The PorchBoard - Analog Bass

Trip. In via Synth80 on AH, via Harmony Central.



"Designed to revive the lost art of self accompaniment, the Porchboard Bass is an analog rhythm instrument designed to allow low-end, player controlled, self accompaniment using the natural technique of foot tapping. Because it's player controlled, the Porchboard Bass is legitimately accepted in the concert venue. Each tap of the foot produces a low-end, full-bodied, bassy beat that is more percussive than a bass guitar, yet sounds fuller and more resonant than most bass drums."

TR-909 Mod Page

Via Jonodo on AH. Title link takes you there.



The following mods extend the range of the Tune and Decay controls, and add three new controls:

Pitch - controls the frequency of the bass drum oscillator
Drive - allows waveform adjust from normal to square, for hard clipped sounds
Tune Depth - varies the amount of initial pitch sweep (decay set by TUNE control)

Jiggity's XOXBOX

Via this post on Sonic State's the-gas-station. Damn, that looks nice.

Moog Satellite - New Flickr Shot

Korg OASYS on Sonic State

Sonic State on the Korg OASYS update. Includes their video coverage during Winter NAMM 2005. Worth checking out if you haven't already.

Chocopoolp

I swear my blog reader must be busted, because I don't remember seeing this post on Music Thing. Chocopoolp (nice name) makes a couple of music apps for the Palm. The first is Bhajis Loops a sampler/sequencer and Microbe (1 drum machine, 2 synthesizers, and 18 effects). Click here for choco-poop, chocolate poop, I mean Chocopoolp.com.

Roland TB-303 Acid Twin Silver Sticker

Title link takes you to auction on the *bay. Good idea. Someone should make faceplates for other classic synths minus the sticky. I'm picturing the weight and consistency one of those flexible magnet type sheets you can put your own images on. A lot of beat up synth could use a new faceplate.



"This is a new silkscreen die cut face sticker for old worn Roland tb 303's. For all you knob twiddlers you can also use it as a protective cover. This sticker is the same thing as what you see on the Minimoog Voyager and PK4 Poly Evolver. It is made to last!"

Question for you

Notice the Google Search box on the right frame? Now take a look at it on SparkleTrain. Which do you prefer for this site? I figure the box on top could be useful, but I haven't done it up until now because I thought it looked a little bulky and took away from the site. Also the whole ads thing, but now I'm having second thoughts. Please post your comments via the comment link below. Thanks! : )

8 Famicons and a 606

Check out this shot of a Roland TR-606 controlling 8 Nintendo Famicons (Japanese version of the NES). Ran into this on this VSE thread. Title link takes you to a post on Kotaku with a link to 6955's site and MP3s. 6955 is a Canadian born Nintendo artist residing in Japan. Oddly, I couldn't find the shot on the 6955 site.

How to make an HPF from an LPF

No title link. Mike Kent sent this to AH. He gave me the ok to post this. I figured others not on AH might like to try it.

"You can probably get a High Pass Filter or Band Pass Filter type of effect
from a modular system that only has a Low Pass Filter. You may need to make
one special patch cable, with its wires crossed to switch the polarity, for
it if your modular doesn't have a way to get reverse polarity outputs.

If you send a signal into a low pass filter and then mix it back with the
original signal with reverse polarity, you can emulate a High Pass Filter.

______ ________
| |--Polarity Switch--->| |
|VCO | _______ | MIX |---------->
|____|---->| LPF |-------->|______|
|_____|

Or:

______ ______ ________
|VCO |--->| |--Polarity Switch--->| |
|____| |MIX | _______ | MIX |---------->
|VCO |--->|____|---->| LPF |-------->|______|
|____| |_____|

The mix levels after the filter are critical. This depends on phase
alignment to cancel frequencies below the LPF's cutoff point. Filters
generally mess with phase so this may not work well on some modules.
Resonance can mess things up, too. But it does work on many systems.

Add another LPF on the end of that chain to get a Band Pass Filter with
variable width (the difference between the cutoff of the 2 filters). Drive
both filters from a common EG to get typical BP sweep sounds.

______ ______ ________
|VCO |--->| |--Polarity Switch-->| | _______
|____| |MIX | _______ | MIX |--->| LPF |--->
|VCO |--->|____|---->| LPF |------->|______| |_____|
|____| |_____|


Regards,
Mike."