COMMONTONES Phase II

COMMONTONES is a project by Sonicbrat, Eric, and LDT. In Phase I of COMMONTONES the members produced one track a day. The great thing about each track was that the description included a list of the instruments used. I put a few posts up on tracks featuring only one or two synths. It really was an interesting trip listening to what they come up with each day. For Phase II they will be doing one track a week. Each track will feature one member as a main driving force with the other two members as support.

"Three musicians...
Three minds...
One song...

A weekly affair between the trio. Their first music making effort as an entity rather than solitude contributions. They will be working on a single piece weekly, a song a week, for the entire month of July. This is their next step, something they had in mind for a long time... and finally materializing. This is only the beginning."

Title link takes you there.

The Groovy Music Machine

Yellow Graniph T-shirt with MOOG Modular and VCS3. You can find one more image and more info on SoNiCbRaT.

S.O.F.T. - Singapore Synth Forum

S.O.F.T. is a music forum in Singapore.

Three shots from three posts (1,2,3). Each post has more.

via SoNiCbRaT.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Moog spotted in "WHITE COLLAR" season 2

via sonicbrat

"there is a sighting of Moog synthesizer in the American series "White Collar" Season 2 Episode 9 about 13minutes in [start at 12:45] as "Mozzie" tries to decode a music box message with, well a Moog. :)"

Be sure to see the Synths in TV and Film post for more.

Depeche Mode - Puppets - late 1981

YouTube via JohnAdrenochrome. Sent my way via SoNiCbRaT.

FREE ALBUM DOWNLOAD::: WENCHUAN and The Sound of Earthquakes

via SoNiCbRaT. See the forum for details. BTW, also see Califaudio's The Sound of Earthquaks.
"Geeks, friends and foes. Let's do our part in lending a hand to help with the recent Sichuan Wenchuan Earthquake. This is my little effort to encourage people to donate. I've even set up a fundraiser page so do drop by. The music in this album uses KORG M3-88, though the mix could be improved (by miles) but I wanted to do it in a day so we'll have to live with the little imperfections.
The recent Sichuan Earthquake in China had shocked the world. With more than 28,000 dead and more than 190,000 injured and many homeless; the victims there need our help."

COMMONTONES

via SoNiCbRaT:

"I am doing an online collaboration with LDT from Bangkok and Eric Saliege from France... do check it out... we will be using synths and effect processors and some other to make music... basically it's to make one music a day, daily, for the month of May... :)"

Pretty cool. Title link takes you there. The first entry is up and includes, "a toy piano, a contact microphone, sampled on KORG Kaoss Pad III and grained, Roland SH101. Recorded live, except drums added later using Reaktor 5 and layering the toy piano samples, pitching them down and reversing them at parts."

BTW, if you haven't checked out an RSS reader this would be a good opportunity. The COMMONTONES site is a blog on Blogger. With a reader like Bloglines (my favorite), you can subsribe to it and you will get updates in Bloglines as new posts go up. You can subscribe to the sites on my blogroll on the right and any other site with RSS. It's super useful in that you don't have to remember to check back and you don't waste cycles going to the site only to find there's nothing new. With an RSS reader, if there is an update it comes to you. You can then click through and check it out. I currently track 216 feeds this way. Imagine going to 266 sites several times a day to look for updates. Not gonna happen, but with Bloglines I can just bring up one site and see it all.

FiRsT GuiTaR iMpRoViSaTiOn

Bleep Labs Thingamagoop

Title link takes you to the post on SoNiCbRaT.

Librations of the Moon

"Librations of the Moon is a collaboration between three musicians seeking to explore the boundaries of their own craft. Drifting between ambient acoustic melodies, analog sound, looping and electro-industrial verberations, librations of the moon chafes the edges of musical scapes, bringing the performers and the audience out of familiar territory and into new and wonderful nuances of sound through the melding of three extremely disparate profiles.

Darren (Sonicbrat) on broken piano + sampling + audio processing
Randolf on guitar + looper + voice
Zul on DIY analogue synthesis + audio processing

You can find more info including show dates and images of the DIY gear here.

I Can See You, Can You See Me?

I Can See You, Can You See Me? from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

"Brand new video for Rex The Dog's first single from the new album 'The Rex The Dog Show'!

Keep up to date with new Rex vids here:
vimeo.com/therexthedogshow

rexthedog.net"
via SonicBrat.

Jen SX-1000, Casio VL-Tone VL-1, Univox/KORG Mini-KORG 700S

kung-fu

YouTube via pre1204. Sent my way via Pete. Awesome. I always wondered what Hiromi sounded like. Click here for more videos.

Upate via Sonicbrat:
"Hi being a fan of Hiromi and having seen her live, she is highly versatile. This video doesn't doe her justice and they either revamped the song for the tv version or it was their earlier version. I am not sure ... but this is how Kung-fu sounded like in concert, a lot more intense :)"

Roland SH-101, Doepfer, Sherman and More on SoNiCbRaT

Title link takes you to more shots. Some demos might be coming as well.

MIDI Performance Controllers

I finally got around to reading this post in detail. Yes guys, sometimes I don't even have time to read my own posts. :( Funny thing is I read about the arpeggiator I'm about to reference on SoNiCbRaT who linked to my post. Anyway, I just realized the Akai MPK49 has a built in arpeggiator. I currently have an E-Mu Xboard49. I absolutely love the key action, size and the knobs. The other day I was thinking how if it only had a built in arpeggiator, sequencer and more, it would be perfect. Why should a MIDI controller be limited to just the tactile? It would also be obviously cool if you could save your sequences and patterns. What else would you like to see in a MIDI controller? I think my list would start with the following:

- Arpeggiator as powerful as the Oberheim Cyclone and/or Techno Toys ARP-X8 with the ability to mute steps like the MicroKorg.
- Multi-track, 16 step, step sequencer. A minimum of 16 tracks - one for each MIDI channel and or different CCs.
- Per above, the sequencer would definitely need to support CCs and not just notes.
- Multi-track phrase sequencer/looper - same number of tracks as above

What else?

Under The Side Panel

punkdISCO found this under the side panel of his Korg 900ps. The following are a couple more shots of the inside: one, two. Click the image on the left or the title link for a super sized shot.

The stamps with 58.8.26 is the year in Nengo (Emperor Era), month and day the synth was stamped. 58 would make it 1977? If you know more feel free to comment.

Update via the world of next tuesday in the comments:
""Nengo" is just saying it's a Japanese date, not a Western date. Written properly in English the synth is from the year "Showa 52" (I've seen it abbreviated S52 for instance a lot in Japanese booklets).

I guess the math is 1926+S-1 because there was no year Showa 0. Now "52" is easy to assume as Showa since no recent emperor lived as long as Showa (a.k.a. Hirohito) and the synth has to have either a Showa or Heisei date (1989+H-1), but avoiding confusion you are supposed to add whomever's reign it was or is to the number."
Update via SoNiCbRaT in the comments of this post:

"Hmmm correct me (anyone) if I am wrong... here goes:

C1/R1: Inspection Item
C1/R2: Product Satisfactory Stamp

C2/R1: (I am not sure)
C2/R2: (somebody's name?)

C3/R1: Organization
C3/R2: (a name)

C4/R1: Functionality Check 1
C4/R2: Stamp with date and name

C5/R1: External (cosmetic) Check 1
C5/R2: Stamp with date and name

C6/R1: Functionality Check 2
C6/R2: Stamp with date and name

C7/R1: External (cosmetic) Check 2
C7/R2: Stamp with date and name

C8/R1: Assessories and Packaging
C8/R2: Stamp with date and name

C9/R1: Grading
C9/R2: Passed

Hope I helped..."

C = column
R = row

COMMONTONES

Thought I'd put up another plug for COMMONTONES, in case you missed it here, Sonicbrat and some friends are attempting to produce a track a day, and they are doing it. All tracks on the COMMONTONES site list the instruments used, so they are a good way to check out what a given synth sounds like. The latest entry, "Le Tour de Nuit" features solely the KORG Radias and KORG Kaoss Pad III. Check it out.

Effector 13 SYNTH MANGLER

Title link takes you to more shots on SoNiCbRaT.

Effector 13 website

Cosmic Shenggy

The caption to this shot reads:

"my husband:MS20"

Title link takes you there.
via SoNiCbRaT

Namm Show: Reason 4.0 Synth Sneak Peak Video

Title link takes you to the video on Desmond.

Sent my way ia SoNiCbRaT.

thingamagoop!

YouTube via somnml. Title link takes you to Bleep Labs, makers of thingamagoop.

Previous thingamagoop posts
Thingamagoops on SoNiCbRaT

Akai AX60

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

via SoNiCbRaT