Modular Synthesizer live

video upload by George Benton

An impromptu live jam on the Modular.
Synthesizers.com
Moog MF-104M SD
Eventide H-9
Alesis Q2

Regenerative AmbienceRegenerative Ambience

video upload by George Benton

"My first attempt at an unattended regenerative set. If you watch closely, you will see I failed! I sneaked in and tweaked one knob! :)
All five filters, 5 channels into mixing board. Independent LFO's for randomness, One random gate from the Gate Math module.
Eventide H9 - Alesis Q2."

Add Attack to your synth sound!

video upload by George Benton

"Recently watched a Steve Pacaro interview and he talked about adding blip to a synth sound. Reminded me of having discovered that back in the day so sharing the tip."

Also see Rather Have the Story: STEVE PORCARO of Toto and more... posted here.

Modular Rhythmic Improvisation

video upload by George Benton

"Just playing with rhythmic sequences and Oscillator modulation. As usual, it started as one thing and ended up as a completely other thing!"

http://www.synthesizers.com

Modular + H9 phase II

video upload by George Benton

"Second attempt of Suzanne Ciani inspired synthesis.
Synthesizers.com system with new Eventide H9. Also Alesis Quadraverb II,
Moog MF-104m delay and Analog Chorus."

Yamaha CP-30 1977~78

video by George Benton

"A quick view of a classic 70's style electric piano. Built by Yamaha, it had a dual tone generator system that could be panned and detuned for a beautiful chorus. Early touch sensitive keyboard. This thing weighed nearly 120 pounds!"

Modular Ambience

video by George Benton

"First try at an unattended (mostly) ambient generator. 7 oscillators, several filters and VCA's. Three LFO's unsync'd driving the VCA's and misc items like filter tuning and resonance settings, Oscillator tuning. A slow moving sequencer 3x8 for pitch changes. Great to go to sleep by since it's boring. :)"

Synthesizers.com modular system

Modular Retro Sci-Fi

George Benton

"Using a sample and hold, LFO modulated Osc that ramps up and down using the 960 Sequencer. Noise sweep and an oscillator being modulated with another oscillator with some pitch sweeping. Alesis reverb and Moog analog delay."

Hypnotic

George Benton

"Just jammin with the beats. Mad scientist is in the house!"

sythesizers.com 5U/MU modlar system.

Modular Filter Fun

George Benton

"Playing with filters. The lower keyboard riff has two filters with one oscillator per. The Low Pass is being enveloped with a sawtooth wave and a higher sine wave being brought in. The State Variable filter is manually set with that oscillator tuned up a fifth. Lots of resonance on that one. Dusted off the old CR-68 drum machine for some beats."

Modular Fourth by George Benton

George Benton

"A one take ambient experiment with a tune for the fourth celebration at about 4:00. Lots of bass!"

Yamaha FX-1 FM based organ

George Benton

"General overview of the very large and ground breaking FM instrument from Yamaha in 1983. Sold for around 35K or more, it was the flagship of FM organ technology at the time. That same year, the DX-1, DX-7, DX-9 were introduced. This organ weighs 507 pounds. The bench is nearly 154 pounds with the pedals being 55 pounds. That's over 700 pounds!"

Timeless

Published on May 24, 2020 George Benton

"It's funny...I started with a totally different idea that morphed into this!

At the key change I pressed a key on the lower keyboard to move the pitches up and also used a Q128 switch with a footswitch attached that allowed me to switch from sawtooth waves to square waves on the lead sound.

Drone - two oscillators tuned a fifth apart
Wind - noise run through a filter with LFO sweeping
ARP - two oscillators with different seq notes
Lead - tow oscillators slightly detuned and driven with LFO
Drums - noise through a bandpass filter being controlled with seq. Check out the video below on how that's done."

Analog Drums on a Modular Synthesizer

Published on Sep 16, 2019 George Benton

"Using a sequencer and bandpass filter to create drum sounds.
The Modular is a custom built synthesizers.com system. Although the video says just a sequencer and a filter, (meaning no oscillators) it does require a noise source, VCA and ADSR.

The two voltages from the sequencer drive the frequency cutoff and resonance. The clock out from the sequencer goes to the ADSR gate in.

The frequency of the filter determines the 'pitch range' Higher range for cymbals, brushes etc. Lower range for toms, bass etc.

The resonance affects the "drum head" effect. More resonance for pronounced pitch like wood block or toms etc. Lower resonance for a more pitched noise effect."

Automation

Published on May 16, 2020 George Benton

"Starts light, heats up in the middle and toward the end, then cools off. Ahh..."

2020 05 11 Drifting

Published on May 11, 2020 George Benton

"Started as a project to get an offbeat rhythm using the Q173 Gate Math module. Also, got a new mixer setup for better stereo imaging and effects."

http://www.synthesizers.com

Modular Pulse

Published on May 3, 2020 George Benton

"So I tend to use sawtooth waves all the time. This time it's all pulses. The drone is 2 oscillators tuned a fifth apart with a sweeping filter. The low pattern is 2 oscillators tuned to unison. The fast high pattern is a single oscillator running through a Moog Delay. Lead sound is three oscillators, 2 at unison and one an octave higher. All pulse waves. Some reverb added."

http://www.synthesizers.com/

Playing Around

Published on Apr 14, 2020 George Benton

"Wanted to record once more before I tear down and rebuild with some new modules. It rambles so I threw in some funny bits in the video. It was me and a friend doing a mad scientist routine for Halloween."

http://www.synthesizers.com

Inner Spaces

Published on Apr 7, 2020 George Benton

"Some dreamy FX's on the Modular synth."

http://www.synthesizers.com

Self Synthesizing

Published on Mar 21, 2020 George Benton

"Playing around with the sequencer to make a pattern with rests instead of straight 8th notes. Ended up making an 8-step + 8-step with different filter/envelope settings on each group using an electronic switch.
Of course, one thing leads to another... :)"

http://synthesizers.com

Modular Penny Lane

Published on Dec 23, 2019 George Benton

"Playing a song using only a Modular Synthesizer. My custom synthesizers.com system recording one track at a time into Sonar X2.
19 tracks of audio. I wanted to try the old school method of recording like when modulars were first coming on the scene. Of course they had analog tape recorders with not nearly the number of tracks todays DAW's provide.
Penny Lane is one of my favorite Beatle songs. Thanks for visiting."