MATRIXSYNTH

Monday, March 30, 2009

Roland TR-707

via this auction
"original box, power supply, and a memory card. Little brother to the 909 it has various elements that are similar to the 909 - the clap and hats for example.But the 707 has unique sounds that make this machine stand out from the other roland beat boxes. It features separate outs for all the drums, mixer for all sounds. Not to mention both midi and din sync making the 707 an obvious contender for syncing your vintage roland gear to midi gear."

Update via matsyendra in the comments: "That's not a good description. The clap and hats are not at all like the 909, and it only can sync Sync24 and MIDI if it's used as a master clock."

Orgasonic Baldwin Organ and other

YouTube via nathanielscott
"I salvaged this old organ from a dumpster. Many of the keys did not work and there were several electrical prolems. But I kept it because it had a built in rotary speaker. I left it at my friend Stephen's studio for a few years. He recently told me he needed it out of the way. Since it was in my living room I decided to fix it up.

The video is of the first tune I recorded with it. Nothing really any good, just me nood around with the video camera on. Then I layered a few other instruments. The video starts with me creating a sample on my Casio SK-1 then creating a short sequence on its on board sequencer. Then plug it and a toy drum machine into my home made sequencer to get the rhythm going and the rest is an afternoon's worth of not getting anything else done."

the shape of music

YouTube via analoq
"During the process of adapting the sonome layout onto my monome, I wrote some software to help me locate common patterns. This video explains and demonstrates the layout and software. If this doesn't make much sense, just relaxen und watchen der blinkenlichten..."

Yamaha CS70M Print Ad

via this auction

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Putney Patch Matrix

flickr by peff
(click for more)

full size

"Living VCOs"

MP3
via JH Living VCOs
"My goal was to build a set of VCOs that have the untamed bass range power of early EMS and Moog VCOs, but which are tracking a keyboard voltage over 5 or more octaves nevertheless. I found that "untamed" Beating in the bass range and controlled beating in higher octaves is not possible with standard exponential 1V/Oct oscillators. A good part of that special sound of early Moog and EMS oscillators is not because of any "randomness", "unstability", "instability" or "noisyness", as so often is said. A good deal of their behavior is because of that, but it is not the whole story. There are also some very deterministic factors in these old circuits which have been unpleasant side effects for the designers back then, but which are worth a closer analysis when we're designing a musical VCO today. This is implemented in form of three "linear detune" potentiometers on the JH-5A VCOs."