John L Rice wrote in to let us know today is the late Gert Jalass' birthday. I met Gert a few times at NAMM, and John would often man the Moon Modular Booth. Gert was a great, kind soul. I miss his smile; I miss his presence.
John mentioned the Moon Modular website has had a few updates since his passing. The About and History pages are worth a look.
“We are sad that we have lost you. We are grateful that we were able to live with you. Steffen Marienberg *September 30, 1961 +August 19, 2025 In silent mourning: his Sigrid, his brother Holger, and all relatives. Alterode, August 2025. The funeral service, followed by the urn burial, will take place on Saturday, September 13, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. at the Hoym cemetery.”
"I’ve been getting a bit burnt out doing endless video editing lately so when my friend David (Kindred Lost) made a nice cover/demo of his Moog 960 style sequencer doing the bass sequence from Tangerine Dream’s 'Rubycon' and said 'nothing but the 960 can do this' so I fired up my trusty Moon 569 sequencer to see if I could do it too! 🤓 David’s demo sound much more 'Moogy' that mine and is closer to the original TD track, I mainly just wanted to see if I could recreate similar patterns. Check out David's video 👌😎: • Franke and Ruby [posted here]
I used the following modules:
Moon Modular: 569 sequencer
Oakley: Slim VCO B (as VC clock)
Marienberg: Envelope Generator A, VC Sine Phase Oscillator
Noise Engineering: Cursus Iteritas Magnus VCO
STG Soundlabs: Post-Lawsuit Lowpass Filter
Synthetic Sound Labs: Tube VCA, Quad LFO
Synthesizers.com: Q125 Signal Processor
"WW2 & Cold war weapons and spy gadgets were truly amazing! Have you ever wondered about the history of RFID and how it works? It was originally developed and first used as a Soviet cold war spying device. The Thing or The Great Seal bug as it was known, sat on the wall of a US ambassadors office for 7 years completely undetected listening into American secrets. The technology behind this revolutionary device now resides in your pocket in the form of Radio Frequency Identification. or RFID. Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed and supported the channel so far.
Music Credits Lord of the dawn - Jesse Gallagher
Maestro Tlakaelel - Jesse Gallagher
Research, Script, Voice Over, Animations, 3D Modelling, Rendering, Editing. - Me"
Interesing bit of history regarding Leon Theremin.
"We are happy to announce here (first) that Synthesizers.com will be joining our portfolio of synthCube brands here just outside of Boston. We spent the weekend packing all of the assets, inventory, demo units etc into trucks and will be taking the next few weeks to get everything set up again in our shop.
We owe much gratitude to Roger Arrick for the initial effort to design and start the company in the first place, to James Allen and others who took on Dotcom when Roger passed it along to them, and to the most recent owners for their stewardship of Dotcom in the interim.
If you're a designer / maker of dotcom/MU 5U modules, we hope that this helps re-energize interest in your products too... frankly, the more options that customers have, the better for those customers and for the format itself. Part of how we will measure success is NOT by how many makers we put out of business, rather it will be how many makers will now grow faster, and how many new makers might come in and create more dotcom/MU 5U innovations?
We'll post more details about future plans here and in other channels when we have some time, and we look forward to hearing your feedback, ideas, and suggestions on how best to inspire and support the current generations of Dotcom users and how to improve the products and solutions for the next generation as well. We know Dotcom/5U won't ever be as popular as Eurorack, and that's OK; BUT we are equally confident that there will always be a place for high quality, large format, serious synth instruments and modules and 5U will be around for the long haul. How does that saying go? 'We liked the product so much we bought the company.'
Some good news for Moon Modular fans via SYNTH-WERK:
“After long and intensive meetings, discussions and formal obligations we can say today that Moon Modular is now a SYNTH-WERK company. We will continue the legacy of our friend Gert Jalass and will start the work on modules in the near future. We miss you Gert but your legend will live on...”
This one is in via John L Rice who noted: "Also on the 5th they announced a 5U module version pf their Bode Barberpole Phaser and yesterday announced their final version of their keyboard controller." The SW 955-CONTACT picured below.
"Just exploring the patch as one tends to do. Here I’m using a second Moon Modular 569 sequencer to control the first one instead of the sequential switch I used in the previous video [posted here]. The result was simpler but still interesting to me. I also changed up the synth voice a bit, using a MegaOhm LPG instead of the SSL tube VCA and processing its output with an Oakley/Krisp1 Flanger."
"I’ve long loved the Moon Modular 564 Sequential Switch (directly inspired by the PPG 313) and love the Moon 569 sequencer as well, but I’ve often wished that the 569 somehow had an additional row of switches that could be used to set how many clock pulses a step would stay on each position like the 564 does. This is my attempt to use two 564 switches with the 569 to make it happen, with some limitations. Of course using an external voltage controlled clock to drive the sequencer with one of the sequencer rows controlling the clock can achieve similar results, but that sort of patch isn’t as predictably playable."
It has come to my attention that Paul Schreiber has passed away.
Pictured: Paul Schreiber at the 2006 NAMM show. Top from this previous post (pic by fr1zz), and bottom from this post (pic by Synthtopia) - this is the first image of Paul on the site. There is one comment in that post: "He's a good guy." Indeed.
Readers of the site should be familiar with his work. He was the man behind MOTM and Synthesis Technology.
To say Paul was one of the greats to influence the synth community would be an understatement. He was pivital to the rebirth of modular synthesizers. He started when modular as we know it today was in its infancy, as one of a very small group of large format DIY modular manufacturers along with Blacet, Modcan, Cynthia, Wiard, Oakley, STG, Catgirl/CGS, Tellun/Lower West Side StudioYuSynth, Jurgen Haible, and of course DIY staples like Thomas Henry/ MFOS, Ray Wilson and PAiA (see this post for some modular formats back in 2007). I focused mainly on those offering DIY. There were other manufacturers including Synthesizers.com, Club of the Knobs, MOS-LAB, Moon Modular, MacBeth, CMS, and more. Feel free to mention others in the comments. This post is about Paul, but I think it's important to reflect on some of the large format modular manufactures he was amongst at the time.
Paul created the MOTM format of 5U modules in 1998. MOTM stood for Module of the Month offering monthly DIY kits. From Wikipedia: "MOTM was created by Paul Schreiber in 1998. The system was created in part due to the renewed interest in large-format analog modular systems that occurred in the late 1990s. Between 1998 and 2021, over 8000 modules were sold. The company, Synthesis Technology, also offered a limited number of modules in Eurorack[2] and Frac[3] format."
He was also helped design the Moog/Realistic MG-1. From Wikipedia: "In 1980, Moog Music was seeking to contract manufacture a mass-marketable synthesizer which could be sold via a large retailer. Moog representatives secured an appointment at the Radio Shack corporate offices for a 5-minute demonstration. Radio Shack approved the concept, and Paul Schreiber (then employed by Tandy Systems Development) worked together with Moog on the synthesizer's design to achieve Radio Shack's price requirements.[2][3]"
He later joined the eurorack scene with Synthesis Technology branded modules. FYI, his site for MOTM was always http://www.synthtech.com/, short for Synthesis Technology. The first post to mention Paul and MOTM was posted just under twenty years ago here on MATRIXSYNTH back on August 26, 2005. If you click through you will see it was a post announcing the MOTM/synthtech.com site was going down for the weekend. He announced he was retiring from the synthesizer business in August of 2023.
It's worth repeating, Paul Schreiber was one of the key figures that brought modular back to the masses. He was both respected and loved by the synth community. It's impossible to overstate his influence. He will be missed.
The following are the first the last video interviews with Paul to be featured on the site:
The SynthSummitShow Episode 2: Paul Schreiber (Synthesis Technology) and A.Dapt (music producer) ...
SysEx Dumpster - Episode 44 - a conversation with Paul Schreiber
video upload by Sysex Dumpster on Jul 30, 2023. Details previously posted here.
The first videos to feature Paul presenting a module was back on January 3, 2010, and the first interview on SoundCloud in 2013, and he was of course featured in the modular documentary film I Dream of Wires.
"Because I'm stubborn and silly, I made a 'stand-in' to try to get better focus when recording video of myself. It's silly because I have decent auto-focus lenses and my cameras have good face tracking BUT my most expensive lenses are manual only cinema lenses that aren't well suited for doing solo operator work in front of the camera, but because I think they are cool and I invested a lot of money in them I insist on using them, even when it's not practical! 🙄😆
The music here is from beta test I did last year for a new Synthesis Technology E430 VCF that is now in production. "
The Chladni app used on my iPad for the visuals mimics the nodal patterns that appear on surfaces when modulated at audio frequencies. This was pioneered by Robert Hooke in the late 1600's and by Ernst Chladni in the late 1700's.
Gear used:
Large format modular synth: Synth Tech, Moon Modular, Club Of The Knobs
Yamaha FS1R
Mellotron M4000D Rack
Roland A-88 keyboard controller
Strymon and Lexicon effects
If you found the content of this video helpful, interesting, or entertaining, please consider showing your support so I can stay stocked up on coffee and cookies. 😋 https://buymeacoffee.com/johnlrice"
John mentioned the Moon Modular website has had a few updates since his passing. The About and History pages are worth a look.
