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Demos for volumes 1 & 2 above. Not sure when these came out but I'm seeing reviews for it online dating back to 2010.
"Yes that’s right the holy grail of Emu stuff. This item is so rare that there is literally none existent units for sale. Only about 50 made and maybe less then 5 still survived the 90s. We have to say that the routing possibility’s on this unit are quiet impressive. Plenty of CV/Gate triggers/out etc. for all of you modular people. We can guarantee that if you miss this one out, you won’t find another one again."
"Comes with 90 Disks, Emu expression pedal, and Anvil Flight Case. All functions currently work. You can sample into the EMU onto floppy disk if you so desire. Here are the sounds in order: 1. Harp 0:00 2. Musical Saw 0:11 3. Male Choir 0:32 4. French Horns and Flute 0:53 5. Prophet 1:06 6. Synth Wind 1:23 7. Soft Brass 1:33 8. Mountain Lion 1:45 9. Synth Brass 2:02 10. French Horns and Flute (with Filter) 2:25 11. Tabla 2:46 12. Bowed Cymbals 3:00 13. Sitar 3:17 14. Steel Drums 3:26
The E-mu Emulator was a floppy disk-based keyboard workstation which enabled the musician to sample sounds, recording them to non-volatile media and allowing the samples to be played back as musical notes on the keyboard. The 51⁄4” floppy disk drive enabled the owner to build a library of samples and share them with others, or buy pre-recorded libraries on disk.
The Emulator had a very basic 8-bit sampler – ; it only had a simple filter, and only allowed for a single loop. The initial model did not even include a VCA envelope generator. It came in three forms: A two-voice model (only one of these was ever sold), a four-voice model, and an eight-voice model. When the original Emulator was turned on the keyboard was split. It was designed to be played in split mode, so playing the same sound on the full keyboard required loading up the same sound floppy disk in each drive.
Stevie Wonder, who gave the sampler a glowing review at the 1981 NAMM convention, received the first unit (serial number “0001”). Originally 0001 was promised to Daryl Dragon of Captain & Tennille, because he had been a loyal E-mu modular system owner for a long time before that. However, Wonder was more famous. In 1982, the Emulator was updated to include a VCA envelope generator and a simple sequencer, and the price was lowered. Approximately 500 units were sold before the unit was discontinued in early 1984. Other prominent users of the original E-mu Emulator were New Order, Tangerine Dream, and Genesis, and it was among the many groundbreaking instruments used in the production of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album. Composer and Writer David Frank of The System used the original Emulator on his productions from “Sweat” to “Don’t Disturb this Groove.” The Residents, who had gotten the fifth Emulator to ever be produced, used the instrument extensively on their album The Tunes of Two Cities.'"
"Bill T Miller Synthesizer Performance @ New England Synth Fest @ Museum of Science Boston - 08.11.22. This BTM stereophonic improv performance features a CLASSIC SYNTH array... Buchla Easel Command 208-C, Korg ARP 2600, Moog Mother-32, Make Noise O-Coast and 4MS STS Sampler & Toppobrillo MiniMix.
Video Produced/Directed/Edited by Bill T Miller Cameras: BTM & Sheri Hausey & Beth Moguel
BILL T MILLER, a chameleon of sonic exploration, is a multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, recording engineer, producer, filmmaker, photographer, artist, instrument builder and cat lover. From toy piano at two years old to starting a "band" with tennis racket guitar and trash can drums in the 60s to becoming a professional recording engineer / producer / live sound tech after graduating from College for the Recording Arts in San Francisco in 1976, his paths are always unfolding and looping. At recording college he took synthesizer courses with ARP 2600 and Emu synths and then worked (as live sound and recording engineer) in California until 1980.
Eventually ending up in Boston working as a freelance recording engineer and live sound engineer and then starting his own Headroom Recording Studios. While much of his "professional career" was devoted to recording and photographing OTHER artists, he was always working on his own weirdo music bands in the shadows. Some of these adventures include Out of Band Experience (OBE), Kings Of Feedback, Drum Army, Kings Of Slack, Zonkulator, and Orgy Of Noise with over 25 full album releases on his own DIY labels as an artist.
BTM's quest has looped back around to a nostalgic look forward incorporating ALL of the past adventures while moving sideways in time in to an unknown future think void. Living in Boston for 37 years and giving every moment to this insatiable desire to CREATE and SHARE is focus of his true path.
On the Second Thursday of every month of summer 2022, the Museum of Science teamed up with New England Synth Fest for an incredible fusion of live synthesizer performances that took over the Charles Hayden Planetarium. Experience some of the best synth musicians and visualizers from New England like never before in the immersive full dome environment of the Planetarium.
LOBBY MUSIC 7pm BILL T MILLER = outer space trip out synths 20 minute set - PLEASE LISTEN CAREFULLY.
LOBBY SYNTHFEST VENDORS ARP Foundation (Alan R. Pearman's daughter DINA will be there) & SynthCube & Stompbox Sonic & coolpix and MORE
7:30pm in the DOME three were 20 minute sets back to back for first show...
introduced by the host of MOS SUMMER THURSDAY SERIES... JAMES MONROE ! - Asha Tamirisa - LIMBC with visuals by Solid State Entity - Bob Familiar with visuals by cskonopka
+ following 1st dome show were two 20 minute LOBBY sets... - Vizzie / Oxalis (Ed Guild & Richard Tarantio) - Build (Nick Solarz)
The three lobby sets are hosted by Richard Tarantio in conjunction with Modular On The Spot Boston. Richard provided LIVE SOUND for all three lobby sets and played in a duo for the middle set.
+ 9:30pm in the DOME there was a repeat of the hree 20 minute sets back to back for second show. (see above.)
Boston Museum of Science Polage Art by Austine Wood Comarow !!!!!
Mega Thanx to NEW ENGLAND SYNTH FEST HOST... KENT LUNDBERT ! Super Thanx to MOS SUMMER THURSDAY SERIES HOST... JAMES MONROE !
Ultra Thanx to BUCHLA GURU TODD BARTON for KRELL WISDOM & FLUTE APPEARANCE via morphagene sampler.
Super THANX to BETH MOGUEL for footage. Eternal THANX as always to SHERI HAUSEY & Tippi Cat & Ziggy Cat & Mel the Cat !!!!"
"The Whole Synthesizer Catalgue, book, paperback, 1985 copyright, 158 pages. Excellent condition, no writing, Overall very clean. Covers many iconic and legendary analog synthesizers and some digital synthesizers. Includes Moog Mememorymoog, EMU Modular, Korg PS3300, Oberhem OBXxa, Oberhem 4 Voice, Oberheim Matrix 12, DK Synergy, DX7, Sequential Circuits Prophet T8, Prophet 10, MKS80, PPG Wave, Serge Modular, Chroma, Voyetra 8, Yamaha CS80, drum machines, and many more vintage legends. Some great information compiled from the pages of Keyboard Magazines. Edited by Tom Darter. Great book for the electronic music and synthesizer book library."
"In March 2021, I decided to surround myself with keyboards (7 of them!) mostly playing classic-sounding vintage pads. These included my Nord Stage (mainly playing sounds I made - e.g., from a sampled Mantovani song - heavily processed, of course), a Korg TR-Rack and N1R (mainly stringish sounds), a Mellotron from my Emu Classic Keys, that famous 'Soundtrack' sound from my Roland MT-32, and a sawtoothy swell from my Alesis Micron (thanks NanWei for that one - it was well debuted here!). Adding to these polyphonic voices from synths I've long loved, are a couple of mono-voices, namely an echoy arpeggiating sound from my Korg Prophecy and a complex lead I patched up on my modular (controlled by the keyboard to the right of the Prophecy up top) that leverages a few PLLs, where I can adjust their tracking properties with the mod wheel and if I hold a key down longer it starts a crossfading chord from my PLL octave tracker.
Unlike most of my other posts, there is no autonomous synth patch running here - everything is directly played by me on the keyboards. I recorded several takes of this - I had no real plan, as I was just improvising and having fun, but most of the takes followed a similar contour and lasted a similar amount of time. Listening to them one at a time, they sounded a bit thin. But some months later I got the idea of just layering them atop one another - here you have four of these improve sessions mixed down to a stereo track. This worked better than I thought it would - again as the sessions had some similarity and centered somewhat around the same chord structures - it can get a little big and unwieldy in the places where I depart, but this adds variety/tension and always seems to resolve the right way. There's no dynamic mixing here - they takes are just flat added.
Of course, I shot video of these sessions too, so I figured why not overlay a bunch of them to give the feeling for how this big mix happened. Hence that's what we've got here. The video isn't necessarily aligned with the audio, but the eyes often find the correlations they are looking for nonetheless.
This sits in kind of a JoeP version of a NewAge-ish visit to space - again, a quite different from my usual autonomous patch, but I hope you find something enjoyable on this particular voyage..."
00:00 Opening Titles 00:33 Introduction 01:32 Switched On Monosynths 17:58 Synthesiser Club 19:43 Commercial Break 21:51 Patching Today 32:15 Video Lab 35:02 Outro/Coming Up Next Time
SWITCHED ON - Featuring in-depth discussions about the history and development of the synthesiser over the years, including demonstrations and feature guides of many classic and iconic instruments
SYNTHESISER CLUB - A short musical demonstration of a synthesiser classic or two
PATCHING TODAY - A deep-dive into vintage modular systems and how to set up a patch on them, starting from scratch
VIDEO LAB - A look at old video equipment and how I create visuals for my music
SWITCHED ON MONOSYNTHS - A brief history of Monosynths, with the Minimoog, ARP Odyssey, Roland SH101, SH5, Korg 800DS, Yamaha CS40M, Elka Soloist, EMS VCS3, Buchla Music Easel, and various related sequencers: Moog 960, ARP 1601, EMS TKS
SYNTHESISER CLUB - ARP / Rhodes Chroma, ARP 2500
PATCHING TODAY - Emu Series 2000 Modular synthesiser
VIDEO LAB - Brief introduction to the lab, Panasonic WJ-MX50, Sony Camera, Grass Valley Indigo vision mixer
The MemeTune Programme Credits: Everything in this video was created by B D Edwards (Benge) All music, design, writing, filming and production completed at Memetune Studios, UK, 2022
"I bought this amazing instrument from Emu in 1976. It is still 100% original, with the exception of the keyboard cable, which was recently replaced. This Emu has been lovingly coddled over the years, although in its day it was pretty active, being employed in quite a few recording sessions with artists such as:
Billy Joel
Smokey Robinson
Harry Nilsson
Carpenters
Seals and Crofts
Johnny Nash
"For sale is one incredibly rare (1 of 1) E-MU SSM modular based around the SSM voice demo board issued by E-MU. This was built by Gene Stopp (technician for ELP!!). As well as having all the features of the SSM voice demo board a 3rd CEM (curtis) based oscillator was added, along with a slew of other functions! Also included is a binder detailing each and every part of the build (schematics for added functions, schematics from E-MU etc). Undoubtedly the only one like this! The synth itself is has been tuned up and is 100% working.
This sale includes the E-MU mini-modular, binder with ALL documentation, and of course a power cord!"
"The Simmons SDS6 is an absolutely stunning rhythm sequencer from the 1983. It came out just after the introduction of the first Simmons drum kit the 1982 SDSV. It has a highly intuitive interface and can trigger up to 8 sounds, and be synced to incoming clock, so it makes it perfect for hooking up with modular gear. Here I am using it with the SDS200 (1984) and the Emu and Polyfusion modulars. You can chain patters together to create extremely long patters or songs, but here I'm just looping round one page (32 steps)"
Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (And Back) book review & book flip through. Synthesizer Evolution is a recently published book covering every major synth, drum machine and sampler from 1963-1995. Each instrument is hand drawn and includes vital statistics and quirky facts.
Synth Evolution is published by Velocity Press (https://velocitypress.uk) and written & illustrated by Oli Freke (https://www.synthevolution.net), a London-based musician, artist and author with a life-long passion for analogue synthesizers and electronic music.
Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (And Back) provides us with an in-depth look at synthesizer history over the decades and covers a variety of vintage synthesizers including analog synths, digital synths, modular synths, wavetable synths, FM synths, additive synths and more.
Join me for a narrated book flip through highlighting various synths and concluding with a brief book review at the end. Hope you enjoy and feel free to grab a copy of Synth Evolution if you like it.
"I have been exploring the idea of Cybernetic processes in modular synthesis a bit this week. It follows seeing a really interesting series over on La Synthese Humaine’s YouTube channel
So, this patch might seem basic at first but actually its doing something quite interesting - it is using Cybernetics to play by itself
It is generating its own patterns by using feedback loops in the CV path and a non-linear CV circuit (in this case the Serge Wave Multiplier) to modify them
By setting the CV inputs on the returning feedback paths carefully, the patterns come to life and start to do things by themselves
In other words, there is just one single clock being used to generate the timing, and the variations are caused by the feedback path. There is no additional use of random generators or other clocks playing against each other, and no intervention from me
I have a lot more to explore, especially by using the Cybernetic principal on other systems like the Buchla, the Modcan or the Emu Modular - all of which have provisions for achieving self-playing patches using these ideas"
This album features a series of solo improvisations on modular synthesisers. On occasion some additional ancillary equipment was used (see below) to augment the sound. A video is available to watch entitled “Benge Mirror Systems” which documents the improvisations. Some of the tracks presented here were edited slightly for the purpose of creating a satisfactory album-flow
Tracklisting and description:
01 - Arpor. Created on a vintage ARP 2500 from 1971. In addition some reverberation (Emu Modular spring-type) was used and a monophonic digital delay line (Yamaha D1500)
02 - Mirroog. Featuring the Moog Modular 3C from the late 1960s. No other sounds used
03 - Mirrula. Created on a cloned version of the Buchla 200, designed in the 1970s in California, these modules are based upon the original schematics of Don Buchla’s circuits. No other sounds used
04 - Forror. The system used was a late 1970s Elektor Formant, a large format system made in Germany. In addition a vintage (1990s) TC Electronic M5000 dual reverberation system was employed
05 - Birror. Created on a vintage Buchla 100 modular system from the late 1960s. No other sounds were used
06 - Mirroha. Made with a 1977 Yamaha CS30. This synthesiser was Yamaha’s answer to compact complete systems such as the Buchla Music Easel and EMS VCS3. It contains 2 VCOs, 2 VCFs, 3 envelopes, an 8 step sequencer, 2 VCAs, LFO and other sundry elements. In addition, some reverberation and fx were added (Yamaha SPX90 phaser and TC Electronic M5000)
07 - Buchror. Another study on the Buchla 200
08 - Sergor. Made on the Serge Modular, a large 8 panel system containing mostly early ‘paperface’ modules, and some later STS-era ones
Thirteen years after the release of his original synthesiser concept album, Twenty Systems, Benge brings you a follow-up of sorts, the similarly themed Thirteen Systems, an album of modular explorations, showcasing his evolving fascination with these modular machines
The pieces were originally commissioned by the newly formed Modulisme radio broadcast, Philippe Petit’s project to bring the music of underground modular artists together and provide a platform for the burgeoning electronic modular music scene that has been building momentum in recent years
There is one significant difference in the approach Benge took in the creation of this new Systems album compared to his first incarnation. The previous album used overdubbing techniques to layer the sound of each synthesiser upon itself to build up the tracks, but on this album Benge took the decision to play each piece in real time, without overdubs or edits, creating each piece as a live performance. This meant setting up each instrument in advance and either letting it play along by itself, or interacting with it as the pieces develop in various ways. Each performance was filmed and there is an accompanying 60 minute video that goes with the album
