Loopy HD iOS music app - review and demo

Published on Jun 9, 2013 John Walden·17 videos

"A brief review and demo of the Loopy HD iOS music app from developer A Tasty Pixel (the developers of Audiobus). For a full review of the app please visit www.musicappblog.com."

iTunes:
Loopy HD - A Tasty Pixel

Thor iOS synth demo

Published on Jul 12, 2013

www.musicappblog.com

"Review and audio demo of Propellerhead's brilliant Thor synth for iOS. For a full review of the app see the Music App Blog website at www.musicappblog.com"

iOS:
Thor Polysonic Synthesizer - Propellerhead Software AB

Thesys Review and Demo & Cubasis & Thor Demo

Thesys Review and Demo
Published on Jul 16, 2013

www.musicappblog.com

"Thesys iOS music app - review and short demo of Sugar Bytes Thesys step sequencer app for iPad. For a full review visit the Music App Blog website."

iTunes:
Thesys - Sugar Bytes GmbH
Cubasis - Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH
Thor Polysonic Synthesizer - Propellerhead Software AB

Thesys with Cubasis and Thor demo
Published on Jul 16, 2013
www.musicappblog.com

"Demo of Thyses working with Cubasis and Thor. Thyses is used to send MIDI data to a Cubasis MIDI track. Via MIDI Thru, this MIDI data is passed to the Thor synth. The MIDI data can also be recorded in Cubasis."

New DIY Polymoog Project - TOS Polysynth

via adamstan on electro-music.com:

"Hello

I've always wanted to have the Polymoog, however getting one isn't easy - and getting working one is even more difficult , and that beast is HUGE. So I decided to build something similar myself. As with my first synth, this is mix of many designs. Currently I'm designing last boards, and going to order them today or tomorrow morning. They should arrive in two weeks, and then - soldering mayhem But, back to the design itself - what will it be?

- 61 keys
- Master oscillator section based on Polymoog - two VCOs driving two divide-down ranks using PLL
- Dividers built with CMOS counters - 4040 with diodes & 4024 for each note, like in TOG thread by AnalogCustom http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-45583-0.html&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight= - this is the biggest board
- Waveshapers based on Polymoog too
- Digital envelopes and LFOs
- there will be 4 LFOs, like in Polymoog - one for each VCO, one for PWM and one for filter
- VCF & VCA from Korg PS-3100. Why? Because it has lowest parts count, that's why
- Polymoog resonators and maybe some 4-pole master VCF at the output.

I will post current schematics when I get back home today. Here is waveshaper simulation done in falstad circuit simulator:" [above]

Capacitors have to be selected for each note to provide consistent saw level & PWM range across entire keyboard.

The VCF/VCA modules will sit on small "articulator" cards, that will plug vertically into 5 motherboards (one for each octave). Each mobo will also have associated waveshaper and envelope card. So it will look like this:

Green bars are the articulators, red one is waveshapers, and blue ADSR.

The nice thing about this design is that it will have no ASICs/proprietary parts - just off-the-shelf op-amps, CMOS and TTL cirucits. And a bucketload of transistors of course (almost 600)"

Epoch Modular Benjolin - Aleatoric Acid

Epoch Modular Benjolin - Aleatoric Acid from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

"A first patch with this mysterious oscillator. This patch was utilizing the rungler circuit which is an 8-step shift register that takes its serial input from the square wave of one oscillator and its clock input from the other. The digital outputs of the shift register are than put through a 3 bit digital to analogue converter to create random stepped voltage patterns (a stepped havoc waves). This arrangement allows for creation of complex interference patterns that gives the benjolin its unique, aleatoric character.

http://www.analoguehaven.com/epochmodular/benjolin/

http://epochmodular.net/"

via Richard Devine on The MATRIXYSNTH Lounge

VS1103b DIY MIDI Synthesizer

Published on Jul 17, 2013 Harry Axten·1 video

"Yet another rebuild of my VS1103b MIDI synthesizer. It now has nice robust aluminium panels and a working soft-reset button. The tunes are from the game 'The Incredible Machine 2'. Build details, schematics, etc. can be found at:
http://harryaxten.webs.com/vs1103bmid..."

See the VS1103b label below for previous posts. Note Harry changed his YouTube channel and chances are the videos in the old posts will move to it. Currently only the video above is on the new channel though so I provided the link to the channel in the older posts should the old embedded videos disappear.

NSFW: Twitch & Shout by Stomachlining

Published on Jul 17, 2013 stomachlining·28 videos

NSFW content is sketches of naked women.

"EMS AKS synthi sequencer solo (x2) with new Stomachlining drawings. AKS was recorded dry."

100% Beaterator 100% Synth - Week 6 - Royalty Free Electronica

Published on Jul 17, 2013 ChrisLody·63 videos

"This track was created with Beaterator for PSP and Playstation Vita. This time i experimented with making a track using no samples, only synths, comparable to using Korg Ds10 but with much more polyphony, patterns and effects. The only problem i found was running into the limit for the number of patterns in a song, you can see where it stops scrolling at the end of the video. Beaterator also has a realtime trigger mode like Korg Ds10 which would be a way round this but i haven't really tried it yet.


Right, so here's the idea. Trying to write, upload and give away a fresh piece of music on a roughly weekly basis. Will i be able to keep it up? Will i run out of ideas? Can i be bothered? How shoddy will they be? Does anybody care? God knows. But that's the point.

Basically the idea is to flex my musical muscles a bit. I have collected quite a bit of gear over the years and not much of it is getting used as much as i'd like, so this is my attempt to justify all those purchases whilst practising improving and getting ideas down fast as an antidote to procrastination. "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." as Picasso once said.

Royalty free for you to use for whatever under the creative commons license. Just rip the audio out of the video for now, i'll get these tracks uploaded to a dropbox account when i get my act together. Let me know if you use it, i'd be stoked."

MY ROBOT

Published on Jul 17, 2013 kraftzug66·68 videos

"moog sub phatty,electribe emx,er 1,evolver,vocoder korg r3"

The Differences Between the Ensoniq SQ-80 & VFX

This one is via Paul McLean on the AH mailing list, posted here with his permission. Someone on the list asked how the two compared and Paul chimed in.  It's a fascinating insight on two synths from someone that worked closely with both at Ensoniq:

"I have both an SQ-80 and VFX and was working at Ensoniq in those days (both are prototypes actually), so I feel qualified to chime in. They sound very different.

First off the wave samples are all different and there are a lot more in the VFX. That being said, there are a number of total junk samples in the VFX (guitar sting, duct tape pull, really?). So what does this mean?

For what its worth, the organ samples come from my 1950s Hammond M2. Unfortunately they were hacked up and had all their charm removed by the sound designer in charge of the wave table and given meaningless names (ORGAN1, ORGAN1....) instead of the drawbar number names that I gave him (ORG888000000, ORG888880000....).

Second, the resolution of the samples are different. The SQ-80 is based (like the ESQ-1) on technology from the Mirage (first-generation DOC chip, MC6809), so the samples are 12-bit with no interpolation on playback. The VFX is based on the technology in the EPS (DOC2, MC68000) and so uses (if I recall correctly) 13-bit samples with linear-interpolation on playback.

I suppose the over-used cliches are true, the SQ-80 sounds "grittier" and the VFX sounds "smoother".

Third, the filters. The SQ-80 uses CEM 24db/oct resonant filters for each of its voices. The VFX implements its filters on the DOC chip for 2 filters per voice and they have a variety of cutoff rates and types (lowpass/highpass). They DO NOT offer resonance. This isn't as much a problem as you might think due to the "Transwaves" in the VFX (of which more later). I asked Bob Yannes (founder and some sort-of technology executive at Ensoniq) why they dropped the resonance, he answered (as I recall) that it came down to a cost trade-off for the silicon and as mentioned would be mitigated by the wave-samples and Transwaves. I think also that that sort-of filter sweep sound was considered to be pretty dated at the time and so maybe not so important.

Transwaves. These are sets of single-cycle samples that can be swept through giving wonderful moving sounds. Things like pulse width modulation which wouldn't normally be possible on a wavetable-based synth can be emulated here. I've also gotten wonderful 'resonant' sweeping sounds with these. That said they don't quite replace filter resonance. I don't think the transwaves in the VFX, or TS series ever lived up to their promise. I haven't tried a FIZMO though.

Miscellany: The VFX lets you layer up to 6 voices (complete synthesis chains) per key, the SQ-80 mixes 3 oscillators into a VCF-VCA chain. The VFX has many more and much deeper modulation options. The SQ-80 voice has a ring modulator, none on the VFX. The effects on the VFX are mostly wonderful (8-voice chorus is a dream, the Leslie sim is bloody awful).

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff.

Conclusion? I'm afraid its the same AH conclusion. Get both if you can, they really do not overlap. I like that the VFX makes me seriously rethink my approach to sound design. It has been my main keyboard since 1989, though recently retired for a TS-12 which unfortunately also does not replace it! I still use both the SQ-80 and VFX for recording.

The good thing is, they are both insanely cheap. (and the poly-pressure keyboard on both is to die for!)

Regards,
Paul McLean
Denver CO / San Jose CA"