via this auction
Friday, September 21, 2012
Novation Bass Station Analog Keyboard
Plan B M15 Voltage Controlled Oscillator Mk2
Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
via this auction
"The Mk2 version has the PCB parallel to the faceplate, meaning it's not as deep as the Mk1.
The M15 is an outstanding triangle core oscillator. Sine, triangle, sawtooth, square wave with variable pulsewidth ouputs and the morph output. The morph output is a waveshaping output, with a switch that selects it's output to either be sine to sawtooth or sine to square. The morph circuit is an almost exact copy of the waveshaping function used in the Buchla 258. The morph function is controllable by both a pot and a CV input, which creates very interesting effects due to the vactrol used in the circuit. All of the raw waveform outputs sound absolutely amazing. The M15 definitely has a 'fat' sound to it right off the bat, it just sounds huge. The sine wave is probably the nicest I've heard from any oscillator in my entire life.
It's very flexible in regards to FM synthesis, boasting a linear FM input and two exponential FM inputs (one of which is bipolar). The linear FM input is very musical sounding and can work for both musical scale patches as well as wild experimentation. It excels at creating various natural sounds, including metallic instruments, wooden sounds and of course, the classic bongo (especially when paired with a nice low pass gate). It has a 1v/o input, which I've calibrated to track for 5 octaves. This range can be extended by following the calibration procedure, but I only had a 5 octave keyboard to work with. It's easy to dial in tuning once it's warmed up, as you have coarse and fine tuning options on the oscillator. The oscillator also includes a sync function.
The pulse width is an interesting feature of this oscillator, as the whole range of it is covered by about 30% of the bipolar pot's manual movement. It also has a CV input to control the pulse width. The reason for this range, is to create interesting experimentation with pushing the waveform past it's thinnest pulse wave, resulting in the waveform cutting out. Sending a random voltage generator to the pulse width modulation input can create superb sounds."
via this auction
"The Mk2 version has the PCB parallel to the faceplate, meaning it's not as deep as the Mk1.
The M15 is an outstanding triangle core oscillator. Sine, triangle, sawtooth, square wave with variable pulsewidth ouputs and the morph output. The morph output is a waveshaping output, with a switch that selects it's output to either be sine to sawtooth or sine to square. The morph circuit is an almost exact copy of the waveshaping function used in the Buchla 258. The morph function is controllable by both a pot and a CV input, which creates very interesting effects due to the vactrol used in the circuit. All of the raw waveform outputs sound absolutely amazing. The M15 definitely has a 'fat' sound to it right off the bat, it just sounds huge. The sine wave is probably the nicest I've heard from any oscillator in my entire life.
It's very flexible in regards to FM synthesis, boasting a linear FM input and two exponential FM inputs (one of which is bipolar). The linear FM input is very musical sounding and can work for both musical scale patches as well as wild experimentation. It excels at creating various natural sounds, including metallic instruments, wooden sounds and of course, the classic bongo (especially when paired with a nice low pass gate). It has a 1v/o input, which I've calibrated to track for 5 octaves. This range can be extended by following the calibration procedure, but I only had a 5 octave keyboard to work with. It's easy to dial in tuning once it's warmed up, as you have coarse and fine tuning options on the oscillator. The oscillator also includes a sync function.
The pulse width is an interesting feature of this oscillator, as the whole range of it is covered by about 30% of the bipolar pot's manual movement. It also has a CV input to control the pulse width. The reason for this range, is to create interesting experimentation with pushing the waveform past it's thinnest pulse wave, resulting in the waveform cutting out. Sending a random voltage generator to the pulse width modulation input can create superb sounds."
Minitaur meets Octatrack
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Jimmy Myhrman
"Having fun with Minitaur and Octatrack. Minitaur is MIDI sequenced by Octatrack, and the Octatrack also records the Minitaur audio and plays it back while preparing and fading in new sounds on the Minitaur (headphones are used to cue the live minitaur audio, while recorded minitaur audio is played to main output)."
2 Moog Little Phatties + 1 Slim Phatty: Polychain And Unison
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Arjen Schat
"Quick demonstration of how I use the Poly Chain function on the Phatties to create dubtechno chords and show you how six Moog oscillators in unison sound like. I use two Little Phatties and one Slim Phatty routed through a Moog MF-104Z, Maxon AD999 and a T-Rex Room-mate. Mixed on an Allen & Heath ZED 436.
More dubtechno:
http://soundcloud.com/ohrwert
http://facebook.com/ohrwertofficial"
Elektron Spotlight: Introvert
Audio embed below - you might want to start the player first and then come back and read the interview while it's playing.
"Happy and careless 8-bit Nintendo sounds and ever-evolving and intricate compositions. When Introvert operates his machines, these contrasting types of expressions are welded together with ease. The uniqueness of the music gives the impression of listening to something deeply personal.
Why do you think the chip sound is so compelling?
I guess mostly because of the nostalgia of the sound. I mean I think that it is something that most people from my generation grew up hearing on almost a daily basis. It's almost like this minuscule part of our childhood that we can all relate to. Chiptune music to me is just so much fun and those familiar sounds can be made fresh again with modern machines like the Octatrack. I just use the Octatrack MIDI sequencer and my Wayfar MidiNES and go at it.
I also love that even people that I know, who don't really care for what I do musically, can't help but smile when they hear chiptune music. They seem to understand my excitement when they hear that 8-bit grit. It just tickles parts of your brain like a familiar scent from the past. It takes me back to a place when we were all kids and when life was more simple, fun and laidback.
Some of your songs, like»Chicago Dreaming«, are very complex. What is your approach when creating such intricate pieces?
Well, when composing some of the more complex tracks I do, I usually don't have that much of an idea of a finished product and I really don't have a set technique for composing. But what I have found with myself is that I'm usually most productive if I just focus on only one thing at a time. Whether it's beats, synths, Eurorack or just noises for backgrounds, concentrating on just one small piece, rather than the whole picture at once, is really important to me.
I usually take just a Monomachine or a Machinedrum or my Octatrack into a room, away from all of my other gear, so I can just focus on that one machine. That way I can get as lost in that single element as possible. I will usually do that with several machines and then when I can get a large chunk of time to zone out and experiment, I bring all of my machines together and start to layer sounds.
I have an Allen and Heath ZED 22FX so I can run everything all at once and sort of let things build themselves. I currently only use Ableton Live 8 when recording. No other software, no plugins and almost no post edits or software effects. I try to just get things as tight and as formulated as possible before I go into Ableton.
Needless to say the copy and paste features in all of my Elektron boxes get used an insane amount. If a groove really connects with me I will make 10 or 20 different copies and variations of that same groove with different swells, retrigs and lengths. This helps me to have as many variations as possible of a single thought.
Once I have done that, it is possible for me to apply my favorite Elektron trick. It is implemented in the Machinedrum and as far as I know, nothing else out there lets you do this. The trick is the Control All feature. When I found this trick my musical life changed for the better. What I do is I will have one straight groove running on one of my machines (usually my Octatrack or my MK1 SPS-1 chaining tons of patterns together). On my UW I just freak out with another groove by holding function and turning a knob so it will turn that knob consistently for every sound across your entire machine. But the cool thing is that it does not map the same for every machine. So if you are using internal machines or ROM machines parameters will be mapped differently, causing crazy cool things to happen! And when you are done "freaking out", just hold your function key and press the classic button and the saved kit will be reloaded. WOW! Ok, now run that through your Octatrack Echo Freeze delay and your electronic life will be changed.
Which aspects of song writing do you find the most rewarding? And which do you find the most tedious?
For me I honestly think the most tedious and stressful part of the writing process is the recording phase. And it's not really recording per se, it's finding the time to really be able to sit down and fully immerse myself in my machines. I think I have the tendency to over think things and that can be really impairing when it comes to completing things.
But I find the most rewarding part of making music is getting positive words and feedback from people I don't even know, or people that I really respect (like you wonderful people at Elektron or the guys at Trash_Audio). When I get nods from fellow synth geeks or professionals out there in the world, it really makes me happy in a way I can't really explain. I don't get to play out very often but it always makes me feel great when there are music geeks that I have never met who are personally effected and inspired by my music and says how much they enjoy my noises. So I guess what I find the most rewarding is people connecting with and enjoying my musical thoughts on a personal level.
Does acquiring new gear change your approach to producing music?
Oh, without a doubt! I think new gear always sparks excitement and confusion, which forces you to work out of your comfort zone. Every piece of gear inspires a unique spark of creativity that, I believe, can be attributed to the creators of the product and their personal background as musicians. That said, I usually just use new gear to create samples and sample banks for my Octatrack and Machinedrum. So while new things can severely change my approach to my creative process, new gear also helps me find new love and inspiration in current familiar machines like my Octatrack and UW. I recently have really been getting into Eurorack and there is a whole world of possibilities and noises out there that I never could have even imagined of. I have created tons and tons of personalized oneshot drum sounds, drones and swells and dumped them into my Octatrack to be mangled. This works great, because by using the Octatrack, and especially the chromatic function, an unfamiliar instrument can become familiar.
I also play Monomachine, Octatrack and guitar with a full, instrumental, band called Karass and I absolutely love to use my Elektron machines in that context. They are so flexible and enable us to keep things 100% live. While I would love to be able to take my Analogue Solutions Vostok or my Metasonix boxes with me to every practice and gig, I rather keep them safe at home. With the Octatrack we can still have access to all of those noises in a live environment and even expand on those thoughts in a really fun and LIVE way.
Check out Introvert on Facebook and SoundCloud"
via Introvert on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge
The Ekdahl Polygamist - a Synthesizer for the Whole Family
Poster via the knas blog.
Bottom pic and details via the KNAS site.
"Owning a couple of analog synths i was getting a little bored with all of them just sounding nice. Owning a bunch of circuit bent gear i was tired of them only sounding circuit bent and not reliably repeatable or controllable. Out of this combined frustration, the Ekdahl Polygamist was born. THIS is not your typical synthesizer. The Ekdahl Polygamist is mainly designed with experimental / drone / noise / improv in mind but can really take you wherever you wana go. The basic architecture is classic VCO/VCF/VCA design but all of the building blocks have been designed to allow for much more interesting / chaotic sounds then you get from your bread-and-butter synth.
Highlights includes VCO1 which features a "Tilt" output which is a triangle wave that can be *tilted* from sawtooth, to triangle, to ramp. VCO2, the "Pitch multiplying oscillator" consists of a fundamental and three "sub harmonics" that mimics additative/FM synthesis for very complex waveform and chaos generation. The ADSR is loopable and can be used as an oscillator, it can also be paused in its transition. The three LFOs all go to audio range and two of them go down to about 4 minutes for one waveform period. It also features a duophonic, pressure sensitive ribbon controller which sends MIDI data. It has two independent MIDI/USB-to-CV converters which can be ganged in duophonic mode. And there is of course, much, much more.
For detailed specifications go here.
The list price for the Ekdahl Polygamist is $1450, due to the fact that this is higher then anticipated, and that Knas has no interest what so ever in just pandering to people with unlimited funds, I will introduce a tiered pricing system for musicians who have a limited income. If this applies to you, please stay tuned as this will be introduced some time after the initial sales.
PLEASE NOTE, as of this moment the Ekdahl Polygamist is open for PRE-sale. Basically this means that i haven't yet finished every detail of the synthesizer and that it will take a couple of months until delivery. As of this moment, the hardware seems to all be working properly but needs more testing and there are still a few bugs in the software that pertains to the USB/MIDI."
Analog Groove
Published on Sep 21, 2012 by experimentalsynth
"Three Moog analog synths sequenced by Koushion. Koushion is a MIDI Step Sequencer iPad app that allows you to easily program drum patterns, melodies and more using your existing hardware synthesizers, softsynths, samples and other electronic music gear. Works great with Ableton Live and other DAWs."
iTunes:
Koushion MIDI Step Sequencer - Kudzu Creative Group
iPads on eBay
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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
