Novamusik.com - Malekko Ekko 616 Guitar Pedal

YouTube via Novamusik | August 13, 2010
Novamusik
"Jayk Burczyk plays a couple riffs with the Malekko Ekko 616 guitar pedal. We also used a Vox AC4TV8 Amp mic'ed with a Blue Encore microphone.

Malekko says:

650ms Analog Delay Pedal

For years, Malekko has been synonymous with the best quality BBD delays available. Today the evolution continues with the EKKO 616, a full featured yet compact delay with external modulation controls, an optional buffer, internal level pot and 650ms of pure analog bliss!

The E616's specially voiced repeats allow a larger bandwidth to pass than most traditional analog delays. Turn the mix pot all the way up and the repeats will be slightly louder than the dry signal if needed, allowing greater flexibility. The regeneration pot will take you from a simple slapback to a nice gentle decay of a few repeats then all the way to taking off into outer space with just a turn of the pot! Engage the modulation button and the Malekko EKKO 616 takes on a whole new personality, from subtle chorusing or beautiful vibrato to way WAY beyond. The EKKO 616 also allows you to select your type of bypass between buffered or true bypass. Tired of annoying volume drops? An internal trimpot (labeled "gain") will allow you to set the EKKO 616's level to your specific setup.

At Malekko, we didn't set out to make a carbon copy of anything. Instead of looking backwards, we designed a new and visionary analog delay from the ground up.
Operates on a 9V battery or optional 9VDC neg tip regulated power supply."

Note: Yes these are effects pedal and guitar demos. These get the post because it's Malekko and the synth connection with their eurorack modules is there. It's interesting to see what else they have to offer.

Novamusik.com - Malekko Fuzz

Novamusik | August 13, 2010

"Jayk Burczyk plays a couple riffs with the Malekko Fuzz guitar pedal. We also used a Vox AC4TV8 Amp mic'ed with a Blue Encore microphone.

Malekko says:

Malekko Omicron Series analog fuzz pedal

We are super happy to introduce "FUZZ", the Malekko Omicron Series analog fuzz pedal.

This is our take on a classic Germanium diode based fuzz pedal of the past. It produces a wide range of fuzz tones in a super small enclosure. Very easy to use, the FUZZ has just two pots:

VOL, which increases the volume of the signal and is capable of producing a volume boost if so desired, and

DRIVE, which increases the fuzz amount...go ahead, turn it up!!!

But that's not all- simply flip the pedal over, unscrew the four retaining screws (screwdriver not included), and remove the bottom cover to reveal a tiny three-position switch on the upper left-hand side! This mini switch unleashes the true power of the FUZZ! Position 1 (up) gives you a sweet octave fuzz. Position 2 (down) gives you a heavier "scooped" tone. Engineered to be searing and musical, both of these classic fuzz tones will inspire you to play and play. That's two killer tones for one low price!

But wait! There's more! Place the internal switch in the middle position and you activate tones 1 & 2 at the same time!! This parallel arrangement is SUPER HEAVY AND CRUSHING!! INCREDIBLE! Now how much would you pay?

You get the mini enclosure, the classic octave tone 1, the classic thick tone 2, and the new modern Malekko monster tone 3- all for the low, low price of $130!!

Are you tired of trying to fit one more effect pedal on your pedal board? You try this arrangement, you try that arrangement—but you can never find the room for them all! We're here to help! With Malekko's incredible super small pedals, there's always room for one more!

Runs off a 'standard' 9VDC neg tip regulated power supply (not included)."

TRACER WOW DRONE PSYCH.MOV

YouTube via snazelle | August 13, 2010

"a good example of how easy it is to get droney/psych-rock sounds out of the tracer/wow combo. we recommend taking a week off of work once you get these pedals."

ether^ra ONIK

YouTube via potterpaint2000 | August 13, 2010

"an improv featuring my VTOL Cramola, my Serge Creature/Seq A combo, some delay, and MFB-503. http://etherra.blogspot.com"

SammichSID vs OTO Machines Biscuit

YouTube via duncanperson | August 13, 2010

"SID B3ATzz!!1!1! Sounds from the Midibox SammichSID Drum engine processed though the OTO Machines Biscuit"

SammichSID vs OTO Machines Biscuit 2

288v demo

YouTube via cray56 | August 13, 2010

"quick demo of the 288v"

Doepfer A100 Vocoder

YouTube via unyo303 | August 13, 2010

"A-129/1 Analysis Section and A-129/2 Synthesis Section."

Keytar prototype

YouTube via grandtippler | August 12, 2010

"Early stage prototype."

Weekend Project: Easy Pitch Control Hack

YouTube via makemagazine | August 12, 2010

"Hack a toy and make it sound crazier than ever!
For more information about the new Echo smartpen go to http://www.livescribe.com
Get the PDF for this project here: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010...
For more great projects: http://www.makezine.com
Subscribe to Make Magazine: http://bit.ly/MakeMagSub"

Drunken Robosong

YouTube via rezzn8r | August 12, 2010

"Ever heard a modular try to sing when it's had too much to drink?
Just kidding. A Modcan 69B Scanner pans between 4 LFOs from a 60B. The output of the scanner modulates a 22B Miniwave using the Votrax voice tables from bank 8 of the standard ROM."

Tubes

Dave of http://umop.com/ (The Packrat, Parallax, Retarded Animal Babies, and much more) sent this one (from Toothpaste for Dinner) to me and Eric Barbour of Metasonix. It's a funny comic and the connection to Metasonix and tubes is obvious. Eric replied with the following and gave me the OK to post it, so here it is. It also reminds me of the analog vs. digital debate. In my opinion sound is sound and it's all what you make of it. It's as simple as it gets - everyone likes what they like.

"Okay guys....yeah, it's funny.

Um, do I try to claim 'warmer sweeter tone' or 'vintage sound' for my products? Forgive me for ranting, but I keep having to make these points.

There have been long and often-incoherent lectures on 'tube tone' over the last 40-plus years. Speaking personally, I've long suspected this 'tube tone' crap to be based on people's vague memories of early tube hifi and radio equipment--which usually had poor frequency response and high second- harmonic distortion, either due to poor design or an attempt to keep the item below a certain retail price.

Please let me talk about my personal observations of 'tube tone'. I've heard tube amps that were as accurate as any solid-state amp you can think of (we are talking about high-end home audio, not guitar amps or pro audio, because that's the area where "tube tone" is the biggest hypefest).

And I've heard modern tube amps that were so shrill and ugly sounding, they made me think they were badly-designed transistor amps. I've also seen, used, and repaired a long long list of vintage hifi, radios, and guitar amps. They were all over the place in sound quality, though generally pre-WWII and cheap gear had that soft, indistinct 'vintage-stereotype' sound. Plus, I've heard transistor amps that were so damn good, they made me wonder why so much ink was wasted on blubbering about 'tube tone'.

My considered opinion: people who mumble about 'tube tone' are full of shit, and/or simply regurgitating catch-phrases they've been hearing for years. There are good tube amps and there are bad tube amps. Simply being a tube amp does not guarantee anything except a marketing handle that can be used to wheedle the clueless rabble into paying too much money for it.

At the CES ten years ago, I heard a brand-new, very costly ($8000) stereo tube hifi amp that was claimed to be 'the ultimate in high-end tone'. It was so shrill, lacking in bass, distorted, and otherwise ugly-sounding, it drove people out of the room. Even so, it ended up on the cover of major high-end magazines. (Later I was told by other people in the business that the company founder had severe high-frequency hearing loss, and was literally unable to discern that the amp sounded bad to most people. Nor was he willing to admit as much. He wound up telling the designer what to do, based on his own ears. Because he was an egotistical fool, who refused to acknowledge that his hearing was bad.) I'd tell you his name but it was an embarrassing incident and better forgotten. That firm went bankrupt recently, as his sales 'went off a cliff', and I'm not sure he deserves the extra abuse.

This also goes a long way toward explaining why I don't make tube hifi gear, hopefully. High-end audio is more like a freak show than a 'market'. It's full of arrogant over-50 man-boys who are obsessed with 'accuracy', yet usually have no idea what that means.

Guitar amps are starting to be similar to high-end in the sheer snobbery and idiocy. I've heard tube simulation devices, like the Line 6 products, that are as close to sounding like real vintage tube gear as one could possibly want. There are now quite a few tube amp simulators, made by various firms, that are basically as 'perfect' as can be. I've also heard 'real vintage style' tube amps, usually invented by idiots who wanted to take advantage of the 'tube tone fad', that sounded like broken transistor amps.

Yet guitarists keep demanding tube amps. And nowadays, they are paying extremely stiff prices for real tube amps with major brands like Marshall or Vox or Fender. Have you priced a Marshall JCM2000 amp head lately? Right now, despite a massive global recession, this 'standard for heavy rock' will cost you about $3000, with an 'official' Marshall speaker cab. Marshall and Vox belong to Korg, which is deliberately using these old brandnames to sell high-priced product to people who still think those firms are the same as they were in the 1960s. They aren't......the amps don't even sound like the old ones, mainly due to the poor quality of the tubes being made today. But it doesn't matter. They, like Gibson, Fender, and many other old brandnames that were around at the dawn of rock & roll, are simply trading on nostalgic warm tone feelings for bygone days.

It's why I find people who complain about Metasonix's 'high prices' to be pathetic. Those same people are often willing to pay $4000 for a modern reissue Gibson guitar, or $2500 for a 30-year-old TB303, or $75,000 for a Fairchild 670 limiter, because those things 'have the magic'. Whatever the hell that means.

My 'marketing', such as it is, doesn't focus on 'warm vintage tube tone'. Because it's not a real thing, it's a buzzword. Metasonix sounds different from everything else on the market and that's all I try to claim. It's the most 'real analog' possible--class A tube circuits. They might sound warm and soft, they might sound like a broken vacuum cleaner being shoved up your ass. It's more a question of the circuit design and the user's choices.

No one else had the guts to make tube synthesizer circuits, and to this day, if you ask a mainstream synth builder if they can design a tube synth circuit, they claim it is physically impossible or horribly impractical and costly. (Dieter Doepfer immediately comes to mind, because I've personally seen him tell people exactly that. And based on his marketability standards, he's right. Tubes are hell to deal with--costly, flaky, difficult to source, wasteful of power.)"