Waldorf is Back!

Title link takes you there. The message is in German, babblefished below into English. The English site just states coming soon... And... Stefan Stenzel is back!!! Too cool.



"Is it that? What is to at the rumors around the German Synthesizer legend...? Now, here some unspektakulaere facts are to provide for little light. Yes, it does which in the Waldorfer Laendchen... the rights became by that whale village SL, represented by Joachim Flor and Kurt Wangard, acquired. The new whale village Music GmbH is in the establishment phase and Stefan Stenzel and franc cutter as well as Michael of Garnier and Wilfried Eckl will enter. Who is that now again? Joachim Flor is the head and Macher the new whale village Music GmbH Joachim was already in the establishment phase the whale villages Electronics on board and contributed considerably to their success. Kurt (Lu) Wangard, accompanied the whale village Electronics as Office manager by all heights and depths and is completely wild to see lighting up the old battle ship in the gloss of the modern times. Stefan Stenzel, Mastermind and former director/conductor of the research and development department, as well as the franc cutter, one of the initial members the whale villages Electronics, responsibly for hardware and production management, engaged themselves also during the dark days for the whale village municipality. Now the two guarantors for continuity and innovation work again with commitment and high pressure on new projects for the rope-fresh whale village Music. For fresh wind provide Michael of Garnier and Wilfried Eckl, which throw their bundled know-how for selling and marketing into the scale pan. In the next weeks still further partners will on board come and the team will complete, which was written ambitious goals on the flag. Curiously? Well so! "

HCGPF on Analog Industries

And it's a synth one. : ) Title link takes you there. Yowsa.

Old Veterans Home

Now that the Little Phatty is out...



Brian Comnes sent this in, both the link to the shot on Analog Industries and the joke. Thought it was pretty funny. Thanks Brian. : ) The strangest thing is I didn't put this shot up back when Chris first posted it on Jan 30 of this year. I meant to get back to the shot, but never did. Funny how that works...

Moog Phatty on Audio Fanzine

Title link takes you to videos and audio. It's in French. Enter ass for the username and assburg for the password. No I didn't come up with that. Courtesy of ex action figure on this VSE post.

JB's Giant Modular - New Flickr Shot

flickr by antfactor.



Update via the comments:

"In case you didn't know, that's a Polyfusion.
There's some photos on my site somewhere of the same system."

Update via anonymouse in the comments:

"actually, it's MOSTLY Polyfusion - but don't be fooled - LOTS of other modules, synths, and some custom designed/built goodies."

USB DSP Drive Based Synths?

Update via David in the comments:

"TI just introduced a $20 microcontroller development kit in a usb drive that's probably up to the task. Check out the TI site for more info:"

http://www.ti.com/ez430
"It’s easy to rev up your application in minutes with the new eZ430-F2013, the world’s smallest complete development tool for only $20! The tool provides all hardware and software needed to evaluate the MSP430 MCU or complete an entire F20xx project. The F20xx combines 16 MIPS performance, less than 1 microamp standby current, with your choice of analog converters - from a comparator, fast 10-bit ADC to 16-bit sigma-delta with integrated PGA - all in a package as tiny as 4x4 mm. Designing with the world’s lowest power MCU just got even easier."


That's a mouth full, say it 10 times really fast. : ) So, what you are looking at is a 512M USB drive. No DSP. This post is about what it might be like if we had DSP based USB drives. So... I copied over VSThost, a free VST Host app and a few soft synth dlls on my USB drive, and now I can take my soft synths on the road. This is kind of cool, but only kind of.

What would be really cool is if this were a DSP based drive so I could just plug it into a midi controller and play; with no PC, monitor or other. What would be even cooler is if my midi device automatically mapped it's controls according to the synth I was using. What would be even better? If soft synth developers and hardware manufacturers turned all of this into a standard.

Think of that. No OS dependencies that could mean the demise of most softsynths. For example, the Waldorf PPG Wave 2.v will not install on Windows XP. And... hardware based soft synths - you'd finally be able to run your soft synths like actual hardware synths. Another interesting thing is you'd have a wide variety of hardware controllers to chose from. Feel like a small portable device for the road or the couch, no problem, just plug in your USB device and go. MPC style controller, X0X, full weighted keys, knobs, sliders, you name it. You can't do that with hardware VAs.

Thanks goes to Doktor Future's and Jimmy's comments in this post on the Terratec Area 61.

WENDY CARLOS INTERVIEW / May,1979 PLAYBOY MAGAZINE

Two shots pulled from this auction.



If only the scans were bigger...

I am made from the wires of my synthesizer

Tons of updates on Bleepsandbloops including shots, samples and thoughts. Title link takes you there.


The Q107 Filter

Synesthesia and the Mandala

"Essentially, the mandala detects where and how hard you hit it and translates that information into sound and sound controllers for your playing pleasure and exploration. " The mandala comes with it's own brain drum containing sounds and it can be used as a MIDI controller for other gear as well. Via meeglosh in the comments of this post.

thank you, stereolab - New Flickr Shot

flickr by tromasbronot.