100 Oberheim Expander/Matrix12 single FX patches by Arthur Springer

video upload by Really Nice Audio

"So whilst on soak test I came across this crazy bank:
Notes from the .txt
ART SPRINGER STRIKES AGAIN (free)
Reviewed by Mike Metlay

All right, gang, I know what you're expecting in this space, so I'll oblige you and get it over with. Ready? Here goes: "WAHOOLAZUMA! Everybody's favorite twisted puppy is back from the audio torture chamber, and he's brewed up the most brain-slashing package of monstrous elektronoyze EVER! This stuff's great for warping your brain patterns, killing your cat, etc..."

Okay. Happy now? Good, now let's get serious. I heard from Art recently that he didn't get a terribly good response to his first mailing, and that few, if any, XUG members looked him up for his second set of patches

He seemed in a pretty good humor about it, but I couldn't help wondering if my presentation of his patch set didn't scare a lot of people away just by the wording. So, with a new patch set from Art (more diverse than the first two) in hand, I'd like to try again.

One of the most unhealthy trends I see in today's patch-editing software is the patch randomizer, that cute but overused utility that generates random patches at the click of a mouse. Literally thousands of these random patches are being sold by unscrupulous hackers as "original sounds," and a whole new generation of MIDI morons is springing up (pardon the pun) whose idea of "good programming chops" is the ability to tweak a randomly generated sound into something that (almost) works. No program of this type exists yet for the xpander, and I'm glad of it: the lack of computer-generated garbage on the market forces the user community to seek one another for new ideas, rather than some electronic I Ching. We come together in this Group to share ideas and learn from one another and I believe that studying another human being's work beats watching a computer coughing up random numbers. Which brings us to the music of Art Springer.

In my opinion, these patches are important. VERY important. I get so enthused about Art's work because I see in him a reflection of my college days, when I puttered about with ARP and Buchla modular monsters creating sounds for the sheer joy of it, putting together tonalities never before heard on Earth rather than trying to make a realistic shakuhachi. This was, and often still is, the meat and potatoes of electronic music to me. And when I hear Art telling me that people- Xpander users!-are returning his work because it's "too weird," I know something's wrong. The Xpander isn't a sampler or a digital piano. It's not an imitative instrument by nature. It's a powerful, multiply interfaceable modular synthesizer with a great deal of flexibility. Art Springer takes a stance on its use that no other Group member has had the courage to try: using its Power as a CV percussion device to enhance the sounds of his more traditionally oriented synths. (By the way, Lionel and I are big fans of his music ... it's not as inaccessible as you might think, and the odd tonalities make his dance pieces a lot of fun.) This is a new idea to a lot of you, and I don't blame you for being frightened. But it's better to learn from someone whose ideas differ from yours than to convince a computer to feed you something safe. I'd like to suggest something simple to start with: get one of Art's sound sets, trigger your Xpander with your drumbox, and try writing music with these sounds as part of the atmosphere rather than conventional drum noises. Or do something completely different. The important thing is to try to expand (hm) your horizons to something new. These sounds of Art's do take getting used to, but I think you'll learn a lot from them. Trust me."