PAiA Stringz n Thingz

via via this auction

You can find more info on the Stringz & Thingz here.

ARP Quadra

images via
this auction

Note the Odyssey in the background is listed here.

Oberheim OB-X

images via this auction
"The OB-X was released in 1979 and was the first programmable polyphone synth from Oberheim. It's the direct successor to the famous SEM-based four/eight voice. The main point is, that the OB-X has the same discrete filter design as the SEM-modules - there are no curtis filter ICs as the followers OBXa and OB-8 got. But the filter is not as flexible as the SEM-one (which were multi mode) - it has a fix 12dB lowpass setting. When you open the belt, you will see boards with tons of electronics. Every voice has got it's own circuit board - they can be removed separately. A maximum of eight voice boards can be installed - mine has got six. For stereo use, every board's output is assigned to a pan pot. Every voice board has two VCOs with saw and pulse. The VCOs can be synced and crossmodulated (you won't find crossmodulation in the followers OBXa and OB-8) - so there can be generated strange and metallic waves. There's a great polyphonic portamento section, an autotune function and a hold button (which can be used as a chord memory as I found out!). Then we got the described filter section and two ADSRs for filter and amp. The sections can be modulated with the Oberheim-typical modulation matrix. An LFO with quare, triangle and S/H can modulate the LFO pitch, the filter cutoff and the pulse width (separate for VCO1 and 2). There are 32 memory locations to save your sounds. Of course you can edit programs any time - just push the edit button and turn the knobs as you like. There's a casette interface to load and save memory banks. On the backside you find some goodies: a CV/Gate interface to control voice 1 and a filter control jack, where I've connected an external potentiometer to modulate the filter cutoff without any stages - which sounds absolutely great. This direct and precise cutoff control you will never ever experience with a software synth. You can really navigate to a particular partial tone and hear it growing louder until you got it exactly! What I learned to appreciate furthermore are the Oberheim-typical levers. They allow you to bend the tones of the Oberheim like you bend a guitar string - the levers are very responsive. It's easy to bend up a note and modulate it at the same time. I admit freely: I'm not a fan of wheels - I like better the korg joystick. Unfortunately, the Oberheim-concept has been abandoned."

Maestro OB-2

via this auction

"Maestro Octave Pedal, made ca. 1974.

This is a classic octave pedal great on guitar, keyboards, even voice.
Extremely smooth tracking, it always yields a nice smooth analog bass tone. When your note decays the box will track the next loudest harmonic, sometimes 3rd, or 5th giving a cool harmony when mixed with dry signal.

The controls on the pedal are: Octave On/Off, Guitar Vol., Octave Vol, Sensitivity, Mode (Perc./Sust.)."

I'm guessing the Maestro Octave Box was designed by Tom Oberheim along with the Filter Sample/Hold FSH-1.

Synhouse DIY CV/Gate and Audio Inputs for the MOOG Prodigy

"Most Moog Prodigy synthesizers have no interface whatsoever. Only the very few last Prodigies made had CV, gate, and audio input jacks. The following plans describe a method of installing the jacks yourself, if you have a little experience with electronic repair and the soldering of wires and circuit boards. If not, these plans will allow a professional repair shop to add the analog interface jacks for you. It is best to download these diagrams and print them out on paper to look at while working on the instrument and make notes and check off the steps as you go. All repairs and modifications made to your instruments will be done at your own risk and Synhouse Multimedia Corporation assumes no liability for personal injury caused or damage to equipment or loss of use caused directly or indirectly by the use of these plans. If in doubt, don't do it!" click here for more info on Synhouse.

WTF Chicken!?

YouTube via deadmau5.

via Dj Aero.

"In the Studio with Tommy Lee , DeadMau5 and Steve Duda. Chicken is the name of the track which will be released soon."

via an anonymous reader:
"That's at Tommy Lee's studio...with Doepfer, Harvestman and other Eurorack modular gear. More tracks at http://www.myspace.com/wtfisthisstuff"

Metasonix Puzzle

Sighup has been taking the daily Metasonix teaser images going up on umop and piecing them together. Click here to see the full image so far.

Bloog: The RSS Mod-Synth

via Andrew Haarsager (click through for more info and some examples):

"Here is the finished project of what I wrote about here - a machine that scrambles the words and sentences of real-time blog posts, based on the look of a 1960’s Moog synthesizer. It pulls in any RSS feed (for demonstration I used Technorati to create one that fetches all new net-wide blog posts about ‘music,’ har har). The knobs and sliders scroll through the text and add or subtract words from the screen, creating new ideas from the existing sentences."

B2007.004.28

flickr by okto

full size

Alesis Micron

Click the tattoo link below for more.

BTW if you have or know of a synth tattoo that I have not posted, feel free to send it in.

Jean Michel Jarre - In Oxygene estudio

YouTube via cosmicsound. JMJ is playing the Yamaha CS80.