"Here is a quick demo of the Riser synth found in the 1.7 version of meta DJ for the iPad by Sound Trends. I shows the different Presets for noise, oscillator/tone and control of pitch, filter and modulation via the XY touchpad."
The Dark Energy (I) has to be discontinued because an important electronic part (CEM3394) is no longer available. We are working on the redesign of the Dark Energy at full speed. The new Dark Energy II will look like the Dark Energy I at first sight. Only the function of some controls and switches will differ from the Dark Energy I. These are the most important differences between Dark Energy I and II:
12dB multimode filter with lowpass, notch, highpass and bandpass (instead of 24dB lowpass of Dark Energy I) the previous LM control of the filter becomes the filter type control (continuous crossfade lowpass - notch highpass - bandpass) the LM function of the filter is no longer available the waveform switch is used to select between saw and clipped/distorted saw (in the center position the saw is off) the basic waveform of the VCO is saw (not triangle like the Dark Energy I). because of the pure analog circuit and the temperature control it takes about 30 minutes until the VCO is in tune. the VCA has a exponential scale (not the combined linear/exponential scale of Dark Energy I)
All other functions will remain unchanged. Even the price will be the same (currently Euro 428). The Dark Energy II will be probably available summer 2012."
Be sure to see the Paradiso label at the bottom of this post for prior posts.
"In 1973, Media Lab associate professor Joe Paradiso was an undergraduate at Tufts University, and didn't know anyone who had built an analog music synthesizer, or "synth," from scratch.
It was a time, he says, when information and parts for do-it-yourself projects were scarce, and digital synthesizer production was on the rise. But, he decided to tackle the project — without any formal training — and sought out advice from local college professors, including his now-colleague in the Media Lab, Barry Vercoe. Paradiso gathered information from manufacturers' data sheets and hobbyist magazines he found in public libraries. He taught himself basic electronics, scrounged for parts from surplus stores and spent a decade and a half building modules and hacking consumer keyboards to create the synth, which he completed in the 1980s.
That synthesizer, probably the world's largest with more than 125 modules (http://web.media.mit.edu/~joep/modlist.html), is now on display in the MIT Museum.
Every few weeks, Paradiso changes the complex configurations of wires connecting the synthesizer's modules, called "patches," to create a new sonic environment. The synthesizer streams live online 24 hours a day at http://synth.media.mit.edu; starting this week, visitors to the synthesizer's website can even change the patch parameters online.
Learn more about Paradiso's synthesizer! http://web.media.mit.edu/~joep/synth.html"
Update 3/15/12: it's actually programmable online here. See this post for reference.
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