Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
These appear to be the first demos of the Ekdahl Quad Massager to be featured on the site. The first video is from 15 years ago.
Playlist:
1. Ekdahl Quadmassager in 4 input "mix" mode - Drew Daniel
The Ekdahl Quadmassager is a quadrophonic panner and so much more. This video is very STEREO, but should be in Quad, but, well, that's not very practical, is it?, so please go do a show in quad or see one...in the meantime visit us at the webpage in the video, or come see us at the True Vine Record Shop in Hampden in beautiful Baltimore, the City that Reads. The Quadmassager was designed and built by Karl Ekdahl of KNAS and a little bit by M.C. Schmidt of Matmos.
2. Knas Ekdahl Quad Massager As a CV mixer - Shirato_Noise
The output of the unpredictable blend of the four Fourses signals modulates the Denum.
"The Blippoo Box Legacy is not just a simple nosie synth. With the right pairings, it can be the source of a wide range of soundscapes. Blippoo Box Legacy comes in 1/4” jack and banana jack version. Available exclusively at Noisebug.net"
"This series is a bit more advanced than usual, but this does not mean 'difficult', it means 'low level'. I will revisit Rob Hordijk's Benjolin and Blippoo Box again, not to recreate them, but to understand its components a bit more so they can be used elsewhere. We'll build a Twin Peak filter with Blades and Blinds (or any duo filter with a polarizer), a Comparator with Maths - which can make amazing new sounds using any two VCO's, I'll revisit the Rungler with Marbles and finally I've been looking for ways to detect equality between two voltages so we can generate a trigger or gate. I am not aware of any comparator that has an '=' output, but I figured out a way to approximate it with Maths.
I've been using ChatGPT as a research tool and it came up with the Twin Peak recipe after scrutinizing documentation on the web. But it also claimed that using Maths for equality detection would not work, because EOC is documented to be 'end of full cycle'. We already figured out in Episode 01 of this series, that EOC is always ON, and off when a RISE is in progress. This is needed to do quadrature functions, bla bla bla, but the point is that AI can be misinformed. Regardless, AI has reached a point where you can actually discuss patches and ChatGPT knows a LOT of modules, options, techniques and alternatives. So how do I know so much? I don't. It's co-creation.
Even though this episode features a lot of chaos, I tried to find the cool textures that make the Blippoo Box so entertaining, and figure out why the Benjolin is so untameable (may I say annoying?)
00:00 Introduction
00:51 Blippoo Box emulation for the Meng-Qi Wingie 2
05:02 Patching a Twin Peak filter with Blades and Blinds
08:03 Patching a Comparator with Maths
12:34 Patching a Rungler with Marbles and any VCO
14:43 Blippoo Box S&H and equality detection with Maths
18:45 Final Thoughs and a dual Benjolin / Marbles (multi-track) Jam."
"Biyiblip’s faithful recreation of Rob Hordijk’s highly influential Blipoo Box is here. Noisebug is the Exclusive North American distributor of the Blippoo Box Legacy. Available in 1/4” phone jack or banana jack. Enjoy over 10 minutes of straight experimental blips and bleeps, drones and more. For more information visit Nosiebug.net
1. ๐ถ Unboxing the NEW Blippoo Box Legacy – A Tribute to Rob Hordijk.
2. ๐ Biyiblip - The NEW Blippoo Box Legacy – Chaos, Sound & Rob Hordijk’s Legacy
3. ๐ถ Blippoo Box Legacy – 5 Patches That Celebrate Rob Hordijk’s Vision.
4. ๐ Blippoo Box Legacy + Radio – Experimental Filter Chaos.
"The first look is always the most exciting. In this video, I unbox the Blippoo Box Legacy – a handmade reissued, designed by Rob Hordijk and now continued by Biyiblip. Every detail is part of his living legacy.
DOWNLOAD THE BLIPPOO BOX LEGACY USER MANUAL HERE :๐
Meet blippulator, the quirky offspring of Rob Hordijk’s legendary designs, blending the heart of a Blippoo Box with the chaotic energy of a Benjolin.
Born from the mind of Hordijk's sonic explorations and further refined by Biyi, Blippulator takes everything we love about these classics and adds a fresh twist.
At its core, blippulator features extensive CV control, letting you dial in and modulate key parameters like the pitch of its two oscillators and the cutoff frequencies of its dual resonant filters. These aren’t just any filters—they’ve got that twin-peak magic that Hordijk fans will instantly recognise, adding a complex, organic edge to your sound.
One of blippulator’s coolest tricks? You can select any two arbitrary signals to create a custom PWM waveform, adding a layer of flexibility and unpredictability to your patches. Whether you’re controlling it from a Eurorack system or another external device, the 0-5V CV inputs and outputs make it a breeze to integrate into your setup. The panel is user-friendly, making it easy to get hands-on with your sound and improvise live.
And just when you think you’ve got it figured out, blippulator’s got a few secret weapons up its sleeve to keep things interesting in your performances. It’s a powerful tribute to Rob Hordijk’s genius, honouring his designs while pushing them in new directions, making it a must-have for anyone who loves modular synthesis and sonic exploration.
Blippulator is more than a synthesizer—it's a celebration of the past and the future of sound design, with a nod to one of the most innovative minds in the field. Plug in, experiment, and let it take your performances to the next level"
Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Blippoo just out of the Box video upload by
Note this video is from Tood Barton posted back in 2009. It is the not the Blippo Box listed below, but was included in the listing for demo purposes only. I didn't see it in the archives so up it goes.
Playlist:
1. BLIPPULATOR - KAOTIC BLIPPING SYNTH
2. PATCH EXAMPLES FROM THE BLIPPULATOR USER MANUAL
3. BLIPPULATOR UNBOXING
"Meet blippulator, the quirky offspring of Rob Hordijk’s legendary designs, blending the heart of a Blippoo Box with the chaotic energy of a Benjolin.
Born from the mind of Hordijk's sonic explorations and further refined by Biyi Amez (BIYIBLIP), Blippulator takes everything we love about these classics and adds a fresh twist.
At its core, blippulator features extensive CV control, letting you dial in and modulate key parameters like the pitch of its two oscillators and the cutoff frequencies of its dual resonant filters. These aren’t just any filters—they’ve got that twin-peak magic that Hordijk fans will instantly recognise, adding a complex, organic edge to your sound.
One of blippulator’s coolest tricks? You can select any two arbitrary signals to create a custom PWM waveform, adding a layer of flexibility and unpredictability to your patches. Whether you’re controlling it from a Eurorack system or another external device, the 0-5V CV inputs and outputs make it a breeze to integrate into your setup.
The panel is user-friendly, making it easy to get hands-on with your sound and improvise live.
And just when you think you’ve got it figured out, blippulator’s got a few secret weapons up its sleeve to keep things interesting in your performances.
It’s a powerful tribute to Rob Hordijk’s genius, honouring his designs while pushing them in new directions, making it a must-have for anyone who loves modular synthesis and sonic exploration.
Blippulator is more than a synthesizer—it's a celebration of the past and the future of sound design, with a nod to one of the most innovative minds in the field.
Plug in, experiment, and let it take your performances to the next level.
How to get one? Write an email to: biyiblip@gmail.com
Check and dowload the Blippulator user manual here:
"The Benjolin is a powerful module. For many, it's a chaotic noise source, which was exactly the point of the design. The Blippoo Box is less chaotic, more musical and designed as an experimental instrument. It's more a Pandora's Box. Both have the Rungler in common. It refers to a shift register circuit, but also to the 5U module that includes two VCO's and is not unlike the Benjolin's chaotic core. I do not own a Blippoo Box for obvious reasons (it's now priceless) but I do love my Benjolin. It's going to be a noisy video where I'll try the Rungler concept on Marbles and XAOC Leibniz.
Marbles is a cool extension to the Benjolin, and the Benjolin can also be a great conventional complex VCO.
Rob Hordijk designed the Rungler module (and circuit) to cover the space between a fundamental sinewave and the total chaos of white noise. A creative source of designer noise to enrich your patch. And wow, what a designer he was."
""Forbidden Planet in a box" - the Blippoo Box by the late Rob Hordijk is a wonderfully out there electronic instrument. Based on chaos theory and a love for vintage Sci-Fi it creates organic and liquid tones that keep inspiring even after a long time. Originally made in small batches and sold for about 650EUR, it became very desired among hardcore synthesizer freaks and experimental musicians. This drove prices up to the thousands even during Rob's lifetime, and even higher after. I never thought I would own one, but a lucky trade happened. In this video I tell the tale of the Third Monk (as written by Uncle Meatball), demo the Blippoo's sound and features, as well as showing modern alternatives.
Sources listed below.
"A simple demonstration of some of the sounds yielded from a simple Teensy-based synthesizer. This is a proof of concept more than anything else; ultimately, this will be integrated into a more complete instrument.
The internal signal path is based on a combination of phase modulation, frequency modulation, and digital waveshaping via arbitrarily constructed transfer functions. Three oscillators intertwine in various ways, each contributing to the sound's instantaneous timbre, pitch, loudness, and sense of spatial location. The use of many internal feedback/feedforward nodes enhances the potential for chaotic, unpredictable sonic structures.
Originally, the idea was to create a stereo oscillator with transfer function-based waveshaping; however, I found that with a sufficiently knotted internal signal flow, it was possible to achieve a pretty astonishing range of animated sounds using relatively limited means. Though very much inspired by the Hordijk Blippoo Box, Hordijk Benjolin, Serge Wave Multipliers, Buchla Touchรฉ, Buchla 400, Buchla 700, and Buchla 259e, and some experimental works by Larry Polansky, I'm finding that there's much more sonic territory to be explored utilizing the bizarre combination of feedback and waveshaping via arbitrary transfer functions.
Again, I hope to continue to expand this into a more complete, performable instrument. But for now, enjoy some noise."
"Continuing to explore the Wingie Blippoo firmware, this time trying to find a slightly more restrained way of working and allowing something to develop over a bit more time.
Paired with a BC9 on the line input for extra unpredictability. And sending it all out via a QuBit Aurora (standard firmware) for atmospherics.
I am loving the soundscapes this thing creates. Really regret not picking up an original Blippoo when I had the chance years ago."
"What a fantastic addition!
As a beautiful homage to Rob Hordijk's legacy, Meng Qi has just released a new firmware, featuring a recreation of the Blippoo Box.
It sounds incredible, it will provide hours of sonic exploration in the ultra-compact, battery-powered Wingie form factor, what could we ask for more?
Can't wait to see what other firmware will come for the Wingie platform!!!
In this video, you will find a bit of a demo and a rough tutorial.
Hope you'll find it useful! ๐งก"
"Blippoo for Wingie is an alternative firmware for Wingie2. The new firmware is inspired by Blippoo Box, a genius instrument created by Rob Hordijk (1958-2022), who contributed a lot to synthesizer design. May his spirit lives on in his instrument designs, thoughts, and influences.
The new firmware could turn your Wingie2 into a self-contained instrument capable of producing a variety of sounds and patterns. As a great companion, it will help you in your music-making practice especially when you want to applicate controlled chaos to your music."
"Live recording by Eduard 'Papa Srapa' Srapionov (b. 1961), an innovative and eccentric Russian experimental/noise sound artist from Rostov-on-Don, primarily known as a designer and creator of peculiar DIY synthesizers, electroacoustic instruments, and various music/non-music interactive objects and sculptures, often built from junk, cheap toys, household items, etc.
Srapionov began his career in the eighties as an audio/light engineer and stage technician for Valery Posidelov's band Day and Evening («ะะตะฝั ะธ ะะตัะตั»), as well as a bassist for several jazz ensembles and rock groups – most notably, Zazerkalje. Since the early 2000s, Papa Srapa began performing solo with an array of unique self-built electroacoustic instruments, synthesizers, drum machines, effects processors, heavily modified turntable with prepared records, and various unidentifiable sound objects.
Most of his recordings are self-released on CDr – often each copy has a unique handmade artwork and cover design. Papa Srapa also released a few limited edition albums on Ginjoha (Japan), Kotรค and Nazlo Records (Russia)."
"Rob Hordijk explains his modular designs at the European Electro Music Event 2012 that took place at Mallorca - Spain."
Sad news in via an anonymous reader today, who spotted the following from Pedro Trotz on Mod Wiggler. Those of you that have been following the site should be familiar with Rob Hordijk's work through numerous posts on the site. Two of his most famous creations were the Benjolin and Blippoo Box.
"I am deeply saddened to announce that my friend and mentor, Robert Ernst Hordjik, passed away earlier today. He was an important part of my life and I am sure also of many others here. He will be greatly missed.
I first met him in the Chateau Sonore event he organized in Belgium, in July 2007. There, lots of similar souls shared our passion for electronic music and electronic instruments. There was a lot of G2 and modular talk, but also performances, instrument demos, concerts, rehearsals... That's when I first heard of the Blippoo, one of his first creations that made him famous.
A few years later he started his work on the modular system that has his name. I felt so grateful for his initiative in Belgium that I couldn't help but planning a follow-up, this time in Mallorca. This time, our meeting had a lot less participants but it was an even better opportunity to make friendships that will last for a lifetime. I believe that in this meeting, in a trip we made to the north coast of the island, between the mountains of the Serra de Tramontana and the Mediterranean Sea, is when Rob decided that he wanted to retire to Mallorca. I can't blame him. It was the middle of January and we were having a pic-nic on the side of a curvy road facing the sea and enjoying what we natives call "the little summer" which is something that happens from time to time in mid-winter when the sea suddenly calms and temperatures rise up to 20 degrees Celsius.
We had a Benjolin workshop, we talked a lot about his design philosophy, and I was happy to record the first series of videos about his modular System. The ones you can find in my Youtube channel. After that series of videos I asked him to build a modular for me and soon enough he came back to Mallorca to deliver it in person.
During this visits I introduced him to Biyi and they automatically made a great connection. Biyi went a few times to The Hague to assist him in the building of Blippoos and modular systems. He even built his own under Rob's supervision. We all three had the idea to start a company in Mallorca where Rob would make the designs, Biyi build the stuff and I would take care of the business side of things. It was all set-up. As soon as his obligations in the Netherlands were fulfilled he would come to Mallorca. The moment arrived but almost at the same time his illness and COVID made things extra difficult.
In one of our talks he said to me that the Benjolin, the Blippoo and the Modular System were his dearest creations and that he was honored to have made so many people happy with them. Let's honor his memory by using them and making the most beautiful sound imaginable.
Born in 1958, self described "synthesizer designer and builder,[3]" Rob Hordijk began learning electronics from around age 12 after developing a fascination with the glowing tubes in stereo amplifiers.[1][4] When he was 14 his father who had noticed young Rob's interest gave him a subscription to an electronics course, which lead to an examination for a ham radio license.
Trained as a designer and not a musician, Rob came from an arts background, studying as a sculptor and jeweler in the 1970s. He approached electronic music in a similar spirit to abstract painting, inspired by the ambient works of Brian Eno, and Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori instruments; where attempts were made to blur the boundaries between music and art:[1]
"In those days I was quite interested in the idea of sound as a material to be sculpted, in the same way you can sculpt wood and metal. [...] You can make mechanical objects that make all sorts of sounds, or you can make electronic objects that make all sorts of sounds. but what I like about the electronic objects is that you don't see what makes the sound. [...] It opens the way to sort of make it a bit mysterious."[1]
In the early 1980s as various integrated circuits, micro-controllers, and processors became available to hobbyists, Rob began buying things such as the early Curtis chips and RCA 1802 based SuperElf processor board out of curiosity more than professional ambition.[1][5] Later switching to an Apple ][+ and the Mountain Hardware Music System, for which he developed a Forth language version that could do all sorts of stuff with the Mountain cards, like KarplusStrong-type plucked string sounds and pitch shifting.[5] His first introduction to a DSP was to the DMX1000 around 1984. In 1986 he switched to Atari ST and an Akai S900.[5] These days he is a Clavia Nord Modular G2 aficionado.[5]
"I am not really a gear freak. But I do believe in mastering synthesis techniques, in making synthesis a second nature, so to be able to fully concentrate on the creative processes."[5]
After finishing art school, Rob also completed 11 years of study in Information Technology, learning about design methods and inventory control.[1] As well as his own instruments Rob worked on the Nord Modular G2 including contributing many patches to the Nord Modular online community, and wrote a comprehensive unofficial manual of the instrument. He has produced music for environments, buildings, film, and dance performances, but is yet to produce an official release on a label.[5] As of 2022 Rob has announced his retirement and will no longer be taking orders.[6]
Design Philosophy Rob's personal definition of a modular synthesizer is more to do with modulation than modularity; referring to functional modules as 'sections'. Everything is supposed to be able to modulate or effect everything else. All levels within the system are optomised for comparability with one another.[1]
"I'm so excited that this album is now out! Last month I met Nathan Moody in person for the first time. He dropped by my place on his way to do a talk and performance at Velocity in Seattle. After just a few hours together my friend, Bruce Bayard came by and we three decided to jam. Nathan had a cool field recorder that he setup and recorded us all in the room. The jam turned out to be sonic serendipity, a rare conjunction of modular planets. I hope you enjoy it . . .
Todd Barton: Hordijk Blippoo Box, looper, shakuhachi flute samples
Bruce Bayard: Buchla Music Easel, Morphagene sampler
Nathan Moody: Ciat Lonbarde Tetrax Organ, Sidrax Organ, and Cocoquantus; Make Noise ร-Coast
Recorded by Nathan Moody on October 1, 2019.
Mixed by the performers.
Mastered by Nathan Moody at Obsidian Sound.
Album artwork by Bruce Bayard.
"Recorded live in Ashland, Oregon, “Start from Silence” captures three masters of West Coast analogue synthesis performing with a focus on reciprocal listening and improvised expression.
Todd Barton, Bruce Bayard, and Nathan Moody combine a unique set of unusual instruments into a journey in tone, gesture, and sound. The aural dynamics were made in response only to the sounds, breaths, and movements of each performer. The music ranges from ambient to intense, gliding from amorphous to structured with bubbling streams of energy and contemplative drones that guide the listener throughout. The recording purposefully contains the artists’ breaths and movements, lending verisimilitude, presence, and authenticity to this organic performance.
The artists hadn’t played together before this recording, making the emergent soundscapes and sonic exploration all the more stunning…yet perhaps unsurprising, given the their combined 70+ years of composition and performing experience.
