via this auction
Monday, November 29, 2010
Silicon Breakdown's Interview of Emu's Dave Rossum
Full interview here.
Some excerpts:
"My first encounter with Dave Rossum was over the telephone some nine years ago, when he prevented me from purchasing sight unseen thousands of dollars of E-mu equipment. Dave instead encouraged me to purchase a few submodules and test them out. I did and I was hooked. Dave is an original. His first E-mu modular system has set the standard by which all other modular systems will be judged. Brilliant and witty, Dave is a new breed of electronic music pioneer whose contribution to the design of equipment for other manufacturers may have shaped the nature of the synthesizer as much as did Robert Moog's original thinking...
JL: Your influence in the design of both the Prophet 5 and the equipment of Oberheim Electronics have been grossly overlooked. Would you care to comment on what you've done for both companies?
DR: Let me talk first about Tom Oberheim, whom I met at an AES convention in the spring of 1974. We both liked each other immediately and started talking about ideas. He was talking about his phase shifter, and said something to the effect that he knew it could be done with a 3080 transconductance amp, but didn't know exactly how to do it. So I scribbled out a circuit and said here's how you do it. He said "I bet that�s patentable", and I said "I'm sure it is". He asked how would I feel about patenting it and sharing the rights under the patent? I thought it was a great Idea, and that was the beginning of our association...
The involvement with the Prophet 5 was very similar. Dave Smith had come to us for design help with other projects, when he decided to get into a synthesizer, he came over and basically started picking our brains from the beginning, which was an intelligent thing to do. We did some specific circuit designs for the Prophet 5,reviewed virtually everything in it, and gave him access to lots of E-mu documentation. Again, we had a royalty arrangement, the product went over well, and we made a lot of money...but of course had the Prophet not gone over, we wouldn't have gotten anything for our time so essentially, we again invested in the company. Still, royalties are not a trouble-free way to conduct business. One reason why we have a bit of trouble right now in our relationship with Oberheim and Sequential Circuit* - I can't say I'm close friends with, or see a lot of, either company - is because of this arrangement where they're still paying us royalties for things we did a long time ago. Sometimes, people forget how much they appreciated you a long time ago. So we've learned that royalties aren't always best, not so much because they're not financially lucrative, but because they destroy friendships - and as far I'm concerned, friendships are probably more important than the money itself..."
Do check out the full interview. You'll find tons of interesting nuggets of synth history.
Some excerpts:
"My first encounter with Dave Rossum was over the telephone some nine years ago, when he prevented me from purchasing sight unseen thousands of dollars of E-mu equipment. Dave instead encouraged me to purchase a few submodules and test them out. I did and I was hooked. Dave is an original. His first E-mu modular system has set the standard by which all other modular systems will be judged. Brilliant and witty, Dave is a new breed of electronic music pioneer whose contribution to the design of equipment for other manufacturers may have shaped the nature of the synthesizer as much as did Robert Moog's original thinking...
JL: Your influence in the design of both the Prophet 5 and the equipment of Oberheim Electronics have been grossly overlooked. Would you care to comment on what you've done for both companies?
DR: Let me talk first about Tom Oberheim, whom I met at an AES convention in the spring of 1974. We both liked each other immediately and started talking about ideas. He was talking about his phase shifter, and said something to the effect that he knew it could be done with a 3080 transconductance amp, but didn't know exactly how to do it. So I scribbled out a circuit and said here's how you do it. He said "I bet that�s patentable", and I said "I'm sure it is". He asked how would I feel about patenting it and sharing the rights under the patent? I thought it was a great Idea, and that was the beginning of our association...
The involvement with the Prophet 5 was very similar. Dave Smith had come to us for design help with other projects, when he decided to get into a synthesizer, he came over and basically started picking our brains from the beginning, which was an intelligent thing to do. We did some specific circuit designs for the Prophet 5,reviewed virtually everything in it, and gave him access to lots of E-mu documentation. Again, we had a royalty arrangement, the product went over well, and we made a lot of money...but of course had the Prophet not gone over, we wouldn't have gotten anything for our time so essentially, we again invested in the company. Still, royalties are not a trouble-free way to conduct business. One reason why we have a bit of trouble right now in our relationship with Oberheim and Sequential Circuit* - I can't say I'm close friends with, or see a lot of, either company - is because of this arrangement where they're still paying us royalties for things we did a long time ago. Sometimes, people forget how much they appreciated you a long time ago. So we've learned that royalties aren't always best, not so much because they're not financially lucrative, but because they destroy friendships - and as far I'm concerned, friendships are probably more important than the money itself..."
Do check out the full interview. You'll find tons of interesting nuggets of synth history.
Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Synthesizer Ver 3.3
via this auction"Rebushed keyboard plays beautifully. Original machine was upgraded to Version 3.3 and had MIDI installed, according to SCI gurus at Wine Country Sequential. "G" key below middle C needs a contact adjustment, the key plays, but has to be "babied" - a light touch gets it, more pressure on the key causes an intermittent cut-out. No other issues with this machine. The original manual is included, along with a power cord."
Diabolical Modified SK-1
YouTube via classaelectronics | September 09, 2008 |
"Circuit bent SK-1 modified by Diabolical Devices/Class A Electronics."
via this auction"The Diabolical Modified Casio SK-1 (Version 3) is the new and improved circuit-bent glitch monster from Diabolical Devices. Create vast sound-sacapes, unique synth sounds and total chaos, all packed inside your favorite childhood toy. The Casio SK-1 is loaded with original features, sampling capabilities, and great sounds (for what it was....) Diabolical Devices aka Class A Electronics, LLC is a leader in Professionally Modified Synthesizer and Audio Equipment, Expert Repair Services, and has a full line of Hand-Wired Tubes Amplifiers and Effects (Diabolical Amplification). Their work has been featured at NAMM, art galleries, music videos, countless tech blogs, and used by musicians all over the world, professionals and enthusiasts alike. The circuit-bending and synth mods are the work of head-technician James Gramling who has spent the last 12 years in professional audio service and electronics prototyping. Check out the new www.circuit-bent.com for updated specs, custom work questions, and new releases from Diabolical Devices.
Diabolical Modified Casio SK-1 Features:
20 point circuit-bending interface: Heavy-duty banana jacks on hand made turret board panels. This patch-bay allows you to scramble sound data as the synth addresses it, and the result is an endless variety of weird effects, noise, filtered and modulated bends, and one of a kind sounds (seriously, you might one hear some things once). It's a mixed bag of playable bends and bends that play themselves. These patch locations will affect each preset sound differently and also affect samples and chord/auto-play functions. This patch-bay also allows you to cross-patch with other bent devices for more ROM scrambling goodness.
Dual Square Wave Generator: A Diabolical Devices original. This mod allows you to patch the output of two different oscillators into circuit-bending patch locations. One oscillator is an LFO (low freq.), when patched to this point it will create controllable modulation, pulsing bends, and other strange reactions. The second stage is an Audio Frequency Oscillator which will react similarly to the LFO and create tunable overtones. Each Oscillator has an on/off switch with LED indicator, pitch/speed control, and a corresponding patch point.
Skew Bank: This is a great mod adapted from Reed Ghazala's original SK-1 bends, basically its a bank of 5 switches, when activated each switch will generate a different pulsing or semi-looping bend which affects original keyboard sounds. 1/4" Audio Output
Blue Power LED
MIDI retrofit: This SK-1 as been retrofitted using Highly Liquids MIDI Input Kit."
Moog Minimoog Voyager Performer Edition
via this auction
via the listing: "I am putting my prized minimoog Voyager up for auction. This Voyager was personally selected for me by Linda at Moog Music. I ventured to Asheville, NC to meet Dr. Bob Moog and to get my Voyager tuned and up graded. This is the only time this minimoog has been moved.
This Moog has a beautiful walnut cabinet. There are plenty of Voyagers out there that have the most recent upgrades, but I doubt that you will find a more beautiful minimoog Voyager. It looks as great as it sounds. The wood grain is exceptional."
bird sounds and cinima
YouTube via DrOctave1 | November 29, 2010 | 0 likes, 0 dislikes
"wiard malekko anti oscillator ring moding another with PP brains controling varios cv points on both of them."
It's Full of Stars Math-o-matic
via It's Full of Stars where you'll find more pics."Here are some pictures Joe took of me and John mixing the last few bits of the album. As you can see, we used 3 generations of mixing console on the record; an MCI 416 from the early 70s, a Studer 900 from the early 80s and a DXB from the mid 00s"
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MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
