Noise.io Simple Demo - Chi Mai

YouTube via AmidioInc
"Ennio Morricone's theme played on Noise.io - the iPhone synthesizer"
You can get Noise.io here:

Old Country on Nord C1

YouTube via captainkeys
"In addition to my previous "try-out", this is yet another jazzstandard on the Clavia. Unfortunately the backing-track on the Sonic Cell is not loud enough, but then again it's all about the Hammond right?"

Vintage Synthesizer Minimoog

YouTube via kennykeyboard
"Imagine "We wish you a Merry Christmas" only repeated with increasingly horrid detuned triads. I played with the tuning of the oscillators. Later I play some riffs with mod wheel punctuation and filter sweep. A bit of 'Are you weepin' in there."

DIY analog delay pedal based on MODboard delay circuit

DIY analog delay pedal based on MODboard delay circuit from Tom Whitwell on Vimeo.
"Very quick demo of my just finished analog delay pedal. It's a MODboard [MODboards] delay PCB with a couple of knobs and a couple of momentary switches. The middle one just short-circuits the delay time pot, the right hand one shorts a couple of points on the main delay chip, creating extreme lo-fi feedback.
The clip starts with no sound going into the pedal - the feedback works on noise in the circuit. Then there are a few rather doomy tones from the MFB Synth II. Then, just as I'm getting into it, the camera cuts out..." via Music Thing.

EMS Synthi AKS 80

via Aliens Project (Googlish)

Anyone know what the 80 refers to? Serial number? Model number? Other?

Update via Alka in the comments: "As far as I know, the AKS 80 is Ludwig Rehberg's "new" Synthis. Pretty sure the only real differences would be minor compared to the originals, however the likelihood of ordering one would be great.. I did manage to order a very nice refurbished KS unit from him recently though... you can see it listed as such (synth aks 80) here on his pricelist."

Robot

flickr by Equaliser

full size

KORG MS20

PNW2008: sidecars demos his gear

YouTube via matrixsynth.

"sidecars demos the Haken Continuum, Yamaha Tenori-On, Digital Trumpet, and C-Thru Axis controller at the Pacific Northwest Synth Gathering 2008."

Note more videos will follow. I have over an hours worth, so they will go up between posts. Remember, you can click on the pnw2008 label below for all posts on this year's event. Also, I unfortunately ran out of space midway through the talks and had to switch to my digital camera for images and video. That ran out about three quarters of the way through, so apologies to those I missed.

Ace Tone Rhythm Ace with MIDI

YouTube via rolandsh1000

"This is a short demo of an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace Drum Machine to which I added MIDI trigger capability.

It's being triggered by an Oberheim DX'a' (the 'a' was the last DX model made by Oberheim and featured stock MIDI), running a few simple patterns.

The Rhythm Ace has about 9-10 drum sounds, most of them are made using resonant transistor oscillator circuits - all the transistors are Germanium - with inductors. There are no IC's anywhere within the Rhythm Ace (well, now there is with the MIDI board). Ace Tone ultimately became Roland, and while the classic TR-808 typically uses a different type of drum oscillator circuit, it's interesting to me that the Rhythm Ace seems to have a Roland quality to the sound.

The MIDI board is made by Highly Liquid and is actually intended for use in the Atari 2600. I added some interface circuitry that inverts and creates brief decaying-exponential triggers from the pulses of the Highly Liquid board.

One limitation here is that the Ace Tone COULD respond dynamically to the triggers, as the sound varies depending upon the shape and size of the trigger pulse. I didn't optimize for that, and that's pretty much why you don't here any open hats or low congas. And you CAN get the bass to boom a la 808 by tweaking a trimpot in the Rhythm Ace, but I held it back a bit here.

I do apologize for the lack of bass here - it's due to the lousy mic on my video camera. Someday I'll get my act together and record these videos with a mixed line-in to the camera."

PNW Synth Gathering 2008 via George Mattson

flickr set via George Mattson of MMM (click the set link for more)

You'll find some shots of people presenting their gear.

JH String Filter Mods

JH String Filter Mods

"1. Level Control and Patch Point For All 40 Channels

This modification turns the JH String Filter into a 40 channel filter bank. The changes are quite simple for each channel. But due to there being 40 channels in total, the amount of extra wiring is quite substantial. Before beginning this modification, make sure you have lots of coax cable on hand and prepare to spend a lot of time planning how to route all the wires so you don't end up with a rat's nest. I probably spent just as many hours long planning how to construct this module as actually building it."