmm... Well that sucks. The Others are coming in as Other instead of the synth you enter. Hold off for now. I'll see if there is anything I can do.
Update: OK, I don't see an option to show the individual Other options in the actual poll results, but I can see them on my end. I'll update the post later with the results so far, so keep entering them.
Update: The poll was set to block repeat voters which is normal in a standard poll, so you couldn't enter more than one synth. I just updated it to let you enter multiple results.
Update: OK, it looks like this poll is a dud. I just checked the results in the admin interface and it doesn't give you total counts for individual synths. Instead it just gives you the count for Other. I'll put the list of about 100 results so far in the comments. Sorry about this everyone. Someone has offered to write up a poll the way I wanted it (where you get counts for each synth) in the next couple of weeks, so keep tuned. People are also writing their lists in the comments, so feel free to if you want to as well, but that won't give us total counts for each, which was the purpose of this poll. I thought it would be interesting to see the numbers and even rank the most to least owned synths.
"I'm using myspace to allow people to hear the M5/M5N in action......or in the context of being played as musical instruments - not just demo soundbites from a website. It is here that I can demonstrated more deeply the sonic timbres that get me off!!"
Click here for the site. Don't forget to also check out the pics while there.
YouTube via pepemogt "Last night tenori save my night!
I was invited yesterday to do gig in a massive event with The Hives, Chromeo, Flosstradamus and other live acts, i was invited as Latinsizer, so i prepared my self to do a Tenori-on live improv, and i did lots of blocks and lots of Sampling back home, and sudenly my SD card lost the info(long story), so couple of hours before i went to stage, i was at the hotel INTERCONTINENTAL (GDL) preparing my tenori set, just using the internal sounds, i really prefer my samples instead but in an emergency you have to use whatever you have at your disposal to save the night, here is one track i did there just using the Tenori ITSELF, no SD Card, Just Tenori -on internal sounds and no external effects, just live improv .. so i consider this tracks my first ALL TENORI-ON track.
enjoy! p.d. thanks for the people that show up at my set ;)
"In the previous posting, we discussed how the core of a typical VCO works, and the main sources of drift and instability in a VCO core circuit. The Digitally Controlled Oscillator (DCO) is a 1980s technology designed to eliminate most or all of these sources of inaccuracy, while still operating as basically an analog VCO. The DCO was a transitional technology that arose as soon as inexpensive microprocessors were available that were fast enough to control the timing of an audio oscillator circuit, but not yet fast enough to compute the oscillating waveform entirely in the digital domain. (A secondary consideration was the fact that fast 16-bit digital-to-analog converters, although available, were still quite expensive at the time.) The distinguishing characteristic of a DCO, as opposed to a purely digital oscillator, is that the DCO does not have a D/A converter in the audio signal path. (It may have a D/A converter in the control path.)"
YouTube via MusicMiK. Follow up to this post. "MiK-one is the name of my DIY synthesizer, and this video shows you the modules built into it. It's not a full development story, but it might leave an impression.
YouTube via analoguecrazy4 "Here is my cover of 'Photographic' by Depeche Mode. This was the first track they recorded for thier 'Speak and Spell' LP." Spot the synths.
YouTube via Gtechture "Hi, this is a video of the AN-200. Its not just a cool sequencer, its a great synthesizer too. I will show you how it can be proggrammed followed by some preset patterns."
"This is an old analog modular synthesizer from the EML Company. Many people from the 70s will recognize this - very common in schools and universities as an alternate to the big Moog and ARP modulars of the time."
Pictured:
MOOG Synthesizer IIIp
ARP 2600
MOOG Minimoog
Buchla Electric Music Box
Description:
""A Fundamental Approach to Understanding the New Sound Sources Covering Both the Technical and the Creative Aspects of Sound Synthesis".
From 1973. First Printing!
Contents include:
- Forward by Robert A. Moog!
- Chapters covering Basic Acoustics, Principles of Electronics, Electronic Circuits (filters, ring modulators, mixers, amps, oscillators, wave generators &more), The Function and Operation of Electronic Music Modules, Procedures for Electronic Sound Synthesis (Analog, Additive, Subtractive, Timbre, Amplitude, Frequency, Resonant Filter, Digital Sound), Tape Recording, Tape Editing and Mixing, Getting Started, Form and Notation in Electronic Music, and A Brief History of Electronic Music (Early Developments, The 1950's, Synthesizers, Computers and the Future).
Amazing pictures of analog & modular synthsizers! Pictures of the Synthi 100, Telharmonium, Trautonium, RCA Theremin with Tone Cabinet, Ondes Martenot, Moog Synthesizer IIIp, The MiniMoog Synthesizer, Arp 2500, Buchla Electric Music Box 101, Buchla Electric Music Box 200, and more!
Book includes 7 inch vinyl record! The sleeve is glued on the back inside cover and reads: "This envelope contains the 45 recorded sound examples listed in Chapters I, II, and V". The record is in great condition and comes in a 7 inch sleeve within the sleeve attached to the book. Check out the videos to hear what the record sounds like:"
Principles and Practice of Electronic Music Book & Record 01
Principles and Practice of Electronic Music Book & Record 02
images via this auction and this auction. "The A-100 basic frame with 6HU is available even as a portable 6 HU suitcase version without additional charges. The portable 6 HU suitcase version has the same usable space available as the normal basic frame (i.e. 2 x 84 HP). The suitcase is available in two versions:
Version 1: In this version the mains inlet is located at the front in the lower row at the right side. In this version one has to subtract 8HP for the mains inlet in the lower row (i.e. only 76HP available for the lower row). The advantage of this version is that the system is closed all around if the cover is put on and that it can be used in vertical and horizontal position. Even the mains inlet is protected during transportation. The disadvantage is the reduced width for the lower row. And some users do not like the mains inlet at the front.
Inside the removable cover there is sufficient space for both versions to carry the system completely patched or to move patch chords and the power cable. The A-100 suitcase can be used vertical or horizontal as the suitcase has rubber feets on the bottom and rear side (version 2 only vertical because of the mains inlet at the rear panel). The top is equipped with a handle.
The A-100 suitcase is made of black or grey coated wood with aluminium extrusions with the rail construction fixed to the other parts of the suitcase (the delivery time for the grey versions is about 4-6 weeks). Attention! It is not simply an empty wooden case that covers the standard 6HU frame but a completely independent construction that is not based on the 6HU standard frame. It is not possible to convert a standard 6HU frame into the suitcase version !
The two bus boards and the standard power supply are mounted at the rear panel. Consequently the rear panel cannot be removed.
Measures: outside approx. 460 x 330 x 175 mm (without cover and rubber feet) outside approx. 460 x 340 x 220 mm (with cover and rubber feet) inside usable depth for A-100 modules: approx. 80 mm in the power supply area (bottom right), resp. approx. 100 mm in the remaining area (measured from inner side of the front panel until end of the pc board of the module)
In the area near the power supply (bottom right) no modules should be assembled that are sensitive against transformer hum. We recommend to assemble only control voltage modules in this area (e.g. LFO, ADSR, trigger delay, clock divider/sequencer, sequencer, slew limiter, MIDI interfaces and so on) but no audio modules (VCO, VCF, VCA, VCP, frequency shifter, ring modulator, spring reverb and so on). Even modules width increased depth (e.g. A-113 or A-126) cannot be assembled in the power supply area. They have to be placed in a position outside the power supply area. But this applies only for a few modules. Normally it is no problem to arrange all modules by mounting modules with smaller depth in the power supply area."
Update: images and details via Ross.
