9/29/25 SSL 1660 + FSFX 103 + STG + acVOKS + .com Q128 + Paia 6740 + MIDIVERB II + MP-4 + DDL-3

video upload by Cfpp0

Remembering Gert Jalass of MOON MODULAR

John L Rice wrote in to let us know today is the late Gert Jalass' birthday. I met Gert a few times at NAMM, and John would often man the Moon Modular Booth. Gert was a great, kind soul. I miss his smile; I miss his presence.

John mentioned the Moon Modular website has had a few updates since his passing. The About and History pages are worth a look.

You will find the following there:

LUNAR MAGIC | Gert Jalass’ Work of Life

as well as

THE HISTORY OF MOON MODULAR 2002 - 2025.

Modular Moog (vintage)

video upload by Memetune Studio

"The Moog sounds so rubbery and gorgeous today

And the 914 Fixed Filter Bank sounds a bit like waves on an electronic beach"

Steffen Marienberg of Marienberg Devices Has Passed Away

Some sad news in via John L Rice, via the Sequencer.de forums

Google translation of attached funeral notice:

“We are sad that we have lost you. We are grateful that we were able to live with you. Steffen Marienberg *September 30, 1961 +August 19, 2025 In silent mourning: his Sigrid, his brother Holger, and all relatives. Alterode, August 2025. The funeral service, followed by the urn burial, will take place on Saturday, September 13, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. at the Hoym cemetery.”

Marienberg was a maker of 5U modules. You can find the Marienberg website at http://marienbergdevices.de/.

See the Marienberg label for a posts dating back to 2013 featuring their gear.

Lyle visits the Lost Ant Cafe

video upload by suitandtieguy

"Monday night I went to a very tiny bar in Lostant IL called the Lost Ant Cafe for fried chicken because the third shift clerk at the Tonica Casey's had a long conversation with Squiche and I about a bunch of stuff on the way back from Knobcon and I asked her what local fried chicken she liked. This was the only place I can remember from the conversation, and it's about a quarter mile down the road from a legendary upper Illinois River valley supper club called The Bull's Head which has been closed for too long. If you don't understand the relationship with the upper Illinois River valley, Italian supper clubs, and fried chicken then I don't know what to say other than you need to touch grass.

I came back to the studio and did this with Lyle. I think it demonstrates how absolutely fried this thing can sound. EBM guys are gonna want to save their pennies for the heaviest (by weight) bass machine they've ever played.

There is a modest amount of distortion on this example, in addition to slow LFOs from each voice controlled by each voice's auxiliary VCAs whose level is set by the Active Attenuators generating a simple voltage offset (something it does if you plug nothing into it) then multiplied to all four voices with the Active Multiples. These LFOs are fed into the second control input of the Vanilla Filters.

Each voice is panned across the soundfield with the output mixer.

In this example I only tweak the gate time on Continuo, global filter frequency and envelope amount, and the amount of the LFO to the filters from the Active Attenuators on the right side of the synthesizer.

As usual with Lyle videos, no effects or mastering at all, simply normalised.

Audio Verité, just like The Drive To 1981. I think it sounds great."

muSonics Lyle vs Continuo - Too Short for Oktoberfest

video upload by suitandtieguy

"This is an eight stage sequence of dyads within a minor 7th chord from the Continuo. It's in E minor and gets modulated to the fourth a couple of times. It's not a composition, it's just a demo.

I really like demonstrating this instrument without any patch cables at all but decided to use each voice's sine LFO to slowly modulate their filters, attenuated by the Control Distributor and fed into the secondary control input of the Vanilla Filters so they're still getting pitch voltage from the sequencer and modulation from the Polyphonic Envelopes.

The curve ball I throw into this is taking the left pulse wave from voice one and sending it into the clock input of Transistor Logic's flip-flop. The data input is normaled to the negative output of the flip-flop so with this simple routing it becomes an octave divider, but since it's a logic module the output is 0-5V. This is fed into input two of the Vanilla Filter of voice one, and partway through I turn that knob up so you can hear it, bringing in a four note bass element."

muSonics Lyle: Deep Note

video upload by suitandtieguy

"Deep Note on Lyle, the first properly polyphonic modular synthesizer since the Oberheim Four Voice.

If you have a Moog One, the preset is TK-421 and yes I programmed it. (the very competent marketing department wouldn't let us tag authorship in the patch description.) Page McConnell, you're welcome!

This was a bit more rough-and-tumble than that preset, but might be cooler. It uses polyphonic glide AND envelopes, and I had to do this over and over again to set the voices up to start on the right notes and get the timbre where I wanted it. Amos had to update the firmware for the MIDI-CV modules so the glide time was long enough!

The envelopes are used on 3 of the voices to spread them an octave, a fifth, and a third. the upper voices start on G below middle C and the lower voices start on G above middle C.

I referred back to the score that was published back in 2018 and approximated the notes, but there just isn't enough oscillators to do the whole thing.

There are enough to make it sound good though.

I still used the new Sony camera but recorded it via SDI with one of my Ki Pro recorders because the audio inputs sound MUCH better and it records in Apple ProRes format which Digital Performer can handle without conversion. This is a really cool setup and is so easy to crank this stuff out with. Expect more."

"Reach for the Light" by Lisa Bella Donna | Moog Muse and "Mothership" Modular Mother-32 System

video upload by Moog Music

"Step into this fully immersive performance from master synthesist ‪@LisaBellaDonnaMusic‬, blending sounds from the Moog Muse with her expansive “Mothership” modular system. In “Reach for the Light,” Lisa translates themes of challenge, change, and transformation into sound—weaving live sequences, modulation, and cosmic textures into this inspiring piece of music.

Learn more about Moog Muse: https://www.moogmusic.com/synthesizer...
Learn more about the Moog Mother Ecosystem: https://www.moogmusic.com/synthesizer...

From Lisa:

'Reach for the Light' is a piece that I hope will inspire you to be creative in times of challenge and change. This was performed live on the Moog Muse and my “Mothership” while modulating the piece manually with a Moog Mother-32 bass sequence and percussion provided by a DFAM and Spectravox. The Spectravox is being triggered by a series of selected gates and envelopes. A series of other Mother-32 modules ornament the piece with contrapuntal stereo sequences and celestial FX. The Mother-32s also provide a wealth of voltage skew and attenuation to bring life and realism to envelopes, filters, and amplifiers of other components within the system.

Live effects include a Hologram Microcosm and studio effects include a Moog Delay, ClusterFlux Chorus, Moog Phaser, and Valhalla Reverb plugins.

Stay creative everyone!
~ Lisa Bella Donna"

The Finish Line

video upload by davidryle

"Having a little fun with the Q960 sequencers and the Moog Matriarch.

The Q960 pair are set up for index sequencing on the bass line. This is a fun way to mangle the bass line but keep it steady in time with the drum pattern. The gate duty was handed to the Dotcom Q172 quantizer for only sending gates when there is a change of pitch voltage. This helped to avoid the typical pulse rhythm.

The bass voice is a pair of Synthetic Sound Labs TZ-VC Oscillators in FM coupling. There is a third VCO from SSL for a sine wave sub-oscillator. These are mixed through the Corsynth C114 transistor drive mixer to the Oakley Voltage Controlled State Variable Filter in low pass mode. The signal is split and sent through the Modcan 73B stereo echo delay and also a dry signal is driven by a second Corsynth T-Mixer for added saturation.

The drum sounds are from the Delptronics LDB-2E and the TipTop SD808 snare. There is a Mutable Instruments Grids and the Moon Modular 563 trigger sequencer coupled to trigger the modules. The snare is sent through the MakeNoise Echophon delay and produces the raspy pulse voice heard throughout.

A hollow wood/metal block percussive sound is generated by a pair of Dotcom Q106's, a Mega Ohm Audio CdS LPG and an SSL Digital Delay. This is triggered by the STG Trigger Mini Store and reset by the Moon 554 Octal Clock Divider.

The IN-YER-FACE lead line is the Moog Matriarch through a T.C.Electronics D-Two delay unit.

Clock source was from Cubase through the STG Time Divider.

A pair of Dotcom Q962 Sequential Switches were used to route the various step gates from the lower Q960 Sequencer to the upper Q960. Routing and pitch values were pre-determined after hours of rehearsal to set up a particular scale or mode that determined what I should play on the Matriarch.

It should be noted that certain happenstance values of the sequence pattern produced passing tones that lead to the typical blues scale in C. I just had to go with it."

Experience the massive muSonics Four-Voice Vanilla Synth! #Knobcon

video upload by CatSynth TV

"Moot BooxLe demonstrates the massive new Four-Voice Vanilla Synthesizer from muSonics, which is making its debut at Knobcon 2025. This instrument is a beast, both in terms of size and sound - it is a polyphonic four-voice version of muSonics Vanilla Synthesizer, which gives us four independent analog subtractive synth voices to play simultaneously. They can be set to the same timbre, or set and modulated individually.

To find out more, please visit https://musonics.com

00:00 Introduction
00:10 Moot BooxLe demonstrates the Four-Voice Vanilla Synthesizer
04:30 Amanda of CatSynth takes a turn on the synth
05:51 Conclusion"

Knif Audio 5U BBD Delay Demo

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jonte Knif (@knifaudio)

And "Two more....prototype things....ready."


Follow-up to this post where you'll find a few pics and early details.

Tube based 5U System Coming in 2026 From Knifonium Maker Jonte Knif

You might recall the Knifonium from previous posts here.

John L Rice wrote in to let us know Jonte Knif is working on a tube based 5U System. Pictured here are a few images John pulled from Facebook.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Meet You At The Top

video upload by davidryle

"A two part piece. Both are pitch voltage quantization controlled from the ACL Sinfonion. I switch presets through the first part from preset 1 - 4 and in the second half I leave it on preset 5.

The Sinfonion chord section is sending pitch quantization to the Doepfer A-111-4 quad VCO and A-105-4 quad SSI filter. The mixer is the Corsynth T-Mixer. The Empress reverb in Ambient Swell green mode is used.

The opening voice is Channel 2 of the Sinfonion and is sent to the Dotcom Q206 with the Dove D502 in BP mode P1, then an SSL Serge Resonant EQ and finally the Strymon Blue Sky.

A counter voice is the Channel 3 quantizer to a pair of Synthetic Sound Labs TZ-VC Oscillators to the Oakley VC-SVF in BP mode. The audio is routed through a Moon 517S high pass filter to roll of the lower mid tones. I used an instance of Relab Development's LX480 classic Lexicon reverb. This same voice is used for the main melodic part in the second section.

The Channel 1 of the Sinfonion is to the bass voice which is the Dotcom Q169 Oscillator++ and Grove Audio G294A ladder filter.

The Sinfonion arpeggiator part is to the STG oscillator duet and the Dove D501 2069 filter. The signal is sent through the Modcan 73B dual delay. In the first section this voice is solo, but in the second section I added in a duplicated run of the MosLab 901/904A through a different envelope which is timed a bit more sparse and sent through the second section of the 73B delay.

Most of my time was spent mixing levels and changing the timing of the SSL Hagiwo Geo-Gruvn euclidean sequencer. The clock timing was controlled by row 3 of the Moon 563 trigger seq. I used two different memory presets on the Geo-Gruvn for each section. These timings were used for the gate controls to the SSL Octal VCA, CV-8 Breakout and AD/AR Expander. The eight channel vca handled four of the voices. Very cool array of modules.

I also sent and effort to control the timing of the STG Voltage Mini Store's timing with row 2 of the 563. The right VMS is used for the Root control to the Sinfonion. The faster moving left VMS is to the arpeggiator of the Sinfonion.

The Sinfonion is using various cv's from the Q960 step sequencers to affect the chord spread and note selections. Also an LFO is used to affect the pre-transpose of the chord section.

A convoluted patch using the Lower West Side Studios CGS88 triple switch, the Dove D900 sequencer and three voltage sources to send control voltage to the transpose on the Sinfonion. I used the Moon 564 trigger stage 1 to turn this on and off by hand when needed.

The final clangorous opening and ending patch voice was the Mutable Instruments Rings through the Behringer Bode Frequency Shifter clone and the Encore Frequency Shifter, and on through the Tip Top Z-DSP signal processor running Halls of Valhalla reverb (Niflheim preset). It was also the midway noise rush background sound where the sections changed. These were added later in Cubase and triggered by hand.

The sections were performed at once live to Cubase and video edited in Final Cut Pro."

PatchWerk

video upload by rimela

The Daleks: EMS VCS3 and Moog Model 10.

video upload by Rhythmicons

"Just a Dalek heartbeat with some other layers from a Dr. Who fanfilm that I've had the pleasure of contributing some sounds for."

8/18/25 (feedback) Metasonix S-2000 + Paia 6740 + Alesis MIDIVERB II

video upload by Cfpp0

"The Metasonix S-2000 sounds like a pretty cheerful creature with both contour two and contour three engaged, but gets more angry when contour three is turned off. A lot of that raspiness is due to feedback. The S-2000 audio output is multiplied by the Synthesizers.com Q124, then a copy goes to the Mackie Onyx 1640, with spring reverb from the Paia 6740 and stereo reverb from the Alesis MIDIVERB II, which is what we hear in the video. Another copy of the S-2000 output is sent through the STG soundlabs Attenuators, to the Lower West Side Studios M830 Signal Distribution System (just to convert it to 3.5mm), into the audio input on the S-2000 so it hears itself hearing itself."

Can You Guess What This Is?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CinePost (@cineposthouse)

This one is in via John L Rice.
"Wendy Carlos hidden gem in a stereo 35 mm optical Jiffy Test Film for test doby stereo."

MOOG IIIP Serial Number 5 of 40

video upload by NOISEBUG

https://www.noisebug.net/

"What a treat this system is to play. Incorporating the 953 duophonic keyboard and custom Moon Modular sequencer system, you have everything you you could possibly ever need. The system is in incredible condition, nearly zero signs of use. We hope to see this go to a great new home. It is truly a synthesist’s synthesizer.

#modularsynth

The IIIP + 953 is available now at Nosiebug.

The Moon Sequencer system is also available. Sold Separately.

Call or email for inquires"

SYNTH-WERK SW 8101 BODE BARBERPOLE PHASER

video upload by SYNTH-WERK

"The BODE BARBERPOLE PHASER offers 9 phase stages and various sound manipulation features. The option to insert an additional effect into the feedback loop or one of the two audio pathes is one of them.

The main feature of the BPP/product is infinity phasing. Infinity phasing is a psychoacoustic effect based on the Shepard scale, which was introduced in 1964 by the psychologist Roger N. Shepard. It creates the illusion of an infinitely ascending or descending scale that never exceeds the limit of one‘s hearing.

The combination of the various features like left-right panning or the transfer of a monofonic input signal into a stereo output signal and modulation of the phaser creates a sonic soundstage in the tradition of Harald Bodes ”Klangumformer” principal. If you think you know the sound of a Phaser, you need to listen to the Barberpole Phaser to understand the possibilities of a 'Klangumformer'"

See the announcement post here.

BODE Barberpole Phaser by SYNTH-WERK Comes to 5U

SYNTH-WERK introdcued the BODE Barberpole Phaser in rackmount format back in 2024, additional posts including demos here. It is now available as a 5U module.

"The BODE Barberpole Phaser, now available as 5U Module for modular systems. Price 2.900 Euro plus tax"

via SYNTH-WERK

"The BODE BARBERPOLE PHASER offers 9 phase stages and various sound manipulation features. The option to insert an additional effect into the feedback loop or one of the two audio pathes is one of them.

The main feature of the BPP/product is infinity phasing. Infinity phasing is a psychoacoustic effect based on the Shepard scale, which was introduced in 1964 by the psychologist Roger N. Shepard. It creates the illusion of an infinitely ascending or descending scale that never exceeds the limit of one‘s hearing.

The combination of the various features like left-right panning or the transfer of a monofonic input signal into a stereo output signal and modulation of the phaser creates a sonic soundstage in the tradition of Harald Bodes ”Klangumformer” principal. If you think you know the sound of a Phaser, you need to listen to the Barberpole Phaser to understand the possibilities of a 'Klangumformer'"