Error Instruments Brinta - playing with my voice

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Spent some time feeding my voice into the Brinta from Error Instruments and This is Not Rocket Science. It's a wonderfully weird and sometimes comical module that won't fit in your patch but will spill out awesomeness all day long."

Synth East 2024 - Synth and Modular festival in Norwich

video upload by

"Synth East is a festival of synths and modular in Norwich from Friday the 23rd of February to Sunday the 25th. Brought to you by the Norwich Arts Centre, Electronic Sound Magazine and Molten Modular.

Tickets are available for each event separately. There's a discount if you order the Saturday Expo and evening gig at the same time.

Friday: Subotnick documentary [trailer here], Adam Buxton interviews Steve Davis and music from Luke Sanger.

Saturday daytime: Synth Expo with performances

Saturday evening: Blancmange, Ultramarine and Molten Modular

Sunday: DIY Workshops from Thonk and Befaco.

http://www.syntheast.com"

Update: press release follows:


"Pouring from the heart of Norfolk, hosted by the Norwich Arts Centre, curated by Electronic Sound Magazine and run by Molten Modular, Synth East is back. After a devastatingly successful 2023 show the sold-out Norfolk-based festival of synthesizers returns in 2024 but this time it's been widened into a full weekend experience.

The all new Friday evening Synth East event is curated by Electronic Sound Magazine and kicks off with (possibly) the UK premiere of a documentary on electronic musician Morton Subotnick, who at 90 years old, is known affectionately as the Father of Techno. It’s called Subotnick, Portrait of an Electronic Music Pioneer by Waveshaper Media who brought us the intoxicating 2014 documentary, I Dream of Wires.

Following the film we have writer, broadcaster, comedian and musician Adam Buxton chatting with Synth East alumni Steve Davis about music, life and modular synths. Finishing off the evening we have an ambient set from modular musician Luke Sanger as we relax into some beers in preparation for what’s to come for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday’s Synth East Expo is a carnival of control voltage, a festival of synth sounds and a party of epic performances. Dozens of manufacturers will be filling the Arts Centre with synths and modulars to give you an opportunity check out their marvellous machines and bask in the glow of synthesiser technology. You’ll be able to chat with the makers about the gear and even have a personal demonstration. Simply walking through the auditorium in the company of such exciting gear is completely thrilling.

Throughout the day we’ll be having some performances from local artists Hardwired and Tristan Burfield before we once again embark on the awesome modular experiment of the all-star patch off. This year, joining Robin "Molten Modular" Vincent, Steve Davis and Gaz Williams will be Mylar Melodies, Nina Richards, and Jason Jervis. These are unique, improvised performances that you’ll never see anywhere else.

Saturday night’s synthesiser explosion features the 80s synth legends Blancmange who have kindly agree to fit us in before their extensive Everything is Connected: The Best Of Blancmange tour of the UK. Supporting Blancmange we have eclectic electronic music duo Ultramarine featuring Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond. And in the warm up slot is our own Robin “Molten Modular” Vincent and a special guest.

On Sunday we are hosting some Eurorack DIY workshops presented by Befaco and Thonk. They will be held at Electronic Sound HQ at Capital House over a few hours. The idea is that you buy a ticket for the workshop and then order the kit that you hope to build directly with Befaco or Thonk.

Synth East 2024 runs from the 23rd to the 25th of February. Each event is available as a separate ticket and there's a bundle deal on buying the Saturday Expo and evening performance together.

Our intention is to revel in the world of synthesizers, modular and electronic musical boxes. We want to explore sound through performance, discussion and hands-on interaction. It's a lot of fun and open to anyone with an interest in bleeps, tones and noises."

Befaco FX Boy demo (no talking)

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"I ran a couple of different sources through the FX Boy cartridges to give you an idea of what they do."

Qu-Bit Surface - 0:00
Pico Drums - 10:00
Sequenced bass line - 18:49

Making modular on the beach - Cart Gap 23/10/23

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Getting mobile with my modular and running it on batteries. He's a couple of minutes of something nice on the beach at Cart Gap shortly before being swamped by a wave. Thankfully, only my picnic rug, coat and pride got wet."

Blukac Endless Processor Review

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Endless is infinite sustain pulled from the sound sources of your rack, filled with the same tonal quality and stretched for an eternity. It's my latest favourite thing. You might not grasp it immediately; it might take some time, but gee whizz, it's a beauty."

Index:
Intro - 0:00
The Basics - 6:23
Dual Channelling - 16:03
Chords - 22:06
Here's a scenario - 23:30
How about a microphone? - 30:39
Another scenario - 37:08
Conclusions - 41:36

RYK Modular Night Rider Review

video upload by Molten Music Technology

Sound demo here

"Night Rider is a Quad Sequential Resonator, or a bunch of bandpass filters in a beautifully realised interface of scanning LEDs. I'll take you through everything I found from wobbles, to sweeps, flanging to pings, formants to strikes."

RYK Modular Night Rider extended sound demo

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"No talking, just full-length experiments with the Night Rider."

A walking talking tour of Synthfest UK 2023

video upload by DivKid

"Freshly back from Sheffield and my second weekend of synth event here in the UK ... Here's a walking talking tour of Synthfest UK 2023.

You can play along with people and gear spotting as I show you the venue, layout and exhibitors at the show. I had to stop to take a picture of Alex Ball & RYK, as you do."

SynthFest 2023 walk through and poking about

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Here's me walking through SynthFest 2023 with me 360 camera. It's full of fabulous distortion but should give you an idea of what it's all about.

Index:
Intro - 0:00
Main Hall - 6:10
Yamaha - 19:55
Korg - 21:03
Source - 21:46"

Neutral Labs Elmyra 2 DIY Build and demo

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Come and watch my build of the latest Elmyra noise and drone machine from Neutral Labs. Filled with far more modulation and melody than the original and all you have to do is solder in a fist full of patch sockets, knobs and switches."

Index - 0:00
What's in the kit - 2:31
Touchpads - 9:07
Pot rotational tag dismembering - 12:32
Eurorack power header - 13:25
USB power connector - 16:19
Buttons and caps - 17:58
Sockets and Pots - 20:32
LEDs - 26:00
Put on the front panel - 29:12
Soldering sockets and switches - 35:59
Soldering pots - 42:53
Soldering LEDs - 45:13
Headers - 52:01
Case power connector - 53:55
First test - 54:52
Firmware update - 59:47
Fixing it in the case and putting on the knobs - 1:03:48
Demo - 1:09:04
Conclusion - 1:17:41

Winter Plankton ZAPS - Jamming with the banks and slots

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Just a quick demo of the ZAPS banks while the slots are being manipulated."

Winter Plankton Zaps - Some melodic meanderings

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"I'm working on a full review of the ZAPS and thought I'd share a few minutes of unexpected loveliness."

You can find additional demos and details on Winter Plankton Zaps here.

Molten Motion Meter 1U Overview

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"The Molten Motion Meter has gone horizontal to give you four channels of modulation visualisation, mixing and attenuation. It's a visualiser of voltage and a seer of signals. It's a VU meter and CV attenuator; it can mix and offset and looks lovely in a rack.

It should be available in June 2023 direct from Befaco and their dealers."

Befaco 7U Case: DIY Build

video upload by Molten Music Technology

See this post for additional details on the Befaco 7U case.

"Let's slowly meander through the building of the new Befaco 7U Eurorack Case. You get to build the TrolleyBus power supply, the I/O board and then bring it all together into a fabulous case that can be mounted on a modular arm.

https://www.befaco.org/

Index - 0:00
The case - 1:21
What's in the kit? - 3:41
Building the Trolley Bus - 5:49
IDC Connectors a.k.a. black boxes - 7:25
Trolley Bus Resistors and LEDs - 19:54
2 x 3 Molex Connector and terminal block - 23:45
Power regulators - 25:33
I/O Board - 27:46
I/O Board Resistors - 29:06
I/O Board Mini Switch - 30:15
I/O Board IDC Connectors and other headers - 31:29
I/O Board Molex Connector - 35:49
JST Connectors - 36:18
I/O Board Back Panel Hardware - 40:43
Power Switch Cable - 53:35
Assembling the case - 58:52
Installing power switch - 59:03
Installing I/O board - 59:51
Mounting the TrolleyBus - 1:06:16
Installing the rails - 1:10:30
Feet - 1:24:06
Testing the TrolleyBus Power - 1:24:45
Conclusions and monitor mount - 1:28:36

Support my video making with a dollar or two:
► http://patreon.com/robinvincent"

OXI Instruments Coral - Polyphonic Multitimbral Eurorack Synth Review

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Coral has 10 sound engines, 8 voices and can be split into 8 parts for multitimbral playing over MIDI. Or use it as a massive mono synth over CV. It has a filter, effects and sockets for modulation. In this extensive review I go through all the sound engines, giving some demos on the range of sounds, and show you how to navigate the interface and set it up into parts. There's a lot of ground to cover."

Index - 0:00
Overview - 3:31
Sound Engine 1 - Virtual Analogue - 5:03
Adding Reverb and Chorus - 12:21
Sound Engine 2 - Triangle Waveshaper - 14:21
Sound Engine 3 - FM - 22:57
Sound Engine 4 - Wavetable - 27:29
Sound Engine 5 - MDO - Multiple Detuned Oscillator - 32:36
Sound Engine 6 - String - 38:07
Sound Engine 7 - Hi Hat Synth - 42:31
Sound Engine 8 - Snare Synth - 43:33
Sound Engine 9 - Kick Synth - 44:22
Sound Engine 10 - Wave Player - 45:11
Getting Multitimbral - 52:19
Playing it with CV - 1:00:36
Accessing parts via CV - 1:06:31
Conclusions - 1:10:50

OXI Instruments Coral - quick multi-part jam

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"A quick off-the-cuff jam between the OXI Coral multitimbral synthesizer and the Erica Synths Black Sequencer. All sounds coming from the Coral, all at once using four of the eight sound engines."

TiNRS Wobbler2 jam with Mandrake and Pony VCO

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"A bit of a play on the This is Not Rocket Science Wobbler2 with the Malstrom Mandrake on kick and the Pony VCO making tunes through the British Noise Engineering Grit filter."

Synth East 2023 Highlights

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Here's a roundup of what happened at Synth East 2023 at the Norwich Arts Centre."

Synth East - Show Report

video upload by sonicstate

"@GazWilliams was at Syntheast this weekend - organised by @MoltenMusicTech it was the first held at Norwich Arts Centre in the UK. With a daytime session and evening performance session the event was sold out, by all accounts a lot of fun.

Gaz Williams talks to Steve Davis, @DivKid , @MoltenMusicTech , @LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER and others. http://syntheast.com"

RYK Vector Wave in Multi Mode

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Getting deeper into the Vector Wave with 4 independent voices being randomly sequenced and toyed with. Two of them are in FM mode."

See the RYK label below for more.

Jamming with Dreadbox Erebus, and Hades, and a bit of Modbap Trinity

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Trying to pull myself together with an improvised noodle on the fabulous Erebus and Hades synths and I pulled in some Trinity for good measure while dusting off my SQ-64 to try out the v2 firmware."

Deckard's Dream DIY Build 12 - Voice card transistors and film capacitors

video upload by Molten Music Technology

"Oh yes, another go at the voice cards. This time we're putting in the 2N3906 and 2N3904 transistors, followed by the blocky film capacitors. Just the electrolytics to go!"