MATRIXSYNTH: Matrixsynth


Showing posts with label Matrixsynth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matrixsynth. Show all posts

Sunday, May 30, 2021

MATRIXSYNTH Should be 100% Back Online

Update: maybe not 100% after all. It looks like https is not working yet.

Update2: https is back. All should be good now.

In case you were wondering what happened to the site, the ISP that hosts the matrixsynth.com domain name suffered a DDoS attack.

When I noticed the site was down, I reset Blogger to host the site back on matrixsynth.blogspot.com and sent a notificantion out on Twitter and Facebook (and The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge).

Key takeaway as a reader of the site: bookmark https://matrixsynth.blogspot.com, and check-in on Twitter and/or Facebook for updates.

It's worth noting site outages have been few and far between.

After this outage though, I am considering going back to the https://matrixsynth.blogspot.com domain. I can just set matrixsynth.com to redirect to it and when I'm long gone, the site will remain available. One of the reasons I chose Blogger as a platform is because it should live on long after I'm gone, ensuring the site and all the captured history lives on.

Update3: One thing to consider: if the matrixsynth.com domain were to ever expire, links using it within posts would need to be swapped with matrixsynth.blogspot.com in order to work. I wish there was a way to purchase domain names permanently...

Wednesday, March 03, 2021

If You Are a Supporting Member of the Site Please Read This!



Hi everyone. If you are a supporting member of the site wondering why I've been missing your synth videos, it's because YouTube subscriptions are broken. I haven't been getting updates for everyone. If you'd like a post for anything I missed, please send an email to matrixsynth@gmail.com. For non supporting members of the site, please note due to the high volume of posts that go up daily, you do need to be a supporting member to request a post. There are exceptions of course - news on new gear, news on old gear, rare synths, and the exceptional demo or tutorial. Before anyone complains, please understand every single post you see on the site goes up by hand, seven days a week. Running the site is an extreme amount of work. Supporting the site starts at only $1 a month, and viewing the site will always be free.

P.S. If you are curious why so many LFO.Store posts just went up (26 to be exact), this would be why. YouTube subs broke towards the end of December.

Apologies to members I've missed! Thank you so much for the support. It makes a huge difference.

P.P.S. You can see what has gone up for you by searching your YouTube name on the top right Search box. It will show posts in newest order.

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Tipped 200k Posts Today


Apparenlty I tipped over 200,000 posts on MATRIXSYNTH today. I wasn't planning on posting anything but I figured I should at least account for the milestone in a separate post. I also wanted to let the natural order of posts flow for the day vs. hijacking the 200,000th post.

The site has been running non-stop since July 20 of 2005, so roughly 15 years and five months. I've only missed a single day posting at the very beginning back on August 6 of 2005, when I had no idea there would be something to post every single day, and before the days of decent hotel wifi. Note 2005 was two years before the first iPhone was launched.

The crazy thing some may not know? Every single post on the site has gone up by hand. There is zero automation. That's over 200k manually created posts to date. :)

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around all this time, supporters of the site, and of course the banner sponsors you see to the right and Sequential up above.

Happy Holidays everyone!

P.S. The 200,000th post? "WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD". It came in at just the right time and up it went.

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

KnobCon 2019: Welcome Reception Party & Kraftwerk Tribute Set by SynthMania


Published on Sep 10, 2019 SynthMania

"Clips from the Welcome Reception at KnobCon #8 (2019)
https://www.knobcon.com"

KnobCon 2019: My Kraftwerk tribute set

Published on Sep 10, 2019 SynthMania

"Tribute to the godfathers of electronic music at the KnobCon Welcome Reception 9/6/2019"

MATRIXSYNTH T on the right! :)

Tuesday, January 01, 2019

Happy New Year From MATRIXSYNTH!


Happy New Year everyone!

First I want to thank everyone who takes the time out of their busy schedules to come visit the site. I want to give an extra thanks to everyone who supports this site, including the sponsors you see above and on the right. Without them this site would not be possible.

As many of you know, running MATRIXSYNTH is a labor of love. The site has been running for over 13 years and hopefully will continue on for many years to come. Every single post goes up by hand, seven days a week, including holidays and "vacations." Some of you may not know this, but MATRIXSYNTH is a one man shop by me, matrix. I have not missed a single day of posting since back on August 6 of 2005 when I first launched this format of the site. I say "this format of the site" because I actually registered matrixsynth.com back in October of 1997. You can still see the old site here. On the left were links to sites I visited back in the day. It's actually a pretty neat snapshot of what was around on the web back then before the days of YouTube and social media. I launched this version of the site back on July 20 of 2005. As of this post there have been 175,117 posts on the site. We had 13,302 posts in 2018. Every single one went up by hand. I am extremely humbled and grateful of those who choose to support the site. Thank you so much!!!

Now, for some numbers. I haven't shared them in a while as they started to feel a little redundant year after year, but I figured why not? The image above is a map of visitors to the site in 2018. We had 540,712 users visit for a total of 3,418,064 pageviews. We finally have a visitor from North Korea this year! The numbers are from Google Analytics and should filter out bots. BTW if you look at this all time map, the only country to not have visited MATRIXSYNTH to date is the Central African Republic. It's pretty amazing to think someone from every single other country in the world has visited the site.

The following are the top 10 countries to visit by traffic:

1 United States 4,564(35.30%)
2 United Kingdom 1,070(8.28%)
3 Germany 866(6.70%)
4 France 653(5.05%)
5 Canada 544(4.21%)
6 Italy 512(3.96%)
7 Japan 464(3.59%)
8 Netherlands 357(2.76%)
9 Poland 331(2.56%)
10 Norway 314

(Update: I originally had the list by language which duplicated DE and FR. The list has been updated for country only).

A couple of years ago I started tracking new gear for the year with "new gear" labels. For 2018 we had the following:

695 new items never featured before on the site. This includes 49 posts on older gear never featured before.
111 new makers
92 new synths
63 new soft synths
67 new sound/noise machines
36 new synth effects
266 new modules
42 new mobile apps
11 new drum machines
111 new DIY projects
26 new controllers
40 new tools
7 new cases

And finally we had 52 posts to get the exclusive label for the year. These are the rarest of the rare featured on the site.

Note there is some overlap and the primary focus of MATRIXSYNTH is hardware synthesis. Rather than go into a top 10 list (which I never was into because all gear has its use imo), click through any of the links above to see what came in by category.

On the mega synth front, we saw the release of the Sequential Prophet X and XL (DSI changed names to Sequential as well), the Moog One and Grandmother, Yamaha MODX, Korg Prologue, and the Waldorf Quantum finally made it to release. You can also recap what was featured at NAMM 2018, SUPERBOOTH18, Knobcon, and SoundMit and other events.

This year we lost the following in the synth world. Note this does not include discontinued gear, although with Erthenvar being featured as a company, I may include gear in the the future.

Erthenvar Closes Shop
RIP John Leimseider
RIP Shirleigh Moog
The Candlelight Vigil: A Synth Cover in Memory of Jóhann Jóhannsson (From Prisoners)
David Van Koevering Has Passed Away

-----

And that's it for 2018. Happy New Year and onto 2019! Thank you to everyone that enjoys, contributes, and supports the site! I started MATRIXSYNTH to track everything synth. It's rewarding to know people out there still enjoy the site. MATRIXSYNTH is my gift to you.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Happy New Year from MATRIXSYNTH! A Quick Look Back at 2017

Happy New Year everyone!

We have to keep this one short as the festivities are about to begin of course.

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy 2018! Keep strong and remember you are never alone. At least not as long as MATRIXSYNTH is around! :) I hope this site provides an escape for everyone. Remember to take time out to play your gear!

As for gear... In 2017 we saw a total of 764 new products featured on the site along with 119 new makers on the scene. We also saw 29 vintage products never featured on the site before. The following is the break down (you can click on each to bring up the posts in reverse order. Note only 20 posts per page will load so don't worry about overwhelming your browser):

14 New Cases
28 New Controllers
106 New DIY projects
119 New Makers
63 New Mobile Apps
343 New Modules
80 New Soft Synths
40 New Sound Machines
9 New Sound Packs
32 New Synth Effects
106 New Synths
47 New Tools
29 New Old Products

Update: 1/8/2017: I forgot to mention the stand out posts of 2017! You can find them here. There were 62 this year. These are essentially the rare and oddball synths you may not have known existed or you rarely ever see.

No New Years post is complete without a look back at who we lost in the synth community. This year we lost five:

William Onyeabor - Nigerian Electronic Funk Pioneer as well as Nigeria's 1st Moog Dealer
Ikutaro Kakehashi, Founder of Roland
Mika Vainio of Pan Sonic
David Alan Luce - Former President of Moog Music & Creator of the Polymoog
Pierre Henry

I hate ending on a sad note, but we can't forget who we lost.

I wish everyone a great 2018. Make the best of it!

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy days to visit the site. Thank you to all who take the time out to create the videos showcasing the gear we love, and of course the makers who make the gear that inspire us. And finally, thank you to all the supporting members of MATRIXSYNTH, and of course the sponsors you see via the banners on the site!

See you on the other side! :)

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2016 Pics

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2016

Update: Booth list added below.  30 booths in one day!  It's become tradition for me to come on Saturday only.  The site is just too busy leading up to then.  Be sure to see the last image in the set  It's the NAMM Booth promo for the first showing of the original Minimoog Model D.  The Bob Moog Foundation was giving out buttons of the flyer which you can see in the second to last image.  You never know what will be your last pic at NAMM.  I am glad it was this one.  It's more than fitting considering the Minimoog was the birth of modern day synthesizers.  Apologies for not calling this out earlier.  It was one of those should I not say anything and let people pause at that image and discover what it meant on their own, or should I call it out.  I guess I did both.  :)

--

So first of all, apologies for the super tall pic to start! For some reason Flickr's slideshow is not resizing it, and a few others, to fit the desired frame size. Mouse over the image and use the controls that come up to move through the slide show. Once you get past the first image, the majority of the rest should fit fine. For what it's worth, the super tall pic to start does give you a feel of what it's like to walk up to the entrance of NAMM. If you prefer you can check out the set on Flickr here. Feel free to grab any pics for your wallpaper but if you'd like to use them professionally (not that any are that good :), please contact me by clicking on the small email icon on the bottom right of the site. This year I took a total of 328 pics.

All that said, enjoy the set! The pics speak for themselves. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the comments.

NAMM was great this year. Lots of familiar faces and lots of new. Modular has grown exponentially. It was on the main floor this year rather than what we like to call the dungeon. As for new synths, the DSI Oberheim OB-6 stole the show. The minilogue looked and sounded great and the KORG Volca FM was a very nice surprise. Roland's booth was great; nice dim lighting to let the blinky synth lights shine, as well as giving you a more intimate experience with their synths. There was also a cool wall sized timeline of Roland synths. Malekko's Roland System 500 synths were in show and I actually was able to help with one that had its envelope switched to loop mode. Moog's Island of Electronicus was an incredible space. The pics don't do it justice. It was literally like an oasis in NAMM. Things get pretty hectic and can feel overwhelming at times. Moog's booth just made you smile and relax. Thank you Moog!

PS, there are a couple of non-synth shots in the set that might make you smile. I took them to show my wife what I was looking at. :)

Including this post, 253 NAMM2016 posts have gone up and more are sure to follow.

Update: The booth list in order of appearance in both the set and in me walking through NAMM.  The pics in the set are in the order taken.

1.   Entrance to NAMM
2.   Dave Smith Instruments
3.   Moog Music
4.   Schneiders Buero Booth featuring Doepfer, MFB, Birdkids, AJH Synth, Endorphines, soundmachines, and Haken Audio
5.   Pittsburgh Modular
6.   Modal Electronics
7.   Make Noise
8.   Moon Modular
9. WMD (4ms, Verbos & Koma pics came prior to Moon Modular as they were across from each other. The WMD modular area was huge): 4ms Pedals, Abstract Data, Audio Damage, BaSTLE, Delptronics, Elite Cases, Rossum Electronics, Expert Sleepers, Foxtone Music/ Black Market Modular, Koma Elektronik, Hexinverter, Macro Machines, Mordax Systems, Noise Engineering, Qu-Bit Electronix, Soulsby, Steady State Fate (SSF), STG Soundlabs / Detachement 3 [check out the Crowbox black SEM eurorack module!], TipTopAudio, Toppobrillo, Verbos Electronics.
10. Studio Electronics, Mode Machines, and D-Tronics (check out the massive DT7 dedicated programmer for the DX7 similar to the old Jellinghaus)
11. Roger Linn's Linnstrument
12. Tom Oberheim
13. Elektron
14. Malekko - complete with Roland banner to promote their new System 500. Check out the glowing case! You can control the color with CV control.
15. Big City Music - Analogue Systems, Critter & Guitari, Cwejman, Dewanatron, Dirty Boy Pedals, Effectrode Tube Effects, EMC, Eowave, Jomox, Livewire, Mellotron, MWFX Pedals, Sherman
16. Schmidt in the Big City Music booth.
17. Radikal Technologies
18. Waldorf
19. Arturia
20. intelligel
21. Social Entropy and Abstrakt Instrument
22. Expressive E
23. John Bowen Synth Design - check out the custom Sonic Six with Sequential Model 700 Programmer & modded Model 800 Sequencer.
24. Roland (the guy with the hat on the right is the drummer for Train - I was taking pics of the timeline and they were standing there. I asked them if they wanted to be in the pic and they said sure! :) Apologies to Ed Diaz! I took his pic right when he saw me. Trust me he was full of smiles after that pic. I was flattered to find out he knew about the site! :)
25. Yamaha
26. Novation
27. KORG
28. Tangible Instruments showing their Arpeggio
29. Industrial Music Electronics (formerly Harvestman) and Sputnik Modular Synthesizers.
30. The Bob Moog Foundation

30 booths in one day!

Sunday, July 20, 2014

MATRIXSYNTH Turned 9 Today!

Today is the 9th anniversary of MATRIXSYNTH! It's hard to believe it's been nine years already. The site has had over 42,299,515 page views from 19,198,250 visits. This marks post 113370. Every single post has gone up by hand. What goes up is a combination of what I find out there and what people send in. The site currently averages between 40 and 50 posts a day and only one day was missed at the launch of the site back when I didn't expect there to be something to post every single day of the year.

Anyway, I'm keeping this post short this year. I almost didn't post anything, but I thought I should at least mention the date.

Thank you everyone! Running the site has been a great experience. I love promoting "Everything Synth" and giving a voice and an audience for us die hard synth fans.

Update via Bobby Shipe on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge along with some anniversary wishes from the group:



"AS Telemark-K/Doepfer DarkEnergy Birthday song. One of my favorite websites turned 9 today so I made a Happy Birthday song with some synthesizers."

So awesome! THANK YOU!!!

And one via Rune Bastrup Zetterström on the Lounge as well:

Happy Birthday To You - Mario Paint Composer - Carousel Organ Style 8-Bit Synth Chip

Uploaded on Mar 13, 2011

"Happy Birthday To You song. The style is similar to that played on a carousel, with a simulated organ and xylophone. Produced on Mario Paint Composer from unfungames.com."

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Synth Legend Spotting - John Bowen on Bass & The Solaris

This one in via Patrick Link

"Legendary synth designer John Bowen (Moog, Sequential Circuits, John Bowen Synth Design) playing bass June 14 at Vino in Issaquah, WA with his band Ventura Highway Revisted!

I met John a couple weeks ago when I received my Solaris. He gave me a guided tour through the instrument, explaining several design decisions and highlighting the many user-interface features for ease of navigation, editing, and sound design. The Solaris is my new go-to sound design tool, offering similar flexibility to modular systems - and it sounds fantastic!"

Great taste in websites as well! :)

Check out the stack of synths below.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

MATRIX Crates at NAMM?


This one spotted on the NAMM show floor and sent my way via Scott Jaeger of The Harvestman.

If they're filled with synths, I'll gladly claim them.

The Harvestman will be in booth 1076.

Update: I confess. I shipped myself out for the NAMM.  I'm actually in the box posting away waiting for the show to start.

Update One more pic via Suit & Tie Guy on Facebook below.

"We're unpacking him last. Ha. — with Matrixsynth Jones."

You better watch out. I'm gonna burst out like the Kool-Aid dude.  Or maybe that guy below.




Classic vintage green Lou Ferrigno era Hulk.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Rauls World of Synths 2 Year Anniversary!

Published on Sep 11, 2013 Raul's World of Synths·229 videos

"A short video discussing Raul's World of Synths two year Anniversary! Pretty exciting.
Sound and video by Raul Pena."

MATRIXSYNTH gets a mention!  :)  Thank you Raul!  Happy Anniversary!

Raul also created a couple of surveys to help improve his videos.  Take them here:

Raul's World of Synths Modular Videos
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3YGXKYZ

Modular Wild Video Series
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DZMTQRQ


Saturday, July 20, 2013

MATRIXSYNTH Turns 8!

Today marks the eight year anniversary of MATRIXSYNTH!

I usually go a bit in depth on what it takes to run the site, but this year I thought I'd keep things relatively short and just focus on what the site means to me and why it exists in the grand scheme of things. I'd also like to ask you what MATRIXSYNTH means to you. Please share in the comments below.

For me the site is a daily log of everything synth from the perspective of us, the users of synths, with the focus on the individual synths. With a few exceptions, each post showcases and features individual synths that you can clearly identify and get a feel for. It's a day in the life of synths. It's what was put out there each and every day and in time we'll be able to look back and see what was shared by the community every single day since July 20, 2005 (minus Aug 6, 2005). You might notice I don't interject much in posts. There is a reason for that. I believe things should be presented as they were meant to be presented by the creator of the content. It's my job to share what is out there unbiased. It's up to you to take whatever you want from it. MATRIXSYNTH in essence is a weblog in its truest sense.

The original non-weblog MATRIXSYNTH launched in October of 1997 and was a simple site with links to various synth portals on the web. If you take a look, you can see what sites were out there before the current format of MATRIXSYNTH launched. Before MATRIXSYNTH, print magazines and online synth portals primarily focused on full articles - press releases, professional reviews, interviews and tutorials. What was missing was what us the users of synths were doing with our gear on a daily basis. Most publications would likely turn you away if you had something to share unless you were a known artist, manufacturer or other influential. The DIY and circuit bending scene? Not covered. Botique manufacturers? Not covered. MATRIXSYNTH was the first to bring it all to you. Back then if you wanted to share anything you had to host your own website. YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, SoundCloud, Twitter, and so on were not out yet. I created MATRIXSYNTH in its current format in 2005 to capture and share what I came across. The site gained in popularity and soon people were sending in things they found or created on their own to share with others. The site has remained true to this since day one.

MATRIXSYNTH is a site that celebrates and showcases what we, the people passionate about synthesizers, are doing with our synths on a daily basis. It is a site that celebrates the synthesizers we love, all synths, old and new, simple and complex. All synths have character, all synths are special, all synths can be explored and discovered. It's about the exploration of sound, and not just traditional tonal music. Like an artist discovering palates of color, we discover palates of sound. Synthesizers are our gateway to the exploration of unheard timbres. MATRIXSYNTH celebrates that.

THANK YOU for helping make this a great site!!!

For those interested in numbers, this post marks number 96,509 published to date.  Every single post on the site has gone up by hand, and since the site's launch on July 20, 2005, there has been only one day missed, August 6, 2005.   Back then I had no idea there would be something to post every single day of the year.  Little did I know.   The site currently averages about fifty posts a day, seven days a week, 364 days a year (Christmas is the one day I take it easy).   What goes up is a combination of what you the readers send in and what I come across out there.   According to Google Analytics the site has had 37,074,619 pageviews from 16,976,707 visits since the site launched, while Site Meter shows 39,630,44 pageviews from 18,469,084 visits.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Packrat Sampler Arrives

My copy of The Packrat Sampler  has arrived!  I thought I'd post some pics up along with a note on why this book is extremely special to me.  I started MATRIXSYNTH in blog format back on July 20th of 2005. The first post on The Packrat went up on Halloween of that year  (with two prior references here and here).   The Packrat was with me on year one and has been a staple on the site ever since.  The MATRIXSYNTH Packrat image pictured on the right of the site went up on August 2, 2006, and to my surprise and complete honor it graces the cover of the book!

The Packrat pretty much symbolizes the true inner synth obsessed in all of us.  He took a little hiatus in 2006 and came back in 2007 and has been going strong since.  He brought us synth dreams and Buchla Christmas wishes.  He has a significant place in synth history as the longest running, if not the only running, true synthesizer based comic strip.  Because of that, and because of the awesome coolness of the man behind the strip, Mr. Dave C. Lovelace, who brought us much of the artwork behind Metasonix products as well as his other comic strips, and plays ripping keys in his band Parallax, I highly recommend this book.  Check out that Tron keytar (more here)!

In all seriousness, The Packrat, also featured in Keyboard Magazine, is part of synth history.  Not only does the book feature each episode of the comic, you get the history behind each including interesting tidbits you might miss in the comic otherwise, and you get a 12-page adventure never seen anywhere else (which includes another MATRIXSYNTH appearance).

Seriously, get this book now!  It's dirt cheap, it's synth history, and it is AWESOME!

Sunday, February 03, 2013

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Dave Smith Instruments Booth Pics


Pics of the DSI booth at NAMM. The highlight of course was the new Prophet 12.  If you watched some of the previous videos on the Prophet 12, you should have noticed that the messaging has been that the Prophet 12 is essentially the best of the Prophet 08 and the best of the Poly Evolver keyboard (see :52 on in this video).  One thing to consider is that it does not share any of the oscillators of either the Prophet 08 or Poly Evolver keyboard.  The Prophet 08 has analog oscillators with sawtooth, triangle, saw/triangle mix, and pulse waves (with pulse-width modulation), and hard sync.   The Poly Evolver has two analog oscillators and two digital with the original Sequential circuits Prophet VS waveforms.  The Prophet 12, however, has new digital (software) oscillators which include wavetable oscillators.  It's not clear how the wavetable oscillators are implemented.  In PPG and Waldorf based wavetable synthesis each wavetable is essentially an oscillator with 64 waveforms that you can interpolate or step through.  You can pick different wavetables each with 64 waveforms.  On the Prophet 12 I was told that there are three wavetables that you can morph between.  What wasn't clear was how the interpolation between the waveforms works.  It does sound great.


Friday, February 01, 2013

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Moog Music Booth & Sub Phatty Performance


matrixsynth·252 videos

http://www.moogmusic.com
A quick performance demo of the Moog Sub Phatty by Amos Gaynes.  Let this one evolve.  I think Amos was trying to put me in a trance and it worked.  I could have kept listening forever.  The Sub Phatty sounds great - substantial, massive and raw, and of course Amos rocks.  Below you'll find a ton of pics including the 50th Anniversary Gold Voyager and the Aluminum Voyager.  They both looked pretty incredible in person.  I definitely like the gold one more in person than pics, fingerprints and all.  The white Moogs look very sharp in person as well.  If you scroll down you'll find a little non-Moog surprise.  I asked Amos about it and he said it was from his friend who makes it.  I thought that was pretty cool.


MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Big City Music Booth Pics


Tons of pics for tons of gear represented at the Big City Music booth this year. Pictured to the left are Roger Cordell and Stephi of Big City Music. Unfortunately I forget the name of the gentleman playing the new Mellotron M4000D MINI. I believe it is Markus, but I'm not 100% sure. Check out how slim it is - the Mellotron not the gentleman. Apparently it has the same specs as the model M4000D with a high quality Fatar keyboard that is velocity sensitive, weights only 21 pounds (9.5 kg), and should run $2100 when introduced.

Other new gear highlights at the booth include the Metasonix S-2000 Vacuum-Tube synthesizer (you'll find some details in this post for one that is currently for sale), the F-1 Complex Distortion Pedal, the new KOMA Electronic pedals, and the Jomox Akasha (check out the video here).

Other brands featured include Analogue Systems,  DewanatronDirty Boy PedalsCwejman, Critter & Guitari, Vermona, Eowave (who had their own booth this year), and various eurorack manufacturers."


MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Studiologic Sledge Pics



Some pics of the of the Studiologic Sledge with the synth engine by Waldorf.  The stand out for me on the Sledge is the interface.  Everything is big and spread out which invites you to explore it in a way you might not on Waldorf's own Blofeld synth.  Note that although the technology is similar between the two, they are slightly different.  If you haven't watched them yet, see this post for a video overview of the engine, and this one for audio demos from our friends at Sonicstate.

Side note: They had a HUGE banner.  That's it in the background.  One more pic of the top half below.


MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: KORG MS20 Mini Pics


The booth was packed, I knew what this was, and I knew it would get plenty of coverage, so I took three quick pics and moved on.  Click them for their full size glory.

The key take away for me was that like the original this does not support the 1 Volt per Octave format of eurorack and other modern modular sythesizers, so if you plan to use this with one, you'll need a convertor like the recently announced Harvestman English Tear.


MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: RADIKAL TECHNOLOGIES Booth

This year I paid a quick visit to one of my favorites, Jorg Schaaf of RADIKAL TECHNOLOGIES.  He was also the man behind Quasimidi.  He was showing his ACCELERATOR keyboard with iPad editor and the SPECTRALIS 2, both great sounding synths.   My videos below do not do them justice so be sure to check out the RADIKAL site for proper demos, Jorg's YouTube channel (some great music especially if you like Pink Floyd), or of course the RADIKAL label below. In the first video Jorg was showing me his iPad editor for the ACCELERATOR.  In the second part the drum sound was active so let's just say the effect was not intended. :) I told him they were going to kick him out.  You can hear us both laughing at the end.  The next video is a demo of some of the drum sounds on the SPECTRALIS 2, followed by a demo sequence.  Jorg was going to play a lead on the ACCELERATOR but had a little trouble with the audio.  It happens.  NAMM glitches aside, these are great synths, both in sound quality and feature set.  The ACCELERATOR actually has an accelerometer built in that you can assign to different parameters.  Not sure how often you might use it but it would definitely be a fun thing to try out, especially on unknowing friends. More pics below. Be sure to click them for the super size shots.

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: RADIKAL TECHNOLOGIES ACCELERATOR

matrixsynth·252 videos

Thursday, January 31, 2013

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Studio Electronics at the Noisebug Booth


Uploaded on Jan 30, 2013 matrixsynth·251 videos

At 5:12 you'll see "MIDI overflow" on the back.  Apparently you can chain these for polyphony.

Update: I heard back from Studio Electronics. You should be able to chain up to four of these, after there might be lag. Editing on one will not affect the other, so you would need to dial each up to mach much like SEMs in a two or four voice system. The plus side of this is you can slightly detune and alter the individual voices for potentially more interesting sounds. Think chords where each voice is doing something slightly different.

Studio Electronics debut of four new mono synths at the Noisebug booth.  Marc St. Regis gives us an overview of the new Boomstar 4075 (ARP 2600 filter), the Boomstar 3003 (Roland TB-303 filter, but "sounds more like an SH-101"), the Boomstar SEM (Oberheim SEM filter), and finally the Boomstar 5089 (Minimoog filter).   Audio demos are of the 4075 and 3003.  Although the Boomstars were first announced back on March 2, 2012 here, NAMM was the first time they made a public appearance.  You can find a demo of the 4075 posted on September 30, 2012 here, and one previous NAMM video recently posted by SonicState here.  The product page for the Boomstars is here.   I have to say these do sound great; they are incredibly thick and rich sounding analog synths. As you can see they have a small physical footprint along with substantial feeling knobs and they have quite a few extra features.  Click the pics below for some super size shots.



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