Rhodes Chroma w. MIDI, all upgrades, display, more

via this auction

"All of us synth doods know about the Chroma. Amazingly versatile architecture, the closest thing you can get to the ARP 2500 modular sound, beautiful weighted keyboard, and a nice flat top to stack other gear on as well.

Over the years, the Chroma has got some negative press due to some original design choices. Luckily, the Chroma is without a doubt the most supported vintage synth on the planet. Chris Ryan's www.rhodeschroma.com site has provided owners and potential owners help and support for many years. In addition, dedicated users and techs have come up with some essential upgrades over the years to make the Chroma even better.

This Chroma has all the updates plus more.

MIDI CC+ CPU board - replaces original CPU board (and leak-prone AA batteries) and adds full MIDI support.

SPSU - smaller, lighter, more stable universal power supply

CPS - polyphonic pressure sensor kit

In addition, using the interface provided by the CC+ board and latest OS, I added an LCD display to show you what you're editing!

Face it, one of the knocks against the Chroma is that the complexity of the synth engine is somewhat hidden by the very basic 2 segment LED displays and touch panel buttons. Programming it required you to keep the manual or at least the large parameter chart handy. No more!

Take a look at the display in the picture - you can see you are editing parameter 37 (LP/HP filter), the current value (LP), and all the modulations being applied to the parameter. Excellent!

So, at this point, you have a polyphonic pressure generating analog polysynth with an easy to use interface, stable power, and amazing MIDI capabilities. Where else can you find this? Maybe a Yamaha CS-80 with a MIDI retrofit. Good luck with that one though. More expensive, much heavier, and prone to breakdowns.

In addition, this Chroma has the dual footpedal, complete set of docs (I found the Performance manual after taking the pix), and 2 voice cards. At least one of the cards works (but doesn't pass auto-tune) and both cards are fully populated so you have backups of the CEMs and other stuff. There's a great tech in Canada (JL at Cantos) that fixes up cards for a reasonable price, so if you wanted working spares, you could send them off to him.

You won't find a Chroma with all these upgrades and extras anywhere else, so if you've been on the fence, now is the time to act."

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Synthesizer Treffen Ambient Jam Session Aarau

This is a follow-up post to the YouTube video of the session previously posted here. You can find two new videos of the event here and here (note these are direct links to .m4v files). You can find mp3s of the event on here and pics here. Tons of synth spotting.

via martin

Micah Frank's Tectonic - Free Compilation and Ableton Live Instrument

Free Sonification Compilation and Ableton Live Instrument. You might remember Micah's project from this video back on March 2, 2010.

via Micah:

"As some of you may know, I have been working on some sonification projects for the past 14 months. While some of these are still ongoing (and I have two more in the works using solar wind and regular terrestrial wind), I have finally put the earthquake sonification project to bed. This has all culminated in a full length compilation (album?) of really interesting granular and subtractive ambient material. I have also gone a step further and programmed all of the included sonifications into a 1GB multisample instrument for Ableton Live!

The whole project can be seen and downloaded here"

Yamaha CS80 Power Supply Unit

via this auction

Also see: Saving the Yamaha CS-80 The Power Supply videos

POKEY.synth demo jam 3

POKEY.synth demo jam 3 from Low-Gain on Vimeo.

"Pokey Osc 1 = Kick drum. Envelator 1 controls Osc 1 Vol Input
Pokey Osc 2 = Snare/HH's. Envelator 2 controls Osc 2 Vol Input
A-147 Saw output to V/O input on Pokey Osc 1.
Envelator 1 "end" out resest A147.

uStep + Shuffling Clock Multiplier OR combined through the Short Bus. Outputs sent to clocks of Z8000 Row 1-4 and Column 1-4, Also sent to Gate inputs of Envelators.

Z8000 controlling Pokey Osc 2 V/O.
Envelator 2 + output also going to Borg 2 CV in.
uLFO Sine out to Borg input 1, Borg to A-132 (being CV'd by Z8000), to Pokey Aux INput. SR Input controlled via z8000. uLFO v/o input controlled via Z8000."

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Alternate Scales with the Moog Little Phatty

YouTube via experimentalsynth | February 22, 2011 |

"An exploration of non-Western tunings with the Moog Little Phatty. In this example, the Arabic scale, Maqaam Husayni is given a workout. Visit www.experimentalsynth.com to learn more."

The "artsy" version:

Taqsim Maqaam Husayni

chrisstackvideo | February 22, 2011 |

"An improvisation in Maqaam Husayni on the Moog Little Phatty and other synthesizers. Visit www.experimentalsynth.com for a more explanatory vesion of this video... and lots of others."

Update:

chrisstackvideo | February 22, 2011 |

"An improvisation for Moog and other synthesizers in the Arabic scale Husayni."
Taqsim Maqaam Husayni

Kawai K5000X

via brian c via Hudude Being on the k5000 Yahoo group.

using the thingamagoop RGB on a psych rock song

YouTube via hewstigator | February 16, 2011 |

"basically i am demonstrating using the thingamagoop to generate a rhythmic drone pattern on top of a psych rock loop...

although the thingamagoop has a CV output, i opted here to just apply an envelope follower to the thingamagoop's audio.

the amplitude of the thingmagoop audio is being used to drive drone tones on the moogerfooger freqbox (i forgot to turn on the ring modulator which is next to it) and a korg monotron.

the first thing you see me doing (perhaps lamely) is dialing out the thinamagoop's raw audio on the freqbox so you just hear its oscillator.

then i dial up the korg monotron on my beloved mattson mini modular quad vca (which has already become crazily handy in function as well as reducing a lot of clutter!), futz with the envelope follower (to get a less "gated" pattern on the monotron), and then mess with the ribbon controller..."

thingamakit and various modulars

hewstigator | February 01, 2011 |

"here are a bleeplabs thingamakit and a mattson modular sample and hold driving a monotron and two moogerfoogers. since the thingamakit doesn't generate CV by itself (unlike the new "thingamagoop 2") it is running through an analogue systems freq to CV converter."

4 Serge and Kyma tracks via cebec

familiar vending by cebec

Molten Drum Machine + ThumbJam on the iPad

YouTube via mvpadrini | February 20, 2011 | 0 likes, 0 dislikes

"A little Jam using these great music apps for the iPad.

More about Music Apps and Mobile Music at www.MusicApps.com.br

Pequena Jam usando estes dois bons apps musicais para o iPad.

Mais sobre Apps Musicais e Música Movel no www.musicapps.com.br"

Molten Drum Machine - One Red Dog Media
ThumbJam - Sonosaurus
iPads on eBay