Moog Sonic Six

flickr by Heath Finnie.

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Magic Smoke Electronics Mankato

"Magic Smoke is the exclusive licensed source of Thomas Henry's books on do-it-yourself musical electronics as well as the source for exclusive analog synthesizer modules and kits. For starters, we're bringing out Thomas's classic books plus his fantastic new voltage controlled filter."

The Mankato!

Designed by well known synth DIY guru Thomas Henry, the TH-201 is a low-pass VCF with some unusual operating modes. Magic Smoke will be producing kits for a four output model (TH-201/4) and an eight output model (TH-201/8). With the Resonance control turned all the way up, these filters will self-oscillate, operating as multi-phase LFOs or VCOs.

Both DC-coupled and AC-coupled inputs are available. The DC-coupled inputs allow the TH-201 to operate as a voltage-controlled lag processor (slew limiter). All outputs are buffered and have standard 1k impedance.

The TH-201 VCF will be produced as a kit in Euro Rack and Frac Rack panel formats. The PCB will be available separately for those who want to package the TH-201 in other formats.

The Mankato covers a very wide frequency range -- around 0.005Hz (200 seconds/cycle) to beyond 20kHz without range switches. Changing the timing capacitors can provide extended low frequency operation.

TH-201/4
• 12 and 24 dB outputs
• inverted 12 and 24 dB outputs
• 90 degrees of phase difference between each output
• quadrature sine wave oscillator

TH-201/8
• 6, 12, 18, and 24 dB outputs
• inverted 6, 12, 18, and 24 dB outputs
• 45 degrees of phase difference between each output
• 8-phase sine wave oscillator

The following is one via this gallery of this year's AH Bay Area Synth Gathering.

AH Bay Area Gathering 2006 via Electronic Musician

The synth gathering made the Electronic Musician blog. Our own Brian Comnes got a mention as well. Pretty cool. : )

"List member Brian Comnes, who coordinated the gathering, set up a raffle to raise money for the Bob Moog Memorial Foundation. The donated prizes included hats and shirts from RobotSpeak, a Metasonix TM-6, a gift certificate to Analogue Haven, and a vintage Korg MonoPoly synth (donated by sound-designer and EM author Nick Peck).

Personally, the most interesting aspect of an AHCali meeting is hearing what people have to say about their instruments, finding out what they like most about them, and hearing how they use them. I was particularly interested in learning more about the Buchla 200e, and Chris Muir was patient enough to explain some its deep feature-set to me."

Update: I realized I didn't give the celebrity list for the event. Here it is:

"Instrument designers visiting the show included Don Buchla, Dave Smith, Mike Brown (LiveWire), and Eric Barbour of Metasonix. Composer/performer Robert Rich was kind enough to bring along his large MOTM system. And San Francisco-based retailer Robot Speak was also present with plenty of Moog-related hardware and software items on display."

PAiA midi2cv8 MIDI to CV converter

Bookmarking this one for me to look up when I need one.

"This freshly updated MIDI to CV converter from PAiA is an economical and versatile solution for interfacing MIDI to the world of analog synthesis and control. It is an easy to build and use system with eight analog outputs that can be Control Voltages, Gates, Triggers, even variable amplitude pulses for triggering analog drum sets. The newly revised firmware allows Multi assignment of notes by midi channel and a DIN sync mode that can also control of one or two synths while sync is running."

Title link takes you there. via brian comnes.

"my favorite now if I did it over again wpould be that PAIA MIDI2CV8 kit. This thing gives you 8 separate CV outs that can be configured in several ways - coolest is the mono with pitch. gate, and 6 more assigned CC controllers (think about that ) , or 4 channel pitch and gate only , it's a trip ..... you can build one for about $130 or check the 1U rack mount with the pair horizontal , can you imagine 16 CV channels and a computer sequencer on a modular?? ..woohoo ....except no LFO, you have to get that somewhere else, also the M2CV8 has power circuit on it (wall wart too) , the other modules get their pawer from the M2CV8 or separate supply"

Fairlight CMI III Audio Demo

Title link takes you to the post on Failed Muso.

I thought the following summed up why many of us still go after vintage synths and why we appreciate different synths from different manufacturers. They all have their own character. You can usually get close approximations between synths, but rarely can you capture the unique character that makes any given synth shine.

"However, after listening to this and yearning to own one more than ever, I found myself thinking about why I really wanted one as I could get sounds like these from any number of newer, more advanced and able machines. Heck, my Alesis Fusion is 100 times more powerful and can produce many similar tones. A Kawai K5000 could do very good additive as can Camel Audio's Cameleon 5000, but there is something in the Fairlight sound that tends to be lacking from many modern day instruments and that is character. The Fairlight has it in bucket loads, like many other synths of it's era. Nowadays, we seem to accept power and bloatware as the way forward. This is a big mistake."

The Simmons Electronic Drums Virtual Museum

Title link takes you to The Simmons Electronic Drums Virtual Museum where you'll find manuals, patches, images and more.

via Georg.

AH Bay Area Gathering 2006 Gathers $565 for the Moog Foundation

Brian Comnes, host of this year's AHBA set up a raffle for the gathering in which proceeds would go the Bob Moog Memorial Foundation for Electronic Music. They raised $565. Pretty cool.




"Here's the list of goodies some lucky folks walked away with yesterday. Not bad for a $5 ticket
** Korg Mono/Poly in a flight case (donated by Nick Peck)
** Metasonix TM-6 tube filter (from Eric Barbour of Metasonix)
** $100 gift certificate to Analogue Haven (from Shawn Cleary and Chuck Oken, owners of the store)
** Moog DVD from Moog Foundation
** Several Moog Hats from Moog Foundation and RobotSpeak (Steve Taormina and Alan Stewart, owners of the store)
** Hooded sweatshirt from Livewire Electronics (from Mike Brown of Livewire)
** Moog Tshirts from Moog Foundation and RobotSpeak
** Studio Electronics T shirts from Robot Speak

Please go to www.moogfoundation.org. You can find out about the group's work. You can also contribute online. Their goal is to get to $5mm and to date they only have $30k, plus our $565, so they have a ways to go and could definitely use help from the synth enthusiast community.

The goal of this Foundation honoring this unique and special (Bob Moog) is to foster innovation and curiosity in electronic music.

In my humble opinion, I think the AH local groups should adopt the Bob Moog Foundation for at least all of 2007 and maybe in perpetuity if all goes well.....and beside a raffle adds an element of excitement, tension and anxiety to an otherwise blissful day ...and if they can't get any prizes they can just set out a coffee can and collect.

Peace
Brian"

Great idea Brian.
If you haven't checked out the Bob Moog Memorial Foundation for Electronic Music, please do.

Update: Brian suggested I put up a permanent link to The Moog Foundation. Great idea. I'll be adding the below image shortly.

The GTR Orgatron

via loscha. Update via Loscha in the comments:

"Hi Folks,

Once a year I get someone emailing me asking for information on the Orgatron. Sadly, I lost all that information to a HDD crash in 2009 or so, and I sold the Orgatron soon after these pictures were published, as I moved to a much smaller house.

So, I'm really sorry - I can't help anyone out with further information about the keyboard.

It had a chord organ section on the left, and the main synth voice was a very sketchy monosynth. There was some kind of weak lowpass filter that would close on some of the brass sounds, I seem to remember.

If you can get one for $50 -- do it!
If you can get one for $200 -- don't do it!"

Air Synth Shirt

Well, technically it's an air guitar t-shirt, but I'm hijacking it. I need to make my Matrixsynth T out of this stuff. Then we can have a Matrixsynth rave with everyone actually creating the music as they dance in a trance.

"Our air guitar consists of a wearable sensor interface embedded in a conventional 'shirt' which uses custom software to map gestures with audio samples. Freedom of movement is a great feature of these textile-based interfaces. It’s an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music making – even by players without significant musical or computing skills."

via CDM and Gizmodo. Title link takes you to an article on the shirt with contact info. Also see this article on the BBC.

Kenton Selling Starts Selling MIDI Retrofits Again

Add MIDI to your old analogs. Title link takes you the list. It's a long one. Korg Polysix MIDI Retrofit pictured. I think it costs about as much as a Polysix. : )