Ade Fenton (Gary Numan producer) loves the Analogue Solutions Vostok

Ade Fenton (Gary Numan producer) loves the Analogue Solutions Vostok synthesiser
Published on Feb 5, 2013

"Ade Fenton (Gary Numan producer) loves the Analogue Solutions Vostok synthesiser.
Loves the true analogue sound.
Here's the full vid of the synth" :

Analogue Solutions VOSTOK MATRIXSYNTH v2 - Modular Suitcase Synth Demo (Extended)

Uploaded on Jan 22, 2012 rezfilter·39 videos

While you're waiting for moments that never come

Buchla 200/200e

via Lyonel Bauchet on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

DarkSideoftheTune Operator on Minibrute

"All sounds created with the Arturia Minibrute synthesizer."


Minibrutes on eBay

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013 PICS

This post officially wraps up the MATRIXSYNTH specific coverage for NAMM 2013.  As promised, you'll find the super size pics from all previous posts on Flickr here.  You can check out the individual booth sets here.  The majority of pics have been featured already, however, you'll find the original gigantic pics on Flickr.  Feel free to use and share them, and if you do please mention the site.

I was going to embed a slide show here, but every time I do my mouse disappears, so I'm not going to do that to you.  You can launch the slideshow on Flickr if you like.

Note, that although this is the final MATRIXSYNTH NAMM post, other NAMM posts will continue to go up if they come in.  This year, I took a total of 232 pics and 17 videos (11.26 G of uploading - twice for the pics).  You can find the individual posts here via the MNAMM13 label.  They are in the reverse order each booth was visited, so if you want to get a sense of what it's like walking through NAMM in a single day, scroll down to the first post and move up the list. You'll find my notes on each booth in the individual posts.

The best part of NAMM?  The people.
The worst part of NAMM? There's never enough time.

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: REON Booth Pics & DRIFT BOX Modular Video

Published on Feb 4, 2013 matrixsynth·266 videos

Three videos and pics of the REON DRIFT BOX modular system. Lots of blinky lights. :) The third video and the bottom pics are the best. When I arrived at the booth NAMM was shutting down and Reon was packing up. Fortunately they turned on their systems and gave me a few demos.  Note the infrared controller in the first video.  If you look closely you will see the red sensors between all the lights.  Note the location of the patch bays in each system - one is on the left and one is on the right.  Also note each "module" is essentially an individual DRIFT BOX.  It appears they are mounted in each system with the patch points on the side.  You can find REON's website in Japanese here or Googlish here.  I believe I saw the beatnic.jp Mountain synth at the booth as well, but I missed getting a pic of it.  See the beatnic.jp label below for a couple of videos of it.

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MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: eowave Booth Pics & Orage Magnetique Video

Published on Feb 4, 2013 matrixsynth·263 videos

Demo of the new Orage Magnetique modular synthesizer by eowave. If you look closely you will see that the individual modules are on one large panel.  The system is compatible with eurorack and other modular systems that support the 1 volt per octave standard.  This is another example of an easy way to get into the modular world by picking up a synth that happens to also be a modular.  eowave said the inspiration for the synth were lunar landscapes and the exploration of sound.

Also featured at the booth were the eowave DOMINO desktop mono synth, eurorack modules and new infrared & touch interfaces.  See the pics below for the individual modules.  In the last image you will see the eowave ribbon controller sitting on top of what looks like a gong.  That's actually a speaker.  Someone apparently mistook it for a gong during the show and hit it displacing the speaker!  Not me BTW.  :)

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MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Arturia Booth Pics

Some pics of the Arturia booth. The MiniBrute is still looking good.  Arturia let me know that they have finally passed their production constraints and are now producing them full boar.  There's a pic of the Nocho Perc patch overlay below.  I don't think I noticed the name of it before now. The Origin made an appearance as well as their new SPARKLE and MINILAB.  See the NAMM and Arturia labels below as well as their website linked above for more on each.

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MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Waldorf Music Booth

Two pics from the Waldorf booth at this year's NAMM. That was it folks. No sign of the new Pulse 2 which is currently slated for Spring of 2013, or the Waldorf / TempoRubato iPad app. Hopefully we'll see some news at the Musikmesse.

MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: Buchla Booth Pics

Some pics from the Buchla booth.  Click on them for the super size shots.   Note the first two are from my Canon Rebel T2i and the rest are from my iPhone 4S as the battery on the Canon ran out.

Featured at the booth were the 200e system and of course the new Buchla Music Easel, The Electric Music Box.  The design of the Music Box is essentially the same as the original, and will actually come with a reprint of the original manual pictured below.  The last image in this post is of Don Buchla, the man himself.

I had a little hands on with the new Easel and lets just say out of every synth I tried at NAMM this year, this is the one that made me feel the most like a little kid in a candy shop.  It brought back that sense of childlike wonder you rarely get when you've become extremely familiar with most forms of synthesis.   For those of you not familiar with the Buchla paradigm, although there is overlap with traditional subtractive synthesis, the approach is different.   Buchla's systems invite you to explore sound in a way that you might not on standard OSC to Mixer to Filter designs.  Instead of attempting to re-create specific and often somewhat predictable sounds,  these systems are more like electronic sound labs.  This might sound silly, and I mentioned it to Don, but his systems remind me of what you might have thought synthesizers were when you were a child or when you were first introduced to synthesis - magical boxes that allow you to morph and explore sound rather than a keyboard that emulates known instruments.

The more you become familiar with the standard building blocks of synthesis (oscillators, filters, envelopes, LFOs) the more predictable it becomes. The focus tends to be more about creating or targeting a specific sound and then playing notes with that sound.  Not so much on a Buchla. Yes you can play tonal music on a Buchla, but for me, and definitely on the Music Easel, the experience was more about exploring the entire system and the manipulation of sound over time.  Yes you can approach other feature rich synths in the same way, but the Buchla just leads you there.   This is why people that love Buchla are willing to shell out more for them. If you are curious about why that is, I encourage you to check out the Buchla website, and of course the Buchla label below to see what others are doing with their systems.  Keep an open mind.  Buchlas are all about synthesis and the manipulation of sound.  They were originally designed for the composers of Musique Concrete.

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MATRIXSYNTH NAMM 2013: John Bowen Solaris Booth Pics & New Editor

Some pics of the Solaris at the John Bowen Synth Design booth.  See a screenshot of the upcoming software editor below.  This is one powerful synth, and you could argue the most powerful and flexible digital synthesizer to date.   It has a number of unique features not found on other synths including "Rotors" which are special 4-step waveshape sequences which act as oscillators. You can select any four sound sources, cycle through them in a Rotar and create a new complex sound source. Via the John Bowen website: "We all know that an oscillator basically takes a waveshape and cycles it continuously. The more complex the waveshape used, the more interesting the resulting cycles will sound. Now select four sound sources (including the external inputs and all the oscillator types mentioned previously) and play these repeatedly in a looped sequence one after the other. This is what a rotor is and Solaris has two of these as additional sound sources that can then be further mixed, filtered and modulated. Still can't imagine what a rotor sounds like? Check out this example: WeirdRotor1Poly"

The Solaris has four oscillators per voice. Along with standard waveforms, you have the Prophet VS waveforms, and wavetables from Waldorf available. There really is too much to cover in this post. If you haven't already I encourage you to check out John Bowen Synth Design for the full feature set, demos and testimonials.  And of course also see the John Bowen label below.

John gave me a sneak peak at a software editor for the Solaris.  You'll see a screenshot of the Arpeggiator editor below.

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