Celebration of Max Mathews and 50 Years of Computer Music

Image via wikipedia. Anyone catch the following? I found out a little late.

Update: check the comments for one more date on April 30 in San Francisco.

"Date: Wed, Apr 18 2007 1:46pm
From: "Computer History Museum"

CCRMA and CHM Present

A Celebration of Max Mathews and 50 Years of Computer Music

Fifty years ago, in 1957, at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Max Mathews demonstrated that the digital computer can be used as a fantastic new musical instrument. He created a revolutionary software platform destined to form the basis of all contemporary digital musical systems.

His audacious ideas were driven by the belief that any sound that the human ear can hear can be produced by a computer. Mathews' mastery of this new instrument revealed new musical horizons and sparked a burgeoning curiosity into the very nature of sound. His comprehension and elaboration made five decades of art and research ossible, laying the groundwork for generations of electronic musicians to synthesize, record, and play music. Today at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) as a Professor Emeritus he continues not only to educate students and colleagues, but also to guide and inspire with his constant inventiveness and pure musical pleasure.

Join us in honoring Max for an afternoon of sound, celebration and discovery of his ideas,works, music, and writings.

WHEN
SUNDAY, April 29, 2007
4 p.m. Pre-concert talk
Jon Appleton, John Chowning, Evelyne Gayou, Max Mathews, Jean-Claude Risset
5 p.m. ìInfluences: A Tribute Concertî
Jon Appleton, Gerald Bennett, Chris Chafe, Evelyne Gayou, Max Mathews,
Dexter Morrill, Jean-Claude Risset
6:00 p.m. Reception

WHERE
Computer History Museum
Hahn Auditorium
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
www.computerhistory.org/about/directions/

REGISTRATION
Free.
To register or for more information on the event, please visit the Museum's
Website at http://www.computerhistory.org/max_guest_04292007 or Call (650) 810-1005."

via loscha.

The KORG MS-911

Another via Perry.

"This is a Korg X-911 that I have re-built to a modular synth. The original X-911 Guitar Synth actually contains much more than is obvious on the front pane"

Title link takes you to more detail.

Prophet5.org - New Prophet 5 Forum

Title link takes you there. The forum was set up by Stephen Jones of Sevcom and Synthwood. Note Stephen also recently set up Roland-Jupiter.org, previously posted here.

EMS Synthi AKS

Title link takes you to a couple more shots via this auction.

Update: Apparently this is the same one as my previous post. Doh! This is a good shot, so I'll just leave it up... : ) BTW, I've been up since 1:00 AM PST and it is now 8:23 PM PST. I had a 7:00 AM eastern flight from Hartford Connecticut back to Seattle. I got up at 4:00 AM EST which is 1:00 AM PST, so that's my excuse...

moogtouch1

flickr by sgodt.

MOOG Micromoog

The Synthi Micro

"This is a sort of clone of the EMS Synthi A. Well, not a clone really, since it has none of the electronics like the EMS, nor has it the complete amount of functions. It is also smaller then the original. I wanted a synth that could do the typical effect sounds that the Synthi A is known for. At first, I designed an even smaller synth, with a minimum of modules and functions, and no pin matrix. But after a while I realized this design would be far too limited, and I also wanted the routing capability of a matrix. So this is what it turned out to be. I used a lot of stuff that I happened to have laying around in the junc box; like the 10x10 pin matrix, a small reverb tank, CEM3340:s etc."

Title link takes you to the specs. Via Perry. Update: mp3s are now at the bottom of the page. You have to use the inside scroll bar to scroll down. There are also some really nice images.

Solar photosynth

YouTube via jonjb2a.

"Synthstick circuit with resistor replacing potentiometer. Circuit powered by three solar cells. Instrument has no moving parts; "played" in manner similar to that of theremin or tannerin, regardless of vast differences between it and the other instruments."

Solar powered?

via sendling

A Thingamagoop tried to look tough.

flickr by Dr. Bleep of Bleep Labs.

Thingamagoop in a cave...

waldorf-synth

flickr by erftmedien

The Waldorf Wave to be exact.

Update via Till "Qwave" Kopper in the comments:
"... and it is my WAVE +16 (= 32 voice) shown here. A snapshot by someone taken during my last year's Planetarium concert of "EL-KA" (http://el-ka.synthmusic.info german only) in Bochum/Germany.
If you look to the yellow Waldorf Q in the back, you will notice the joy-stick someone added to my instrument.
Here is one from the other direction:
http://el-ka.synthmusic.info/el-ka_bochum_2006.jpg
You will see the other half of EL-KA there: HaJo Liese.
The CD recording is available at www.syngate.net and other EM music shops. And we will play at the Univercity of Eindhoven/The Netherlands next week's Saturday at the E-Day (http://e-day.groove.nl)

And by the way: I run the unofficial Waldorf WAVE pages located here:
http://unofficial.waldorf-wave.de (german and english)

keep on turning these knobs

Till "Qwave" Kopper"

KORG Poly61 Scans

Title link takes you to some scans of the KORG Poly61. Interestingly, the Poly61 had a discrete filter. I always assumed it was either an SSM or CEM filter, but I never had reason to look it up.

via Florian on AH.

Update: be sure to check out the comments for more info on the filter.

Putney Dogs

via DK:

"Something I made with MS Paint (and a famous kitsch painting) back in 1996."

Synton Syrinx

Click here for shots pulled via this auction. Interestingly this is the second one up for auction this month. They are extremely rare. Via the previous auction:
"There are 300 Syrinxes on this planet. 3 of them are white, 20 of them are blue, 20 of them are red and the rest is black. 2 BPFs and a LPF all with cut/peak control at the same time. also strange bending sensor and modulator. HARDWARE: 2 CEM3310 EG 2 CEM3340 VCO 2 CEM3350 Dual VCF 1 CEM3360 Dual VCA."

This one sent my way via the seller.

atlatl - MOTM noise

Title link takes you there. You'll find more shots and audio. Funny note: this appears to be the source of the cat image in this post.
MOTM modules:
1x300
2x420
1x110
1x320
1x110
+2x 800 which aren't even used in this new demo

Starkey Hearing Laboratory Analog Modular Synthesizer

Title link takes you to more shots via this auction. Be sure to check them out. There are some great shots including a drawing of one, and a University of Illinois face plate.

Details:
"This machine was manufactured in 1972. The HSL-II has 3 sine wave generators, a square and saw wave fuzz generator (awesome!), and a pink and white noise generator. These can be seen clearly on the far left of the HSL-II. The signal path flows from left to right and is patchable with mini-banana cables (included in the auction). There are 3 filters which allow patching through hi/lo/mid pass sections. There is a phase inverter, limiter, frequency counter (with a classic red LED display) , 4 attenuators (volume), 2 mixer sections, a VU meter, and a few mystery functions that affect the sound but that I am not qualified to describe. there is also a gate sequencer, so you can basically set two different lengths of tones to trigger as you desire. The sequencer is weird and rudimentary, but functions perfectly.

Below are some long recordings of the HSL-II into a Deltalab Effectron Jr. digital delay. I ran this into a decent DJ mixer and into apple's Garageband. I clipped up the audio to make it a little shorter and give you an idea of a portion of the range that you can achieve with the HSL-II.

HSL-II sample one

Sound plays at beginning and towards the end - dead air in the middle

HSL-II sample two - plays fine

You cannot control the pitch from an external controller as of now. They were not designed for that. You can control the frequency manually, which in turn affects the perceived pitch, and believe me, with all 4 or 5 sound sources going through some delay and reverb, you have a wicked modular synth, sample source, drone machine....Silver Apples meets Aphex meets Eno.

I spoke with a synthe technologiste who thought that there would likely be a way to add c/v control to the sound source circuits...I have included a close up of a single sine sound source...it is the one circuit photo that has had the color altered and sharpened to give someone some idea what they are dealing with if they are so inclined to pursue the c/v route. Alas, there are no schematics and I have searched high and low on the internets.

The cabinet is absolutely VCS3-esque. There are a few areas of flaky veneer about the edges, as can be seen in the photos.

Also...you can run audio through the filters and even do some sort of weird sonic destruction by patching the fuzz output into the same input as the audio source. There are many many routing capabilities. These machines have provided me with plenty of inspiration. I will be moving soon, so please look out for all sorts of audio related stuff."

MP3s backed up here.

The one via Must! who is the seller.

IMG_0156

flickr by pzlonvent.

Effector 13 - Meow

One more on sendling.

Sound Lab Modifications by Pehr

SoundLab mod by Pehr.

1. Fine tuners for the oscillators.
2. Frequency modulation amount.
3. FM on/off.
4. FM AC/DC.
5. Connects the incoming CV to OSC1 to the CV in of OSC2 (so I can play with my MCV4 that only has one note CV output).
6. Aaron Crams' ring modulator (without buffer amps), made from only the extra OTA and a few other components.
7. Attenuations towards ground or -9V for the EG, LFO and FM outputs.
8. LFO COF-range HI/LO, sets the value of R31 to 100k (HI) or 200k (LO, original).
9. COF-CV input for modulation wheel CV from my MCV4. Do not use the 9V zener mod on this one or you'll not be able to turn the COF low enough anymore.
10. Extra CV inputs with the 9V zener protection mod. The other CV-inputs and the gate inputs also has the protection mod. And of course I use the 1V/Oct mod.
11. Audio input to filter.

via electro-music.com. via sendling.