MATRIXSYNTH: Sunday, July 27, 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

MATRIXSYNTH Visits Thighpaulsandra's Aeriel Studios

Click here for images of my recent visit to Thighpaulsandra's Aeriel Studios.

I want to thank both Thighpaulsandra and Peter Forrest for the great company. You can find more info on Thighpaulsandra on his official website (check out his discography) as well as his MySpace page. He recently performed in Analog Live! Peter Forrest is the author of the A-Z of Analog Synthesizers as well as the man behind the auction site Vemia (Spheremusic.co.uk). You might remember Vemia from these posts.

Over the next few days I will be putting up some videos of the visit. Mostly synth talk of us or rather Peter and Thighpaulsandra noodling around while I taped. Nothing too elaborate, but it should bring you into the visit. I created an Ariel Studios label below for this set of posts so once they are all up you can go back and review them all at once if you like.

On the synth front we have:
Two Synton Fenix Modulars
Two ARP 2600s
Two Oberheim SEMs with patch points
A Red Synton Syrinx
EMS Synthi and Putney
Two Serge Modulars (one old and one new)
Plan B, Cynthia, Doepfer Modular
Moog Voyager
Roland SH-5
Sequential Circuits Prophet-10 and Prophet-5
and more...

click here and scroll for all posts featuring Thighpaulsandra.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Korg MS-20 Patching Clinic Party Club

flickr by zonkout
(click for more)

full size

YouTube via ZonkOut
"Five MS-20's passing the SQ-10's trigger signal, but delaying it slightly each time (using EG1)."

Music Week: Day 1: Korg DS-10 synthesizer for Nintendo DS

YouTube via Jed05
"Music Week kicks off! Day 1! Korg DS-10 was just released in Japan, and is a Korg synthesizer emulator for Nintendo DS. It is entirely in English, not that there is a lot to read. Pretty cool application, watch out for songs being uploaded in the future from me :)"

KORG MS20 ESP PARTY!!

YouTube via mopipi2. "W0OW0O0WOW0O!"

MID-IF for SX-150

YouTube via MMTAKEDA55. "Adding MIDI-IF for SX-150 experiments"
The SX-150 recently came as a DIY kit in Gekken magazine.
There are a number of these up for auction on Ebay.

Yamaha CS1x Demo by Failed Muso - Pt.3

YouTube via FailedMuso
"Part 3 of my run through of some of my favourite sounds from the Yamaha CS1x. Come back soon for further parts in this and other series."

Octave CAT

images via this auction

"This is the SRM (series revision model) which was a further improvement on the original CAT and was made from 1978 on."

1974 Moog Price List

via this auction

Note the seller has more up here.

Vintage Synthesizer Modules

images via this auction
"This is a kit project from an electronics magazine in the 70's. The article was written by Don Lancaster, and the components were supplied by SouthWest Technical Products (SWTP). The modules have been professionally assembled, and are complete. What needs to be added is a power supply and a keyboard. This should appeal to those who are electronically inclined, and have an appreciation for 70's analog synth technologies and their sound. What remains to be done is quite simple, and straightforward. A copy of the article with instructions is included."

Roland SH-2000

images via this auction

Spectral Audio Neptune Analog Synthesizer

via this auction
"You're looking at the extremely rare and discontinued Spectral Audio Neptune Synthesizer. This is the first version, the second version is pretty much the same only with a power switch on the front and they made the thing ugly purple and not as timeless looking.... The Neptune is made up of 100% analog oscillators and moog-style 24 LP (and HP) filter.... The machine has 3 oscillators, 2 of which are Saw or Pulse and a third that is similar to a minimoog in that it can also become an LFO. The third OSC/LFO can modulate different parts of the synth, the 4 buttons on the right side shows this. There is also ring modulation, fuzzer/distortion, and individual tuning for the oscillators.

This machine works with both midi and CV/Gate, the midi can control a few things beyond notes such as the cutoff, slide rate, LFO Rate, modulation of OSC3, and so on. There is also a 303 mode, in which you can give notes accents... What I'll say about this that most people on the internet too will say which is this is a great monophonic synthesizer for getting one of a kind sounds, many of which are unique to this machine. This synth is easy to put off making music with because you get so caught up making new sounds with it. There is an external audio input, which is great if you want to run your other thinner (*cough microkorg) synths through a real analog filter to fatten it up. The Neptune is in great condition, some rack wear from bolting it down, along with a little scuff you can see over the word Fuzzer in the second picture. It comes with the Synth, AC Adaptor, and a blue instruction manual. To get the technical specifics of the machine, you can check out Spectral Audio's website..."

Synthesis by Herbert A. Deutsch

images via this auction
"'Synthesis: An Introduction to the History, Theory, & Practice of Electronic Music' book by Herbert A. Deutsch.

Printed in 1976. Softcover. 140 Pages.

This is an amazing book about analog synthesizers and early electronic music written by electronic music pioneer Herbert A. Deutsch, a close friend of Bob Moog, who even collaborated with Bob Moog on the first prototype of the Moog Modular Synthesizer.

This book is filled with tons of great information on analog synthesis, analog synthesizers, the amazing people that built them, and the musicians that first used them. A great book for anyone interested in the beginnings of electronic music.

There are a lot of awesome pictures of vintage synthesizers like the original Moog Synthesizer prototype, Moog Sonic VI, The MiniMoog, Moog Satellite, Moog Model 12 Modular Synthesizer, ARP Pro-Soloist, ARP Odyssey, ARP 2600, ARP Modular Synthesizer, EMS Synthi, EMS Synthi 100, and The Roland Series 100 Modular Synthesizer!

Also pictures of synthesizer pioneers Bob Moog, Herbert A. Deutsch, and Wendy Carlos!"

DIY MS-DOS Sequencer

via Synth.nl where you'll find more info another shot.

"It is a 286 PC with a 40 Mbyte harddisk and it runs MS-DOS 6.22 with Cakewalk installed. It has a build in keyboard, 9" screen and a midi interface."

Roland VP-330+, vocoder section

flickr by Kelly Sereda

full size

Tim's Roland SH-1000 Synth

flickr by Terekhova
(click for more)

full size

Rosana and Barbara

flickr by Konstabel Els

Vacuum Tube Ring Modulator

via Deviant Synth where you'll find more info.

"This is, of course, based on Eric Barbour’s [Metasonix] designs, with a few twists.

I built a separate sine/square wave oscillator and have put an input jack on the front of the ring mod for input of any carrier signal."

Inside a Studio Electronics Midimoog

more shots on sequencer.de

Anyware Instruments Modules

"Demo Quad LFO Module - very small and tiny incl Patchbay, compared to Eurocent coin. It’s the first evolutionary step by Anyware on & at the Modular Synthesizer Meeting 'Happy Knobbing'"

more info and shots on sequencer.de

Modularen

flickr by Modularen
(click for more)

full size

TH XRVCO x 2
TH VCO-1 x 2
MFOS Dual VCA
MFSO ADSR
CGS Wavemultiplier
CGS Digital noise
CGS Analogue shift register
CGS VCA
CGS Suboscillator
CGS Wavetable
CGS Gate to trigger
CGS Synthacon
Fonitroik PS3100 Resonator
Fonitronik Dual Buchla Lowpass Gate
Fonitronik Dual Buchlaesque CV processor
Topp 281 Function generator
EFM LFO
EFM ADSR + VCA
EFM Transistor Ladder filter
MSC175 Dual VCS

Thomas Dolby - Windpower

YouTube via BrusselZuid. via Thomas Dolby's blog.

Windpower turned 25 years old today.

"Thomas Dolby performing Windpower on Top of the Pops circa 1982"

I'm guessing the computer is the PPG 360 with 340/380 system that Thomas Dolby picked up from Edgar Froese - you can read about it in this post.

Mattel Synsonics Demo by Failed Muso

YouTube via FailedMuso.
"Another in my series of basic (and I do mean basic !) demos of some of my favourite bits of gear. Here is the Mattel Synsonics, a piece of gear I lusted over as a young boy, thinking it would be my ticket to super mega stardom as the most supreme drummer of all time. Sadly, my pocket money couldn't stretch to it, and my parents figured that I'd be far better served by a Subbuteo set, as a career in table football was much better :-s

I eventually found one of these in mint condition on eBay and promptly snapped it up. Sadly, after almost 30 years of waiting, I was slightly underwhelmed, but I'm sure it would've blown my mind back in the day.

Apparently, Kraftwerk used these at one point."

Question on the Japan DS-10

Anyone out there know if the text is in English, Japanese or both? Is there an option?
Update: At 1:06 in this video, you can clearly see the controls in English.

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