Sonicstate.com Airs Top 20 Synths Show On Valentines Day

Just in time to snuggle up and watch with your loved one!

"Sonic State will soon be streaming a new IPTV video show called The Top 20 Greatest Synths. The show is based around interviews with synth users and collectors like Will Gregory (Goldfrapp), Roger O’Donnell (The Cure), Ade Utley (Portishead) and Howard Jones (Howard Jones) and features footage, photos and facts about the greatest electronic instruments ever made.

”We’ve based the chart on the votes that have been coming in plus a bit of poetic license to include some outsiders, underdogs and a few surprises!”

Sonic founder Nick Batt and former BBC producer Simon Power have been pleased with the response to previews of the show already available to watch at Sonic.

“It’s basically an excuse to rant about all-things-synth in a show that’s shamelessly nostalgic about electronic music and keyboards with knobs on.”

The Jupiter 8, Korg M1, Yamaha CS80, JV10-80, SH101 and Odyssey all get featured on the chart as well as some youngsters like the Access Virus, Dave Smith’s Evolver, the Alesis Andromeda and the Korg Oasys.

“We know not everyone will be happy with the positioning on the chart, but there’s enough in the show’s to keep everyone smiling.”

The Top 20 Synths will be presented as eight 10 minute videocasts posted once a fortnight on Sonic and YouTube and at various other outlets. Then the programme will be posted in its entirety at the end of the run.

“There may be a DVD version available and we also have some TV interest. But that’s for the future!”

With their recent excellent Winter NAMM (the largest musical instrument trade show) video coverage and weekly Sonic TALK podcasts, it certainly looks like Sonic are staying ahead of the game.

“Sonic are working on a lot of new ideas for audio and visual downloads. 2007 is gonna be great!”

And what’s number one on the Greatest Synths chart?

“I can’t possibly comment, but you can still vote for your Top 3 by visiting the site, so there’s still time to change the outcome!”

The Top 20 Greatest Synths goes live at sonicstate.com on February 14th.

Link

About Sonicstate.com
Begun in 1994, the founding members came together from a wide range of disciplines.
Nick Batt from pop/dance act DNA (Suzanne Vegas Toms Diner amongst their works), Neal Slateford also from DNA, Andy McCreeth a touring musician with art rockers Blue Aeroplanes and pro-audio dealer, Dave Brown - astrophysicist majoring in nanotechnology and Eric Winbolt – a rep for EMI records.
In the ten years since then Sonicstate.com has become the primary resource for electronic music. With an up-to-date news service, essential video streaming from all the major tradeshows and now features thousands of pages on musical equipment from last century to this."

BTW, SonicState was one of the first synth sites I went to back in in 1995/96. It remained at the top of my old site's synth list starting in October of 97 until today.

Waldorf Edition Demo

Title link takes you to One more demo via Boele Gerkes of SCD.

"This demosong uses only the plugins from the Waldorf Edition, i.e. PPG 2.v. Attack and D-Pole Filter all programmed by Wolfram Franke plus reverb and delay from Logic. The first part of the song focusses a little bit more on the Attack, the second part more on the PPG 2.v. Although my heart still lays with hardware synths, I have to say these plugins are sounding bloody good!"

Previous post with Attack samples. BTW, I swapped images for this post.

Noel Koutlis

Keystation 88es, Steinberg Grand Piano VSTi and KORG MicroKontrol.

Noel's MySpace page

Microzune - Alesis Micron Software Editor

Title link takes you there.

via sequencer.de

dziadownia pierdzielnik melina kanciapa

flickr by polaranta of syntezatory.prv.pl.

Guess the synths.

Waldorf Pulse Samples

Title link takes you there. Be sure to click on Pulse Sounds when you get there. Via Stefan Trippler.

Doepfer A-100

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

Details:
A-190 MCVS Midi to CV/Sync interface
A 161 Clock Sequencer
A 160 Clock divider
A 150 Dual Voltage Controlled Switch
A-110 VCO Standard Voltage Controlled Oscillator
A-111 VC02 High End Voltage Controlled Oscillator
A-138 Mixer exponential
A-120 VCF1 Low Pass Filter
A-141 VCAADSR Volatge Controlled Envelope Generator
A-140 ADSR Envelope generator
A-180 multiples
A170 SL Dual Slew Limiter
A-145 LFO
A 148 Dual Sample and Hold
A-117 DNG Dig.Noise / 808 Source
A 114 Ring Modulator
A-125 VCP Voltage Controlled Phaser
A-147 VCLFO Voltage Controlled LFO
A-126 VCFS Voltage Controlled Frequency Shifter (Bode pitch shifter)
A-121 VCF2 Multimode Filter
A 132 Dual VCA
A-131 VCA Exp. VCA

Klaus Schulze - For Barry Graves (1977)

YouTube via marflothloloply. Sent my way via Ben.

Note I believe I posted this video previously but the link in that post was dead. I updated that post with this new upload of the video. The image was from the middle of this video, so I'm pretty sure it was the same.

Sequential Circuits Nameplates Via Synthwood

You might remember Synthwood from previous posts. They specialize in custom wood cases for the Pro One and wood panels for various synths. They take custom orders and they now make nameplates for the Sequential Circuits Pro One, Prophet 5, and Sequential Circuits line of analog synths. You can find more images of the nameplates here. Title link takes you to Synthwood.

"We used a satin brushed stainless plate that is just a bit thicker than the originals. The result is it won't curly up or crimp as easily. I found this out by plopping down one a PRO-ONE and noticing it was slightly crooked, I was able to pull it off and re-set it without the folding. One other thing that is really noticeable is that the original PRO-ONE/SEQUENTIAL circuits (at least the rev1) isn't brushed, but a plain bright aluminum. I find the satin brushed aluminum to be closer to what the Prophet-5 has and much better looking.

We've also made our own little badge which we are shipping with our Pro-One, Prophet 5 and Mini-Moog cases. We don't install the badge, but we do write the completed date and a 3 digit serial number (do you think we could break 999?). Oh! And we *ARE* shipping all our wood Pro-One and Prophet-5 cases with the new nameplates.

We're asking $18 shipped for each nameplate (Add $3 if you're outside of the USA). They're currently listed on ebay, but we actually have a revamp, customer gallery and shopping cart in testing for our website that should show up next month."

You can find Synthwood on Ebay.

Waldorf Attack Demos

Two demos via the Waldorf list: 1, 2. I've heard the Wave 2.V sounds closer to the real thing than other soft synths sound to their real thing. I have no idea why I've waited for so long, but the Waldorf is definitely next on my list. You can pick it up for $79 in the US at Nova Musik. You can find more info on the Waldorf Edition on the Waldorf Edition Product Page.

AS RS500e EMS Synthi Filter

Title link takes you to a sample and some info on the Analogue Systems AS RS500e module on EMS Synthi.

Inside the Waldorf miniWORKS 4pole Filter

Title link takes you to more. Via Till "Qwave" Kopper in the comments of this post.

Modular Formfactors

Ever wonder what the form factors were for various modular gear? Title link takes you to a table on synthesizers.com.

Blackbird Played on a Buchla 200e

Brilliant. Title link takes you to the mp3 with some background by Chris Muir.

Previous 200e posts

Inside a DSI Poly Evolver Keyboard

Title link takes you to more shots sent my way via brandnewmath, who wanted to say a good few words about Dave Smith Instruments after they repaired a problem actually due to the prior owner:

"I'd like to add that DSI is a model of good customer service: they reply to emails promptly and thoroughly, are polite and do not assign blame, do their best to fix the problem without having to charge you, have extremely reasonable expired-warranty repair terms, and pay for shipping both ways (!). I definitely recommend them and want to buy more stuff from these guys."

I couldn't agree more.

Roland CMU 810 Videos

YouTube via fmass. Title link takes you to more including a Roland CMU 800R.

"Hot For Teacher" on a keyboard

YouTube via hamsterdunce, aka Dave of umop.com and our favorite, The Packrat. BTW, if you haven't checked out The Packrat, just do it. Roland JD-800 featured in this video.

Fairlight Series III Disk Recorder and Sampler

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

Some Fairlight Resources:
Candor Chasma
The Fairlight Archive
Fairlight Resource Links on Candor Chasma

via JB Edmond

Waldorf MiniWorks 4 Pole

Looks like two Waldorf MinWorks 4 Pole filters are up for auction (1,2). Title link takes you to shots pulled from the auctions.

Synth-Restore SRS

http://www.synthrestore.co.uk/index.htm

Also note new stock ARP Sliders are coming:

"We are now taking pre-orders for ARP slider kits for the ARP Odyssey, and Axxe. These kits include ALL of the sliders for the respective synths. **Each kit is £69 and includes desoldering braid (to remove the old sliders) and complete instructions."


I couldn't find a picture of an ARP on their site, so I went with this shot instead. Anyone guess what they are?

Angel Muse

Title link takes you to a VSE thread on "best looking synths" while it is up.

minisyn website

Title link takes you to more shots and more info. This is the synth featured in the previous video post.

minisyn

YouTube via cirtcele
"born out of a huge pile of junk designed for live shows more info - oh... & some koi and skulls enjoying nature"

We've Got Cats Too

Plan b.

Roland MKS-30 PG-200

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

Martian Ants

via I.R.Quasar:

"I was quite inspired by the recent post "Looping the Yamaha VSS 200". Attached is an mp3 "Martian Ants" which I recorded using a Yamaha VSS 30 to sample a Speak & Spell. All the processing was done in the Vss 30 and recorded straight out. It's a fun little ditty inspired by 1950's SciFi."

Click here for the mp3

Cats at rest

flickr by sarendipatree.

Alesis ION and Ensoniq ESQ1

Title link takes you to more.

MOOG Murf Video on Gearwire Part 2

Title link takes you there. This time with a Nord Lead 3.

studio03850

flickr by amatecha.

modular

flickr by sduck409.

Update via Stephen in the comments:
"Hi - the owner of the synth in that pic here. Just noticed that you had linked to it - haven't checked my flickr page in a while. FWIW, it's a completely homemade synth, from kits mostly, with mostly motm, some blacet, one paia, and a milton sequencer. I've got a lot more pics of that synth - I'll post them on flickr soon, and maybe make a group of them. Very cool page you've got - love it, bookmarked it, will check it often! Thanks!
Steve Drake"

Roland MPU-101

Title link takes you to more info and shots on SoNiCbRaT.

Korg 700 Minikorg Demonstration

YouTube via jabberwalky.

Looping the Yamaha VSS200

via Grondo2001 of Shepitology.

Circuit bent modem ( cosmic blooper #cb_mod ) DEMO 2

"DEMO #2 of Midi controlled circuit bent MODEM w/ light audio effects + drums you're not watching this for the HOT TECHNO RHYTHM (htm)
Website: www.cosmicblooper.com"

DEMO #1

via ferris bueller.

Roland SH-1

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

Elby Designs

"Elby Designs are pleased to announce the upcoming release of the popular CGS range of designs in EuroRack format. The range will consist of completely re-designed PCB's adapted for the smaller format of the EuroRack system. We will be offering both fully-assembled modules as well as Component and Hardware kits. In addition to the CGS modules we will also be including a number of other designs.

The first 2 CGS modules to be released will be the
CGS735 - Synthacon Filter, and
CGS758 - Utility LFO
in addition
ED101 - 8038-based Linear VCO
ED102 - Octave/Hertz Converter
ED103 - MIDI Trigger
ED104 - Dual Lin/Log VCA - Panner"

Pictured is a mock up. Title link takes you to more. I definitely like the green. Via Ross.

Previous Elby Designs posts

Technology Transplant Roland TR-606 PCB Replacement

Click here for Technology Transplant's Roland TR-606 PCB Replacement page. According to the site:

"On inspection. It is important to note a crucial budgetary decision made during original manufacture of the TB-303 and TR-606 for cost effectiveness.
They are made of wood-pulp material. Not of glass fibers as the new PCB you have received. The wood-pulp material, is a very inexpensive PCB that is not intended to have materials removed afterwards. This type of PCB is actually only intended for prototyping purposes. Not commercial manufacture. An unfortunate problem for these machines that has lead to the demise of thousands."

If you track back to the root of the site, you will see list of vintage synth replacement parts, however no links.

Update via Peter Grenader of Plan b in the comments:
"Actually, the original comment was correct, at least in the Tech Transplant keyboard I installed for a customer (which took me a long time to get working for reasons I will go into next) and from the looks of it, the photo posted here - these boards are made from FR3 laminate, which is paper based. It's much less expensive than FR4, which is phenolic resin. That's the upside, one which in most cases is actually passed to the consumer.

The downside - paper-based laminates are much more absorbent than FR4. Not wanting to go into a long explanation (google ' PCB outgassing'), FR3 is basically a sponge. The air moisture which is drawn into the material is held there and drawn to and out the walles of the holes once heat is applied in the soldering process, which escapes as you attempt to make a solid solder joint. ON a double sided board it'smuch less of a problem as the palting acts as a barrier (in most cases,not always). On single-sided boards with no plating in the hole, there a straight excape path. Problem is, air and escaping steam can't take the same space and voids occur in the solder joint. If you're lucky, the outgassing will be bad enough that you can actually see the escape path - the hole on top of the solder joint. These you can repair. The ones that cause the problem are the solder joints that look normal to the eye, that are actually hollow inside. It greatly compromises the integrity of the solder connection. FR3 is reliability risk.

THe asorbtion is so great that is soaks up mouisture form the air - a big problem with boards made in tempid environments such as Asia. It'scommon practice to actually bake stored FR3 boards at low temporature prior to assembly. This draws the water out and what we ended up having to do at both Tandon and Western Digital before banning the use of this laminate. I have a lot of experience with this, as I was the quality manager who issued the purge and ban.

In the TT keyboard I installed, there were over 20 bad solder joints. This assembly had not been tested. Further, they didn't pre-tin the wires coming off the board on either side, on the keyboard end or ones which were designed to be soldered onto the 303 main board. The net result of that was there were over 10 broken wires soldered to the keyboard. Long story short, if you buy one of these, do some careful inspection before you go through the misery of trying to install it. It's a pain to troubleshoot."

MOOG Rogue New In Box (and Out)

You bee the judge. Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

Details:
"Here is a Rogue Moog new in box. New, as in never used, still in original box & packaging along with new manual, technical service manual & power plug. Serial no. 8799. I bought a number of Moogs new from the factory in the 80s, and left some of them in storage. Have finally accepted that i won't ever use some of them, am selling off the goods.

It has been sitting in a cool, controlled storage facility since purchase. This new Rogue, accompanied by original packaging, box, manual, technical service manual and power cord deserves a home with someone who will use and appreciate it.

As far as the sound, it's great. Classic Moog that blows current synths out of the water. They'll make your speakers move. If you want the best in analog sounds, it doesn't get better than classic Moog filtering like this. I have owned all the best Moogs and the Rogue sounds fantastic, far superior to today's analog emulations and not embarassed head-to-head with more famous Moogs. Easily midied to bring it into today's productions, using existing CV & Gate jacks on the back.

Here is some info on the Rogue:

The Rogue, a "Miniaturized, cost-cutting successor" to the Moog Prodigy, is a 2-VCO, monophonic synthesizer with a 2-1/2 octave, 32-note (F-C) keyboard. Both VCOs are tunable to three octaves by a common switch. In addition, VCO2 is tunable via a knob to anywhere between a half-step below to an octave above VCO1. There is also a single switch that selects the waveform for both VCOs. A three position switch syncs VCO2 to VCO1. It can be hard synced or contoured synced, where the amount that VCO2 is synced to VCO1 is controlled by the envelope generator. The mixer section allows both VCOs and the noise generator to be mixed together, with a slider controlling each level. The mixer can be pushed to overdrive (distort) the waveforms. The filter section features variable keyboard tracking controlled by a knob, and sliders for the cutoff frequency, emphasis (resonance), and envelope amount. It also has "the pitch and mod wheels up above the keyboard, not to the left of it, along with a fine tune knob and a glide (portamento) knob." The Rogue has a single envelope generator for attack and decay, that switches to activate the sustain mode. There is also a switch that selects how the envelope affects the VCA. It can be set for either contour, keyed, or bypass (which was a simple organ-style gate).
Item in original box/packaging will be double-boxed and surround by packing materials.

Any questions don't hesitate."

Question: why did he open the box? via Dave.

MOOG Murf Video on Gearwire

Title link takes you there.

Roland Super JD 990

via this auction


JD-800 in a rack. Anyone know if you can edit this with all sliders and knobs on the JD-800 and if so does it change all settings or just the parameter you are editing? It would be a bit annoying if it changed everything. I know the Juno-106 will change all parameters if you just edit one.

Differences between JD-800 and JD-990
*Wave ROM was expanded to 6MB (vs 4MB on JD-800) with 195 PCM waveforms (vs 108 on JD-800) and that includes some waveforms transferred from JV-80 probably to make them soundwise more compatible.
* Additional card slot to use a 8MB expansion boards from SR-JV series.
* The LFO section got additional waveforms: sine, trapezoid and chaos.
* Next addition is the osc sync function which lets you synchronize two oscillators, a feature found in many analog synthesizers.
* Then comes the FXM, which stands for Frequency Cross Modulation - again found in some analog synthesizer, for example in JX and Jupiter series (although a little bit different there). It has 8 positions (named colors) that actually control the frequency of the modulating signal, and a depth setting 0 - 100 that controls the amplitude of the modulating signal.
* Next feature is (again from analog synth era), the famous ring modulation, for creating all kind of metallic percussions and strange efx.
* This synth features 6 types of ''structures'' which among many other things let you stack two filters in series, for building complex filter textures.
* Outputs increased to 8 total.
* Polyphonic portamento.
* Tempo sync delay.
* For all above reasons, it was named the Super JD.

The Octopus Project - Music Is Happiness

YouTube via brokencircuit.

Some theremin action midway through the video.

tearing down the studio

flickr by RazielPanic.

title link takes you to more.

ti polar side view 1

flickr by actuel

Title link takes you to more.

Prototype CS80 Announced on Synapse Magazine

Title link takes you to an April 1977 article in Synapse Magazine that mentions a "prototype of a large complex polyphonic system, as yet unnamed, that will begin production this summer. It will list for around $6500." There is also mention of other products like the MOOG Polymoog, Steiner-Parker "Synthasystem," ARP, KORG and more. It's a great read if you like going back in time.

You can find the January 1979 review of the Yamaha CS80 in Synapse here.

You can find more issues of Synapse scanned on Cyndustries under the Goodies section.

EAR Performance System Updates

Via Peter on the Plan B list:

"The EAR Performance System has seen somechanges since it was originally delivered and we've made somechanges to te focus page on the EAR site accordingly. Go here for details.
It's now been fitted with all four Model 10's and a Heisenberg Generator. We have as well loaded some exclusive photos from the recent NIN tour rehearsals in Los Angeles.

enjoy,

- P"

Pictured: Model 14 and the mighty MIlton closeup. I like the green.

Oakley Modular Triple VCA Printed Circuit Boards in Stock

Via Tony on AH:

"Ceri at Oakley Modular tells me that the re-issue of the Oakley Triple VCA printed circuit boards are now in stock. More information at the usual spot.

Tony"

Cor Fuhler

"Amsterdam-based Cor Fuhler works in the field of electronic and improvised music. Piano is his main acoustic instrument, and he seeks to take it musically beyond usual perceptions, specializing in sustained sounds with use of various string stimulators: 12 ebows, rotating threads, spinning disks. Fuhler also manipulates sounds from turntables, linguaphones, springs etc and filters them through an analogue synth: the EMS Synthi AKS, his main electronic instrument. Curently he is working on a new analogue set up: the NIGLO 1. He often builds his own instruments/ instalations/ modifications such as the Keyolin: a violin with keys."

Title link takes you there. This is actually the home site for the previous post on the NIGLO1.

The analogue synth project "NIGLO 1"

"A pure analogue modular synth with modules from mainly AS (Analogue Systems), a few Doepfer, the computer controlled patch matrix "Synapse" by Analogue Solutions (who actually also made the AS Spring reverbs), a random connection carousel and a few semi hardwired connections. But without all the usual cables: everything will be inside the housing."

Title link takes you to the full module list and images.

NAMM 2007 via fr1zz

Click here for NAMM 2007 shots by fr1zz.

Also see NAMM 2006 by fr1zz

Mystery Modular

Title link takes you to a post on sequencer.de where I found this. There is a link there to the forum with more images and discussion in German. If anyone knows more about this modular, feel free to comment.