Synth Rorschach #64: Moon Rocks

Where does NASA keep the Moon Rocks? - Smarter Every Day 220 Published on Jul 9, 2019 SmarterEveryDay

The source of Formant knobs. Moon rocks!

OK, this one is a bit of stretch, but when I saw the small thumbnail for this video on YouTube, my first thought was, "did SmarterEveryDay do a video on modular synths?!". For a split second I thought that was a Formant modular in the background. In the larger still above it now reminds me of square Mattson Mini Modular panels with Formant knobs.

Synth Rorschach #63: PPGs Ready to be Connected at Apollo Mission Control

via bÖsch


"Loads of PPGs ready to be connected"


You might recognize this from: Synth Rorschach #64: Apollo Mission Control. Nice contrast in this shot compared to the color and perceived hustle and bustle in the previous post.

Synth Rorschach #62: Dream Synth Studio Completed!

This one is in via Gerard:

"My dream synth studio completed!"

Spotted on The Vintage Beauty of Soviet Control Rooms.

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The guy on the left looks like he's actually playing a synth with a vocoder. Right looks like he's reading a patch layout, and the center guy looks like he is admiring a sequence and/or watching a monitor above. All while wearing fast food caps!

You can find more Synth Rorschachs here.

Synth Rorschach #61: Apollo Mission Control

This one is more synth meet than synth. Get behind your synth console for the event. Wouldn't that be cool? Someone should set that up with a bunch of PPG Waveterms.

via Engadget:

"NASA reopens Apollo mission control in time for Moon landing anniversary"

Synth Rorschach #60: The Outer Limits

This Synth Rorschach in via Atomic Shadow.

"Is It A Synth? No. It's from the first episode of The Outer Limits which aired in September, 1963. The Galaxy Being starred Cliff Robertson as a radio station owner who used his transmitter to reach out across the galaxy. After establishing contact with a being from another world, a series of events (brought about by his carping wife) leads to the physical transmission of the Galaxy Being to Earth. A heavy handed moral about the human race being prone to violence ensues.

The episode has some great examples of mid 20th century Gizmology. Gizmology is term that I coined to describe movie tech that is designed to look all "Science-y". If you look at the photo, you see what appears to be a Eurorack synth! Just out of the frame, on the right, there is the obligatory reel to reel tape recorder. In those days if you wanted your set to look like real science, you had to have an oscilloscope displaying a sine wave and a tape recorder. This episode lacks a scope, but makes up for it with that crazy nest of wires.

An article about the episode here...

I started watching that episode on Prime the other night. When that scene happened I thought, 'How did Cliff Robertson get his hands on Richard Divine's euro rig? In 1963!'."


Bottom reminds me of Dewanatron meets Folktek. Top right reminds me of Anyware's Tinysizer.

Synth Rorschach #59: Scanimate: The Origins of Computer Motion Graphics

Scanimate: The Origins of Computer Motion Graphics from LinkedIn Learning on Vimeo.

This one is for the video synthesis fans out there.  As for the Synth Rorschach, see what specific synths you are reminded of watching this one. This one is in via Soviet Space Child.

"Digital artists have been trying to replicate the ephemeral quality of graphics from the 70s and 80s for years. But nothing comes close to the real (analog) thing. Get to know the first computer used for motion graphics and animation, Scanimate, and the men who've kept the machine alive for the last four decades. In this short documentary, Nick Campbell of Greyscalegorilla talks to Roy Weinstock, one of the original Scanimate animators, and Dave Sieg, the engineer who has kept it running all these years. Find out how this system of "tubes and 2x4s" became the predecessor of many modern motion graphics plugins and controls, and how the unusual collaboration between operators and engineers led to some of the most iconic motion graphics of the 1980s—including spots for Super Bowl VIII, Star Wars, and children's shows like The Electric Company and Sesame Street."

Synth Rorschach #58: Traffic Lights

via @thonk_synth, via @Tetley_uk

"I never knew that secretly, on the inside, traffic lights really want to be synthesizers."


You can find more Synth Rorschach's here.

Synth Rorschach #57: German Mainframe Computer DERA - Documentary from 1963

Published on Feb 12, 2019 MonoThyratron

"[Enable English Subtitles, please]

At the time of this film (1963) the computer colossus DERA (Darmstädter Elektronischer Rechenautomat) was actually already outdated. It was created in the tube era of electronics. The construction of the calculating machine was conceptually based on the American calculator MARK IV by Howard Aiken (* 8 March 1900 † 14 March 1973), which was constructed between 1949 and 1952.

In 1951 at the Darmstädter Institut für Praktische Mathematik (IPM) they began, under direction of Prof. Dr. h.c. Dr. Alwin Oswald Walther (* 6 May 1898 † 4 January 1967), with the conception of the mainframe computer DERA, a serially working automatic calculator in tube technology with memory, floating point representation and decimal output. It was first used in 1957, but the further development of the computer was already reduced in 1956 and finally abandoned completely in 1959, as DERA had already been overtaken by the newly emerging semiconductor technology. Furthermore, the machine was prone to errors and was therefore shut down after 1961.

Although Prof. Alwin Oswald Walther belonged to the luminaries of early German computer development and his pedagogical as well as technical abilities in teaching were undisputed, his work during the Second World War was repeatedly discussed. Thus he and his team were involved in the ballistic calculations of the Wernher von Brauns rocket experiments in Peenemünde during the 3rd Reich.

The astronomer Dr. Rudolf Kühn (* 27 January 1926 † 4. December 1963), who conducts the interview with Prof. Alwin Walther in this film document, appeared for the first time on German television in 1955. He also co-founded the magazine "Sterne und Weltraum" (Stars and Space) and had the gift of presenting science topics to a broad television audience in generally understandable words. He died in a traffic accident in the same year as this television documentary.

People in this documentary:
Rudolf Kühn (* 27 January 1926 † 4 December 1963)
Alwin Oswald Walther (* 6 May 1898 † 4 January 1967)
Waltraud Krötz [phon.] (trainee programmer)
Elke Geist (programmer)
Mr. Pohlmeier [phon.] (Electronics engineer, shows DERA tube assembly)
Mr. Maul [phon.] (operates punch card doubler)
Mrs. Brink [phon.] (only briefly to see)"

Synth Rorschach #56

Spotted this images on BoingBoing regarding an article on George Dyson. I'm not sure what the image is off and how it relates to that post, but there it is. If anyone has any more info on the pic, let us know!

You can check out more Synth Rorschachs here.

Synth Rorschach #55: HP 5105A Frequency Synthesizer

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

via wikipedia:

"A frequency synthesizer is an electronic circuit that generates a range of frequencies from a single reference frequency. Frequency synthesizers are used in many modern devices such as radio receivers, televisions, mobile telephones, radiotelephones, walkie-talkies, CB radios, cable television converter boxes satellite receivers, and GPS systems. A frequency synthesizer may use the techniques of frequency multiplication, frequency division, direct digital synthesis, frequency mixing, and phase-locked loops to generate its frequencies. The stability and accuracy of the frequency synthesizer's output are related to the stability and accuracy of its reference frequency input. Consequently, synthesizers use stable and accurate reference frequencies, such as those provided by crystal oscillators..."

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Synth Rorschach #54

I'll be surprised if anyone gets this one.

Hint: it looks like a button got loose.

Synth Rorschach #53: ARPEGGIO | ROMA

What's ROMA? Oh wait...


This one spotted by @jasperhamill.

Synth Rorschach #52: Oh, where the hell is that filter cutoff knob?

via @Earthnik

"Oh, where the hell is that filter cutoff knob?"

5U, euro, or frac? Euro on the right. 5U or Frac she's working on in the middle. Mults on the left? Bass Station Rack, Drum Station, and rack synths to her right? Definitely DIY... What is that falling off on the right?

Synth Rorschach #51: Synth Station

via f*mass

"bÖsch soundcheck"

Synth Rorschach #50: Keys

via @KorgUK

"Just can't get away from it... even when on #holiday! #piano #keys #keyboard #synth #summer"

Synth Rorschach #49: Roland JD-Xi synthesizer demo | sthlm2

Published on Mar 7, 2017 Woody Piano Shack

"My own Roland JD-Xi synthesizer pattern and demo with footage shot in Stockholm on a late summer day."

Synth Rorschach at 1:04. What does it remind you of?

Synth Rorschach #48: MULTICS is ALIVE - booting MR12.6e 6180 emulation

Published on Feb 19, 2017 Redmartian

"This panel came from the University of Michigan and likely hasn't been driven this way in well over 20 years. Here we see the 6180 Multics emulator reading the switches set on the panel to 024000717200 and the initialize button been pressed to boot the virtual machine. The 6180 Maintenance Panel is being driven by a Xilinx BASYS3 which in run drives two logic boards that are cabled into the 6180 panel wiring harness. All switches and lamps are available to the emulator and you can dial through the scroll to check the various states of the machine. Once Multics has booted you'll see the famous Idle Pattern (or snake). Multics lives once again!"

Reminds me of Digisound meets EMS, meets something else I forget at the moment.

See the Synth Rorschach label below for more.

Synth Rorschach #47: Modular Ford GT

Photo credit Kurt Bradley, via jalopnik.

Serge & Buchla jacks!

See the Synth Rorschach label below for previous posts.

Synth Rorschach #46: Box of Pot

A box of pot/cannabis/marijuana

What do you see?

Spotted this one on BoingBoing.

More Synth Rorschachs here.

Synth Rorschach #45: Historic Computers

This is just a handful of them.  See Creative Review for the rest. Spotted this one on Boing Boing.

Left reminds me of a Doepfer eurorack. The second pic below reminds me of colored banana jack DIY modules. The one below it reminds me of the Sal-Mar. Serge below it and finally the $40,000 Holland SM2000 Eurorack Modular Synthesizer bottom. Tagging them in the labels below just for reference.

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