Mellowtron

flickr by lightgazer

full size

Note the desktop Prophet-5 minus keys in the background and the Minimoog's knobs.

"The Beatles used a Mellowtron prominently in "Strawberry Fields Forever"

The heart of the instrument is a bank of magnetic audio tapes. Each tape has approximately eight seconds of playing time. Playback heads (underneath each key) enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds."

Casio Rapman RAP-1 Sample Kit

Samples, pics and thoughts on The Midi Mechanics Showroom

"The Casio Rapman is probably the most bizarre of all Casio toy keyboards from the 80s and 90s. The RAP-1 is the first of the two Rap-themed keyboards from the big 'C' and was released in 1991...

The two main features of this fun little machine are the neat pseudo-vocoder effect and the surprisingly good drums. You can either trigger kick, snare and cowbell yourself with little orange rubber-pads or play 25 pre-programmed rhythms and create wacky breaks with a scratchweel. Some of those beats even come with a funky bassline and sound like they were pulled from some lost "Prince of Bel Air" soundtrack or a never released Vanilla Ice comeback album... Wouldn't it be nice to have those sounds on your MPC or Machinedrum or load them in Battery?"

Duran Duran and the Prophet-5

Duran Duran - Their First Live TV appearance 1981

YouTube via Blockbuster9002. Sequential Circuits Prophet-5. Anyone ID the second synth? I'm guessing the Roland Promars.
"Another gem from Block's tape archives. Here is Duran Duran performing Careless Memory on the BBC Midlands TV show Look Hear! March 10th 1981. They played 3 numbers in total but I've just put one of them up here for you to enjoy."

Duran Duran - Planet Earth (Night Version)

YouTube via samegirl.
"1981 The Night Version video with lots of fabulous New Romantics"
Some brief synth shots in this one.
Just a couple of videos inspired by AnalogSuicide. It reminded me that their first synth of choice was actually the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, not the Roland Jupiter-8 which came later.

Brood and the HFT modular

via John Hughes of BROOD

"We're building a site for HFT right now and I'll be able to send you some nice pictures once we get that together. Here's a few shots from an interview with my friend and designer, Jonas Banker, who designed custom panels to bridge the different format modules together (and allow for shorter patching).... The HFT modular synth is the modular synth at the studio, HFT."


"Brood is the collaborative project of Chicago's John Hughes and Pompeii's Lino Monaco and Nicola Buono (both of Retina.IT). The single was recorded in the late summer of 2007 at Hughes' HFT Studio while cicadas screamed from the trees across the street. The cicada's mass hatching coincided with the birth of this new project and inspired the single track, Brood XIII. The material for this and the upcoming full-length was recorded almost entirely using the HFT analog modular synth."

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AHMW 2008 via Suit & Tie Guy

images here

Cable Holders via Synthwood

synthwood.com is now offering a custom cable holder for $38 shipped in the USA ($48 international). If you are interested, please email orders@synthwood.com

YouTube via thetonewrecker
"The Squarewave Parade Downgrade 2 pedal with CV control from the Frostwave with a simple beat via the Roland TR-626."

Flame Midi Talking Synth Demo With Robots

Flame Midi Talking Synth Demo With Robots from Kung Fu Girls Club on Vimeo.

SRR!

YouTube via Cranda11. BTW, don't forget about 45 Tribute.
"Working out some songs for a micronaut live PA. This is SRR!, a new track I'm just ironing out the bugs on. The end result almost certainly won't be seven minutes long. And it won't have my elbow blocking the lense for half of it either."

Mondo Modular Episode 3

YouTube via scootermccrae
"Yet another attempt to deliver the most amazing electronic sounds possible with my meager talents holding on tight to the controls of a spectacular modular sound generating system.

Give this one two or three minutes to warm up; I promise the second half delivers stuff that sounds like Robby the Robot barfing Anne Francis a star-sapphire encrusted dress.

(Also want to note that the end of this episode actually happened the way you hear it -- I did not overdub any sound effect and it really did happen as it appears on-camera)

As always, thanks for watching."