OB-X and OB-Xa Motherload on YouTube

That Micke is back. Title link takes you to his post on VSE with more links to video synth goodness, this time featuring the Oberheim OB-X and OB-Xa.

Japan - Ghosts Live (1982). Synths used for texture.


And of course.... Van Halen's JUMP. Synths used for dust.


Look at how dusty that OB-Xa is!!! Eddie is just smiling away. No respect I tell yah. No respect...

Accordian - New Flickr Shot

Shot by mathewspiel. Love the green. : )

Bit One - New Flickr Shot

Shot by bvincent.

Korg Wavedrum Shots

Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction. More info on the Wavedrum on SOS and SonicState.

Korg EM-1 - New Flickr Shot

Shot by amatecha.

Waldorf Q+ Shots

Sexy mamma jamma. Too bad it has a dent. Shots pulled from this auction.

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Origami

I've been following the Origami buzz lately. If you haven't heard, it's rumored to be a UMPC or Ultra Mobile PC by Microsoft. I didn't think I was going to be putting a post up on it here, but then it clicked.


Image via Longhorn Blogs

Remember these posts?
miniMusic BeatPad driving a Voyager and 909
Multi-Touch Interaction Research
Apple Lemur?
Lemur Workshop
Live Lab - Tablet 2 MIDI and Live Slice
Audio Pad
Lemur-like Rear projection control
Lemur and a Continuum - Video

Well it just dawned on me that Origami might be an affordable alternative. I'd love to see a more robust miniMusic suite for it. We'll soon know... Title link takes you to the Origami site - still giving teasers.

Seth Elgart's Music vs. Sound

Title link takes you to Seth Elgart's website. I recently posted Jim Aikin's thoughts on Melody Over Texture. This came from a thread on SynthSights on the topic of the musician and the synthesist and the topic of sound and texture driving a piece of music vs. the musician driving the melody and composition. Seth put up a couple of examples of Music vs. Sound. In one track, Fifty Five, he gets lost in textures from the Waldorf Q, he states that Q drives the composition itself (BTW, this is a good demo of the Waldorf Q 's swirly textures). He states, "It more or less wrote itself. I didn't have much to do with it really. I just played it." In another track, Celebrate Life, Seth critically composes and drives the music. It's interesting when you think about how you create music. I lean more towards the sound leading me - it seems more like an interaction between me and the synth. Two things immidiately come to mind when I think about this, one, Bob Moog's magical description of how you feel sound and the instrument - how you connect to it in an almost metaphysical way; and two, this video of Jean Michel Jarre where he talks about leaving room for the music to drive itself. How do you play?

The ORT Synthesizer

Title link takes you to Tim Wade's blog on the ORT Synthesizer. Thanks Tim!

"This is a new blog about the ORT sythesizer that i have been building for about 25 years. Why is it called ORT you may ask? Well about 9 years ago it was sitting on the cupboard at a place i was working at and a collegue placed a label that was the last three letters of "Hyundai Sport" on one of the panels. It from that day on became known as the ORT. I started building it around 1979 or so during my last two years at High School. It has gone in fits and bursts since then. There was a bit if a hyatis between 84 and 2004 while little happened to it. My American Aunt bought me 4 Curtis Electromusic integrated circuits that actually kicked the entire project off. She bought me a set of dual VCA/VCO/VCF/VcADSR. The VCO was the first module built closely followed by VCF and then a selection of modules from the electronics magazine Elektor. Since the ORT has staged a renaisance in the last year or so two new modules have made an apperance. A MIDI to CV module that I have designed myself and a Spring Reverberation module that is based upon a design from the ETI synthesizer from the mid 70's. It is planned to go through each module one at a time and explain the issues with it and how well it worked etc. I then plan to kick off and ORT2 project that will introduce a new set of modules that are so audacious in conception they will take the Analog Sythesis comunity by storm... well probably not as we will be doing well to get that far... but maybe we will."

Aleis Fusion Price Drop

Looks like the Fusion 6HD is down to $999, and the 8HD to $1499. Title link takes you to my favorite synth shop for mainstream gear, Novamusik.