Interview with Hexfix93 of VAC

The following is an interview I just wrapped up with hexfix93 of Velvet Acid Christ. As you know, this site is about the gear, namely synths, and the gear that helps drive and enhance synths, but ultimately the focus is on synths.

I was chatting a bit with hexfix93 and asked him if he would be interested in a slightly different take on an interview, one focused on synths and their impact to his world. We all have our story regarding how our obsession with synths first started, how we see and approach synths and what they mean to us. I thought it would be interesting to hear his story. The following is the interview.

Before it begins, I want to thank hexfix93 for taking the time out for this. We all have a different approach and a different story when it comes to our synths. This is his. For more of his music check out VAC and don't miss Toxic Coma. Cheers, matrix.


1. What was your first synthesizer, how old were you when you picked it up, and why did you pick it up?

"It was some kind of old yamaha cheap thing. i got it for my atari st, so when i played games like leisure suit larry that the music wouldn't come from the wimpy fm built in sound, but a general midi synth instead. it really didn't sound all that great. i wasn’t really a keyboard player at this point.

The first synth i got as a keyboard player was a roland w30 sampler workstation. And we made like 3 records with that keyboard. i remember gary slaughter an x vac member, spilled orange vodka drink on it. and i had to take it apart and clean every part of it by hand slowly, it took weeks. it was a pure nightmare.

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MATRIXSYNTH Turns 7!!!

Today marks the seven year anniversary of MATRIXSYNTH! The original matrixsynth.com actually launched way back in October of 1997 as MATRIX SYNTH. I never took it down, BTW. Click here to see it in all it's old school glory. If you thought there was too much green on this site, just check that baby out. BTW, check out the manufacturers list under MFG. I stopped updating it about the time I started this site in 2005. You can see what modular manufactures, and of course others were around back then. It's an interesting look back in time... Kind of why I started this version of the site actually. I'll get to that further below.

Last year I skipped the site stats and kept the anniversary post relatively short. I used to post stats for the site and a general blurb on what makes the site tick, but it began to feel redundant so I skipped it last year. Well, I kind of missed it, and I know some of you enjoy the stats thing, so I'm bringing it back. And CatSynth did it for their six year anniversary post yesterday, so there you have it. Actually I was planning on including stats before I read that post, but I do like CatSynth. The site has grown quite a bit and we have a ton of new readers who don't really know the background of MATRIXSYNTH so I thought I would share some of that as well. I've also had a few people ask me to do personal interviews. I always turn them down as I do my best to keep myself out of the site so I don't ruin it for anyone. It's kind of like the whole Wizard of Oz thing. Enjoy the Oz in MATRIXYSNTH, and don't let the wizard ruin it for you is my only advice. That said, I decided this year to reveal a little more about my synth history than I normally do. Don't worry though after this post that's it. This site is about the gear only. I see it as my job to bring it to you unbiased and get the heck out of the way. Seriously though, I really do my best to present what is out there free of bias for you to consume and form your own opinion. I do this for three reasons; one, out of respect for the person that created the content, two, so I don't accidentally prevent you from getting your own experience out of the post, and three, because of how much goes up on a daily basis - it saves you and me time.

But, in the anniversary and New Years posts I do tend to make up for my lack of words big time, so bear with me or just skip to what you like.

Before I begin with the stats I do want to give a big thanks to everyone that visits, supports and contributes to the site. THANK YOU!!! It really is a tremendous amount of work, so all the kind words and support make a huge difference. Every single post you see here is hand posted. There is no automation. The site takes roughly four to eight hours on average a day (closer to eight) and sometimes up to ten hours. This is every single day, including weekends. Out of the seven years running the site I have only missed one day (by accident - more on that below), and the only day I take off is Christmas day when I put up only one post, which surprisingly can be torture in not posting. The posts you see here are a combination of stuff I find out there on my own and stuff people send in, which is quite a bit. The site started as a hobby and has fortunately grown into a small business with the help of sponsors. Note sponsors are always on the right. In the history of the site there has never been a paid post on the main site, and if there ever is, I will be sure to call it out in the post. That said, THANK YOU SPONSORS! It's one thing if the work only consumed my time, but it in turn consumes my family's time, so every little bit helps. THANK YOU! You make the site possible!


First the stats!

We still haven't reached world domination. Everything you see with a shade of green is a visit to the site. Check out Africa! The few in white mean no visit came in. The top map is for the seven year history of the site and the bottom is for this last year. Click on each for the full size shots. As you can see they are pretty much the same. Still no hits from North Korea.

On the other hand we had 122 visits from Syria within the last year along with traffic from other war torn countries. Incredible! Please keep safe out there! You are in our hearts, thoughts and prayers.

The top 10 visits by country:

1. United States 982,943
2. United Kingdom 258,070
3. Germany 183,138
4. France 168,649
5. Canada 142,553
6. Italy 109,605
7. Japan 84,202
8. Sweden 76,948
9. Australia 73,881
10. Netherlands 72,680

And the overall stats:

Source: Google Analytics for the year (July 20, 2011 - July 20, 2012):

6,364,538 pageviews
2,838,084 visits
972,065 unique visitors.

Source: Site Meter for the life of the site:

32,734,610 pageviews (18,557 average per day)
15,658,114 visits (7,822 average per day)

Google Analytics (started April 5, 2006):
30,795,628 pageviews
14,313,210 visits
4,258,879 unique visitors.

Note unique visitors can be a bit misleading as I believe it's based on the individual browser and cookies vs. IP Address or individual, so for people checking in on multiple devices and even multiple browsers on the same machine, each one counts as a unique visitor. The numbers are likely lower.

Unfortunately I do not see a top posts for the last year in Blogger so we will have to go with the top posts for all time:

New Schmidt Analog Synth Debuts at the Musikmesse
Apr 5, 2011, 22 comments 13,412 Pageviews

RIP Mr. Tsutomu Katoh - Founder of KORG
Mar 15, 2011, 6 comments 12,542 Pageviews

New Tom Oberheim SON OF 4 VOICE
Jan 25, 2011, 10 comments 7,811 Pageviews

M-Audio Venom Review and Interview with Product Manager Taiho Yamada
Mar 23, 2011, 6 comments 7,186 Pageviews

New KORG Monotribe In the Flesh
Apr 4, 2011, 26 comments 7,149 Pageviews

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elmacaco on the Alesis A6 Andromeda

elmacaco posted the following on AH. I asked him if it would be alright to put this up here and he gave me the a ok. As an A6 owner myself, I have to agree with his assessment. What's interesting is the behavior of the envelopes always stood out to me as being less direct compared to my other synths. I never thought about how the range for each step might be the reason. The A6 is an incredibly deep synth. That said, here are some words from elmacaco.

"I have to say, I love my Andromeda. I didn't like it when I first tried it in the store, but unseen forces brought it to my attention and about a year and a half ago I got one. It's been my main synth since then, never really messed with the presets, always making sounds on it. The first couple of months I would get lost in playing it and not record much, same thing happened with my wurlitzer, which is a good sign. It has such flexibility that it even can fix my modular jones most of the time (and I have a modular for that).

I think what throws a lot of people is that with it, you have to think about more than with the classics. The range of the controls is huge, and that changes a lot for most people. This is particularly true with the envelopes. A pot that goes from zero to 10 seconds has a different feel than one that goes from 2 seconds to 10 minutes, and can make it less imediate. Envelopes are usually an aspect that you don't have to think too much about, but with the Andromeda it becomes more complicated, which is a double edged sword, and one aspect i don't like so much, I wish I could limit those controls to a more usable range for me. Same with the mixer levels, once you get a bit of a handle on it it becomes part of the process, but it is none the less an extended process, which won't be to the liking of many people.

As for the comparion to older polies, well, they all have something, the andromeda is much more broad, so t can be a lot of things, but it wont be breezy to get it like them, but there is more. I remember after a year of having one I would play P5's and memorymoogs at friends houses, which i love in so many ways, but I would be locked into some avenues that used to seem broad but now I see as rather narrow.

The sound of those synths can make you need a variety of synths, to get out of it, but the Andromeda has a way of taking over, other synths will sound better in some places, but head to head, unless that is something you always need, the Andromeda can cover that territory pretty well. Which makes comparisons difficult, because it can more easily cover all your bases than any other synth. I've only recently began to mess with my xpander again, since the A6 can just take over. I have synths I prefer for bass, but I can get something great out of the Andromeda so staying in front of it can be very appealing. I remember thinking the osc tone was better on the roland mono's, then I tried to match them, and I actually matched them closer than i have matched anything else simply by filtering them imperceptively, remember the moog filter on the Andromeda goes up to 40,000Hz, drop it to 20k or 18k, and the high end sheen is gone but is still sounds like a raw waveform, I was pretty astounded at what I didn't know, and that happens a lot.

Realisticly speaking, even if you have a bunch of other synths, the Andromeda can satisfy the needs of a broad range of synthesists regardless of what they are, better than any other analog poly can. Just an andromeda for music means so many more possibilities than just a JP-8, or just a Memory Moog.

Just the multitimbrality coupled with such a deep engine alone puts it into a class of its own. But it will require more thought, it's one of the synths that will make you feel like you are not the bad ass synthesist you think you are, whereas sitting in front of a Jupiter-8, Prophet 5, CS-80, or memorymoog, a good working knowledge of synthesis is enough to explore all the dimentions of it infinitely. Not everybody likes that experience, kinda like how serge and buchla can be like learning a new language and force you out of your comfort zone. The Andromeda can make you feel like a novice again, I still get the sense that I won't ever fully grasp all its features in decades, but what I do grasp gives back in spades."

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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An Interview with Drew from CRUDBUMP

You might remember Drew from a number of posts here on MATRIXSYNTH. He has a new release out called CRUDBUMP. Considering how much he has contributed to the site I asked him to send me a shot of some of his gear for a post. This in turn resulted in the following interview. Enjoy.

1. So, for those not familiar with your work, give us a little background on some of what you do?

"I write and illustrate two daily comics, Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea, which are free to view online. Musically speaking, I wrote & recorded four comedy-industrial albums as Kompressor from 2000-04 and released some miscellaneous music under the Dog Traders name from 2000-08. I occasionally make short Youtube videos, with my music as the soundtrack."

2. How did you get into synths?

"Took classical piano lessons for eight years as a child, started playing guitar, and while in college (1998) I started poking around and realized synthesizers were pretty inexpensive. I'd read music magazines here and there as a kid and always assumed they were thousands of dollars, but once I got on eBay, I found people getting rid of old Rolands, multitrack tape machines, etc. and jumped right in.

Since the market for analog synths hadn't blown up yet, I assembled a small studio of an Ensoniq SQ-80, Roland JX-8p / SH-09 / 707, some guitar pedals, and a Tascam Porta-01 for hardly anything, and started recording music.

Once I had a couple synths, I started to scour local thrift stores/music stores/garage sales for neglected, broken, cheap gear which I'd clean/fix up and either keep or resell. By the time I started Kompressor in 2000, I'd added an Optigan, Rheem Kee bass, Akai S612, Tascam 238 and a gang of cheap midi synths / fx boxes."

3. When you first started picking up synths, what did you look for in them?

"I figured out pretty quickly that I liked synths with a lot of knobs and inputs/outputs way more than synths with one data wheel and a bunch of menus. You can get a huge range of sounds out of the SH-09 by patching feedback out of the headphone jack through guitar pedals and back into the input, and using the envelope follower + filter to process drums and bass/guitar."

4. What was your first synth and what is currently your favorite?

"My first actual synth (not counting a Casiotone) was a Roland JX-8p... if the modular doesn't count as my favorite I'd have to go with the SH-2/SH-09. Owned both of them, currenly just have the SH-2, but it makes its way onto everything. I've always wanted to check out an SH-5 or SH-7 but they've gotten so crazy expensive over the years that I don't think I'll ever get the chance. If I trip over one in the trash while I'm taking a walk some day I'll let you know what I think."

5. When playing your synths, do you focus on composing music, exploring sound, both, or other?

"Probably a mixture of both. The MPC has been instrumental in letting me control the modular + effects - I record a lot of sounds from the modular and cut them up/re-sequence them in the MPC. Most of the time I don't have a keyboard hooked up to the modular, but I do use a Futureretro Orb that's clocked by the MPC for sequencing.

A lot of the melodic stuff is from the Roland SH-2 and Waldorf Q+, which I usually play live instead of sequencing. There's something about the bender and key action on the SH-2 which I love and wish Roland would make again."


6. What interests you now in the world of synths?

"The 5U format of modular synths, which includes Modcan, MOTM, Synthesizers.com, and a few small manufacturers, has a great form factor and is built extremely well. The manufacturers in this format seem to concentrate on sound quality and build quality rather than making little Nintendo Fart-Monster modules with cheap components, which seems to dominate the Eurorack format. I know that Euro users love their Eurorack, and I actually have a Doepfer "beauty box" for some modules I can't get in 5U - but I built up about 15U of Euro in 08/09 and was really disappointed in the sound + physical aspects. Probably spoiled from the 5U stuff I'd been using for years! I sold it off and got some Modcan/MOTM stuff instead.

The newer Modcan modules are novel and I'm going to pick up some of those as they become available. I just got the 65B Dual Frequency Shifter last fall as I was finishing up the CRUDBUMP album and it wound up on half the tracks, since it sounds good on almost anything. Frequency shifter modules are touchy since you need either great DSP or precisely-calibrated analog multipliers to eliminate bleed, but this one was very well-designed. It responds well to CV and even sounds good if you overdrive it a little bit."

7. What are your thoughts on the iPad and upcoming slate devices in relation to synthesis?

"I have no idea (sorry!) [matrix: enough said. :)]"


8. Finally, can you tell us a little bit about your latest release?

"It's a spoken-word/rap album called CRUDBUMP:NA$TYJAM$ and it's stuffed completely full of analog-synth sounds and vocoder. The songs are about subprime lending, a fictional city called Horsetown, leaving voicemail for the governor of Ohio, traveling to England, and bare feet. It has a lot of bass so it bumps if you play it in your car. That's where I imagine you would want to listen to the album. It's a good album to play if you're trying to get yourself pumped up to go to work."

BTW, if you are wondering who the pug is, his name is Charles. Check him out here and be sure to see Drew's Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea. It's all good.

Hataken Interview

Back on March 31, I put up a post on Hataken, a Japanese DJ artist who primarily uses analog synths. At the time, Shane Chisolm, the manager of Don Juan Dracula mentioned Hataken was working on a remix version of DJD's "Take Me Home". Shane asked me if I'd be interested in doing an interview with Hataken, and I thought why not. It would be interesting to hear his perspective on the world of synths as a live DJ artist. The following is the result of that interview. Note, this is a long one. You will want to use page down to scroll through. If it is too long for you, I recommend reading one or two questions each time you visit the site. Each DIY item below would typically have been a separate post. There is a lot of interesting stuff here. That said, I start with an introduction followed by asking Hataken how it all started for him. Note the focus is primarily on synths as this site is about everything synth, and Hataken delivers. The gear he has both worked with and designed to meet his specific needs is overwhelming. There's also an interesting interlude on experimenting with frequency counters to produce specific frequencies of sound known to have healing properties, and of course there is a bit of the age old discussion of digital and analog.

Before we start the interview, I want to thank Hataken for taking the time out for this, and I want to thank Shane for suggesting it. It's a fascinating history of a DJ synth artist with interesting perspectives that I'm sure I will come back to over time. Be sure to check out the video and link to more at the end. And of course be sure to check out Hataken's website.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

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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.

Acire 🥉(Erica Synths LXR02 & DB01 // Conductive Labs NDLR turning the LXR02 into a polyphonic synth)

video upload by 2-Minute Warning

"If you've already watched a some of my videos, you might know that I sometimes like to divert a few electronic instruments from their use 😅
So here the challenge was to make the LXR-02 (which is supposed to be mainly a digital drum synth) act as a drum machine & a polyphonic pads synth 😄

For this, I used the Conductive Labs NDLR sequencer with its polychain feature (on its PAD track) which can turn up to 4 mono synths into a 4-voice polyphonic synth. (I used this feature on another video, this time with 4 physical analog mono synths: [below]).

Therefore I used 3 of the tracks of the LXR-02 to play 3-note chords by the NDLR. I used the LXR's individual output, through the Strymon Bigsky reverb for the PADS (through the Pill ducking pedal being triggered by the LXR's drum kick).

I also used 1 track of the LXR-02 to play the ARP part (also sequenced by the NDLR). This time the individual output went through the Strymon Timeline delay.

The Erica Synths DB-01 was used to play the bass riff (still sequenced by the NDLR) through the Eventide - H9 pedal (with some heavy modulated Chorus bringing a Lo-Fi vibe to the sound!).

* Hardware used *

- BASS : Erica Synths DB-01 Bassline + Eventide H9 (Chorus)
- DRUMS : Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 (individual output 1+2)
- PADS : Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 + Strymon Bigsky + Pill Pedal (individual output 3)
- RIFF : Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 + Strymon Timeline (individual output 4)
- LIVE SEQUENCING : Conductive Labs NDLR"

052▶️ Chains (NDLR // Polychain DB01, SE02, 0Coast, Circuit MS // Minitaur // Minibrute // Tanzbar)

video upload by 2-Minute Warning

"I wanted to use a couple of the nice features of the NDLR for this video, so I went to set up 6 analog mono synths all sequenced by the NDLR, a couple of effects and the Tanzbar drum machine for this video!

The first feature used here is poly chaining, where 1 track (PAD track) of the NDLR sent 4-note chords to 4 mono synths (Erica Synths - DB01, Make Noise - 0Coast, Roland - SE02 and Novation - Circuit Mono Station), considering them as a unique 4-voice polyphonic synth!

It reminded me a bit me my wonderful Vermona Perfourmer, where each voice of the synth can have different setting regarding the oscillators, envelopes, filter etc. 🤩

I needed to make some quite complex routing in order to be able to side chain the pads with the kick of the MFB - Tanzbar analog drum machine.

I also used the 'chord sequencer' of the NDLR in order to play the whole track as a song (it's like a song mode, where sequences automatically change the global chords).

Here are some further details on the setup:

* PAD: DB01 to SE02 to Bigsky (Right Input) to The Pill Pedal (Input 1) triggered by Tanzbar's kick
* PAD: 0Coast to Circuit Mono Station to Bigsky (Left Input) to The Pill Pedal (Input 2) triggered by Tanzbar's kick

These 4 analog synths were set up in order to respond to the poly chain function of the NDLR (i.e. With a 4-note chord, the NDLR will send each note to one the 4 synths).

* DRONE (Bass): The Moog - Minitaur was being triggered by the DRONE track for the bass.
* MOTIF (Melody): The Arturia - Minibrute 1, through the ZVEX - Instant Lofi Junky & Strymon - Timeline

I forgot to mention that the Tanzbär's main output was processed by the Eventide - H9 (Reverse Delay) effect, excluding its kick which was outputted on its separate output in order to trigger the side chain for the pads on the Pill Pedal."

Interview with Henning Krane of Don Juan Dracula

I recently discovered Don Juan Dracula back on March 4th, this year, when their manager Shane Chisholm contacted me about doing an interview with the band. I'll be honest and say I was a little reluctant at first because this site is about "the synths and not the band," but I liked what I heard, so I asked him if it would be alright to focus on synths and run the interview with their keyboard player. I got the thumbs up, and the following is that interview. I've been listening to their album for some time now and I must say I really do like it. Catchy stuff that will get stuck in your head for days and keep the energy going. Don't miss the videos below. One of which, "Run Away With You" features a kid in the video with a custom toy keyboard. Apparently the kid in the video made it when he saw Hennings keytar and they decided they just had to let him use it in the video. Pretty cool. That said...


1. How many members of the band play synths?
Henning: Our songwriter Henrik uses keyboards as well as guitar when he writes songs, but while recording and live it's me who playes the keyboards.

2. When and how did you get into synths?
Henning: In 2000 I think, Henrik asked me to play keyboards in his new band. I hadn't really played keyboards before, but like a lot of kids I was forced to take piano lessons when I was growing up, so I still remembered a little. When we started out, all we had was Henriks old Casiotone MT-800 and a Casio SA-10. Those two keyboards were the basis of our first EP and live-shows for a couple of years.

3. Do you view yourself as a synthesist, keyboard player or both?
Henning: I don't really see myself as neither actually. I like to collect old keyboards, synths and gadgets that make cool sounds. And I play them in a band.

4. What synths do you use in the studio and on tour.
Henning: Live i mainly use a Yamaha SHS-10 as a MIDI-Controller for the Korg Microkorg. That way I'm able to move around more on stage. I really like the diversity of the microkorg, and the simplicity of it's interface. Being able to quickly switch between custom sounds and finished presets makes it ideal for live use, which is probably why everyone is using them these days. Though it seems everyone is using one these days.

I also still use that old Casiotone and a Yamaha kids organ once bought at a flea-market for the lead-sound of "Take Me Home". We have gradually moved away from the pure Casio-pop sound, using more real instruments as well as synthesizers and not just FM-keyboards.

In the studio we have started to use more soft-synths lately as well, mainly because it's easier, and cheaper. Unfortunately we don't have the money to buy every synth we want.

We will be recording our next album soon, and we're looking to purchase the new Korg MicroX before that. I'm also trying to get hold of a Korg MS-10 for the studio-session. Everytime I buy a new synth or keyboard we try to use it somewhere in the recordings. That way we get a variety in the sound. I try to not use the same sounds more than once... We have used quite a lot of different gear over the years. Mainly cheap kids-like stuff, I just like the sound...

5. What is your favorite synth and why?
Henning: The Casio VL-1. Just because it's so small, and still so funny sounding. And it's a calculator as well. A friend of ours actually used his on a math exam once...

6. What do you think about the role of synthesizers in music today and it's influences in the past? What would you consider to be you main influences (musicians, technologies, anyone)?
Henning: The last couple of years you have started to hear more and more bands becoming popular using synthesizers in their songs, and I like that of course.
-Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo -not so much Erasure) and OMD has influenced me a lot with their simple monophonic style of playing and composing.
-As well as Casio.

7. What is your dream synth and why?
Henning: I have been dreaming of getting a Moog Prodigy and a Yamaha Cs-5 for a little while. Because they are the synths mostly used on my favorite album by Depeche Mode "Speak & Spell".

8. Do you prefer a particular type of synthesis (analog, digital, modular, FM, etc) and why?
Henning: I do (of course) prefer real vintage analog stuff, because it's the "real deal". But it's very hard to get hold of here in Norway, and lately americans on ebay don't want to send their stuff to Europe anymore. I also have a love for beaten up kids' casio stuff. I still look for them at flea markets every spring.

9. BTW, I was wondering what the little keyboard in the "Run Away With You" video was?
Henning: haha !
-it's actually a danish kids toy keyboard called "elektronisk keyboard 11 -100" gaffa-taped onto a kids guitar!
-The kid in the video made it himself actually before the videoshoot after he had seen pictures of me with my keytar. So we had to let him use it...

--------------------------

And there you have it. I want to thank Shane Chisholm and Henning Krane of Don Juan Dracula for taking the time out for the interview. I also want to give a big thanks to Shane for giving out 20 free downloads of DJD's album to Matrixsynth readers (they are all gone, btw). DJD is about to break out on the international scene and I wish them all the luck. I had a great time going back and forth with them for this interview. When they get big, remember... You saw them here first!

I'll leave you with two of my favorites from the band:

Don Juan Dracula, Runaway With You


Don Juan Dracula, Take Me Home


Previous Posts on DJD

Making the Andromeda A6

A great thread is up on the VSE Forums on the Alesis Andromeda. I know the threads expire there, so I'll grab some of the most interesting bits here. DB below is David Bryce who worked on the Andromeda. I remember when all of this was happening. Mike Peake was on sonic states the-gas-station and AH. The guys behind the Andromeda really loved synths and they respected the rest of us enough to frequently pulled us in for feedback on the design of the synth. It was as if they were one of us, and in reality they were and still are. Mike Peake stayed active in the synth community and as you can see from this thread, David Bryce is still very active. You have to love a company that does this. Great people make a great company. I personally think Alesis has been one of the better synth manufactures to date. The Andromeda, ION and Micron, and the Fusion have all been pretty amazing synths. The price points for what you get compared to what else is out there is astounding when you think about it. Do take the time to check them out. The Andromeda is a 16 voice analog with a huge modulation matrix, dual filters, built in step sequencer and much, much more. And it sounds pretty amazing imo. Whenever I think I've heard it all, someone makes a demo that showcases a completely new character of the synth. BTW, are there any other poly analogs with 16 or more voices other than of course the fully polyphonic boards using divide down technology?

Alesis A6 Andromeda, Now where did that come from? (title of VSE thread)
---------------
CTB wrote:
Our very own Dave Bryce, who sometimes posts here and works for DSI, was involved in the A6 project. Perhaps he would be the one to ask. Smile

DB:
Actually, we just got tired of people complaining that the QS synths had no resonant filters, so we decided to make something that did. Very Happy Cool

Making Andromeda was really the culmination of a dream for a bunch of us who had grown up with the older analog synths. We had spent years working on sample based stuff, and Erik and Rob Rampley got Alesis founder (and major engineer geek) Keith Barr drunk one night and talked him into letting us make an old school American power synth. Keith actually designed Andromeda's ASICs himself, if memory serves.

One of the back stories was that we were fought tooth and nail by Alesis' sales and marketing VP at the time, who thought we were out of our minds. He once told me we'd be lucky to sell 50 total units. Guess he may have been wrong. Shocked Idea

If anyone has any specific questions, I'll do my best to answer if I can remember. That was a while ago...

StepLogik wrote:
I'm shocked that the marketing group fought you

DB:
It wasn't the marketing group. I was the marketing manager of the synth division, and I was certainly behind it. It was the VP.

,
Quote:
seems like they would want to distinguish Alesis from the "workstation hell" of that era.

DB:
Not just workstations - it was VA synths, too. We figured making a Real Actual Analog synth would catch some people's attention (as Bitexion correctly surmised).

Plus, we were tired of hearing that we weren't a real synth company despite the fact that our ROMplers (especially the QS8) were outselling just about everything else at the time...but there were folks who kept telling us that ROMplers aren't real synths...so we made a real synth. Idea

That seemed to do the trick... Laughing

cbjlietuva wrote:
so maybe i can get my question amswered here:

does the Andromeda have Polyphonic Aftertouch?

DB:
The short answer would be no.

theglyph wrote:
Dave, the one major question I have had and the one thing which has kept me from pulling the trigger on an A6 purchase is what will the status of the A6's ASICs be in the future? CEMs and SSMs were used in several synths from many manufacturers so those chips were manufactured to some degree in surplus as we see today (although they ain't cheap Crying or Very sad). Did Alesis make sure that the IC manufacturer made enough chips to fulfill any future failures or is the well not so deep?

DB:
Alesis is the chip manufacturer...I mean, they don't own the foundry where the chips are physically made, but they do everything else. Consequently, there's no way we can know how many of them Alesis has made/wants to make...

...unless they want to tell us, of course... Wink

Soundwave wrote:
Few questions;

Is the A6 still in production and will it remain so for the foreseeable future?

Will the support continue for the machine i.e. OS updates/fixes?

Are the first, more expensive Alesis A6’s different in any way than the later Numark ones that are apparently now made in the far east as some claim the earlier Alesis ones sound better?

There are rumours that some of the people behind the A6 were also involved in the Xpander/Matrix12 is this true?

Will there ever be an analogue successor or derivative or the A6 as the VA market has kinda reached a standstill now?

DB:
I can only answer two of those questions becuase I haven't worked for Alesis for about seven years, so I have no idea what their current plans are.

Marcus Ryle, who founded Line 6, was one of the guys responsible for the XpanderMatrix 12. He and his team had a lot to do with a bunch of Alesis products including the ADAT and the QS synths...but they had nothing to do with Andromeda.

There are a few "rev 2" Andromedas that were only used during beta. They are slightly different from the production models, but the OS in them is different enough that you can't transfer programs between, them, so they can't really be directly compared....nor, if you could, is there actually any point in doing so. Howver, all the production models are (AFAIK) exactly the same...."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's it as of the time of this post. Check out the VSE thread for updates. I'll try to update this post with the historical bits so we don't lose them. Image via this post.

5 Years of MATRIXSYNTH!!!

It's that time again. Today is the five year anniversary of MATRIXSYNTH!!! I like to share a little bit about how the site ticks in these posts, some of the history for those that don't know it, some miscellaneous insights this year, and of course some numbers.

It all started back in July 20, of 2005, with a brief post wishing Dr. Bob Moog well. The brevity of the post was a bit of a foreshadowing of what the site would become.

I started the blog when the old site just wasn't cutting it anymore. I created the old site back in 1997 (before The Matrix movies ever existed BTW) as a personal portal for the various synth sites I used to visit. In 2005, blogging was just becoming popular. I found that I had a difficult time keeping track of things in email, my favorites list and the old site. The problem was many of the interesting bits were buried within sites, and possibly more importantly, a new method of sharing information was just emerging. Flickr (Feb 2004) and YouTube (Feb 2005) were just starting, Vimeo (Nov 2004) was relatively unknown, and SoundCloud (Aug 2007) wasn't even around yet.

In 2005, I created MATRIXSYNTH, the blog. I started tracking "Everything Synth". I let people know on various synth forums and email lists I belonged to about the site. In time it grew and people started sending things in. I realized what the site was becoming. It wasn't just a place for me to track stuff, but a place for anyone into synths. It was a daily heartbeat on what people were doing with their synths, not just a news site. In the beginning I posted every single image that came in on Flickr featuring a synth, and every single video on YouTube. It was fascinating at the time, because before then you never really saw what other people were doing, unless you knew them, or unless they had the means to host their own website. Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, Blogger, Word Press, and other hosting sites changed this. The site became a place for people to share and promote what they were doing. I received emails from people thanking me for connections they made because of the site. Many sites announced themselves here including DVDBORN (Jan 2, 2006), Muff Wiggler (Dec 4, 2006), TRASH_AUDIO (Oct 22, 2007), Analog Suicide (Dec 23, 2007), NOISESOURCE (April 22, 2008), and many others. The site currently gets over half a million pageviews a month. Think about that. More on the numbers in a bit. Before I get bombarded, I no longer post site announcements simply for the sake of site announcements. At 50 posts a day, it would be suicide and with the amount I post and I would take you all down with me. :) Posts have to be about specific synths, and via links are given.

There have also been a plethora of product announcements from manufacturers that read the site - too many to list. BTW, be sure see the MANUFACTURERS section on the right and the MANUFACTURERS page for a list of manufacturers that read the site and have taken the time out to send in a small 250px x 100px image. Note placement on this page is free. If you are a manufacturer, send me an image and I will add it. Note some dealers are listed there as well. Back to some history...

When I first started the blog, I wanted to put up a post at least once a week. It turned out to be more like once a day. I then wanted to put a minimum of five posts up a day, and then 10. I remember days when I didn't think I was going to hit it, and I remember days when I was so stressed out due to the sheer number and complexity of certain posts that I was ready to give it up. Every single post on this site is put up manually - there is zero automation. I now put up close to fifty posts every single day, seven days a week! With the exception of August 6, 2005, at least one post has gone up every single day since the inception of the site. If I only knew then what I know now I would have posted something on that one day. [Note: I thought I missed more than one day, but I couldn't find others - check out the archives in the right by clicking on the side triangles to drill down - if anyone finds another day I missed, let me know]. For those that are curious, it takes me anywhere between about four and six hours a day to do this. How do I have the time? Eight hours (usually less) of sleep, eight hours work, and eight hours for everything else (blog). I do contract-based work from home, so the entire day is pretty much spent behind my laptop working, with only a few breaks for food and a bike ride so I don't melt into my lazy boy. Weekends I get out and make time for my synths, friends, family, etc. The site pretty much is a full time job including weekends. How do I do it? I love it!!! That and there is a technique I honed over the years as crazy as it sounds. The more you do anything, the easier it becomes. It doesn't feel like work to me and even though things are not automated, I have a rhythm and a routine that I have relatively mastered. It took a couple of years to get that rhythm down. Now it's a bit of an addiction. That and with contract-based work I also work in surges, meaning some days are busier than others, and in between contracts I have more time on the blog. It all just works out. This brings me back to the note on that very first post back on July 20. At the time, I really didn't know what to say. It was an awkward first post but with the news that day, I knew that had to be the first post. I thought about what to write and I realized there was nothing I could say, other than providing the link, asking others to wish him well, and getting the heck out of the way. The post wasn't about me, it was about him. That has pretty much evolved into the theme of the site to this day. I want people to experience what others are doing, not my reflections on it. Once I realized that, posting became much easier. Part of this was also realizing that the number of posts going up can be difficult to consume, for myself included. The less I say the less time I waste. I try to keep things short, to the point, and myself out of the post. The site is a bit like conveyor belt sushi, a buffet, or tapas bar. Stuff constantly comes in and you can either take all of it in, or just pick what you want. The cool thing is everything is archived so you can come back to it later.

Some people ask me why Blogger? The reason is it's free and it's owned and hosted by Google. If I'm ever unable to run the site for whatever reason it will stay up. We have lost too many great synth sites over the years unfortunately. The excellent drummachine.com immediately comes to mind. If anyone remembers the site, it was the best site dedicated to drum machines - tons of pics, details and audio samples. It's now a promotion site. This is going to sound crazy, but the limitations of Blogger also keep things a bit more manageable and in check. I like the site as it is. It is what it is and that's what makes the site.

Time for some numbers. I'll try to keep it short this time. According to Google Analytics, since the inception of the site, there has been a total of 8,054,806 visits and 16,856,224 pageviews. That's up from 5,774,890 visits and 11,233,869 pageviews as of last year. If you look at the bottom of the site you will see Site Meter has me at 8,337,466 pageviews. This is because I started Google Analytics after Site Meter and I missed adding back the Google Analytics code a couple of times when updating my template. If you click on the map, you will see we are still missing a few countries. North Korea, I haven't said anything bad about you!!! It blows me away to think visits came in from some places. I chose the map for the image in this post because of this. This site is global. You get to see what people around the world are doing with synths on a daily basis. The site exists because of everyone out there who loves synths - you, me, and those that may not even know about the site yet. It's been a great five years and I look forward to the next. THANK YOU!!!

Update: Twitter: via Chris Carter!!!
http://chriscarter.co.uk/ @chris_carter_
http://www.throbbing-gristle.com/
http://www.chrisandcosey.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Carter_%28musician%29

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY MATRIXSYNTH from Chris Carter on Vimeo.

"Experimentally yours...

Chris Carter"

Update: I forgot to note the number of posts since the inception of the site. Including this post there was a total of 43,951.

An Interview with Denis Cazajeux of OTO Machines

Denis Cazajeux is the man behind OTO Machines. His first product was the OTO Biscuit, a bit crushing effects unit with a multi-mode analog filter, waveshaper, delay, pitch shifter, step filter, vibrato, envelope filter, "tube" clipper, and 2 octaves down rectification. He later released DER OTO, a free monosynth with 16 step sequencer upgrade to the Biscuit. The following is my interview with Denis. You'll find some insight into what influences this unique maker of electronic gear along with his work with Olivier Gillet of Mutable Instruments (Shruthi-1). uCApps MIDIBox gets a mention as well. You'll find a pic of Denis' workplace below. The interview:

1) How did the world of synths start for you?

"When I was 15 (in 1986), I started to listen to every electronic music I could find in my country (near the french Alps, in the south east of France): Kraftwerk, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Space, Wendy Carlos, Laurie Spiegel, White Noise, Klaus Schulze, etc. At that time, everybody was using a Yamaha DX7 but I was more interested in the Oberheim Matrix 6, Jupiter 8 or Memorymoog, even if I did not have enough money to buy any of these synths. It was a good time for vintage analog synth lovers, they were outdated and cost almost nothing! So I bought a Minimoog, ARP Odyssey, and Korg MS-10. I really love hybrid synths, like the Roland JX series, the Korg Poly-800, Oberheim Matrix-6 or the early 8/12-bits samplers (Ensoniq, E-mu). The sound is generated by a digital counter chip (called a DCO) or a DAC, and then passed through an analog filter.

In 2002, I wanted to build my first little synth and I tried the MIDIBOX SID, based on the MOS 6581 chip, which is also a hybrid synth built in a chip. It was fun but the sound was too '80's video games' (for good reasons!) for me, and the SID chip had a permanent hiss on its output. By the way, Ucapps (home of Midibox) is a very fascinating website for DIYers. I particularly love their FM synth based on the Yamaha OPL3 chip. If you mix this chip with an analog filter, you'll end up with a warm sounding and powerful synth. When I designed the first Biscuit prototype in 2006, I played with the assembly code to generate sounds through the 8-bit DA converters. It was a very simple synth: only 2 waveforms (square and sawtooth) with digital VCA, and the Biscuit filter controlled by an ADS envelope generator. The sound was surprisingly good, halfway between a SID chip and an analog monosynth. The sample frequency was 30 kHz and because waveforms were not band-limited, I got a lot of aliasing with notes above C3. So I raised the sampling frequency up to 156 kHz to solve this aliasing problem, but then I did not have enough processing power to finish the synth with all the required features (LFO, pitch modulations,...). I gave up and I went back to work on the Biscuit. But I kept in mind that the Biscuit could be a synth one day."

2. Regarding the synthesis work that you initially worked on for the Biscuit, is this what's going into the Der OTO update? How did you manage to work around the processing power?

"I didn't keep anything from the initial work on the Biscuit prototype. My first synth needed a 156 kHz sampling frequency in order to play waveforms without aliasing (I think the SID 6581 also used a very high frequency to solve this aliasing problem). With a standard 40 kHz sampling rate, the sound was good on bass notes, but too dirty for the medium notes and nearly unusable for the high notes. 40 kHz was the upper sampling limit for Biscuit. Biscuit uses a simple 8-Bit PIC microcontroller, clocked at 10 Mhz. This processor has many things to do each second: scanning and computing switches & pots, digitizing audio, receiving and sending MIDI, lighting the LEDs, doing some signal processing (bit manipulation, waveshaper, pitch shifter,...), sending information to the 8-bit DACs, digital pots and analog filter, etc…. So, for the synth upgrade, I had no other choice than to use band-limited waveforms, with interpolation and octave crossfading between wavetables. It was quite complex for me, I'm a self taught guy and I don't have the knowledge to do that kind of stuff. Then I remembered that 2 years ago, I was in touch with Olivier Gillet, creator of the Shruthi-1 monosynth (http://mutable-instruments.net/). I listened to the Shruthi demos and found that the sound was very impressive for a simple 8-bit monosynth. It was, like Biscuit, 8-bit processing, conversion to analog and an analog filter. Olivier helped me to include band-limited waveforms (Saw and Square) with octave crossfading, FM synthesis and pitch modulation into Biscuit's hardware. He's a brilliant guy, and has a strong knowledge of synthesis and microcontroller programming. It's funny anyway because in the end I added the first raw waveforms to the band-limited ones, to give the choice between a full spectrum playability and a bassy and dirty sound. Dirtiness is useful sometimes!"

3. How much overlap is there with the Shruthi-1?

"Not much. The 2 synths are very different in many points: user interface, number of parameters available, audio path... Der OTO uses 8-bit DAC and Shruthi use a 1-bit 10 MHz PWM. Der OTO got the special 12db/Octave filter that gives Biscuit its particular sound. Shruthi has a 24dB/Oct filter with several choices, Der OTO has a digital VCA instead of its analog counterpart in the Shruthi,... I think that these 2 synths are complementary. Some of our users have both."


4. What made you decide to offer the synth upgrade for the Bicuit for free?

"We wanted to be kind with our customers! It's an anti-capitalist way of doing business, and we love that. Der OTO users can buy the 'Der Mask' overlay, that helps us to fund the development of Der OTO."

5. What is your take on the current world of synthesis and how do you see Der OTO in that world? What inspires you?

"I dream of a simple-low cost-good sounding-polyphonic analog or hybrid synthesizer, that I didn't see yet! OTO is not really in the world of synthesis yet, and Der OTO is maybe just a start, who knows... I think synthesis is like cooking, you need several ingredients to make a good meal. Nowadays, you create loops with a computer, you treat them with analog processors, mix them with an old synth, and then you edit everything in your computer using plugins. It's fusion cuisine, it's very powerful and exciting. I think that 'Der OTO' is a new ingredient for your music. It's not a digital synth, it's not an analog synth, it's between these 2 worlds. When I listen to 'Der OTO', I think it's really musical, wild and its defects are touching!"

6. Anything else you'd like to share with the readers of MATRIXSYNTH?

"I'm just an electronic luthier, I'm waiting to listen what Biscuit users will do with that upgrade!"

7. Speaking of an electronic luthier, Bob Moog always stated he built tools for musicians and wasn't a musician himself. I remember reading he claimed to be first and foremost an engineer. Where do you see yourself? Do you get time to play with your creations and other synths for that matter? When you do, what is a typical session like? Some explore sound and create music in the process, and some pursue music directly.

"It's a very interesting question. I'm not sure if it's possible to be a good engineer and a good musician at the same time. Making (good) music, or designing new musical products takes a lot of time and energy. It's a passion which occupies most of your thoughts. It's the same thing in the world of classical music: the luthiers are not musicians and vice versa. Very few musicians have built their electronic instruments (Raymond Scott, Oskar Sala,...), but their creations were unique and mainly designed for their own use. I used to make music but unfortunately I don't have enough time for that. By the way, I'm not a very good musician! So I see myself more as an engineer, even if I don't have any diplomas in electronics."

I'd like to end this with a big thank you to Denis Cazajeux of OTO Machines for taking the time out for this interview, and for making the Biscuit. I own one and I can wholeheartedly say it is a fantastic machine.

Sonic Detours

Published on Jul 15, 2016 Sonic Detours

Playlist (full descriptions for each further below):
1. Mr. Fingers - Can You Feel It (Sonic Detours Cover)
2. Korg Volca Bass, Keys, Sample and Beats + Waldorf Rocket - Detour #1
3. Korg Volca Jam - Detour #2
4. Korg Volca + Waldorf Rocket Jam - Detour #3
5. Korg Electribe Ambient/Downtempo/Chill Without Beat - Detour #4
6. Jam with Push 2, Waldorf Rocket, Roland JU-06, Korg Volca Bass and Keys - Detour #5
7. Detour #6 - Push 2, Roland JU-06, MicroBrute, Korg Volca Bass, Keys, Beats and Sample
8. Jam with Korg Minilogue, Roland JU-06, MicroBrute, Korg Volca, Ableton Live, Push 2 - Detour #7


1. Mr. Fingers - Can You Feel It (Sonic Detours Cover)

"I bought a Roland JU-06 today and decided to celebrate with a cover of a house music classic.

Gear used:
- Roland JU-06
- Korg Volca Bass
- Korg Volca Keys
- Korg Volca Sample
- Ableton Live 9
- Ableton Push 2
- Novation Launch Control

Ableton live was used for sequencing and mixing only - all synth and drum parts were played on the hardware units."

2. Korg Volca Bass, Keys, Sample and Beats + Waldorf Rocket - Detour #1

CLICK FOR MORE »

Jurgen of Jomox on the Price of the New Sunsyn

If you recall from this post a new SunSyn is on the way. Mr. Array spotted the following from Jurgen on gearslutz. BTW, I'm not seeing the price on the Sunsyn page, but according to VICMOD in the comments of the last post it was around 5000 Euros which currently comes to about $7000 US. Update via Mr. Array on the price: "5000 Euro price includes VAT, so it's closer to $6000 USD"

"Very simple:

1. a very essential part ( the vcas used - there are 20 on each voice card
plus 20 on the main board -180 per SunSyn) is obsolete and not produced any
further. There is no direct replacement, so I would have to redesign the
whole circuitry. The sunsyn voice board layout which I made 10 years ago was
the worst thing I ever did...it's dense like a persian carpet. sometimes I
say to myself it's a wonder that it works;)

2. The processors that were used are ****ing old and too small in power and
many more little issues. a COMPLETE redesign is necessary. Also a complete
new OS programming.

3. The whole market for these bolide synths is fairly overestimated...it's a
big rush now because none has one to sell. But if I go down and make it, it
will take me years though and once it's finished, the market is elsewhere.

4. It's a damned ****ing job to BUILD sunsyns. Every build is a repair
because this monster is just way too complex and there are millions of
possible errors. And these errors OCCUR according to murphys law. It took me
(and I'm fast, trust me) about 2 days to build one SunSyn from scratch if I
count all the time of failure search, modifications, repairings and more. I
have had only 1 guy in 10 years that was able to make them (almost) alone
without my help.
I forgot to say...SunSyns don't grow on trees;)

5. discussions about OS bugs. There were times when many people were yelling
at me about SunSyn bugs and noises, tuning instabilities, VCO mod offsets
and more....and I have to say, yes, they were right up to a certain point.
But I'm not masochistic, too and it didn't make fun, honestly. I would do it
better now...but that would require to make a redesign.

6. it's not that easy to really make money on such a thing...I could tell
you some stories if we were sitting in a bar and having a drink;)

7. My life time is just too precious to make another one. Why should I do
this? I have made it once, and it would not be better if I did it another
time. There are easier ways to make your living than to build and sell
sunsyns. It's made with blood, sweat and tears...

8. SunSyn was always a bit backward oriented...it's an analog poly synth
with some features and a great sound. But it's like refurbishing oldtimers.
I want to go forward with new ideas, admittedly.

Guess why the Wave hadn't been produced any more? same issues...time, money,
human resources, market. To expensive, too sensitive, too much risk. It took
me years, but I think I've learned my lessons and almost went bankrupt.

Hope this was an honest and exhausting explanation:-))

JM

PS....and I didn't say I would never make another synth...but not likely a
SunSyn;)"

Four Years of MATRIXSYNTH!

Today marks the four year anniversary of MATRIXSYNTH. First off I want to say thank you to everyone that reads and contributes to this site. THANK YOU!!!

I started the blog as a place to track everything synth initially for myself in 2005. Before then, way back in October of 1997, I created MATRIXSYNTH.COM. I created that site to host some light synth content on the synths that I owned. If you click on the nostalgia link there you will see the list. I captured the introductions for each synth in their respective manuals and I captured their editable parameters; how manufacturers write about their synths has always fascinated me. The rest of the site was just my window into the world of synths. On the left frame I had a link list off all my favorite sites. Clicking on them would bring the site up on the right pane. Back then Sonic State and Harmony Central were it on the forum front. VSE didn't come around until 1999.

In 2005, I decided to create MATRIXSYNTH, the blog, to track everything synth. The old format obviously did not make sense anymore as the more interesting nuggets of info were embedded deep in websites, and new formats of media were gaining popularity, such as YouTube, Flicker and so on. The number of links would become unwieldy. As of this post I am currently at 29,162 posts on MATRIXYNTH alone. On MATRIXSYNTH-B I am at 3,086 posts, and the new MATRIXSYNTH-C, I am at 63 posts. The B site is auctions only, the C site is focused on the music, and this site is focused on the gear. The line can be fuzzy, but the idea is if a post gives you a good sense of what a given synth can do, it usually goes up here. I also created SYNTHWIRE back on 10/14/2005 for others to post.

Now for some numbers. I think I'm going to make a tradition out of this. Every year, on the site's anniversary, I will share the overall site's stats since it's inception, and on every New Year's Day I will share the stats for the prior year.

That said, if you look at the map image above you will see that to date the site has had over 5,271,468 visits from 207 countries/territories. I say over because I didn't start using Google Analytics, the stats program the image came from, until April 5, 2006. According to Site Meter which I started earlier I'm at 5,774,890 visits and 11,233,869 pageviews. Below is the traffic chart also from Google Analytics which has the site at 10,456,937 page views. Last year I commented "As for numbers, this is post #17,087, the site has had over 2,958,261 visits, 880,569 visitors and over 5,253,505 pageviews." Over the last year alone the site had 2,319,045 visits, and 5,214,272 page views. Pretty cool when you think about it.

If you click on the map at the top of this post you will see different shades of green. The darker the green the more visits from that country. Note this is from April 5, 2006 until now. Any green means a visit from that country. I think I found a bug in Google Analytics. If you look at last year's map and compare it to this year's, you will see that some countries that were green then, are now white. If you combine the two we are closer to world domination! :)

And... that's it for this post folks. I need to get back to work, the blog and a little break. Thanks again for a great four years. I'll keep marching on as long as I can. I can't wait to look back 20 years from now into a glimpse of what the makers and the users of our synths were doing on a daily basis. Thanks everyone!!!

The Synths of Jodorowsky's Dune (2014)

Jodorowsky's Dune (2014) - HD Trailer Published on Feb 14, 2014 Giles Thomas·70 videos

Update: please see this post for some unfortunate news regarding Kurt Stenzel.

Many of you I am sure are familiar with Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel Dune as well as the film adaptation by David Lynch in 1984 and the 2000 miniseries by John Harrison.  If you are not, see this article on Wikipedia and then head back.  Unknown to many, there was a planned film adaptation in 1973 by Alejandro Jodorowsky. It was to feature art by H. R. Giger (Aliens) and Jean Giraud, possibly music from Pink Floyd and Magma; the cast of actors was to include Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, and Gloria Swanson.   The adaptation never made it due to financial reasons.  Jodorowsky's Dune (2014) is a documentary on the undertaking of the film that never was.

The film launches in the US today. You'll find the cities and dates and additional details on the film's website here: http://sonyclassics.com/jodorowskysdune/dates.html

As for the synth connection, the soundtrack was composed by Kurt Stenzel who reached out to me. I asked him if he could give us more info on the synths used in the soundtrack and particularly what we hear in the trailer. The following is what he had to say (scroll down to Specifically for this Trailer in red if you want to jump to what you are hearing in the trailer):

"I did this soundtrack using a rig that I have used for years in Cookin With Kurt, Beyond-o-Matic and SpacEKrafT.  Since I play out at events in San Francisco I go for as much analog goodness as I can carry- so these synths are throughout the movie.

I have an original Novation Bass Station with keys (it has a really unique filter in my opinion), a Dave Smith Tetra (HEAVY!), an Oberheim Matrix 1000 (god-like), and for the sake of portability, I do get into some of the more recent analog modellers that all have some merit- I have a MicroKorg 2, a Novation Xio 25, and a Quasimidi Sirius.

 In the 'digital that's special' I have TWO CZ101s (the synth I learned on when it was new) and a Yamaha TG-33 vector synth.

Larger analogs that are hard to gig with, include a Moog Source (don't cry, I got this for $40 on the street when analog was uncool) and a rather GRITTY MicroMoog, and the 'head' part of a Moog Taurus 2, and a very handy Roland Juno 6. I also used a Korg Poly 61 and a Korg Poly 800, as well as one studio session with a real Rhodes, a real Celeste (no joke it was the one you see Susan Dey play in Partridge Family episodes-- the studio owns THE one) and they also had a Roland String Machine. The Celeste and Rhodes didn't make it to the film though--Director Frank Pavich though they were 'too normal' Ha! .

I also use Casiotones quite a bit--an original MT-60 my Dad bought in Japan when they were really novel, and a Concertmate from Radio Shack. I mention the Conccertmate as I realized that sucker has appeared on EVERY recording I have ever done--some of the low bit string sounds are ethereal and I run that through effects. It's very beat up from 20 years of gigs. God bless Radio Shack.

I also have lots of effects and toys like the Bliptronic, the Buddha Box, old school Kaos pad, and I use my kids Nintendo DS's to sync up 3 programs on 3 DS devices. I also got a Korg Monotribe and the Korg Monotron. Toys are good.

I used some very low fi techniques for sound design too. Oh, and my buddy Dave Miranda recorded me on his Dave Smith Poly Evolver keyboard as a last minute thing in NY and it wound up being a crucial scene-- that required no overdubs or any treatments-- that thing sounds amazing.

Also noteworthy, I am a hardcore user of the Roland SP-808 for sound design. That has been a platform for me since it came out, so my zip discs were flying on this project.

There's about 9 minutes of SpacEKrafT music in this film as well- that is my duo with Edward Dahl here in San Francisco. Ed uses Ableton and plays guitar and we have lots of toys--Alesis Air Synth and Air Effects. I use my aforementioned rig in various settings with SpacEKrafT. I also played a fair amount of guitar on the soundtrack, as well as some vocalizations. Some screaming, which came natural as I am also the singer in NY band "Six and Violence". When I am not tinkling on the keys.

SPECIFICALLY on the TRAILER: Zero to :40 is a relatively rare Yamaha SS-30 which I think has become fetishized since Sigur Ros uses one. That thing is way fun, and I have to thank Peter Fuhry from Beyond-o-Matic for loaning me that and the MicroMoog for many years.

In the trailer, when you hear the arpeggiation kick in at :40, that's one of my favorite synths ever, the Matrix 1000. That thing is my secret weapon. I love it. I am using the arpeggiator on the Quasimidi Sirius (and playing) to drive and alter the pattern. I know Sirius keyboards are rare nowadays, glad I never got rid of it. I mean, it has real Kraftwerk demoss in it straight from Germany!

The loud "blast" at 1:37, no joke, is a 'thunder tube' which is basically a tube with a drum head and a reverb spring--I banged it and slid the whole tube over an omnidirectional mic running through pitch shifting and all kinds of stuff. Don't tell Hollywood!

Next in the trailer, the brass at 1:55 is the Quasimidi Sirius which has an amazing factory patch named 'Shine On' (Floyd was supposed to do the original Dune) so it was a great coincidence, as I feel that patch is very cinematic--I have been using it for years--sounds great in a club (or now a movie theater). I probably ran some analog under it, the Matrix 1000 and the Tetra just via MIDI. 

This whole project was done largely with a MIDI 8x splitter as I improvise and play, so to get the multiple textures and voices at once, I fire the whole rig up and play my mixer faders live to weave textures. I did NOT use any computer based sequencing, almost no overdubs-- the synths sound beautiful as their own voices.

I played and mostly recorded myself. I pulled all-nighters as I had a full time day job, 2 kids, a lovely fiancee and band gigs the whole time this was happening. Frank Pavich essentially typecast me as he knew I was such a fan of Jodorowsky, all things 70's and analog, etc. This was not just a soundtrack, it was already my own personal and spiritual journey with or without the movie.

One last story of gratitude- I was very intent on getting my hands on a REAL Yamaha CS-80 -- granted that was a little later than the 1975 time period of the documentary, but I love Eddie Jobson's 'Alaska' solo, and obviously Vangelis used it so well on Blade Runner. I was very envious that Daft Punk seemed to have one on the Tron soundtrack. I asked all around-I know synth people- I know the guys in Devo a little and their crew is really cool- they almost got me one. NO ONE had a working CS-80, not even in Los Angeles. One night I came on a YouTube Tutorial called 'Vangelis Bladerunner sound JUNO 60' and followed it and dialed up such a great sound from my good old Juno 6. So I want to THANK "magevers" whoever you are on YouTube. That to me is what the synth community is all about-- people who really have a keen interest and are WAY INTO THE SYNTHS. Like you Matrix Synth Jones, THANKS BROTHER- hope you get to see this movie-- Jodorowsky will blow your mind and you will want to go and CREATE ART!"

Can't wait.  Thank you Kurt!

Update: some links via Edward W. Dahl in the comments:

"I am co-captain of SpacEKrafT and you might have seen this video posted here on Matrixsynth a little over a year ago."

Music: www.soundcloud.com/spacekraft
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/myspacekraft

Update 4/13/2014:

Q&A with Dune Composer Kurt Stenzel

Published on Apr 8, 2014 hellspreetube·39 videos

"Q&A with Kurt Stenzel, soundtrack composer for "Jodorowsky's Dune," after a showing at One Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA, April 5, 2014.

http://www.kurtstenzel.com/
http://www.jodorowskysdune.com/"

via David Wilson-Okamura on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge