HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I hope it was a good one. Cheers to 2008 being better than 2007.

To the left is the world map for visits to the site. The shade of green indicates the amount of traffic from the given country. White means no visits. One year, I'd love to see the whole map green. It blows me away to think people from all over the world have visited the site. Happy New Year World!!!

Some stats for 2007:
When I took the snapshot (roughly 8:30 PST/11:30 EST) the total number of visits for the year was 1,383,337. The total number of page views was 2,519,686. The total posts to date including this post was 11,810. The total number of posts for 2007 is 6672 . That makes an average of 556 posts a month, roughly 18 posts a day on average. Total hits on the site since it started in July of 2005? Approximately 3.8 million. Amazing.

The reason I am putting up these stats is because this site isn't about me. It's about synths and the people who love synths. There are quite a lot of us. I want to thank everyone for a great 2007. The content and via links should speak for themselves. This site isn't just what I decide to put up, but what you, the synth community, sends me to put up. The site rocks because of you. THANK YOU!!! And have a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Arp Synthesizers --- a little tribute page and Demo Record

"During my early years I fell in love with electronic music (this was the late 60s and early 70s), and then fortune fell my way when the high school I attended had a teacher with enough foresight to organize an electronic music class. This was my first chance to play on these exciting instruments, first on the high school's early model ARP Odyssey, then later on a Moog Mark II with extra modules at a local college. Since then electronic music has been part of my life, both as a listener and a musician, although the latter on and off as the years went by.

I was lucky enough to receive and keep intact a demo record from Arp Synthesizers that I received when I asked for one of their catalogues. It's both an interest slice of some of the electronic potential of those instruments back then, and also an interesting view of the company as it was back then, quite viable and with a lion's share of the market. Unfortunately, there was little warning about the internal power struggle that would melt the company to nothingness, and of the coming of digital technology." Click here for the page with downloads.

Electro-music.com Streaming New Years Eve Party

Just a reminder that this is on right now at electro-music.com. Richard Lainhart is set to go on at 9:30 PM Eastern, so that would be 6:30 PM PST for everyone on the West Coast. BTW, looks like the stream is a pls file. If you can't launch it try winamp.

And...

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! Have a fun and safe one. Make 2008 better than 2007.

Mark Smart's ARP Axxe

ARP Axxe modded to work better with the Haken Continuum.

click here for the list of mods and more info on this unique ARP.

September-07 207

flickr by xdeedeex

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SCI Prophet-5
MOOG Polymoog Keyboard

August 2008

flickr by Gerd Rieger

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KORG Vocoder

Jorrit Dijkstra's Lyricon Site, Cwejman and The Lyricons

Via Jorrit Dijkstra's Lyricon Site:
"The Lyricon is an analog electronic wind synthesizer made in the 1970's by Computone. These days a small amount of aficionados (such as me!) still own and play one of the three models...

My Lyricon Driver and the Cwejman S2 analog synthesizer. The S2 is an pre-patched analog synthesizer with CV inputs (NO MIDI INVOLVED!!), modified by Wowa Cwejman to work with the Driver. The Lyricon Driver's Wind output goes to extra added EG and VCA inputs on the Cwejman S2, the Lip output to the S2's Filter Cutoff, and the Bend Up (pitch) output to the S2's Tune input. But other connections are possible too."

You will find samples on the right pane of Jorrit's site.

Also check out The Lyricons where you'll find some resources including manuals, brochures and schematics as well as links to other Lyricon sites.

via Mr. Array.

The Lyricon link below will take you to some previous posts here on MATRIXSYNTH.

Moog The Phone Controller

images via this auction

"This auction is for a MOOG The Phone Controller. It powers up great, but I am unsure of how to properly test this unit. I attempted to do some research this, but came up empty handed. I know that MOOG is famous for their Synthesizers, but I have never heard or seen anything like this. This is truly a great piece for any MOOG enthusiast. It includes power supply, and phone cord. The unit itself is in great condition, with no major blemishes. Good Luck!!"

According to the MOOG Archives, in 1983: "Sale of company to management. Emphasis on Contract Manufacturing. Attempt to enter into telecommunications market with a microprocessor-controlled "feature telephone", initially named "Telesys 3", later "The Operator". Design and manufacture "Song Producer". Develop "SL8" and build prototype. Maintain repair operations for Moog products. Produce the "SSK Concertmate" synthesizer for Tandy Corp (Radio Shack)."

Cat and synth

flickr by Andrea Marutti

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KORG MS20

Sauerkraut Novation K-Station

flickr by mprat (click for more - there are some cool shots in this set).

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Novation K-Station