Visit to u-he headquarters in Berlin

YouTube Uploaded by uheplugins on Aug 24, 2011

Don't miss part 2 below for some vintage synth play.
"Playing with Urs Heckmann's recently acquired collection of vintage analogue synthesizers."

Visit to u-he headquarters in Berlin - Part 2

Uploaded by uheplugins on Aug 25, 2011

"Playing with Urs Heckmann's recently acquired collection of vintage analogue synthesizers."

NOVATION SUPERNOVA II Rack

via this auction

Rare Abbey Road Studios EMI RS-124 Altec compressor

via this auction

Quick note: this is obviously not a synth. I'm making the exception on this one as it came in from a reader of the site. Yes you can send your auctions in too. See the submit auction link in the More Stuff section on the right. Also I do feature effects now and then if 1) they are made from manufacturers typically associated with synths as it is interesting from a historical perspective, 2) the effect is used in a manner typically associated with a synth (filters, chorus, phasers, etc), 3) demos of effects using a synth rather than guitar, and 4) effects built as modules for the modular world.

That said here's the auction description:

'Original and extremely rare EMI converted Altec RS124 valve compressor/limiter.

Made famous as used on many early Beatles records, this compressor was recently immortalised as a plugin by Abbey Road themselves.

These units were not available 'off-the-shelf' as they were modified at Abbey Road Studios and as such are extremely difficult to find nowadays.

This one is in good working order, as you can see from the photos it is not 'mint' cosmetically and shows it has history!

I have tried this on many different sound sources and the effect it has sounds like the aural equivalent of pouring melted butter over the sound, it's really creamy and just sounds very, very, VERY NICE.

OK so to the functionality...

The two things worth noting are

1. The Output Attenuator knob is slightly loose, it works as it should when you turn it, but would need re-aligning and tightening so it matches up with the numbers.

2. The other thing, is below the 'BAL' sticker a control of some sort has snapped off, I have never known what this control was or did as the unit worked fine without it!

So for those two (easy to fix) reasons I would say this unit deserves a service form somewhere like 'Funky Junk', who have experience with Altec compressors.

HOWEVER, neither of these affected my use of it and I am only mentioning them for transparency in the description.

Everything else works, sounds and lights up as you'd expect."

juno-2 juno-1

via Marko of Retrosound.de

It's interesting to see the size comparison.

Zyklus MPS-1 Midi Performance System - Demo tape

YouTube Uploaded by AnalogyGuy on Aug 18, 2011
via esaruoho in the comments of this post.
"Here's a recording from the promo tape which was made to demonstrate the features of the Midi performance System from 1988.

I own one of them (only one batch, 40 units, was ever produced because it was flop product for the very wrong reasons) and meanwhile I haven't yet done any video demonstrations, I decided to upload at least this demo tape. You can expect me to do them sooner or later because the Zyklus really is the center of my own studio and serves extremely well my purposes of improvisations... it was made for non-stop spontaneous music production with huge amount of experimental elements.

MPS is really even today totally unique. Instead of normal sequencer that uses tape machine approach, it uses individual sequences (phrases, loops, riffs, whatever) and handles them like "notes" so that you can "play" them with keyboard and transpose them polyphonically... and the transpose is not the only function there!

I am going to make tribute site for the Zyklus, but before that, for more info, see my friend's site here: http://www.scene.org/~esa/zyklus/

Maybe the only known Zyklus user was (suprise!) Vangelis (in the album "Direct") but another famous composer that was one of the original pioneers of electronic music in Britain, David Vorhaus, also used Zyklus and maybe still uses it.

About the songs in this tape, bear in mind that they were mainly made to demonstrate the features so they are not maybe that great as a songs but interesting nontheless... and remember, each song was made in live, without overdubbing.

Composers of the tracks:

[Part 1]
1. Alex White (The main demo)
2. Peter Kellock - 05:10
3. Jezz Woodroffe - 07:35

[Part 2]
1. Peter Kellock
2. Jezz Woodroffe - 01:45
3. AW WM PK - 03:50
4. Jezz Woodroffe - 08:23
5. John L Walters - 10:35

[Part 3]
1. Peter Buick
2. Bill Marshall - 02:08
3. Jezz Woodroffe - 05:37"

Drum Studio on Commodore 64

YouTube Uploaded by stamba313 on Aug 24, 2011

"Drum Studio on Commodore 64
Version v2.80A
Year 1990
Copyright (c) 1990 Mark Wilson
Credits Mark Wilson - code
Gez - DigiBoost consultant"

via mycommodore64.com, via The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

"Drum Studio is a simple step sequencer based on 32 steps patterns. All classics functions are here : copy/paste to easily duplicate patterns, clear a voice or the whole voices, tempo in BPM (would be nice to compare this BPM cycles to a classic Drum Machine like Roland TR-505...) and a simple but effective song mode where you can chain patterns."

See mycommodore64.com for some additional info and more C64.

Green Jam - NLogSynth & SoundPrism

YouTube Uploaded by nlogmusic on Aug 20, 2011

"NLogSynth PRO & MIDI available from App Store or visit website www.temporubato.com"

NLogSynth PRO - tempo rubato
SoundPrism - Audanika GmbH

synth with built step sequencer circuit bent

YouTube Uploaded by drmoonstien on Aug 25, 2011
drmoonstien on eBay (RSS) - sometimes items in videos come up later. Sub to the RSS feed if you want to see items as they go up in your reader. See the additional RSS feeds in the More Stuff section on the right.

New Project 2

teste - secreto

YouTube Uploaded by RecoHead on Aug 25, 2011

"????"

Roland E-MIX Studio SP-808EX Videos by H4NDCRAFTED

YouTube Uploaded by H4NDCRAFTED
SP-808EXs on eBay. No auction number in the video descriptions and no time to dig. H4NDCRAFTED if you are out there, feel free to send it in.

Playlist:

1) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 1/7) - "T he first in a series of videos going through every function of this excellent sampler / 4 track recorder + effects."

2) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 2/7) DISCLESS MODE + EDIT / CONTROL SECTION. - "The second in a series of videos going through every function of this excellent sampler / 4 track recorder + effects. This Video cover discless mode and looks at the edit and main control section."

3) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 3/7) DISCLESS MODE + EDIT / CONTROL SECTION CONT. - "The third in a series of videos going through every function of this excellent sampler / 4 track recorder + effects. Continuing the video that covers discless mode and looks at the edit and main control section."

4) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 4/7) MIXER SECTION - "The forth in a series of videos going through every function of this excellent sampler / 4 track recorder + effects. This video deal with the functionality of the mixer section."

5) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 5/7) D-BEAM & EFFECTS - "The fith in a series of videos going through every function of this excellent sampler / 4 track recorder + effects. This Video covers the D-Beam and the start of the effects section which is continued in another video."

6) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 6/7) EFFECTS CONTINUED

7) ROLAND E-MIX STUDIO SP-808EX OVERVIEW (DEMO PART 7/7) SAMPLER SECTION - "The fith in a series of videos going through every function of this excellent sampler / 4 track recorder + This video covers the sampler section."

8) fx1.mp4