This Blog

Thought I'd put up a post on what this blog is and what it is not. Why? I always find things a bit more enjoyable when I know what they are about, and I've noticed from a few comments that some might not know what this site is about.

What it is: A repository for synth stuff I come across on the web.
What it is not: a "News" blog.

Will there be news now and then? Yep. If I come across it and post it. Will I be the first to post stuff? Depends. If stuff is sent to me that's not currently on the web, or I come across it before others then yes, otherwise all of this stuff is already out there, even when I come across it first. What might be "news-like" is any additional information I might add and/or a different perspective. What is also news is anything someone might add to the post. It just depends. I'm not trying to be a news blog, but what's interesting is a lot of this can come across as news. What's really interesting is if it is news to you then it's just that, news to you. A lot of this stuff like Vogelscheiss' site or Tapelab.org have been around for some time, but I had no idea until I visited them. I'm not on all the lists and my guess is neither are most of you as we only have so much time in the day to explore the synth universe. So, I use this blog to track all of that. It's my pulse on the synth world and I hope you find some if not all of it worthwhile. Will there be posts you brush over? Of course! We all have different interests; some will overlap, some won't. You might be on some of the same lists as me and you might not. If you saw a particular post already, think of the others that haven't. What also fascinates me is that in the synth world, old news can be new news. Think of all the history that fascinates us. For example, recently someone on the Synth Sights list was trying to find the infamous OBMx and Gibson story. People remembered seeing it but didn't remember where to find it. Well, it so happened that I put up a post with a link to it a while back, so I was able to find it and send it quickly.

So what is this blog to you? A place where you can see stuff about synths, old and new. Every now and then I hope you find a nugget or two worth your wile. : )

OMG - New Flickr Shot

Yeah, I would say that's an appropriately titled shot.

Update: More info on the shot via Analog Industries.

Vogelscheiss

I've been listening to various bits of vogelscheiss coming in on the lists lately, including the sample I put up on my last post and some previous posts. Well, I finally took the time to visit the root of his site. Wow. This was another one of those how did I miss this for so long moments. There is a seemingly endless amount of mp3s on his site, studio photos, equipment list and more. On the MP3 page there is a News section pointing out his music has been featured in Chris Romero's "Patch" and the "Ultimate Matrix Collection" DVD box set. Pretty impressive. Title link takes you there.

Vermona Perfourmer Sample

Another in via Vogelscheiss on AH. Enjoy.



Umm, sounds pretty special to me. : )
"This demo's nothing special but it shows some of what's so kewl about the
Perfourmer. The Perfourmer's set to Poly mode, with voices 1-3 set to MIDI
channel 1 and set to different patches (and pannings), one an octave up,
taking turns playing arpeggiated notes or occasionally combining in chords,
while voice 4 is set to MIDI channel 4 and playing a bassline. Drums are
Stylus RMX."

G2 Minimoog Samples

Title link takes you to some samples created by Jose Sogo Flores of a Minimoog and a Clavia G2. In each sample he goes back and forth between the two. These are pretty amazing. Note that Jose calls out below that this is not meant to be a comparison in sound quality but rather an excersize in programming. Enjoy. BTW, please right click and download a file before listening to each. : )

Some notes from Jose:

- You hear always the Mini and then the Clavia G2.
- On every mp3 files, there is many comparisons. Sometimes only an isolate
note on both instruments, sometimes a group of notes. Because of the many
examples and very similar sound, you'll have to listening carefully to the
mp3 or you won't know if you are listening to the Mini or G2.
- This is silly hand playing and there is timing differences between the
Mini and the G2. So don't take timing differences for sound differences!
- I made the G2 patch in a couple of minutes, using simple modules
and -lacking programming skills- without taking into account important sound
features of the Mini like filter saturation or different resonance response
depending on input frecuencies. That means, the G2 patch can be even
improved with some more effort.
- I stopped programming the G2 patch as soon as I thought the sound was
interesting enough to record some examples. Because of my lazyness, filter
tracking on the G2 was not matching perfectly the one in the Mini. On some
examples, where you listen to the same sound spread across several keyboard
octaves, differences in sound are mostly only slight differences in filter
cutoff due on different filter tracking. Our ear is very sensitive to cutoff
differences.
- Please don't understand the A/B comparison as a sound quality question.
Instrument and sound emulation is a way to learn your gear and expand your
programming capabilities. No winner here. Also no loser.

If you want to host the files and make them available for all people, please
feel free to copy and post the considerations above to AH.

Best Regards

Jose

Zebra 2

I first saw the Zebra 2 on Moogulator's site. I glossed over it as another soft synth and never got back to it. Now it's up on Create Digital Music. I finally made time to take a look and it does look interesting. It actually looks a bit like Ableton Live, which is a good thing. What's great about Ableton Live is it's ease of use. It looks like Zebra 2 has a bit in this in that it packs a powerful synth hidden behind an elegant and simple to use UI. What's interesting is their concept of "The Grid" and a "wireless modular synthesizer." Not sure how much of this is the UI vs. the synth mechanics itself, but it does look interesting. You be the judge. Title link takes you to there.



"In terms of synthesis you'll hardly find anything that you can't do. In many hybrid approaches different synthesis concepts live side by side - in Zebra everything integrates seamlessly. This is owed to Zebra's renowned concept of modularity, called The Grid. Use an oscillator to build wavetables in an additive fashion, mangle these with some phase distortion effect, send that through a comb filter that in turn frequency modulates a sine oscillator. Sounds too harsh? - Put a warm sounding lowpass filter behind it! "

P*rn for Synth Geeks - New Flickr Shot

Juno 60 in bed

A Juno 60 pic via another cl post for sale.

Hold onto that Synthi! - TapeLab.org

Title link takes you to TapeLab.org. Another one of those amazing sites where I wonder how the heck did I miss this until now. They have an EMS Synthi 100 Modular and more. Like the shot below? There's tons more after the hop including samples. Had a really hard time picking one for this post actually. Keith Seaman sent this one my way. Thank you Keith! P.S. This is MBM/Jack Dangers site.

Electronic Musician Spotlights

Title link takes you to Electronic Musician's Spotlights page. EM Spotlights are articles on featured people. There's a bit of synth content worth checking out including analog conent on Steve Roach and Wendy Carlos. Via Peter Grenader of Buzzclick Music on AH.


The list includes:

Steve Roach
Wendy Carlos
Negativland
Malcolm Burn (String Cheese Incident)
Yoko Ono
Pierre Shaeffer & Pierre Henry - pioneers in sampling
Toby Marks (Banco de Gaia)
Tim Pagnotta
Roger McGuinn
Laurie Anderson
John Cage
Phillip Glass