Rhyme and Rebus

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"One small synthesiser. One guitar pedal.
Recorded in a wooden fisherman’s hut in Captiva, Florida.
As simple as that, at heart.

Back in 2017, I spent six weeks on this isolated island, at the invitation of the Robert Rauschenberg Residency. This is an interdisciplinary artists' residency programme, based on Rauschenberg's belief that art can change the world, nurture and facilitate experimentation, collaboration and innovation.

In the morning, I worked on a book I’ve been writing, then in the afternoon I recorded, every day, for the duration. The results are this series of serene and fluid soundscapes, where I used only the Kilpatrick Phenol synth and an Eventide H9 effects pedal.

The surrounding landscape remains crucial, with osprey, woodpeckers and pelicans accompanying some pieces. Life literally outside the window!

It’s a muted, mediative collection of works, cosy, shimmering and hypnotic. Two pulsing dubbed out works take a darker grainy direction, but overall, it’s an ambient, sunlit bliss-out session.

This was filmed on a GoPro camera in Captiva Florida in March 2017

CD digipak and digital, out on 15 March 2024

https://scanner.bandcamp.com/album/th..."

Soma TERRA

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"The instruments that SOMA Synths build are some of the most innovative, original and inspiring musical tools around today. I just took delivery of TERRA, which continues their ambitious release of beautifully bizarre and unique creative instruments.

According to their press release - “The core idea is unity of nature and technology, and a perfect balance between simplicity and versatility. Behind the extremely simple interface hides a complex polyphonic, microtonal synthesiser with a broad and flexible sound palette that ranges from classical beautiful tones to complex atonal noise, and offers smooth and fast transitions between these extremes.”

You play by touching the sensors and can even use motion sensor to modulate and alter the sound by intuitive movements of your hands and body.

What I love is how it combines the world of the acoustic instrument, the bodily relationship to the device, as well as the flexibility and free range possibilities of synthesis. The housing of TERRA comes from a solid piece of wood, making each instrument unique and, so mine is utterly mine and mine alone. Here's what I made in the first couple of hours of playing with it today."

The Dust Collector + Omnichord 84

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"Filmed on my iPhone, just a little bit of playful fun in the studio using the Omnichord 84 through The Dust Collector, which offers a gritty analogue edge to the already low fidelity music, by way of LFOs, tape saturation, a spring reverb, a delay and a phaser. Nothing spectacular, just a moment in the studio, nothing more, nothing less.

Apologies for the camera re-focusing but this isn't for broadcast, just documentation of a moment in time."

Electro Harmonix String9

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"This is some of the most fun I've had with a guitar pedal in a while. The polyphonic STRING9 String Ensemble from Electro Harmonix transforms a guitar into nine different string ensembles and string synthesisers, so I can still tap into the heart of my love of electronics whilst using my handsome Danelectro 59M guitar.

This is just live documentation of my improvising with it in the studio. Nothing special, just pretending I'm in a progressive rock band, but without the cape and long hair. And deliberate bum notes to keep you on your toes. Happy listening!"

Electro-Harmonix STRING9 String Ensemble (EHX Pedal Demo Bill Ruppert)

video upload by EHX

"The polyphonic STRING9 String Ensemble transforms your guitar into nine different string ensembles and string synthesizers while requiring zero modifications, special pickups, or MIDI implementation. In a 9 Series first, the STRING9 includes the signature EHX Freeze effect to sample and hold notes and chords with infinite sustain."

"The polyphonic STRING9 String Ensemble transforms a guitar into nine different string ensembles and string synthesizers while requiring zero modifications, special pickups, or MIDI implementation. It relies on the same technology powering all EHX 9 Series pedals. In a 9 Series first, the STRING9 includes the signature EHX Freeze effect on 3 of the presets to sample and hold notes and chords with infinite sustain.

A rotary switch on the STRING9 allows the player to select the sound of their choice, as follows:
SYMPHONIC: Re-creates the sound of a large symphony orchestra and features an octave down effect on the lower range of the guitar for a full sound

JUNE-O: Emulates the Juno® analog string synthesizer sound

PCM: Sound of a small string section sampled by a vintage PCM keyboard producing a warm vintage string sound

CLICK FOR MORE »

Scanner Live at FoxFest 2022

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"This live set was recorded to raise funds for the Red Cross Ukraine and originally transmitted on 21 May 2022, at the end of a long day of live music at FoxFest, a live music event curated by Werra Foxma Records. At the time I was rather suffering from a nasty bout of flu, so clearly wasn't at my best and as such I failed to fix the focus of one of the cameras, so my apologies for that. I hope you will enjoy it, despite that. The show was improvised, as always, so I also had little expectation of what was to follow."

Verbos Electronics

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"It's arguably the hottest day of the year in the UK. I'm in the studio, a little exhausted from deadlines this week, so decided I deserved some playtime, so instead of lounging in the sunshine (which can be very dangerous), I set up this little patch on my small Verbos Electronics modular system. It's only a sketch that might appear within something else one day, but thought it worthy of sharing, if only to give my day meaning, after all 😀"

Behringer ARP 2500

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"The ARP 2500 was an analogue modular synthesiser created by ARP Instruments, manufactured from 1970 through 1981. I have come to accept that I will never own an original, so have built my own modest micro ARP 2500 using the recent Behringer remodels. This has probably saved me about £30k. Today was my first chance to really play with the system and see what emerged. It feels like a very capable and inspiring system so far, so let's see where it takes me in the future then.

Everything you hear is the ARP 2500, with a little added NI REPLIKA XT on the final mix."

Wingie 2

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"First play with the Wingie 2 designed by the even inspiring Meng Qi. This is a handheld stereo resonator with built-in microphones that also doubles as a development board. Its dual onboard microphones allow you to interact and enrich vocals as well as the sonic environment around you. So, as an experiment I decided to only use the microphone and create a piece in 30 minutes. What a wonderfully inspiring little instrument/processor this is!

More on Meng Qi's work here
https://www.mengqimusic.com"

The Magical Sound of the Wing Pinger

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"First proper play with the Wing Pinger, an outstanding new instrument from Meng Qi. It can move from very gentle arping melodies to harsh noise in the blink of an eye. You can play the keyboard and latch the notes on each and build up layers of sound. Here I'm using it with the Bugbrand PT Delay and a little bit of reverb from the Eventide H9. Try and listen in stereo or on headphones if you can, to feel the sound move around you. More of this here: https://scanner.bandcamp.com/album/wi...

And yes, there was an earth hum issue here with noise. I'm aware of this and apologise!"

via this auction w/ original box

Note this listing is not for the same unit in the video above; it was just included in the listing as a demo of the Wing Pinger in general and hasn't been featured here before.

"The Wing Pinger is a remarkable new analog music instrument that allows you to combine melody and noise in perfect harmony. Thanks to a highly playable interface, this latest product offering from Meng Qi is actually many things all at the same time.

The Wing Pinger is designed for musicians and non-musicians alike. It’s composed of a pair of 4-pole resonant low pass filters and a network of peripheral logic circuits. The filters can be cross “pinged” and modulated, both directly and by generated step signals.

Plain and simple, this delivers an instrument capable of producing continually evolving music across the spectrum, from controlled to chaotic. The finely tuned parameter range and intuitive interface allow players to perform entirely on intuition, producing ever-changing and rich-sounding ambient, noise or meditative music with minimal or zero user interaction.

The Wing Pinger is also at home in any musical environment. For example, it can be used as a stand-alone instrument or with whatever gear you have. The unit is equipped with both MIDI and CV I/O and can ping literally anything that has an audio or trigger input and output or emits a decaying sound."

SOMA Pulsar-23 + IK Uno Synth Pro

video upload by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"A little sonic conversation between the SOMA Pulsar-23 + IK Uno Synth Pro in the studio today. Nothing grand, nothing spectacular. It was hot, sticky and reached 34.5C degrees, which believe me was hot enough for me to remove my jacket and take my socks off. Don't worry though, I remained in black clothing still 😀 Just a little bit of studio fun to share with you."

New Mutable Instruments Beads Texture Synthesiser Eurorack Module

Playlist:

1. Mutable Instruments Beads - exploration and tutorial by Tom Leclerc
2. Mutable Instruments Beads (no input) by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

First play with the Mutable Instruments Beads texture synthesiser. And here's a wonderful surprise - if you leave both audio inputs unpatched, then after 10 seconds it begins to granulise a collection of stored raw waveforms taken from Mutable Instruments Plaits wavetable module. So here's a piece using Beads as the lead voice on this cinematic piece, with no other inputs. I added other instruments afterwards for rhythm and bass, and the singular pulse that holds throughout is from the Make Noise Mysteron. This is just an idea to show Beads in a very musical context

3. Heidi Concrète (featuring Mutable Instruments Beads) by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

An experimental piece using Mutable Instruments Beads, the texture synthesiser, processing an audio file. No addition effects or processing were used. This is simply a live exploration of a single audio file with Beads. The original voice introduces and closes the piece so you can compare the two sonic worlds before and after Beads. The voice is taken from a scanned phone call in the early 1990s that features on my Delivery (1997) album.

4. A Little Beat with Mutable Instruments Beads (Wavetable Mode) by midcentury modular

This is Beads running in the internal wavetable mode (and a kick drum from plaits). I've got a gate going into freeze that acts as a mute when the kick comes in (sort-of side-chain like), and I'm also manually pressing it to mute and sustain the random sequence.

The pitches are not from an external cv source but generated internally with the peaky random distribution into the time knob. The pitch changes with this parameter seem to be somewhat harmonically related (though I'm not sure what specific scale) to the root set by the pitch parameter.

5. Overdriven Ambient Looping with Mutable Instruments Beads by midcentury modular

This video is some improvised choir sounds (from the Ableton Operator synth, played with a midi keyboard) ran into Mutable Instruments Beads in the delay/looper mode (with "sunny tape quality") Throughout, I add to the buffer by tapping out of freeze mode and back in. When the feedback is up, things stick around, so you can progressively add more and build up the buffer. I'm also experimenting with overdriving the input (by turning up the audio level going into beads from ableton with the top left 1U knob)

6. Mutable Instruments Beads (Scorched Cassette Mode) and Ciat-Lonbarde Plumbutter Deerhorn by midcentury modular

This patch is my attempt at using Beads to add some Cocoquantus-like magic to the Deerhorn. I think the downsampling, lower-bitrate and whatever other DSP tricks are happening in the Scorched Cassette mode are crerating a somewhat similar vibe to the 8-bit dolby loopers in the Coco, and I think this adds some really nice fizzy textures to the warm, raw-oscillator tone of the Deerhorn). Beads is also pitching down the two tones from Deerhorn to add a bit more melodic content.

There is some very subtle modulation coming from the orange out on Deerhorn, but it's not really doing a ton and could probably be left out and you wouldn't be able to tell much of a difference. There is some audio-rate modulation coming out of one of the white deerhorn outputs into the density input, which is modulating some of the AM stuff going on when density is high towards the end of the track.

No idea why the snapping gesture with the density knob caused the "knock on wood" sound, but I think it was a pretty cool accident!

7. Noisy Experimenting with Mutable Instrument Beads, Blades Ripples and Plaits

This patch (at least as much as I remember it...been a while since I made this) is Beads and Blades in a sort-of feedback loop. Blades is over-driven and self-oscillating, and the outs are sent to control seed and freeze on Beads (which is using the internal wavetable generator as audio input). After trying out various ones, I found these two control inputs on Beads the most interesting with audio rate signals. The outs of Beads are going into the audio inputs of blades. Both modules outs are multed out and into veils which is acting as a stereo mixer. Ripples (which is getting some noise into its cutoff modulation input from Plaits) is providing some audio rate modulation to some of the Veils channels.

"Beads is a reinvention of Mutable Instruments’ Clouds.

The concept is the same, live granular processing of an incoming audio signal, and the labels on the panel remain familiar.

The similarities stop here. The hardware and software have been redesigned from the ground up, with several goals in mind: a crisper and broader sound palette, more control, better playability, and direct access to exciting new features.

DOTTING THE I’S AND CROSSING THE T’S

Beads’ vastly improved specifications allow a higher audio quality, a longer buffer, the use of better interpolation and anti-aliasing algorithms, and key DSP blocks to run at a faster rate. Granular processing can now go to new territories, such as formants, wavetables, hard-sync-like sounds, or crispy noise.

The range of parameters, their response to the turn of a knob or a CV modulation have all been refined, for new possibilities such as reverse playback or percussive envelopes.

CONTROL, CHAOS AND CHARACTER

Control. To trigger or schedule grains, Beads provides new features to divide or randomize an external clock or trigger stream, spray bursts of grains in response to a gate, or get the grain rate to track a V/O CV or the frequency of an external oscillator.

Chaos. Each key parameter of a grain comes with its own attenurandomizer, which allows direct CV control, CV control of the randomization (spread) of this parameter, or internal randomization using some of Marbles’ algorithms.

Character. Beads provides four audio quality settings, which go well beyond buffer sample rate and bit-depth: they affect the clock of the converters, the amplitude limiting and saturation of the signal path, the tone of the reverb, and additional media-emulation effects. From a pristine digital device to a dirty cassette, through a mode reproducing some of Clouds’ characteristics.

MODES?

Beads can operate as a delay without the need to switch to a different mode: just ask it to play a never-ending grain. Its DENSITY, TIME and SEED controls are repurposed to allow various features such as tap-tempo, beat slicing, time-stretching, or comb-filtering at rates tracking V/O.

Without any audio input, Beads will granularize 8 internal banks of wavetables.

All parameters have a dedicated knob."

Phenol Study 27

video by Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"A minor studio study with the Kilpatrick Phenol synth, running into Ableton Live. I added a couple of percussion tracks, but everything else comes from the Phenol and was recorded entirely live. A modest glimpse into building tracks in the studio."

Wing Pinger Pulses

Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"A rhythmic exploration of the truly inspiring Meng Qi Wing Pinger. A simple live improvisation running the Wing Pinger through the Eventide H9 pedal, and a little bit of looping with the Montreal Assembly Count to 5 pedal later on. A little sketch, nothing more. And, of course, recommended to listen to on speakers or headphones 😀"

Wing Pinger Leploop Live Improvisation

Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"Another little run around in the sonic playground today, with Meng Qi's Wing Pinger and the rather minimalist electronic music live-performance groove-box known as the LepLoop. A touch of reverb on the Wing Pinger and that's it. Live playing, with no synchronisation between the machines, just having fun. Just as making music should be. This is not a finished piece, just an exploration, light and exploratory."

Ellitone E[64] Synthesizer

Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"I love portable technology and last week this charming little handheld synthesiser arrived. The Ellitone E[64] Synthesizer and Sequencer System is made by the same company who built the Ellitone Farm Detective Ultrarollz and Ellitone Multi-Synth that I already own. These are budget priced synths but the price isn’t reflected in the sound and ability, and as such they are wonderfully inspiring instruments. What you hear are three live layers mixed on top of one another. No other effects, no other instruments, just the Ellitone E[64]. All played live with no sync.

Here's what the creator wrote about this synth:
“The initial idea for this musical instrument was to somehow find a way to break away from the struggle of composing musical sequences by hand. Practically every musical sequencing device available today provides the user with a blank canvas for which to compose upon. I thought it would be cool if I could instead be working with a 'musical composition engine' - this engine would instantly generate complex patterns of notes, chords, and rhythms using a built-in knowledge of musical theory. “

And that’s this machine does. Even a novice can pick it up and have the immediate reward of performing with it. It has no memory either and every time you switch it back on it begins somewhere else, so it’s very much about the moment itself. And I love that about it!"

Z-DSP Tape Echo Experiment

Published on May 18, 2019 Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"A little exploration using the new TipTop Audio Z-DSP Tape Echo card, which is an utterly blissful addition to the studio. Running a Make Noise DPO through this directly in stereo to the mixer. The Winter Modular Eloquencer is playing a randomly changing melody. In addition I use Make Noise Pressure Points to play this very simple repetitive tone, triggering the Synthesis Technology E350 Oscillator, which is then running through the Make Noise Erbe-Verb. I mixed live radio signals throughout, not auditioning what was broadcast, just recording it directly live. Listen on headphones for the full stereo joys."

Phenol Synth Voices

Published on Apr 26, 2019 Robin Rimbaud-Scanner

"What you are hearing is just the voices of the Kilpatrick Audio Phenol synthesiser, one of my very favourite instruments, self patched, so it's playing itself. No additional effects. What's interesting is that I thought I could hear voices in the music in the opening minute, as if someone were chatting through the walls, but thankfully it was just the synth itself :-)"

Scanner Reel Easel SamplePlay

Published on Apr 25, 2019 Todd Barton

"Okay! Last exploration for awhile of Robin Rimbaud's Scanner Reel from https://freesound.org for the MakeNoise Morphagene. I really have to get back to my projects but this reel is addicting. The Buchla Easel is controlling various parameters on the Morphagene."

Scanner EaselGene Drivin

Published on Apr 24, 2019 Todd Barton

"More playtime with Robin Rimbaud's Morphagene reel from MakeNoise at http://freesound.org. Using the Easel to drive the Morphagene. The first sounds you hear are the Easel then the Morphagene slides in. . ."

Scanner Morphagene Reel Easel Control

Published on Apr 23, 2019 Todd Barton

"Go to https://freesound.org and grab Robin Rimbaud's (aka Scanner) Makenoise Morphagene reel! This is just a single sample off the 2'22" reel being slid and resized with CVs from the Buchla Easel. . . It's an awesome reel!"