MATRIXSYNTH: Monday, August 10, 2009

Monday, August 10, 2009

SpinTronic

flickr by rarebeasts
(click for more)

"Pin wheels are used to control the amount of light entering to the sensors, controlling frequency and modulation."

DX5 playing Pet Shop Boys "Domino Dancing"

YouTube via DX5.

"First PSB track that I cover. Everything (searching sounds, assigning to the Emax, recording the backtrack, etc) was done in half an afternoon. As I started to record late at night, I didn't rehearsal more than twice, so there are some mistakes on the lead part (JX-8P).

No sample sound from the original song. All Emax samples are from my libraries (even the orchestal Hit, I realized I have got exactly the same they used for the track).

Gear:
Roland JX-8P
Emu Emax
Kurzweil PC1x."

Minimoog with moogerfooger CP-251.

YouTube via interlogic
"My minimoog is controlled by LFO, LAG processor, offset of Mixer, pedal and Sample & Hold of moogerfooger CP-251.
Hope you enjoy"

Schismatrix - Synths in Fiction

Dennis wrote in to let me know about a book he just started reading called Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling. To his surprise a couple of passages referred to the synthesizer. The following are two passages.

"A second woman knelt silently with her back to the right-hand wall, facing the garden's image. Lindsay knew at once that she was a Shaper. Her startling beauty alone was proof, but she had that strange, intangible air of charisma that spread from the Reshaped like a magnetic field. She was of mixed Asiatic-African gene stock: her eyes were tilted, but her skin was dark. Her hair was long and faintly kinked. She knelt before a rack of white keyboards with an air of meek devotion.
The yarite spoke without moving her head. "Your duties, Kitsune." The girl's hands darted over the keyboards and the air was filled with the tones of that most ancient of Japanese instruments: the synthesizer."

"Linday slept, exhausted, with his head propped against the diplomatic bag. An artificial morning shone through the false glass doors. Kitsune sat in thought, toying quietly with the keys of her synthesizer.
Her proficiency had long since passed the limits of merely technical skill. It had become a communion, an art sprung from dark intuition. Her synthesizer could mimic any instrument and surpass it: rip its sonic profile into naked wave forms and rebuild it on a higher plane of sterilized, abstract purity. Its music had the painful, brittle clarity of faultlessness.
Other instruments struggled for that ideal clarity but failed. Their failure gave their sound humanity. The world of humanity was a world of losses, broken hopes, and original sin, a flawed world, yearning always for mercy, empathy, compassion... It was not her world."

Schismatrix on Amazon

Update via Loren in the comments: "Another book that has an electronic music theme is Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. In the story a bar across the street from Stanford University has a jukebox that has nothing but electronic music on it (since its the 1960s it has mostly stuff like Cage, Stockhausen, Henry, etc). The story revels that this bar is actually a famous hang out for electronic musicians who come and actually perform in the bar, which has its own equipment for such events."

Square Dancing

Square Dancing from Hans-Jörg Scheffler on Vimeo.

"A very odd combi of old videofootage of classic squaredancers synced to a modern beat with funky synths.
I manipulated the time axis of the footage and used some effects in Artmatic V-Track to give it a more contemporary look.
The music was done in Logic 8 on a Macpro using Stylus RMX for the drums and the Access Virus TI Polar synthesizer for bass, lead and chords."
via Dennis

1970s MAESTRO USS-1 UNIVERSAL SYNTHESIZER Guitar System

via this auction

"Maestro 1716 USS-1A Universal Synthesizer System from the 1970s
DESIGNED BY OBERHEIM

Waveform (with Intensity slider) a kind of fuzz effect
Filter (with Frequency and Brilliance sliders) envelope filter
Sample/Hold strange warbly effect
Phase (with Speed slider) phaser, really awesome sounds too
Envelope (with Attack and Decay sliders) another envelope filter that operates a bit differently
Sub-Harmonic (with a Volume slider and sustained or percussive switch) self explanitory, lower octave in quick hit or sustaining
then there is also a slider for Sensitivity that works on the Envelope and Sub-Harmonic, basically increasing the volume of the effect compaired to the natural sound, great analog sounds.

Has a great sample and hold that tops the Maestro FSH-1 since on this unit it has additional controls like the filter being independent of the Sample /Hold so you can run both at the same time. The octave down subharmonic is thick and can track/trigger strangley for some interesting randomness, coupled witht the sample/hold you get some amazing textures. There are numerous options for getting some very unusual sounds. Great for experimental work or for sampling interesting sounds with a thick vintage vibe ."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Moog Memorymoog

via this auction

"The Moog Memorymoog synthesizer, serial # 2786, has been recently fully restored to it`s original condition by Midwest Music Menders, Chicago, Ill."

Analogue Systems RS-95 VCO

via this auction
"Analogue Systems VCO. Excellent British tone. Goes well into the LFO range, all the way down, and up to crazy high frequencies."

flight of harmony newsletter August 2009

"Greetings,
At long last, the backlog is nearly cleared out. All that remains are the desktop Quad Plague Bearers. I have enough housings for 10 more and am in production right now, so get ‘em while the lead time is short! These are r3.2 Plague Bearers with VC gain, and also have an inverter section for the Gain CV input for “normal” CV response. USD$350.00 each + $9.50 S&H. The page has been updated as well: http://www.flightofharmony.com/Plague_Bearer.html.

Other news:
· The Infernal Noise Machine v1.3 is now available full-time - http://www.flightofharmony.com/INM.html

· Plague Bearer t-shirts are now available! http://www.flightofharmony.com/pbtshirt.html

· Current group buys:
o Joysticks – We have not yet met the minimum quantity, but the sign-up list will be kept going until we do. Details can be found in the Muffwiggler forum thread.

o Jacks – COLLECTION TIME. Please send in your payment, details are in the Muffwiggler forum thread. This week is the last chance to join in on this buy.

~flight http://www.flightofharmony.com"

The Unclean T:

Modular radio 1

YouTube via opsysbug
"New Eurorack modular system. Some processed Chinese radio station.
Doepfer, Makenoise,The Harvestman.
Modular World (MW) case."

modular radio 2

"Eurorack modular synth. Processed radio. Doepfer/ Maknoise/ The Harvestman modules.
Modular world case. dddddddddddttttttt!"

Test Tesla 1 per NOISECOLLECTIVE.NET

YouTube via SepticMesh. via this auction
"Tesla 1, with six oscillator (2 high, 2 med, 2 low freq.)"

Quad LPG Paper Test

flickr by parasitk

"Printed on paper, taped to cardboard, and fitted with some hardware.

The switch and pots are from the Synthesizers.com version I'm building for Android Lust. The knobs I grabbed off of my Frac Bananalogue VCS.

The print isn't the most recent version of this panel (see the previous graphic in my photostream).

So far so good!"

YouTube Vids

YouTube subscriptions are still broken. Remember to send your vids in.
Contact info is towards the bottom right of the site.

Sequential Prophet 5

YouTube via onephatcat
"Salesman at Union Grove music in Santa Cruz demos Prophet-5 [with MIDI] for sale. He used to work at Sequential building various sub assemblies of this synth."
http://www.uniongrovemusic.com/
1003 Pacific Ave
Santa Cruz, CA 95060-4487
(831) 427-0670
call if interested

Access Virus Classic

via this auction

click on these for the full size shots.

rack mount ears

Vintage Serge Modular

via this auction

Analog Synth Health Club Synthesizer MicroGame

via this auction
"The MicroGame features:
2 Voltage controlled oscillators (VCO), scaled to 1v/Octave
1 Voltage-controlled filter (self-oscillating and 1v/Octave too)
1 Attack-Release envelope generator (loopable) *The synth you will receive will have a BLUE BUTTON for manually triggering the envelope, instead of Yellow.
1 Low-frequency oscillator (LFO)
1 Voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA)
1 Audio Input
1 MIXER
1 White Noise generator

Some details about the features:
-->The original filter on the circuit was tweaked so that it self oscillates to get you the sine wave--you can hear it on the website's playlist.

-->You can play the oscillators and the filter with your favorite CV keyboard.

--> The AR envelope can loop internally, so it acts like an LFO. It is very enjoyable and is used ALOT.

The synth circuit design is based on Ray Wilson's design. For more PCBs and analog synths, go to www.musicfromouterspace.com

MORE INFO ON THE WEBSITE. DON'T FORGET TO GO TO www.healthclub-music.com/microgame.htm"

Arturia 10 Year Contest

"The Contest
Send a video, music or any other creative content that illustrates "How Arturia changed my life"

Submissions will be received starting the 3rd of August and will stop September 30th. The final judgement will be anounced October the 9th.

Prizes
After final judgment on October the 9th, prizes will be delivered as follows:

Top five awards are:
* 1- Origin synthesizer
* 2- The 10 Year Suite
* 3- Analog Factory Experience
* 4- One of Arturia Analog Classic software
* 5- Arturia Tee-shirt and USB flash drive"

enter here

ObsoleteTechnology Synth DIY and Repair

Obsolete Technology
When you get there be sure to see the project links on the right.

Pictured here:
Sequential Circuits Prophet-5
Pratt & Read Keyboard repair
PIC16F628 based Midi-Sync/Sync-Midi Converter

Crumar Synergy and GDS Scans

via Qwave in the comments of this post on the Crumar GDS Brochure.

MPC5000synthplay

YouTube via XpanderXT
"This is a 10 minute synth noodle video of me messing around with the MPC5000 synth. It starts out with a single triangle wave and then moves through all kinds of noises. Then I start adding the built in effects. The effects chain is Frequency shifter to auto Low pass filter sweep to analog delay to Grimey distortion."

Serge good electro shock device

Serge good electro shock device by b3nsf

"dial in your settings and fry under the electrodes... feedback patch with mu-tron phasor and serge m-odules.... Live one take, with reverb added.. Enjoy!"

Experimentations In Plugins

Experimentations In Plugins from Edward Loveall on Vimeo.

"Experimentations In Plugins
Edward Loveall
Spring 2009

Presented are 3 plugins, a Downsampler/Bitcrusher (Downplay), an LFO based, modulation plugin (Modlove) and a granular delay buffer playback effect (DelayGrains). All plugins were created with Max/MSP 4.6.3 and the Pluggo API. The interfaces are custom designed and coded as well, using Max's JSUI Objects and the OpenGL language.

Also the song "Net Neutrality" is an example showcasing the plugins abilities on live tracks. A video describing the plugins and delivering the song is included.

You can find the plugins and song here: edwardloveall.com/"

ArpShift

ArpShift from Edward Loveall on Vimeo.

"ArpShift is a melodic, interval based, poly-rhythmic arpeggiator. It's relatively simplistic in nature with only 3 pages and 7 lanes. However, it is flexible in it's simplicity, and is able to take stagnant melodies and turn them into flowing, never repeating music.

Download and forum topic: post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=5467"

3 Monome Tetris

3 Monome Tetris from Edward Loveall on Vimeo.

"3 Monomes hooked up to the tetris game. 2 64s running tetris vertically and 1 40h showing piece preview."

via Made by Robot via http://twitter.com/madebyrobot

Elvis Presley & KORG DS-10 Audition Entry

YouTube via ElvisAudition. competition

"We will be holding a worldwide official audition of Elvis Presley cover songs!

A detailed audition information
Elvis Presley & KORG DS-10 Offcial Audition Website
http://www.vibirth.com/competition_de...

ELVIS.COM
http://www.elvis.com/

viBirth.com
http://www.vibirth.com/competition_de...

KORG DS-10
-From JAPAN-
http://www.aqi.co.jp/product/ds10/
-From outside JAPAN-
http://www.korgds10synthesizer.com/

MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/elvisaudition

Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/ElvisAudition"