DW6000 Waveform Mods

Remember this post? Well the details on the mods are in via Chris Strellis. Title link takes you there.

More Scans by Synth Ollie

This set includes the Amdek Handclapper and Boss PC-2, both previously posted, the Casio VL1, Noise mod for the PC-2, clap_schemo is a better scan of the boss/amdek handclapper schemo, synbal, synclap, and syntom2 are construction articles from e&mm (british synth mag from early -80´s) on how to make your own diy drumsynth modules.

Update: One more via Peter Ullrich via Synth Ollie: drumbox_layout_pack.zip.

"SynTom II and Cymbal II: PCB scanned from the Austrian magazine ITM Praktiker ("Drumbox")"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Synthesizer With Patch Bay

Yamaha SHS-10 circuit bent. Via Synthtopia.

Synths on the 'Bay

You might notice a new link at the top of the right column named "Synths on Ebay." I created it for two reasons. The obvious, if you click on it, find something you like and buy it, I get a cut of Ebay's cut and you get the warm fuzzies for supporting this site. Note neither you nor the seller pays anything extra, it comes out of Ebay's pocket. So if you find it useful, please, feel free to use it. There is a search box on top that you can use, so you are not limitted to my default search terms. BTW, if you have input on adding words or the design let me know. I was thinking of creating manufacturer links so you can quickly click and browse based on manufaturer, but I figured you can also just add it to the search box on top. Note that the search box contains the query terms I currently have set up, so you don't have to retype everything - just add the manufacturer or other term you want and remove anything you don't want. I need to see if I can make that search box longer, but currently that's how they have it set.

The second reason I created this was for my own convenience. You know I post pics and details from auctions that people send me and that I find interesting. To be honest with you, I've only been putting stuff up that people send me because I simply do not have the time to go searching on Ebay for content. However now I can just click on the link when I'm bored and see what's out there. BTW, feel free to continue sending stuff you find as I'm sure I will still miss stuff. I hate the thought of rare pics and details on the obscure stuff getting lost in limbo.

Check it out. Comments always welcome.

Buchla Multi-Dimensional Kinesthetic Input Port

Buchla Thunder take 2. Title link takes you there.

More on the orginal Thunder here, and a green one here.

Gotta love the Buchla naming convention.


Updates via the comments:

"It's the thunder and the lightning take 2, you forgot about the rings you put on and wae around the air to modulate stuff."

"Thunder is a MIDI instrument with a specialized software language called storm.. the software allows Thunder to do things the 222e cant... the 222e is CV/Pulse and can of course do things Thunder can't

the input interface look the same but i wouldn't call the 222e Thunder 2"

And Doktor Future praising Buchla? Can this really be him? : ) - see comments here and here.

"This is tremendous. I loves it. I am saving for it. Don told me it can be programmed to output any voltage, so it's not just the 1.2 volt/octave. This means you can use it for any modular, which is just super great.

It seems to be a merging of thunder and lightning, which is sooo fantastic.

I am actually saving for this. Totally worth it.

Oh, and it makes no sound on its own, so I won't bother asking for an mp3 ;)"

ARP 2600 Shots and Mods

In via Loscha. Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction.

MODIFICATIONS:

"I had this modified by John Leimseider, Electronics Technician at the Cantos Music Foundation in Calgary. JL has had over 20 years experience with Arps and can be Googled

This one has had TL071 op amps installed to replace the old ones which reduced the noise and improved fidelity. This also reduced the DC offset which is like the background voltage which the audio signal rides on. The offset doesnt actually contribute to the wanted signal its just like static so reducing it is a good thing.

The Arp envelopes are known for having inconvenient lengths so I had switches installed that allow you to double the attack, decay and release times.

The power supply was replaced to allow both 240/115V operation, its currently set to 115V but can be changed by disconnecting one wire and soldering another, about 15mins work.

Also added was AC coupling which involved adding capacitors to the circuit again to reduce the the static (DC) components from the input signal to the amplifier.

Finally, John installed an external input for the electronic switch which lets you control the switch from something other than the clock for the sample and hold. This is great because 'you can plug in 2 oscillators to the inputs of the switch and then control it from the square out of an oscillator. When you do this with synched oscillators, you get some amazing new timbres'."

Whoops!

This one in via Javier Zubizarreta:

"Check what I found on the Waldorf site, on the PPG 2.V plugin page:

At right you have a screenshot section, if you click on "graph panel" you´ll see something weird in the filter response... a crazy drawing and the words "Whoops"!!!!!! That´s not all... if you click on "Program" screenshot you´ll see "vcf - rand" where it should say "true PPG" and "XXX XXX" where it should say "out 3-4".

It seems the pics are from an early stage of development or something, strange they used the XXX which means other things... ;)"

ppg_wave_graph_window.jpg
ppg_wave_program_window.jpg"




A couple of updates via the comments:

"These are really early drafts of the GUI. There is still a bug in the straight line between the Modifiers section and two sections below.

The funny drawing etc. would fit perfectly with the sense of humor of the Waldorf folks, especially Wolfram Franke, who did the PPG 2.V

In Germany the XXX does not mean anything special, except a placeholder for 3 characters...

Georg."

"I remember seeing these screen shots just before the beta test I took part of started. And I was the one that noted the wrong design of lines on the front panel first. Mainly because I did not had the right host to use the beta version to test in the first two weeks of beta testing.
Anyway, this was my first beta test for a synth related product then.
And yes, the humor of the Waldorf team was always like this.

And I can asure you: tripple "x" is only a often used combination of letters as place holders here in Germany. Nothing more.

Till "Qwave" Kopper"

Yep, I miss those days on the Waldorf List. Here's another interesting bit of Matrixsynth trivia. When I received my Waldorf XTk, I was so thrilled I sent waldorf an email. They asked me if they could put it up on their user reviews site. I was so thrilled I of course accepted. The review sat there as the main user review for the Waldorf XTk for nearly a year. Good times indeed.

Hammond Novachord on the Bay

Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction. Someone should call Phil Cirocco of The Novachord Restoration Project.

via alec.

Boss Percussion Synthesizer pc-2 Schematics

Title link takes you to the full size scan. Via Synth Ollie.

Red Taped Z1

Via underface in the comments of this post.

"Derek Sherinians (Billy Idol, Dream Theater) did something similar on one his last tour. He had a bunch of nords and a Z1 covered in red tape. Not sure if I like the angled keyboards though."

STRELLIS - The Power of Nine

Via Chris Strellis on AH:

"Writing under my alter ego of STRELLIS instead of Voynich (or is that the other way round?), I have an analogish track for you to listen too.

Numbers have mystic powers and affect our lives. Different numbers influence us in different ways none more so than the power of 9. Is this the real life?, is this just fantasy?, caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.

Roland S330 12-bit sampler is used for VP330 Vocoder Plus choir pads, VP330 strings build up and VP330 strings lead. Digital representation of something very analogue.
Korg DW8000 is used for unison bass sequence (marvellously juicy) (8 VCFs in those notes!)
Ensoniq Mirage for piano and organ duties. (CEM filters)
Roland JX-10 for bell sounds, fuzz sync solo, string pad wah and the bass and pad at the end
Linn 9000 for drums (CEM filters)

The_Power_Of_Nine.mp3
The_Power_Of_Nine_(Remastered).mp3

The Power Of Nine
5 mins 01 secs
6.90MB file size
192kbit MP3

I don't really believe there are powers in numbers except perhaps for 101,202,303,808 and 909 :)

I hope you enjoy the track

Chris

P.S I've taken down the Acxel Resynthesiser video files becuase you analogue guys have download 2GB of my 5GB/month bandwidth, 340 downloads, on just these videos about a digital snythesiser!

www.strellis.com
www.voynich.co.uk
www.strellis.co.uk
www.chromic.co.uk"

Hmm.... Something tells me we had something to do with that bandwidth issue. : ) Feel free to post whether you like the pre or remastered version of the track.

PS Project

Title link takes you to there.

Recommendation: When you get there, right click and save the mp3 links on the bottom of the page, queue them up, and then click on the rotating icon link and enjoy. Some amazing music and great shots.

P.S. You might recognize PSProject from this post.

Crazy for MicroKorg

I believe this is a MicroKorg seminar based on the link. If you know Japanese, feel free to comment. Check out the first shot when you get there though. Instead of the synths being ready to play, they are all in there boxes, requiring the users to unpack them first. Why? If they all got a free MicroKorg out of this, that would be one seminar I wouldn't mind attending.

via Martin Neumann.

Synth P*rn Fest on VSE

Just your monthly synth p*rn thread on VSE. This one does have some nice shots though. Title link takes you there. And of course I referred them here. Shots saved here for posterity as eventually the VSE thread will dissapear into limbo.

Oberheim - New Flickr Shots

The System


Oberheim DMX


flickr by Ethan Callender. Two shots this time. I wanted the top shot and I wanted to show the logo. I love when manufacturers do that.

Title link takes you to the set.

White Roland

Remember Forat? Looks like he custom painted Madonna's keyboard player's rig as well (Roland Fantom, X7, SH-201, and V-synth); looks like the V-synth XT remains black and isolated in plexiglass. Title link takes you there.

Via Music Thing.

Space ARP

Yep... via Andy Squirrel.

Shot from http://www.arpodyssey.com/.

Waldorf Nano Synth

Plug in board for the CME line of controllers. 198 Euro on Thomann. Title link takes you there.

"WALDORF NANO SYNTH PLUG IN BOARD FÃœR CME UF midikeyboards,synthesizerboard with 1000 sound, 24 voice polyphony, 16xMIDI multi mode"

I don't see anything on the Waldorf site. I wonder if it's a true synth with fully editable parameters or a scaled down preset synth.

SK-1 Breakout Box

Title link takes you to the post on GetLoFi. Casio SK-1.

Vermona Shots

Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction. Via my nifty 'bay ads to the right.

Details from the auction:
1 Voices / Stimmen 1x Multitimbral
Memory / Speicher no
Tech subtractive
subtractive analog (no hybrid parts)
2 OSCs + 4 Sub
1 Filter lpf self reso 4 Pole
1 LFOs tri saw square
1 ENVs 1x ADSR
44 Keys / Tasten Ctrl: no
AT / VEL no
Sequencer


"Vermona synthesizer is a monophonical 2 osc synth with a great moogish sound.It is one of the only analog synthesizers produced by German music company Vermona throughout the 1980's. It is a 2-VCO monophonic analog synthesizer. It has most basic analog edit parameters. A 24 dB/oct analog VCF filter with 4 knobs (Brilliance, CutOff, Resonance, Contour), a single LFO to modulate the VCO or VCF sections and a typical ADSR VCA envelope. There are preset VCF and VCA settings as well as a Manual mode.

Its sounds are pretty basic analog stuff. It makes a real nice analog bass. The nice effects on-board is the portamento-like Glide effect and Vibrato. Colorful knobs, a clean layout, vintage wood end-cheeks and a genuine analog sound. It's an interesting piece."

Buchla - New Flickr Shots

more from arrrika.

According to rick of electricmusicbox, "thats the buchla 406 ( keyboard equipted 400) from Cantos.. i know that instrument well as I spend alot of time at Cantos."

Korg MicroKontrol

Gorgeous shot of a Korg MicroKontrol on CDM. Title link takes you to the post.

Wine Country Sequential Prophets

I recevied the following from Wine Country Sequential today. You might think the price is higher than one you can find elsewhere, but realize the piece of mind you get when buying one of these. A few years ago, I purchased a "perfect condition Prophet 5" of the bay. Of course it wasn't and it had a number of major problems I sent it to a tech who couldn't fix it, then off to Wine Country. It was so hosed I was left with the option of continuing on trying to repair it, paying for each step on the way, or trading it in towards a Wine Country Perfect Prophet. I traded it in and never regretted it. Had I known then what I know now I would have just gone for the Wine Country Prophet 5. It's been a few years and my Prophet 5 is still as good as new.

----------------

June 12, 2006

Thank you for your previous interest in purchasing a Prophet from Wine
Country.

A Restored & Warranted Prophet-5 Revision 3.3 in excellent condition with
original
operations manual, 120 original factory programs, 61 new rubber keystops
installed,
and a Certificate of Restoration is now available for $2398.

A Restored & Warranted Prophet VS with original operations manual, original
factory programs, VSROM#6 Cartridge, Final Version 1.2 ROMs & Certificate of
Restoration is now available for $1898.

Visit www.SequentialCircuits.com for pictures and details.

All Prophets are 110/220VAC switchable. Contact us for Terms of Payment.

Thank you for your previous interest, and best of luck with your music.

Kind regards from California,
David Sesnak
General Product Manager

Untitled - New Flickr Shot

flickr by bobcat rock.

Analog Desires - New Flickr Shot

flickr by tangent.

Ebay Ads

You might notice the addition of Ebay ads to the right. I finally got around to checking out their affiliate program. Feel free to check them out because obviously if you do and actually buy something I get a cut. : ) Same with any other ads on the site. The funny thing is advertising aside, I'm actually looking forward to seeing what comes up in the ads. I might find some good synth shots for posts, and who knows you might find something you are looking for. I currently have it set to search for Synth minus CDs. I'll have to tweak it over time to filter out the garbage. I'm also going to see if they have anything else worth putting up, but believe me I will only put useful stuff up, not pop-ups or giant banners, I promise. Anyway hope you all don't mind. I really am looking forward to seeing what sorts of stuff comes up. Also, the right bar of the site is meant for advertising, archives, the search box, archives and some recommended reading. The body of the page and the header will stay the same so the same amount of content will always be on top. And of course if any advertisers out there want to advertise on the site, shoot me an email. Highest bidder gets the highest spot on the right, currently that would be no one. : ) Feel free to comment.

EAR Modular Videos

Title link takes you there. Click on the images to launch videos when you get there.

"This guy posted the video links to these -- 5 Quicktime videos of Alessandro Cortini's (Nine Inch Nails) combination Livewire/Plan B modular synth. Apparently, the guy who posted this is a pcb stuffer for Livewire and could not reveal the system's owner."

Via cebec.

Update: Looks like new posts are coming in and moving the video posts down the list. Here are the links for the archives: one, two, three, four, five. Do check out the other shots via the main link as well.

Twango

Title link takes you to Twango. What is it? In short it's a place where you can share media including photos, videos and... audio. Why am I posting this? Because I can't stand free file sharing sites that require you to run through an advertising obstacle course just get to the file you want. We now have an alternative. Check it out. Twango is free, simple to use and easy to share. It's still in Beta, so there are bound to be some quirks, but I just tried it for my previous post and it was pretty painless. Here's my Twango share. Obviously, I will only be posting stuff that currently does not have a home there. Media on other people's sites belong on their sites. How did I find out about Twango? I know one of the guys behind it. BTW, this is not a paid advert. I'm posting this because I checked it out and I think we have a need for this sort of site. It beats the ad laden file sharing sites. Check it out for yourself. If you have any comments, you know where to post them. You'll notice I used Twango to host Scott Metzger's mp3 in my previous post.

Files here

Endless Weekend by Scott Metzger

Scott Metzger sent me a nice track featuring the Clavia Nord Lead 3, Yamaha CS-80, Moog Voyager, and Roland Jupiter-8.

"My music is under the name of bUTCHER. The song is called Endless Weekend. You can listen to other songs on myspace, which is here.

It starts off with a nordlead 3 which continues throughout the song. Then the drum samples start up via Logic Pro. The melodies, and chorus are CS-80 (the CS-80 chorus effect is amazing). Bass line is Moog Voyager, and I am using a Jupiter 8 which enters at 2:23 in the song."

Title link takes you to the mp3. You can check out Scott Metzger's MySpace site here.

Korg DW6000 256 Waveform Mod

Title link takes you to a 2.2M AVI of the mod by Chris Strellis. That's a he's using to play through the 256 waveforms.

Update: Also check out Chris Strellis' video on the Poly 800 Slayer Mod.

Udpate via Chris in the comments:

You wanted more info?

You got it!

http://strellis.synth.net/dw6000.shtml

Cheers

Chris

EAR's New Website

Remember this post. Looks like they were switching domains from .com to .net. Not sure why, but there you have it. Title link takes you there.

Cantos Synth Museum - New Flickr Set

Title link takes you to some absolutely stunning shots of the Cantos Synth Museum by arrrika.

That's a Synthi 100 to the left. Check out the colored knobs in the reflection.

Action Shot - New Flickr Shot

flickr by C Holden. Love the matching shirt.

Metasonix S-1000 through a Roland RE-501

Title link takes you to a 4.71M mp3 of the Metasonix S-1000 Wretch Machine, fed through a Roland RE-501, and sequenced by a synthesizers.com Q119. Via Michael Weeks. Shot taken from his flickr set.

The Music Thing Office

Title link takes you to a shot where you can mouse over each instrument. He even has a crackle box in there. Nice. : )

Via Music Thing.

GooGooFish

Title link takes you to GooGooFish. The owner of the site, Chris, contacted me in March about setting up a site to host some samples of the Maplin 5600s and some other synths. I pointed him to a couple of ISPs and he took it from there. I had no idea he was going to create such a cool site. On his project page you will find more info, images and samples of Chris' projects below. BTW, I was tempted to put up a single post on every single one of these, but I figured one big post would be better.

Enjoy.








Roland SH-09 Modded

"My solution was to make a module to fit into my deopfer system and bring all the patch points where I need them. The module is connected to the SH-09 by a SCSI cable which when disconnected leaves the running as normal. The module gives you access to all the wave outs, all the sub outs, all the LFO outs and all the ENV outs including the follower. Also you have an LED which works in conjunction with the LFO LED on the synth."

Click Box

"This was a project I started in Australia after I discovered this little book called 'Electronic Musical Projects' published by BPB, which are based in New Delhi. From the back of a camper van somewhere hot and sunny I built my first version of this project which they call the 'Novel Sounds Generator'."




Casio PT-10

"The six switches above the speaker slow down, speed up and generally mess with the drum and keyboard sounds. On one far end there is an audio out and the other end an audio in and sequencer in, this advances the built sequencer on when a voltage pulse is received."




MIDIBox FM Synth

"This is my take on the MIDIBox FM Synth. The case is from a cut down wedge style Commodore C64 case ( the SID chip is destined for a MIDIBox Quadra SID! ). Foolishly I decided to fit a kettle lead plug on the back which meant it was a bit of squeeze fitting everything in. The front panel was engraved on a laser cutter and the buttons made out of coloured silicon rubber. "


Doepfer "Joybox"

"This midi controller was made for a friend using a quad speaker setup. His aim was to have a control surface using Max/MSP to move sounds around the performance space. We decided to use joysticks found in Play Station hand controllers after he had success using them in a previous project for his BA."




Maplin 5600s

"Selling my Maplin 5600s was the silliest thing I think I've done! I bought it about Five years ago, half working, as a project to get some practical experience with electronics. After a couple of weeks I realised what a huge job it was so I contacted Mr Oakley and he got it up and running for a very reasonable price."

Yellow Knobbed Butt Probe and Serge VCS

Title link takes you to more shots.

via phil hendricks

Synthesize It - New Flickr Shot

flickr by devowski.

"quick fat cap fun to warm up the freezing gloom of mid-june?"

Update via J-chot in the comments:
"a fat cap is a type of spray paint nozzle, it makes fat lines, and it looks tlike the type he used there..."

Kitaro on YouTube

Update: I finally got around to checking this out in whole. Yes sometimes I don't even have time to check out my own posts. Sad I know... I just noticed that he's playing relatively older synths compared to the others on stage. There of course are his favorites, a Korg 800DV and 700s, however the one he predominantly plays in this piece is a Casio FZ-1 of all things. Pretty interesting when you realize he could be playing any synth he wants. Kitaro clearly has his favorites just like the rest of us. That's pretty cool. You don't see Kraftwerk doing that. Also, I beleive that was the tour I actually got to see him live in the early 90s. I remember the performance and him playing the taiko drums.

SPACE on YouTube

Update: Is that a minimoog in his lap or is he just happy to see her?

space synth / moog mf-103 - New Flickr Shot

flickr by JSRockit.

more on the space synth here and here.

TLN-904 Veeblefetzer

Cool shot of the TLN-904 Veeblefetzer from this sequencer.de post on the Happy Knobbing Meeting. Title link takes you to the product details page, but make sure to check out sequencer.de for video and more coverage of Happy Knobbing 2006. Moogulator , who runs the site, commented on how they just wanted to set up something simple in Europe after seeing all the cool synth meetings in North America. After seeing his coverage, I'm starting to think their event beat all of ours combined! Talk about a gear fest. Of course it makes sense as a lot of the great synth manufacturers are there, and of it did occur in Germany. It is just me or does Germany just ooze synth? : ) Images of Kraftwerk and huge Doepfer modulars speaking to eachother just come to mind.

"The TLN-904 Veeblefetzer is a signal level meter for modular synthesizers. This module produces no sound; it is used to indicate signal level (voltage level) for both audio and control signals. I built this module because I got tired of hauling the scope over to my synth every time I wanted to check the level of a signal, or to figure out if a signal was bipolar or unipolar. It also provides lots of blinkenlights to mesmerize anyone who comes within visual range of your synth."