EAR Website in Transition

Looks like the site is in transition, as of the time and date of this post of course. Title link takes you there. I'm curious as to what's coming.

Roland Paraphonic 505

Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction.

via Brian Comnes.

For more on the Roland Paraphonic see this Keyboard Magazine article. Scroll down when you get there.

"In the Dark Ages of electronic music, the words “synthesized strings” conjured images of just one sound; the Solina String Ensemble and its closely related cousin, the ARP String Ensemble. They did one thing well, which was to crank out sustained sawtooth-wave approximations of a string section. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, fully programmable polysynths such as the Prophet-5 from Sequential Circuits and Roland’s Jupiter-8 made dedicated string synths redundant, especially when programmable polysynths became more affordable with the advent of the Roland Juno series and the Korg PolySix.

But squished somewhere between the era of non-programmable mono synths (Minimoogs, ARP Odysseys, and the like) and the revolutionary programmable polysynths were a number of “in-between” units such as the Moog Opus 3, ARP Quadra, and Roland Paraphonic 505. These weren’t truly programmable, but they had separate — and polyphonic — brass and strings alongside a “lead synth” section. The sum of the parts wasn’t ever really competitive with real programmable polysynths, but these faux polys were a little easier on the wallet than a $5,000 Prophet or Jupiter-8."

Hollow Sun Nostalgia

Title link takes you to the Hollow Sun Nostalgia product page. What's cool about it is every instrument listed on the page has a details page with info and some history on the piece. So even if you are not interested in the product, the site acts as a great resource. I wish more product sites actually did this, so cheers to them. I should note they received good reviews from Sound on Sound - track back to the root of the site to see.

Synthesizer Patel on YouTube

Enjoy. : )

More on Synthesizer Patel.

Using Quake as a MIDI Controller

"they found a way to send network data from Quake into the free software Pd, using Pd’s netsend object to send UDP packets containing control data from the game. In other words, instead of using a MIDI controller, you can make the game your control instrument. netsend is in Max/MSP, too, so this should work for Max, as well."

Yep. Title link takes you to the post on CDM with much more detail. I might have time to post like a nut but I rarely have time to go into full detail. I'll leave the professional writing to the likes of CDM, Music Thing and Retro Thing. : )

3lab Analog Monophonic Synthesizer

Another via sequencer.de: "2 VCOs syncable, saw/square pw, noise, filter 24 dB/oct lpf - env AD, amp env ADSR, LFO with standard waveforms. midi / CV+gate - ALSO AS DIY KIT.. price? no idea. it’s not ready yet.. ask “lfo one” in the forum for more.."

click here for more.

Symbolic Sound's Tau

This one via Doktor Future in the comments of this Acxel Resynthesizer post:

"Check out Symbolic Sound's new Tau re-synthesis algorithm. It has a lot in common with the Acxel:

- Dedicated Hardware
- Real time waveform manipulation

Screenshots
MP3's

Tau sounds *way* better than their previous resynthesis algorithm (which is still in the software if you want to use it). I have been working Sound that uses this re-synthesis algorithm and their 'cross-filter' convolution algorithm at the same time. It's pretty wild. I big fan of Symbolic Sound."

Amdek Hand Clapper Scan with Mod

This link takes you there. There was also the Clap Trap. I wonder how many one off clap units are out there. I seem to recall a newly produced one as well, but can't remember. If you know feel free to comment.

via synth ollie.

"this amdek is exactly the same as the boss hc-2 which is much more common, and I believe some owners maybe will find the mods interesting...."

Update via RZ4 in the comments:
"There's also the TBS (Touched By Sound) ACM-2 Clapcussion. They used to go around $150.00 on ebay. Nova Musik has them for only $79.99, in case anyone's interested..."

Update via inverseroom in the comments:
"Hey Matrix...Tom ran this on Music Thing once, but here it is again...I found this Russian handclapper for twenty bucks on eBay a while back...it works great, and all the ceramic caps inside are square instead of round."

Note: I ran a search for russian on Music Thing and couldn't find the post. My guess is search missed it as some of my posts don't come up via search as well. If someone knows it feel free to post and I'll update the Music Thing link to the post above.

Oscilliscope Clock

Okay this is not a synth, but it's is just too damn cool. File this under the what I want in my modular category. Via Retro Thing. BTW, I love Retro Thing. Just felt the need to say that. : ) The stuff James finds is just too cool.

Update via Tom of Music Thing in the comments:
"In "Good Vibrations: History of Record Production" there's a story about how the Beatles employed some mad guy to build them an experimental console. It didn't really work, but it had level metering via an oscilloscope with 16 traces, one per track. That would be cool. "


Update via DVDBORN in the comments: The Tube Clock

Inquisitor Betrayer's Tangerine Dream Page

Title link takes you there. Click on mysterious photos from the past when you get there.