New Pics of the "Most modified SK-1 ever!"

follow-up to this post

one more pic here

comment at the prior post

hypercyclic

"hypercyclic is an LFO-driven MIDI arpeggiator, gate effect and step sequencer for mangling MIDI input chords. It won 2nd place in the KVRAudio.com Developer Challenge '07.

Two tempo-synced LFOs can be used to modulate various parameters to create interesting rhythmic effects and chord variations. A unique feature is the possiblity to modulate the sequencer step size itself, which is useful for creating glitchy stuttering effects.

The sweetspot for hypercyclic is the narrow border between chaos and regularity. Or, in other words, how to induce a certain pleasant randomness, yet forcing everything to align again on the bar or beat boundaries.

The product is further complemented by a groove function for playing slightly off the beat. The groove parameters can also be modulated over time by the LFOs, adding to the rhythmic variation."

more info including download on mucoder hypercyclic - currently freeware

Cobra Starship

flickr by fourkicks

"Cobra Starship, supporting Panic at the Disco, at Acer Arena, Sydney, 22 August 2008.

Shot for Sidestage Zine, Issue 002.

This is definitely my favourite of all the shots I took of Cobra Starship. The way the light just lined up surprises me each time I look at this.

It helps that Vicky-T is also very easy on the eyes!"

keytar

Access Virus Indigo 1

YouTube via alex540live
"Improvisation made with only the sounds of the access virus indigo 1. Recorded 2 tracks. This machine is brutal"

KORG MS20 I FEEL LOVE!!!! (ESP VERSION)

YouTube via mopipi2. cool seeing the red and blue SH-101s together.
"ROLAND SH101 SEQUENCER TRIGGERING KORG MS20 ESP"

Flame Clockwork module - Prototype

YouTube via flameampere
"The Flame Clockwork module for Euro Rack - Test of a simple configuration with Doepfers A-118 NOISE and A-103 VCF6 FILTER.
Clockwork generate a 16th pulse line and CV from Track 1-3 CV sum output - beat variations play with GATE- and CV-pots of the Tracks and the Pots of the VCF6.
Track 1: 8th pulse, Track 2: 4th pulse, Track 3: 8th triplet pulse, all Tracks with a little bit Random."

www.thebetatesters.org Optical Theremin Plus LFO Light

YouTube via IINewIIVirusII.
"This video demonstrates how the LFO light works with the optical theremin."

www.thebetatesters.org Weird Sound Generator with LFO Light

"New version of the Weird "Sound Generator" that includes optical control of the filter."

The Bin Part 3

YouTube via davidryle
"A version of the 3rd part of the Phosphene tune from 1981 called "The Bin". This is a live track recorded in Cubase4 with thte Arrick modular, Nord Lead2X, Dave Smith Prophet 08, Yamaha DX7IID, Oberheim Matrix6R, and Korg R3. Video editing done in Cubase. This is part of a three segment piece by the electronic music band called Phosphene which wrote original rock and EM in the 1980's-1990's. They were located in North Texas."

Possible Repair Technique for the 80017a, the Juno-106 Voice Chip

YouTube via rolandsh1000

"Upfront, I'd like to say that I take no credit for inventing this technique, only for demonstrating it. I was inspired to try it by two compelling images that a person named Ramcur had posted on Flickr. I emailed him and he told me what he had done. So very special thanks to Ramcur for the method, and thanks to Chris Strellis (http://www.strellis.com) and K/Modeless Factory (http://modelessfactory.com) on the Analog Heaven mailing list for sending me sample failed chips to test this method out. Please visit their sites and patronize their services!

Some background: my HS-60 had 4 bad voices so I removed those 80017a's with plans to buy clones sometime in the future. But after I stumbled across Ramcur's photos, I tried to see if these chips could be repaired. I first used a professional heat gun, and I was able to salvage 2 of the 4 chips satisfactorially by simply removing the resin coating of the chips (the right heat allowed me to peel the coating off). But that was still only 50% yield and about 30minutes messing around with the heat gun - not easy.

After Ramcur emailed me back about using acetone, I tried it on a bad 80017 that Chris Strellis had sent me and it worked great. So I decided to create a video to show how this might be done. In the video, my HS-60 has been fitted with SIP socket to allow for quick swap out of the chips for testing. These sockets are in voice slots 2 and 3. Slot 1 has a 'known good' chip for comparison. In the final part of the video, I installed the chip that I was able to get "cleaned" in slot 2 for comparison to the good chip in slot 1 (slots 3, 4, 5, and 6 have no chips/are empty). I apologize for the bad lighting in that last part.

Does this really fix the chips? What about longer-term performance? The chips I've "rescued" so far I have put in my constantly-powered-on HS-60 for over a week and checked them twice a day and all of them no longer had any popping or cracking or cut-outs or runaway resonance or any of the classic failure modes of the 80017a. They did sound slightly different chip-to-chip, but I think that was due to me not recalibrating the trimmers for each voice.

Should you try this? I'd say you have nothing to lose and, as I show, it's pretty easy to do. If you already have a bad voice chip in your 106 or HS-60, you already would have to desolder it to install the reportedly-excellent clones from D'Naab (http://www.analoguerenaissance.com). So you could try this method first and, if it doesn't work or it's not to your liking, or you just want the comfort of something pretty much guaranteed, then you can always get the clone.

As the weeks go forward and I get time, I'll be subjecting this method to a lot of known-dead chips. I'll try to report back how that goes.

Good luck!"
Roland Juno-106 chip fix - IC repair

Muzix81 Computer Music System

via Retro Thing where you'll find the full post. It's a good one so do check it out. You'll find a free mp3 of an album created with this system.

The following is a small excerpt:
"In 1981, Hungarian musician and physicist Andras Szalay visited Sinclair in Cambridge where he bought a Sinclair ZX81 kit and built a computer at home. He designed an interface called the Composer, the first part of the powerful Muzix81 system, in 1982.

The Composer was a pre-MIDI sequencer software with a dedicated hardware interface for synthesizers and drum-machines. It used control-voltage."