Synclavier II - Clip #1 - Harmonic Additive Synthesis

Published on Dec 2, 2017 100 Things I Do

"After many months of waiting my Synclavier II system finally arrived! As you will see it was an almost complete refurbish of the 1982 Synclavier II system. Its amazing how warm the Synclavier sounds when you consider its 8bit digital synthesis. Other FM synths of the time that were more available to us mere mortals really sound nothing like it.

I asked for the Keyboard to be left in its bare wood state I will finish this with danish oil very soon (might put a clip up on me doing this if anyone is interested ?)

Changing things up a little I have decided to do a few clips in series on the Sync, There seems to be a absence of Synclavier videos on Youtube! Clip 1 is focused on the Additive Synthesis, #2 will be focused on FM and #3 hopefully with be making a track. Would anyone be interested an a Synclavier II v Artiriua Synclavier V comparison also maybe ?

If anyone is still reading ... I would be interested to know if you prefer the text over the clip as I work to continue or would you rather I talked more about what I was doing and my intensions as I make patches ? Let me know your thoughts! I see a lot of synth videos with "NO TALKING" as a selling/advertising point... is this really a thing ?"

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Elektron Spotlight: Introvert

via the Elektron newsletter
Audio embed below - you might want to start the player first and then come back and read the interview while it's playing.

"Happy and careless 8-bit Nintendo sounds and ever-evolving and intricate compositions. When Introvert operates his machines, these contrasting types of expressions are welded together with ease. The uniqueness of the music gives the impression of listening to something deeply personal.

Why do you think the chip sound is so compelling?

I guess mostly because of the nostalgia of the sound. I mean I think that it is something that most people from my generation grew up hearing on almost a daily basis. It's almost like this minuscule part of our childhood that we can all relate to. Chiptune music to me is just so much fun and those familiar sounds can be made fresh again with modern machines like the Octatrack. I just use the Octatrack MIDI sequencer and my Wayfar MidiNES and go at it.

I also love that even people that I know, who don't really care for what I do musically, can't help but smile when they hear chiptune music. They seem to understand my excitement when they hear that 8-bit grit. It just tickles parts of your brain like a familiar scent from the past. It takes me back to a place when we were all kids and when life was more simple, fun and laidback.

Some of your songs, like»Chicago Dreaming«, are very complex. What is your approach when creating such intricate pieces?

Well, when composing some of the more complex tracks I do, I usually don't have that much of an idea of a finished product and I really don't have a set technique for composing. But what I have found with myself is that I'm usually most productive if I just focus on only one thing at a time. Whether it's beats, synths, Eurorack or just noises for backgrounds, concentrating on just one small piece, rather than the whole picture at once, is really important to me.

I usually take just a Monomachine or a Machinedrum or my Octatrack into a room, away from all of my other gear, so I can just focus on that one machine. That way I can get as lost in that single element as possible. I will usually do that with several machines and then when I can get a large chunk of time to zone out and experiment, I bring all of my machines together and start to layer sounds.

I have an Allen and Heath ZED 22FX so I can run everything all at once and sort of let things build themselves. I currently only use Ableton Live 8 when recording. No other software, no plugins and almost no post edits or software effects. I try to just get things as tight and as formulated as possible before I go into Ableton.

Needless to say the copy and paste features in all of my Elektron boxes get used an insane amount. If a groove really connects with me I will make 10 or 20 different copies and variations of that same groove with different swells, retrigs and lengths. This helps me to have as many variations as possible of a single thought.

Once I have done that, it is possible for me to apply my favorite Elektron trick. It is implemented in the Machinedrum and as far as I know, nothing else out there lets you do this. The trick is the Control All feature. When I found this trick my musical life changed for the better. What I do is I will have one straight groove running on one of my machines (usually my Octatrack or my MK1 SPS-1 chaining tons of patterns together). On my UW I just freak out with another groove by holding function and turning a knob so it will turn that knob consistently for every sound across your entire machine. But the cool thing is that it does not map the same for every machine. So if you are using internal machines or ROM machines parameters will be mapped differently, causing crazy cool things to happen! And when you are done "freaking out", just hold your function key and press the classic button and the saved kit will be reloaded. WOW! Ok, now run that through your Octatrack Echo Freeze delay and your electronic life will be changed.

Which aspects of song writing do you find the most rewarding? And which do you find the most tedious?

For me I honestly think the most tedious and stressful part of the writing process is the recording phase. And it's not really recording per se, it's finding the time to really be able to sit down and fully immerse myself in my machines. I think I have the tendency to over think things and that can be really impairing when it comes to completing things.

But I find the most rewarding part of making music is getting positive words and feedback from people I don't even know, or people that I really respect (like you wonderful people at Elektron or the guys at Trash_Audio). When I get nods from fellow synth geeks or professionals out there in the world, it really makes me happy in a way I can't really explain. I don't get to play out very often but it always makes me feel great when there are music geeks that I have never met who are personally effected and inspired by my music and says how much they enjoy my noises. So I guess what I find the most rewarding is people connecting with and enjoying my musical thoughts on a personal level.

Does acquiring new gear change your approach to producing music?

Oh, without a doubt! I think new gear always sparks excitement and confusion, which forces you to work out of your comfort zone. Every piece of gear inspires a unique spark of creativity that, I believe, can be attributed to the creators of the product and their personal background as musicians. That said, I usually just use new gear to create samples and sample banks for my Octatrack and Machinedrum. So while new things can severely change my approach to my creative process, new gear also helps me find new love and inspiration in current familiar machines like my Octatrack and UW. I recently have really been getting into Eurorack and there is a whole world of possibilities and noises out there that I never could have even imagined of. I have created tons and tons of personalized oneshot drum sounds, drones and swells and dumped them into my Octatrack to be mangled. This works great, because by using the Octatrack, and especially the chromatic function, an unfamiliar instrument can become familiar.

I also play Monomachine, Octatrack and guitar with a full, instrumental, band called Karass and I absolutely love to use my Elektron machines in that context. They are so flexible and enable us to keep things 100% live. While I would love to be able to take my Analogue Solutions Vostok or my Metasonix boxes with me to every practice and gig, I rather keep them safe at home. With the Octatrack we can still have access to all of those noises in a live environment and even expand on those thoughts in a really fun and LIVE way.

Check out Introvert on Facebook and SoundCloud"



via Introvert on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

The iPad is a Game Changer for Editing and Controlling All Synths

This is a follow-up to the previous post on the Pulse+ TouchOSC template. After I put the post up I finally got to play and something crazy happened. I found a "bug" in my Chroma editor and discovered a whole new world of sound exploration. A very happy accident.

When creating the TouchOSC templates for the Waldorf Pulse and Rhodes Chroma, my intent was essentially to make a virtual hardware interface for every editable parameter along with a few touch pads - all traditional controls with expected value ranges. The equivalent of a PG-1000 plus some extras. What I discovered was much, much more than that. TouchOSC and the iPad is a major game changer. It will open up synths in a way never imagined. We will be able to do things never possible before now.

How? First, it will help if you think of sonic exploration and the editing of your synths in two ways. The first is relatively static and traditional. You edit the parameters of a patch to arrive at your sonic destination. Simple editing. The second is to view your patch as something you manipulate over time. Either hold a note, start a sequence or an arpeggiation and then edit. I did a bit of this with the Pulse video.

So, how is the iPad and TouchOSC a game changer? It will allow you to do things that you simply cannot with traditional hardware, opening up sound exploration in a way that was not possible before now. Controls will be designed specifically for this purpose. I alluded to this in the last post regarding being able to jump parameter settings vs. a continual slide as you would with hardware sliders and knobs, but after the post I accidentally discovered this was just the tip of the iceberg.

After the post I was no longer focused on testing the template. I was finally free to do a little exploring and two things happened.

The first was obvious. I was able to explore the synth more openly than ever before. Having everything in front of you and access to everything at once allowed me to try things not physically possible directly through the hardware UI of the Pulse. On the Pulse you can only edit one row of parameters at a time and you have to page through to get to them.

The second was not obvious and the reason for this post. Testing out the Rhodes Chroma editor, the filter cutoff and resonance sliders were acting sporadically. I realized the full range of each were repeating. For the filter cutoff the full range went from 0-50 on the slider and then again from 50-100. For the resonance it was repeating every centimeter or so. My first thought was of course, I need to fix this. But, not now. I wanted to play. I had a chord drone going with a fairly long release time. I was just transitioning between chords to get kind of a trance vibe going. I then started using the sliders. At first I tried to only use the bottom half for cutoff but every now and then I'd hit that midway tipping point and it would go down to zero. But.... I found this had an interesting effect on the drone. I then started messing with the resonance slider. It was a very, very cool effect to say the least and I had full control over it. This wasn't something I could do with a PG-1000 controller. This wasn't something I could do on a knob laden Minimoog. It was then that I realized this is a major, major game changer. Not only was I able to interact with a thirty year old synth in a way I never had before, but I was able to interact with a synth in a way never possible before.

So what does this mean? I don't know yet, but I do know it will change how I think of creating controllers for synths. The default is to expose all editable parameters in the logical 0-100% value range. From there? Custom controls with oddball value ranges to do who knows what. Synthesizers have always been about synthesis to me. Not just an end point but synthesis and sound exploration over time. The iPad and custom controls with TouchOSC will allow me to do things never before possible. This is the start of it all.

Update via Kyle in the comments: "I always knew there were parameters of the synth that were "inaccessible," due to the limited values of the preexisting editing controls. With proprietary plugs and no gumption to spend hundreds of hours around this, I'm thinking this could be very cool."

I thought this captured it perfectly. The sound engine of synths are capable, we just didn't have the ability to tap into certain aspects of it before. It's the equivalent of unlocking doors. We now have the ability to create keys to a new universe of sonic exploration. We just don't what the keys are yet. A lot of it will be subtle, but never-the-less amazing when you consider it and even more so when you experience it first hand.

Update:

Video of the Happy Accident. I screwed up my camera's video settings, so apologies for the low resolution. As for what your are seeing, it is very simple. The cutoff resets at the midway point and the resonance repeats much more often. At the end you can hear some percussive sounds coming out when I move the resonance slider. One other thing I discovered with TouchOSC is that once you select a slider you can actually move your finger anywhere on the screen including over other controls without triggering them. You can see my thumb move away from the resonance slider while still manipulating it.


The Happy Accident


Update: Note how you hear a sweep moving up and a "pop" moving down. It's because the sweep up goes from 0 - max smoothly through all values while the sweep down goes from 0 - max instantaneously. That along with jumping values are only two of the things you can't do with traditional hardware. Again, as stated above, who knows what's possible. The point is that it now is. This video might not be that impressive on it's own as unfortunately it doesn't really capture the effect of first noticing the anomoly while expecting something else to happen, but hopefully you get the point. As Art stated in the comments, "I'm excited about the same thing, particularly making it easy to move between multiple simultaneous parameters (morphing between patches basically, but with however much real time control you desire) as well as putting synced sequencers into the mix to automate some of that morphing. Think MIDI-synced LFOs and ENVs on steroids." Take a look at this noteplex video. Imagine that controlling your synths, and not just note values, but assignable sysex and MIDI CC parameters.

Update: here we go - currently supports OSC to MIDI via OSCulator.

What is The Vanilla Synthesizer? It's Ready, That's What

via the STG Soundlabs/muSonics Electronic Newsletter:

Is it The Vanilla Synthesizer or the muSonics TVS?

I started working on this project a year and a half ago.

Originally my thought process was to make a new American format synthesiser that could be sold as modules, kits, and bare boards. I was concerned about the future of the format, and I felt a new line of basic modules and infrastructure at a variety of price points was important. I still do.

STG Soundlabs was a failure because I made things that ultimately the eurorack market simply did not want. Yes, I sold some, and will continue to maintain the line as best as I can, but it's very hard to find photos of eurorack installations with STG Soundlabs modules in them, but rare to find a nice big man-sized synthesiser without my modules in it.

Another thing I wanted to do was teach myself how to do my own engineering. It didn't start that way, but it became that way. I'd been a hardware product developer since 2005 but never actually laid out a circuit board. That is no longer true, and I've done things beyond this project that I haven't even talked about.

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Eurorack Modular Review by Hefix93 of Velvet Acid Christ

Hefix93 of Velvet Acid Christ sent the following review of his new Eurorack format modular synth featuring Doepfer, Plan b, Livewire and a Kenton Pro Solo for MIDI to CV. You will find samples at the end of the review.

"Kenton pro solo: Amazing midi to cv converter, its tight, real tight with logic sending it midi. i like the portamento and other things i can get out of it.. very good, worth every peny, also can do extra cv modulations with the aux out jack.

Plan b model 15 osc: The saw wav on this is simply mystifying. huh? i mean it is the meanest saw i have ever messed with. PWM is not so great, no attenuator and there is only active pulse on the pwm knob from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock (don't know if this is standard on all modulars, as this is my first) this really irritates me [Update: this is addressed at the end of this review by Peter Grenader of Plan b]. I got neat fm sounds, and sync. the sine is pretty cool. The small frequency knob really kinda irks me, its so hard to dial in any kind of tuning, which makes this a real bummer for live use. I hope i can get the pwm to work how i want in the future, if so, this osc will probably me favorite of all time. Seriously rips. This thing is so mean. I want to have him build me a custom osc based on this model 15 with all the things i want. i hope he will. I want a osc octave switch, pwm attenuator and a bigger freq knob that isn't so overly sensitive and hard to tune (granted, these are the first modular oscillators i have used so). I seriously love this osc.

doepfer a-118 Noise/random: wow, i love the colored noise on this module. and the random voltage thing is kinda neat as a modulator on my filter and other things. nice.

doepfer a-138 mixer: Wow this sounds decent. if you over drive this past 7, it gets pretty aggressive, great for the kind of music i do. nice..

doepfer a-131 VCA: Again decent sounding, and man if you go past 7, it gets real mean. i love it..

doepfer a-143 quad lfo: nice to have 4 lfos, i like the speed switch, this goes real slow and nice and fast. i love it. better than most synth lfos i've had. Can go real fast in the high mode, fm audio. nice...

doepfer a-125: this is the best phaser i've ever had, and i haven't had many, makes the phaser in the virus ti sound like a toy..can sound real thick and heavy, very psychedelic. wow. this will make my psy trance tracks kick major butt..

doepfer a-188-1 1024 bbd: Very cool short delay that does chorus and flange ok, not the best i've heard, the modcan sounds the best so far. but for strange detuned rubber band delay modulation sci fi weird stuff, this thing really rocks, but it makes me wish i had room for the 188-2 instead.. hrmm... still really good for the money.

doepfer a-140 adsr: Very snappy. i mean this thing handled my 160 bpm bass duties at 16th notes very well. better than most stuff i have owned. i have not tried to make kick drums yet or other percussion, so i don't know how well it does there. but for bass and leas, out standing fast poppy envs. i have not messed with the other speed settings other than the m. and that suits my needs so far. i got two of these. and man, i'm loving it.... so fast tho, they can pop, you have to mess with the attack and release a tad, but man. it snaps..

doepfer 1-180 multiples: what can i say, they split the multiply a signal by 3. awesome. does its job well. i get 1 in and 3 out x2 per module, i got 2 of these..

Livewire Frequensteiner multimode filter: i saved the best for last. what can i say, this thing is aggressive, and man, it is simply the best multimode filter i have ever owned. The low pass is very aggressive, as is the bandpass, and the highpass, but man, the high pass is the best on this filter. it hisses and bites and cuts in a mix so well, i cannot explain how much i love it. But honestly i really like all the filter modes a lot. if i push the audio input past 7 or 8, it over drives and gets really mean, i mean super pissed. AMAZING. This thing is worth every penny, i love the knobs, and the nice big frequency knob is much loved here. What other multimode filters have i owned? nordlead, jp8080, virus up to the ti, the jupiter 6, the andromeda. This thing is sick, i mean so great, i cannot rave bout it enough. This is now my favorite synth filter ever. Even beating out my love for the minimoog and jupiter 8 filters.. i'm just into that aggressive exciting sound this thing gives me.

I sold my roland jupiter 8 for this [posted here]: i am not looking back, i love that old vintage lush instruments. but i needed something with more balls and bite and aggression, i got it. What i am able to pull of with this is amazing seriously mean bass and leads, that cut on all frequencies of the spectrum. And all the strange ufo sci blips and beeps that modulars are know for as well. This doesn't sound vintage, it has its own new sound, its stable and alive, but very precise and tight. zippy, and responsive. so much more so than i am used to. the modulations in the andromeda were sluggish and oogy, this is lightning fast and responsive, just how i like it. I am so glad that i took this big step. Sure i have some issues with the implementations on the the plan b model 15 with its pwm strangeness, but other than that, i love it all. I took back my virus ti and vsynths because they just didn't cut into my analog drum machine and monosynth dominated mixes. This thing does. it can get in there with my sh2, and future retro revolution just fine. as to where my virus would sound all faint and wouldn't cut, even with the high pass, it would kinda get lost and not stand out. that is not a problem here with this system. This is why i love analog so much more in the kind of music i make, i need stuff that has presence in the mix. digital doesnt. ANALOG DOES!

Sure after it was all said and done, it cost me about $2750. I bought it all from Analogue Haven .. please if you do buy stuff because of these sound demos, tell them that you heard the clips from velvet acid christ and read this review. I want a hook up for getting him business. I'm addicted to this modular stuff, and i need all the help i can get now.. :) Shawn really is the one who help me build this system. He and i go way back. I'm so glad his store exists now. really helped me out here. i've been lusting after a fat system with a multimode filter for years. I FINALLY HAVE FOUND IT.. i'm so happy..

Oh and by the way, i made a bunch of quick sound demos of the this system doing the typical vac arp lines and basses. Feel free to check em out. I hope this gets you interested in modulars.. They are not just for strange blips and beeps, they can be great musical instruments as well. not just for the weird sci fi. take care.

bryan aka hexfix93 aka phuckhead aka disease factory....."

Samples:
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteinera-125vcp.mp3
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteiner2lp125vcp1881bbd.mp3
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteinerlp3.mp3
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteinerlp4.mp3
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteinerlp5.mp3
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteinerbp6.mp3
http://www.velvetacidchrist.com/synth/model15frequensteinerhp7.mp3

Update via Peter Grenader of Plan b regarding PWM on the Plan b Model 15:"Morning...

The PWM construction is designed that way so that there are more possibilities for the VC input. I played around with this a lot while cooking the VCO, you're going to get some very interesting sounds when the manual offset is positioned to either the far left or right (either into the 'silent' zone) and a VC is applied to pull it back into audio that aren't availible otherwise. My PWM sound is unique, I wanted to keep it that way.

I think there is a misconception that by only having the square audible from 10 to 2 that you're loosing something. You're not - it's all there, it sweeps from full neg, through 0 to 100 duty cycle, then back from 100 to 0 to full positive. it just transverses that from the 10 o' clock pot setting to the 2 o clock pot setting. the balance of the pot regions, when the signal is zero is not wasted, it's there for VC possibilities.

If you own one of these, try it, you'll see what I'm speaking about. Move the pot to silence, apply and VC, then move the pot to so that the square isn't silent and apply the same VC. I didn't want to loose both effects.

hope this helps,

- P "

Note on Ebay Auction Links

All Ebay auctions on this site are affiliate links. What are affiliate links? In short paid links. The way it works is Ebay charges you to put an item up for auction. That's how they make money. They keep 100% of that charge if the buyer comes to the auction directly. If a buyer comes to an auction through an affiliate link like the ones on this site, then they give a percentage of that 100% to the owner of the affiliate link. That would be me. I figure if I'm going to put a link up to an auction, why let Ebay keep 100%. They are a big company and they can afford to help support this site. I do all of this on my own free time and I believe sites like this should be free and supported by ads that are useful and relevant. Never buy anything you do not want to. Also, note that the affiliate fee comes out of that 100%, it is not an additional charge, so it does not cost the buyer or seller of the auction more. Why is Ebay willing to do this? Because they figure it will drive more traffic to them. In my case it would probably be the same as I do not put up posts for the sake of the affiliate links. If I did you would see a whole lot more going up. I was actually a bit uncomfortable with the amount I put up so I created MATRIXSYNTH-B to cut the noise down. I only put the most interesting items up here - either the best shots, the rarest and most unique items, or interesting bits of synth history found in the details of auctions - I only put up posts if they merit a post regardless of the source, whether that be Ebay, Flickr, or other. Why am I putting up this note here? Because I do not want to put it up with every single auction post that goes up. I don't think most would appreciate having to read this in every single post. Why not just say it's an affiliate link in the post and be done with it? Because affiliate links mean different things to different people and I want to explain exactly what it is on this site. Note that there is still a bar for MATRIXSYNTH-B. I frequently post auctions people send me on both MATRIXSYNTH and MATRIXSYNTH-B, and I respect anonymity, although on MATRIXSYNTH I will only put auction posts that meet the bar above. If I posted everything on Ebay, you would see everything here go up. Note saving and posting all of this stuff does take a lot of my time, and it doesn't cost you (buyer or seller) anything. I spend 3-6 hours every single day, Monday through Sunday, on the blog. What I do get from Ebay helps with the sanity.

Crazy Synth Dreams and a Real Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard (Review)

I had another synth dream last night. This time I was out in LA making a trip to Noisebug with my wife. When I get there it turned into me just happening to drive by and noticing it was there. Hey, there's Noisebug, can I check it out!? Followed by a reluctant yes from my wife. :) Odd how dreams work that way. Note I've never actually been to Noisebug, so this was just my imagination. When we get there a guy comes out to our car and while I'm sitting there, I ask him what he has that might be interesting. Drive-up service! He says he has a Waldorf Pulse for $249 and some other things. I ask about the Pulse and he brings it out to me. I decide I must have it even though I already have a Pulse Plus. You can chain them for polyphony. I then convince my wife that I should go in and have a look around. I do and the place is probably a 4500 square foot warehouse, high ceilings like Costco, filled with synths and other electronics. Kind of like a massive or rather mini JRR World in New York but in an industrial flea market type setting. There are a number of shops in the open space. Tons of used synths. I start walking the aisles and see a few Oberheim DXs, OB-Xas and a few interesting Waldorfs. There's an orange XT with custom writing on it and coloring. If I remember correctly there's some 80s digital and DCO based analogs, a DX7, KORG DW8000 and some other random synths. I go to buy my Pulse Plus at one of the counters closest to the entrance and I notice a Yellow Waldorf Q with some red writing on it. It says something about Waldorf and it's in Spanish. Apparently Waldorf made it for one of the hispanic guys in the shop. The guy behind the counter points at him and rolls his eyes. Anyway, I pay for the Pulse Plus and I ask him if he has anything else for such a good deal. He says he has a Roland D50 for $150. I always wanted one so I ask him if I could check it out. I do and it's in fantastic shape. It has a green led type display with operator algorithms. Note the D50 isn't an FM synth. In my dream I wonder what that might be. The pitch benders on it are actually long thin pull tabs but you don't pull them, you press down on them. Kind of like the proportional pitch control on some of the ARP Odysseys but more like thin extended keys that you press down. It was actually pretty nice feeling but somewhat cheap. I tell him I'll take it and he takes it away to prep it for me. I head to another section and there's a Prophet-5 hiding under a card table for $554! My wife is going to kill me. I turn it on and all voices are working but they are out of tune and the keys have graffiti on them from Sharpies. It's also physically shorter than a full size Prophet-5 - about three octaves. I debate on whether I should get it and I think I could really use Stephen of Synthwood.com's help as he definitely knows his Prophets (in real life too!). He says probably not since I have one already. I ask him if he plans to pick it up. :) He says nooooo. The sales guy lets me know the D50 is ready, so I leave Stephen playing the Prophet-5. When I'm walking over to the counter to purchase the D50 the guy says with the additional $50 off, the D50 will come out to $100 and the Pulse is $200. Both are pristine! What a deal! While I'm purchasing them I realize my wife is still in the car!!! She's going to kill me!!! But if I explain the good deal I got, I'm sure she'll understand even though I've been in there for a good 30 to 40 minutes. :)

And that's it! I haven't had a good synth dream in a while. What caused it and why Noisebug? Well... I'm sure it has something to do with that Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard you see here. It just arrived yesterday from Noisebug! My initial impressions? Absolutely fantastic synth. Note, I've only had a little over a few hours with it, so the following impressions are initial. I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but I have spent time with quite a few synths, analog and digital. I'm a bit of a Waldorf fanboy, but not because it's Waldorf. They just make fantastic sounding synths with impeccable design. I do love most if not all synths though. I have a tendancy to look for the good in synths and what each individual synth has to offer vs. looking for what's wrong and/or negatively comparing a given synth to another with obviously more power. That said, here are my initial impressions:

On the physical design:
Extremely classy looking, superb keyboard and knobs. Solid metal construction. The mod and pitch wheels are light, thin and have little pointers poking out at the mid points. At first I thought they might be a little flimsy, and I wasn't sure how the I'd like them, but so far they feel good. I like them.

On the interface:
Extremely well laid out. I wasn't sure if it would be difficult to navigate, as if you look at the top right you will see that the matrix there only has the most common parameters you might want to edit for each section. How do you dig deeper? Well, with any section selected (indicated by the led on the left of the matrix), you turn the top left knob (photo above) by the display to get to deeper settings. You then use the two knobs under the display to edit. The display BTW, is pretty nice. Anything you edit shows up graphically and changes in real time. Overall the synth is super easy to navigate. The endless knobs are smooth and solid.

On the sound:
Definitely Waldorf but more. Like I said above, I have an XT, Q and Pulse Plus. The XT is a wavetable synth, which means you select a wavetable as a sound source. Think of a wavetable as a spreadsheet holding a single cycle waveform in each cell. Once a wavetable is selected you can then set the cell reference point for each oscillator. You can then apply modulation to that reference point to sweep through the wavetable. You can do this with an LFO, Envelops, aftertouch, the mod wheel, etc. With the XT note that all oscillators share the same wavetable, so there is only one shared across oscillators in a single patch. With the Blofeld you can have a different wavetable for each OSC 1 and OSC 2. With the XT however, if you change wavetables while holding a note down, you will hear the wavetable change. You can get some really cool effects going this way. With the Blofeld the wavetable does not change until the next note is played. Note if you have an arpeggio going on the Blofeld the sound will change. OSC 3 is your standard virtual analog oscillator. Note OSCs 1 and 2 do have virtual analog waveshapes. The Blofeld has the XT wavetables and the Alt 1 and Alt 2 wavetables from the Q. In addition to wavetable and virtual analog synthesis, the Blofeld also has sample based synthesis! The samples act as oscillators to be used as sound sources in the synth engine - think synthesis as the focus vs. sampling. What it does is bring a whole new sound palette to the Waldorf line of synthesis. When I think Waldorf, I think wavetables and VA, now sample based oscillators have been added to the mix. How does it sound? Fantastic! There are some nice organic samples on board including a really nice Nylon guitar patch A014. I did notice a small quirk with this patch though. If you hold down C2 or a couple of notes around it the loop repeats at the end point much like old samplers. It doesn't do this for the rest of the keyboard range and I didn't notice it on other patches. Update: this problem went away after updating the OS. I went from 1.10 incrementally up to 1.13.

As for audio quality, presence and hi fidelity, the synth sounds absolutely amazing. One of my biggest gripes with some virtual analog synths out there is that they can sound somewhat muffled and weak. They are missing that certain boldness and presence you find in many analogs. A bit watered down so to speak. I was curious how the Blofeld would sound in this regard. To my ears it is very, very bold. Possibly more so than the Q rack - almost more "analog" sounding. It's on par with the Pulse and either as bold if not bolder than the XTk. It really has presence.

Summary
Overall, I am in love with this synth. For the price, $999 from Noisebug, it is an absolute steel. It is super compact, more so than the Nord Lead, it's built like a tank, has a fantastic interface and the sound is bold and broad. You have virtual analog, wavetable and now sample based synthesis. If this synth came out at the same time as the original Q I could see it going for twice as much. I'd recommend this synth to anyone. It is a great starter synth to learn the basics of subtractive synthesis and you can dig real deep. The interface is a breeze to navigate and the synth engine is extremely powerful in spite of it's price. Highly, highly recommended. Note there have been some bugs reported on the Waldorf list. Waldorf is working on updates, however the current bugs may or may not matter to you.

And.. that's all for now. Synth dreams and a real synth dream come true for me. I love my Blofeld!

I want to give a special thanks to Antonio at Noisebug. He was a pleasure to deal with. I ordered my Blofeld on Tuesday, it was shipped that day, and it arrived on schedule Friday. I was given a tracking number on Tuesday without having to ask and I was able to plan accordingly. I had absolutely fantastic service from Noisebug and can highly recommend them. Note they currently have the Blofeld Keyboard on sale from now until the end of July for $999 which is what I paid for mine. It's one heck of a birthday present. :)

You can find more pics including box shots here.

Update: soon after I wrote this mini review, I later hooked up the MIDI out on my Blofeld Keyboard and to my dismay it was not working. I had OS 1.10 loaded. Upgrading to 1.11 fixed the problem. I then upgraded to 1.12 followed by 1.13 and the fix stayed in tack. MIDI out is working. I just wanted to note this in the post in case anyone else ran into the problem. You can find the latest updates here. Note, one other person on the Waldorf user forum also had the problem on 1.10 and upgrading took care of it.

Elhardt on Synthesis

Elhardt. Some of you may recognize the name. For those of you that do, it might conjure up a number of reactions, some good some bad. : ) He has been the source of a number of controversies and one grand spectacle in the synth world - the Bahn Sage. The Bahn Sage was probably the biggest synth spoof ever. I remember spending weeks with others trying to find more on this mystery synth. A photo showed up on the net and it quickly spread, followed by more, and finally a brochure that had people whipping out their Photoshop skills to analyze in detail. In the end it was a fake; a brilliant hoax.

Now Elhardt has be showcasing his amazing programming skills by conjuring up some of the most realistic acoustic examples of real life instruments with an Alesis ION, Andromeda A6, and MOTM modular. Is it real or is it another hoax like the Sage? Who knows. I'm inclined to believe these samples are real given the attention to detail with the Bahn Sage, and replications of real world instruments by synthesists such as Wendy Carlos in the past, but you never know, do you. His samples are pretty awe inspiring (check out the links to some of my previous posts below for some examples, specifically the realistic drum set).

Another controversial perspective on synthesis from Elhardt? Knobs are not performance controllers. They are used to edit and create sounds. That's it. If you want to control sounds while playing, use the dedicated performance controllers on the synth like the mod wheels and keyboard. : ) I like to play outside of the box myself. Regardless I am impressed by Elhardt, and I do appreciate his dedication to synthesis.

Recently Elhardt sent an email to AH on his perspective on synthesis. I asked him if it would be ok for me to post it and he said yes. Enjoy. Or not. : )

Elhardt on Synthesis:

"Following are all the reasons I like to do realistic emulations of reality.

1) There is nothing interesting about playing samples. Everbody is doing that. Buy a $200 Casio and it does it. The skill of synthesis is completely missing. An artist paints a landscape, he doesn't just snap a photo of it. Sample libraries make everybody sound the same. If everybody synthesized their own acoustic sounds, everybody would have a different style.

2) Sample libraries are so insanely huge and can't even be fully used in real-time. I'd have to spend weeks sifting through 35 Gig of string samples and articulations and go through days of intense sequencer/midi programming to get them to play in a realistic manner. I'd have to use them from a computer with bug-ridden software. Major sample libraries are never complete, and constant updates suck money from you for the rest of your life. It's all going in the wrong direction.

3) I want instruments that play like physically modeled instruments. I just call up one patch and play it expressively in real-time. Simple. I also want to do instruments I can't buy samples of, or create brandnew instruments never heard before.

4) BTW, I have a lot of sample libraries, and some of the instruments suck, sometimes it's just a few notes that suck, sometimes the attacks are too slow and they can't be played fast, there are mistakes made (like clicking noises in garritans trombones, or a mono sample within stereo samples and so on), there's the repetative nature of hearing the sample recording played everytime the note is played, and so on.

5) Synthesis died in the 80's, before anybody ever pushed it to its limits. That is unsatisfying to me. When I first heard Tomita, I thought he was synthesizing virtually everything. Through the years, I found out he was using real instruments, mellotrons, and other acoustic methods in places. I want to do what he didn't. When I do a CD, I want to say I created all those sounds. As synthesists, aren't we supposed to show those snobby acoustic musicians we don't need them or their sounds?

6) Acoustic sounds are complex and hard to synthesize. It demonstrates extreme skill, knowledge of sound, and totoal control over a synthesizer to accomplish the advanced and difficult programming to acheive some of those sounds. It requires coming up with new techniques and tricks which are challenging and have never been done before. We've been hearing awful string patches, corny brass patches, cheesy drum patches for decades now. I want to push subtractive synthesis to its limits to see what it can really do, even if it were for no other reason than to say, "see", it really can be done.

7) Doing spacey synth pads and sequenced bass lines and that stuff is all nice and good, and I create many patches like those myself. But those things are relatively easy to accomplish. They don't force you into extreme patches of a 100 modules or into using a 42 band filter bank and spending weeks to acheive something nobody else can seem to do. You can't do this stuff on a Minimoog or OB-8. So as Matthew pointed out, it's mostly unexplored terrain. And doing something for the first time is more motivating to me than doing things already done.

BTW, my latest Nord violin I believe sounds better than the Synful one over certain ranges of notes. After I make two more passes through the 42 band filter bank refining it, I think I may have a better sounding violin over the entire range. Though it still won't play as smoothy. I'm also back to working on my additive string synth for the winter. The one I started working on before Synful hit the market and took some of the wind out of my sail."

Some previous posts on Elhardt:

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/08/bahn-sage.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/12/alesis-ion-ralistic-drum-kit.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11/alesis-ion-demos-by-kenneth-elhardt.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11/alesis-andromeda-a6-and-motm-demos-by.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11/alesis-andromeda-a6-samples-by-kenneth.html

Mutable Instruments to Ramp Down DIY

via Mutable Instruments

"Please take the time to read this...

After careful considerations, I have decided to progressively ramp down the production of most of Mutable Instruments’ DIY line.

=== The reasons ===
* Some of these products are getting old and/or are not as successful as I thought they would be, and it doesn’t make much sense to keep them in inventory when only a couple units are sold in a month - while their price has been decided at a time they were produced in batches of 100s.
* There’s little overlap in the way Mutable Instruments’ as a maker of modules, and Mutable Instruments’ as a maker of DIY kits operate; to the point that it really feels like I’m running two companies; dealing with two groups of suppliers, two ways of managing accounting or keeping track of stock etc. Some decisions related to growth (small things like formalizing procedures through software, or big things like relocating or hiring…) can’t really be done in a way that would serve both missions. I have reached a size at which a choice must be made, and the ratio of things I like to do / annoyances is higher when it comes to the kit business.
* I no longer agree with some of the design decisions (be they aesthetic or technical) defining these products. It just feels wrong to me to sell products I would not personally buy.
* I’d like to explore a few (non-music and/or non-electronics and/or non-DIY) projects and I badly need to make room in my life for that.

=== The consequences ===
I do not plan to produce new batches of the following products:
* MIDIpal. There are currently 55 units left in stock. I’m keeping a small stash to serve warranty requests. As time passes, I’ll get rid of them (without warranty).
* Shruthi XT kits. There are currently about 50 kits left in stock.
* Anushri (as a kit and as a PCB set). There are currently about 100 kits left in stock. I only have 40 Euro panel sets, so I might do a small run of them to prevent the last kits from being sold naked.
* Shruthi filter boards. I have in stock (or on order for the Polivoks and Yellow magic) about 50 pairs of filter boards. The digital filter board is already out of production.
* Ambika (as a kit and as bare PCBs). I currently have 50 kits being sorted, which will be available as a bundle with Adrian’s case in november or early december. I still have a big stash of PCBs – so this one will take more time to disappear.

I do plan to produce new batches of the following products:
* Shruthi kit. There’s really nothing quite like this little beast. I might narrow it down to one or two flavors (like vanilla = kit+plexi case and vanilla-caramel-choco-chips-cookie-dough = 4PM kit + metal case).
The fate of the following products is unknown:
* CVpal.
* Module tester.

=== And after that? ===
Some of you might want to organize small community-runs of PCBs to keep one of these products alive – just as it has been done for the Sidekick. I’m fine with that, but obviously I won’t provide any support.

Keeping the DIY line alive through a commercial initiative is something that requires more thought. If this happens, and I am currently exploring several paths for this to happen, this has to be done in a way that does not involve the Mutable Instruments name, or only as a sort of quote or tribute."

Replica Buchla 100 series modular synth: LA67 Mort’s Barge

video upload by Tom Churchill

"This video is about Mort’s Barge - a replica mini-system of five Buchla 100 series modules that were used by electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick in the mid-1960s. I recently built the 4U DIY modules from LA67, and in this video I walk through the features and create a few patches that show what they’re capable of.

My build notes are here:
https://www.modwiggler.com/forum/view...

Find out more about the Mort’s Barge DIY set on the LA67 website:
https://www.lasesentaysiete.com/mort-..."

You can find additional posts featuring Mort's Barge here.



Notes and pics via Tom Churchill's post on Mod Wiggler:

"I thought I’d share a couple of things I learned along the way which maybe aren’t immediately obvious from the BOMs alone, in case anyone else is planning to tackle the build and is looking for some tips.

Some of this stuff has no doubt been covered earlier in the thread, so apologies for any repetition. Also, a lot will probably be obvious to experienced builders, but I’m definitely not in that category yet, so for anyone else (like me) who’s only built Eurorack kits previously, maybe isn’t super-familiar with circuit theory and component sourcing, it might be useful.

Enclosure:
After I ordered the panels and PCBs from LA67 I contacted Julian at The Beast to ask about his 6U Buchla boats. As luck would have it he still had a couple of the special boats he supplied to LA67 for the pre-built Mort’s Barge systems, with matt black coating and pre-drilled holes for power inlet, power switch and grounding banana socket, so I snagged one.
I added some rubber feet to allow a bit of clearance for the screws I used to mount the PSU PCB (see below) and to avoid the underside getting scratched.
For mounting the modules, I bought a pack of 20 M3 speed fasteners (aka captive nuts, aka Tinnermans) from eBay, and secured the modules using M3 6mm screws with plastic washers.
Power:
The PSU PCB doesn’t require any caps and you just need to solder one bridge as marked. (This is now clear on the Mort’s Barge PSU BOM, but it wasn’t at first.)
I mounted the PSU PCB on 8mm M2.5 standoffs via the pre-drilled holes in the bottom of the boat.
I added a 2.1.mm DC inlet and wired a 20mm round rocker switch in series.
I added a single banana socket connected to 0V to provide a ground for any other cases I might want to use with it (and for connecting to Eurorack - see below).
For the AC-DC converter I just used a standard 12V 2A wall wart I had lying around, with a 2.1mm centre positive barrel connector.
I used the 2-pin Molex connectors as per the BOM to distribute power to the individual modules (with the power cables hard-wired to the individual module PCBs)
Component sourcing:
I combined the individual BOMs for the five modules into one master BOM, ticked off what I already had in stock (mostly resistors), then ordered any other required resistors, trimmers, pots, 2N3904/6 transistors and various bits of hardware from Tayda; caps, specialist transistors, diodes, switches, knobs, lamps etc from Mouser.
I’m in the UK and banana sockets worked out slightly cheaper from Thonk, so I ordered those there. I also bought the necessary matched transistor pairs from Thonk to save time (I don’t have the tools or experience to match them myself!)
Changes:
This might be sacrilege to Buchla purists but I went for Switchcraft 3.5mm sockets instead of Tini-Jax - I already have lots of 3.5mm patch cables and it makes for easier integration.
The 910p film caps on the BOM are huge - 10mm lead spacing - and expensive. I ordered them before I realised this, and with a bit of leg straightening/bending they do fit fine in the 158 and 180 boards, but I replaced them with these much smaller and cheaper 1n mylar film caps for the 140 - https://www.switchelectronics.co.uk/1nf ... apacitor-5 - and they work just fine.
The BOM has since been corrected, but slightly annoyingly at the time I was ordering, the part code for the Dialight lamps in the 123 was out of date, so the ones that arrived in my original order were the wrong size. I had to do a separate order for the correct parts, 609-1122-130F. These aren’t cheap, so double check that you’re getting 9mm ones!
On the 158 BOM, there’s a suggestion to use 1n5 instead of 47n for C11 to reduce saw wave distortion. I put sockets in for that and tried both - the 1n5 definitely gives a much cleaner saw so I’ve stuck with that. I also left out C8 as suggested to improve sine shape - I didn’t try it with it included but the sine is definitely a good shape without so I’ll stick without it.
General tips:
I built them in the left to right order they’re shown on the LA67 photos - 158, 110, 180, 140, 123. It was pretty easy to test this way.
Calibration-wise there’s not much to do - the trimmers on the 158 adjust the sine shape and upper and lower frequency limits; use the 110 trimmers to minimise clicking with a raw trigger in; the 140 trimmers set the upper and lower period (I haven’t really touched these)
For the wiring, I soldered pins to the PCB and used a bunch of F-F Dupont jumper wires, cut in half, so if I ever need to take the board off I can simply pull these off and don’t need to desolder anything. For the multiple outputs I mostly just used old resistor legs to bridge them.
Integrating with Eurorack clock is easy - both the 180 and the 123 respond to triggers as low as 5V (e.g. from Pam’s). I don’t use a format jumbler, just a 3.5mm to two bananas cable, with the ground banana connected to the spare ground I fitted near the power switch. I don’t think I’ll ever bother trying to send CV from Eurorack but this way I can at least clock it to the rest of my system if I want to, and maybe even play around with some more complex rhythm patterns.
Anyway, hope that’s handy for someone - I’ll share a bunch of patches on YouTube soon!"

Making The Tracks - Elektron Analog Keys , RTYM and Dave Smith Pro 2

Published on Jul 22, 2017 100 Things I Do

"This week I thought I would do something with my Elektron kit + the Dave Smith Pro 2. Its been a while since I actually turned on the Pro 2 being consumed with learning and using other parts of the studio. I forget how great the filters can be … oh.. .and how you can over saturate the digital delay lines a little too easy when not focusing!

Thought I would do something a little more like the tracks I normally make when not making youtube videos. The two things I seem to get asked for the most are longer clips and people wanting to see me work live. Australian internet it a little slow at best so live streaming is not possible in my area without using LTE/4G Mobile data….Very Expensive!

I set up my camera and the Microsoft Surface 4 to record the clip and edited the results. The music and my playing is 100% live (at the time) warts and all. Hope you enjoy :D"

Throw out the Preset #2 - Bladerunner Sound with the Sequential Prophet-6

video by 100 Things I Do

"I thought today we could have a look and how we can take inspiration from the function of the CS-80 and how it makes a specific sound to drive easy patch creation of that classic Bladerunner Opening synth sound."

And the previous episode with Logic Sampler:

Throw out the Preset#1

video by 100 Things I Do

"In the first Video for this year I thought I would kick off what will hopefully be a new series of videos called 'Throw out the Preset'. The title is of course in jest but I really want to continuing encouraging you all to explore what can be done with your Synths, Samplers, instruments and studio software"

Further Synclavier Adventures

video by 100 Things I Do

"Its been a while since I did a Synclavier clip..... so here it is!

In some ways i'm going back to the beginning and explaining how to create patches and how to explore this unique implementation of FM :D"

100 Things I Do Synclavier posts

An Interview with Barry Schrader

Hi everyone! As you know Barry Schrader will be giving his farewell concert at CalArts on September 26. The following is the beginning of my interview with him. I opted to post the questions and answers as they come in.  New QAs will get a new post so you do not miss them and they will be added to this post so we have one central post for the full interview. This should make it easier for all of us to consume in our busy lives, and it will allow you to send in any questions that may come to mind during the interview process.  If you have anything you'd like to ask Barry, feel free to send it in to matrixsynth@gmail.com.  This is a rare opportunity for us to get insight on a significant bit of synthesizer history, specifically with early Buchla systems, and I'd like to thank Barry for this opportunity. Thank you Barry!

CLICK FOR MORE »

DIY "IKEA Hack" Plate Reverb. Sub $100.

Published on Nov 20, 2018 LeoMakes

Cool new DIY video from supporting MATRIXSYNTH member, LeoMakes. Update: part 2 added below.

"Watch Leo make a surprisingly good-sounding and "playable" plate reverb using an IKEA shelf and some basic electronics. It's a quick build that costs less than $100 in parts!

NOTE: This is a super-hacky prototype I made quickly as a proof-of-concept. It sounds nice, but there are several things that I will improve as time goes on, so keep an eye out for that (I'll post updates here).

Here are the parts I used. In case anyone is wondering, I am not endorsed or compensated by IKEA (or anyone else).

IKEA Bror Legs ($16): https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/pr...

IKEA Bror Shelves -- you need two of these ($17 x 2):
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/pr...

A transducer (there are many options; here is what I used):
https://www.electrokit.com/en/product...

Two piezo pickups (again, many options; here is what I used):
https://www.electrokit.com/en/product...

There is a lot more research I would like to do with the selection of transducer and pickups (and probably a lot of other things). If you build one of these or have made your own plate reverb in the past, please feel free to share your valuable wisdom in the comments!"

DIY "IKEA Hack" Plate Reverb Part 2 (Sounds amazing now!)

Published on Dec 11, 2018 LeoMakes

"Leo makes major improvements the (now famous) IKEA plate reverb in his last video! Total upgrade cost is about $40 and makes the reverb sound 100x better!

Audio Examples at 12:54

Here are the upgrade items and their approximate costs:
- Angle grinder (I rented it for $8/day)
- Cutting and sanding discs for angle grinder ($9)
- Box of springs ($8 and you only use a few of them)
- M4 screws, washersand wingnuts ($5)
- MDF board ($9)

I have made IR (impulse responses) of both the original and upgraded versions of the plate. I'll make a video about that soon and will be sharing the files for free. Please stay tuned for that.

If you build one of these or have made your own plate reverb in the past, please feel free to share your valuable wisdom in the comments!

My synth company (i.e., what I do when I'm not making videos):
http://www.strangesci.com"

"IKEA Hack" Plate Reverb Part 3 (Free IR files!)

Published on Dec 20, 2018 LeoMakes

"Leo makes and gives away IR (Impulse Response) files of the now-famous IKEA Plate Reverb! And it's 100% free!

Viewers have been asking me about posting IR files since the first episode and I thought it would be a good video subject. So in this video, I explain how convolution works, walk you through the process of making an impulse response file and demo some sounds. It sounds just like the real thing!

You can download the free IR files from the following:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3h28jv0wap...

(You can load these .aif files into most convolution reverb plugins to get the IKEA plate sounds in your own music).

If you use these IR files and create some beautiful, brilliant, amazing music (or other art) please come back and share it in the comments below! I get a huge kick out of seeing my work inspiring the art of other people.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2019!

My synth company (i.e., what I do when I'm not making videos):
http://www.strangesci.com"

TR-909 Firmware Version 5 Demos

See this post for details.

Playlist:

1. TR-909 FIRMWARE VERSION 5 UPGRADE!!!

// The most wonderful thing that could have ever happened for Roland TR-909 owners and lovers has actually happened.

2. TR-909 FIRMWARE V.5 - Demonstration 1 - MIDI SYNC CORRECTION

// I’ve installed one of the first Revolution 909 firmware upgrades from Addictive Instruments into my own personal Roland TR-909 and I released a little enthusiastic clip about how delighted I am to have 33 year old serious problems resolved. This is the first of a few posts planned for today to show you why it’s so amazing to me.

3. TR-909 FIRMWARE VERSION 5 - Demonstration 2 - SWITCH BETWEEN PLAY AND WRITE MODE IN REAL TIME

// This is something that I’ve been thinking about since 1991 when I first got my own TR-909: The ability to switch between pattern play and pattern write without having to stop the sequencer.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
The TR-909 in pattern write mode allows us to do some clever things. We can change the length of the pattern using last step, and we can add and subtract notes and accents (internal and external) to develop our pattern. However, we can only do this in write mode.
So in order to do these things in performance we have to A ) stop, change modes, and start again B ) stay in write mode always (can’t change patterns in write mode) C ) program our drums from another device entirely D ) add all the chaos, and then use the level knobs to bring sounds in and out (the way maestro Jeff Mills makes magic!) or E ) make a ton of patterns ahead of time and switch between them as our performance.
We can do mutes on a mixer, use a midi controller. There are options, but when I’m playing live it’s just me. I have stuff happening. It’s a lot to navigate and keep track of. Changing mixer settings, dealing with midi controllers, or even flipping through preset patterns can be distracting and a bummer. Adding the ability to just get into write mode and change the length for a fill, or a sidetrack, or a totally new in the moment idea is fantastic!

4. TR-909 FIRMWARE VERSION 5- Demonstration 3 - MUTES

// This is something which I didn’t anticipate being so amazing. I use mutes on the mixer as a fundamental part of how I perform live, but I don’t tend to reach for instrument mute functions on the actual devices. This is not a personal bias, but rather a point of clarity. I’m doing like 25 things at once in any given performance (and singing) so it’s pretty easy to forget what I’ve muted or un muted unless it’s in central place (like on the mixer), but after all I just explored in demonstration clip 2 about ways to add and subtract sounds live, mutes are a marvelous and really powerful addition to this list of ways to address patten complexity in a live performance.

5. TR-909 FIRMWARE VERSION 5 - Demonstration 4 - INSTANT PATTERN CHANGES

// Ok, this is really simple, but it’s so super extra totally bad ass.

Fig.1 INSTANT PATTERN CHANGES
The thing about the TR-909 is that it doesn’t instantly change patterns. You have to wait for the end, and then it starts the next selected pattern. To get around this you can do some stuff:
• make some really complicated patterns
• make one big complex pattern and then use the mixer to bring things in and out (fun!)
But this is fantastic! Just hold down shift and start instantly jumping between patterns. Add a crash from a crashy pattern, start a fill, and switch to just a kick drum, mix and match patterns and really get something heavy going - THEN get involved with the mixer, and it’s a gorgeous avalanche of TR-909 awesome!

In my example here I’m just showing you that it’s possible now. The rest is up to you.

Addictive Instruments have released firmware version 5 for the Roland TR-909 and the RE-909. It’s a real upgrade which requires soldering and while it isn’t easily reversible, the upgrade also includes firmware v1 and v4 so you can revert by choosing another firmware and booting it that way (no one would ever know).

Find out more at revolution909.fr
This first batch is limited to 100 so if you’re as happy about this as I am, hurry up!
That said, I believe in these guys and totally hope that this all goes well, and this will continue to be available (and more!) until all the TR/RE-909’s have one inside.

This was demo 4, one more and I’ll leave the rest to you.

6. TR-909 FIRMWARE VERSION 5 - Demonstration 5 - EXTERNAL INSTRUMENT

// I’ve been using the EXT INST function of the Roland TR-909 since the day I got it. I love triggering samples, basslines, and other drum machines from the stately TR-909’s main panel. The hassle has always been that the notes it generates can’t be changed. So you get an octave or so of fixed notes and that’s all. I’ve spent a lot of time messing with samplers and getting the sounds I want to trigger from the notes I have to offer, and while it’s fun, and useful, it can be a drag. Fact is, a lot of people never even explored it.

Fig.1 CENTRAL CONTROL WITH TR-727
The TR-727 doesn’t allow us to control its midi notes either, but the Addictive Instruments firmware v.5 update has presets and it has a user mode (fig.2). So we can play any note we want on any channel we want at any velocity we want now.
My 727 is upgraded with Harry Axten‘s perfect sound rom upgrade, and this is my own custom rom, and here it is being beautifully programmed by my beloved TR-909!

Fig.3 BASSLINE
This is an example of using the user template to create a chromatic keyboard and programming a bassline which is saved with my drums, and subject to all the new and original functions of the 909.
So much fun!

Clearly I was already in love with my TR-909, but I’ve fallen all over again here.

The external instrument mode is expanded, and it much more powerful now, it’s also nicely documented (at last) in the manual. It is more complicated than plug it in and go if you want to make the most of it, and it’s worth it. This is something wonderful.

Roland Interview with the Developers of the Original JUPITER-8, JUNO-106, and JX-3P

The interview is currently on Roland's site here. The text is captured below for the archives.

"WHAT ARE YOUR HONEST OPINIONS REGARDING THE ROLAND BOUTIQUE SERIES? AS DEVELOPERS OF THE ORIGINAL PRODUCTS, WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE MODERN RECREATIONS?

Takahashi:I'd heard about this product series rather early on thanks to my position at the company, and my honest feeling about it was that I was excited. I was truly excited at the prospect of a simulation being released of a product that I was involved with decades ago. Synthesizers from those days have a unique feel that you can only get on analog, so I was interested in seeing how much of that could be reproduced in the digital realm. I knew that the Roland Boutique series development team was working on this very seriously. More than being intrigued, I was truly very excited.

Matsui:I'm no longer with the company, so I hadn't heard about this until very recently when someone mentioned, "We're working on this project relating to the JX-3P." Honestly, I was very happy to hear that. I was very happy to hear that Roland will be releasing a product that I had a part in developing in the past in a new form. That's because the JX-3P was a very special product for me.

DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING MEMORIES RELATING TO THE JX-3P?

Matsui:That synth was developed at Roland's Matsumoto factory. I was working at Matsumoto at the time and was involved in guitar synth development. Guitar synths up to the GR-300 and GR-100 were based on converting pitch into a CV (Control Voltage) signal, which would then trigger an analog synth. But for the next generation of guitar synths, we decided to use a design where pitch would be converted to MIDI, which would then control the sound engine digitally (though the sound engine itself would still be analog). We studied how guitarists were using the GR-300 and GR-100 and realized that they didn't do much sound creation on their own. (Laughs.) So if that was the case, we decided to go with an easy-to-use synth with presets. And this was the start of the GR-700 project.

The [GR-700] would feature a built-in pitch-to-MIDI converter and a sound engine with presets. But even if this was to be a preset synth, it would still be too difficult to create sounds without any knob controls. So we made a programmer—solely for development purposes—with which we could adjust the tones. Sometime later in the development process, one of our superiors remarked, "You can attach a keyboard to that and make a polyphonic synth out of it, can't you?" [Laughs.] So that's how the JX-3P came about. The reason it's a six-voice polyphonic synth is because it started out as a sound engine for guitar synths, guitar being a six-string instrument. (Laughs.)

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Dream of the moons | Roland Jupiter 6, Rhodes Piano, and Fractal Audio FM3 lush ambient soundscape

video upload by MIDERA

"Wow, made it to 11,000 subscribers. It’s funny because it would seem like a “success” so to speak… but it’s not so different than when I only had 100 subscribers or 500, or 5,000. Truthfully, I guess the successes I have are raising my kids, it’s the time I truly feel like “I made it.” My career doesn’t feel so successful either. But I do enjoy the stuff I do here, and I suppose doing it has allowed me to write at least 21 albums worth of electronic music, which in itself is a feat I suppose.

Success just doesn’t seem to be an endpoint. You can look at someone who seems successful, and they can be moments from catastrophe, either self-inflicted or otherwise, or they don’t view their lives as successful at all. It’s like success is that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. You think it’s there and all you have to do is catch up with it, but you really won’t ever see it, because there is no pot of gold. Some of the most miserable, hateful people I know… have lots of the stuff. I guess I am learning something in this world: that money and success won’t be there to make me happy. But I feel real joy around my family, and some joy around things I achieve, but it’s pretty clear that there will never be a thing that I do that tells me that I was or will be successful. And that’s good enough for me.

Roland Jupiter 6 #rolandjupiter
Rhodes piano #rhodespiano
Fractal Audio FM3 #fractalaudiofm3"

Some info on the Upcoming Buchla Modules (100, 200, and Easel)

This one was spotted and sent in via Soviet Space Child, on muffs.

Post by Eric Fox of Buchla U.S.A. You can find a recent interview with Eric Fox here.

"Hey everyone!

I appreciate the interest in what it is we’re working on. Although I don’t spend too much time on the forum, with all of the announcements and imminent release of Easel Commands into the wild it is probably a good idea for me to poke my head up once in awhile :)
Let’s see if I can quickly shed some light on a few things:

Easel vs Easel Command- When I refer to a “full” Easel, I am indeed referring to the classic configuration of some form of 208+218+Case. Just like what we did with the 208C, the 218 and case needs to be updated in order to make them better, more consistent, and have the ability to scale production based on demand. We’re actively working on these and hopefully I can make an official announcement with details this summer.

Easel Preset Manager- Joel, Darren, and Charles are now working on this one. Those guys are the masters at this stuff, so I’m gonna hopefully have the official rundown of what all it can do soon. While it will be different physically than iProgram Card, it’s my understanding that the the new UX from a software angle might be able to be an update for the iProgram card. I’ll stop talking now about it since those guys will yell at me for not knowing what I’m talking about. We’ll make a clear announcement about this soon :)

200 and 100 reissues- These full-size recreations are being headed up by Jon Nenson (The Human Comparator) and our own in-house designer, Charles Seeholzer. We were planning on having (5) 200 models to show off at SB. These certainly won’t be the only 200’s we offer... but it’s a little difficult to launch 20+ models all at the same time! We insist on making them as good as they can be. Otherwise, what’s the point? Releasing a handful at a time just makes the most sense so that each model can get the proper attention they deserve. If you don’t see your favorite one in this first run, just know that it will probably not be that far behind. Patience young grasshoppers.

Clones vs Official- To clarify, the point I’m trying to make is in regards to not wanting someone to think poorly of any brand based on the possibility that they are playing with a shitty, poorly built, corner-cutting diy project from god knows where. Please don’t confuse that statement with the fact that I know there absolutely are quality builds out there that do a great job of really capturing the true spirit of the original design. I’m friends with a lot of those who are considered some of the best at doing this and that’s why I choose to partner with them when possible. I know that I have the best resources out of anyone to do this right including involving actual people who were there alongside Don when these were being developed. If Buchla can offer a consistently high-quality official version that comes with full warranty/support and it helps support some of the “Associates” who were there with Don... seems like that’s the right way to do it. No shade being thrown at those using quality built products intended.

Who is “Dave”?- All I’ll say is that it is being renamed to “Don’s Barber Shop” as per the request of some of those who were closest with Don.

I hope I didn’t create more questions than answers! If there is a real pressing question you need answered, just hit me up directly and I’ll do my best to answer with the best available info I have and feel free to share my responses with the rest of the class :)

Thanks for your passion. Stay safe+sanitary+sane
-Eric Fox"

Ensoniq EPS - Synthesized Loop

Published on Dec 30, 2017 100 Things I Do

"The Ensoniq EPS was the first sampler I owned. This was in the early 2000's and by this time anything less than 16 bit 32mb ram was considered unusable so I picked it up for a few hundred dollars and started to build my studio around it. Of course being the early 2000's I started lusting after a AKAI S1000 with 16 bits and 32mb of RAM :D... So the EPS was sold and Akai was purchased. I lust now after the S1000 for the looks and memories but not really anything about the sound.

I was fortune a few months ago to pick up another EPS and was surprised how much of how to work the beast I was able to remember. Not long until I was sampling again and using those magical Loop algorithms. There is something very special in what they can do. Making your sample sound a lot like a Fairlight all the way to almost totally changing the character of the sound!

Today I focus on the Synthesized Loop option! It really works strange magic across any short sample! Sorry about the light fading in and out at the start of the clip, I need to get some decent studio lights.

I'm thinking of doing a series of clips where I review...mostly verbally All the synths I have owned to date (I'm shocked how many!). If you think this would be interesting let me know in the comments and I will make a start in the new year!"