Bright Sparks Documentary - A Side

video by GForce Software

"The A Side of the critically acclaimed Bright Sparks documentary, created in conjunction with the I Monster album of the same name, focuses on US based electronic music pioneers, including Bob Moog, Don Buchla, Alan R Pearlman and Harry Chamberlin.

Includes contributions from Herb Deutsch, Michelle Moog-Koussa, I Monster's Dean Honer & Jarrod Gosling, Adrian Utley, Daniel Miller, Billy Currie, Karl Hyde, Alessandro Cortini, Will Gregory, Dennis P Colin, Alan Pearlman."

You can find additional GForce Bright Sparks posts here.

@MAKEN0ISE​ Strega - more than noise | demo, review, patching

video by HAINBACH

"In which I review the Strega, a synthesizer and effects processor created by @MAKEN0ISE and @Alessandro Cortini . I answer all the questions you asked on Instagram and on YouTube, and put it into musical context. Video includes sound demos across genres (ambient, drone, noise, acid, kosmische, sound design, techno, experimental, lofi), patch ideas, a feature overview and a review of what I think of it."

Knob Twiddlers Hangout #41 - Alessandro Cortini, Drumcell, Tony Rolando, Speedy J

video by STOOR

Make Noise Strega

video by MAKEN0ISE

Follow-up to this post featuring an interview with Alessandro Cortini.

"Make Noise is proud to introduce Strega!

Strega is an audio alchemical experiment. Activate! Spill the tonic into time and let time decay through the filter to hear the results.

Strega is an instrument designed in collaboration with Alessandro Cortini. Inspired by Cortini's music and sonic experimentations, Strega embodies the seen and unseen, the sign and magic, the alchemy of sound.
Strega is able to conjure audio tones, generate control signals, and process external sounds. Patch the 0-COAST or any other line level source into the Strega to unlock new sounds!

This new instrument takes the same form factor as the 0-COAST and 0-CTRL. It was designed to be controlled by the 0-CTRL or the 0-COAST's MIDI CV B outputs and is equally happy interfacing with Eurorack modules as well.

- Patchable with 7 sources and 13 destinations
- Touch Bridges and Gateways for momentary modulation routings
- Compatible w/ Eurorack Modular Synthesizer Signals
- Input for combining with or processing outside sounds
- Includes patch cables, output cable, and AC Adapter
- Headphone and Line Level Amplifier as well as Eurorack Output
- Small Rugged Steel Enclosure
- Same form factor as 0-Coast and 0-CTRL

Dimensions: 5.5 x 9 x .75 inches
Weight: 1.7lbs
Power Requirement: +15VDC @1A, 2.1mm Tip Positive Connector
Retail price: $599
Shipping in late February

makenoisemusic.com/synthesizers/strega

Shared System Tutorials | Part 31 | The Strega Patch

video by Cinematic Laboratory

"I was very impressed when I saw the new MakeNoise Strega tabletop synth with Alessandro Cortini on the SonicState channel. I used some footage without permission, but this is an educational video, I am not monetizing my stuff and it's not harming anyone's revenue. Not even posting on FB. I just wanted to dive in, recreate that awesome sound on the Shared System and share it in this series. It's really cool to figure out how an instrument like the Strega gets from an idea to a real instrument and I bet the Shared has been a source of inspiration for many of its parts. I can't help hearing a lot of makenoise modules combined in this great new tabletop and I was intrigued by the fact that it used a clear Echophon pitched delay many people seem to abandon and replace with Mimeophon. As for Strega, I think it sounds like a 'old, new, borrowed, blue' marriage thing. It has the amazing sound of an STO, 0-Coast and DPO but there's seems no technology involved that had to be developed from scratch. It's a cool way to clean out some old Echophon chips and give them a second life. Have fun and let's hope the Strega (Witch) will hit the stores soon!"

Make Noise Introduces Strega

Exclusive: Make Noise Stregavideo by sonicstate

"A brand new instrument from a collaboration between Make Noise and synthesist Alessandro Cortini.
Strega is a unique sonic machine designed for "sonic alchemy"
We had a chat with Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails from his studio in Portugal about the project.
Details in the video."

Screengrab via sequencer.de

Strega in the middle.

Update: additional video and details posted here.

Something New Coming from Make Noise

via @makenoisemusic

"Something new is brewing...

Check back next week for more information!

#modularsynth @blindoldfreak"

Interesting side note: @blindoldfreak is Alessandro Cortini of NIN.

Moog One Sound

Published on Apr 12, 2020 Boele Gerkes

Playlist:

1. Moog One Sound #1

So... after more than a year of doubts, I finally dared to purchase a Moog One, and the thing goes beyond my wildest dreams...

This first recording is a simple two oscillator sound, where I modulate the wave shape of oscillator 1 and 2 (saw/sine) with a random shaped LFO and the pitch with another saw tooth shaped LFO. A little delay from the One does the rest.

You can easily get in 'Cortini'-territory if you like: Buchla-esque types of sounds. Not in the last place because of the incredible musical envelopes with all their stage curve shaping possibilities.

But also because of the character of the oscillators. WELL done Moog!

2. Moog One Sound #2

This one is a bit more experimental. It's three arps not synced to master clock and all three running at a slightly different speed. :)
I start with arp 1 on solo, then 2, then 3, then all three.

3. Moog One Sound #3

Allright, the last one for today: this is a more conventional arp sound, both synced to the master clock. Two layers with the same sound however one of them 1 octave up. Arp play mode is "random" on both layers. Dotted delay does the rest. There is a slight part of ring modulation in the mixer. The ring modulator is pure heaven by the way.

Alessandro Cortini - In The Studio

Published on Jan 8, 2020 FACTmagazine

"Alessandro Cortini may be known to millions of fans around the world as a touring member of Nine Inch Nails, but it’s as a solo artist that the Italian musician has carved out his own space in ambient and synth music over the past decade.

In this episode of FACT’s In The Studio series, we visited Cortini at his space in Berlin, where he talked to us about his life in music and making of his recent album Volume Massimo, as well as his love of Buchla synthesizers and unusual vintage instruments.

Volume Massimo is out now on Mute Records.

Filmed and edited by Frank Zerban
Nine Inch Nails photography by Corinne Schiavone"

MATRIXSYNTH Cap at Alessandro Cortini and Richard Devine Public Works SF Performance

Nice pic in via Synth Addict :)

"Hell of a show on Sat.night in SF, and the Matrixsynth custom cap was representing. I saw several Matrixsynth official t-shirts there as well.

We are legion... :-)

Cortini had a great Buchla, etc. set synced with some very artistic videos.

Devine was sheer madness, as expected."

And for those of you more interested in the performance (sheesh!), Synth Addict took some video but has yet to review and upload them. "Videos will be posted soon if they actually turned out OK."

Note this is a custom hat and I do like it! You can find a smaller font military style hat here, original baseball cap here, and finally, a trucker hat here. More MATRIXSYNTH bling here.

Alessandro Cortini - BATTICUORE - VOLUME MASSIMO & Upcoming Tour

Published on Aug 22, 2019 Alessandro Cortini

New track from from Alessandro Cortini's upcoming studio album VOLUME MASSIMO. The launch of the album will take place at Berlin Atonal on August 30. Alessandro Cortini will then embark on a tour which includes four newly announced dates in North America – New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland – with a London performance at the Barbican on 19 October, with Suzanne Ciani. Details on the release and tour follow:

Pre-order the album here: https://smarturl.it/volumemassimo

BATTICUORE is taken from the forthcoming studio album VOLUME MASSIMO.
Released on Mute 27 September 2019.

Directors: Emilie Elizabeth + Alessandra Leone
DoP/Camera: Julian Moser
Colorist: Lutz Forster
Dancers: Maurice Jabar Werner + Darwin Stapel
Wardrobe Consultant: Raki Fernandez
Grooming: Carmen Rachel
Special thanks: Johanna Liebl and UY Studio, HvH Studios

Volume Massimo Live-AV tour includes:

30 August - Atonal, Berlin
8 September - Up to Date Festival, Białystok
14 September - Draaimolen, Tilburg
22 September - Rural Festival, Japan
28 September - Sonica, Ljubljana
19 October - Barbican, London
20 October - LEV Matadero, Madrid
21 October - St Paul`s Sessions, Athens
25 October - Semibreve, Braga
6 November - Slaktkyrkan, Stockholm
8 November - Mira Digital Arts Festival, Barcelona
13 November - Good Room, New York
16 November - Midway, San Francisco
18 November - The Lodge Room, Los Angeles
20 November - Holocene, Portland
30 November - KoncertKirken, Copenhagen
6 December - Monk, Rome
7 December - Argo 16, Venice
11 December - Bozar Electronic Series, Brussels
11 April - Concertgebouw, Bruges"

Previous posts featuring Alessandro Cortini.

Alessandro Cortini's 73-75 Homebuilt Serge

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

via this auction

"Serge 73-75 Homebuilt system. I recently acquired this in a trade. It was built, tested and played by Alessandro Cortini. It is fully working, but he never installed a Reverb tank."

I have confirmation this was indeed Alessandro Cortini's.

Minirig: Retta

Minirig: Retta from CatManDeux on Vimeo.

"Alessandro Cortini’s masterful Retta from Forse 3, loosely adapted from the Music Easel to the 0-Coast. This song reminds me of an ascension to Heaven. Dedicated to my late dad on Father’s Day.

The usual caveats, this is not a note perfect performance but served as a inspiration to learn my instrument better. I get carried away with the dynamics but it’s in keeping with the spirit that pervades Cortini’s works.

Tech notes:

Retta translates to 'straight line'.

Think of the top line of SQ1 buttons as the 5 pitches from the Easel sequencer along with an octave transpose, and the bottom line as the 3 preset voltage pads on the Easel keyboard. I “play” it manually to allow for the musical chaos of imperfections."

Instrument Designer: Rare Buchla 700 Synth Coming to Software on Mac, Windows & iOS

via modosc designs

"a modern interpretation of the buchla 700, coming soon for mac, windows, and ios."


If you are not familiar with the Buchla 700, check out Chimeror by Benge on Vintage Buchla 700. According to that post, only about 12 of these machines were ever produced, and there are possibly only 4 working examples left in existence.

Update: Some additional info via modosc designs:

On the developer: "Jonathan Schatz has spent his life pursuing dual passions of music and computing, occasionally simultaneously. One of these convergences led to working with Don Buchla on the 200e system for several years. The latest such convergence is Modosc Designs."

FAQ:

"What is Instrument Designer?
Instrument Designer is a software synthesizer inspired by the Buchla 700.

Ok, what is the Buchla 700?
The Buchla 700 is a 12 voice 4 operator FM synth released in 1987 and designed by Don Buchla. There are several main ways the 700 differentiates itself from the other FM synths common in the industry at that time:

Each algorithm outputs through two independant waveshapers. This allows a single instrument defintion to output two different audio signals without requiring a separate stacked voice. This also increases the sonic palette by allowing a user to easily create non-sinusoid waveforms.

The waveshapers are cousins to the ones use in the Buchla Touche, Buchla 400 and the Buchla 259e. They are quite unique and use some interesting waveshaping techniques.

Each voice has 13 complex envelopes which control almost every aspect of the sound algorithm. The envelopes have a unique exponential display, are programmable with an arbitrary number of breakpoints, and include programmable features such as looping.

Programming was simplified with the help of a graphical user interface and an external monitor.

What does it sound like?

There weren't a lot of these produced so there's not that much out there, but what is out there is quite interesting:

Charles Cohen — Generator
Benge — Chimeror
Ode To Gravity — this is from the release party for the 700 and includes interviews with Don
So what happened to it?
The instrument never became very popular and today is one of the rarer of Don Buchla's instruments (which says a lot). The software itself was never finished, and the video card which connected up the external display was unreliable and eventually end-of-lifed by Intel. Probably 15-20 of these were made - I personally know of 3, of which only 1 currently works.

Why hasn't anyone made a reissue?
Good question. The design is quite complicated and includes 4 separate computers as well as a large membrane input surface. It would certainly be possible to build but it wouldn't be a cheap endevor, and unlike other recent reissues it probably wouldn't be a big seller - it's likely the most difficult instrument of Don's to use.

So why are you bothering?
I love the sound of Don's wavetable synths (specifically the 259e) and I've spent a lot of time implementing and reimplenting various related algorithms. I had the opportunity to play around with a 700 a few years back and the idea was hatched there.

Are you using the original source code?
No. This entire project was implemented using a scan of the original 700 manual as the spec (which was the usual Don way of doing things). You can view the original source code here, which is interesting because it seemingly contains code used for a NASA project as well:

Set ON_B700 non-zero to get a Buchla 700 PROM, or zero to get a NASA 3D Helmet Display PROM.

That source dump from Lynx Crowe is unfortunately incomplete but there is a project that's managed to get it to boot. Unfortunately the source code only includes some of the controller code and none of the DSP code so currently there's no sound generation.

Where can I learn more about the Buchla 700?
The Buchla 700 Preservation Page
Notes on the Buchla 700 audio synthesizer
Buchla 700 archeology
Buchla 700
Chimeror by Benge
The Buchla 700 Emulation Project
Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails playing a Buchla 700 in Twin Peaks — I don't know if the sound is actually 700 or not but who cares?"

Alessandro Cortini of NIN: Using a Cassette Recorder as an Instrument | Reverb Interview

Published on Mar 12, 2019 Reverb

"Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) plays a cassette recorder (Tascam Portastudio) and talks through his personal history with the instrument, and the ways in which he has experimented with the resulting sounds throughout his career.

Read more
Browse Tascam Portastudios"

Everything Ends Here

Blindoldfreak - Everything Ends Here - Minibrute 2 cover

Published on May 2, 2018 joeSeggiola

"From the album 1 (2009, Modular Brain).
Made in spring 2018 with Arturia MiniBrute 2. This is my first recording with this synthesizer. Additional gear used: Korg SQ-1 sequencer, Mooer ShimVerb reverb pedal."

TTSH ARP 2600 clone - Everything Ends Here (blindoldfreak)

Published on Dec 15, 2015 Henry Hurt

"I was so happy when my TTSH was finish at last, so I had to record something. Only one take. "Everything Ends Here" by blindoldfreak."

Everything Ends Here

Published on Nov 18, 2011 Alessandro Cortini

"San Francisco Electronic Music Festival 2010

Alessandro Cortini + Don Buchla, performing the piece "everything ends here", from Blindoldfreak's 1st EP, 1.

available on iTunes

and Amazon."

Todd Barton on BBC Sounds + Multum in Parvo Release

Excerpts of Todd Barton's performance at the Unsound Festival in Krakow is up on BBC Sounds.

"A rebroadcast of excerpts from my performance of Music and Poetry of the Kesh at the Unsound Festival in Krakow last month with a wonderful ensemble of Polish musicians. Here's the link which will be active for a month.

And the first excerpt on the broadcast is from my new solo Buchla Music Easel album, Multum in Parvo with cover art by Ursula Barton! [embed below]

Much more to come in 2019! Gigs in Belgium, NYC and Santa Barbara. New Album releases too.

Happy Holidays!
Best wishes,
Todd"

"If you’re anything like me, then one of your favourite albums of 2018 was Music and Poetry of The Kesh, released on the Freedom To Spend label. Recorded over two years in the mid-1980s, Music and Poetry of The Kesh in truth was never really designed as an ‘album’ as such. It was a cassette bundled with early editions of the legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home novel.

The novel described the art, culture, language and ethnography of a fictional tribe of indigenous inhabitants of North California, 500 years from now. On the tape, Le Guin and her friend and collaborator, composer and sound artist Todd Barton, created a detailed, vivid musical identity for these people - the Kesh.

Listened to in 2018, the sounds of Music and Poetry of The Kesh feel simultaneously ancient and futuristic. Todd designed and built new instruments to realise the Kesh’s music, which were woven among synthesisers and field recordings from the Kesh’s native Napa Valley.

It’s a stunning, singular piece of work, but the story doesn’t end there. Anyone intrigued by Music and Poetry of the Kesh would be well advised to dig further into Todd Barton’s work, starting with Multum in Parvo - a brand new piece Todd composed using the Epoch Modular Benjolin and Buchla Music Easel.

“Don Buchla created a musical instrument that he said had no ‘preconceived ideas,’” Todd recently told the Listen to This website. “He wanted people to figure out how they wanted to interface with it. You see that with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Alessandro Cortini—they’re bringing their own voice to the palette. For my part, I’m obsessed with sound, with the ‘Buchla Paradigm.’

“His approach to synthesis, which was so different from Moog on the East coast, is immediately evident to anyone who has ever touched a Buchla instrument. If you listen to a Buchla, it will start rewiring your synapses.”

Todd honed his craft composing for acoustic instruments - string quartets, small ensembles and orchestras. In the 1970s he was drawn to emergent synthesiser technologies because of their abilities to access tones ‘between’ the standard 12 notes of the Western musical scale, and to have the power to craft music out of glitches and unique sonic gestures that are unplayable on acoustic instruments.

Multum in Parvo is reflective of this approach - it has a definite and logical flow as a composition, but its content is abstract sound sculpted out of pure energy, something only analogue synthesis can offer.

Sometimes sparse, sometimes bristling and jumping with detail, Multum... provides a genuinely multidimensional experience. Listen to it in the dark on your best headphones, you experience your brain moving slowly through a black space where an orchestra of strange, electro-microorganisms seem to swarm, murmurate and disperse, adding their distinct flutters, whispers and calls to an immersive electronic symphony.

Like the classic Forbidden Planet soundtrack, which Todd was inspired by, or indeed Music and Poetry of the Kesh - Multum in Parvo seems to function as part of some unique sonic ecology, according to its own rules, in its own universe and somewhere just beyond time.

Multum in Parvo is available on CD with artwork by the artist Ursula Barton - Todd’s daughter, named after his great friend and collaborator. It is also available on cassette with Blue Tapes artwork as ‘blue twenty-eight’.

Praise for Todd Barton:

"Multum In Parvo creates a very real imaginary place, and then it weaves that imaginary place into exactly where you are right now. I’ve listened to Multum In Parvo a dozen times or more and I’ve never heard the same album twice, because I change and my mood changes but also because incidental noises in my body and my surroundings – from sighs to car horns to distant giggles – all seem to be on very friendly terms with Todd Barton and his Buchla." - The Quietus

“Listen outdoors and the creek water you hear in Le Guin and Barton’s songs may sync up to the muddy river you’re passing; listen during a city’s winter and the percussive rhythm and bell-like tones will commune with your apartment radiator. These are sounds that seek to speak from then and beyond, to right now.” - Pitchfork
credits
released October 5, 2018

Improvised soundscapes by Todd Barton
on the Buchla Music Easel and Epoch Hordijk Benjolin

Cover art by Ursula Barton (ursulabarton.com)"

Forse "Scappa" rehearsal

Published on Jul 31, 2018 Alessandro Cortini

111118 (the minirig version of 111108)

111118 (the minirig version of 111108) from CatManDeux on Vimeo.

"Riffing off of Cortini’s masterful 111108, which was a huge source of inspiration to create music. PO33 is looping Cortini’s Buchla rhythm track."

https://www.matrixsynth.com/search?q=111108

Everything Ends Here (Alessandro Cortini) // Eurorack, Rings, Mangrove, Bermuda, Plaits, Hermod

Published on Apr 9, 2018 Lost For Words

"I love the video of Alessandro Cortini, who wrote this track, and Don Buchla (modular father) playing this live. See link below. A simple 3 part melody loop with great feeling. I hope I did it a little justice.

In my take on the piece, played on a Keystep and recorded and sequenced by Hermod, Rings goes to ZVEX Instant LoFi Junky. Mangrove and Bermuda play the other two pieces. I use the Erica Polivoks filter and the Ripples filter to bring in distortion with a careful resonance/cutoff balance. Mangrove goes to Ripples then to Pico DSP for additional distortion and crunchiness.

Some sound effects from Plaits are bounced around in the Tapographic Delay.

Recorded to cassette. Mastered with Ozone etc. in Reaper.

Cortini and Buchla :"

Everything Ends Here

Published on Nov 18, 2011 Alessandro Cortini

"San Francisco Electronic Music Festival 2010

Alessandro Cortini + Don Buchla, performing the piece "everything ends here", from Blindoldfreak's 1st EP, 1.

available on iTunes:

itunes.apple.com/us/album//id304187276

and Amazon:

amazon.com/1/dp/B001RK05OS/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1235173416&sr=8-1"