Analogue Workshopt/MESI/Paris

I recently posted about the MESI Modular System Workshop in Paris. Well, Ken Macbeth of Macbeth Studio Systems sent the following to AH. He gave me the ok to put this up (the message - I put the shot up myself). Thanks Ken!



"Hi All!.............for those that may be interested, MESI http:www.mesi.fr are having an analogue workshop from Friday the 18th of November until Saturday 19th of November...
It should be good fun fun a stack of analogue gear and not so analogue gear for those who come along to try out and discuss. There should be some intersting vintage items as well as some of the new modular stuff being produced and there shall be some interesting softsynths to try out too. I'm going to be there along with an M5, and I'll be happy to demonstrate to those who come along and would like to see it in action and play the thing!
Have a look at the MESI site, or even my own, there's a link.

Kind Regards, Ken

http://www.macbethstudiosystems.com
Home of the M3X Analogue synthesizer..."

Jarrelook Lazer Harp - via SYNTHOSIUM

Update: Lame on me. It's Jarrelook's Lazer Harp, not JMJ's. Jarrelook is a JMJ tribute band. Nice lazer harp.

Sent to me by Luca Capozzi of Naples Italy. He just set up his new blog on you guessed it, synths and music. Very, very cool. I also announced the site on SYNTHWIRE. BTW, don't forget to use SYNTHWIRE! It's meant for stuff like this. Posting about your site and your work is exactly what it should be used for. It can be anything you want it to be as long as it's focused on synthesis and music. Use it to promote yourself already! Anywho. I can't wait to see what Luca starts posting. Congrats on the new blog, Luca! Title link takes you there. P.S. Obviously I love your site design. ; )

Number of the Beast TR 666

I posted earlier about Julian producing those modded, knob ladden Roland TR-606s. Well, he just put up an official site on them! Check out the face plate that reads, Number of the Beast TR 666. Nice touch. : ) One thing I really wanted to mention was the reason why Julian decided to do this. He said he thought the modded TR-606s he saw for sale on the *bay and the recent Vemia auction where way overpriced. He wanted to produce these for others who might want them for a much more realistic and reasonable price. I thought that was pretty cool of him to do, as he could just build and pop these on the bay for more. I have a tremendous amount of respect for people that do things like this. Very, very cool in my book. Title link takes you there.

FPGA Synth

Interesting project from Chris Strellis. I asked him what an FPGA was and he said the following:

"Field Programmable Gate Array - programmable logic. You write C like software that when compiled produces a binary file you load into the FPGA. The software describes what you want the output pins to do with given input pin signals. For instance with a clock signal going in - you could make 8 output pins go high in sequence according to your code and these outputs could drive LEDs and you'd have Knight Rider lights! Of course more complex things can me done. It is very different to DSP though. DSP can achieve the same things but it's more of an emulation. Programmable logic is the real deal :)"

Title link takes you to his page on the FPGA which includes more shots and some samples. It has a really nice tone to it. Thanks Chris!

Matrixsynth on Google Base

Looks like Google Base is live. It's a place where you can post services or items for sale. It went live last night. I did a few searches on synth to see what was up so far. I only found a shop that sells the CME. So I figured I'd put this sight up! I did and when to bed. This morning it is up! Go to the title link and search for synth. I put up a bunch of standard words like analog, moog, etc. Some come up some done. BTW, I just did a search for Roland and this MC303 came up for sale. Looks like we have another resource for synths for sale.

AH Bay Area 2005

Another Flickr set, Carbon111 pointed out. Thought I had seen this one already, but apparently not. Title link takes you there. I put up the links to the other posts on the gathering below.



AH Bay Area Gathering Shots
More AH Bay Area Gathering Shots
AH Bay Area Synth Gathering - New Flickr Shots

Update: And another set via Doug T in the comments:
http://www.retrosynth.com/slideshow/20051016_baah/

reKon Waldorf Pulse VST Editor

Via punkdISCO on AH. Never saw this before. Really nice interface. Title link takes you there.



Update: Interesting note from PunkdISCO that I didn't really think of at the time I posted this:

"There are dozens of free Pulse editors on pretty much any platform we
care to mention. I only posted this new one as its the first that I know of
that is a VST pluggin giving all the benefits of VSTs (automation, patches
stored with the song, etc) all within your song."

ARP 2600 Bug?

Interesting. David Hillel of the New England Synthesizer Museum (Title Link) just posted a bug with the ARP 2600 on AH. Kind of odd when one crops up after all this time.

From the post:

"I was working on two 2600s with David White when he tried a strange ADSR
setting and
it didn't work. I tried replacing all the transistors, all the diodes, and
the opamp in the ADSR
with no fix. So we tried another 2600, same problem. Tried the 2600 on
display at the
Museum, same problem. They apparently all have it.

How to reproduce it:
Set Attack to maximum, Decay to minimum, Sustain to maximum, and
Release to minimum. If you hit the front panel button, you get a slow
attack, but
if you use a 3604 keyboard, the attack is instantaneous, which is wrong.
Of course,
if the sustain is at maximum you can set the Decay anywhere without
affecting the
result of a properly functioning ADSR, so the workaround is to put the
Decay up
to maximum.

Why it happens:
The trigger pulse from the 3604 is deliberately delayed, which prevents
the decay/sustain
logic from being disabled until a few milliseconds after the gate has
risen. This allows the
sustain setting (in this case, maximum) to back circuit through the Decay
control and
fully charge the capacitor before the slow attack can happen."

Anna Ranger

Interesting synth-pop band. Very Vince Clarke. Reminds me a bit of an Indie Yaz with just a touch of OMD, but it's own sound. Via this post on VSE.

Nice shot with an ARP 2500 and Electrocomp

Fame The Movie

Yes, that Fame. As horrid as the thought might be, I just might need to add it to my movie list. There is an interesting thread on VSE regarding analog synth appearances in film and tv. Fame came up including the following two shots. BTW, anyone know what the synth is in the second shot by the older gentleman? Title link takes you to the thread.



Click for a bigger shot to see the synth (anyone know what it is)?.


BTW, I got you to look at Fame pictures. Bwahahahaha... : )