Hoffman Theremin - O MIO BABBINO CARO

YouTube via copperleaves — April 02, 2010 — "The videos I have posted to YouTube in the past that show me playing Samuel Hoffman's RCA theremin were made when YouTube quality was not as good as it is today. Here is a theremin transcription of O MIO BABBINO CARO from Giacomo Puccini's opera, GIANNI SCHICCHI. As you can see, I have taken the doors off the cabinet so I could zoom in on the old vacuum tubes that give the instrument its distinctive voice.

Doctor Hoffman used this theremin on the soundtracks of such classic films as THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, SPELLBOUND, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and many other suspense and SciFi movies of the late 1940's and 1950's. At that time, he modified the instrument for use in the recording studio by putting special audio output jacks on it so that external speakers could be plugged into the RCA theremin amplifier. For this recording, I used a CLARATONE speaker that was specially built by Florida vintage theremin expert Reid Welch (aka "Mr. Trubble").

This speaker was designed to emulate the sound of the Jensen speaker used by the late, great theremin virtuosa, Clara Rockmore. Because Reid had been a personal friend of Clara Rockmore, he had the opportunity to study her instrument and her speaker set up. His CLARATONE has a 10 inch cone and a particularly warm, sweet and definitely human voice. Unfortunately, Reid only made a limited number of these custom speakers and I was lucky to get the very last one (which I purchased in 1998).

The speaker that is built into the cabinet of this unique theremin was placed so that it was facing away from the thereminist and on the floor. This is the very worst possible place for a theremin speaker because when you play, your speaker is the only way you can hear what you are doing. For best results, your theremin speaker should be placed at head level, behind or beside you, pointing toward you, and no further away than about six feet.

A friend of mine who was well acquainted with vintage radio technology used to call vacuum tubes 'magical Inca fire bottles'."

MMM Complete

The final four modules for my Mattson Mini Modular arrived today. This is production prototype #1. You can see what it originally looked like, shy the four final modules, in this post. I was a little reluctant in adding the last four modules for nostalgia's sake, but I can always take them out when I get a new cab. :) That and I really needed the two extra 4x2 buffers, CV mixer and Utility 1. I also think it looks, really, really nice full. It looks complete and marks a milestone for me. These images really don't do it justice. I need an SLR and better lighting. Sometime this year... Anyway, thank you George!

BTW, don't miss the last page in this month's Keyboard magazine. It's a full page on Billy Corgan's Ichabod. If you don't know what Ichabod is, click on this Ichabod label link and scroll for tons of posts.

And remember, you don't need to build a full modular system if/when you want to get started - see this post on why.

CLICK FOR MORE »

"South Park" meets Perrey & Countryman!

via Dana Countryman on Facebook

"Our song "Chicken on the Rocks" is used on an episode of "South Park"!
What is the world coming to???

Hey all,
The Comedy Central TV show "South Park" may be pretty crass and tasteless to some (including me), but they did have the good taste to use about 30 seconds from my 2006 track, "Chicken on the Rocks," recorded with my pal, Jean-Jacques Perrey.

The episode was officially first aired on March 31st, 2010, and is now archived here:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267110

Our song is behind dialogue between 13:35 and 13:58.

WARNING! The subject matter is not for kids, or my dad - the retired Baptist minister!

The show has never been one of my personal favorites, but I seem to like it a whole lot better when they're paying a nice chunk of cash to use a song of ours!

That's a combo of my my synthesizer playing and Jean-Jacques' Ondioline on the track, recorded here in my studio in 2006!

For reference:
http://wap.mxr.cc/ringtone:2585147/"

http://danacountryman.com/
http://www.jeanjacquesperrey.com/

And of course posts here on MATRIXSYNTH

Rare Crumar Composer Analog Synth

via this auction

"All 4 sections of this synth work and sound great."

Sabrina - Boys Boys Boys - Mic Mac

YouTube via GordonToken — August 21, 2008 — "Sabrina - Boys Boys Boys"

Anyone ID the keyboard? :) I thought I recognized her. Check her out with the Dynacord Rhythm Stick here.

Update: and the original:

Boys boys boys - Sabrina

YouTube via iafaz

Devo - "That's Good"

YouTube via ealdrett — April 01, 2010 —
BTW, if you like alternative music in general, check out ealdrett's YouTube Channel, some great blasts from the past and newer stuff as well. I still need to parse it for synth vids.
Roland SH-101 keytar.

Yonac miniSynth PRO Samples

Samples and more info added to this post.

Free Korg R3 polysynth samples

on Dan303 here

"This pack contains 5 multi sampled synthesiser patches taken from the Korg R3 synthesiser.
Each patch has been pre-loaded into reasons NNXT sampler and ready to play.
All sounds were made from scratch. [No factory presets are used]

The multi sample files [.WAV] are also included so that the sounds can be loaded up into a sampler your own choice."

1972 ARP Odyssey Reference Sheet

via Retro Synth Ads where you'll find the write-up.

dPad - Drum Sequencer for iPad - The Pretty Version! (As seen on TUAW)

video upload by newmediageekz

"New Media Geekz is proud to present dPad, created by Jason C Martin & Stu Helm in under 7 days. dPad is a fully touch driven drum sequencer for the iPad.

* Coming in future versions *

- Different drum sound packs via In-App-Purchase
- Ability to add your own drum sound packs
- Left-handed-mode
- Sequence save & load
- Recording"