Jean-Jacques Perrey & Dana Countryman - San Francisco

Click here for shots of the show on Laughing Squid.

Also check out their flickr set for more. Photos via Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

ARP / Aries Mega-2600

Via CMS:

"The information on this massive integrated 2600 style synth is limited. A former ARP engineer told me that this was a side project of a ARP/Aries engineer for the Boston School of Electronic Music. It has 8 VCOs with PWM and sync jacks, 8 multimode VCFs with voltage controlled resonance, 16 VCAs with linear and exp modulation, 4 balanced modulators, 4 preamps, 4 envelope followers, 4 voltage mixers. All the circuitry is precision made on plug in vector cards with gold plated connectors. CTS pots. Spun aluminum knobs, 1/8 inch switchcraft jacks, large lambda power supply, many multiples. Custom silk screened front panel. This machine is presently being restored at CMS and will be for sale soon. Only one in existence."

This is currently on the upcoming auctions page of CMS, along with a Synthi AKS. This one in via Dave.

Update: be sure to check out the comments of this post below.

Update2: You can find the Boston School of Electronic Music website here. Based on the copyright date of 2015 - 2016, I'm guessing it launched in 2015. If anyone knows otherwise, feel free to leave a comment.

Update3: You'll find some additional info on this system and who created it here.

Pianoteq

"Pianoteq is the result of an academic research and results in what we call the fourth piano generation. This is the very first, and only, piano available that belongs to this generation.

First generation: acoustic piano (1698)
Second generation: electro acoustic piano (1929)
Third generation: sampled piano (1984)
Fourth generation: modelled piano (2006)

The first generation of pianos began with Cristofori's pianoforte in 1698 which came to maturity at the end of the 19th century with the acoustic grand pianos. It was followed in the 20th century by the second generation electro-acoustic pianos and the third generation sampled pianos where each note is a recording of how it sounded during a specific moment in time, not taking into account the complexity of the instrument.

Pianoteq is the first and only piano belonging to the fourth generation, developed in order to go beyond the limitations of the third generation and to become a versatile and innovating tool. It is in fact the first virtual piano factory — it can produce new brands as well as copies of historical instruments."

Title link takes you there, including samples.

Korg X5D 10 Years and Running

So I get a zZounds newsletter and in it I see the Korg X5D listed. Scratching my head, I'm thinking, "how old is this friggin synth?" I head over to Sonic State and I find the X5D review page. According to Sonic State, it's been around since 1996. 10 Years! That's crazy! I'm thinking maybe they just have a bunch of old stock to get rid of and I head over to Korg. Sure enough it's listed as a current product. Think of how many synths the X5D has outlived. Bizarre. So... My question to you is, are there any longer running synths out there aside from the Minimoog? Is the X5D actually set to beat the Minimoog's record of 12 years? It's bizarre that out of all synths in the last decade, it's the Korg X5D still out there. I wonder how many were produced.

Update: Make sure to check out the comments for more, but so far we have:

GRONDO 2001: "Yamaha is still making its VL70m- which I think is even older!" Looks like it matches it - also released in 1996 according to Sonic State.

Anonymous: "Alesis is still making the SR-16 drum machine and that is like 15 years!" According to wikipedia (sorry reed : ) ) it was released in 1991.

cornutt: "If memory serves, the EML 101 had a production run of about 12 years. I'll check that tonight."

the world of next tuesday: "I'm surprised no one says EMS VCS-3. Though apparently there were a few years when the company might have been out of business and the waiting time to get one has been several years for years, nothing touches it within a decade or 2 (1969 - beat that Korg!) with the runner up being the EMS Synthi A."

sh201 - New Flickr Shots

flickr by leSiege. Title link takes you to more.

Neuron Sample Disk Of Game Sound Effects

I saw this on Sonic State and thought the image was kind of funny. Title link takes you to more info and some samples, also linked below.











Glitter_Fluid.wav [2.46 MB]
Shiny_Rings.wav [0.77 MB]
Unreal_Explosion.wav [1.65 MB]

Jean Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman Live - San Francisco and LA

Via the Analogue Haven mailing list:
"Join Jean and Dana tomorrow night at AH as they show why they're such legends in the electronic music field. They'll be spotlighting their brand new release, entitled The Happy Electropop Music Machine as well as saying hello to all of you who stop by.

Jean-Jacques Perrey is a legend, and a pioneer in the popular electronic music field. He was the second musician to ever own a Moog Synthesizer, and one of the first to record with it, way back in 1966. Over the past five decades, Perrey has released many classic MOOG albums, featuring his trademark crazy tape loops and his catchy original melodies. His theme 'Baroque Hoedown' (co- composed with Gershon Kingsley) has been featured as part of Disneyland's much-loved 'Main Street Electrical Parade' for over 30 years. Even today, Perrey's music has been sampled by countless popular Hip-Hop and Rap artists, including Ice T, DJ Premier, Gangstarr, and many others. At age 77, Perrey is still very much active, and still creating 'Music for Smiles and Laughs.'

A concert review from this tour and more photos available at the wonderful MATRIXSYNTH site. All the fun starts at 5:00pm, so don't be late!!"

The San Francisco show starts tonight at 8:00 PM at Recombant Media Labs. For those of you in LA, as stated above, they will be at Analogue Haven tomorrow, 8/30 5:30 PM, and they will end their tour at the Knitting Factory at 7:30 PM. More details here.

Buchla 200e

No title link. Shot sent in by an anonymous reader. Make sure to click the shot for the full effect. Absolutely gorgeous. Man I'd love one of these as my christmas tree.

Thanks anonymous reader! ; )

BTW, don't miss this post for one heck of a sample of the 200e.

Update: Also check this post for some new samples that have recently been put up.

Dub Jam on bleepsandbloops

Title link takes you to the latest update on bleepsandbloops with a sample.

"Another little jam, this one built solely with the Moog CP-251, TR-606, and the DotCom, live to tape improv style. I was kind of going for a "what if Morton Subotnick did a dub track?" or something along those lines, kind of in the tradition of what Excepter is trying to do with their latest "noise dub" stuff."

Sketch by Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk

Remember this drawing from this post? Turns out the drawing was actually by Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk for Dirk, not the other way around. Pretty cool. Make sure to check out the previous post for a stitch by Herrn Schneider's daughter with a bald Florian. Funny.

Update via Moogulator in the comments: "Dirk sold Florian the ARP as a SHOP, so it was "an ARP of others", not really Dirks but a Synthesizerstudio Bonn [the name of the synth shop] one.. Hope that makes it clearer.. ;) "