MATRIXSYNTH

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Sequential Circuits Prophet 600

via this auction
via the seller:
"This machine is in as you might know, the first MIDI equipped keyboard. 1982 was the year. This particular one was probably made a year later or so and is somewhere mid production. From what I can tell on serials numbers they only made maybe 7000 of these or like that. 2520 is the number on this one. It has a good OS that supports MIDI channels. Early ones were OMNI only. So not too useful in multi-instrument setups. You have to set the channel though each time you turn them on and turn omni off. (Record and 8.... then record and 9 held while hitting 'tune' to move the channel up) Once you get over that minor hurdle these are a fantastic analog machine! The DAC generates the envelopes and LFO. But everything in the signal path is analog. (CEM3340 VCO's x 12 and CEM3372 VCF/VCA's x 6) You can get some extremely gnarly sounds and these have found their way into a lot of sound tracks etc.. Lots of fun to play with the knobs on these. 100 patch storeage and midi in and out. Patches can be saved and loaded via MIDI or tape! I've never used the tape i/f on these so I can't say how it works. MIDI is all I've used and it works glitch free!"

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via this auction
"As many of you know this is one of the last of the all analog polysynths, prior to a few more modern efforts. 1981. The polysix uses two CPU's. One to manage the patch storage, knob reading, most control voltage cell updating, button reading and LED lighting, and one to interface with the keyboard and create control voltages for the vco's. It also has three of the MN3004 bucket brigade devices to create chorus, phaser or ensemble effects as 'after processing' of the analog board's signal output. Which has 6 VCO's (transistor pairs that function fairly stably compared to many previous efforts), 6 envelope generators (SSM2056 chips), 6 VCF's (SSM2044 chips) and discrete analog vca's. (See my youtube videos using a previous polysix in fact at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDUzG9xAS1c to go over what the circuitry in this unit does basically)

The result is a synthesizer that interacts smoothly in 'manual' mode where you are just reading the knobs. Whenever you recall a patch you have to pre-move knobs or they of course will not respond smoothly always. Just the reality of having knobs in arbitrary positions compared to the patch you are calling up. But interacting with the arpeggiator is a lot of fun. A great instrument to explore the analog realm with at a price that pales in comparison to other all analog polysynths that have full knob implementation or something near that AND decent patch storeage..(ie. Oberheims OBX series, Sequential circuits Prophet 5 or 10, Yamaha CS 70M, and Roland Jupiter 6 and 8 of course) Because of the initially low price Korg was able to offer late in the game when technology had matured some and memory prices had dropped etc. these often get looked at as inferior. In some ways they are..they have one VCO per voice. However there is still a lot of synth power here and for the dollar you can't beat it in all analog world at the moment from a bang/buck vantage point I don't believe. Wakeman etc. didn't perform with junk :-)

Serial number is 399244 "

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Abildgard Droid-3 digital monophonic synth

via this auction

"There are probably only three of these in the States because I flew to Denmark to pick two of them up personally from Mr. David Filskov.

Mine is #15. It's in perfect condition with US power supply, but it is switchable so you would just need to change the plug for EU use.

I totally love it and I am only selling because of medical bills. Hopefully it will find more love in a happy new home.

It sits very well with my Sidstation...it has a cleaner, tighter, more sophisticated sound...amazing dynamic range...I was using it for bass a lot. Very tight and punchy.

Here is a link to the website that has the manual and brochures: http://abildgard.com/droid3/"

Saturday, January 01, 2011

Voice to Spirit : My King : Videosong *

YouTube via voicetospirit | January 01, 2011 | 0 likes, 0 dislikes

"Music Video for My King, a song from our upcoming album Leaving confusion.
*Almost a videosong, lip syncing used."

Elby ChaQuO Eurorack Synth Module

via this auction
See the seller's other items for more.
"The main function of this module is a versatile chaotic signal generator (cg). chaotic signals are signals that have varying degrees of interesting irregularity without actually becoming random. this cg is an analog electronic simulation of the classical driven double potential-well problem, with the addition of extra gain in the circuit loop, and an extra cross-coupling path to extend the range of chaotic patterns available.

The double-well system is a "second-order" system and therefore requires an external driving signal. this is provided by the second part of the module, a sinusoidal quadrature oscillator (qo). the two parts of the module may be used together or separately. the cg may be driven by any output of the built-in qo or by any external oscillator. the qo may drive the cg or be used independently as a four phase oscillator for the usual spatial modulation and other applications. both parts of the module are manually controlled, to provide a compact, cost-effective unit. the qo has a frequency span of ~0.03 hz to ~3 khz in two overlapping ranges.

This module has a maximum current draw of 45ma. it requires 20 hp/te worth of space to fit in a eurorack frame."

Return of the Jedi Luke Lightsaber With Blade Attached

YouTube via slothfurnace | December 24, 2010 |
We have ribbon controllers, and we have optical theremin controllers. Why don't we have light sabers? Apologies for the ribbon light saber visual. Map that baby to an oscillator and you'd impress all the girls.
"This is a vid of the saber with the removable blade installed."

Automatic - Pointer Sisters (Moog Bass Along)

YouTube via Geeljasjes | January 01, 2011 |

"Always wanted to cover this one.
One of my favourite dance tracks from way back when music was cool.

All instruments have been recreated, so I'm not playing over the original.
I only sampled some bits, like some vocals and rhythm guitar, as they were impossible to recreate.

Most of the synth sounds are from the Prophet-5, which you can see under the Minimoog that I play. Both these synths are my favourite instruments.

The drums are all Addictive Drums by XLN-Audio, both the electronic and acoustic drum sounds.
The 808, Linn, DMX and Simmons sounds are all from Reel Machines, which is an AD-Pak from XLN-Audio for Addictive Drums.
It's really easy to combine the sounds from these classic drum machines and edit them in the one patch. I wasn't pleased with Reel Machines at first, but now that I got used to them it's not too shabby."