Drone Day 2022

video upload by Sealion

"Minimalist live drone day improvised performance using 1 original Oberheim SEM with its two oscillators and filter. No edits. Minimalism. Plus snakes."

Behringer 808 at Knobcon 7

Published on Sep 23, 2018 Sealion

"A geek's only very rough peek at the Behringer 808 prototype at Knobcon7. Yes the camera and sound are what they are. This is "THE" prototype direct from the lab in Manchester. Its rather good."

Korg Volca Kick at Knobcon

Published on Sep 18, 2016 Sealion

"Knobcon demo of the only Volca beat in North america at that time."

http://knobcon.com/

Update: make that the Volca Kick, not Beat.

Leon on Dewatron Part Deux

Published on May 2, 2015 Sealion

"Another very brief clip as Leon moved over to his invention at teh Big City Music Booth NAMM 2015."

Part 1 here.

meeting leon at the big city booth namm 2015

Published on May 2, 2015 Sealion

"Met Leon by his Dewatron at the Big City Music booth at Namm. Welcome to the worst camera work on youtube but the conversation about invention of unusual instruments was fun and over to the right people are madly playing away on his Dewtron. Not the modern reissue of the 1930s French all metal speaker which was connected to the Dewatron. A clip for geeks like us I suppose."

Leon on Dewatron Part Deux

Published on May 2, 2015 Sealion

"Another very brief clip as Leon moved over to his invention at teh Big City Music Booth NAMM 2015."

The Avalon First Views

Published on May 1, 2015 Sealion

"Brian Castro explains the Avalon on unveiling day Namm 2015."

Some background on what made the original Roland TB-303 so special and what went into the Avalon to capture that. The Avalon is a 303 with more.

Social Enthropy at NAMM 2015 Part II

Published on Apr 30, 2015 Sealion

"Discussion of his Quicksilver TR-303 and TR-606 cpu upgrades for Roland gear, sneak peek at the TR-808 cpu upgrade and the RED Engine."

Part 1 here.

Social Entropy's Engine Midi Sequencer

Published on Apr 27, 2015 Sealion

"Talking with John Kimble in depth at NAMM back in January 2015 on the day of the first unveiling of his fabulous 8 track midi sequencer."

Update:

Social Enthropy at NAMM 2015 Part II

Published on Apr 30, 2015 Sealion

"Discussion of his Quicksilver TR-303 and TR-606 cpu upgrades for Roland gear, sneak peek at the TR-808 cpu upgrade and the RED Engine."

MMTA SYNTH PETTING ZOO 2014 Pics

Some pics of this year's MMTA SYNTH PETTING ZOO. A great time was had by all! Huge thanks to everyone that attended and the MMTA, Decibel Festival and EMP for making this happen! Videos will follow.

In attendance: SYNTHWERKS, George Mattson (Mattson Mini Modular & Division 6), Lorne Hammond aka sealion with a Roland Jupiter-4, ARP Odyssey, Minimoog and various mini noisemakers, Larry Klinke aka Computer Controlled with his rhythm machines, ), Bryan O with an Akai Rhythm Wolf,  Vsyevolod with 8 panels of Serge, Keith McMillen Instruments with Dreadbox Murmox, Madrona Labs, Lunchbox Audio with a Moog Sub 37, effegee with a TTSH (2600 clone) and modded YOCTO (808 clone), John Bowen Synth Design with the Solaris, Jeff with an OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) with TamTam SynthLab, Roland with the new AIRA gear & more.  Thank you!

Side note: if you are on a Mac and your mouse pointer disappears, click off screen to get it back. Based on what I can find out there I believe it is due to a bug with Flash on Mac. If anyone knows of a solution, let me know.

MMTA SYNTH PETTING ZOO Update!

This is just a reminder that the MMTA SYNTH PETTING ZOO is coming to Seattle on Saturday September 27! Full details here.

The event is free to the public and attendees bringing gear.   Be sure to sign up if you plan to bring something!

The following is the current list of attendees:

SYNTHWERKS
George Mattson (Mattson Mini Modular & Division 6)
Lorne Hammond aka sealion
Larry Klinke aka Computer Controlled
infradead representing DinSync.info
Vsyevolod with 8 panels of Serge
Keith McMillen Instruments
Malekko Heavy Industry
Madrona Labs
The Harvestman
Lunchbox Audio

MMTA SYNTH PETTING ZOO Coming to the Decibel Festival Seattle SaturdaySept 27!

This year's MMTA PNW SYNTHFEST will be a "Synth Petting Zoo" held on Saturday September 27 from 1PM - 5PM at the EMP's Level 3 as part of the Decibel Festival in Seattle, Washington. Note the dB Festival itself runs September 24 - 28.  Be sure to see their site for a full list of performances, presentations and workshops.  This year's conference will include Madrona Labs, Livid Instruments, Roland and Ableton amongst others.

The "Synth Petting Zoo" will be a synth meet and greet, open to the public, and open to all ages. You do not have to bring gear to attend, but if you'd like to bring your gear and share what you have with others, please sign up at the MMTA forum here.  If you have trouble signing up feel free to email me at matrixsynth@gmail.com and I will make sure you are covered.  If you do sign up be sure to bring everything you might need including power supplies, cables, and speakers. We expect some noise!!!

If you are in the area on Saturday the 27th, be sure to drop by.  These events are not only a great way to check out gear that you might not normally have access to, but also a great place to meet and hang out with like-minded individuals.   For pics and videos from previous events see the MMTA channel here (scroll down to get to older posts).

Some of what you can expect to see this year: SYNTHWERKS, George Mattson (Mattson Mini Modular & Division 6), Lorne Hammond aka sealion, Larry Klinke aka Computer Controlled, Vsyevolod with 8 panels of Serge, Keith McMillen Instruments, Malekko Heavy Industry, Madrona Labs, The Harvestman, Lunchbox Audio, effegee with a TTSH (2600 clone) and modded YOCTO (808 clone), Bryan O with an Akai Rhythm Wolf, John Bowen Synth Design with the Solaris, Jeff with an OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) with TamTam SynthLab, Roland's new AIRA gear & more.

Decibel Festival 2014 Site Walk Through

Decibel Festival 2014 Site Walk Through from Decibel Festival on Vimeo.

Some pics of the EMP's Level 3 where the MMTA SYNTH PETTING ZOO will be held.

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casio melody 80

Published on Dec 30, 2013 Sealion·24 videos

"A 2013 Christmas present from 1979. When new this little calculator caused quite a stir with its audio generating button pad and musical alarms. Silly now, but as your will see elsewhere on Youtube, its part of the sound of the early Tetris generation just before the Atari and Nintendo took over.

Leave in Calc Mode to turn off the irritating hourly beeps. Push AC then Time or AC then Date to program and follow each with a pen push of the set button. Clean the battery compartment with a Q-tip for better contacts. No power save or sleep. Dollar store batteries 4 for $2."

tom bugs "the cube" a sequenced weevil

Published on Dec 29, 2013 Sealion·23 videos

"Tom Bugs made 50 of these instruments. It is/was a fund raiser to help buy a place he plays, the old cinema art space "The Cube" in Bristol, just down the hill from where one of Portishead lives. Its in the town Banksy started out in as a young artist. They succeeded. We need more places like this in the world. Start one where you live. Seriously.

I've been playing out at noise gigs with Tom's designs for a few years, so, here you go: a bit about the first weevil with a sequencer, well not quite what you'd expect, what else would you expect from Tom.
Warning: Turn up your subwoofer and the neighbours will think something awful is happening. Be nice to the SWAT team. They are only doing their job. No harm done. Serve tea and cookies. ; - )"

qunexus meets the minimoog

Published on Dec 27, 2013 Sealion·22 videos

"I found a use for one of the cv outputs of the QuNexus that solved an old technical problem for me and fit brilliantly on the Minimoog. Not your typical use of a QuNexus, but then is there such a thing?"

Oberheim sequencer in there as well.

QuNexus on eBay

Vintage Buchla at University of Victoria, BC Canada

This one in via Grant


"This device, in the pics (Al from BB), cost UVic $100,000 to build or procure (not sure how it got there) but it’s in the UVic school of music control room."

Update: Grant wrote back to say the $100k was guess, and according to Rick in the comments it didn't cost that much. You do have to wonder how much this system would go for.

Update via sealion in the comments: "I borrowed this for a music be-in performance a few years ago which we did to mark the death of Bob Moog. It is one of three such units bought at Don Buchla's famous garage sale when he moved his production in San Francisco. UVIC music prof and Tibetan chanting aficionado Martin Bartlett drove down in his VW microbus and bought three units from Don, that one, one for SFU and I believe a missing third one. It is still in use today. Cost may have been about $6,000 (total guess) and I know a decade ago a standing offer of $20,000 from a dealer in LA was regularly turned down. A technician said due to age tuning was an issue for some. I bought the surplus cv/trig op-8 to dcb to a midi box setup that they used with it long ago.
At that time the department was doing a lot of Electronotes building, serge kits, biofeedback as cv and trigger experiments. Back then I attended a performance in the Department of David Rosenbloom's pathbreaking On Being Invisible performance which involved handmade circuit boards controlled by an IMSAI kit made thing called a computer, programmed using toggle switches for each line of code. It read output from body sensors that monitored his brainwaves, pulse and muscle's electrical activity. He sat Buddha yoga style and barely moved to control the performance. The last time I saw Martin before his death was at a stoplight. I looked over and saw him leaning back from his VW wheel jaw and mouth shaped to do that deep Tibetan bass note drone with overtones thing he left electronics for, at the light by Mayfair and Denny's."

Update via Rick: "i restored this system in 2010.. its fully functional now and sounds wonderful"

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Sealion's Monotron

YouTube via kidtronic | September 06, 2010

"Check out the Korg's Monotron in the studio, including processing with spring reverb, passing a minimoog through its filter, some noise work, and the Monotron through a Leslie 147. Lots out there on hacking them by the way, circuit board labelled for cv/gate/LFO etc."

monotrons on Ebay

sealion live electronics with a 2009 Tom Bugs Board Weevil

YouTube via kidtronic
"A post-post-moderne tribute to the ghost of Saturday Night Fever. I'm playing one of Tom's synthesizer circuit board designs. It uses knobs, tiouchplates and watchout for that fancy rope work buckaroos! The Board Weevil.has two little light sensitive resistors. The "stage" has its own microphone to link patterns to audio changes. But can you dance to this? All audio is off the teeny speaker on teh circuit board recorded by the crappy mike built-into the camera sitting on a $9 new tripod. We are talking big budget production values here. Well I had fun. Next time 1200 watts and subwoofers. :-)"

sealion's tom bug workshop osc machine

YouTube via kidtronic
"5 minutes on the kit synth I made that was designed by Tom Bug of Bristol and the first sounds made on it. The next day I took a machine I built to perform at an extreme noise event with a large PA setup. subwoofers!"

Oscillostomy Incursion 667 - July 13, 2008

YouTube via smorestes
"Ogden Point Breakwater, Victoria, BC.
Coastal, Brutophilia, Froghat, griefer, C-le-Pink, Teen Girl Squad and Sealion enjoy the sun, wind, waves, boats, dancing, a helicopter and making some noise. "