MATRIXSYNTH

DX5 playing Pet Shop Boys "Domino Dancing"

YouTube via DX5.

"First PSB track that I cover. Everything (searching sounds, assigning to the Emax, recording the backtrack, etc) was done in half an afternoon. As I started to record late at night, I didn't rehearsal more than twice, so there are some mistakes on the lead part (JX-8P).

No sample sound from the original song. All Emax samples are from my libraries (even the orchestal Hit, I realized I have got exactly the same they used for the track).

Gear:
Roland JX-8P
Emu Emax
Kurzweil PC1x."

Minimoog with moogerfooger CP-251.

YouTube via interlogic
"My minimoog is controlled by LFO, LAG processor, offset of Mixer, pedal and Sample & Hold of moogerfooger CP-251.
Hope you enjoy"

Schismatrix - Synths in Fiction

Dennis wrote in to let me know about a book he just started reading called Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling. To his surprise a couple of passages referred to the synthesizer. The following are two passages.

"A second woman knelt silently with her back to the right-hand wall, facing the garden's image. Lindsay knew at once that she was a Shaper. Her startling beauty alone was proof, but she had that strange, intangible air of charisma that spread from the Reshaped like a magnetic field. She was of mixed Asiatic-African gene stock: her eyes were tilted, but her skin was dark. Her hair was long and faintly kinked. She knelt before a rack of white keyboards with an air of meek devotion.
The yarite spoke without moving her head. "Your duties, Kitsune." The girl's hands darted over the keyboards and the air was filled with the tones of that most ancient of Japanese instruments: the synthesizer."

"Linday slept, exhausted, with his head propped against the diplomatic bag. An artificial morning shone through the false glass doors. Kitsune sat in thought, toying quietly with the keys of her synthesizer.
Her proficiency had long since passed the limits of merely technical skill. It had become a communion, an art sprung from dark intuition. Her synthesizer could mimic any instrument and surpass it: rip its sonic profile into naked wave forms and rebuild it on a higher plane of sterilized, abstract purity. Its music had the painful, brittle clarity of faultlessness.
Other instruments struggled for that ideal clarity but failed. Their failure gave their sound humanity. The world of humanity was a world of losses, broken hopes, and original sin, a flawed world, yearning always for mercy, empathy, compassion... It was not her world."

Schismatrix on Amazon

Update via Loren in the comments: "Another book that has an electronic music theme is Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. In the story a bar across the street from Stanford University has a jukebox that has nothing but electronic music on it (since its the 1960s it has mostly stuff like Cage, Stockhausen, Henry, etc). The story revels that this bar is actually a famous hang out for electronic musicians who come and actually perform in the bar, which has its own equipment for such events."

Square Dancing

Square Dancing from Hans-Jörg Scheffler on Vimeo.

"A very odd combi of old videofootage of classic squaredancers synced to a modern beat with funky synths.
I manipulated the time axis of the footage and used some effects in Artmatic V-Track to give it a more contemporary look.
The music was done in Logic 8 on a Macpro using Stylus RMX for the drums and the Access Virus TI Polar synthesizer for bass, lead and chords."
via Dennis

1970s MAESTRO USS-1 UNIVERSAL SYNTHESIZER Guitar System

via this auction

"Maestro 1716 USS-1A Universal Synthesizer System from the 1970s
DESIGNED BY OBERHEIM

Waveform (with Intensity slider) a kind of fuzz effect
Filter (with Frequency and Brilliance sliders) envelope filter
Sample/Hold strange warbly effect
Phase (with Speed slider) phaser, really awesome sounds too
Envelope (with Attack and Decay sliders) another envelope filter that operates a bit differently
Sub-Harmonic (with a Volume slider and sustained or percussive switch) self explanitory, lower octave in quick hit or sustaining
then there is also a slider for Sensitivity that works on the Envelope and Sub-Harmonic, basically increasing the volume of the effect compaired to the natural sound, great analog sounds.

Has a great sample and hold that tops the Maestro FSH-1 since on this unit it has additional controls like the filter being independent of the Sample /Hold so you can run both at the same time. The octave down subharmonic is thick and can track/trigger strangley for some interesting randomness, coupled witht the sample/hold you get some amazing textures. There are numerous options for getting some very unusual sounds. Great for experimental work or for sampling interesting sounds with a thick vintage vibe ."

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Moog Memorymoog

via this auction

"The Moog Memorymoog synthesizer, serial # 2786, has been recently fully restored to it`s original condition by Midwest Music Menders, Chicago, Ill."

Analogue Systems RS-95 VCO

via this auction
"Analogue Systems VCO. Excellent British tone. Goes well into the LFO range, all the way down, and up to crazy high frequencies."

flight of harmony newsletter August 2009

"Greetings,
At long last, the backlog is nearly cleared out. All that remains are the desktop Quad Plague Bearers. I have enough housings for 10 more and am in production right now, so get ‘em while the lead time is short! These are r3.2 Plague Bearers with VC gain, and also have an inverter section for the Gain CV input for “normal” CV response. USD$350.00 each + $9.50 S&H. The page has been updated as well: http://www.flightofharmony.com/Plague_Bearer.html.

Other news:
· The Infernal Noise Machine v1.3 is now available full-time - http://www.flightofharmony.com/INM.html

· Plague Bearer t-shirts are now available! http://www.flightofharmony.com/pbtshirt.html

· Current group buys:
o Joysticks – We have not yet met the minimum quantity, but the sign-up list will be kept going until we do. Details can be found in the Muffwiggler forum thread.

o Jacks – COLLECTION TIME. Please send in your payment, details are in the Muffwiggler forum thread. This week is the last chance to join in on this buy.

~flight http://www.flightofharmony.com"

The Unclean T:

Modular radio 1

YouTube via opsysbug
"New Eurorack modular system. Some processed Chinese radio station.
Doepfer, Makenoise,The Harvestman.
Modular World (MW) case."

modular radio 2