New Products From Native Instruments

Title link takes you to the products page for Native Instruments. There are a few new synths including MASSIVE, FM8, Absynth4, and Battery3. Note the new UI for FM8; gone is the tribute to the classic Yamaha DX7.

via sequencer.de

Sequential Circuits Pro 8

Title link takes you to a post on VSE (while it's up) with more shots put up by Carbon111. I saved the shots here for when the post dissapears. Hopefully Carbon111 will put up a page on the Pro 8, but we are still waiting for this one. Come on Tom Waits! Get a move on it! Maybe after the bath? ; )

Optical CV Manipulation

Trip. Note this is different than the Modular LED Voltage Monitor. This actually acts as a sensor similar in concept to a theremin, but using light. Title link takes you to the post by UNIT-SOUND on Synthwire. There is a link to more shots in his flickr set.

Happy Birthday Emily - Hartmann Neuron Video

Ok, I really need to watch these videos in entirety before putting them up; sometimes you actually get to see these here before me folks. What can I say, I put you all before me. : ) So... I had this video up on this post. I finally got around to watching the whole thing, and whoah, there is a Hartmann Neuron in it and it's actually a pretty good demo of it. Amazing. Enjoy.

Serge with Livewire PLan B

Via ross healy. You might recognize the system from this post.

Stag Injector’s Devil’s Johnson

Title link takes you to the post on GetLoFi. BTW, looks like GetLoFi has had a major site redesign. Check it out. I must say it looks mighty nice.

Different Skies Daily Photo Log

Remember Different Skies 2006? Looks like daily shots are going up. Title link takes you there. Make sure to check back for more shots. I didn't realize the new Korg Kaoss Pad was out. Update: Turns out it's actually set to be released in November.

As always, click the image for a bigger shot.

Tim Blake and Jean-Philippe Rykiel

via frederic.

"It is Tim Blake in concert in Orsay (near Paris) 4th november 1978 with Jean-Philippe Rykiel (who is sadly blind but marvelous on a minimoog)."

More on Tim Blake on his official website. I couldn't find an official website for Jean-Philippe Rykiel, so if you know of one please comment. Here is what Google has for him.

Update via frederic:
"Here is a short biography of Jean-Philippe Rykiel"

Update via Mikael in the comments:
"Synth/gear spotting: Minimoog x2, Korg Polyphonic ensemble PE-2000 x2 (listen to the wonderful sounding strings on Blake's New Jerusalem, that's the PE-2000), Roland system 100 (incl main-unit 101, expander unit 102 as well as the 104 sequencer), Yamaha CP-30 electronic piano and Oberheim mini-sequencer.

During the subsequent 1979 tour Blake was using a Moog modular system 55 (replacing the system 100) and a Yamaha CS-80 alongside the Minimoog, the two Synthi-A's and PE-2000."

Analogue Haven to Carry Blacet

Via ross healy, aka cray5656:

"Hi Matrix
Ross here in AUstralia
Just thought you may like to know that Analog Haven will be selling
Blacet modules as of Wednesday."

Title link takes you to the Blacet page on Analogue Heaven.


Update: If you click on the link for Ross Healy above, you will notice it takes you to a wikipedia article with the following:

"This Digital Ocean is an electronic and industrial band.

Originally formed in the early 90's Ross Healy, Simon Bowley and Tristan Upton were all friends of electronic music. TDO released 2 albums with German "Machinery Records".

Ross went on to record under alias Amnesia for SOUR UK Drum N Bass label and as Cray for French label Bip Hop records.

Ross also teamed up with Simon Bowley to release an album for Australian Creative Records as 56k.

Ross died on his birthday in 2005."

I just wanted to personally thank Ross for coming back from the dead for this post.

The Yamaha CSY-1

Remember this post on Yamaha Electone "Synths?" The following just in via Ivan on AH:

"I had just been doing some research on the Yamaha SY-1 which I rememberd playing as a kid. Seems it was built into an organ called the CYS-1 (and later there was a CYS-2 with a built-in Yamaha SY-2). The same day I see the standard "Yamaha organ for sale" ad on the local Craigslist but the picture looked a bit different for a Yamaha organ. I always look at the organ ads and then asked questions. Sure enough this was a CYS-1. So today I paid a $100 for it and the guy delivered it for another $20. Here it is in my home (still have to find a place for it): link. Bad photo, but basically the entire top section is the SY-1. The synthesizer can be played separately or as a monophonic voice on top of the upper manual voices. And the SY-1 can be played with the bass pedals too! Lots of fun; now I'm in the mood for lounge music."

Fascinating. One more thing to look out for in those Estate sales. : ) You can find more on the SY-1 and SY-2 on VSE. No title link.

VoiceSync Virtual Bowl and More

You are looking at the VoiceSync BowlXplorer. A Bowl emulator.

"Bowls are simple but yet extraordinary instruments, they are widely used for playing sacred music in several cultures as Tibetan (metal bowls), recent technologies enabled building pure quartz bowl rich in harmonic sounds. Bowl sound relaxes and raises concentration.
BowlXplorer is a bowl simulator, main sound parameters can be changed performing different sound effects."


Yep, a virtual bowl just for you. Title link takes you to more on VoiceSync. You can thank Tom of Music Thing for this one. BTW, Tom has joined The Times Online. You can read about it here. Very cool.
Congrats Tom! : )

Making Sound

Title link takes you to a new French Blog by Cyril called Making Sound. You will find posts including:

"some pictures of the inside of an Evolver here, how to update the chip, and some pictures of a padKontrol here.

Don't know if you read French but i have also done an interview with the game creator and musician Eric Chahi & Jean François Freitas who made the game "Another World" (i think the title was "Out of this world" in US): link. They talk about how they made music and sound FX for this game."

Very cool. I'm subbed. Thanks Cyril!

PNW Synth Meeting Oct. 21, 2006

For those of you in the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest Synth Meeting is on! I'm looking forward to this years get together as I wasn't able to attend the full event last year. The shot to the left is from last year's event. You can see more shots in Toby Paddock's Flickr Set. BTW, you might recognize Toby from this post.

Via John Marshall:
"PNW Synth meeting is:
October 21, 2006, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Renton Technical College, Room C-110
I hope to see you there for some Sergery."

Here are some posts from last year's Pacific Northwest Synth Meeting: 1, 2, 3.

Daddio and Henry Strike Back

This one via daddio of tapewarm.

"Henry brought over his Yamaha CS2X . We made bootiful musics together. See for yerself: link.

also in the mix are a Nord Rack 2, Electribe ESX, Kaoss Pad 2, and Doepfer Modular. These are impromptu live recordings - no mixing/mastering/turd polishing - yet. Except 3n4 which is a simply a pairing of , well, jam 3 & 4."

That'd be bootiful allright. : ) Nice Shots. That Doepfer is on fire!

Twelfth Root Serge Modular

"This distinctive analog modular synthesizer has been called The Beast, The Trilobite, The Nautilus, or The Jetson's Telephone Patching System."

I think I'll just call it, "Dayamn" or "Big Mamma Jamma." Check out the lamps. I think they are really there for pull-ups. Dayamn.

Click here for more info. Click the image for a slightly bigger shot.

Concerts

Frederic sent me this shot of some synth related concert tickets he's been to. Pretty cool.

I've had a few people ask me more about myself. I think it takes a lifetime to really get to know someone, and even then you might not really know. We are pretty complex with a myriad of things that make up who we are and we change over time. Hmm... Kind of like a synth when you think about it. What patch are you today? : )

The music one listened to can be an intersting insight to some of what has influenced you over the years - just some of the oscillators, envelopes, filters, etc in our lives.

That said, click here to see every concert ticket stub I saved over the years. Unfortunately the shows frederic was able to attend were just a bit before my time.

Hopefully I won't lose any readers after this one. My girlfriend at the time made me go to Erasure. It was actually pretty cool, like a Vegas burlesque show on acid and tons of pastels. Unfortunately some of the better shows I went to, like Wire and early, early NIN were at clubs, so I don't have stubs for these.

Decebel Festival 2006

September 14-17 in Seattle. Title link takes you there.

Decibel Festival 2006 is THIS week - Sept 14-17

http://decibelfestival.com/2006/


For those in WA state or close enough to make the drive, this is a prime
opportunity to see some _incredible_ electronica.

Come on out folks!

-----
International Festival of Electronic Music Performance, Arts and New Media

The third annual Decibel Festival promises to be the biggest edition yet,
reflecting the burgeoning audience and growing interest in this adventurous
multimedia event. Decibel Festival 2006 features over 80 electronic music
artists from around the world, presented in 17 individual performance
showcases spread out over four days.

As part of a new visual arts focus, Decibel will host talented visual
artists throughout the weekend, culminating in DB-Optical, a multimedia
fusion of installations and live art. Decibel 2006 will also host
DB-Conference, a series of audio and visual technology workshops, product
demonstrations, clinics and panel discussions held by leading industry
professionals and educators.

-----

via Mark Pulver via AH.

Paia Fatman

Title link takes you to a couple more shots by CloseToTheEdge on VSE. I also saved them off here for when the thread eventually makes its way to limbo.

Moog MG-1

flickr by Kriton Visuals.

Nice warm shot, bringing it back down to earth for a moment.

thingamagoop

flickr by patrix.

Roger O'Donnell on YouTube

My Moog Collection


How to Write a Moog Song


The Truth In Me Live


Another via frederic. More on Roger O'Donnell.com where you can listen to his new album done entirely with a Minimoog Voyager.

Electronic Music Take 1

short but sweet.

PolyMoog

Another from our friend adiblasi. This is pretty funny.

Update: A couple more from adiblasi. This guy is actually pretty funny.

Happy Birthday Emily


Gear Slut

Moog - Buchla Piano Bar

This is awesome. I don't want to spoil it for you, so just be sure to watch him play it. : ) Via frederic.

Museum of Techno and the XIOS

Looks like Novation teamed up with the Museum of Techno to promote the new XIOSYNTH. Title link takes you to XIOSYNTH.COM where you will find a couple of videos and this preset jukebox below. Yes you can play the jukebox embedded below. Use the up and down arrows to select a patch and then click the play/pause button. BTW, for more wacky videos from the Museum of Techno, check out YouTube.

via Sonic State.

Modular LED Voltage Monitor

Pretty simple. Plug it in and monitor your voltage. Title link takes you to the post on sequencer.de.

Art Of Noise (alive version)1984 on YouTube

via Music Thing.

Oberheim DPX-1 OS V2.2

Via Chris Strellis on AH:

"In the AH archives there has been a few requests for the latest/last OS for Oberheim's DPX-1 sample player. Well having just acquired one which fortunately has the last OS V2.2, I've read the EPROMs and I'm making the binary files available.

Analogue content? Well there are 8 SSM 2045 VCF/VCA ICs in there - same a Emu Emax - (and 5 SSM2300 to boot).

Right - now to add Cut-off and Resonance pots to it :)

Cheers

Chris

www.strellis.com
www.voynich.co.uk
www.strellis.co.uk
www.chromic.co.uk
www.myspace.com/strellismusic"

JH. Matrix FX

Remember the this post? BTW, if you do, you've been coming to this site for a long time, so cheers. : ) Well, here it is in the flesh. Click here for the latest details.

casperelectronics

I just dicovered this blog via alex in the comments of this post. Title link takes you to casperelectronics.

Update: Be sure to check out the casperelectronics photo album. Ack, I see some real synths in there. Hopefully they aren't circuit bent.

Update: The synth in the picture is a Casio SK-1 with a break out box similar to this one. You can see a better shot of it with caption here.


Also it looks like I featured a YouTube video by casperelectronics back on April 14. Here it is embedded:

The Speak & Math

We all know about the Speak & Spell. Check out the Speak & Math. Title link takes you to a post on casperelectronics. Thanks goes to alex in the comments of this post.

This one obviously circuit bent.

Analog Synthesizers on YouTube

You might recognize this one from this previous post. When I put it up, Marc Doty was the name on the video. Now it's AutomaticGainsay. I thought it was kind of interesting considering he also put up the videos on the Minimoog and the Roland SH1000 below.

AutomaticGainsay on the Minimoog on YouTube

Demonstration of the Moog Minimoog



Discussion of the various merits of the Minimoog

video uploads by AutomaticGainsay

AutomaticGainsay on the Roland SH-1000 on YouTube

Kawai SX-240 Analog Synth Demonstration on YouTube

YouTube via williamenroh of inside synthesis.
Update: I just found out this actual unit is up for auction here. Shots saved here for posterity. Also, there appears to be a second one for auction here. As always, be careful on the bay.

2006 MTV Movie Awards - Gnarls Barkley on YouTube

Boba Fett on the Hammond B3, and a Jedi on the Wurli and synth. Anyone know what synth that is? I'm guessing it's the Korg MicroPreset/M500. There's also what looks like a Korg MS2000 behind Chewy. And of course, Chewy steals the show on drums. BTW, my almost three year old daughter is on a huge Chewy kick at the moment. She's like, "what's he dooooing?!" Hopefully she will continue to appreciate synths.

SKnote

Remember the REALTHING analog VST hybrid synth? Title link takes you to SKnote, the makers of the REALTHING. You'll find a number of synth related software and hardware including, Grainz (a granular soft synth), Voices (a formant soft synth), Traks (a time stretching VSTi), Tolcbocs (a VSTi vocoder), hardware ribbon, breath, shaker, xyz plane controller (pictured), and much more. If you know more about their products please feel free to comment.

via sequncer.de.

Chrome Waldorf Microwave

1 of 2 ever made according to the anonymous sender of this shot. The knobs and buttons are metal, not plastic.

"it's one of two and it is chromium-plated, not silver. bcoz it is like a mirror, it is hard to take a picture of it. the "red-knob" is made of aluminium (also the other knobs-caps are metal and not plastic)."

Note the limited green Microwave under it. Image takes you to a slightly bigger shot and the title link takes you to the full size.

On The Inside

31 shots of the inside of various synths including the following. Check out the message inside the Sequential Drumtraks. Too cool. ARP Quadra Elka Synthex Oberheim OBXa Oberheim Xpander Roland Jupiter 6 Roland Jupiter 8 Roland TB-303 Roland TR-808 Roland SH-2000 Roland Vocoder Plus RSF DD30 RSF Kobol Sequential Drumtraks Sequential Pro One Sequential Prophet 5 Sequential Prophet 600 Yamaha CS40M Yamaha CS80 Yamaha SK-50

CLICK FOR MORE »

The Pile

Now, that's one mess I'd be a we bit excited to run into. I want that one octave thing in the left, center. Anyone know what that is? The one the pink thing's eyelashes are pointing to. Title link takes you to the post on Sendling.

Update via alex in the comments: "it's a circuit bent speak & math"

Banana Plantation

flickr by cray5656.

Serge and Plan B

Title link takes you to more.

Synthesizers

flickr by Julio Martinez.

Title link takes you to one more shot.

Novation KS4 and EMU MP-7.

Funny, I almost thought the EMU was some sort of painting when I first saw this shot.

batterie elettroniche

flickr by geccorulez.

Korg Electribe MX.

I love how the colors match in this shot.

Acidlab Bombass

I knew about the Acidlab Bassline for a while now, but I didn't realize they also had another product called the Bombass. Via xonox:

"It is named Bombass. It is a monosynth table top module as you can see on the picture. The bombass is quite quirky and can sound very acid too. It is quite flexible thanks to ring mod or sync between the 2 oscillators. The lfos have some weird waveforms, which helps getting some squishy sounds. It all depends on how you use it. It is one of the few monosynths i know with an accent input. The bombass does not have midi, it is cv/gate only."

I checked the Acidlab site (title link) and couldn't find any info on the Bombass, however there are some samples on the Klang page.

Update: Some info and another shot sent in via an anonymous reader.

"owners of the boombass can be happy, coz only 10 of them were made and it seems that no further batch is planned (8 are around, 1 belongs to me and 1 belongs to klaus). that is the reason why there is no info on acidlab.de.

the boombass is in principle a pimped bassline with a additional 2nd osc, filter-fm, a pitch envelope (sweep) and a lfo with individual routing to vco and vcf.

the lfo is very, very fast and could be reseted by gate in. also the lfo folows the contol voltage, so the filter or the osc can be "fm-ed" in tune. the lfo has 6 waveforms: triangle, square, "stepped-ramp" up and down, random, s/h.

the vco can be switched to 6 operating modes: single osc saw, single osc square, 50/50 mix square, sync, ringmod, external in (off). white noise can always be mixed to the signal."

Plexi Modular Case

Two shots of a clear Plexi modular case. That's Adam installing some modules. Nice. Shots via the Plan B Yahoo Group.

More on Plan B here.
Update via Adam in the comments: "Thanks to Sean Price for designing this cabinet, I think he should go into business with these..."

Indeed.

Telex on YouTube

Telex at Eurovision 1980


Telex - On the road again (music video)


Telex- Moskow Diskow


Telex Twist a St.Tropez - 1978


via Yves of http://yusynth.net

Trans X - Living on a Video on YouTube

Wow. I totally forgot about this song. I used to love the synth hooks. Also love the "integrated circuits" bit through a vocoder. Some nice air keyboards in the performance for you as well as a funky robot dance. : ) I can't make out what looks like a modular in the backgroud. If you know what it is, feel free to comment.

Here's the video for Living on Video with a Roland SH-101 and retro computers. Man this brings me back to clubbing in the 80s. And no the clubs were not that cheesy. They always made the alternative scene look moronic on tv and video back then.

Korg MS20

flickr by ellecer. Title link takes you to more synth shots in the set.

Korg VCF

Trip. Never seen one of these before. Title link takes you to a new info page on the Korg VCF on sequencer.de. Note how the controls look similar to the Minikorg 700s.

Serge Modular

Via sequencer.de.