Thomas Dolby Video Blogs

Title link takes you there.

"Hey, I’m thinking it might be nice to add an occasional vidblog/podcast to the site. I dashed this one off as a trial. It’s a clip from my song The Flat Earth at last February’s TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment and Design) and I’ve added a voiceover explaining what I’m doing–a bit like a ‘Director’s Cut.’"

HCGPF on Analog Industries

It's a synth one. Title link takes you there.

New Waldorf Products to be Announced Winter NAMM 2007

Click here for a Google translated interview of Joachim Flor of Waldorf. Replace "Whale Village" with "Waldorf" when you get there. : ) Here's a link to the original in German. This one sent my way via Dr. Georg Müller.

"AMAZONA.de:
What might we expect from the new Waldorf?

JOACHIM FLOR:
Of course there will be new Waldorf products... the future developments will be characterised by innovation, unmistakable sound, optimal ergonomics, excellent design, user friendliness and all that the name Waldorf stood for, stands and will continue to stand. But we'll let you be surprised. Our first goal is the winters NAMM 2007 in Anaheim!"

I can't wait. Something tells me Winter NAMM 2007 will be the most hyped NAMM in a long, long time. : ) Thanks for sending this one in Georg!

Update via Mr. Array in the comments:

"Wheee!

Here is another message, this time from Stefan Stenzel where he more or less confirms that there will be paid OS updates for legacy Waldorf products:

http://lists.waldorf.synth.net/pipermail/user-forum/2006-April/004774.html"

"Since we are not a legal successor of the preceeding waldorf companies,
we cannot provide further upgrades for free. However, rest assured that
the price we will charge for future upgrades will be reasonable."

Future X10

Hmm... Something new from Elektron?

Andromeda A6 Pads and Strings

Tomislav Babic sent the following samples to AH. I asked him if I could put up a post on them and he said yes. Here there are. Enjoy. Title link takes you to Tomislave Babic's website.

http://www.babic.com/SYN/A6/clc_A6-BerlinPad.mp3
http://www.babic.com/SYN/A6/clc_A6-MeltsInYourMouth.mp3
http://www.babic.com/SYN/A6/clc_A6-NotchPWMPad.mp3
http://www.babic.com/SYN/A6/clc_A6-VintageStrgs.mp3

What Makes a Moog Punch

"Looking at the Minimoog's amplitude envelope (Fig. 1) reveals that even with the sustain set to minimum, there's about 20-30 milliseconds where the sound stays at maximum level before the decay begins. There is no way to eliminate this short period of full volume sustain; it's part of the Minimoog's characteristic sound. It's also what happens to percussive sounds when you clip, limit, or compress them."

Title link takes you there.

Eurorack Modular - New Flicrk Shot

flickr by unrest. Title link takes you to a few more. Note Eurorack refers to the physical dimensions of the rack modules not the manufacturer.

WEM Nightshade

via this auction

"Vintage WEM Nightshade analog synth form the '70.
This item is VERY RARE. Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, EAR) tell me that only 180 was produced from wem. WEM is almost know for their amps or analog echo used by Pink Floyd in the '70. This synth is VERY FAT sounding!!! It is monophonic. 2 osilators with many sound options.... see the foto for spec. 220/110V. In pristine conditions with original cover and power cable (not pictured), full working but sold as is due to its age."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Soviet Synthesizers Sample Collection

Hmm... I had this one ready to go on 4/18, but I missed publishing it. Oh well... Here it goes. I'm not big on posting sample collections, but this one does look interesting. Title link takes you to SoundEngine.com's Soviet Synths page with sample links on the bottom. They have a sample disk of over 1000 samples of Soviet made synths. Check out the pdf for the synths used including images and details.

"More than 600Mb of analog synthesizer samples are available - fat bass lines, warm pads, aggressive razor leads, smooth classic waveforms, space FX, sounds of noises and machines, percussion, original real time phrases and much more...Thanks to unique architecture and powerful resonant filters, Soviet-made synthesizers have inimitable color in their sound; you get a lot of cool stuff for creating killer patches!"

CDM Site Issues

If you've notice problems getting to Create Digital Music, here's why.

"Due to avoidable circumstances with Create Digital Music's web host,
1and1.com, CDM is currently inaccessible (and has been since about
11:30am yesterday, Eastern time). We are moving the site to an
upgraded server to restore service immediately, and will take measures
to make sure this doesn't happen again. Thanks for your patience."

The unofficial line: 1+1 screwed me over and took my site hostage,
moving it without warning to an "auxilliary server" that they knew
wouldn't handle the load so they could ransom out a more expensive
dedicated server account, even though my server logs suggest I was
using a fraction of my available bandwidth and there was no major
traffic spike yesterday.

I'm working now on rescuing the site, but that's the situation. You
can bet once my site is safely off 1+1's server, I'll have a thing or
two to say about webhosts; for now, I have to keep silent.

Peter"