Yamaha CS-60 synthesizer noodling

Published on Oct 27, 2016 raycastile

Very Vangelis!

Video description:
"Yay! I finally have a Yamaha CS-60 synthesizer. I went through a lot of grief to get this. It was not in good working order when I received it. Dan Manning of Gateway Music Gear LLC worked to restore it. He completed Part 1 of the restoration, then let me have it back for a few weeks. Now he has to take it back to his workshop to finish it. Before I lose it again for a month, I want to enjoy playing it a bit. There's some distortion and ghost notes, and the pitch ribbon sometimes goes crazy. All that should be fixed in Part 2 of the restoration. Dan is a good tech and I know he will bring this grand old synth fully back to life. But even with its issues, it sounds pretty good! It was not playable before Dan worked on it. (You don't want to buy a CS 50/60/80 without first identifying a good synth tech within reasonable driving distance of your house.)

This video is nothing extraordinary. I'm just fiddling around, playing with the different sounds. In the background, I have a MoroderNova (it's behind my head) playing an arpeggiated D major chord, and a Korg M1 (you can see the corner peeking into frame on the far right) playing a repeating D note using the Roland XP-30's arpeggiator. Then I have a D-50 holding a sustained D major chord.

Sorry for the poor audio quality. This was an impromptu video. I just propped my iPhone on the edge of a chair and started filming. It looks like the audio is out of sync with the video. Not sure how that happened. In the future, I'll shoot something that looks and sounds better. But at least I have a video record of this synth's existence before it leaves me again."

Update:

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Ieaskul F. Mobenthey Eurorack Modules From Ciat-Lonbarde's Peter Blasser

via Control

"Peter Blasser's - Ieaskul F. Mobenthey modules are now In-Stock. Couldn't be happier to have Peter's stuff in-stock, he's been pushing the limits of instrument design and the philosophy behind it for years with Ciat-Lonbarde and very much encompasses the ideals of what we find inspiring about synthesis, electronics and the makers who make them. Limited Qty available."

Details on each, captured for the MATRIXSYNTH archives, follow. You'll find a video of them previously posted here.

"Ieaskul F. Mobenthey - Denum

The Denum module is essentially a bounds/bounce oscillator. It has the “triangle core” circuitry used in many
oscillators, but it adds a correlated bounds modulation, according to the concept (see below). Here, bounds and
bounce are each given equal treatment, with separate linear and exponential controls and inputs. In addition,
this module has a fully featured bi-polar VCA with complimentary inputs, to get you quickly going sending
“bb-objets” out the left and right channels.

Denum is an 8HP Eurorack module that runs on +12 and -12 volts. Attach power connector positive to “+” and
negative to “-”. Failure to follow proper power polarity will result in instant destruction of unit.

Looking at the front panel of Denum, note that inputs are marked by copper fill. There are three main sections:
bounce, bounds, and the VCA. Bounce is above bounds to emphasize the numerator/denominator relationship
of the two. Each of the two has exactly the same inputs and knobs. The “basis” knob sets the base rate or
position for bounds. There is a linear control input, marked by a a caret. Linear modulation is an alternative
input for pre-enveloped audio, since it has no attenuverter. However, the exponential control input is tied to an
attenuverter, marked by a characteristic bow-tie. An attenuverter works like this: at noon the modulations are
nulled out, they have no effect; clockwise from there they increase in intensity, with positive input meaning
“more”; to the counter-clockwise direction, modulations increase as well, but with negative input meaning
“more”. This knob is essential to controlling how much, and in which direction, your modulations apply.
Between the bounds and bounce areas, there is a range switch. When in middle position, Denum runs at a
standard audio rate. Pointing downward is a low audio rate, and pointing upwards is a definite CV, lowest rate.

The triangle output speaks the position of the waveform in voltage, and square expresses the frequency in terms of
negative and positive 10 volts. The triangle output is bussed into the left and right audio inputs of the VCA,
at bottom. Either can be swapped out for external audio energies, via the “left, right signal inserts”. The “left,
right VCA inputs” are for controlling the amplitude of the signals, with either a linear or exponential mapping. If the
left input is greater than right, sound goes out the “left out”. If right is greater than left, sound goes out the
“right out”. The voltage amount of difference maps to loudness in these channels. The “linear, expo switch”
chooses linear when cocked up, as marked by a caret, and exponential when cocked down, as marked by a
rounded form. There is an optional mute when the switch is in the middle.

About Bounds/Bounce

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New Batch of Synthfest UK 23 Videos

video uploads by sonicstate

Playlist: (you can use the player controls to skip around)

1. Synthfest UK 23: Sequential - Trigon 6 Desktop

At SynthFest UK 2023, we had the opportunity to chat with Chris from Sequential, a part of the Focusrite group. Chris introduced us to the Trigon 6 Desktop, the latest addition to Sequential's synthesizer lineup. This compact desktop version of the Trigon 6 packs a powerful punch, offering three oscillators and a distinctive Dave Smith ladder filter. Designed for those seeking a space-saving solution without compromising on sound quality, the Trigon 6 Desktop retains all the features of its larger sibling, including patch recall, a versatile effects section with various modulation possibilities, and the distinctive feedback control that allows you to sculpt sub-harmonic richness.

Trigon 6 Desktop Price: $2,499

https://www.sequential.com/

2. Synthfest UK 2023: Calc And the Prophet X

At Synthfest UK 2023, we caught up with Calc from Sequential, and he gave us the lowdown on the Prophet X. Now, you might be thinking, Prophet X? Haven't we seen that before? Well, you're right, but this hybrid instrument has been quietly making waves in the music world. It combines digital and analog elements, with digital oscillators and a unique twist in the form of multi-sample-based instruments. Yes, you heard that right, it's not just your run-of-the-mill synth; it's a full-on sampler too, boasting an impressive 50 gigabytes of memory for your custom samples. You can treat it like a rompler, a sample player, or even use those samples as oscillators, creating a whole new realm of sonic possibilities.

Plus, it's packed with stereo goodness, allowing you to explore a wide soundstage with ease. It's not your typical synth, and that's what makes its a favourute of Calc's

Looking for some more info on the Prophet X? Check out Sequential's official page: www.sequential.com/prophet-x/

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"Bob Moog Live" CD and Release Party Announcement

"Bob Moog Foundation and Dan Lewis Announce CD Release Party for Bob Moog Live

September 22, 2010 – The Bob Moog Foundation and Asheville composer/musician Dan Lewis announce the world premiere and release party for a historic live concert recording, Bob Moog Live. The premiere event will take place on October 10, 2010, at the Lexington Avenue Brewery in Asheville, NC, from 3:30–6:00 p.m. Admission is $7, with proceeds benefiting the Bob Moog Foundation.

Bob Moog Live is the only known recording of synthesizer pioneer Bob Moog publicly performing on his famous Minimoog, the best selling analog synthesizer of all time. Created in 1970, the Minimoog celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The Bob Moog Live recording took place on November 23, 1980, at the Asheville Art Museum and captured a performance by Moog, Abbott & Lewis. Local musicians Dan Lewis and Mike Abbott, an accomplished synthesist, rounded out the trio on keyboards, guitar, and ukelin. Lewis and Abbott performed with Moog twice in Asheville in the summer and fall of 1980. The CD features the latter performance along with sterling rehearsal sessions.

Lewis and Abbott composed all the music on the CD. Lewis, who preserved the recordings for the last 30 years, brought this project to the forefront. He produced the album to highlight a historic event and to create a fundraising mechanism for the Bob Moog Foundation. The CD, described as electronic neoclassical music, features excerpts from Moog, Abbott & Lewis’s live concert tape. Subtitled "The Gig Tape," it was originally recorded on 1/4-inch analog tape, thanks to Mike Abbott’s forethought.

The CD will be available exclusively through the Bob Moog Foundation's online store beginning on October 11, 2010. In addition to original music and instrumentation, the CD features Moog speaking candidly between songs about a variety of subjects ranging from the capabilities of electronic musical instruments to his life during that time period. At the time of the recording, Moog had recently left the company he started 25 years prior and moved from New York to North Carolina, where he started a new business, Big Briar, Inc.

Bob Moog passed away in 2005, and Abbott in 2003. Lewis remains in the Asheville area as audio engineer and arranger/producer at Acoustic Audio Recording in Hendersonville.

The Bob Moog Live event on October 10 will be a multilayered "happening" that includes listening to samples of the CD and brief informal lectures by Dan Lewis and by Bob Moog Foundation Executive Director Michelle Moog-Koussa. Live original music performed by Dan Lewis on guitar and synthesizers as well as an improvisational synthesizer jam featuring top area keyboardists performing on Moog synthesizers will provide live experimental synthesis as the musical backdrop for the evening. Jeff Knorr (The Funknastics), MaryFrances (Emyrael), Ben Hovey (Asheville Horns), and others will join Lewis on stage. A small exhibit of Minimoog material from Bob Moog's Archives will be on display.

Attendance is limited to 100, so early arrival is suggested. The event begins at 3:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and doors open at 3 p.m.

"While the recording is not 21st-century high fidelity, we realized it allows the listener to 'attend' a somewhat historic event and experience the only known opportunity to hear Bob speak, tell stories, and perform on his most famous invention, the Minimoog. In that sense, the recording is unique," said Lewis. The CD will be available for purchase at the event.

Michelle Moog-Koussa said, “It was rare to hear my father at the piano when I was growing up. It was even more rare that he would perform. The Bob Moog Live CD is indeed a treasure and a unique glimpse into a time in Bob Moog's life when he was taking a break from his professional life. He was relaxed, and that comes through in his commentary and playing.”

The proceeds from the event and CD sales will support the Bob Moog Foundation, whose mission is to educate and inspire children and adults through electronic music. The Foundation is currently working on its educational goal of creating a curriculum with professors at UNC-Asheville that will teach K–8 children science through electronic music, and its historical goal of preserving and sharing Bob Moog's extensive archives.

Online CD sales will be available after the event on the Bob Moog Foundation website at www.moogfoundation.org/shop."

THE ABSOLUT MACHINES

via Christian:
"Hi Matrix!
Christian from Stockholm here. I'm working with the ABSOLUT MACHINES project that ABSOLUT VODKA is doing in collaboration with MIT Graduates Dan Paluska/Jeff Lieberman and Swedish studio Teenage Engineering. You might have heard of it already, but now we've got new images of the machines, new info and the New York gallery has opened.

Paluska/Lieberman have made a large-scale multi-instrumental installation that is quite spectacular. It is called ABSOLUT QUARTET and will be shown at a guerilla gallery on 186 Orchard Street in Manhattan, NYC during until the end of April.

Teenage Engineering’s machine is a robotic choir with an advanced speach synthesis function in the back end. ABSOLUT CHOIR is shown at Restaurant Publik in Stockholm until the end of April.

Both machines are really amazing and all about exploring artificial creativity and what happens when technology meet art, design and music. Online users from around the world can interact with the machines and create music with them at http://www.absolutmachines.com."

The press release:
"A TRULY PIONEERING TECHNOLOGY PROJECT FROM ABSOLUT
Interactive ins tallations let online visitors create mu sic with intelligent machines ABSOLUT is presenting a project that explores what happens when cutting-edge technology meets the creativity of art, music and design. To emphasize its deep commitment to the subject, ABSOLUT turned to some of the greatest technology visionary teams of our time, and asked them to create the ABSOLUT MACHINES. The result is two artificially creative and highly interactive music-making machines, as visually stunning as they are technologically pioneering.

The ABSOLUT MACHINES are shown in New York and Stockholm - and online user from around the world can interact with the machines at absolutmachines.com. This project marks the first collaboration between premium vodka brand ABSOLUT and cutting-edge visionaries from the world of technology. The ABSOLUT MACHINES are designed by Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman, both with a background from MIT in Boston, and Teenage Engineering, a Swedish studio in the fields of media, art and technology. “Technology is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives and is a key driver for
contemporary culture. With the ABSOLUT MACHINES, we explore how technology merges with creativity, and we are thrilled to have such fantastic visionaries with us on this journey”, says Ulrika Lövdahl, responsible for trend communications at V&S Absolut Spirits.

The ABSOLUT MACHINES will be launched globally in early February 2008. Users from around the world will be able to interact with the machines over the Internet. The input from online users will be processed by the machines, which will respond with a unique musical composition – co-created by man and machine. The machines will immediately perform the songs, and their performances will be live-streamed to a global audience at absolutmachines.com.

For the ABSOLUT MACHINES, Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman have created the “ABSOLUT QUARTET”, an automated multi-instrumental orchestral machine, which does not look like anything you have ever seen before. It is a large-scale electromechanical sculpture consisting of three instruments and thousands of parts, working together to create one piece of music. The main timbre is a marimba played by balls shot from a robotic cannon. Other components include a series of wineglasses played by little robotic fingers and an array of robotic percussive instruments. “ABSOLUT has collaborated with great artists such as Andy Warhol, Tom Ford and Louise Bourgeois. ABSOLUT has the tradition of the past masters as well as the vision to do something new.

Of course we were excited when they asked us if we wanted to be part of a project exploring artificial creativity”, says Dan Paluska.

Teenage Engineering has constructed the “ABSOLUT CHOIR”, a multi-channel robotic choir, made up by 22 singing characters of various shapes and sizes. It is an architectural installation with an advanced framework of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence software at the back end."

Update: a video on the project
Absolut Machines Intro<
YouTube via GustavoZilles

And examples of how the results may sound made by users:

Stockholm machine:
Absolut Music Madness


New York machine:
absolut machine LES


http://www.absolutmachines.com/

Mystery Synth - Korg 700s/770 Prototype?

Published on Apr 15, 2013

"I found this "mystery synth" at a garage sale this weekend. It appears very similar to a Korg 700s, but upon closer examination there are clear differences. The second oscillator has it's own waveform and pitch selector, for example. And the style of sliders and controls are certainly different than those found on a 700s.

If you know anything about this instrument, please let me know!

At any rate it's a great sounding synth!"

This one in via via Dan Goldstein who found the synth. Talk about an amazing find.
Click here for a pic of the inside of a Mini-KORG 700.  Update: also click here for one more.  Note two of the boards appear to match but this mystery synth has one more. I couldn't find any of the inside of a 770 to compare.  If you search for KORG 770 or KORG 700s you will see the controls are similar but different.  With that we are left with two possibilities, this is either a very nicely done DIY synth composed of vintage KORG parts or a KORG prototype that fell somewhere within the 700 series.



And details also posted on gearslutz: "Here's everything I know about it:

I found this instrument on CraigsList, posted at a garage sale here in Las Vegas. The seller said that he'd purchased it on eBay not knowing what it was, and that he believed it was "built by a guy that worked at Ibanez." That was all the provenance that he was able to provide. The instrument was clearly so bizarre that I had to take it home and find out more about it. It does work, mostly, and it certainly has a unique sound despite it's incredibly strange architecture, which I'll describe below.

I opened it up, eagerly hoping for clues about its origins, but what I found deepened the mystery further. As you can see in the photos below, the circuity of this synthesizer is totally discreet. There are some metal can-style Op Amps, namely 741HC and MN131A, which would seem to date this in the early 70s. There are no markings of any sort on the circuit boards, just hand-labeled numbers by the patch points on the circuit boards. I can't find any sort of name anywhere, though the words "Made In Japan" are on the 1/4" output panel.

The architecture of this instrument is incredibly bizarre. It features two standard oscillators. Oscillator one has triangle, square, and sawtooth waveforms, plus a "Chorus 1" and "Chorus 2" setting that seem to be chorused sawtooth waves. Oscillator two features triangle, square, sawtooth, a thinner square wave, and reverse sawtooth. Then there's a third sort of oscillator, which is switchable between noise and what I think is some sort of ring-modulator that operates on Oscillator One. There's a global tuning knob but no fine-tune knobs for the oscillators.

Things get weird after that. There's an attack-release envelope for the VCA, and that's the only envelope you get. There's a resonant low-pass filter and a resonant high-pass filter, but no resonance knob, so you're stuck with a single cutoff control for each filter. The low and high cutoff filters are sort of "ganged" together so that you can't move the Lowpass cutoff above the Highpass cutoff - they move together once they meet, if that makes sense. There's an LFO that seems to be fixed at a triangle wave, and it can be routed to frequency or filter or both, and there's some sort of vibrato delay switch that doesn't seem to do anything. There's also a Repeat switch and speed control that will cause the envelope to retrigger, which is pretty cool. There are some other bizarre controls too, including a "Bright" switch that makes the sound brighter, an "Expand" switch that doesn't really do much of anything, and a "Bender" switch that causes notes to quickly bend up to the pressed key (I remember a similar feature on the Roland VP330, for example).

There's a 3-position sustain switch that goes from "Short" to "Long" and determines if the envelope continues after you've released a key. It works fine, but as soon as you release a key the frequency of the note played drops to some lower, random value. Perhaps the sample-and-hold is not working right.

The cabinet and design is clearly Minimoog inspired, but it's not a Minimoog case. My first thought was that this was a home-made synth of some kind but I'm very doubtful after spending time with it. The silkscreening is very professionally done, the cabinet is all custom-made with interesting angles. There's even a sort of thumb screw on the bottom that lets you lock down the folding-up synth portion of the instrument for transport. Everything about the instrument seems to suggest it was professionally made. The only outputs are a Low and High audio output. There are no inputs at all, no bend wheel or mod wheel, though there's clearly space for such a thing. The lack of basic features (i.e. sustain & release envelope stages, fine tune, resonance amount, etc.) and the addition of unusual features (repeat, bender, etc.) make for one odd combination. And the fact that I can't find any label anywhere makes this a serious synthesizer mystery.

I've owned an awful lot of analog synthesizers and have read decades worth of magazines and web sites, and I've never seen anything like this. Does anyone here have any insight at all into what this might be? Perhaps it's a kit synth from the 70s, like a PAIA design of some kind? Perhaps this was a prototype for a product that never got built? The components date it to the early 70s, so perhaps some company was attempting to challenge the Minimoog and decided against it? If anyone has any information at all on what this could be, I'd sure appreciate it! I'm happy to answer any questions about this synth."

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DK Synergy II+ Synthesizer with Kaypro II PC SN 01272

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"The listing is for a Digital Keyboards Synergy II+ synthesizer with Kaypro II PC in great condition! One of the first premium digital synthesizers manufactured in the US , The synth is based on Dr. Hal Alles from Bell Labs synthesizer architecture.This model is the programmable version and has the solid wood casing which only came out with the very early serial numbers. The wood was replaced by tolex to reduce cost in following years. Approx 700 total Synergy units were made of which about 300 were said to be the upgraded programmable version.It is estimated that only 100 or so units are still operational today of which about 20% are the higher end wooden case version. When the Synergy II + hit the market in the early 80s, they were going for upwards of $10K for the wooden programmable version with Kaypro PC. The DX7 came out with their FM synthesis in 83 for $2500 and changed the entire synth industry. After that DK was dumping their units for under $7K with Kaypro and eventually went under in 1985. I payed $5,450 (including shipping) for this unit 8 months ago so for a 30 year old rare synth , it is still holding it's value.

The Synergy II+ 's Kaypro II PC is in great shape as well with two functional drives and the 1980s style green light screen resolution is still very prominent. You can find Kaypro PCs for sale on eBay should you ever need a back up. The sale includes everything you see in the photos- Synergy synth, Kaypro PC and keyboard, null modem cable to RS232 port ,original operational manual for the synth( not a copy), instructions for understanding the Kaypro and the complete Synergy library.The library includes close to 500 patches. It includes the L1-L13 FDs, VCART1-VCART6 FDs and Wendy Carlos Library( WENDY 1-WENDY3 FDs). All library, diagnostic, software systems and boot disks have been backed up with multiple copies, anywhere between 4-6 sets of each. The sale also includes a 2 hour video made by the original owner who purchased this synth as a floor model in 1983. The video on DVD is well thought out as well as his written start up instructions to get a new owner going. You definitely want to review the video and documents to understand the nuances using the synth and PC software . Included are the original documents listing the names and categories of the library disks and patches/voices in alphabetical order and by instrument or sound type. Other documents include synth schematics, pin schematics if you want to make your own null modem cables and addendum released by DK.

This synthesizer is definitely not for the touring musician or quick knob turning gratification player. This synth is typically purchased as a collectors piece or a programmers synth who enjoys sound sculpting for personal pleasure or studio recording. This synth has unique architecture and very sophisticated envelope control . What makes the Synergy II+ unique even to this day is that you voice each oscillator twice for both frequency and amplitude and you have 16 different envelope points for each envelope. So you get to control how each voice changes in response to velocity. For example, you might choose to have a phase modulated envelope that rises very sharply at low velocities and dies off fast, but at high velocity(loud notes) it rises less sharply and dies off much more slowly. Or you could do the opposite with the carrier envelope scheme which means the loudness envelope of the timbre operates normally with a sharper attack the harder you press the key but a shorter decay at louder amplitudes. Since you can define two 16 point frequency envelopes for each oscillator and you are dealing with phase modulation, you can have sound going from strictly harmonic overtones to inharmonic partials and back again over time or set it up to go inharmonic to harmonic and back again. And this effect is with just two oscillators. Typical Synergy II+ patches use 3-6 oscillators so you can also detune them to get chorus effects. Another reason to set up multiple chains of oscillators for a patch is to have different sets of overtones moving in and out of harmony against one another which gives you very complex timbral effects like you would get with real instruments. Another reason to use multiple oscillators is so you can combine additive synthesis with phase modulation to create some very realistic percussive sounds like bells or chimes using subharmonics of the fundamental of a note to create that low hum that is not harmonically related to the timbre ,but present in real percussive instruments.There is a reason that Wendy Carlos still has two Synergy GDS units among her gear of only 5 remaining keyboards.

For those not familiar with the Synergy, there is a good website if you Google DIgital Keyboards Synergy Preservation Page.Also there are several YouTube videos on this unit. However, here are the basics:

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Dave Smith Instruments In The Spotlight With the Prophet-6 and Dan Zank

You can find the full interview on DSI's website here.

"Starting out his career primarily as a jazz piano player, Dan Zank has toured the world with a host of artists ranging from Maynard Ferguson to Blood Sweat & Tears. Dan eventually left behind a life on the road to work as a full-time composer for Yessian Music. Through Yessian, Dan has composed music for television, including show themes, live events, and commercial music for many global brands. He has also worked extensively in the Themed Entertainment and Experiential industries, scoring attractions in multiple cities throughout the United States, UAE, China, and Europe.

His work has been recorded or performed by The Budapest Film Orchestra, Bratislava Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Seattle Music Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony and St. Louis Symphony orchestras, and he has worked in some of the most famed studios throughout the world, including recent work at Abbey Road Studios in London, and George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in California.

Dan’s work as a composer and arranger has garnered a multitude of awards, including New York Festivals awards, Addy awards, two London International Awards, a Telly Award, an AMP Award, and multiple D Show Awards. Dan has also received Best Original Score and #1 Music/Sound Design Chart accolades from Creativity, Screen, and Shoot Magazines.

We chatted with Dan about how he’s using the Prophet-6 and OB-6."

You can find previous posts featuring DSI's Spotlight series here.

Snazzy FX: Mini-Ark, Tracer City and Wow and Flutter

via Kayzer on Harmony Central

"I picked these babys up on Friday from Thilo who is running the German Pedal shop effektboutique, props to this guy for getting me the Snazzy Landmines from the very first batch! Its probably the heaviest New Pedal Day of my life since these Boxes are Gigantic and Heavy as f**k! They are very well made and will properly withstand a 3rd world war…

The Mini Ark is an analog harmoniser, synth style pedal that adds up to 3 harmonies to your guitar signal, variouse vibrato shapes and noisy soundscapes, infinite hold of harmonies via infinity switch (while still be able to play over the hold note), sustain mode holds the note you are playing until you play a new one that will be hold and so on… The Mini Ark also has a CV out, that means you can connect it to the CV in of other pedals and control these. That’s a pretty sick feature and I will get a demo of this up as soon as possible… The Tracking is quite nice and the sound is very thick n chewy…!

The WOW and Flutter could be described as Envelope Pitch Vibrato Delay! It can be used as a normal delay or delay with a nice amount of modulation but where the pedal really shines are sick twisted down pitched repeats depending on how hard you pick… While playing some nice delayed and slightly picked stuff you can change your picking style and hit the strings a bit harder and stop the chord to achieve down pitched vibrato repeat insanity!

The Tracer City is probably the Pedal with the most knobs and switches I ve ever seen in my whole live. I will come up with a demo of this beast later since time was short and I focused on doing demos for the other 2 pedals! Feel free to subscribe to my youtube to dont miss these upcoming clips...

Dan Snazzle watched my videos and asked me about sharing his thoughts and additional infos with you. Here we go:

Quote:
"'Hi this is Dan with some answers to questions

1. The wow and flutter is a digital delay that is analog voiced. You can set it to do very basic normal delay.

2. The mini-ark can work for fast input signals (nintendo sounds, drum beats, etc) BUT you have to set the gate/sustain switch to GATE and mess with the INPUT SENS control. (all sources act a bit differently) and put the magical selector into preset one.

Also, you want to turn the HOLD knob to zero in those cases. The knob labelled HOLD is a normal octave down that is taken BEFORE the Octave and Interval switches. So it is much dirtier and is great for having an octave once you kick in the infinite turn on but often just adds grunge to the input (which is sometimes a great thing and sometimes makes it harder to get clean tracking)

I noticed in Dennis's videos that it was turned up. There is nothing wrong with turning it up BUT you get a much different sound when you turn it down. I also like to mess with using mainly dirty input and just a hair of octave and interval. There are so many ways you can change your sound buy just using the mixer section.

Also, depending on how high you set the octaves, you get a much more "normal" sound that responds differently. Presets 2-8 are meant for vibrato and will not track as quickly since they arent meant to.

thanks so much guys!!! and thanks dennis for the great videos!

dan'"

see this post for the videos

via Analogue Haven's flickr feed.

"Three new pedals from Snazzy FX have arrived! For more details: www.analoguehaven.com/snazzyfx/."

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Reminder: SNAZZY FX at Control Tomorrow, August 10 at 7 PM

SNAZZY FX LIVE AT CONTROL AUG 10 2017

Published on Oct 7, 2017 Control Synthesizers & Electronic Devices

"Dan Snazelle of SnazzyFX visits Control for an evening lecture and electronic music demonstration, with a special ear to five new modules released just this year (2017): HI_GAIN, KICK_ME, eternal spring, kitty eyes + dual Multiplier.

Dan started SnazzyFX in 2009. Among his first electronic devices were released were pedal (stomp) boxes at NAMM 2010 and he has designed for a number of formats since. But as Dan says, "It is not the format that matters but the ethos."

We hope this video gives you a taste of that ethos. To get deeper into SnazzyFX and the modules, try here:

http://snazzyfx.com/instruction/

+ visit us at Control to play the instruments i.r.l.

Control is a brick + mortar shop specializing in unique electronic music devices. Located at 416 Lorimer St. in Brooklyn, NY, we are open 7 days from 12-8pm. Stop by to get your hands on some of these electronic instruments and for one of our equally unique in-store events.

www.ctrl-mod.com
instagram @ctrlmod"

CONTROL
416 LORIMER ST. #1L
BROOKLYN NY 11206
INFO@CTRL-MOD.COM
347.699.2875

"JOIN US THIS THURSDAY AUGUST 10 AT 7PM FOR A LIVE TALK AND TOUR THROUGH SNAZZY FX'S *5 NEW MODULES* WITH FOUNDER AND DESIGNER DAN SNAZELLE

SNAZZY DISCUSSES HIS CONCEPT, DEVELOPMENT & SHOWS THE WEIRD FUN YOU CAN HAVE WITH THE NEW:

KICK_ME SNAZZY’S FIRST STEP INTO THE WORLD OF DRUM MODULES is two kicks in one: KICK A is pitch controllable and with 4 tweakable parameters can create a wide variety of kick styles, from tight rock kicks to blown out techno bass drums + KICK B features control of decay designed for MAXIMUM SUB-BASS.

KITTY EYES SNAZZY FX LOVES CHAOS. No, not chaos in the sense of everything going crazy, but chaos in the natural systems, dripping faucets, fractal sense. Kitty Eyes has most of the features of our bigger chaos modules but with a lower price and footprint. PURRFECT FOR EXPERIMENTING.

THE ETERNAL SPRING FILTER SNAZZY SAYS: ' WEIRD filter of my own design (not based on anything classic). Think of it as a character filter --- quite intense at some settings, while nice and acidic at others. Doesn't sound like any other filter I own...Adds harmonics in some regions while removing others. Has interesting non-linearity in the Q section which allows for instability, even chaos at some settings ! '

HI_GAIN Enter a world of trash. A world of scraping hi-hats, smashed up kicks, beautiful clipped white noise, broken file cabinets, disused railway cars...The HI_GAIN was designed to create noise, to pump up the hiss, to boost asymmetrical happiness for super acidic bass lines and more. Like other Snazzy FX modules, the HI_GAIN encourages play with capital P - cross couple/feedback/mix outputs/send CV. Repeat.

DUAL MULTIPLIER For quick creation of varied timbres, Snazzy's four quadrant multiplier is similar to the classic ring modulator with attenuation control over all four inputs, giving you tweakability to create a variety of effects: tremolo, pitched noise, vca capabilities, spectral shifts in vocal samples, analog computing patches +++

LIVE AT CONTROL TOMORROW 7PM"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Podcast 273: Dan Goldstein (Cherry Audio)

Published on Apr 21, 2019 20Objects

"Dan Goldstein has been living his dream for 20 years. He started off with Sonic Foundry - back in the golden days - creating the future of audio software from scratch. He went on to be a main developer of Mixcraft, and has recently been involved in the release of Cherry Audio's Voltage Modular synth software. It's a powerhouse, and you can tell that Dan is really excited about it.

We took the opportunity to roll through some of his history, and I learned a lot about Sonic Foundry's world. But I also got a chance to see the trajectory of a guy - in Dan - that knew what he loved, and spent a lot of effort pursuing it. You hear it in his voice; despite the fact that he's been doing it for 20 years, he sounds as excited as a teen with his first car.

It was cool to talk to Dan about history, but also about his current work on Voltage Modular. If you are interested in playing around with a new kind of virtual modular, you should check it out - it's breaking some new ground, and is a blast to play with. You can check it out at https://cherryaudio.com/

Enjoy!"

Diy Drum Sampler Nein O Neng Wemos D1 mini

video upload by GlakGlikGluk

"909 style drum" in the editor. The following video description is in Indonesian. You can find a Google translation in English further below.

"Diy Drum Sampler Trigger
Nein O Neng
ESP Wemos D1 mini
.
Modul Drum ini di buat dengan ESP Wemos D1mini Micro controller berbasis Wav to Code dengan Output PWM 16 bit 41kHz dan input pemicu maksimal 3v per channelnya, saya sudah membuatkan skema dan codingannya jika kalian ingin membuatnya sendiri
.
Link :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jubq...
.
Perhatian agar di cermati !
Gunakan pemicu di bawah 3v jika tidak kalian akan merusaknya, di skema tidak terpasang saklar pemicu kalian bisa memasangnya sendiri
.
Jika kalian menggunakan pemicu di atas 3v gunakan rangkaian pemicu transistor NPN sebagai gerbang pin per channelnya, jika menggunakan catu daya simetris kalian harus menambahkan dioda schottky sebagai pengaman gerbang input dan output agar tidak terjadi konslet tegangan negatif
.
Pesan saya tetaplah berusaha dan jangan pernah menyerah untuk belajar, ingat kegagalan adalah sebuah proses dari keberhasilan dan bekaryalah walaupun itu burik
.
#diysynth #drumsynthesizer #microcontroller #espwemosd1mini"

Googlish:

"Diy Drum Sampler Trigger
Nein O Neng
ESP Wemos D1 mini
.
This Drum Module is made with ESP Wemos D1mini Micro controller based on Wav to Code with 16 bit 41kHz PWM Output and max trigger input 3v per channel, I've made a schematic and coding if you want to make it yourself
.
Link :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jubq...
.
Caution to be careful!
Use a trigger below 3v otherwise you will damage it, in the schematic is not installed trigger switch you can install it yourself
.
If you use a trigger above 3v use a NPN transistor trigger circuit as a gate pin per channel, if using a symmetrical power supply you have to add a schottky diode as input and output gate safety so that there is no negative voltage short circuit
.
My message is keep trying and never give up on learning, remember failure is a process of success and work even if it's messy
.
#diysynth #drumsynthesizer #microcontroller # espwemosd1mini"

Akai Introduces MPCX and MPCLIVE Standalone Music Production Centers & MPC Software v2.0

Published on Jan 9, 2017 AkaiProVideo

Playlist:
Introducing the Next Generation of MPC: X and Live
Standalone Challenge: Bryan Michael-Cox
MPC Lounge: Clip Launch
MPC Lounge: Audio Tracks
Standalone Challenge: Zaytoven
Sound on Sound Akai Pro — MPC X Overview & Demo
Sound on Sound Akai Pro — MPC Live Overview & Demo

"The next generation of MPC is here. Introducing the MPC X and MPC Live, brand new standalone Music Production Centers powered by MPC 2.0 software. Separate from the Pack. Standalone.

MPC X Features:
• Standalone MPC – no computer required
• 10.1” full-color multi-touch display
• Also acts as a control surface for MPC 2.0 software
• 16 Touch-capacitive Q-Link controls with OLED displays
• Turntable (RCA) inputs with ground peg
• 16GB of on-board storage (over 10GB of sound content included)
• User-expandable 2.5” SATA drive connector (SSD or HDD)
• 2 MIDI inputs, 4 MIDI Outputs
• 8 configurable CV/Gate outputs for the analog control of modular gear, such as classic synths
• 2 USB-A 3.0 slots for thumb drives or MIDI controllers
• Ableton Link and WiFi will be supported in future updates

MPC Live Features:
• Standalone MPC – no computer required
• 7-inch full-color multi-touch display
• Also acts as a control surface for MPC 2.0 software
• Internal, rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• Turntable (RCA) inputs with ground peg
• 16GB of on-board storage (over 10GB of sound content included)
• User-expandable 2.5” SATA drive connector (SSD or HDD)
• 2 pairs of MIDI inputs and outputs
• 2GB of RAM
• SD Card slot
• 2 USB-A 3.0 slots for thumb drives or MIDI controllers
• Ableton Link and WiFi will be supported in future updates

MPC 2.0 Software Features
• New graphical interface
• Audio track recording
• Real-time time-stretching and pitch-shifting
• Clip Program mode for clip launching workflow
• Reimagined mixer layout – resizable faders, an adaptive channel strip, a dedicated audio track
editing window, resizable waveform view
• Advanced signal routing capability - submixes, FX returns, multi-output plugin support
• More efficient and streamlined MPC workflow
• Audio and MIDI drag and drop
• Enhanced QLink Control"

And the press releases:

"AKAI® PROFESSIONAL REIGNS SUPREME WITH NEW MPC® XTM, THE ULTIMATE STANDALONE BEAT PRODUCTION EXPERIENCE

Standalone Music Production Center goes back to the future to deliver the most powerful beat production machine to date

Cumberland, RI USA (January 9, 2017) — Akai Professional, a leading manufacturer of music equipment for performers and producers, today announced the newest addition to the iconic MPC line, the MPC X. In creating the X, Akai Professional has taken the lessons from every MPC that preceded it to engineer a production centerpiece truly fit to be the flagship Music Production Center of the future.

The new MPC X is a standalone MPC featuring a beautiful, full-color 10.1” multi-touch screen and 16 amazingly responsive, velocity- and pressure-sensitive RGB pads. Rounding out the controls are dedicated menu buttons, a large master encoder knob and 16 touch-sensitive 360o assignable pots (Q- Links) with OLED displays, perfect for precisely automating individual parameters and delivering expressively nuanced recordings.

Powering the mighty X is MPC 2.0TM, Akai Professional’s new update to the MPC software. Capable of running natively on the MPC X in standalone mode, MPC 2.0 can also be run from a Mac or PC with the X tethered to a computer. Among the new features added to 2.0 are: audio track recording, an improved time warp algorithm, enhanced Q-Link control, drag and drop audio/MIDI – all appearing on a new graphical interface.

Features
• Also acts as a control surface for MPC 2.0 software
• 16 Touch-capacitive Q-Link controls with OLED displays
• Turntable (RCA) inputs with ground peg
• 16GB of on-board storage (over 10GB of sound content included)
• User-expandable 2.5” SATA drive connector (SSD or HDD)
• 2 full-size MIDI inputs, 4 full-size MIDI Outputs
• 8 configurable CV/Gate outputs for the analog control of modular gear, such as classic synths
“In creating the concept for the MPC X we wanted to preserve the classic MPC feel and workflow that people love,” said Dan Gill, Product Manager for Akai Professional. “But we turned the idea on its head and incorporated the best of what a modern touch-screen interface can offer. What we have now is the most powerful MPC production experience ever.”
MPC Live will ship with an MSRP of $2999/$2199 MAP and will be available Q1 2017."

"AKAI® PROFESSIONAL ELECTRIFIES BOTH STUDIO AND STAGE WITH GAME-CHANGING MPC® LIVETM

Standalone Music Production Center combines power and portability to deliver pound-for-pound the best MPC to date
Cumberland, RI USA (January 9, 2017) — Akai Professional, a leading manufacturer of music equipment for performers and producers, today announced the newest addition to the iconic MPC line, the MPC Live. Starting with the immersive production workflow and game-altering performance breakthroughs introduced by the MPC Touch, Akai Professional ratchets up the stakes with MPC Live by adding standalone functionality.

At the heart of the new MPC Live is a beautiful, full-color 7-inch multi-touch screen and 16 amazingly responsive, velocity- and pressure-sensitive RGB pads, and a large, clickable master encoder knob. Featuring 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage, Live is as powerful as any MPC that has preceded it. But weighing in at just 5.5 lbs., MPC Live is compact enough to easily transport from studio to stage. The portability is taken even further with this MPC’s ability to run battery-powered via the internal, rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

Powering Live is MPC 2.0TM, Akai Professional’s new update to the MPC software. Capable of running natively on MPC Live in standalone mode, MPC 2.0 can also be run from a Mac or PC with the Live tethered to a computer. Among the new features added to 2.0 are: audio track recording, an improved time warp algorithm, enhanced Q-Link control, drag and drop audio/MIDI – all appearing on a new graphical interface.

Features
• Also acts as a control surface for MPC 2.0 software
• Internal, rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• Turntable (RCA) inputs with ground peg
• 16GB of on-board storage (over 10GB of sound content included)
• User-expandable 2.5” SATA drive connector (SSD or HDD)
• 2 pairs of MIDI inputs and outputs
• 2GB of RAM
• SD Card slot

'The MPC Live is an absolute beast. It truly represents a huge step forward in the product category,” said Dan Gill, Product Manager for Akai Professional. “MPC Live is the most powerful MPC we’ve made to date and yet it’s portable enough to take anywhere.'

MPC Live will ship with an MSRP of $1999/$1199 MAP and will be available Q1 2017."

---

"AKAI® PROFESSIONAL DRIVES CREATIVITY TO NEW HEIGHTS WITH MPC® 2.0 MUSIC PRODUCTION SOFTWARE

Latest version of acclaimed composition software features audio track recording, clip launching, real- time audio warping, Audio and MIDI drag-and-drop, along with enhanced QLinkTM control.
Cumberland, RI USA (January 9, 2017) — Akai Professional, a leading manufacturer of music equipment for performers and producers, is showing their MPC 2.0 at Winter NAMM, the latest version of their acclaimed music production software. Compatible with Mac and PC, MPC 2.0 works either alone as your main DAW or integrates seamlessly with your current DAW as a VST or AU plug-in. It’s available with Akai Professional’s MPC X, MPC Live, MPC Touch and MPC Studio Black.

Reimagined GUI:
MPC Software 2.0’s redesigned GUI offers a vastly improved creative experience that enhances MPC’s revered workflow. Combining a reimagined mixer layout outfitted with resizable faders, an adaptive channel strip, a dedicated audio track editing window, resizable waveform view and much more, MPC Software 2.0 presents the ultimate platform for unrestricted creative versatility alongside must-have tools that deliver unprecedented surgical control.

Audio Tracks:
Capture, edit and mix up to 8 studio-grade resolution audio tracks in standalone mode (MPC X and MPC Live), or expand your track limit to an immense 128 tracks in controller mode. Furnished with critical audio recording functionality - including multi-track capture, selectable monitoring options (Off, On & Auto), monitoring via effects, Punch In/Out Recording and Record Start options – MPC Software 2.0 empowers producers, musicians and performers with core audio-capture and the convenience of full-featured standalone operation.

Edit, Mix, Create:
Used in conjunction with an Akai Professional MPC unit, performers and producers will find that MPC 2.0 will Edit, Mix and Create in a manner unmatched by any other production software. There is a comprehensive suite of audio editing tools: Pointer, Eraser, Audition, Scissors, Fade In, Fade Out, Reverse, Mute, Pitch Adjust and BPM Adjust. For mixing, users can automate any effect, instrument or mixer parameter. With its advanced signal routing capability—submixes, FX returns, multi-output plugin support (up to 16 stereo outputs) and more—there is virtually no limit to the versatility on tap for the artist.

Manipulate Tempo or Pitch:
With MPC Software 2.0, total-command of user’s audio is possible courtesy of a new real-time time- stretching and pitch shifting algorithm. Change the duration of any audio region, drum/keygroup sample or clip to match the tempo of your project with MPC Software’s real-time time-stretching or, use real- time high-quality pitch shifting to change the pitch of any audio region, drum/keygroup sample or clip for creative manipulation or to change the key of the source material. MPC 2.0 makes it easy to manipulate the time and pitch of any source material: a chopped vocal in an audio track, a drum loop in a clip program or an orchestral phrase loaded into a chromatic sampler program.

Perform:
For performers, MPC 2.0 brings their presentation to the next level. MPC Software’s XYFX and a Phrase Looper now combines with an all-new Clip Program mode powered by MPC’s real-time warping algorithm, providing users with an intuitive clip launch workflow and the ultimate platform for creative versatility. Features like Enhanced Q-Link functionality for precision control mapping of MPCs editable functions and selectable hardware outputs providing seamless assimilation into multiple usage scenarios make MPC 2.0 a powerful creative tool.

Versatility:

MPC 2.0 is versatile and adaptable as well. It supports WAV, MP3, AIFF, REX and SND, as well as supporting samples and sequences from any MPC ever made. There is full 64-bit support in all versions: standalone, VST, AAX and AU.
MPC Software v2.0

• Completely new graphical interface
• Audio track recording
• Real-time time-stretching and pitch-shifting
• Clip Program mode for clip launching workflow
• Reimagined mixer layout – resizable faders, an adaptive channel strip, a dedicated audio track
editing window, resizable waveform view and more
• Advanced signal routing capability - submixes, FX returns, multi-output plugin support (up to 16
stereo outputs) and more
• More efficient and streamlined MPC workflow
• Audio and MIDI drag and drop
• Enhanced QLink Control

“MPC 2.0 is the next generation of Akai Professional music production software, perfected by over a year of intense R & D,” said Dan Gill, Product Manager for Akai Professional. “This software suite really energizes the creative process for performers and producers alike, and is an indispensable part of our MPC’s amazing capability.”
MPC 2.0 is bundled with Akai Professional MPC hardware, and is available in Q1 2017. It will be available separately as an update for existing MPC customers at a later date, price TBD.
For more information, visit akaipro.com."

Bob Moog Foundation Gives Sneak-Peek of Spectrasonics Benefit

Update: pic attached.

"Custom Hardware Synth Created by Eric Persing Revealed as Grand Prize

NAMM - Anaheim, CA — January 13, 2011 — The Bob Moog Foundation gave a special presentation at Winter NAMM, announcing a unique collaboration with Eric Persing of Spectrasonics on a fund-raising contest to benefit the foundation. Details of the contest are to be revealed when it begins on March 15th. During the presentation, Persing unveiled the Grand Prize for the benefit contest — a stunning, one-of-a-kind custom “OMG-1” hardware synthesizer he created that integrates the worlds of analog synthesis, computers, software synthesis and the latest multi-touch surfaces into one extraordinary instrument.

The OMG-1 was designed by Persing as a live performance instrument and is not a commercial product — it’s truly one-of-a-kind. The state of the art dual manual OMG-1 combines a Moog Little Phatty® analog synthesizer, Spectrasonics’ flagship Omnisphere® software synthesizer, a powerful internal Apple Mac Mini computer, dual Apple iPads®, dual iPods®, and Spectrasonics’ brand-new Omni TR™ iPad app — all integrated into a beautiful, hand-crafted curly maple cabinet created by American artisan Daniel Auon.

During the special sneak-preview presentation, Michelle Moog-Koussa, Executive Director of the Bob Moog Foundation, and Eric Persing talked about their collaboration and Eric gave a live performance with the OMG-1.

"I’ll never forget the first time I played a Minimoog when I was a little kid...it truly changed my life!” says Eric Persing, Founder and Creative Director of Spectrasonics, a leading music software company, “So it’s a privilege after all these years to give back to the foundation honoring my hero Bob Moog and keeping the spirit and history of his inventions alive for the next generation. I had a blast designing the OMG-1 with Dan and I can’t wait to see who wins it!”

Michelle Moog-Koussa added, “The Bob Moog Foundation is grateful to Eric Persing for creating and sharing this one-of-a-kind innovative instrument. The foundation's mission is to ignite creativity at the intersection of music, science, history and innovation. It is fitting that Eric's OMG-1 does just that. His instrument represents the contemporary convergence of analog and digital, hardware and software. I think Bob would applaud Eric's efforts to transcend boundaries in order to create an instrument with new and unique capabilities.”

Complete details about this exciting benefit will be announced by Spectrasonics when the contest begins on March 15th, 2011 (www.spectrasonics.net)."

Update: New pics:





Update:

NAMM 2011 - Bob Moog Foundation and Spectrasonics Unveil the OMG-1

YouTube via SynthMeTV | January 16, 2011 |

"The Bob Moog Foundation gave a special presentation at NAMM, announcing a unique collaboration with Eric Persing of Spectrasonics on a fund-raising contest to benefit the foundation. Details of the contest are to be revealed when it begins on March 15th. During the presentation, Persing unveiled the Grand Prize for the benefit contest — a stunning, one-of-a-kind custom "OMG-1" hardware synthesizer he created that integrates the worlds of analog synthesis, computers, software synthesis and the latest multi-touch surfaces into one extraordinary instrument. Check out the OMG-1 and hear Eric Persing jam on this amazing custom synth that you can win!"

Update

Alesis iO Dock Requires Separate Adapter for iPad 2?

via Ryan:
"I've pre-ordered the Alesis Studio Dock for my ipad 2, so it's encouraging to see some retailers now shipping. One is Sweetwater.

Now, alarming to me, is the 1st review at that retail site from someone who claims to have received one of these already...and finds it is not compatible with ipad 2 out of the box:

'The box is huge, and the dock is well packed. Includes power supply, a really skimpy manual...basically a quickstart guide that briefly explains the buttons, knobs, ins and outs, and so on, the I/O dock itself, and sadly enough, for you iPad 2 owners, a slip of paper telling you how to contact Alesis to order an adapter. Luckily for me, I have the iPad 1!'

WTF. Nowhere on the Alesis site does it say there is an adaptor required...or even available!

Consider my pre-order cancelled until I know more about this adaptor and its availability."

Quick note: remember to support the shops that support this site. See the DEALERS section on the right. Sweetwater gets a free ride on this one.

The full review:
"Alesis I/O dock arrived on my doorstep today! Sweetwater shipped yesterday. Thanks Matt, you guys rock!

CLICK FOR MORE »

Happy New Year! The Year in Synths 2013

Happy New Year Everyone!

What a busy year it has been in the world of synths.

This is going to be one doozy of a post, so bear with me. This post is a review of the year in synths for 2013. We begin with Tributes to Those We Lost This Year, followed by New Manufacturers & Makers, Older Manufacturers Added to the Site, New Gear Announcements, Top 10 Posts by Traffic,  My Standout Posts for the Year, and finally This Years' Synth Events. I did my best to keep things as short and concise as possible.

Let's begin with the hardest part of the post.

Tributes to Those We Lost This Year

RIP Bernard Parmegiani - Electronic & Acoustic Composer
Lou Reed RIP
RIP Dick Raaymakers aka Kid Baltan
RIP George Duke - DreamWeaver
RIP Ralph Dyck, Sept 28, 1941 – May 20, 2013
RIP Ray Manzarek

All missed and never to be forgotten. Take a moment to remember them.

------

New Manufacturers & Makers

Starting last January, I decided to keep a running list of every new manufacturer and maker introduced to the site during the year.  This is something I haven't done before and I thought it would be interesting to see how many there were in the year.   It's easy to focus on the big synth announcements throughout the year, but what about all the new makers and brands? I shouln't have to go considerably into the significance of new designers on the scene, so I'll just say two things regarding them.  One, the number of new makers is a direct reflection on the interest in our scene, and two, these are the creators of new gear which directly translate into new designs not previously available to us.  Think about that for a moment.  These are makers and designs that did not exist before.  They are part of our synth history.  So what is the total count of new synth designers for the year? A whopping 113. Think about that a bit. One hundred and thirteen new synth designers and brands this year alone.

Here they are (note a handful date back to 2012, but 2013 marked their momentum and availability):

CLICK FOR MORE »

Happy New Year From MATRIXSYNTH! - A Look Back at 2014

Happy New Year everyone!

I want to start by thanking everyone that comes to MATRIXSYNTH and helps make it what it is - the readers, the supporters, and of course all the sponsors on the right.

THANK YOU and have a GREAT 2015!!!

This site is a labor of love and a ton of work. This site is ultimately meant to be an testament to everything synth in the making. We have over nine years of daily synth history captured here, 119,983 published posts. I can't wait to see what the future brings us in 2015!

That said, here are a few interesting bits from 2014 in the longest post of the year. ;)

CLICK FOR MORE »

Sequential Circuits OB-6 Analog Synthesizer Ableton Instrument Pack, Jam number 2

Published on Feb 27, 2020 Expanding Sound

"get the pack here at
http://www.expandingsound.com/product...
(This pack is compatible with Ableton Live Lite 9.7.7 and above)

I've been enjoying making a few different songs with the new packs I make. There's something so productive in limiting myself to only one set of things, such as a specific Ableton Pack or instrument. I always am able to get results I enjoy. Anyway, this is Jam 2 from my Ableton instrument pack built using the Sequential Circuits OB-6 synthesizer. I had a lot of fun making a nice slow jam that has a groove to it. This synth pack sounds great. The video is the same as the first with the exception of some background effects, but it's just there to give the description of the pack while the music showcases the sounds. Here's more info on the Ableton Pack from our first video, as well as a pack description. Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoyed it!

The OB6 is a monster of a synth. A collaboration between Sequential Circuits and Oberheim that resulted in a beautiful piece of musical gear that hits high notes from both companies. This pack was a collaboration between myself and my friend Dan from the band Electric Dream. They are a synth pop style group, check them out if that's your style of music! He owns this glorious synth and helped me make some of the patches for this Ableton pack. So it's a little bit of me, and a little bit of Dan.

One thing I did a little differently with this pack is the amount of samples I used. I usually use one sample per octave. Some of these instruments rely heavily on their filter movement, so I didn't think that would be enough. I decided to use 2 samples per octave for any synth that I thought had very interesting filter modulation.

I think this pack sounds great for pads and bass! Sequential has a winner on it's hands, and now you have a great taste of the synths capabilities.

This pack includes

25 Multi sampled Ableton Instruments, built from user patches using the Sequential Circuits OB-6.

About this little jam- I wanted to make almost a brother or cousin jam to my prophet 600 Ableton song.... the filters remind me of each other sometimes, although the sound palette can be quite different between them. If you listen to that song you can hear there’s kind of a similar vibe to the chord progression."

NOT NAMM: Free Hollow Sun Novation BassStation Sample Pack

Available at Hollow Sun's Freepacks page.

"Our featured download features some fantastic bass synth samples from the Novation Bass Station created by my Hollow Sun cohort, contributor and friend, Dan McCullough.

Released in 1993, the Bass Station was a monophonic analogue synth designed to emulate the Roland TB303 'BassLine' which had gained immense popularity in the dance music genre of the time. Whether it succeeded or not is debatable but the Bass Station was (and still is) a pokey little analogue monosynth - in fact, the 'Bass Station' monicker did it no favours because it was equally good at leadlines and other synth duties.

Lacking extensive facilities (basically just two VCOs feeding into a lowpass resonant filter and into an amp with two ADSRs and a single LFO to service them - no noise generator or fancy modulation) meant that it wasn't a terribly flexible synth (unlike, say, a Pro-One) but it made a good sound and one that's been captured well by Dan.

What's on offer here are 30 excellent synth bass sounds that cover a wide range of genres, uses and applications and which Dan has looped and programmed to perfection. Nothing fancy - just 30 solid synth bass sounds that sit nicely in a track.

But they cover the full keyboard range from C1-C7 and are therefore equally as useful as fruity analogue polysynth sounds and lead lines and the raw samples are open to much abuse by the more adventurous amongst you.

And in keeping with the Hollow Sun ethos, all the sounds have been carefully optimised by Dan to have minimum impact on RAM and disk storage and CPU strain making them fast and efficient"

The GM Voice

Produced through a partnership between Dan Lavin and Thomas Henry. via Scott Sites.

"Okay gang,

This one took me way too much time to complete, but I'm ready to start spilling the beans.

What it is: The GM-Voice is a standalone, MIDI driven multiple voice unit. It can create hundreds of pre-programmed high quality instrument sounds---some natural, some electronic---in addition to dozens of percussive instruments. Best of all, the voices respond to dynamics and you can play a minimum of 24 simultaneously! GM stands for General MIDI, as if you hadn't figured that out already.

Total outlay? About $25, if you know how to shop. This is probably the least expensive way to outfit a home recording studio with high quality sounds I can think of.

Here's the scoop. A decade ago our own esteemed Antman wrote me a note on his researches into the possibility of a standalone GM circuit. I was absolutely up to the gills in projects at the time and it's only recently I've been able to return to what he had originally proposed. Moreover, Antman was able to get me the crucial raw ingredient for ten bucks on Ebay a month or two ago, and it's all been downhill since then.


This project takes a Soundblaster type daughterboard, adds a little support circuitry and voila---the computer isn't even needed to extract its magic. It becomes a standalone instrument for the studio.

This is my first joint project with Antman, and it's been a great success. I hope we can encourage him to submit a general overview of the project, the overall process and some purchasing tips for newcomers. (I still have some of your letters from a decade ago---can I post them for general info to builders?) And then, I'll supply the new and improved schems, along with PCB artwork and wiring info.

Here are the features I've included in the Antman/Henry version of the
GM-Voice:

- reset button providing emergency all-notes-off action
- MIDI In
- two MIDI Thru jacks
- stereo and mono outputs
- fully buffered outputs for maximum protection
- improved MIDI activity LED shines brightly!
- internal power supply for true standalone performance
- carefully worked out digital/analog grounding for optimal performance

Attached are two photos of my unit. I only have a $25 digital camera, so the quality is a bit punk. but you'll get the general idea. The whole thing is about the size of a brick and looks very nice.

Okay Antman, care to jump here?

Thomas Henry

======

There's a song Thomas composed and performed using the GM voice posted towards the end of the thread. Check it out!:

http://electro-music.com/forum/download.php?id=10971

"Antman" by the way is Dan Lavin.

Take care,
Scott"

More info on this electro-music.com thread.