Alesis MidiVerb Demo with General Music S2R Rack

Published on Oct 11, 2014 SynthMania

"Demo of the Alesis MidiVerb (original tabletop version 1), a very cool sounding unit from the '80s. [Sound source: Generalmusic S2R with its onboard effects turned off]"

General Music went out of business in 2009.

Generalmusic S2R - Performance demo

Published on Feb 24, 2013 SynthManiaDotCom·239 videos

"Demos of a few of the Generalmusic S2R built-in Performance patches."

General Music S3 - "Winter Age" Patch

YouTube via hilltree
"Patch on the General music S3 [GEM S3] Synthesizer
More at www.groenewoudnet.nl"

General Music No More

http://www.generalmusic.com

via AH: GeneralMusic declared bankruptcy laying off 75 workers

Their official website appears to just have you see here on the left. It's sad to see any synth company go under. Condolences to all at General Music.

Update via antonio on the AH list: "I received a couple of requests about Generalmusic history and in the meantime I received an email from Roberto of VIEI yahoo group (italian synth and organs) that I'm translating (kind of :D )here:
Generalmusic moved first steps thanks to an accordion built in 1890 in the Antonio Galanti artisan laboratory with the help of 3 sons a company was created: the award-winning factory Galanti accordions. After accordions they started crafting classical and electric guitars (much
later). In 1959 the 3 brothers founded in Mondaino the General Electro Music (GEM) company. At the start they worked for other companies like Baldwin, Thomas, Vox with no internal brand.
In 1966 they created the first branded GEM instrument: the "Minigem", a portable electronic organ. It was a big success and they decided to expand creating other 2 companies the "Intercontinetal Electronics" and in San Marino, "Titanic Music". In Marignano, where is the current (closed) factory, they created the "Laboratorio Elettroacustico Musicale" (LEM) specialized in amplifiers. In 1987 GEM acuires the ELKA brand and 1994 changes the name in GeneralMusic (GEM, LEM and ELKA). Other brands acquired during those years are pianos Schulze Pollmann, (plant Fermigliano) and church organs Ahlborn in 1992. During the 80s and 90s the company had about 450 workers. Many analog keyboards were created under the GEM brand: Pk4900 a Gem synth, the Instapiano, Instastring and many others (I guess Peter Forrest would be more precise than me!).

now seems really the end of the story...

thanks (to Roberto)

antonio"

Bought and Sold Mini P*rn Fest

Looks like the bought and sold thread is turning into a mini synth p*rnfest. Title link takes you to it. Enjoy.

BoomChik on Dave Smith Instruments and Roger Linn Design

The following is up on the Dave Smith Instruments site:

"Yes, it's been a long time since I've updated the site. The Evolver synths continue to grow in popularity and get great reviews. Also, we announced a new gem in the works at the NAMM show last month, a new drum machine tentatively called BoomChik. I am designing this with Roger Linn, the undisputed king of drum machines, who not only invented them back in the late 70s/80s (LM-1, Linndrum, Linn 9000), but also designed the MPCs that just about everyone uses now.

We're about a year away from production, so it's currently in the vaporware, uh, I mean, computer simulation stage. Below is the current vision, though it will likely go through a number of changes over the year. We will update the website every few months with the latest status, so in the meanwhile please don't ask about features or specifics on the design - it's all subject to change anyway! As far as price, best guess is $1000 - $1500 range. We're shooting for the lower, but we all know how that can go.

Basically, it is meant to be a drum machine, not an MPC. It will have both real analog percussion and normal sample playback, plus a bunch of novel processing. The idea is to produce sounds with some real, unique personality, different from everything else out there. Those of you with Evolvers can likely imagine what sounds will be possible, but it should go beyond that also."

The following is on the Roger Linn Design site:

"Dave and I annouced this work-in-progress at his booth at the January NAMM show. In our weekly meetings of the Dead Presidents Society), we've been discussing for a while the idea of doing a product together and figured a drum machine with both analog & sampled sounds would be fun. This picture is only a 3D rendering I made up, but it shows the direction we're going in our development. This design will no doubt change and we're still probably a year off until release, but we decided to put this up on our sites to get feedback and start spreading the word. Click on it to see a high-res picture and learn more about the details.

The basic idea at this point is that it will have 4 analog voices similar to Dave's Evolver, using either the analog oscillators or samples as sound sources, plus a number of digital voices that model the analog ones. If you have any realistic suggestions for this product, we'd welcome them at support[at]rogerlinndesign.com. (Replace [at] with @.)"

Buchla NAMM 2007 Video

Title link takes you to the video on Sonic State. This is one of the better NAMM videos I have seen. It's fascinating from a true synthesist's perspective. This is a video for those of us who enjoy programming synths as much as simply playing them. You have to be into programming synths to really appreciate this one. What fascinated me was how much I was absorbed by the video only to realize virtually no music was played. Amazing. You can watch NAMM video after NAMM video of chords and melodies, and then you find something like this. For me, this is the gem of all NAMM videos I've seen so far. But then, that's just me...

On the other end of the spectrum, be sure to watch this.

SunSyn meets Magneto-Tube Random Noise Gen!

Another sent my way via shagghie.

"Went by the surplus store today and scored a gem of a module...a vintage HH Scott model 811-B Random Noise Generator... This thing is sick. So of course I ran it through my SunSyn and let the noise modulate the LPF Cutoff Freq. Here's the lofi version..hifi version up shortly after. Thing has ASA, RF, AF, and LF noise modes...anyone know what those stand for?"

Update: Shagghie's MySpace Page

A6 Flash Demo Reveals Missing Features

This little gem via Javier. Title link takes you to the original A6 Flash demo on the Alesis Japan site. If you click on the section just above the Mod wheels you will be taken to the Keyboard and Portamento section. To the right you can see a "process" button. If you click on that you will see the following: "Press this button to access a 16-step tracking generator, mathematical functions, and Boolean Logical Functions, which are typically used to modify modulation sources to such effects as non-linearity, scaling, conditional gating, etc." Nice. Thanks Javier!

MISC Synth Demos

Title link takes you to demos of:

Yamaha VL1 VL1m VL7
Yamaha VL70m et PLG150VL
Yamaha VP1
Korg Prophecy
Korg Z1
Korg Oasys PCI
Korg Wavedrum
Technics sx-WSA1 et sx-WSA1r
GEM Promega 1, 2 et 3
Roland VG8, VG8ex, VG88, VGA7, VGA3

I always wonderd what the Technics WSA1 was like. Anyone know how deep it's synth editing is?

Bulcha Garbage!!!

Here's one for the archives. Title link takes you to the Craigslist post while it's up. Enjoy. This gem via Kerry.

"RARE SYNTH GEAR ABOUT TO BE DESTROYED...PLEASE HELP

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: sale-203465817@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-09-05, 5:46PM PDT

The Original Post Sunday Morning was for "Church selling organs and old telephone boxes" . Included in the equipment were numerous Buchla boxes (modular synth gear). The Church people were misinformed and told it was worthless, and a friend of theirs is disposing of it in a dumpster behind his supermarket. The ad had no contact information so I only received the included email this morning stating that the boxes were going to be thrown away in the "large bin" behind Mr. Chung's supermarket.

I called looking for Baptist Chuches that were closing, and other places, but I only know that this is somewhere in Los Angeles...so now I post for any help in finding these boxes before it's too late.

please let me know your thoughts and/or informations asap

Thank You So Much

A.
...and the email with a few clues, also PJ is somehow related to a Rev. Devon if that helps any...

Oh my! I forgot to put our phone number or website. Well, I am so sorry
about that. I was wondering why nobody called. I just checked my email today.
Sorry to say that all the items have all been sold. I owe an apology for those that emailed me. With all the moving and cleaning, I must have rushed through the ad. I guess I should let you know that they went to good homes. The Elka Synthex was purchased by the local community center so that the elementary street kids can learn to play organ after school. The Yamaha DX-1 was sold to the senior center. As for the telephone boxes, I asked the phone company gentlmen that came to disconnect our phone and he pointed out that they were not telephone boxes. He noticed that there were a lot numbers in the cases something from 100s up to like almost 200. There were over 80 of these Bulcha things. He said they were outdated lab equipment for some kind of testing and useless. So we called the trash company pick-up but they would not take electronic equipment. So a friend of ours, Mr Chung left them in back of his supermarket and said he would throw them in his large bin for us. Again, I apologize for not putting all the info. We are leaving today for Texas. Have a very nice day! I won't be using this email anymore since my new one will be from the new church.

God Bless you all and a safe trip to us!

P.J.
Southern Baptist Group

this is in or around Somewhere in LA"

Touch Sensitive - New Flickr Shot

flickr by _f1guy68_.

GEM Promega 3 Performance Keyboard"

Pearl Syncussion SY1

Simon (... snafu ...) posted this piece along with a few others he has on auction to the AH list. Title link takes you to a few more shots he sent my way. Some notes from the auction:

"it has been modded, so that each (of the two) voices hast a single output."

"in the 70s it became famous, because it was used to make these wierd disco-sounds bioooouuuuu biiiiuuuuuu - but behind those cheezy sounds there is a hidden gem not many know about... i have been told, that it can do very cool bass-drum hits, that can ever out-boom the TR909 (that is why i bought it :-)."

Nice description snafu. : )

It's interesting how this looks a lot like a Roland. Anyone know if there is any connection there? The shots of it on it's side, however, make it look completely different. I'd love to hear some samples of this as well. If anyone knows of any, please post in the comments. I asked Simon if he had any, so we'll see. I also tried Audio Playground's Virtual Drummachine page and no go.

Update via zerozeroisland in the comments:

"The syncussion is great! In addition to all the 70's disco sounds, it's capable of a lot more. Skinny Puppy used it in the early days and it's definitely useful for very aggressive, heavy sounds...

if you have a copy of Reason, here is a refill for the Redrum drum machine of some amazing sy-1 sounds: link"

The Unique DBK

Two shot's via this auction. Title link takes you to the post on VSE where I found this. Some interesting bits (pun intended) from Micke in the post (that Micke knows his synths):

"It's a rebadged LEM Bit 99:
http://www.synrise.de/history/advertises/advert_005.jpg

...which itself is a rebadged Crumar BIT 99.

some insider info:

LEM is/was a subsidiary of General Electro Music, Italy (more known as GEM) and I'm pretty sure they bought the rights from Crumar to re-release the BIT 99 (under the LEM brand) when the Crumar company ceased to exist around the mid-to-late '80's.

Around the same time as this, Gem would buy the ELKA company (another well-known Italian manufacturer of musical instruments) which was owned by the other Crucianelli brother, namely Piero Crucianelli.
(Piero was brother to Mario Crucianelli who owned Crumar). "

Suzanne Ciani

This one sent in via Tony Saunders. Title link takes you to the Early Suzanne Ciani webpage with video clips including Buchla. Make sure to track back to the root of the site for more on Suzanne Ciani and don't miss this page on Buchla. Thanks Tony!

Update: John Simmons was checking out the site and found this gem. It's a video of Suzanne Ciani creating the sound for the pinball game Xenon. Note the Xenon was released in 1979 according to this site. You can see the NED Synclavier used to sample the sounds in the video and then the guy inserting the chips with the samples in the pinball machine. Pretty cool. Thanks John!

American Contemporary

Ryan Faubion sent this little gem my way. This is an album composed solely with an EMS Synthi 100. Title link takes you to the post with more info. Seek and yee shall be rewarded. Enjoy. Thanks Ryan!

Toshio Iwai's SimTunes

My masterpiece


I finally got a chance to check out the Demo of SimTunes graciously posted by thewhiteline on this post. To run it, I set the program to run under 256 colors in Windows 95 Compatibility mode (just right click the program icon, go to properties, then Compatibility to set this). I must say I was pleasantly surprised. It's a lot of fun. The way it works is you draw pixels on the screen while four little "bugs" walk around; when they walk over a pixel a sound plays. Different colors play different sounds. There is also music running in the background that your pixels play on top off. It's pretty fun. There are some included images that play composed pieces of music. As you can imagine if you line things up correctly you can get some cool sequences going, or you can just go random and see what comes out like my masterpiece above. I'll be keeping an eye out for the full version myself. Title link takes you to the demo. Thanks again to thewhiteline for this little gem. It would be cool to see this pojected on screen, in some performance art (oh, a composition running that is, not my masterpiece above). : )

Waldorf XT Resource Page

Carbon111 left this gem in the comments section of the Some Waldorf Resources post. It's an amazingly rich site with tons of information on the Waldorf XT and Microwave II including the users manual for each, charts of the wavetables, workshops, links to other sites, pictures and much, much more. Not surprising as the site is also home to the DSI Evolver and Polyevolver resource page. Thanks Carbon111! BTW, how many of these resource sites do you have?! : ) You need to add a link to the evolver page and any others to your main page.