New Waldorf 2 Pole Filter & Moog Theremini

via Create Digital Music

"Waldorf’s mystery knob is the filter control from a big filter in a box.
That’s right, Waldorf is introducing a 2-pole filter. And one heck of a 2-pole filter it is:
Filter with cutoff and resonance, but also a Drive setting, Rectify, and switchable between low-pass, band-pass, and high-pass
LFO with Depth and Speed
LFO set to Fast, Slow, and (hilariously) Gemütlich (kinda hard to translate, actually easy-going and slower than slow)
Envelope controls: Attack/Decay/Hold, threshold, a source (hard to tell what that does), and trigger.
And it takes CV for envelope, cutoff, and gate, with jack plugs for input and output."

"Then there’s Moog, who are introducing, as rumored, a new Theremin. And this isn’t just any Theremin: it’s a Theremin that can assist you in keeping things in tune, all whilst looking like a space-age egg from Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
It’s a Theremin with presets. Crazy presets.
It’s a digital instrument with Theremin-style controls. (Readers who speculated, you guessed right.) It’ll upset purists, perhaps, but this is rather cool: it’s based on the unique-sounding Animoog sound engine.
The synth is digital, but the input is analog: classic heterodyning style, then digitized as control signal for the engine. Onboard MIDI, CV output (presumably pre-digitization, in fact), and USB. But that engine gives you more different ways to play.
Yes, there’s a display, scale and root controls, a Presets knob, plus built-in delay. There’s a built-in speaker and headphone jack, as well, for convenience.
Price: US$299 estimated is what we heard on the floor..."

Full post with additional details at CDM here.

Update Image & details via Moog Music, also via radiate sky in the comments:

"The Theremini is a re-imagination of one of the oldest electronic musical instrument in history, and Bob Moog’s first love – the theremin. Its design fuses the experience of performing with an instrument you don’t actually touch, with a powerful sound engine derived from Moog’s award winning synthesizer, Animoog. The Theremini guarantees immediate success to any player at any skill level, while providing new ways to experiment with music, education, and gestural control.

Assistive pitch correction allows each player to adjust the instruments level of playing difficulty. At the maximum position, the Theremini will play every note in a selected scale perfectly, making it impossible to play a wrong note. As this control is decreased, more expressive control of pitch becomes possible. When set to minimum, the Theremini will perform as a traditional theremin with analog heterodyning oscillator and absolutely no pitch assistance.

A built in tuner supplies real-time visual feedback of each note as it is played, as well as its proximity to perfection. This is useful for correcting a users playing position, or to educate younger players about pitch and scales.

The presets section allows you to select from 32 wave or wavetable-based patches, store a selected scale & root note, set and recall a specified playing range, and specify per-patch settings for the included stereo delay.

Recessed in the top of the Theremini is a compact speaker perfect for private rehearsal and quick setup anywhere. Silent rehearsal is also possible via front panel headphone jack. Simply plug in ear-buds or headphones and the built in speaker becomes silent.

For live performance and gestural control, the rear panel features two line level audio outputs, a pitch CV output with selectable range, and a mini USB jack for MIDI I/O and connectivity.

FEATURES

• Pitch correction w/ selectable scales and root note

• Built in tuner allows you to learn pitch and scales

• 32 Wavetable based presets

• Built in speaker

• Headphone output

• Two 1/4" audio outputs

• Single Pitch CV output w/ selectable range

• User selectable scale and root note (stored per preset)

• User selectable range: highest note and lowest note (stored per preset)

• Adjustable Stereo Ping-Pong Delay

• Removable pitch antenna - built in storage compartment on bottom-side

• Built in 3/8” Mic stand and Camera stand adaptor

• High quality rubberized feet

FRONT PANEL

LCD SCREEN: 128 X 64 pixel LCD with white backlight.

HEADPHONE JACK: 1/8” (3.5mm) TRS headphone jack. Inserting a headphone plug will disable the internal speaker

VOLUME KNOB: Controls headphone volume and built in speaker volume.

PITCH BIAS KNOB: Determines the amount of pitch correction from 0% to 100%

SCALE BUTTON: Select from a list of built in scales

ROOT BUTTON: Select the root note to be used by the scale

SETUP BUTTON: Provides access the setup and calibration functions - also acts as a shift key.

DELAY LENGTH BUTTON: Selects the length of delay: SHORT, MEDIUM, LONG, or OFF

DELAY AMOUNT KNOB: Controls the amount of delay mixed with the dry signal.

PRESET KNOB: Selects the preset played from a built in list of 32 presets

REAR PANEL

LEFT OUTPUT: Line Level ¼” unbalanced TS

RIGHT OUTPUT:Line Level ¼” unbalanced TS

CV OUTPUT: ¼” TS – 0-5V or 0-10V selectable

USB: MiniB USB2.0 High Speed for USB MIDI

KENSINGTON LOCK SLOT

POWER SWITCH: Push ON / Push OFF

POWER JACK: 12VDC/1.2A from 100–240VAC external supply(included)

DIMENSIONS:22.75”L x 6.5”D x 15”H w/antenna (4”H without)

WEIGHT: 3lbs"

Udpate2: NAMM floor video:

Guitar Center New from NAMM - Moog Theremini

Published on Jan 23, 2014 Guitar Center·1,139 videos

"Moog makes some wild sounds with their new take on the Theremin, the Theremini, at the 2014 NAMM Show.
For more New from NAMM products, visit http://bit.ly/1d05EW3"

Unlocking Dockstader by Justin H Brierley

Seeking funding on Kickstarter here.

This one in via Atomic Starter

"Electronic composer, filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, Alzheimer's patient. This film will explore the life and work of Tod Dockstader.

Tod's story: a brief introduction

Tod Dockstader is a multi-talented creator whose work remains largely unrecognized. He is perhaps most well known as a composer of electronic music and as a cartoon sound effects artist. While working at Terrytoons in the early 1960s he provided sounds for Tom & Jerry and other cartoons directed by Gene Deitch. Around the same time he also worked as a sound engineer for a studio in NYC that mostly did commercial work. He used these resources during his off hours to create several albums startling electronic music that influenced artists like Frank Zappa, Pete Townshend, and Aphex Twin. Some of this music was even used by Fellini as part of the Satyricon soundtrack.

Tod's creativity ranges far beyond music and sound effects. He was an avid writer (poetry, short stories, plays, music reviews, etc..) and evidence suggests that he very much desired a writing career long before he started making music. He was also a filmmaker whose company Westport Communications Group produced educational films that were distributed by McGraw Hill as part of their American Heritage series. Tod did most of the creative work on these films: writing, producing, and directing. One of the goals of my film is to show Tod for the true Renaissance man that he is.

Backstory

Like many great documentaries this project has changed and evolved over time. My original idea was simply to do a phone interview with Dockstader for my radio show. Then I learned about Tod's dementia and I set out to film interviews while he could still remember some of his past. At that time, Tod's daughter Tina entrusted me to his old computer which is filled with unreleased music that he was working on during the early stages of his dementia. I tried playing him his own music to see if he could remember anything about how he created it. He couldn't, however I noticed that he very much enjoyed the listening and would sometimes tell other stories about his life. As time went on his physical health deteriorated, including his hearing, and the positive effects of listening to music also lessened.

Now

And then I got an iPad. I started bringing that along and showing Tod different music making apps. The result is amazing. He's particularly fond of the official John Cage Prepared Piano app and the amazing multi-touch synthesizer TC-11, which was generously donated by its developer, Bit Shape Software. Seeing Tod not only light up with delight, but also engaging his creativity has given me a new idea and direction for this film.

Future

The first major change is that I will be enlisting the help of a certified Music Therapist. I want to see if by engaging his creativity I can help him access memories that have been lost to him. Up until now I have been able to visit Tod an average of once or twice per month. I will be increasing those visits to near daily, occasionally accompanied by a professional Music Therapist. These session will form the foundation upon which I tell Tod's amazing life story."

Oxford Synthesizer Company OSCar SN 0177

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

via this auction

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COTFG NMASS 2013 Event & Indiegogo Campaign

via http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cotfg-nmass-2013

"WHAT IS IT?

Church of the Friendly Ghost presents the fifth annual NMASS (New Media Art and Sound Summit) from Thursday, June 13th until Saturday, June 15th, 2013! Concerts! Art Installations! Film screenings! Workshops!

Your contribution to this campaign underwrites the production of NMASS, paying for things such as artist travel, accommodation, equipment rentals, sound engineering, and venue costs. Your support is an investment in a creative summit that contributes to the unique cultural identity of our great city! 100% of admissions proceeds are paid to our featured guest artists and performers. NMASS and COTFG are completely volunteer-run. You can support this campaign even if you're not in Austin or can't attend the festival in person!

This year our festival will feature an entire day of programming and workshops based around modular synthesizers, an evening of cocktails and experimental film, a documentary film brunch and a sample of the most intriguing performers on the local, national and international new music, fringe and electronic scene. Three days all for a reasonable ticket price of $35! This is how the line up is shaping out so far:

Eurorack synth module building workshop with Super Synthesis and Delptronics* Modular synth meet and greet / show and tell, Thomas Fang, Daze of Heaven, Douglas Ferguson, Rick Reed, Atlanta-based sound designer and IDM wizard Richard Devine with visuals by SYMBOL. Experimental Response Cinema will present the films of Dallas artist Michael Morris and a program of local experimental filmakers, Chicago's Coppice will perform new material for prepared pump organ and tape procceses, Nick Hennies in a vibraphone and bass duo, The Austin premier of the film Conlon Nancarrow: Virtuoso of the Player Piano, Red Ox vs. Cinders, master of cassette tape destruction Jason Zeh, Argentinean electronic musician Nicolas Melmann will be presenting a live sound and video performance, a new installation by Sean O'neill and Clay Odom. Plus more artists and events are being added every day!

The day by day schedule is not fully laid out yet, but here's a sketch:

Thursday, June 13th

An evening of cocktails and experimental film projection and performance with artist Michael Morris and the film makers from the Experimental Response Cinema

Friday, June 14th

I/O Music Technology presents a modular synthesizer workshop, meet and greet, and modular synth performances: Thomas Fang, Daze of Heaven, Douglas Ferguson, Rick Reed, Richard Devine. These will be followed by an evening performance by Nicolas Melmann.

Saturday, June 15th

An afternoon brunch with a screening of the documentary Conlon Nancarrow: Virtuoso of the Player Piano, followed by performances by Nick Hennies, Red Ox vs. Cinders, Jason Zeh, Coppice and many more to be added soon!

*Friday's modular synthesizer workshop! Participants can choose to build one of several module kits offered by Delptronics and Super Synthesis, designed for the Eurorack format. There will be a fee for PCBs, panels, and components, but soldering stations and supplies will be provided, along with hands-on instruction, and you'll leave with a working synth module. Fee, available kits and RSVP information coming soon!

Church of the Friendly Ghost is a 100% volunteer-run nonprofit cultural arts organization headquartered in Austin, and founded in 2003. We operate under the sponsorship of Salvage Vanguard Theater, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with support from the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. All contributions, other than ticket purchases, are federal tax deductible. Tax exempt status information available on request.

The full 3 day festival pass is just $35.00!
You can purchase that right here, right now by backing us at that level!"

CZ Touch iOS, Connections & Basic Overview (Casio CZ-3000)

Published on Feb 2, 2020 Todd Smith Music

"CZ Touch brings new life to any classic synthesizer from the Casio CZ line. CZ Touch allows you to apply a modern touch based interface and break away from the old Casio CZ synthesizer menu dive. This video will tell you the basic connections needed to use CZ Touch with your favorite Casio CZ synth and show the basic features that make this app a "must have" for any Casio CZ owner with a iPad."

City Skies 08 Electronic Music Event Nov 8, 2008, Decatur, GA

via James Combs on the AH list:

"A little event I do every month here in Georgia...

City Skies 08 Electronic Music Event Nov 8, 2008, Decatur, GA

The next City Skies 08 event will be held on Saturday, November 8, 2008, with an afternoon Master class workshop with Richard Lainhart (Multi-Dimensional Control for Realtime Analog Synthesis Performance using Buchla 200e and Haken Continuum Fingerboard controller) from 2pm-4pm and performances starting at 8pm. We showcase the region's best electronic musicians at our favorite venue, Kavarna.

Confirmed performers on November 8 include Richard Lainhart (from New York), Collaboration with Sounds (from South Carolina), and Bribing The Buddha (from Atlanta). Shows kick off at 8pm.

The Richard Lainhart workshop for the November show promises to be quite amazing. Please tell your friends about it. Attendance will be limited:

Multi-Dimensional Control for Realtime Analog Synthesis Performance

The promise of electronic music has been, from the beginning, to provide the composer with the means to create his or her own unique sounds and musics without the need for intermediaries like performers and technicians. And the problem with electronic music has been, from the beginning, to endow synthesized sound with the same organic expressivity found in acoustic instruments and natural sound while making synthesizers viable performance instruments in their own right.

The first electronic instruments intended for performance, such as the Theremin and the Ondes Martenot, while providing the performer with highly nuanced pitch control, had limited sound-shaping control and could only play one note at a time. The first modular analog synthesizers, while offering polyphony - the ability to play multiple notes simultaneously - and unlimited sonic control, had limited expressive performance control and were completely impractical for live use.

There have been many attempts since then to integrate the unlimited potential of modular analog synthesis with practical performance capabilities, and to provide the electronic music composer/performer with the kind of expressive musical control available in advanced acoustic instruments. Among of the most successful and creative of these efforts are the Buchla 200e analog modular synthesizer and the Haken Continuum Fingerboard.

Buchla's 200e is the first modular analog synth with patch memory and the ability to re-route patchcords on the fly, making it an ideal instrument for performance, capable of both the highest and lowest levels of control. The Continuum is a unique multidimensional controller keyboard that senses direct finger movement in three dimensions (X, Y, and pressure) for each of up to 16 fingers, making it one of the most advanced performance controllers available today. Together, the 200e and the Continuum make for an electronic music performance system of unparalleled expressivity and sensitivity.

In his workshop, Richard will demonstrate the synthesis and control functions of the Buchla 200e with an emphasis on patch programming for maximum expressivity under Continuum control. The workshop will include a live performance focusing on the Continuum/Buchla 200e system's expressive control capabilities. Time permitting, workshop attendees will also have the opportunity to play the system themselves.

WORKSHOP BIO

Richard Lainhart is a composer, performer, and filmmaker based in New York. He studied composition and electronic music techniques with Joel Chadabe, a pioneer of electronic music and the designer of the Coordinated Electronic Music System (http://emfinstitute.emf.org/exhibits/cems.html and http://www.otownmedia.com/chadabe.jpg), at one time the largest integrated Moog synthesizer system in the world. From 1987-1990, Lainhart was the Technical Director for Intelligent Music, developers of innovative computer music software like M, Jam Factory, and UpBeat.

His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Japan. Recordings of his music have appeared on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, XI Records, ExOvo and Airglow Music labels and are distributed online via MusicZeit. As an active performer, Lainhart has appeared in public approximately 2000 times. Besides performing his own work, he has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others. He has composed over 100 electronic and acoustic works, and has been making music for forty years.

Lainhart's animations and short films have been shown in festivals in the US, Canada, Germany, and Korea, and online at ResFest, The New Venue, The Bitscreen, and Streaming Cinema 2.0. His film "A Haiku Setting" won awards in several categories at the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology in Toronto. In 2008, he was awarded a Film & Media grant by the New York State Council on the Arts for "No Other Time", full-length intermedia performance designed for a large reverberant space, combining live analog electronics with four-channel playback, and high-definition computer-animated film projection.

Richard Lainhart
http://www.otownmedia.com
http://www.downloadplatform.com/richard_lainhart
http://www.vimeo.com/rlainhart
http://www.airglowmusic.com

City Skies
http://www.cityskies.com
http://www.myspace.com/cityskiesfestival

Workshop tickets: $15
Performance tickets: $10
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/10495

-Jim"

Tubes

Dave of http://umop.com/ (The Packrat, Parallax, Retarded Animal Babies, and much more) sent this one (from Toothpaste for Dinner) to me and Eric Barbour of Metasonix. It's a funny comic and the connection to Metasonix and tubes is obvious. Eric replied with the following and gave me the OK to post it, so here it is. It also reminds me of the analog vs. digital debate. In my opinion sound is sound and it's all what you make of it. It's as simple as it gets - everyone likes what they like.

"Okay guys....yeah, it's funny.

Um, do I try to claim 'warmer sweeter tone' or 'vintage sound' for my products? Forgive me for ranting, but I keep having to make these points.

There have been long and often-incoherent lectures on 'tube tone' over the last 40-plus years. Speaking personally, I've long suspected this 'tube tone' crap to be based on people's vague memories of early tube hifi and radio equipment--which usually had poor frequency response and high second- harmonic distortion, either due to poor design or an attempt to keep the item below a certain retail price.

Please let me talk about my personal observations of 'tube tone'. I've heard tube amps that were as accurate as any solid-state amp you can think of (we are talking about high-end home audio, not guitar amps or pro audio, because that's the area where "tube tone" is the biggest hypefest).

And I've heard modern tube amps that were so shrill and ugly sounding, they made me think they were badly-designed transistor amps. I've also seen, used, and repaired a long long list of vintage hifi, radios, and guitar amps. They were all over the place in sound quality, though generally pre-WWII and cheap gear had that soft, indistinct 'vintage-stereotype' sound. Plus, I've heard transistor amps that were so damn good, they made me wonder why so much ink was wasted on blubbering about 'tube tone'.

My considered opinion: people who mumble about 'tube tone' are full of shit, and/or simply regurgitating catch-phrases they've been hearing for years. There are good tube amps and there are bad tube amps. Simply being a tube amp does not guarantee anything except a marketing handle that can be used to wheedle the clueless rabble into paying too much money for it.

At the CES ten years ago, I heard a brand-new, very costly ($8000) stereo tube hifi amp that was claimed to be 'the ultimate in high-end tone'. It was so shrill, lacking in bass, distorted, and otherwise ugly-sounding, it drove people out of the room. Even so, it ended up on the cover of major high-end magazines. (Later I was told by other people in the business that the company founder had severe high-frequency hearing loss, and was literally unable to discern that the amp sounded bad to most people. Nor was he willing to admit as much. He wound up telling the designer what to do, based on his own ears. Because he was an egotistical fool, who refused to acknowledge that his hearing was bad.) I'd tell you his name but it was an embarrassing incident and better forgotten. That firm went bankrupt recently, as his sales 'went off a cliff', and I'm not sure he deserves the extra abuse.

This also goes a long way toward explaining why I don't make tube hifi gear, hopefully. High-end audio is more like a freak show than a 'market'. It's full of arrogant over-50 man-boys who are obsessed with 'accuracy', yet usually have no idea what that means.

Guitar amps are starting to be similar to high-end in the sheer snobbery and idiocy. I've heard tube simulation devices, like the Line 6 products, that are as close to sounding like real vintage tube gear as one could possibly want. There are now quite a few tube amp simulators, made by various firms, that are basically as 'perfect' as can be. I've also heard 'real vintage style' tube amps, usually invented by idiots who wanted to take advantage of the 'tube tone fad', that sounded like broken transistor amps.

Yet guitarists keep demanding tube amps. And nowadays, they are paying extremely stiff prices for real tube amps with major brands like Marshall or Vox or Fender. Have you priced a Marshall JCM2000 amp head lately? Right now, despite a massive global recession, this 'standard for heavy rock' will cost you about $3000, with an 'official' Marshall speaker cab. Marshall and Vox belong to Korg, which is deliberately using these old brandnames to sell high-priced product to people who still think those firms are the same as they were in the 1960s. They aren't......the amps don't even sound like the old ones, mainly due to the poor quality of the tubes being made today. But it doesn't matter. They, like Gibson, Fender, and many other old brandnames that were around at the dawn of rock & roll, are simply trading on nostalgic warm tone feelings for bygone days.

It's why I find people who complain about Metasonix's 'high prices' to be pathetic. Those same people are often willing to pay $4000 for a modern reissue Gibson guitar, or $2500 for a 30-year-old TB303, or $75,000 for a Fairchild 670 limiter, because those things 'have the magic'. Whatever the hell that means.

My 'marketing', such as it is, doesn't focus on 'warm vintage tube tone'. Because it's not a real thing, it's a buzzword. Metasonix sounds different from everything else on the market and that's all I try to claim. It's the most 'real analog' possible--class A tube circuits. They might sound warm and soft, they might sound like a broken vacuum cleaner being shoved up your ass. It's more a question of the circuit design and the user's choices.

No one else had the guts to make tube synthesizer circuits, and to this day, if you ask a mainstream synth builder if they can design a tube synth circuit, they claim it is physically impossible or horribly impractical and costly. (Dieter Doepfer immediately comes to mind, because I've personally seen him tell people exactly that. And based on his marketability standards, he's right. Tubes are hell to deal with--costly, flaky, difficult to source, wasteful of power.)"

Poor MIDI Timing and Note Jitter in iOS

Published on Oct 12, 2012 by Kevin McCoy

"This really prevents iOS from being a serious platform for software instruments, despite its merits of having a touch interface and amazing sounding apps. Please comment if you have a solution!"

If anyone has a chance to look into this, feel free to comment or shoot me an email. Obvious things to consider are the app you are testing with, the MIDI interface being used, the iPad & OS versions, and any apps running in the background.

Update 1: discchord wrote in to let us know he ran a few tests. As I suspected it appears to depend on the setup and the device.

"Earlier iPhones were not nearly as beefy as iPads, so developers tried to support them as best they could with crazy high buffers that are easier on the CPU, but slower to react...

Considering how much of a mess my MIDI chain is, I think it is safe to say that a wired MIDI connection is reliable on iOS. Any faults come down to software that isn't designed to cope, or possibly an even worse MIDI setup than mine. Though I honestly can't imagine how that could be; I bought the Uno because it was the cheapest USB-MIDI interface I could buy locally!"

You can find the full results here. Be sure to see the previously linked post there for some initial tests as well.

Update 2: some notes on the results via David Lackey on this Facebook thread. It's worth noting David is the man behind Innerclock Systems and of course a bit of an expert behind timing and syncing gear.

"Again at the risk of sticking my neck in it - I just opened up that 240 BPM Wired 16th File [Quoted as 'There is slightly more wandering here, but still not enough that you'd notice. Take a listen for yourself.'] in Sound Forge and placed accurate markers on the events. At a perfect (no jitter) 240 BPM there should be exactly 3000 samples between each 16th audio event when recorded at 48kHz right. Here are the numbers:

2782/3358/2850/3286/2769/3335/2806/2774/3344 etc etc These variations amount to regular push-pull in tempo by more than 40 BPM PER EVENT in most cases I measured. I don't know about most people here but 40 BPM drift between 16ths is VERY NOTICABLE to my ears at any tempo.

....and I've just realized - those Discchord tests dont really tell you much about iOS Midi stability at all - take them with a large grain of salt - the 16th Midi Events they used are generated real-time by Live and USB Midi Interface - the Jitter probably has as much to do with the source events as the receiving iOS application.

You can see clearly that highly subjective and poorly researched statements like this: 'I hope this puts to rest the notion that MIDI Jitter prevents iOS from being a serious platform for software instruments.' need substantial qualification and backup before they can be taken seriously. For these tests to show true iOS application Midi Jitter we would need to see the jitter contained in the source Midi Events themselves first - or at least use a reliable hardware Midi Sequencer with proven event and tempo stability like an MPC-3000 as the Midi Event Source rather than DAW/USB/Driver generated Midi which is notoriously prone to slop and jitter anyway.

I'll run the same tests on Magellan/iPad2/iOS6 tonight but use MPC-3000/16ths as the Midi Event Source and post the results at 60/120 and 240 BPM."

See the Facebook thread in case any updates go up over time. 

Update 3: David Lackey of Innerclock ran some litmus tests. See this post for details.

Update 4: It looks like the iPad did fairly well with MIDI OUT depending on the app. Via David Lackey on the Facebook thread:

"Just had time last night to test outgoing Midi Event stability from two Apps - Magellan and Little Midi Machine - identical 16th note patterns using identical Roland UM-1G Core Midi Interface - you can see by the numbers that that Core Midi is certainly capable if the coding is up to the task. Little Midi Machine shows no more than 6 samples of jitter between 16th generated Note Events at 120 BPM. Magellan is still up there in the 500 plus samples jitter.

Details here: http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New%20ICS%20iLitmus.html"

Update 5 via Rob Fielding of Mugician, Geo Synth, & Cantor in the comments:

"This is probably not "MIDI" latency, but audio latency. The issue of iOS using oversized audio buffers is something that a minority of us iOS app devs (me especially) have been screaming about for years, especially just before Geo Synthesizer was released. Controller apps are crippled by this phenomenon at the moment, though the situation improved a lot last year. If the buffer is 512 at 44.1khz, then that's a 10ms buffer. If it's that large, then you will get jitter lower bound as a random variable from 0 to 10ms of latency no matter how fast everything else is. And in practice, there is always more overhead coming from elsewhere, including the hardware scanning for fingers to turn into touches, OS overhead, and MIDI packet sending, etc. I use 256 sized buffers (Mugician, Geo, Cantor), but I don't take MIDI in; so I experience this issue with almost all of the other iOS synths I run MIDI into. The apps that use a buffer size of 512 or higher are generally unplayable with Geo Synthesizer because you can play it so fast; you can really feel the difference between 512 (10ms) and 256 (5ms) buffers, though overhead makes total jitter almost 30ms. But the +/-10ms is enough to throw off rhythm.

and btw... iOS defaults to 1024 sized buffers but can usually go to 256 or 128 (good). Android on the other hand is a joke. Most Android apps have hundreds of seconds of latency (like 8192 buffers and even higher...yikes!) just due to audio buffer sizes, which means that hardware performance increases can never make a dent in the problem. Samsung Galaxy Nexus can get down to 512 I hear, which is almost to where it needs to be. It really needs to be 64, but 128 is doable for some synths, and no synths should settle for more than 256. I think AudioBus requires you to do 256. (But that's a whole new issue, because you are probably effectively chaining together audio buffer lengths when you pass from one app to another.)"

Anthony Marinelli's Favorite Eurorack Module

video upload by Anthony Marinelli Music

"I have to tell you about joystick modules because they've changed my ability to perform expressively on synthesizers that don't have expressive keyboards or sophisticated built-in controllers. A joy stick allows the user to expressively send control voltage signals according to varying positions of a stick. You can also use it to mix up to 4 different audio signals to create morphing complex sounds from simple sources. I'm demonstrating this type of controller using the Intelijel Planar which is a relatively inexpensive Euroack solution that can be integrated into many types of setups. In this video, I've integrated it with my ARP 2600 and show you how to control filter brightness and vibrato at the same time with one hand movement. It would otherwise be impossible to simultaneously change these two parameters while playing the keyboard with your other hand (without the joy stick). I've added some efx pedals to the sound to achieve a vocal quality that pairs well with the joystick modulations. There are many more uses for this expression controller, so stay tuned for more advanced applications and musical examples in upcoming videos.

THRILLER SYNTH GIVEAWAY

Giveaway link : https://www.anthonymarinellimusic.com...

Want to win the same model synthesizer used on THRILLER to make the iconic FROGGIE BASS sound? Visit the above link to find out how to enter. Hurry because the giveaway ends Oct 30th!

00:00 - 00:23 - Musical Example
00:24 - 01:36 - Introduction to Demonstration
01:37 - 02:11 X-plane
02:12 - 03:12 Y-plane
03:13 - 04:08 VCA Envelope
04:09 - 05:33 Adding EFX Pedals
05:34 - 06:37 Summary

Anthony's musical touch as both composer and performer is connected with some of the most influential creative minds over the last 40 years. He’s composed and conducted original orchestral scores for over 80 feature films including Young Guns, Internal Affairs, The Man From Elysian Fields, 15 Minutes and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for his symphonic work "In the Family Way", written over one thousand TV commercials in a myriad of musical styles, co-founded Levels Audio Post (LA's premiere post production facility) and performed and arranged on big-box-office films and influential hit records such as Michael Jackson's Thriller.

His extensive work as a young arranger, orchestrator and performer for Quincy Jones, Jack Nitzsche, Lamont Dozier, Arthur Rubenstein and Giorgio Moroder was vital in launching his own career. His early years pioneering modular analog synthesizers along with his wide-ranging music scholarship positioned Anthony at the center of the music technology revolution. He attended the University of Southern California School of Music as a piano and composition major.

Website: www.anthonymarinelli.com"

M-Audio Venom Review and Interview with Product Manager Taiho Yamada

A quick note: This review is long. You can jump to sections that interest you vs. reading it straight through if you prefer. This review focuses primarily on the synth engine for one single patch on the Venom. The Venom supports Multi mode with up to four multitimbral parts. Not only can you layer sound programs but you can set global parameters for the set. Be sure to see the Multi mode section of "Tips and Tricks via Taiho Yamada" at the end of this post. Taiho is the Lead Project Manager of the Venom and served as my contact during the review. I want to thank Taiho for his help and enthusiastic generosity. He is a true synthesist and the Venom is his baby.

Synth connections: Taiho previously worked at Alesis on the Andromeda A6. The DSP developer of the Venom worked on Radikal Technologies' Spectralis and the Accelerator. People that contributed to the presets via sound design include Richard Devine, Francis Preve, Mark Ovenden (Avid's AIR Instruments, ProTools VIs), Joerg Huettner (Waldorf, Access, Alesis), and of course Taiho Yamada.

*Don't miss the "Q&A with Taiho" section towards the end of the review. Also keep an eye out for "Taiho's Tips and Tricks" throughout the review in grey. You can find the consolidated list below the Q&A section.

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