PNW Synth Meeting 2006 Images and Video

Uploaded on Oct 22, 2006 matrixsynth

This year's Pacific Northwest Synth Meeting was a blast. I want to thank John Marshall of Sound-Photo for organizing the event and for the pizza. Good stuff! I really enjoyed the pace of the event this year. It was pretty laid back, and I met a lot of great people. Even some that read Matrixsynth! : ) The meeting started at 10:00 AM. I was about half an hour late. When I got there people were just hanging out, talking and playing synths. Once everyone was settled in, we did a show and tell where each person talked a little about themselves and what they brought. Halfway through we stopped for pizza and after pizza, we continued on. All of the talks were great. There were a few funny moments and surprises including some Sequential Circuits history from John Bowen. This year I took a ton of video and unfortunately neglected the camera a bit. The title link of this post will take you to the shots I did take. As for the video, I took over 3 gigs worth, so they will go up over time. This first video is a pan of everyone at the event. You can hear the synths talking to each other in the background. : ) BTW, I want to say thank you to everyone I met. All great people in my book. As for those of you that want the synth content, the vids are coming. I'll be posting all of them over the next few days, and I'll make sure to call out they are from PNW 2006. There is one caveat though: the max file size for YouTube is currently 100M, so some of the larger videos will have to wait. Note that not long ago the limit was 50M, so hopefully it won't be too long.

Plan B Model 24 Samples

Via Peter Grenader on the Plan B list:

"All this talk, so where's the bacon? I've posted some sound samples of the M24 doing it's thing. Go here and scroll to Sound Samples. the Model 24 will be shipping in two weeks.

enjoy.

- P"

Update via Peter in the comments:
"For the record:

1) The M24 IS NOT BASED ON BUCHLA'S DESIGNS other than their function. It's microprocessor based.It's not based on anyone's design, the circuit is completely unique inside. Have a look at the block diagram on the M24 page of the EAR site, you'll see what I'm talking bout.

2) The M12 iis NOT a clone of anything. Buchla's filter is state variable, but a completely different architecture. Mine has four modes, Don's has one...they both use Vactrols, as does Dieter's Stweiner Filter. If you feel you must credit me for 'borrowing', then credit Don Lancaster - because the M12 came from reading his filter cookbook that I borrowed from Mike Brown. That's the only borrowing that went into that one.

3) The M13 is close to the Buchla 292 - but there are some significant changes in play there, namely an added opamp feedback which greatly improved it's functionality for non-Buchla signal levels."

"On 'clones'

Adaptations are nothing new. The point has been made about the many many Moog Ladder clones, but let's not overlook the Wiard Wogglebug and the Buchla 266 as well as the Wiard Borg and the Buchla 292, Banalogue's full product line, the Livewire and Cynthia Steiner filters, The Cynthia and Doepfer Wasp, The Livewire Bissell Gen, the list goes on and on.

And while the Model 13 is the only circuit adaptation in our line, so is the Cynthia Lowpass Gate (I know because I designed that circuit) and the Wiard Borg, although I don't see comments about either of these.

Add to the mix that well over 60% of the new analog instruments being released today are based on circuits published in Electronotes. The only function in the entire Plan B line that can be found in Electronotes is the sine shaper in the Model 15, but that was only an Electronotes reprint of a circuit originally published in an article Electronics Magazine in the mid-sixties and was done so as an appnote - meaning they intended for people to use it, that's why it was there.

More on this, the M24 is functionally similar to the Buchla 266 as it produces a stepped and smooth random state (and a bunch of toehr stuff).Well, so does the Wogglebug, the Doepfer A149-1(half of the 266 anyway), The Doepfer A-118 (the other half), the Serge Random Voltage Gen...but we all went about it differently and we all included unique features not in the original. Clearly a 'how would I make something that has this function among others' as opposed to 'how to I make a 266 clone' approach on all counts.

For the record however, I personally asked Buchla and Associates if they would have a problem with this and their reply was no, 'everyone needs a wiggley voltage'."

Die 16 Bestn Aus Den Hitparaden '77!

This one is in via André:

"Perhaps I can top the "Yamaha Superstar" cover. It's from a german lp and a guy called Edgar Schlepper. The record itself is really poor, but he used both the GX-1 and EX-1."

Click here for an mp3 of this most awesome recording. A little ABBA. A little Chicago. All done on a Yamaha GX1 and EX1. Who could ask for more. Enjoy. : )

Make sure to check out Anre's site for more.

Moog T at Urban Outfittes

Uban Outfitters is a chain like The Gap. There was one on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Note the 1934-2005. The synth pictures is a Memorymoog btw, not the Minimoog. Anyone know more about this T? Who's producing it? Why the Memorymoog was chosen?

Update: And another.

Oberheim Four Voice System

Click here for shots of Heath Finnie's Oberheim FVS. BTW the unit is for sale in the Boston area, local pick up only. If you are interested you can reach heah at hfinnie at gmail.com.

Tokyo Heartbeatn

Ok, I'm stretching it with this one as I like my posts to be specifically about synths, but I thought some of you might find this interesting. I found it very interesting. Filing this one under samples. More on the Roland R-09.

Via Cyril:
"Two weeks ago i was in Tokyo, i have recorded street sound with my brand new
Edirol R-09. On my blog you will find a compilation called "Tokyo Heartbeat -
September 2006". Raw recording : just me walking in Tokyo with R-09 in one
hand, a fade in&out by track and that's all. Tracks recorded with R-09 stereo
mic at 24bit/44khz, and converted to MP3-192 kbps."

Tracklist :

01) Yamanote Line - 05:30
02) Akihabara - 02:24
03) Sega Club Arcade Center - 08:38
04) From Akihabara to Asakusabashi - 11:30
05) Pachislot - 6:56
06) A bar - 5:06
07) Kita Akabane by night - 01:40
08) A train to Tokyo Game Show - 11:16
09) Ukimafunado Tower - 28:37
10) At the Karaoke (Featuring Tanguy) - 1:43

History of Electronic Sound Manipulation - Harold Bode

Title link takes you to a 2.2M pdf of History of Electronic Sound Manipulation by Harold Bode, mirrored here.

"The history of electronic sound modification is as old as the history of electronic musical instruments and electronic sound transmission, recording, and reproduction. Means for modifying electrically generated sound have been known. since the late 19th century, when Thaddeus Cahill created his Telharmonium. With the advent of the electronic age, spurred first by the invention of the electron tube, and the more recent development of solid-state devices, an astounding variety of sound modifiers have been created for filtering, distorting, equalizing, amplitude and frequency modulating, Doppler effect and ring modulating, compressing, reverberating, repeating, flanging, phasing, pitch changing, chorusing, frequency shifting, analyzing, and resynthesizing natural and artificial sound. In this paper some highlights of historical development are reviewed, covering the time from 1896 to the present ."

EPU - Electronic Percussion Unit

Via jesper in the comments of this post:
"I guess this is the most famous piece I have in my studio as well as the piece that's been on the road the most. The knüttel EPU was originally designed in 1976 by Franz Knüttel who made this and other electronic instruments and controllers for legendary german band Tangerine Dream. There is only one EPU around and this used to belong to Chris Franke. I bought it as non-working on Ebay but to my big surprise it did work still after almost 30 years! I switched an IC and with the help from a friend I converted it to accept +5 volts trig and not just the +15 it wanted originally."

"Here's a sound link of how the EPU can sound. In time the EPU takes it's way through an Accessit Great British Spring (100 cm spring reverb). I made this for the mailing list SAS to show what the two units sounded like and could accomplish. I thought it fit this discussion well too..."


Title link takes you you jesper's page on the EPU with more info, images and samples.

Y2K International Loop Festival

Via brian comnes:

"This has been a busy week with the NoiseFest Saturday and Loop Festival Thursday.

Attached are some pics from the Y2K6 Live Looping Festival. Rainer Straschill's rig has the Korg Wavestation (gratuitous synth porn) He's from Germany see www.straschill.de for more) and I threw in some cool shots of him in action. Rick Walker (festival organizer and looper par excellence) is the guy in the white suit. - love that chain and cymbal stuff

The Thursday night event was their "experimental" night so the sounds had some common DNA with the noise folks. The big difference of course was the musicality and nuance, much more of that with the loopers than the noise crowd. I know you focus on synths in your blog, but in effect what these looper folks are doing is capturing waveforms on the fly and then sustaining and layering them with the looper gear, then modulating the results and keeping it all interesting in real time. Is that really fundamentally different than drifting through a sequence of waveforms driven by a Korg Wavestation?? This year the computers were way more prominent than Echoplexes compared to last years presentation. The coolest instrument there by far was the Zaxophone which is basically a fiberglass or bamboo stick (pinned to a piezo much like a one note kalimba) played with a bow and modulated by a block of wood. This thing was almost human sounding, ranging from kids chatttering to orgasmic moans. There's a picture of that too. Unfortunately the artist from Japan was not on the official program so I am sorry he is anonymous. (maybe rick can supply the name)"

Title link takes you to more shots. Previous post on the festival.

Reloop (SL)

"A how-to/promo video of Reloop, a groovebox-ish sample player in Second Life. Mind the volume, Fraps isn't on good terms with my soundcard. Music by me, etc etc"

YouTube via stellatre. BTW, check out this excellent Music Thing post for more on Second Life.