Metasonix TM-7 Ultra Distortion Scrotum SmasherPrevious Metasonix posts
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Wiard Borg Filter 300
via this auction.
Details (note the misprint):
"One thing that makes this one real cool is it is miss marked "GR-342" it is SUPPOSED to say GR-352. Grant said it was one of the first few built. Taken from Wiard website: The newest module in the Wiard system is the Borg Filter . The Borg uses a completly new filter design using “Vactrol”-based electronics. There are two seperate filters in this module -- each implemented as a 2-pole multi-mode. They can be linked as a 4-pole, or used as two independent filters. The Vactrol circuitry provides a certain amount of slew, giving the filter a very woody and warm tone. The Borg also contains two LFOs (Low Frequency Oscillators). Low frequency might be a misnomer, since the oscillators will track to a 15 Khz audio rate. These two oscillators can be used for filter modulation, or for clocking of a Sequantizer, vibrato on a Classic VCO and wave sequencing of a Waveform City. This is another example of the excellent design work done by Grant and the Wiard team. Where did the Borg name come from? + Buchla Model 292 Low-pass Gate Korg MS-20 High and Low-Pass Filters The Borg Filter module contains: Two seperate Borg filter (Controls - Freq, Peak, Type, Mod) Two low frequency oscillators (Controls - Speed) A jack multiple"
via diablo guapo. Previous Wiard posts
Yamaha CS01
One day I will find one of these at a garage/tag sale...Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.
Check out this description:
"VINTAGE YAMAHA CS-01 CS01 ANALOG SYSNTHESIZER SYNTH .POWER UP BUT SELLING AS/IS I DONT KNOW HOW TO USE IT . WHEN I PLAY A KEY IT JUST KEEP BUZZING I DONT KNOW WHY .PLEASE LOOK AT PIC FOR MORE INFO."
Someone is about to either get really lucky or really disappointed. It reminds me of a Sequential Circuits I picked up from the Local Guitar Center a few years back for $125 because of a stuck note. I opened it up, bent the j-wire back into position and was good to go. They said their tech couldn't figure it out. : )
Previous CS01 posts
Yamaha TX 816
Another you don't see too often. A Yamaha TX816 full loaded. That's eight DX7s in a rack.
No title link. Just the two shots pulled via this auction.
Siel DK 600
Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
This little beasty needs a bath. I don't see these come up often. Check out the non standard pedal connectors. Anyone know more about them? Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.
Update via kdog in the comments:
"I owned one of these back in 1985. 2 DCO's and VCF's..Stays in tune well. Never tried connecting to the 5 Pin Din sockets for the VCA and VCF. It's the same board as the Sequential Circuits Velocity 6.. Watch out though if the battery leaks... it will eat tracks on the processor board..."
You can find more info on the DK 600 including the SCI Velocity 6 on the Siel Synthesizers Website. The Velocity 6 is in the DK 600 section.
This little beasty needs a bath. I don't see these come up often. Check out the non standard pedal connectors. Anyone know more about them? Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.
Update via kdog in the comments:
"I owned one of these back in 1985. 2 DCO's and VCF's..Stays in tune well. Never tried connecting to the 5 Pin Din sockets for the VCA and VCF. It's the same board as the Sequential Circuits Velocity 6.. Watch out though if the battery leaks... it will eat tracks on the processor board..."
You can find more info on the DK 600 including the SCI Velocity 6 on the Siel Synthesizers Website. The Velocity 6 is in the DK 600 section.
Geartek Corporation Wiggwaffe
More circuit bendy stuff. Title link takes you to more. Warning: naked woman if you back track to the root of the site. another via sendling.
Man From Uranus at Interzone part three
Jen SX1000 and theremin.
YouTube via manfromuranus. Via sendling. Title link takes you to the rest on sendling.
ITOX Expanding Dragon PCI Host
Need a host for that Korg OASYS PCI card? Title link takes you there."Enter the >>ITOX Expanding Dragon, a 1U rackmount PC with full-length PCI slots, available until recently on eBay for $100 a pop. The boxes apparently work fine as OasysPCI hosts (under Windows 98SE, naturally); the only problem with them is that, being designed as servers, they have multiple noisy fans. Other folks on the OasysPCI list (notably Scott Harris) have made progress with alternative power supplies and utilities to control fan speed."
New Zebra 2 Filter Module Sample
Title link takes you to a sample of a new Zebra 2 Filter module posted by creator Urs Heckmann on this BigBlueLounge thread. I decided to go with the R2 image in the thread as there are no screens yet, and the reference below.Some notes via Urs in the thread:
"Last year I had coincidentally discovered a way to create a filter with a really good sounding self-oscillation when a new scientific paper on Moog filter simulation came up. Latter was a great source of information, but it would still not work like I wanted, especially in terms of cpu hunger and tuning.
So I spent the holidays on getting a Moog Little Phatty and tweaking the shit out of the new filter (dubbed XMF for Croos Modulation Filter). Yesterday it came to the point where
- cpu usage is moderate (2-3% for stereo operation on an 1.83 GHz MBP @44.1 kHz)
- self-oscillation (with no input) is in almost perfect tune and nearly constant level from 50Hz to 14+kHz
- any trick used in Littly Phatty presets would work on the XMF as well
- parameter ranges exceed that of the LP
- bandpass mode works (I gave up on highpass for now)
It's not a perfect emulation of the Moog ladder filter though. But it has all of the properties of an anlogue filter, starting from the juicyness up to the self oscillation that does *not* lock into the spectrum of the incoming signal. Latter is especially interesting. There is a range of resonance where the self oscillation would "wobble" between the actual filter frequency and the closest frequency in the spectrum of the input signal. I havn't heard this in digital filters so far but it's exactly how the Moog does it.
The R2-D2 solo at the end btw. is just the filter with full resonance and a little overload. ModWheel controls filter fm by an oscillator while PitchWheel controls cutoff over several octaves.
The first solo sound (thin, voicy) features filter fm with an oscillator tuned 4 octaves up. Sounds exactly like the LP, with the difference that it's stable & in tune over the whole keyboard range.
The ultra phat guitarish solo sound is not based on hard synced oscillators, it just plain detuned sawtooths run through the bandpass mode with lots of overload.
The pad sound is a couple of detuned sawtooth/pwm oscs run through the bandpass. An lfo modulates the frequency of the bandpass in opposite polarity for right/left side which creates the panning effect.
I think it's almost ready for release, but the SSE code has yet to be rewritten in AltiVec for G4/G5 (no big deal). I'm afraid though that it will probably not work on a G3, or it would consume close to 20% on a G3 when operating mono instead of stereo... and it's gotta be fine tuned & tested for samplerates other than 44.1 kHz...
Later,
Wink Urs"
Previous posts on Zebra 2
Update via Bee Jay in the comments:
Pic for you if you want: [link]
"This is one of the phattest filters I've heard since impOscar - and the bandpass mode is also superb."
Kawai K3m Filter Bank Mod
Title link takes you to more info, shots and instructions."Most of my synthesizers are boring DSP-based digital stuff that cannot be easily tampered with. However, one piece in my setup is at least partly analogue: the Kawai K3m. It has 6 voices, each with a dual DCO, a VCF and a VCA. It's rather obvious what part of the synthesizer is plain boring and what could actually be fun to abuse.
Since the K3m is controlled by a microprocessor (which, by definition, therefore is rather boring to mess around with) I saw no point in trying to make the K3m into a 6-channel LP-filterbank (since that would mean having to alter the software), but instead decided to turn it into a 1-channel 6-peak LP-filterbank."
This one via synth ollie, who's friend martin has done this mod.
EMT 250 and 251 Digital Reverb
Two shots pulled via this PSW Recording Forum thread. Title link takes you to one more. Via David Kulka on the thread:
"Maybe I missed it, but has no one mentioned the EMT 250 or 251 on this thread??? Most old timers will remember these but for you young lads, this was one of the first digital reverbs. As you might imagine, the 250 caused quite a stir when introduced in 1976 for a mere $20,000. Plus freight.
A while back we had three of these in the shop -- an obvious photo opportunity -- so Greg took some high res digital shots. The unit on the left is the original 250, the two on the right are 251's. Forum member J.J. ended up buying the one with the big wheels.
There's an article on my website with much more info about these, for anyone who's interested.
Maybe we should do an other worldly-gear calendar? No rude comments boys, this is my WIFE! [Cute comment and image]
Lastly, here's some of the the insides of one -- I think this was the 250. EMT scraped the identification off of all the important IC's so the designs couldn't be copied, which makes servicing them a lot of fun. I finally got a set of the original 250 blueprints from Gotham so I know the secrets of that one now, but I'm still looking for the top-secret info on the 251.
Barry Blesser (past AES president and former Lexicon engineer) was part of the original design team. Here's an archived AES recording in which Barry makes some prescient comments about the industry and talks a little about the EMT project..."
ZO Wins EM 2007 Editors Choice
Looks like the Cyndustries Zero Oscillator picked up an EM 2007 Editors Choice.Congrats Cynthia!
Prvious posts:
Cynthia
Cyndustries
Yamaha EX2
Looks like there is a Yamaha EX2 up on the bay. Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction.Note there is also one for sale here, with a price tag of $5995. Details from that listing (not from the Ebay auction):
"(Leslie 122 compatible) This is actually an analog synthesizer cleverly posing as an electronic organ! It was an outgrowth of Stevie Wonder's "Dream Machine" synth, which was used to score the documentary film, "The Secret Life of Plants." This Instrument was owned and operated by the late organist/keyboardist, John Seng, who was both a Yamaha Artist and consultant to that firm in the development of the Dream Machine. Its tonal resources are based on Yamaha's PASS technology, also found in the famous CS-80 synthesizer. What makes this instrument unique is that it's individual sounds were "tweaked" and re-scaled by Yamaha techs to Mr. Seng's personal specs, producing a sound unlike any other production examples of this model. The 1969 Leslie will be included with this Organ (including customized interface) and is in perfect working order. See bottom of page for Leslie photos."
Some previous Yamaha Electone posts
Novation BassStation Rack - MIDI to CV and CV to MIDI Convertor
No title link, Just an awesome tip from Brian Comnes:"I was re-working my rack this weekend and I looked at the back side of my Novation BassStation Rack (haven't looke back there for 2 years) and I noticed MID/CV ports on the back so I got out the manual and sure as shit this thing is a switch hitter, it goes MIDI to CV and CV to MIDI and it supports HZ/Volt and Volt/Oct to boot
given that these things can be had for $100 or so on eBay , they are a bargain if you consider that you also get a 2 osc monosynth in the package"
Note this does not apply to the Novation BassStation keyboard.
Update via Bill in the comments:
"You can do this with a Pulse Plus as well. I think they go for about 250$ + you get real analog oscillators and filters."
Update via Brian Comnes:
"the relevant sections in the bass station manual are on page 18 of this link."
Thumbnail Guide to Soldering
"Soldering is not some rarified art. It does take a little bit of patience and some practice, but mainly, it's a question of having the proper tools to do it right, carefully following a few simple steps, and steering clear of a few common pitfalls."Title link takes you there. Saw this one on Boing Boing.
Eliosound ELS Vocoder
"The ELS Vocoder® faithfully reproduces the analog vocoder sounds that have been used by many artists in the electronic music history. It also includes a wide range of rare and new features, which makes it unique, powerfull and simple to use."Title link takes you to more info and samples.
Mystery Beat Box
This one sent in via an anonymous reader who hopes someone out there can ID it. Anyone know what this is? Above the keyboard, there is text that reads MOVEMENT. Title link takes you to another shot. You can zoom in on each by clicking on the image followed by the "All Sizes" link after you click on an image in the set.Update via Gustavo in the comments:
"Movement Drum Computer. Used by Thomas Dolby, and Dave Stewart of eurythmics.
More info:
on Wikipedia
on Sonic State
Update via El Gaucho Andres:
"Seems also exist the System I and System III but never saw one of this. Others who used it: Japan, Willian Orbit, Chemical Brothers, Vince Clark, and...
Check this nice picture (below). I think the correct name is "Movement Computer Drum System II" and Movement Computer maybe was the company." Follwed by: "reading further more my old info about this beast I've found that was also named Larking Movement and now seems to me the name of the company was probably Larking... I know that was a sort of analog drum, digital drum and sequencer and nothing more. Cheers."
Update via J Lesser in the comments:
"In 2001 I was in a large practice studio in London preparing for a long tour. I snuck down into the equipment cages and took some pics of some famous folks' gear... and just look what I saw in Phil Colllins' cage: [link]
The MIDI Gadget - Hayden Based MIDI Controller
"Mk I MIDI GadgetAs you'll see in the pictures, first I built a flat 8X8 array of switches laid out in the Hayden pattern (the white one plays "c"). The flat array let me lay the first one out pretty much just like the schematic diagram. It also let me not care too much about the end result, since I was learning to solder. The first version was wired to a breadboard, (not shown) where I debugged the circuitry. And after the electronics worked, I used it to develop the software.
The flexibility of this technology is part of the fun. It's just buttons on a board, so you can build just about any shape you'd like to try. My son wants me to build another flat array, but complete with PIC & battery. His vision is, you hang it around your neck like sort of an electronic washboard. ("Bellyboard") The range of a small electronic keyboard, the form-factor of a sandwich, and the ergonomics of scratching your stomach. With a sound module on your belt and headphones, just the thing for grooving in subway or hammock. Why not?"
Title link takes you there. Via fmasseti.
Previously posted Hayden controller.
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MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
