Channelling my inner Moby (?!) // Arturia Polybrute + Moog Subsequent 37 + Piano VST

video upload by

PRE-SAVE STREAM: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/tom...
DOWNLOAD: https://tomgreenmusic1.bandcamp.com/

"It felt really good to write a whole track for the first time in ages - hence the name of the song! Quite a few layers to this one! Here's what's going on:

POLYBRUTE (1)
The core of the song - starts off with a Moby-esque (I think!) sequence and chord progression around which the rest of the song builds. Initially very soft and fizzy, the mod wheel opens up the filter, moves the oscillators from a triangle wave to a saw wave and changes the Steiner Filter from high-pass to low-pass, giving the sound a bit more heft. One thing I really like about this patch is the way the voices interact - when the sequence is playing on its own, there's no obvious voice stealing and the sequence flows nicely. As the chord progression starts, the sequence starts stealing voices from itself which makes the sequence a little punchier. No extra effects on this track.

POLYBRUTE (2) + PIANO
The lead for the song, this track uses a very soft pluck on the Polybrute (one of my favourite patches!), and at the same time feeds the MIDI into the Spitfire Audio Originals Cinematic Soft Piano. The result is a wonderfully textured sound that is . There's another track that combines the soft pluck and piano again, but with an ostinato that carries on through most of the track. No extra effects on this track.

MOOG SUBSEQUENT 37
Bass, of course. But not just any bass! This one uses some extra effects - Soundtoys Devil-Loc compresses and crunch-ifies the track in an awesome way when combined with some held reverb from the Ventris Dual Reverb (recorded separately) - holding a note makes the bass cut through in with a gritty texture, and releasing the note immediately brings in the slightly distorted, contrasting reverb trails. Love it!"

New Cherry Audio Mercury-6 Reveal

video upload by Cherry Audio

Update: user videos added below.

"Cherry Audio's Mercury-6 is a virtual synthesizer instrument that emulates and expands on the renowned Jupiter-6, just in time for its 40th anniversary! Mercury-6 captures all that is exceptional in this treasured polyphonic classic, boosts its extraordinary feature set for today's DAW production and workflow, and celebrates the ground-breaking innovation from the era that changed music forever. If you've long yearned to explore the Jupiter-6, you'll love Mercury-6!"

via Cherry Audio

Mercury-6 is a meticulous recreation of the Jupiter-6 analog synthesizer, just in time for its 40th anniversary! Sandwiched between the earlier Jupiter-4 and Jupiter-8 models in name only, the sophisticated Jupiter-6 has sometimes been considered a sleeper release. These days, it has persevered to become one of Roland's most notable and coveted classic synthesizers due to its distinctive dark and complex character. Mercury-6 captures all that is exceptional in this treasured polyphonic classic, boosts its extraordinary feature set for today's DAW production and workflow, and celebrates the ground-breaking innovation from the era that changed music forever.

If you've long yearned to explore the Jupiter-6, you'll love Mercury-6!

The Year Everything Changed

Released in 1983 as a more affordable alternative to the flagship eight-voice Jupiter-8, the six-voice Jupiter-6 nevertheless staked out an essential position in the history of analog polysynths. Though similar in appearance and feature set, the Jupiter-6 stood apart from the Jupiter-8 in its sound and capabilities. Unlike earlier Roland polysynths with lowpass filters plus a rudimentary non-resonant highpass filter, the Jupiter-6 featured a true multimode filter with 24 dB/oct lowpass, 24 dB/oct highpass, or 12 dB/oct bandpass modes. This versatile filter design lent a more aggressive sound than previous Jupiters, making the Jupiter-6 a natural for cutting-edge techno and electro styles.

Though something of a "hidden feature," the Jupiter-6 VCOs supported multiple simultaneous waveforms, and its two LFOs and oscillator cross mod capabilities provided extensive modulation possibilities. Its earthshaking solo and poly unison modes enabled massive lead and bass sounds, and it was notably one of the first synthesizers to include the then-new MIDI protocol.

Although often praised for its harmonic complexity and ability to cut through a mix, the cost-cutting in the Jupiter-6 design resulted in some disadvantages. Output was mono only and it was limited to six-voice polyphony. The Jupiter-6 had an impressive (for the time) split keyboard and patch preset storage functionality, but this six-voice maximum hampered its potential. And though it was considerably less expensive than the Jupiter-8, its timing was ill-fated when the digital revolution was ignited by the release of Yamaha's revolutionary DX-7 FM digital synth the same year.

Despite its noteworthy character, the Jupiter-6 is not one of those synths immediately identified with recognizable sounds from hit songs. Nevertheless, it was the Jupiter-6 behind the bass line of Ray Parker Jr.'s classic "Ghostbusters," and it found purchase in the work of Human League, Tangerine Dream, Thomas Dolby, Trans-X, Vangelis, and Devo. In a testament to its staying power over the decades, its popularity grew in genres such as big beat, house, and techno through The Chemical Brothers, Moby, and The Crystal Method. Electronic music duo Orbital has been a vocal proponent of the Jupiter-6 and, more recently, it has been a significant part of the sound of Daft Punk and Junkie XL.

Mercury-6: 40 Years in the Making

Cherry Audio's Mercury-6 brings the Jupiter-6 experience into the future and celebrates the invaluable contribution that MIDI itself has made to the music community over the past 40 years. Mercury-6 captures all that is exceptional in this classic and boosts the extraordinary feature set and functionality for today's DAW production and workflow. We've added velocity sensitivity, improved the split mode, and added a layer mode capable of stacking two different sounds simultaneously with per-layer stereo panning, detuning, and sustain. A panel control lets users easily select and navigate between these layers and includes a utility function for exchanging settings between the lower and upper layers, or even between presets. And with polyphony extended to 16 notes, Mercury-6 won't easily run out of voices.

We've reproduced the arpeggiator, including the hidden Down/Up mode of the original, and augmented it by adding a Random mode and MIDI tempo sync. A chord memory mode enables multiple notes to be stored and played back with a single key. We've improved the functionality of the LFOs with a retrigger for LFO-1 and an always-on option for LFO-2, both syncable to MIDI tempo.

We've also introduced an integrated studio-quality effects panel with brilliant-sounding distortion, phaser, flanger/chorus, delay, and reverb. With additional touches such as per-layer drift control, over 500 expertly designed presets, and flexible MIDI mapping, Mercury-6 will satisfy both vintage synth aficionados and today's music producer.

Cherry Audio Mercury-6: A Detailed Demo and Tutorial

video upload by CatSynth TV

"A detailed look at the new Mercury-6 from Cherry Audio, a recreation of the Roland Jupiter-6 analog polyphonic synthesizer. We look a few of the factory presets then take a deep dive into the various features of the synthesizer including the VCOs, VCF, cross-modulation, effects, and more.

00:17 History of the Jupiter-6
00:57 Introducing the Mercury-6
01:37 A few factory presets
02:58 Oscillators (VCOs)
08:40 Cross Modulation
10:43 Filter (VCF)
16:44 Performance Controls
19:01 Effects
26:46 Using multiple layers
32:14 More factory presets"

Cherry Audio Mercury 6 Dark Jupiter Strings

video upload by Rik Marston Official

Introduction to Cherry Audio's Mercury-6 - Hosted by Tim Shoebridge

video upload by Cherry Audio



Mercury 6 vs Jupiter 6 // Does the Cherry Audio sound like the Roland ...?
video upload by Starsky Carr

"How does the Mercury 6 stack up against the original? Cherry Audio are killing it with these releases, and this one is great. I can't think of another Jupiter 6 emulation out there. It was quite a unique synth in its day with a super fast LFO (100Hz), sync 2-ways, cross mod with modulation, a second LFO and bitimbral. Quite a cool thing.

Here I've not lingered on the more prosaic functions and sound. We all know the Cherry Audio stuff sounds good - so here I've dug into if it's doing those Jupiter 6 specialities like Cross Mod and Sync...

and also because the hardware was dying!! Another good reason for getting thew software :) I had to finish this before it cut out..!

0:00 The Jupiter 6
4:71 Are they the same?
5:00 Filters
8:22 Cross Mod
9:57 Sync
12:15 LFO
13:28 Effects
14:54 Wrapping Up
15:37 A Few Sounds"

Cherry Audio Mercury 6 Sweet Synth FX

video upload by Rik Marston Official

Door #7: Vorfreude, schönste Freude (Anticipation is half the pleasure) - Synthmas '21

video upload by Synthfluencer

"Ho-Ho-Ho! This is Synthmas '21, the virtual calendar presenting a Christmas carol played by synthesizers - every day from 1st to 24th of December.

The song:
In 1970 the non spiritual carol was recorded for the GDR's most popular Christmas album "Bald nun ist Weihnachtszeit" (Soon it's Christmas Time) by the Rundfunk Kinderchor Leipzig (childrens choir). Each of the four verses is about lighting one advent candle until Christmas eve.

The gear:
I play this song on my Vermona Piano-Strings. The instrument was built from 1978 by "VEB Klingenthaler Harmonikawerke" and is one of the very few string machines produced in the late Eastern Bloc. It's appearance might resemble famous string machines like ARP Solina, however the features of the Piano-Strings are quite limited. There is a piano part and a strings part, but they can't be played together. Each section has 3 tone faders changing its character. I feel oddly bonded to that instrument: in my youth I was playing the piano in our music school band. At a rehearsel I failed playing my part because I was too lazy to learn my sheet. So I was degraded to playing some simple string chords - on a Vermona Piano-Strings! I was very happy to get one of these after all those years. Most prominent Vermona player was Moby before his one was sold on Reverb.com [Moby Reverb posts]

Since the Vermona Piano-Strings neither got MIDI nor CV/Gate control I play by hand.

Trailer material: Pexels.com (image @seurafrancis99, video @cottonbro)"

Yamaha Ensemble Mixer Owned By Moby

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

This one was spotted by @deejayiwan

You can find a demo of one here.

via this auction

"This Yamaha Ensemble Mixer is part of the private legendary drum machine collection of Moby.

A genuine piece of music technology history from the 70s - and very high tech at the time - PA mixer from Yamaha with built in spring reverb and analogue beatbox.

Serial: 4320. Works!

All items in Moby's Drum Machine Collection ship fully insured with delivery confirmation and include a signed and embossed Certificate Of Authenticity from Moby"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Moby's Drum Machines For Sale

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

You can find them on Reverb here.

Don't miss the video here.

Update: some pics and details captured. I made the mistake of trying to capture them all and then realized how many were listed. :) I ended up switching to the more esoteric models. Quite a few have never been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH before. What's a little bit interesting, is only two new labels were needed, one for Domino and one for Side-Kick-Er. All other brands have been featured before. See the labels at the bottom of this post. Side note: Blogger limits the number of characters to 200 for labels, so I wasn't able to capture them all for this post. You can always search for the brand names featured for more. I assume most do this anyway. The labels are more for maintenance and for finding posts that may not feature brand names in descriptions.

Pictured:

Realistic Concertmate Electronic Accompanist-Metronome

"Fully analog rhythmic companion utilizing 5 beat buttons to combine how you wish. Features metronome, speaker and line out, and tempo control.

Serial: 42-2103. Works with no issue."

CLICK FOR MORE »

The Official Moby Drum Machine Reverb Shop Preview & History of Drum Machines

Published on Oct 4, 2018 Reverb

"Moby's obsession with analog drum machines is no surprise for fans of his beat-driven electronic music, but now he's ready to share the wealth and will be listing hundreds of these treasures on Reverb. 100% of Moby's proceeds will go to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Check out the Moby Shop Preview

Browse Moby on Reverb LP

For more on Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine: https://www.pcrm.org"

Interesting, he never owned an 808.

Electric Rhythm: The History of the Drum Machine | Reverb

Published on Oct 4, 2018

"Leon Theremin. Sly & The Family Stone. Prince. Drum machines have influenced our music and the way we perceive rhythm since the Rhythmicon popped onto the scene in the 1930s. Join William Kurk as he gives us a run-down of the evolution of the incredible drum machine.

Read more on Reverb"

Moby's Official Reverb Shop | Reverb Artist Shops

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Apr 24, 2018 Reverb

"Moby's contributions to the music world are undeniable, but there's no stopping him. Now he's contributing even more by unloading decades of gear, including the synths, turntables, and microphones you might expect, as well as some more unusual gear such as the bass guitar that he used in a reggae jazz fusion band (true story), and a pair of mariachi sombreros that starred in his music video for 'The Perfect Life.' All proceeds from these sales will benefit the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine"

You can find Moby's shop on Reverb here.

Check out the Serge system:

"This Serge Modular Music System SMMS Series 79 is part of the private collection of Moby.

Around 1979, a fourth generation of Serge modules started to appear, complimenting the 1976 modules and replacing some earlier modules. The current Serge panel graphics style also appeared around this time.

The new modules included: Active processor Resonant equalizer 4//6/7/8 step sequencer Divide/n comparator, dual comparator, Schmitt trigger, Wilson Analog Delay, Balanced modulator, Quantizer Frequency shifter, Quadrature oscillator, Dual VCA Envelope follower / preamp and N voice controller.

Also, new electronics were designed for the audio mixer/processor/scaling/buffering modules and the VCA/panners. The "paper face" panel graphics were replaced with metal-ized plastic film.

Throughout this period, systems were available built or as kits - boards supplied pre-built and tested but you wire the panels up yourself. In 1979, Serge offered a standard module configuration - the "System 79". The N voice controller was a polyphonic interface which worked with a modified Casio keyboard. Sadly it appeared around 1982, just before MIDI.

This rare and ultimately unique Serge synth is fully functioning in testing with wear consummate with this synths age. A truly wild and rare piece from Moby's personal collection. The belle of the ball.

All items in Moby's Reverb Store ship fully insured with a signed and embossed Certificate Of Authenticity from Moby."

CLICK FOR MORE »

MaxSynths Releases DR-910 - TR-909 Style VSTi

via MaxSynths

"DR-910 is a drum machine inspired by one of the most known percussive instruments that massively helped to define the sound of modern electronic music.

The instrument itself does not need presentations: used by artists like Moby, Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy, Jean Michel Jarre, The Chemical Brothers, Faithless and many many others, the TR-909 quickly became one of the most classic pieces of gear in the electronic musician's arsenal.

In terms of sound the DR-910 VSTi is a faithful reproduction of the original device: each sound section (bassdrum, snare drum, etc.) has been developed to sound and act as similar as possible to the original instrument. The plugin includes also some extra features not available in the hardware version: a reverb unit with independent send controls for each sound source, a compressor tailored to work with drum sounds (based on the same engine of MaxSynths DSP-1) and a Lo-Fi FX processor.

These extra features will help the user to quickly shape the sound as desired without using external plugins. However if you need to process the signal with external effects, each drum module can be routed to four different stereo outputs that can be independently processed in the DAW."

National (Panasonic) SY-50 Automatic Rhythm + Fostex 3180 Spring Reverb

Published on Mar 10, 2015 SubTokyoShop

Here's something you do not see everyday. This is the first post on the site to feature the National SY-50 rhythm drum machine. I'm not sure if National is the model name of the SY-50 or a sub-brand name from Matsushita/Panasonic. If you know feel free to comment. Curious if Moby knows about this one. If you spot it in the video there let me know. I created new channel labels for National & Matsuhita. There are only two previous posts that mention Matsushita.

The following is the video description:

"National (Panasonic) SY-50 Automatic Rhythm + Fostex 3180 Spring Reverb

National (Panasonic) SY-50 Automatic Rhythm is very rare rhythm machine produced by Matsushita Electric Co., (Panasonic) in early 1970's. National is a brand name belonging to Matsushita electronics, who are better known outside Japan under another brand name, Panasonic. The "Touch Start" switch is not working (guess no one alive because of the structure), then put the start cable out of the back panel. It start when touching this cable or using foot switch.

Fostex 3180 Spring Reverb is in Excellent Condition."

subtokyoshop on eBay | subtokyoshop on Reverb

Note: eBay and Reverblinks are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

Yes Yes Yes/Orgon Modular Synthesizer/VCS-3/TR-606

YouTube via LxukDorsett.

"Ramon working with the Orgon Modular Synthesizer, EMS VCS3 and a Roland TR-606.

VCS3 Specs:

The VCS3 (nicknamed the Putney) is an analog monosynth housed in a distinctive angled wooden case, a truly classic synth. EMS (Electronic Music Studios) was created in England back in 1969. The VCS3 was one of their first synths and it is still a great, unique, funky little unit! Pictured above is the Mark I model. Pictured is another unit with the small wood-cased DK2 voltage-control keyboard required to play the VCS3.

It has three oscillators, and a unique matrix-based patch system. Instead of patch wires, the VCS3 uses a patchbay grid in which the synth components are laid out, and signal routing is accomplished by placing small pins into the appropriate slots. The VCS3 was, in actuality, a modular type synthesizer reduced down to an extremely portable size.
t generates familiar sci-fi sounds (Dr. Who) and other truly analog sounds. Unfortunately, the oscillators tend to drift out of tune. There's a Noise Generator, 2 Input Amplifiers, 1 Ring Modulator, 1 Voltage Controlled Low Pass Filter (VCF), 1 Trapezoid Envelope Generator, Joy-Stick Controller, Voltage Controlled Spring Reverb unit and 2 Stereo Output Amplifiers.

Additonally, the VCS3 was also sold in a plastic breif-case and called the Synthi A. The major Synthi 100 system was based on three VCS3's strung together. Some ultra-rare commercially unavailable synths EMS made include the VCS4 in 1969 which was basically 2 VCS3's plus a keyboard. And the Synthi Keyboard 1 of 1970 was just a VCS3 with a mini 29-note keyboard. Many of these EMS synth's have been used by Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, Stereolab, Yes, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Jean-Michel Jarre, Astral Projection, Klaus Schulze, Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke, Add N to (X), The Who, Todd Rundgren, Recoil, Freddy Fresh, and many more.


Roland TR-606 Specs:
A cool little box! So primitive and cute! The 606 was the percussion side-kick to the TB-303. It even looks like the 303. It stores up to 32 patterns and 8 songs. The 606 allows switching between Pattern Play and Write mode while running - making the 606 the only drumcomputer in the X0X series that can be edited while performing and switching patterns. It is also possible to link up to 4 consecutive patterns in Pattern Play mode. There is only a mono audio output, however there are mods from Kenton Electronics and Analog Solutions that will add individual outputs for each drum tone.

The 606 has seven analog drum sounds which are simple, yet great! Kick, Snare, 2 toms, open hat, closed hat, cymbal, accent. The hi-hats are a very tinny electronic sound and its toms are great for soft tribal patterns. These seven sounds alone are still quite popular today, and the 606 has been used by Uberzone, Cirrus, Sneaker Pimps, Download, Aphex Twin, Astral Projection, Nine Inch Nails, Mr. Oizo, Jimi Tenor, Kid 606, OMD, Moby, Freddy Fresh, Autechre, Luke Vibert, and Union Jack.

For control, the 606 can receive or transmit DINSync for synchronization with other TR and TB family instruments. There are also two trig-outs on the unit, which make it very valuable as a pattern-programmable dual-channel trigger sequencer. It's often used for this by various people (Jimi Tenor) to 'drive' other sequencers and the like.

Modifications
Editable Drum Tones! - Analog Solutions external modification adds tuning for all drum tones, snap and decay for the snare drum, decay for the cymbals and a sweep effect for the toms.

Individual Outs! - Analog Solutions adds 5 individual outputs for cymbals, kick, snare, toms and hi-hats.

Synhouse MIDIJACK DINSYNC - Adds a MIDI jack so the 606 can be sync'd to external MIDI triggers and tempo sources."
via sequencer.de