MATRIXSYNTH

Folktek - Modified Omnichord by Ben Houston

YouTube via benpumpkin. Folktek on Ebay
"Folktek - Modified Omnichord by Ben Houston (http://folktek.blogspot.com). Video by Big Pauper (http://tokenrecluse.com)."

Custom 5 Octave KORG MS20/MS10

ELP - Karn Evil 9 - recreating the 'end bit' with Korg gear.

YouTube via noddyspuncture

"Here's my go at recreating the end bit on ELP's Karn Evil 9 ... I used audio line-in this time. Korg SQ-10 sequencer playing my custom (5 octave) MS-20/10 bolt-together jobby. I don't have a video camera so I used my digital stills camera - into an old VHS machine and then played that back and 'video captured' it into my PC using VirtualDub.... phew! Wires everywhere...;c)"

M-Z3R0 - circuit bent Yamaha DD-5 glitch sequencer

YouTube via manufacturedZ3R0
"Pitch control, 16 switch glitch matrix & 8 step sequencer which frees it of it's presets.
It has a midi out port which sends data from the pads and the sequencer to external devices. Towards the end of this run i use it to trigger a kick drum on the mpc500.

One of the more awkward dd's to get to respond well to the glitching. But with a bit of practice some cool loops can be made. Slowing down, reversing and drastic alteration of the all out glitching it throws out in a sample editor also yields some great sounding results.

It sounds in many ways similar to a modified TR505 slumming it with an 8 step diy sequencer."

An Interview with Drew from CRUDBUMP

You might remember Drew from a number of posts here on MATRIXSYNTH. He has a new release out called CRUDBUMP. Considering how much he has contributed to the site I asked him to send me a shot of some of his gear for a post. This in turn resulted in the following interview. Enjoy.

1. So, for those not familiar with your work, give us a little background on some of what you do?

"I write and illustrate two daily comics, Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea, which are free to view online. Musically speaking, I wrote & recorded four comedy-industrial albums as Kompressor from 2000-04 and released some miscellaneous music under the Dog Traders name from 2000-08. I occasionally make short Youtube videos, with my music as the soundtrack."

2. How did you get into synths?

"Took classical piano lessons for eight years as a child, started playing guitar, and while in college (1998) I started poking around and realized synthesizers were pretty inexpensive. I'd read music magazines here and there as a kid and always assumed they were thousands of dollars, but once I got on eBay, I found people getting rid of old Rolands, multitrack tape machines, etc. and jumped right in.

Since the market for analog synths hadn't blown up yet, I assembled a small studio of an Ensoniq SQ-80, Roland JX-8p / SH-09 / 707, some guitar pedals, and a Tascam Porta-01 for hardly anything, and started recording music.

Once I had a couple synths, I started to scour local thrift stores/music stores/garage sales for neglected, broken, cheap gear which I'd clean/fix up and either keep or resell. By the time I started Kompressor in 2000, I'd added an Optigan, Rheem Kee bass, Akai S612, Tascam 238 and a gang of cheap midi synths / fx boxes."

3. When you first started picking up synths, what did you look for in them?

"I figured out pretty quickly that I liked synths with a lot of knobs and inputs/outputs way more than synths with one data wheel and a bunch of menus. You can get a huge range of sounds out of the SH-09 by patching feedback out of the headphone jack through guitar pedals and back into the input, and using the envelope follower + filter to process drums and bass/guitar."

4. What was your first synth and what is currently your favorite?

"My first actual synth (not counting a Casiotone) was a Roland JX-8p... if the modular doesn't count as my favorite I'd have to go with the SH-2/SH-09. Owned both of them, currenly just have the SH-2, but it makes its way onto everything. I've always wanted to check out an SH-5 or SH-7 but they've gotten so crazy expensive over the years that I don't think I'll ever get the chance. If I trip over one in the trash while I'm taking a walk some day I'll let you know what I think."

5. When playing your synths, do you focus on composing music, exploring sound, both, or other?

"Probably a mixture of both. The MPC has been instrumental in letting me control the modular + effects - I record a lot of sounds from the modular and cut them up/re-sequence them in the MPC. Most of the time I don't have a keyboard hooked up to the modular, but I do use a Futureretro Orb that's clocked by the MPC for sequencing.

A lot of the melodic stuff is from the Roland SH-2 and Waldorf Q+, which I usually play live instead of sequencing. There's something about the bender and key action on the SH-2 which I love and wish Roland would make again."

6. What interests you now in the world of synths?

"The 5U format of modular synths, which includes Modcan, MOTM, Synthesizers.com, and a few small manufacturers, has a great form factor and is built extremely well. The manufacturers in this format seem to concentrate on sound quality and build quality rather than making little Nintendo Fart-Monster modules with cheap components, which seems to dominate the Eurorack format. I know that Euro users love their Eurorack, and I actually have a Doepfer "beauty box" for some modules I can't get in 5U - but I built up about 15U of Euro in 08/09 and was really disappointed in the sound + physical aspects. Probably spoiled from the 5U stuff I'd been using for years! I sold it off and got some Modcan/MOTM stuff instead.

The newer Modcan modules are novel and I'm going to pick up some of those as they become available. I just got the 65B Dual Frequency Shifter last fall as I was finishing up the CRUDBUMP album and it wound up on half the tracks, since it sounds good on almost anything. Frequency shifter modules are touchy since you need either great DSP or precisely-calibrated analog multipliers to eliminate bleed, but this one was very well-designed. It responds well to CV and even sounds good if you overdrive it a little bit."

7. What are your thoughts on the iPad and upcoming slate devices in relation to synthesis?

"I have no idea (sorry!) [matrix: enough said. :)]"

8. Finally, can you tell us a little bit about your latest release?

"It's a spoken-word/rap album called CRUDBUMP:NA$TYJAM$ and it's stuffed completely full of analog-synth sounds and vocoder. The songs are about subprime lending, a fictional city called Horsetown, leaving voicemail for the governor of Ohio, traveling to England, and bare feet. It has a lot of bass so it bumps if you play it in your car. That's where I imagine you would want to listen to the album. It's a good album to play if you're trying to get yourself pumped up to go to work."

BTW, if you are wondering who the pug is, his name is Charles. Check him out here and be sure to see Drew's Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea. It's all good.

Launchpad + Max For Live = Monome Emulator

Launchpad + Max For Live = Monome Emulator from Craig Anthony Perkins on Vimeo.

"My first test with the Novation Launchpad and Max For Live (in Ableton Live.) I'm using the monomeemu and polygome64 patches."

Robert Moog - Synth Art by MCV

via Marcel

Added to this post.

Roland VP-330 + Juno-60 + Moog Prodigy

YouTube via retrosound72

"vintage synth demo by RetroSound

analog strings + human voice sounds: Roland VP-330 Vocoder Plus Mk2
lead sound: Moog Prodigy
bassline: Roland Juno-60, internal arpeggiator in hold mode is triggered by the TR-606
drums: Roland TR-606"

Going down

YouTube via waveshaper
"Mayday mayday!
Blippoo ..... going,,,,,,,, down"

Boss DR-110 Demo

YouTube via snolan1990
"This a full overview of the Boss DR-110 in 4 Minutes.

The "Boss Dr. Rhythm Graphic DR-110" was released by Boss in 1983 it was the second in the Doctor Rhythm family of practice aid drum machines but more importantly it was the last that used fully analogue means of generating its drum sounds. Boss was created as a subdivision of Roland aimed at guitarists and is probably best known as an effect pedal manufacturer so the DR-110 as you may expect shares a lot of traits with the Roland TR series in particular that classic Roland analogue sound.

I got this DR-110 for £25 in need of some minor repair work but compare that to the £200 (at least) that you are looking at paying for a TR-606 which is arguably this machines closest relative and its a bargain piece of kit. My only complaint with the DR-110 is its lack of any slaving options as standard, not even a Trig in. But this is a highly modifiable machine capable of generating great sounds for almost any style of electronic music."